Disc World

The RISC World Xmas bonanza

David Bradforth and Aaron Timbrell explain the special offerings on this months RISC World disc

During one of those editorial meetings, a telephone conversation (That's me relaxing in the office and David on a wind swept platform complaining about lack of trains - ED), which go on oh so regularly in the magazine industry, we were looking for ways to make the RISC World disc even better value for money. The articles are some of the most informative, interesting, examples of their type, true, but we've got an entire CD-ROM and so there is easily potential for much more.

Much more in the way of what I hear you ask. Complete, commercial, applications I'm afraid. The aim for the future is that each disc will contain at least one fully working application and - if it's a time limited version as is the case this month - we'll always put another commercial item on the disc at the same time.

What this means in a practical sense - the value of each RISC World disc, if bought retail, would increase substantially: the software on this month's disc being worth well over �200. If you have a particular item you'd like to see on the disc, please contact the editor, Aaron Timbrell, by email to editor@riscworld.com. I may very well become involved later.

Textease Studio: Exclusive, 3-month, fully functional version

One of the benefits, he admits under his breath, of having multi-platform capability within a house is you get to experience the best of both worlds. For example, on my Risc PC I have Photodesk 3 Light: easily a very capable bitmap graphics package; whereas my PC has a combination of Paintshop Pro 7 and Corel PhotoPaint 7.

Textease Studio is somewhat unique, as it's available for PC, Macintosh and Acorn users all of which are file compatible. Perhaps more to the point, it's an incredibly capable piece of software, and has indeed been used for a number of advertising/packaging/newsletter designs by Softease Limited themselves.

The latest edition of Textease not only includes a DTP/WP element, but adds a spreadsheet and database. If you're looking for a spreadsheet on a par with Eureka, or a database to match Datapower 2 you'll be disappointed, but these elements of the Textease suite are incredibly capable, and link in very well with the whole easy to use philosophy upon which Textease has always been marketed.

This software is fully capable; you can save, print and so on until the end of February 2001. After that point, you'll need to contact Softease Limited, quoting RISC World, and give a credit card number to continue to save/print/fully use the software within this suite. Full details are given within the Textease archive on disc.

DrawWorks New Millennium : Exclusive 1-month, fully functional version

Well since we are running a series on DrawWorks it only seems reasonable to include the latest version. This is a fully functional version. However it does not include the extras supplied on the full CD, such as 2500 fonts, 2000 clips, Mr Clippy, FontFiend and many many others.

DrawWorks New Millennium has received rave reviews from the RISCOS press and offers many advanced and professional level features unavailable on any other platform. If you are not sure how to use DrawWorks then consult the supplied on-line manual or see the DrawWorks articles in this issue or in issue 4.

Professional Typography 2100 sampler: Exclusive from iSV Products

With a DTP package and a graphics package on our disc, we'd be somewhat silly if we chose not to include some fonts for you to play with at the same time. It's not a big area we wish to go into though, so in the iSVFonts archive you'll find 50 sample fonts in 7 different families taken from the Professional Typography 2100 CD-ROM from iSV Products.

There's easily enough here to provide you with a representative sample of the complete contents of this CD-ROM. Should you, after playing with these, decide to buy it there's a special RISC World price at the moment of �11.50 - call +44(0)1344 455769 or email atimbrell@aol.com. That said, the complete content of this CD-ROM is present on the DrawWorks New Millennium disc, available for �31.50 from the same number. DrawWorks Millennium (the older version) was reviewed in issue two of RISC World, with an update in issue three (and a full version on this months CD- ED).

PublishArt 98 sampler: Special from APDL and iSV Products

Clipart is a funny thing. Some of it's good, some of it's appalling. Most of it's pretty useless, if the truth be known. PublishArt, developed by SmartDTP, is a CD-ROM consisting of useful clipart. No better way to describe it really: it's useful clipart. There's a wide variety of items on this disc, for both print and web-based usage, on both PC and Acorn computers.

The sampler archive was originally distributed with RISC User at the start of volume 12, but is included here as it contains a number of useful clipart items and it's possible that at least some of you were unaware of RISC User.

To order PublishArt 98, please call APDL on 0208 778 2659 or iSV Products on 01344 455769.

PlayBack: Complete Software from ProAction

PlayBack allows you to record in real-time all mouse and keyboard operations as they are carried out. Recordings may be saved and replayed, making it an ideal tool for training and demonstrating the features of the desktop and RISC OS applications. Gone, almost, are the days where you have to sit with an individual child at the computer showing them how to use Draw � PlayBack can do it all for you!

Features of PlayBack include:

Synchronised text commentary may be added to recordings.
Recordings may be converted to ASCII format for editing and fine-tuning.
A Public Domain play-only version is supplied, which may be freely distributed with your recordings.
Recordings may be up to one hour long.
A repeat operation is available allowing for continuous demonstrations.
Works with all RISC OS compliant desktop software.

This software is not public domain, and is being provided as an example of the capabilities of the software. It is, none the less, the full software. To register, and obtain the source code, please email dbproaction@aol.com who'll be glad to send details to you.

The Complete DiscWorld list

So in alphabetical order this months DiscWorld contains:

ANCESTOR+ - Demo version of APDL's Ancestor+.
ARMCODE - files supporting the ARM Code articles by Brian Pickard.
BEGINPRG - The examples from the BASIC programming series.
CHAOSDEMO - A demo version of The Chaos Engine from R-Comp.
DWNM - Full version of DrawWorks new Millennium (time limited).
DWORKS - Example drawfiles from the DrawWorks Revealed series.
FONTS - 10 sample font families from Typography 2100.
HTML3 - A new full version of the HTML editing package.
PD - The latest PD software from our PD column.
PLAYBACK - Complete version of this mouse recording software.
PUBLISHART - Sample images from Publish Art 98.
SPHERES - The shareware version of Spheres of Chaos as featured in Games World.
STARPROG - Programs from the StarProg article.
TEXTEASE - Full version of TextEase studio (time limited).
TYPO2500 - Examples of all the fonts supplied with DrawWorks New Millennium.
WML - Support for the HTMP/WML article by Richard Goodwin.

Utilities

This CD-ROM contains a number of utilities and pieces of software to accompany the articles in the magazine, as well as two copies of the magazine. The copy of the magazine in the RISCOS directory has most of the images in sprite format to speed up display on RISC OS-based machines. The copy of the magazine in the ALIEN directory has the images saved as PNGs and JPEGs, and should be viewable on other operating systems.

There are three utilities to help you read this disc (RISC OS users only). These can be found hidden inside the !RiscWorld application in the UTILITIES directory (The !RiscWorld application automatically uses these utilities if they are required):

A file-only copy of Fresco, to display the HTML. This will only run if you don't already have a copy of Fresco installed, so that it won't overwrite your cache.
ArcFS, which can be used to read some of the archived software on the disc.
SparkPlug, an alternative de-archiver which can also read Zip files.

Usenet archive

Also included on the disc is an archive of the comp.sys.acorn.* newsgroups since early October 2000. These are stored in a special read-only version of Messenger Pro which will allow you to view the messages, but nothing more complicated. The archive is presented 'as is', and RISC World doesn't make any guarantee about the usefulness, relevance or acceptability of any information contained in it.