Fun with MorphOS

[humppa]

Honestly I dont know. It is probably better than ancient Ambient SE on MorphOS CD - more features and less bugs.

Alright, I think I will give it a try then. The version from the PUP-ISO is lacking many features that are hopefully introduced in later versions (e.g. easy snapshot and copy functions for icons and something like a "refresh" function by right-clicking). But since I am a MOS-noob, I also could have just missed a way to activate them.

Btw where you got your nickname?

I bought it from the crazy Finns. :-P

[Fab12]

Crumb,

shortcuts are configurable and allow to run internal/amigados/workbench/rexx commands.

Thg,

Grid can indeed be disabled by pressing alt when dragging.

[AmigaMance]

@hummpa
 Don't forget that if you install the latest versions of Ambient you will also have to install MUI4 which is also debug enabled and afaik you can't disable this.
 Anyway, i would be interested to see a performance comparison from you, in case that you decide to install them. :-)

[humppa]

Don't forget that if you install the latest versions of Ambient you will also have to install MUI4 which is also debug enabled and afaik you can't disable this.

I did that yesterday. First installed the latest MUI4 beta, then the Ambient binary 1.43.0 CVS with the installer script.

The speed is fine, I don't see much of a difference really. So  if there is debugging enabled in either MUI4 or Ambient, it doesn't slow down the system too much.

However, I have stability problems now. After a certain time playing around with the desktop, Ambient freezes and the "is meditating"-message is displayed.
Further, I get an instant freeze when selecting any of the "About" options in the titlebar menu.

There seems to be a problem with MUI4, since it still shows up as version "3.9" in the Prefs. Is there a tutorial somewhere how to install MUI4 properly and which of the old 3.9-files should be kept?

[itix]

MUI4 files are installed inside MOSSYS drawer. That is, MUI classes go to MOSSYS:Classes/MUI, libraries go to MOSSYS:Libs and so on.

You dont have to touch MUI 3.9 files at all. Some 3.9 files are obsolete but having them on the disk doesnt hurt either.

[Matt_H]

@Matt_H
What do you think of Ambient now you have updated it?

@ motorollin

I'm liking it more, now. :-)
The 9/24 CVS version was a little unstable (though that may have been due to some other changes I was working with), so I scaled back to the 9/14 version and it seems fine. A little buggy, but nothing fatally so.

@ others

Regarding debug, the 'ramdebug' boot flag is your friend! (Don't know if PowerUp versions have it though) MUI4 stuff is a lot faster with it set.

[humppa]

Regarding debug, the 'ramdebug' boot flag is your friend! (Don't know if PowerUp versions have it though) MUI4 stuff is a lot faster with it set.

Yep, 'ramdebug' is even set as default in the PowerUP-startup-sequence.
Finally got to install MUI4 beta properly (is there any more recent version than 20060605?) and Ambient is working fine so far. No odd freezes like before. :-)
Now I only need to get some network-hardware (8139 from my Mediator is not supported of course, only option is PCMCIA now I guess?).

[Matt_H]

@ humppa

I've actually got the one from April. Could you point me to that one?

EDIT: Nevermind, found it.

[Crumb]

@Fab12&Itix

Last time I tried it out I didn't find the option. I was thinking in RightAmiga+"+" and RightAmiga+"-" to Show/Hide icons, and also RightAmiga+1/2/3/4/5 to change the view mode from icons to list by name, date, size...

I haven't tried latest build so I'll have to give it a go.

[Fab12]

Crumb,

in prefs/keyboard you can see hotkeys to cycle through available modes and submodes for a given view (numpad 5 & 8 by default). If you need more control, you can add your own hotkeys and play with internal commands.

But it's true there's no internal command to sort listview by a given attribute at the moment (will be fixed very soon).

[humppa]

Matt_H wrote:
@ humppa

I've actually got the one from April. Could you point me to that one?
EDIT: Nevermind, found it.

Not too stable actually: I always get crashes when I try to switch between "List" and "Icon" view mode in windows. I already had this before with other Ambient beta versions.
Can anybody recommend a "stable" beta release, or does somebody have a link to a recent release with debugging disabled?

[Fab12]

humppa,

This behaviour is definitely not normal, it looks like a bad mui4 installation to me. CVS versions are most of the time stable, and such obvious crash bugs don't stay long on cvs. Ultimately, if mui4 is well installed, you may try to delete ambient prefs (sys:prefs/ambient/ambient.prefs[.bak]]), in case you ran into some prefs conflict.

And a non-debug version won't change anything about your stability issues.

[humppa]

This behaviour is definitely not normal, it looks like a bad mui4 installation to me. CVS versions are most of the time stable, and such obvious crash bugs don't stay long on cvs. Ultimately, if mui4 is well installed, you may try to delete ambient prefs (sys:prefs/ambient/ambient.prefs[.bak]]), in case you ran into some prefs conflict.

Thanks, I will try that. Is there any known difference in stability between the two different MUI4 alpha versions (2005 and 06/2006)?

And a non-debug version won't change anything about your stability issues.

Yes, I know. This question was somewhat unrelated to the other ones. I was just thinking, because since the majority of MOS-users seem to be using recent CVS versions, it would be nice if there could be an intermediate non-debug version now and then.  :-)

[humppa]

Ok, some further testing. MUI4 is up and running fine. I then tried different Ambient-versions.
1.41: no crashes
1.42: no crashes when switching between Icon-view and List-view
1.43: tried several nightly builds and always Ambient crashes.
I really would like to try out the "official" 1.43 (non nightly), but the link to GGS doesn't work.

Does anybody have a working link to "Ambient_1.43.tar.gz"
The one on   this site doesn't work. Thanks!

[monty]

Quote by Crumb:

...
 you can always use ScalOS, DOpus5 (with the patch to view PNG icons)
...



Is the DOPUS5 patch also available for classic amiga ?
And where can I find it ??

[Blade]

humppa:

Well, I hope the Ambient Devs won't kill me, however I can give you one of my compiles I do from time
to time. It has debug disabled, but e.g. Icon hover effects enabled (this is one reason I do my own compiles)
However, before you download it, please note this: This is *no* official Release from the Ambient Team, so please don't
even think about to ask them if something went wrong with this particular Ambient Version! As I can't code, just accidently
know how to type make into a shell, I can't help you either. If it works for you, fine, If not, bad luck then.
Also, to avoid this archive beeing linked and spread widely, It will be online only for the next 24 hours, so get it while
it's (almost) hot (its a snapshot from 20.9.06)
Again, please don't ask for support. You can get the archive here