icon.library 46.4 test versions

[Mr-Z]

Just replace the icon.library in libs (or rename the original to be safe) and copy it.
You should notice a huge speed increase in loading icons.
On my Vampire V2 600 the speed increase was huge, even large directories load almost instantly now with OS3.9 BB2+ and glowicons.
Also OS4 style icons are supported with PeterK's icon lib but these are pretty heavy when used in large numbers on a classic system, so i only use these for the disk icons on the WB.

[PeterK]

Originally Posted by Steril707

1) is the icon.library included in betterWB the one from PeterK?
2) how would I know if I run the one from PeterK? I tried to run it using the code supplied in Aminet:

Version >NIL: icon.library 46
If WARN
   If EXISTS LIBS:workbench.library
      LoadResident >NIL: LIBS:workbench.library
   EndIf
   LoadResident >NIL: LIBS:icon.library REBOOT
EndIf

But it looks the same as before...

Hello Steril707,

yes, the 68000 version of my library is already included in BetterWB and installed at the beginning of the startup-sequence like this:

if exists Sys:Libs/icon.library
RemLib >nil: icon.library
endif

I would recommend this method and remove your LoadResident block again, because RemLib needs no extra reboot. LoadResident is only better if you do a lot of warm starts. Only one of both methods should be used. If you have a 68020+ CPU you could replace LIBS:icon.library with the _68020 version for more speed and features.

As already mentioned here, please use "Version icon.library" to check whether my library "46.4" is really installed.

To enable color icons in BetterWB just start Prefs/IconSet.

@Mr-Z
You can speedup OS4 and PNG icons by converting them into the OS 3.5 format. For OS4 icons load them into Icon Information and save them. This makes them much smaller and a lot faster. For PNG icons it's sufficient in most cases to snapshot them, but that trick won't convert OS4 icons.

[Tigerskunk]

Ah, okay, understood.
Seems it was already running... Nice...

One thing, though.. I have these grey borders around the icons, and it seems some people somehow got rid of them..
Also, the icons seem to have problems to display in true colour, although the rest of the screen is..

Any advice for me how to accomplish this?

[PeterK]

Originally Posted by Steril707

I have these grey borders around the icons, and it seems some people somehow got rid of them..
Also, the icons seem to have problems to display in true colour, although the rest of the screen is..

Unfortunately, you didn't give me much information about your system yet. Ok, you're running BetterWB (OS 3.1) on a 68020+ with P96/CGX and a graphics card.

There are two choices to get rid of the icon frames. Either you can install workbench.library 44+ (ie. from BB4) in a similar way as iconlib, which also brings some other benefits, or you could check out my IconDemoA1200 floppy image with WB 3.1 from the 1. post here and compare the setup.

I regret, but TrueColor icons are always reduced to max 255 colors and simple transparency by my icon.library. If you need more then please install AfA_OS or Scalos. But that's a different class than BetterWB.

PS. If your screen is really TrueColor, why is the screen size just PAL Overscan ?? Strange GFX card ...

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by PeterK

Unfortunately, you didn't give me much information about your system yet. Ok, you're running BetterWB (OS 3.1) on a 68020+ with P96/CGX and a graphics card.

There are two choices to get rid of the icon frames. Either you can install workbench.library 44+ (ie. from BB4) in a similar way as iconlib, which also brings some other benefits, or you could check out my IconDemoA1200 floppy image with WB 3.1 from the 1. post here and compare the setup.

I regret, but TrueColor icons are always reduced to max 255 colors and simple transparency by my icon.library. If you need more then please install AfA_OS or Scalos. But that's a different class than BetterWB.

PS. If your screen is really TrueColor, why is the screen size just PAL Overscan ?? Strange GFX card ...

Hey Peter..

First off thanks for your fast answers..
I just used a weird resolution for the screen. I am new to Amiga OS "fine tuning", since I am usually just using 1.3 for my asm stuff.

I am fine with 256 colors. Was just wondering if that was intended or not..

I will check out that workbench.library, and see if I can get it to run...

[PeterK]

Update to icon.library 46.4.475:

Safer "Ram Disk" icon detection. It checks the first 8 characters now instead of only 4. This avoids possible conflicts with other disk labels like "Ram Test" or "Ram Tools". --- Optimized the colorscans for OS4 and PNG icons to improve the color reduction again. Some very difficult icons with lots of colors are looking better now.

Icons that were already converted to the OS 3.5 format with older versions of icon.library may need to be copied from the original OS4 or PNG icons sets again to achieve best results. The screenshots below are comparing TrueColor with my 256 color icons.

@Steril707
Use the latest 68020 (or even SB020) version for best quality. On your screenshot I could see that your version is 473 or older.

[kolla]

Wow, quite a difference!

[PeterK]

Left side are the original PNG icons in TrueColor, the "difference" is my result.

[PeterK]

Update to icon.library 46.4.476:

Added a palette occupation table to the color reduction code for OS4 and PNG
icons. Checking this table can avoid up to 200 color compares and save some time.

[indigolemon]

Installed and seems to be working great (as always)

[Michael]

There seems to be some bug in icon.lib

Under DO5 again...

In text lister mode
double click info file for (Gicon Tool) eg. any wbstartup tool

The first icon info DO5 will show is about the icon, but list it as VOLUME!
Reopening it again, will show proper Tool type icon.

[PeterK]

Originally Posted by Michael

In text lister mode double click info file for (Gicon Tool) eg. any wbstartup tool

The first icon info DO5 will show is about the icon, but list it as VOLUME!
Reopening it again, will show proper Tool type icon.

Hi Michael,

I've opened WBStartup in text mode on DOpus5 (started from WB 3.9) and also DOpus5 running stand-alone on AmiKit and double clicked any #?.info there, but all of them appeared as tools, none as a volume.

Seems that you have a very specific problem, maybe only with Gicon.info ? If so, post that icon file, please.

[Michael]

This is not as trivial as I have expected it to be since reproducing this effect seems to require something else too, have not figured it out exactly.
But it happens on any normal tool icon in glowicon (3.5) format (some tools in wbstartup as an example here) Sometimes when you wish to change some settings in icon, the first time you open it, it is presented as a volume (in DO5 icon info), reopening it again shows it properly and does not fail after.

Could it be something in WB/DO5 running together detection logic or ram icon like issue or after screenmode chage... Hope to understand it, why and when it happens.

Or it could be just some other tool fulling around with some system vectors after it was run.

[PeterK]

Do you use any tool fooling around with WBStartup entries for enabling or disabling them? I think there are some tools for this purpose, but I never tried them.

Does this issue happen in other drawers, too ?

[Michael]

It could happen anywhere, it's just those icons that you touch more often then others.
Try WBStartup+ (Mac like progress bar with some nice features)

[PeterK]

How many hours should I experiment with DOpus5 to reproduce this problem?

Are you using DOpus 5.82 or 5.9x ? What are your icon related settings in DOpus5 ? Why t. h. is somebody using text listing mode? Does it happen in icon mode, too?

[kolla]

@PeterK
Any planned new features for icon.library?

There is already IconUpScale and IconDownScale, some option to only scale in X or Y direction could be useful to stretch icons on non 1:1 displays (typically non-laced PAL or NTCS HiRes modes)

[Michael]

Forced to use classic 5.82 since updates have gone unicode for FTP, and that breaks the most important second function of DO5, no FTP :-( unless you are ok with english only.

Don't panic, I have only advised that there might be an issue somewhere, I am still keeping an eye for what combination of moves is required to reproduce it. It has happened on two different machines now with different setups AGA v CGX (However DO5 is in similar setup) Why DO5 gets confused that an icon is read in as a Volume is a mystery so far, since reopening it wolves the issue. My only current speculation is some register is trashed that corresponds to icon type decision making of the DO5 icon info module. (So far I have had this happen to me around 10 times)

[PeterK]

Originally Posted by kolla

@PeterK
Any planned new features for icon.library?

Atm, I'm trying to reduce the memory consumption of OS 3.5 icons and NewIcons by around 10 % by killing the unused old planar images and replacing them with the internal 4-color icons or only dots if ChipMem is used for blitting. The replacements always point to the same images and thus need no memory allocations. I'm still working on some special problems now, like IconEdit, which seems to read some information directly from the file and causes conflicts with the replaced images from icon.library. It even overrides the replacements. Maybe I have to restrict this new feature to Workbench task.

There is already IconUpScale and IconDownScale, some option to only scale in X or Y direction could be useful to stretch icons on non 1:1 displays (typically non-laced PAL or NTCS HiRes modes)

I could make an X stretching of 50 % possible by inserting a mixed pixel between every pair of pixels or 100 % by adding a new one between all original pixels. I won't recommend the low quality downscaling of the hight. What would you prefer ?

Old planar icons, MWB and NewIcons would never get scaled by my icon.library. It looks like 50 % stretching could be enough or the images would appear very large. But please remember that my scaling functions are not made for permanent use. You have to call them once, save the scaled icons and then disable the scaling again. This is no good solution if you need to switch screenmodes very often. Scaling or stretching permanently and not changing the images on saving the icon is not planned, because that's too complicated. I would have to read the source icon and decode the original images completely again to be able to save only other changes. Not with me ...

[PeterK]

Originally Posted by Michael

Don't panic, I have only advised that there might be an issue somewhere, I am still keeping an eye for what combination of moves is required to reproduce it. It has happened on two different machines now with different setups AGA v CGX (However DO5 is in similar setup) Why DO5 gets confused that an icon is read in as a Volume is a mystery so far, since reopening it wolves the issue. My only current speculation is some register is trashed that corresponds to icon type decision making of the DO5 icon info module. (So far I have had this happen to me around 10 times)

No, I don't panic yet, although I know that very often you were right when coming up with a mysterious bug report.
But I need to know how to reproduce a problem, before I can start with investigations. I also thought already that this issue might be caused by a memory trashing. I didn't try AGA or CGX modes yet (my CGX setup is broken, must be reinstalled first).