The Weaver v3.0.2
The actual release version is actually now 3.1 — I'll update the page
to match someday...
This is the program that forms the core of the two suites below.
Follow the link for details.
The MusicWeaver
Build functions to perform multiple transformations on MIDI streams
in real time... Enhance live performances...
The StreamWeaver
"Visual Pipes" for shell commands... with windowed input and output...
(No relation to — more recent — commercial progams of the same name!)
The Weaver suites are 'Construction Kits' that let you build complex
functions out of simple elements, by placing them in a diagram and
connecting them together. Simple mouse drag & drop operations are
all that's needed to construct the diagram.
Each suite of modules is targetted toward a specific type of data
--- MIDI in the case of the MusicWeaver, generic posix data streams
for the StreamWeaver --- but they all use the same diagram-manager
program. Any kind of sequential data that needs to be processed
in a series of steps can in priciple be handled by the scheme
--- provided suitable modules for the purpose exist.
All data is tagged as to its nature,
so that modules will only concern themselves with data that they know
about; different kinds can thus be freely mixed, interacting only when
--- and if --- necessary.
Follow the links above for more information on the individual packages
and for download links (PPC and Intel).
Other BeOS programs by Pete
matt
— a regular-expression matching program with a difference.
matt is a simple, old-fashioned, command-line driven program, but I believe it
is fairly unique in relation to commonly available tools, such as grep and awk,
with somewhat similar functions. Like them, it locates segments of a text
by matching with regular expressions. Unlike them, it is not 'line-bound':
an expression 'locates' exactly the text that it matches, rather than the line
that contains it. The matched segment may be part of a line, or extend
over several lines.
That seemingly minor difference in strategy means that matt can handle
tasks that are difficult or impossible with the other programs. It can pull
entire paragraphs that match some desired criterion out of a text, locate
elements within an HTML or XML file, and so on.
In fact it can even look for byte sequences in binary files (see below).
An "output template" may be specified that
controls exactly what is output when a match is found.. It can reorder segments
of the match, or insert other text determined by the content of the match.
If desired, the unmatched portions of the input can be output unchanged,
interleaved with the (transformed) matches, so alterations can be made
where desired throughout a file.
One other feature that may be important is that matt is (by default) UTF-8-aware.
Both the regular expressions and searched text may contain UTF-8 byte
sequences, and will be handled properly.
Alternatively it has an "8-bit clean" mode, in which it scans a file as full
8-bit bytes; in this way it can even scan binary files using regular expressions
containing arbitrary bytes of interest.
matt was available first for BeOS, because that's where I developed it,
but it's straightforward posix code and also runs on Linux etc. I've
packaged the source with a fairly general Makefile. It's available
for download here, where you can also read
a little more detail.
This release (v1.4 — January 2006) improves handling of unmatched
text after it has been scanned; previously it would accumulate all text
until it hit a match; now it disposes of buffers once they are done with.
The v 1.3 release (April 2005) finally provided a fully working
'-8' option, that properly processes binary files, with regular
expressions that can contain any 8-bit byte. It also added a couple of new
conditional template elements (see docs).
PsiONtrack
This package allows you to mount your Psion Series 5 (5mx or Revo)
as a BeOS file system, and access the Psion from the Tracker.
(Based on 'PalmBeach' by Michael Pieper for the Series 3 machines.)
Intel only at the moment.
The current version has added facilities for copying Contacts data
(5mx/Revo) to BeOS Person files. To go in the other direction, use
the VCard-People package below.
VCard<—>People
The VCard format is an open standard used for storing and interchanging
personal ("Business Card") data by applications on many platforms. The
two small programs in this packaga will convert between this format and
BeOS 'Person' files, making it possible to share contact data between
BeOS and other platforms.
Packages are available for both x86 and PPC. They are identical except
for the executables themselves. Source is included.
NIMROD
Now well over fifty years ago, in May 1951, the very first 'Computer Game' made its
appearance, at the Exhibition of Science (part of the Festival of Britain)
in South Kensington, London. The NIMROD Computer played the game of NIM
against visitors to the exhibition. This simulation for the BeOS
attempts to recreate the experience of playing against that old machine.
No high-speed game action here, and it's mostly in glorious black-and-white
(!) but it illustrates a bit of history that probably should not be
forgotten.
(The link above describes the original machine in more detail.)
xicon
A freely distributable [and very useful!]
little utility that lets you give shell scripts icons that will accept
dropped files as arguments, open Terminal windows, and so on...
Follow the link for more information and downloading. (PPC & Intel)
ImageMapper
Another little tool.
This one lets you create Image maps for your Web pages.
Follow the link for more information and downloading. (PPC & Intel)
Other BeOS programs on this site
photopc
This one is not mine at all -- I simply did the port to BeOS.
It is a marvellously flexible (though command-line driven) program for
downloading images from, and generally managing, your digital (still)
camera. It's Intel only at the moment, I'm afraid.
Antiword
Here is another quick port. 'Antiword' is a program by Adri van Os that
converts Microsoft Word files to either Postscript or plain text (and now XML
and PDF).
This is now version 0.37 of the program (2006/01/31).
The program itself compiles directly from the author's sources.
The source is therefore not included in the package,
as it is readily available from the author's own site.
An 'Install' script icon is provided, for quick setup.
For convenience to those who have xicon,
some scripts have been included
that will let you convert or view Word files with drag-and-drop.
Original Author's website:
spiff
Once in a long while, one comes across a real lost gem. I recently had
a need for a program like this and, after some fairly heavy googling, I
found spiff. Its purpose is to compare word (and numeric value)
sequences without regard to whitespace or newlines. It therefore works
where diff doesn't — where text has been reformatted, for instance.
It will even compare floating-point values with a tolerance, so you can
look for significant differences in two data files.
Written over 15 years ago by a guy at BellCore, it compiled under BeOS
with only a couple of trivial language updates. I haven't moved it over
to my ol' BeBox yet, but the source is in the package so you can build it
yourself for your machine (it also compiles on Linux...).
Author:
Pete Goodeve
Berkeley, California
e-mail: pete@GoodeveCa.NET
pete.goodeve@computer.org
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