What is Resolver One?

Resolver One is a program that combines the ease-of-use of a spreadsheet with the power of a programming language. It's designed for people who've hit the limits of what they can do with traditional spreadsheets and want to write some "real code" but don't want to give up the ease-of-use and rapid prototyping capabilities of a spreadsheet.

Does Resolver One use Microsoft Excel?

No, it's a stand-alone application. You can, however, import Excel workbooks and export your Resolver One workbooks to Excel.

What is the different between the paid-for and the free versions of Resolver One?

The free version of Resolver One is for non-commercial, open-source or personal use only. When you hit save, it asks you which open-source license you want to release your spreadsheet under. (If you're releasing something into the public domain, we regard that as being a particularly strong form of open-sourcing :-)

What this means is that if you are using Resolver One for any non-personal commercial purpose, you should purchase the commercial version.

I represent an academic institution, can we use the free version of Resolver One?

It depends on what you're using it for. If the spreadsheets you are creating are something that you will release under an open-source license or will place into the public domain - for example as published scientific research - then yes, you can use the free version. If it's something you want to keep private, then no - you need the paid-for version, though we do offer significant discounts to academic institutions; mail our sales team for details.

How can I get the Resolver One Web Server?

As of version 1.3, the Web Server is included in the main Resolver One installer. Version 1.3 is a free upgrade for all.

What are the system requirements for running Resolver One?

''Software'': Resolver One requires Windows XP or later, with .NET 2.0 installed. If you don't have .NET 2.0, you can download it from Microsoft (it's free).

''Hardware'': The minimum specification for running Resolver One is a Pentium 4 at 2GHz with 512Mb RAM. We recommend a Pentium 4 at 3GHz with 1Gb if you're running Windows XP or 2Gb if you're running Windows Vista.

Does Resolver One work under MacOS or Linux?

Not right now, but it is something we're looking at. In particular, we have been able to get the Resolver One Web Server running on Linux using Mono internally; we will post instructions on how to do this soon.

Does Resolver One support the standard Python libraries?

Resolver One uses IronPython, which can run most of the standard Python libraries - specifically, the ones that are written in Python themselves. There are, however, one or two libraries that depend on bits that are written in C. We have started an Open Source project called Ironclad, whose aim is to make sure that these Python C extensions will work with IronPython and thus with Resolver One - there's more information on the Ironclad page.

What is the best place to learn about Python/IronPython?

For pure Python:

• If you're an experienced programmer, but don't know Python, then Dive into Python has some excellent resources.
• If you are a complete novice, then this documentation page may be useful to you; alternatively, the official Python tutorial may be more to your taste.

For IronPython-specific stuff (for example, how to use .NET components):

• Michael Foord (from our development team!) is writing a book called IronPython in Action. It will be published in early 2009, but a lot of it is available from the official website.
• There are lots of good examples of working with the .NET framework from IronPython in the IronPython cookbook.

What are the different code sections for?

These are described here: Code Sections

How do I use my own Python code files in my spreadsheets?

Any Python file that is in the same directory as your Resolver One workbook (the .rsl file) can be imported in any part of the user code. So, for example, you might have a directory containing A.rsl and B.py; in the user code for A.rsl you would add the line:

from B import *

...to the pre-constants user code. This would make the contents of module B available in your spreadsheet.

Some people set up their Resolver One files so that they have one .py for each of the user code sections, and then use code like that to load it - this means that they can use their favourite editor.

How can I get my .NET programs to use Resolver One worksheets?

You can export your spreadsheets as IronPython code, which can then be re-used in .NET applications. In the future we will support further levels of integration - we'll say more when that's ready to show.

Can I add my own Python "plug-ins" to Resolver One?

Not right now; that's something we're working on for a future release.

How do I write to a database from Resolver One?

We've written a documentation page taking you through this step-by-step: Writing to a database

How do I download the contents of a web page? urllib doesn't seem to work!

Resolver One version 1.3 is built on IronPython 1.1.2. In this version urllib and urllib2 mostly work. There is still an outstanding bug that can cause problems if the URL you are fetching does a redirect. This is fixed in IronPython 2 which the next version of Resolver One will be based on.

In the meantime, you can use .NET functionality to download Web pages; our Usage Tracking Spreadsheet example does just that, and the IronPython cookbook has some good examples of more advanced tricks.