See the cover of Archive Magazine (25:4)

Archive is the (award-winning!) magazine for RISC OS users. Published in the UK since 1987, Archive welcomes subscribers from all over the world. Each issue of Archive features a comprehensive rundown of the latest RISC OS news, along with a wide variety of articles from RISC OS experts. See the latest front cover below!

If you are new to Archive (or haven’t been a subscriber for a while), please get in touch to claim a complementary copy of the latest issue, while stocks last. Overseas readers welcome!

Subscriptions cost £40 (UK), £46 (rest of Europe), £50 (rest of world), and payments can be accepted by bank transfer, PayPal and cheque. Contact gavin@archivemag.co.uk for more information.

Archive Magazine,
PO Box 171,
Coleraine,
BT52 9BW.

This issue’s downloadable files and URLs are now available at www.archivemag.co.uk/2504

.. and the printed version arrived on my doormat today.

So the printed version likely to arrive on our doorsteps, sometime this week then?

Any particular reason why every single link (except audiomisc) is plain http?

If you want to know what all the many camera options do, and see examples, then look at https://heyrick.eu/blog/index.php?diary=20210418 and do be aware that it’s painfully obvious that it is ancient camera technology. Just as well it’s dirt cheap!

Speaking of which, https://heyrick.eu/blog/index.php?diary=20210626 shows that these things do not cope with heat. The ESP32 boots and runs, but isn’t able to retrieve a picture (it just returns gibberish). It also runs at ~70C which is not normal. The camera module, surprisingly, is fine. I took it off and stuck it on the other ESP32-CAM board (because of my two cameras, this one is mounted sideways, not upside down). Anyway, the ESP32 chip is buried inside (but not touching) a metal box. If you’re using it anywhere where it might be in sunlight, I’d recommend an itty bitty fan. Or maybe removing that metal shield and wanging on a heatsink, at least?
Just as well it’s dirt cheap!

… and it arrived on my doormat in Kent this morning.

Any particular reason why every single link (except audiomisc) is plain http?

Well, www.archivemag.co.uk doesn’t have a valid certificate for an https setup. I’m sure Orpheus could do something about that.
For the rest, plain http is sort of (almost) consistent.

Well, www.archivemag.co.uk doesn’t have a valid certificate for an https setup. I’m sure Orpheus could do something about that.

In terms of Archive’s own site, it’s rather long in the tooth. It is currently being re-done from the ground up in time for the London show. It will absolutely have an SSL cert then.

As for the links to other sites, there’s a reason for that, and it’s related to the fact that they were copied and pasted from Archive, where the style is to not print the protocol part of the URL. Still, they’re all valid, working links, and servers can force HTTPS if they so choose.

Still, they’re all valid, working links

The one to SQLite isn’t; it’s missing the www. I should probably set it up as the default site one of these days…

Edit: Done.

It would be interesting to see the mag on a tablet – I wonder how well it could be translated into other languages.
Can you use the translater sites
for a whole Pdf?

If Archive could be loaded into TextEase – it could be read aloud.

I suppose !Pdf could have a read aloud added.

I suppose !Pdf could have a read aloud added.

Well, RO has had a Speak module freely available for a decade or so.

It would be interesting to see the mag on a tablet

It would look more or less like it does on screen, only more of it (perhaps the full page) if you hold the tablet portrait.

I don’t have a PDF of Archive to test, but I’d imagine the main factor is a combination of your eyeballs and the effective screen resolution. That is to say, if your tablet is something lame like 1024×600 it’s not being to be as nice to look at than if you have one of those fancy Apple gizmos.

Experience: it’s how I sometimes read the local paper.

I wonder how well it could be translated into other languages.

Not worth discussing. Automatic translation will range from “poor” to “comically awful”, especially with regards to technical matter where accuracy is important.
And having people translate it, have you seen how much translators charge? Maybe some bilinguals might volunteer, but can that be guaranteed?

It’s a good idea, but the practicalities are immense. When I did the French issue of Frobnicate, I did it all myself, and… well, I’ll let the Frenchies mark my homework. ;-)

Can you use the translater sites for a whole Pdf?

As before – automatic translation is nothing like getting an actual person to do it. My French may not be good, but even I have noticed Google getting some things notably wrong, such as inverting the sense of things. A don’t becoming a do. If your instruction is DON’T TURN THE POWER OFF AT THIS POINT and it comes out the other end inverted, that’s a pretty big lurking problem.

As for converting an entire PDF to a different language, do be aware that different languages use different numbers of words to say the same thing. I think I’ve seen it did that a French book requires 15-20% more pages because French is more flowery.

I suppose !Pdf could have a read aloud added.

As Steve says, there’s a robot available to sing Daisy Daisy at you…

I suppose !Pdf could have a read aloud added.

I just put a few selected pages of 25:04 through an online “reader” and sufficed to say, that’s a few (very amusing and confusing) minutes of my life I’ll never get back! The comparison table on p.16 is a scream… or at least that’s what I did as I watched/listened to it compute how best to spew it at me!

I’d imagine for a screen reader to be effective, it would take a lot of work on the editor’s part to get it to read in the correct order, and I’m not sure, for a one-person operation like Archive, that that would be time-efficient? I could be completely wrong in my assumptions of how screen readers follow the text though.

It would be interesting to see the mag on a tablet

Archive looks absolutely beautiful on my iPad :)

great images, really nice font rendering and code examples very easy to read.

Really well done to Gavin!

I wonder how well it could be translated into other languages.

So, I added the google translator to my blog, but in all honesty I have to test the translations every time I write a new article. It works fine in translating it to Italian and French, but in order to have good translations I had to modify the English a bit and sometimes the English that google translate likes is not the best form of written english, so I would say that to get decent translation one has to compromise a bit.

However, french readers for the Thomson related articles seems all very happy with the translation in french and Italian readers for the Olivetti Prodest related articles seems happy too, so I guess it’s possible to achieve readable automatic translations.

I think I’ve seen it did that a French book requires 15-20% more pages because French is more flowery.

Than what?
English isn’t standard, as you know, and for any statement there are multiple possible collections of words that can be used, and will be used, depending on the speaker and the audience.
That’s before you go anywhere near the dialectal variants “for sure”, “d’ye ken”?

Many moons ago I used to receive the ESA Journal, which often printed articles in both French and English side-by-side. Helpful to keep French circulating round the old grey matter. The technical French text was invariably that wee bit longer.

Than what?

English, obviously.

And whilst I understand that English isn’t standard, when it comes to documentation I’ve yet to see “whap it over the boxy bugger and mash the mouse ya bar stool”, if for no other reason than it would take many people a lot of extra thinking to translate that into “click on the icon”. Or, in French, “cliquez sur l’icone” (four words, one abbreviated, and already two letters longer ☺).

I could be completely wrong in my assumptions of how screen readers follow the text though.

Depends upon the software. Those basic things that claim to read aloud tend to follow the chaining of the text, so if a table is implemented by columns down, it’ll be a right farce.
Proper screen readers, like for blind people, are more likely to render the page into an imaginary buffer and then attempt to parse that, taking into account such things as text columns. It’s actually kind of complicated to do in software what our brains can do without really thinking about it. ¹

So, I added the google translator to my blog,

Me too. Top right of mine (desktop view) has country shaped flags for France, Spain, and Japan. Click on that, if your browser is up to it, it’ll reload the page and then translate it.

but in all honesty I have to test the translations every time I write a new article.

I don’t. Life’s too short. Plus, I’m not inclined to revise my writing style or the sarcasm level to placate the limitations of a machine.
I’ve already seen what Google’s voice interpretation does with my speech when it automatically adds subtitles to YouTube videos. Maybe if I, like, sounded like a Valley Girl, like, it might, like, get all the words right, like!

¹ Just ask Tesla…

Proper screen readers, like for blind people, are more likely to render the page into an imaginary buffer and then attempt to parse that, taking into account such things as text columns. It’s actually kind of complicated to do in software what our brains can do without really thinking about it.

Having worked on a commercial screen reader this is correct. While it is (well was at the time) very easy to intercept all the calls writing text to the screen, and construct an off-screen model of what all the characters were at every location, the difficulty was linking them up in a way humans would read it. Where as the computer can plot characters in any order, not respecting columns or even word order on a line. Then there is even more fun when dealing with mixed left-right and right-left languages in the same document.

While it is (well was at the time) very easy to intercept all the calls writing text to the screen

Yeah, JAWS (as one example) has had a rough time with Java based content and containerisation. While the security improvements in browsers and Java are nice for sighted users – total disaster for the blind.

Yeah, JAWS (as one example) has had a rough time with Java based content

Java Swing has very competent accessibility support and good Windows accessibility integration via its inbuilt bridge. AWT/SWT, because they use native Widgets, too.

What exactly do you refer to? “Java based content” sounds…strange. As well as the following:

While the security improvements in browsers and Java are nice for sighted users – total disaster for the blind.

When Java applets were a thing, accessibility worked fine. Since then, no Java in the browser, so again not sure what you refer to.

Obviously, the software has to be written with care to properly support accessibility. With some new-fangled JavaScript frameworks, this might be impossible of course, since accessibility support seems to be often an afterthought. See JavaFX, where it was introduced as late as in JavaFX/OpenJFX 8.

It was protected PDFs which always gave Supernova problems, as the accessibility features are an obvious way to bypass the protection.

Obviously, the software has to be written with care to properly support accessibility.

HR program. Lots of failings. Using old versions of Java being just one. Others pop up regularly.
The latest isn’t anything other than plain stupidity.
It’s a CRB type self declaration that everyone_ must do annually. To find it, first switch the radio icon from “Mandatory Only”¹
Then dig through several layers with a search¹ to find the item that displays a screen that requires a tick of one box (or the other) after you’ve read the micro text occupying about one tenth of the screen with all the text in long, long sentences with no line break formatting done in some kind of micro text.³

I would say that no one has a good word for the system, but we all do – just not suitable for gentler ears.

¹ Dumb item number one, if everyone has to do this annually, then surely it is mandatory?

Two very lovely reviews of the latest issue:

https://tantobieinternettattler.blogspot.com/2021/10/archive-magazine-volume-254-review.html?m=1
https://www.iconbar.com/articles/Archive_254_reviewed/index1709.html

Thanks again to all the Archive writers; your work is clearly appreciated.