                            SharedBLib v1.00
                            

                 maintainer: Reuben Thomas (rrt@sc3d.org)
             http://sc3d.org/rrt/ (follow the SharedBLib link)


SharedBLib is a wide-ranging package of BASIC libraries. It is mainly aimed
at supporting Wimp programming, but it also has libraries to help with dates,
unsigned arithmetic and assembly programming, among others.


License


SharedBLib is distributed under the Lesser GNU General Public Licence (see
Docs.Licenses.LGPL or http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/lgpl.html), and comes with
no warranty.

THHeapA and THHeapR are  Tony Houghton (tony@caspian.uklinux.net)
  http://caspian.uklinux.net/free.html
EasySockets and InetServices are  Justin Fletcher (gerph@innocent.com)
  http://freenet.barnet.ac.uk/freenet/j.fletcher/modules/

These modules are also under the LGPL.

The other modules distributed with SharedBLib are copyrighted as follows:

Basil is  Steve Drain (kappa@zetnet.co.uk)
  http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/kappa/Software/index.htm

DrawFile is  Acorn Computers
  http://mirror.ac.uk/mirrors/ftp.acorn.co.uk/

BasicShell is  Chris Poole (c.e.poole@iee.org.uk)

They may be distributed with applications that use SharedBLib, but not
otherwise, unless their individual licenses allow.


Installation


Run !Install to copy the modules into !System, and the manual into !Manuals
(assuming you have it). The programmer's reference is the StrongHelp file
Docs.SharedBLib; developer docs are in Docs.Developer.


Usage


There are three levels at which SharedBLib may be used:

1. User: someone who wants to run programs that use SharedBLib. You've got
all you need.

2. Developer: someone who wants to write programs that use SharedBLib. Get
the StrongHelp manual from the BLib page.

3. SharedBLib developer: someone who wants to modify or extend SharedBLib.
Get the StrongHelp manual and source archive from the BLib page.

The SharedBLib manual has many cross-references to the OS and Wimp StrongHelp
manuals, which are especially useful if you don't have the PRMs. They can be
found at:

http://koschei.midnightrealm.org/manuals/

The Internet SWIs module is also useful, as it contains documentation for
EasySockets.


Improvements and bugs


I'm moving off RISC OS, so I'm looking for a new maintainer. Please step
forward if you're interested. What's really needed is someone to coordinate
bug-fixes and improvements, and to market BLib a bit; it's not important that
the maintainer make enormous contributions, though that would be lovely.

For now, please send me bug reports, and I'll do my best to fix problems, but
I won't be adding any new features (unless the request is accompanied by the
patch to implement it!).


Acknowledgements


Ian Palmer and Tom Hughes wrote BLib II, on which SharedBLib is based. Most
of the credit is therefore due to them and the other library authors, Justin
Fletcher, Alistair Turnbull and Dave Lawrence.

Steve Drain's Basil made SharedBLib possible by allowing a BASIC library to
be loaded just once regardless of the number of programs using it, and
thereby removed the need for BLib II's linking system. Basil is included with
the distribution.

Tony Houghton wrote THHeap, which BLib uses for memory management, and kindly
allowed it to be distributed with BLib.

SharedBLib is compressed with Ragnar Hafsta's ccrunch.
