What's with all the broken icons (OS4)?

[Aegis]

Hey everyone - I've lost track of the amount of apps I've downloaded from OS4depot with busted icons (a PNG.info instead of a *real* .info) - anyone know a quick way to fix this?

Also, *damn* the OS4 coders like to rely on third-party libraries and sObj's - I don't remember it ever being quite this bad on 3.x or it that the rose-tinted glasses??

[cgutjahr]

anyone know a quick way to fix this?

OS4's icon.library supports plugins, there one for PNG images which can be downloaded here.

Apparently, the icon designers have that installed and never bother to convert their icons into AmigaOS format, so most users simply install said plugin aswell.

Also, *damn* the OS4 coders like to rely on third-party libraries and sObj's - I don't remember it ever being quite this bad on 3.x or it that the rose-tinted glasses??

Everything requiring "sObjs" has been ported from Linux - over there, you don't have to install dependencies manually (the system does that for you) so having lots of dependencies is not a big deal.

That kind of (complex) software never got ported to OS3, so it's up to you to decide if having it and thus suffering from 'sobj hell' is better or worse than not having it

I don't remember the amount of external libraries required by actual Amiga software being worse than on OS3. The only difference is that with OS3, you probably installed most of the dependencies (MUI?, MCCs X, Y and Z (the latter only in version beta.gamma please) Reqtools?, asyncio.library?...) some 15 to 20 years ago - so you already forgot about it

[eliyahu]

@Aegis

not sure why this isn't included, but try installing the PNG icon module from os4depot.net (download link). you'll need to install it in LIBS:IconModules and restart workbench. i remember doing this on my SAM years and years ago, but i haven't had to on any of my machines since. i wonder if it wasn't included in the classic version for some reason? no idea.

as for third-party libraries, loads of OS3.x software requires the same in my experience. was there some specific software you were referring to?

edit: cgutjahr beat me to the submit button. heh.

-- eliyahu

[Aegis]

Thanks guys - I downloaded png_im and it works as you said - still having problens installing/running software though - in this case it's Fuse for OS4.

It says it needs libbz2 (only after you run it, after installing png_im so you *can* run it) so I go download that, libbz2 says I need to enter the following:

Copy SDK/#? ALL SDK:
MakeLink SOFT SDK:local/newlib/lib/libbz2.so libbz2.so.1.0

Except I don't have an SDK assign (of course) - I dunno - I hate to be mean-spirited about free software but stuff like this is so sloppy.

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Dumb question, but does the Peter K. icon library work with OS4?  AFAIK it supports PNG icons natively.

[cha05e90]

Dumb question, but does the Peter K. icon library work with OS4?  AFAIK it supports PNG icons natively.

No. And it's not necessary, just drop in the png icon module and you're done. No magic.

[chris]

Thanks guys - I downloaded png_im and it works as you said - still having problens installing/running software though - in this case it's Fuse for OS4.

The emulator?  (your link doesn't work)

That probably needs rebuilding (new version) - without SObjs.

It says it needs libbz2 (only after you run it, after installing png_im so you *can* run it)

I wasn't aware it was a PNG icon.  That is sloppy, I don't normally do that, but then my icons usually come from elsewhere so if I don't realise it's PNG I won't convert it.  Although I can't actually remember how to convert them off-hand.

so I go download that, libbz2 says I need to enter the following:

Copy SDK/#? ALL SDK:
MakeLink SOFT SDK:local/newlib/lib/libbz2.so libbz2.so.1.0

Except I don't have an SDK assign (of course) - I dunno - I hate to be mean-spirited about free software but stuff like this is so sloppy.

Copy the libbz2.so to SObjs, then run:
MakeLink SOFT SObjs:libbz2.so SObjs:libbz2.so.1.0
(you may not even need the makelink)

[cha05e90]

Except I don't have an SDK assign (of course) - I dunno - I hate to be mean-spirited about free software but stuff like this is so sloppy.

It's not that complicated. *.library goes to LIBS: (like always) and *.so goes to SOBJS:.

Funny, it's still the same like 20 years ago ;-) In the end you might ask the author/porter of Fuse why the hell he didn't include the *.so into his Fuse package.

[chris]

In the end you might ask the author/porter of Fuse why the hell he didn't include the *.so into his Fuse package.

You could do that, but all I'd tell you is that I can't even remember what I was doing last week, let alone four years ago!

[cha05e90]

You could do that, but all I'd tell you is that I can't even remember what I was doing last week, let alone four years ago!

Of course.. ;-) ...nothing wrong with that.

The same is (often) true for AmigaOS standard *.libraries - sometimes "3rd party" libs were included, sometimes not...I'm used to this, I'm an Amiga user... :-)

[chris]

The same is (often) true for AmigaOS standard *.libraries - sometimes "3rd party" libs were included, sometimes not...I'm used to this, I'm an Amiga user... :-)

The problem with including 3rd party libraries, is you then need to include all the licensing guff (if it is allowed to be re-distributed in this manner at all), and the chances are the damn thing is out-of-date by the time you've even uploaded the archive containing it.

It is objectively "better" for the 3rd party libraries to be installed from their own distribution archives.  But that doesn't necessarily help when the distribution archives are aimed at developers, have no Installer, or are for some reason on the author's own site only and deleted when they rage-quit the platform eight years ago.  Or whatever.  And it makes things more difficult for users to install.

[Aegis]

Hey everyone - thanks for replying!

Chris - it's great to hear from you in this thread and I appreciate that stuff can slip through.

As I mentioned, I hate to be critical of software that people like yourself have dedicated time and energy to and made available to the community for free - without contributors such as yourself the Amiga community would have disappeared a long time ago.

That said, (and this is a general observation, not directed specifically at you) I'm a stickler for things 'working out of the box' - everything I do I have the user in mind and were I to create some software for the community (ha! I wish) then I'd make sure that any dependencies are mentioned in the documentation - not just what they are, but where to find them and where to install them.

WinUAE's just about to become significantly more useful with the 3.3.0 update and I've been testing a lot of apps and games with it to uncover bugs and also to form the basis of a beginners guide to getting OS4 running optimally under emulation - something that's been made quite frustrating by the large amount of undocumented dependencies I'm finding in OS4 apps and games.

Snoopy's useful in tracking down what's missing in a given app but the user really shouldn't have to - there's tons of software on os4depot that I've quite simply discounted from mentioning in my guide since I've been unable to get it working in a reasonable time-frame.

[eliyahu]

... my icons usually come from elsewhere so if I don't realise it's PNG I won't convert it.  Although I can't actually remember how to convert them off-hand.

i just use ssolie's converter: http://os4depot.net/index.php?function=showfile&file=graphics/convert/pngicon2amiga.lha

-- eliyahu

[chris]

As I mentioned, I hate to be critical of software that people like yourself have dedicated time and energy to and made available to the community for free - without contributors such as yourself the Amiga community would have disappeared a long time ago.

Your complaints in this instance are entirely justified, and if I'd encountered them I would probably have been complaining too.

The only reason I have the PNG iconmodule installed myself, is because I got fed up of downloading archives with broken icons!

FUSE is in need of an update anyway.

@eliyahu
Thanks, I'll try to remember that one.

[Aegis]

Well I got it working turns out I already had the SOBJs I needed, I just had to make soft links for the versions Fuse was looking for - in this case:

libbz2.so.1.0
libxml2.so.9

I guess after you've been using OS4 for a while this becomes second nature but it's a big gotcha to newbies like me (and somehow I got a ton of stuff working without having to do this at all) - the only other soft links I have in SOBJs are for libz and libpng and I'm pretty sure I didn't make those

Regarding Fuse, (and again, I'm not picking on you Chris - it's just as good an example as many I've encountered) - here's the readme:

This is a port of fuse 1.0.0.1

The Amiga port supports decompression of files using xfdmaster.library,
and uses ASL for the file requesters.

32-bit Deficons are included for the main Spectrum file types, courtesy
of Ken "Ken's Icons" Lester.

See XFD.OS4 and Icons.OS4 files in the Docs directory for more info on
the above.  For general information about Fuse, see
http://fuse-emulator.sourceforge.net

I'd love it if you and other devs would stick notes for any dependencies in here - and telling users they need to hit F1 to bring up the Fuse menu wouldn't hurt either since by default it launches fullscreen. (I found it in the fuse.guide but you know what us users are like )

One last general gripe - *what* is with all these OS4 apps that have console windows you have to >NIL: away to get rid of? Must be a developer thing but I hate seeing these - could we not have a tooltype to hide them (and God yes, *please* use and document tooltypes ).

Fuse is very slick though Chris and runs nicely under WinUAE/OS4 - thanks for taking the time to port it!