No, there is only one. FreeFem++-cs development started in 2004. It was first presented on the FreeFem++ web page, and then on this web site. But it is still basically the same program.
No. Since version 3.0, FreeFem++ uses inter-process communication to display graphics, so FreeFem++ and FreeFem++-cs now have exactly the same speed characteristics. If you have a different experience on your platform, this is a bug, please report it on the bugs page.
No, you only need to download FreeFem++-cs to run EDP scripts. But experienced users who compile their own shared libraries with the command "ff-c++" need to download the FreeFem++ package as well.
Yes, FreeFem++ and FreeFem++-cs are fully compatible, even at the DLL level. Please note that Windows DLLs do not share an output stream, so the output of "printf()" and "cout" in a DLL may vary.
FreeFem++-cs was previously part of the FreeFem++ package. But FreeFem++ changes too often to guaranty that FreeFem++-cs stays compatible with every new version. So I have created a separate, more stable package for FreeFem++-cs.
No. FreeFem++-cs is a shell around FreeFem++. The version of FreeFem++ included in the FreeFem++-cs archive is the one developed by Frédéric Hecht.
I have been able to compile FreeFem++-cs on Microsoft Windows, Linux, and MacOS X. But if you want to try it on another platform, I would be very happy to help and/or to include your patches.
Unfortunately, this is not possible anymore because of technical reasons. Every new version of FreeFem++ needs to be patched to communicate with FreeFem++-cs through a TCP socket. In most cases the patches do not apply cleanly from one version of FreeFem++ to the next.
From version 11.14, when called with command-line option "-Batch" and a FreeFem++ program file name, FreeFem++-cs automatically executes the FreeFem++ program and returns control to the calling shell script when the program ends. FreeFem++-cs still needs to open windows, but this can also be hidden (at least in Linux) with xvfb.
To the best of my knowledge, FreeFem++-cs does not contain any virus or other security threat. The development machines are protected with a virus detector and they do not report any threat. If your virus scanner reports otherwise, it is very likely that it is a "false positive" (ie the scanner uses a "heuristic" algorithm that is not 100% reliable). Please check the suspected file through other scanners (see for instance the free online service http://www.virustotal.com) to get more information and let me know the result.
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