icon.library 46.4 test versions

[PeterK]

Ok, this bug was introduced in 46.4.438, at least for WB 3.0/3.1 and 68020+.

But you can work around it by using the option "NoDelayedImage2" until I've written an update.

The flickering is a WB screen updating problem, I guess. Unfortunately, I could not see clearly what you wanted to demonstrate with your two video clips, because they are tottering and jittering too much. Also your SnoopDos logs didn't help in this case. You can remove them to make the thread reading easier. Nevertheless, I'm always glad if somebody reports his problem here instead of just saying: "What a shitty buggy icon.library !"

[Amiga1992]

How do you use options? Is there a prefs program I don't have?
Yeah, I am pretty sure I was on a version at least 6 months old before.

The flickering is basically: when your library is loaded, there is a visibly noticeable screen refresh, a partial "blink" on the screen. When not, there is absolutely no refresh.
It's like it's "slower" when the library is on. I didn't notice this. It happens on any number of bitplanes (I tried all the way down to 2 colors, I can still see it). It happens when you do Window->Snapshot.

I can try to make a better video with my actual camera (shuttered properly to 50Hz, can't do that with the phone unfortunately, can only approximate). I thought it was pretty visible on the video I posted anyway. Maybe play each one after the other many times until yo catch it. it's not that it's a very tiny flicker, it's a huge one.

[PeterK]

The options are small commands stored in C in my Aminet package and should be called in most cases from your startup-sequence somewhere above LoadWB. There is no Prefs program.

I have no doubt about the flickering, but I'm not sure if I could avoid it.

@Akira

Are you sure that you have the correct version of my ENVARC:FBlit.cfg file installed? The wrong FBlit.cfg could be a possible reason for the flickering.

[PeterK]

Update to icon.library 46.4.451:

Tried to fix the problems on WB 3.0/3.1 with the delayed mapping of the selected image for deficons. Especially creating new drawers could have caused strange effects or even freezes because the enhanced OS 3.5 DiskObject data was not stored and on a 68020+ CPU the second planar image was also missing since version 46.4.438. I hope this issue is solved now.

[Amiga1992]

Hey Peter, I will try this ASAP. Thanks!
As for FBlit.cfg., I had it copied from your archive, but I'll copy it over again just in case.

I have one more semi related question now, I notice the 3.5 icons have a "fallback" image for when the system does not support that kind of icon, but a lot of the icons I changed, from users on Aminet, don't have this and I am left with an ugly circle/dot instead.

How can I assign an old icon plus a new icon to anything?

[PeterK]

Hi Akira,

the right FBlit.cfg depends on the version of the workbench.library only, not on the general OS version. In case you have a workbench.library v45.xxx installed then you would also require the FBlit.cfg for WB 3.5/3.9. And with a WB 3.9 you won't need the NewIcons patch anymore, of course.

For creating icons with both, oldstyle planar images and colormapped images too, it would require the OS 3.9(3.5?) IconEdit tool, but that will not work on a WB 3.1. Iconian is a tool for OS 3.1, but it can only create NewIcons and planar images.

[Amiga1992]

I didn't load another workbench.library so I am guessing that if I did put your config in there, it is the wrong one? The workbench.library I have is, I am guessing, whatever that is in ROM (3.0)

Thanks for clarifying about icons. I guess I am stuck if I want to use something off Aminet that is incomplete But I also remember when installing NEwIcons the first time ever many years ago, it kept my old icons tehre as planar, so does NEwIcons have a tool to do this? If Iconian does it I'll use it, I don't care if icons are NewIcons or 3.5 or whatever, I just want a certain style.
I should look into making my own but never really understand how it works with these new formats.

Also is there any performance advantage of using NEwIcon type icons over OS3.5+ stuff?

[PeterK]

The chronology of Amiga icon formats once started with the now obsolete OS 1.x icons, followed by the OS 2.0-3.1 planar bitmap icons still without any palette info.

Then some smart guys developed the NewIcons, which are palette mapped already and are stored as special tooltype text strings containing the 7-bit encoded images and palette data.

With OS 3.5 this color mapping concept was taken out of the tooltype array and moved into a new extension of the original DiskObject structure with a ByteRun compression.

OS4 has finally added another image and compression format to this extension in order to support zipped TrueColor ARGB icons.

The PNG icons are not based on any Amiga icon format, they only have a new "icOn" chunk for tooltypes and other Amiga specific information added to the normal PNG image data.

I've never made any benchmarks comparing NewIcons and OS 3.5 icons, but I would expect the latter to be minimal faster with the same number of colors.

Unfortunately, I can't give you any hints concerning the possibilities and the usage of the NewIcons tools and the icon editor Iconian. You have to download the Aminet packages and read the supplied docs.

[Amiga1992]

Thanks for that detailed info, very interesting.
I['m trying to figure out which would be the best way to have my own icons and maybe even make my own. Perhaps PNG Icons is a good option!

Thanks again for all your work Peter!

[Amiga1992]

I finally managed to update and I bring good news: the issue with window positions is gone!

One more, I took a look at Fblit.cfg as suggested by you, and noticed that the file size of the one I had (2888 bytes) was a bit bigger than the one included in the Aminet package (not the ADF). I replaced what I had for the Aminet package one, and now the windows don't blink/glitch any more, everything seems much more responsive!

Again, all this tested on KS3.0+WB3.1

Thanks Peter!

[PeterK]

Great, thanks for reporting about this Happy End.
I hope you've removed the NoDelayedImage2 again.

[pcotter]

Hi, this is great! Thank you so much.
Would Amithlon benefit from this?

Again thank you very much.

[SnkBitten]

Originally Posted by pcotter

Hi, this is great! Thank you so much.
Would Amithlon benefit from this?

Again thank you very much.

yes it does.

[pcotter]

Yes it does!!! :-)

[PeterK]

Try both 68020 versions, sometimes the LD020 is still faster. This depends on the type of graphic card, but the difference affects only the Hi/TrueColor screenmodes where direct drawing to the graphic card memory can be done.

[pcotter]

I'm using the LD020 version as my graphic card is kernel supported. YEs is a tick faster as the 20 version.
Thanks to you my Amithlon is now also a tick faster
Fanstastic!

[kolla]

Wild suggestion that hardly anyone will find useful...
On monochrome mode, let only black be pen 1, and other colours be pen 0? Or some other clever routines to make most common icon types look good on monochrome screen?

[PeterK]

Hi kolla,

did you already try the optional command "GrayscaleOnOff" ? But this would need some sort of a gray palette or at least some free pens for creating it, not just black and gray (or white), because my grayscale mode has no dithering.

If you have OS 3.5/3.9 installed, you can then switch into grayscale mode with Prefs/Workbench by setting icon quality to "Bad" when using an 8-bit or AGA mode. A WB-Reset from the tools menu may also be required to activate this mode at runtime.

This should also work with WB 3.0/3.1, just without using Prefs/Workbench, but then you will need GrayscaleOnOff and also FastColors in your startup-sequence.

Planar icons won't appear in grayscale colors.

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by PeterK

I hope you've removed the NoDelayedImage2 again.

No need, I didn't use my system until you updated your library so I never tried the temporary fix

[PeterK]

Two new IconDemo ADF files:

To make it easier to use my icon.library under OS 3.0/3.1, I've built two demo floppy images that should show you how to get things to work. Just copy one of these ADF files onto a floppy disk and then boot from it.

They can display all types of icons: old icons, MWB-icons, NewIcons, GlowIcons, OS4-icons and PNG-icons. This does not need a workbench.library v44+. Only the old icon.library is removed from the resident list with Thomas Rapp's very nice RemLib tool and then the new icon.library is loaded from Libs: into the memory instead.

IconDemoA500.ADF is for low end systems with 68000 CPUs, OCS/ECS with a fixed 16 color palette, minimal 512 kB ChipMem and 1 MB FastMem.

IconDemoA1200.ADF is for better systems with 68020+ CPUs, AGA, minimal 1 MB ChipMem and 2 MB FastMem and uses FBlit. It needs no ChipMem for the icons and the NewIcons patch makes even transparent backgrounds possible.

In both configurations DefIcons, AutoUpdateWB and SwazInfo are also installed. These ADFs are working with Kick 3.0 already and are supporting PAL and now also NTSC screenmodes.

The excellent CopyIcon tool from Stephan Rupprecht makes it possible to replace the images on your existing icons with a simple drag&drop from all available icon sets, no matter which format the source icons have.

Of course, the icon loading from a floppy disk will always be very slow. Furthermore, OS4 and PNG icons can also be rendered much faster after converting them once into the OS 3.5 format, but on these ADFs they are still in their original file format in order to demonstrate the ability to decode them on any Amiga.