ROOL Forum: Recent posts

Sat, 22 Nov 2025 23:43:17 +0000

the Wimp replacement you wrote and uploaded no longer can be found, did you pull it or is it hosted somewhere else

I pulled quite early on as I was told off for doing it, even though it was within the, then, Castle licence. It has been part of the standard RO5 from about 2008 to 2013 (IIRC), so you’d need to find a version from that time to get a copy with my changes.

Sat, 22 Nov 2025 23:24:28 +0000

the Wimp replacement you wrote and uploaded no longer can be found, did you pull it or is it hosted somewhere else @Fred?

https://www.riscosopen.org/forum/forums/3/topics/123

Sat, 22 Nov 2025 23:23:05 +0000

it can’t run RO native but will run RO on Linux, but be advised RO on Linux has it’s issues still and isnt really fully ready to be daily used.

Sat, 22 Nov 2025 23:16:23 +0000

Ref Pine64 can this Tablet run Linux RO – if so is Andrew having a look at one?

Sat, 22 Nov 2025 23:14:50 +0000

also Freds theme tools no longer work with the current version of RO5 due to his window manager changes being reverted i think.

That’s right, and I still feel that my changes provided more flexibility than what’s available in RO5 today. Also, the tool to create the palette sprites is not publicly available, I ended up writing my own.

Anyway, I have done some work to make my themes work with the current window manager but I still need to sort out the end caps (title bar and scroll bars).

Sat, 22 Nov 2025 22:56:37 +0000

With loads of thanks, StrongED is easily the most used RISC OS app here, a real joy to use, and its features are missed in text editors on other platforms.

+1 Absolutely – many thanks.

Sat, 22 Nov 2025 22:46:13 +0000

X RMKill DeepKeys
X RMKill StrongKeys
RMEnsure StrongKeys 1.02 RMLoad <StrongED$Dir>.Tools.StrongKeys

Thanks for that! I’d only killed DeepKeys but not StrongKeys. With both killed I do see the error.

The initialisation code of StrongKeys checks for some DeepKeys functionality in a way that needs DeepKeys to be present. Thing is I ended up not using that functionality so all that’s needed is to check for DeepKeys being loaded.

In fact I’d already done a version that does just that, and then forgot about it. :-(
Oh well, at least this one is easy to fix.

Sat, 22 Nov 2025 22:12:25 +0000

random question ever thought about taking on the toolbox bounty?

Sat, 22 Nov 2025 21:56:12 +0000

what exactly is missing in stock RISC OS 5 at the moment regarding themes?

As Martin says, the key difference is with the window gadgets. The toolsprites and iconsprites can be fully replaced on both OS flavours, and that’s the bulk of what you need to change the look of the desktop. Until recently, RO5 didn’t allow you to alter any aspect of Wimp-drawn objects like buttons or icon frames. That made it tricky to move radically away from the traditional colour schemes (grey backgrounds, etc) or border styles, since you’d still have grey, 3D-slabbed buttons in place, whatever else you did.

Recently, RO5 gained the ability to change the colours used by the Wimp to draw button borders, etc, which is a very welcome change. You can see this in the screenshot of Clarity above, where the Default button has a blue shade, rather than a yellow one (in fact, all the colours are non-standard, with a subtle blue tint rather than the stock grey). There’s also a greater potential use of transparency effects in places. Select is still more flexible over displaying text, and actually changing the shape of Wimp-drawn objects (you can have curved corners, and thinner borders, and various shading options).

There are always plenty of things that could be better, of course, but both Select and the current version of RO5 are much more themeable than any previous versions, and do allow for some very polished alternative looks, as long as you’re prepared to work around some of the remaining limitations. Hence thinking it might be nice to try to complete Clarity now, if there’s sufficient interest.

Sat, 22 Nov 2025 21:28:14 +0000

This stuff from select –
the ability to customise any part of the window furniture and buttons etc.

Changing how the window button order is

Changing the Wimp text size on everything, the Select Desktop was very customisable

I’m assuming this all relates to the missing Toolbox from Select.

Sat, 22 Nov 2025 21:15:26 +0000

Out of interest, what exactly is missing in stock RISC OS 5 at the moment regarding themes?