Article: Q&A Special - THE AMIGADOS PROBLEM SOLVER
Author: John Kennedy
Words: 2100
Pictures: 4
Q&A Special - THE AMIGADOS PROBLEM SOLVER
Get the most from your Amiga with John Kennedy, as he looks at the most common Workbench problems.
The Amiga comes with one of the most integrated, powerful and yet easy to use operating systems of any computer: the Workbench. No other system allows you to dabble so deeply with individual files, and this can lead to all sorts of problems.
Things seem to go wrong most often when files are being copied from one floppy disk to another, or when they are copied from a floppy to a hard disk. Gone are the days when a single file contained the entire program: in a multitasking environment like the Amiga, you have to keep track of mysterious libraries, devices and goodness knows what else lurking in the c directory of your disk.
Here is a quick look at some of the more commmon problems. Hopefully after reading through this lot, you'll start to appreciate what is behind all those nasty error messages which seem to crop up so much.
BOOTING AND ASSIGNS
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When you create an 'assign', you are defining a new Amiga device, like a disk drive or a printer. As the device doesn't actually exist - you can't magically build a real disk drive just by typing - it's called a Logical Device, as opposed to a Physical Device.
You can use an assign to save yourself a lot of typing at the shell. For example, imagine you need to access a file which is buried in a drawer, which itself is in a drawer. The overall path to the file could be something like:
df0:graphics/pictures/my_cat
Now to save typing all that every time you need to look at your cat, first of all make an assign:
assign Fluffy: df0:graphics/pictures/
The logical device Fluffy: has been created - you can check by entering assign at a shell by itself. A list of all the current assigns will appear, and Fluffy: should be in there somewhere.
With Fluffy: created, accessing my_cat is a lot easier. The following will make a copy of the file in the Ram disk.
copy fluffy:my_cat to ram:
If there is a problem with Assign statements, it's that they will disappear as soon as the power to the computer is removed. To ensure they are always present, you will have to add them to your startup sequence. On Workbench 2 and better, use the file S:user-startup to store all your important assigns. The user-startup file is automatically invoked by the real startup-sequence.
If you have been on the ball, you'll have noticed that S: is itself an assign, but it's rather a special one which the Amiga operating system has created for itself. Along with LIBS:, DEVS:, C: and a few others, where S: actually points to depends on how the computer was started up.
When you boot your computer from a floppy disk, say the standard Workbench disk, these assigns all point to the relevant directories on the floppy disk. In effect, they are set like this:
assign s: df0:s/
assign c: df0:c/
assign devs: df0:devs/
assign libs: df0:libs/
Now if you are lucky enough to have a hard drive, the computer will usually boot from it. When this happens, the assigns are made to the directories on the hard disk, like this:
assign s: hd0:s/
assign c: hd0:c/
assign devs: hd0:devs/
assign libs: hd0:libs/
where hd0: is the bootable partition on the hard disk. This may be different on your hardware and called dh0: or something similar.
To add assigns to the user-startup, open a shell and enter:
ed s:user-startup
Now you can enter some definitions, for example:
assign graphics: hd0:art/pictures/
assign sound: hd0:music/samples/
When you finished, press ESC and then X to save your new user-startup.
EXPLODING LIBRARIES
Picture: error.iff
caption: How many times have you seen this? Judging by the number of letters to Q&A on the subject, nearly every one is plagued by a similar message several times a day.
The way in which the assign definitions can vary depending on boot disk can
lead to a few problems. Take the classic 'explode.library not found' error message which usually occurs when a coverdisk program such as VirusChecker is run.
If the disk with the virus checker is used to boot the computer, everything will work fine. However, once the program is copied to another floppy or onto a hard disk, up pops the error. What's going on?
The VirusChecker program requires a special software library to run, and it looks in the LIBS: directory to find it. As the floppy disk booted the computer, LIBS: is the libs directory on the floppy disk - which will contain the library.
However, if the Amiga is booted from the hard disk and the virus checker is run, it may fail. It will still look in LIBS: for the library, but the LIBS: won't be referring to the floppy - it will be looking on the hard disk. Chances are the correct library isn't on the hard disk (unless you copied it there) and so instant error message.
To stop this from happening, all you need to do is make sure that the library is in your hard drive libs directory. Boot from the hard drive, insert a coverdisk which has the virus checker and enter the following at a shell prompt:
copy df0:libs/explode.library to libs:
At last your exploding library problem will be solved, as the required library becomes a permanent part of your Amiga system.
TEXT AND DOC FILES
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picture: more.iff
caption: Another annoying error message - you click on an icon called ReadMe and all you get is abuse from the operating system. User friendly my bottom.
)
Have you ever clicked on a ReadMe icon, only to find that instead of text, you get an error message? I certainly have, and it does get extremely irritating after a while.
When a Doc file gets it right, double clicking should automatically load a text display program (such as MORE) and then have itself loaded and displayed. What happens is hidden from you - all you know is that you clicked on a text file, and it appears on the screen in front of you.
However, as you would expect, nothing is so simple. The text program cannot appear on-screen by itself, it must have a viewing program. You can check the name of the viewing program which a particular document needs by using the INFO command from the Workbench. Highlight the icon with a single click, and then use INFORMATION from the Icon menu. You should obtain a
window like that shown below, although this will only be true if the document was saved with the correct protect icon.
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picture: info.iff
caption: Using the INFORMATION option from the Workbench pull-down menu, you can check on the name of the viewer (if any) the document file hopes to use. This can be changed if nessecary - type in the new name and hit SAVE.
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The important part of the window is the text in the 'default tool' box. This is the name of the program which will be used to display the text, and if you don't have it - the text won't be displayed and you'll get an error message instead.
If the text is a raw, plain, ordinary text file (sometimes called an ASCII text file because all the letters and numbers conform to the American Standard Code for Information Interchange character set) then MORE will do
fine. Every Amiga came with More, usually lurking (without an icon of it's own) in the Utilities drawer. The Utilities drawer is one of those drawers which the Amiga will search through for commands automatically, and so no path is needed.
Assuming you have a text file called HELP.DOC in the RAM: disk, to read it all you need do is open a shell and enter:
more ram:help.doc
Sometimes when an author puts a document in the public domain he or she forgets to change the name in the icon to More, and keep it pointing to some obscure text reader only themselves and a scandinavian hacker know about. If so, just edit the name in the default tool box to be More, select
save and try again.
Unfortunately, nine times out of ten when a document icon fails it's not because it can't find More. Instead it is more likely that the text file has been compressed with a program such as PowerPacker and is no longer raw ASCII. Displaying a crunched file with MORE is not going to bring
much joy: a dedicated crunched file-viewer is needed.
The standard decompressor and viewer is called PPMore, and if you don't already have PPMore on your hard disk you have probably seen the error message 'Can't find tool PPMore' more than once. The solution isn't very difficult - simply copy the PPMore program to your hard disk. Find a coverdisk with PPMore (most of them have it, although they may hide it
in the C directory) and copy it across. Rather than fill your own C: directory to overflowing, put it in Utilities with More, like this:
copy df0:c/PPMore to hd0:utilities/
Once you have sorted a few icons out, you'll soon recognise the tell-tale signs and what to expect. If you have More and PPMore on your boot disk, you should be able to read just about anything.
PRETTY ICONS
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picture: magicwb.iff
caption: You too can have a snazzy Workbench like mine. First get hold of MagicWb, secondly trawl through the PD libraries for good icons, and thirdly get completely carried away. A multiscan monitor helps: this Workbench is 640 by 480 and flicker-free.
)
Several people have mentioned the rather 'different' icons and fonts which I used on my Workbench and which therefore appear in some review screenshots.
After making the break from the tedious orange and blue of Workbench 1.3, I can't really stand any normal looking Amiga display - they all look so boring. I can't understand why more folk don't take advantage of the icon editor and backdrop preference to make more interesting displays.
Well, I can actually - unless you have a hard drive and perhaps a little more memory than standard all the new icon data can eat into your precious resources. However, if you have an A1200 with a hard drive you have no excuse - ditch those boring john-major-grey-and-blue colours and get a life.
Every icon on the Amiga can be altered, and that includes the floppy, hard and ram disk icons. Editing the icon for say, the preferences printer control is no problem: load it into the icon editor, draw all over it and save it back out.
Altering the icon for the hard and floppy drives isn't really a problem either, as each drive has a file called disk.info in the root directory. Enter dir hd0: (or dh0:) and amongst all the .info files and drawers you'll see it.
The only thing that could possible go wrong when experimenting with icons is a mix-up over their type. An icon can be a project (like a text file), a trashcan, a disk (hard, floppy or ram) or a tool (like a word processor) and if you save a project icon out as disk.info then funny things might happen. This is why it's best to load the original icon into the editor and change that, rather than start from scratch.
IT'S MAGIC!
Although I would love to pretend otherwise, I'm not a terribly artistic person and I have to admit that the icons I use on my Workbench are all taken from some public domain and shareware disks. The most important addition to my set-up was from a program called Magic Workbench, which adds
the incredibly snazzy new drawers and default Workbench icons. I know that 17 Bit Software sell this disk, and it is well worth having.
The Magic WB system includes an excellent font called XEN which manages to be readable and yet very compact. I use it in every program I can to fit more text on-screen, as it looks so much better than Topaz.
Other icons I have picked up from various disks, and re-coloured to fit into my standard 16-colour palette. The key to a good icon is small size (I can't stand huge cluttering icons) and clarity: the icon must look like
something useful or you'll never remember what it's for.
If you have a multiscan monitor and a AGA machine, you're lucky in that you can display a flicker-free Workbench of about 640 by 512 or bigger, which makes for an excellent working environment. Add a digitised image as a backdrop and you have a Workbench you can be proud of!
Next month: (if you want a next month that is)
More AmigaDOS tricks and tips, including creating the best
possible Workbench layout, playing with multview and archiving and compressing files.
