ROX Filer Updated: Writing your own linux software and more

Once regarded as a quirky and unfriendly OS used by stereotypical computer geeks, Linux has in little time radically grown into a cool, smart and rapidly developing platform that the bigger news websites would like to believe is the future Microsoft Windows slayer- they've obviously not heard of RISC OS then. Regardless of that little matter, Linux has been enjoying its first taste of RISC OS in the form of ROX-Filer.

Developed by Thomas Leonard and friends, ROX-Filer is a graphical file manager for Unix/Linux which provides a RISC OS-like interface. It is also the core component of the ROX desktop; a RISC OS-like desktop for Unix/Linux. Recently, ROX-Filer 1.1.3, a new developer release of the filer, has been released with the following changes from 1.1.2 (names of contributors given in brackets):

• Added 'Huge, With...' display styles. In huge mode, normal icons are scaled up if they're too small. This is mainly useful with thumbnails...
  
• Added a ROX-Filer/Styles file for default colours (default filer background is now lighter). The styles can be overridden in /ROX-Filer/Styles (suggested by Stephen Watson).
  
• Pinboards and panels should now work with IceWM without needing -o (Christopher Arndt).
  
• Allow text messages in the toolbar to go off the side (instead of resizing the window).
  
• Opening the shell minibuffer with a selection adds ' "$@' after the cursor. Without a selection, the name of the file under the cursor is added.
  
• Pressing the `' key opens the menu (suggested by Christopher Arndt). Hold down Ctrl for the File submenu.
  
• The AppMenu file has become AppInfo.xml and contains extra bits -- tooltips for applications and extra details for the `Info' box.
  
• Added a 'Refresh' button to the info box, and made it look nicer.
  
• Automatic resizing of windows when changing directory is now optional (requested by Paul F. Johnson and Andreas Thorn).
  
• The symlink box allows you to choose to create relative or absolute links (suggested by Stephen Watson).
  
• Winking an item in a directory makes it flash twice instead of once (easier to see). Also, creating a new file or directory from the menu winks the new item.
  
• Double clicking on a filer window's background resizes the window (Denis Manente).
  
• If an item's name is truncated, show it in a tooltip when the pointer is held over the item (Denis Manente).
  
• Translations:
  
  
  
  • Hungarian by Andras Mohari.
    
  • Russian by Dmitry Elfimov.
    
  • Updated the French translation (Vincent Lefèvre).
    
  
  

• Main site (filer, task manager, archiver, text editor, alarm clock)
  
• Diego's ROX page (trashcan, wrapper applications and utilities)
  
• Chris' ROX software page (panel applets and wrappers)
  
• Stephen Watson's software (wrappers, compression, free disk space monitor, log watcher, clock applet, load monitor and email monitor applet)
  
• Leandro Pereira's app launcher (Menon type thing)
  

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