I have good news and bad news for you concerning Oric Explorer by Scott Davies...
I'll start with the bad news... About a week ago, I sent a email to Scott about the current state of development of Oric Explorer, because it had been more than 2 years since he removed the tool from the downloads area of his site (http://oric.mrandmrsdavies.com/) so I wanted to know whether it was still actively developed or whether he'd just abandoned Oric development.
Anyway, Scott very kindly (and very promptly!!) sent a detailed reply to my enquiry (I quote his full reply below), explaining basically he could not afford to spend much time on this project anymore unfortunately, and that he'd had many enquiries similar to mine and had been considering opening his code to the community.
And so, the good news is I now have the full source code for his project, complete with the technical details Scott kindly provided in his message below:
So, as explained this project is developed in C# with the Microsoft .Net platform and requires Visual Studio 2015 as a minimum (mainly because it uses C# version 6, which is not supported in the stock VS 2013 version). For information, the Community edition of VS2015 or VS2017 can be freely downloaded from Microsft and used to develop Windows applications without any restrictions (of my knowing...).Hi Laurent,
Thank-you for your enquiry regarding Oric Explorer. I've had a number of enquires this year of the same nature so it's probably time I let people know the current situation regarding any new versions.
The version that was online was uploaded by mistake and was probably more of a V1.5 than a V2.0. I took it down once I realized that it was available however by that time some people had downloaded it.
The development of Oric Explorer V2.0 has been on hold for sometime now, due to family and work commitments I just don't have the time to do any development other than little bits here and there. Because of this I've been thinking for some time now about releasing the source code to the Oric community to see if anyone would like to take on development so your enquiry has finally made that decision for me.
I'm more that happy to email you the full project source code along with an executable for V2.0 as it stands at the moment or upload it somewhere. This would prevent the development of Oric Explorer coming to a complete halt if someone was to carry on development.
There are a number of things to note.
The code has been developed in C# using Visual Studio 2015/2017.
It requires the .Net V4.5.2 framework to be installed.
The code is not the best code in the world so may be difficult to follow in some areas.
Likewise some areas are not extensively commented other areas are not commented at all.
The project includes an installation script that uses the NullSoft installation application (not fully tested).
The code is far from complete and therefore will certainly contain bugs as well as incomplete features.
The main thing that is missing is code to write to .dsk files.
The 'FormsControlLibrary.dll' is a one that I have written (source code available on request), all the other dll's are third-party ones.
There is currently no readme file or help text but installation can be done simply by copying the bin/Release directory to wherever you want it.
I think that's it for now, there is one thing I would ask, if anyone does decide to take on development, that they could make a reference to myself as the original author in the About information, if that's okay.
If you could let me know where I could upload it too then I’ll do that asap.
If you need any further information or details then please don't hesitate to get in touch and I will help as much as I can.
Regards
Scott Davies
Unfortunately, being primarily a Java specialist I am myself not very familiar with the .Net platform, although I know enough to be able to understand most of the code and of course edit and compile the project. But I am clearly not the ideal candidate to take over and pursue development of this awesome tool...
... So I am hereby calling any candidates for taking on development of Oric Explorer, please let yourselves known!!!
I will shortly publish the full code on Github (as Scott is not very familiar with it and has neither the time nor much interest in taking charge of this), so that anyone interested in the tool will be able to easily fork the project.
Of course, anyone taking over will be expected to give due credit to Scott not only in the "About box" of the programme as humbly requested by himself, but also in the source and documentation of the project, as elementary courtesy and respect require I would also add to please credit him if you create any derived tools using part of his code... I'm only mentioning this for the form of course, as I reassured Scott we were indeed a small but very friendly and courteous community of people who value and respect very much the work of others, so he need not worry about anyone not giving him due credit or worse stealing or appropriating his original work or ideas!
Another thing of course, if you do intend to take over the development of Oric Explorer, please state it clearly in this thread so that everyone knows who will be "in charge" from now on... Of course, it is possible (and actually preferrable) to have more than one candidate so future development can be handled by a small team... I actually would very much like to participate in the future of this project, but I am really hoping that someone with good (or "sharp" ? ) C# / .Net skills can apply as "technical lead" on the project!
In any case, I do not fear for lack of candidates with such a wonderful and useful tool!!!
One last piece of good news:
Compared to the "v2.0" that was momentarily released on Scott's site, and also distributed with, and reviewed in the CEO magazine back in 2016 (the version that Scott refers to as an interim 2.0 version that was more like a v1.5);, the current version as it stands is greatly improved and is very pleasant to use (and doesn't seem to have many bugs in my experience).
I will detail the major changes of this current version in a separate message, hoping it will get you drooling a bit... I have to admit I feel very privileged to be the first amongst you to be able to enjoy it, as it is indeed very pleasant to use and more convenient and powerful than ever!
Stay tuned!!
Laurent