Test reports

Test reports

1. Little helpers for everyday Amiga usage (by Christian Aichinger)

Good grief, what kind of a month was that?! In the beginning, everything was fine, but now? A fortnight ago I saw my new lecture schedule and almost fell out of my chair. My SCSI host adapter dies - one week before the deadline and just at the moment when my bank account is absolutely empty - so I can't access any of my data, and as if that wasn't enough already I now also have to look after the renovation of my workroom. So now I'm sitting here typing a text I had already written a week ago. I always lik e to do things twice (*ahem*). Fortunately, Carsten was kind enough to give me a few days more time, or it would look quite sparse here. This month I have reviews to "WBStartup++", "TAR-HandlerV1.1" and "SendStuff".

Enjoy!

WBStartup++

Some of you will know the program WBStartup+. It's a program that shows a progress bar while loading programs from the WBStartup drawer and includes a preferences editor that makes it easy to enable/disable those programs. Under Os3.5+, WBStartup+ has a problem with the new ColorIcon format which results in pixel garbage on the progress bar. WBstartup++ (note the second "+" sign) is a similar program that hasn't these problems.

The installation is quite easy - if you know how to avoid some of the obstacles created by the author ;). So to save you from gray hairs, I will describe this part a little more extensively.

Of course the archive has to be unpacked first. Then you can begin the installation. Now create two new directories inside "WBStartup". For simplicity, we'll call them "on" and "off". Now drag "WBStartup++" into the WBStartup-directory. Now for the step which almost made me delete the complete software package. You have to create or edit two ToolType entries in the icon of "WBStartup++" (not in the icon of the preferences editor - even though this program also complains about missing ToolTypes). You need the entries "ENABLEDPATH", which has to point to the newly created "on" directory and "DISABLEDPATH" which has to contain the path of the "off" directory. On my system (and theoretically on any other Amiga system), the icon of the WBStartup++-icon should contain these two Tooltypes:

ENABLEDPATH=SYS:WBstartup/on
DISABLEDPATH=SYS:WBstartup/off

Now that this problem is settled, all programs except WBStartup++ have to be moved into the directory "on". If during the installation of OS3.9 a directory called "Disabled" was created, you should either copy its contents to "off" or simply delete the whole directory. Now finally drag the program "WBStartup++prefs" into the "Prefs" directory and installation is complete. Additional parameters can be set set with Tooltypes in the icon of WBStartup++. The function and syntax of these options are quite well described in the English Amigaguide documentation. Oh, and before I forget: If no programs are started after a reboot, you will have to put the Tooltype "SIMULATE" in parentheses.

You need AmigaOS3.5 or newer to use WBStartup++. Also you will need to have wbstart.library V2.2 (by Stefan Becker, Aminet: util/libs/WBStart.lha) or even better the WBStartEmu-package (by Stephan Rupprecht, Aminet: util/libs/WBStartEmu.lha) installed. The preferences editor also requires the MUI system extension.

TAR-Handler

If you are working with Unix and its derivatives (Linux, NetBSD, etc.), you surely know files ending with ".tar" or ".tar.gz". These are archives created by the Unix program tar. Files ending in ".tar.gz" have been additionally compressed with "gzip". To access the contents of these archives on the Amiga, there are quite a few Amiga ports of these tools. In my opinion, TAR-Handler is one of the best implementations. It is easy to use - even though it's "only" a CLI program - and rarely has problems unpack ing "tar" and "tar.gz" archives.

The installation is quickly done. After unpacking the archive, just copy the executable "tar-handler" into the "C:" directory on your system partition. That's it - installation complete. Additional programs (like the Amiga port of "gzip") are not required. The name "tar-handler" can be irritating, since AmigaOS-Handlers usually reside in "L:" and aren't executables, either. In the case of "tar-handler", "C:" is the better choice. You can skip reading the English HTML documentation, as the usage is very s imple. To access the contents of a tar archive, just run tar-handler in a shell with the name of the archive as argument. Tar-handler now checks the archive and creates a new virtual drive on your Workbench, named after the archive.

Easy, isn't it? When I think about other programs with approx. one million of parameters to specify, a cold shudder wanders down my spine. Why can't everything in the computer world be that easy? Working with the archives couldn't be any easier. You can use the Workbench, the Shell or a file manager like DOpus to browse through the tar archive. When you're done, close all windows of the virtual drive and send a break signal to the tar-handler (either by pressing Ctrl-C in tar-handler's Shell or by using t he "Break" command), and the drive disappears.

But for every light, there's a shadow. Tar-handler only allows reading access to the files in the tar archive. It is not possible to modify, move or add files in the archive. But you can't have everything, and what do you need a tar archive for on the Amiga anyway? For this, there's still Linux ;-).

SendStuff

Richard Kapp has already earned a reputation among Amiga users for his helpful tools. Now he's back with his newest creation "SendStuff". The idea behind SendStuff isn't really new, but the program is quite useful anyway.

Now, how to describe SendStuff? Maybe it's best to call it a Drag&Drop-directory-contents-copy-tool. I haven't seen something like that on the Amiga before ;). After starting it, a small window opens on the Workbench.

If the user now drop the icon of a directory on this window, SendStuff opens a requester, asking where this directory's contents should be copied to. The comfortable thing about this is that you can choose all important system paths without clicking through several branches of the directory tree and that the user can define six different paths as well. Using a gadget, you can choose the "Send-Mode", which can either be "Move" or "Copy".

If you don't know what you should do with this tool, you will ask: "Why not just use file managers, ARexx or the Shell?". You will know the answer when you are confronted with regularly amassing data (eg. from the Inter- or Intranet), where it just isn't worthwhile to start the file manager and where you are much too lazy to write a script because it would be so much easier with SendStuff ;).

The look of SendStuff is exemplary, just as we are to used to from Richard Kapp. The distribution uses icon and graphics in the GlowIcon style, created by Martin Merz. Because all graphics are saved as IFF files, you can easily use your own designs.

Installation is relatively simple. Just copy the whole SendStuff directory anywhere on your hard disk or - if you want SendStuff available automatically after a reboot - follow the directions in the English manual.

After I reported some bugs, Richard Kapp asked me to mention the following in my report: SendStuff was (and still is...) primarily meant as a plug-in for the (also very useful) program WorkON. But since SendStuff has its devotees as a stand-alone product, it became a real program. Second, I shouldn't forget to mention that SendStuff is still in beta, which means that bugs can still appear. But in my experience with Richard Kapp, bugs are fixed relatively fast after reporting them ;).

And that was all for this month. If you found mistakes, want to voice your opinion, criticism or praise, or if you have a suggestion for programs to present here, then just send me a mail.

Christian Aichinger <christian@aakt.de>