Neil's Software

This small repository holds somewhat useful (at least to me) non-research software I've written. See my research page for software related to my work.

style-check.rb

download | readme

A simple checker for your LaTeX document to help avoid annoying me as a reader.

njgraph.pl - interactive jgraph!

Jim Plank's jgraph generates encapsulated postscript graphs that are simple and elegant. However, it's not much as an interactive tool. njgraph.pl implements a simple front end for single-series graphs that invokes gv when its output isn't redirected to a file. Command line arguments are placed inside the jgraph source appropriately: marktype and color are applied to the (single) series, other attributes are applied to the graph.

drm - a programmer's drum machine

Existing drum machine programs don't tailor to the unix programming guitarist. drm expects annotated lyrics (or a .crd file), and text-based pattern definitions. A vertical bar ("|") marks the beginning of a measure; if immediately followed by a number, it writes the numbered drum pattern to the midi output file, otherwise the last pattern will be repeated. R.E.M.'s Losing My Religion and Toad the Wet Sprocket's Crowing are coded up as samples... poorly: drm can't replace Bill Berry and Randy Guss.

Although drm outputs midi, makefile rules can make mp3's using timidity and bladeenc so that the sound isn't horrible.

Undergraduate compilers students: this is what happens when you stop worrying and learn to love flex and bison.

WMBiff - multiple mailbox biff

screenshot WMBiff watches 5 mailboxes for new mail and displays a count of messages. It is designed for WindowMaker, but works with other window managers. WMBiff was originally written by Gennady Belyakov. I've added a bunch of features, starting with SSL support for IMAP, and now maintain the software. The real site is on sourceforge.

wmalbum - album covers in a dock

screenshot If you have a massive CD collection ripped to MP3's, and love the flexibility of pressing XMMS's randomize button, but miss the experience of seeing the CD cover art, wmalbum is for you. Arrange your MP3's into one directory per album, and place a scanned image of the album cover in that directory. Start playing using XMMS, and wmalbum will take care of the rest. There's a handy circular menu for fast-forward / pause / etc., and the mouse wheel controls volume, so wmalbum is a great replacement for wmxmms. This project is on sourceforge.

random good deeds

I've had ever so slight changes applied to far more serious software, including:

And my bug reports have helped: (this list is a work in progress)

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neil spring / software

nspring@cs.umd.edu