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- From: matija@avalon.physik.unizh.ch (Matija Milostnik)
- Subject: Re: The State of Amiga Software...a proposal
- Message-ID: <1993Jan26.151425.4887@ifi.unizh.ch>
- Summary: tooltypes overvrite global preferences
- Keywords: tooltypes, styleguide
- Sender: news@ifi.unizh.ch (USENET News Admin)
- Nntp-Posting-Host: avalon
- Organization: Informatik Club d. Universitaet, Zuerich
- References: <1993Jan24.221918.20148@netcom.com> <C1FrH5.FMq@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca>
- Distribution: comp.sys.amiga.misc, comp.sys.amiga.programmer, comp.sys.amiga.applications
- Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 15:14:25 GMT
- Lines: 72
-
- In article <C1FrH5.FMq@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca> engb@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca (Ben Eng) writes:
- >In <1993Jan24.221918.20148@netcom.com> pockets@netcom.com (Sean C. Cunningham) writes:
- >> I don't know about you, but when I set up my Workbench display, I
- >>chose [..] Most software totally
- >>ignores what I, the user, am comfortable with and forces me to deal with
- >>what the programmer was comfortable with.
- >That's why resources can be defined by the application writers in a
- >default app-defaults file, and those resources can be overidden by
- >the user in his .Xdefaults file... under X11. Unfortunately, on
- >the Amiga these things are not so straightforward. There is less of
- >a defined convention (if there is one at all) for applications.
-
- The Amiga has a similar facility: Tooltypes
-
- Preferences is a global setting. An application can set their own
- defaults within tooltypes. Thus overwriting the global settings and
- working globaly, ie in a 'per started application' base. The third
- method is to give arguments to the cli prompt overwriting the
- tooltypes which overwrite the global settings set by preference :-)
-
- >It is up to the application to use whatever means the programmer
- >deems fit to use (or ignore) the Prefs. And the design of Prefs
- >is not general enough to handle application-specific information
-
- Tooltypes or argument passing is a per application setting that
- works locally. It has the advantage to set application specific
- information without resorting to global resources (ENV variable,
- file stored in some overpopulated directory like s:, etc..)
-
- [..]
- >It's just one of those little things... So X11 isn't as ugly as
- >some people make it out to be. It has its advantages. Certainly
- >the Amiga has a few things it could learn from X.
-
- And it has. But did the programmers learn?
-
- [..]
- > Frankly, it's probably cheaper to use Gadtools or
- >Boopsi and get the look-and-feel for free than to conjure up some
- >blasphemous GUI from hell using other means.
-
- But 'Publisher' think they 'must' write 1.x compatible software.
- Gadtools and Boopsi didnt exist there. The problem would not arise
- if software would be targeted to 2.x or greater.
-
- Now to the original topic:
- The misuse of the green 2.0 compatible sticker is sometimes so
- disapointing that makes the whole work lose credibility.
-
- I would like to see an official commision that sets a minimal set
- of requirement to meet for getting the sticker. A list like:
- - does it work under x.x (not crashing, no enforecer hits, etc..)
- - does it work under Axxxx (is there a chip incompatibility, does it
- recognise memory and other adds on, etc..)
- - is it style guide compliant (asl.library, use of clipboard, use of IFF
- for data storage, Arexx with common set of instruction, etc..)
- - was it programmed system freindly(fonts, colors, screens, gadtools,
- boopsi, iffparse, etc..)
- - and so on...
-
- The main point is that only programs reaching this goal get the stickers.
- But it gets difficult when a well known 'publisher' tryies to push his
- 'product', only beacuse it 'works fine and we are the #1 selling company
- for this kind of product' :-( (N.B. They have the green sticker)
-
- Thats my 1/50$
- Matija
- --
- Best regards from Matija Milostinik : matija@avalon.physik.unizh.ch
- : matija@amiga.physik.unizh.ch
- Therefore, use local labels in the procedures as often as possible.
- Save the environment! Recycle! ;-) (Bjoern Reese)
-