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64coder

This page is archived and no longer maintained

This is the sister application to UUcoder by the same author, John Allen.

It codes and decodes MIME base64 such as might be sent and received via Usenet newsgroups on the Internet. It works totally on the RISC OS desktop and is designed to work only under RISC OS 3.10 and later versions.

64coder saves and loads files to and from the Scrap directory so will run much better on a machine with a hard disc, but then Internet (or at least Demon) would be a pain on a machine which only had floppy drives.

Copyright Notice

© John Allen 1996.

Please contact me before adding it to a PD library so that I can supply an up to date version.

Getting going

Double click on the 64coder icon in the Filer window. This installs 64coder on the iconbar and opens the main coding and decoding window.

Clicking on the 64coder icon on the iconbar will re-open the main coding and decoding window if it has been closed. If the window is already open it will bring it to the top of any other windows that are open.

64coder is designed to be simple to use. To decode: drop a file on the decode icon and to code drop it on the code icon. The resulting file can then be dragged where ever it is required. The instructions below are more detailed and explain the more advanced features.

Decoding a file

  1. Drag a file containing base64 coded data to the decode icon at the bottom right of the main window. There's no need to edit the header off the file, just use the whole file.
  2. 64coder coder decodes the complete file.
  3. Edit the supplied name as appropriate, then drag the file icon to a Filer directory display or to another application. Alternatively enter the full pathname of the file and click select on the 'OK' icon. Additionally you can double-click select over the file icon to load it into an appropriate application (if known to RISC OS at the time of clicking).

Encoding a file

  1. Drag the file you wish to encode to the code icon at the top right of the main window. If the file is being sent to someone with a PC rather than an Arc it should be named with the appropriate file PC file extension, using a "/" instead of a ".". This ensures that the PC user gets a correctly typed file when it is decoded. For example a gif file "mum" should be called "mum/gif" before dragging it to 64coder. It will be encoded with the PC file name of "mum.gif". 64coder will save the RISC OS filetype with the file so that its RISC OS filetype can be restored if it is decoded by 64coder or Marcel.
  2. 64coder will encode the file.
  3. Edit the file name supplied by 64coder to the name you wish to save the file under, and drag the file icon to a Filer directory display or to another application. Alternatively enter the full pathname and click select on the 'OK' icon.

Features

Download 64coder version 1.00 (zip file)

Download full MIME technical specification (zip file)

© John Allen 2014