Minor feature suggestions for OS 4.2

@Elwood started a thread like this a few weeks ago, but concerning major features. For a bit of fun, I thought I'd start a discussion for minor features, maybe something you expected in a 4.1FE, a missing bugfix, a sought-after tweak, etc. Off the list should be the big stuff: SMP, NGFS for everybody, 64 bit support, a proper sound API, full Unicode support, a multimedia subsystem, new GUI, new Workbench, IP6, a new printer/scanner subsystem, etc. Whew.

I've been reading Amigans for a couple years now, so hopefully this isn't a duplicate of something recent.

There are a few core OS4 developers and beta testers here, and if any comments are surprising, perhaps you'd add them as feature requests to the official bugtrack?

My own suggestion: I am surprised there was never a UDF (Universal Disk Format) handler for Blu-Ray disks.

@tao

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fcSviC7cRM

not many are working full time on this... so what we have is what we have.. "slow progress"..

Quote:

I'm parity sure it was supported,
(but if its not, its lack of developers. in any case, many PC's do not come with Blueray/cdroms, the new tread is that everything is downloaded. besides large mvme drives..)

Quote:

That is only going to work on new programs. ASCII string length works differently, as does char position, its not the same..

Adding support for it in menus, filenames and so on, can be possible, but it is not unproblematic. Who will benefit the Chines and Japanese user…
we don’t have lot Chines and Japanese user users. Its cool to have, but its far from critical.

@LiveForIt
Quote:Not lack of developers, just lack of payment for contract work by Hyperion, which doesn't have a licence for using it since about 15 years any more.
It was removed from the illegal back port to AmigaOS 3.[12].x m68k already and the same has to be done for any new AmigaOS 4.x PPC releases or I'll have to sue Costel.

My AmigaOS 4.0 port of CDFileSystem included some minimal UDF support (UDF 1.x only, not 100% sure anymore if it was 1.02 or 1.50 but not enough for data CDs/DVDs/BDs which need UDF version 2.x, but it could read Video DVDs).
At that time no AmigaOS video player (MPlayer, DVPlayer, Emotion, etc.) included internal UDF/DVD support yet and depended on the file system supporting it. Current versions of those video players have internal UDF support and an UDF file system isn't required any more for playing Video DVDs with them.
A new AmigaOS UDF file system would have to support UDF 2.60 for reading UDF data CDs/DVDs/BDs, just a new UDF 1.x one wouldn't make any sense anymore.

@Joerg
I'm going to say something stupid, and maybe not everyone will understand it, but I hope you'll take it into consideration.
If I could ask you one thing.
Are the licenses that will kill the entire AmigaOS ecosystem worth continuing these wars after so many years?
We are aging even faster than the entire wonderful AmigaOS4 system. Only a handful of us remain from the many who were there at the beginning.
Could you consider transferring your copyright to our community?
I don't know what kind of license it would be, and I don't know how much you would ask for it.
It would be a very nice gesture to donate the amount you expect to some charitable cause for people in need.
If you do so, you will show your superiority over those people/companies you have a grudge against. They were unable to resolve this in such a way. You would be an example to others for whom the AmigaOS4 system is still worth something.
In our small community, you would be doing something that few people can afford to do!
We don't know each other personally, but I know that you have made a very large contribution to AmigaOS4. We know each other through the help you offer by publishing articles about AmigaOS4.
It would be an honor for me if you would consider this.

@smarkusg

a lot of this has changed ownership from Hyperion to AmigaKit/AEON, and becomes part of Enhancer,

https://wiki.amiga.org/index.php?title=Enhancer_Software

the only one that suffers is Eyetech users, XE/SE/Mini users, Classic Users who did pay for this, and how gets a degraded OS experience.

the only issue is that now everyone have update there OS with Enhancer after etch official OS update, at the risk of reintroducing bugs, and incomparability issues.

@joerg

Quote:

Yeh. UVD is supported by MPlayer, but only works with special argument, its for DVD’s menu system and so on..

it does use a ioctl wrapper, I know sense I had modify it because X1000 device driver did not have read ahead buffer. (the DVD drive just spin up and down like crazy and it was impossible to watch a movie.)

So i can confirm it used low level access and did not need to use file system to access the DVD.

a lot of that is copyrighted VideoLAN and I believe most of C libs are included from source files from MPlayerHQ.

some of it is copyrighted FFmpeg with LGPL, source code license.


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libdvdread: This is the foundational library that reads the raw data from the DVD, understanding its file system structure (UDF/ISO9660) and VOB files.

https://archlinux.org/packages/extra/x86_64/libdvdread/

(its GPL, not LGPL, all changes should be pushed back to repo.)

libdvdnav: Adds DVD navigation capabilities, allowing MPlayer to follow menus, chapters, and titles as intended by the disc author.

libdvdcss: Crucial for playing encrypted DVDs (CSS protection) by providing the necessary decryption keys.

libavformat (from FFmpeg): Handles the demuxing (splitting) of the MPEG-2 video, AC3/PCM audio, and subtitle streams from the VOB containers.

libavcodec (from FFmpeg): Decodes the actual MPEG-2 video and audio data.

Or, you know, maybe Hyperion could pay everyone what they've owed for the last 25 years, plus interest and good will bonuses, out of the money made from selling AmigaOS updates, and then maybe people wouldn't be so mad at them any more [moderated].

Moderator comment:
And maybe you could watch your language next time.

LOL at the moderators, really pathetic.

@NinjaCyborg

The "Amiga Community" is a LOT of passionate people, with a LOT of different ideas about what is best.

Some communities are built on arguments about how things should be done. Some communities take a hand in moderating comments that are not constructive.

Getting moderated doesn't mean you are wrong, it just means that community is working to reduce .."less productive discussions".

The moderation is a thankless but absolutely necessary part of keeping some sites better than others.

But that's just my opinion, and it's worth exactly as much as I was paid for it.

@LyleHaze

Did you get paid for your work yet?

@smarkusg
Well written and well said!

We're not getting any younger, and all the ridicolous fighting is eating time.
.
Drop the pride and move along and do some good for the the small community thats left!

AmigaOS 4ever, 21 years down!

@tao

It might have been fun to see some more suggestions.



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redfox

@NinjaCyborg

You're entitled to your opinions, none of which have been moderated in this thread. All we're asking is that you remain polite and don't call people names.

You'll have to live with the fact that Amigans.net is a moderated forum. If you don't like it, there are other places to discuss your hobby - the choice is yours.

@tao

I'm happy to see I suggested this new thread
You are right, at some point people have to think what they want about OS4.x and organize a way to make this happen (crowdfunding?).

Never think it's not possible.

Even finding a solution about UDF support is possible.
I see 2 alternatives:
- pay Jorg (depending on how much he wants)
- recreate a new CD Filesystem

My minor Suggestions:

in Workbench:

- Select files and drawers, then create a new drawer with the selected icons from the context menu.
- Workbench screen title bar: add formatting options such as aligning screen title format items to the far right.
- Workbench Screen title bar: add the option to be able to add more "widgets" (like in OS3.3)
- Workbench Screen title bar: It would be beneficial if an area of the screen title bar could be reserved so that items such as the clock or widgets would follow to other screens and remain visible even on the Workbench if a different programme is active.
- Add the possibility to add keyboard shortcuts (for the ones missing in Workbench, e.g. Resize to fit, Snapshot Window, Snapshot all) and maybe the option to personalise them. Some appear a little illogical to me.
I dislike it so much when some apps use "RAmiga-Z" and other "RAmiga-U" for the same command, or "RAmiga-A" and and others "RAmiga-M" for "Select all".
- I think it would be rather nice if the shortcuts in the menu reflected the letter they represent, like 'RAMiga-Shift-v' being 'RAMiga-V'. I imagine it might not look great to everyone! ;)
- When copying files to an external drive that does not support file notes (such as a USB or network drive), a file named 'Files_Info.txt' is generated in the destination folder. This file contains all the file comments and protection bits of the files copied into the folder. Prior to copying a requester could also ask the user if he wishes to copy the file notes. Maybe it would be feasible to save the filename in the icon file?
- Fix the keyboard shortcuts in RAWBInfo
- General keyboard support could be improved. Take the "Execute..." command in Workbench; once I entered something in the text field gadget, I cannot quit from the string requester using the keyboard. "Return/Enter" executes the string, "Esc" quits the requester altogether. So what is the use of the keyboard shortcuts "e" and "c"? This behaviour is common to many requesters and gadgets. Maybe "Alt-enter" could be implemented to "exit" a string gadget?
- Rework WBStartup-Preferences so that
- the list can be sorted by "Name", "Start Priority" and "Path".
- Select more items at once to enable/disable them
- option to edit an entry (to not have to remove and add it again)
- This might be just personal to me: Add an option in Input prefs to reverse the scroll wheel direction. I kind of got used to the macOS natural scroll direction it is so much logical!
- Add an ISO-8601 locale format.
- Adopt the modern nomenclature for byte units: so that 1 Megabyte is 1000² and 1 MiB is 1024².

@Elwood

Quote:

The exact same ideas came to me too.

It would be nice to have Joerg on board again. Or at least to find a way to flush his negativity he really appears to have a set on Hyperion.
I think the one responsible for the non-payments is gone. Maybe Joerg could start working with the people who are there now. I guess they have not been paid either.

Unless we can engage Elon Musk to pay the debts, I see it unlikely that someone could afford to pay the overdue engineers level salaries for all the people who have contributed.

Crowd funding could mitigate and alleviate the pain maybe?

But then so many people have been scorched here by "early-bird" "pre-payment" that little may want to contribute.

Even if OS3.3 seems to take big steps forward. OS4 is really worth saving. It is so much better in so many ways!