Conference hydra::amiga_v1

    Ed, those are really quite good.  No flicker either. 
    ( My colors are 0 = Dark blue, 1 = med Grey, 2 = Black, 3 = Cyan )
    
    The rumors are that WB 1.4 has a new look to it.  Commodore has
    hired some artists to give it a more professional appearance.
    We'll see.
    
    ~Steve

    
    Well, I found out in my pre-FlickerFixer days that the best way to
    minimize the interlace blues is by selecting colors that have a minimal
    change in value across all color registers.  This does not restrict
    you to shades of gray, as I've used here.
    
    Ed.

    Nice job, Ed
    
    I tried to make some up like that a while ago, but I'm still stuck in
    the "nice stick figure" school of art :-)
    
    I've actually gotten used to using the default WB colors in interlace,
    I just sit back far enougth from the monitor so it isn't too painful,
    and use a more program that displays on it's own 640x200 screen.
    
    I loved the drawer and ram disk icons.  That reminds me, have you
    heard of any program that does icon animations, similar to that pointer
    animate program?  I figure if NeXt can make greyscale desktops
    popular, maybe the Amiga can make animated desktops popular.
    
    -Dave

    
    Animated icons?  Seems I have heard about them, but I never cared
    enough to follow it through...  Maybe the next time my kid decides that
    we should have another 'family evening' at 3:00 AM...
                                   
    Ed.
    

I'd like to see some real animated icons too. Sometimes people call those
two-picture icons animated, but they need a new name. One thing the NeXT has
is a little spinning wheel picture ( I don't remeber if it was an icon or not)
when you do reads and writes to disk (disc). That would be nicer than trying
to read the drive light sometimes.

Dave

    How about modifying them to include more colors for those that use
    an 8 color workbench?

    How about making them with a little musical score.... 8^)
    
    No really, thanks Ed!

    re:.7
    
    now that you mentioned it... iconx will let you run your musical
    score as part of a script file associated with the icon.  It might
    be possible to also include some program in that script file that
    does that flipping of the icon image.  I guess the trick would be
    to do it someway so that Intuition doesn't get upset.
    
    -Dave 

    The latest Jump Disk has an annimated icon program.I ran it and
    while thay sound nice now I don't know if I'd be able to live with
    it on a fulltime basis.If you open a drawer with a fair amount of
    icons it looks awfull busy.I consider it more a hack,than a utility.
    Also if I had a one meg system I would not waste resources just
    to see my icons jump,spin,swivel,pulsate,erupt......
    								bill

    As an after thought.If you can live with animated icons,then do
    don't need a flicker fixer.The icons I saw move at all times not
    only when you activated them.I think they would Enhance the interlace
    mode if you get my drift.
    								bill

    And animated icons would give you a visual indication of how busy your
    system was.  Sorta like the flashing lights on the memory cabinets from
    long ago or the dancing leds from PDP-11s front panels.  I too would
    find it very distracting to have all of the icons animated, but a few
    would be nice.  How about a simple animated digital clock icon?
    or a mill tower with a ticking clock face?   A null job rotating LED
    display would be fun too.  Sounds like I need to get the Jump disk
    mentioned earlier with the Icon animator.
    
    Ed, I like the shading technique you used.  I've used iconmaster
    before, but never figured out how to get a 3d effect from the patterns
    available.  Thanks for the leg up.  Now to convert all my icons into
    3d!  You're right it does make a big difference in appearence.
    
    thanks,
    dennis

    Well, I liked Ed's 3D icons so much that I was inspired to produce a
    whole new set!  Take a look, and let me know what you think of them.
    
    I uploaded them to TAPE::USER2:[UPLOAD]MOORE_ICONS.LZH
    
    (I'm not sure the upload worked, I'm having difficulty getting XMODEM
    to work for uploading...  Yell at me if the archive is messed up.)

    Ditto on Ed's icons.  I put them on dh0 and dh1 and they look great!
    Also used Ed's grey-scale workbench and like that too.  I never cared
    for a lot of unecessary color in programs.  
    
    I would like to get a copy of Iconmaster.  Is it a commercial program
    or is on the network somewhere?.  I looked in Tape:: but couldn't find
    it unless it is in one of the zooed fish disks.
    
    Ken
    

    Try -
    
    WJG::AMIGA:ICONMASTER.ZOO
    
    

    re: .12
    The archive I originally posted Thursday morning was bad (truncated),
    so I've replaced it with a good copy.

First there was the 4 color workbench, then 8 colors.

Now there's the 4096 color workbench.  There is a new public 
domain hack called HAMbench that allows you to create a 4096 
color workbench.  There is even an icon converter that allows you 
to take a HAM brush and convert it into an icon.

The program isn't perfect, but it does allow you to select the 
resolution mode and number of bit planes for display.

Now the bad news:  The program I have came on a disk with my 
AmigoTimes magazine.  I don't have any way of uploading it 
because my system is in the shop.  I have a feeling that it is 
available from Plink or some other public domain source if you 
really feel compelled to check it out.

It does work, but it is real slow and there are a few bugs.

Try THAT on your Mac!

Randy

    re:.16
    
    It also is low resolution (320x200).  Ham gives you nice colors
    but could you really stand for a 40 column workbench very long?
    
    -Dave

    Question: How do I download and decode (or vice-versa) an .LZH file???

    Use lharc, a archival utility similar to arc and zoo, but better
    in some regards.
    
    Find the latest version at: wjg::amiga:lharc10.arc
    
    For quick directions: Amiga> lharc
    
    ~Steve

>                      <<< Note 3207.7 by HPSTEK::SENNA >>>
>                           -< ...and how about... >-
>
>    How about making them with a little musical score.... 8^)

    There was a recent note (3264) in the Mac conference about the ability
    of the Finder (V6.0.4) to play audio whilst doing an activity (emptying
    the trashcan results in a toilet flush). (Will Apple replace their
    copyrighted trashcan with a jonny? ;-) If they can do that on a Mac, 
    just think of the possibilities on an Amiga! 

   re: .20  That multimedia presentation war is really heating up.
    First it was a program that made some sounds when a disk was 
    inserted or ejected, then I hear about the music played when
    the system boots up, and now this.  Is Chatterbox up to this
    latest challenge? 

    I've been meaning to update this note with this excerpt from
    the DogUgly discussion on Usenet.  There really is a system
    that has animated icons!
         
>We recently installed the new Silicon Graphics release on our Iris.
>Wow!. Take NextStep, advance it 10 years and make it work with 24-bit
>color and that's what you have. On one demo, you open up a window, and
>in the window are 4 REAL big buttons, rendered in 3-D. Clicking on a 
>button will cause it be become animated. It will in real-time, tumble out
>towards you, flipping over. On the back side of the button are more buttons.
>This button then fills up the window with its back, giving you more selections.
>Real flashy stuff.
>                                                      *** mike smithwick ***
 
    -Dave

Kinda related.  In my travels I discovered that Business Land in Framingham
Mass. on Rt 9 has a NeXT for us to play with!!!

Anyone interested in taking a ride over some day?

John

    Concerning icons with sound:
    
    	Great! When will we have it? :-)

        
    Concerning NeXT:
    
    If you end up  over there, take note of the icons, pointers, menus,
    etc and try to reproduce them.
    
    Better yet - Find some way to digitize the screen :-)
    

I took a trip up to ZKO a few weeks ago, and played with their NeXT.
It really is a very slick machine.  NextStep is VERY visually appealing,
with great use being made of the the 4 `colors' (white, lt gray, med gray,
black).  The gadgetry and icons are VERY well done and artistically
rendered by the DisplayPostscript.

The quality and functionality of the `system' software is outstanding.
There is a lot of really good stuff on the disk: ray tracer, molecular
modeling, FrameMaker, Mathmatica, MonsterScope (oscilloscope), a nice
GNU chess, flight simulator, IB, etc, etc.  I didn't have time to really
use all of it, but they all appear to be very useful.  What is the
estimated value of this software - it must be quite high.  The integration
is the key.

One demo has the 68882 head-to-head against the DSP in a `fractal battle'.
The DSP calculates the fractal in 1/2 the time of the 68882, using 
integer math.  Most of the demos are quite weak, and involve very 
simple animation - title manipulation.  Nothing close to what we've
seen on 'Amy'.

The 68030 is still the workhorse of the system, doing all graphics - including
actually moving the windows (NOT just the outline).  It's also responsible
for calculating the PostScript output for the attached printer. ( Go get
coffee when you start printing.) The sound from the DSPs is fantastic.  
The voice mail is a real novelty, perhaps someday on our VAXstations...

The optical drive is a real dog.  System performance is quite good, until
you have to start paging/swapping (whatever Mach does), or until you have
to load one of the large utilities.  At this point go and get lunch!
The seek and transfer times were real slow!  

The one feeling I had after using it for about 4 hours was: 

"I can do all of this on my Amiga."

If Commodore-Amiga had established some really artistic guidelines for their
screens/windows/UI's, and had convinced the top software houses to produce
Amiga software - it could easily be the equal of the NeXT in looks and
functionality.  Add an audio digitizer, and you're all set.

I think that the Amiga WorkBench with 4 colors (not greys) could look every
bit as good as the NeXTs.  The icons we've seen here, along with some of the
improved UI's, have shown us that.  Support 3 bitplanes, and watch out!

Let's hope that WB V1.4 addresses some of these issues.  It's not that our
Amigas aren't as capable, they just don't look/feel quite as good doing 
their work.

~Steve

    
    The rumors on comp.sys.amiga are that CBM indeed had a graphic artist
    work on the look of 1.4.
    
    Ed.

    I've uploaded an updated version of my icons to:
        TAPE::USER2:[UPLOAD]MOORE_3D_ICONS.LZH
    
    Here is the text from the .README file....
    
                                 Moore 3D Icons!
                               (by W. Bruce Moore)

    These icon images all have surrounding 'pushbuttons', similar to the new
    style for Workbench 2.0.  Below is a list of the icons included in this
    archive:


    Disk Icons
    ----------
    RamDisk.info
        Copy this to "RAM:Disk.info" (or "RAD:Disk.info") before loading
        your workbench.  This pushbutton (as with all these icons) depresses
        'into the screen' when selected.

    HardDisk.info
        Name this one as "Disk.info" on each hard drive partition.

    FloppyDisk.info
        Use it as "Disk.info" on your favorite Amiga diskettes.  Watch the
        floppy slide into the drive as you select this icon!


    Directory Icons
    ---------------
    Empty.info
        Ed's drawer icon, touched up just a bit.  The drawer 'slides out'
        when selected.

    Prefs.info
        The same drawer icon with a question mark (?) stuck onto its face.

    NewFolder.info
        'Folder' style directory icon.  I use this one inside drawers.

    Trashcan.info
        This is a mirror image of the standard trashcan icon (shadow cast
        in same direction as other icons) with surrounding button added.


    Application Icons
    -----------------
    Shell.info
        Standard Shell icon, updated with matching button.


    Colors
    ------
    Since color settings can affect how the icons appear, here are some of my
    favorites to start with:

                     | Med. Gray |  White  |  Black  |  Amber* | Lt. Blue* |
        -------------+-----------+---------+---------+---------+-----------+
        Red slider   |    02     |    13   |    00   |    12   |    02     |
        Green slider |    03     |    13   |    00   |    08   |    09     |
        Blue slider  |    04     |    14   |    00   |    04   |    12     |
                     * Choose either Amber or Lt. Blue for 4th (accent) color.


    That's all for now.  Enjoy...

                                                      - Bruce -

    Here's another bit of 3D hackery...
    
    I've been using a program called NewLook for about a year.  This
    program replaces various window gadget images with more pleasing
    versions.  Since the 3D icons turned out so well, I decided to try
    a similar style for the window gadgets.
    
    I "NewZapped" my new images into the NewLook program, and uploaded
    it to:
    	TAPE::USER2:[UPLOAD]NewLook3D.ZOO
    
    Enjoy!  8)
    

>    Here's another bit of 3D hackery...
    

Cool! Great Job, Bruce!

I've been using NewLook for some time now but wasn't overly thrilled with
a couple of it's gadgets (esp the close window - eech!)

john

    I've updated NewLook3D with minor cosmetic improvements on the "to
    front" gadget and added a 3D resize button.  In the same place:
    
    	TAPE::USER2:[UPLOAD]NewLook3D.ZOO
    
    Since TAPE is expected to be unavailable for the next few days, I'll
    make a temporary copy available from:
    
    	COPEK""::NewLook3D.ZOO
    (It's in the default FAL directory on COPEK)
    

And I was about to complain about the resize gadget :-) :-) 

john

    The resize gadget is smaller, so it took me a while to come up with a
    shape that was recognizable and had the right "look"...