RiscOSM version 2.25 released

A new version of RiscOSM the vector mapping software for RISC OS has just been released on the Sine Nomine Software website.

The main new feature is an option, when exporting a Draw file of the map, to include some special objects within the file which will be ignored by most other software, but which will allow RiscOSM to recreate the map if you drop the Draw file back on RiscOSM. This means you can export maps for use in other work, and when you want to update them, you do not have to waste time working out where the centre of the map was, how large the window was, and which stylesheet was in use. The hidden data can even include any overlaid pins and tracks.

As usual there are a few other bug fixes and little enhancments, detailed in the version history.

I have an application which adds overlay data to a saved RiscOSM Draw file. At present it reads the latitude and longitude at each corner of the map from the ‘coordinate data’ at the top of the map and works out the grid coordiantes at any point to overlay Anquet Export Format file data as a drawn path. (There is a batter way of doing this by using messages if RiscOSM is running.)

I should now be able to load a Draw file saved by RiscOSM with embedded geodata (new in version 2.25) into my application, then start up the OLE_Support module, issue the SWI call OLE_SimulateSession, then use a Message_OLEOpenSession in place of a Message_DataOpen to ‘save’ the Draw file to scrap which should load the map data into RiscOSM as if it had been dragged from a filer window. Once re-saved after the graphic has been recreated my applicatioon will be notified by the OLE_Support module and I can reload the graphic. Now to work out the format of Draw object &0500.

Hmm! This does need a bit of thinking about!

I was thinking we ought to include some information about the format of the object in the manual. Sorry we overlooked this! We’ll dig it out and let you know.

Information on Draw object 0×500 is now available in the manual