New website

New users

Why not join them?

Dr Wimp applications

!SiteMatch, by Dave Edwards, is a utility to keep track of changes made to your website (and more). Visit http://www.dave-edwards.com/riscos/software.html.

!PCLInfo, by Philip Perry, is a utility for Printout files (filetypes &FF4 and &FF5) with particular emphasis on analysing HP PCL data.

!account2, by Kevin Edwards, is a home accounts application. Visit http://www.ksedwards.ukgateway.net/

!Ps2PDF, by Tim Nicholson, is a utility to produce PDF files. See http://www.runton.ndo.co.uk.

!SimpWeb, by Graeme Wall, converts blocks of text to HTML. Visit http://www.greywall.demon.co.uk/riscos/soft.html

Dr Wimp version 3.59

Totally new features added are a group of five wimp-functions to allow you to draw all the common simple geometric shapes in a window, i.e. line (full or dotted), rectangle, circle, ellipse and triangle - with fill options where relevant.

A wimp-function to add a pause of a specified duration has been added.

The tidying up (see below) also allowed some extra options to be added to some of the wimp-functions affected.

As a result of a query from Dave Edwards, the coding for the management of Panes has been simplified and improved. The change is invisible for windows with a single pane, but a very minor change will be needed if you are upgrading an application using more than one pane per window.

Another query (from another Edwards - Kevin, this time) led to the discovery that the previous way Dr Wimp detected the presence of a printer driver is no longer safe. A new and better way has been found and introduced into 3.59.

And now to the tidying up. In the two years that I've been supporting the package, several additions and changes have been made, but I recently realised that certain aspects weren't being handled uniformly. For instance, there have been separate wimp-functions to enable/disable icons; yet a single wimp-function to select/de-select icons. I therefore decided to have a 'Spring Clean' and went through each wimp-function to try to ensure that both its name and functionality fitted into a sensible pattern.

There have been several changes as a result - but not too many to make upgrading existing applications too much of a chore, I hope. (I have an acid test here. I like to keep the Example applications updated to the latest version - and there are a couple of dozen of them. If the upgrading needs make it too daunting for me to tackle 24 upgrades, I have changed too much!)

You will still find a few variations from 100% uniformity, but I think there are good practical reasons for these.

The only other point of note is that, very unusually, v.3.59 sees the deletion of a pair of wimp-functions. The two functions which formatted numbers to a specified number of significant figures have been withdrawn because they give the wrong results in some cases and I haven't yet found solutions. (They are particularly difficult functions to code and test adequately.) I would like to hear from anyone who has been using these two wimp-functions up to now.

Next release - font menus

With the help of Harriet Bazley, I wrote the necessary changes some time ago, but they affect several existing wimp-functions and the key internal coding is a little convoluted. So I have been reluctant to introduce these changes at the same time as other changes.

With the tidying up in v.3.59, I think things are in a steady enough state to take the plunge and that is what will happen next time - touch wood! Expect it around 1st August 2001.