**** ** ** ** ***** **** ** ** *** *** ** ** ** ****** ******* ** ** *** ****** ** ** ** * ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** * **** ** ** ** ** ***** ** **** * **** ***** ****** ****** ****** **** **** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** **** *** ***** ***** ****** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** *** **** **** **** ** ***** ** ** ** ***** ** v1.0 - 29-Jan-2000 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- AmigaOS 3.5 FAQ based on hints, tips and discussions on the mailinglist at Onelist (amigaOS3_5@onelist.com) This FAQ is not meant to replace the "official" version at www.amiga.com, it is an addition to provide answers to questions that appeared on the mailinglist irritatingly often :) or are worth being mentioned in an FAQ. If you have additions or corrections to the FAQ, please write to neurodancer@gmx.de (current FAQ maintainer). --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Abbreviations that may have been used: S-S = Startup-Sequence (batchfile in S:) U-S = User-Startup (batchfile in S:) W-S = WBStartup (drawer on SYS:) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Frequently Asked Questions --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q: I have a GFX board. When I open a window with a lot of icons, a large amount of chipmem is used. Why is that, and how can I avoid it? A: By default (and for compatibility reasons), OS 3.5 uses chipmem for the new icon system. It is possible to use fastmem, the option is built into the OS - but in order to flick the switch, you need a 3rd party tool, e.g. WBC or WBCtrl (in the "Contributions" drawer of the CD - more recent version however on Aminet). The most common tool is WBCtrl by Stefan Rupprecht, GFX board owners just have to add "WBCtrl IMT=FAST" somewhere in their U-S, et voila. [these two tools are NO HACKS, no patching is done. "WB2Fast" however is the one program that hacks into the OS instead of using the legal built-in methods] NOTE: WB will still use a small portion of chipmem whenever you open a window, copy files etc. etc. - why? We don't know either. This can only be avoided by using WB2Fast. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q: I don't have a GFX board - can I render the icons in fastram anyway? A: Yes, if you have an AGA Amiga, install "FBlit" and you can use WBCtrl, it is aware of the FBlit patch as of v1.3 (from Aminet, not from the CD!), and your icons will use fastram then. John Wasilewski originally compiled a summary of what to do and were for the list, so credit him. Here's the "how to" in short: Add to your S-S after the "copy ENVARC: etc." line: FBlit WBCtrl IMT=ICONFAST And then add "SIMPLEGELS" to the LoadWB command, so that the last two lines look like this: LoadWB SIMPLEGELS EndCLI --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q: What does "LoadWB SIMPLEGELS" do? A: It reverts the system to the old OS 3.1 style of selecting and dragging icons, solid and positioning one at a time. The new OS 3.5 way is greyed or dotty icons and positioning all at once. On my A1200T, SIMPLEGELS prevents the 300K Chip RAM loss when using FBlit and WBCtrl on AGA. (Michael Rye) [another user reported his system (using a BVisionPPC with CGX4) was very unstable until he used the "SIMPLEGELS" option, if you are experiencing problems you might give it a try, even if you're using a GFX board] --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q: DOpus5 does not display the new 3.5 icons, why? A: The icon format of WB 3.5 is different to previous icon formats, and it is not the NewIcons format either. You need to download the update patch for DOpus from the website of GP Software. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q: What are the programs in the "Converter-Scripts" directory for? A: These tools were not intended to be on the CD; Olaf Barthel provided the mailinglist with the following answer: ClockIcon: Tests a new AppIcon feature: in V44 workbench.library allows the owner of an AppIcon to render the icon image itself. This allows for a clock display to be updated in an AppIcon image (NB: check out the new tool "AnimatedIcon" from BoingBag1) CondenseIcons: This reads an icon, drops the planar icon image and any associated NewIcons tool types and writes the icon back to disk. This will result in space savings. Convert8ColorIcons: This reads an 8 colour image, attaches a default 8 colour palette to it and writes it back to disk. ConvertMagicWBIcons: This reads a MagicWB icon and writes it back to disk in the new V44 icon.library format (including the matching palette). ConvertNewIcons: This reads a NewIcons format icon and writes it back to disk in the new V44 icon.library format. GlowIconImage: This reads image files, applies the glow effect and writes the result to disk as a V44 format icon. ImageToIcon: This reads an image file and writes it to disk as a V44 format icon. LayoutIcon: This tests the new V44 icon.library LayoutIconA() code. StripIcons: This reads an icon, removes the NewIcons tool types or the V44 palette information and writes it back to disk. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q: Is there a way to make "DefIcons" work with OS 3.5? A: You can use "DefIcons44" (from Aminet), its the replacement for OS 3.5, even comes with a prefs editor, and is yet another useful tool by Stefan Rupprecht - Stefan, we all really owe you a big one. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q: My AWeb toolbar buttons are trashed, can I fix them? A1: This is mentioned in the original FAQ as well, but you can fix this very easily, and we on the mailinglist were the first to discover it: load the toolbar image into a GFX converter and save it as GIF. A2: Remove the "transparent" tooltype from the animation's .info file, a user reported this helps as well. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q: What do the (new) C: commands "CAPrefs", "Group" and "Owner" do? They aren't covered in the manual. A1: CAPrefs is replaced by a dummy file, see next FAQ entry. A2: Group and Owner lets you alter the owner/group flags in filesystems that supports this. They used to be part of AS225 and Envoy. Note that OS3.5 C:List now also supports users/groups options. (Kolbjørn Barmen) A3: There are some other news in with shell commands: List now finally has a sort option: List sort N = sort name List sort S = sort size List sort D = sort date (Martin Steigerwald) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q: What happened to "CAPrefs" and the "ClassAct" prefs editor? A: They are replaced with dummy files by the 3.5 installer and are needed no longer. OS 3.5's "ReAction" is the successor of ClassAct, and the prefs are initialized via the normal "IPrefs" command that is in your S-S anyway. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q: Ever since I'm using DefIcons44/TweakWB, my ENV: has grown really big due to the lot of def_xxx.info files - can't I reduce the memory usage somehow? A1: Remove default icons you really don't need ("def_tar" etc. might be a good candidate) A2: Optimize the icons using Stefan Rupprechts "CondenseIcons" (from Aminet), it can remove the old planar image from the icon, convert any NewIcons "tooltype image" :) into an OS 3.5 image, and save an optimized result. That can reduce the size of a lot of icons by 50%. Once ran, CondenseIcons can recurse into directories so you can convert A LOT of icons in one go (highly recommended for your HD's as well unless you intend to switch back to OS3.1 :-) A3: Install HappyENV (Aminet), it copies files from ENVARC: to ENV: only when they are actually requested by an application, speeding up booting and saving some RAM as well, as it is optimized for very small files. A4: Occasionally browse thru ENVARC: - often there's a lot of old config files and crap still rotting there, from programs you've deleted almost ages ago. :) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q: Why do other FAQ's still mention that RAWBInfo doesn't work with 3.5 correctly? A: Because they're poorly maintained. The latest RAWBInfo does indeed work with OS 3.5 and supports all of its features, plus a lot more that you may know from the older "SwazInfo". ---------------------------------------------------------------------------