While I've been critical of things that are lacking in "Amiga OS", there are some big things I really miss. :(

1. Arexx automation. OS X has AppleScript which serves a similar purpose but of course it is bloated and complex.
2. Commodities. I suppose task bar/menu bar windowless utilities do a similiar thing on the other OSes but Commodities always seemed like a nice clean approach.
3. Tooltypes. As a user and a programmer, using tooltypes for settings was just sweet. Windows has its horrid registry and OS X has plists, Linux has rc files or some horrid registry like thing.
4. Datatypes. Not sure, but I expect the other OSes at least abstract away the differences between picture formats, but it's not done to the extent datatypes did it.
5. Assigns. I still love the concept. You have symlinks in Unix but its not as flexible. At a scripting level you have envvars but again it's not universal.

Anyone got any more?

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@Aslak3

While I know your purpose, have to ask, why do you miss these features?
Maybe you are using broken operating systems! :)

For my addons to the list (however it can be listed to hundreds):

6. The non blocking windowing system. A window is at least always movable.
7. Sliders not lost focus when grabbed. (How silly the other implementations.)

@Lazi

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While I know your purpose, have to ask, why do you miss these features? Maybe you are using broken operating systems! :)

Heh, I guess I was asking for that. Lately I use what I believe has the least breakages overall: OS X. Though it is getting more broken as the years go by. Oddly it is not a good (if such a thing exists) web browser which pushes me away from Amiga OS, but a modern kernel: process isolation, disk caching, a decent networking stack and (non kernel) a decent command line.

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For my addons to the list (however it can be listed to hundreds):

You got me interested to hear what 7 to 100 are. :)

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6. The non blocking windowing system. A window is at least always movable.

AFAIK this isn't the case with OS X. Not so sure about Windows.

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7. Sliders not lost focus when grabbed. (How silly the other implementations.)

Can you explain what you mean?

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@Aslak3

8. draggable screens.

Moving 4K resolution screens on my machine still impress.

9. Drag&drop in many places. Especially drag&drop to ASL requesters.

@Aslak3
You nailed it.

Last edited by Tomppeli on 09-Apr-2018 at 12:19 AM.

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@Tomppeli

For Arexx equivalent on Linux, Windows, Mac etc, theres Regina Rexx, BRexx and others, but I cant remember where I saw something about using Amiga Arexx libraries, such as rexxmathlib.library on Windows to allow Rexx compatible scripting langiages to directly call the PC math hardware the same way AOS can with math libs and the FPU written math libs?

Coherent extendible metadata encapsulated file structure. Interchange File Format. Need a new format? write a new subclass of the encapsulation instead of rewriting the entire encapsulation.

Datatypes. GIF uses LZH compression algorithm, the IFF equivalent should be ILBC or something, as in Interleaved Bitmap Compressed, where a subsection would describe the compression type, but then XADMaster or which it is would have All the supported compression functions, instead of having to code it directly into teh image decoder, and so on. Best example is Deluxe Paint knows nothing about JPEG. If you run DataChrome, then Deluxe Paint can load Datatype handled image formats, such as JPEG. for which it doesnt have to be recompiled for.

Just a pity Datatypes, being based on 30 year old technology, can only handle 2 Gigabyte files, and DVD VOBs were for a long time 1 gig in size.

Single function command line, Right Amiga E, At the beam start position top left instead of an arbitary place down the bottom?

Biggest thing I miss about Amigas though, is having fun. I find it sad that with a 4 Gig of Ram 2.5 Ghz quad core, I get more done in teh first few minutes after firing up WinUAE than I do all day on the system, Ubuntu etc the rest of the day. Humans learn most through play. PCs are for work.

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AFAIK this isn't the case with OS X. Not so sure about Windows.

Windows does block windows from moving. Easiest way to see this:
Launch Notepad, select File, Open.
Now try to move or resize the Notepad window behind the Open dialogue box.

Datatypes seem like such an obvious thing, but I guess it would cause people to accuse Microsoft, Apple etc. of anti competitive behavior if everyone was forced to use "their" jpeg handler, movie decoders etc. However Windows does support audio and video codecs, which can be used by any media player. Of course datatypes took things much further and supported all kinds of different types of data, not just audio and video.

@AdvancedFollower

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Of course datatypes took things much further and supported all kinds of different types of data, not just audio and video.

Yes, in theory at least. Unfortunately for many types of data the necessary superclasses have never been written or completed, so good luck displaying PDFs, vector drawings, e-books, or playing videos in MultiView! Not speaking of the fact that the Amiga Datatypes subsystem is not designed for the codec+container concept of data, so it'll be quite a challenge to write datatype classes for modern, industry-standard formats.

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@RodTerl

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For Arexx equivalent on Linux, Windows, Mac etc, theres Regina Rexx, BRexx and others, but I cant remember where I saw something about using Amiga Arexx libraries, such as rexxmathlib.library on Windows to allow Rexx compatible scripting langiages to directly call the PC math hardware the same way AOS can with math libs and the FPU written math libs?

No worries there, the Apollo Core has seriously messed this up anyways for all Vampire V2 owners with its "Quake enabler".

(Kabom-tish!)

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@Aslak3

Yep, most of them are things I miss on other systems too!

1) Yes, Rexx implementations are available on other platforms, but they don't offer anything near the level of integration possible with ARexx. It's not just about having a nice scripting language (though that is a good thing in its own right too), it's about being able to tie several applications and the OS together in one go to achieve a result.

5) Assigns are something I love as well, and always find difficult to explain to users unfamiliar with the concept. Yes, it's something like a virtual mountpoint, but different. It's the subtleties that make it.

I'll also add:

- Windows not popping to the front unless wanted there (I use ClickToFront set to double-click). This is something that I find hugely useful. Back in the day I had some patches for Windows that sort of provided this feature, but haven't tried it on more recent versions. Instead, I just grumble and curse when the email I'm reading as a reference disappears behind Word. Again.

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. The non blocking windowing system. A window is at least always movable.

Yes! Very much so. When you get a dialog box asking you to do something but can't move a window slightly to check a filename or document title or something.

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7. Sliders not lost focus when grabbed. (How silly the other implementations.)

Yes, that too. I think what is meant here is that most other systems only keep the slider grabbed within a certain distance from the slider, whereas on AmigaOS, your scroll isn't interrupted by the mouse straying too far from the scroller itself. As an aside to this, mouse wheel operation in Windows drives me nuts, with different applications (and even different windows in the same application) behaving differently. Some scroll what's under the mouse pointer, others scroll the active window or panel. Grrr...

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9. Drag&drop in many places. Especially drag&drop to ASL requesters.

Yes! I miss this so much! The only place I've seen something similar is in Haiku, where windows have small "replicant" handles that can be dragged into file dialogs for a similar effect. But it's still not as nice as the Amiga implementation.

Another thing I miss when using Linux and Windows every day: Sensible keyboard shortcuts. A dedicated shortcut key for menu shortcuts (which are generally consistent across applications, and another shortcut key for OS features like screen flipping and requester operation. MacOS has the consistent shortcuts more or less, many of which happen to be the same as the Amiga's.

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@Aslak3

One thing I would like is an FKey like function. Pun unintended. Maybe it can be done but I don't know how to assign text to keys in OSX or Linux.

Other things are easy drag and drop into shell window or other. The Linux shell can do it but as standard you gotta activate the window to do something which is annoying. Also lack of Ctrl-C/V for copy paste is annoying, needing the shift key to work. And lack of coherence with desktop path and actual path. Along with the way Linux is OCD about a files owner; not even asking for a root password, but just giving a useless permission error.

Linux file requester could also do with some work. Some volumes on the left without needing to press gadgets. Actually displaying files without needing some sort of gadget pressing just to browse files.

I also thought they would have a context menu for symlinks and making them on the desktop. I've never seen it. I can never figure these out, they always look confusing. A ten second symlink job always takes me ten minutes looking up info and then running the ln command about three times until I get no errors and a working link.

I find it hard to imagine assigns. At least on Windows where they are still stuck in the obsolete pre-Amiga era with a 26 character one letter limit reference to each volume. LOL. Unless they finally updated it! On all other X boxes a symlink could work like it.

But the assign system can be awkward. With no easy way to manage it. Nor any system way that an installer could make use of to automate it. I'd like to see the system updated so there is an assign list kept on the system. Programs could include assigns as files that are simply copied when installing. And loaded in at run time. Like the way custom devices and libraries can be loaded in from a DEVS or LIBS sub-drawer.

Last edited by Hypex on 10-Apr-2018 at 05:02 PM.
Last edited by Hypex on 10-Apr-2018 at 04:59 PM.

@Aslak3

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5. Assigns. I still love the concept. You have symlinks in Unix but its not as flexible.

http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?forum=14&topic_id=42406&post_id=808732&viewmode=thread&order=1

This actually just adds some error checking around export. You could do this directly with export and unset, which is more useful than symlinks in some situations.

bison@home ~ $ export foo=/usr/local/bin/
bison@home ~ $ cd $foo
bison@home /usr/local/bin $ unset foo

Last edited by bison on 11-Apr-2018 at 06:29 PM.

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