Fireworkz for modern systems

[Stuart Swales]

Well, I've been keeping this one to myself for too long...

2.34 beta 1 is available for people who may wish to tinker with it.

https://croftnuisk.co.uk/coltsoft-downloads/fireworkz/Fireworkz/Fireworkz_2_34_b1.zip

It's not available through the usual channels as I'm sure it will break on first contact with the outside world! Don't use in production.

It's been compiled using ARMv7 instructions and the /softfp option and then linked with my apcs_softpcs library so that it uses the ARM's VFP unit for most calculations, so, no it will not work on your RISC PC.

If you're the sort of person who flings large arrays about or does masses of trig, it might help quite a bit. The underlying VFP performance is very impressive compared to the FPEmulator, even when only being called one instruction at a time.

It also enables your calculations to return +/Inf and NaN values (there's an option to turn that off in Choices and return old-fashioned errors instead).

[Martin]

In article <f9acc849-4d7d-4757...@googlegroups.com>,

Stuart Swales <stuart.swale...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Well, I've been keeping this one to myself for too long...

> 2.34 beta 1 is available for people who may wish to tinker with it.

> It's not available through the usual channels as I'm sure it will
> break on first contact with the outside world!

Nope. Started and ran, and loaded a couple of linked spreadsheets with
graphs.

So no breakages yet!

Martin

[John Harrison]

In article <5a8520a6...@avisoft.f9.co.uk>,
Martin <goo...@avisoft.f9.co.uk> wrote:
> no breakages yet!

Likewise. Handled a big spreadsheet with hundreds or rows & columns and
graphs OK.

--
John Harrison
Website http://jaharrison.me.uk
Using 4té and ARMX6, both running RISC OS

[Martin]

In March 2023 In article Stuart Swales

<stuart.swale...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 2.34 beta 1 is available for people who may wish to tinker with it.

I did not tinker with it ... but I have been using it ever since then
on my Titanium and RPis, without problems.

I now see that v2.33.00 has just been released on 27th October.

Should I now be using 2.33, or is 2.34 still 'better' ? (for some
definition of better!).

Martin

[Stuart Swales]

Splendid! Stick with 2.34 beta 1 for now would be my advice.

I'd done some further work in the 2.34 branch but had been stymied for
some time by a couple of (now-fixed) C compiler bugs. I will get another
beta of the VFP-enabled 2.34 out soon with a couple of things fixed in
2.33 like the probable-hourglass-on-exit (caused by SharedCLibrary
behaviour change).

--
Stuart Swales

[Martin]

In article <182c602e-6b2e-4364...@gmail.com>,

Stuart Swales <stuart.swale...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 04/11/2025 10:36, Martin wrote:
> > In March 2023 In article Stuart Swales
> > <stuart.swale...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> 2.34 beta 1 is available for people who may wish to tinker with
> >> it.
> >
> > I did not tinker with it ... but I have been using it ever since
> > then on my Titanium and RPis, without problems.
> >
> > I now see that v2.33.00 has just been released on 27th October.
> >
> > Should I now be using 2.33, or is 2.34 still 'better' ? (for some
> > definition of better!).

> Splendid! Stick with 2.34 beta 1 for now would be my advice.

> I'd done some further work in the 2.34 branch but had been stymied
> for some time by a couple of (now-fixed) C compiler bugs. I will
> get another beta of the VFP-enabled 2.34 out soon with a couple of
> things fixed in 2.33 like the probable-hourglass-on-exit (caused
> by SharedCLibrary behaviour change).

Thanks for the clarification - and continuing work.

One small thing which often catches me out, is that if I select a cell
then Edit -> Rows/Columns -> Insert below/Add after works fine.

However, if I select a Row, then Insert/Add 5 rows only inserts 1 row
And if I select a Column, then Insert/Add 5 columns only inserts 1
column.

Is this a bug or a feature?

Martin

[Chris Hughes]

In message <5c77774c...@avisoft.f9.co.uk>

I have seen this issue myself in Fireworkz Pro v2.32, but seems to work OK
in v2.33 (just tested).

--
Chris Hughes

[Martin]

In article <87807b775c.chris@mytardis>,

Strange. I have just done a 'new' install of both 2.33 and 2.34
(deleting Choices.Fireworkz first each time) and I see the problem in
both.

[John Harrison]

In article <87807b775c.chris@mytardis>,
Chris Hughes <li...@noonehere.co.uk> wrote:

> if I select a Row, then Insert/Add 5 rows only inserts 1 row

> > if I select a Column, then Insert/Add 5 columns only inserts 1 column.

> I have seen this issue myself in Fireworkz Pro v2.32, but seems to work
> OK in v2.33 (just tested).

That has been there since I first bought Fireworks, but in 2.33 here it
now works properly.

--
John Harrison
Website http://jaharrison.me.uk

Using 4té2 and ARMX6, both running RISC OS

The seller doesn't know what he's selling. The buyer doesn't know what he's buying. Money changes hands. Both parties are happy.