Awards poll for 2019 initial discussion

Late again! :)

As usual, this initial list is based on items posted on RISCOSitory during the year, so discuss, suggest, etc. If I feel convinced by arguments to add this or remove that, or to move something from here to there, I’ll do so, but if I don’t feel convinced, tough. :p

My general rule is no more than six items per category, and I don’t want any company or individual competing with themselves in any given category.

Best commercial software

• Recce – Sine Nomine
• Prophet – Elesar/Apricote
• Lockscreen – R-Comp
• Development Kit – AMCOG
• Artworks – MW Software

Best non-commercial software

• PipeDream – Stuart Swales/Colton
• Launcher – Steve Fryatt
• Transient – Fred Graute
• StopClose – Martin Avison
• CloseHook – Simon Birtwistle
• Streamer – Raik Fischer

Best game or diversion

• Super Methane Brothers – Cameron Cawley (port)
• Manga – Rick Murray
• Star Mine – AMCOG
• Doom Trilogy (now with Sigil support) – R-Comp

Best hardware

• ARMbook – R-Comp
• WiFI HAT – Elesar
• IDE Interface Mini Podule – CJE
• AMCS WW7 Workstation – 3rd Event

The last item isn’t strictly RISC OS, but its origins lie on the OS (the original software was a tracker).

Best solution for backwards compatibility

The usual suspects: ADFFS, RPCEmu, Aemulor, VirtualRiscPC, ArcEm, ArchiEmu

Best new development

• Prophet gaining support for making tax digital – Elesar
• Acquisition of the Impression family – RISC OS Developments
• Easier networking support in RPCEmu – Matthew and Peter Howkins
• Alpha release of Python 3.8 – Chris Johns
• Migration of the RISC OS sources to GitLab – ROOL added 13th February
• The Raspberry Pi 4 added 13th February. Note: It’s worth including, but put here rather than best hardware because the OS isn’t yet working on it. This category seems a good fit.

Best show of initiative

• Change of venue for the Southwest Show – R-Comp/Orpheus
• RISC OS Direct (either/both the planned video series or the disc image for the Pi?) – WiFi Sheep/RISC OS Developments
• RISC OS Open for their bounty matching initiatives (the 2018, the results of which were announced in January 2019) saw £5,000 raised and matched). Added 13th February
• Chris Hall for picking up the mantle of updating the Impression manual Added 15th February
• RISC OS Developments for releasing Impression Style for free Added 17th February

Best website or online resource

• Wi-Fi Sheep (not strictly RISC OS, but RISC OS stuff gets covered) – Tom Williamson

The rest being the usual suspects: Startdot, Archive-online, ANS, ROOL site/forum, and The Icon Bar.

Best publication or offline resource

The four main regulars: Archive Mag, Drag ’n Drop, GAG News, the WROCC.

There is usually at least one additional item – typically whatever manual ROOL have started selling, but I don’t think there was one in 2019.

• Impression newsletter – Chris Hall added 13th February
• A new Impression manual – ROD added 15th February

Best foreign language resource

The usual: Arcsite, Big Ben Club site, RISCOS.fr, Steffen’s blog, GAG News. Arcsite crossed out 15th Feb

Best show or event

The usual: The three main UK shows, the Big Ben Club event, and the Acorn World event.

Most innovative or interesting project

• The RISC OS Cloverleaf project
• Michael Grunditz’s RockPro64 port
• Evince (shown off by Adrian Lees at the London Show)
• Daryl Dudey’s 3d graphics engine
• RISC OS Direct – again either the videos or the disc image, or both.
• The web browsers (Iris/OWB) being developed on behalf of ROD by Leo Noar/Michael Grunditz Added 16th February

Broken cog

Nothing has really jumped out at me so some of these are repeated from last year:

• Archive Magazine for woefully infrequent issues
• Me for being so late to get this ready again¹.
• CJE Micro’s for skipping the Southwest show – again!
• The RISC OS world as a whole for the typical state of RISC OS websites, which usually look as though they’re stuck in the 1990s, and/or don’t get updated often enough.
• RISC OS Open for publishing their news on their own site and, apparently, nowhere else. Blink and you’ll miss it. Added 13th February
• The plague of lastminutitis (see discussion below) Added 15th February

(The website one may have been inspired by conversations during 2019 about one site in particular, but lots – me included – are guilty.)

Late again! :)

I was wondering how far I’d get, doing it myself, using Google Forms. I can’t imagine that working well with NetSurf…
[what put it in mind was a recent job satisfaction questionnaire created at work, collecting the information using Google Forms; like… yeah… have they even heard of the GDPR? ;-) ]

Best non-commercial software

It’s small, it’s simple, but it’s extremely useful and does exactly what it says on the tin with no fuss or bother: MiniTime (Fred Graute).

Shouldn’t Otter/NetSurf/the-other-one be listed here too?

Best hardware

Only four items? Quiet news year? ;-)

What about the “Pinebook with added RISC OS 5”?

The usual suspects: ADFFS, RPCEmu, Aemulor, VirtualRiscPC, ArcEm, ArchiEmu

The interesting thing here is that these items are solving two entirely different problems – one problem is running old software on RISC OS, the other is running RISC OS on something else.

Forget not – there’s an RPCEmu build of Aemulor, so you can run run !65Host under ArchiEmu under Aemulor under RPCEmu on a (fast!) PC!

Best new development

AcornSSL and keeping it updated with mbedTLS updates.

the typical state of RISC OS websites,

It’s worth mentioning that the baseline browser expectation is NetSurf which doesn’t cope with a lot of the sort of annoying bling that one gets on “trendy” websites.
I also believe that content is more important than swizzy visual rubbish; that’s why my design is mostly stuck in the era of HTML 3.2. It’s enough to mark up the text, without annoying the visitor with pointless stuff that gets in the way.

which usually look as though they’re stuck in the 1990s,

Yeah, about that. Mom used to be able to tell when I was using RISC OS and not Windows because RISC OS “looks old-fashioned”.
[I resisted the temptation to observe that one’s blue and one’s cream/grey !]

and/or don’t get updated often enough.

I think this needs to be put into a separate entry: Commercial/sales websites that don’t get updated to promote the thing that they’re supposed to be selling. Or give specifications and comparisons. Or list options and prices. Or… it’s as if they haven’t really sussed out this “selling stuff online” thing.

Here’s another one for the broken cog, and I wish to make certain that you understand that I’m not singling out any specific person/company as I’m aware of several people who are guilty…

• The mad rush to get <item> ready for the show tomorrow; because clearly these shows sneak up on people.
  Do you want to die of heart failure? Jeez. Pencil in a deadline for every software/hardware release of the week before so you have time to deal with issues, to get everything tested and ready, and to concentrate on getting the right stuff packed up for the show as opposed to a big panic trying to get all the loose ends sorted out at the same time.

CJE Micro’s for skipping the Southwest show – again!

Given the RISC OS market (and the same faces cropping up in the show photos!, there’s probably a delicate trade-off between how much it costs to attend a show versus how much can be made being at said show (and remember, it’s not a straight monetary equation – there’s all the paraphenalia around going and coming back too).

In CJE’s case, maybe they can stand to miss a show or two, given that they have a website that lists the stuff they have for sale and you can buy stuff from that website ¹ which is, like, pretty radical for the RISC OS world! :-p

Right. Locke & Key has been released on Netflix. Time to grabe my pack of doughnuts, call ’em dinner, and see how many I can watch before the urge to sleep overtakes the urge to watch the next episode.³

¹ Though it needs better integration with a third-party payment processor instead of what looks to be a need to quote card details ²… though to their benefit there are quite a number of potential payment options available.

² Which won’t work with any of my cards, they’re geo-blocked for any physical use outside of France and require authorisation (me entering a number that is sent to my phone) for online payments. I think the EU is looking to make this sort of thing mandatory.

³ Oh, crap, it’s a Netflix-own series. Whether or not they’ll arbitrarily cancel it is a coin toss. :-/

Best non-commercial software

It’s small, it’s simple, but it’s extremely useful and does exactly what it says on the tin with no fuss or bother: MiniTime (Fred Graute).

I run it myself on my ARMX6 for all those reasons. I included Transient, though, because I believe people also find that useful – and of the two, Transient was updated during 2019, while MiniTime not since 2018 (judging by posts on RISCOSitory).

Shouldn’t Otter/NetSurf/the-other-one be listed here too?

Which item should be removed to meet my rule of no more than six items, and why?

I was actually thinking about this while working through all the possibilities – there were quite a few more than six for this category before I whittled it down. I wondered if there was scope for another category, either for internet software in general, or perhaps just web browsers.

My conclusion was that once the new browsers are released (not just limited to people who have contributed to RISC OS Dev’s funding) that can be a category on its own. I might at the same time add a category for ‘other’ internet software (I think there are more than enough options that I can narrow it down by those which have seen updates). Hopefully, then, that’ll be two new categories next year.

Best hardware

Only four items? Quiet news year? ;-)

In hardware terms, yes. Nothing else jumped out at me – but there may be other things I’ve missed. (Hence this thread, obviously).

What about the “Pinebook with added RISC OS 5”?

That’s listed – it’s the first item on the list, but I’ve used R-Comp’s name for it.

Best new development

AcornSSL and keeping it updated with mbedTLS updates.

It was a new development in 2018 – and an option in the awards for that year. How can it be considered a best ‘new’ development two years running? :p

the typical state of RISC OS websites,

It’s worth mentioning that the baseline browser expectation is NetSurf which doesn’t cope with a lot of the sort of annoying bling that one gets on “trendy” websites.

It’s still possible to make less 1990s-looking sites than many of ours tend to be – even while maintaining the ‘content is key’ mantra.

and/or don’t get updated often enough.

I think this needs to be put into a separate entry: Commercial/sales websites that don’t get updated to promote the thing that they’re supposed to be selling. Or give specifications and comparisons. Or list options and prices. Or… it’s as if they haven’t really sussed out this “selling stuff online” thing.

While there is a case for that separation, I’d prefer to keep this in a single wordy option.

CJE Micro’s for skipping the Southwest show – again!

Given the RISC OS market (and the same faces cropping up in the show photos!, there’s probably a delicate trade-off between how much it costs to attend a show versus how much can be made being at said show (and remember, it’s not a straight monetary equation – there’s all the paraphenalia around going and coming back too).

I know. I attend all three main UK shows as an exhibitor – although CJE Micro’s has a greater physical effort (they bring more stuff).

In CJE’s case, maybe they can stand to miss a show or two, given that they have a website that lists the stuff they have for sale and you can buy stuff from that website 1 which is, like, pretty radical for the RISC OS world! :-p

Apart from the design of the site, it’s almost as if their inclusion in this option is because they’re almost one of the few exceptions when it comes to the other one, isn’t it. Amazing. ;)

But seriously, if that’s the case, why bother to attend Wakefield? That’s even further, and must be even more logistically difficult for them. Don’t forget, as well, that the Southwest Show has moved – from a hotel out in the sticks to a hotel on a major road in Bristol.

As far as I’m concerned, one of the larger RISC OS companies not supporting one of the major UK shows is unforgivable. Smaller companies and individuals, fair enough (I’m one, and 2019 was particularly difficult for me, but I made it to all three) – which is why you see different smaller outfits at the different shows.

I’m going to shut up now to avoid this turning into a proper rant. ;)

either for internet software in general,

Yes, that would probably be more useful. While it would be populated with the usual browsers, it leaves open a door for other Internet related software such as IRC, git, etc etc.

That’s listed – it’s the first item on the list,

Ah, yes. <facepalm>

How can it be considered a best ‘new’ development two years running?

Well, because our Internet stack might date from the Mesolithic, but dammit, our SSL is cutting edge.

It’s still possible to make less 1990s-looking sites than many of ours tend to be

Actually, I tend to associate “the worst of the ’90s” with any site that uses <frameset>, which should really be taken out back and shot.
Especially those sites that link to other sites in their horrible abortions and don’t bother to specify to break out of the framing. Because this was once so prevalent, one of the reasons my blog fails validation is because it contains <base target="_top"> in the header, specifically to slap away badly applied frames.

As far as I’m concerned, one of the larger RISC OS companies not supporting one of the major UK shows is unforgivable. Smaller companies and individuals, fair enough

Yes. It is utterly appalling. The entire board of directors was unavailable. Chris’ personal secretaries were on scheduled holiday. And, god, they couldn’t even bribe one of the interns to shove some stuff in the back of a car and take an expenses-paid weekend in Bristol…

Seriously, where do you draw the line between “larger RISC OS companies” and “smaller companies and individuals” given that [ Family | A couple of blokes | A few friends ] pretty much describes the entirety of the RISC OS companies.

I mean, think of AmCog. Tony writes the code. The music? Him or a collaboration with a friend. And additional graphics? His daughter. Well, that makes three people, which would place him as one of the larger RISC OS companies!

Sometimes Real Life, timing, and economics just make such things difficult. I would imagine most people would love to attend every show (hell, I’d like to make it to one!) but it isn’t always viable.

There’s probably a delicate trade-off between how much it costs to attend a show versus how much can be made being at said show.

It’s a wee bit more complex than that, because in some senses, the shows are not just about making a profit on the day, but about engaging with a significant section of the userbase who don’t “do” the online forums but do (presumably) put money the way of the RISC OS dealers and software houses throughout the year. When talking to people who come by my stand at events, there is a sizeable chunk who – when asked if I would know their name from online – say no, because they don’t do that online nonsense.

The SW Show is also different because, whilst both Wakefield and London have small numbers of people that I only see at one or the other, there seems to be a significant number of visitors to Bristol (previously WsM) who I don’t see at the other two events.

the shows are not just about making a profit on the day, but about engaging with a significant section of the userbase

Of course. It’s never a simple trade off.

a significant section of the userbase who don’t “do” the online forums

I see. We’re not stuck in the ‘90s, we’re stuck in the ’80s. ;-)

say no, because they don’t do that online nonsense

An obvious question is – given the lack of regular print magazines these days – how do these people know when the shows are, and where the venue is?

Bristol (previously WsM) who I don’t see at the other two events.

If you live “out west”, then neither London nor Wakefield are close.

Seeing my name on the list has somewhat rejigged (is that a word?) me into motion. I hit an issue getting sensible git repo processes going and had a break for a while. In some ways it shows the hurdles that the platform faces – a lack of decent baseline software for dev & productivity. I ended falling back to Linux and working on other projects with greater ease.

It’s a little disappointing as I wanted to make progress and show what I had at the SW show, but no time now to really push it forward.

At least it’s an excuse to dust things off and try and mould it more into a shape I am happy with.

The SW Show is also different because, whilst both Wakefield and London have small numbers of people that I only see at one or the other, there seems to be a significant number of visitors to Bristol (previously WsM) who I don’t see at the other two events.

While many (most?) will use personal transport and be dissuaded if parking is awkward (Midlands, Kenilworth) a significant part of the attendance at any event will look to use public transport (bus if they’re local, train if they aren’t). The event will have trouble if the latter option isn’t available (old SWS and Kenilworth)
I’d say it’s significant that the three regular, surviving, shows all work at hotels with parking and ‘public’ transport and that if a Wakefield venue closer to the station was available it would improve attendance.
Finding such venues often tends to be a search for rocking horse droppings though.

The show fans make it to all the shows and I dare say a show in Lytham St. Annes, or Cleethorpes would still be graced with their presence.

If a Wakefield venue closer to the station was available it would improve attendance.

When we ran a dedicated, free bus from the station direct to the hotel, our experience was that virtually no-one used it. The final year we ran it, less than five people were carried all day IIRC – which certainly didn’t justify the cost of hiring the bus.

Finding such venues often tends to be a search for rocking horse droppings though.

It is. Thornes Park was an ideal venue, but the costs associated with putting on a show in the space were far, far above what the market will stand now. Suitable hotels are all a bus ride from one or other station (and the options around Leeds had city-centre bus stops far harder to find than a stand in Wakefield bus station).

Incidentally, as I pointed out to another poster when this last came up, the London show is far from ideal, either. Unless you live near a station served by trains stopping at Feltham, you’re looking at a trip into London (plus a cross-London transfer) or Reading, followed by a local(ish) train to the venue. That’s not far removed from a train to Wakefield Westgate, the short walk to the bus station (or a ride on the Wakefield freecitybus if you don’t fancy the sightseeing possibilities), then the 435/6 to the venue.

The show fans make it to all the shows and I dare say a show in Lytham St. Annes, or Cleethorpes would still be graced with their presence.

Any takers for a show in Ancenis? There’s a reasonable sized hall (Charbonnier) with loads of parking. A bar just a short walk away, a retail centre a short drive away, and loads of beautiful views of the Loire. Cross over the bridge and go a couple of miles and you’re in the very scenic Muscadet wine region (vignoble nantaise) https://www.levoyageanantes.fr/en/le-voyage-c-est-aussi-le-vignoble/

What’s not to like? :-)

Seriously, where do you draw the line between “larger RISC OS companies” and “smaller companies and individuals” given that [ Family | A couple of blokes | A few friends ] pretty much describes the entirety of the RISC OS companies.

Ants are small. Soldier ants are also small.

But soldier ants are big compared with other ants.

Just because a business isn’t big, doesn’t mean it isn’t bigger than other businesses in the same field/market – but if you want some criteria, here are a couple off the top of my head that could be applied:

• How many RISC OS businesses can you list that are able to employ staff. Not just rope in mates or family members to help out, but actually have one or more employees, on the payroll? I suspect not many.
• How many RISC OS business can you list that have actual business premises separate from (i.e. not trading out of) the family home? Again, I suspect not many.

The majority of people selling into the RISC OS world don’t do either of those because ‘small’ – or in the context of this discussion ‘smaller’ – indeed the majority are holding down other jobs and running their RISC OS businesses in their spare time. How many can you think of that aren’t in that situation? Once again, I expect the answer to be not many.

One of the businesses on that list of not many is CJE Micro’s.

That’s what makes it one of the larger RISC OS businesses. To argue that they’re small because they don’t have a board of directors, or that Chris doesn’t have a personal secretary (ignoring that you were being sarcastic) is just being disingenuous. Sorry, but it is.

Especially those sites that link to other sites in their horrible abortions and don’t bother to specify to break out of the framing. Because this was once so prevalent, one of the reasons my blog fails validation is because it contains <base target=“_top”> in the header, specifically to slap away badly applied frames.

Try validating as HTML4.01 transitional.

Edit: Didn’t pay attention until after posting so the quoted html vanished – and only when fixing it did I properly read what it says. Having never used that in the header, I don’t actually know if it would validate.

I’ve made some edits to the original list. And a couple of additional thoughts:

Firstly, as I mentioned in the Southwest Show preview that I’ve just published, if the poll is up and running before the show – and if I have the space etc – I may set up a machine so that people can cast their votes at the show. Another possibility is that I could print some paper voting forms and put them in a leaflet dispenser in the foyer, so that visitors can fill them in at some point during the day and give leave them at my stand. (If I do the paper forms, it would be the awards part of the form only – it’d be too long otherwise).

Secondly, something I’ve thought about before but never taken any further, as a way to encourage voting, it might be worth adding a simple multiple choice quiz question, with a small prize – probably the CD or USB stick of my software (or possibly the disc image for delivery by email?).

Best foreign language resource

Damned, I’m so late on everything :(

I’m still working on a major revamp of RISC OS FR (with mobile support). And on some RISC OS software too. But this part will depend of the next version of RPCEmu.

The good news is that the mailing list and the free ABC offer both working great :)

mentioned in the Southwest Show preview

It is my understanding that ROD/WiFi Sheep expect to release ‘RISC OS Direct’ at the SW show – a Raspberry Pi distro that includes open source RISC OS plus Impression Style and a suitable version of Aemulor. Richard Keefe hopes to complete ‘Release 4c’ of Impression-X in time for the show.

Unfortunately, ArcSite is no more :-(

Unfortunately, ArcSite is no more :-(

All is not lost: https://web.archive.org/web/20160328104657/http://www.arcsite.de/hp/cms/elinks.html

Although it’s still available via the web archive, I’m not counting it if it isn’t a site in its own right. Otherwise I may as well include the archive itself in the best online resource category – and next thing you know, we’ll have a best OS category that includes Linux, Windows, and MacOS because there are emulators available for them. Bah!

But I think from now on I’m going to try to wget every RISC OS-related site I ever mention on RISCOSitory¹. If they ever disappear, I may or may not be able to do anything with my copy/the contents (depending on what, and how its licensed in the case of software) unless I can get permission from the owner, but if I can then I can try to make the content available via RISCOSitory.

¹ Assuming I remember to even try.

All the categories now have an adequate number of items – and there hasn’t been a huge discussion of the actual items listed, so I’m going to set a deadline on this for further comments.

Let’s say Wednesday. Whatever the list says by the end of that day is final.

Given that I have to get stuff ready for the show on Saturday, and the plague of lastminutitis that affects everyone when it comes to RISC OS shows means I’ll probably be spending time putting stuff on RISCOSitory¹, it may be that I won’t have time to get the poll up and running before the show (and therefore won’t be able to allow voting AT the show) – but we’ll see.

¹ Hmm. Perhaps I should add that to Broken Cog? ;)

Could Impression Style be added to best non-commercial software? I did quite a bit of work on that last year, to get it ready for free release.

Chris Hall’s work on the Impression manual would probably also be worth a mention.

Since Iris (and OWB) has now been released to investors – which are quite a few people – perhaps ROD / Lee Noar / Michael G should have an entry for browser dev too?

Impression Style: I can add it, but something else would have to be removed. (My rule of 6-max is immutable for reasons I’ve given in previous years).

Looking at the existing options, I’m inclined to suggest the best option would be to remove either PipeDream or Transient. I think the others – Launcher, StopClose, CloseHook, and Streamer – are all new releases in 2019 (and in the case of StopClose and CloseHook, I don’t want to choose/favour one over the other, and I like to have the occasional pairing of similar things to compete).

Chris’ work on the Impression manual – where to put it? I can see there are only five items in the publication/offline resource category, so the manual could go there anyway – but that’s not specifically Chris’ work on it as such (so he’s not competing with himself for the newsletter!)

But where would his work on the manual fit/be recognised? Did he do it off his own back and then contact you with his work (best show of initiative – which only has three items at the moment)? Otherwise, I can see a case for best new development – “a manual for Impression, updated thanks to Chris Hall” or some such wording (to ensure it’s Chris that’s being credited, not ROD, which would see ROD for Impression’s acquisition competing with ROD for Impression’s manual) – but then it’s the rule of 6 issue again; what comes off?

Looking at the list, I’d be inclined to suggest any of the last three; the Python 8 alpha release and migration to GitLab are probably of limited interest to users in general and more to developers (though I’d say the GitLab one is more important), and the Pi 4 release was a later addition because it didn’t even occur to me until it was pointed out, despite it being significant (with the caveat that we aren’t yet able to use it – perhaps the OS being released for it would be a better fit for the category, when that actually happens?)

The browsers and the developers involved sort of relates to earlier comments; I’d thought about this while compiling the list, before posting here, though in a slightly different context to giving recognition to those working on them.

I decided against them for non-commercial software because they aren’t truly freely available until anyone can download them, not just investors (even if the latter amounted to 99.99% of RISC OS users!) – and they wouldn’t fit in commercial software because, despite not being freely available (yet) they aren’t actually for sale as such.

Which is why I pondered another category, and (for the same reason – not yet truly available) decided to put off adding such a category until they are.

So in terms of recognising the work put in on them, best new dev might be an arguable place in that context (or show of initiative if they were working on them and approached you – but the history of how ROD came to be says otherwise), but as with Chris’ work on the Impression manual, something else would have to come off (and would this be more than one thing? A separate entry for each? Or a single for all as a whole? And it would mean ROD competing with itself over the Impression entry).

So my inclination is to not include them this time. (Sorry ROD, Lee and Michael).

But Impression Style in non-commercial software, and an updated manual (with credit for the work going to Chris) in best new development I can see a case for. So discuss and convince me about what they should replace!

(Edit: And I’ve added the manual itself, as a ROD release, to the publication category)

The plague of lastminutitis that affects everyone when it comes to RISC OS shows

Which, I hasten to add, Rick had already mentioned further upthread!

But where would his work on the manual fit/be recognised? Did he do it off his own back and then contact you with his work (best show of initiative – which only has three items at the moment)?

I communicated with Richard Keefe in November 2017 offering to sort out the images (which were in an extended high resolution mode) in the Manual and did Chapter 1 as an example. He had approached ROOL to do this but nothing appeared over the horizon.

I then approached ROD after they acquired Impression and they (Andrew) snatched my hand off, providing me with the original Impression file of the manual, dating from 1994, to work on. I exported each image as a graphic in a Draw file or an ArtWorks file, disassembled it using MultiTask and ArtWorks and replaced the sprite captured from the screen with an updated one from Impression-X and regenerated the image and dropped it into the Impression document to replace the original. By August 2019 the manual had reached the nit-picking stage almost including comments about the shape of full stops. It was finished in September 2019 and has been available in PDF form from ROD for a little while now (at a cost of £15). It will be available in PDF form with release 5 later this year (Release 4c is due this week) to subscribers to the Impression-X scheme and may be available as a printed manual in the next few months at a price not yet decided.

If my colour laser printer is up to it, I shall bring a draft A5 printed manual to the SW show (probably three copies, one for my stand, one for Richard (K) and one for Andrew/Richard (ROD) so that a few more typos can be found!).

For my sins I have volunteered to keep the manual up to date provided that I get the necessary information from Richard.

Sorting out the images was an interesting task. Simply poking a different mode number into the embedded sprite that had the same colour depth as the CC-defined extended modes was sufficient. Getting the screen shots to reflect Impression-X vice 5.13 took the time.

(though I’d say the GitLab one is more important)

Yes, because now it’s a pain in the arse to browse the sources online in RISC OS using NetSurf…

they aren’t truly freely available until anyone can download them

Agreed. Maybe best new development, but not best non-commercial.

don’t want to choose/favour one over the other

There’s probably an argument for a “best utility” category, to cover the little things that do a simple job well.

Simply poking a different mode number into the embedded sprite that had the same colour depth as the CC-defined extended modes was sufficient.

:-) I think all of us who used DTP back in the early days have run into this. I had a number of images in… whatever modes Beebug included with Ovation. Which, of course, no longer work since the sprite file is described according to number of words of width with the mode providing the book/aspect. But thankfully just pasting in an appropriate lookalike (usually 12 or 15) magically makes the pictures appear.

Chris – thanks for the background of how it came about. I think you have actually told me at least some of that already, but that completes the picture and gives me the info I need to say it goes in best show of initiative. I’ll edit the original post to reflect that after hitting ‘save reply’ on this one.

Rick:

There’s probably an argument for a “best utility” category, to cover the little things that do a simple job well.

There probably is, but not at this late stage of this year’s poll. That’s one for next year (like browsers/internet stuff as discussed further up).