how to fix icdrom icon position on the workbench

[yeffa]

there's a way to snapshot the cdrom( and cdda) icon on the workbench?I use OS39

thanks

[tony23]

Not as far as I know because it writes the location of the icon to its parent disk, that is your CD rom which is not writable. Thats why it says volume is write protected when you try to snapshot. It maybe possible that there is a work around that would enable it to be written to the harddrive but when you went to put in a different CD with a different icon I think things would get confused.

 I think the best way to deal with this little niggle is to snapshot your workbench without a cd in the drive leaving space for the cd icon to appear top left under the ramdisk icon then when you pop your cd in it will almost always appear in the same place but some different cd's will put their icon where ever they please. If there is a work around for this I'm sure that someone will let us know, but the way I discribed works well enough for me. :-)

[ipino]

this is a really annoying issue I fighted in the past...

If the CDROM has its own Disk.info (the cd icon itself) then you can't do so much because you can't "snap" its position and  - of course - the CDROM is read-only.

Ralph Babel created a program called CDWrite on '97 (which is unfindable) that would allow you to fakely write on cdrom by simply creating a "fake" cd device beside the real one, where data are both readable and deletable and have all changes you made: of course nothing is actually written to the cdrom; it uses a directory on your hard drive to store changed files.
It is pretty cool but as I said, no way to find it, except for that page:

http://amiga.emugaming.com/cdwrite.html

It got reviewed by an Italian magazine and they said it was cool.
Maybe they were the only one to saw it


If the CDROM has not its own icon, or it is an Audio cd, then you can do something.
The first solution is to move their def_*.info files to the ram disk and change their type ("DISK" icons are not viewable unless they are "disk.info" on the root dir) to another one.
Then move them on the window at your desired position and snapshot them.
Then restore their type and copy over the old one (in ENVARC: of course).
To change icon type use the Workbench Information window.

Another way is to follow FAQ 2.0 of the unofficial OS 3.9 FAQ:

it says to grab a working version of MakeLink from either util/misc/beckermakelink.lha or gfx/show/Visage.lha (of course only if you use FFS), because the OS3.9' makelink doesn't support softlinks.

Then, follow these steps (copy'n'pasted from the faq):

Then follow these steps:

- Rename your preferred RAM disk icon as "def_ram.info" and copy it to ENVARC:Sys/.
- Put the following line in your S:User-Startup file:
C:MakeLink RAM:disk.info ENVARC:SYS/def_RAM.info soft
- Save the S:User-Startup file, and reboot; your preferred icon will now be used.

You can apply this to the def_CDDA.info too, of course.

The latter method is the one I use on my system.

[Hope my english is understandable ]

EDIT: another solution is to directly snap the def_*.info in ENVARC: (I assume you use DefIcons) with the shell program "IconPos". It's in the Workbench Install disk (C/IconPos), in the Amithlon/AmigaOSXL cd (AmigaWriter/C/IconPos),
dunno where on the OS 3.9 cd, but some archive on Aminet have it.


/ipino

[tony23]

@ ipino

Hey, Thanks for the info. :-)
I knew there must of been a way to do it, I just didn't know how. Thanks.

But I think I'll just let my icons show where they want,
as like I said they usually go to the same place just under the ram disk unless they have an icon that wants to go wherever it wants, in which case it doesn't really bother me that much. I can always drag it to some place else anyways.

 Oh, and by the way your english is very understandable. :-)

[Croyzers]

There is a sneaky way if you know a bit of Arexx. With wb3.5/3.9 there is an Arexx command ICON name MOVE x y. I battled with it for a while. One of my solutions was to build up a list of cd-rom names into a text file and then test to see if any of the icon names matched up to it. Then (using FKEY) used a diskinserted command to call my arexx script.
However, this is not ideal. My current solution is to store the names of my hds in a text file and the current position and then any icon that doesn't match I move to the bottom right of my corner.
I will upload the arexx script (along with other goodies such as a Filter for workbench, OpenWith menu option) into Aminet this weekend if you would like to see them

[lempkee]

disable icons and use directory opus magellan 2 , thats what i do

case solved

[pVC]

I have been using CDWrite for years now. It's nice little program for many uses I used to rename CD:s with it when I didn't have yet registered MakeCD (and all data cd:s were named as UNREGISTERED) and playing games from cd:s and saving prefs or games on the cd etc.. and adding/changing icons and positions.. very useful sometimes

I have DOpus Magellan2 as Workbench replacement too.. there you can define where do different types of icons appear. For example drive icons appear on defined area on top of the screen and appicons go to somewhere bottom on the screen etc. You can have as many areas as you want and you can give them priorities etc. Very useful and should be in new OS:es.

[Croyzers]

Yeah, I agree. Workbench needs a serious update. Icon positioning is very poor. I can remember before Workbench3.5 having to position my hd icons on the bottom of the screen if I had a cdrom in when booting. The menus are in a terrible mess also. It doesn't look like that workbench has been updated much for OS4.0. I'm not talking about the actual OS but the file-manager part of it.

[ipino]

I think there is just a really small amount of people that use the classic Workbench... you are right, it's poor and in the past there were some attempts to make it better, multithread, multi-whatever-you-want (MBench, ScalOS, another one I don't remember, and then of course DOpus 5)

The OS3.5 WB has been improved but it's still the same stuff as before.
One positive point is the ARexx interface.

Menus are the same since WB 2.0 and MagicMenu is a patch/hack to mitigate (?) their horrible look.

I saw some screenshot of MorphOS's Ambient enviroment and it seems cool.. ok it's just a "collage" of various Amiga programs (MUI, AHI, VisualPrefs) put together but who cares... it's cool IMHO...

[Croyzers]

The ambient screens are gorgeous! Check out Ambient gallery to view them. The menus seem to need updating but it is an improvement. Some icons at the top of the window for Going up a level/ Cut/Copy/Paste and Filter could make all the difference.
I think you might be suprised by how many users are still using the normal Workbench. I tried Scalos but its a nightmare to configure. I did try the version of Dopus5 that came on cu amiga cd but thought the commercial version was way too expensive. MBench just crashes for me.
Didn't HyperIon have a deal going with GPSoftware over Dopus5? I remember Greg Perry posting here some months back. It would be ace to have that as the default workbench!

[edit: had submitted before previewing]

[ipino]

DOpus Magellan is a nightmare to configure as well !

Oh I got the name of the missing WB replacement.. it's JazzBench (util/wb), and of course I didn't test it.

I tried Scalos in the AIAB package (I dl'ed it just for fun, I think it is for people too lazy to build a custom WB enviroment) and it seems fine, not as powerful as Magellan 2, but enjoyable.
I'm planning to install it on my A1200 (it has 3.9 but sucks with just 16MB fast)

[pVC]

"I did try the version of Dopus5 that came on cu amiga cd but thought the commercial version was way too expensive."

Too expensive? It wasn't that much more than normal new commercial game. And the usability value is at least 100x I think it was worth every cent.. professional quality user manuals and everything. Those who have tried pre Magellan2 versions without manuals have no idea how mature and good it became at the end... 5.0 - 5.6x had still some flaws, but since 5.8 it rocks and I couldn't use Amiga without it anymore Can't understand why to stick with old WB and dreaming about new features and versions, when you could have had them with Mag2 years ago

[Croyzers]

@pvc

5.0 - 5.6x had still some flaws, but since 5.8 it rocks and I couldn't use Amiga without it anymore Can't understand why to stick with old WB and dreaming about new features and versions, when you could have had them with Mag2 years ago

The version I used had some pretty serious flaws. I was constantly switching to/from Workbench. I don't know how much it was in Finland but in the UK it was 50 pounds and then an upgrade was in the region of 25 pounds.  And this was just for a file manager? I have no doubt Magellan was fantastic but I couldn't justify the price for an upgrade from Dopus4. And, before you say anything, I don't have a tight wallet because I'm from Scotland! I have full versions of DrawStudio, ImageFX, MakeCD, NetConnect3, TurboPrint and lots of registered software too. :-)  <\boast>

But my point was, that with AmigaOS being updated (which is fantastic) Workbench seems to be stuck in 1985. The menus have barely changed (if at all). Sure, the colour scheme has improved, the icons look better, and we have AmiDock, but thats it. The basic design and layout is exactly the same since WB1.0. For OS4.0 to shine, we need stuff like Context Sensitive Pop Up Menus, more powerful windows, Sort by Filetype, Sort Folders first and lots more. All of this has to come set up and with minimal user configuration.

This isn't a dig at HyperIon or GPSoftware or anybody. I just feel that Workbench is seriously lacking and drastically needs updated.

[pVC]

"The version I used had some pretty serious flaws. I was constantly switching to/from Workbench."

Magellan1 still had those flaws which kept me from using it as WBR. I was mainly using DOpus4 and WB until Magellan2 came.

"I don't know how much it was in Finland but in the UK it was 50 pounds and then an upgrade was in the region of 25 pounds."

It was under 50 pounds when I bought full version of Magellan2. It included 5.5 disks and Mag2 upgrade disk + all manuals.
I was using pirated version of Mag2 for year, but when I still was founding nice features, which I didn't have noticed without manuals and because it was damn good program, I finally decided to buy it And haven't regret it.

"And this was just for a file manager?"

That's underestimation.. it's much much more than just a filemanager. It's like new version of OS.. much better update for 3.1 than 3.5/3.9 were. And it will replace many patches and programs with single and system friendly solution. For example it has best ftp client that you can get for Amiga... built in.

"But my point was, that with AmigaOS being updated (which is fantastic) Workbench seems to be stuck in 1985. The menus have barely changed (if at all). Sure, the colour scheme has improved, the icons look better, and we have AmiDock, but thats it."

That's exactly where Magellan2 steps in

[Croyzers]

@pVC

Good on you for buying the full version of Dopus! Still, you shouldn't have been using the pirated version in the first place though... Naughty boy.
I completely agree that Dopus does blow Workbench out of the water. A lot of people are extremely happy with it. I am not knocking them. My main point is that Workbench should have this level of useability as standard. There should be no need to buy a seperate package. This is especially true for Workbench4.0 which will need to shine in all respects if it is to out-grow the current market.
Ok. I'm sounding like a moaning git now. I'm a compotent C++ programmer. I think maybe its time I put StormC to the test and implement some of my ideas.