From: angst+@CMU.EDU (Jon C. Slenk)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: AmigaDOS 2.1 comments
Date: 12 Jan 93 09:18:58 GMT
Article-I.D.: andrew.AfIlaWq00VIDMB1hVB
Organization: Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA

I have an A500 with the clock/ram expansion, a RocTec SCSI/IDE interface
with a Maxtor LXT340SY SCSI drive, a 1084(?) monitor (can't remember that
darned number exactly) and an external floppy drive. I think I have an ECS
Agnus but an OCS Denise.

I would like to make some random comments about the new OS. Note that I
have been comparing AmigaDOS 2.1 to Mac System 7, which I find has a
better user interface, so many of my comments and solutions are based on
my experiences with the Mac. Perhaps there are other, equally good or
better, solutions which could be implemented to fix the problems. If my
comments aren't totally clear, check out a Mac and you will see what I
mean (I think).

- there are gadgets which allow you to cycle through options. these are
displayed as a text field and then a "cycle" gadget to the left of that
text field. when you click on the cycle gadget, the text cycles through
options (holding down shift and clicking moves backwards through the
options). my complaint is that there is no pop up menu here - there should
be a way to get a pop up menu which shows ALL the possible options so you
can see just what is going on, rather than having to click through all the
options. this is just incomplete / bad user interface design. (disclaimer:
perhaps there is a way to get a pop up menu, but i dinna know what it is
:-)

- redrawing the windows is VERY SLOW. i can't understand why the Amiga,
with its specialized graphics hardware can't redraw a few overlapping
windows in a reasonable amount of time. i find that as i move, open and
close windows the time it takes to redraw is too long and i move the
pointer, which then jumps drastically once the windows have been drawn.
the response time here is as bad as 1.3 and i find that unacceptable

- you shouldn't have to select "snapshot" all the time. what should happen
is that whenever you close a window, it snapshots the icons and window
automatically.

- you should be able to move windows partly off of the screen without
having to make the workbench be virtually large. it is annyoing when you
click on a zoom gadget for the window to go off the screen. it is annoying
to have the screen scroll around if you move a window a leetle too far off
the edge.

- the shell should have a damned scroll bar!

- the dichotomy between the CLI and the workbench should be fixed up
somehow. examples: i don't like the fact that there are .info files
everywhere and that if there isn't a .info file for something it doesn't
appear on the workbench. the OS should take care of figuring out what
things are and making default icons for them (at least make this an option
the user can turn on or off - i would like the os to make default icons,
but maybe not everyone would).

That's all I can think of for right now.

Sincerely,
-Jon.

----------------------------------------------------
Jon Slenk           angst+@cmu.edu     EVERYTHING is
Carnegie Mellon     Pittsburgh PA      Disclaimed
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy