AmigaOS 4.1 for 68k, and i got mad :)

[wawrzon]

i dont think visual prefs is very best solution. use afa instead. also powerwindows_ng is a very good compatible and stable piece of software to get rid of one of very annoying 68k workbench restrictions.

i am using a lot of these patches on my both main amigas.

[wawrzon]

@gulliver: i remember visual prefs to trash  my palette and introduced some settings  in env causing it that were really hard to get rid of. afa doesnt work well on less that 16bit. thats true. i was trying to convince bernd to adopt it but he thinks none is using it without a gfx card anyway.  i have a little partial fix for that underway. hope this motivates him a little.

as for powerwindows i couldnt live without it anymore. of course the full instalation is needed, including patching kickstart. on one of my machines it is done with blizkick, on another the module is included into a rom flash of the deneb. both works great since years. i cannot recal a single problem, incompatibility, with any software, crash, hangup or even a glitch i had with it. it seems one of very few softwarez on amiga that do not contain any bugs.
what problems did you have? since i would heavily recommend powerwindows for anybody that not only uses his amiga for gaming
btw. posting it from the new 68k netsurf version on my a4k!

[wawrzon]

@ratte: yeah. the other nick wasnt available here. so what?
because im advocating netsurf everywhere?
edit: ah, i know. i didnt finished it yet. im somehow to addicted to have fast working 3d. ive put too much time into it lately.
btw: bernd, did you check the intuition lib in progress ive sent you. this problem with the resize gadget. check it out

[wawrzon]

@wawrzon
Please convince Bernd on adding afa support for people that use screens lower than 16bit!
Could you point me out where the last powerwindows version is, i am willing to give it one more try, maybe i was using some old version!
Aminet version of netsurf works great on my WinUAE setup, but it is a pitty it cannot work on my AGA Amiga

i have my powerwindows_ng from aminet here:
http://aminet.net/util/misc/PowerWindowsNG.lha
most likely it is what you have tried. the installation with need to patch the kickstart to reach the whole functionality is a little annoying and subject to try and error, i admit. but when set up it works flawlessly. might be that the version for unpatched rom is less stable, how it is mentioned in the documentation afair.

powerwindows biggest limitation is that as it needs kickstart to be patched either in rom or on the fly by blizkick or similar it is useless on uae i suspect. this is probably the reason why it is underestimated. but as it is been open sourced soewhere around 2000 it could be integrated in a bigger project such as for instance afa_os. also aros is providing similar features, how about using this approach? bernd, that would be my requested featur for afa_4.7. i swear i never witnessed that it breaks any amiga compatiblity.

@Bernd_afa
what concerns <16 bit support it is not about unexpanded amiga fanboyism but only about ergonomics, usability and aesthetics. even on gfx expanded systems there is sometimes need to open 8bit screen or even aga or ecs. it should functionally supported for the sole reason that it is available. otherwise it is like letting a program to run into a known error without handling it. a good program should not look trashed beyond return, on any display. it is unacceptable.

[wawrzon]

@bernd, ratte:
i actually do not care much about the quality of remapping only that i dont want an obviously trashed display. a simple but fast way is fine with me and i believe even if it doesnt look perfectly it will still look better that what afa at the moment displays <16bit. and people will not complain. i myself have gfx boards in my main amigas, p4 and voodoo, and some cv64 lying around, but i want to have aga and <16bit option under afa.

also i like an idea of monochrome workbench. if need be. lately i tested my skin and original workbench look at 1680x1050 in pure blackandwhite. it looked great!

[wawrzon]

@bernd: i do not care if os4 or mos or aros support 8bit or not. it is os3.x after all and since it supports 8bit afa should support it too if only in a fallback mode to guarantee readibility and usibility of such resolutions. by the way os4 supports 8bit as far as i recall, i do not know why it should not. and our aim is to be better than os4;D. so quit arguing, bernd, it doesnt hurt to implement it. the pople that do not need it will not notice, others will bless you.

[wawrzon]

@bernd: you ve posted a screenshot where most of the gadgets are still the messy ones. actually only the close gadget is in place and the resize gadget looks more like it should allthough it is still misplaced. best working and closest to what i want to achieve are scroll gadgets for now and thex do not schow up.
the problem is it is still a lot of trial and error to get a desirable look just drawing the lines. especially 3d look is sometimes little complicated in detail. i hope i will able to finish soon when back in berlin.

@vulture: do you need powerwindows inconify gadget if you have this option in afa? you can disable this feature in pw prefs.