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Copyright © P. Albou, 1997. Last updated 05/07/2007.
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The following programs are freeware applications and applets I wrote recently. They show only a very small part of my programming activities (I've been programming for the better part of my holidays since I was 12): I decided to publish on the web only programs with full english language documentation (writing clear and complete documentation for programs is boring, translating it from french to english is a nuisance, especially when it is more than 50 pages long). New versions of my large programs may appear on this page later, since I will try and write their documentation directly in english. It would encourage me a great deal if someone told me he is interested in my current work (see sections What may come here later).
The programs in this section were tried out on several Win32 1 platforms (see the compatibility issues page). They are designed for computers built around Intel (and Intel compatible) processors. They were developed with Borland's C++ compiler (5.02 version).
RichView displays an embedded RTF document (the
document is stored in the executable program file as a
binary resource). RichView can display footnotes
which Windows' WordPad (for example) completely
ignores (RichView recognizes all RTF tokens
recognized by WordPad).
RichView is not an editor: the final user can't
change the displayed text. Nonetheless he can copy some
or all of it to the clipboard in plain text format and he
can print the current page or the whole document. RichView
uses encrypted resources to prevent thieves from copying
and modifying the RTF document too easily (the very
simple encryption algorithm is not intended to defeat
intelligence agencies).
Version 2 (released November 2001) provides all necessary tools to embed documents (you will no more need an external resource editor, as with previous 1.x versions). It also synchronizes to some extent the footnotes and main windows display.
The latest 3.0 version (released August 2003) adds MS Word 1 like text / footnotes synchronization and can display embedded pictures (it is an OLE container). Full compatibility with Windows XP 1 is provided.
To install the program and its tools, just unzip the downloaded file into an empty directory.
| Update: | 11/02/03 |
Embedding tool is now Windows 2000/XP compatible | |
12/14/03 |
Mouse wheel support for Windows NT/2000/XP added; minor bug corrected (see "release note.txt") |
This program was made
publicly available on the Web through software archives
(SimtelNet and WinSite) before I built my own site (in
that remote time, I could not imagine I would be able to
host many complex pages for free, which is quite simple
with GeoCities). I discovered some time ago that some people
used RichView to embed complete books. I will
provide links to such documents if:
1. I am aware of their existence (authors, please send a message to me),
2. the content does not break ethical rules.
| Guerre privée | by Paul Beauchene | a book on french politics (Miterrand's presidency) |
| La forge et le creuset | by Paul Albou | a book on the myth of the melting pot |
| Labourer la mer | by Paul Albou | a book on french economics history |
| Jalons | by Paul Albou | a papers collection on economics, social sciences, ... |
| Problèmes humains et sciences de l'homme | by Paul Albou | an essay on social sciences |
(to be extended
!)
The content of the above referenced texts is their
author's sole responsibility and do not represent my
opinion (if ever I have one) on the subjects discussed.
WTD stands for Windows Trees Differences. It is a partial replacement for Microsoft's windiff 1 utility (WTD does not compare individual text files), with more flexibility in selecting what should be compared or not (single files, whole sub-trees or files selected using wild card characters can be removed from the comparison) and a better, explorer-like (two parallel trees), visual interface. It also provides advanced directories synchronization or update functions, based on its comparison results.
Full documentation is provided, in Windows 1 help format (see the readme.txt file in the zipped package for installation instructions).
| Update: | 05/08/05 | minor discrepancies removed complete compatibility with Windows XP1 ensured new Erase files feature. |
||
| 06/05/06 | minor corrections to the help file | |||
This is a full software package with a Win32 1 off-line
synthesizer (Mid2Wav4, which converts
MIDI files to WAV format), its graphical front end (m2w4_gfe)
and the Instruments Builder 4 application
itself for instruments creation (the minimum instruments
set for immediate use of the synthesizer is
included).
Full documentation is provided, in Windows
1 help format.
See the readme.txt file in the zipped package for installation instructions.
| Updates: | 02/04/01 |
bug correction |
02/11/01 |
bug correction | |
07/01/01 |
packaging bug correction | |
09/08/02 |
bug correction + new function | |
12/27/06 |
bug correction |
A (very much) downsized java version is also available.
Comments: a small and simple bulletin board about Instruments Builder.
FaFdB is an image processing program designed to correct (sharpen) pictures made fuzzy by camera motions. It provides visual tools to tune the filter's parameters and includes full english language documentation. Post-processing filters are supplied and new ones may be programmed and added easily.
See the readme.txt file in the zipped package for installation instructions.
| Sample |
| Updates: | 05/18/03 |
Circumvents a Windows 98 1 bug
in the CreateDIBitmap function (> 3
Mpix images). Corrects minor bugs (security tests at application closure or file reload). Adds jfif (jpeg files) support. Bettered documentation. |
09/19/03 |
Enhanced interface for Windows XP1. | |
PA-MJPEG is a video codec (compressor / de-compressor)
for Video for Windows1.
It can be used to create compressed videos from any
software able to write AVI files (for example VirtualDub
or Adobe Premiere5). It
also decompresses in real time the videos it created (for
example through the Windows Media Player1).
The format used by PA-MJPEG is similar to the MJPEG
format but does not strictly comply with the standard.
See the readme.txt file in the zipped package for installation instructions.
FdED creates an alternative desktop which overlays the Windows™ Explorer's one. One can quickly switch back and forth between Windows' and FdED's desktops; FdED never alters the Explorer's settings.
FdED has been designed to work in any account: it can be installed and launched by users with low privileges (with neither administrative nor power users' rights) and despite restrictive policies forbidding to customize the shell. It can solve ergonomics problems (like unreadable icons, due to a badly chosen wallpaper), when one doesn't want (as guest on a colleague's or on a friend's computer) or cannot change (on a professional machine with a locked configuration) the Windows shell properties.
FdED's features are similar to those of the Windows' desktop:
Moreover, FdED offers unique features:
FdED can overlay the Windows "Active Desktop" when it is enabled, but does not provide its specific functions (hot spots, etc.).
See the readme.txt file in the zipped package for installation instructions.
| screenshots |
| Update: | |||
| 04/30/07 | Compatibility fix (Windows 95/98/ME 1) | ||
| 05/03/07 | Compatibility fix (Windows 2000 1) | ||
| Planned developments: | |||
- |
v. 2.12: | handier access to memos | |
- |
v. 2.2: | background calendars, screen saver, more options for memos, ... | |
I have been working since 1994 on a set of dynamic
libraries designed to create tools for easy editing of
musical scores. These programs use my personal score
description language, which I feel to be as near as
possible to a composer's short hand in ASCII for his
music. The libraries provide functions to translate this
language in MIDI files or in a syntactic tree, which, in
turn, may be used by a graphical interpreter (also
provided by the libraries) to display or print the score.
The first version of the libraries was completed in 1995
and I wrote simple editing tools to test it. Since then,
I've been using these tools to print my compositions and translate them to
MIDI (I am an amateur composer and all this work was done
for my personal use). This software has reached by now
(May 2000) its third major revision (I installed version
3.3 a month ago on my computer).
Through regular use I discovered that my programs were
slow, due to poor algorithms, and that some things could
not be expressed in my score description language
(for example: groups of -let's say- 5 grace notes in the
last beat of a phrase). So I designed a new language
(with a LALR(1) grammar - the first version sometimes
needed deep backtracking in the syntactic analyser) and a
proper compiler, which translates this language to MIDI
and to a special graphical language designed for quick
interpretation by displaying and printing programs. The
editing tools still need a tremendous amount of work to
be ready for any kind of publication. The graphical
interpreter is nearly (!) working. Expect them here one
day !
The programs in this section incurred test runs on several platforms: Windows 95 & 98 1, Windows NT 1 4.0, Window XP 1 (Microsoft / Intel processors), Solaris 2.4 2 (Sun Microsystems / Sparc workstations), Irix 6.5 4 (Silicon Graphics / Octane workstations). The applets were run successfully with the following browsers: InternetExplorer 3, 5 & 6 1, NetscapeNavigator 4 & 7 3, Hotjava 2. All developments were done with Sun Microsystems free tools (JDK 1.1.4, 1.2.1, 1.4.0 and 1.4.2).
To run these programs on your computer you will need:
To run the applets on-line from this server your browser must recognize the .jar format (I used this Java 1.1 feature in order to reduce disk space used).
Once you have downloaded the .zip files, you only need to unzip them in an empty directory to install the software. Beware: program names case and (relative) directory tree structure stored in the .zip file must be preserved (also note that program names are long and must not be converted to MSDOS 8.3 characters format).
The Courbe and CourbeApplet programs
load a curve file, compute x and y axis scales for
the curve and display it. These programs also draw a grid
and label the horizontal and vertical axis with their
extreme values.
The Courbe application displays the curve in a
standalone window and the loaded curve file may be chosen
and changed through the File/Open menu command.
If this application is launched with at least one command
line parameter, the first of these parameters should be
an absolute URL pointing to the curve file to open
initially. If necessary, Courbe will try and open
an Internet connection to get its files.
The CourbeApplet applet loads the file named in
the ad hoc param tag of the calling HTML document. The
file name given by the HTML document is considered by CourbeApplet
as an URL, relative to the calling document location.
The Courbe package also includes a useful and fully documented Java package for Java 1.0 developers:
This applet plays a favourite game of french children
(it is not a childish game if you try and play
intelligently and it is much more interesting than the
well known tic-tac-toe game). The applet uses a enhanced
MiniMax algorithm and may be easily configured (you may
even tune strategical analysis parameters if you have a
Java compiler and understand the french language).
This program needs some computing power (especially if
you increase search depth and if you play at highest
computer skill). I recommend using Sun's AppletViewer
(with the JustInTime compiler)
rather than a PC based browser to run the Morpion
applet (it will run in your browser, but slowly).
This is a Java (and very much downsized) version of my synthesizer. It converts MIDI files into CD quality WAVE files, using numerical instruments stored in a proprietary (and undocumented !) format.
When compared with the Win32 1 version, the Java program is very slow (more than 10 times slower, with Sun's 1.2.1 virtual machine). It is only intended for the casual user. Nonetheless it has a function which does not exist in the Windows 1 version: it can load the instruments data which it needs through the web directly from my site (where this page is located).
Updates: 02/04/01
bug correction 05/05/01
web target change 09/15/02
bug correction 10/12/02
bugs correction (needed with post 1.2 JVMs) 12/14/03
bug correction (for post 1.4.1 JVMs)
These three programs allow browsing through pictures directories to select and put upright pictures (Selector1), to select best pictures in a group of similar ones (Selector2) and to compile an ordered collection from several directories (Selector3). They were designed for people taking many digital pictures (for example in a trip or when covering events), with friends or colleagues. They manage wav audio comments, when present.
I programmed them some time after buying a 5M pixels Minolta DiMAGE 7i and coming back from a two weeks vacation with 4Gb of pictures data (both mine and a friend's). By the way, in this case, a DVD burner is necessary and not just a pirate's tool as the "music" or movies industry would make people believe.Thanks to java, the three programs are very compact and I deliver them in a single zip file hereafter (moreover, they share a common infowin package). Recognized formats are: jpeg, gif, png (depends on your Java toolkit's capabilities). To install, just unzip the contents of the downloaded file into an empty directory and read the general readme.txt file.
The programs I offer here are free and may be distributed by
any mean to everybody, as long as nobody earns money in the
process (except me - I don't see how it could happen, but let me
hope I will suddenly become a millionaire).
The previous statement does not cancel my copyright and
distribution is permitted only as long as the packages are not
altered. Distribution of modified versions of the programs is
also prohibited (I would not like finding part of my programs in
commercial applications with my name cancelled), except for the
RichView executable file (see details in RichView's manual inside
the RichView package).
This software is provided as is. You download and run it at your own risks: I do not make any guarantee and I cannot be held responsible of any unpleasantness or disaster, in any field, which may befall you, your company or anybody in connection with this software.
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