Voting is now open in the RISC OS Awards 2015!

The third annual RISC OS Awards poll undertaken by RISCOSitory on the RISC OS Awards website is now able to take your votes

Between now and the end of January, you have the opportunity to vote for your favourite piece of software, the show you enjoyed the most, the project you find most interesting, and more besides.

For most of the categories there are from four to six initial suggestions along with a short text entry field. You can therefore either choose one of the options as presented, by selecting the relevant one, or you can use the text field to vote for something else – to do this, just select the ‘alternative option’ and enter your choice in the text field.

While the options on the form will not change, every couple of weeks while the voting form is open the alternative suggestions will be reviewed, and – depending on their number – some may be highlighted in posts here on RISCOSitory and on the @RISCOSitory Twitter feed to serve as ideas for others.

All of the categories also have a “No opinion” option, which is selected by default – if you feel that you have no way to form an opinion in any given category, you can leave this option selected rather than be forced to vote for something.

The one exception, is the ‘Best overall contributor’ category, for which no suggestions have been made. For this category, there is only the text field. You can use this to vote for whoever, or whichever company, you feel deserves recognition for their overal contribution to the RISC OS platform. If you don’t want to vote for anyone in this category, simply leave the field blank.

Changes this year include the very first category now covering only commercial software, rather than encompassing hardware as well – since hardware has its own category anyway – and one new category:

Combined with the awards poll is a simple survey, designed to form a picture of the RISC OS landscape – but while it is a part of the same overall form, you can choose to skip the survey entirely, or only answer those questions you feel comfortable answering: Every question of the includes an “I’d rather not say” option, which is selected by default.

The voting form will remain online from now until the end of January, giving you almost two months to make your choices and cast your votes, with the results of the awards poll expected to be published in the latter half of February, and the results of the survey a little later.

Probably (!) too late to say for this year, but I’ve just noticed something.

Yeah. It’s me again. Sorry.

Anyway, the questions regarding other computers – Windows / MacOS / Linux-based / Other – may be interesting to expand this to include iOS and Android as specific options. While I make use of a PC, I’m finding that I can frequently get stuff done quicker/better using a tablet. The state of iOS and Android (on decent equipment) is such that there isn’t much that a tablet can’t do compared to a Windows PC. Check my bank account? Look for stuff on Amazon? See if HorribleSubs have released Noragami yet? All can be done without touching a “desktop machine”.

Therefore, you might find it interesting to not only keep track of RISC OS usage, but also migration from desktop to handheld.
[perhaps this could go in tandem with making the “What do you own?” choice be a tickbox list – tick all that apply¹…]

Okay, I’ll shut up now. ☺

¹ A310 (Arthur!), A3000², A5000², RiscPC², Beagle xM, Pi B, iPad Mini, four Android phones³, EeePC, 2.8GHz box; plus two other PCs I don’t use and a BBC Micro.

² Which may or may not work. Ancient-old, and I’m not sure about the state of that damned CMOS battery either…

³ Each phone contract renewal gets me a phone upgrade. Can’t complain, they sold me a Samsung S5 Mini for a hundred euros then gave me a fifty euro rebate. While I pay a hefty amount for my contract, I note that the SIM-only (no phone) option isn’t that much cheaper…

You’re right – and just after announcing here, on RISCOSitory¹ and sending one off to csa.announce, I suddenly remembered a comment last year about separating out other desktop and other mobile – which is a broadly similar point.

However, since the announcements have gone (and there have been a few submissions already), I don’t want to mess around with things.

The other thing was I said I’d change it to a page/question format – but time ran off, so I’ve stuck with the single page form as before (which is also why I haven’t yet added the suggestions form for next time).

And since it’s still the simple format, I’d rather not add any more complexities anyway, with ‘skip this if’ type questions (if you don’t use a tablet etc) – there’s already one or two. Stuff like that is better handled automagically, so it can wait until…

I’ll get the suggestion form done ASAP, and start playing with the page/question format after this poll’s finished – looooong before next year’s!

¹ I remembered to do that this time! ;)

Oh, drat. I also wanted to expand the how long have you been using RISC OS question to allow people to say (in effect) “I’ve been using RISC OS since the beginning, and used other Acorn stuff before that.”

Ho hum.

Which may or may not work. Ancient-old, and I’m not sure about the state of that damned CMOS battery either…

Of my RiscPCs, one still works and one has suffered damage due to the CMOS battery (I forget for certain now, but I think the flashing floppy light indicated a video hardware problem. I commented about it online somewhere). The batteries have now been snipped out of both.

The A3K I’m not sure of; it sounds like it starts up okay, but I’ve no screen or lead for it. Another thing I meant to buy at London was CJE’s gizmo for connecting these old beasts to modern displays so I could check it properly.

And while I’m at it – if it works – hunt for the source code to Floopy on the A3K’s hard drive; last place it can possibly be.

I’ve now summarised the ‘alternative’ suggestions received in the voting so far.

So for those who haven’t voted, if the reason you haven’t done so is that you just don’t like the options and need other ideas – you now have some.

Thanks for the reminder. Just voted.

Something to consider for next year is multiple alternative systems. For example had you asked me two years ago I’d be using my XP PC more than RISC OS.
On average that is probably still true as RISC OS video support is…
…anyway the big difference now is that a fair few of the PC’s duties have been replaced by the tablet and phone. I’m writing this on the tablet before I watch a video, for instance. I’d say maybe 20% RISC OS, 40% PC, and 40% small form device.

Yeah, there was a sudden burst of posts yesterday for some strange reason. Just before writing that post, there were (I think) 105 votes, then there were suddenly 115. ;)

The multiple systems thing really needs me to change from a single page form to a multiple page one – which I’ve said before. It’s not a particularly hard task, but the problem with things that aren’t that difficult is that they tend to get put off in favour of harder (and/or more pressing) things. (Or equally easy things that bring in some pennies.)

Then, suddenly, it’s too late to actually deal with the not-so-hard task.

I’ll definitely rewrite try to get around to rewriting the whole survey thing before the 2016 poll.

It was about time I took another look at the alternative votes – er… so I’ve taken another look at the alternative votes

For those who haven’t voted, I only have this to say:

Tick… tick… tick… tick…

Final call for votes

The voting form will be deactivated some time on the morning of Friday, February 12th – so anyone who hasn’t yet voted has until then to do so. Best to do it by Thursday, just in case!

That choice of date is that it coincides with a short break: I’m off to the Lake District on that day.

With a bit of luck, I’ll be able to process the votes before I go, and will probably announce the winners via Twitter – leaving the sending out of emails and publishing the results on the site until some point after my return.

The votes have now been processed and I have the results. I’ve already detailed them on the RISCOSitory twitter feed – but I’ll repeat the results here as well, pending having time to post them on the website, announce them in more detail on RISCOSitory.com and sending out emails to the winners:

• Best commercial software: RiscOSM from Sine Nomine
• Best non-commercial software: NetSurf from the NetSurf developers
• Best game or diversion: Starfighter 3000 (Fednet, maintained by Martin Bazley)
• Best hardware: Raspberry Pi 2 (with ARMX6 only one vote away from making it a tie)
• Best solution for backwards compatibility: Aemulor (Adrian Lees)
• Best new development: The Titanium mobo from Elesar
• Best show of initiative: Elesar for developing the Titanium mobo
• Best website or online resource: The RISC OS Open forum and source code repository
• Best publication or offline resource: Archive magazine
• Best foreign langiage resource: RISCOS.fr (David Feugey)
• Best show or event: London 2015 – and another close one, with Wakefield 2015 only two votes away from making it a tie.
• Most innovative or interesting project: Jon Abbott’s ADFFS
• Best overall contributor – top three: 3rd place RISC OS Open, 2nd place R-Comp, 1st place Jeffrey lee
• Broken cog of the year: VirtualAcorn for being particularly unhelpful to a customer needing help.

As I said, I’ll publish the results (and with a little more detail) on RISCOSitory/the awards site, as well as contact the winners by email, when time permits.

(I’ll be busy this week getting ready for the SW Show next Saturday!)

Best non-commercial software: NetSurf from the NetSurf developers

How did Ovation do? Okay, it wasn’t ever going to score high when up against NetSurf (and Otter, for next year).

Best hardware: Raspberry Pi 2 (with ARMX6 only one vote away from making it a tie)

Shame it wasn’t a tie. They’re both deserving products aimed at near opposite ends of the market.

Best solution for backwards compatibility: Aemulor (Adrian Lees)

Hehe, you might as well say: The winner of the Aemulor award for being Aemulor is…Aemulor! ;-)

Best foreign language resource: RISCOS.fr (David Feugey)

Yay David!

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You know, I’ve been thinking about various things. The first is the nightmare of dependencies required by Otter; and the second is about how newbies to RISC OS are expected to be able to find anything on a hundred disparate websites. And I’m thinking that 2016 ought to be The Year Of Packaging. The year when we make a push to get stuff “accessible”, either by PackMan or on Store. Therefore maybe for next year, some votes specific to packaged products?

How did Ovation do?

Just saw this in time before shutting down the ARMX6, so I can check…

Ovation got fourth place (with Otter second and Fireworkz 2 third).

Hehe, you might as well say: The winner of the Aemulor award for being Aemulor is…Aemulor! ;-)

For the record, RPCEmu came in second – and while not as close as the Pi 2/ARMX6 in the hardware category, or London/Wakefield in the show/event category, it came pretty close. Er… blast, I have switched off now. I think it was 5 or 6 behind Aemulor.

And I’m thinking that 2016 ought to be The Year Of Packaging.

Oh. And here was me thinking it was going to be the year of Linux on the desktop ;)

The year when we make a push to get stuff “accessible”, either by PackMan or on Store. Therefore maybe for next year, some votes specific to packaged products?

Suggest a sensible category (or categories) and what would go in them – because my own initial thoughts are… blank.

As to next year in general, I said before I’d set up a nominations page to run on an ongoing basis, with links on RISCOSitory news items to encourage people to nominate things – but as people may have noticed, I haven’t done as yet, and we’re already a couple of months into the period covered. :/

The reason for that is timing: The poll goes online just as I get really busy – and comes offline when the worst of that is over (which works well/is convenient for the poll itself). So I needed to sort out that nominations during the period when I get stupidly busy – the period I’m unlikely to do be able to do it.

So my plan now is for next year’s poll to be done the same way as this year: I’ll draw up an initial list, open the floor for discussion, and so on – and I’ll get the nominations page done in the run up to that point, so it can be put online at the very start of the next period.

Edit: Forgot to say; now that I’ve settled (I think) on a workable format for the poll itself, I can also write something more geared to setting it up quickly, instead of hand editing the pages.

(And with luck, I may have found the time to change the way RISCOSitory is set up by then as well – which will actually help with that.)

the second is about how newbies to RISC OS are expected to be able to find anything on a hundred disparate websites. And I’m thinking that 2016 ought to be The Year Of Packaging. The year when we make a push to get stuff “accessible”, either by PackMan or on Store. Therefore maybe for next year, some votes specific to packaged products?

Warning: Rant approaching :)

I agree with you. I also think that if a product is incomplete or in testing, then this should be clearly stated in the description. Just today I found a copy of Lemmings on one of those hundred disparate sites. There was no documentation, no note about whether it’s a complete port or just for testing, etc.

I downloaded the zip and found that it’s “package-ready” (ie. contains a RiscPkg directory etc) but doesn’t appear in PackMan. I ran the app on my Pi 1 and although it runs, it runs at about half speed. When a 25 MHz 486 can run it properly and a 700 MHz ARMv6 can’t, then you know something’s wrong. Never mind, I think, I’ll just leave it for now. I click the Close button… and nothing happens. I try to quit from the icon bar and realise that there is no icon. I ended up having to quit from Task Manager.

This sort of thing is a problem for newbies. If a port is incomplete then that’s fine; gotta start somewhere. But it should be documented! The only thing vaguely related to documentation is the RiscPkg.Copyright file, which is a generic document talking about the GCCSDK autobuilder. There is no mention of what should work and what shouldn’t, whether further work is planned, or anything of the sort.

I’m not picking on Lemmings specifically, it’s just the latest that I’ve come across. It’s certainly not the first, but hopefully it can be the last. Make software “discoverable” via packaging or similar¹. Clearly note that it’s alpha or beta quality. Document how to contact the author/maintainer. That would resolve a lot of the confusion, without touching a line of code.

That’s just my 2 cents :)

¹ I’d better get my own “Seasonal” app in PackMan before sounding too much like a hypocrite… – Edit: Submitted! :)

Edit 2: Of course, now that I’ve packaged my own app, it’s lost its “context”. When downloading it from its own thread here on the ROOL forums, it’s clear that it’s a work in progress. Seeing it in PackMan, in the list of software, makes it look more “complete”. I’ll need to do something about that, because at the moment I’m guilty of exactly what I’ve complained about! That’s given me something to do tomorrow…

As someone who has very vocally expressed a dislike of packaging on RISC OS, I do also agree. 8)

Little known fact: Although on newsgroups, forums and the like I’ve always been seen to criticise the package manager(s) and the project as a whole, my first thoughts on packaging, before I saw the actual implementation, were positive.

I remember when Graham Shaw was explaining the idea to exhibitors and developers at a show, before the first public release of the system – and based on his explanation, I thought it was a very good idea.

Not too long after that I saw the implementation. :(

Since then, of course, Alan Buckley has come along with PackMan – same underlying system, but a better implementation from the user’s point of view, and he’s been attempting to address some of the criticisms that have been directed at RiscPkg (and PackMan itself earlier on).

(It’s been a good couple of years since I last tried PackMan because I don’t generally have a problem finding and installing things – but when it comes to something like Otter, I don’t fancy the complications, so when I get around to trying it, I’ll probably dig out PackMan again.)