A collection of news for 2022 not already covered on RISCOSitory
2022 is about to draw to a close, so it’s time to cast one last eye over the various forums etc., to look for things that haven’t found their way onto these pages already.
With a whole year’s worth of stuff to look through, it’s inevitable that there will be news of updated software, useful publications and online resources, and so on, that I haven’t spotted and therefore isn’t included below. If that includes something you’ve released, well, them’s the breaks.
With this round up out of the way, the next task will be to update the Events page, which will happen over the next couple of days. I had planned to expand it with some additional (and historical) information, but that won’t happen for the 2023 update. What probably will change, though, is that dates for user group meetings will not be included going forward, only the regular schedule detailed; people are instead advised to check websites and mailing lists, and look out for announcements, for specific dates.
And with that, on with the snippets…
Adrian Lees
…released a version of Geminus that works on Raspberry Pi-based devices. Priced at £39.00, the program provides a number of facilities that can help provide a better desktop experience, by making some operations smoother or slicker thanks to window caching, accelerated image plotting, and more.
André Timmermans…
…released a couple of updates to KinoAmp, a DVD and MPEG1/2 movie player, which allows playback either in the desktop or full screen. The releases were versions 0.56 and 0.57, which between them dealt with some issues, added on-screen controls, improved efficiency in some areas, and more.
Archive Magazine…
…became the host for the late Ray Favre’s book, Dr Wimp’s Surgery, which is aimed at people who are new to programming the WIMP, and focuses on using the Dr Wimp BASIC library system by Andrew Ayre. Ray’s will expressed that Archive look after the book, and Archive’s previous editor, the late Jim Nagel initiated that process with John McCartney.
Chris Hall…
…released an update to FamTree, his application that produces family trees from data stored in a RISC OS directory tree. Version 1.54 deals with a GEDCOM import bug where files contained lines longer than 256 characters, and can be found on !Store.
…released version 2.54 of SatNav. Also available from !Store, the new version supports USB-connected GPS modules, which means it can now be used on computers such as the Pinebook and Pinebook Pro.
Chris Johns…
…released OminiDisc, a replacement filer for filing systems that are based on filecore. The program allows users some control over how the systems are ordered, and which icons should be used for each system, disc, or drive. It can be found on !Store, with the sources on GitHub.
Chris Mahoney…
…released a number of updates to the port of SQLite, with 3.40.1 beta 6 (the most recent test build) being based on the latest version, updated from the sources provided by the Really Small Software Company’s old port of version 3.3.6.
…released an update to HTTPLib, his C library to make it easier for programmers to fetch resources from the web from within their software. Version 0.12 0.13 brought some changes to cookie handling.
Christopher Dewhurst…
…published a new book, The Schema 2 Tutorial Guide, written by Norman Lawrence. Schema 2 is a spreadsheet application, originally released by Claire’s Micro Supplies, and the book covers the use of the spreadsheet from the very basics through to the BBC BASIC-like macro language.
Christopher Martin…
…released version 1.56 alpha 20 of Thump, a dynamic image viewer originally developed by Rick Hudson. The new version allows ChangeFSI to be used for rendering PNG (portable network graphics) files, and addresses a long standing bug in finding the relevant database file for an image.
Clive Semmens…
…released an update to one of his applications with names that just roll off the tongue. XP1Dr2SVG is an application for converting Draw files to SVG (scalable vector graphics). The new version dealt with a bug when handling paths with end-caps that were in groups.
…released XP1Triang, an application that adds triangles to baselines in Draw files, using information supplied in a text file. Clive uses it for producing plan views for planning applications, but thinks it may be useful for other purposes.
…updated all of his applications so that they are held in Zip files, rather than self extracting archives.
Dave Thomas…
…released updates to PrivateEye, an image viewer that caters for various types of graphics file. Version 3.20 was the most recent, with quite a few changes, and a new StrongHelp user manual included within the application itself.
David Buck…
…made RiscCAD Professional available from !Store, priced at £40.00. The application is a fully featured 2D CAD (Computer Aided Design) program, and it is currently at version 10.04.
Derek Haslam
…released updates to Powerbase (with 10.43 being the latest), a powerful shareware database application.
David Pilling…
…made Ovation Pro, the very powerful desktop publishing package, free to download, along with its source code.
Gavin Cawley…
…released an application called tabby, which he describes as a ‘tabbed container app’. It’s a tool for desktop management, making it possible to group different windows together into a single tabbed window – one tab for each of the windows it holds. Gavin has also put a video on YouTube to demonstrate it in use.
…released an updated version of an old ‘desktop silly’ called Snail. The program was originally written by Steve Gilbert, a friend of Gavin’s, and each click on its icon spawns a new snail, slithering its way across the icon bar.
Gavin Crawford…
…created an Ovation Pro script to alter the case of text, adding options for upper, lower, and title case to the existing swap case. AlterCase apparently works on the RISC OS version of the application, though only partly on Windows.
Graeme Shrimpton…
…released four RISC OS programs on his new website:
- DOS2RO modifies filenames between RISC OS and DOS-style file names, such as changing a comma extension to a file type (and the reverse).
- FireUp is a quick launcher. It puts an icon on the far-left of the bar, and when clicked it displays a menu of all the applications it has found; clicking the application name launches it.
- ARMenc displays a representation of a 32-bit binary value, and clicking on an individual bit toggles it, with the ARM instruction the binary number represents displayed below.
- ACE (or ARM Computer Emulator) is a module that emulates a number of ARM instructions on processors that don’t have them. It began with SDIV and UDIV instructions (signed and unsigned integer divisions respectively, and later gained others, such as SWP, CLZ, and so on.
Nemo…
…released a beta version of MetaSprite, a module that builds on the sprite format to allow a greater number of palette types, and allow metadata to be stored within individual sprites. A number of SpriteOp SWI calls are modified by the module, and one new one provided, and the module also deals with bugs in some ColourTrans SWI calls.
…released MenuBadges, a module that allows badges (aka small icons) to be shown alongside entries in menus. It allows provides for post-fixes (small pieces of text, such as a unit type) in writable icons.
…released VDUColour, a module to allow 24-bit colour to be specified calls to OS_WriteC, VDU, and so on by way of new control codes.
Paul Sprangers…
…released version 3.00 of his Game of Life application, which is based on the concept by John Conway. Amongst other improvements, this version allows much larger grids than before, and allows zooming in and out.
Peter Everett…
…released version 7.0.16 of MidiPlay, a program to play MIDI files, and a couple of related modules – a Synth module that provides a synth output for the player module, and a replacement player module for the ESP MPlay module. All can be downloaded from Peter’s website.
Peter Howkins…
…revisited an old web page he put together a couple of decades back and updated it. The RISC OS, Arthur and NCOS Module Database contains a whole host of data about different versions of the operating system, and provides a way to search for specific modules, SWI calls, etc., list the modules contained in a particular release, compare two different releases, and so on.
Raik Fischer…
…released RiscFF (Zip), to provide a front-end for the video converter FFmpeg. The application presents the user with a range of options, and from those selected creates an Obey file that is then used to call FFmpeg as necessary. Raik uploaded a video to YouTube showing it in use.
…released FF_Cut, a tool for cutting videos. This uses both FFmpeg and FFplay – the former for carrying out the cuts, and the latter for previewing videos to decide where to cut them.
Rick Murray…
…released what he considers a pre-release alpha quality application to configure a some aspects of a Vonets VAP11G Wi-Fi adaptor from RISC OS. Devices like this connect to the computer via USB, and provide access to wireless networks. The discussion on the RISC OS Open forum revealed that it works with at least one other Vonets device as well.
Rik Griffin…
…released the sources to his Tabs and TreeView Toolbox gadgets, under a BSD-style open source licence. They can be found on GitHub.
RONWUG…
…changed its regular meeting days. The RISC OS Northwest User Group has moved from Wednesdays to Mondays to work around scheduling changes at their regular venue. The group meets monthly, with the second Monday of the month being the typical day, with occasional variations – so RISC OS users in the area who wish to attend should look out for announcements or keep an eye on the website.
Steve Drain…
…released TAML (zip), which is a BASIC program that takes a text file containing some very simple HTML-esque markup, and uses that to create a Draw file containing a single group made up of a text area and a background rectangle. The idea is to make it much simpler to create text areas in Draw.
…released ModKeys (zip), a very small BASIC utility that reads the state of the six modifier keys and pops them into a code system variable as a binary value, allowing them to read and acted on from within Obey files.
Stuart Swales…
…unearthed and released an older build of PipeDream (3), making the sources (and both 26-bit and 32-bit builds of version 3.10a) available from GitHub. Also available are PipeDream (4) and Fireworkz.
…released updates to Fireworkz, with the latest version being 2.32.02.
…released version 4.62 of PipeDream.
Terry Swanborough…
…finished and released the Space Invaders game that he showed off in an incomplete state when he talked to ROUGOL in February.
