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Amiga Update (2003-10-31)
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A M I G A | 031031 | U P D A T E
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"SO THE WORLD MAY KNOW"
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AMIGA and the Amiga logo are trademarks of Amiga, Inc.
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A M I G A S H O W S I N O T T A W A , C A N A D A . . .
. . . A N D N E A R V A L E N C E , F R A N C E
A M I Z I L L A W I D E N S S C O P E F O R P R I Z E
S T F A X 4 G O E S F R E E W A R E
F X P A I N T 2 . 0 2 U P D A T E A V A I L A B L E
S T A R A M P L A N S P R E A D S H E E T U P D A T E
D V D T O O L S F O R A M I G A
P O W E R I C O N S 1 . 0 4 R E L E A S E
Editor's Thoughts and Introduction:
While some of us are almost holding our breath waiting for Amiga
OS4.0 to be really complete and in our hands (would make a nice
holiday present, wouldn't it?) the Amiga Community continues to
function and survive. We have news this month of several interesting
software pieces, and a couple of upcoming shows, that demonstrate this
clearly.
We do have a couple of wishes to pass along to the Community though.
If you have a show or Amiga event coming up, or know of one, please
let us know so we can pass the word along! We really don't have enough
news to report to justify issuing this newsletter more than once a
month at present, so we need a month's lead time or more to ensure the
information gets out. We're offering free advertising, folks. Take
advantage of it. There have been some shows recently where we haven't
gotten any notice of their existence which we could publish before the
show has already taken place. That's very frustrating.
Wish number two involves our subscriber list. Over the last couple of
years, the number of our subscribers has steadily dropped. No surprise
there I suppose, as the Community is not thriving and has no chance of
thriving until you can buy a complete Amiga system again.
If you know of someone who might enjoy the newsletter, suggest they
subscribe. We have no way of getting the word out other than "word of
mouth" at this point. Being a free publication, we're not in a
position to purchase advertisements.
Lest you wonder, the number of subscribers has not dropped to where
it would cause us to cease publication, and I don't anticipate that
anytime soon.
Enough of wishes and such - time to read a few stories instead.
We hope you enjoy this issue.
Brad Webb,
Editor
----------------------------------------------------------------------
E-mail to the E-ditor:
1 Sep 2003
Brad,
I have been reading this online newsletter for at least 5 years that
I can remember, if not longer, I have always found the information
informative and helpful, some good news, and unfortunatly many times,
the bad news, However I always look forward to the next edition, your
hard work and devotion to the Amiga community is greatly appreciated.
in fact reading these issues has re energized me so much, I just re
enstated my trusty A2000 with a new (to that machine) DKB 2632 and
128mb ram, Hydra ethernet and a video card , its real nice now and is
what I am typing this on. thank you so much for all the hard work you
do.
Chris
~~~~~~
Chris,
Always glad to hear of older Amigas being upgraded and providing
pleasure and good computing for their users. Thanks for the note,
sorry it took us a bit longer than usual to answer it.
We'd much rather present good news than bad but life doesn't always
allow that of course, so we'll continue to bring you both and hope for
the best.
Brad
======
On 30/09/03, Brad Webb wrote:
> AmigaOne News : Alan Redhouse Comments on AmigaWorld about the
> A1-SE Lite...
> The full specifications for the AmigaOne Lite are as follows:
> Micro ITX form factor (170mmx170mm) Gigabit...
Bravo, Mr Redhouse! But you know, 170mm is roughly 6&3/4
inches. Such a board would easily fit inside a laptop case, and
laptops are starting to out-sell desktops...
Sincerely,
Allan
~~~~~~
Allan,
Very interesting observations. Hmmmmm. I wonder if Mr. Redhouse and
company have pondered those facts...
Brad
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
A M I G A S H O W S I N O T T A W A , C A N A D A . . .
22 October, 2003
On Saturday November 22, 2003, the Amiga.info user group will be
hosting the third Ottawa Amiga Show. Once again, the show will be held
at the Routier Centre, 172 Guigues Street, in the market of downtown
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
There will be demonstrations of OS4.0 (beta) on a AmigaOne G4XE (PPC)
system, probably the first such demonstration in North America. There
will also be a Classic Amiga 4000 system (060/PPC] also demonstarting
OS4.0 (beta). Both systems will be available for the public to try
out.
With all of the interest in alternative operating systems, this is an
excellent opportunity for the public to see the latest offerings from
Amiga, Inc. This includes the AmigaOne, and the binary portable Amiga
Digital Environment (DE), currently available for Microsoft Windows,
x86 Linux systems, ARM and MIPS processors.
Ack Software Controls has generously donated an AmigaOne G4XE DIY kit
to be raffled off. Tickets will be $2.00 each or three for $5.00, and
Livewire Systems will include a ticket with each purchase made from
them.
The following is a list of the show exhibitors:
ACK Software Controls from Fonthill, Ontario will be demonstrating
the AmigaOne, the first new Amiga hardware since 1993, and a modified
Amiga 4000.
Ottawa's own Technomages will be showcasing their latest Amiga DE
software, such as Eric Schwartz Puzzles and Memory. Their software
will be running on a Windows x86 system and a portable MIPS based
Windows CE system.
ZEE4 of Toronto will be on-hand demonstrating their brand new Amiga
DE offerings including SmackE.
There will also be at least two Amiga retailers at the show. Cinereal
and Livewire Systems of Ottawa will be selling a wide range of
hardware and software for Amiga computers.
Finally, Amiga.info will be presenting information about the user
group and answering questions about the Amiga platform.
The current position of the Canadian dollar makes coming to Canada an
inexpensive proposition for our American neighbors. At the time of
this writing, $100.00 USD = $130.00 CAD.
Ottawa is about a two hour drive west of Montreal, five hours
north-east of Toronto, and nine hours from Boston. You can also get to
Ottawa by flying into the Ottawa Macdonald-Cartier International
Airport.
There is a mailing list that you can subscribe to if you would like
to be kept up to date on the show details. To subscribe, send an email
to oas-subscribe@t....
Any questions about the Ottawa Amiga show can be directed to
amigashow@t....
About Amiga.info:
Amiga.info, pronounced "Amiga dot info", is a bilingual Amiga users
group located in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Formed in February 1995,
Amiga.info is a non-profit resource for anyone interested in the Amiga
computer. Amiga.info meets on the third Wednesday of each month.
Membership is free.
http://www.technomages.net/amiga.info/
Details of the 2001 Ottawa Amiga Show can be found at :
http://www.technomages.net/amigashow/2001/
Details of the 2002 Ottawa Amiga Show can be found at :
http://www.technomages.net/amigashow/2002/
A map to the show is available here.
http://www.technomages.net/amigashow/
----------------------------------------------------------------------
. . . A N D N E A R V A L E N C E , F R A N C E
26 October, 2003
Following are some details about the French show/meeting Alchimie #3
(8/11/2003 - 10/11/2003) in Tain l'Hermitage, near Valence. Alan
Redhouse (Eyetech), Ben Hermans (Hyperion) and Fleecy Moss (Amiga Inc)
will be present. Read more for more details.
With more than 160 people at the previous edition, the Alchimie has
become the biggest French event for Amiga and Pegasos users, coming
from France, Belgium and Switzerland.
Triple A, the organisers, announce that Amiga will be
well-represented at the Alchimie #3, with Alan Redhouse (Eyetech
Group), Ben Hermans (Hyperion Entertainment), but also Fleecy Moss
(Amiga Inc) coming to the show. There will be, of course, some
official demonstrations of AmigaOS 4, running on various AmigaOne
models,
The French resellers will also come to the show : APS and Amont
Informatique. Note that if you are interested in buying some hardware
and software, please contact them now in order to make sure your
products will be available at the show. RELEC won't be able to sell at
the show (due to customs), but will provide some flyers with price
indications.
That will also be an occasion for French associations to present
their activities : Triple A (publisher of Boing Attack), AFLE
(publisher of aMiGa=PoWeR), Amigazette83, ASUM, Amiga Impact, ...
The Alchimie #3 will last three days, you can book your entrance (at
a better price) on this page. And ... do not forget that the Alchimie
is not only a show, but also a big and very friendly meeting !
More information is also available on Amiga Impact forums
(French-only, sorry).
LATEST NEWS : IOSPIRIT will sponsor the show with prizes.
Price-reduced full versions and normal-price updates will be available
through a cooperation with APS.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
A M I Z I L L A W I D E N S S C O P E F O R P R I Z E
30 October, 2003
Over the last several months since I started the AmiZilla Project I
have heard a growing whisper to allow the funds to also be available
to the programmers of IBrowse, Voyager & AWeb.
Most, like myself wish for a Mozilla or Firebird port to Amiga
OS/MorphOS but a growing few do continue to express their love of the
Amiga Browsers, which is understandable. So today unless the current
donators to the AmiZilla Project mind I am extending the AmiZilla
Initiative to also include IBrowse, Voyager & AWeb.
What this means is if the coders of these browsers update their
programs to a functional comparable feature set of Mozilla 1.5 or
FireBird they will win the AmiZilla contest and get the money. The
programming teams will have to study the rich and extensive feature
set of Mozilla or Firebird and update their browsers to something
similar. Keep in mind that this is a contest so only the winner that
crosses the finish line first wins.
I respect and commend the Amiga browser developers for all of their
hard work over the years and hope this puts them on equal footing for
a chance to win the over $4100 that has already been collected for
AmiZilla. The requirements will stay the same as far as making it
available for Amiga, MorphOS, AROS, Amiga Forever, WinUAE Etc.
Keep in mind teams have already been working hard part time to port
Mozilla so keep the funds coming in to motivate these teams to bring
this project to completion so that other new projects can be started
like updating the Video Toaster Flyer source code. The new players in
this contest (IBrowse, Voyager & AWeb) will also want incentive to
update and extend their applications. The money already collected is a
good start but may not be enough to get the teams to spend as much
time on the AmiZilla Project as they normally would with a much large
pot of funds to win.
Current Booty: $4159.40
Mailinglist now has over 220 members and over 330 messages, most are
about programming and porting Mozilla.
AmiZilla website has gotten over 2 million hits since appearing on
the famous unix geek website slashdot.
AmiZilla continues to gather positive press for the Amiga and MorphOS
by being covered on mainstream websites like CNET's news.com,
mozillazine.org and many others.
http://news.com.com/2009-1088-984352.html
http://www.mozillazine.org/talkback.html?article=3262
http://www.toolinux.com/lininfo/news/news/news20030608003711.htm
Keep in mind that the AmiZilla Project needs you to be successful.
The booty is now over $4150, which is a impressive amount of money for
an Amiga project. If only one programmer was working on the port this
would be a nice reward. However several programmers are working
together. Once the money is split among coders the booty is not big
enough. Please contribute if you can, every dollar helps motivate
programmers to make the AmiZilla Project a success. After the release
of AmiZilla more projects are being developed like Hot CoCo (JVM) and
F Gordon (Flash). The development and launch of these add-ons to
AmiZilla depend on the success of that project. Paypal donations can
be sent in via this weblink.
http://www.amizilla.org
Best regards
Bill Panagouleas
About AmiZilla
The goal of the AmiZilla effort is to raise such an obscene/huge
amount of money to give away to the first programmer/team that can
port Mozilla to Amiga/Compatible systems that programmers will be
falling over themselves getting this application coded in record time.
Project now welcomes the programming teams of IBrowse, Voyager and
AWeb to join the contest.
About DiscreetFX
DiscreetFX has been creating software products for the Amiga, video
editing & computer generated graphics (CGI) industry since 1995. The
Amiga computer defined and created the video editing, computer
graphics market with its birth in 1985. DiscreetFX creates Real-time
transitions and effects seen on over 100 television programs including
Blind Date, 5th Wheel, Shipmates and more! You can also see DiscreetFX
software used on the following networks HBO, Showtime, Discovery
Channel, PBS, Fox and more!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
S T F A X 4 G O E S F R E E W A R E
27 October, 2003
Short: STFax 4 (Fax/Voice package) - FREEWARE VERSION
Author: wiz@v... (Simone Tellini)
Uploader: wiz@v... (Simone Tellini)
Version: 4.0
Type: comm/misc
Replaces: comm/misc/STFax.lha
STFax 4
=======
STFax is now a Freeware application. Anyway, if you never bought it
and want to contribute, you can order me something from my wishlist,
see http://tellini.info/software/giftware.html
You can upgrade to the latest version applying the patches available
on Aminet (biz/patch). Please do not email me with questions about the
program expecting to receive an answer: currently my spare time is
limited and I may not even remember the answer ;-) (I *may* answer
you, but don't hold your breath)
See the enclosed ReadMe file for the serial code.
Have fun,
Simone Tellini
http://tellini.info
-------
STFax © 1996-2003 by Simone Tellini. All Rights Reserved.
-------
For those who don't know what STFax is, here's an excerpt from the
manual:
STFax is a multi-purpose voice/fax/data communications package.
Voice Features
--------------
Independent Operation Mode support. STFax supports the Independent
Operational Mode as found within the PACE 'Solo', 3-Com Message Plus
(and Pro), ELSA MicroLink Office and Kortex Adaptix modems.
Independent Operation Mode allows you to use the modem as a digital
answer and fax machine without the need for your computer to be
switched on.
STFax also provides an automatic call detection, remote access,
distinctive ring support, call logging, Caller ID support, hands-free
phone support, advanced voice scripting, call screening...
Facsimile Features
------------------
Fax from any Amiga application. Simply choose the 'STFax' driver from
the list of printers. STFax then intercepts the printed document
allowing you to send, schedule or store the new fax message. You are
also able to attach text or image files to the fax in order to create
additional pages.
Send fax messages from any class 1, 2 or v2.0 modem.
Scan and fax directly from ScanFax. Scan single or multiple pages
into STFax and send as a fax message.
STFax also features an Advanced fax on demand system, auto-printing
of incoming fax messages, auto-forwarding of incoming fax messages,
sutomated replies, remote access to fax messages, advanced fax
filtering.
Data Features
-------------
The mini-BBS allows any user to upload files to open or secret doors,
list files available (from the download file list) and choose one or
more for downloading, change doors (ie. protected and secret doors may
be available) or message a user.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
F X P A I N T 2 . 0 2 U P D A T E A V A I L A B L E
15 October, 2003
In the download-area of IOSPIRIT an update-archive from version 2.0
and 2.01 of fxPAINT to V2.02 is now available for download.
Changes include:
added for MorphOS: Iconify button in each project window
fxALBUM sorting is much faster now and shows a progress bar
more intuitive delete function in fxALBUM
.infos can now be displayed in ASL-requesters or be excluded from
fxALBUM import (Tooltype SUPPRESSINFOFILES)
mousewheel-support now also in fxALBUM
fixed a bug in startup of PPC-servertasks
fixed IFF 24 saver (final fix this time)
A detailed list of changes can be found in the update archive.
http://www.iospirit.de/
----------------------------------------------------------------------
S T A R A M P L A N S P R E A D S H E E T U P D A T E
4 October, 2003
StarAm Plan is an easy to use but powerful spreadsheet program. It is
shareware, not crippled.
Some features are:
- several sheets at one time in memory with different windows open
- commands to edit,e.g.: fill range, create series, change range by
+-*/, sort range, change row/column, powerfull cut/copy/paste, undo,
search&replace, drag&rop
- 121 stastistic, financial, mathem., date, time, boolean, text,
format and other functions to use in cells.
- user-defined functions, variables and cell-/rangenames
- A lot of formatsettings for cells, e.g.: alignment, suffix, prefix,
cell-type (text,number,date,time,percent,...), date/time-format,
protection, textstyle, borders, textcolor, decimals, sign, hide zero
- format-pattern and autoformat
- A lot of charts with a lot of settings, e.g.: 3d-bar, 3d-line,
3d-area, errorbars, regression curves, logarithmic axis,
polarcoordinates, functionplotter, several charts in one system of
coordinates
- in texts of worksheets and charts you can now use simple
mathematical expressions ("Formelsatz"): fraction, sub-/superscript,
math. symbols and greek letters, textstyles italic and bold
- Settings for screenmode, font, colors, icon, autosave, ...
- uses appicon, toolsmenu, appwindow, OS 3.0-look and AGA, graphics
accelerators, clipboard.device, public-screens, xpk-libraries, memory
pools, shared pens, amigaguide.library, gadgethelp, ...
- most requesters are asynchron
- projects and 3D-worksheets
- localized, german, english and italian available
- a lot of more
Get it off Aminet!
StarAm_Plan.lha biz/misc 659K Spreadsheet, V2.22,OS 3.0+, 68000 CPU
StarAm_Plan881.lha biz/misc 654K Spreadsheet, V2.22,OS 3.0+, needs FPU
----------------------------------------------------------------------
D V D T O O L S F O R A M I G A
29 October, 2003
For the first time on AmigaOS and compatibles: Burn DVD-R and DVD-RW
with your Amiga!
dvdrtools is a package with four programs which were originally
developped for Linux, but now are ported to AmigaOS. All of the
programs are shell-based, only for the main program dvdrecord an
Arexx-GUI is available. The programs themselves are completely in
English. The programs are:
readcd is useful for sector-based reading of CD`s and DVD`s. All
tracks of a media can be read in and saved as track image files on
your hard drive.
dvdrecord, the main program, does burn CD`s and DVD`s perfectly. You
need at least one track image file as input, like created by readcd or
mkisofs.
mkisofs is a powerful tool for creating image files of given files
like your hard drive partition. It supports both the CD file format as
output as well as UDF file format which is used for DVD`s.
cdda2wav is useful for ripping audio tracks of CD`s and saving them
as image files on your hard drive. The common WAV file format is
supported as saving format. cdda2wav also supports basic audio
manipulation functions like converting stereo to mono and stuff.
PLEASE READ THIS
With this software you should be able to use all MMC compliant CD and
DVD drives and recorders - almost all currently saled drives are MMC
compliant.
At the Download section of the website you will find the archive
containing the binaries. You have to set the device name that shall be
used for accessing your DVD or CD drives by the command "sentenv
DVDRTOOLS_DEVICE something.device", but replace "something.device"
with your device name. To make this device selection reset proof you
can copy the file env:DVDRTOOLS_DEVICE to envarc:.
If you think "Oh boy, this sucks!" please feel free to do a better
port of dvdrtools - the link for the source codes are at the end of
this page.
The AmigaOS-version of dvdrtools have been tested a lot with a
A1200/060/50, 32 MB RAM, OS3.5 and three different CD-writers (Ricoh
7060A, Ricoh 7200A, LiteOn 52x) and a 4x Toshiba IDE DVD-R writer, and
with a G3 Pegasos with MorphOS and the same Toshiba DVD-R writer and a
48x IDE CD burner. All tests did perform great, but of course I will
guarantee nothing. Use this software at your own Risk!
LIMITATIONS
The following DVD burner is not supported: LG 4020B, a 2x-DVD-R
writer that also supports 1x DVD-RW and 2x DVD-RAM.
Thanks to the old dos.library AmigaOS is limitated to a maximum file
size of 2 GB. This means that you can use readcd only for reading
DVD`s with a maximum capacity of a bit less than 2 GB to do 1-to-1
copies of DVD`s. This seems to be quite good, but e.g. most
Playstation2-games do contain more than 3 GB on their DVD`s. 1-to-1
copies of PS2-games which contain less than 2 GB on their DVD`s do
work perfectly. The program mkisofs has a split option to split the
output image file into 1 GB chunks wich should be concatenated by
dvdrecord automatically to a single track, but I was not able to get
dvdrecord to concatenate the track image chunks created by mkisofs -
probably I am too stupid. But on MorphOS this stuff seems to work
perfectly.
The Amiga version of dvdrtools is completely in 68k-code. Please feel
free to do PPC or x86 native ports by yourself.
Currently only the following burning formats are supported: CD-R,
CD-RW, DVD-R, DVD-RW. Not supported are the following burning formats:
DVD+R, DVD+RW, DVD-RAM.
Ripping of movie DVD`s is also not supported. But on the Link which
you can find at the end of this you will find a step-by-step
tutorial for creating video DVDs with dvdrtools.
http://www.nongnu.org/dvdrtools/
Have fun with dvdrtools!
Schlonz
----------------------------------------------------------------------
P O W E R I C O N S 1 . 0 4 R E L E A S E
Short: NEW! 32bit PNG icons on your Amiga !!! (68K and MorphOS)
Uploader: uni-dea@j... (Elena - www.elena-fractals.it)
Author: uni-dea@j... (Elena - www.elena-fractals.it)
Type: util/wb
Requires: AmigaOS 3.5/3.9, Hi/True Color Workbench
Replaces: util/wb/PowerIcons.lha
Version: 1.04
YOU CAN ALWAYS DOWNLOAD AN UP TO DATE VERSION OF POWERICONS AT:
<http://www.elena-fractals.it/Downloads/PowerIcons.lha>
PROGRAM HISTORY
----------------------------
1.04 (30 Oct 03)
-"Virgin" icons associated with executable files were loaded as
Projects rather than Tools. Fixed.
-Fixed a very dangerous bug in PrepIcon() that could lead to serious
crashes and system instability loading single-image color icons via
GetDiskObject(New)().
-Added a workaround for a bug in the original IconControl() function
which could lead to crashes in conjunction with some single-image
icons.
-Sometimes using TextMode=1 the icon text was not completely erased
leaving a vertical line at the extreme left. Fixed.
-Improved DrawIconStateNew(). Icon and text alignment should be more
precise now.
-PNG icons for drawers without proper drawer data were passed to WB
as tool icons, thus the associated drawer could not be opened. Fixed.
-The example PNG icons included couldn't be loaded into paint
programs because they still had a wrong crc (most of them was created
and snapshotted under the old PI
1.0). They're OK now.
-I created and included PowerIconsLogo.jpg: now PI has its official
logo :-)
1.03 (25 Oct 2003)
-Loading very little PNG icons (16x16 or so) could cause decoding
buffer overflow with consequent system crashes. Fixed.
1.02 (23 Oct 2003)
-Default icons got wrong size with icon.library < 45.10. Fixed.
-Improved Workbench dragging of PNG icons using a white rectangle.
Please don't ask me to improve it further since it's only a drawback
for WB.
-Added SWAPTEXTCOLORS option
-Using GHOST=100 no additional calculation will be computed for
default icons, so people thinking that the ghosting effect slows down
scrolling may try this (even if I don't believe that)
-Fixed some dangerous alignment problems that could cause crashes
under some
circumstances and problems with Amidock.
-Overall code improvement and optimizations. Scrolling might be a bit
faster now.
1.01 (20 Oct 2003)
-CRC for icon hunk is now computed when writing icons back. So now
you can load no more "virgin" icons in ImageFX or other paint programs
where they previously issued a "CRC error" requester. Please note that
ImageFX PNG loader is broken, however: even if you choose "YES" to
load alpha channel, it will be lost.
WHAT'S POWERICONS ??
--------------------
In short: PowerIcons is a patch allowing you to use PNG icons (24 bit
with or without alpha channel) on your Amiga in a totally transparent
and OS-friendly way!
Also, it performs transparency for default icons (ala Ghosty) and
true color mapping of standard Amiga icons (they can now be displayed
in full quality with their real colors and without palette-based
remapping)
LEGAL
-----
PowerIcons if FREEWARE!
Pretending to make money from a community who's trying to survive
like Amiga community is simply SAD.
PowerIcons is Copyright © 2003 Elena Novaretti
Any commercial usage of this archive (whole or partially) is
FORBIDDEN.
PowerIcons may not be distributed without this accompanying README
file.
A BRIEF HISTORY
---------------
Since years one of my greatest dreams was having 24 bit icons with
alpha- channel transparency on my Workbench.
Ambient, the official MorphOS desktop, firstly introduced PNG
(24bit+alpha) icon support in the Amiga scenery.
I'm actually an happy user and developer under MorphOS on my beloved
Pegasos board, but sincerely cannot use Ambient yet since it lacks too
many features compared with Opus Magellan, Workbench 3.9 or any other
modern desktop. Also, Ambient handles PNG icons internally without
using any standard icon.library API, so other programs cannot benefit
of them!
For now, the only very shiny thing of Ambient is just PNG icons
support: so, how to lose them ??
In the past I wrote some patches to give Workbench icons a better
look. First of them was Ghosty (Aminet), allowing transparency for
default icons. Then I made an improved version called "Ghosty+", which
I never released to the public since it was a bit experimental, but
which also allowed standard Amiga color icons to be displayed with
their own proper 256 colors (with no remapping, so with an apparently
"near-true color" quality - except for the ugly border).
And next came PowerIcons. It has been a really hard job but at the
end it came out and it was really worth the trouble!
REQUIREMENTS
------------
All you need is AmigaOS 3.5 or 3.9 running an Hi/True Color
Workbench, no special library or extra file is required. Please note
that 8 bit screenmodes are NOT supported for obvious reasons!
A very fast CPU and GFX Board is STRONGLY recommended.
To fully enjoy PowerIcons you're suggested to use DefIcons and
RAWBInfo (even if not required): how to live without them ? ;-)
Oh, you need some nice PNG icons too, of course! (However, I included
some nice examples made by me in the ExampleIcons drawer)
NOTE ABOUT SPEED
----------------
PowerIcons is intended for VERY fast and modern Amigas. Even if
loading of PNG icons is done 80% by hand (i.e. without the overhead of
libpng or -even worse!- datatypes system) this job will surely result
in much more stress for the CPU than loading plain Amiga icons.
Also, alpha-transparency blitting is done "by hand" since there's no
API for hardware alpha acceleration at the moment (I wrote highly
optimized routines but they cannot make miracles...)
So the fastest CPU and the fastest GFX card you have will never be
too much.
Best performance is obtained using PowerIcons 68K under Amithlon/UAE
JIT or PowerIcons PPC (with Amiga Workbench) under MorphOS.
NOTE ABOUT MORPHOS VERSION
--------------------------
A very fast PowerPC version of PowerIcons is included for exclusive
usage under MorphOS. Actually, the only people who may benefit from
this version are Workbench users under MorphOS emulation (typically
MorphOS 0.4 for Amiga PowerUP). DON'T try to launch the included PPC
version (PowerIcons.elf)
if you don't have MorphOS: your system will crash.
A FINAL NOTE...
--------------------
You will probably start loving and using PowerIcons from the
beginning. So you'll spend hours and hours drawing 32 bit icons or
customizing your programs with shiny icons downloaded from somewhere.
But remember: at that point there's NO WAY TO SWITCH BACK! If you
(for any reason) should remove PowerIcons you WON'T BE ABLE TO SEE
YOUR ICONS AND YOUR TOOLTYPES ANYMORE!
What does that mean ? Nothing particular, that's quite obvious
indeed. You're just warned :)
*****
! ENJOY AND LOVE POWERICONS !
! PLEASE SEND ME ANY BUG OR SUGGESTION !
*****
AUTHOR:
Elena Novaretti
www.elena-fractals.it
<uni-dea@j...>
PowerIcons has been developed on a Pegasos(tm) and compiled with the
great VBCC.
PowerIconsPPC uses libz.a: many thanks to Gabriele Greco for porting
an ixemul-free libz to MorphOS :)
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Copyright 2003 by Brad Webb. Freely distributable, if not modified.
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