News nybble: NetSurf gains support for CSS Media Queries in version 3.9

A new version of NetSurf has been released into the wild, and as well as some general bug fixes and improvements, including to its JavaScript handling, this version also benefits from support for CSS Media Queries (level 4). The term “CSS Media Queries” might seem a little meaningless to anyone who simply uses the browser to look at websites, but for people who design and maintain websites CSS Media Queries are a very useful tool in their armoury. They allow the layout of a page to be changed according to…

NetSurf gains experimental Javascript support

 I blinked and I missed it. Isn’t it just typical that something particularly notable would happen during the period in which I was less able to devote any time to RISCOSitory? That something was Javascript support coming to RISC OS NetSurf, in the form of test/experimental builds, which was announced in mid-December on the NetSurf users mailing list by Vincent Sanders, who said:

BookMaker updated to support NetSurf

Nick Roberts has released version 2.15 of BookMaker, an address book manager for major RISC OS browsers, as well as many email, telnet and FTP clients. This version brings long-awaited support for NetSurf, something that has been sadly lacking due to the way NetSurf works – or, rather, worked; “Thanks are due” says Nick, “to the NetSurf RISC OS developer for implementing the protocols that allow NetSurf and BookMaker to interoperate.”

Snippets – 9th January, 2022

A roundup of 2021 news and releases not already covered on RISCOSitory With 2021 now behind us, the time has come for one final round up of news that hasn’t already found its way onto onto these pages – although this time, in fact, it’s the only round up of such news for 2021; for 2020, a snippets post appeared half way through the year and then another just after the year ended – but no earlier post has been compiled for 2021.

RISC OS Awards results 2020 now online

Open for approximately three months, the 2020 RISC OS Awards poll covering 2020 ran from April until June of this year, and received 141 valid votes. The results were calculated a little later than planned, but making a change from the normal approach of publishing them on Twitter and then the Awards website, this time around they were presented live at the RISC OS User Group of London (ROUGOL) meeting on 16th August.

A final call for votes in this year’s awards poll

Along with an updated look at the alternative votes The 2020 RISC OS Awards poll has now underway for more than a couple of months, which means it’s about time a final deadline for votes was issued so that the hundreds hundred or so votes that have been cast can be counted up and the results published. That deadline, therefore, is the end of this month – 30th June. If you haven’t yet voted, please ensure you do so by then. If you’ve looked at the options and decided one…

Access an ESP32 camera module from the desktop

If you have a Raspberry Pi and wish to attach a camera to it there are a number of options available to you – including from the Raspberry Pi Foundation themselves – but if you wish to use one with RISC OS, your options are considerably more limited. So limited, in fact, that until very recently I don’t think there was a working option. As of mid-May, however, that changed thanks to Rick Murray.

Validate VAT numbers from the desktop

If you run a business (or look after the books for one), sometimes it can be useful to be able to double check VAT registration numbers to ensure they are valid, or to simply look them up to find an address. Double checking a UK VAT number can be done with some simple maths1, but all that does is ensure it could be a valid number, not that it is one. Better, then, is to be able to punch the number into an online service, and be told not only…