I've been away from amiga for quite some time, except for the occasional a500 gaming session from floppies.
I built a dedicated emulation pc recently running amiga os3.9 but now I'm having trouble customizing my desktop because I forget more than I remember about doing some of these things.
First, how can I customize the dockbar with the applications and icons that I want, I have no idea?
The easiest way is to drag icons you want onto the dock bar. If you want to edit the list of what is already there, the dock bar has a popup menu (by default it's at the bottom left of the dock). The first item in the menu is "Edit..." which opens a preferences window that allows you to reorder the items on the bar, remove them etc. Note that like all preference programs, there are "Save" and "Use" buttons. In order to keep your changes, you have to click the "Save" button.
Next, how can I assign some image viewer to show say jpg files when they are clicked on. How can I assign a text viewer to open text files when clicked on?
This comes down to your default icon preferences. See the Prefs/Deficons preferences program. For each file type, you need to assign a default tool. The organisation of file types is hierarchical so you don't need to specify a default tool for each type of image, you can assign a tool to open all images. That requires the tool is capable of opening them all, of course. By default, Multiview should be the default tool for most file types. As it relies on Datatypes, it can display pretty much any file you have a Datatype for. There are a great many Datatypes available but at least a selection of the most common image ones are included with OS3.9.
How can I assign a screensaver to start when the system is idle? Do I have to use blanker, or isn't there something better? Yes I know drag blanker to the wbstartup folder, but it opens a dialog at bootup I'd rather not deal with at every bootup?
The default blanker hasn't really changed for several versions of the OS. If you want a better blanker, check out aminet.net.
How can I start aminet like amigasys does? its an ftp client I assume but I don't know how to set that up on a vanilla installation of os3.9?
Not sure as I don't use it but it should have a guide file at least?
Is there a way to remove the arguments dialog box from the apps I am starting, many new apps I am trying to install all have that dialog box come up for arguments
This again sounds like a faulty installation. For some reason, your apps are being started from a shell rather than Workbench. It could be that the protection bits are messed up. If you select an icon for one of these programs and then get the properties (Icons menu->Information...) you should be able to inspect the properties of the both the file and the icon. In the file section, make sure the executable flag is ticked. Assuming that is fine, in the icon section, the "Start From" option should be set to Workbench for programs that are meant to run from Workbench. It could be that the program doesn't even have a proper icon (.info) file. Generally, any iconless file will open the "Execute Command" dialogue if you double click on it.
How can I change an incon on the desktop to something else I'd prefer?
You should be able to do that in the 3.9 Icon Information window (see above point), which uses RAWBInfo these days. With the window open, you can drag another icon of your choice over the preview of the current icon in the information window to replace it. It's important you drag it over the icon preview and not just anywhere else in the window as this will simply open a second Icon Information window for the icon you dragged in. If you are happy with it, click "Save"
Am I just retarded or does os3.9 not allow you to drag the top of the screen down like os 1.3. If you can drag the screen down in os3.9 how is this done?
Sure it allows it but only for native screenmodes. The chances are your UAE is using your host graphics card via Picasso 96 RTG. Screen dragging isn't really supported for RTG for OS3.x.
Also, is there an amiga cli guide somewhere online?
There are (none that spring to mind presently), but you should also have the user manuals as part of your OS3.9. They were converted to HTML since OS3.5 and included.
Sorry so many questions, but I know some of you experts can answer these questions very easily. I'm web searching everything and not finding much of the info I'm looking for.
I thank you all for your thoughts on these questions...
Steven
Judging by some of the questions, it sounds as if your install is a bit messed up? Did you use a folder in the host operating system as your emulated amiga's hard disk? In the past I've found that this method can have problems, particularly with file protection bits. Under older versions of Windows especially, I used to use a hard disk file rather than a folder. It is a bit less convenient than a directory but it is formatted with an actual amiga filesystem at least.
I've not had any similar problems under ext3 on linux, however.
Anyway, good luck
