From: don@chopin.udel.edu (Donald R Lloyd)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: Screenshots: Results:
Date: 17 Dec 92 16:53:46 GMT
Organization: University of Delaware

das9674@usl.edu (Stephenson Daniel A) writes:
>
>Well, OS/2 2.0's WorkPlace Shell has proprtional scrollbars.  I happen to
>think think they look better than the WorkBench's, but that's my opinion.
>On OS/2, they're 'squishy' in a 3D fashion.

     "Squishy"?  

>I can see the merits of have the scroll up/down buttons close togather.  I'm
>just not used to it.
>
>Also, with the Workbemch, when an apps dispalys text, when you click and hold
>to the proportional scrollbar, and MOVE it up and down to view text, does the
>text actively move up and down at the same time?  That's something Windows doesn't 
>have and should, and OS/2 does.

     Yes, the text moves as the scroll bar is dragged.  And much faster than
any text scrolling I've seen under Windows, I might add ;-).  (Haven't played
with OS/2 enough to comment on its scroll bars).

>Another thing which, IMO, would really help out the WorkBench.  That would
>be the ability to change the windows size by grabbing onto ANY side of the 
>window and dragging it, like yo can do in OS/2, Windows, and X.  The WorkBench 
>is Macintish-esque like this.

     I guess this would be useful; really haven't thought about it.  When using
Windows I generally find myself resizing from the lower right out of habit :-).

>Do the WorkBench gadgets 'squish' down like in OS/2 or X?  While it is not too
>super important, it is nice.

     "Squish" again?  If you mean its colors changed to give it a recessed
look, then yes.

>It would be nice if the Workbench could have alterations to the fonts on window
>titles, like italics, Bold, outline, strikeout, etc.  Windows doesn't do it, but
>OS/2 does.  Again, it is a nicety thing.

     Not sure why this one was never put in.  It's easy enough to change the
font, but not the style, in menus/titles/etc.  (I can just hear MB now...
"The Amiga is DOOMED DOOMED DOOMED because CBM didn't take my advice and
add a way to have my workbench title text in bold underlined print!" :-)


>Can the WorkBemch gurus out there try to comment on the really whiz-bang
>aspect to custmization of the workbench?

     One two-word comment:      Commodities Exchange.


>Also, you hires WorkBench people have GOT to get some decent icons!!  Man,
>lots of Skip's icons looked all flattened-out like!

     Yeah, there are a lot of ugly ones out there; lots were left over from
the 1.3 days.  It also seems like some software developers have some kind
of fetish for shipping their products with 250x180 icons, which get replaced
almost instantaneously on my system by normal-sized ones.
     Does OS/2 2.0 allow icons of different sizes, or is it limited to something
like 32x32 (which I believe is the legal icon size in Win3.1)?  The huge icons
are an annoying drawback to this particular bit of flexibility, but I like
being able to vary the dimensions of icons a little.


>One think I wish there was more of is OS/2 is more active icons.  With the AMmiga,
>I understand that when you activate the icon, it might DO something.  In
>OS/2, all you get is a hash marking behind it to let you know it is active.
>Like, I think I rememebr a friend showing to me on his A500 how a fish icon
>(a really big cartoony icon) closes its mouth when you click on it.

     In addition to this, there's a PD program called ToolManager that lets you
create a 'dock' and/or a series of AppIcons(as explained earlier in this
thread, I think) whose inactive icon is the first frame of an animation.
When something is dragged onto the icon or it gets double-clicked (or 
clicked in the case of the dock), the rest of the anim plays.  Not overly
useful, but there for those who want it.
     I also run a PD program called ARQ which inserts little animations into
system requesters.  For instance, when I try to delete files from the WB,
I get a requester that asks "are you sure", tells me how many files and 
directories I'm about to delete, and shows a little anim of the earth
being sucked up into a black hole.  Sounds can also be attached to these
requesters.

-- 
Don Lloyd                / "No, I just think that a computer grafted on top of \
don@chopin.udel.edu      | another computer is a kludge.  It has nothing to do |
GeNIE: D.LLOYD7          \ with the Intel CPU"  - Jerry Shekhel                /
BIX: DRL