ROOL Forum: Recent posts

Fri, 10 Jul 2026 20:36:07 +0000

Hi Jim – I believe you did get it to work after updating your iMX6 computer to latest OS. You sent me some examples of DeBrown vs Compo method.

If something doesn’t work, please let us know the error message (if any), as it may help point to a solution.

IIRC Debrown just needs ImageMagick7 installed (which needs to be seen by the filer, I think?) and !InfoZip for zip handling.

Increasing your “Next” slot and/or RAM disc may also help – both done via the Task Manager (click on the “i” icon in the bottom right of your screen).

Fri, 10 Jul 2026 17:07:13 +0000

haha, that’s one way of getting it to work. ;-)

It is in fact how I run various RPCEmu instances for testing :-)

Fri, 10 Jul 2026 17:05:59 +0000

haha, that’s one way of getting it to work. ;-)

I do plan on getting Windows builds back; it’ll need a bit of work and a heap of testing though. :-/

Fri, 10 Jul 2026 15:50:40 +0000

Yes, I recall the work on the sig-gen+analyser. :-) I did it as it was handy for some bench measurements I wanted to make for some audio mag/page articles.

I did also some years ago do PPMs for the audio file player that was commonly used on RO… but whose name I’ve now forgotten!

Fri, 10 Jul 2026 15:45:31 +0000

Sorry about this, but I’m now in a muddle. I just tried to run DeBrown2 to debrown a pdf ebook… and I couldn’t get it to work. Have I not got the latest version… or am I forgetting/muddled?
Although I suspect ‘page adapting’ a’la my Compo approach might be better at times, the debrowning I think I recall from DeBrown seems good, so very handy when my atempts to optimise fall flat.

I should also explain – my main task these days is as a 24/7 ‘carer and house-husband’ so I keep being distracted and forget what I had been learning (sic). So may simply not remeber what I have known previously. :-/

I think I recall suggesting that DeBrown2 should have a user option to ‘skip debrowning page 1’ as this tends to be a colour cover on paper tat is often not pulp, but chinered (spelling?) so may look good in colour, no need to debrown.

Fri, 10 Jul 2026 13:27:56 +0000

which is why I proposed a general “dark mode” system variable which would apply to all themes that prefer an inverted palette.

In the absence of a global system variable (currently), the following bit of BASIC will set a system variable AppName$DarkMode based on dark mode or not. Just replace AppName with the name of the application you want to test in dark mode.

REM Note state of dark mode in a sysvar

SYS "XWimp_ReadSysInfo",30 TO dark% ; flags%
IF ((flags% AND 1) <> 0) THEN dark% = 0

CASE dark% OF
  WHEN 0 : OSCLI("Set AppName$DarkMode No")
  WHEN 1 : OSCLI("Set AppName$DarkMode Yes")
ENDCASE

END

The risk with a general approach to dark mode is that applications may not fit the current theme exactly, and if one application takes theme X as basis and another application is based on theme Y the overall desktop might look a bit messy.

Fri, 10 Jul 2026 12:49:50 +0000

plus whatever Paolo’s theme manager allows

A few notes:

• I am always in contact with Sprow and ExtTheme will allow every single options for the specific WIMP release he is working on.

• ExtTheme already sets an ENV variable specific for dark (and also other forms of “accented” theme colouring). My suggestion is to have a variable like that that can be simply used to form a path to the correct iconset after a ModeChange event is detected. If that variable is empty, just ignore the mode change event, if not then do what you have to do.

• ExtTheme also introduce a “new” concept which I strongly recommend ROOL to adopt and it’s the concept fo standard actions icons, like it already happens on other Desktops (hence the " " aroudn new). If an app uses such icons they will always be in theme with the theme XD – and its also less work for the app developer which no longer need to design icons.

• ROOL’s ThemeDef already uses ENV variables and so do some of the theme managers from the past.

• Final note: ExtTheme also allow a theme designed to redesign the icons for the Apps and load them atuomatically at theme change if such an app is loaded, but this is optional albeit works really well already with all forms of dark (or other accents) themes.

If any of this can be of use/help to ThemeDef too, Sprow can access my ExtTheme repo and get the code.

HTH

Fri, 10 Jul 2026 12:01:46 +0000

Thanks for the reply, Fred. The problem with that is I doubt there will be only one “dark mode” – we’ve already seen a version with purple in it, and Martin’s Obsidian, and there will probably be a plain dark mode too – plus whatever Paolo’s theme manager allows. This is too fine a level of granularity, which is why I proposed a general “dark mode” system variable which would apply to all themes that prefer an inverted palette.

Fri, 10 Jul 2026 10:42:42 +0000

I notice it’s a linux-only build

Just run it in a Linux VM on your Windows system ;-)

Fri, 10 Jul 2026 10:21:16 +0000

As fantastic as this is (and it really is!), I notice it’s a linux-only build. Are you planning on doing another Windows version?

Thu, 09 Jul 2026 23:23:27 +0000

I’ve uploaded version 2.91a of StrongHelp with support for DarkMode here

Please give it a try and let me know of any issues.