Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2005 17:54:03 +0000 (GMT) From: developer Subject: Select 4 what's upcoming. To: riscos-select@smartgroups.com Hi Everyone, I know you are all dying to now what's coming for the future of Select. The timeframe for Select 4 release is not yet decided, as it is in part reliant on the progress with Adjust32 for the A9 range of computers. The totality of Select development since the release of Select3i4 has been towards the goal of total conversion of the RISC OS 4 sources to be 32 bit neutral, thus allowing the eventual running of Select on any supported platform. The first milestone in that project was the production of a 26 bit RISC OS ROM image from the 32 bit neutral sources last Christmas. With the goal of using just one RISC OS source this has meant a lot of extra work ensuring that the two versions of RISC OS produced from this new source are stable for both 26 bit processors and 32 bit processors. As may be expected this has not proved as simple as just producing a new version of RISC OS solely to suit a particular processor, but it is essential work to be done now to avoid problems in supporting both types of processors in the future. In the past the Select scheme has deliberately not touched certain areas of the OS, but the conversion to 32 bit has meant that every part has been examined, with the inevitable discovery of old and new bugs as well as old, but previously unknown features. As example did you know that you can access a Drive by letter as well as number? e.g Filer_Opendir ADFS::E works just as well as Filer_Opendir ADFS::4 Just a few of the new features already developed for Select 4 include ongoing development work that has been done on Paint and Draw as well as a considerable number of new graphics renderers. The Filer has been updated to support some more advanced facilities than it has ever had before. This includes features such as keyboard command shortcuts and "search as you type". The Internet stack, and related components, have undergone a number of changes in order to address problems and provide new features to developers and, ultimately, users. The primary improvements have been the addition of new modules for particular Internet facilities - RouterDiscovery, InternetTime and ResolverMDNS. SpriteExtend has is now capable of rendering CMYK and YCbCrK JPEGs. The WindowManager has been updated significantly. From this work, it is now possible for button icons to be 'highlighted' when the mouse is over them. This is not used by the built in borders. However, a number of new borders will be supplied which will use this feature. Filecore and HForm has been totally overhauled to support the latest ATA standards and SMART features. TextGadget has new features to support new text area background sprite handling. Hopefully that's enough to whet your appetites for now:-) PS These are on top of the previously announced new Fonts and other features. PPS As regards subscriptions to Select 32 we have not as yet taken payments from anyone other than a handful of people who included an extra £15 in their Select renewals since Christmas. We are definately committed to supporting all current RISC OS platforms via the Select scheme, and we will be making Select32 application forms generally available when a clearer completion target date is in sight. We are not at present funding Select32 via advance payment of Select subscriptions, though that may become necessary at some point. regards -- Paul Middleton Managing Director RISCOS Ltd -----------------------------------------------------------------------