BetterWB release 2.9 - 23.08.2013

[Gulliver]

I am sorry for my late reply. I somehow missed your post until you sent me a PM pointing that fact.

Some answers:
BetterWB will only affect your SYS: partition/volume. It doesnt come with whdload or mui. If you installed magicwb, I suggest you back up your startup-sequence, in case something goes wrong when you set up BetterWB. The BetterWB archive contains everything required to install it (except workbench 3.0/3.1).

[AmigaBruno]

Here's what's happened. The archive contained 3 disks, which were called Misc 3.1, Tools 3.1, and Bonus 3.1. I followed the instructions, which were to boot from my hard drive, then insert the floppy disks in order. Eventually, I was asked for a FOURTH disk called something like DOCS. I didn't have this fourth disk, so I couldn't insert it. I tried reinserting the first disk, but that was no good. I then had to click Cancel. I thought that as the missing disk was just docs, then I may have installed everything successfully. After that, I found that  my CF hard drive has been messed up and can't boot! Various commands, such as Setpatch, and some others have been deleted or disabled!

I'll let you know about my progress in fixing this problem. Meanwhile, don't try to install the pack BetterWB!

[AmigaBruno]

The creator of this expansion pack has now had about 24 hours to reply, but hasn't done. I'd like to use my A1200 again now, so I've decided to tell people on here what I've found out and ask for advice in fixing it.

During my attempted installation I never got any messages that I needed a later version of the Kickstart ROM.

I found out that Workbench had loaded and the MagicWB icons were still there, but the number of colours had been cut down and couldn't be restored.

I had partitioned my CF card hard drive into 4 partitions, which I called Workbench: , Work: , Art: , and Games: . I looked and found that my artwork and games are still on the other partitions.

When I click on various icons that are part of the standard Workbench 3.1 setup, I often get a requester to insert env or ENV into any drive. Does anyone know about if the Kickstart 3.0 ROMs handle disks or devices slightly differently from the 3.1 ROMs?

I think I need to reinstall the standard Workbench 3.1, but I must make sure this won't reformat my CF card. How do I make sure it will only affect dh0: , which I've named Workbench: ? Perhaps it's set to only change the contents of that partition, but I need to make sure first!

[Gulliver]

@AmigaBruno

Both archives contained 4 disk images (not 3). So you are probably having problems with your decompression program or have corrupt images.

You are evidently not following the instructions, and probably havent started with a CLEAN workbench install at first.

If you are not familiar with the Amiga enviroment you shouldnt attempt to disregard instructions.

MagicWB has a daemon that forces its palette and must be loaded for it to work. MagicWB is not a part of BetterWB, but you can install it after BetterWB (not before, unless you know what you are doing).

To fix whatever happened to your system just replace the startup-sequence by the one you were instructed to back up before installing BetterWB.

Other people have had success installing and updating their BetterWB installs.

BTW, I dont have the obligation to be 24 hours a day on this forum, and most of all, you have no reason for being rude!

[AmigaBruno]

@AmigaBruno

Both archives contained 4 disk images (not 3). So you are probably having problems with your decompression program or have corrupt images.

You are evidently not following the instructions, and probably havent started with a CLEAN workbench install at first.

If you are not familiar with the Amiga enviroment you shouldnt attempt to disregard instructions.

MagicWB has a daemon that forces its palette and must be loaded for it to work. MagicWB is not a part of BetterWB, but you can install it after BetterWB (not before, unless you know what you are doing).

To fix whatever happened to your system just replace the startup-sequence by the one you were instructed to back up before installing BetterWB.

Other people have had success installing and updating their BetterWB installs.

BTW, I dont have the obligation to be 24 hours a day on this forum, and most of all, you have no reason for being rude!

I used Amiga computers for 10.5 years and started using them again last December.

I have just re read your page and it says that BetterWB only requires 3 disks. You even gave their names on the page. I copied these ADF files onto floppy disks. Just checking again, I now find there is another ADF file called DOCS in the archive! You distracted me from noticing this, like a magician would do.

Obviously, people using this expansion pack are likely to have Workbehch already installed. Do you mean I have to do a reinstallation of Workbench 3.1 before installing your BetterWB? Will re installing Workbench 3.1 affect any partitions except my dh0: called Workbench: ? I hope not. The install script on the original Workbench 3.1 disk is VERY long, so I hope I don't have to read through the whole thing first! Should I boot from floppy, open a Shell, then type format dh0: ? If not, then how should I uninstall MagicWB? Unfortunately, I never used hard drives with my Amigas years ago.

[Gulliver]

Okay, so now you have the 4 disks.
First, BetterWB ONLY affects your sys: partition (your bootable/Workbench partition). It only replaces and udpates many AmigaOS components with more adequate/better solutions, and slightly modifies the startup-sequence.
Don worry about MagicWB right now, and dont format your drive yet!

1.Just insert the floppy named "Workbench3.1" from your original workbench set.
2.Open a shell and type without quotes "copy df0:s/startup-sequence dh0:s/" Here we are assuming that dh0: is your bootable/Workbench drive partition.
3.Remove your floppy
4.Reboot your machine
5.You should have a working system by now. If not, somehow your system got screwed before and you need to reformat and reinstall workbench.

Let me know how it goes and we can continue from there.

[AmigaBruno]

Okay, so now you have the 4 disks.
First, BetterWB ONLY affects your sys: partition (your bootable/Workbench partition). It only replaces and udpates many AmigaOS components with more adequate/better solutions, and slightly modifies the startup-sequence.
Don worry about MagicWB right now, and dont format your drive yet!

1.Just insert the floppy named "Workbench3.1" from your original workbench set.
2.Open a shell and type without quotes "copy df0:s/startup-sequence dh0:s/" Here we are assuming that dh0: is your bootable/Workbench drive partition.
3.Remove your floppy
4.Reboot your machine
5.You should have a working system by now. If not, somehow your system got screwed before and you need to reformat and reinstall workbench.

Let me know how it goes and we can continue from there.

I copied the original startup-sequence onto my dh0: called Workbench: on my CF card, but that didn't work. The Setpatch command had been corrupted or deleted. I assumed that some other commands had the same problem, so I should just reinstall Workbench. I was very careful to check it would only affect my Workbench: partition and selected Expert Mode. It was soon reinstalled and bootable! I immediately noticed that the MagicWB icons were still there, but more colourful than before. There was also the non standard bright green background which I'd set before.

After all this, it was a fairly simple matter to install your BetterWB from the FOUR disks, including Docs. I rebooted and it worked. The features include the pull down menus being available anywhere on the screen as a popup menu and with a 3D embossed look. Unfortunately, I think that popup menus originated with Windoze, or did Microsoft copy them from someone else? There's also a screen saver, which is good, but it draws geometric patterns which remind me of Windoze 98 on the first PC I owned. I haven't seen any new printer drivers listed in Preferences, though.

I reinstalled MagicWB, but found lots of drawer icons hadn't been replaced. I've forgotten how to do this. I reformatted MagicWB disks 2 and 3, because I didn't seem to be able to use them.

So, to sum up, this is a good update to Workbench 3.1, which runs on 3.0 ROMS and can be easily installed on a real Amiga, but make sure you've got all FOUR disks before you start!

BTW, i've just found out that popup or context menus first appeared in Smalltalk OS and were deveLoped further in NeXTSTEP, so that's fine.

[Gulliver]

I am glad it is working for you.

Now enjoy it!

[AmigaBruno]

I am glad it is working for you.

Now enjoy it!

It's working and I've managed to replace all the old Commodore drawer icons with MagicWB drawer icons now! It looks better than MagicWB on its own. I recently found I couldn't download MUI from anywhere. The patterns available for the Workbench background and the Windows seem to be different, but there are no more choices available than with standard Workbench 3.1. The popup menus seemed to be confined to programs that use the Workbench screen. They don't appear in DPaint IV, but DO appear in the game Colonization, which shows no sign of a Workbench screen, so I wonder if this means Colonization is actually using the Workbench screen? I found I was better able to manage my finances using Personal Finance Manager than with any software I've used since then, so I recently started using it again. I find that BetterWB prevents me from using its pull down menus, so now I have to use the popup menus, but I can only do this by clicking in certain places first.

I plan to remove my CF card hard drive soon, connect it to my laptop and try to get more software installed, as well as my artwork copied onto other devices.

I'll put up some screenshots of my BetterWB installation and some artwork soon.