I guess by now that you have viewed the Magellen Pic 1 and thought to yourselves, "How do I create those pretty Dock Icons at the top of the screen and what's those funny little buttons for?" Well folks that's the purpose of this tutorial. I will explain to you all as usual in easy steps how it is done.
Now before I start to tell you how to set up the Dock Icons I want you to give the matter some serious thought first. Dock Icons SHOULD be used to launch your most frequently used software and applications. Button banks should be used for less frequently used applications and the START BUTTON for whatever you choose. There isn't much point in setting up a bank of Docks to launch stuff that you only use once in a blue moon!
So now we have decided what applications we would like to launch from our Docks, let's make a start. There is, one very small problem! There are NO Dock Icons within the Directory Opus Magellan II package so you will have to find your own! However that should not present too much of a problem. If you are "on line" there are thousands of them to be found on the Aminet site. Check out FabiusNIDocs, that's where I got mine from. If your not "on line" then you will find plenty to choose from by searching either CU Amiga, AF Format or the latest AmigActive CD's.
Armed with a collection of your nice looking Docks we first need to install them within Opus. Open the partition where your Opus5 directory is kept, open Images and that's where you put them. DON'T put them in the Icon sub-directory that's within this drawer. Why? because only REAL icons are stored here and we are going to change those Docks to Images. How? Easy. Having copied your Dock Icons into the Image drawer we just need to rename them. You will notice that all the files here have a .small suffix. We are going to use .large suffix for two reasons. Firstly to save overwriting any image with the same name and secondly to make them easily distinguishable.
Again a little bit of thought is required. If you look at Pic 1 you will see that the first Dock Icon is an image of a Juke Box. I decided to use this to launch HippoPlayer so I renamed the icon to Hippo.large to make it easy to find again. Continue now to rename all the rest of your Docks with meaningful names, not forgetting the .large suffix. Having completed that task, let's move on.
From the Opus top menu bar select Buttons, New and Graphic Buttons. A pop up Button Bank Editor (Fig2) and a Blank Button will appear. In the Settings of the Button Bank Editor, untick the Full Border box. The Blank Button should now look like Fig1. Leave Drag set as Automatic and tick only Simple-Refresh. The next task is to give the Dock Icon Bank a name, so edit Untitled to what ever you wish to call it.
Next we need to edit the Blank Button but you will notice that the lower section of the Button Bank Editor is ghosted out. So, mouse click on the Blank Button and it will start to flash. The ghosting will now be removed allowing you to now edit the Button. Now you can click on Edit and a pop up Button Editor (Fig3) will appear.
Let's now examine the Button Editor in closer detail as this is where most of the main work is done. The first part we want to look at is the Functions Box, this is where you choose which mouse button will activate your Dock Icon. By default the left mouse button is selected, but you may wish to change this. Having selected your mouse button let's now add the Dock Icon Image.
Click now on the Image disk gadget and a standard file requester should appear. If you have installed Opus correctly the file requester will default to where we stored our Dock Icon images earlier. Now select the image you require. For the purpose of this tutorial we will select Hippo.large as our image. Your selected Dock Icon will now appear below in the button box. Good Stuff Eh?
Click now on Edit Function and up will pop the Function editor. There is very little work to be done here other than to click on the cycle gadget to set it to AmigaDOS and then click on the disk gadget and select the path to the required program. For the purpose of this tutorial our path is:- DH2:HippoPlayer/HiP
Finally click on Use, Use and Save. Well done class, you have created your first Dock Icon. Now for your homework this week let's make a nice row or column of them. You only have to click on Add in the Button Bank Editor and follow the same procedure again.
When you have completed your Dock Icons, Position them on screen by means of the drag bar which you can turn off as I described in my last tutorial. Now right mouse click on the Dock Icon Button Bank and from the pop up menu select save. Finally from the Opus top menu bar, select Settings, Environment and Save Layout. This will ensure that your Dock Icons will be locked to your desktop. Remember that in Directory Opus you can snapshot an icon or lister but you can only preserve the screen position of a Button Bank by the Save Layout option.
Remember that Directory Opus Magellan II has a built in AmigaGuide help facility. Whilst using any of the various editors if you position your mouse pointer over a part of it and press the Amiga's Help key an on screen help guide will be available to you.
To create a Small Button Bank as shown on Pic 1 is very easy as the procedure is exactly the same as for creating a bank of Dock Icons, with the exception that you use the .small image from the Image drawer. Again what programs or applications or indeed what image you choose for that program or application is entirely up to you. That's the beauty of Directory Opus Magellan, you choose, it complies.
Now if you have been following all 3 of my tutorials you will have installed Directory Opus Magellan II correctly as a Workbench replacement and configured it to give you the style of the desktop that YOU want. You would have set up a Start Button to your own requirements and you would have now set up some Dock Icons and a Button Bank to quickly launch your favourite programs and applications.
Now most of what I have covered so far is mainly cosmetic albeit very useful, and should you be thinking that this is all there is to Directory Opus then you are wrong! Next issue I will be covering Sound Events and venturing into Filetypes. Until then, happy Opusing.