#1 Moving program setup to a separate "launcher" program

The existing program startup is a bit user-hostile: if the user can't work out what to put in a field, the Escape key is trapped so they can't exit until they've answered all of the initial questions. If these questions are moved to a separate "launcher" program there would be no need to trap Escape during this process. Also, the launcher could multitask on the desktop, thus allowing the user to consult the PDF copy of the manual while answering the questions. It would also allow the user to specify which file to open by dragging the file icon to the launcher window instead of having to choose an item from a list. The launcher could do many of the other things that only need to be done once (e.g. load WFS and all the "voice" files) although care needs to be taken that this doesn't happen if the modules are already loaded. Parameter passing from the launcher to the main program is easily done using system variables, as already explained. The downside is that the launcher has to be written as a proper Wimp program (with all that entails). There are several applications which simplify the process of writing a Wimp program in BASIC - AppBasic, DrWimp and WimpBasic spring immediately to mind - but I'm not sure where they stand vis-a-vis the GPL. -- zedtoo-de Stuart Painting