@outrun1978
Thanks. I've added it to my personal news feeds in eNewsReader

@mritter0 Quote:
Are you sure you aren't doing anything more, such as trying to lock a file on the device/volume? (e.g. Disk.info)

"INACTIVE" volumes are supposed to auto-mount only when you attempt to access (e.g. lock or open) a file/folder on them, so that you can access the file/folder (if it exists).

I haven't yet checked whether there is a way to tell if they are marked as INACTIVE, but I would be pretty surprised if there was not... EDIT: I can't find out how to check this, but many AmigaDOS features can be pretty obscure, so there may well still be a way... I wonder if "dvp_Lock" is NULL for such devices?

@Hedeon
Where can I find/get that? (I failed to find it.)

(never mind!)

@ChrisH Quote:
It seems this might be due to my having ReWarp installed:
http://amigafun.blogspot.co.uk/2017/0 ... ewarp-on-amiga-x5000.html
Quote:
This also seems to suggest that my non-working Warp3D in Heretic 2 might be due to ReWarp, although I am not aware of using the ReWarp3DPPC wrapper, so maybe not.

@xenic Quote:
Nope. AmiDock is DEFINITELY doing real (composited) transparency, because I can slide a window underneath AmiDock & still see it. If you aren;t seeing that, then either (1) you have Compositing turned off (or otherwise unavailable), or (2) something is preventing Compositing from working (not sure what). AmiDock falls-back to the method you describe, when Compositing is not available.

@daveyw Quote:
I'm not sure I want a script messing with my KickLayout file, as I could end-up with a non-booting system. Two alternatives:
1. Warn the user SFS needs adding to the KickLayout (if it isn't detected there).
2. Ask the user if they want it adding to their KickLayout file, and IF they say yes then make a back-up of the KickLayout before modifying it. That way the user will have some idea why their system stops booting, and also some idea of how to fix it.

@Hedeon Quote:
I'm using the full commercial version of Heretic 2.

@xenic Quote:
Of course it's possible. AmiDock even does it!

The review is here:
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/0 ... beloved-amiga-meets-2017/

While I haven't read all of it yet, it comes across as pretty positive so far. But I have spotted a couple of mistakes:
* The article claims that "memory protection" was added in 4.0 ! Maybe he meant virtual memory (actually paged memory) in 4.1?
* He says there is a "MagicWorkbench” GUI development library, when I assume he means "Magic User Interface"!
* Apparently "Hyperion and A-EON have released a tool called RunInUAE", but I shall forgive the mistaken attribution

@kas1e
It looks like 1% to 100% transparency is being treated as 100% transparent, with only 0% transparent pixels being actually visible.

I *assume* this is because X Dock is rendering icons using old-fashioned Amiga graphics drawing routines (which only supports a mask aka "1-bit transparency"), where-as AmiDock is using Composited rendering (which supports 8-bit alpha-channel transparency).

@mritter0 Quote:
No I am NOT sure. I hardly tested v1.1 . (And all I said was "I did not notice" not "it did not".)

@outrun1978 Quote:
I didn't believe this, as I've never been able to get it to work on OS4, so I thought I'd retry it on my X1000 (which has RadeonHD card with new Warp3D) :

Initially it just crashed when I started it. GrimReaper showed it crashing in the lowlevel.library, so I tried attaching a USB joystick, and then miraculously it starts without crashing! (But because AmigaInput sucks, this must be done AFTER AmigaOS4 has booted. So if you soft reset, you must un-plug & re-plug the joystick again.)

(It does cause RunInUAE to open lots of requesters, so I closed RunInUAE to simplify my testing. If I get Heretic 2 to work then I can retry it later with RunInUAE running in the background.)

To my surprise I got to the menu screen. (I had deleted the "h2.prefs" and "RtgScreenMode.prefs1" files to be on the safe side. Dunno if they caused me problems before.)

Amazingly I am able to get into the Tutorial, the 3D graphics look correct, and I am able to move my character using the mouse & keyboard. HOWEVER:

1. Double-buffering seems to cause problems (screens flickers) unless I use a 640x480 screenmode. Since Heretic 2 only seems to use a 640x480 resolution (even on larger screenmodes) this isn't a big problem, although annoying it can't use better screenmodes.

2. There is NO sound. Since it's a 68k game, I assume it is trying to use Paula directly, rather than use AHI . edit: The README mentions AHI, so I don't know why I have no sound :(

3. It's using software rendering. If I change to using hardware (i.e. Warp 3D) then I see no 3D graphics, and the menu is unusable (no text). (Tip: If you quit Heretic 2 in this state, it remembers to use Warp 3D next time & so is unusable. In that case you need to delete the file "user/config.cfg".)

I'd like to know if outrun1978 or anyone else has gotten this to work any better? And if so, how?

@broadblues Quote:
Possible solution: Add a "plugin" system to X-Dock, and then make an OS X Dock style plugin a free (open-source?) download somewhere... (But obviously don't mention "OS X" or Apple anywhere in the name/description! And try to not make it TOO similar to that described by the Apple patent.)

At worst the plugin might need withdrawing, perhaps temporarily while it is modified to take account of any objections. And if open-source, then anyone can make their own version.

P.S. If the plugins were done using SObjs (rather than Librarys) then coding them would be much simpler, I think?

@mritter0
I found a new bug with v1.2, which I did not notice with v1.0/v1.1:
After I started WEx, suddenly Workbench (not WEx!) showed disk icons for two previously un-mounted volumes:

1. One was FTP Mount, which I have set to "ACTIVATE=0" (so it isn't activated until it's first accessed).
2. Was my X1000's "BOOT:" partition (which contains "amigaboot.of" needed by the BIOS to boot OS4). I have a DOSDriver for mounting this, which is also set to "ACTIVATE=0".

In both cases I do *NOT* want them being mounted, UNLESS I intentionally try to open them. So please undo/change the volume checks you added for v1.2, so that this does not happen just by starting WEx. Thanks!

@kas1e Quote:
Yeah. This is the core functionality of WEx, so it's not really acceptable that it's so slow. I guess it is due to it using Datatypes to check the Type of every file (switch "View styles" to "Details" to see what I mean).

Simple solution is to make checking of (Data)Type optional in Preferences. If disabled, then it would only check the Type the first time the user clicked (or maybe double-clicked) the file. (Then it knows the file's type & does not need to check again, as long as the user does not leave that folder.) This behaviour should probably ALWAYS occur (ignoring preferences) when the "View style" is NOT "Details", as I think there is no need/use of Type when not in Details mode (except possibly when you double-click a file).

A better (but more complex) solution is for checking of (Data)Type to be done in the background, by a separate thread. Filer does this when generating (image) thumbnails for files, but didn't do it very well as it still causes Filer to run MUCH slower. So I guess do NOT bother trying to do this unless you have a LOT of time to get it working well!

@Raziel
Thanks for the suggestion.

Although IMHO an Enhancer Software *sub-forum* would make more sense than a thread. (That way each piece of software could have it's own thread(s), making it much easier for users to see if an issue has been discussed before, and easier for the respective developers to see if anything relevant to them has been posted.)

@broadblues
I already have that installed... but it doesn't work. TuneNet won't let me add AAC files to the playlist, and if I edit the playlist with NotePad/etc to add an AAC file then TuneNet still won't play it. Also AAC radio stream won't play.

TuneNet lists the AAC plugin in Prefs > Plugins, and I have the required Faads.library installed.

@amigakit Quote:
It would be helpful if TuneNet could support playing AAC files. Sometimes it's only possible to get music in that format, and converting to MP3 is really troublesome (even using Windows)... never mind the potential reduction in sound quality.

AAC is getting more common, and now there seem to be a (IMHO misplaced) suggestion that MP3 should/will be scrapped (esp. now that it's no-longer licensable) :
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article ... ets-look-back-at-its-life

Some radio stations also only use AAC, rather than MP3.

Quote:
I haven't read this

@amigakit
Urgh, not *another* account that I have to sign-up for, just to make one report :( . (That's quite a big hurdle/disincentive. Using this forum (or email) would be much more preferable...)

ALSO, where should feature requests go? (That's what I really wanted to do.)

@kas1e
No, FFS support should *always* be kept, at the very least to allow data transfer to/from other Amiga-like OSes.

Also, FFS is extremely well-tested & robust (albiet slow), so there are surely valid use-cases for using it instead of NGFS/SFS/etc.

Also, FFS is *needed* for the X1000 to boot, since that's the only Amiga filing system that it's "BIOS" (CFE) can read "amigaboot.of". And that might need updating/recreating at some point.


Now MAYBE support for booting from FFS should be depreciated... but even that seems a bit heavy-handed.

IMHO just don't supply pre-built Amiga systems with FFS as the boot partition. Maybe MediaToolbox should give an annoying warning any time FFS is chosen?