AmigaOS 3.2 and beyond

[boemann]

Originally Posted by Greyspirit

I'm wondering if there is a place to see the TODO list for future versions? That way we might keep from repeating requests for things already on the list.

There is no such list, only internal discussions and common understanding. In any case if we were to publish a list people would just be disappointed when we don't actually implement it. Things change way too often for us to commit to any public list. Even implemented features might end up being withdraw at the last minute if they are not stable enough.

For 3.2.1 is is mainly fixing the bugs reported on the various forums, sprinkled with a few select features to apologize for the bugs.

[Daedalus]

Is there a cut off date for new bugs to be reported for fixing in 3.2.1? Or has that date already passed? I don't have another one to report, just curious.

[boemann]

Originally Posted by Daedalus

Is there a cut off date for new bugs to be reported for fixing in 3.2.1? Or has that date already passed? I don't have another one to report, just curious.

We will fix bugs until the day we release it, but it depends on the severity of the bug and of what it entails to fix it. We may not fix some bugs until 3.3 or later. In any case this means you can always report.

[mateusz_s]

Hi,
Many Thanks to All Developers for creating 3.2, just after install you see the difference.
Much more user friendly, lots of nice solutions. It is just Amazing!

If you are planning future updates or releases, I would like to share some of things I noticed and ideas
that maybe you would like to consider...


1. "Quit" option from WB menu.
Would it be possible that Quit option terminates all applications and drives actions?
Otherway that option is a bit not useful. Because always it says like: "there are some launech programs".
And it does nothing actually.


2. "Close" WINDOW menu option.
Do we actually need that option? The window can be closed using the gadget or key shortcut.


3. "Clear selection" WINDOW menu option.
I think this option is also redundand somehow - we just click the empty place to deselect everything.


4. "Leave out / Put away" ICON menu options.
I think these two options can be merged into one menu command, like: "Make desktop shortcut".
The disadvantage of the "Leave out" option is that the icon dissapear from its original location.
We actually don't know if the icon on the desktop is leaved out or just moved.
The leaved out icon could be also marked somehow - so we know that is the shortcut(or link) -
it could be just deleted as normal icon if not needed. The original icon should stay in the original place.


5. For ICON menu options I really miss "Cut/Copy/Paste" options.
The Copy option only creates copy in the same place.

6. Renaming icon by clicking on it / or clicking on the name

7. Shouldn't the "auto arrange icons" be in the Clean Up Menu instead of Tools?

8. Adding the Close gadget in all prefs/tools applications (close=cancel)

9. Shouldn't the Close gadget be squared? Mine is always streched vertically.

10. Click to front - optinon to use only one click to bring the window to the front (less clicks = better

11. Commodity exchange - moving commodities to wbstartup may be not obvious, maybe better add a prefs app to turn on/off
the commodities.

12. I got problems streching the windows when try to find the border-end. I think the test-area is too small for the pointer.

13. I was amazed by the iconify/maximize gadgets in the new TextEdit! They work great - can all the windows and apps/prefs/tool have that gadgets?

14. Maybe a few additional options for Multiview, so the OS could have a better picture viewer build it, like for example: up/down scaling images (could be by 2,4,8 for performance), next/prev image, image info, etc.

15. Shouldn't the OS be equipped at least in lha command?

16. Targa (TGA) datatype?

17. Option to put image at the beggining of the WB menu bar, the presets could have alrerady boingball and checkmark.

18. Clock/date at the very right of the WB menu bar?

19. Option to enable/disable windows sticks to the screen border before moving out of the screen..

20. The WB menu bar could be additionally filled up by "Prefs" group that have all standard prefs apps listed
and if there are any additional 3rd party prefs apps - they would appear at the very bottom (under the separation line) in the sub-menu: 3rd party
I am using a script that automatically makes such an additional menu.

21. Just a thought - maybe when icon is right-clicked the Icon menu could appear next to the icon?
Additionally there could also appead a second menu like "actions" - or the Icons menu could be additionally filled up,
by custom operations - for example: right click on mounted adf icon - would also appear the "unmount command"

22. Maybe a tool that lists all running apps or processes
So we can terminate the app that not responding..

23. I think Trashcan is a bit useless. We have to manualny put things there. Also the deleted thing shoud
Be put there automatically (just like trash on win or mac)

[AMIGASYSTEM]

Originally Posted by mateusz_s

4. "Leave out / Put away" ICON menu options.
I think these two options can be merged into one menu command, like: "Make desktop shortcut".
The disadvantage of the "Leave out" option is that the icon dissapear from its original location.
We actually don't know if the icon on the desktop is leaved out or just moved.
The leaved out icon could be also marked somehow - so we know that is the shortcut(or link) -
it could be just deleted as normal icon if not needed. The original icon should stay in the original place.

This you can already do with IconLink that you can find on Aminet, you can create icon shortcut and delete icon shortcut, on OS3.2 it works well and you can insert the arexx command inside "MenuTools".

5. For ICON menu options I really miss "Cut/Copy/Paste" options.
The Copy option only creates copy in the same place.

The copy-paste works you have to use the keys A+c/A+v

[boemann]

Originally Posted by mateusz_s

Hi,
Many Thanks to All Developers for creating 3.2, just after install you see the difference.
Much more user friendly, lots of nice solutions. It is just Amazing!

If you are planning future updates or releases, I would like to share some of things I noticed and ideas
that maybe you would like to consider...

Thanks. Without going into each item I can say a lot of them resonate with my personal wishes. Details differ and some are all but impossible.

Killing applications are both possible and not. We cannot free resources like memory, open files, or open windows
Iconification gadgets require cooperation from the application, so it is nothing we can make all 3rd party applications have

[kamelito]

AmigaOS 3.2 bug ? http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=108194

[kamelito]

Originally Posted by boemann

Thanks. Without going into each item I can say a lot of them resonate with my personal wishes. Details differ and some are all but impossible.

Killing applications are both possible and not. We cannot free resources like memory, open files, or open windows
Iconification gadgets require cooperation from the application, so it is nothing we can make all 3rd party applications have

A friend of mine wrote a program like that, it was tracking many ressources and if a task/process was killed it tried to free all ressources. IIRC CAOS did feature ressources tracking.

[Steady]

@ kamelito

Unfortunately, it really isn't possible to free everything from a crashed app under OS3. Exec/AmigaDOS never track who requested a resource, especially memory. Even if Exec tracked the memory allocation, it does not know for sure if the application wanted to leave the memory allocated on exit, which is exploited by many patches, for example.

[kamelito]

Originally Posted by Steady

@ kamelito

Unfortunately, it really isn't possible to free everything from a crashed app under OS3. Exec/AmigaDOS never track who requested a resource, especially memory. Even if Exec tracked the memory allocation, it does not know for sure if the application wanted to leave the memory allocated on exit, which is exploited by many patches, for example.

Sure but as they have the source code of the OS I suppose it can be done but it will slow down the OS so if it ever happens it should be optional, as for patches get rid of them from your system

[boemann]

Originally Posted by kamelito

Sure but as they have the source code of the OS I suppose it can be done but it will slow down the OS so if it ever happens it should be optional, as for patches get rid of them from your system

Steady is an AmigaOS developer too and it is not just about being able to look at the sources. The OS is fundamentally not build for resource tracking. Resources are meant to be passed from one task to another.

Say task A sends a msg to ask B. Then for some reason Task A is killed and all it's memory is freed. But Task B is still using it. and will then bring down the machine.

There are many more cases like this with other structures. It is plainly not possible, A 3rd party hack may get a long way, but for us to put it into the OS would require that we can guarantee that it will not break, and that is not possible as explained above

[hexaae]

Is an "AutoIconUpdate" feature planned for the near future? Without using problematic* patches like http://m68k.aminet.net/package/util/wb/AutoUpdateWB I mean.

*because sometimes may cause troubles with OS locked icon files while deleting/moving files. More than once it happened to me with AutoUpdateWB that couldn't delete a file just because was in a tight loop when the WB was showing the (no)icon file and thus being reported as in use...

[boemann]

Originally Posted by hexaae

Is an "AutoIconUpdate" feature planned for the near future? Without using problematic* patches like http://m68k.aminet.net/package/util/wb/AutoUpdateWB I mean.

*because sometimes may cause troubles with OS locked icon files while deleting/moving files. More than once it happened to me with AutoUpdateWB that couldn't delete a file just because was in a tight loop when the WB was showing the (no)icon file and thus being reported as in use...

Planned would be overstating it, but it sounds like something we'd eventually like to have in some form or another. Also with the caveat that not all filesystems support notifications´.

[mateusz_s]

Hello,
as I am working on my AmigaOS 3.2 instalation
I am finding other ideas, that maybe useful for you in future..

(...continuing...)

24. Maybe adding REBOOT option in WB menu (instead of QUIT or before it)

25. This one would be very important for me - PCMCIA CF Card already included:
CF0 (in Devs/DosDrivers), compactflash.device (in Devs) and fat95 (in L),
so it would be possible to use CF card via PCMCIA just after install.
This is my main transfering way between PC<->AMIGA.
I think the sources are open.
Right now I am installing from floppies and then I am
connecting my CF card to PC to copy the driver files.

26. When some ICON is selected and we click on "Execute Command"
the name/path of the icon sould already appear.

27. Maybe when clicking into drawer it shoud open in the same window?
Then we could have additional option in Window or Icon menu called "Open in new window".

28. Find - when a searching phrase is found - like for example "TextEdit"
I shoud be able to open the folder that contains it double clicking or by additional button.
If possible to make - I think the selected "TextEdit" line could be draggable,
so I could drag it directly to other application like: ToolsMenu etc.

29. A simple GUI tool for creating MENUS would be great.
Manually adding lines to Arexx script takes time.
So 3rd party tools like ToolsMenu or ToolsDeamon wouldn't be needed.
Also I would merged the AutoArrangeIcon into MenuTools (where Help menu is added).
Or just move AutoArrangeIcon to Cleanup submenu

30. I think this one is important:
The selecting rectange should be limited to active window.
Sometimes we can by accident select some additional icons
just by moven mouse to far and icons that underneath active window
are also selected and may be deleted or moved..

31. I wonder if fonts like emerald, saphire, garnet, opal are needed?
Does people even use it? They are unreadable - and take lots of space
on install floppies.

32. As the AmigaOS grows up the floppy installer is bigger.
No problem when installing from CD.
Maybe additional form of instaling would be to compress all files into some kind of
split archive - the fresh System takes less than 10MB when zipped.

33. I would also loved to have options from MagicMenu avaiable,
like for example: sticky menu when right clicked.

34. I think I might have found a BUG in Arexx.
When the drawer is empty or there are no icons
I can't get informations about number of displayed icons or selected icons.
Also works when Show All Files is on and some no icon files appear.

I am using:
GETATTR WINDOWS.ACTIVE VAR file_path;

and then I got error code 10 when using:
GETATTR WINDOW.ICONS.SELECTED.COUNT NAME file_path VAR selected_icons_count;
or:
GETATTR WINDOW.ICONS.ALL.COUNT NAME file_path VAR selected_icons_count;

35. Some Menus added by Arexx* (in attachments)

[jcgeuze]

Originally Posted by boemann

We will fix bugs until the day we release it, but it depends on the severity of the bug and of what it entails to fix it. We may not fix some bugs until 3.3 or later. In any case this means you can always report.

thanks for the continued development of AmigaOS, Its really amazing what you are doing here!

Can't wait to see what else is in store.

[Steady]

Thanks for the list of suggestions mateusz_s.

I have made a note of them.

[Daedalus]

Originally Posted by mateusz_s

1. "Quit" option from WB menu.
Would it be possible that Quit option terminates all applications and drives actions?

That's tricky to do without risking bringing down the entire machine. Locking out drive activity might be possible...

2. "Close" WINDOW menu option.
Do we actually need that option? The window can be closed using the gadget or key shortcut.

If it's taken away, ARexx scripts invoking that menu item might stop working.

3. "Clear selection" WINDOW menu option.
I think this option is also redundand somehow - we just click the empty place to deselect everything.

Like many functions such as close window, it's nice to have multiple options to suit different people's habits and workflows. Removing items because you can do it some other way seems like a regression in the nice Workbench environment that can be controlled by either a mouse or keyboard. Besides, like above, it's possible that this menu item is used by ARexx scripts.

4. "Leave out / Put away" ICON menu options.
I think these two options can be merged into one menu command, like: "Make desktop shortcut".
The disadvantage of the "Leave out" option is that the icon dissapear from its original location.
We actually don't know if the icon on the desktop is leaved out or just moved.

That's a different paradigm - I'm not sure it really fits with Workbench, and to me feels like just trying to be like other systems for the sake of it.

The leaved out icon could be also marked somehow - so we know that is the shortcut(or link) -
it could be just deleted as normal icon if not needed. The original icon should stay in the original place.

Yes, this might be useful indeed - OS4 does this with left out icons.

5. For ICON menu options I really miss "Cut/Copy/Paste" options.
The Copy option only creates copy in the same place.

This can be added with ARexx (I made an imperfect version of this a while back that adds cut copy and paste functions to the Tools menu and works well enough for most uses).

7. Shouldn't the "auto arrange icons" be in the Clean Up Menu instead of Tools?

This is because it's an ARexx script, not an integral Workbench function.

11. Commodity exchange - moving commodities to wbstartup may be not obvious, maybe better add a prefs app to turn on/off
the commodities.

Commodities are programs, they should be treated the same as any others in that regard. But a global WBStartup prefs might be nice - OS4 does it this way instead of using the WBStartup drawer, so you use the preference program to add anything you want at startup - commodities or otherwise.

can all the windows and apps/prefs/tool have that gadgets?

All windows have a maximise function - hold down Shift while clicking the zoom gadget. It's probably a little bit tricky to minimise windows of an application that doesn't have any knowledge of the minimise function. If it assumes the window's still open, it may trash screen memory or something like that.

As for adding the items to the Tools menu, THE from OS 3.9 does a good job of doing this and producing the required ARexx script lines without having to do any script editing yourself.

Originally Posted by AMIGASYSTEM

The copy-paste works you have to use the keys A+c/A+v

That's not the standard Workbench behaviour, so if you can do that you must have some 3rd party addition adding that functionality.

[Jope]

Originally Posted by mateusz_s

25. This one would be very important for me - PCMCIA CF Card already included:
CF0 (in Devs/DosDrivers), compactflash.device (in Devs) and fat95 (in L),
so it would be possible to use CF card via PCMCIA just after install.
This is my main transfering way between PC<->AMIGA.
I think the sources are open.
Right now I am installing from floppies and then I am
connecting my CF card to PC to copy the driver files.

Fat95 equivalent capability is already included in L:CrossDOSFileSystem, but you still need to add the dosdriver and compactflash.device to access cards connected to the PCMCIA slot.

I was requesting a similar feature where scsi.device+carddisk.device would be extended and would work together to support IDE controllers in the PCMCIA port, but that idea was not accepted back then. Just putting it out there again. Would be super nice to be able to be able to boot off PCMCIA CF or SD from cold start and install/partition an internal IDE drive from there.

[mateusz_s]

Originally Posted by Jope

Fat95 equivalent capability is already included in L:CrossDOSFileSystem, but you still need to add the dosdriver and compactflash.device to access cards connected to the PCMCIA slot.

I was requesting a similar feature where scsi.device+carddisk.device would be extended and would work together to support IDE controllers in the PCMCIA port, but that idea was not accepted back then. Just putting it out there again. Would be super nice to be able to be able to boot off PCMCIA CF or SD from cold start and install/partition an internal IDE drive from there.

Hmm interesting.. but how to use L:CrossDOSFileSystem instead of fat95?
just delete fat95 and let L:CrossDOSFileSystem do the job autmatic or do I have to configure something? Not sure how to use it..

[AC/DC HACKER!]

Originally Posted by mateusz_s

Hello,
as I am working on my AmigaOS 3.2 instalation
I am finding other ideas, that maybe useful for you in future..

(...continuing...)

24. Maybe adding REBOOT option in WB menu (instead of QUIT or before it)

25. This one would be very important for me - PCMCIA CF Card already included:
CF0 (in Devs/DosDrivers), compactflash.device (in Devs) and fat95 (in L),
so it would be possible to use CF card via PCMCIA just after install.
This is my main transfering way between PC<->AMIGA.
I think the sources are open.
Right now I am installing from floppies and then I am
connecting my CF card to PC to copy the driver files.

26. When some ICON is selected and we click on "Execute Command"
the name/path of the icon sould already appear.

27. Maybe when clicking into drawer it shoud open in the same window?
Then we could have additional option in Window or Icon menu called "Open in new window".

28. Find - when a searching phrase is found - like for example "TextEdit"
I shoud be able to open the folder that contains it double clicking or by additional button.
If possible to make - I think the selected "TextEdit" line could be draggable,
so I could drag it directly to other application like: ToolsMenu etc.

29. A simple GUI tool for creating MENUS would be great.
Manually adding lines to Arexx script takes time.
So 3rd party tools like ToolsMenu or ToolsDeamon wouldn't be needed.
Also I would merged the AutoArrangeIcon into MenuTools (where Help menu is added).
Or just move AutoArrangeIcon to Cleanup submenu

30. I think this one is important:
The selecting rectange should be limited to active window.
Sometimes we can by accident select some additional icons
just by moven mouse to far and icons that underneath active window
are also selected and may be deleted or moved..

31. I wonder if fonts like emerald, saphire, garnet, opal are needed?
Does people even use it? They are unreadable - and take lots of space
on install floppies.

32. As the AmigaOS grows up the floppy installer is bigger.
No problem when installing from CD.
Maybe additional form of instaling would be to compress all files into some kind of
split archive - the fresh System takes less than 10MB when zipped.

33. I would also loved to have options from MagicMenu avaiable,
like for example: sticky menu when right clicked.

34. I think I might have found a BUG in Arexx.
When the drawer is empty or there are no icons
I can't get informations about number of displayed icons or selected icons.
Also works when Show All Files is on and some no icon files appear.

I am using:
GETATTR WINDOWS.ACTIVE VAR file_path;

and then I got error code 10 when using:
GETATTR WINDOW.ICONS.SELECTED.COUNT NAME file_path VAR selected_icons_count;
or:
GETATTR WINDOW.ICONS.ALL.COUNT NAME file_path VAR selected_icons_count;

I dig your list.



24. I was hoping that would be included somehow, also. It's one of the reasons I still use MultiCX. You have a very good idea there. Include it, not remove quit...though I don't use Quit Workbench at all.



26. That would be a sweet way to run a program with the name appearing there with a space and ready for whatever 'argument'. You wouldn't have to run CLI so much anymore.


27. It's a sweet idea, but only if the previous window's positions are retained. Otherwise, not a good idea.


28. Yeah the Find has a lot of limitations. I still use Simple Find ( http://aminet.net/package/util/dir/simplefind3 ) but if you don't have or support MUI and you just re/installed then.... When I saw Find I thought perhaps those ideas and more would be used.


29. Very cool idea, a way to add Menus and modify them. That would be a modern idea.


33. I was very much expecting that with 3.2. MagicMenu is extremely cool with its features. I really like how it and normal Intuition menus allow you to keep the Right Click menu active and make multiple selections and then let go and the do the commands in order.