Really nice! Thanks Elwood!

/shoe

After reading the excellent review I thought that 2 things should be changed in OS4:

-Why have they put a MUI drawer in the root directory? The can put the files in sys:classes. Keeping a MUI drawer in the root directory is useless because the users aren't going to use it much and it gives people the impression of OS4 being a bunch of patches and third party hacks... MUI should be put in classes and some libraries in libs: and that's all. Come on... MUI is not the official toolkit and having lots and lots of useless directories is not a good idea. If you have erased rexxc don't put useless stuff in the root directory. In MOS they haven't done it this way and believe me, they KNOW a lot how MUI works internally.

-The Internet directory should be renamed Network. This may be a matter of taste but I think that it's more correct to call it "Network".

_________________
The only spanish amiga news web page/club: CUAZ

Quote:

- Why have they put a MUI drawer in the root directory? The can put the files in sys:classes. Keeping a MUI drawer in the root directory is useless because the users aren't going to use it

MUI is not really part of OS4, its just bundled with it.

Quote:

-The Internet directory should be renamed Network. This may be a matter of taste but I think that it's more correct to call it "Network".

A lot of people think that. If only you could see the amount of mail this subject (and similar arguments over roadshows layout and naming conventions) has generated on the private OS4 lists...

_________________
Playstation Network ID: xeron6

Nice work Elwood!
This really gave me a better idea what OS4 is like

_________________
God is a man with a grey beard. His name is Jay Glenn Miner.

Very interesting and informative article.

I really like this:

Quote:

The dos.library will recognize that the program is doing something nasty. It will then open a requester that warns the user that the running program performed and illegal call to OS functions. The displayed text is especially useful for coders that will know immediately what error they did in their program. Other users may warn the program author that they found a bug.

Well done !! Feature like that sure is appreciated. GrimReaper, GDB and that dos.library functionality together will sure make developers life much easier. It seems to me that OS4 offers much better environment for the developers than any previous AmigaOS version.

Thanks for the really nice and informative article!

As a former Amiga user, I'm getting more and more tempted to get back into the Amiga scene again thanks to the marvellous work done by Hyperion and all involved in the OS4 project (and Eyetech of course). There's just one little problem.... money. As always

Anyway, keep up the brilliant work. I truly believe that the world needs the Amiga!

Thanks to everyone. I may post new articles in the future then

_________________
Philippe 'Elwood' Ferrucci
Sam460 1.10 Ghz
AmigaOS 4 betatester
Amiga Translator Organisation

@Xeron
"MUI is not really part of OS4, its just bundled with it."
Yes, but when you install classact and other toolkits you don't make a directory in the root...
so why make the root "dirty" with useless directories? Let's say I'm a new user who has never owned an Amiga and I see that a directory appears called MUI. What's the mission of this directory? I can't do anything with it! If I open prefs I can do useful things... devs, storage, wbstartup... all these directories are useful! but MUI???

You could keep the MUI preferences in "prefs", the MUI classes in classes and the libraries in libs. Even if it's a third party addition I guess you don't make a directory called "IBrowse" in SYS: and I guess that you don't put everything in SYS:. So why MUI should be different? When you install classact or reaction you don't create directories in SYS:, you simply copy the classes to sys:classes.

Keeping it in the root you are showing it as if it was something as important as all your devs, storage, prefs or wbstartup directories...


It should be renamed network because internet is just a "big network"...

_________________
The only spanish amiga news web page/club: CUAZ

@Crumb

Good points.

_________________
ikir

@Crumb
Quote:

You could keep the MUI preferences in "prefs", the MUI classes in classes and the libraries in libs...

The MUI drawer is much better. I just have to delete the one drawer and that chapter of history is closed once and for all--hehe.

Seriously though, I think it needs to go in a Contribution drawer along with things like SFS, Samba, TurboPrint, Envoy, etc. Essentials for the time being but distinctly not part of the OS.

_________________
ExecSG Team Lead

@Crumb

One thing I can think of is that toolkits like ClassAct(ReAction) and BGUI are additions to BOOPSI, thier files fit in well with the operating system (they're for the most part just additional classes), whereas MUI is a totally different system altogether. MUI has always been installed like this since I've used it.

The most recent MUI versions (found in MorphOS) don't have a MUI directory, they store the files like I have described. It could continue to be installed optionally BUT instead of installing it in the MUI drawer in root you would store the files as in MorphOS.

_________________
The only spanish amiga news web page/club: CUAZ

@Crumb
Quote:

The most recent MUI versions (found in MorphOS) don't have a MUI directory...

Good for them but they are on an independent branch now as Rogue indicated some time ago. Each platform is going its own independent way now so don't bother trying that point.

_________________
ExecSG Team Lead

@ Crumb

I think - but I am not sure as I don't have OS4 yet - that you can move the MUI drawer whereever you want, you just need a MUI: assign which points to it.

_________________
www.amiga4ever.de

@ Giovanni

Yes there is the assign in the user startup.

_________________
ikir

An essential read!

A lot of insight and cool stuff I didn't know. Well done, Elwood!

I cannot get the "real time" marking of icons to work though (when stretching a bounding box over them). They won't get marked until I release the mouse button... do I need a qualifier button pressed or something?
.
SlimJim

good article Elwood

_________________