Needed: VbB Syntax Error enlightenment

[Artist_AL]

Hey, guys -- I'm about 2 weeks new to batari Basic and so far it's been fairly painful, to the point that I feel like I'm subjecting myself to truly optional frustration. I'm going through the documentation, tutorial videos, etc. as thoroughly as I can. Somehow I can't get AtariIDE nor Visual Studio Code to compile or launch emulators, so I'm stuck with VbB, which I understand to be old, buggy, and no longer supported? To put myself in context, I actually work in game development (but not as a programmer) and coded Commodore BASIC since way back in the 1980s. Point being, I may be a noob to batari Basic and I AM having some success with it, but I feel like I shouldn't be having as much trouble as I have been.

 

Anyway, I'll stick to one specific issue for my first post: I repeatedly try to compile code in VbB, and it will often spit out a Syntax Error in Line 0, Column 0 or 22. Doesn't matter what I'm trying or whether it's a different .bas file than when it happened last. If I add to, change, or reorder the code, it will either stay at those same coordinates or switch between those 2 column counts. Usually there is nothing 22 columns in, either. Doesn't help that there's no way to have VbB show line numbers (that I've found, anyway), making this whole process even more useless. It leads me to think that there's a pattern of some kind to avoid with VbB, lest it generate this Syntax Error. Can anyone confirm and/or enlighten me?

Edited November 5, 2023 by Artist_AL