February Windows Shareware

An assortment of good-quality shareware.

By David Nourse

It's a well-designed productivity killer and has some useful configuration options for the board dimensions and background image (which is uncovered as you remove the pieces). The image options include selecting a directory of image files to get a different image during each game. Images are accurately resized to fit the area of the board, and the board's dimensions are changed to maintain correct image aspect ratios -- a neat bit of programming.

Other features include a high-score table and some basic sound effects, which all add up to make a very attractive time waster.

Excalibur's Program Manager can store up to 100 user programs. The simplest way to create a program is to record your keystrokes, but for more sophisticated purposes there's a programming mode which makes up to seven labels available for loops, conditionals and subroutines. The function bank includes a Custom configuration that allows you to map your programs to Excalibur's keyboard, complete with tool tips to clarify your more obscure abbreviations.

If you haven't used RPN before, give it a try -- there's plenty of online help available and this program may well convert you to an easier way of crunching numbers.

The package includes many aids to productivity. Toolbars can be moved, edited and created to put commands at your fingertips; a keyboard macro editor is provided for creating up to 26 macros; and the Right-Click Wizard allows rapid changes to the arguments of common tags (such as colour codes and image links). Code can also be 'beautified' automatically, making it much more readable with proper indentation, and the list and table wizards can dramatically speed up the mundane tasks of creating sizeable lists or tables.

Arachnophilia has an internal browser for instant preview, and also allows switching between external browsers (up to six of them) to ensure that your pages are going to be readable by most Web users. It also includes tools for analysing and updating your Web site via inbuilt ftp facilities.

It's also accompanied by excellent documentation -- essential for such a full-featured program. It can only be described as a labour of love and a must-try for dedicated HTML coders.

Reptile has a simple user interface and a wide range of inbuilt settings (presets) which can be used without further modification or adopted as a basis for your own experiments. Backgrounds can be saved in GIF or JPEG format; if you have a GIF animation package the 'growth' of a texture can be recorded as a sequence of images and assembled into an animated background -- a striking effect supported by current versions of Navigator and Internet Explorer.

Not every option will give you earth-shattering results -- as the authors point out, using an image file as a base for texture generation is often unrewarding -- but if you're prepared to experiment, Reptile can produce some impressive results.

Numerous options are available for all graphics functions, allowing the creation of objects ranging from simple elements, such as geometric shapes, through to complex assemblies of multiple elements. The library functions provide complete facilities for creating and activating multiple libraries of elements -- storing, listing, renaming and removing them, and compacting fragmented libraries.

MINOS creations can be exported to other programs in standard International Graphic Exchange Standard (IGES) format and as VRML 2.0 files (making it useful for advanced Web design).

Despite this package's many virtues, it falls down in one important area: there's no inbuilt help. This would be highly desirable in such a complex program, although the author has partly met this need by providing an online reference manual at his Web site. However, the manual is incomplete and being online, not very convenient. He's also provided the first couple of modules of a tutorial, which will greatly assist novice designers.

If you have any interest in design work, try MINOS -- it may prove well worthwhile.

The editor allows you to give each phrase a brief description and assign a shortcut to a phrase menu, which pops up just above the system tray and is a simple way to access phrases for those who dislike memorising too many key combinations -- if you share this dislike, you can call up the phrase menu by right-clicking the system tray icon.

QuickPhrase isn't an elaborate application, but it's a genuine time-saver, unlike many well-intentioned utilities which are often not particularly useful.