Four Apps Come to the Fore For You
Posted by Steve Revill Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:54:00 GMT
You may have blinked and missed a few application updates over the last few months as they scroll past on the Recent changes section of the home page. Don’t worry though! We’ve been keeping a watchful eye and, skipping over the smaller fixes for now, can bring you the main highlights.
SparkFS
Archive filing system SparkFS, most often used for handling ZIP files within RISC OS, got an update for SparkFS 1.57:
- Now supports reading streamed ZIP files, where the information about the size of the compressed object is after the data rather than before as is normally the case.
- If the OS fails to boot, for example the disc is blank, SparkFS is better at selecting an icon sprite.
You can update SparkFS via PackMan or as part of the nightly HardDisc4, but since both of those require SparkFS to open we also provide a self extracting version to get started with.
Paint
Work has been progressing with ticking the last few items off the Paint feature list. In the latest Paint (2.58) you will find:
- A new Adjust resolution menu option, hotkey Ctrl-D, which works by changing the sprite type for an equivalent 45, 90, or 180 dpi type.
- A new opacity slider on the spray can tool, this allows much more controlled blending of the spray with the underlying image rather than sputtering opaque pixels everywhere.
For more details see the Paint component history.
Git Client
Just released is a revised Git client (0.09), comprising both the desktop front-end and familiar command line utility for revision control using Git and features:
- Addition of
git tagandgit remote removeverbs. - Extra option switches for
git branch --list. - The icon bar menu has a Repositories sub menu to more easily reach those repositories currently known.
- Stash and note references are now displayed in the GUI view.
Download the client now to give it a test drive.
SSH-KeyGen
Born out of a requirement from the Git Client for an up-to-date way of generating keys to access remote servers, a new command line utility called SSH-KeyGen has been created to be added to the !Internet resource.
It implements a subset of the eponymous ssh-keygen as a RISC OS application.
Crucially, it relies on the mbedTLS Open Source library for its cryptography, and this is a library for which there is already a RISC OS port as it’s used by AcornSSL as well. Therefore both are kept up to date in sync.
A useful roundup, thanks ROOL.