@ChrisH

Quote:

ChrisH wrote: Just what ARE you talking about? A500s had a Help key, although it may not have been until the invention of AmigaGuide format in OS2.x that a standard Help system was devised.

Evidently, I'm not talking aboutthe Help key then, am I? I was referring to the actual help documentation feature built into Workbench. Try it - on OS3.9, pressing Help while a Workbench windo is active doesn't do anything. Under 4.1 it opens an AmigaGuide document which explains the Workbench window system, menus, icons, hidden files and so on. THAT'S what I'm talking about.

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@Tomas

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Bad design because it does not follow the Windows way of doing things?? I dont like the OS to remember icon position since it is awfully easy to move them by mistake. Is it really that hard for you to select said icons and click snapshot?? This is more of a personal preference than a flaw...

That is correct. It drives me nuts every day in Windows, that whenever I go to a meeting and connect my laptop to a projector, the resolution changes, and all the icons are re-arranged automatically, and permanently, and after unplugging the projector to return to the native resolution, the icons are permanently screwed up and are all over the place. Under AmigaOS I can arrange my icons in any way I want, select them, click 'Snapshot' (either via menu or via RAmiga+S keyboard shortcut) and I can be sure that they will always stay that way. The same goes for windows. I do agree however that an option like "Auto-snapshot windows/icons" would be a good idea for those who prefer the Windows way, but it is really a matter of preference, and what you are used to.

@Daedalus
Thanks for clearing that up. I don't see any alternative interpretation of what you said before then

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@COBRA
Yes, Amiga gives you a little bit more control over things than Windows. For example, if I make some (perhaps big) Preferences changes in an Amiga program, I can choose to Use or Save the changes, knowing full-well that I can revert to the Saved changes if I clicked Use; Windows does not have this wonderful feature.

An option to auto-snapshot would be nice, and perhaps even the default, but it must be optional (because I would turn it off!). Something I *would* love to see is automatic positioning of Workbench windows relative to their parents (by a fixed offset), because I find it a pain to have to choose (and snapshot) window positions for every damn folder.

_________________
Author of the PortablE programming language.
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@Tomas

Quote:

it really that hard for you to select said icons and click snapshot??

Is it me or does he not even mention the 'Snapshot' option? He assumes there is no way to force icons to keep their new moved position! This is a serious flaw in his review rather than the OS! This feature is useful and well implemented, I don't expect OSX to remember settings like view type (list, icons, etc) or icon position unless I tell it to! Sadly OSX remember your changes irrespective of telling it to (i.e. as per Snapshot) hence I get annoyed with OSX. Amiga way of doing it seems more sensible!

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@ChrisH

Quote:

Something I *would* love to see is automatic positioning of Workbench windows relative to their parents (by a fixed offset), because I find it a pain to have to choose (and snapshot) window positions for every damn folder.

That is a great idea!! I also hate setting a slight offset manually for every window in the directory chain! This would save a lot of time and faff Hyperion get on it! Please.

_________________
"Art challenges technology. Technology inspires the art."
John Lasseter, Co-Founder of Pixar Animation Studios

@BigD

Quote:

Is it me or does he not even mention the 'Snapshot' option? He assumes there is no way to force icons to keep their new moved position! This is a serious flaw in his review rather than the OS!

I think the main issue is that he didn't really take enough time to test the OS thoroughly and since there's no written manual which explains these things he was not aware of the possibility to snapshot icons and windows. Another example is that he says that USB support is fine, whereas anyone who owns a Sam knows that USB is one of the weakest points of OS4 on the Sam (due to the ohci driver not being on par with the uhci one which is used on the AmigaOne/Pegasos2) and many USB devices that work on an AmigaOne/Pegasos2 just don't work on the Sam. So yes he probably should have taken a bit more time to get to know the OS better.

@kolla

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kolla wrote: @jkirk Quote: the people we don't have coming in in droves but need in order to revive the profitability of the amiga. this will renew support from the major(and not so major) software houses. Seriously, this will never happen, stop deluding yourself.

no delusions here. just answering your question. fact is unless we attract new users the platform is dead...period. it won't even be a hobby machine.

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@COBRA

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there's no written manual which explains these things he was not aware of the possibility to snapshot icons and windows.

Why not? These idiosyncrasies as they're described should be outlined in the manual for newcomers! The lack of auto-update in windows after copying/deleting files is a bit confusing to me. I've never used OS4.1 but I remember that OS3.5 didn't have auto-update of windows but that OS3.9 did! Did OS4.x revert to the OS3.1/3.5 model for auto-update or something? This function should really be activated as standard and I can understand his annoyance at having to click 'Update All'!

Last edited by BigD on 16-Jul-2009 at 10:54 AM.

_________________
"Art challenges technology. Technology inspires the art."
John Lasseter, Co-Founder of Pixar Animation Studios

OS4 does look a bit like it's imitating the past. The icons are a bit toy-like, imo. On the other hand, the look of the windows and icons is definitely "nice". Maybe stronger colours would help.

It seems like a backward-looking product, just from its look.

Last edited by Al4 on 16-Jul-2009 at 11:09 AM.

@BigD

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Why not?

It's the usual problem: lack of resources. Some people are still forgetting that Hyperion has hardly any income from the Amiga market, and that whatever money they make is sucked away by the lawsuits with Amiga Inc. It's a miracle they have not gone bankrupt yet, and it's an even bigger miracle that they are actually stiill able to do development and release things. To make OS4 compete with the mainstream OS'es you need a lot more money and developers than what we have available right now.

Regarding auto-update, sure thing it's a must, not sure if Workbench on OS4.1 has it or not, because I use DirOpus 4 for file management (that one certainly has auto-update). I thought that a geek (as he calls himself in that review) would use a proper file manager too instead of icon-clicking.

@COBRA

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I use DirOpus 4 for file management (that one certainly has auto-update).

There is a OS4.1 Sam version of DirOpus 4 then? That's good news

_________________
"Art challenges technology. Technology inspires the art."
John Lasseter, Co-Founder of Pixar Animation Studios

@BigD

Quote:

BigD wrote: @COBRA Quote: there's no written manual which explains these things he was not aware of the possibility to snapshot icons and windows. Why not? These idiosyncrasies as they're described should be outlined in the manual for newcomers! The lack of auto-update in windows after copying/deleting files is a bit confusing to me. I've never used OS4.1 but I remember that OS3.5 didn't have auto-update of windows but that OS3.9 did! Did OS4.x revert to the OS3.1/3.5 model for auto-update or something? This function should really be activated as standard and I can understand his annoyance at having to click 'Update All'!

They probably had higher priorities? Like coding the actual OS.... Hyperion is not a big company with resources like microsoft or apple. OS 4.0 and 4.1 was also not targeted at newbies and was infact targeted at amigans. I think hyperion is very well aware of the fact that AmigaOS isnt mature for the mainstream user yet.

@BigD

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There is a OS4.1 Sam version of DirOpus 4 then? That's good news

Sure, zerohero made a very nice job of giving us an OS4-native version of DirOpus4 with many improvements over the original DirOpus4 from the old days, including 64-bit large file support.

@Tomas

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They probably had higher priorities?

In terms of the user settings and usuage of the system though, they shouldn't have undone the enhancements H&P made in OS3.9 by undoing feature like auto-update! The reviewer is correct in that they've spent timeimplementing eye candy like hardware accelerated graphics but undone enhancments made in 2001/2! This really doesn't make sense! Lack of auto-update is embarassing really!

_________________
"Art challenges technology. Technology inspires the art."
John Lasseter, Co-Founder of Pixar Animation Studios

@BigD
I agree about the auto update issue. I was responding to the part about lack of decent manual/docs.

@BigD

Quote:

hey shouldn't have undone the enhancements H&P made in OS3.9 by undoing feature like auto-update!

remember there where issues woith getting all the source from H&P so perhaps this is a casualty of that.

There is a commodity I believe that adds the functionality.

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@Tomas

Fair enough Was the reviewer correct about the boot speed of 45 seconds on a Sam Flex 733 Mhz? That does seem very slow and it flies in the face of all our 'Amiga OS is efficient and speedy' claims!

_________________
"Art challenges technology. Technology inspires the art."
John Lasseter, Co-Founder of Pixar Animation Studios

@BigD

Quote:

The reviewer is correct in that they've spent timeimplementing eye candy like hardware accelerated graphics

Hardware-accelerated graphics is not eye-candy, it accelerates graphical operations, e.g. making them faster. For example it is compositing that makes it possible to drag down a 16-bit screen to see a 32-bit screen behind. Without compositing it was not possible to have two screens of different depth at the same time, only via software-conversion which was unusably slow. It is also important for cairo and software which uses cairo for rendering, such as OWB. Bottom line: if you think compositing is about eye-candy, you're being highly ignorant. And once you have hardware compositing, making windows transparent doesn't require any significant effort.

Regarding 3.9 features "removed", you should keep in mind that Hyperion never actually received the 3.9 sources from Amiga, Inc as we found out from the lawsuit. This means that it is not a simple case of "keeping 3.9 features", there were many things which 3.9 had that had to be rewritten from scratch in OS4, simply because Hyperion didn't get the sources.

@BigD

Quote:

Fair enough Was the reviewer correct about the boot speed of 45 seconds on a Sam Flex 733 Mhz? That does seem very slow and it flies in the face of all our 'Amiga OS is efficient and speedy' claims!

I don't know about his Sam-Flex 733, but my Sam440-667 boots in about 30 seconds, which could still be improved by decreasing some boot delays.