Editorial

Richard Hallas presents the online edition of Foundation RISC User

Thank you for investigating the Web edition of the magazine! Foundation RISC User is a CD-ROM-based publication for enthusiastic users of the RISC OS operating system. Published every three to four months by RISCOS Ltd, the developer of RISC OS itself, the magazine provides news from the horse's mouth, and is the most authoritative source of information about the platform. This online edition is intended to serve three main functions:

1. It forms a public 'sampler' issue, to encourage RISC OS users to join the Foundation;
2. It provides a useful online version of the information in the Database section of the magazine, available for public viewing and kept regularly up to date;
3. Its sample articles present topics pertaining to the RISC OS platform to a potentially worldwide audience.

So, please have a good look around the site. We hope that you'll then want to join the Foundation, if you're not a member already! Every new Foundation subscription or renewal provides direct financial support for the continuing development of RISC OS as a desktop operating system, so if you are an enthusiast, do please show your support by paying for membership. For full details, please download the Foundation membership application and renewal form, which is available either as an archived Draw file (12K Zip) or an Adobe Acrobat document (13K PDF). Note that membership of the Foundation includes a range of different services, of which the quarterly CD-based magazine is the most prominent. Members also receive regular email newsletters, special offers, discounts and other benefits.

Features of the magazine

• Foundation RISC User employs a unique system, found in no other publication on any computer platform, which allows software applications and resource files to be launched directly from within articles. Click on a picture of a Draw file in an article and the original file will load directly into Draw; click on an archive link and a Filer window will open on the archive itself; click on a 'Run software' icon, and the software in question will launch directly from the CD. This innovative feature takes the usefulness and interactivity of articles onto an entirely new level.
• The magazine has a strong emphasis on providing practical features and useful information which is not to be found elsewhere. Because one of our purposes is to allow developers to promote their own products through the provision of practical tutorial features, you will frequently find articles on using specific software which are written either by the author of the software in question or by an expert user.
• As software development on the RISC OS platform is a high priority for us, Foundation RISC User will maintain a relatively high technical content that should appeal to programmers of all levels. There are plenty of articles for non-programmers, too, but our technical content is higher, overall, than most other magazines.
• We are not in direct competition with other magazines. Indeed, we encourage you to support the traditional RISC OS magazines, and have a scheme which actively promotes them within Foundation RISC User. All but one of the other magazines have chosen to participate in this scheme. Joining the Foundation supports the platform itself, and provides you with certain benefits that include a regular, high-quality CD! The Foundation is the direct successor to Acorn's Clan, and membership should not be considered in quite the same light as a magazine subscription.
• Our Forum section allows members to express their views not only to other Foundation members but to RISCOS Ltd itself, and to request help with technical problems from RISCOS Ltd staff. This provides a unique opportunity for the exchange of useful ideas and information between RISCOS Ltd and its core enthusiasts.
• The magazine has a fully indexed Software section, containing a range of high-quality freeware applications which are kept up to date with each issue. Readers are welcome to recommend the inclusion of other software in this archive.
• Every issue is comprehensively indexed, with both a Features index and a full alphabetical index of the entire contents of the magazine.
• Every fourth issue, being the last of the volume, contains the entire feature material from the previous set of issues, meaning that you can search for material in a single place without having to swap CDs. Again, all the material is comprehensively indexed, on both a per-issue and per-volume basis.
• Each issue of the magazine is presented very professionally, and arrives in a jewel case with colour-printed inlays (including new, original artwork on the cover of each issue) and a colour-labelled CD.
• Although intended for use on RISC OS computers, the magazine's article content, being in HTML, can be viewed on any platform. Promote the RISC OS platform by showing the magazine to your PC-owning colleagues! (The interactive software features of some articles will only function on RISC OS computers.)

Because RISCOS Ltd must remain impartial towards its partners and third party developers, it cannot express a preference for one product over another. Therefore, Foundation RISC User does not publish reviews of RISC OS products. We may occasionally include reviews of general computer peripherals which are not specific to the RISC OS market but which work with RISC OS computers; however, we will not pass judgement on RISC OS-only products. It is for similar reasons that we carry no commercial advertising. We do, however, have extensive news and product database sections which provide information about new products, forthcoming shows and other special events.

The Database section

The Database section within Foundation RISC User is intended to represent the RISC OS market today, in terms of current, supported products from registered developers. It is therefore intentionally not comprehensive; it lists only products which are actively being supported by their developers, and it lists only those developers who have (a) registered as active affiliates of RISCOS Ltd and (b) chosen to be represented in our database. There are several other active RISC OS third parties who have not chosen to become registered developers, and so their products unfortunately cannot be included.

Within those constraints, we hope that you will find the Database section to be particularly valuable, especially the offline version on each CD (which has benefits that can't be reproduced on the Web). The Database is extremely well organised, with all products being fully indexed and cross-referenced between various categories, and each product linking back to a unique page about its developer. Full descriptions, prices and the latest version numbers are included, and the unique property of the CD magazine (as opposed to this online edition) is that the software itself can be included on, and run from, the CD. So, many developer pages include demonstration versions, shareware and freeware products which can be launched from the page with a single click.

The Database section also contains an extremely comprehensive collection of pages detailing RISC OS user groups around the world, many with Draw-format maps that can be printed out. All RISC OS 4 authorised installers are also listed, and where a particular company or individual falls into more than one category (e.g. companies or user groups which are also authorised installers), the pages are fully cross-referenced.

The online edition

The Database section of this online edition, however, will be kept up to date and will reflect the contents of at least the most recent CD. Often the details will be more recent than those on the current CD. We hope that this service will encourage more developers to participate, and be useful to all users of RISC OS systems.

One area in which the online magazine cannot be as useful as a real, CD-based issue, though, is in its inclusion of software. There are many pages on the CD (especially in the Features, Database and Software sections) where clicking on links will cause software to run from the CD. In this online edition, the links are still present, because we want to show the pages in the form in which they appear on the CD. However, the links will not work as such in the online edition; they will just open a window reminding you of what would happen if you were actually using the CD. The proprietary protocols used by the magazine require some specific software, provided on the CD, to be loaded on demand, and there's no straightforward way in which the same effect could be duplicated over the Web. (Immediate access to the contents of archives is also required.) So, if you want the full benefit of the magazine's features, you'll need to join the Foundation and get the proper CD edition!

Note that the free software archive in the online edition merely shows the software that's provided on the CD; none of the direct software links actually work. However, the links to the software home pages do work, so you can use them to check if a newer version of a piece of software has been released.

Feedback

We are particularly interested, though, in news of how RISC OS systems are being used in an unusual way, or in a professional environment. If you have a story along these lines, which may potentially be of interest to other users, do please get in touch directly; we may be able to feature your activities in an article. Equally well, if you consider yourself to be especially experienced in the use of particular software, and could pass on useful experience to others, please don't hesitate to contact the Editor.

Writers of software are also welcome to contact us for potential coverage of their software in the magazine. Whilst the Database section is intended to cover current commercial products, and is therefore open only to registered developers, the rest of the magazine is open to any member of the Foundation. If you have written some interesting and useful new software, do be sure to tell us about it.

Promote RISC OS yourself!

We have several different button variations for you to choose from, in four basic designs. The first three designs feature the cogwheel device and therefore promote the RISC OS platform as a whole. If you would prefer to promote specifically RISC OS 4, then the fourth design features the RISC OS 4 3D cube logo.

There is also a choice of wording on the buttons. "Revolutionary RISC OS (4)" advertises the platform snappily; "Rendered on RISC OS (4)" suggests that the Web site on which it appears was produced entirely on a RISC OS machine. Use whichever design most appeals to you. The buttons are all available in animated and static versions.

Revolutionary RISC OS (4)
Animated
	roa.gif (4K)	rro1a.gif (5K)	rro4a.gif (6K)	rroqa.gif (19K)
Static
	ros.gif (1¼K)	rro1s.gif (1½K)	rro4s.gif (2K)	rroqs.gif (2¼K)
Rendered on RISC OS (4)
Animated
	roa.gif (4K)	roro1a.gif (5K)	roro4a.gif (6K)	roroqa.gif (19K)
Static
	ros.gif (1¼K)	roro1s.gif (1½K)	roro4s.gif (2K)	roroqs.gif (2¼K)
IYONIX
Finally, for proud Iyonix owners, here's a pulsating button to advertise your machine! This button should be made to point at www.iyonix.com.
				iyonix.gif (3½K)

You should use code similar to the following to include a Web button in your page:

<DIV ALIGN="center"><P ALIGN="center"><A HREF="http://www.riscos.com/" TARGET="_blank"><IMG SRC="??????.gif" ALT="RISC OS" WIDTH="88" HEIGHT="31" BORDER="0"></A></P></DIV>

Change the "??????.gif" filename as appropriate for the button graphic you want to use.

You should be able to use your browser's 'save object/image' facility to download the button of your choice from the display above to your local disc, and you can build it into your HTML source using the fragment of code listed above (amending the filename as appropriate).

Alternatively, you may click on this link to download a Zip archive containing the entire range of buttons, along with the code needed to include them in your own pages.

Note: the various buttons shown above are the latest versions as of January 2002. If you downloaded copies of any of the buttons prior to that date, then you may like to replace them with the newer versions. Nearly all of the buttons have been improved in one way or another since their initial release.

(To answer a question which is sometimes asked by the incurably inquisitive, the invisible face on the base of the RISC OS 4 cube contains an entirely black version of the logo.)

Enjoy Foundation RISC User Online!

Richard Hallas
Editor, Foundation RISC User