Although you can use any text or program editor you like, most A-Shell programmers use one or more of the following:

VUE is an old-school full-screen plain text editor, vaguely similar to the famous Unix editor vi. Its strong points are that it is:

APN (A-Shell Programmer's Notepad) is a modern Windows program editor / IDE ("Integrated Development Environment"), similar to other IDEs such as Visual Studio. Its strong points are:

Visual Studio Code: Matt Swann, an independent A-Shell developer, created an open source VS code extension for A-Shell. As of June 2024, it is a work in progress, and is not yet as capable as APN. But for those developers already familiar and comfortable with Visual Studio, this may be the preferred option—or one at least worth exploring. For details and more information, see Matt's posting on the A-Shell Forum.

The ASB compiler processes your source code (typically with a .BAS or .BP extension), creating a run module (typically with a RUN, LIT, or SBX extension, depending on the intended use). There is really only one compiler, but it is packaged in a number of forms to match your working style:

From the A-Shell dot prompt:

From within a program (if you want to create your own compilation wrapper), you can invoke the compiler using:

XCALL MIAMEX, MX_COMPIL, filename, switches, ...

From the Windows shell prompt:

>COMPIL.EXE <switches> <program>

(The compil.exe package is also used by APN for integrated ASB compilation.)

From the Unix shell prompt:

$ compil <switches> <program>

There are three forms of compiled programs, identified by the file extension. All have essentially the same internal format but are executed in different ways:

All three have the same fundamental structure; the file extension determines the usage and behavior. You can use COPY or RENAME to convert from one type to another, or use the FORCE_FSPEC ++pragma within the source code to instruct the compiler how to name the compile program directly.

A running program can also launch another LIT or RUN program, either as a subroutine using Xcall ASHELL or by chaining to it using the CHAIN statement.

RUN modules from the dot prompt or a CMD or DO file:

.RUN MYPROG

.RUN APP:MYPROG/ARG1/ARG2=5

.RUN DSK2:MYPROG.RUN[100,2]

LIT modules from the dot prompt or a CMD or DO file (see Command Search Path) :

.LOG SYS:                      ; LOG.LIT

.DIR/W                         ; DIR.LIT

.TEST.LIT                      ; TEST.LIT

From within a program:

XCALL FOOBAR,1,2               ! call FOOBAR.SBX; search [p,pn], [p,0], DSK0:[7,6]

CHAIN "INVOIC"                 ! link to INVOIC.RUN; search [p,pn], [p,0], DSK0:[7,6]

XCALL AMOS,"RUN TEST"          ! execute TEST.RUN as subroutine