Tweaks and Improvements

Incomplete First Draft!

Note, this page refers to different versions of RISC OS as follows for the sake of clarity:

• Castle RISC OS is versions 5.x
• RO Ltd RISC OS is versions between 4.1 and 4.99, and versions 6.x
• Acorn RISC OS is versions up to and including 4.0x

Miscellaneous Utilities

• BST automatically changes your clock to account for BST.
• IcnClpBrd provides copy, paste and cut in writable icons. This is only needed on Acorn and Castle versions of RISC OS, as the RO Ltd versions have the functionality built in.
• DoubleTake simulates a shift-double-click with a long-double-click of the mouse. Very useful for opening application directories without needing to use the keyboard.
• AltClick brings a window to the front of the screen, even if the title bar or resize icon aren't visible.
• WinSnap helps keep your windows neatly arranged by "snapping" them to the screen edges when they get close.

Resources for Third Party Programs

Many programs require the installation of specific modules which are then available for all programs to use.

• UnixLib
• System updates from Castle.
• Toolbox modules from RISC OS Ltd. You should install these after the Castle updates.
• SysLog is a logging facility used by many programs to record useful information. Note: this is only needed on Castle and Acorn versions of RISC OS.

Pre RISC OS 4

RISC OS 4 introduced a number of enhancements and improvements. Some of these changes can be incorporated into old systems via third party patches and utilities.

• Nested Window Manager. This can be softloaded by replacing an old boot sequence with the UniBoot sequence from the legacy Acorn FTP site, or with FancyBoot. (Note: check the contents of FancyBoot - it already contains many of the items listed on this page.)
• Longfiles allows you to seemlessly use long file names on disc formats which are restricted to 10 character filenames. No special partitions or files need setting up, just run the program at boot time. This won't remove the 77 files per directory restriction, however. (In fact it reduces it to 76 files per directory.)
• raFS is another way of working around the restrictions of the old disc formats. By creating an "image" filing system you can create folders with large numbers of files and long filenames.