Conference hydra::amiga_v1

1480.0. "Recommended Utilities & WBench improvers?" by STAR::ROBINSON () Wed Jun 15 1988 16:14

     I'd like to use this topic to solicit information/reviews on the
     variety of utilities you are using with your Amigas, and to make it a
     little more interesting, could you comment on how useful or obsolete
     the utility will be when Workbench 1.3 is available. 
     
     This is the reason for my request.  I have had an Amiga 500 for a
     couple of months now, and am trying to collect all the ease-of-use
     tools I can. It seems clear that WB 1.2 can be improved
     significantly by using directory utilities, shells, mouse
     accelerators, fast font programs, recoverable ram disks etc., etc.,
     etc.  My problem is not knowing what I should download or get from
     Fred Fish disks, what is compatible or redundant with other software,
     and what commercial utilities are worth buying. (I imagine 
     early Amiga owners wondered if there would ever be such choices!)
     
     I know that asking about editors, shells etc. can  get into
     religious differences, but I suspect there is collective information
     that could help new Amiga users and others, especially when preparing
     for WB 1.3.
     
     
     There is a note about directory utilities - I think DISKMAN won
     the vote there. I downloaded it and like it. Recently people talked
     about DMOUSE and MACHxx. I downloaded DMOUSE and like it too. However,
     in looking through the notes, PD directories  and reading Amiga
     magazines I have seen mention of the following tools: 
     
     ASDG recoverable ram disk        (Obsolete with WB 1.3?)
     Blitz fonts                     (Obsolete with WB 1.3?)
     FACC
     GOMF
     runback
     conman
     DREW shell
     DME (?)
     DuIV (?)
     Disksalv
     Play*      (that is, tools to play music files)
     Show*      (that is, tools to show IFF files or animations)
     .
     .
     .
     
     I am sure there are others I have forgotten or haven't run into yet.
     
     So, if anyone thinks I should definitely seek out one of the above,
     look for a better replacement, wait for WB 1.3, or forget the whole
     thing and buy a MAC (its a joke!, its a joke!) please enlighten
     me (us).
     
     Thanks,
     Dave              
            

    
   
    >DME (?)
    
    	This is a very extensible editor written by Matt Dillon at UCB.
    (also author of Dmouse and part of the DREW/DILLON Shell.)
    
    Matt describes it as a *programmer's* editor.  Has a very large
    macro facility and the keys are easily redefinable.  Plus it of
    course iconizes and is pretty robust.
    
    	I personally haven't used it that much but some of my friends
    have and the like a whole bunch.
    
    brad
    
    ps. the last version of DME that was on USENET is in 
    	ELWOOD::USER4:[WHERRY.AMIGA.DME].  These are the shar files
    	and the unpackaged shar files.  The files *.EDRC are macro
    	definitions for DME.
    

    Blitzfonts can be tossed for V1.3 since 1.3 comes with FastFonts.
    
    I like the following utilities:
    
    o   FastFonts  for speeding up text displays
    o   SetFont  for defaulting to my own sans serif font 
                 instead of Topaz
    o   Gomf
    o   GraBBit
    o   Anytime
    o   Matt Dillon's Shell
    o   Mach 2.2
    o   Runback
    o   Nag
    o   Vscreen