Short: Ultimate (?) system monitor for Amiga ********* The SuperDashBoard ********* by Marat Sh. Fayzullin (FMS) version 1.1 (C)FMS 6/6/1993 This program is SHAREWARE. If you like it, send US$15 to address given in the end of this file to receive the LATEST UPDATE. Now includes: 1. CPU and RAM gauges and graphs (like the first DashBoard) 2. Magnifier 3. General system info 4. Browsers for: Libraries Screens Windows Fonts RasterPorts Volumes Devices * Assigns * * currently under development I. SuperDashBoard (SDB): What it is and how it appeared: Well, as you may already suspect, there was an earlier program called DashBoard (DB). DB was a simple system monitor a la Perf, PerfMeter and SpySys showing CPU load and free RAM amount. DB employed graphs and nice gauges to display all these parameters. It also showed current time. Unlike DB, SDB is an attempt to create something much more universal: in addition to the standard DB features it has a magnifier which can be used for any screen and a bunch of system browsers allowing to see what this or that program does. Browsers are interlinked with each other so that you can easily find any detail. So, you can get to RastPort information from the Screen browser and then check the Font current for this RastPort by simple pressing the button. Even if you aren't curious about system matters, you may find other SDB's features like a magnifier or CPU load meter useful. The main difference between SDB and other system monitors is that it tries to be as comprehensible and easy to use as possible. I took Mac's ResEdit as an example and attempted to visualize any useful piece of information which Amiga's system structures contain. This is the first version of SDB. Some of its parts are not developed yet and I'm sure it has lots of bugs. See "TO DO" chapter for details. Feel free to send your comments, flames, suggestions to fms@wam.umd.edu. Do not forget about small donation of $15US which will allow me to continue writing Amiga software instead of spending time for some unproductive part-time job. II. How to use SDB: After some frustrated attempts to write something useful in here I decided to limit the instructions to one sentence: IT IS PRETTY SIMPLE: YOU JUST CLICK LEFT MOUSE BUTTON ON ANY GADGET YOU SEE AND WATCH WHAT HAPPENS! Nevertheless, there are some features in SDB which aren't quite obvious for everybody. In this case, you sometimes have to give up and look into the manual. So, here is a list of possible problems you may have and their explanations: 1. How to get elaborate information on the screen, library, etc.? Click on the [Volumes],[Libraries],[Screens],[Fonts],[Devices] or [Assigns] gadget in the Main window. Then click on the object name in the list to get more information about this object. 2. Where is information on Devices and Assigns? It is not available in SDB v.1.1 but it will be available in the later versions. 3. [Refresh] menu of the Main window: Refresh All - Refresh all windows once AutoRefresh - Turn autorefresh on/off 4. Magnifier: Magnifier shows the part of the current active screen under the mouse pointer. If this screen has more bitplanes than the screen SDB is working on, the exceeding bitplanes will be ignored. You will also get less colors if there is not enough memory for all bitplanes. Also, don't worry about the colors: Magnifier always uses palette of the screen its window is on so color matching is not guaranteed. Magnifier has its own menus allowing to change magnification factors. Its window refreshes with the same rate as other windows do. Also, you may notice slight jerkiness of the picture when using 1:1 horizontal magnification: because of the problem with bitmap scaling in graphics.library, I had to round the X coordinate to the number dividable by 16 when X magnification is 1:1. This problem is not present with other magnification rates. 5. Library window: This window appears when you select a library from the list in the Main window. [<] and [>] buttons allow browsing through the list of libraries. [Flush] button causes SDB to attempt flushing the unused library. If attempt is succesful, the Library window disappears. 6. Running multiple copies of SDB: Unlike DB, you can't run multiple copies of SDB. SDB checks if another copy of SDB is already running and exits if it is. This feature was added because multiple SDBs would interfere with each other showing wrong CPU parameters (as DBs do). 7. Gauges window: [CPU] shows total CPU load [RAM] shows total free RAM size (CHIP+FAST) [F] shows free FAST RAM amount [C] shows free CHIP RAM amount 8. Blinking of some texts in SDB: I'm using standard GadTools' TEXT gadgets which sometimes blink when you refresh them (at least on my A2000). Please, don't be disturbed by this fact. Everything is OK. 9. Refreshing windows: Automatic refreshing of all windows may take too much CPU time, so I made it optional. You may turn it ON/OFF by the menu option of the Main window. When Autorefresh is OFF, only selected windows (like Gauges or Graph) are updated automatically. There are also tooltypes to set autorefresh and its rate. They are described further in this text. 10. What do question marks (???) mean? "???" means that SDB couldn't figure out the value of this or that parameter. For example, if window doesn't have the title, SDB will show "???" instead of it. Also, SDB 1.1 isn't able to figure out the chipset name, so it displays "???" instead of it. 11. Saving configuration: SDB saves windows' coordinates and some other information in the S:SDB.prefs file. Data from this file has higher priority than paramaters set by tooltypes. There is a sample configuration file included in SDB distribution. Copy it to S: if you want to use it. 12. Font window: If font is too large, SDB doesn't show it. The [Flush] button allows to try flushing the font out of memory. If your attempt is succesfull, window should dissapear. 13. Enforcer hits: YES, SDB CAUSES ENFORCER HITS. I know no way to get rid of this problem. The only thing which soothes me is that such program as ARTM also causes Enforcer hits. III. Workbench Tooltypes: TIME = ON/OFF - Disables time display in the Gauges window. (Default = ON) AUTOREFRESH = ON/OFF - Enables autorefresh feature for all windows. (Default = OFF) REFRESH = 1..100 - Sets autorefresh rate in 1/10s of the second. (Default = 10 for 1 second) PRIORITY = -10..10 - Sets SDBs priority. (Default = system default) SCREEN = - Sets public screen to open SDB at. (Default = Workbench) LIST = LIBRARIES/ASSIGNS/VOLUMES/DEVICES/FONTS/SCREENS Sets the initial type of the list in the Main window. (Default = LIBRARIES) GRAPH = USAGE/IDLE/CHIPRAM/FASTRAM/TOTALRAM/SWITCH Sets the initial type of the graph in the Graph window. (Default = IDLE) IV. TO DO (bugs, improvements, etc.): There are no bugs I know about except for the memory fragmentation occuring when you resize the Magnifier window too frequently. It seems to be not my fault, rather C='s one. It is caused by the way AmigaDOS uses to free the memory released by the FreeMem() call. Another thing is that SDB WILL CAUSE ENFORCER HITS! SDB needs to access various areas of RAM not belonging to it and I don't know how to access random area of RAM without causing such hit. If you know the way to do it, tell me about it. If you find any other bugs or just notice strange behavior of the SDB, please, send email to fms@wam.umd.edu. This is the very first version of SDB so many things are not yet implemented. Here is the list of things I'm going to implement in the next version: 1. Chipset field in the General Info window displays '???' in this version of SDB. Next one will show the correct abbreviation for the chipset. (Somebody, tell me how to determine which chipset is installed!) 2. There will be special windows for the Assigns and Devices. 3. I'm going to create small RastPort/BitMap viewer displaying entire RastPort/BitMap in the small resizable window. 4. There will be a browser for the Gadget structures. 5. I think there should be a window with many meters showing free space on all drives in the system. I just can't find the best way to display the meters without knowing how many drives this or that system has. 6. Certainly, there is going to be a browser for the tasks and processes. 7. It is likely that I will include a tiny hexadecimal memory editor or just a memory browser (without editing capability). 8. I don't promise to get rid of Enforcer hits but there may be a Workbench tooltype allowing to disable all parts of SDB capable of causing such hits. For example, when you set ENFORCED=ON tooltype, all gadgets of the Main window which invoke Enforcer-unfriendly features will be disabled. 9. Of course, there will be a way to minimize the Main window. 10. There will be more graphics in the next version of SDB. 4. Thanks to... Erik Wistrand for his Scale program and a great way of fast bitmap-scaling. Tony Leneis for idea to check if another copy of DashBoard is already running. This feature didn't make it into original DB but it is implemented in SDB. Mickey Everts who made many important suggestions about DashBoard. Franz Josef Mertens whose ARTM program was somewhat of a prototype for SDB. Juha Tuominen for his Perfmeter which inspired me to write DashBoard. 5. Address and Shareware conditions: This program is SHAREWARE. If you like it, PLEASE, send US$15 to address given here: Marat Fayzullin 8770 Cloudleap Court Apt#24 Columbia, MD 21045 USA E-Mail address: fms@wam.umd.edu Registered users will get regular updates. Marat Fayzullin (FMS) 5/22/1993 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Everything able to rot - rots. Everything unable to rot - rots as well. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------