DefIcons editor for OS 3.1

[Leandro Jardim]

Hi,

I am looking for an editor for the deficons.prefs file, like that one found on OS 3.9 or the deficons44.lha archive, but this time, one that works with OS 3.1 too...

Also, what do you know about Deficons44.lha, its compatible with OS 3.1, does its possible to "hack" it with patchlibrary or some other tool?

[PeterK]

It seems to be possible to use the ENV:DefIcons.prefs file from v44+ and load it with WBStartup/DefIcons from the NewIcons package. But I couldn't find a Prefs/DefIcons editor for WB 3.0/3.1 yet. Try to edit the preferences under OS 3.5+ and copy the ENV:DefIcons.prefs to your older system into ENVARC:. I hope that it works, but cannot guarantee anything.

[Leandro Jardim]

Originally Posted by PeterK

It seems to be possinle to use the ENVefIcons.prefs file from v44+ and load it with WBStartup/DefIcons from the NewIcons package. But I couldn't find a Prefs/DefIcons editor for WB 3.0/3.1 yet. Try to edit the preferences under OS 3.5+ and copy the ENVefIcons.prefs to your older system into ENVARC:. I hope that it works, but cannot guarantee anything.

Yeah, I am even using the optimized, faster, deficons.prefs from the DefIcons44 package and it seems to work well. Thanks.

[gulliver]

Well, I did the same on WB 3.1 with a 68000, and it works, but I get one slight annoyance: when I doucleclick on, for example a .GIF image, it does not automatically load it with Multiview as I had it set it up, but instead it opens up the workbench menu Execute command and writes the corresponding Multiview line to load the file in its window, but it sits there doing nothing untill I press OK on the Execute window.

Any idea how to fix this?



BTW, I am attaching my deficons.prefs file if it helps someway

[James]

Originally Posted by gulliver

Well, I did the same on WB 3.1 with a 68000, and it works, but I get one slight annoyance: when I doucleclick on, for example a .GIF image, it does not automatically load it with Multiview as I had it set it up, but instead it opens up the workbench menu Execute command and writes the corresponding Multiview line to load the file in its window, but it sits there doing nothing untill I press OK on the Execute window.

Any idea how to fix this?

BTW, I am attaching my deficons.prefs file if it helps someway

This has nothing to do with deficons.prefs, it is dependent on the default icons settings. Under OS3.9 you would use RAWBInfo to change "Start From: Shell" to "Start From: Workbench". Haven't used OS3.1 since the 90's so don't remember if this is possible... have you got RAWBInfo working as well?

[gulliver]

Originally Posted by James

This has nothing to do with deficons.prefs, it is dependent on the default icons settings. Under OS3.9 you would use RAWBInfo to change "Start From: Shell" to "Start From: Workbench". Haven't used OS3.1 since the 90's so don't remember if this is possible... have you got RAWBInfo working as well?

The problem is that RAWBInfo is not available for 3.1 with a 68000

So any other idea?

[PeterK]

Yes, of course, RAWBInfo needs OS 3.5 or 3.9.

But this is not a feature of RAWBInfo, which is just another WB Information plugin, like WBInfo or SwazInfo or others.

It's a feature of the WB v44+ to read the tooltypes "CLI" and "DONOTPROMPT" or if they don't exist then handle the icon in Workbench-mode.

This means IMO that you would need OS 3.5+, since the WB releasenotes say:

workbench.library 44.1334 (17.9.99)

- The info window (of RAWBInfo) now supports a new switch
"Prompt for input:", to be used for Shell programs and ARexx
scripts. This switch corresponds to the new "DONOTPROMPT"
tool type which will keep Workbench from showing the
"Enter command and arguments" requester when a Shell program
or ARexx script is to be executed. If the switch is in effect,
Workbench will execute the command just as if the user had
simply hit "Ok" in the requester.

[Leandro Jardim]

Yes, deficons for OS 3.1 behaves this way, sorry.

[gulliver]

Mh... then, it is an issue of an unimplemented feature on workbench.library (from 3.1)

So really this way, it makes no sense to use DefIcons under 3.1 at all!
I mean, you have no usable GUI to configure them, and they cannot automatically execute any action, only suggest it

[PeterK]

From the NewIcons.guide:

Deficons is run as a single command in the user-startup. It takes no
parameters, and does not need to be RUN'ned, since it automatically
detaches from the CLI.

The DefIcons patch will magically transform Workbench's silly fake icons
(displayed when you pick the menu item Window/Show/All Files) into more
meaningful ones. The program not only recognizes files such as projects
and tools, but identifies various other file types:

· IFF, JPEG, ANIM. GIF and PNG files
· 8SVX, SMUS, DCMS, Med, and PT/ST mods
· Handlers, Kickfiles, and Filesystems
· ASCII, TeX, AmigaGuide and Postscript files
· Source codes of various languages
· Keymaps, Datatypes, Libraries, and Printer Drivers
· Various crunched filetypes
· Bitmap and Outline Fonts

...and several more.


Just like any "fake" icon, you can't double click on fake icons to
start the associated tool immediately, but if you have designated a
default tool for the deficon (located in ENVARC:sys), the "Execute
Command" text field will automatically have the default tool entered
for you. This feature is very handy for things like text files and picture
files that don't have icons attached to them.

...

DefIcons has a brainfile called deficons.prefs, which is copied to ENVARC:
by the install_NewIcons script. Unfortunately, it is currently not possible
to easily edit the brainfile, so you can't add your filetypes, but the
source code for deficons.prefs is included. With a little programming
knowledge, you can create your own deficons classes. When you install
NewIcons, the Installer script copies the default def_xxx icon images to
ENVARC:. These icons are used by DefIcons.

Apart from fake icons, DefIcons has another wonderful feature: if a
volume doesn't have a disk.info icon, it will replace the standard
def_disk.info icon used by Workbench with a user-defined one. For
example, it will use def_CD0disk.info for a CD in CD0:, and
def_RAMdisk.info for the Ram Disk. If you did the old 'copy ramdisk.info
to ram:disk.info' trick, you can remove that command from your
startup-sequence.
DefIcons works well with multiple files systems and MFS. When a disk
without disk.info is inserted in DF0:, it first searches for an icon
named def_DF0disk.info; if it can't find it, it looks for an icon
named after the file system (def_DOS0disk.info, def_MSD0disk.info,
def_PFS0disk.info...) so you can have different icons for different
file sytems. Latest versions of CrossDos use an icon of their own
for MS-DOS disks. Since the icon is really ugly, you may want to use
your def_MSD0disk.info. To do that, load L:crossdosfilesystem into
a hex editor, search for the string "disk.info" and replace it with
something else, for example "dusk.info".

The disk trick will also work for non-DOS disks. In this case, the
basename is the one displayed by Workbench under the icon. For
example if Workbench shows "DF0:NDOS", the icon named def_NDOSdisk.info
will be used. DF0:???? is a special case: def_BADdisk.info will be
used.

DefIcons uses a tree structure when identifying files. For a JPEG
picture, for example, DefIcons will search in order first for
def_jpeg.info, def_picture.info and def_project.info. IFF files are
special, and DefIcons will search for def_XXXX.info, where XXXX is the
FORM type of the file. If it can't be found, def_iff.info is used.

For archived files there are three families: def_archive (lha, zip,...),
def_filearchive (for uuencode, compress, gzip,...) and def_diskarchive
(DMS). These families can have sons (i.e, def_lha, def_dms, etc)
if you create and add them to your ENVARC:sys directory.


Workbench replacements users:

DefIcons will probably not work properly if you are using a Workbench
replacement such as Directory Opus or Scalos. This is not a bug in
DefIcons neither in the Workbench relacement! DefIcons was designed as
a patch for the standard Workbench. Workbench replacement will have
to implement their own system to provide a similar feature. Please
refer to your Workbench replacement documentation for information on
this.

[gulliver]

Thank you for the guide.

So then no to DefIcons for me!