Acorn News Service Newsletter

Issue: 234 (16 December 2007)

Featured site this issue: http://www.drobe.co.uk/riscos/artifact2156.html

Commercial News

New RISC OS Programmers Reference Manual

RISCOS Ltd has announced the first printed update to the RISC OS Programmers Reference Manuals in over 15 years. The manual is 472 pages long and covers all the additions and changes to the Window Manager (Wimp) that have occurred since RISC OS 3. It does not include any items which have since been deprecated, so it may need to be read in conjunction with the original PRM Volume 3 if you need to use both RISC OS 3 only functions and newer RISC OS 4/6 functions.

The normal retail price is GBP40 with a discount down to GBP38 for Select or Foundation members, plus postage and packing (GBP4.50 in the UK, GBP10.50 to Europe, or GBP15 to USA and Australia).

When the Window Manager first appeared in 1987, it was a new and novel concept: now these are almost universal in modern OSes. The Manual contains the following main sections:

• Introduction to the Window Manager
  
• Core concepts
  
• The Window Manager environment
  
• Memory management
  
• Windows
  
• The WindowScroll module
  
• Icons
  
• Menus
  
• Error handling
  

The manual also gives guidelines on how your applications should behave so that they are consistent with other RISC OS applications.

<http://www.riscos.com/>

Christmas RISCube Ultra promotion

RISCube Ultra systems will receive a free upgrade to one of the fastest CPUs around - the 2.66Ghz Core 2 Duo (whilst stocks last) - a saving of about GBP150.

You can find out more about our RISCube and RISCBook range of computers at <http://www.riscube.co.uk/>

RISCDomain in 2008

There will be four issues of RISCDomain in 2008, supplied in PDF format on CD-ROM, issued on January 6th, April 6th, July 7th, and October 7th.

The price for four issues on CD-ROM will be GBP20 within the UK, GBP24 outside the UK. This will include a copy of eBay Advisor issue four. You can subscribe at <http://www.moretoread.co.uk/>.

PD/Shareware News

New software summary

• vCalRead, translates vCalendar and iCalendar
  Decodes and translates vCalendar and iCalendar format information of the type often generated by non-RISC OS diary programs.
  <http://www.7thsoftware.com/software.htm>

Updated software summary

• Avalanche v0.19
  VNC client. Better full screen mode, dragging a text file to a session view now pastes its contents onto the remote machine's clipboard, configuration options for initial view, and many small bug fixes.
  <http://homepage.ntlworld.com/j-peacock/>
• Calibre v1.31
  Design and print calendars of various formats in all shapes and sizes. Display bug fixed.
  <http://www.rayfavre.me.uk/dwapps.html>
• Dr Wimp v4.80
  Wimp-programming package. No functional changes, internal improvements.
  <http://www.rayfavre.me.uk/drwimp.html>
• DrawPrint v1.04 now available
  DrawPrint allows you to print a Draw file over several pages at the scale of your choice. The new version now recalculates bounding boxes of all objects in Draw files as a surprisingly large number of applications which export them do not get their bounding boxes right all the time.
  <http://sinenomine.co.uk/software/>
• ID3TagEd v0.24
  An application to allow the creation and/or editing of the ID3 tags attached to MPEG audio files. Bug fixes and rename pattern can now be set from main window.
  <http://www.chris-johnson.org/software/index.html>
• MiscSetup v1.10
  Boot configuration plugin, allows you to configure such options as the desktop font size and aspect ratio, the default NextSlot size, initial font cache size and LMTransport type. New to this version are a number of visual effects, such as those implemented in RISC OS Select.
  <http://www.vigay.com/software/miscsetup.html>

Club News

Upcoming meetings

• ROUGOL (London), 17th December - Game & Risc PC rebuild (downstairs)
  <http://www.rougol.org.uk/>
• RONWUG (North West), 19th December
  <http://www.ronwug.org/>
• SAUG (Southampton), 8th January
  
• SASAUG (Surrey & Sussex), 14th January
  <http://www.sasaug.org.uk/>
• MUG (Midlands), 19th January
  <http://www.mug.riscos.org/>
• ROUGOL (London), 21st January - RISC OS Connect
  <http://www.rougol.org.uk/>
• RONE (North East), 7th February
  <http://www.cjemicros.f2s.com/public/HouseFindMap.gif>
• SAUG (Southampton), 12th February
  
• ROUGOL (London), 18th February - Christian Ludlam & others
  <http://www.rougol.org.uk/>
• ROUGOL (London), 17th March - Ray Favre
  <http://www.rougol.org.uk/>

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