!Fireworkz Pro is the commercial version of Colton software's original software. RComp have taken over active commercial developement, so it continues to be developed with new releases and the latest version was released at the London Show last weekend.
 
The previous release included some big changes to upgrade support for Microsoft spreadsheets. The latest version is more a set of incremental improvements.
 
In the previous release I also found some little, annoying bugs in it on my machine with text not appearing in some dialog boxes and I actually went back to using the older version. I am very pleased to report all my bugs have all gone and I am very happy on the October 2016 release!
 
The big headline feature is the support for Global clipboard so that you can finally cut and paste properly with other applications. This also extends to other Operating Systems if you are also running RComp's Uniprint 4. The support for the Microsoft spreadsheets continues to improve and there seems to be a lot of work going on under the hood (always a good sign for active developments). This shows up in the other new developments.
 
Firstly, all the messages are now in external text files, which means the product can be easily customised or internationalised. If you are interested in this, it is probably worth talking with RComp about the potential.
 
There is also a new online help system which makes it much easier to access online documentation about !FireworkzPro. In my copy the website button still points to the old Fireworkz site (with the download of the free version on the first page) and RComp might want to consider redirecting it to a copy of the manual on their website.
 
In the London Show talks, Andrew Rawnsley was asked about the possiblity of Open Office Support. This would need a filter written to read and write the files (but not a total rewrite of the Software). So if you would like to use Open Office spreadsheets in !FireworkzPro, you should let RComp know there is a demand for this feature.
 
You can buy the software as an online upgrade (20 pounds from older versions, 5 pounds if you already have version 2.20) from !Store or directly from RComp and you also get it on CD (39 pounds) as a new purchase, includes both RISCOS and Windows versions and a copy of !PDFMaker for turning Spreadsheets into PDF files for sharing with other on any platform.
 
If you are a regular user of !FireworkzPro, the latest update is well worth moving onto and sales do drive future developments. It is really good to see this key application continuing to see active, commercial development in 2016.
 
The free, Open Source version of !FireworkzPro (numbered 2.10) is also available. The release info box gives a date of June 2016. It offers a smaller range of documents and features at a lower price. The source code for this version can also be downloaded.
 
RComp can be contacted on their website
 
Other free version of FireWorkzPro