RiScript 5.0 released | Drobe.co.uk archives

RiScript 5.0 released

By Chris Williams. Published: 1st Aug 2005, 13:05:32 | Permalink | Printable

PDF generation is back and it's big

For some, it will hopefully be worth the wait. The PDF and PostScript authoring package for RISC OS, RiScript, has reached version 5 and is now available online, for a price.

Along with the swanky new website, RiScript now supports the clipping of paths, texts and images, is 32bit compatible, and performs anti-aliasing on paths. It also comes with a new manual and has a re-organised configuration system. Support for printing PDFs from applications, support for PDF annotations and faster PDF interpretation are slated for future versions.

RiScript developers Roeland van den Bos and Jeroen Medema are said to be "excited" by the release. In June 2004, RiScript was freed from its previous publisher, Cerilica, and later became an independent product.

Links

RiScript website How to pronounce 'RiScript'

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Discussion

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Big up to the developers Jeroen Medema and Roeland van den Bos. They seem to have produced an excellent product and a terrific web site to go with it. I hope other developers take note.

*goes off to buy his copy online*

fylfot on 1/8/05 1:24PM
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It would be interesting to see a comparison of RiScript vs. GhostScript. I guess RiScript is easier to setup/use than GhostScript - does it have more features too?

Adam

adamr on 1/8/05 1:37PM
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just finished buying it :-D

Now I can't wait to go for a play...

ROHC on 1/8/05 1:38PM
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Ha! just looked booked in my MOT, and as it was cheaper...It was present-for-self time :@P

Seeing as I use PDF at work, compatibility was of upmost importance and the limit on Taboroca got a bit annoying :@P

em2ac on 1/8/05 1:42PM
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flyfot: You're right! Their site has to be one of the best sites I have seen in a while

em2ac on 1/8/05 1:43PM
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I did use RiScript 4.13, but now convert postscript (created on RISC OS) to pdf using GhostScript 8.51 on the PC. It seems far faster than doing the conversion using RiScript 4.13 (under VirtualAcorn) and allows me to manually specify the paper size before the conversion, which although I have it set up correctly in RISC OS in !Printers+.ps.paper, isn't always correctly read by GhostScript.

Examples of the output are on [link] - as you can see the EFF type-1 postscript fonts are retained, which works great. So I'm not sure if upgrading to RiScript 5.0 would give me any benefit yet.

Future versions of RiScript - "Support for printing PDFs from applications" - would this bypass the postscript generation altogether? (e.g. the problems with printing sprites) Creation of password protected pdfs - is this a possibility?

govind on 1/8/05 3:10PM
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Just purchased it and downloaded it twice (once with Firefox and once with Oregano) but SparkFS can't read either file :-(

Anyone else had this problem?

Gary

gazza_fp on 1/8/05 3:41PM
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gazza_fp:

Yes, I experienced the same problem. The file seems to be truncated and the end reads (in plaintext): "Maximum execution time of 90 seconds exceeded", which seems to indicate some timeout for the download. I have sent an e-mail to riscript.nl.

wuerthne on 1/8/05 4:04PM
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To gazza_fp:

I had exactly the same problem and therefore sent an e-mail to RiScript. Now waiting for their answer.

Paul Sprangers

delink on 1/8/05 4:06PM
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Same problem, but in my case the download was *exactly* 2,000,000 bytes long - suspicious! Also the file name is 'index2/php'.

ArthurT on 1/8/05 4:16PM
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We are aware of a problem with the archive. We are working on a solution. We'll let you know when it is fixed. Sorry about it. Nice to have those positive comments on the web site though.

Jeroen on 1/8/05 4:17PM
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Great news!

hzn on 1/8/05 4:35PM
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Nice site indeed and congrats to Jeroen and Roeland on completing Riscript. Better check into how to set up a paypal account then

AMS on 1/8/05 6:28PM
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To Jeroen:

wish I had read this a bit earlier, would have saved me sending and you receiving a couple of mails.

Have been waiting for this version to appear ever since Paul Reuvers (XAT) showed a test-version many many months ago during an Acorner-gathering.

Ike Busser

Ike on 1/8/05 6:28PM
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I've not even got as far as attempting to download it. The only email I received when I bought RiScript was a receipt from PayPal. There's no Download ID in sight, which I think is what I'm after.

fylfot on 1/8/05 8:03PM
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Nice website. I checked out the source, they use the open-source Mambo content management system, which I haven't checked out myself yet, even though I have access to it. But it's not the tools themselves, but how you use them, and the site is nicely prepared.

Going back on topic, it's great to see a new release. I used it years ago and it was great, even back then. Must be more pleasurable to use than Acrobat 6 Professional :-p

sascott on 2/8/05 2:25AM
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We improved the download process, due to which some of you had download problems (truncated files). The problem was a combination of file size (about 3M), buffer size of the browser used (in some cases 2000000 bytes), slow connections, and a server time-out of 90 seconds. All and all we have decided to remove the manual from the archive. This is to be downloaded separately. Any other problems: please mail us at support at riscript dot nl. Reply to fylfot: I'll mail you shortly after this message to get your problem resolved.

Jeroen on 2/8/05 8:50AM
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Download seems to be working fine now. Just have to wait for my licence file.

peterb on 2/8/05 10:53AM
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Download worked perfectly for me too - for RiScript as well as the manual. Just waiting for my licence files too.

hzn on 2/8/05 4:47PM
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Yes, same here: Download worked fine, just the two license files are now missing.

sbellon on 2/8/05 10:11PM
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OK. Now have the program complete with licence files. Excellent service from Jeroan and Roeland

gazza_fp on 3/8/05 4:20AM
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I received my licence files last night. I haven't had time to put everything to the test, but the most obvious thing is how fast it is.

charles on 3/8/05 8:01AM
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Can anyone comment on the speed of version 5 on the Iyonix when compared with the speed of version 4 via Aemulor? Also, how is the rendering speed of PDFs compared to that of !PDF?

ksattic on 3/8/05 4:56PM
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Still no license files received here yet, which is worrying me a bit since other people now seem to have theirs.

SimonC on 3/8/05 6:01PM
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No licence files here either (purchased and d/loaded on Monday eve. However, I did notice something about licence files having to me created manually ATM. So if RiScript.nl have been innundated with sales... creating the licence files may take longer than expected.

I'm prepared to wait another day or so then I think I'll have to email for clarification.

gj on 3/8/05 8:31PM
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We are sorry that creating the licence files takes (much) longer than expected. We quite underestimated the number of people that would buy RiScript, so our process of licence generation was not up to par with dealing with these numbers. We are sorry, but hope to catch up today, otherwise tomorrow. We hope you have the patience for now.

Jeroen on 4/8/05 8:16AM
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Jeroen: Well, mine turned up this morning, so I'm happy now, or I will be when I've had time to have a play with the software this evening. Congratulations on it turning out to be a lot more successful than you expected!

SimonC on 4/8/05 10:03AM
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Mine too turned up this morning

Nice application, fast, slick and professional. Thanks very much.

Hairy on 4/8/05 11:38AM
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Jeroen:

"We quite underestimated the number of people that would buy RiScript"

Glad to hear it! Victims of your own success ;-)

I'd like to thank you publically for excellent support.

Incidentally, I've created an add-on buttonbar for RiScript 5, which gives buttons for save as Text/Draw/PDF, etc. Available from:

[link]

(This URL will change at some point to: [link])

Stewy on 4/8/05 11:41AM
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Got my license files and tried RiScript right away. First with a few small PostScript files with some blends (that is clipping is intrinsic): wow, blends look ok and speed was amazing compared to the old v4.13 with Aemulor. So I thought I'll do a real test with a 170MB PostScript file containing loads of big JPEGs (main part of GAG-News issue 80) - I remember when I tried that with RiScript 4.13 the lack of speed resulted in me installing GhostScript and GView on Windows for proof-viewing since I didn't plan to spend that long on it. With RiScript 5.0 loading this file took some time but it has to inspect some 170 MB (onehundredseventymegabytes) but afterwards the screen display of text was pretty fast and the images did apprear in good speed (with 4.13 text came slow and images took ages).

So my overall fist impression is: *Impressive* - Roeland van den Bos and Jeroen Medema really did a good job. Thanks!

hzn on 4/8/05 12:45PM
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Govind:

"Creation of password protected pdfs - is this a possibility?"

The new version provides support for this (yay!). Adding a password coudldn't be easier, and you can also 'restrict' how the PDF can be used, e.g. allow printing, but not save as text.

It's less than 25 quid, with oodles of features, including save as Draw, which I don't think Ghostscript offers. Go on, buy a copy, you know you want to ;-)

Stewy on 04/08/05 1:13PM
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ksattic:

"Also, how is the rendering speed of PDFs compared to that of !PDF?"

Rendering speed is pretty good (and they have announced that they are working to speed it up further). !PDF is slightly quicker than RiScript, but that's not comparing like with like: unlike RiScript, !PDF doesn't convert a document's fonts (which is a very important feature of RiScript); doesn't support clipping, which can make for messy images in !PDF; generally, !PDF allows you to read documents, but doesn't guarantee that everything is exactly as created.

Strengths of !PDF, in my opinion, are: F4 for search -- I *really* hope that that's on the wishlist for RiScript; the ability to open multiple windows. In true RISC OS tradition, I use both ;-)

Anyway, the new RiScript is, for me, a big step forward, with much-wanted features and the promise of further development. Very good news!

Stewy on 04/08/05 1:23PM
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In the meantime my license arrived as well. Nice work!

But I second what Stewy wrote: Having multiple windows open at the same time is a must! And search should be there as well.

Apart from that: Really, really nice work!

sbellon on 04/08/05 7:16PM
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In response to popular demand....

A new, improved, colour-fast formula of my add-on buttonbar for RiScript is available now from: [link]

Enjoy! -- Do I look bothered? Face. Bothered. Bothered. Face.

Stewy on 04/08/05 8:08PM
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Well this is a YMMV then. I think it's a pretty poor website that renders badly in Oregano2. I found it all a bit clunky and I've been unable to get to the user manual despite registering, paying etc.

Looking forward to using the product though.

TonyStill on 13/08/05 6:29PM
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