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), Microsoft's Visual C# 1
(2005 version) and Microsoft's Visual Studio Community1
2019.
Note to users of Windows Vista1
and later versions: in order to access my Win32 programs
documentation you must install WinHelp
(see also this tip). Note that
Windows 10 & 111 users should follow
a specific procedure to install WinHelp (for instance the one
described here,
which worked fine for me).
Additional note to users of modern Operating
Systems (Windows 101 or
later): when installing by unzipping an application
folder (fafbg13_x64.zip,
InstBuild4_x64.zip), depending on your security settings,
you may have to unblock the downloaded files to avoid bullying
messages from the OS and get the help system of the program to
work. It may be done "by hand" by unblocking files through their
properties accessed by a right click or thanks to the following
command in a PowerShell window: gci 'path to the
installation folder' | unblock-file
RichView
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.
Updates:
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 free.fr). 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.
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
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).
Updates:
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
Instruments
Builder
4
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.
Comments:
a small and simple bulletin board about Instruments
Builder.
FaFdB
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.
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
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.
History
Version
Publication
date
1.0
01-16-2005
Initial release
1.1
12-23-2013
Bug correction,
X64 compatibility
FdED
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:
choice of a background color
choice of a wallpaper bitmap
stretching, tiling and centering options for the wallpaper
picture
Moreover, FdED offers unique features:
a fully customizable round clock located below the icons
and above the background
memos sticking on the background (with optional alarm and
removal dates)
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.
background calendars, screen saver, more
options for memos, ...
AVStreamVideoConverter
AVStreamVideoConverter is a demonstration program
initially created in order to test and debug my AVStream library
(it uses most of its exported functions). As it appeared it might
be useful in itself, it evolved into a fully documented
audio/video conversion program (yet from its origin it lacks
any function not directly provided by the AVStream library, for
instance changing frame or sample rates).
AVStreamVideoConverter can open an audio and/or a video track from
a single or from two different source files, in any format which
the operating system can read (AVI files with Video for
Windows1 and the ACM,
any format with an installed source filter with DirectShow1). AVStreamVideoConverter
can either decode or copy the data (direct stream copy)
from the source tracks. It can use the complete tracks or
only part of them (continuous sequences, possibly starting
at different dates and of different duration for audio and
video). It re-encodes or copies the source streams and
combines them into an output AVI file, allowing full
control of the interleaving properties.
Due to its origin as a test
program, AVStreamVideoConverter lets users choose the
underlying technology used (VfW, ACM vs. DirectShow)
though the automatic choice by the most abstract level of
the AVStream library is also available (the
AVStream library packaged with AVStreamVideoConverter is a debug
version: with Microsoft’s GraphEdit tool or any
equivalent utility, one can display the filters graphs used by
the program when DirectShow is the selected underlying
technology).
Auxiliary DLL
recompiled (changed to version 1.0.0.1)
Correction of a severe
bug in the converter application (changed
to version 1.0.1.0)
Automatic interleaving management re-written in the
AVStream library (changed to version
1.1.0.0)
1.1.1.0
03-05-2017
Auxiliary DLL
removed.
Converter application recompiled (changed
to
version 1.0.1.1)
Automatic interleaving management improved in the
AVStream library (changed to version
1.1.1.0)
1.1.3.0
09-28-2018
Two successive
improvements to multi-threading management
Converter application version 1.0.1.2, AVStream library
version 1.1.3.0
10-28-2018
Patched library for
Windows 95 & 98 (product version 0.9)
1.1.3.1
11-02-2018
Improved COM
management: helper program dfb.exe not required any more
AVStream library version 1.1.3.1, converter application
version 1.1.0.0
1.1.3.3
12-28-2018
Correction of bugs
affecting certain VfW codecs: AVStream
library version 1.1.3.3, converter application version
1.1.1.1
CleanStartMenu
The purpose of the CleanStartMenu application is to
bring back to users of Windows 71 and
especially later versions of the Windows operating system the
ability to sort, reorganize and rename installed programs and
files at their wish in an enhanced Start Menu, restoring
the usability of Windows XP1's one.
Indeed, since Windows XP, the Start Menuof
Windows operating systems has been constantly deteriorating to
reach a very poor user experience in the case of Windows 8.x1
and Windows 101 and 111.
The excuse for such an evolution being that users used more and
more theRun function (searching by application
name), which in fact is the consequence of ever poorer
Start Menu functionality for finding and launching
applications. CleanStartMenu does not fully replace the OS's Start
Menu which remains accessible (through the task bar or the
windows key) and necessary to reach several functions not
directly related to installed applications like accessing the
control panel, launching a resource monitor or just switching
off the current session. The Start Menu of Windows 101
being rather user friendly for these tasks no necessity was felt
to include them in CleanStartMenu. It could change in
further versions to take into account the new degradation of the
Start Menu in Windows 111.
CleanStartMenu is distributed in an installer
application CSM_install.exe. This program installs
either the 32 bits (x86) or the 64 bits (AMD64) version of CleanStartMenu
depending on your operating system type (32 or 64 bits). It
installs CleanStartMenu, the utility program CSMprofiles,
their help files and an uninstallation script (uninstall).
Note that CleanStartMenu is not inscribed in the
registry by CSM_install so it does not appear in the Programs
and Features control panel.
The location of installed files differs whether the installer is
run with administrative privileges (run as administrator or
started from an administrator account with deactivated UAC) or
not. In an unprivileged install, the programs are copied to the
user profile folder, otherwise they are copied to the program
files folder. In both cases CleanStartMenu is
added to the Startup folder so that it is launched at
system startup and a CleanStartMenu folder with shortcuts to the
application, its utility program and uninstallation script is
created in the OS Start Menu. CSM_install checks for the availability of the C runtime
libraries required by the programs and tries and downloads them
from Microsoft's
web site and then tries and installs them (which will
probably fail if you don't have administrative privileges on the
target computer but won't crash the installation script). CSM_install
also installs the necessary MFC1
library (side by side install in case of an unprivileged
install). Note that uninstalling CleanStartMenu does
not remove the runtime libraries.
The following Win32 programs
require Microsoft's .NET Framework1 (version 2.0 or higher) to run.
The installation packages do not test for the
presence of the framework, so that you can install and uninstall
these programs (for example in order to browse the
documentation) without .NET in your system. As a result, the
applications will fail with an ugly "missing DLL" error message
if the proper .NET version cannot be found.
Some day, I could make a publisher's certificate available for
my software, together with a small program to install it
properly (it seems one cannot legally distribute certmgr.exe and
certmgr.msc won't do for a script). Then I could use ClickOnce
deployment1 for my .NET applications (but people
would have to trust me as a certification authority if I use
such a procedure (I don't want to pay for a certificate to give
away free software!): I am not yet convinced they will...).
PCTrenumber
This program was designed to create ordered collections of
pictures, video clips and audio comments from pre-existing
collections of not coherently named and numbered files. The
need of such a program arose from using several cameras (I
have two: my old Minolta and a new Fujifilm FinePix S2000HD)
to cover a single event and wishing to create a single
pictures / video clips / comments collection for batch
processing and automatic conversion to a slide show and
movie (the program can handle any kind of files and is not
limited to pictures or video clips).
This program is similar to the third of my pictures
selection java applications, but is both quicker and
easier to use for large data sets (especially when they
include more file formats than just a single picture format
plus wav audio comments). On the other hand, it
lacks the thumbnail pictures display of the processed
collections.
fsplit64
Yet another file splitter.
Works with large files (up to 263 bytes long) and
can write large chunks (same size limit).
Very small application (47937 bytes, including help file),
with a Windows XP1 style GUI (see screenshots).
(I use fsplit64 to split huge video
files created in an NTFS partition into less than 4GB long
chunks, which I can store on a FAT32 formatted device)
PAtch
This tool finds and replaces all occurrences of a given
binary data sequence in a file or in a group of selected files
inside a given directory tree by an other (possibly empty)
binary data sequence (original files are automatically backed
up). The included Extract
utility program may be used to create the Data to
replace and Replacement data files for
the PAtch
application.
Small application: 175917 bytes, including the help file and
the Extract utility
program.
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, Windows 7 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
& 8 1, NetscapeNavigator 4
& 7 3, Hotjava2, Firefox 12 & 15 3,
Chrome 11 6. All developments were done
with Sun Microsystems (now Oracle) free tools (JDK 1.1.4, 1.2.1,
1.4.0, 1.4.2 and 6u33).
To run these programs on your computer you will need:
for applets: a Java enabled browser (try, for example, Internet
Explorer1)
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).
Courbe
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:
formatted floating point numbers conversion
to String,
simple message dialog boxes.
Morpion
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).
Mid2Wav4
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)
Pictures
Selectors
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.
This program is an adaptation of the original Android
application of the same name, available here.
See the description of the Android application for further
details.
These programs were checked on the following platforms:
Android 2.3.3 GingerBread6 emulators
(ARM & Intel Atom),
Android 2.3.6 GingerBread device (Samsung smartphone),
Android 4.1 JellyBean6 emulator (ARM)
Android 4.4.4 KitKat6 devices (Archos
smartphone and tablet)
Formula Calculator
This program computes complex
mathematical formulas typed into a text box. Formulas are
organized as a list and can refer to the results of the evaluation
of other formulas, using automatically allocated variables.
Variables contents may be changed (the program then updates
(re-computes) all dependent formulas), and formulas may be deleted
(the corresponding variable is then replaced in dependent formulas
by its numerical value).
Special kinds of formulas may be plotted as functions of a single
real variable.
The fomulas list is persistent (it survives application and device
shutdowns) and can be exported at any time to a human readable
(and editable) text file, which can be later re-imported (imported
formulas are always re-computed, even when the Results
section of the text file exists, because they may have been
modified by an external editor).
This program may be useful if you
need to compute complex mathematical expressions, draw curves or
solve single variable equations but do not need matrix algebra. Android
calculators are not powerful enough and downloading and installing
a Matlab7 (even partial) clone is
clearly overkill (Formula
Calculator is small: the application's package (which
includes the program's documentation) is only 243 Kb long and the
unpacked program only takes up 400 Kb on my Samsung smartphone).
(the
program requires proper rights to access USB storage)
Important notice:
the formulas syntax may seem somewhat unusual (except to APL
programmers): be sure to read the formulas syntax and the important
remarks sections of the documentation (displayed by the help
menu option and available here)
before using the program.
The most unusual feature is
the systematic right to left associativity of operators of
the same precedence: 4-2+1 means 4-(2+1) and hence
is evaluated to 1 (it would have given 3
in C language or Matlab)
History
Version
Publication
1.0
10-23-2012
Initial release.
2.0
not
released
Deep re-wirting to
implement true background processing (proceeds even when
the main Activity
or Application
objects have been destroyed).
Bugs correction.
3.0
08-23-2013
Equations solver
added; further bugs correction.
4.0
11-24-2013
Curves
plotting abilities added.
4.1
09-21-2014
Bugs correction; insert formula
option added.
MesRTTs
this program is
most probably useful for French people only; its (very
simple) user interface is written in French.
MesRTTs computes the number of the
so-called "jours de RTT" (jRTTs)
in any year (Année), for
people with a full time*
employment contract stating a fixed number of working days per
year ("forfait jours"). This number (jours
travaillés) may be customized and is remembered
by the program between successive runs. Any change to the year
or working days number automatically triggers the computation of
the jRRTs field (which
therefore is always up to date).
* entitling to an
annual paid leave of 25
(otherwise worked) days
This program was for the most part developed with the AIDE8
IDE on an Android tablet. An equivalent java
desktop application is available here.
Version
Published
1
09/30/2015
initial release
2
12/13/2015
working days
calculator added
Copyright notice
and distribution policy
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.
1
Trademark of Microsoft Corp. 2 Trademark
of Sun Microsystems Corp. 3 Trademark
of the Mozilla Foundation. 4 Trademark
of Silicon Graphics Corp. 5 Trademark of Adobe Systems Inc. 6 Trademark of Google Inc. 7 Trademark of The MathWorks Inc. 8 Trademark of appfour GmbH.
