PD World
Paul Brett with the latest PD roundup.
RISC OS has always had a lively PD and Shareware scene, and its good to see that this is continuing. New releases seem to land on my desk with great frequency, so here is my pick of the last 2 months releases, plus an old favourite that I simply cannot do without.
EasiFiler - Craig Burton and Richard Butler
EasiFiler is an application which is designed to make launching and using applications much easier. The idea was to produce an application which would replace the resource filer. EasiFiler does this, but still allows access to the resources contained in the ResourceFS filing system, which are needed by many applications. This is made possible by the fact that most filing systems consist of 2 modules. The first contains all the code needed by the filing system, while the second creates a Wimp frontend for the system (the Apps icon on the iconbar). EasiFiler allows you to have easy access to your favourite applications, directories and files. Clicking on the icon open a window containing 16 icons. To add an object, just drag it into your chosen icon. The object will then be added to the window. Once it is there, it can be activated by simply clicking on it - you do not need to double click, as with the regular RISC OS filer.
EasiFiler
EasiHTML - Chris Bell
This has now developed into a general HTML editor and provides a convenient means to edit HTML files without needing to understand HTML code. Use it to change font sizes, image borders, table layouts, colours, horizontal rules, list formats, file extensions, page titles and more, in both single files and across whole sites. It can mend broken links in groups of files and add pictorial navigation buttons to the top and bottom of pages. There are few special facilities for users of Icon Technology's EasiWriter word processor, including a means to produce coordinated print and HTML output.
EasiHTML
FontManager2 - Tom Tanner
!FontMGR2 was designed to give a better interface to you for your fonts. It is fair to say that it performs this task very well. In addition to this, !FontMGR2 allows you to group fonts and turn those groups on and off. So that applications you are using can have those fonts hidden from them. This means no more five yard font menus eating up your screen when you go to change font. It also allows you to store setups and its display features are not only configureable, but also a pleasure to use. Note that this program requires up to date versions of the Toolbox modules.
Invaders
This little patch allows you to play the "hidden" space invaders game in RISC OS 4, if you didn't know the game was there then you are in for a surprise.
PalmLink - David Breakwell
I am pleased to announce the first release of !PalmLink for RISC OS. At present this is still a beta version but I have been using for quite some time with no real issues.!Palmlink allows RISC OS users for the first time to connect Palm OS devices to their machines and transfer files to/from the handheld. To use this software you do need a serial cable/cradle for your Palm. In addition the package currently supports the conversion of text files to DOC files on the Palm.The package is careware.
PalmLink
RemoteLJ - David Breakwell
If you have a Hewlett Packard Laserjet printer then you will need this utility. Now you can control all the features of the printer including Economode just as you would from Microsoft Windows.
RemoteLJ
RISCSearch
For all of you, who don't know about !RiscSearch: !RiscSearch is a meta-search engine, and as far as I know it is the only one available for RISC OS anywhere. It helps you to find web-pages about a certain topic by asking different search engines about the keywords you supply. It collects results from (at the moment) 9 different engines, filters out duplicate matches and then presents all links in a window of your web-browser.
RISC Search
ScummVM
This is an adventure game interpreter for the SCUMM system. The SCUMM system was created by LucasArts when they wrote Maniac Mansion and was used in various games after that. It was used to create some notable classics such as the Monkey Island series and Day of the Tentacle. This interpreter does a pretty stunning job of playing a good portion of the games. At the moment the iMUSE system (context sensitive music) isn't supported, however there is sound support for some games. Now you can play all the old LucusArts adventure games on a RISC OS machine!
That's all we have time for this issue, as usual if you have any PD, Freeware or Shareware applications you would like featured why not get in touch with the Paul Brett