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========================================================================= (C) 1994 by Atari Corporation, GEnie, and the Atari Roundtables. May be reprinted only with this notice intact. The Atari Roundtables on GEnie are *official* information services of Atari Corporation. To sign up for GEnie service, call (with modem) 800-638-8369. Upon connection type HHH (RETURN after that). Wait for the U#= prompt.Type XTX99437,GENIE and press [RETURN]. The system will prompt you for your information. ========================================================================== ************ Topic 4 Wed Aug 17, 1994 GRIBNIF [Dan] at 15:35 EDT Sub: NeoDesk 4 - The Ultimate Desktop Topic to discuss NeoDesk 4, the lastest version of the original desktop replacement for Atari computers. 213 message(s) total. ************ ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 1 Wed Aug 17, 1994 GRIBNIF [Dan] at 15:36 EDT I have just posted a demo version of NeoDesk 4 (NEO4DEMO.LZH), and a press release describing the program (NEO4PRES.TXT). Upgrades and other backorders are starting to ship now and, due to the volume, may take 2-3 weeks to complete. For Immediate Release 8/17/94 --------------------- Gribnif Software is proud to announce the completion of the most recent upgrade to the original desktop replacement for Atari computers, NeoDesk 4. The wait is finally over. NeoDesk has hundreds of features, so here are just some of the more popular ones in the new version: o A completely new "look and feel", including 3D windows, enhanced dialog handling, and the ability to have multiple dialogs open at once. All this works on any Atari computer with any ROM version. o Multicolored icons - each icon can have up to 16 colors, and can even appear completely different when selected. o Icon Editor - This multiple window Icon Editor lets you edit and modify custom icons for any file or folder. The editor can read many popular icon formats, including ones from other platforms! o Any Degas, Neochrome, Tiny, IMG, or BMP picture can be viewed (by double-clicking on it) or can be used as the desktop background. Desktop pictures can even be "tiled". o Each directory window has its own menu bar, making it much easier to find frequently used options. o Each window has its own "parent directory", Show Info, and trashcan icons. o Items can be selected from the keyboard, including a search mode. o File Groups - Now you can arrange commonly used programs and data files together in the same window, even when they are physically contained in drastically different locations! Their names can even be changed, using up to 20 characters. o Font Control - NeoDesk 4 gives you the power to redefine what fonts and point sizes are used within its windows, and even for the text underneath icons. o Disk copy, file operations, and floppy disk formatting can all occur "in the background", allowing you to use your computer for other tasks at the same time. o Search Files - Easily search your system for one or more files, based on their name, size, date, or attributes. A file group can even be created containing the results. This is just one example of the powerful Filtering options which are also available for file operations. o Compatible with all Atari computers, in all resolutions, including third-party graphics cards. NeoDesk 4 is available for just $69.95 plus $4.15 S&H. Owners of NeoDesk 3 can upgrade to the new version for $25 + $3 S&H by sending us both original NeoDesk 3 master disks. Backorders are being filled right now, and may take 2-3 weeks to complete. (Shipping amounts listed apply to orders shipped within the USA only. Please contact us for other areas.) Gribnif Software P.O. Box 779 Northampton, MA 01061-0779 USA Voice: (413) 247-5620 Fax: (413) 247-5622 Dan Wilga Gribnif Software ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 2 Mon Sep 12, 1994 D.MCANDREW [Simulator] at 19:58 EDT Okay. (What makes you think I don't? :) ) ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 3 Mon Sep 12, 1994 F.LAWRENCE2 [FRANK] at 20:41 CDT Dan, I know you are working on the machine problem - I'm a very 'laid back person for the most part so (with all the getting things back together after Neo 4) I'm not worried so don't you worry it will all work out in the wash. When I get off here I'm going to try some more with the Trashcan thing maybe I can try few more things. Frank L ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 4 Mon Sep 12, 1994 T.WILKINSON1 [TomWilkinson] at 18:58 PDT Dan, thank-you. I love Neo 4, and the program groups and extended file names allowed within them are a fantastic addition. Some initial problem areas I've seen are: 1. Running Neo4 in a window under Geneva has locked me up on many occasions, particularly right after using desktop notes. 2. Using a macro of ^W shift <drive> shift <drive> to close the current window and open the selected one doesn't work if there is no open window on the desktop. This did work in Neo 3.x 3. Shift <drive> doesn't seem to work at all if Neo is running in a window under Geneva. It just does nothing. I'm not whining, just mentioning what I've found. There are obvious workarounds to the above, with the exception of the lock-ups when running in a window, which I would like to do. This complements Geneva so well, I just think it's fantastic to get this calibre of software when many other companies don't think it's worth developing for ATARI. I wish you immense success, and I hope the other users promote this software within their own communities and clubs, as I will be doing as much as possible on the local bbs's here. BTW, in regard to the problems I mentioned above, they are encountered on a Falcon with Tos 4.04, running 14 megs of memory. Best of luck Tom W. ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 5 Mon Sep 12, 1994 L.BUDNICK [Lorne] at 21:11 CDT Dan, That is great news, re:, your considering upping the number of Speedo fonts limit. Keep us posted. Thanks, Lorne.... ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 6 Mon Sep 12, 1994 J.LEMLEY [Jack] at 22:27 CDT Dan, Further update on disappearing icons. From the desktop I went to icon edit and immediately back to desktop with no changes. I then selected Desktop under settings to view new desktop pictures. I left the dialogue box on my screen to go take care of other things. I came back and selected cancel without viewing any pictures. I then pulled WW.PRG off of drive D to install on desktop and saved config. Then I ran WW and upon exit of WW I had lost all desktop prg icons except Word Writer! Hope this helps narrow down the problem. BTW I tried reloading the INF file but the icon damage apparently was already done before I saved config even though the icons were still on the screen before running WW. I have now taken a Default.INF file and put in another directory for safe keeping (I was getting real tired of reinstalling all those desktop icons). TT030, TOS 3.06, 4/4 megs memory, TT med res. Auto folder in run order XBoot JAR10 Pinhead Geneva (release 003) Artsevnt Silkmouse Outburst HSMODEM1 Nosystem NVDI Dmirror UIS III Neoload (Neo 4 version) Resident ACCS in run order Cardfile (v4.xx i think) OBACC Taskman TTartist Xcontrol (v1.31 or current) Thanks Jack ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 7 Tue Sep 13, 1994 M.RIVMAN1 [MATT] at 01:27 EDT Thanks again Dan, Your right, of course, my Aladdin problem _was_ a bad file in the Aladdin folder. I hope you can reproduce the problem with Trashcan when run as an NPG. I prefer to run it that way, though it wouldn't be awful if I had to resort to using it as an .ACC. I don't know if this will help track it down, but I've noticed that on my system, when I drag a file to the TRASHCAN.ACC icon on the desktop, the drive window is not updated. If I then try to undelete the same file, I get the familiar 2 bomb crash. If, however, I use 'Force update' so the window reflects the absence of the file, I can use the Undelete without incident. (does this give you any clues?) Still weeding out my hardware problem, Matt -=-=-=-=- ADDENDUM -=-=- This evening I booted up (normal boot set incl. G and Neo4) with the Control key depressed. Per the manual, this should boot the system as normal but load no .ACC's. Instead, I saw a flash of the NeoDesk4 info screen, then went to G's Nodesktop. Have I missed something? Should booting while holding 'Control' cause Neo4 not to be loaded? MR ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 8 Tue Sep 13, 1994 M.RIVMAN1 [MATT] at 03:48 EDT Well, I've got to tell you all that I'm having more trouble with my system this week, than I've had in my 8 odd years using Atari computers. And it's not over yet. Now, it seems I can't boot into Low rez. No matter what I do, I keep getting sent to the Med. rez. screen. Sheesh, I can almost see why so many people leave the platform! Not quite, but almost. I select the Low Rez set up from my boot manager, as I did yesterday when it worked properly, and I'm sent to the Med. rez screen. If I switch to Low rez via the 'Set Video' option in Neo4, it changes without a hitch. It just won't go there on it's own. ARGGHHH! This week I've been on vacation. Some vacation, I've spent almost all my time fussing with the system, or waiting for it to cool down, so I could change something, and reboot! It's like a monkey on my back. I'm really starting to hate it, but I can't give it up! I'm a computer junkie. Help, I've lost my composure and I can't get it back! (tune in later for more of the continuing saga) Matt ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 9 Tue Sep 13, 1994 T.PATRICK5 [Happy Hacker] at 04:57 PDT Here are some more bugs to add to the NeoDesk-4 list... The "Unload for execute" option does NOT work with "Install application" or .NPI files. Only the "Default" option is valid. Selecting "Yes" or "No" will cause NeoDesk to UNLOAD regardless. The NeoDesk-4 desktop dissappears from the background when running some multitasking programs that NeoDesk-3 worked fine with. This means I have to task-switch back to NeoDesk, where as before I could just click on open windows or icons in the background. Not sure if this is a bug or intentional... with some programs this helps, with others it doesn't. The Neo-4 Control panel "Blitter" icon doesn't work. Fortunately, it defaults to on (which is what I want), but it stays selected when I click on it, and in fact, the info line doesn't even appear for this icon (the others, however, are fine). I would guess it's looking for hardware in the later (030) machines, and gets confused if there's only a blitter? Memory fragmentation is terrible under Neo-4! Neo-4 boots up with fragmentation, while the same configuration of Neo-3 did not. Also, both the "Help" and "Edit Icon" functions fragment memory with Geneva. I went back and fourth between the icon editor and help several times while learning it and ended up with SIXTEEN blocks! (This may be why some people are having icons dissappear?) Even without Geneva, using the "Unload for execute" option and running almost anything will result in fragmented memory after Neo-4 reloads. (And, no, I'm not using "Unload" with Geneva...) These tests were run on a Mega-4 and a 4MB 520STfm with TOS 1.4 with a "clean" boot (no AUTO/ACC except JAR, NEOLOAD, and in the Geneva tests, GENEVA and the Task Manager ACCessory). Neo-4 was set to stay resident under Geneva, and to unload without it. The memory fragmentation is cumulative -- the more you use the system, the more fragmented it becomes, until there isn't enought RAM to run. The fragmentation may be the cause of many odd problems people are having that don't seem to be repeatable. If you don't do the things that cause it, everything works fine. For instance, with Neo-4 set to stay resident (the way it's used under Geneva) programs run and quit just fine. If you use the icon editor repeatedly, however, you will shread your memory and eventually run into problems. On the other hand, with Neo-4 set to unload, running anything will fragment RAM, and every time you run another program it gets worse. After several programs have been run and quit, there may not be enough contiguous RAM left to even reload NeoDesk! Oh, and as long as I'm bitching... I don't like the way the icon editor repositions the desk icons to their default locations. Neo-3 left them wherever they were on the desktop -- which is where I put them and want them! Aloha, from the UnHappy Hacker! (Tim) ... Fast Technology Turbo25 inside! ... NeoDesk-4 outside (temporarily) PS: What happened to "VDI" mode in the INF files settings -- is it automatic now? (If it's in the manual, tell me where...) ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 10 Tue Sep 13, 1994 M.RIVMAN1 [MATT] at 18:32 EDT All - I've really got to stop trying to work on my machine during the wee hours of the morning. I found the reason I was unable to boot into Low rez... mia culpa, mia maxima culpa. I had forgotten that while I was searching for settings that might have effected my power up problem, I had switched off Gevena's Misc. settings to take video from Desktop/Newdesk.INF. Geez, what a dolt! <G> You know, I find it absolutely amazing. When I was affiliated with Psychiatric hospitals, I could deal with self destructive or suicidal patients easily. Never lost my 'cool'. But let my computer system exhibit some problems, and I become an obsessed lunatic! Matt ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 11 Tue Sep 13, 1994 J.BATES15 [JAB] at 18:33 EDT Longish post warning! Hi Dan, Just got my NEO 4 today. There was no registration card in the package so I'm guessing that since it was an upgrade, I don't have to send one in. Now on to questions. I have managed to change the desktop fill pattern to a solid color (purple) but whenever I reload NEO 4 I get the ugly green system color and have to reload colors from the color set up CPX. NEOControl will not save my choice of colors. All I want is a solid color of my choice on the desktop when I start NeoDesk and on the NoDesktop of Geneva. Is that so wrong? What do I have to do to make it happen? I'm off to start the process with a "clean" system and see what happens. Later, JAB OK, it is later and this is what I have found. On a Falcon030 using ICD Pro ver. 6.2.3; Jar20.prg, Neoload.prg in the Auto folder; and NeoControl.Acc as the only accessory; the standard Atari desktop is vibrant green. When I run Neoload again, Neodesk.exe runs and my computer switches into the correct colors for less than 1 second and then switches back to the default colors when it draws the NeoDesktop. If I then change the colors with the NeoControl acc and save the configuration, exit and reload, it goes back to the default system colors. Oh, I am trying to run in 80 column, 16 color, double line off mode on an NEC3D with the Atari VGA adapter. I had hoped that this would be fixed in this version since I had reported the same results with NeoDesk 3.04 earlier this year. Any ideas Dan? This won't stop me from using the program, but I will use it less often. I don't need it as a shell under Geneva, but it will make some things easier to do. Other than that it looks great, and has more features than I'll ever use. Now to restore my system. Oh yeah, I get an "Illegal AES function call" message when I boot with this setup. When I had the printer queue installed too I got two "Illegal AES function call" messages. Later again, Switched to Atari's HD driver ver. 6.05? and no change. It goes purple after the info message and before the NeoDesktop but doesn't stay that way. JAB ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 12 Tue Sep 13, 1994 F.GORON [Frank] at 19:30 EDT Dan, About the Trashcan deleting itself - Of course I can't reproduce it now But I think it was as a DA when it happened. But now NPG works fine, but when I undelete something with trashcan as a DA I bomb out. This is with a TT 4/4 mb of ram, 3.05 TOS & with NOTHING but ND4 and the Trashcan.acc loaded. I turned off all the program flags in Trashcan, but still the same. On the extensions for Installed Apps, I understand about the problems with adding it in the dialog. But - (No Dan, I'm not giving up on this one so easily <g> ) How about if you have ND4 accept >2 extensions from the INF if found. And then instead of having to add a complete line to the INF we could just add the extensions to existing installed apps. And just have the dialog display the first two it finds in the INF. Can't blame a guy for tryin' Thanks F Frank ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 13 Tue Sep 13, 1994 F.LAWRENCE2 [FRANK] at 19:24 CDT Matt, I'm have a problem with Aladdin with NeoDesk4. How in the world do you find a bad file in Aladdin? Sometimes when I am writting a message (offline) I will get two bombs if I hit the 'Ret' key I get so many bombs I can't count 'em. I had 3 desktop notes on the screen, so I have removed them and as of yet I have not had any bombs, I'll have to stay 'cool' with this to see if it really corrected the problem. BTW after I removed my notes I did try to see if the Trashcan program would work with Neo/Geneva combinanation but with no avail. Frank L ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 14 Tue Sep 13, 1994 J.LEMLEY [Jack] at 20:34 CDT Happy Hacker, You're right about the memory fragmentation! I just exited Aladdin after reading your message and went in and out of icon edit (didn't try help) with memwatch loaded and I got a new frag everytime. My largest block of TT ram went down about 100k everytime. I have 4/4 megs on a TT. Yo Dan.... Help.......... Jack ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 15 Tue Sep 13, 1994 B.DEWITT [Perfesser] at 22:05 MDT I have been frustrated in my attempts to use the NeoDesk Control Panel with NeoDesk 4 and I hope to get some advice here about it. When I load NeoControl along with NeoDesk 4, I consistently experience these annoying problems: 1. Prior to the NeoDesk introductory screen coming up, I get an alert box that tells me that an "Illegal AES function Call" has been made. Hitting Return gets me past this and into the NeoDesk 4 desktop, but I can't figure out what causes this to happen. 2. Loading NeoControl and then trying to print from Atari Works causes a message to appear that, in part, reads: "Invalid handle". The program then hangs, forcing me to reboot. Neither of these problems occur if I don't load NeoControl or if I use the Atari Control panel. Any idea what's going on? I am running NeoDesk 4 on a 4 meg Falcon with math co-processor and have the following AUTO programs loaded in this order: 1. Datalite 2. Falcon8 3. Fpatch 4. Jar10 5. NVDI 6. Screen Blaster 7. SpeedoGDOS 8. Speaker Off 9. X Boot My Accessories are: 1. Drivers 2. NeoControl 3. NVDI configuration 4. Outline fonts NeoLoad is loaded automatically by X Boot. Also, does either NeoQueue or Spooler work to speed up Atari Works printer output? I haven't noticed any difference, but maybe I'm doing something wrong (wouldn't be the first time.....) Any help would be appreciated. Th'Perfesser ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 16 Wed Sep 14, 1994 J.BATES15 [JAB] at 00:44 EDT Hi Dan, What can I do to rid myself of the default icons in the Neoicon.nic file? I have grown attached to my animated icons on the Falcon and would like to see them on the desktop still. I was able to load them into the Neoicons.nic (whatever) file but there doesn't seem to be an option for removing your defaults to make way for my choices. Too much improving on a good thing if you ask me. Later, JAB ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 17 Wed Sep 14, 1994 LYRE at 01:04 EDT Dan, Just a comment... If the DIALOG info in the INF file might be of use to others, perhaps you would consider uploading it instead. It would save you the hassle of having to respond to multiple requests. Lyre 12:28 am, September 14, 1994 ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 18 Wed Sep 14, 1994 M.RIVMAN1 [MATT] at 01:29 EDT Frank L. - Do you get the bombs as you are typing the reply, or when you try to save? Is there disk activity at the time? (Hmm, did you say it's when you hit Return?) Re: Finding a bad file in Aladdin... Well, it's like this: My first line of attack is to watch at which point I crash and try to figure which files are being worked with. Of course, if the program won't boot at all, I first try a restore of ALAD.PRG from backup. (I keep and Aladdin icon on my desktop, and there have been times when I double click on it and it seems to start to load but all I get is a flicker in the NeoDesktop and I'm back where I started.) THEN I run MEDIC from Diamond Edge and check the disk for for errors. (view any lost clusters, or back up the drive before fixing the disk if you don't want to loose anything!) Most of the problems I've had have occurred after Aladdin is running. Like bombing out when I try to Mark-Reply messages, either from the menu option or by selecting Topic while reading a message off-line. (Odd, just selecting Reply works fine, but of course if you want to post to an area you haven't gotten any new messages in that won't work!) Anyway, when I've determined it's a file, I will usually check file size against my most recent backup, and check the files for content in an editor. When I had the Mark-Reply problem I noticed that the ATARISTR.TOP and ATARISTR.TMK files were different at their headers than the backup files. (backups were made with PRG working properly) It didn't seem like much, the first letter of the first word was missing. When I tried to add it with the editor, it gave me the message that it would make the first line too long. That's when I decided to just copy over from backup. Besides the constant fragging of the HD that Aladdin does, I really haven't had that many problems with it. More often than not, simply copying over a backup copy of Alad.PRG fixes it. (By the way, I almost _always_ run Diamond Edge after a session with Aladdin to check out how much the data has been fragmented. Usually I optimize to remove frags too.) Hmm, it never entered my mind that the Desktop Notes could be a problem. I keep many on my mono desktop. Shoot, I thought I had my 'first boot' problem licked last night, but NOOOO. It was back again this morning. (First Boot... wasn't that a Stallone movie???!!) <G> If you've never looked at some of the Aladdin files in a text editor you should try it. To a non-programmer (me) it's a wonder how the .PRG makes sense of some of this stuff. Matt ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 19 Wed Sep 14, 1994 F.LAWRENCE2 [FRANK] at 01:43 CDT Matt, As I was typing a message to send (offline) it bombs (2), gives me a message 'illegal command hit any key' (or something like that), I hit the 'Ret' key and bombs appear accross the screen. This does not happen all the time but enough to make me gun shy. My aladdin seems to boot ok and no problems (so far) while I'm online. Seems as if the problems begin after I have been on aladdin, but a complete cold boot doesn't seem to help much. Most of the time when this happens I was using the GEN/NEO4 combination, but it has occured running with just Neo. Sometimes just like you it happens while reading messages and once while I was using the Mark/Reply as well as just a 'Reply' within the 'Messages'. Like you I also run "EDGE" after any bombs after or during Aladdin. I did do a back up today and optimized, also re-installed NeoDesk and Geneva (just pulling at straws), however, I still have had no bombs since I removed the 'Notes' from my desktop - waiting - waiting mmmmmm. I have loaded some of the files into 'EdHak', your'e right, it's a wonder Aladdin runs at all (G). I suppose I'll have more goodies awaiting when I get my TT fixed. - In a nutshell sounds like my problem is very simular to yours. Thanks for the fast reply. Frank L BTW - No disk activity and bombs while typing - I know my typing is not to good any way but (G). ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 20 Wed Sep 14, 1994 M.RIVMAN1 [MATT] at 02:56 EDT JAB - If I understand you correctly... To change the default Neo4 icons... go into Edit Icons and click on the icon 'box' on the desktop. Then open the .NIC file that has the icons you want in it. Drag the icon you want and drop it on top of the default icon you want it to replace, and save when you exit the edit screen. Simple! Matt ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 21 Wed Sep 14, 1994 T.PATRICK5 [Happy Hacker] at 02:01 PDT JAB, While it's true you can't delete the default icons, you can copy over them. Load your icons into the icon editor -- drag them over the appropriate default icon -- then delete the extra copy. Simple. Jack, Try messing with the "Take 100__ Kb at all times" option in the memory dialog. I found a value of 256 solved most of my fragmentation problems (even when unloading). The impression I got from the doc's is that this should only be needed on TOS versions prior to 1.4, but this does not seem to be the case. (Curiously, the option has a default of 100 Kb, but that won't even let Neo-4 load!) Oh well... still learning. So far, the results of using the 256 Kb setting are promising, although a little strange... Set "Take 256__ Kb at all times" and this is what happened: No Geneva - Unload for execute ON --------------------------------- Boot up: Only 1 block now (was 2 with "No limit") Ran STeno: One frag (2 blocks), about 300K drop (?) all subsequent runs okay -- still 2 blocks, but no additional fragging (With "No limit" everything ran added more blocks until system crashed) Tried "Help" and icon editor with no problems either. With Geneva - Unload OFF ------------------------ Boot up: Only 1 block again -- no fragments Ran several programs with no problems Hit "Help" key: Main ST RAM dropped, and 2 blocks now Ran icon editor: Main RAM back to original setting -- NO FRAGMENTS! [insert "Twilight Zone" music here...] Aloha, from the Happy Hacker! (Tim) ... Fast Technology Turbo25 inside! ... NeoDesk-4 (still) outside. *8^) ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 22 Wed Sep 14, 1994 M.RIVMAN1 [MATT] at 09:41 EDT Frank - Did you say whether you were running Aladdin single or multi-tasking? I don't know that it would make a difference but ??? One other thing I have found with Neo4, that didn't occur under past versions is that some of the system sounds I have assigned via GEMSOUND get cut off and a bit fuzzy just before their end. Odd. Hope you get the TT back soon. At this point, I wish I had the $$$ for one. (Or could find someone to buy what I've got, to lessen the outlay!) Matt ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 23 Wed Sep 14, 1994 T.WILKINSON1 [TomWilkinson] at 06:54 PDT J. Bates Re: your problem eliminating the default icons. I just open the other icon file, drag the icon I want overtop of the icon I want to replace in the neoicon.nic file and it replaces it. ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 24 Wed Sep 14, 1994 L.SMITH30 [LOUIS] at 16:15 EDT Dan, Neo4 has arrived on the Rock. Thanks Dan. One the known bugs according to the Readme file is that you cannot save the Sort choice onto the Neodesk*.inf file. Would it be possible to write it into the file with Steno or any other text editor? If so please let me know the relevant line to change. Well done, ,---_ / `-_-----_ / THE ROCK OF `-_ * Louis / GIBRALTAR `-__|_ ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 25 Wed Sep 14, 1994 J.BRENNER1 [See Flat] at 19:03 EDT I received Neodesk 4 today. How come no one has mentioned the little surprise included in the manual? Gribnif bucks! cool. :-) Thanks guys. John B ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 26 Wed Sep 14, 1994 B.MENAGH at 19:07 EDT I finally was able to get NEO4 to boot with Geneva. Thanks to those who offered their suggestions. My problem was in using Superboot and not ensuring the GEM.SYS file directed the computer to the proper location. Thanks again. ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 27 Wed Sep 14, 1994 J.LEMLEY [Jack] at 18:11 CDT Happy Hacker, I tried changing the memory dialog stting per your suggestion. I set it initially I think to 256k like you said. When I rebooted Geneva would load then when it came time for neo to load (I have it set as a shell in Geneva I got and error dialog per the following: This operation requires more memory than is permitted in the memory dialog. Proceed anyway? Continue Cancel Strangly enough I raised it all the way to "Take 500__KB at all times" in stages and still got the error message. I went back to "no limit". Neo 4 appears to really soak up the memory. I get a 60k frag at boot time that never goes away. Where's Dan? Jack Aladdin lag will probably get me on my last question :-) ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 28 Wed Sep 14, 1994 F.LAWRENCE2 [FRANK] at 18:49 CDT Matt, I only use Aladdin as single tasking but did set for multitasking one time testing two days ago and pulled the same trick out of the hat. Using NeoDesk4 (no Geneva), no desktop notes, it did bomb me out of First Word + after being on for about 5 hours, soooo, I'm not even sure that wasn't just a glitch. It also did bomb out once while I was typing a semi-long post in Aladdin today. I'm now trying Teradesk as well as the regular desktop with no crashes yet. Frank L BTW I stopped using GEMSOUND, I found that it was somewhat distracting, but then again roosters crowing *******(G). ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 29 Wed Sep 14, 1994 M.RIVMAN1 [MATT] at 20:46 EDT Dan, Tim - After reading Tim's post about changing the 'Take xxx Kb Memory' I did just that. Because I had been up and running already, there was no use seeing if that would effect my First Boot problem, so I created an 'OldNEO' folder and copied the original NEO_INF.DAT file into it. Then I changed the Take Memory settings and saved. OK, now it got interesting. I move the original .DAT file from it's folder to the clipboard, and move the new NEO_INF.DAT (with the Take Memory change) to the OldNEO folder. (At this point two copies of the C drive window are open.) I then drag the clipbaord icon containing the original .DAT file from the clipboard to the NEODESK4 folder, and get a PATH NOT FOUND message! Click OK and the file is in the directory. HUH? Later, Matt ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 30 Wed Sep 14, 1994 DMJ [dmj] at 19:59 CDT Re: Memory fragging How much you worry about a memory fragment should be directly related to how much memory you have. For example, on a 16M machine, there's no point in worrying about a 50K frag (which I almost always get when I boot up). Even on a 4M machine, 50K isn't too much of a big deal. It amounts to less than 2% of your RAM. I use NeoDesk set to "No Limit". Sometimes it causes frags, but for the most part it seems to clean itself up reasonably well, even in the icon editor (which I use a lot). ~dmj ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 31 Wed Sep 14, 1994 G.LEONE [Gerry] at 21:23 CDT JAB -- >(whatever) file but there doesn't seem to be an option for removing your >defaults to make way for my choices. Too much improving on a good thing if Go into the icon editor, double click on one of your old icons, then use the "COPY" function to copy it. Exit that icon and double click on one of the default icons. Use the "CLEAR" option to clear it off the icon editing screen, then use the "PASTE" option to paste down a copy of your "old" icon. That will then replace it as the default. That *should* work. +~+~+~+~+ Matt -- >It was back again this morning. (First Boot... wasn't that a Stallone >movie???!!) <G> I think you're getting it confused with "Das Boot." Or was it the "TOSeidon Adventure"? :-) -Gerry ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 32 Wed Sep 14, 1994 J.BATES15 [JAB] at 23:43 EDT Matt and Tom_W, OK, I was trying to reorder my icons which wouldn't work. Silly me, not thinking to just copy over the defaults. Now my NeoDesktop looks just like my Falcon desktop, progress is being made. Dan, After I reset my colors with the CPX and I run a program, when Neodesk reloads it comes up in the right colors. It only seems to happen on startup. Speaking of which, I have Neo set to launch from a function key off my desktop and I always get a Neoload.prg must be run at least once message (or something of that nature) so I only run it by clicking on it. Neoload is the last thing in my Auto folder, is there anything it should run ahead of, or behind for that matter? I am also seeing memory fragmentation when using the icon editor. Later, JAB ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 33 Thu Sep 15, 1994 J.BATES15 [JAB] at 01:10 EDT Dan, Sorry again. I could have sworn I changed my install Aplication and SAVED it but I guess not. It was looking for the wrong copy of Neoload. More problems- - I was able to run Aladdin fine but when I went to do an autopass everything locked up. The terminal menu stayed highlighted and the mouse still moved but nothing was happening, and I had to reboot. Later, JAB ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 34 Wed Sep 14, 1994 R.GARDNER2 [Gaitor] at 22:41 PDT I just got my NeoDesk 4 upgrade last weekend and been checking it out and reading the manual at every chance I get. I installed it on a Floppy Disk to get the "FEEL" of before I install on my Hard Drive. Every thing that I have checked out so far works as advertised except one. When I boot up in Medium Resolution I can "SET VIDEO MODE" to Low and it will reboot in Low Resolution. But when I try to "SET VIDEO MODE" from Low Resolution to Medium, NeoDesk prompts me to insert my boot disk with my DESKTOP.INF on it, then says that it has been modified, and asks if I want to reboot. When I click on "CONTINUE", it reboots, but into Low Resolution not Medium like it was supposed to. I did notice that the dialog window states that selecting "OK" for "SET VIDEO MODE" will modify my NEWDESK.INF but since I am using TOS 1.4, I have a DESKTOP.INF, not a NEWDESK.INF. Is there some setting that I am not using to get NeoDesk to switch from Low to Medium? It is only something of a curiosity, since on my HardDrive I use XBOOT to load different NeoDesk 3 Desktops for different sets of programs in different resolutions. I am wondering if this is a bug, or if there is something wrong with my copy of NeoDesk 4. Bob {Gaitor} Gardner ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 35 Thu Sep 15, 1994 M.RIVMAN1 [MATT] at 20:08 EDT Gerry - The TOSeidon Adventure... ya gotta love it! <G> Thanks for the laugh. Matt ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 36 Thu Sep 15, 1994 F.GORON [Frank] at 21:38 EDT Matt, I'm not using Alladin at all. I'm using Flash II in Single-tasking. Frank ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 37 Thu Sep 15, 1994 F.GORON [Frank] at 21:44 EDT Matt & Frank L Oops! I thought Matt was speaking to me about our bootup problems. Sorry guys. Frank G ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 38 Fri Sep 16, 1994 T.PATRICK5 [Happy Hacker] at 02:17 PDT Matt, Frank, Aladdin is pretty stable for me under Geneva/Neo-4, but frequently bombed on exiting with just Neo-4. I've just tried a new setting in the memory dialog and so far everything's working great. Hope it stays that way? Now Diamond Edge is another story... trashed my hard drive so many times I just gave up on it! (Nothing to do with Neo-4 BTW...) Aloha, from the Happy Hacker! (Tim) ... Fast Technology Turbo25 inside! PS: Can't see why DeskTop Notes would cause a problem? ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 39 Fri Sep 16, 1994 T.PATRICK5 [Happy Hacker] at 03:36 PDT Gaitor, I had the same thing happen. Works okay under Geneva (doesn't reboot to change rez), but without it, I couldn't go up-rez either (will go from med to low, but not back). All, After experimenting with various settings this is what I've found makes Neo-4 the most stable on my system... NeoDesk-4 alone (No Geneva) --------------------------- I have found that Neo- 4 alone (no Geneva) will continuously fragment memory as you run programs if set to "Unload for execute" and the "No limit" option in the memory dialog is used. So, if you are running without Geneva you should turn OFF "Unload for execute", or experiment with the "Take ____ Kb at all times" option in the memory dialog. (Assuming Neo-4 releases that memory when it unloads -- otherwise it kind of defeats the purpose... I'll have to experiment some more and let you know?) NeoDesk-4 and Geneva -------------------- Since "Unload for execute" is supposed to be turned OFF under Geneva, it's best to use the "No limit" option in the memory dialog. The icon editor and help functions will both fragment memory, but the frags are minimal and shouldn't be a problem unless you use BOTH those functions a lot. Running programs works fine (no frags that aren't caused by funky software). Aloha, from the Happy Hacker! (Tim) ... Fast Technology Turbo25 inside! ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 40 Fri Sep 16, 1994 J.BRENNER1 [See Flat] at 19:44 EDT Tim, Diamond Edge? In my case Diamond Edge hase saved my life on a few occasions. Never....since it's release has it ever damaged anything on my hard drive. Still experimenting with Neodesk 4 when I have the time. I have not formed any opinions that I wish to share yet. John B. ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 42 Fri Sep 16, 1994 L.BUDNICK [Lorne] at 20:52 CDT Dan or anyone that may know, This question may have been asked and answered but I missed it if so. Does it matter whether I rename *.acc's to *.prg's prior to running them from within the Neo4/Geneva environment? I am talking about running them from the desktop. I have noticed when running an accessory from the desktop with its .acc extension that it shows up in the task menu as an accessory. Just what is the appropriate way in which to deal with accessories that I want to run from the desktop instead of as accessories loaded at bootup? Does it really matter? Thanks in advance, Lorne.... ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 43 Sat Sep 17, 1994 M.RIVMAN1 [MATT] at 01:59 EDT Dan, anyone - Just noticed something about Neo4 in ST Low. (At least in my set up) When I select an icon on the desktop, the title bar under it gets visually garbled and unreadable. This is only a petty inconvenience and all works properly so it's only cosmetic. Also, and I don't know if this has to do with the memory fragmentation but while trying out desktop pics I can go through a bunch without incident, then all of a sudden I'll try to load another and get a crash. click on OK and exit Neo4 to the Geneva Nodesktop. I usually don't change desktop pics with such frequency <G>, but it struck me as odd that after checking out maybe 10 different pics (IMG and BMP) I crashed on the 11th. Just callin' 'em as I see 'em... Matt ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 44 Sat Sep 17, 1994 T.PATRICK5 [Happy Hacker] at 00:51 PDT Lorne, If the software is designed to run as a PRG or ACC then the only difference is that Geneva will load the ACC files into Desk menu and they will remain resident the same as if you booted with them. PRG files will terminate and remove themselves from memory when exited. If the software is not designed to run as either a PRG or ACC, then renaming it can do some very strange (and bad) things -- it's not reccommended. Matt, The garbage under the icons can be caused by, or by errant software. Since it happens in low rez only, I'd guess it's the latter. Maybe an accessory that's not compatible with low rez? Try removing AUTo and ACC files and see if that clears it up... Aloha, from the Happy Hacker! (Tim) ... FaST Technology Turbo25 inside! ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 46 Sat Sep 17, 1994 M.RIVMAN1 [MATT] at 08:04 EDT Tim - Well, your post started me thinking. I haven't added any AUTO or ACC's since the last time it was working fine, BUT... I use a boot manager and had been using the Lowrez.INF file created way back when I only had the 520 STm w/ TOS 1.04. Saved a new .INF file from the MSTe and used that to boot with and 'VIOLA!' <G> works like a charm. Thanks for the brain cortex stimulation!!! Matt ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 47 Sat Sep 17, 1994 T.WILKINSON1 [TomWilkinson] at 07:39 PDT Dan, is there any way to assign an icon to a name in a group after you've increased the name past the 8 and 3 limit? I see that icons in groups retain their icon image until you give them a longer name, and then they default to program icons. Thanks Tom W. ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 48 Sat Sep 17, 1994 A.FASOLDT [Al Fasoldt] at 23:54 EDT Tim (and others), Good points on the issue of memory fragmentation. But Damien's right, guys: Memory fragmentation is not a problem except when it prevents the proper loading and execution of a program. Frank, No Aladdin-Neo4 problems here, at any point. I also don't have any desktop notes. I'll try running with notes and see what happens. Perf, Spoolers won't help speed up Works' internal print routines, but they can speed up the printing process itself -- if they are large enough. You'd need a really large ram-based spooler to help in most cases, though. GEM-Spool (or, I suppose, any other spool-to-disk system) will work better for large files. JAB, If (in the icon editor) you drag another icon to one of the default icons, that new icon is taken as the default. (As Matt and Tim and Tom and Gerry already said.... I'm really late here!) Louis, The .INF files are already commented; open up a COPY in STeno or your favorite substitute WITH WORD-WRAP OFF and you'll see where all the sections are. JAB, Booting directly into Neo4 should save some memory, if I understand the way the Atari's ROM desktop works. Neoload doesn't have to be placed in any specific order as long as it follows JAR (make JAR first and consider it invisible <g>), but it's ALWAYS possible that some rogue auto-folder TSR could cause a problem for all TSRs that follow it. :) Gaitor, I'd guess that the single biggest source of Neo 3.x and 4 installation problems come from a boot manager's action, which is usually not understood well enough by users. Users sometimes complain about memory loss (the computer's, not theirs!) and poor running, when in fact TWO copies of NeoDesk are being loaded, and so on. I suggest setting up Neo4 without a boot manager first, then stepping lightly into the boot-manager process. As for the bootup resolution, TOS is probably taking the bootup res from the hard disk when you reboot. Tim, Edge has caused no problems here on two machines, and in fact has *solved* more problems than I could count. Whazzamatta with the setup you have? <g> Lorne, Under Geneva, an ACC that you run on the fly is still an ACC. That's why it shows up in the ACC list. Some DAs don't like to be run that way, but most do fine. I went through 300+ DAs a few weeks ago, running them from the NeoDesktop (and having to reboot many times from crashes caused by poorly written DAs). But only a few of the ones I'd consider properly written complained that they weren't being run at bootup. (They don't stand up and say that, exactly; they usually show a message that says they can't find a certain companion file.) In most kinds of use, it doesn't matter which way you run DAs. Al ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 49 Sun Sep 18, 1994 T.PATRICK5 [Happy Hacker] at 01:38 PDT Al, If you are not running Geneva and using "Unload for execute", it WILL eventually "prevent the proper laoding an execution of a program". The fragmentation is cumulative. With 4MB it can get bad enough to crash my system after only 4 or 5 program runs. At this point in time I'd have to say "Unload for execute" is pretty useless because of cumulative fragmentation, at least on systems with only "ST" RAM. Maybe it works better on a TT? I dunno... Here's an example: (no Geneva, "Unload" ON) Boot........ 3433374 ST RAM in 2 blocks - Largest block = 3390638 Ran STeno... 3403606 ST RAM in 4 blocks - Largest block = 2886780 Ran MemFile. 3398474 ST RAM in 5 blocks - Largest block = 2585562 Ran RateHD.. 3393342 ST RAM in 7 blocks - Largest block = 2114552 Icon Editor. 3434402 ST RAM in 9 blocks - Largest block = 1775000 Ran MultiWriter and crashed after exiting (Neo-4 couldn't reload) I find it very curious that the total ST RAM figure keeps changing? That should remain the same after boot! I have done this several times with similar results. In fact, the blocks and RAM figures are often identical regardless of what I run -- this leads me to believe that problem is something internal in Neo-4 (that, and the fact that it didn't happen under Neo-3). And with Geneva, I have so little memory available small frags do make a difference with some programs. If we all had 20 megabytes like "some people I know" I guess I wouldn't care about frags either. *8^) But when hitting the help key and using the Icon editor a few times shreads my memory into 8 blocks, and reduces the largest block from 2.3MB to 1.5MB, I'd say it's pretty significant. (And anyone who thinks losing a third of his memory isn't significant has got WAY to much RAM on his hands!) So I still say leave "Unload for execute" OFF, and use "No limit" in the memory dialog. And if you're running Geneva, watch out for the icon editor! (Unless you've got 20 megabytes...) Aloha, from the Happy Hacker! (Tim) ... FaST Technology Turbo25 inside! PS: Dan, did you catch the LOW to MEDIUM bug, yet? With TOS 1.4 Neo-4 will let you go from MEDIUM rez to LOW rez, but not the other way around (you're stuck in low rez)! ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 50 Sun Sep 18, 1994 M.RIVMAN1 [MATT] at 07:57 EDT HEY! Al's back! Welcome back, Al! <G> Matt ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 51 Sun Sep 18, 1994 R.SCHWEIKERT at 11:42 EDT Hi Dan, I just installed my copie of Neodesk and will send in my registration tomorrow. I also read through a few of the messages in here and found that everyone is already heavily working with Neodesk and everyone has a lot of suggestions. I'm not that far yet and just have a simple question, how do I change the name under the 'Hard Disk' icon, from 'Hard Disc', to whatever else I think is nice. Thanks Robert ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 52 Sun Sep 18, 1994 L.BUDNICK [Lorne] at 10:44 CDT All, Thanks for the feedback regarding running *.acc's with Geneva/Neo4. Regarding problems with Aladdin and/or Edge with the Geneva/Neo4 environment, there have been NONE here either. I must say that since bringing up this environment on my system, it has been very stable. Al, You had mentioned sometime ago about creating an RSC folder and running ALL of your .rsc files from within such a folder. I assume to accomplish this you create a RSCPATH= statement within the GEM.CFG file. Is this correct? If so, has this worked out well? Do any programs have problems with this approach? Thanks in advance, Lorne.... ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 53 Mon Sep 19, 1994 T.PATRICK5 [Happy Hacker] at 02:55 PDT Here's a trick that might help some of you... Some options set in "Install application" or "Program info file" won't work under Geneva with TOS applications. For instance setting single-tasking or changing cache/CPU-speed for a TOS app doesn't work because they are loaded by another program (GNVA_TOS) and the defaults reset when that runs. Here's what you do... change the .TOS to .PRG and create a "Program info file" for it. Then in the dialog under "Program type" select TOS, set your other required options and save it. Now the program will still run like a TOS app, but will not use GNVA_TOS so the options will stick. Aloha, from the Happy Hacker! (Tim) ... FaST Technology Turbo25 inside! ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 54 Mon Sep 19, 1994 A.FASOLDT [Al Fasoldt] at 08:25 EDT Tim, I never unload for execute, even on the 4-meg ST, so maybe that's why I formed my opinion of the fragmentation problem. I can see what you are pointing to. Leaving Neo's stub in memory seems like a much better idea. As I recall, Neo 3.x leaves only 35K or so in memory when it runs an app (I'm talking about a non-Geneva system here). I don't know yet what Neo 4's actual memory toll is in dynamic terms, but of course it handles memory in a much different way (as you have pointed out). Matt, Shhhh! :-) Robert, Click once on any icon on the desktop and press control-D. Lorne, There is no RSCPATH statement. The PATH statement is all that is needed (under Geneva or plain old TOS). RSC files aren't run; they're used to support applications and accessories. Usually they contain the menus and dialogs. (And many apps have those resources built in, so there are no separate RSC files in many cases.) Install 1stView or 1stGuide as the default viewer under NeoDesk, and you can merely double click on any RSC file to view it. Use control-left- or control- right-arrow to scroll through large RSC files. (1stView and 1stGuide also display texts, IMG files and IFF files, play SND samples, and, in the case of 1stGuide, display JPEG and MPEG files as well. I consider them the finest utilities of their kind in the multi-platform environment I live in day by day.) Al ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 55 Mon Sep 19, 1994 GRIBNIF [Dan] at 17:51 EDT Gaitor, Unfortunately, the "Video Mode" dialog does not work properly unless you have a Falcon, Geneva, or MultiTOS. The next version fixes this. Louis, Modifying the line in the INF file will have no effect. Sorry. Lyre, The list of dialogs is bound to change eventually, and I'd rather not put up a "definitive" list which isn't. Perfesser, 1. This is a known problem, due to a function which is supposed to work on the Falcon but doesn't. The next version of NeoDesk fixes this. 2. NeoControl doesn't really do anything to affect printing. Perhaps it is actually something to do with Speedo. Try increasing your cache sizes in OUTLINE.ACC and see if that helps. You might notice some speed increase in printer output if you also use the SPOOLxxx program, included with NeoDesk. Depending on what type of printer you are using (esp. dot matrix) you may not be able to speed up printer output any. Frank G, That's not the way the INF file format works. It needs a constant number of items per line. You have to add a completely new line. JAB, That's right, you don't need the warranty card because it was an upgrade. I just spent about an hour tracing this one, and it looks like a bug in the Falcon ROMs. The call which is supposed to turn the Blitter on or off resets the color palette for some reason. I wasn't even aware the Falcon had a Blitter, but this OS function says it does, so NeoDesk tries to turn it on, and the OS then resets the color palette. I'll try reversing the order of the color changes with the Blitter on/off and see if this works. I know about the "Illegal function" alerts. You can just ignore them. Just drag the old icons to the trashcan and copy your new ones into the NeoDesk Icons window. Tim & Jack, I just tried Unload for Execute with Install App, and it worked fine in all three modes. Perhaps you are trying to Install the NPI? In that case, the Install would override the NPI, if I recall correctly. What programs does it disappear with? I have not seen this happen. I've tried the control panel on a stock Mega 2, and the Blitter option works perfectly. What resolution are you in? Ah, you have a T25, maybe that's the reason. I'll try it on my system at home. The only way to really avoid memory fragmentation is to use the "Always take xxx Kb" option in the "Memory" dialog. This is the equivalent of the way NeoDesk 3 used to do it. This is just the price you pay for having everything dynamically allocated. Memory fragmentation itself should not cause any sort of unreproduceable problems, there is usually another cause (as in the case of losing icons when quitting the editor.) The icon editor repositions icons like it does for some very specific reasons that are too complicated to go into. That's the way it's probably going to stay. NeoDesk always uses VDI mode now. The types of drawing functions used became too complex to support Line A mode anymore. Matt, Thanks for the additional info on the trashcan. I'm probably going to get to that this afternoon. NeoDesk 4's "Set Video" option will not work properly unless you either have a Falcon or have MultiTOS or Geneva. For now, just use your boot manager to copy over the appropriate DESKTOP.INF file. You have to make sure you wait until you see your hard disk driver's boot message on the screen before holding the Control key. You may have been holding it too soon. It will prevent Geneva from loading any DA's or anything from the GEM.CNF file. The other alternative is to hold Alt, which will just prevent Geneva and/or NeoDesk from running (depending on when you start to hold it.) The only reason I know of for the text under an icon getting garbled is either an old Speedo GDOS version or a misbehaving screen accelerator program. NeoDesk uses regular VDI text calls for that. Jack L, I found the reason for the disappearing icons, and I've already fixed it for the next version. It only happens when you run the icon editor. If you had reloaded the INF file immediately after quitting the editor (and not saved it again) everything would have been restored. Tom W, 1. If you can give me any definite way to get it to lock up, I'd be glad to have a look. You're the first one to mention this so far. 2. This is a problem that I've already fixed for the next version. 3. This is a documented (in the README file) problem with Geneva 003. Unfortunately, for now, changing the name of an icon in a group affects its icon. This is fixed for the next version. Dan ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 56 Mon Sep 19, 1994 C.NICHOLLS [BILL] at 18:26 PDT I received NeoDesk 4 last week. Everything seems to work fine with one exception. I can no longer use GEMSpool2. It refuses to open either with other accessories on boot up or from the desktop -- if I try it doesn't open and freezes the machine. Has anyone else experienced this or found a solution to it? Otherwise, it's an impressive development, with considerably greater convenience and flexibility. Of course, I've only discovered a few of the new features so far. It works beautifully with Geneva. I can well believe Al's statement that this is the best GUI on any platform. If only the rest of the computing world had any idea that this was so... Bill ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 57 Mon Sep 19, 1994 A.FASOLDT [Al Fasoldt] at 23:07 EDT Great tip, Tim. Another way would be to add a third extender for TOS apps to the list of executable types within G and Neo 4, and then keep these apps from being launched by G_TOS. Al ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 58 Mon Sep 19, 1994 J.LEMLEY [Jack] at 22:15 CDT Dan, I'm perfectly willing to set the memory setting to always take xxx k of memory except as I stated earlier I have set that setting at 400K and get the following alert after the Neo screen but before the desktop: This operation requires more memory than is permitted in the memory dialog. Continue anyway? Have any ideas? Thanks Jack ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 59 Mon Sep 19, 1994 L.BUDNICK [Lorne] at 22:44 CDT Al, Thanks for the response regarding .rsc files. I guess I really wasn't that clear in my post though. :^) I realize that you do not 'run' .rsc files. What I really meant was whether placing ALL .rsc files in one common folder created problems for any of the applications that required a .rsc when it was loaded. I kind of like the idea of cleaning things up by putting ALL .rsc files in one place. Hopefully this makes a bit more sense then my original post. Lorne.... ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 60 Mon Sep 19, 1994 L.BUDNICK [Lorne] at 22:50 CDT Bill, Not that this necessarily solves your immediate problem, but I am using the registered version of GEMSpool 3.1 with Neo4 and Geneva and it is working great. I am running it as one of MANY accessories. You might want to consider upgrading if it turns out to be a problem with the earlier version. Lorne.... ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 61 Tue Sep 20, 1994 J.BATES15 [JAB] at 01:59 EDT Dan, Thanks for tracking that down. Is there a way that I can tell Neo not to use the Blitter on loading? BTW, I've found that I can do almost everything I need to from Geneva and only load Neo when I Have to and Memory Fragmentation is less an issue. Thanks again for two great products. Later, Jab ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 62 Tue Sep 20, 1994 A.FASOLDT [Al Fasoldt] at 07:34 EDT Bill, GEM Spooler 2 works just fine here on both the ST and TT under G and Neo 4. Try reinstalling a clean copy. (What else is running? What's the base platform?) Al ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 63 Tue Sep 20, 1994 FAIRWEATHER [David] at 07:14 PDT Duh, I seem to have forgotten the keystroke combinations for doing warm and cold resets from TOS 1.4. What are they? I looked in the Neodesk 4 manual's index and couldn't find anything about resets. Doesn't Neodesk 4 provide keyboard reset capabilities to early TOS versions? ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 64 Tue Sep 20, 1994 GRIBNIF [Dan] at 15:19 EDT David F, Once NEOLOAD has run Control-Alt-Delete does a warm boot, and Control-Alt- Undo does a cold one, regardless of TOS version. Maybe we left this out of the manual. I'll take a look. JAB, You can try changing that setting in your INF files, but I don't know for sure if that's going to work. I've come up with a workaround for this TOS bug in the next version of NeoDesk. Jack, Do you have a large number of icons in your NEOICONS.NIC file? How about a background picture? There has to be something that is requiring a lot of memory. I normally run it with the limit set to 250K on our TOS 1.2 machine here in the office and don't get the alert unless I'm doing something very memory-intensive. But this is long after the program has come up. Dan ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 65 Tue Sep 20, 1994 A.VALENT [Mike] at 18:17 EDT Dan, how far along are you on filling the backorders? I'm a late (July) backorderer for the Neo 4/Geneva package. ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 66 Tue Sep 20, 1994 A.FASOLDT [Al Fasoldt] at 18:26 EDT Lorne, Ah, in my obtusity I didn't help answer the RSC question. Yes, there are some (especially old) apps and DAs that do not use the environment statement no matter what. You find which ones have that problem by experiment. But in nearly all cases putting the RSC files in a RSC folder, and making sure that folder is near the beginning of the first partition on your hard drive, works fine. (Access is faster from the outer area of the hard drive.) Al ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 67 Tue Sep 20, 1994 W.TURCZYNSK1 [Bill] at 20:41 EDT All: Got NeoDesk4 today! After registration and installing all I get is three bombs. I've tried six times with no difference. One time I deleted the NEOLOAD file in the AUTO folder and it booted with alert boxes that it couldn't find the RSC file than something else. Rebooted then and it hung on the NeoDesk title box. I'm using a STacy4. I've just installed the latest ICD HD boot prg. and may try going back to the older version unless I get an answer here. [Bill] ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 68 Tue Sep 20, 1994 D.MCANDREW [Simulator] at 20:54 EDT Uuuhh, Dan...... is there some reason why the selectable default button for the FORMAT function is now the FORMAT button instead of the CANCEL button (as in ND3) ?? Not meaning to be picky, but I could leave that function window with a simple RETURN instead of accidently invoking the FORMAT again. (As in "keybounce"?) ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 69 Tue Sep 20, 1994 L.BUDNICK [Lorne] at 20:00 CDT Al, Thanks!!!! I most have asked the question in a manner that was understandable this time. :^) You provided the exact info I was seeking when I asked the question. Lorne.... ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 70 Tue Sep 20, 1994 A.FASOLDT [Al Fasoldt] at 23:49 EDT Bill, We'd need more info on what else is running, and what DAs and so on. Usually, the cause of a faulty installation is a mixture of old and new files and/or the unfortunate fact that a bot manager can run Neo 4 twice. Get rid of the boot manager if you are using ne until you have everything working right. Al ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 71 Wed Sep 21, 1994 T.PATRICK5 [Happy Hacker] at 02:27 PDT Al, I have one program that requires 3.5 MB, and it won't run with Neo resident. Won't run under Neo-4 AT ALL because of the fragmentation (worked fine under Neo-3). It's only a demo, but it's one I like to run to show off. Now I have to quit NeoDesk to run it. [ARGHH!] I also prefer to unload for PageStream when printing to a Laser. Won't even print to an HP4 at 600 dpi with Neo/Geneva in memory (runs out of RAM). 'course PageStream doesn't need any help to frag memory, it does it all on it's own. [sigh] Oh well... hopefully this will all be fixed with the patch. BTW, how do I keep a TOS app from being launched by GNVA_TOS? I thought it automatically launched 'em all? Dan, Just tried "Unload" with "Install app" and it worked this time? Hmm?? Must have stayed up too late when I "found" that one! Oh well... The Control Panel Blitter option does not work, though. Don't see why the T25 would affect it -- never confused anything else (including Neo-3)? Oh well, maybe I'll pull the covers tommorow and test that theory (don't have a non-T25 machine with a blitter)? Okay, on the icon editor repositioning thing, I'll take your word for it (and I'll learn to live with it). As for the memory fragmenting... I don't see why Neo-4 should frag memory when quitting a program run with unload on. Sorry, dude, this is a BUG! When the program quits, all should return to the way it was. I mean if "the price you pay for having everything dynamically allocated" is crashing after 4 or 5 program runs, and not being able to run some programs at all, I'd say it might be time to go back to Neo-3. And the "Take ___" option isn't a solution because it defeats the purpose of using "Unload" -- you don't get more free RAM to work with. In fact, if you set it high enough to avoid most of the "not enough memory" alerts, you actually get LESS! This NEEDS to be fixed! And last, but not least, if I turn OFF "Confirm copies/moves" and have the drag option set to "ask", I'd like the old, small [Copy] [Move] [Cancel] dialog back (PLEASE!). The current copy dialog is too busy and confusing (and the copy/move buttons are way too small). I mean now there's really no difference between "confirm-copy" and "ask"? Doesn't make sense. Don't take all my bitching to personally. It's not that I don't like Neo-4. On the contrary, I think it "looks" great, I just need it to start working right. I appreciate all the effort, you just gotta fix that friggin fraggin! Aloha, from the Happy Hacker! (Tim) ... FaST Technology Turbo25 inside! ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 72 Wed Sep 21, 1994 GRIBNIF [Dan] at 13:03 EDT Tim, Well, after thinking about it I did come up with one change that I made which does seem to decrease fragmentation somewhat. It definitely removes the fragmentation problems caused by just entering and quitting the icon editor. Simulator, Hmpf! You're right! I'll fix that. Bill T, I think you'd better give me a call at (413) 247-5620, from 10 to 6 Eastern. This is going to be too difficult to fix without getting a lot more info from you. Mike V, Your order went out on the 14th. Dan ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 73 Wed Sep 21, 1994 J.BATES15 [JAB] at 19:57 EDT Dan, The ROM bug also shows up when I call the chip config from the Neocontrol panel. And Neocontrol still doesn't save my colors ever. It always goes to the system defaults. What am I missing? Later, JAB ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 74 Wed Sep 21, 1994 W.TURCZYNSK1 [Bill] at 21:15 EDT Al/Dan: I installed NeoDesk4 manually and all is fine but I think that I've found the problem. I updated from NeoDesk3 so I had JARXXX in my AUTO folder and it seems that the installation writes a JAR10 but I had a JAR30 already. It didn't overwrite the JAR30 so I had two of them! [Bill] ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 75 Wed Sep 21, 1994 K.OLSON10 [KenO.] at 22:20 EDT Hi! Got Neo4 yesterday. Like it - but. Can't seem to get it to come up at boottime. I used the install.prg. What I get when I boot is my Atari desktop. If I run the neo.prg that gets written into the auto folder it tells me I don't have the right files (RSC). However if I run it from the NEO folder created on C then I can get NEO to work. I am using a Falcon. I tried with my usual AUTO and ACC stuff and also bare with auto.prg's or ACC's. Still same results. If I copy the requested files over into the AUTO folder. then when I run NEO from the auto I get call error msg's. I took a good look at the man but could not see that I skipped anything. KenO. :) ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 76 Wed Sep 21, 1994 C.NICHOLLS [BILL] at 21:23 PDT Lorne and Al, Thanks. The problem with GSpool2 arose with an identical set-up to the one I was using with NeoDesk 3.04, along with Geneva, on a Mega 4 STE. I have since installed a newly downloaded copy of GSpool and reduced the number of other accessories running at boot-up to save memory. I'm now running TaskManager, Trashcan, Silkmouse, Bermuda Clock and Warp 9 CP. I still have the same problems with GSpool. I then tried running Spooler.PRG as Spooler100 from the auto folder. This works okay but seems to disable the Desktop Pattern editing in Neo4, substituting a pattern I don't like and can't change with the Icon Editor. So I'm now trying it from the desktop after boot up. All things considered, I wish I could use GSpool instead. Bill ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 77 Wed Sep 21, 1994 T.CARMAN [Tom Carman] at 23:25 MDT Dan, I still have not been able to get the NeoDesk Control Panel or the NeoQueue Accessory to work with NeoDesk 4 when it is run as an accessory. Have you had any further insights into what might be the cause? Tom Carman (The Sermonator) ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 78 Wed Sep 21, 1994 T.PATRICK5 [Happy Hacker] at 23:18 PDT Dan, What I need is for you to fix the fragging on "Unload for execute". Good work on the icon editor, though... keep it up! KenO., You need to install the copy of NEOLOAD in the NEODESK folder as an autorunning application from the Falcon desktop. Select NEOLOAD.PRG then go to Install Application, select the AUTO button, then save the desktop and reboot. If you are using a boot manager then your problem is the boot manager is overwriting your NEWDESK.INF file and you must reconfigure it (or turn it off). Aloha, from the Happy Hacker! (Tim) ... FaST Technology Turbo25 inside! ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 79 Thu Sep 22, 1994 J.LEMLEY [Jack] at 06:30 CDT Dan, Regarding the take 400k mem all the time. I have a 13k picture loaded and 73 icons in the icon file (only 16 on the desktop including drive icons). What do you think? Thanks Jack ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 80 Thu Sep 22, 1994 GRIBNIF [Dan] at 12:50 EDT Jack, The best way to set that option is to look at what the Memory dialog says is the amount allocated by NeoDesk, at a time when you've got a few windows open and other things that express the average use. Add a few K onto that number and put that into "Take". As you can also see from my messages to Tim, you will probably still eventually get alerts asking for more memory in 001, but that will be fixed in 002. Tim, I spent a good deal of time last night playing with it when used without Geneva, and I think I found and corrected the biggest reason for fragmentation. It was actually that there was a block of memory that was not getting freed when it should have been. Tom, I can't remember if you were using a Falcon or not. If so, then you will always get an "Illegal AES function" alert. Aside from that, I can't come up with any other reason. I assume you checked to make sure they are the right versions (check the file dates against the NeoDesk disk). Also, do they still cause problems if you rename them to PRG and run that way? Bill N, The desktop pattern in NeoDesk and the spooler are completely unrelated. I don't know of any reason why using one would affect the other. It sounds as though there's something else weird going on in the system. Try the old "disable TSR's" route. Ken O, Either follow what Tim said, or look on Page 7 of the manual, at the bottom of the page. JAB, Yes, I know that. It's all related. The next version has a workaround for all cases. Dan ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 81 Thu Sep 22, 1994 A.FASOLDT [Al Fasoldt] at 13:30 EDT Tim, Rename a TOS app's extender to TNG (TOS, no GNVA_TOS?) and set up the config so that apps with that extender are treated as TOS apps. (VIA NPI, I suppose.) GNVA_TOS should ignore it. KenO, Are you using a boot manager? If so, leave it out until you get Neo 4 running properly. Al ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 82 Thu Sep 22, 1994 F.GORON [Frank] at 18:17 EDT Hi Dan, Some more thoughts,bugs,suggestions on ND4 Bugs: The only thing I've come across recently is that if you try to delete an icon from a .NIC file with over about 480 icons in it, you get 2 bombs & bounced out of ND4. I've tried it with nothing but ND4 loaded & still the same problem. Comments/Suggestions: - Is there a limit on the size of an .INF file? - On that suggestion I made about using the cycle gadgets in the Icon Editor, an even better idea would be to use left & right arrows on either side the same way you use them in the Window settings dialog box & others. - In the Icon Editor's "Samples" display at the bottom of the screen, instead of Desktop & White backgrounds, you should use Desktop & Window backgrounds. This would be more appropriate now that we can change the color and pattern of the windows in ND4. - Could you add a minus sign to the plus sign to the Icon Editor? That way, a person could go either direction. - How about different Letter placements for the different 2/4/16 color icons? - Could you allow Moving icons from a .NIC file to another? Right now, you can only copy from one to another. And while you're at it, how about being able to do a Copy/Move from a .NIC file window to an UNopened .NIC icon? - One last thing in the Icon Editor. I've just discovered the Patterns to use while drawing. When I went to use the checkerboard & stripe patterns, instead of drawing "data & no effect", which is what I expected, it drew "data & blank". I'm sure this is exactly the way you intended it to work, but I think the "data & no effect" would be more useful. Any chance I could convince you to either change these or add to them, or perhaps make them user- configurable? - Could you add an Exit ("OK") button to the Control panel? - Finally, since ND4's built-in file viewer swithches res to display graphics files, could it do the same for text files? It would be very handy in 40- column resolutions like ST low & TT low, as well as some of the Falcon res's to change to either ST med or ST high, depending on the monitor being used. - Also I noticed that when viewing graphics files, the colors were rather dark & faded compared to viewing with any other viewing program. Frank G. PS Matt, Sheldon Winick insists that my (our) problem probably lies in the connection fromthe syquest drive to the SCSI jack on the computer. Are you using the Supra's "Monster" kit for discarding the host adapter & connecting directly between the drive & SCSI jack? Frank whatever you had referred to it as. Perhaps my description of it did not do it justice, made it seem more unconventional than it is. As I said earlier, I purchased it directly from the company that manufactured the syquest drive itself - Supra (ha ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 83 Thu Sep 22, 1994 F.GORON [Frank] at 18:33 EDT Al, I just saw all your new ND4 icon files in the library. How do these relate to the earlier file you ul'd of 1700 icons, if at all? I already dl'd those and was wondering if there was a lot of duplication between them. Thanks Frank G ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 84 Thu Sep 22, 1994 A.FASOLDT [Al Fasoldt] at 21:35 EDT Frank, Good question. There is, inevitably, some repetition in the icon files. There is no, repeat no, icon manager yet for NeoDesk 4 icons when they are in their Neo 4 state. (I could just manage them under Windows if I had a Win program that read Neo 4 icons, or if I ket two sets, one in Win format and one in Neo 4 format ... ugh!) So you may find a lot of repetitions or just a few. I wish I knew how many were repeats, but I don't. There are NO repeats of the button icons I uploaded. They are spectacular icons, carefully made (by me!), and the ones I just sent up are raw icons, converted by me to Neo 4 format, but without any customization. Al ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 85 Thu Sep 22, 1994 B.AEIN [B Man] at 22:56 EDT Dan, Whats the ETA on ver 2? For some reason Neo 4 is locking up durring use on my F030. I REALLY miss the way version 3 holds keypress. Version 4 will not let me chain macros like version 3. I have the keypad set up to open drive windows, and in ver 3 I could hit 2,3,4 and 3 windows would appear, now in 4 I need to wait for each window to finish drawing to use another macro. All macros behave like this in ver 4, and I truly hate it. I am going to need to go back to version 3 till the next update arrives. Can ver 4 acc's work with version 3? I am running into the "desktop has changed" dialog after macros like other people. I hope the 3D buttons can be fixed to work in 4 color mode. I would like to see a way to be able to select some files in a window and drag it to a folder in the top of the window that displays the DIR that you are in. I noticed that we can now double click on a parent dir and be moved to it, so why not be able to drop files on it as well. Thanks Bman ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 86 Thu Sep 22, 1994 H.WOLFE1 [Harvey] at 23:11 EDT I meant to upload this message some time ago, but I forgot :-(. Al, thanks for the reply. Dan, thanks for the very detailed reply. It's nice hearing that some of my requests are already on your TO DO list. I'm also glad that you have allowed copying or moving the original files linked to the shadows in a group window. As long as I can do that, the group windows created by the search function will be very useful. And thanks for suggesting using the search filter option to delete files with a BAK extension. However, that wouldn't allow me only delete some of my BAK files. On the other hand, assuming that I now understand how the shadows work, if I want to delete just some of the files, all I will have to do is first create a group window with shadows of all the BAK files, then move those shadows I want to delete to a new folder (thereby really moving their linked files), and then I will be able to delete the files. That leaves only one problem from my point of view. Regarding my request for some sort of dialogue box to allow selection of drives while within the search filter dialog box. > 3. This is a matter of interface. One method is better for some >circumstances, and another is better for others. This is not likely >to change, since the way it is now is consistent with the desktop >metaphor. However, with the current interface, if I'm doing a search and I want to search drives D, E and H and they are covered by a bunch of windows, then is there any way that I can let the search function know that I want to search on these drives, other than by first closing all the windows covering these drives. Then, of course, I will have to reopen all the windows after the search. The only way that I can think of to do this would be by displaying Neodesk in a window. Then I can access the drive icons just by clicking on the Neodesk window. This brings them to the front. However, I have a feeling that there may be some other disadvantages to displaying Neodesk in a window. Finally, on a different matter, someone was saying that they could not see STraight Fax's info screen. I believe that their problem is similar to the one I had. If a program creates a desktop that is not in a window, there is no way to put it in front of any windows that may be open. Obviously, the best solution would be for STraight Fax to include an option to put its desktop into a window. Thanks, Harvey ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 87 Thu Sep 22, 1994 M.RIVMAN1 [MATT] at 23:38 EDT Frank - Re: Monster Kit.. Gee, I don't think so, didn't even know it existed! I bought the drive several years ago from E. Arthur Brown Co.. It already had the SCSI pass thru there. When I got the Syquest, I just plugged it into the SCSI input on the shoebox, and off I went. Worked fine for almost 4 months, when I opened the CPU's case to change to TOS 2.06. Matt ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 88 Thu Sep 22, 1994 C.NICHOLLS [BILL] at 22:53 PDT Dan, It turned out to be simpler to fix than I expected. I noticed I was still running DCFF.PRG, which duplicates a function in NeoDesk. Removing it allowed Spooler to run without interfering with anything else. Bill ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 89 Thu Sep 22, 1994 T.CARMAN [Tom Carman] at 23:55 MDT Dan, No, I am not using a Falcon. I have a Mega ST4 with a Turbo 25 accelerator board. I have tried booting at 8mhz too and it makes no difference. I have checked to make sure all the files are from the right version. If I boot without the NEOCNTRL.ACC and then run it from the desktop or as a program everything runs fine. The problem comes when I try to run Neodesk as an accessory and NeoCntrl.ACC at bootup. The boot sequence seems to go fine, loading up all the accessories, including NEOCNTRL.ACC, but when Geneva starts to load I get 8 bombs and a message reading, "A Priviledge Violation error has occurred (8 bombs). If I view the system registers at the time of the crash they appear like this, d0: 00000001 a0: 000CE3B8 d1: 00000002 a1: 0006587A d2: FFFF0000 a2: 0005F786 d3: 00000001 a3: 000658C2 d4: 00000000 a4: 000658A4 d5: 00000000 a5: 001247EC d6: 00000000 a6: 0006416E d7: 00000000 a7: 00003DE2 ssp: 00003DE2 usp: 00065842 instr.: 0000 sr: 000 = {t:0 s:0 interrupt:000 x:0 n:0 z:0 v:0 c:0} pc: B9CC0000 Hope this gives you some insight into the problem. NeoCNTRL.ACC and NEOQUEUE.ACC work fine otherwise. It is only when one or the other is combined with NeoDesk4 run as an accessory that there is a problem. Thanks for your help. Tom Carman (The Sermonator) ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 90 Fri Sep 23, 1994 T.PATRICK5 [Happy Hacker] at 01:29 PDT Dan, Great news!! I really need to run without Geneva and use "Unload" for some memory intensive things I do, and after "tasting" Neo-4 it would have been tough to go back to Neo-3. Keep up the good work! Tom, I dunno if this helps you or not, but the same thing happened here when I tried your setup on the monSTer 520 (which is essentially a Mega-ST4 in a 520STFM case now). I'm curious... why are you running Neo as an ACC instead of a shell for Geneva? Aloha, from the Happy Hacker! (Tim) ... FaST Technology Turbo25 inside! ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 91 Fri Sep 23, 1994 K.OLSON10 [KenO.] at 06:54 EDT Hi! Tim- Thanks for giving merthe info on autoloading. I try it today. KenO. :) ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 92 Fri Sep 23, 1994 GRIBNIF [Dan] at 14:01 EDT Tom, Well, I've had to make some hefty changes to the way NeoDesk works when it's run as a DA, so perhaps this will fix the problem you are having. I can't duplicate it here on any of my machines. Bill, Glad to hear you figured it out! Bman, About another week for the patch. Hm. I'll have to see if I can figure out why the keypresses are not being held as you like them to. That was a special thing I added long ago to ver 3. Are you using 4 with Geneva? The new acc's probably won't work very well with 3, no. What's wrong with 3D buttons in 4-color mode? Dragging to a portion of the window's path is too calculation-intensive to do during a drag operation, especially if you are using a Speedo font in the name bar. You've always been able to double-click anywhere on the path, since 3.01. Frank G, No, there is no limit on the size of an INF file. There isn't enough room for both left and right arrows. I did add the cycle, though. There's hardly enough room for the plus sign, so a minus definitely won't fit. Different letter placements would be very difficult to add at this point. NIC files have to be opened in order to use them. It would be very cumbersome (and slow) to do it any other way. Switching rez to display text does not work all that well on all versions of TOS. It would work on the Falcon, though, so I'll consider it. The picture colors depend one the ones stored in the file itself. Maybe the conversion from 3-bit intensity levels to the greater palette available on the Falcon is not working too well. What kind of picture were you using? The rest I'll consider. They probably won't be in 002, though. Dan ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 93 Fri Sep 23, 1994 R.STUTZMAN2 [RUSS] at 18:09 EDT Hi Dan, Just wanted to let you know that I recieved the Neo 4 upgrade and I'm very pleased. Installation went without a hitch and I've encountered no problems. At first I didn't think I'd make much use of the group function but I find myself using it more and more. I've created a folder called "groups" on my 'D' partition and form all of my groups from there so they are all in one folder. I've also placed groups within groups for my removable drive. I created a group called 'Cartridge 1' and within it put groups labeled 'Drive F' 'Drive G' etc. filled with the programs on the various partitions. This makes searching for programs as easy as opening a group instead of checking each cartridge. The only thing I've noticed, which for me isn't a problem, is the memory frag thing others have reported, mostly after the "Edit Icon" mode. I reboot anyway after messing with the desktop just to be sure all is well when I need it. Thanks again for a great product and the continued support for the Atari platform. Russ Stutzman ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 94 Fri Sep 23, 1994 K.OLSON10 [KenO.] at 19:26 EDT Hi! Dan - Can't look on page 7 because pages 7 & 8 are missing from my copy of the man. Ha! thats my problem. Can you send a file on GEmail or fax with the missing pages on. If you let me know what EST time you might send a fax I can turn STfax on. My FX # will be 810-774-7288. KenO. :) BTW: I can now load NEO at boot by following your suggestion. ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 95 Fri Sep 23, 1994 A.FASOLDT [Al Fasoldt] at 20:26 EDT Bman, You can move folders or files to the parent by dragging them to the bent arrow icon in the bottom left corner of the window. Take a look. :-) Hlld down control-shift-alt to turn a copy operation to a move operation, too. Dan is working on the macro problems, and should have good news for you soon. Harvey, Running STFAX as a DA may help in the circumstance you describe. Bill, Does this fix also let GEM-Spooler work properly? Tim, When Neo 4 runs as a DA, it is STILL a shell for Geneva. Neat. Al ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 96 Fri Sep 23, 1994 B.AEIN [B Man] at 20:50 EDT Dan, Using Neo 4 by it's self. In 4 color mode, I meant 3D raido buttons. I have been having problems with the Neo Screen saver going dark, then when I move the mouse there is a white flash, then the screen goes black again, and I have to reboot. In the manual it says that that if you do a resolution change that it will unload neo and change res. It warm boots my F030, anyway around this? Thanks Bman ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 97 Fri Sep 23, 1994 G.LEONE [Gerry] at 21:19 CDT Here's an interesting question (at least to me): Do 16-color icons convert to 4-color icons? And has anyone tried this yet in search of that same 2-color-to-4-color bug? -Gerry ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 98 Fri Sep 23, 1994 B.BEAUCHEA [Bob Beauchea] at 22:47 EDT I've also been playing around with Neodesk 4 and I've had a couple of minor porblems. - Neocntl panel won't allow me to change the cpu speed or cache option on my Mega Ste. It only recognizes the blitter chip. - When dragging icons on the desktop, if the one I'm dragging touches an icon on the screen, I lose the icon outline. This makes it very difficult to place icons. Has anyone else observed these problems? Thanks, Bob Beauchea ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 99 Fri Sep 23, 1994 N.GODFREY1 [Harcourt] at 20:51 PDT Hooray! Neo 4 arrived today. Good job Gribnifs. One problem thus far, how do I convert icons to 4 color? Any time I try, I just get a multi colored mess. ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 100 Fri Sep 23, 1994 MYECK.WATERS [myeck] at 23:51 EDT Dan; Received the Neo4 Upgrade this week. It's great! Now here are my complaints: 1) The icon editor tends to crash when I delete lots of icons. 2) Since you can now give names to the items in groups, it would be nice if the icon editor would allow something other than the FILENAME.EXT format. 3) WHen I use a macro to run a batch file in the Neo CLI, the CLI prints the message: "Command 1613948 not found." ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 101 Fri Sep 23, 1994 T.CARMAN [Tom Carman] at 23:07 MDT Tim [Happy Hacker], Because it's there! <grin> Actually, I don't often use that setup, but I was experimenting with it as an alternative when I am running Straight Fax. It would allow me to have the desktop in a window and still overlay it over the Straight Fax screen, which is not in a window. It certainly is not critical for me and I can still use it as an accessory with XCONTROL instead of NEOCNTRL, but a bug is a bug and you never know what else it may affect. I thought Dan would appreciate knowing about it. Besides, it is driving me crazy trying different solutions to make it work. I'm one of those people who can't let go of a problem until I find a solution. Dan, Eureka!!! Thanks to Al's message #95 I figured out how to get it working. Al replied to Tim that when NEODESK was run as an accessory it could still be the shell for Geneva. It then occurred to me that perhaps it HAD to be designated the shell for Geneva. I tried substituting a GEM.CNF file for Geneva that read, Shell C:\ACCS\NEODESK.ACX and everything runs as it should. I suppose this should have been obvious to me, but it wasn't. The manual does say that when you are using Geneva you should edit the GEM.CNF file and add the line, shell C:\NEODESK\NEODESK.EXE, but the instructions on using Neodesk as an accessory make no mention of special considerations when running with Geneva. I realized that I had to remove the shell statement pointing to Neodesk.exe, since otherwise Neodesk ran both as the desktop and as an accessory, but I did not realize that instead of simply running it as an accessory in the normal manner, I had to launch the accessory from a Geneva shell statement in the GEM.CNF file. I now have this set up as a custom file in Mouseboot and the appropriate GEM.CNF file is written to my Geneva folder whenever I want to run Neodesk as an accessory. I'm looking forward to NeoDesk 4, release 002. Perhaps, if this is indeed the correct way to launch Neodesk as an accessory from within Geneva you could include a note in the documentation with the patch to this effect. Thanks for all your work on this fine product! Tom Carman (The Sermonator) ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 102 Sat Sep 24, 1994 F.LAWRENCE2 [FRANK] at 10:31 CDT Myeck, After naming the Icon in the editor with name and ext - save it when you move back to NEO then go to the install icon and you can change the name to what you want. My lack of knowledge on the other items prevent me from showing ignorance on line (G). Frank L ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 103 Sat Sep 24, 1994 T.WILKINSON1 [TomWilkinson] at 11:00 PDT Dan, I have noticed that if you install the Geneva folder on a partition other than C:, the Geneva installation program writes the Gem.cnf file into the Geneva folder, but gem does not seem to catch it if it is not on the boot partition. This problem would not happen if gem.cnf was written to the root directory of the boot partition instead. Not a big problem to move it manually, but some beginning users may not know about it. ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 104 Sat Sep 24, 1994 C.NICHOLLS [BILL] at 21:14 PDT Al, Unfortunately my fix for the desktop and icon editor problem doesn't do anything for GSPOOL2. I still can't run it under Neo 4. Bill ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 105 Sun Sep 25, 1994 A.FASOLDT [Al Fasoldt] at 09:14 EDT Bill, Does GSpool work if you have NO other DAs, and no NeoDesk-specific accessories? Al ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 106 Sun Sep 25, 1994 B.AEIN [B Man] at 14:29 EDT Dan, When I try to launch a prg from my GROUP, my F030 locks up. I am not sure what the problem is, but right after double clicking the system locks up before even launching the prg. Is there any way that there can be an option on the groups that it can be set to act like a folder instead of a drive partition? Groups seem to open there own window, I would like to see a user option that would allow it to act like a folder where it uses the window that is already open. How about putting a little HD icon at the bottom of the window??? This would allow the user to drag selected files onto this icon for a copy/move operation. It would open the systems file selector, so the user could quickly say drive E, Wordprocs, Papyrus, *.PAP ..... Instead of having to open another window to E, finding all the folders then actually draging the files across the screen! This in a way mimics maxifile, but makes it easier to do than maxi. People please speak up if you think that you would benifit from this feature, the more support the more likley we will see it. You could even put a Clipboard icon at the bottom of the window as well, as that would be very handy as well. Is there any way to support the Mac like mini icons and regular text in a window display? More to come Bman Ps Thanks for the trash can icon in a window. ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 107 Sun Sep 25, 1994 T.HEBEL [Spud Boy] at 16:26 CDT I would like to see a Swap color option in the icon editor. Sometimes I want to recolor an Icon but it is very tedious to click on each pixel for dithered patterns. Great, program Dan. Neo 4 is just what the doctor ordered. Now I just need to upgrade to 26 megs so I can keep all of my programs running with bunches of Icons and DA's at 1024x768... ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 108 Mon Sep 26, 1994 A.FASOLDT [Al Fasoldt] at 00:00 EDT Ben, A good idea, I think. I use Groups a lot, and would like to see them point directly to the original file with a key combination. Al ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 109 Sun Sep 25, 1994 C.NICHOLLS [BILL] at 23:20 PDT Al, No, the same thing happens with NO other DA's at all. The machine sort of hangs on attempting to boot GSpool, though the hard drive light flickers every thirty seconds or so, as if it's still trying to boot. So if the problem is not Neo, it must be one of my TSR's that formerly worked with Neo3. I guess I can see a tedious process ahead of me. Bill ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 110 Mon Sep 26, 1994 GRIBNIF [Dan] at 12:34 EDT Al, If you want to go directly to the real file pointed to by a group item, just hold down Control and double-click on the item. Spud Boy, There is an option in the 002 icon editor to change one color to another. Tom W, Yes, you are correct. Unfortunately, the install program doesn't really know the difference between a boot drive and a non-boot drive, so it is just assuming you told it to put the GENEVA folder on the boot drive. I agree that this could be made more clear for the user, though. Tom C, I hadn't even thought that it would be preferable to use the ACC as the shell, but now that you mention it, I'll add that to the README. myeck, 1) That is something that's already been fixed for the next version. I assume the icon you were deleting were in the "NeoDesk Icons" window? 2) You already *can* use any format you want for the names of icons in groups. Just select the item and choose "Edit item". The "Name in Window" can be any 20 characters, in any format. 3) I assume you are using the CLI as an NPG, and therefore 1613948 is the parameter that needs to get passed to any NPG. I just tried it, and I can see why it happens that way. There really isn't a good for me to change the code, either, since as far as the macro is concerned that number is just another parameter which is part of the macro. I do have one way around it that works, though. Temporarily run NEO_CLI as a NeoDesk DA, and record the macro that way. Then, remove NEO_CLI.ACC and go back to the way things used to be, using NEO_CLI.NPG. In this case, the # parameter doesn't get recorded, so it won't get passed to NEO_CLI.NPG later on. Harcourt, That is a known problem with release 001. I am working on a patch program which should be out in the next few days. Bob B, NEOCNTRL works fine on our Mega STe here. It allows both the speed and the Blitter to be set. Are you sure you have the right ACC and RSC file together? The problem with dragging icons (which only happens when Geneva is not present, BTW) has already been fixed for the next version. Gerry, It's a pretty academic question at this point, since I'm going to be releasing the patch program in a few days. <smile> Bman, The radio buttons will not be 3D whenever the system font is 8x8. There is simply not enough room in an 8-pixel space, given the odd aspect ratio of ST Medium, to draw them in 3D in so that they look even halfway decent. It sounds like you have another screen saver kicking in at the same time. Check to make sure you don't have the screen saver in MACCEL, Warp 9, SilkMouse, or another program activated too. Any time you do not have a TOS version >= 4.00, NeoDesk will have to warm boot the computer. This is just a limitation of the way the OS works. Geneva emulates TOS 4.00 and provides the faster method. Are you sure that the programs in groups you are trying to run are not TOS programs trying to run with GNVA_TOS on the Falcon? As you may recall, GNVA_TOS does not work right on the Falcon yet. Aside from that, there is no reason I know of why a program would not run from a group. Ken O, Tell you what, I'll send the pages to you by fax on 9/27 at 12:00 EST, if you send me a private email message saying you got this letter. I think the biggest problem is going to be that I know I don't always check my mail every day, and you may not either. Dan ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 111 Mon Sep 26, 1994 B.MENAGH at 18:34 EDT I notice that when exiting Wordperfect I get the message: "This macro cannot be executed because the desktop has been changed" When I check the "memory" screen of NEO4 it seems to have changed from 2 blocks to 3 blocks. I do not know what macro if any cannot be executed since the desktop comes bvack as expected and the macros seem to continue to work. Is there something that can be done to prevent the apparent fragmentation of memory? Thanks in advance, Bill ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 112 Sun Sep 25, 1994 B.AEIN [B Man] (Forwarded) Dan, I would really like to see the COPY/MOVE dialog have big fat Copy and Move Radio buttons placed in the bottom middle of the dialog! I hate them tiny little buttons! I have found what seems to be a bug. If you are creating a group and souble click on a prg in that group, when the dialog comes up to save abandon or cancel, hit cancel... it runs the prg and the system is all wierd after that. Can you add a manual sort to groups? So that the most used File is at the top? Can you also allow us to set the order of how things are displayed in a group window? i.e. As is: Program CARDFILE C:\ I want it to look like this: CARDFILE Program C:\ Thanks Bman ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 113 Mon Sep 26, 1994 G.NELSON16 [GFN] at 20:39 EDT Dan, I found that Neo Que and Speedo GDOS 4.2 donot get along well. With NeoQue loaded as an ACC, Speedo printout is brought to a tortoise pace I mean rrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaalllllllll ssslllllooooooowwww. Other than this I like ND4. Oh thanks for the 5 bucks . As of this writing I have yet to experience any malfunction with NeoDesk 4. Happy Hacker, Diamond Edge has never trashed a disk and has allowed me to recover data from a bad drive sector. GFN ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 114 Mon Sep 26, 1994 J.TURCOTTE [JARL T.] at 18:48 MDT Gribnif: I am having trouble with the descriptions of items in a group. I can't seem to get the system to show the description with out going into the change item. I was expecting it to show under "show Information...",but that only seems to works if the item selected is another group. sometimes the 20 characters is not enough, and the description field is great, But I do not like telling atari illiterate people to go to anything called "Change..." Jarl is out of here... ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 115 Mon Sep 26, 1994 A.FASOLDT [Al Fasoldt] at 23:23 EDT Bill, Yes, some sort of odd conflict. GS normally works without a problem. Oh well, you know the procedure! Strip! (The DAs and TSRs, I mean....) :-) Dan, You score again. (I hope you're keeping count. Seems to me it's 965 to zip by now. <g>) But I'll be darned if that little all-important method of going from a group icon to the actual item is in the hypertext help program. I couldn't find it just now. Is it in the manual? (Hint! Hint!) (Others here may not understand what I am driving at. Beta testers haven't received manuals yet....) Al ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 116 Mon Sep 26, 1994 T.PATRICK5 [Happy Hacker] at 20:47 PDT Dan, How's this for an obscure bug... if a disk has an executable boot sector and an empty directory, Neo-4 won't put the little "E" in it's window. Aloha, from the Happy Hacker! (Tim) ... FaST Technology Turbo25 inside! ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 117 Mon Sep 26, 1994 T.PATRICK5 [Happy Hacker] at 21:58 PDT Al, CONTROL/DOUBLE-CLICK has been a feature in NeoDesk for a LONG time! It's not unique to Neo-4. Aloha, from the Happy Hacker! (Tim) ... FaST Technology Turbo25 inside! ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 118 Tue Sep 27, 1994 M.POCHE [Mick] at 00:09 CDT Dan, Received my NeoDesk 4 upgrade about a week ago, and this is my first post here since. Great job! Most of the problems I've encountered have already been reported here (and probably fixed by now knowing you). Nice tip about getting to the real file from a group item! (Al- I didn't see it in the manual) I noticed this doesn't work with NPI's. That would be nice to be able to do too. Some of my group items point to NPI's, and getting to the real file isn't so easy in this situation. It would also be nice to be able to open a folder to a new window by holding Control when opening the file (ala MTOS I believe). A couple of little problems I've run into is that every now and then I can't activate any of the window menu items. I haven't done any investigating as to _when_ this happens or why. The other is that when using "Change Item" on groups, if I select all, sometimes a file will get skipped over and/or the same item will come up more than once. Annoying when you have a _big_ group and want to change them all. The color icons sure spruce up the desktop! Hope you've got that bug in the editor that trashes conversions to 4 colors squashed. Thanks for a great product and fantastic support! - Mick One more thing I just noticed: When running multiple programs an once, it appears they always load in a certain order (thir order on the disk?). It would be nice if they would load in the order that they were selected. ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 119 Tue Sep 27, 1994 T.PATRICK5 [Happy Hacker] at 00:24 PDT Dan, Oops! Here's another bug... and a pretty nasty one! When I use the CLI (2.2) to run a TOS app under Geneva it totally trashes Neo- 4's "Environment..." strings! And I mean TRASHES! This did not happen under Neo-3... Aloha, from the Happy Hacker! (Tim) ... FaST Technology Turbo25 inside! ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 120 Tue Sep 27, 1994 GRIBNIF [Dan] at 16:56 EDT Mick, If you can find any way to reproduce the problem with window menu items, let me know. I can't see any problem here. I also can't reproduce the problem you noticed with editing group items. If you have a GRP this always happens with, send it to me. Any items selected in a directory window are processed from left to right, top to bottom. NeoDesk has no idea what order you selected them in, just that they are selected. Tim, You're right, that is obscure! I'll check into that for the version after 002. Al, I think it's only in the manual, not anywhere in the help. I also mentioned it long ago in the beta process <smile>. You'll be getting yours soon, we're just finishing up some big orders now. Jarl, The only place where the description shows up is indeed in the "Edit Item" dialog. That's the way it has been intended from the start. GFN, Others have noticed the same problem with Speedo printer drivers, and I still, don't know why. One thing you can do to at least get the program to return control to you sooner is to increase the spooler size with SPOOLxxx. That doesn't help the output speed any, though. At this point, I figured it was more important to get the new version finished for all of the other reasons than to delay it more just to fix this one thing. Bman, I can't reproduce the problem with running a program from a group. Perhaps it is something that has already been fixed as a byproduct of the other changes I've made. I get the alert and if I tell it to cancel, it cancels (not running the program) like it should. Even if I do tell it to Abandon, that works, too. You can sort the items in a group however you want, just drag them. Or do you mean by text? I guess so. No, I'm sorry, but the order of items sorted by text is not likely to change at this point. Bill M, You're actually hitting two diferent problems, both of which are taken care of in the next version. Look for it in a few days. Dan ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 121 Tue Sep 27, 1994 GRIBNIF [Dan] at 16:56 EDT Tim, Yes, that's actually the CLI's fault. It would have also happened if you used NeoDesk 3 with Geneva and the CLI; it's the addition of multitasking that does it. I've already fixed this for the next version of the CLI, which I'm still debating on how/when to release. Dan ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 122 Tue Sep 27, 1994 F.GORON [Frank] at 18:39 EDT Dan, Thanks for your reply to my comments. Re: dull/dark pix with the ND4 file viewer - These were plain ordinary PI1-3 & PC1-3 as well as NEO & TN? files. Also, I didn't mean to give you the impression I have a Falcon. I have a TT030 & just mentioned the Falcon offhand when discussing the rez-switching for text files. You said it wouldn't work well on all versions of TOS, but would work on the Falcon. Would that possibly be true for the TT TOS's as well?] Matt, Re the monster kit: Do you connect a DB25-pin <-> DB25-pin cable between the syquest and computer, or does the cable go directly into the syquest case and you only connect it to the computer? If the latter, it sounds like you got the syquest with the monster kit,or equivalent, already installed. BTW are you still having the boot-up problems? Mine have been gone for about 4-5 days now, but I'm waiting to see if they return like before Frank G ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 123 Tue Sep 27, 1994 D.ATKINSON3 [Damon] at 17:51 CDT Al, > Is it in the manual? (Hint! Hint!) >(Others here may not understand what I am driving at. Beta testers haven't >received manuals yet....) I thought you wrote the manual. Damon ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 124 Tue Sep 27, 1994 M.RIVMAN1 [MATT] at 19:50 EDT Frank G - I connect the Syquest directly to the SCSI port in the Supra external box, and then connect only the Supra (DMA plug) to the MSTe. Well, I'm still having the First Boot problem, but it seems to be sporadic now. I changed the cache settings for the ICD booter and will now boot OK twice, to one crash. One surprizing thing has occurred though. I can now run Calamus SL from the NeoDesktop with Neo/Geneva loaded. With only 4 meg RAM I was never able to do this with v.3.04. I hadn't tried it after installing Neo4, and only happened to double click on it's desktop icon by accident this time, but it runs. Of course, I have it configured to always use the Virtual Memory option. I haven't tried printing from it yet, but it seems to do everything else without a hitch. Oh, I haven't changed any of the internal settings for Calamus or Geneva/Neo4 either! I don't know why it's working now, but I _like- it! Matt ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 125 Sun Sep 25, 1994 B.AEIN [B Man] (Forwarded) Dan, I would really like to see the COPY/MOVE dialog have big fat Copy and Move Radio buttons placed in the bottom middle of the dialog! I hate them tiny little buttons! I have found what seems to be a bug. If you are creating a group and souble click on a prg in that group, when the dialog comes up to save abandon or cancel, hit cancel... it runs the prg and the system is all wierd after that. Can you add a manual sort to groups? So that the most used File is at the top? Can you also allow us to set the order of how things are displayed in a group window? i.e. As is: Program CARDFILE C:\ I want it to look like this: CARDFILE Program C:\ Thanks Bman ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 126 Tue Sep 27, 1994 N.GODFREY1 [Harcourt] at 18:16 PDT I have discovered another problem with Neo 4. When I am in medium rez and switch to low and then back to medium, I get a "Can't find setmouse.dat" from Geneva and then "Neodesk4.exe seems to be corrupted. TOS error #-33". If I re- boot, everything is swell. Any ideas? ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 127 Tue Sep 27, 1994 R.WATSON15 [Wayne Watson] at 21:31 EDT Matt, What are your ICD settings? Too low settings can cause some problems. I noticed that even though it says '0 - xxx' in the TOS data and FAT section, you have to have at least 1. I have them both set to 30. ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 128 Tue Sep 27, 1994 F.LAWRENCE2 [FRANK] at 21:37 CDT Ok Guys, I'm getting ready to install Neo 4 on my reborn TT. Be ready to answer questions (G) tomorow nite - maybe even tonite if I don't go to bed. Frank L ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 129 Tue Sep 27, 1994 S.WILSON48 [INDY WILSON] at 23:36 EDT Newque does not work for me at all spooler-spools junk to the printer and the recoverable trash can is very bugy After all of those are disabled Neo4 and Geneva works pretty good together. Calamus SL is so very flaky in the enviorment, it isnt worth using. I someone comes up with a fix and I pateintly wait for the above fixes which I am sure Dan is working on as I have rung his phone enough lately. I just wanted eveyone to know that I am having problems too. Bye. ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 130 Tue Sep 27, 1994 J.TURCOTTE [JARL T.] at 22:54 MDT Dan Darn, I was hoping the description could be shown in the data line at the bottom of the window. That would help users other then myself decide what to do or what was needed. some pirate protection schemes need a key disk in drive A, a note when that program was hi-lighted would be nice. Any chance of a change in later version? Jarl is out of here... ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 131 Wed Sep 28, 1994 M.RIVMAN1 [MATT] at 01:31 EDT Wayne - After a whole lot of fooling around, the following settings seem to be the best I can come up with: Only Read caching is enabled. Max logical size = 1024 TOS data buffers 30 TOS FAT buffers 40 Blocks in cache 8 Sectors in block 70 Extra folders 200 All this amounts to a reading of about 15% of disk read, being already in cache, per CACHEHIT.PRG. I'll swear I used to get a reading of 71%. I could be mis-remembering but I don't think so. Those old settings report only 9-10% now. Matt ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 132 Wed Sep 28, 1994 J.BRENNER1 [See Flat] at 01:35 EDT Daman, Al wrote the Geneva manual. I believe Rick Flashman, Dan's partner wrote the Neodesk 4 manual. John B. ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 133 Wed Sep 28, 1994 M.POCHE [Mick] at 04:10 CDT Dan, > If you can find any way to reproduce the problem with window menu items, let >me know. I can't see any problem here. I also can't reproduce the problem you >noticed with editing group items. If you have a GRP this always happens with, >send it to me. It has occured again, but I haven't been able to make it happen on demand so far. It seems to happen on any type of window. The menus drop down, but the functions won't work. I have so much stuff in my AUTO folder, it could be a conflict with something there. I'll try to reproduce it and then do 'the routine'. > Any items selected in a directory window are processed from left to right, >top to bottom. NeoDesk has no idea what order you selected them in, just that >they are selected. So then if we could manually sort items in a group window from left->right, top->bottom I could make them run in that order? In the icon editor, would it be possible in some later incarnation of NeoDesk to be able to copy just one resolution of an icon to another. I have some medium resolution icons with no high res, causing my mono desktop to be covered with ? icons. If I could just drag a mono icon from a RSC file and have it just replace the ? without wiping out the other resolutions it would be great. Basically though, I've got my icons in pretty good shape! - Mick P.S. It seems that sometimes the bug reports here outnumber the messages of praise. I sure hope that doesn't get you down any. We're not complaining, we're just perfectionists! :) And if anyone is reading this topic who is considering buying NeoDesk4, do it! And get Geneva while you're at it. You'll be glad you did. ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 134 Wed Sep 28, 1994 T.PATRICK5 [Happy Hacker] at 02:13 PDT Harcourt, Have you tried this on a "bare" system (no AUTO/ACC)? A lot of programs (especially older ACCessories) don't handle rez changes well. It works fine on my system under Geneva 1.02/003 & Neo-4 (even with nearly 2 meg's of AUTO folder and ACCessory stuff loaded). Your problem is most likely a misbehaving TSR... check it out. Dan, Hmmm... under Neo-3 the Environment only seems to get trashed when I run LHarc, so I thought it was that? Under Neo-4 it gets trashed when I run ANYTHING! Hope you fix it soon. As a work-around I just added a LOADINF command to the end of my batch files. It slows things down a little, but it works. Aloha, from the Happy Hacker! (Tim) ... FaST Technology Turbo25 inside! ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 135 Wed Sep 28, 1994 R.WATSON15 [Wayne Watson] at 05:23 EDT Matt, Try decreasing the Sectors in Block and increasing the Blocks in Cache settings. ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 136 Wed Sep 28, 1994 T.PATRICK5 [Happy Hacker] at 03:15 PDT Sorry to rant again, but this NEEDS to be said! A very large percentage of the so-called "bug" reports are actually conflicts with some AUTO folder or ACCessory program. Here's a simple rule to follow: BEFORE YOU CRY "BUG", TRY IT ON A "BARE" SYSTEM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Disable ALL your AUTO folder programs and desk ACCessories (except what you are testing), and see if the "bug" still exists. If so, report it. If everything works fine on a bare system, you can help US help YOU by doing the following: Re-enable your AUTO/ACC stuff ONE-AT-A-TIME(!) until the problem returns. You can then report it for what it is, a software conflict, and save us all a lot of time. If you can't figure out which program it is, give us a list of your AUTO/ACC stuff, in running order. And last but not least, also tell us what system you are running (520STFM, 4MB RAM, Blitter, Rainbow TOS 1.4, Turbo25, ICD Link-2, ICDBoot 6.4.3, NeoDesk-4, Geneva 1.02/003, etc.), including details about TOS version, peripherals, and hardware modifications. It really amazes me that people don't do this. Everyone is so quick to cry "bug" and expect Dan to go out of his way to help them, when they won't even take a few minutes to run a simple test. Come on gang, get with it! TEST IT ON A BARE SYSTEM, FIRST!! I'm really getting tired of reading message after message about this! "Neodesk-4 crashes on my system! Can anyone help me?" Not if you can't help us with some more information... please! Aloha, from the Happy Hacker! (Tim) ... FaST Technology Turbo25 inside! ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 137 Wed Sep 28, 1994 GRIBNIF [Dan] at 10:43 EDT Tim, I don't know if I would have said it quite that way <smile>, but thanks. Mick, You can use Reorder mode to change the order as you like, and then always have the window come up in No Sort order. Of course, the No Sort won't get saved until you get 002 <smile>. I wuld have to come up with a good way to represent to the user the choice of which images to copy. Probably some sort of checkbox list. For now, you can cut and paste the images you want to copy, using the Clipboard menu in the editor window. Personally, I just try to keep in mind that out of the hundreds of people who own NeoDesk 4 and read this topic, there are probably 20-30 people who post regularly. And, indeed, a lot of the posts are suggestions, not complaints. Steve W, I'm aware of the speed problem with GDOS printing, but there won't be a fix in this version. For now, if you use SPOOLxxx to increase the spool buffer to something greater than the size of the data going to the printer (say, 100K), this at least gives control back to the program which is printing sooner. The problems with the trashcan are fixed in the next version. Perhaps you should go and have a look at the README that comes with Geneva. It will tell you how to get Calamus working better with Geneva. Damon, John B. is right, Rick and I wrote the NeoDesk 4 manual. Al wrote the Geneva manual, and also helped with beta testing of both programs. Harcourt, It sounds like somthing is interfering with the reading of disk directories after a rez change. Try removing all of your desk accessories and repeating the process. If that works, then add them back in one at a time until you find the culprit. It may also be an AUTO folder program, but that's less likely. Bman, I don't know why, but your letter has been forwarded here again. See my last letter for a response to most of it. I'm considering the suggestions. Frank, No, rez switching like that for text viewing would not work as well on anything with TOS < 4.00. It can be done on the other machines, but I'm a little leary of the TSR's I know of that have problems with rez switching and then displaying text, so it would probably have to be an option. Dan ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 138 Wed Sep 28, 1994 ST.WALLY [ _Wally_ ] at 14:36 EDT Howdy, Matt, I don't know if it will help you, but here goes... I'm using ICD booter 6.0.7, and have the following settings: TOS DATA BUFFERS: 10 TOS FAT BUFFERS: 10 SECTORS IN VERIFY BUFFER: 32 BLOCKS IN CACHE: 15 SECTORS IN CACHE BLOCK: 8 EXTRA FOLDERS: 300 I have the following ENABLED: DISPLAY HARD DISK STATUS MESSAGES ENABLE WRITE VERIFY ENABLE READ CACHING ENABLE WRITE CACHING If you are running an ICD host adapter and ICD boot software, you should look into getting a more recent version (if you don't have it already). It is available in the ICD RoundTable Library, here on GEnie. Your mileage may vary. :-) Best regards, Wally ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 139 Wed Sep 28, 1994 M.RIVMAN1 [MATT] at 18:03 EDT Well, I gave it a shot, Wayne. Odd. With a greater # of blocks in cache and lower # of sectors/block, I consistantly get a _lower_ percentage of data already in cache from the CACHEHIT.PRG. Something odd did happen though, after doing a multiple partition backup, quitting DBIII back to the desktop, and running CACHEHIT... It gave me a reading of 51+%. Yes, the Syquest cart I backed up to is formatted with 1024 not 512, but relogging or rebooting with either cart (others are at 512) would not repeat this occurrance. Strange. (Sorry Dan, I'm taking the ICD talk to _thier_ area for settings! <G>) Matt ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 140 Wed Sep 28, 1994 M.RIVMAN1 [MATT] at 18:28 EDT Thanks Wally - Your settings sound similar to some I've tried, but I will test them out. I don't have an ICD HA, but am using the latest SCSI Pro Utilities. Matt ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 141 Wed Sep 28, 1994 F.LAWRENCE2 [FRANK] at 18:41 CDT Matt, I used to use the syquest carts fomated with 1024 sectors, while my other HD was 512 sectors and (regardles of what people say) I did have some problems while doing 'restores'. I now just split the cart in the middle with just two partitions with not more problems. Frank L ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 142 Wed Sep 28, 1994 A.FASOLDT [Al Fasoldt] at 19:55 EDT Tim, Neo 4's control-dlick with Groups is surely new to NeoDesk, since the others didn't have Groups. :-) But it's not in the Help. Damon, No, Dan and company wrote the manual. I just thrashed the betas. The Geneva manual has my inimitable imprint, but not the NeoDesk manual. Mick, You CAN copy from one resolution to another in the icon editor. Open in one resolution, do a copy, change to another icon res, do a paste. Tim, Good advice. Matt and Wally, My ICD booter settings: TOS DATA BUFFERS: 99 TOS FAT BUFFERS: 99 SECTORS IN VERIFY BUFFER: 99 (grayed out) BLOCKS IN CACHE: 32 SECTORS IN CACHE BLOCK: 24 EXTRA FOLDERS: 5000 Everything is enabled except write verify. I finally switched it off after learning more about the way SCSI drives do their own CRC verification. I know the FAT and DATA buffers are needlessly big, but I found that smaller settings played havoc with the Toshiba drive's built-in 512K cache. I can't explain it better than that, sorry. <g> Al ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 143 Wed Sep 28, 1994 T.HEBEL [Spud Boy] at 21:02 CDT Anyone, I just got a new CD-ROM drive. I want to assign a unique looking ICON for the desktop. Unfortunately it seems I can only choose from six icons (Floppy, Hard drive, Ram disk, Clipboard, Trash Can, or the Printer). Is there anyway to assign a drive a unique icon? (I could do this with TOS). Dan, Minor note. When I delete something by dragging it to a trashcan icon, the mouse stays a grabbing hand shape. Once I have completed the drag, shouldn't the mouse go back to the pointer shape? It is sometimes tricky to click on the 'OK' of the delete dialoque box using the grabbing hand mouse shape. ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 144 Wed Sep 28, 1994 G.LEONE [Gerry] at 21:37 CDT >Nice tip about getting to the real file from a group item! (Al- I didn't see >it in the manual) Geez, you guys. I'm getting OLD and I remembered that one! I only highlighted half a dozen things in the manual, and that was one. See the "NOTE" on page 22. -Gerry ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 145 Wed Sep 28, 1994 N.GODFREY1 [Harcourt] at 20:07 PDT Well, my rez changing problem seems to be caused by a conflict with Xcontrol.acc. (1.31). There goes my clipboard. Guess I'll have to activate it when I plan on using it. Good thing I've got Geneva. ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 146 Wed Sep 28, 1994 F.LAWRENCE2 [FRANK] at 22:52 CDT Ok Guys, I've played this silly game for about 12 hours - the manual says it can be done, but it does not say how to get it done. Never having NeoDesk in any form in the past puts me about 7 years behind. How do you set you macros to work in more than one resolution, without doing them all over again. Is there a way to read a 'MAC' file and install it ? Frank L ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 147 Thu Sep 29, 1994 LYRE at 00:41 EDT As an addendum to what the Happy Hacker has suggested about testing your system with Geneva / NeoDesk without AUTO or ACC programs, I suggest SYSINFO2. SYSINFO2 is a freeware program in the GEnie Library from Toad Computers (Thanks Toad!). It will check everything (modem, TOS version, AES version, AUTO, ACC, CPX, cookies, =SYSTEM CRASHES=, and much more) on your system and produce a text file automatically. The only thing you have to do is run the program, click "Select All" and then deselect the modem, and tell it to start working. It does all the rest. The entire process shouldn't take more than a minute. To post the info you will need to place a space in front of each line to prevent GEnie from re-formating the message. You've all got Codekeys right? Well, make a [Down,Space] macro that calls itself and you're done. Believe me, I know that running a bare system and testing things is a pain. Heck, I hate to do it myself. But in actuality it is the =easiest= way to find out what is wrong. Particularly since no other system information is being provided in many of these comments. Don't mean to sound like a grouch or anything. Just though perhaps you all might find SYSINFO2 helpful in your attempt to get things working appropriately. Lyre ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 148 Thu Sep 29, 1994 LYRE at 00:52 EDT Spud Boy, The only thing I can think of is to use the RAM Disk icon and refer it to your CD-ROM drive. This would require placing/creating the unique icon you want as the RAM Disk icon and then installing it. I'm not sure this would work, particularly since I'm not a major Neodesk user. But its the only possibility I can think of. ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ Harcourt, Which clipboard CPX are you using? I happen to know that their are two of them. One from Atari and one from SDS. I believe the one included with Xcontrol v1.31 is the more recent of the two. Just thought I'ld mention it in case one works and the other doesn't. Lyre ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 149 Thu Sep 29, 1994 ST.WALLY [ _Wally_ ] at 01:10 EDT Howdy, Matt, I tend to stay away from sectors of the 1024 size. Thanks, Al. I just kind of fidgeted with the numbers until things seemed Ok, and the RAM useage was in the right ballpark. <grin> Wally ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 150 Wed Sep 28, 1994 C.NICHOLLS [BILL] at 22:17 PDT Al, I went straight to my bare set up, and the damn thing didn't work even with that. So clearly the problem wasn't a conflict between GSpool and any TSR or accessory. So, would you believe it, reinstalling the GSpool set up from scratch did the trick. I am now happy again, with everything working fine with Neo4 and Geneva. Thanks for the suggestions. Bill ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 151 Thu Sep 29, 1994 J.BATES15 [JAB] at 01:59 EDT Hi Dan, Do I count as one of the 20 - 30 people who keep complaining? ;) I guess this would be a suggestion not a complaint. The feature that I miss the most from the Falcon desktop is the ability to launch an application from the keyboard. I haven't found the feature in Geneva or Neodesk. G lets me toggle thru already launched apps. but in order to open a new one I have to use either the Taskman or the G menu bar and then the item selector. A keyboard shortcut would be nice. I haven't found it in the manual yet, though it could be there. Now in Neo, I can install app., put icons on the desktop, but not open them from the keyboard. I'm thinking that a macro is probably my answer since that is one feature that I haven't spent much time with. While I'm at it, can someone tell me what I'm supposed to use groups for? I gave up on the 80 whatevers about AT time (sinful, grew up in the birthplace of IBM and I can't show my face there anymore) and missed out on the wonders of Windoze. I seem to remember reading somewhere that it was a feature of Windows 3.8.2.74 Pro Logic NT for really fast but clunky, too small to be a workstation, too large to ever be called Personal, computers with at least 16 Meg and a hugh HD... Sorry, just thinking about it makes my head hurt. Later, JAB ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 152 Thu Sep 29, 1994 M.POCHE [Mick] at 01:24 CDT \\\ Frank, After getting all of your macro's set up for one resolution, save them. Switch to another resolution, open a window to the directory your .MAC file was saved to, highlight the MAC file you created in the first resolution and select "Load Configuration" from the Options dropdown menu. The macros should load in and function in the new resolution. Then just save the MAC file for the new resolution to the proper file (NEODESKL.MAC for low res, etc.). All should work fine after that. You may want to download Al's "Secrets of NeoDesk" file if you don't already have it. It was written pre-Neo4, but most of the info holds true for version 4. \\\ Dan, On this window menus not working thing, I'm going to strip the system to the bones and see if I can conjure up the problem again. If it doesn't show up (haven't seen it today!), I'll just assume it's computer gremlins or something. They do tend to show up around my system from time to time. :) If I'm the only one this is happening to, it's got to be something weird in my setup. - Mick ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 153 Thu Sep 29, 1994 T.PATRICK5 [Happy Hacker] at 02:49 PDT JAB, When you install an icon on the desktop you can assign a letter to it and launch it from the keyboard by hitting the letter. Place the icon on the desk, select it and go to INSTAL APPLICATION. There you can rename it and assign a letter. After that, hitting the letter once will select it, and a second time will run it! Aloha, from the Happy Hacker! (Tim) ... FaST Technology Turbo25 inside! ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 154 Thu Sep 29, 1994 A.FASOLDT [Al Fasoldt] at 08:45 EDT Spud, Dan explained how to do that unique icon trick in previous messages. You may have to search. The mouse shape problem hasn't been seen here, though. Gerry, I'm eagerly awaiting a manual. Harcourt, I sent some utils up to the libs recently, and one was a clipboard DA. I have another one here, too. You can use it instead of Xcontrol's clipboard CPX. Frank, Open the NeoDesk folder window, select the MAC file, press control-L. Then save the desktop and the MAC file under the proper name for that resolution. Lyre, There are a LOT of good sysinfo apps in the library. The one from Toad is an infotainment app, and I don't like that kind of thing. Wally, My sectors are 1024 on one drive, 4096 on most of the others. No problems. Bill, Glad to see that it is working now! JAB, Woa! Neo's macros let you run anything, DO anything, from the desktop. You can also do what Tim says; that works fine. Groups? I'll have Secrets of NeoDesk 4 soon, so maybe if you can't see the value of groups now, you will find something useful in the documentation. Al ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 155 Thu Sep 29, 1994 Y.DUFRESNE [Papageno] at 18:18 EDT Hi all. I'm popping in as I just found some time to ask a question. Sorry if this has already been addressed. Where is the Tree Mode described in the newsletter? Can't find it neighter in Neo or the manual... Also a little comment: I'd prefer to have the three window buttons (X2, trash, info and parent) in reversed video when selected instead of the 3D 'depression'. It makes it very difficult to se when dragging because of the 'ghost' icons. Yanick ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 156 Thu Sep 29, 1994 F.LAWRENCE2 [FRANK] at 18:12 CDT Spud Boy, Just pick out an icon, edit or modify, at the botom of the editor just type in the name of the file as it is in the directory. When you get back to the NEO desktop, drag the file to the desktop and WHOOPEE you got it. If you wish another name just use the 'Install Icon' change the name to what you want - click 'Change' and save it. JAB, Macro's are the way it's done - in fact I have it working just like my TT did with the same keys - the quickest macros in the world in NeoDesk 4 and extremely simple. Frank L ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 157 Thu Sep 29, 1994 F.LAWRENCE2 [FRANK] at 18:44 CDT To all who came to help the macro ??? I had figured all that was mentioned, but (RED FACED ME), had pulled a blunder that caused the problems. I had turned off the sound of the computer while I was installing Macros and didn't notice untilt this AM that a lot of the macros I created would even run (just checked a couple) because of little 'Tink' I heard this morning while still trying square this thing away. The Problem - I had created some Codekeys macro's for insertion into a program - decided not to intall them but there they were still in the CODEKEYS.KEY file. Ust removed them and every thing worked great, however, I'm sure glad no one was around to see 'laid back Frank' loose his 'COOL' over his stupidity. Thanks for all the help guys. Frank L ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 158 Thu Sep 29, 1994 M.RIVMAN1 [MATT] at 20:40 EDT Al - I've now tried all suggested cache settings on my machine, including yours <G>, and find the greatest results with 8 cache blocks and 70 sectors/block. This gives a reading of 15.84% from CACHEHIT, where all others left me with less than 10%. I don't claim to understand it, in fact that's the point, but since it's working... I won't 'fix' it anymore! Thanks, Matt ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 159 Thu Sep 29, 1994 F.LAWRENCE2 [FRANK] at 19:50 CDT Al, Mick, Dan, Someone, One question - How can I save the 'Unload Neodesk' to run without Geneva and then to 'Not unload' while in Geneva. Both boots are in the same resolution. I suppose I could create another Macro to handle this but it would be nice to save both configurations without trying to remember (age problem) something else - between NeoDesk and Geneva my mine gets boggled with 'Keyboard inputs'. Thanks in advance Frank L ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 160 Thu Sep 29, 1994 G.LEONE [Gerry] at 20:19 CDT Al -- >Gerry, > >I'm eagerly awaiting a manual. (ya, I know, but I figured I'd give you another chance to say it out loud without looking TOO much like you're begging Dan.) %#%#%#%#%#%# JAB -- Groups are a great thing -- a handy way to easily get at similar programs without cluttering your desktop. For example, I've got all my "archiving" software in a group... including STZIP, LZH, ARC, GZIP, FIZ, ZOO and a few others I forget. Rather than having individual icons on the desktop for my most-used archivers, I've only got one icon -- an "Archivers" GROUP icon. Click on the group to open it, then click on the program and it runs. Without a group I'd have to click on the hard disk partition, click on my "ARCS" folder, click on the program folder, and finally click on the program. I've got all my Telecomm programs and all my MIDI programs in similar groups. Check it out. It's pretty cool. -Gerry ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 161 Thu Sep 29, 1994 A.FASOLDT [Al Fasoldt] at 23:57 EDT Yanick, Dan put off the tree mode to keep Neo closer to schedule. It would be (or will be) nice to have. Not sure about the ghost icons problem. You may have some desktop window colors that keep the contrast in the buttons down. (Gawd, that's terrible syntax!) Frank, There's no such thing as a stupid person. There are embarrassed people, yes, but not stupid. :-) Matt, You're getting very low readings. But then the readings always vary with the kind of disk access, anyway. 8 cache blocks is very, very low, though. And 70 sectors/block seems too high for a normal drive. (But look what I ended up with! I did mine that way to get around a problem that went beyond the ICD software, however.) With all respect to Tom and Howard at ICD, we really need a better cache these days. I have some German ones that seem quite well designed, and they are all documented in German. SmartDrive on my Win machines shows how far caches have come, and the ICD cache (as good as it certainly is) hasn't a prayer next to a good, modern PC cache these days. I'll take a look at the German caches when I can. Frank, I'm not sure what you are asking. If you want to have two different INF files for the same resolution, you can use a boot manager, or you can run one version of Neo 4 from one folder and another from another folder. Or you can macroize the change once you boot up. Gerry, And of course ANYTHING can be in a group. I have a group that has my most- accesssed folders. I have a group that has just MOD files. I have a group that just has groups. Al ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 162 Fri Sep 30, 1994 F.LAWRENCE2 [FRANK] at 01:00 CDT AL, All I am trying to do is set up a Geneva/NeoDesk boot and a second boot with only NeoDesk. I have the 'File' option in the 'Settings' menu set for disable "Unload Neodesk for execute" for the Geneva/NeoDesk. I do use XBOOT but I can't see any way to control this setting within NeoDesk so that I can boot into a NeoDesk without Geneva and have it execute with the every thing the same except have the above option "enabled". I guess a macro will have to suffice. Frank L ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 163 Thu Sep 29, 1994 C.NICHOLLS [BILL] at 23:18 PDT Al, While I have got GSpool working again, some weird things are still going on. I discovered that my Path folder contained over 1200 lost clusters, and Diamond Edge was unable to deal with the situation without crashing. I've posted a more complete description of my troubles in the Edge topic. I think this may be an old problem with GSpool left over from some of my earlier troubles, which otherwise now _seem_ to be at an end. Bill ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 164 Fri Sep 30, 1994 R.WATSON15 [Wayne Watson] at 02:41 EDT Matt, The only time the cache hits are better is if you read a lot of the same information. For instance, while I am working on my program, I run and quit a lot after recompiles and it reads the same info files, etc. in each time. It's faster after the first time because that information is already in the cache. The biggest speedup comes when you have more of the FAT and Directory in ram. If you do not use the same info over and over in a short period of time, then I would increase the TOS FAT and Data buffers more. If you do, then I would increase the Block and Sectors in Block. If you are not worried about RAM, then I would incerase both. ICD's cache will read ahead. For instance, if sector 20 is accessed, it will also read 21, 22, etc. until it reads the number of sectors in the sectors in block. If the file is not fragmented, then you get a better speed. I set my Sectors per Block up so that it will hold a whole track. Sorry for the topic drift, let's take this somewhere else. ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 165 Fri Sep 30, 1994 T.PATRICK5 [Happy Hacker] at 00:37 PDT Frank, Just enable it and save the Neodesktop, then disable it and save again under different name, and use X-Boot to change the NeoDesk.INF file when you boot. Aloha, from the Happy Hacker! (Tim) ... FaST Technology Turbo25 inside! ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 166 Fri Sep 30, 1994 M.POCHE [Mick] at 03:07 CDT Frank, I'm not familiar with XBoot, but you should be able to make it do what you want. For example, SuperBoot allows you to put different DESKTOP.INF files in a folder, then at bootup you choose which one you wish to use (usually a different one for each resolution). It then copies the one you choose to the correct path (in this example that would be the root of the boot drive). What you'd need to do is create one NEODESKx.INF file with NeoDesk set for "Unload for Execute", save it and give it a new name (maybe UNLOAD.INF), then save another NEODESKx.INF file with "Unload for Execute" turned off. Save it, name it something else. Put these in a convienient place (I keep my .INF files in a folder within my AUTO folder) and set up your boot manager to put the .INF file you want to use in the necessary path (in this case it should be your NEODESK4 folder). Don't know how clear that explaination was, but it should give you a good idea of what you need to do to accomplish what you're after. - Mick ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 167 Fri Sep 30, 1994 A.FASOLDT [Al Fasoldt] at 08:57 EDT Bill, Sounds like the disk problem was the reason GSpool wasn't loading. It's smarter than we are. :-) Al ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 168 Fri Sep 30, 1994 GRIBNIF [Dan] at 12:43 EDT Frank, What Mick said is right on the mark. Just tell XBoot to use NEODESKH.INF (or which ever one it is for you) as one of its "info files" and follow the rest of what he said. Yanick, The one feature mentioned in the newsletter that I was not able to add for technical reasons is tree mode. While it initially appeared to be fairly easy, upon later examination it proved to be more difficult to do in a way that would work well with all versions of TOS. I'd still like to add it in a future version though. NeoDesk 002 has a couple of new dialogs that will allow you to do just that with the gadgets, if you are not using Geneva. Al, The icon trick was in a message in the beta test cat. I've re-posted it below. Spud Boy, Normally you can have only the 3 types of drive icons. Many people reassign the RAM Disk icon to be a CD-ROM icon, and that works quite well. Another method that's a lot less obvious is in this repost of a message I wrote in the beta test cat to someone else: 1. Drag a folder from somewhere on that drive to the desktop. 2. Save the INF file. 3. Edit the INF file. Change the DESKICN line for that new folder so that the path of the "folder" contains just the drive letter and a colon, like: `F:` 4. Save the modified file. 5. Go into the icon editor and create a new icon (not a default icon) with a template which is just the drive letter and a colon, like "F:". 6. Quit the editor and save the changes. 7. Load the new INF file you saved previously. Voila! You can't drag this icon to the trashcan to delete its contents, or use it for a diskcopy, but you can open it like a normal drive. Harcourt, Hm. I have 1.31 installed on all of my machines here and have never seen that problem. Very odd. Dan ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 169 Fri Sep 30, 1994 F.GORON [Frank] at 19:40 EDT Matt, Sounds like your Supra syquest has a ribbon cable coming off the actual HD mechanism and attaching to the inside wall of the shoebox case, then you're using a regular DMA to DMA cable between the case & the computer. If so you probably have a newer model than I do, cause on mine, the ribbon cable that attaches to the HD mechanism INSIDE the shoebox case comes OUT of the case, BECOMES a DMA cable that attaches to the TT. (hope that was clear, <ggg> ). I use the Atari HDX, not ICD booter, so I can't help you there, but "Cool about the Cal"! Glad to hear things are better for you than they were before. My boot problem has been "dormant" for a good week now, and I didn't do anything to change the setup so I'm just in the crossing fingers mode now. Dan, Mick, You're right about the complaints/praise ratio. It does seem that all we do is complain about ND4 but you're also right that we just want things to get better & better. It's like I said earlier to Dan, if his software wasn't so d*mn good, we wouldn't comment & complain about it so much. (g) That said... Dan, I just started playing around with the install apps & PIF's. I'm VERY disappointed that you took out the clock on/off toggle from the install apps & put it into the PIF section. To be honest, I have no use for any other part of the PIF thing, so I'm forced to use it for the clock toggle only. If anyone can suggest uses for the PIF (besides simply reeling off the functions of the various switches, I mean more like what to use it for, methods, concepts, etc.) please offer up your suggestions, so that I can find a justification for getting into it. Also you said that we could add LF's to .INF files without problem. While it's true that you can do this & the .INF file works fine, when the .INF file is saved (within ND4 of course) with new changes, those LF's have all been stripped. Is it possible for you to not strip them in a future update? Sorry for the long post Thanks, Frank G. ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 170 Fri Sep 30, 1994 M.RIVMAN1 [MATT] at 19:42 EDT Al and Wayne - Thanks! Matt ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 171 Fri Sep 30, 1994 F.LAWRENCE2 [FRANK] at 18:52 CDT Dan, Mick, Happy Hacker, Mmmmm, sounds logical - just had mindset and was thinking XBOOT would only handle the usual Atari .INF files. I'm off to give it a try. Thanks Guys, Frank L ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 172 Fri Sep 30, 1994 F.LAWRENCE2 [FRANK] at 19:55 CDT Dan, Mick, Happy Hacker, XBOOT works for the booting NEO 4 as needed, thanks, Frank L BTW - Dan, the true saga of Geneva is coming to you by Snail Mail, I might add unsolicited (G), ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 173 Fri Sep 30, 1994 MYECK.WATERS [myeck] at 22:46 EDT Dan; > 2) You already *can* use any format you want for the names of icons in >groups. Just select the item and choose "Edit item". The "Name in Window" can >be any 20 characters, in any format. I know that, but if the "name in window" doesn't match the name on the icon (taking wildcards into account), I get the generic program icon, forcing me to stick to something that fits in the FILENAME.EXT format if I want a custom icon. Is that normal? Thanks for the hint on fixing my macro problem with the CLI. I'll give it a try. Oh, one more quirk I noticed: sometimes when I select "Save group" from the Group's menu, the word "File" stays highlighted and nothing happens. The system doesn't lock up but I can't save that group. This only happens if I have more than one window open and the group I'm trying to save is not in the first window opened. Also, under the same circumstances, sometimes using ^W to close a window will result in a completely wrong dialog box popping up. I'm enjoying NeoDesk4 so much I even wrote a little utility for massaging monochrome IMGs to be tiled on the desktop. It's in the software lib here and is called ED-PAT_1.ZIP. <later> OK Dan, I've tried the fix you suggested for my problems with macros and the NeoDesk CLI, and it worked like a charm! Thanks! ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 174 Fri Sep 30, 1994 M.POCHE [Mick] at 23:14 CDT myeck, The "quirk" you mentioned with the group menu's not functioning right sounds like the problem I've run into a few times, although for me it was with _any_ type of window and not just with saving groups. If it happens again, see if any other windows exhibit this behavior. It sounds like what I've seen. I haven't really tried too hard to track this down. Usually when I'm using my computer, I don't have time to get into it that deeply. Maybe this weekend though. - Mick ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 175 Sat Oct 01, 1994 LYRE at 00:14 EDT Al, I agree that the "buy Straight Fax" stuff can be annoying. However, it is the only English program I'm aware of that will check all of these variables and produce a text file with little effort. If you know of some other GEM program which is comparable, let me know. Lyre 11:36 pm, September 30, 1994 ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 176 Fri Sep 30, 1994 T.PATRICK5 [Happy Hacker] at 22:33 PDT Frank, Well, one other use for the "PIF" function is the extended filenames. While this can be dome for desktop icons, *.PIF files can have the extended filenames in windows as well (up to twelve characters, upper and lower case, including spaces). Aloha, from the Happy Hacker! (Tim) ... FaST Technology Turbo25 inside! ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 177 Sat Oct 01, 1994 M.RIVMAN1 [MATT] at 01:59 EDT Frank G.- Gee, wish I could say my boot problem was dormant! <G> Yes, I all my ribbon cables are inside the box, wiht only the DMA cable leaving the case. I guess yours is an older model. Odd though, I just bought a Supra case (NO HD) with controler card and power supply, and it too, has the SCSI pass thru connector, but only the DMA cable comming out of the case! Lucky? Guess that depends on how much it costs to fix the First Boot problem! Cheers, Matt ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 178 Sat Oct 01, 1994 T.CARMAN [Tom Carman] at 00:21 MDT Frank, Something you may be interested to know now that you have discovered how to use XBOOT to change your NEODESK_.INF file is that you can do the same with your GEM.CNF file in Geneva. This allows you to have setups for running with or without NeoDesk, autorunning different programs at bootup, etc. Try it and have fun. Tom Carman (The Sermonator) ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 179 Sat Oct 01, 1994 T.CHRISTIAN1 at 01:33 PDT Does anyone know how to set the memory item selector for newdesk$? So far I keep getting a dialog bos telling me that I have run out of memory even though I have 14 megs RAM and set the stupid thing for "No Limit." Without screenblaster this dosn't happen, but with screenblaster, I get this notice. Please help!! ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 180 Sat Oct 01, 1994 T.CHRISTIAN1 at 01:44 PDT By the way, I forgot to mention that I am using a falcon w/14Megs. With 256 color mode, screenblaster, NVDI, and Neodesk4 everything was working fine until I unfortunately fiddled with the memory dialog to chang the Neo_inf.dat file. Then 256 color mode with screenblaster brought me this dialog about insufficient memory. Then however it would still work in 16 color mode w screenblaster. Trying to reset it to the "no limit" function, it gave me the insufficient memory dialog this time with 16 colors and screenblaster. [A [B [C [C [C [C Both color levels (256 & 16) work without screenblaster. Can someone please tell me how to properly reset this confusing memory item selector so that I can again use 256 colors AND screenblaster? By the way, I have not yet been able to use neodesk4 in truecolor mode at all with or without screenblaster. N aturally this happend on Friday night when I can not reach GRIBNIF support. PLEASE HELP!!! ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 181 Sat Oct 01, 1994 R.WATSON15 [Wayne Watson] at 06:25 EDT The Supra HA has a 25 pin SCSI connector on it instead of the 50 pin (which has all those ground connections on it). It is the same type of plug as the RS232 plug uses. It is a pass-thru connection for adding more drives without having to add another HA. It's much like adding another SCSI connector onto the existing cable and adding another drive to the SCSI chain. ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 182 Sat Oct 01, 1994 B.MENAGH at 10:58 EDT Thanks for tyhe reply re WordPerfect and NEO4. I'll study the recent postings for possible answers but I also note that just about every time I use a program the memory is fragmented at least one more block, sometimes 2) and eventually I have to shut down and reboot to clear the memory. ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 183 Sat Oct 01, 1994 Y.DUFRESNE [Papageno] at 12:16 EDT Al, You seem to have misunderstood. When you drag an icon, you only drag its 'ghost' or uotline if you prefer. The fact that the button only really moves down and right and the thick borders become thin and vice versa doesn't give a good clue if the thing is in the button or not. Not that I don't have a very good vision and the TTM195 has a high rez display... It just would be easier if it turned black instead. <reading on> Dan, You mean I won't be able to do it with Geneva running!?!?!? I'm at lost! Why? Yanick ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 184 Sat Oct 01, 1994 A.FASOLDT [Al Fasoldt] at 12:54 EDT Lyre, There are some good TOS sysinfo apps that can be set to redirect their output to a disk file. (Geneva will do that absurdly easily, too.) I just plain don't like infomercials in my programs. :-) Al ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 185 Sat Oct 01, 1994 F.LAWRENCE2 [FRANK] at 13:05 CDT Dan, I just thought of something kinda' neat. This is an idea not a complaint or request - I have noticed that the 'C' for the Capslock setting on the keyboard does interfere sometimes with some programs menu bars, sooo, why not just change the am and pm to AM and PM to show the Capslock enable/disable? Oops, this pertains to the Clock in the NEOCNTROL.ACC (G). Frank L ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 186 Sat Oct 01, 1994 A.FASOLDT [Al Fasoldt] at 15:22 EDT The memory fragging problem appears to be fixed in the version of NeoDesk 4 that Gribnif has just released in a patch available here. I've been flogging it unmercifully for days without rebooting, and my memory is fine. (So's the computers....) Yanick, Silly me. Of course that's called a ghost. I was too tired to think straight. But when running a very-high-res display, you just make the window gadgets larger via Geneva, and that will help a lot. Al ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 187 Sat Oct 01, 1994 LYRE at 18:30 EDT Frank, You can also use that or the batch commands to do the same type of thing with other programs. I use the batch commands to change Aladdin config files. Lyre 5:16 pm, October 1, 1994 ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 188 Sat Oct 01, 1994 B.AEIN [B Man] at 19:00 EDT Dan, Is there any chance that you will be selling the hyper text creator you used to create the Neo and Geneva help with? I could really use it as a quick way to save messages from genie and then be able to find them very quickly. As it stands now, I have lots of little clipped messages floating on my HD that need a home and I really think hypertext is the best place for it. I would also use the hypertext for creating notes and lists, and to keep track of where I put all my loose paper files. Thanks Bman ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 189 Sat Oct 01, 1994 M.RIVMAN1 [MATT] at 20:13 EDT B Man - Cool idea! I'd go for it. Matt ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 190 Sat Oct 01, 1994 J.BRENNER1 [See Flat] at 20:47 EDT There is a patch for Neodesk 4 in these libraries? How the heck did I miss that! I'll look. John B. ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 191 Sat Oct 01, 1994 G.NELSON16 [GFN] at 21:07 EDT Ken, I can give you a copy of pgs 21 and 22, seems like I got two of each. :-) GFN ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 192 Sat Oct 01, 1994 F.GORON [Frank] at 21:43 EDT Matt, Yeah, I knew I crossed my fingers too soon! It returned today, more than a week after I reconnected the syquest. Dan, I understand about the older TOS's having trouble with the rez switching thing for text viewing. If you could add it as an option, as you suggested, that would be just fine. thanks, Frank G ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 193 Sat Oct 01, 1994 T.FITZPATRI8 [Tom] at 20:35 PDT B Man, That hypertext help file creator of which you speak is included with Geneva. Tom ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 194 Sat Oct 01, 1994 T.HEBEL [Spud Boy] at 22:43 CDT >Spud Boy, > >Just pick out an icon, edit or modify, at the botom of the editor just type in >the name of the file as it is in the directory. When you get back to the NEO >desktop, drag the file to the desktop and WHOOPEE you got it. If you wish >another name just use the 'Install Icon' change the name to what you want - >click 'Change' and save it. > > Frank L Actually, I know how to do this for a file. I wanted to do this for a DISK drive icon. Thanks for the help though. ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 195 Sat Oct 01, 1994 T.PATRICK5 [Happy Hacker] at 22:56 PDT T.CHRISTIAN1, It sounds like the NEO_INF.DAT file is not getting updated correctly, or is corrupt. Just delete it and reboot to restore the NeoDesk defaults, then reset any options you need to change. Frank, I'd prefer the AM/PM for caps lock, too... but others who use a "24-hour" time display mode would loose the cap indicator. Aloha, from the Happy Hacker! (Tim) ... FaST Technology Turbo25 inside! ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 196 Sun Oct 02, 1994 M.RIVMAN1 [MATT] at 10:08 EDT John B. - As of midnight, Oct. 1, (or is that Oct. 2) I don't think the patch has been released by the Sysops yet. I can't wait either! Matt ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 197 Sun Oct 02, 1994 A.FASOLDT [Al Fasoldt] at 11:16 EDT Ben, I believe creating hypertext help that used the Geneva/Neo 4 help engine would be quite a task. But it sure would be great if it were not difficult. Tom, The hypertext help creator wasn't included with my copy of Geneva, I can tell you that. Al ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 198 Sun Oct 02, 1994 A.FASOLDT [Al Fasoldt] at 13:51 EDT The patch, ahem, might have been posted for double-checking by the beta testers first, so we'll have to wait for official word from Dan. Al ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 199 Sun Oct 02, 1994 M.POCHE [Mick] at 13:26 CDT Al, I checked my Geneva (oops! wrong topic) disk and there is a folder called MAKEHELP on it with a compiler that will create .HLP files from simple ASCII text files. The commands for inserting keywords and such are simple, and it even creates an index for you. - Mick ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 200 Sun Oct 02, 1994 D.MCANDREW [Simulator] at 16:31 EDT Dan -- I just had a chance to really try out the search feature(s) in ND4 at work the other day. I must say I like it a lot (only took a minute to use it and figure it out). You do great work for us diehards... now if I can only figure out what to use that $5 on.. ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 201 Sun Oct 02, 1994 T.FITZPATRI8 [Tom] at 17:34 PDT >The hypertext help creator wasn't included with my copy of Geneva, I can tell >you that. > >Al >I checked my Geneva (oops! wrong topic) disk and there is a folder called >MAKEHELP on it with a compiler that will create .HLP files from simple ASCII >text files. The commands for inserting keywords and such are simple, and it >even creates an index for you. > >- Mick Well, Al, you know what that means. We're all allowed to make two mistakes a year. Now you're down to one. :) Tom ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 202 Sun Oct 02, 1994 T.HEBEL [Spud Boy] at 20:49 CDT Dan, Would it be possible to add the ability for the hypertext help viewer to be able to view regular text files? I would like to be able to view text files in a window like the help viewer has. ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 203 Sun Oct 02, 1994 F.LAWRENCE2 [FRANK] at 21:23 CDT Al, Welcome aboard to the world of Frank Lawrence :-). I will neglect to relate to you what I took two hours correctiing. Frank L ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 204 Sun Oct 02, 1994 A.FASOLDT [Al Fasoldt] at 22:58 EDT Mick, One of the penalties of tasting all this programming food while it is still in the oven, so to speak, is that the finished product seems to go to the customers at the table and pass you by. So that one passed me buy, and I'm amazed that it exists. Dan, assuming that this item is not immense, can you e-mail MAKEHELP to me? I can think of two dozen immediate uses for it, including the format for Secrets of Geneva and Secrets of NeoDesk 4. Tom, Wasn't my mistake, but I won't pass the blame onto Dan, either. He probably even made a note of the help compiler in a beta message, but I sure don't have it. Al ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 205 Sun Oct 02, 1994 J.BATES15 [JAB] at 23:09 EDT Hi All, Ok tell me what I'm doing wrong. I'm trying to use macros to launch programs in Neo, I'm starting with the desktop, begin the macro, open the drive and then the folder, and double click on the program. I then exit the program and hit ^W to close the window and then select end macro from the menu (^ESC doesn't seem to work) I get the dialog box, name the macro and pick a key and choose install. Neodesk doesn't recognize the keyboard shortcut but will run the macro from the run selection in the dialog box. I would like to use the same function keys that I use on the Atari desktop, if possible. I'm on a Falcon with Geneva running. I would like to use just one key, not an ALT, CONTROL, LEFT SHIFT, or RIGHT SHIFT combination. Could Warp 9 be interfering with the keyboard input or do I have to enable keyboard shortcuts somewhere else? On another note, my system often locks up when Mandela kicks in when I'm at the Neodesktop, but not when I'm in applications launched with Neo or Geneva. I haven't been able to reproduce it on a consistent basis but it seems to happen after I have run Aladdin and exited. (not putting Aladdin to sleep) I'll spend some more time on it later this week. Too many features and not enough time! Later, JAB ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 206 Sun Oct 02, 1994 A.FASOLDT [Al Fasoldt] at 23:21 EDT Spud, Make the Help viewer show texts in a window? That's what 1stView does. Darn it, it's the best viewer app around. Just install it in Neo as the viewer. Double-click on a file and it pops up in a window just wide enough to show the file contents -- text, formatted text (1st Word), RSC file, IMG, color (X)IMG, SND file (plays 'em!), and more. And 1stGuide, the big brother, even does this for JPG and MPG files, too. Frank, I'll bet you took two hours correcting the fact that you forgot to run the NVDI CPX. Al ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 207 Sun Oct 02, 1994 M.POCHE [Mick] at 22:42 CDT Al, I know what you mean. I once beta tested a piece of commercial software from start to finish, yet never received the final product or a manual. Basically though, I consider beta testing a privilege in itself, but it is nice to have the 'real thing' when all is done.. - Mick P.S. Great idea about putting the "Secrets of...." files into the .HLP format! ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 208 Sun Oct 02, 1994 M.POCHE [Mick] at 23:04 CDT \\ JAB, It sounds like perhaps you're using key commands that are already used in NeoDesk. I've had the problem of having to learn new key commands because of this. It's a good idea to always use a key combo (ALT,CNTRL,etc.) for launching macros due to the fact that they can sometimes be activated accidentally when entering text into dialogs and such. It happened to back when I first started using macros. I learned the hard way and had to change nearly all of my macros. \\ Al, I could see that plug for 1STVIEW coming from miles away! I've just recently installed it as an application in NeoDesk. I had to tweak my Neo .INF file due to the fact that I'm also using View II. I prefer it for reading text, but like being able to double-click on an IMG and have it pop up in a window! I just wish it didn't rely on GDOS for printing. - Mick ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 209 Mon Oct 03, 1994 F.LAWRENCE2 [FRANK] at 01:15 CDT JAB, Be careful with those macros 'Like my TT' F1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 are also Keyboard inputs for the Directory menu for 'Sort'. They will work but not if you have an open 'Directory' on the desktop. Frank L Al, I don't beleive you even use Touchup, you sneaky devil :-). Frank L Dan, One thing I miss in using Geneva/NeoDesk is that neither of these fine pieces of work will allow you see 'Hidden Files'. I do use this quite a bit to 'Hide' files to keep from cluttering a directory or sub-directory, like yearly checkbook account files. Could this possibly be added to the Geneva FSEL in the tool Menu? Frank L ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 210 Sun Oct 02, 1994 R.BEATTY3 [Buffalo Bob] at 23:21 PDT Al, Does 1st View use GDOS? I'm still using ver 4.1 and _everytime_ I double- click on a text file, 1st Guide checks all the Speedo fonts (tic - tic - tic) before displaying my text in my system font (by choice). I've toggled nearly every German selection I could find in the config screen but couldn't get it to ignore GDOS. BTW, earlier today I switched by default text viewer to Two-view... I'll see how it works out. It doesm't show pics or RSCs, though... Buffalo Bob ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 211 Sun Oct 02, 1994 T.PATRICK5 [Happy Hacker] at 23:59 PDT Al, >The hypertext help creator wasn't included with my copy of Geneva, I can tell >you that. Looks like the rest of us finally get some revenge for all of Al's teasing. We've got the "help" creator and you don't... nya-nya, nya-nya-nya! *8^) Aloha, from the Happy Hacker! (Tim) ... FaST Technology Turbo25 inside! ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 212 Mon Oct 03, 1994 A.FASOLDT [Al Fasoldt] at 07:20 EDT JAB, The revision of NeoDesk 4, about to be released, handles macros better. But this problem is not one I have seen here in the current version, although I'm not running a Falcon. You CAN use any key to run a macro, although I suggest you try getting out of the habit of using unshifted keys. In a multitasking environment, you will not want to do that. If Neo is not recognizing Control-Esc, something is indeed interfering. The fact that the macro will run from the macro dialog tells me there is something getting in the way. (Try changing the key assignment via the macro dialog and see what happens.) Mandala (not Mandela; he's a guy, not a screen saver <g>) hasn't done that here. Mick, I'm glad 1stView relies on GDOS for printing, being an NVDI user. Buff, The problem is Speedo, not 1stView! 1stView pops open instantly under NVDI, and I have 20 or so fonts active. Al ------------ Category 17, Topic 4 Message 213 Mon Oct 03, 1994 FAIRWEATHER [David] at 07:25 PDT Can Al or somebody else point me to a good collection of MONOCHROME icons for Neodesk 4? I hate getting those big question marks when I switch to Monochrome! ------------