I was starting to feel like Aminet CD reviews were turning into exercises in repetition.
Don't get me wrong, I've been enjoying them. But the pattern for evaluating them was one largely of "lather, rinse, repeat." Luckily, Urban's come up with a few things that are worth special note. But first, the overview of the CD.
Aminet 7 represents the change from quarterly to bimonthly publication of CDs, meaning 8 is due any day now. The familiar-like-an-old-friend AmigaGuide interface is on the job, breaking down Aminet's structure into a searchable index, either by text string, age, popularity, or physical location on the network.
The theme for this edition is the inclusion of 10,000 images from Aminet, largely clipart with some 24-bit JPEGs. Eh. I'm in online journalism for a reason, you know, and one of those is so I don't have to worry about clipart. But, I know it's rather useful to a lot of people, so I endure. It is indexed by subject matter and can be accessed by name or through a thumbnail system.
The games and demos on the CD are once again in their own separate, easy-access areas (when do online magazines get that treatment?), this time categorized so far as to point out whether or not they're fully compatible (ready-to-run from CD) on an A4000/040. Mods get similar treatment (although all, of course, are compatible.)
Aminet 7 also does something no Aminet CD has done before (at least, not intentionally)-include commercial software. Personal Paint 2.1 and PPrint Deluxe have been licensed and placed on the CD, presumably as a promotional measure (for PPaint, that is certainly the case, as the 6.3 demo is included to inspire the user.)
The ability to customize your use of Aminet CDs now extends beyond the simple preferences in place to select a dearchiver and picture viewer. Custom index lists, for use with the AmigaGuide interface, can now be created and saved to your system drive. In addition, "clones", or virtual references to software stored on the CD, can be used as real system items, including WBStartup items. The catch, of course, is that the CD has to be in place whenever these programs are to be accessed, since they really live there. A strange concept, but if disk space is at a premium, it is worth investigating. My personal theory is that it is a bit of "catch up" with the CD-Write filesystem-a way to offer some useful "virtual filesystem" features without a full-blown package.
Aminet 7. It's the newest software from Aminet since the last time around, with an improved interface and a whole ton of clip art. Rinse.
Oh yeah, and it finally credits the Amiga as a trademark of Escom AG on the label.
DM 25, or roughly US$18, give or take depending on your mood.