From: macanespie@waves.pas.ti.com (Alan MacAnespie)
Subject: Re: DirOpus V4.0 (MICRO-REVIEW)
Reply-To: macanespie@waves.pas.ti.com
Organization: Texas Instruments, PAS
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 19:09:35 GMT

In article <10337@ncrwat.Waterloo.NCR.COM>, tcarter@53iss4.Waterloo.NCR.COM (Tom Carter) writes:
>At the WOC in Toronto in very early December, I saw a demo of the new
>Directory Opus V4.0. The sales dude there indicated it would start shipping
>(from Texas?) a week later to registered owners. Has any registered owner got
>their copy yet? I want to purchase this program but its not in my local
>dealers yet and the sales rep at the local dealer has not received his
>personal copy (ordered at the show) either. So...are they shipping yet? If not
>why? When? If you have received your copy, is is stable. Is the manual well
>done? Comments please. Thanx....
>--
>Tom Carter

Well, I just received my update to DirOpus 4.0 last night [Jan 5]
(Hey, did you know that UPS delivered after dark?)
The 'About' menu choice showed a compile date of Dec 21.

I intend to write a full review (Hi, Dan!) but the
complexity/configurability of this program will mean I have to spend
some time to talk about all its nifty capabilities.  However, here is
a quick glance review:

OVERVIEW:

Directory Opus by Jonathon Potter (published by Innovatronics) is
touted as a directory maintenance/file utility.  It is greatly
user-configurable, and allows for custom operations and behavior that
could boggle the mind (or at least, make you stay up late :-)

The flyers states an upgrade price of $40US to upgrade from DOpus
3.41, and $50US to upgrade from 3.22.  (Both would have $5US
additional for shipping)  Previous discussions from Inovatronics gave
a list price of $100US.  I do not know if it is available through
dealer channels, yet.

CONTENTS:

The shipment contained a hard boxed 3-ring manual and diskette in a
standard disclaimer/copyright envelope that was very professional
looking.  Quickly leafing through the 270(?) page manual, I'm
impressed with the work.  There are pictures and figures on almost
every page, and there seems to be lots of cross references and
examples.  (The manual states it was created using AmigaTeX)  There
are 20 (!) pages for the Index.  I did find some incorrect page
references in the index.

INSTALLATION:

DOpus (as it is called) can be used on a diskette, or installed on a
hard-drive.  The installation uses the standard AmigaDOS Installer
program.  Installation is fairly straightforward.  (Total space used
is about 670KB, but DOpus itself is about 270K)  Whatever directory
DOpus is copied to, Installer makes an addition to S:user-startup to
assign DOpus: to that directory.

The DOpus directory has 4 major directories under it: C, Libs,
Modules, and S.  These get used for loading of DOpus libraries and
configurations.  THIS IS GOOD!  I love to see programs that don't have
to have libraries loaded into the SYS: partition.

The box states it runs under AmigaDOS 1.3, 2.X and 3.0 and supports
AGA.  My configuration is an A3000 with ADOS 2.1, 6MB RAM, and 140 MB
diskspace in 4 partitions.

At first, I had problems getting DOpus to start and get a window up
and running.  I would start it, and memory would go away, CPU time
would be used, but no DOpus.  After fiddling vainly with my startup,
it turns out that the original configuration file is incompatible with
the new version.  The documentation doesn't warn you about that, so
just remember to rename the S:DirectoryOpus.CFG to something else
before starting.  (Eventually, I'll hunt down all the files associated
with Opus on my SYS: partition and delete them.)

USER INTERFACE:

Wow!  I do some User Interface design, and my quick impression is that
this is a BUSY program.  The main screen consists of 2 directory
windows, 6 sliders and 12 arrows, and a myriad (72?) of buttons at the
bottom half of the screen.  There are two menus created in the default
configuration, but the manual reports that the menus are completely
configurable, allowing up to 100 choices, and there are unlimited
numbers of buttons.  This could get out of hand if the user is
inexperienced or overwhelmed easily.

Each button has a label that describes it's operation.  Each button
can be pushed with the left or right mouse button.  (If there is a
right mouse button action, DirOpus 4.0 puts a little triangular tab in
the upper-right corner of the button.)  The buttons can do lots and
lots of operations, and are completely configurable.

CONFIGURATION:

This is the real beauty of this program.  The configuration of the
program is almost ridiculus in its extent.  I can't even count the
numbers of screens that are related to configuring the main screen.
Dozens?

The DOpus screen can be configured for the size, colors, bitplanes,
as well as position of the iconified window on the Workbench screen.

You can change the appearance of files in the directory window:
filename, size, date, protection bits, file comments, and file type.

You can change the buttons by changing the label, changing colors, and
changing the behavior.  The buttons can now have _multiple_ actions
that can be built-in DOpus commands, AmigaDOS commands, AREXX
programs, or Batch (script) programs.

You can change the sliders' colors, arrow positions, and even the
slider arrows' width and height (!).

You can change behavior of default actions like double-clicking on an
animation file, or running a program in the background.

DOpus allows the definition of "File Types" that allows you to
identify files by filename, or file extension, or contents of the
files.  It already identifies lots of file types like: animation
files, graphic images (IFF, HAM, etc.), 8SVX sound files (in stereo!),
SoundTracker Files, ANSI text files, and lots more.

SUMMARY:

I could go on for a while, but I'll stop here.  I only got a chance
to look at it for a couple of hours, but I've already made lots of
customizations and new buttons.

Expect a full review in comp.sys.amiga.reviews.  I need to run this
thing with Enforcer going, and throw a few other utilities into memory
to try to get it to crash.  I intend to work it hard, because I want
to get my upgrade money's worth.  I'll run it on my A1000, and I'll
take it over to a friend's house and run it on his A500.  Should get
some different results.

However, so far I am very impressed.  User Interface designers should
look at this program for ideas.  Way to go, Jonathon Potter!

-- 
Alan MacAnespie,              || * Standard Disclaimers Apply Upstairs.*
Texas Instruments, PAS        ||  Is a person who writes many different
macanespie@waves.pas.ti.com   ||  applications a Renaissance Computist?

How many bits would a BlitBlit blit if a BlitBlit could blit bits?
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.applications