Recommended software

This is a preliminary list of 'must have' software and utilities for RISC OS.

Shareware is starred - * Commercial software is bracketed - ()

Essential modules

• SharedUnixLib - Needed for a growing number of programs being developed: NetSurf and Cretin, to name just two
• Universal Boot (RISC OS 3.x only) - This enables users of < RISC OS 4 to have a compatible Boot structure. Essential for all users, regardless of vintage of hardware. The skeleton official download is available from the legacy Acorn website or you can try the more comprehensive (& recommended) "FancyBoot" version.

Text Editors

• StrongED / Zap

There's a huge debate about which is superior. My advice is: flip a coin, and stick with that one, then cite it as the best whenever anyone asks. A quirk with both StrongED and Zap is that by default, the Delete key does a LEFT-DELETE and Copy/End does a RIGHT-DELETE, instead of the more common Delete for RIGHT-DELETE and Copy/End to jump to the end of the text. To fix this please follow the instructions on this page.

Desktop Utilities

• CDVDBurn (£65.00) – CD and DVD burning software
• CDBurnLite (free) – CD burning software bundled with the Iyonix PC
• Director (free) – Browse the directory structure of your hard disk using menus and submenus
• Gimp-Print (£10–20) – High quality photo-real printer drivers. The new version, Gutenprint, is free, but Martin Wuerthner is asking for donations in support of the necessary RISC OS porting work.
• HID (£10) – Drivers for interactive USB keyboards and mice (Iyonix and Castle USB only).
• Infozip (free) Compress and decompress ZIP files and other archive formats.
• Organizer (£11.00) – Fully functional address book and diary, capable of running tasks, remembering anniversary dates, and setting alarms
• Remane (£10.00) – Bulk file renamer: rename entire directories of files using simple criteria and wildcards.
• RiscPkg (free) – Package manager for RISC OS, still in early stages of development. Can be used to obtain automatic updates of Cretin, NetSurf, Perl, Subversion, WebJames, and a number of other programs.
• SparkPlug (free) – Decompress (only) ZIP files and other archive formats
• SparkFS (£25.00) – Compress and decompress ZIP files and other archive formats. SparkFS is a compression filing system, allowing compressed archives to be treated as directories
• StrongHelp (free) – Provides help for a number of programs
• Thump (free) – Filer-like image viewer

Modules/Utilities

• AltClick – Alt-click on a window to bring it to the front
• AMPlayer – Adds support for MP3 playback
• MiscSetup – A !Boot plugin that allows easy configuration of several desktop appearance choices no configurable elsewhere
• NetTime – Update your clock to internet time servers
• PlayIt – Codec for most audio formats on RISC OS
• SpecialFX – Utility that improves overall desktop appearance by anti-aliasing drawfiles and blending fonts. Also fixes printing issues which can occur when printing text from several applications
• ZapFonts – Bitmap font renderer. Used for Cretin, StrongED and Zap, among others

Email/News

• Messenger Lite (free) – Also bundled with the Iyonix PC
• Messenger Pro (£39.00) – Email and news agent, allows sorting and searching of messages and news
• Newsbase (free) – Freestanding news database for use with the free version of Messenger
• Newshound (free) – News client for fetching and sending news
• Pluto (from £29.00) – Email and news agent, allows sorting and searching of messages and news
• POPStar (free) – POP3 mail client for fetching and sending email

Note: The free versions of Messenger and Newsbase are not 32-bit compatible, however the Iyonix is provided with Messenger Lite as standard

Instant Messaging

• Alternative ways to connect to MSN
• Cretin (free) – Alternative free IRC client. 32-bit version available.
• Grapevine (£29.00) – Supports MSN, ICQ and IRC
• LIRC (free) – Free IRC client. Fully featured. Not currently 32-bit compatible
• Parmesan (free) – New free instant messaging client, released September 2007

Other Internet and Networking

• Avalanche (free) – VNC client
• Cocognut (free) – File share client for the Gnutella network
• Ctorrent (free) – BitTorrent client
• Mozilla Firefox (free) – Port of the popular Firefox browser to RISC OS
• FTPc (free) – FTP access, fully featured
• NetSurf (free) – Free web browser, under constant development
• WebJames (free) – Web server, with SSIs (server side includes) and optional PHP interpreter

Media

• AMPlay (free) – Sophisticated MP3 player with filterable playlists
• DigitalCD (free) – Multi-format audio player (MP3, Audio CD, WAV, OGG, and many tracker formats such as S3M, XM, IT etc.)
• KinoAMP (free) – MPEG 1/2 video player
• PlaySound (free) – Sound sample player, handles many well-known formats

Bitmap graphics

• ChangeFSI (free) – Multi-format image convertor, outputting JPEG or sprite files. Bundled with all versions of RISC OS.
• Composition (£80.00) – Commercial image combining tool, with many processing capabilities. Compo can also be driven by scripts. (Also known as 'Compo'.)
• FSIbatch (£10.00) – Batch image processor which uses ChangeFSI to do the conversion work. Can be used for tasks such as converting a directory of large 16 million colour JPEG files into smaller 256-colour sprites for desktop backgrounds. Shareware.
• InterGIF (free) – The definitive GIF toolkit for RISC OS.
• Jcut, Jclean, Jess etc. (free) – Set of JPEG utilities giving lossless cropping, rotation, colour processing, and other features, for JPEG files.
• Photodesk (£84.00) from CJE Micro's – The main commercial bitmap editor for RISC OS.
• PoVRay (free) – Jérôme Mathevet's port of the Persistence of Vision raytracer.
• Spr2Png (free) – The definitive PNG toolkit for RISC OS.
• Variations (free) – A graphics effects package, previewer and thumbnailer. Compare previews of many effects side by side; apply effects to multiple files automatically. Also has the best 'for-the-web' JPEG generation tool.

Vector graphics

In addition to the venerable Draw, supplied with every RISC OS machine, there are a number of very capable vector graphic editors and utilities.

• ArtWorks (£169.00) – Originally from Computer Concepts, and now available from MW Software, this highly capable vector graphics package is now being very actively developed by Martin Wuerthner.
• DrawLots (free) – Draw-format shape generator that can create polygons, curved polygons, stars, spirals, cogs, various crosses and so on. These shapes can then be used elsewhere, including within ArtWorks.
• RiscCAD Professional (£30.00) – A highly capable commercial CAD package at an exceptionally good price.
• Vector (£10.00) – The 32-bit version of Vector is £10.00 from Spellings Software. Otherwise the source code is available free from Jonathan Marten. Vector is an enhanced alternative to Draw that offers libraries, layers and other improvements. Also available: DrawPlus and GridPro.
• Writeflash – Written by Henrik Bjerregaard Pedersen, this tool creates Flash 3 files from scripts. Also includes utilities to convert Draw files and RISC OS fonts to Flash format.

DTP and Spreadsheet

• EasiWriter (99UKP)
• FireWorkz 32 (100UKP) (50UKP without manuals) – Bundled free with the Iyonix PC
• FireWorkz Pro 26 (100UKP) (50UKP without manuals) – Fully functional spreadsheet and database package
• Impression
• Impression Publisher (129UKP) – Currently being rewritten by X-Ample Technology
• Impression Style
• Ovation Pro (125UKP)
• TechWriter (124UKP)
• Writer (Free) – Bundled with RISC OS 4
• Writer+ (Free) – Bundled with the Iyonix PC

Games

See the games page for more information on games for RISC OS

Compatibility

Compatibility with mainstream software, particularly certain Microsoft products, is a key issue for users of minority systems:

MS Word compatible software:

• AntiWord - a viewer and convertor of MS Word (.doc) documents. Converts to Text or Draw
• Writer(+) also can read MS Word documents to a fair degree of accuracy, and convert them to its native format.
• (EasiWriter and TechWriter) can also export MS Word documents

MS Excel compatible software:

• ViewXLS - ditto for MS Excel (.xls) spreadsheets. Converts to CSV, TSV or Draw. CVS files exported can then be loaded into e.g. Fireworkz for editing.
• Schema 2 has MS Excel (.xls) converters.

PDF/PostScript:

• PDF - Free PDF reader, based on xpdf and maintained by Colin Granville. Can export as Draw and text.
• (RiScript) - Commercial PDF reader and creator
• PrintPDF - A PDF printer driver, using GhostScript as a back-end
• GhostScript, a PostScript/PDF interpreter, and GView, a viewer
• (EasiWriter and TechWriter) can export PDFs, including bookmarks
• (ArtWorks) has direct high quality PDF export, including transparency and clipping

Older Acorn/RISC OS machines:

• (Aemulor and Aemulor Pro) allow the newer Iyonix PCs and A9homes to access a wide range of older '26-bit' software. Aemulor was written on the assumption that some useful pieces of older software would never be made 32-bit safe and thus would become inaccessible on these 32-bit only machines. Aemulor Pro provides sound support as well, which increases compatibility to cover many games.
• Historical note: In a similar manner, utilities such as GameOn, AutoCache, StrongGuard and other like programs helped ease the compatibility problems caused by changing over to the StrongArm processor, and before that for the changeover from Arm2/Arm3 to RISC PC. Nevertheless, some programs from the days of Arthur and RISC OS 2 will still work on every RISC OS PC and every version of the OS up to RISC OS 5 and 6.

Wishlist

If you're looking for some software that's not listed above, try the Wishlist to see if anyone else has the same idea