News in brief By Chris Williams. Published: 3rd Jan 2006, 20:53:24 | Permalink | PrintableUpdated Geminus, RiScript, plus Motion-JPEG fun, freeware news and more Geminus developments
A new bugfixed version of Geminus is now available from Spellings Software. A fault which resulted in the graphics acceleration software failing to cache the redraw operations of applications has been addressed along with a compatibility issue with Organiser, and an improved default configuration is now included. Developer Adrians Lees, who is currently in the process of moving house, has also crafted a high speed JPEG decoder which can play a series of DVD resolution JPEG images at 20 frames per second without the aid of DMA support. Although this won't contribute to the golden objective of achieving DVD MPEG video playback, Adrian notes that a few AVI files do use the Motion-JPEG codec. More importantly, he believes that the software can be reversed to create a rapid JPEG image encoder.
In addition, Geminus stablemate DeskDebug has been tweaked and updated to recognise dynamic procedure and function calls.
RiScript update
A new release of PDF authoring package RiScript was sneaked out just before Christmas. Version 5.02 includes configurable scale presets, marked hyperlinks, automatic closing of the current document when the main window is closed, a page view slider, export from PostScript now defaults to PDF, and various other bug fixes and tweaks. Co-developer Jeroen Medema added that the next version of RiScript will potentially include CMYK sprite support, Taborca style direct PDF generation, Type0 font support and text searching facilities.
 RiScript 5.02's new configuration window
Unix Porting Project applies brake to subs
UPP gaffer and Firefox porter Peter Naulls told his subscribers in an email last night that he will not be selling any new subscriptions. The New Zealand born programmer moved to California, US, last year with his family, and says he now has less time to commit to the project. Current customers will have their subscription periods extended indefinitely while the support mailing list will stay open. Peter also hinted to his users that he hopes to relaunch the project later this year with a new pricing structure, possibly using the riscos.info branding.
Mission Impossible?
The webmistress of links database risc-os.net has set a challenge to all users on the aforementioned website: Can the community find 10000 valid RISC OS related URLs before the end of 2006? Describing the task as appearing to be "insurmountable", Rebecca Shalfield said roughly 26 links must be added per day in order to achieve this target.
She added: "If you feel like making this one of your New Year's Resolution by offering a small amount of your spare time to assist in this massive task, both yourself and the rest of the RISC OS Community will feel the benefits and be immensely grateful."
In brief
Jochen Lueg has developed a new shareware utility, OpenAll, which will open all the sub-directories in a directory dragged onto it. Its author says his program is handy for hunting through multiple directories and the software can be instructed to only open a sub-directory if it contains files of a given filetype - useful for searching through a CD for image files, for example.
A new application that manipulates TV video recorded using a Siemens Gigaset M740 AV DVB-T receiver has been developed by Thomas Milius. The gadget uses a standard ethernet network to send video files to a RISC OS computer so that they can be edited and replayed. Thomas has also ported a tool that converts the recorded MPEG video into a format suitable for KinoAMP and other players.
Terrifying as it sounds, OvationPro users can now convert documents in DDL format into HTML. Ray Favre's new software 'maps' text styles from the original work to configurable sequences of HTML tags. Images are also supported.
Safely shutdown and reboot your computer from the command line with Steve Potts' new tool. David Ruck's graphical taskwindow has been tweaked to add text cursor control and ARMalyser by the same author has also been updated. Cumana's Holy Bible software (not safe for work; gratuitous nudity) is now 32bit compatible and had a few bug fixes applied to it. Online gallery app Webgen2 now supports CSS for layout among other enhancements. 7thsoftware's Routines library now includes Throwback window support and initial support for displaying anti-aliased fonts.
Small developers invited to South West show
The organisers of the RISC OS South West show have repeated calls for smaller developers and dealers to get in contact to exhibit at the event. It's hoped freeware and shareware programmers can use the opportunity to meet their users, demonstrate their work and discuss new features. The show takes place in February in north Somerset, UK.
And finally
Formally known as the Derbyshire Acorn Risc Club, the DARC Technology Club are holding an evening on using eBay on Monday January 9th; see their website for details. Organiser Matt Cook said, "We can even tell you which RISC OS browsers work best with eBay. For new users, occasional buyers or the seasoned sellers, this evening has something for everyone. Lots of hints, tips and advice for buyers and sellers, packed into a couple of hours."
Castle's Iyonix computer was name dropped in the release notes for NetBSD 3.0. Listed as a 'major change', the port to the XScale powered computer was completed by Gavan Fantom.
Also, during yesterday evening we improved the way in which the drobe.co.uk login system works internally and as part of the deployment of this new code, all users were logged out. If you are having trouble remembering your password to log back in, drop us an email.
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