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The Next Version

As you may have read elsewhere, this project has been abandoned.

This project was abandoned around May 2003. Why? Well, I have been developing the next version (v3) for two and a half years now, and it would still need another year or two to finish it. Also, it's not portable, and my usage of the program had dropped off anyway. I'll still post the source to the next version, and all the files you need, so someone can pick up where I left off if they want.

Quite simply put, my heart just isn't in it anymore. When you don't really believe in something, it's difficult to keep doing it.

The source code is available, and if anyone wants to take off from where I left it, feel free.

You can download the current source from here: cfw3.zip, 389k.

If you have any questions about developing it (like, "What the hell did you do to this program?"), then email me, and I'll help you as best I can.

Below here is the original text of this page.

The Console for Windows 3, as the next version is known, is currently under development. It's in an early alpha stage, with many of the main functions working but some others just crashing no matter what ...

As the version number might suggest, this is a major update to the entirety of the program. In fact, it's a complete re-write -- and many things are getting changed. Firstly, it is being coded in C++ this time, instead of an interpreted BASIC language. What this means is smaller executable size, less memory use, and much more speed.

But version 3 also has many other differences. For example, it'll have a plug-in architecture, not only for general purpose plugins, but visual plugins as well. These will let you make everything look even prettier!

This time around there will be more things to configure, more things to play with, and an extensibility that should prove very useful.

And the code is following a different style. Instead of a "brute-force" approach to solving problems, the code is being carefully written in an OO (object-oriented) way, to enable fast and easy code changes, and easier maintenance.

To sum it up:

• Much less RAM usage than previous versions (expected to be around one tenth of the memory usage of the last version)
• Much faster operation (with less memory used, less reason for Windows to swap it to hard disk)
• Much more extensible (pretty much everything has an option)
• Ability to expand with plugins
• A much cooler look, with visual plugins (visual plugins will be able to use OpenGL or DirectX, or whatever you can code, to make animated plugins)

Waiting? Step this way and join an email list to be notified of progress.

For the moment, though, download version 2 and send along what you think should be in the next version to make it cool!