BetterWB 3.6

[gulliver]

BetterWB 3.6 17-April-2014

This is a new version of BetterWB workbench pack, that aims to be an enhancement, an updated extension to AmigaOS 3.1, without all those hardware requirement typically associated with these kind of packs. It is indeed a better 3.1 than 3.1 itself!

BetterWB works on any Amiga. It installs on top of a clean AmigaOS 3.1 installation. It is distributed as a set of floppy images and occupies about 10MB of harddrive space.

Changes since last version:

-Full 68040, 68060 and ACA accelerators autodetection and driver support with the new HardWiz
-Rebooter is a new very handy application for restricted memory systems
-EnvHandler will save quite a lot of ram by optimising envarc (Thanks PeterK)
-Easily customize and lock palettes with FullPalette
-Updated icon.library to version 46.4.339 which is faster and less memory hungry
-Updated PFS3 aio to latest build (19-march-2014)
-Updated DMS to version 1.53
-Added a small text with a couple of tips after switching to GlowIcons
-Gzip is back. It is required for ADZ support in TSGUI (Thanks Jost)
-Added missing deficons (tool & project)
-Changed default position of the global trashcan whenever it is activated, so it doesnt get in the way
-For the love of the boing ball: replaced workbench´s glowicon to suit Jarek´s taste
-Replaced the standard trashcan icon with one that looks more elegant
-BetterWB has now its own envarc drawer with wich you can easily check wether BetterWB is installed, which version is it, and the extensions it has enabled (FullPalette, GlowIcons, Rebooter)
-A few more minor fixes and tweaks

You can download BetterWB from its homepage at:

http://lilliput.amiga-projects.net/BetterWB.htm

[tomse]

\o/ woohoo

I know I'm demanding, but would it be too much to ask to move all files into a dir and then pack that dir please? it gives less clutter when extracting in general :-)

[gulliver]

It seems Mods here are faster than my posts

Just a small image with little eye candy on an A500 with 512KB of chipmem + 512KB of slowmem.

[tomse]

Looking good :-) thats the only eye candy I need!

(if you didn't read my post above.. then bump )

[gulliver]

Originally Posted by tomse

\o/ woohoo

I know I'm demanding, but would it be too much to ask to move all files into a dir and then pack that dir please? it gives less clutter when extracting in general :-)

Its done!

Download the LHA file on the website and unpack it in a clean 3.1 setup (unpack it replacing old files). Then just double click the BetterWB_Install script to activate it. Afterwards, you can delete such script.

[tomse]

what I mean is, move all stuff into a dir, i.e. BetterWB so the structure would look like.

BetterWB
     |- C
     |- Classes
     |- Devs
     .......

then compress the directory "BetterWB" with all subdirs.
if I extract the LHA file as it is now, it would extract all files into current dir, where the goal is to extract the archive and it'll create a single dir where all stuff is then extracted into..

I hope I make sense :-)

[gulliver]

Originally Posted by tomse

what I mean is, move all stuff into a dir, i.e. BetterWB so the structure would look like.

BetterWB
     |- C
     |- Classes
     |- Devs
     .......

then compress the directory "BetterWB" with all subdirs.
if I extract the LHA file as it is now, it would extract all files into current dir, where the goal is to extract the archive and it'll create a single dir where all stuff is then extracted into..

I hope I make sense :-)

It makes sense
It is done, now re-download

[Retrofan]

I like it. You should change a couple of things IMHO:
-Magic Menu Prefs; Pull-Down and Pop-Up menu, usage is better as Smart Select.
-In Fonts, the text is text+field, it should be text only.

What do I have to do to disable the icons borders, please? I mean the icons of the System volume and so, when not using Workbench as a window.

Thanks.

[tomse]

thanks a lot :-)

I'll be trying it out tomorrow on one of my A1200's, space is taken for a job for the A600 xD

[gulliver]

Originally Posted by Retrofan

I like it. You should change a couple of things IMHO:
-Magic Menu Prefs; Pull-Down and Pop-Up menu, usage is better as Smart Select.
-In Fonts, the text is text+field, it should be text only.

What do I have to do to disable the icons borders, please? I mean the icons of the System volume and so, when not using Workbench as a window.

Thanks.

Thank you for your comments and suggestions, I will see they make it into the next version.

To disable icon borders you have a commodity that is called DontShowIBorder, to activate it you can move it manually from Tools/Commodities/ to WBStartup or even better, use the WBStartup preferences program, and just enable it.

[Retrofan]

Sorry I didn't explain it right (I didn't notice); the icons do not have a border, they have a background that you will see if you use a background for Workbench or for the windows (I mean after using DontShowIBorder).

[gulliver]

Originally Posted by Retrofan

Sorry I didn't explain it right (I didn't notice); the icons do not have a border, they have a background that you will see if you use a background for Workbench or for the windows (I mean after using DontShowIBorder).

That only happens when you use GlowIcons and have a background image set, am I right?
That it is a known flaw of workbench.library v40.x. (and of course, also present in the older versions of it)

A workaround is to just copy workbench.library 45.127 (from AmigaOS 3.9 BoingBag #1) to libs:
The drawback is that the workaround is not suited for 512KB systems, it needs at least 1MB of memory (of any kind) .

I will probably provide, in a future BetterWB version, this workaround, that will get activated if it detects enough memory on the system

[Havie]

Sorry if I'm being thick. If I want to run this on my 1200 can I copy the LHA file of BetterWB on to a CF card and copy on to my Amiga then format the workbench partiiton, install Amiga OS 3.0 and then unarchive the LHA file into the workbench partition?

Alos, does it have CF0: built in as I do a lot of transfering files from my PC to Amiga via a CF adaptor in the PCMCIA slot?

[tomse]

@havie
yes, install a clean OS first (3.0 hasn't been properly tested but it should work, I think gulliver would be more than interested to hear the result)

extract the lha package to the HDD, move all the contents of the dir, overwrite all the files in sys: with the contents of the directory BetterWB.
then run the BetterWB_Install, after that, you can delete the BetterWB_Install file.

@gulliver
I'm running into "Directory locked" when trying to execute WBStartup+prefs
my WBStartup folder is empty

[Fingerlickin_B]

Since my '040 card exploded & can't get enough stupid GVP RAM for my A3001 Impact, this looks great if the PII card has to go! (shame, P96 looked so good, but whatever)

Thanks a million for compiling this, I've already tried it on my A500 & it's got loads of handy extras, but is very memory-friendly

PZ.

[fitzsteve]

Looks great! I'll be updating my BetterWB for A1200 that I have on my spare CF card

Some excellent new features too

[gulliver]

Originally Posted by tomse

@gulliver
I'm running into "Directory locked" when trying to execute WBStartup+prefs
my WBStartup folder is empty

I re-tested the archive, doing a clean install and there is nothing wrong, I cannot get that "Directory locked" issue. It is something you have on your own setup, perhaps you altered something.

@Havie
Any news on your setup? How did it go?

[jbenam]

Hi gulliver, thanks for your work!

It's the first time I try BetterWB, as I usually use 3.9 on my real Amigas, but since I don't have them here I decided to use a lean 3.1 install for WinUAE.

There's a problem though, when you try to change screen mode in ScreenMode, you get an ENV: error. I presume it might have something to do with the fact that you have implemented EnvHandler? Actually that's just the first thing off my mind, I tried changing some other Prefs and I got the same error. If you want I can take a screenshot.

I don't think I might've done something wrong on my part as I've just clean-installed 3.1 and then applied BetterWB 3.6 on it

Thanks!

[gulliver]

Originally Posted by jbenam

Hi gulliver, thanks for your work!

It's the first time I try BetterWB, as I usually use 3.9 on my real Amigas, but since I don't have them here I decided to use a lean 3.1 install for WinUAE.

There's a problem though, when you try to change screen mode in ScreenMode, you get an ENV: error. I presume it might have something to do with the fact that you have implemented EnvHandler? Actually that's just the first thing off my mind, I tried changing some other Prefs and I got the same error. If you want I can take a screenshot.

I don't think I might've done something wrong on my part as I've just clean-installed 3.1 and then applied BetterWB 3.6 on it

Thanks!

Hi, Yes the error appears, but the change is saved anyway. You just need to reboot and the change will take effect.

[Retrofan]

Originally Posted by gulliver

That only happens when you use GlowIcons and have a background image set, am I right?
That it is a known flaw of workbench.library v40.x. (and of course, also present in the older versions of it)

A workaround is to just copy workbench.library 45.127 (from AmigaOS 3.9 BoingBag #1) to libs:
The drawback is that the workaround is not suited for 512KB systems, it needs at least 1MB of memory (of any kind) .

I will probably provide, in a future BetterWB version, this workaround, that will get activated if it detects enough memory on the system

Yes, if you add the Workbench.library of OS3.9 the icons are ok. The only problem is that you can't add a copyrighted workbench.library in an update. Edit: Scalos also shows those icons right.

Why do you use BW in Tools? It crashes if I try to open almost whatever. Dopus 4.17pre20 of AmiKit works great instead.

What Jbnam said about a request about some file missing in Env is true. I found it when I changed the background, saying it coudn't save env/preferences... but it was saved anyway. There is some other similar request about env too but I don't remember where. Edit: Ups, I didn't read your answer sorry.