howsoft.com - Main Page: Software at a reasonable price

These freeware programs are complete and stable, but the author has not yet had time to document them (provide a Help) or to provide setup programs. However, you are welcome to try them out.

If you have any questions or constructive comments to make about the programs, please feel free to do so (see the "Contact" link at the top of this page, or the link to the bug report at the top of the "Downloads" page). Every effort has been made to provide useful software and it is to be hoped that you take the best advantage of it.

The programs listed below, once unzipped, will normally consist of what is apparently a single file. This single file in fact contains the main program "wrapped" with all the complementary files needed. So all you have to do is to execute the file via the Windows Explorer by double-clicking on it, and then you will note that the program's complementary files (if any) will magically appear in the same folder. Thereafter, you can set up one or more desktop icons manually which point to the program file(s). [If an anti-virus program such as AVG is alarmed at this process, please note that it is NOT a virus!]

Unless indicated otherwise, the programs should work in Windows 98, ME, 2000 or XP. Please let the author know if you have difficulty on any particular platform.

Most people nowadays save their backup on CD-Rom. This is a wonderful way of storing data, but it can be a bit of a nuisance if you need to find things. Putting each CD of the collection in your drive to examine its contents is impractical and tiresome.

Disktree solves this problem. When you have created your CD, just give it to DiskTree for a minute to grab all the directory and file names. Do this with all your CDs. When you need to find something, just run DiskTree again and do a search. You will quickly find what you are looking for.

Once you have found the program or file amongst the CD image trees, if you want to execute the program or display the file then just take the CD you have just identified and pop it in the drive. Then, if you double-click on the program or file name (just as you would in the Windows Explorer) it will be executed.

DiskTree is not limited to grabbing folder trees from CD-Roms. You can grab a folder from the HD if you want. In this case, double-clicking on the tree's filenames will cause immediate execution.

QuickInfo enables you to set up a database of information for names, addresses, telephone numbers, e-mail addresses, or any other brief information of your choice. The records can be quickly viewed or printed, and information can be easily edited or deleted.

The program comes in 2 forms. The first is a simpler version with a smaller interface. Apart from viewing, you can print out the records in list form. The second version has a lightly larger interface. The printing in this version is much more sophisticated. Apart from printing your data records in list form, you can also print them in such a way as to form a small booklet. You can also print a cover for this booklet, with titles and picture of your choice.

If you do a lot of research on the Internet, you probably save the webpages you find of interest. You also probably save these pages from the Internet Explorer with the suggested names, which are often very complicated. Even though you can simplify the names at the time of saving them, you do not of course want to be bothered with this in the heat of the moment of your discovery. However, even if you save the pages for a particular topic in a single folder, they are not very versatile since they are probably not in a convenient order for viewing, and in any case, to view them afterwards offline you have to open up the Internet Explorer again and load them up individually. Have you ever tried changing the name of one of these saved webpages? If so, you will probably find that it does not work, even if you discover that complementary files have been saved in a subfolder and you change its name as well. Finally, you might try to copy some of these saved webpages to CD-Rom, but your recording software complains about the weird characters or excessive length of the file/folder names and insists on changing them, which means that if they are displayed from the CD-Rom it will not be done correctly.

"Help Yourself" attempts to put a little order into this situation. If you have collected your saved webpages in a single folder, copy Help Yourself to it as well and run the program. The webpages in the folder will then be displayed automatically as a kind of Help file, with the titles on the left that you can click to display the pages on the right.. This is already a great facility. But you can go further. You can edit the file names (usually to make them simpler) and then put them in the order which is appropriate to your topic. Or if you wish, you can make the page names "CD-friendly" by substituting all the weird characters and reducing their length. Finally, if you want to export the whole lot as a ZIP file you can do it, and of course you can also import ZIP files of this type that you have saved previously. In common with normal Help files, there is also a facility for doing searches where you specify the keywords and they are highlighted on the pages where they are found.

Most families possess half a ton of photos from the pre-digital era. They are of all sizes and colours (usually badly adjusted by whoever did the developing). To scan, resize and adjust these photos to finally classify them into one or more slideshows on the computer is quite a chore if you do it all manually. With "PhotoCat", you can do all this more easily. There are 3 main programs: the "Scanner" where you scan, resize and adjust the photos semi-automatically and where you insert keywords for the purpose of classification, the "Keyword Editor" where you make alterations to the keywords associated with any photo at any time, and the "Selector" where you sort through your whole collection of photos to extract those corresponding to specified keywords and you make your slideshow(s). You can then export the slideshows you have made to CD-Rom and distribute them amongst family members, friends, etc.

Important Tips:

To run this software, you need a TWAIN scanner. It is also a great advantage to have Adobe Photoshop installed.

After "_photocat.exe" has been unzipped to a folder of your choice and you have tried running it, you can then manually make icons for "_photocat.exe", "_photocat_keyword_editor.exe" and "_photocat_selector.exe". The other program modules unwrapped do not require icons and are for internal use.

In the main program ( _photocat.exe), select your options first . If you choose to use Photoshop to make your photo adjustments, the Rebol adjustment module will nevertheless be loaded first: just click on the "SAVE" bar and Photoshop will be loaded. After adjusting in Photoshop, click on "SAVE" in the File menu and MINIMIZE Photoshop (do not close it). Thus, when you come to adjust the next photo, Photoshop is simply maximized instead of being opened again. When finally the finished picture is displayed in front of you, move the mouse around to call the window for typing keywords and saving the JPG file.

[The Rebol adjustment module is an adaption of Carl Sassenrath's "Effects Lab".]

In order to export photos as complete ready-to-run slideshows from the Selector program ( "_photocat_selector.exe"), you will need to download the Howsoft HTML Slideshow (see main webpage). After installation, make a copy of it ( _hslides.exe) to the Photocat folder.

Important tips:

For the purpose of demonstration of how you can use Help Yourself to make a program Help file, the help_yourself.zip file downloaded is bundled with various complementary files. To use the program for the first time, unzip to a folder of your choice and execute "_help_yourself.exe" by double-clicking on it in the Windows Explorer.You will note that the program sheds various other program modules wrapped with it.
To use Help Yourself subsequently, copy ONLY THE MAIN PROGRAM FILE "_help_yourself.exe" to a folder containing HTML files you have saved from the Internet Explorer. If you wish, you can manually set up an icon pointing to the "_help_yourself.exe" of the collection.

Just in case you cannot quite discover how to change the order of HTM titles, click on the Edit button to display the editing screen which is divided into 2 parts. Type your new titles on the right and DRAG the HTM titles on the left to the desired position.

For a demo of howHelp Yourself can be used to produce program Helps, click on the HELP button.

Important tips:

This program now possesses a setup, but a file (comdlg32.ocx) is missing from it. If the program does not run, as a temporary workaround, download and install "Rubber Dub-Dub" to include the missing file.

If you use the default folder to save your trees, you can use F2, F3 and F4 respectively to load, save and delete them. Clicking with the L-R mouse buttons on the background picture will change it. When searching, note that the use of the "turbo" makes an ENORMOUS difference to the speed.

For a full-blown presentation slideshow, see the HTML Slideshow on the main page. However, when working privately with images, you often want to have a quick look at a collection of pictures in a folder or to find a specific picture. In this case, the little utility QuickSeePic is just what you need. Just copy it to the folder where your image collection is, and execute it - "bung and run" you might say. The program will display pictures of the the type BMP, JPG, WMF, GIF and ICO.

Important tips:

Unzip the program to the folder of your choice and execute it by double-clicking in the Windows Explorer (but read below first) . Thereafter, copy it to any folder where you want to display the pictures.

The wrapping of this program is a little different to the others. You will note that the original prog is over 1MB in size. This is because it contains system files that your Windows might lack for the running of this program. However, when you run the program for the first time, it will check your Windows to see that these system files are there as required, and then the system-file content of _QuickSeePic.exe will be shed, reducing the program to about 68K. This is so that you don't lose a whole MB or more every time you copy the program to a picture folder! So before you run the program for the first time, you can copy it to a folder where you do not intend to run it (ever), just so that you have a backup copy (with system files) in the event that you change your Windows, format your HD, etc. Nevertheless, depending on the Windows you are using, it might be the case that Windows already contains the system files necessary to run the program without any further installation, so the wrapping provided is unnecessary in any case.

For brief instructions on how to use the program once running, F1 toggles a mini-Help.

Converting SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) files to raster format (BMP, JPG, GIF, etc.) tends to be a little sticky when done directly by coding, and you won't find a lot of software available at the moment to do this conversion.

The "SVG2Raster Utility" solves this problem in a primitive but usually effective way. It displays the SVG file and then captures the screen display so that you can save it in BMP or JPG format.

Important tips:

Please note that this utility is only useful for converting SVG images that are no bigger than your screen display.

Once you have unzipped the program to a folder of your choice, run the program (_svg2raster.exe) by double-clicking on it in the Windows Explorer. It will be unwrapped and a few complementary files will appear in the program folder. You only need set up an icon manually for _svg2raster.exe.

Important tips:

Once you have unzipped the program to a folder of your choice, run the program (_borderit.exe) by double-clicking on it in the Windows Explorer. It will be unwrapped and a single demo picture will appear in the program folder. You can discard this You only need to set up an icon manually for _borderit.exe.

You can load pictures from any source. When you save a framed version, it will be saved to the source folder itself with the filename prefix "fra_". At the moment, the program is restricted to saving in BMP format.