Conference hydra::amiga_v1

2181.0. "Browser" by LEDS::ACCIARDI (Man Dies Laughing - Film at 11:00) Wed Feb 01 1989 00:06

    
    If you liked Zippy and HandyIcons, you'll love Browser.  Written
    by Amiga guru Peter DaSilva, Browser addresses many of the deficiencies
    of WorkBench.
    
    Browser open a standard window on you Workbench screen.  Within
    this window are text entries of all mounted devices, and (in a
    different colour) all logical assignments.  By double-clicking on
    any entry, a new window will open displaying the contents of that
    directory.
    
    Boring, right?  Well, by double-clicking on any WB executable, the
    file will load and run, as if you had launched it from WB.
    
    Still boring, right?  Well, what if a file has no icon and can only
    be launced from CLI?  Browser has several ways to handle this. 
    First, you can install it as a 'CLI TOOL' from a WorkBench menu.
    Or, you can build a small script file that auto-configures Browser
    any way you like, much like Zippy.
    
    Still boring, right?  Well, by picking up any text entry from a
    window with the mouse, you can copy any file into any other open
    Browser window.  Extended select also works.  You can also pass
    any selectable window item to a CLI or Shell command.
    
    So, you could summarize by saying that Browser allows you to perform
    any WB or CLI operation on any file, whether or not it has an
    associated Icon.
    
    What is really sexy is the unlimited ways in which you can completely
    customize your Workbench.  I find this very exciting; in fact, I
    believe that one of the NeXT machine's strongest features is it's
    completely customizable interface.
    
    The author believes that WB 1.4 will probably look somehting like
    Browser.  It's so good that I'd have to agree with him.
    
    Since I forgot to include it with the archive, here's my own 
    s:Browser.inittab file that I parse at boot time...
    
    
    Tools.Run;CLI;Run;4000;CON:0/210/175/50/Running...
    Tools.Execute;CLI;Execute;4000;CON:0/210/175/50/Batch File...
    Tools.Read Text;WB;More
    Tools.Edit Text;CLI;Ed;4000;CON:0/210/175/50/Editing...
    Tools.Print Text;CLI;Type >PRT:;4000;CON:0/210/175/50/Printing...
    Tools.File Info;CLI;c:FileInfo;4000;CON:0/210/175/50/Getting Info...
    
    Utility.Show Pic;CLI;c:Show;4000;CON:0/210/175/50/Showing...
    Utility.Play Sound;CLI;c:Sound;4000;CON:0/210/175/50/Listen...	
    Utility.NewZap;CLI;dh0:Utilities/NewZap;4000;CON:0/210/175/50/Zapping...
    Utility.Change Font;CLI;c:FF >NIL:;4000;CON:0/210/175/50/GettingFont...
    
    Browser has it's own built-in Menu items that deal with opening
    and closing files and adding or deleting functions.  This small
    script file merely adds to the existing Browser menus.
    
    The first field in each line is the Menu name that the function
    will appear under.  The second field is what will actually appear
    in the menu slot when selected.  The third field is the path/command
    to pass to Browser.  (Note that most of my commands are made resident,
    hence no path is specified).  The fourth field is an optional stack
    size, and the last field specifies a console window for Browser
    to communicate with Workbench.
    
    I have noticed a few peculiarities with this version of Browser;
    the author has acknowledged some bugs and promises updates.  Play
    around with this; I think it's a taste of what WorkBench will head
    towards in the future.
    
    I've placed the file in NORSE""::AMIGA:[UPLOAD] for now.  The file
    is an ARC 128 byte fixed lenght format.
    
    Ed.
    
                  
                                                      
    

    I've been using Browser for a few months and find that it is pretty
    good.  My only complaint is that the screen refresh for all those
    windows really slows down response time.
    
    Randy
    

I think that a combination of CHIP RAM/CPU contention and a bug in the 
Layers Library "Slicing and Dicing" routines. After moving a few windows
around, things get real slooow (I believe it's a fragmentation problem
in layers?).

This is supposed to be fixed in 1.4

John