!DrawGen

!DrawGen is designed to provide a relatively simple way to create DrawFiles from your favourite programming language. To download the !DrawGen package and some example programs in various languages, click on the links in the list below.

Version 3.01SD was released in November 2019. It replaces earlier versions and for the first time includes the !ABC BASIC source code for the DrawGen module. This is now open source. The new version should now work on modern RISC OS platforms and provide the ability to generate DrawFiles using any programming language that can write text, etc, to a file and issue a command.

The main DrawGen zip contains a number of BASIC and 'C' examples to illustrate how DrawGen can be used.

In 1999, R. Brynmor Owen wrote a BASIC Library system to make using DrawGen easier for BASIC programmers. The zip file linked above contains his BASIC Library, example programs, documents, and some explanations how to get it working. It is quite a neat system for making it much easier to create DrawFiles from BASIC. An article on DrawGen BASIC appeared in the July 1999 issue of Archive magazine, and is well worth reading. However, if you have any problems you should ask Brynmor, not me, as I haven't used BASIC for ages. :-)

I wrote three short articles for Archive magazine to explain how you can use !DrawGen. If you missed them, here is an html version.

Part 1 - Getting started.

Part 2 - Text and complex paths

Part 3 - BASIC points, Bezier curves, and broken lines

If you want to know more, please ask. Note though, that !DrawGen is a freeware product and I can't take responsibility for any problems it gives you! I have tried it on many different types of RiscOS machines and a number of people have been using it for some years. It seems fairly bug-free, but I can't give any guarantee!

If you haven't seen Archive, I strongly recommend that you try it! To find out more, visit the Archive website.

!StarCatMapper
!StarCatMapper (98k zip) is an application which can be used to generate a 'star map' of the entire sky. It used DrawGen to create a DrawFile that displays the stars. This is based on a Yale catalogue of star data which is included. Note that you MUST have the ABCLib and DrawGen modules loaded for !StarCatMapper to work, and that you need to have a ramdisc because that is where the application will put the resulting DrawFile. The application contains a !Help file with more info.

Content and pages maintained by: Jim Lesurf
now using HTMLEdit5 on a ARMX6 RISCOS machine.