I love my OS4 and hate MS, but I am using MS to write this post. In short there are some software gaps that need filling for OS4. There is a new update in the wind and this will be very welcome especially if JIT is present, soon after I think OS4 official release may see the light of day -- so here are the immediate problems as I see it.

I use Aweb, but its present limitations need to be resolved before I can rely on it. First my router (for reasons best answered by D-Link) uses frames in its onbaord init, and so does my IP server, both of which I need to access. Aweb chokes on frames.

Second, the message editor on Aweb does not allow cut and paste (at least as I am aware), does not wrap lines and is basically a pain in the butt. Solving these two problems would really help things a lot.

The browser situation needs some fixes and soon -- no offense to those working on the project. Fixing this (and having a spell checker woulddramatic change my present usuage) would give disolve 99% of the reason tht I am writing this on MS firefox.

Next, I do a lot of writing and I can't spell to save my life. we need a decent WP with at least these three features:
1) spellchecker.
2) Line wrapping
3) spaces between single paragraphs.

Presently I use Amigawriter 2.2 but the spell checking doesn't work and Haage and Partners have been no help (so far) I cannot find a copy to buy of either Finalwriter or Wordsworth. Papyrus would be an excellent choice and so would OpenOffice WP.

Line editors I hate, I never feeel comfortable with using them and though I recognise the power of them, they lack the specific features I need to easiuly write -- which is most important to me.

So it boils down to browsers and WPs, both are essential and both are lacking to the degree I need to use OS4 as my primary OS.

We need to fill the gap and soon.

I want to escape the insanity of MS, I want to start using OS4 and building (as I know I can) a seamless workhorse OS for my major usuage.

I have opened this thread to see if others are in the same boat re. browser and WP needs.

I don't think we need at this time eloborate solutions just work-aday programs (with scripting ports - always essential).

In the future, I will buy Pagestream, and subscribe to BITbyBIT promising IDE code interface (about time I learnt to program all I desire is a programming interface that I can rely on and which reduces some of the arane aspects).


This is not a negative thread, there seems just a few things we need, but I think we need them in hurry.

Last edited by GregS on 08-Apr-2005 at 06:21 AM.

_________________
Greg Schofield, Perth Australia

@GregS

True. Browser and Office package, soon. That is what I need for OS4.

Coder

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@Coder

my God you are fast coder I only just put up the thread -- and thanks you are starting to confirm my feelings.

_________________
Greg Schofield, Perth Australia

@GregS

Quote:

my God you are fast coder

Not when it comes to work around the house.

The browser thing is really something. Most of the stuff will not show or work. So I rather stay on the PC to browse since that works.

I do a lot of writing and for that I need a good office package. Like Open Office. That is what I use on Windows. So most of the time I don't even fire up the Amiga since I cannot do it.

Coder

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@Coder

The aweb people are working on getting khtml to os4 -- give them some time -- they'll get it working. But I feel the best way would be to have someone claim the $10K bounty for an amiga version of Mozilla. I'm sure someone could do it -- it just needs to be better publicised on more non-amiga sites. The offer of a free development box to coders would also help a lot as well.

@cell

Quote:

he aweb people are working on getting khtml to os4 -- give them some time -- they'll get it working.

I know. They seem to be really going for it.

Coder

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@GregS
Quote:

Second, the message editor on Aweb does not allow cut and paste (at least as I am aware), does not wrap lines and is basically a pain in the butt. Solving these two problems would really help things a lot.

If I understand your problem right I might be able to help you with this one. I assume when you say message editor , your talking about the editor that is displayed when you reply to a message on this site. You can paste into it but your right about not being able to cut in it.

How's this for a solution. In AWeb select the "Settings/Program Setting..." menu item. In the resulting window select the programs tab. Now set the type to Editor. Set the command field to point to the editor of your choice. Sys:Utilities/NotePad works well. Then set t he Arguments field to %f PUBSCREEN=%n. Click Save.

When you reply to a message there is an E> gadget in the bottom corner of the editor portion. Click this and the above editor will be brought up on the AWeb Screen. Use it to reply to the message. You can cut and paste to your hearts content using Right Amiga-C and Right Amiga-V keys. Save the document when your done and it will be copied into the editor on the Web page.

Hope this helps.

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@GregS

I agree, although there are 1 or 2 other things that I need before I can stop using Windows namely:

Sftp client (gui based for ease of use)
ssh client
cvs client

Mark

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@ktadd
I am about to try it -- it was the "E" gadget at the bottom that is the bit I missed altogether -- looks like that problem is solved.

_________________
Greg Schofield, Perth Australia

@GregS

Is that me, or we're going in circles? I've read ,,We need a decent browser and office suit'' thread about 10 times per week. Yes, this shows how important this stuff is, but it also shows how week our community is. There's a KHTML to AWeb, but I'm not following it progress, Amizilla project, but I guess this is nowhere near, too (from what I read, they succeded to ./configure source tree), IBrowse guys are doing something, but I don't know what.

I just have got an idea.
This is a hack

If we need browser so badly, we could hack Mozilla source code and force Mozilla window to be render as VNC stream. So, instead of whole viewport, you could just open VNC session with Mozilla. So, you would have an Window on OS4 with a browser. After short consideration, it would be easier to hack VNC.

I guess as an Linux users I used to hack stuff do to what I want. ;D

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@opi
I know it comes up, but I was trying to reduce things down to the specific features rather than software categories.

Aweb Frames.

Real line wrap, para spacing and a spellchecker WP.

In otherwords a handful of features.

I was supprised that the edit feature in Aweb was in a sense already fixed by using an external error, this alone removed a fifth of the votal features, and that was less than half an hour after posting the thread ; )

Plugging the gaps, nohting more.

_________________
Greg Schofield, Perth Australia

@GregS

I agree 100%, the most important think now is a decent browser (maybe Mozilla) and a Word Processor

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@GregS

I agree with you. That is why it's nice that Linux works pretty well on the A1 XE
now. I don't have to use windows at all

I use Ibrowse - never really got on with Aweb. (actually I must admit I'm using IE5 to type this, but then, we dont have Amigas at work ! )
I've never had trouble with the editor tool though - only the emoticons - and I usually hand-enter those anyway, and the home/end keys arent recognised, throwing up escape codes.
(also, frames seem to work ok on IB - it doesnt do CSS though, but then neither does AWeb!)

for WP I use Wordworth 6, but not really noticed the lack of speelchukcer (!) as I'm a pretty good speller anyway (at least in English !)

yes, I agree that certain gaps need plugging, but then if its a spell checker you want, can one not be implemented simply as a standalone tool, and an AREXX script to link to the WP ? the hard part is getting the dictionary coded.

I would also like to see a reasonable Spreadsheet too.

trouble is, these are all pretty big projects to chew - especially if you take on Open Office and Mozilla !

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@GregS

We get a thread complaining about AmigaOS web browsers every other day. It's becoming a bit repetitive...

I mean, yes, I can't agree more that the Amiga browsers are behind the times, but making like it is the one thing in the whole world that will transfer AmigaOS from being a niche interest machine to a mainstream player is getting tiresome. Also, no matter how good the Amiga browsers get there will always be people complaining that they don't support every last feature of the latest version of the most popular browser on Windows. CSS, DHTML, XML, Java, Javascript, plugins... It's just not going to happen! The Amiga will always be "behind" the mainstream until it too is considered mainstream.

You have chosen to use AWeb. It used to be highly regarded because it's HTML engine was more tolerant and faster than the others. However, it is now not so impressive, and some of the image rendering, Javascript compatibility and nonstandard GUI layout features it posesses make it far less pleasant to use than IBrowse. IB seems happy enough in general with many popular sites, and the JS, SSL and cookie handling are adequate to buy stuff from Amazon and other places. It does, of course, suffer from lack of CSS and some oddities in table and list layout which make many of the "fancier" sites show badly (or not at all).

The IB guys are working on the new version. You can't ask for more than that - they are doing something. The Mozilla project exists, and if we can get some sort of Firefox-ish thing on the Amiga that would be pretty keen too. But nobody is suddenly going to write a new browser from scratch in two weeks (or months, or years) just because people keep complaining the existing ones are crap (which they're not, IMHO - just limited).


As for your wordprocessing problems: Pretty much all you suggest you want is present in the mainstream Amiga WP's of yesteryear - Wordworth, FinalWriter, etc. Their lack of availability to you is a separate issue to lack of existence for the platform.

I don't think you can use the Amiga as "a seamless workhorse OS" for all applications until it is a good deal more popular than it is, unless you are a real stickler and are willing to go out of your way to achieve something just to avoid using Windows. (Which some brave souls do, I acknowledge!) By all means use it whenever and wherever you can, but realise it has limits.


Sorry to rant on a bit - I await the flaming and ridicule with interest - but we really need to get a bit of perpective in these endless threads bemoaning the lack of some aspect or other of our favourite OS. Asking for a feature or fix, or suggesting a new app, is commendable, but (re-)listing all the features the Amiga lacks to make it a Windows (or even Linux) rival is not educating anyone.

We need an uptodate browser with xhtml, html 4.01, css 1&2 support.

_________________
ikir

@GregS

Quote:

I want to escape the insanity of MS

Not trying to start a flame war here, but i've read lots of posts like this one on AWorld.

Since your needs are Open Office and Firefox/Thunderbird, you're on the way to get rid of MS. Why not do it fully then?

I'm far from saying GNU/Linux is great (i'm just chosing it here cause it might be the common choice, not cause it is any better than the other *nix or GPL stuff). And i wouldn't compare it to any AmigaOS, not even saying OS4.
However, when it's about comparing it with Windows, the choice seems easy.

Even if you don't know anything about the way other OS than MSWindows handle mount points / window managers, it would only mean like sacrificing *ONE* day of your whole life to install it, configure it and learn enough from the docs to do the stuff you do in Windows.
That's of course assuming you're a complete newbie to computing. Else it might take from 1 hour to one afternoon depending the distro you use.
Just don't use KDE/Gnome desktops (Window Maker is IMHO far better) and you'll see a nice increase in speed/usability compared to Windows. Especially with OO/Firefox.

Since you "hate" MS, i would consider the game is worth it.

Even saying the Windows people use has already been paid (sometimes by their office, and they couldn't object that), to keep using it is to keep supporting/advertising it. Each time you buy a Windows application or game (anyone playing Half-Life 2 on expensive hardware while complaining about the cost of AOne+OS4 should recognise themselves), surf the net using it, download patches/updates/free software for his Windows PC is just increasing the hits website receive from Windows users, and asking "please, give me more Windows-only apps and continue to care only for Windows users".

Using Windows has a cost few ppl realise. We might complain about the stupidity of Commodore staff, what killed the Amiga (i know it's still alive, so saying they killed it is an overstatement :) ) was MS #### about the "crucial" importance of providing MSDos compatibility - even Commodore believed their lies. And they're directly responsible for killing BeOS and other OS by threatening (really *sending* their commercials/lawyers) companies that would preinstall it along with Windows

Anybody *really* hating MS would welcome the alternatives.

As an OS4 user, you're already supporting OS4 more than i (can) do.
Why not stop supporting MS too? Just keep it on your hd, but try rebooting less and less using Windows.

Remember also slashdot users are not really linux users. They're mostly coming from a Windows background, and, sadly, no linux distro are bundled with a brain (AFAIK).

@ktadd

Great tip about the editor. I am going to try that one out later on tonight. This is cool.

Coder

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@t3g and @Laser

I think you may have misunderstood what I meant.

I am not saying we need the latest browser technology that will come. Nor am I saying I want openoffice right now -- this is not a call that has been repeated.

I am saying I need a browser that handles frames -- that is all. I can easily put up with all the other shortcomings -- but frames crop up on far too many sites.

I am not saying we need openoffice, I am saying we need at least a primitive word processor with these features - a spell checker, interactive line wrap and space between paragraphs.

In otherwords some fixes of specific and limited features, to plug some obvious gaps to get by on.

In fact the browser issue is the least of my worries. I could live without paragraph spacing, but a line wrapping spellchecking WP is essential at least to my daily work.

Given just a few arexx scripts I can easily make this into a seemless work environment -- for what I do (which is not very complex), Amiga already has quite usuable software for all my other needs at the momnent, and i n these excells XP in general usefulness and pleasure.

In terms of a WP something could be knocked up via MUI as I see all the features are present - but I can't code to save my life.

On the WP we have two entirely adequate products that are no longer obtainable Finalwriter and Wordsworth. AmigaWriter would also be fine, but the spellchecker does not work and its has no scripting interface. Ed professional works more or less but the line wrap is up the duff.

We have a wonderful array of line editors and many very powerful, but none that just allows me to write with the basic ease I need.


Alas Linux apopeals to very little and as I said I do love using OS4 I just need these few features to cease using MS 99% of the time.

The second biggest hassle has been cured though in using an external editor for Aweb -- that was an unexpected surpise (thanks again @ktadd).

Last edited by GregS on 08-Apr-2005 at 01:25 PM.

_________________
Greg Schofield, Perth Australia

@GregS

Quote:

I am saying I need a browser that handles frames -- that is all. I can easily put up with all the other shortcomings -- but frames crop up on far too many sites.

AWeb and IBrowse both support frames. AWeb even supports iFrames. It must be something else you're looking for.

As for spell checking.. there must be an editor with ARexx support that can be combined with one of the spell checker scripts?
Perhaps http://ftp.uni-paderborn.de/aminet/aminet/text/edit/ASpellGUI.readme or Mentat or Amidiction - all found on aminet. (I haven't tested them myself yet)

Last edited by Trezzer on 08-Apr-2005 at 02:43 PM.
Last edited by Trezzer on 08-Apr-2005 at 02:12 PM.