From: mikeh@starnine.com (Mike Haas)
Subject: Re: More Amiga OS weaknesses and strengths
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 01:52:36 GMT
Organization: StarNine Technologies, Inc.

In article <C0CJnH.4DL@news.iastate.edu> barrett@iastate.edu (Marc N. Barrett) writes:
>In article <C0CHqr.EEB@news.udel.edu> don@chopin.udel.edu (Donald R Lloyd) writes:
>>     First of all, "doesn't do it the Mac way"  !=  "completely broken".
>>I have yet to accidentally drop something where I didn't want it.  Besides,
>>if Commodore duplicated too many finder features, they'd get into a 
>>Look and Feel battle.
>
>   Commodore has already ripped box selecting and the 3.0 palette tool from
>the Apple Macintosh.  Why stop there?
>
>>>   Another feature that is totally broken on the Amiga is launching of 
>>>applications by double-clicking a project.  On the Macintosh, when you
>>
>>     Funny, it works for me.  Must only be broken on your system.
>
>   What happens if you give a text file a project icon, enter "c:more" in
>the tooltypes for the icon, and "more" is not in the "c:" directory?  Do
>you get an "Unanble to open your tool 'c:more'" requester?  This does not
>happen on the Macintosh.

It happens on mine... to be specific, when I create an alias for an
application and move it to the desktop, double-clicking will (about
half the time) bring up a dialog box saying it can't find the
application!  I have to find the folder holding that app and open it!

THEN double-clicking on it works.  Is THIS the great UI you're talking About
Marc?

And, since I'm talking aliases...I MUST be using the great and powerful
(and slow as a dog) System 7!  I am, unfortunately.

>
>>     Hmmm... double-clicking is "totally broken", or so you said before, but
>>now you're saying it works if you've got the file in the right place?
>
>   If something works in a few cases, that does not necessarily mean that it
>isn't broken.  

Agreed, like double-clicking aliases on the mac like I describe above...
definitely broken!

>>      I'd prefer it f more folks just put a tool name (sans full path) into
>>project icons.  That way when the icon is clicked it will search the current
>>directory and the path for the appropriate tool.  This seems to be a 
>>reasonable solution.
>
>   That would not fix any of the archives on the nearly 800 Fish disks, that
>already have projects with hard-coded paths for the needed utilities.  
>Soething needs to be added to the OS so that the OS can go searching for a
>utility if it isn't found in the hard-coded path in a project's tooltypes.

NO NO... Not the Mac DESKTOP FILE!  What a repository for viruses.
Needs to be rebuilt half the time, and takes several minutes to do it!
Makes changing icons for a program confusing!

I'll take project icons that search paths ANYDAY.

>
>>[TeachText, NotePad, and AmigaGuide stuff deleted]
>>
>>     It's my understanding that via datatypes in 3.0 AmigaGuide can be
>>(is being, will be... something along those lines) extended to handle sound,
>>graphics, etc.
>
>   Will this extended AmigaGuide and all of the needed support files to
>handle graphics and sound be made standard software with the Amiga?  The
>nice thing about Macintosh TeachText is that it is ready-to-go.  You can 
>read a document with text and color graphics immediately after using the
>computer for the first time, without having to set anything up.

Load a graphic into Teachtext, THEN try to enter some text.

Sorry.  Won't do it.  Graphics OR text.

>
>>     Well, what about those under-the-surface features like pre-emptive
>>multitasking?  That's definitely "completely broken" on the Mac,
>
>   I've already admitted that, but this is comp.sys.amiga, after all.  And
>this is a discussion of the problems of the Amiga OS.  Besides, Apple manages
>to sell three times as many Macintoshes as Commodore sells Amigas, every
>year, in spite of the inelegance of the underlying Mac OS.  This shows how
>much Commodore needs to shift their priorities from the underlying OS to
>what's on the surface.

I've often wished the mac had the "Open Parent" capability on it's desktop
that WB 2.0 added.

Open a mac window that has one icon way off screen.  You have to scroll
the window over there and drag it, scroll the window, drag it, scroll
the window... to get it to be next to the others.   That's cause the
"Cleanup Window" menu item only moves icons to the next "grid" spot,
unlike the WB "CleanUp", which re-arranges all icons to be as visible
as possible.

You can temporarily move icons around on WB, without the OS forcing that
position permanently, as does the mac.  Same with windows and window
dimensions.

Amigas have always had some kind of depth arrangement capability on
their windows... unlike the Mac which forces that brain-dead "click on
it and it obscures everything else" approach.  (I can even get my Amiga
to work that way, if I want... try getting the Mac to be as versatile).

Mac icons are not only limited in size, they are fixed!  Can't be any other
size.

I've often wished the mac had a "delete" menu item on the desktop.
I detest having to find the trashcan after I've covered it up with
windows.

I LOVE how the Amiga lets me shift-select files on different volumes,
in different drawers, etc.  On the mac, they all have to be in the same
location :(

Of course, there's ARexx, the like of which has been drooled for for
a long time on the mac.

Then we can talk about user-interface features that the AMiga has always
has that the mac never will... like draggable screens.  More
recently, public screens.

The Amiga has always had a shell of some kind... the Mac?  nada.

The Amiga has always had an instantaneous response at the mouse... never
even moves "choppily".  I've lost count of the times I've clicked
on some mac control several times, tried other windows, all while
the machine was "busy", but still showing me an "arrow" cursor.
Then, when the machine became free, all those clicks came to life.
Except now, because of windows popping in fron of other windows, others
closing, etc., all my clicks are doing things I didn't want them to do!!!
Some user-interface!!! P-U-U-K-K-E-E!

Not to mention modal dialogs...  the mac makes real sure you get the
message (won't let you do anything else till you close it!!!).  I LOVE
the way I'm always able to go do something else on my Amiga... even
fix the problem the dialog is compaining about so I can click "Retry".
Oh, yeah, the Mac dialogs don't give a retry button, now do they?

And I really wish I could "snapshot" my mac hard disks and floopies
so they would appear on the Mac desktop where I want them to appear!

Then we should mention the little user-interface things like
how formatting mac floppies prevent you from doing anything else (while,
as you know, an Amiga can format a floppy in every floppy drive
attached and at the same time... and you're free to do other work
at the same time!  (That's a phrase Amigans use alot: "...at the
same time"! :-)  (A favorite phrase of mac users is" "Where can I
get a cup of coffee... maybe even a hotel room?".)

Yeah, I could go on all day about how much better the Amiga user-interface
is than the Mac's.

All of this deals with "surface features", Marc.  Too bad we're not
talking "under the hood", cause that's where the mac is a real
abortion (probably even bloody, too).  Just one example is the
"GetNewDialog()" system call which doesn't tell you if it failed or
not!  If the right DLOG, DITL or other required resource isn't there
or is corrupted, the calling program will never know and guess what???
THE COMPUTER CRASHES!!!  (Nothing new to the Mac, so I guess that's
not really a big deal, huh?)  Technically, the machine is so inferior, that
instead of fixing it, Apple released tech note #14 which lamely tries
to justify why it's OK for GetNewDialog() to NOT return an error
code!  (Basically sez if the user has mucked with a programs resources,
he DESERVES TO CRASH!)

Too bad we're NOT talking bout innards... but I understand why you
don't want to.  But I could go on all YEAR about the crap I've
seen in there.

Oh, yeah... it actually has a bearing on a very important user-interface
issue...THE MAC CRASHES A HELLUVA LOT MORE THAN ANY OTHER SYSTEM!

Now THAT's sort of a "surface thing", no?


Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy