This book was originally published in 1993 and so is based on Computer Concepts' ArtWorks, that is, versions of ArtWorks up to 1.7. Later versions of ArtWorks produced by Martin Wuerthner (ArtWorks 2) have many extra tools and some dialogue boxes may have additional buttons and icons. These are described in the documentation supplied with these versions. However, ArtWorks' main drawing tools are the same and so this book still provides a very good basic guide for anyone new to ArtWorks.
Some minor changes have been made to the book to bring it slightly more up to date, but some sections, particularly Chapter 2 Installing ArtWorks, which refers to the "dongle" used in early versions, do not apply to later versions but have been retained for completeness.
A Glossary of DTP, Printing and Typographical Term
RISCWorld
ÿÿÿÿISSUE5/DISC/INDEX.HTM Issue 5, DiscWorld
DiscWorld
Aaron Timbrell rounds up the software directory
As part of this issue's PD Column we are including a copy of the newly available TextEffx application. This makes graphics, such as logos, using fonts, so you will need some fonts to use. In case you don't have enough we are including a special RISCWorld only copy of the Typography font collection.
Typography 500
This special version of Typography includes 500 carefully chosen fonts from the full Typography 2500 collection. The Typography font collections are the best selling font CDs on the RISC OS platform.
Included in Typography 500 are:
Over 500 outline fonts all hinted with our own NDT hinting system.
Free copy of Font Designers Toolkit.
Free copy of FontTrix PRO.
Run fonts directly from the CD without having to install them to your hard disk.
Install whole groups of fonts or just single faces.
View samples of any font, even those that are not currently installed.
Font installer for EasyFont PRO, Font Directory & Acorn !Font folders.
Easy to use, just click on a button to turn on a group of fonts.
Serif Fonts, SansSerif fonts, Blackletter, Designer, OpenFace, Script and more.
All fonts come with a full latin 1 character set.
PostScript compatible font names database
"The latest ndt font collection professional typography expert 2100, must represent the best value fonts collection from isv, perhaps even on the Acorn platform. over 2000 fonts, plus a variety of software to use them to the best of your advantage.....the presentation of the software and resources is impeccable; the package oozes quality, and the standard of typographical design is very high...an absolute must for anybody remotely interested in design and desktop publishing, and offer truly excellent value for money."
Acorn User Review of Typography 2100
Typography 2500 special offer (save 50%)
If you would like the complete Typography 2500 collection on CD then you can purchase a copy for half the normal price. The collection normally retails at £9.90, but is available to RISCWorld subscribers only, at the the special price of £4.95 including UK postage. Overseas customers can order a copy for £5.95. Stocks are limited at this price so if you would like one contact APDL as soon as you can.
The complete DiscWorld line up
As per usual we have our collections of the latest RISC OS games and applications, as well as support files for this issues articles:
CDInlays
CD inlays for RISCWorld.
Games
All the games from this issues games world column.
Iyonix
Iyonix software from this issues Iyonix column.
Letters
Applications related to the letters page.
PD
All the latest PD, shareware and freeware releases from the PD column.
SDL
RISCWorld SDL code examples and a copy of !GCC.
ToolBox
This contains two sets of Toolbox Modules. The Castle archive contains the latest 26/32 bit neutral system components, required if you want to run a lot of new software releases on 26bit machines. The RISCOS Ltd archive contains later and improved versions of a number of modules and is suitable for all versions of RISC OS from 3.1 onwards. We have also included copies of SharedUnixLib and UnixHome as these are needed by some programs.
Typo500
A special edition of the Typography font collection from iSVProducts/APDL.
Phew, that's 2006 over with, and wasn't it an exciting year? Lets, start with the good news for RISC OS users. Firstly the magazine Qercus, despite being considered dead by a lot of people, came back from the grave and is delivering regular issues roughly every 6 weeks. Not only was Qercus revived, but a new RISC OS magazine called RISC OS Now was launched at the South East Show. The first issue was a little ragged round the edges, but showed great promise. Other good news included the first new release of RISC OS from RISCOS Ltd for two and a half years. In addition a new company, RISC OS Open Ltd. was launched with the promise of RISC OS 5 being open sourced. This all sounds like brilliant news for RISC OS and the RISC OS community. So what's the bad news?
Well, lets go back to Qercus, the long delay (a year nearly) between issues has dented a lot of people's enthusiasm, plus the long term future of the magazine might be in doubt unless advertisers can be convinced that their adverts will actually appear when they are supposed to. Moving on to RISC OS Now, this was announced with a great flourish as filling the void left by Qercus. Now that Qercus is being delivered on a regular basis, guess what? That's right, RISC OS Now is late, and after only one issue. The editor, Louie Smith, was reportedly asking for help with rather basic DTP operations on a mailing list. Sounds familiar? Moving on, although RISCOS Ltd got a release out the door, it was a restricted preview version and wouldn't print or support the ViewFinder card. As for RISC OS Open Ltd, despite a great fanfare and the launch of a swish website not one single line of code has been made available. Meanwhile Castle are muttering about the licence conditions being with the solicitors. Wouldn't you have sorted that out first? I know I would have.
So what's my point? Well as you can see, the good and the bad are actually the same things. It's all a matter of perception. So, if you have a positive outlook the situation looks the best it has done for years. If you want to pick holes in it all and decide it's all depressing and that the gas oven beckons, then you can. I'm very positive about all the things that some people (or idiots as I prefer to call them) are negative about. The problem is that some people who post on the RISC OS newsgroups and forums are so negative that it beggars belief.
Actually I forgot one bad thing, what's the worst thing that happened last year? In my opinion it's the constant negativity from some people. I say lighten up, see the positives, either that or just get lost, the RISC OS world just doesn't need moaning idiots.
The following is about the vehicular faith, not specifically about computing.
There isn't going to be much about vehicles in this issue, mainly because despite the previous overheating gearbox fiasco I haven't had any more motoring problems to date. This is despite my best efforts, even leaving my lights on for 5 hours whilst attending the RISCOS Ltd AGM didn't cause a major problem and I was able to start the Monterey with a bit of fiddling and plenty of wood touching. Well, when I say "wood", I mean plastic. It looks like wood, when I come to sell the vehicle it will be described as having a "walnut" dash. Yes, it looks like walnut, but like many things these days it isn't what it seems, it's plastic designed to appeal to the snob in all of us.
This brings me on to something that really does annoy me, a wonderful "new" word that has popped up over the last few years, I am sure you will recognise it, it's "faux". Yes, faux. As in not something. I first encountered this word a couple of years ago when I was looking at a poufee (another french word I note). It was marked as being made of "faux leather". Obviously at the time I has having a slight craft (can't remember a flippin thing) moment and wondered what sort of creature a "faux" was. Perhaps some sort of specially breed deer? A type of Siberian cattle famed for their hardiness? No, it's plastic. So when the tag says "faux leather" it means fake, not real, a knock off. Lets face it, it means crap. Given that my television and papers are bombarding me with adverts for "real leather" 3 piece suites for £499 it shouldn't be beyond the wit of man (with a big knife) to make a £69 pouf (English pronunciation) out of leather. Anyway I don't mind plastic, if it serves a purpose.
One purpose of plastic to to make a cheap pair of boots that don't leak. I know, I encountered a pair of plastic wellies in Lidl. They are waterproof, they have a furry lining (actually I just checked, it's "faux fur". Damn) so your feet don't get cold traipsing all over the National Forest with the dogs. However I still don't mind that much, because they were £6.99. And as the saying goes, they do exactly what it says on the tin, sorry, since they were in a plastic bag, "faux" tin. Anyway talking about the National Forest last year the 6th millionth tree was planted. As the Forest covers some 200 square miles I have worked out that means roughly 30,000 trees per square mile. Sounds a lot doesn't it? Except that 1 square mile is over 3 million square yards, which means assuming the trees were equally spaced there would be one every 100 yards, more of a "faux" forest at the moment then. In reality of course the trees are tightly packed into various bits, where one can walk the dogs. This isn't to say that I don't like the National Forest, I do, I love the idea. It just going to take another 20 to 30 years to make it a proper forest, by which time over 25 million trees will have been planted.
This is great, but a note of caution should be sounded. In order to keep this virgin forest pristine a number of signs have started appearing, "Clean up after your Dog". OK, that's sensible, nobody likes to walk out their front door and squelch into a pile of half digested Pedigree Chum. However these things have started appearing in the middle of nowhere. The old saying was "Do bears poo in the woods?" Well round here they poo in their enclosure at Twycross Zoo. However other animals are not so considerate. The average wooded area around here is knee deep in a collection of Fox, Badger, Deer, Rabbit, Buzzard etc. This is apparently fine, but not dog poo.
So now I have to put in my "faux" boots, get into my car with the "faux" wood dashboard, drive into the "faux" forest, but pick the real crap up with a real plastic bag.
Printing RISC World
The new look of RISC World means that you will no longer get the yellow background when printing articles from RISCWorld. However you will still get the blue border on the left unless you turn off the printing of background images. The example below shows the print dialogue box from Fresco.
As you can see the option "No Background" is ticked. If you want to print out any of the RISCWorld pages and don't want to waste ink on a blue border then make sure you have clicked a similar option in your browser.
Aaron Timbrell
ÿÿÿÿISSUE5/GAMES/INDEX.HTM Issue 5, Games World
Games World
Paul Brett with the latest gaming news.
One would normally hope for a plethora of new RISC OS games releases over the Winter months, and especially over the Christmas period. Keen RISC OS developers find the time off work ideal for finishing projects they are working on, or indeed to start on new projects. Unfortunately this year it would seem that many have been busy with other activities (or getting mince pie poisoning - ED) and the gaming news is somewhat sparse this issue. Still, let us don our galoshes and wade in to the news that we do have available.
Acorn Arcade Updated Design
The long running RISC OS games site
Small
The 3D maze game Small, original released in 1993 by Virgo Software has now been made available as freeware from
Quake2 - Dave Brown
Quake2 was originally released in 1997, by ID Software. Although the RISC OS community have had a couple of ports of the original version of Quake available for some time there has not been a version of the superior Quake2 available until now. Some time ago Dave Brown started work on a port for the RiscPC but it wasn't possible to make the game function on this outdated hardware. Once the Iyonix was available with it's PCI Geforce graphics and much faster processor a working version was possible. The RISC OS port of Quake2 makes use of the IyonixMesa library by Simon Wilson. This is a 3D graphics driver for the Iyonix that supports OpenGL (a common graphics standard).
Currently the port of Quake2 is somewhat sluggish and has no sound support. There are also a number of issues that have yet to be resolved that can cause the game to crash. In order to try Quake2 on RISC OS you will need an Iyonix with RISC OS 5.10 and a Geforce2MX graphics card (so basically an older Iyonix that's been updated - ED). You will also need the level data, either from a commercial PC copy of the game, or from the demo version. In either case you will need to point the game to the level data, so assuming you are using the Quake2 PD demo, which is included in this issue of RISCWorld, you will need to do the following:
Copy the RISC OS Quake game out of the archive onto your hard disc
Open the PC version of Quake (from the archive) on the RISCWorld CD
Extract the folder Install/Data/baseq2 to the same folder as you installed the RISC OS Quake2 game
Edit the file !GLQuake.!Run so that the DIR command in the file points to the baseq2 directory
Run Quake
Type "map demo1" into the Quake2 console to start the game running
I am very pleased to see such a high calibre game available for the Iyonix , even if it is at a very early stage in development, and hope that updates to deal with the currently known problems become available shortly. In the meantime, may I suggest that you get "fragging".
Tet-Risc - Shaun Lindsley
We will finish off this issue's column with a new version of a classic game. A version of Tetris called Tet-Risc designed to run in the RISC OS desktop (should have been called Desk-Risc then - ED!). This is a very nice version, it allows you to change the background image shown behind the falling blocks, as well as choose the type of block from a range of types from popular versions of Tetris produced over the years.
As well as the multiple graphics you can also enable a "ghost piece" so you can see where your block will land. The falling piece can be moved using the cursor keys, the the down key dropping it. You can also rotate the piece using the Z and X keys. Points are awarded as follows:
3 points for piece dropped, 5 points if ghost shape not displaye
1 line completed 20 point
2 lines completed 30 point
3 lines completed 50 point
4 lines completed 80 point
I shall return to haunt you once again in the next issue.
Paul Brett
ÿÿÿÿISSUE5/HUGHJ/INDEX.HTM Issue 5, The Hugh Jampton Experience
The Hugh Jampton Experience
With a song in his heart, and a credit note in his wallet...it's....Hugh Jampton
Welcome to the first Hugh Jampton column of 2007 (everyone else has done this already, get on with it - ED). May I take this opportunity to wish you something or other and a thingy new whatsit. I have been conducting a customer facing survey to discover if there is anything that I could do to improve my wonderful column. And you know what, it's perfect already! Having conducted an extensive interview with the man in the bathroom mirror he confirmed what I already thought. There's nothing that can be done to make this any better. In fact it's the best column there is, absolutely, simply the best...better than all the rest...better than...
(The above paragraph has been cut short due to reasons of sanity. So, for the first time I will say it, here is the caption competition - ED)
The caption competition
....Simply the...sorry. Where was I, ah there I am, hold on I'll just go over and wake myself up...Oh...ah, that's better. Now then as usual its time for the (I've done this bit, please try to keep up - ED).
Right. Last issue, back in the bad old days of 2006 I published the following picture and asked for your suggested captions.
What great feats of linguistic creativity did you come up with?
"Wot, no rear view mirror?"
Vic Newman
"Is this an Intershitty 125?"
Kevin Simpson
"Railtrack profit warnings, crash imminent!"
Aaron
So I am actually going to award the prize, and this time it's a complete, rare, beautifully framed, signed P45, to Aaron. That way I can get on with the rest of this column without any further interruptions (That's what you think - ED). So what photo can you all look at without bothering to send anything in this time? How about this one:
As always send your best, or even worst, attempts to hughj@riscworld.co.uk.
Hugh's letters bit
Before we have the silly pictures I ought to include this e-mail from Vic, our runner up this issue.
Hi Hugh,
I'm sending this again as you haven't acknowledged that you got it & m
e-mails don't seem to be getting through. Aaron Timbrell & Dave Holden den
they are Hugh Jampton so I couldn't check with them if my e-mails wer
arriving.
Aaron said there might be a problem getting through so to kee
trying. You now know who to blame. I'll keep bombarding you until:-
a) I get an acknowledgement
b) I lose the will to live
c) The world ends
whichever is the sooner.
Vic Newman
I love multiple choice, can I choose b?
So let's round this up then we can all go and do something more worthwhile.
Matt Thompson with the latest news for Iyonix owners.
Another year is upon us, I wonder what 2007 will bring the world of the Iyonix and also RISC OS in general. Let us hope that it's a good one. This year sees the 20th anniversary since the launch of the first RISC OS machine - so here's to the next 20 years of using RISC OS and beyond.
There has been some important new releases which have found their way onto the hard disc of my Iyonix. These include a new updated version of Firefox, which gets better with every release, and also some updates from R-Comp with their internet software. It also looks like RISC OS Open is getting closer to actually happening (more on all of this later), but first we have to revisit last month's RISC World.
Manic Miner
Some users may have experienced problems running Manic Miner. The program needs the latest version of the Tim player module, and will not run without it. The latest version can be downloaded from
Also a suitable MDF is needed for Manic Miner. If the game screen isn't displayed properly and it asks for a 320x256 screen mode the following one might be worth trying. I use this with my Samsung Syncmaster 152V and it works fine for me.
# 320 x 256 (70Hz - Modes 1,2,5,9,10,13
# Low ban
startmod
mode_name
x_res:32
y_res:25
pixel_rate:1258
h_timings:36,14,12,320,12,
v_timings:2,106,0,256,0,8
sync_pol:
endmod
Jet Set Willy Article
Not an Iyonix issue, but as it was one of mine I have to mention it. Unfortunately a couple of the URLs for links to remakes of Jet Set Willy were incorrect, apologies for that, they are correctly listed below :
The PC version of Jet Set Willy 2 can be downloaded from
Firefox
This is a very important development for RISC OS as we still do not have a fully complete browser. Firefox offers the chance to have a very good and up to date web browser. Since the last mention of Firefox there have been two releases, the first was Iyonix only, but the latest, which was released on Christmas Day, now also works on the A9. It now also works on VirtualRPC-SA and VirtualRPC-AdjustSA.
With each release Firefox gets better. The current release is very stable and displays a lot of websites that other RISC OS browsers have difficulty with. This version is definitely the fastest so far and it has been reported that if you have the new graphics card that Castle are selling with the RISC OS 5.12 upgrade then this will increase the performance as well. I certainly noticed a speed increase with the previous release of Firefox when I upgraded my graphics card.
The new version now installs on the icon bar, and even more work is being done to make Firefox more like a true RISC OS application. For example clicking the mouse Menu button over the browser window now brings up proper RISC OS menus.
However the development is not yet complete and there are still a number of things to be done. This will all take time as developer Peter Naulls is doing this in his spare time. I, for one, am very grateful and pleased he has continued with this project as we do need a quality up to date web browser for this platform to have any kind of future and Firefox looks like our best chance. It's also a good selling point for RISC OS that it can run Firefox as it is a well known application on other platforms.
The latest RISC OS Firefox can be downloaded from
If you do download it, make sure you read the instructions first, as there are some things you need to do before it will work. The help file also gives details of plans for future developments.
There is no doubt that having Firefox running on RISC OS will help the platforms future, so if you do use it then don't forget to contribute as much as you can towards the project and help reach the requested target of £4000 so development can continue. The donations page can be found at
Cino
Cino is the Iyonix DVD player which was being developed by Adrian Lees but was then put on hold due to technical problems. However the program has now been released for free and his available from his own website at
Unfortunately this is is not a finished program so don't be surprised if it doesn't work on your machine. I couldn't get it working my Iyonix, I kept getting error messages, so I cannot say how the program works or what it is like.
It would be really good if someone was able to take over development of Cino and complete it to give the Iyonix the ability to play DVDs. Whilst I am not a particular fan of watching DVDs whilst sitting at a computer monitor the fact is that all computers these days can play DVDs and if RISC OS is to feature as a computer of today then it needs to be able to do it as well.
RISC OS Open
Since the last issue of RISC World the RISC OS Open website has seen some activity. At the time of writing the shared source licence is currently with the lawyers to make sure everything is watertight. So it looks like we will to wait a little bit longer before it all happens
Until recently the options on the RISC OS Open website were inactive, now they are active. There is a news section, forum, sources section, bug reporting section, documents and how you can contact RISC OS Open. Hopefully by the next issue it will be all up and running.
RISC OS Open can be found at
Software Updates
Netfetch
Netfetch, the email/news transfer program for use with broadband, has had a significant upgrade. The latest version is V3.00 and this is a payable upgrade. There have been some changes to the Netfetch program, but the major change is Version 2 of Hermes - this is the program which does the email transportation. The news articles are still handled by Newshound but it is hoped at some point to have it all done by the same program. There is also a new updated version of Dialup, the internet dialup equivalent of Netfetch.
So what is new in this version? Well, looking at the Hermes history document, quite a lot. There have been a number of bug fixes and improvements, but the main new feature is the spam protection. You can now configure Hermes to block any emails using a number of different rules. There are currently nine rule sets which include bad domains, banned words and specified encodings. By using these rules you can (hopefully) eliminate most spam emails from your inbox.
There is also a 'Whitelist' feature (as opposed to a 'Blacklist' for spam). This allows any emails from people on this list to be fetched and delivered to the appropriate mailbox regardless of any rules you may have set up. This spam blocking feature is excellent and it is one I'm sure many people will welcome.
The upgrade price is currently £19 inclusive. Other upgrade options are available for Dialup3 owners who would like to switch to Netfetch3 for £20 and if you want to upgrade from Dialup 3 and Netfetch2 to the new versions you can do so for £25 inc. These prices are correct at the time of writing but the press release did mention that these prices would only be valid for a limited time. For more information about Netfetch3 (and Dialup4) contact R-Comp at rcomp@rcomp.co/uk or see their website at
MessengerPRO
Email and news program MessengerPro has also been updated. The latest version is V4.24 and it's great to see continued development. This new version is described as a significant upgrade and includes a number of new features which includes HTML email handling. MessengerPro can now display HTML emails correctly and also allows you to reply to HTML emails with quoting in, where as before it was displayed as HTML code rather than the actual message.
Another new feature is support for extended character sets and non-latin characters, so now emails containing foreign characters should be displayed correctly.
For more details on MessengerPRO see their website at
BeebIT
The Freeware BBC Micro emulator BeebIT has been updated again, now up to Version 0.59f18B (18 Dec 2006). This is a test version but it should work without any problems. The changes in this new version are as follows :
Re-written 6502 engine which can be up to 20% faster
Supports full Op7 (previously it was just a subset)
Requires at least an ARM6 processor (ie RISC OS 3.50+)
Clicking select on the Icon to enter BeebIt, no longer shows up as a joystick button press
BeebIt64K not supplied, it can be better implemented as a separate program
JGH's external 6502 interface is now supported (not fully tested though)
New small !BeebIt sprite
Correctly implements CLI/SEI/PLP so Empire Strikes Back will run
You can download this new version from
RISC OS Select
I got a re-subscription from RISC OS Ltd through the post and on the form it mentions that if you are now an Iyonix user who doesn't use a RISC OS 4 computer anymore to contact them so they can update their records accordingly.
It also states that they still plan on doing a version of Select for the Iyonix and they will be making an announcement about RISC OS Select for the Iyonix in early 2007.
Finally
And so we reach the end of the first Iyonix column of 2007 - there are some interesting things being mentioned at the moment, so let's hope that they become a reality and enhance RISC OS further.
As ever if you have any comments, useful tips, software to plug, or anything remotely Iyonix related then you can contact the Iyonix column at
Thinner than a celeb on a celery diet, it's the RISCWorld letters, my god it's quiet...
After being delighted with the letters we received for the last issue things have dropped off a bit. Well, quite a bit. OK, a lot. So in order to keep the column filled up, this edition of the letters page may, or may not, contain a fictional letter that's designed to pad it out...
Dear Aaron,
I Don't know if this got through the first time. I definitely typed some text, but the Lycos sent folder says I didn't. Anyway, the attachment is the long-delayed remainder of the inlays, split into three ovation pro files
1) The remaining issues from vol5
2) The whole of vol6
3) The first two of vol7
I'll try and do them in pairs (and more punctually) from now on.
Matt
Sorry, the first one didn't get through, but this one did. So, many thanks for these inlays. I have included them in the software directory on this issues CD. The files are all in OvationPro format. If anyone doesn't have a copy of OvationPro then may I suggest that this would be an excellent opportunity to download a demo copy and have a play. It really is an excellent desktop publishing and word processing package.
Now we have a follow up from the previous issue.
Dear Aaron,
Thanks for your reply via the subscription disc. I was able to decompress the PD Tar file with !SparkFS by changing its file type, as you suggested.
I don't know
a) Where I first ran across the idea of a grammar diagnosis application.
b) Exactly where I got the Tar file from,
BUT I have ported it into a little application - !GramDiag, which I supply attached, zipped to you, with the original C code, my ported code and an example of a bad Bison grammar to test it on.
Up to 3 a.m. this morning working on it - 'Dawn Chorus' : The signal for the programmer to go to bed!
It turns out that there is a GNU (Free Software Foundation) application 'gramdiag', that does the job hanging around in the PD.
In this respect, I keep on running across the name 'Paul Moore', who did a lot of porting of GNU applications, originally to the Archie. He deserves an honourable mention.
!GramDiag should (fingers crossed) be 32-bit compatible.
Users should, at least, read the file supplied with this, '!ReadMe', for more info.
NB If there are no errors to report, the output file is blank. On the other hand, if there are many errors, the report can get very large.
May I mention my web site www.martinkd.freeuk.com , which currently has 46 pieces of Acorn software up on it, and a hyper link to a sister site for my IBM software??
Regards,
Martin Carradus
Thanks for the letter. Was the website that you mentioned www.martinkd.freeuk.com? If so then I am sure we can find room for a mention somewhere. I am pleased that you were able to decompress the TAR file following the suggestions provided.
I have put a copy of the !GramDiag application in the software directory of this issue. I've not personally heard of Paul Moore, but it might be worth Googling for him to see if you can find him.
Moving on this surprise letter came into the office recently...
Dear Aaron
I was reading the start of this column, where you said there may be a fictional letter on the letters page. Well try as I might I have been unable to find it. Can you tell me which one it is?
Mr F. Ictional
Thanks for the letter. As your letter arrived just in time and we were able to publish it, we didn't need to make up any letters for this issue. So you can look as hard as you like but you won't find any made up letters on this page, no siree!
Anyway that's all for this issue's letters page. Please do write to us, please...I'll sulk if you don't...
Aaron Timbrell
ÿÿÿÿISSUE5/PD/INDEX.HTM Issue 5, PD World
PD World
Paul Brett with the latest freeware and PD releases for RISC OS.
Welcome to the first PDWorld column of 2007. I have great hopes that this year a number of previously commercial, yet abandoned, applications will be once again available. However, instead of costing an arm and a leg, they will be released by their original authors who (I have been told) and tracking down the companies that used to market the products in order to recover the copyright. The first of these is the wonderful !Insignia (now renamed back to its original name of !TextEffx) as previously sold by Cerilica.
TextEffx - John Whitington
TextEffx is a tool designed for making graphics, either in bitmap or vector format, from a piece of text. The program is simplicity itself to use. Just load it, type in your text, select the effects you would like, then render the result.
TextEffx
The program includes a myriad of effects, from simple shadows to complex shaded backgrounds and even lens flare. The results that can be achieved speak for themselves. You can even import graphics for use as backgrounds. Currently only the application has been made available as freeware. However the full manual should be available shortly, more details can be obtained from the readme files.
Iyonix users should consult the documentation as there are a couple of known problems with using TextFX on RISC OS 5. Users with existing Insignia files will need to edit the first line of the file before TextEffx can load them. Just change the word Insignia to TextEffx in a text editor and save the changed file.
ConvText - Paul Sprangers
ConvText is an application designed to automate search and replace commands in text files.
ConvText
The comprehensive StrongHelp manual shows you some examples of how the program can be used. For example there are several programs around that let you convert text files in numerous ways. For example, they change quotes into so-called smart quotes, or they change line feeds into carriage returns, and so on. None of these, however, will probably cover all of your needs.
When you select some text from a DTP file in order to send it by email, the mail program will probably prompt you for Non-ISO-8859-1 characters, such as bullets, smart quotes, ligatures, dashes and so on. Replacing all of these involves a lot of (sometimes complex) find-and-replace actions, especially when this work has to be done on a regular base.
This is where !ConvText comes in. !ConvText is driven by extremely simple scripts that will do all the work in one go. Just choose the appropriate script, drag a file to the iconbar icon and !ConvText will convert that file according to the list of commands in the script. This is almost instantaneous for short files, though it may take some minutes with very large and complex files. But don’t worry, !ConvText runs in the background, so the desktop always remains accessible.
Searching is very straightforward. Apart from the specially defined "built-in commands", processing a search script can be compared to an equal number of find-and-replace actions in !Edit or !Zap.
PrivateEye - David Thomas
PrivateEye is a comprehensive image viewer for RISC OS. It can handle all common formats including Sprite, Jpeg, Draw and Artworks. It has lots of options to improve or alter an image quickly and easily. It can also perform actions such as rotation, it can load any number of images simultaneously and has a large number of keyboard shortcuts in order to exploit the features. It also supports interactive help and comes with a full manual in PDF format.
PrivateEye
PrivateEye is, in my opinion, an excellent image viewer and well worth adding to your arsenal of RISC OS applications.
SmartMenu - Dick Tanis
This is an idea so simple that I am amazed that it hasn't been built into RISC OS for years. When a RISC OS menu is opened any submenus open to the right. If your menu is already on the right of the screen the submenus open over the top of the existing menu. This can be a pain and, let us be honest, simply does not feel "right". SmartMenu can fix this problem as seen below.
SmartMenu
If the menu is opened up on the left of the screen then there is no change to normal menu behaviour. However if the menu is opened near the right of the screen and there is not enough room for the submenu then the menu will be altered so that submenus appear on screen to the left of the main menu. Simple, but brilliant.
That is it from me for this issue, I will have more software delights for you all next time.
Paul Brett
ÿÿÿÿISSUE5/SDL/INDEX.HTM Issue 5, SDL for RISC OS
SDL for RISC OS
Neil White
Please note that before trying to compile any examples you will need the Castle 32bit SharedCLibrary installed on your computer.
SDL_ttf is an add on library to SDL that provides the capability to render TrueType (ttf) fonts to SDL surfaces. It is a wrapper around the FreeType font system. There are plenty of freeware ttf fonts available around the web, but make sure that if you download any that they truly are freeware ones as some come with some crazy licences. In this article I hope to make you familiar with loading and displaying ttf fonts in and SDL window.
First we need to tell out C program we want to use SDL_ttf -
#include SDL_ttf.h
Then we need to set aside some memory for the fonts in a similar fashion as when we set aside memory for mixer sound chunks, only this time for ttf fonts -
TTF_Font *ttf_font; - this is where we load the font into.
SDL_Surface **font_surface; - this is where the bitmaps of the font are stored once they have been loaded, which needs to be set to an appropriate size for the characters we want to hold 126 is the amount of ASCII codes -
The fonts use something we have yet to come across yet, an SDL_Color structure, which is defined like this-
SDL_Color text_color;
and set using hex values 0x00 „ 0xFF ( 0-255 ) like this -
text_color.r = 0xFF;
text_color.g = 0xFF;
text_color.b = 0xFF;
which gives us r g and b set to 255 which is white.
Basically the SDL_ttf system uses ttf fonts rendered into sdl surfaces, so we need to initialise the ttf system using the TTF_init() command here shown with an error trap -
if(TTF_Init())
printf("TTF_Init error: %s", TTF_GetError())
exit (-1)
}
Now we are ready to load the font -
First define a character array to hold the destination string
char font_file[256];
Copy the directory name defined in the makefile to the font_file string -
strcpy(font_file, DATA_PREFIX);
Add the name of the font we want to load -
strcat(font_file, "font.ttf");
Now load the font, here again shown with an error trap -
Now the font is loaded into memory we want to plot it into surfaces ready to be used with SDL using ASCII values we achieve this like this -
A character array to hold the letter we are plotting -
char letter[1];
A loop going from space to tilde, 0-32 are control characters so not much use for displaying text, 32 is space, 33-47 are punctuation marks 48-58 are the numbers 0-9, 59-64 are more punctuation, 65-90 capital letters of the alphabet, 91-96 are more punctuation and the lower case letters run from 97 though 122 with 123-126 yet more punctuation characters.
for (i=32; i
put the ASCII code into our letter character array with a null character.
letter[0] = i
letter[1] = '\0';
now the same ASCII code is used for rendering the text in our font_surface array with the previously defined text colour -
Now we have got all our font surfaces we no longer need ttf, so we close the font and shut down ttf-
TTF_CloseFont(ttf_font)
TTF_Quit();
Now we can use this function to display some text -
void plotfont(char strinplot[], int x,int y
{
Integers for controlling the loop and holding the ascii code and the length of the string -
int i,j,str;
Get the length of the string -
j=strlen(strinplot);
A loop for each letter of the string
for ( i=0 ; i
The current letter ascii code is obtained
str=strinplot[i];
Now the appropriate font_surface is plotted to the screen using a previously defined imageplot function ( in the code example )
imageplot( font_surface[ str ] , x , y );
This inreases x value by the width of the letter ready to plot the next
x=x+font_surface[ str ]->w;
End of loop
}
end of plotfont function
}
And that is how to use ttf fonts with SDL in it's most simple form. The example included displays 'Risc World Example' and displays the ASCII alphabet from 33 to 126, so if you want to download and try different fonts you can, simply by renaming the downloaded font to font/ttf and replacing the font/ttf in the example directory.
Neil White
ÿÿÿÿISSUE5/SOFT/INDEX.HTM Issue 5, The RISC OS Software conundrum
The RISC OS Software conundrum
Aaron investigates an increasingly common problem...
Lets suppose that a RISC OS developer has released a new version of the program. Lets call it !SuperDuper2. It's freeware, you can go and download it from the author's website free of charge. It's a great package, you have seen people raving about it on the newsgroups. There has been an article about it on one of the RISC OS news sites and it's just what you want. So you point your browser along to the authors site and grab yourself a copy.
Picture this...
Having downloaded it, without reading the instructions properly, you run it. However it won't run as it complains that it needs version something or other of some other strange thing (lets call it !ObscureBootThingy) that you don't have. Hmmm. So you go back to the authors website and read the text properly. Then you spot a link to the extra bit thats needed. Of course this extra bit was written by someone else and so you get a link to click on to go and get the !ObscureBootThingy. You click on the link, your browser chunks away for a bit, then suddenly you get a "Page not found" error. Help...how can you use !SuperDuper2 without !ObscureBootThingy. Obviously other people have this thing because they have been raving about !SuperDuper2. How have they got hold of a copy...
Does this scenario sound familiar? It should, it's certainly happened to me on more than one occasion. So lets have a logical think about it and see what the problem is and how we can solve it. How do we get hold of !ObscureBootThingy when the link that goes to it doesn't work.
Lets roll back the the early 1990's for a moment. At that time the internet was just starring out,and if you wanted a program you went to a PD library and bought a disc for a pound or so. If you were feeling especially flushed then you might buy a CD with lots of things on. The key point is that there was one place you could go to and get the thing you were after. These days you have to go hoping all over the internet to find anything.
Google
So, lets go back to !OnscureBootThingy. The best idea is to start searching on
There are other ways of finding what you want, one of which is databases of links. There are a number available for RISC OS and some of them are very good. The ones I use on a regular basis are:
However, the links database is just that, a collection of links. If the links don't work you are no better off. The only solution left is to go and ask someone on the Acorn newsgroups, if you haven't given up by now.
So what can we do?
Here is the problem, there is no 'one stop' website where you can go and download anything and everything you might want. If you were running Windows or Mac OS you could go to a site like Softpedia or
Instead we have a fragmented mess, with authors putting stuff up on their own sites, often with rather obscure links. Now, of course, the design of a website is the preserve of the person who created it and I have no right to complain about what they do, or to criticise. Don't forget that these authors put their time in for no reward except perhaps the pleasure of having people use their software. However this does not promote RISC OS in the way it should be promoted. What we need is a single RISC OS website that, instead of linking to authors individual sites, stores the information and the files locally, so everything can be found in one place and should an author's website disappear the software doesn't vanish with it.
I think this is very important. Do you know what freeware and shareware is available for RISC OS? I bet you might know a small amount of it but only a tiny fraction of what has actually been written over the years. Some has now been lost for good, unless a copy turns up on someone's harddisc. When you delete the utility that you no longer use, remember it could be the last copy in existence. So what can be done?
I think the someone must bite the bullet and set up a single website with enough storage and enough bandwith for all. It's going to cost, it's going to take a lot of time and effort but I think it must be done. If RISC OS users can't find the applications they need, then they are going to give up with RISC OS and move to another OS that does what they need. Forget any supposed fork in OS development, this is the big problem facing RISC OS. If we don't solve this one and make it quick and painless for people to find what they need then, in my opinion, we might as well pack up and go home.
Aaron
ÿÿÿÿISSUE5/SUPERIOR/INDEX.HTM Issue 5, Superior Software
Superior Software
Matt Thompson
Superior Software were one of the major software houses in the Acorn market. They were there way back in the early days of the BBC Micro market (and later the Electron) and then when everyone else had given up on the BBC they were still releasing games, although not quite as regularly as before.
Whether you picked up a copy of Acorn User, Micro User, A&B Computing or Electron User you could guarantee that the back page (and often pages inside) would have an advert for a new game from Superior Software.
Many games were released over the years, the most famous being the Repton series. Repton first appeared way back in 1985 and many sequels followed. The final 8 bit release of Repton was Repton Infinity which included a whole game designing suite. Did anyone ever produce any games with it?
Other highlights include the mega game Exile which really pushed the BBC to the limit and was a remarkable game. Sim City, a game which was played using a mouse and a desktop environment was, amazingly, converted to run on 32K BBC.
The now legendary game Elite was repackaged and relaunched by Superior Software and this time it also included an enhanced BBC Master 128K version. A number of the games released by Superior also included these specially enhanced versions including Crazee Rider and Strykers Run.
Long time Acorn magazine readers may remember the game "One Night In Bangkok" which was often mentioned but never appeared. Did it ever exist? Well it would appear that it did exist but it was a only a work in progress which was never finished for various reasons, although one part of it was completed.
In the later years a compilation series was launched called Play It Again Sam. This comprised a collection of four of Superior's full price games on one tape or disc for the price of one game. This represented excellent value for money. The series spanned 18 volumes in total and from Volume 3 onwards not only Superior games were included but games from other software houses and also brand new releases would appear on the compilations.
A number of titles were also release for other formats. Repton 1 and 2 made an appearance as a double pack on the ZX Spectrum. Repton 3 was released on the Commodore 64 and Amstrad in addition to the Acorn machines, as was the boxing game By Fair Means Or Foul. One title, The Legend Of Sinbad, didn't appear on any Acorn format and was released only on the Commodore 64.
When the 8 bit market began to fade, Superior had a brief time within the RISC OS market. In 1987 the game Zarch was launched for the 32bit Archimedes. This was the full version of the demo game Lander included with machines. It was graphically amazing for the time, but was rather difficult to play.
A Personal favourite on RISC OS from Superior was Ego : Repton 4. This was a brand new Repton game, not another set of screens for Repton 3. The aim was similar, collect diamonds, solve puzzles and in Repton 2 collect pieces to make up a jigsaw puzzle, but it was a whole new concept. If you've not played this game it is well worth hunting down.
The Play It Again Sam series had a brief venture on RISC OS but could only manage up to Volume 3 in the 1990's, although ProAction did release a Volume 4 at a later date. These compilations include some rare games including the brilliant Top Banana and the now impossible to find Arcpinball.
Many people, myself included, thought that when Superior Software stopped releasing games for RISC OS that was the end of them but it wasn't so. They are still going today and the man behind it all, Richard Hanson, agreed to answer a few questions about his company, the games and the industry.
How did Superior Software start?
"I decided to start my own software business after I'd written some software that had been published by 'Program Power', who later became 'Micro Power'. Superior Software began in the summer of 1982, and my first business partner was John Dyson; I wrote three of Superior's first four software releases, and John wrote the other one."
What were your favourite games you released?
"The Repton games are my personal favourites."
How and why did the Acornsoft logo appear on your game releases?
"Acorn Computers approached Superior Software and some other software companies in 1986 when Acorn had decided to largely concentrate its activities on hardware rather than software. The Acornsoft label and software were worth obtaining because Acornsoft and Acorn Computers were implicitly associated with the BBC Micro as manufacturers of the computer; and Acornsoft had produced some very good software such as Elite, Revs, and some of their early games. Acorn Computers and Superior Software agreed terms, and inclusion of the Acornsoft logo and branding was an important part of the agreement."
The Play It Again Sam compilations were a big success. How did you decide which games from other companies to use? Was it easy to licence? Did anyone refuse permission?
"The choices were made in terms of popularity of the games and our personal preferences. I think almost all of the other companies were interested; the compilations brought in extra money for the companies without requiring much additional work from them - I can't remember anyone refusing."
Was Star Clash from Gremlin Graphics really ripped off from Elite ? it did look a bit similar.
"If I recall correctly I believe David Braben (who wrote the original version of Elite with Ian Bell) found that some sections of the code were identical, and Gremlin Graphics withdrew the Star Clash game from sale."
I remember in Electron User the constant pressure for games companies to release games on disc for the Electron. Superior Software released some, was the demand there?
"There was some interest, but quite small in comparison to the BBC Micro formats (disks and cassettes) and the main Electron format (cassettes). A difficulty with Electron disc software was that there were four different disk formats (DFS 3.5" and 5.25" disks, and ADFS 3.5" and 5.25" disks) vying for popularity, and each had a significant share of the market, so this meant that four Electron disk versions had to be produced for each release."
What did you think of all the fuss about the adverts for Barbarian?
"I was surprised because similar adverts had already appeared in many of the computer magazines (not just the BBC Micro and Electron magazines), and Acorn User was the only magazine that seemed to have any difficulty. At the end of the day, I think this may have simply resulted from a personal point of view by someone in charge at Acorn User."
Did you have any games which were finished but never released ? Do they still exist?
"A game called Jeremy Goes Jumping* was close to being published, but we decided it wasn't quite strong enough. I don't know if any copies of the game still exist now. It's a sideways-scrolling game, and the main character, Jeremy, flies over buildings in one section of the game. It's atmospheric and unusual!"
If you want to check out Jeremy Goes Jumping then visit the Lost and Found section of the
How come WH Smiths sold BBC/Electron cassettes of your games but everywhere else the versions were sold separately ?
"At one stage WH Smith's made a policy decision to only stock BBC Micro/Electron cassettes rather than individual BBC Micro and Electron formats."
Did you get a lot of people asking about Zarch on the BBC Micro? (The Acorn User April fool).
"Most people realised, but there were a small number of enquiries. Maybe a reasonable BBC Micro version of Zarch could have been produced, but it would have been considerably simplified in comparison to the Archimedes version."
What do you think of the games industry now, compared with it back in the 1980s ?
"I enjoyed the industry in the 1980s, and I still very much enjoy it now! I think business in general has tended to become more marketing-orientated over the last 20 years, whereas the early computer games business was probably more product-orientated. It can be quite a challenging big-investment business now, although we generally prefer to keep to reasonably small projects at the moment."
Many people probably thought Superior Software were long gone, but you're still here. What are you doing now and what does the future hold for Superior ?
"Superior has been in business continuously since 1982, which must make us one of the longest-running games software businesses. Superior Interactive is mainly concentrating on PC software now, and we currently have PC conversions of Stryker's Run, Codename: Droid, and Quest under development. We're also busily working on new Repton scenarios at the moment for a new release called Repton Spectacular."
Many thanks to Richard Hanson of Superior Interactive for taking the time to answer these questions. If you do have access to a PC and were a BBC Micro games player (or even if you weren't) then I recommend checking out the remakes of these classic games at
For those of you that are interested there is a Superior Interactive email newsletter available, if you subscribe to this newsletter through the special link
Matt Thompson
ÿÿÿÿISSUE5/SW2007/INDEX.HTM Issue 5, RISC OS SouthWest 2007
RISC OS SouthWest 2007
All the details on the next RISC OS show.
This year the RISC OS South West Show takes place on the 24th of February. As usual the show will be held at the spacious Webbington Hotel, in Loxton, nr Ashbridge in North Somerset.
The Webbington Hotel
This year the show is sponsored by The Bristol Acorn Risc User Group and the Wessex ARM user group. The South West show is the only RISC OS show for those who live in South Wales and the West countr
At the time of going to press a list of exhibitors wasn't available, but you can expect the usual collection of RISC OS based companies to be in attendance. The show opens at 10:00 in the morning and closes at 4:30. The admittance charge is £3.50 for adults, £2.50 for Arm Club and RISC OS Foundation members, those who are under 16's can get in for free provided they are accompanied by an Adult.
Getting there
There is a free shuttle bus service operating every 30 minutes for those coming by train from Western-Super-Mare station. The first bus will leave the station at 9:30 in the morning, the last bus will leave the hotel at 5:00 in the afternoon. For those coming by road use the following map.
RISC World
ÿÿÿÿISSUE5/TVCARD/INDEX.HTM Issue 5, TV Cards
TV Cards
Matt Thompson is on the telly...
Watching the telly on a computer was unheard of many years ago, but as technology advances things change. Now we are in a position where we can stick the old goggle box on and it can be watched whilst sitting at the computer screen.
Before I start I should mention that this article is based on using a TV card on an Iyonix PC. The first thing you need to do before you can watch any TV is to get hold of a suitable TV card. I am using the Pinnacle PCTV Rave card, which I bought from a certain RISC OS dealer who just happened to have it in stock!
Pinnacle have produced many different TV cards, two basic types are supported with software for the Iyonix. These use either the BT878 or SAA7134 chips. The version of card you obtain will dictate the software you require. See
In addition to the TV Card you will also need an aerial to get a good picture reception, just as with a real television. I use the aerial shown below which is nothing special but works fine, but then as I can see the local TV mast from my room so that may have something to do with it. In other areas something better may be needed. The aerial is plugged into the computer via one of the connections on the TV card at the back of the computer.
The TV card works really well and does the job perfectly, I have had no problems with it at all. This card should cost around £30.00. There are many other TV cards available but this one is known to work perfectly with the Iyonix.
So once you have your TV card the next thing to do is to fix it into the computer. This is not a particularly difficult task but it is well worth obtaining an online guide to fitting a TV card into an Iyonix, which you can download from here
The picture below shows what the inside of the Iyonix now looks like with it's new addition. The TV card is the red circuit board, and notice the nice collection of dust building up in there too!
This next picture shows the new connections from the TV card sticking out of the back. The TV card connectors are the the four sockets in the third row up from the bottom of the Iyonix.
So with the computer back together and the card successfully installed the next step is to obtain the software. The TV card I have requires the program !Remote, which is written by Robin Hounsome, and you can download it from
There is another program available for other TV cards !PCITV which is written by Simon Wilson and is available from
A third program exists which is called !PCITVtext, which is also written by Robin Hounsome. This, as you may have guessed, enables teletext to be displayed, this program is currently only compatible with TV cards which are compatible with Simon Wilson's !PCITV application. A version of !PCITVtext for use with !Remote is in development.
!Remote
When you have downloaded !Remote you can now install it. As is usual with RISC OS applications it is very easy to install and to get it up and running. However, if you are upgrading to the latest version of !Remote from a previous version then installation is slightly different, so refer to the supplied documentation for the correct installation procedure.
The first time you run !Remote you will need to tune in the TV channels, as you would if you had just bought a new Television. To do this run !Remote, which will install on the icon bar, then using the programs menu select the 'Channel Search' option and the following panel will appear.
There is a quick way of doing the above, if you are using !Remote for the first time (no previous installation) then clicking with the Select mouse button on the !Remote icon bar icon will automatically start it in channel search mode.
According to the accompanying helpfile, if you live in one of the listed transmitter areas you can skip the channel search and go back to the program menu and this time select 'Choices' then you will see the 'Remote Choices' window, select the 'Profiles' option in the bottom left hand corner of the panel and select your transmission area and then save it.
If like me your transmission area is not on the list (mine is Beckley, Oxford if anyone is interested) then you select 'Channel Search' and from the panel select country 'UK' in this case, then click on 'Go' and the channel search will begin. When it is complete the number of channels found will be displayed.
You will now probably need to manually shuffle the channels as they are not in the correct order as they would appear on a normal television. During scanning as each channel is found it is given a number, for example on my channel search BBC1 was channel 57 and BBC 2 was channel 63.
It is also possible to find the channel numbers online by going to the website
You will notice that Channel 5 is not listed. To find the Channel 5 number return to the BBC transmitter reception website and you will see a link to Channel 5 coverage and you can obtain the Channel 5 number from there.
Using the program Choices panel you can now enter the channels' details. There are three fields for each channel which you enter 'Station Name' which is the station's name e.g. BBC1, 'Channel' which is the number of the channel as found in the channel search, and the 'Country' of the channel, in this case UK. The panel below shows my settings.
You will notice from this window that the 6th line has 'Freeview' as the station name. This is as because you can connect a freeview box to use with your TV card as well, should you wish to do so, I have not tried this to see how well it works, what with the computer being some distance away from the television with the Freeview box, but it should work without any problems.
Another way of connecting a Freeview or Sky set top box is to use the Co or Y/C inputs. This will result in a much better picture and stereo sound. An RF connection as described above will only provide mono sound.
The screenshot below shows control panel for !Remote, it is effectively the same as a normal television remote control.
At the top of the panel it shows the name of the channel being displayed and below this is a numeric keypad which is used to select which channel you want. Number 1 being BBC 1 through to number 5 for Channel 5, with the other numbers for other channels such as number 6 for Freeview.
The 'Co' and 'Y/C' options allow the input of pictures from auxiliary equipment such as Freeview or other digital TV boxes, DVD players or Camcorders. There are standard television controls which are volume levels, brightness, contrast and saturation of the picture. The 'Hue' option is only needed and will only work when an NTSC picture source is detected.
The Pinnacle cards allow the input of composite or Y/C video and the Co and Y/C options allow these to be selected. The Pinnacle cards do not however provide any audio inputs, so for these the Iyonix own audio input must be used. A tab is provided in Choices to allow audio routing.
Finally at the bottom of the panel are four icons which perform other useful tasks. The first makes the television picture widescreen instead of normal display, the second is used to freeze the display from which you can then use the third icon - the screen grab - more effectively.
If you just grab the screen the image may be a bit blurred, but if you freeze the picture first then do a screen grab it looks a lot better. When you have made a screengrab you can open up the !Remote application by double clicking on the icon whilst holding down shift you will see the files are inside. This is the default setting, and you can customise this so that the screengrab files are put wherever you want them to go.
Finally we come to the last icon. This allows you switch from desktop mode to full screen mode.
The choices and preferences used in !Remote are found by selecting 'Choices' from the programs application icon on the icon bar. There are four sections to the choices menu, selected by clicking on one of the four tabs which are situated in the top left hand corner of the screen.
The first section is the 'Set Up Channels' which we covered earlier in the article.
The next is 'Audio Input'. This allows audio sources associated with composite and Y/C signals to be routed to the Iyonix sound system. For this to work correctly the audio from the TV card must be linked internally to the Iyonix mother board. (See the Remote help file for full details).
The third section is 'Miscellaneous Options'. From here you can configure various aspects of Remote such as window size on start up, and also modefile definitions for use with the full screen mode.
The fourth and final section is the 'Save Still Image' configuration. Here you will see the Save path option. The default is Remote$Dir which, as previously mentioned, means that all screengrabs will be put in the !Remote program directory. You can change this path to the directory where you want to put the pictures.
Below are a few screenshots taken using the framegrab option on the Remote control panel.
This Is BBC2
Have I Got News For You
Andy Burgess makes it 2-0 to Oxford Utd against Aldershot
Torchwood
Down on the allotment with the Two Ronnies
Overall adding a TV Card to your computer is not the most important upgrade you will ever make. It is a bit of a novelty really, but it does have some uses. The most obvious is if you don't have a telly, or cannot get to watch your programe because someone else is watching Eastenders or live football. Then it's the Iyonix to the rescue!
As I have the Iyonix away from a television, I find it useful to have a desktop window open with, say, BBC1 on ready, so I don't miss the start of a programme when I'm not near a television.
The !Remote software is easy to set up and use, and it should be noted at the time of writing this it is not the finished article.
The TV card does have it's uses and is quite a nice little feature to add to the Iyonix, and is also another thing to add to the list of things that RISC OS can do. The TV card should only cost you about £30.00 and the software is free. It is a nice and cheap addition to the computer and is well worht the cost, although I don't think the living room television is under too much threat just yet!
Many thanks to Robin Hounsome for providing technical information for this article so that it all makes sense, and also for his help and support in using !Remote.
All rights reserved. This program is licensed for use on a single computer by a single user.
This version is supplied for the use of RISC World subscribers only.
Published by -
APDL
39 Knighton Park Road
Sydenham
London SE26 5RN
Phone : 020 8778 2659
E-mail : info@apdl.co.uk
iSV, NDT and Typography are trademarks of APDL and iSV Products All other trademarks are acknowledged.
Contents
Typography 500
Using the fonts
Using fonts from CD
Viewing the examples
Installing a single font
Installing a font group
Choosing groups to install
Installation options
Installing to !Fonts folders
Installing to !EasyFont
Installing to !FontDir
Font Catalogue
FontCatlog main window
Changing fonts
Show table
!Chars table
Show Family
Show Catalogue
FontCatLog Preferences
Printing
!FontCatlog problem solving
Odd error messages when printing.
Slow Screen Redraw
RISC OS compatibility
Loading NDT fonts into !FontED
Loading NDT fonts in FontFiend/Dr Fonty
CC TurboDrivers
Problem Solving
Fonts appear with upper case names in some apps
Fonts do not print properly but are OK on screen.
Abort on Data transfer errors
What is NDT?
The font groups
Decorative group
Digital group
Designer group
Eastern Group
Gothic group
NonLatin group
OpenFace group
SansSerif group
Script group
Serif group
Symbolic group
Uncial group
Western group
Quick tips on using fonts
EuroSymbols
RISCWorld
ÿÿÿÿISSUE5/VA/INDEX.HTM Issue 5, VirtualAcorn Tech Support
VirtualAcorn Tech Support
More from Aaron's tech support notebook
Until Christmas the old tech support department (the far right hand side of my desk) was pretty empty. We were getting the odd problem but not one that involved any head scratching to find a solution. At least, not any problems that I took enough notice of....
The Mysterious Case of the odd Shutdown error
In early November I had a strange report on the VirtualAcorn forums of a shutdown problem with a VirtualAcorn. As the user was trying to shutdown VirtualAcorn they got a strange error, Bad Command 12. The problem was reported in the VirtualRPC-AdjustSA forum. I ran a few tests on a copy of VirtualRPC-AdjustSA and could not reproduce the problem so I ended up suggesting that it was something specific to the user setup. I then thought no more about it as I had no further reports of the problem. Mind you in some ways that's not surprising. Actually all the user didn't really have a copy of VirtualRPC-AdjustSA, instead they had VirtualRPC-SA/SE, but had posted their query in the wrong forum, which was not very helpful. This meant my search for the problem was immediately sent down the wrong track...
In late December, over Christmas when we were closed, we had another report of the same problem on the forums from the same user, this time in the correct forum. However I didn't connect the two as being the same report so they got logged as separate problems, one with VRPC-SA and one with VRPC-AdjustSA. Then a couple of other people also reported the same problem. One of them had a VirtualRPC-SE, so now it looked like a general problem with all versions of VirtualAcorn. Since we had just released some further free upgrades these looked like being the suspect, but I still couldn't find the problem. In the end I had to conclude that the users were doing "something", but I couldn't fathom what.
I then finally had a brainwave, and asked all the users with the same problem to complete a questionnaire. The first thing that struck me was that none of them was using an Adjust VirtualAcorn. Then something else struck, all of them were using a softloaded RISC OS 4.39. There was a third commonalty, all of them had downloaded the VirtualAcorn upgrades designed for RISC OS 6, but none of them were actually running it.
This gave me a big clue, from RISC OS 4.39 onwards the power management system is different. The Adjust versions of VirtualAcorn don't support the older system, but VRPC-SE and VRPC-SA did, except it was now depreciated. So it sounded as though somehow the users were getting bits of one system, and bits of another. Indeed this was the case. Installed in the !Boot sequence of the problem machines was a copy of our old !VAShutdwn application.
So how did it get there? Well except for the gentlemen who had three different copies, of three different versions, in three different places, it got their from the SelectSupport folder we supply with VirtualRPC-SE and VirtualRPC-SA. However it's actually not needed any longer as even the base versions of VirtualAcorn now support the newer standard. What VAShutdown does is provide a neat way of returning to Windows when VirtualAcorn is shut down. However it's no longer needed, as the RISC OS shutdown warning has an Off button on VRPC. So instead of clicking on Shutdown, the user just needs to click on this Off button.
So what's the solution to the problem? Answer, delete VAShutdown, then make sure the desktop shutdown warning is enabled, and remember to click on the correct button. That was easy wasn't it, shame it took me several weeks to work it out. I would remove VAShutdown from the SelectSupport folder, but it's needed for some versions of RISC OS prior to 4.39. I'll have to think about it...
Printing...er...what printing
The preview release of RISC OS 6, doesn't support printing. On the other hand the existing VirtualRPC-SE and VirtualRPC-Adjust didn't support RISC OS 6, so we fixed the problem and released an upgrade prior to Christmas. Just after Christmas I had a couple of people claiming they couldn't print. Well of course they can't, RISC OS 6 is a preview and doesn't support printing. Yes, they knew that, but they had reverted back to the base version of RISC OS, and it still wouldn't print. Whoops.
The upshot of this was that I had managed to accidentally break the printing system in HostFS when I produced the upgrades. Fixes are now available from the
More RISC OS 6 malarky
Having resolved the problem with RISC OS 6 on the standard VirtualAcorns we now needed to address the problem with the StrongARM versions. Although these seemed fine for general use we had already discovered that hardware scrolling, for example pressing F12 and typing *modules, would cause a lock up. This problem had been noted before the RISC OS 6 preview was released, but we hadn't had a chance to investigate. Graeme tracked down and fixed the problem in his usual timely manner. In the meantime I was waiting for a report from a user who had found the problem, but none came. Does no one use the command line any more? These updates are also available from the VirtualAcorn downloads section.
FireFox
I was a little disappointed when the first new release of Firefox didn't work on any VirtualRPC. Indeed, the only machine it did apparently work on was the Iyonix. It wouldn't even work on the A9 computer. Given that both VirtualAcorn and Advantage6 sponsored the work on FireFox, and Castle didn't, I was little miffed. However Peter Naulls has now released another new version of FireFox that works on Iyonix, A9 and on the StrongArm VirtualAcorns. So a well deserved round of applause for Peter's sterling efforts is in order.
There is a copy of Firefox suitable for VirtualRPC-SA and AdjustSA in the Iyonix folder in this issue. I'm off to go any play with an iMac...
