"Software information" wiki page

I have been updating the wiki pages linked from Software information – mostly so that they contain actual information rather than “Please fill out this template” – but I’ve run up against a few roadblocks.

1. What component is meant by Fonts on that page? Either “ROMFonts” or “FontManager” could fit the bill.

2. I can’t find any more information about MemInfo apart from its GitLab URL – is there a description of this program anywhere? I’m not that good at deciphering C source…

3. There’s an entry for Serial but as far as I can see from GitLab that’s a duplicate of DualSerial already mentioned. Have I got hold of the wrong end of the stick?

4. WimpUtils2 is a complete mystery to me. The source code available on Gitlab suggests it was for RISC OS 2, but I’ve seen apparently abandoned branches like this elsewhere in the source tree and it usually indicates that the module was renamed at some point. Any clues?

MemInfo – quick look at the source suggests it’s a little bit like the memory use report that Switcher provides, only somewhat nerdier (like address of SVC stack and page tables, stuff that might be useful to devs but not to end users).

WimpUtils (and other “abandoned” stuff). This was a bug fix module for RISC OS 2. When version 3 came along, it wasn’t required but existing programs would check for this module being present, so a dummy version was created.
The others you saw – IRQUtils and (IIRC) NetUtils, by any chance? Same thing. Bug fixes that were later no longer necessary.

DualSerial is a two-port serial driver used in the NCs. I believe Serial only supports the one port. DualSerial ought to work on a RiscPC (same hardware) but Serial was the one provided (I think) because only one of the ports was wired.
Plus, there shouldn’t even have been an Acorn module called “DualSerial”, Hugo Fiennes had been providing a module with that name for many years (for his dual serial card). The one indicated here won’t work with an sp_dual as that hung off the podule bus. [ http://chrisacorns.computinghistory.org.uk/32bit_UpgradesH2Z/TheSerialPort_DualSerial.html ]

I think the problem you’re running into here is that not all machines will have, or need, the same modules. I see ADFS. I do not see SDFS (or the SDIO driver). There’s no mention of OMAP3video, OMAP4video, BCMvideo, whatever the other machines (iMX, Ti, etc) use, etc etc etc etc.
It looks like a sort of a snapshot of what was intended to be supplied circa RISC OS 3.something.

Fonts – delete that. Replace with an entry for ROMFonts, and an entry for FontManager. [ https://gitlab.riscosopen.org/RiscOS/Sources/Video/Render/Fonts ]

I have been updating the wiki pages linked from Software information – mostly so that they contain actual information rather than “Please fill out this template”

I think it’s worth taking a step back to mention what the origin of those pages is/was, before expending lots of effort creating pages that are only there to soak up your time maintaining them!

Originally, for each downloadable thing there’s a blue ‘i’ information circle, seen on the right here for example. Before the days of the automatic nightly builds (and we’re talking 2008-ish here) as each component was cleared for publishing it would be lovingly hand built and put on some long since deleted software pages. Occasionally these would be manually rebuilt when (usually) Steve remembered.

Fast forward to now and things are a lot more organised, plus no longer reliant on Steve remembering to do things. As a result, most of the software information pages are redundant because there’s no longer a corresponding blue ‘i’ information circle.

At a glance I’d cull all the Modules ones since they’re now just part of the ROMs and are really just duplicating the change logs that can be retrieved from CVS or GitLab, with the advantage that those logs are maintained at zero cost.

It is worth expanding the HardDisc4/BonusBin ones, and the respective ‘Dev’ builds etc… Basically, anything that has a blue circle still.

I just noticed this comment after uploading 10 more pages :-(

I had in fact given some thought to maintainability and recent page uploads all contained pointers to the appropriate GitLab “commits” page rather than trying to provide a version history on-page.

However, as suggested I’ll concentrate on disc-based components from now on.

I’ve updated nearly all of the pages worth keeping (only 2 or 3 stragglers still to do) so it’s time to get rid of all the dead wood on the Software information page. I’ve made a start on this process (each screen saver no longer has an individual listing) but there’s now the question of all the ROM modules needlessly listed at the end of the page.

What’s the wiki etiquette for disposing of no-longer-needed pages? Do I remove the link(s) to the pages and mark all the now-orphaned pages as “Delete me”? Or is there more to the process?

I’ve updated nearly all of the pages worth keeping

I’ve been keeping a casual eye on progress & am very impressed at both the quality and quantity of the software info pages now after so many years with them being a patchwork of empty templates.

What’s the wiki etiquette for disposing of no-longer-needed pages?

I put the page into the ‘Delete me’ category, rename the page to prefix with ‘Delete me’, then go back and edit the page to remove the redirect (helps to find any now-dead links). I believe the webmaster periodically nukes those pages, but it’s probably a manual process – you’d need to make a request if there was a pressing need to delete them right away.