flypig.co.uk

Compose

Introduction

Compose will only run under RISC OS. It is not currently available for Windows, Linux or any other operating system except RISC OS. Compose has been tested on the Iyonix and the A9Home. It should also run on other RISC OS machines and the Virtual Acorn emulators.

If you're just looking for a copy of Compose, you can skip straight to the Downloads section below.

Overview

Compose is a visual programming language that uses hyper-pipes between applications to allow componentised applications to be built graphically.

Various components are available to be used with the main Compose application. These components are specially designed applications in their own right. To create a program, components are dragged onto the Compose canvas where they appear as icons. They can be moved around the canvas, and links can be created between components that allow one component to transfer data to another component. Data transfer works in a very similar way to Unix pipes, except that whilst pipes are 1-dimensional, in Compose there can be many links between components. Compose applications are therefore built up by dragging links between components on the two dimensional canvas.

Once components have been linked on the Compose canvas, the whole application can be executed as if it is one program. The Compose application then works as an intermediary to the other components to martial data and send control messages to the components.

Compose is open source software with an MIT style licence.

Screenshots

Below are a few screenshots from Compose. For more information about Compose, see the manuals that can be downloaded below.

A chat client constructed using Compose.

Some of the components included with the Compose application.

Universal Turing Machine constructed using Compose (click to enlarge).

Manuals

You can view the Compose User Manual and the Compose Technical Manual in PDF format by clicking on the links below. Both of these manuals are also included in the program and source download archives shown in the download section below.

Downloads

The Compose/zip download below contains the main Compose program and a number of components. If you just want to create Compose programs then this is all you need.

The CompSrc/zip download contains all of the files contained in the Compose/zip archive, along with all of the source files for the main Compose application and all of the components contained in the archive. If you want to create Compose programs, and build your own version or create new components, then this is all you need.

Both archives also contain the User and Technical manuals.

Licence

Copyright (c) 2005 David Llewellyn-Jones

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.