AMIGA

3. AmigaOS 3.5 - Frequently Asked Questions

AMIGA (http://www.amiga.de) informs:

»This information was compiled by Alex and it is based on hints, tips and discussions on the mailinglist at Onelist amigaOS3_5@onelist.com (subscribe via amigaOS3_5-subscribe@onelist.com). Many thanks to Alex.

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                       second edition - 11-Feb-2000

based on hints, tips and discussions on the mailinglist at Onelist amigaOS3_5@onelist.com (subscribe per amigaOS3_5-subscribe@onelist.com)

This FAQ is not meant to replace the "official" version at www.amiga.com, it is an addition to provide answers to questions that appeared on the mailinglist irritatingly often :) or are worth being mentioned in an FAQ.

If you have additions or corrections to the FAQ, please write to neurodancer@gmx.de (current FAQ maintainer).

Abbreviations that may have been used & explanation of some terms:

		      The Frequently Asked Questions
		("Q" - Questions, "A" - Answers, "N" - Note)

      FBlit
      WBCtrl IMT=ICONFAST

      LoadWB SIMPLEGELS
      EndCLI

  Appendix A - Netiquette
 Simple EMail Netiquette - for a better understanding... now.
or: you want good answers? write good mails!

Mail Subject: it should match the content of the posting, and should be changed with a change of the mail's topic. Including "(was: old-subject)" after the new subject is a good idea, so others can still follow the thread.

If you're replying into a newsgroup or a mailinglist, ask yourself: is it *really* necessary to write a public reply? Is the reply still "on-topic" for the group or list? Or is it better to write a private response? Its easy to get carried away, you know. :-)

Opening: a little friendly greeting ("Hello!") and if you're replying, a small quoteheader, including whom you are quoting ("Jim wrote about xyz on 01-Apr-1998:", most mailers have a feature to automate that). Some people have a bad shortrange memory and may not notice you're talking to them otherwise. :-)

Quoting: Do not quote headers and/or signatures. Quote *only* those passages you're *actually* replying to. Mark them with a leading ">" prefix (really every mailer can do that!), then an empty line, *followed* by your comments, additions or questions to the quoted lines. Then another empty line, the next quote, and so on. This way, you keep your reply readable.

Extremely bad style: two lines of "yep, thanks, me too, how's the weather" on top, followed by the complete original message (or the other way around, doesn't matter, still bad style) - its just plain annoying to have such mails sent to the public. Of course you *should* send your thanks to a person who gave you a nice hint - just do it in *private*, please.

Attachments to public messages: forget it, don't think about it, better think of strawberry icecream... or good sex... or even bad sex, as long as you forget it! :)

HTML etc.: "I want colorful mails with varying font sizes and cross links!" Well, what you need is a webpage rather than an email. :) Keep your mails as simple as possible, mailers and machines and character sets tend to be different. Some are using Amiga, others Mac, some Linux, some mailers simply don't have the features your mailer might have! Whats needed is compatibilty and simplicity, not gimmicks.

Style: high-lightings via *Asterisks* or _underscores_ or /slashes/ are good, as well as paragraphes, empty lines, building-word-chains. Be careful with UPPERCASE, this could mean you're YELLING at someone. Emoticons (yep, the smilies!) or other additions (eg. pseudo-html tags like "" and "", *g* for "grin" and *eg* for "evil grin" are also very common) that show the mood you were in when writing, or how you meant what you just wrote, are almost *essential* - especially if you're joking - the reader can't see you were laughing while you typed! Imagine someone tells you "you're a stinking nephew of a rotten tomato tree that grew upon foul water in a nearly dry oasis of the sahara desert!" (or even wilder things!) without a smiley... :-)

Closing: a *small* signature, no more than *5* lines, something that allows identifying the sender as a human being; we all like to talk with people rather than addresses, do we?

If possible, introduce your signature with the seqeuence "-- " (two hyphens, one space, carriage return) - this is an inoffical .sig introducer thats allows certain mailers to identify the end of the actual message, cutting away everything below when replying/quoting - you're making life a whole lot easier for mailing lists that append those commercials to the bottom of the mail body, you know... ;-)

All those rules are not-so-very rigid, sometimes some person or passage cries for breaking them, but thats your own responsibility... so don't be astonished if people react as if they were allergic to it.«