hBasic

Base Drive (or Base Path)

The base_drive or BasePath is the start of scoped storage (see later).
It is usually found at <sdcard>/Android/data/com.rfo.hbasic.

(note: legacy Basic's default base drive used to be just <sdcard>/)

Base Directory

The base_directory  =  base_drive  + rfo-basic

with source, data & databases under this base.

App Path

hBasic source and data files have been put in Scoped Storage since v3.00. This is because Google has been restricting storage areas aggressively since Android 11.

Scoped storage is an area where an individual app has complete access to but other apps do not.
It is a secure safe area. But this also hinders the developer.
It means that it is difficult to transfer your files in and out of hBasic.

To get around this, hBasic has a built-in ftp server called hFTP.   (ack: Moritz Stückler)
Instructions to use it are here.
But you don't neccessarly need to use it if you can use one of the other methods below.

On one side is the server. The other side is the client.
All the file operations must be done at the client end.

Choice	Server	Client	User Operations	Remarks
A) hFTP Device is server	hFTP server inside hBasic on device	FTP (filezilla) client on PC	On PC client	hBasic ftp server
B) SMB PC is server	Windows shared folder (i.e SMB) or Linux (SAMBA)	Total Commander client on device + LAN plugin.	On Android client	** Does not work for Android 14+
C) ADB	PC+Device daemon	PC	On PC client command line or scripts.	Other operations also available
D) Shizuku	ADB Device daemon	Total Commander	Total Commander	Shizuku is a permissions broker. ** works for Android 14+

Since Android 14, Google enforces that no third party app can access another app's scoped storage.

Make sure your phone has a wifi connection to your local router and that your PC is also connected to your router.

For this method you must start hBasic's built-in FTP server and all file operations are done on the PC client.

For the client on the PC, any FTP client can connect. Recommended is FileZilla. This can either be Windows or Linux.

The PC client setup is as follows;

Get the host address of hFTP server
Run the hFTP server in hBasic. It will display the LAN IP address of that the server uses.
e.g 192.168.XXX.YYY
Enter this as the host address in your FTP client.

Start your PC's FTP client to connect. You should see the listing at the root of the server
e.g
This is the Base Drive which is the start of hBasic's scoped storage.
Navigate into rfo-basic, and you should see the source, data & databases directories.

** This method only works for Android 13 or lower  **

Make sure your phone has a wifi connection to your local router and that your PC is also connected to your router.
The hFTP server is not needed.

For this method you must setup a folder-share either on Windows or Linux. All file operations are done on the Android client.

For the client on Android, any client that can connect to a SMB share will work. Recommended is Total Commander+LAN plugin.

The SMB server setup is as follows;


The Android client setup is as follows e.g;

Start your Android SMB client to connect. You should see the listing at the root of the folder
e.g shared_dir.

On the other pane of Total Commander, navigate to Internal shared storage >
(e.g /storage/emulated/0) > Android/data/com.rfo.hbasic/
This is the Base Drive which is the start of hBasic's scoped storage.
Navigate into rfo-basic, and you should see the source, data & databases directories.

I include this method, because sooner or later Method B will not work for newer versions of Android 14+.
A lot of professional developers use this method, but don't let that put you off, you only need to know about a few commands.

The advantage of an ADB connection is

In this setup, both client and server are running on the PC. The server communicates with a daemon on the target device.

Setup ADB
Wired-Connection To start off, the xda guide explains how to get a connection between your PC and device using a USB cable.

WiFi-Connection
The xda guide also shows you how to get a wifi connection via Developer settings (ADB via WiFi).
Not all devices may support this.

WiFi-Trick
If your device does not support ADB via WiFi, you can use a trick that fixes the connection port to e.g 5555, however this method is per-session, so you may have to do it for every session.


To switch out of wifi and go back to USB mode,   adb usb

Useful adb commands

Here are some common commands. You can incorporate them into your own scripts.

Example : Copy a file into hBasic's source directory.



The second command is neccessary to fix permissions because you may later want to edit the file with hBasic's Editor.
( When files are copied this way, the copier (adb) is not the phone_user and files can end up as read-only. )

SciTE Integration

If you are using the SciTE text editor, you can add a shortcut to call your script for file transfer.
In the Language menu, use the 'FreeBasic configuration file.
Find the freebasic property file on you installation (usually /usr/share/scite/freebasic.properties).
Add these two lines at the bottom of the file;

command.name.1.$(file.patterns.freebasic)=adb PUSH
command.1.$(file.patterns.freebasic)=/path-to-your-script/your-script.sh $(FileNameExt)

This shortcut should turn up as Ctrl-1 in the Tools menu.

Shizuku is a third-party app which acts as a permissions broker.

It grants permissions for an app, in particular it grants permissions for TotalCommander when using Method B for Android 14+.
This means that TotalCommander will be able to access Android/data//com.rfo.hbasic/.

The version of TotalCommander that works with Shizuku was announced here.

For this to work, you must also install Shizuku on a device with Android 11 or above.

Internally, Shizuku uses method C, which means that a number of steps need to be done before usage.
To set this up, please refer to the Shizuku Guide.