Amiga OS 3.3 top 3 "must have" features (Wishlist)

[Neil Purvey]

[QUOTE=malko;1565594]I was referring to some part of the point 3) in Neil P. post.

Thus I was saying that the way we can arrange windows actually suits me.

Fair enough, that is arranging icons not windows though.. typical use case I was thinking was for windows like a shell. I agree, I like how windows are controlled in AmigaOS but not to say it cannot have very useful and easy to implement features on top. I think adding interoperability stacks and core functionality is higher priority though. Anything can be added as a commodity otherwise.

[malko]

@Neil Purvey : I see your point with your clarification .

[Asmodean]

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

This option exists since Kick 2.0, and it is only a flag in the trackdisk.device, and this option is *off* by default because it can damage your device if it does not have a proper mechanism from stepping outside from track zero on. For the same reason, there is no tool that comes with the os that enables such an option because it could damage your hardware.

No, it is not a myth that this may damage floppies. Been there, done that. Lost one floppy.

Thus, install whatever you want, it's an option since ever, but it's surely a bad idea to include such tools in the Os distribution.

I was not aware, thanks for the explanation!

[RoC]

IMHO loading roms such the 3.2.1 from a DEVS file instead of burning them over and over again?

This was there in 1.4 and then left aside.

I know setpatch has been doing the magic, but since many people do update them, and some of them less easy, like the cd32..

[Jope]

Originally Posted by RoC

IMHO loading roms such the 3.2.1 from a DEVS file instead of burning them over and over again?

This was there in 1.4 and then left aside.

I know setpatch has been doing the magic, but since many people do update them, and some of them less easy, like the cd32..

There's a different, more granular mechanism in place for this. Loadmodule in 3.1.4 and System-Startup from 3.2 onwards.

[Jope]

Originally Posted by Neil Purvey

Another contemporary OS inspired idea and probably a very tall order - multiple workbench desktops switched by a A-key combo like switching multitasking apps, but desktops with different windowed apps on each (inspired by both win/macOS) Don’t know how achievable this is but you get the idea.

Am I misunderstanding? Didn't we have something similar to this since 1.0 of the OS and it was quite a big deal from day 1? I mean intuition screens. Only one of them has Workbench on it, but much of the software you start runs on its own screen. You can flip around with left-amiga m and left-amiga n brings the workbench on top. Up to V34 this doesn't affect every screen, but from V36 or 37 onwards lamiga-m became universal.

At the same time as the universal hotkey, we got the concept of public screens, so programs could open windows on each others' screens in a supported non-hacky manner.

With MUI, managing your own custom screens became a bit more convenient. You can define/open permanent and ephemeral pubscreens with PSI and tell your MUI, or otherwise public screen aware, apps to open on them. MUI apps will open the screen as they start, but non-MUI apps will need to have someone else (such as PSI) open the screen for them before they can place their windows there.

[hceline]

I got a feature reques for the Assign command. Can you make an option for where the TARGET is a multidirectory assign that can be used with "Assign ADD"?

The idea is that I want to do the following..:

;set up all includes separately
assign sysinclude: NDK:Work:stuff/NDK/Include_H
assign some_prog_include: Work:Programs/Someprogram/Developer/Includes ADD
assign some_other_includes: Work:source/Otherprog/includes ADD

;then for sas
assign include: Code:C/sc/include
assign include: sysinclude: ADD MULTI

;and for vbcc
assign vincludeos3: Code:C/vbcc/targets/m68k-amigaos/include
assign vincludeos3: sysinclude: ADD MULTI

.. where MULTI is a new switch that makes Assign resolve a multidir target and add all dirs to the assign. So I do not have to repeat every assign for both compilers.

[Tpod]

Thinking of perhaps easier things to implement than my first list (post #46), it would be great if the following were included in a 3.2 update or 3.3:

Ability to replace the 8 Presets available in the Pattern Editor; although the 8 included are all fine it would be good to be able to put three or four personal favourites along side some of the current ones we get.

Be able to have the digital clock integrated into the Workbench title bar (right hand side).

A print option in the Project menu of TextEdit.

A reboot option in the Workbench menu – This may become increasingly important for those of us using PC keyboards as more & more of the new ones only include one Windows key.

[cugar124]

Hi Guys,
I have seen a few and I mean a few references to OS3.2.2 has anyone seen anything on this yet, or even a release date?

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by cugar124

Hi Guys,
I have seen a few and I mean a few references to OS3.2.2 has anyone seen anything on this yet, or even a release date?

Pretty sure they don’t set any official release dates for updates.

[No.3]

It will be released when it's done.

[boemann]

3.2.2 update will not be in December, but we are working on it, testing it, so it will not be that far away. It all depends on how many problems we find with the changes we have made. We target early January but would not be surprised if it ends out being February/March

[torturedutopian]

Oh, great news, thanks :-) Hmm, will I run into issues as I use a custom 3.2.1 rom with added workbench.library ?

As for the features request :-) I would love an improved shell, as I do have issues with the autocompletion on the 3.2.x. Frequently "freezes" and requires to be CTRL-C'ed.

Also would love some more shortcuts to the shell -- as in KingCON, allowing to delete or skip the word on the right or on the left of the cursor. Was super useful :-)

Oh, another idea ! An option in the Icon Editor (or Icon info window) to divide an icon height by 2 so that icons meant for interlaced/square resolution look OK on non-square video modes. (obviously that would be destructive and would have to be done by hand....)

Thanks so much,
take care,
Mahen

[boemann]

Originally Posted by torturedutopian

Oh, great news, thanks :-) Hmm, will I run into issues as I use a custom 3.2.1 rom with added workbench.library ?

As for the features request :-) I would love an improved shell, as I do have issues with the autocompletion on the 3.2.x. Frequently "freezes" and requires to be CTRL-C'ed.

Also would love some more shortcuts to the shell -- as in KingCON, allowing to delete or skip the word on the right or on the left of the cursor. Was super useful :-)

Oh, another idea ! An option in the Icon Editor (or Icon info window) to divide an icon height by 2 so that icons meant for interlaced/square resolution look OK on non-square video modes. (obviously that would be destructive and would have to be done by hand....)

Since you have been able to add the workbench.library to the rom you must have 1 MB rom - you would obviosuly like to make a new rom when the 3.2.2 update becomes available, but apart from that I don't think there will be any problems with it

As for your feature requests, please note that 3.3 is many years way. But we will definitely re-read this thread and other threads when we are about to start on 3.3.

[mfilos]

It would be great if we could have extra variables in order to use them on new Workbench.prefs Titlebar.
We could replace MCP's titlebar change patch completely if we could have Chipset variable and Graphics Memory (as we have Chip and Fast).

I use just fine external variables from ENVARC/ENV like my current IP address or Vampire variables that but the only way of getting Chipset would be getting it from Showconfig into arexx or SED and assigning it to a variable to use it which isn't such a nice approach.

Apart from that, I realized that despite delcaring in the FAQ that StackAttack is not needed, I'm very frequently getting "Not enough stack messages".

Last but not least, I liked the idea of being able to put a small image in titlebar (as VisualPrefs does) through Workbench.prefs but then again, you'll don't have the things that VisualPrefs provide like gadget images etc. It's not easy to build Theme support natively but with the new Reaction system... one can still dream for future things to come

[Thomas Richter]

The used VGA memory is less useful than it may seem to be. P96 will constantly migrate bitmaps on board/off board if needed, so this number does not provide a lot of meaningful information. The available VGA memory only restricts the maximal resolution of the screen that can be displayed as the active display bitmap cannot be migrated off-board (for obvious reasons) but all other bitmaps can, and will.

Essentially, if VGA RAM becomes sparse, P96 will start migrating bitmaps off-board, and if a blitter operation is intended, P96 attempts to migrate bitmaps on-board.

[mfilos]

Thanks very much for the thorough reply Thomas. You convinced me to not use it
How about the chipset though? :P

Originally Posted by DisasterIncarna

not tried with Screenmode, but WBPattern lets you specify a prefs file to USE, this is how my wallpaper randomiser program can get rando wb pictures, normally the pictures are locked and cant be randomised, so you just tell wbpattern to USE a saved file which has blank entries, do your wallpaper change then tell WBPattern to USe the new wallpaper.

Does Screenmode also allow you to USE a saved prefs file like WBPattern from CLI/Shell? if so you could save a ScreenMode-Basic.Prefs to envarc which has the basic/normal screenmode you prefer such as bog standard 4 color hires and use it for your quick/minimal workbench.

Thats IF screenmode lets you work like WBPattern ofc, then you can just hotkey that with a script that swaps between the proper screenmode and the basic one.

EDIT: Just checked, screenmode does have the options FROM,EDIT/S,USE/S,SAVE/S so you should be able to invoke

RUN <>NIL: SYS:Prefs/SCREENMODE FROM ENVARC:SYS/ScreenMode-Basic.prefs USE

if you create a screenmode of your choosing and save it to envarc:sys.

and

RUN <>NIL: SYS:Prefs/SCREENMODE FROM ENVARC:SYS/ScreenMode.prefs USE


To toggle back to normal. you could also make a ENV variable for scripting to make a TOGGLE variable you can check and change the screenmode accordingly.

That's a very nice approach and I can say it's working. The only problem is that once you save your current Screenmode (or wbpattern) you won't update the file that you loaded from.
That's why I made a HardLink approach for linking the file under envcarc:sys/screenmode.prefs.PAL as screenmode.prefs
We only wait the new Ram-Handler that will fix the bug of not being able to show live changes due to ENV.

[hceline]

Two small things that would be a great improvement:

1. MouseWheel support in the installer. Seems the problem is programs use packaged older version. Because in latest version it works. My bad.
2. ScrollBack support in CON:

[hceline]

One more:
The ability to search in AmigaGude files in MultiView.

[eXeler0]

Now that 3.2.2 is out, has the feature wish list for 3.3 changed?