Oliver Roberts' WarpDTPrefs - Reaction GUI - and OS 3.1.4

[dschallock]

To me, the Reaction GUI classes are similar to Datatypes.  They are their own thing that sits in its own folder.  Apps can call them on not.

Because Reaction and class act have been around for many years now it makes sense that there are many apps that utilize them.  It also makes sense that Hyperion couldn't incorporate them into 3.1.4 if they didn't own them, although that has since changed as has been mentioned.  Also, after doing light reading across the forum-verse it is clear to me that Reaction/class act and MUI and every other GUI add on are debatable on whether they are a good thing or a bad thing (look versus bloat).  So moving forward with 3.2 and beyond what becomes the new standard for Amiga OS GUI will be an interesting thing to see how it plays out.  Either way though, in the spirit of backwards compatibility; having some class files sit in a folder by themselves seems like an easy fix to make many programs written for 3.x over the last 20 years.

[Rotzloeffel]

All this will be solved in 3.2 anyways, though, right?

Yes, Reaction will be part of OS 3.2 as Hyperion bought it. Many bugs got fixed....

[NinjaCyborg]

BOOPSI classes go in SYS:Classes, devices go in DEVS:, etc. There has always been this division into directories. They could all be crammed into LIBS: but in the interest of being "clean" and "maintainable" it is probably better not to. The speed penalty is negligible even on a floppy-based system, which is why it has been that way since OS1.0.

Well said. The fact that Amiga did that, instead of just dumping everything in 'system32' or similar is one of the little reasons that all added up made Amiga the best, cleanest, most well designed.

[kolla]

Weird circle of arguments...

Nothing is looking for BOOPSI classes in SYS:Classes, everything is looking for them in LIBS: - SYS:Classes is just another directory in the LIBS: assign - if they were "serious" about separating classes from libraries, they could have made a dedicated CLASSES: or similar. If you look at OS3.1, what is really in SYS:Classes? Three directories (with content) and no files. To move these to SYS:Libs does not make any clutter at all. Once you add Reaction however... .class chaos ensues

The nice thing about skipping SYS:Classes and putting everything in SYS:Libs is that no manual assign is needed before using program that needs BOOPSI classes - especially in OS 3.9 where all Prefs programs and HDToolBox etc are Reaction programs.

[kolla]

From what I recall, all single-letter assigns are TRIPOS legacy, C:, S:, L: and T: (commands, scripts, libraries, temporary), while DEVS:, LIBS: were added later for Amiga, lastly came HELP: and LOCALE: