New versions of OpenVector, OpenGridPro and DrawPlus

Dec 242011

New versions of the three open source enhancements to draw, OpenVector, OpenGridPro and DrawPlus are now available.

Version 3.36 of the applications includes a number of bugfixes, such as  rulers not scrolling consistently with their document windows, and text-area columns always being imported onto layer zero, and new to this version is that grid-snapping is enabled for bezier control points  while being dragged. This was quickly followed by version 3.37, and according to Christopher Martin, who currently maintains these applications: Continue reading »

HongKong - same game, new name

Nov 262011

HongKong is a new version of the popular Mah-jong patience game, Shanghai, from Steve Drain, written chiefly as “a demonstration of Basalt and its Toolbox keywords” (which is why it can be found on the ‘examples’ page of his website).  Continue reading »

BookMaker updated to support NetSurf

Nov 262011

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.” Continue reading »

Synchronise those directories with DirSync 1.10

Oct 262011

Jan-Jaap van der Geer has released the latest version of DirSync, an application that allows two directory structures to be compared visually, enabling you to filter the differences you see in several ways so that it only shows you newer files, for example, or only files that appear in one of the two directories, and so on. The software then allows you to specify which files should be the same in both places and, where necessary, which version should be copied to the other location, and then synchronise the two directories. Continue reading »

R-Comp Interactive announces ARMini software scheme for BeagleBoard users

Oct 242011

With the BeagleBoard forming the heart of R-Comp Interactive‘s ARMini computer, it’s easy to see that some of R-Comp’s developments and releases for their computer might be relevant to those people who have put together their own RISC OS computers using the board. Well, now those “DIY” users have a way to access those developments: R-Comp have announced an annual subscription based scheme whereby users of home built RISC OS computers based around a BeagleBoard can receive the software* and support enjoyed by ARMini owners. Continue reading »

PipeDream 4.50/23 now free to download

Aug 302011

Gerald Fitton of Abacus Training has announced via the Archive-on-Line mailing list that he has now received permission from Colton Software “to make a version of PipeDream 4.50/23 available as Freeware.”

In his message to the list, Gerald explains his long standing history with Colton Software and PipeDream, which started in (or around) 1988, soon after the Acorn Archimedes first appeared. Gerald and his wife, Jill, were “invited by Colton Software to create a support service for their newly developed, integrated word-processor spread-sheet Program called PipeDream” – which they did in the form of a floppy disk, produced on a quarterly basis, filled with articles, information and examples of PipeDream in use, called PipeLine.

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Making a jclean jcut

Jul 242011

Posting to the ARMini support mailing list, user Ross McGuiness asked a little over a week ago about the application JCut, and whether there was any chance of it being made ARMini (and Beagleboard) compatible. The software is part of a small suite of programs written some years ago by J. David Barrow for manipulating JPEG files without re-sampling them, and thus without causing any reduction in the image quality that normal editing can cause. The software does this by way of the Independant JPEG Group utility ‘jpegtran’, providing a RISC OS friendly front-end for the utility.

The applications themselves are all written in BASIC, so any incompatibility must clearly be with jpegtran, which was ported to RISC OS some time ago – an up to date port should therefore solve the problem. Just over a week later, and Chris Johnson was able to report to the list that he now had a working jpegtran utility, and that he was successfully using it with JCut and JClean.

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You're once, twice, three times a shutdown

Jul 232011
Shutdown from Kevin Wells

Kevin Wells has released a new application called Shutdown which, as its name suggests, is designed to do one simple thing: Shut the computer down. When launched, the application presents its icon – a red power button – on the left hand side of the icon bar, with the text “Turn me off” underneath it. A single click on that icon will invoke the standard RISC OS shutdown procedure, with the usual warnings; apps with unsaved data will prompt you to save (or cancel), and so on. As such, the app does exactly what it says on the tin – but not without issues.

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Testers wanted for CashBook and PrintPDF

Jul 192011

Steve Fryatt, the developer of CashBook and PrintPDF, amongst other things, has put out a plea for testers of new versions of those two applications. He reports that he has been doing a notable amount of work on the two of late, but while there are a few user facing changes, much more of the work has been under the bonnet, restructuring the source code so that it’s easier to work with – work that benefits users only in an abstract way, in that it makes further development of the software that much easier. Continue reading »