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Amiga News and Community Announcements => Amiga News and Community Announcements => Amiga Software News => Topic started by: chris on July 20, 2008, 12:25:04 AM
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Unsatisfactory Software have been rather busy this year, so I thought I'd take a moment to highlight the last two months' worth of new and updated software. They come under three main headings, XAD clients, Datatypes and Other.
I'm going to split Other into two sections and put the two "others" most people will be interested in at the top:
Wet (http://www.unsatisfactorysoftware.co.uk/download.php?file=wet) is the Workbench weather program for OS3.9bb2 and OS4.0, and was rated 6Ws in aMiGa=PoWeR (http://www.amigapower.net) when they reviewed it some time ago. This update to v5.3 fixes all the major known problems, including potential crashes and display errors.
GuideML (http://www.unsatisfactorysoftware.co.uk/download.php?file=guideml) is the AmigaGuide to HTML converter originally written by Richard Koerber and adopted by me since 2001. This year it has had updates to support macros and improve single-file handling and inter-AmigaGuide links. It is compiled for OS3.5 (although the command-line interface might work on OS2.04) and OS4.0.
XAD Clients
RAR3 client (http://www.unsatisfactorysoftware.co.uk/download.php?file=xad_rar) is a new release based on Rar_Extractor 0.21, and contains code written by Chris Young, Stephan Matzke, Shay Green and Alexander Roshal. It is a RAR plugin for xadmaster.library (UnArc) which supports the newer RAR formats and is a direct replacement for libs:xad/rar. At the moment it is only available for OS4.
In a similar vein, the 7-Zip client (http://www.unsatisfactorysoftware.co.uk/download.php?file=xad7z) has recently been updated, and has just reached the "top downloads of all time since the top downloads of all time list was started" list. This is a UnArc plug-in for the 7-Zip format and supports LZMA, BZip2 and uncompressed 7-Zip files. v1.7 is a minor update available for OS3.x and 4.0, containing code written by Chris Young and Ivor Pavlov.
Datatypes
Two new datatypes and two updates (all OS4 only) brings the total (http://www.unsatisfactorysoftware.co.uk/index.php?pg=amiga&cat=datatype) up to seven.
First up, JNG (http://www.unsatisfactorysoftware.co.uk/download.php?file=jng_dt) is a JPEG-alike format primarily used within MNG files, and this datatype manages to successfully display most of the JNG and MNG test suite without errors. MNG support is limited to the first frame only, and is mostly there as a side-effect of using libmng (it also supports PNG but I don't know of any good reason to use jng.datatype for PNG files).
Secondly, an addition to the rather small collection of animation datatypes, is Autodesk Animator (http://www.unsatisfactorysoftware.co.uk/download.php?file=flic_dt) (FLIC). This supports old-style FLI and FLC animations and handles every file I've thrown at it - although the frame rate drops dramatically on some. Thanks to Alan Novak for loads of test files, and Hans de Ruiter for advice on animation datatypes - much of which still remains unimplemented.
SCR (http://www.unsatisfactorysoftware.co.uk/download.php?file=scr_dt) (Spectrum SCREEN$) has been updated twice in the last two months, to add support for reading Spectrum screen memory directly out of various emulator snapshot files. It also supports Timex hi-colour and hi-res modes, and the flash attribute (as a second picture)
Finaly, the RISC OS Sprite datatype (http://www.unsatisfactorysoftware.co.uk/download.php?file=spritedt) has just been rewritten and now supports new format Sprites and transparency.
Other
libbz2 (http://www.unsatisfactorysoftware.co.uk/download.php?file=libbz2) is worth downloading if you have OS4, as it contains the latest libbz2.so (v1.0.5) that fixes some security holes. v1.7 of the XAD 7-Zip client will use this sobj on OS4. The archive also contains static libraries for OS4 clib2/newlib and OS3 vbcc.
ppmtoscr (http://www.unsatisfactorysoftware.co.uk/download.php?file=ppmtoscr) converts PPM format pictures into Spectrum screens, updated after ten years and now with an OS4 native version thanks to Chris Handley's PortablE. There is also a version of PDHFIC (http://www.unsatisfactorysoftware.co.uk/download.php?file=pdhfic_os4), a GUI version of ppmtoscr which also loads Datatypes images, now ported to OS4 native. 8081Utils (http://www.unsatisfactorysoftware.co.uk/download.php?file=zx81) is a collection of programs for dealing with ZX80/ZX81/TS1000 program files, newly compiled for OS4. The reverse is possible with zxtext2p (http://www.unsatisfactorysoftware.co.uk/download.php?file=zxtext2p), which converts text files into ZX81 program files - newly bugfixed and ported to 68k by James Jacobs, and originally written by Chris Cowley.
If you're wondering about what to do with these emulator utilities, you might find my OS4 ports of PSPZX81 (http://www.unsatisfactorysoftware.co.uk/download.php?file=pspzx81) - the ZX81 emulator for the PSP - and FUSE (http://www.unsatisfactorysoftware.co.uk/download.php?file=fuse) - the Free UNIX Spectrum Emulator - useful. Both of these have been updated this year although not within the last two months.
Unsatisfactory Software (http://www.unsatisfactorysoftware.co.uk)
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The 7-zip client has been incredibly useful, so thanks for that. Any chance we'll see the RAR client backported to OS3.x?
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:banana:
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Thank you for your useful tools and for supporting both Amiga OSes!
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@Matt_H
The source code is available, it might need a few tweaks but should compile fairly easily for OS3.x (it doesn't use any OS4-specific features). However, it needs a C++ compiler for Rar_Extractor and I don't have one for 68k.
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Hi Chris,
Thanks for the Wet update, it is a nice program that I use regularly.
In fact, I have 2 icons on Workbench, 1 for local weather, 1 for where I'm going to in France :-D
Which leads me to a suggestion: might it be possible to have the weather for 2 places combined in the 1 program?
Just a thought, not sure if anyone else would like/use that feature.
But, I like it and am grateful for your help initially in setting it up :cheers:
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@wurzel
That has been suggested before, but I'm not really sure how it should work. As such, I implemented the current situation which allows you to run more than one instance. I think that provides a balance between overcrowding the GUI with options to add/view extra places, and not allowing more than one place to be monitored.
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@Chris
That has been suggested before, but I'm not really sure how it should work. As such, I implemented the current situation which allows you to run more than one instance.
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Well, it works that way just fine, so thanks :-D
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>GuideML is the AmigaGuide to HTML converter originally written by Richard Koerber and adopted by me since 2001.
Are you still in touch with him? I have been trying to contact him about getting source code for PatchWork so I can update it to support OS3.5/3.9. I found 3 different email addresses for him but my emails to all 3 have bounced. :-(
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>GuideML is the AmigaGuide to HTML converter originally written by Richard Koerber and adopted by me since 2001.
Are you still in touch with him? I have been trying to contact him about getting source code for PatchWork so I can update it to support OS3.5/3.9. I found 3 different email addresses for him but my emails to all 3 have bounced. :-(
Blimey, this thread's a bit of a blast from the past.
No, I'm not in contact with Richard, actually I don't think I've ever contacted him about GuideML (I got the source from Aminet), although I'm fairly sure I have about other things (Identify?).
There's a contact link (http://www.shredzone.de/cilla/named/contact.html) on his website, or you can just go straight to the source here (http://www.shredzone.org/projects/patchwork/repository). It appears to be in assembler, so good luck with that. :)
Chris
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Since this thread has been bumped, I just want to point out a couple of things that might be of interest :)
Wet (http://www.unsatisfactorysoftware.co.uk/download.php?file=wet) is the Workbench weather program for OS3.9bb2 and OS4.0, and was rated 6Ws in aMiGa=PoWeR (http://www.amigapower.net) when they reviewed it some time ago. This update to v5.3 fixes all the major known problems, including potential crashes and display errors.
Wet (http://www.unsatisfactorysoftware.co.uk/wet/) is now at v6.2. You need to install 6.1 and then patch it up to 6.2.
RAR3 client (http://www.unsatisfactorysoftware.co.uk/download.php?file=xad_rar) is a new release based on Rar_Extractor 0.21, and contains code written by Chris Young, Stephan Matzke, Shay Green and Alexander Roshal. It is a RAR plugin for xadmaster.library (UnArc) which supports the newer RAR formats and is a direct replacement for libs:xad/rar. At the moment it is only available for OS4.
The RAR3 XAD plugin (http://www.unsatisfactorysoftware.co.uk/download.php?file=xad_rar) is now available for OS3 (and has also been updated for OS4).
In a similar vein, the 7-Zip client (http://www.unsatisfactorysoftware.co.uk/download.php?file=xad7z) has recently been updated, and has just reached the "top downloads of all time since the top downloads of all time list was started" list. This is a UnArc plug-in for the 7-Zip format and supports LZMA, BZip2 and uncompressed 7-Zip files. v1.7 is a minor update available for OS3.x and 4.0, containing code written by Chris Young and Ivor Pavlov.
The 7-Zip client (http://www.unsatisfactorysoftware.co.uk/download.php?file=xad7z) is now at v2.4. It is no longer in the top downloads of all time ever list.
ppmtoscr (http://www.unsatisfactorysoftware.co.uk/download.php?file=ppmtoscr) converts PPM format pictures into Spectrum screens, updated after ten years and now with an OS4 native version thanks to Chris Handley's PortablE. There is also a version of PDHFIC (http://www.unsatisfactorysoftware.co.uk/download.php?file=pdhfic_os4), a GUI version of ppmtoscr which also loads Datatypes images, now ported to OS4 native.
PDHFIC (http://www.unsatisfactorysoftware.co.uk/index.php?pg=pdhfic) now has an AROS native version too.
OS4 ports of PSPZX81 (http://www.unsatisfactorysoftware.co.uk/download.php?file=pspzx81) - the ZX81 emulator for the PSP
Please do not use this. Instead download the far superior sz81 (http://www.unsatisfactorysoftware.co.uk/download.php?file=sz81).
Unsatisfactory Software (http://www.unsatisfactorysoftware.co.uk)
There has been plenty more new stuff in the intervening four years, including NetSurf (http://www.unsatisfactorysoftware.co.uk/netsurf/) for OS4 - the largest project I've ever been involved with. There is a new version due to be released in two weeks.
My Amiga (http://www.unsatisfactorysoftware.co.uk/index.php?pg=amiga) page has each category sorted in reverse chronological order, if you want to catch up!
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>There's a contact link on his website, or you can just go straight to the source here.
That's cool, there is a V0.17 there from 2010 which fixes my most hated bug :-) I suppose I should upload that to Aminet to replace the existing V0.15.
I'll check the OS3.9 autodocs to see if there are any specific OS3.5/3.9 additions that could be made.