MBench V1.0 (c) Mark Hewitt.
- About
- Features
- Installation
- Usefull information
- Bugs
- History
This is provided on aminet at the request of those who had trouble
downloading it from my site. Please read the following carefully.
MBench is Shareware...
Registered users will receive a KeyFile that will enable all the features of
MBench.
The unregistered version has the limitation that only 1 program can be loaded
at a time by MBench and also only the first pop up menu item is selectable.
As a registered user you will be entitled to regular updates and bug fixes and
will receive news and details on any such upgrades aswell as any technical
support as needed.
The registration fee is £10 pounds + P&P (P&P is free if you wish to receive
the key file via e-mail). Please print out the registration form and fill
in or send a letter containing the same information.
CHANGES
-------
mbmisc.library updated
wbinfo.module updated
MBPrefs updated
MBench updated
MBenchDebug updated
IMPORTANT - PROBLEMS
--------------------
If Mbench has problems on your machine then I want to fix it!!!
Let me know what your problems are.
FEATURES
--------
MBench is a replacement for the Workbench graphical interface to the amigas
filing system. It is designed to be 100% compatible with workbench, even
providing the same features with app icons, windows etc. yet provides
additional features such as:
- internally multitasking.
- directory caches.
- system wide file notification.
- file requesters, progress gadgets etc. for copy, delete etc.
- open a window directly for any location.
- quick start menu for launching programs or running scripts to do things
such as open an MBench window.
- assign list window.
- arexx port.
- online context sensitive help.
- and a whole host more.
DISCLAMER:
Please note that this software is a BETA version and I take no responsibility
for any damage or other event arrising from the use of this software.
You use at your own risk.
If you discover any bugs then please contact me so that they can be fixed.
INSTALLATION
------------
To Install
Run the install script or:
- make a directory MBench and assign 'MBENCH:' to it.
- copy mbench and mbench.guide into the MBench drawer.
- copy the Workspacedrawer, the modules drawer and the startmenu drawer
into the MBench drawer.
- make an assign of 'WORKSPACE:' to the MBENCH:Workspace drawer. This
will correspond to files in the main MBench window.
- copy 'Images/remapimage.image' to SYS:Classes/Images/
- copy 'Utilities/MBCommand' into the path somewhere eg. C:
- copy 'libs/mbmisc.library' to your LIBS: directory
- **IMPORTANT** Make sure you set the stack quite high (about 10000)
before running MBench.
I haven't checked for stack usage yet, but best to be safe
(Use 'Stack 10000' at the CLI).
- If you want to use MBench instead of workbench when booting then change
the LoadWB line in s:startup-sequence to run <>NIL MBench <>NIL:
NOTE WELL:
Currently MBench prints a running log file for debugging. To get rid of this
and speed up the running a **LOT** then redirect the output to NIL:
eg. run <>NIL: MBench <>NIL:
Also provided is a prefs file (Extras/Launchpad.prefs) for use with LaunchPad
which shows a way of adding floating toolbars to MBench.
USEFULL INFORMATION
-------------------
ICONS - Drawers take tool values VIEW - ICON/LIST to set the mode.
MODE - ALL/SELECTION to view all/selection.
WBSTART - Hold Down - L.Amiga to cancel the startup drawer.
- L.Amiga & L.Shift to pop up the window.
L.Amiga & L.Shift to pop up selection window.
Copy files to WORKSPACE: to have them automatically appear on the MBench
display.
Press shift CloseWindow to close all windows.
Use Middle Mouse Button to extended select items.
Add icons to MBench:StartMenu to have them appear in the start menu.
BUGS
----
Known bugs include:
If you find any bugs or have any suggestions then please let me know.
Contacting Me.
By e-mail as - cs95mah exeter.ac.uk
WWW (frames) - http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lakes/1258/mbench.html
WWW (no frames) - http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lakes/1258/main.html
For the future.
Well aswell as fixing any bugs, For the near future I have plans to add
the following to MBench. Some of these features may not be made available
to unregistered users. Also if you have any thing that you would like to
see added then let me know:
- File type recognition.
- File type sensitive pop up menus.
- Option to allow directories to open in the same window rather than new
opening a new one every time.
- Transparent icons similar to the NewIcons patch.
- Your suggestions.
HISTORY
-------
4-July-1997
- MBench V1.0 released.
15-June-1997
- Copy and delete now take notice of the stop buttons.
- Bug fixed where opening a window from the openlocation requester would
not allow you to change the display all flag.
- Arbitration bug to windows fixed.
13-June-1997
- Transparent icons now finally work. Also options for selection type.
- Fixed bug where a drawer icon for a file wrongly tried to open a
directory for in that file.
- More items moved into the mbmisc.library
11-June-1997
- Bug fixed that would leave unfreed memory for icon selected images.
10-June-1997
- Leave Out/ Put Away finally work and record the correct values to disk.
- Bug fixed where in list mode the vertical scroller would show the wrong
line.
09-June-1997
- Disk and memory update now takes place at a user definable interval.
- Fixed bug in list mode that would cause memory trashing when you dragged
an item where the name was longer than the name column.
- Set the screen title to a reasonable default.
- Fixed bug where duplicating a drawer would rename all its contents to
copy_of_... aswell
- Leave out bug fixed.
- Default tool field fixed in project info requesters.
- Fixed bug that could cause a crash if a projects default tool field was
invalid.
- Added notification on all start menu items, inc. sub drawers.
- Fixed notification bug that could cause a crash.
- Fixed bug that would cause MBench to crash if you changed the pattern from
a picture to a pattern and then changed it again.
- Clicking on directories is now more intelligent. New drawers open in the
same mode as the parent one. And opening up a buffered directory opens it
back in the same mode that it was opened in before.
- Fixed bug with MFS(MultiFileSystem) that would cause MBench to hang.
08-June-1997
- Horay!! Finally finished my exams.
- Fixed icon positioning problems. Now consideration is made to the icons
text and other bits fixed.
02-June-1997
- More fixes to disk detection, code prepared so that regular checks for
new/unmounted/busy etc. disks can be made without having to reinsert a
disk for any changes to be detected.
- Option to only unmount disks where they don't have a cached directory
on them.
- Oops - pen locking didn't work. It works properly now - fixes some if the
icon colour problems.
- Fixed bug where if an project icons tool wasn't a full path, it wasn't
found, it correctly searches the path list now.
- StartMenu items now have » rather that >> to show submenus. Fixes a problem
with MagicMenus.
- Workbench windows how declared as such - allows, gauge bar from MCP et al.
to work properly
01-June-1997
- Reworked the way that disks are detected. Now things such as the ENV: icon
for HappyENV nolonger show up. Should work more like Workbench now.
31-May-1997
- Added more options to the title format.
- You can now close all windows (except the main one) by holding down shift
when clicking on a windows close gadget.
30-May-1997
- Option to lock pens to give correct colours.
- Option to format the title bar to your own preferences added.
- Semaphore added to menus.
- Startup bug fixed - if there already exists an arexx port called MBench,
MBench will now detect this and load properly
28-May-1997
- Bug fixed that could try and unload a program twice if it failed to load
properly.
- Bug fixed - if you clicked on a project icon and the default tool was
invalid then MBench would crash on exit trying to free a lock twice.
- Bug fixed - added a semaphore to the commodities which should avoid some
crashes.
27-May-1997
- Serious bug fixed now uses SYS: as the current dir always like Workbench
this stops some programs crashing on exit.
26-May-1997
- Copy bug fixed.
- You can now enter upto 300 chars in input windows - the limit before
was way too low.
-
25-May-1997
- Major fixes to the Information requester - now works OK when icons with
no file are used and also enforcer hit produced by information on drawers
fixed.
- Enforcer hit when copying just an icon fixed.
- Bug fixed that would not update an icon when there is no file for it.
24-May-1997
- Enforcer hit fixed when selecting an AppMenu item with nothing selected.
22-May-1997
- Fixed a major bug that would leave a lock on any drawer that you double
clicked upon using up memory and not allowing you to delete it.
21-May-1997
- Bug fixed where MBench would leave a lock on a newly created icon.
- When deleting files etc. MBench will now correctly try and close/free
any locks that it holds on an item.
- Enforcer hit with App Routines when passing a Disk WBArg fixed.
- Bug fixed in DICE startup code that would cause an enforcer hit when
exiting MBPrefs. NOTE TO ANYONE USING DICE - The main startup code
contains a major bug - the directory is changed to the first lock in
the WBArg list and not changed back.
- Pop up menus now correctly make the window that they are clicked over
the activate one (ie. the one that operations will take place in).
- Fixed enforcer hit when copying directories.
- Fixed enforcer hit when deleting items from a buffer with no associated
window open.
- Fixed bug that failed to report any errors if delete failed.
20-May-1997
- Copy of files majorly sped up.
- Snapshot of windows now records the type (icon/list and show all flag.)
- Bug fixed that would cause an enforcer hit if you drag a disk item over
an app window.
19-May-1997
- Copy routine when icons copied sped up - No longer has to reread the icons.
- Snapshot files bug fixed that could cause crashing.
- NewDrawer memory loss bug fixed.
- Snapshot etc. of NewIcons no longer looses the imagery untill updated.
18-May-1997
- Bug fixed that could cause MBench to hang when a disk was inserted.
- Popup menus added for windows (registered users only).
14-May-1997
- Prefs program finished - needs testing.
- Notification of prefs change added - currently can't change some
settings though.
- File and open location windows are now app windows.
11-May-1997
- Not really been keeping a note - had a lot of work etc on.
- Select by pattern added.
- Bug fixing display problems with the main window fixed eg. when you make
a new drawer in the main window.
- Changing the main windows backdrop mode now correctly redisplays the icons
when it is done.
- started to add pop up menus for windows - at the moment they are very basic.
27-Apr-1997
- minor bug fixed that sometimes didn't allow you to load any programs in
the demo version - was due to the async loading of programs.
23-Apr-1997
- Serious bug that was causing problems with KingCON and a few other programs
fixed.
- fixed bug causing a crash when you flush libraries while MBench is running.
20-Apr-1997
- Icons routines changed, bug that could cause enforcer hits and possible
crashes fixed.
- Now only changes its name to Workbench if Workbench isn't already
running - it has to do this as some programs eg. DICE assume that
if they get a Workbench Message at start up then they were started
by Workbench - WRONG!!!
- Added flush buffers to the MBench menu.
18-Apr-1997
- Clicking in an empty list window no longer produces an enforcer hit.
- You can drag icons to leave out into the main window and they can now
be renamed, deleted etc. just like normal icons can.
- left out icons now have a symbol in the bottom corner so that they can
be distinguished from icons in the WorkSpace directory.
17-Apr-1197
- Clickin the right mouse button while the left is pressed over an item
can now be used to cancel selection of that item.
16-Apr-1997
- Info requesters now have working shortcuts.
- shows busy etc. disks OK.
- left out items don't have to have a disk inserted for them to be used
now.
15-Apr-1997
- Now correctly uses directory buffers - the maximum number of buffers to
cache can be user defined in the settings.
- Fixed problem when you duplicate disk icons - now correctly brings up
the disk copy program.
- Icon text is now displayed according to the font prefs settings.
13-Apr-1997
- fixed bug where left out drawers can't be opened.
12-Apr-1997
- correctly updates scroll bars when items are dragged in the same window.
11-Apr-1997
- fixed bug causing hang after Open is selected.
- started rewrite of internal representation of directory lists.
10-Apr-1997
- Finished the help file.
9-Apr-1997
- updated scrolling of icon routines. They now work slightly better.
8-Apr-1997
- a memory loss bug removed.
- information requesters now correctly show information on disks, not
always showing SYS:
- started to move some routines into mbmisc.library so that a number of
internal features of MBench can be accessible to external programs
even when MBench isn't loaded eg. progress windows, line input windows.
- you can now drag icons into the main widows although not as yet leave
them out:-(. You can however drag them over disks, appicons and have an
option to copy them to the WorkSpace: assign, in effect leaving them out
To leave out items, you have to revert back to Workbench.
- the 'O' key was used twice in the menus. Open now uses '0' as its
shortcut (O, P, E, N were all already defined.)
- clicking with various qualifiers held down doesn't register as a mouse
click anymore so things such as powersnap can still use there default
hotkeys.
6-Arp-1997
- Bug causing possible crash in rename routines fixed.
- Possible deadlock bug fixed in Close file detection routines.
- Added GetSelectedList command so arexx programs can obtain a list of
currently selected files.
- You can now drag icons on to the main window although not as yet leave
them out.
- Moved the E key back to execute file like on workbench. Even I kept
getting confused by this.
5-Apr-1997
- Loading up a windows contents is now quite a bit faster.
- cleanup now takes into account the icons width.
- copying an icon to list mode where we show only files no longer displays
the icon in that mode.
- clicking a drawer in list mode now correctly uses the drawers size and
position.
- In the root directory icons are no longer saved as <name>disk.info if
there doesn't exist a file along with the icon.
4-Apr-1997
- Added a KeyFile and a need to register to receive all full functionality.
Sorry but I need the money being a poor student and all that ;-)
- Works on my A600 now aswell.
3-Apr-1997
- fixed bug where you are unable to select list header items when the list
header is scrolled past the first item.
- fixed alert when executing an internal command.
- fixed bug where you sometimes loose memory when you switch display mode
or close a window while the items are being loaded up into it. Also
results in slightly faster item loading.
- added the routine to detect renaming of disks.
- updated the routine to detect the sizes of files after they are changed
now works slightly quicker and better.
2-Apr-1997
- List headers added and working.
- sped up display of assign window.
- added layout windows by Stacked, Horizontal, Vertical commands.
- added activate next, previous window commands.
- added send window to back, bring to front commands.
30-Mar-1997
- bug fixed. You can now select all items in the assign window. Even the
top ones!
- Bug causing a possible hang when refreshing windows fixed.
- Window refreshing sped up. This is at the expense of having the windows
not refreshed sometimes for a while but c'est la vie or whatever.
- Started to add the list headers for the list view mode. Still not
working, but shouldn't be long now.
29-Mar-1997
- bug causing hang when main window updated fixed.
- bug causing alert in MBCommand fixed. Was due to wrong value passed
into ReadArgs.
28-Mar-1997
- when changing display (list->icon etc.) the border is no longer slightly
overwritten.
- when dragging list items they now start off in the correct places.
27-Mar-1997 V0.9
- Loads a changes since the last release.
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