Workbench Tutorial Part 2

PART 1: The Icon Information Requester
PART 2: Customising Workbench
PART 3: Customising Workbench Part 2
PART 4: Add-Ons and Hacks
PART 5:0m Startup Sequences

Welcome once again. This issue, we are going to take a look at how you can spruce up your Workbench with various PD (public domain) utilities which you can get from Aminet, or various PD compilation CDs. Let's get in straight away then...

The Requesters

Let's face it, the Workbench requester isn't very attractive. And it appears at the top of the screen, when a lot of programs are now making their main windows appear in the centre of the screen, which is where the requesters need to appear too, so you don't have to make the epic voyage to the top of the screen to press OK, or Cancel on a requester.

ARQ
This program is a bit old, but still useful. It puts the normal Workbench requester in the middle of the screen, is font sensitive, and also includes a nice animation depending on what the requester message says. Installation is as simple as dragging an executable to your WBStartup directory.

ReqAttack
This relatively new program tries to cure some of the bad things of ARQ. You can set ReqAttack to appear wherever you like, under the mouse pointer, in the middle of the screen, or at the top of the screen if you are a standard Workbench fanatic. It also includes graphics, and very nice animations, and is very configuarable. Try it out!

Multiusers
Does more than one person use your Amiga? Are you sick of them deleting your favourite programs accidentally? Well, perhaps the Mulituser File- system is what you need? MuFS has been around a long time, but is very useful if your Amiga is accessed by more than one person. Unfortunately, it's quite hard to track down, as I don't think it's on Aminet.

It allows you to set the protection bits of various files so only one specific user, or group of users, can access the file in different ways. You could make a set of pictures read only to everyone but your self, meaning people can look at them, but not delete them accidentally.

The only problem is that it takes a lot of setting up, since it isn't done automatically, for you, and if you are not experienced, you might want to give it a miss, since it also requires you to use HDToolbox to install a new filesystem on your hard disk.

Clipboard
The Amiga clipboard works. Highlight text in a Console window, or a Raw window, and press Right Amiga and C to copy the text. In another program which supports the clipboard, press Right Amiga and V and the text will be inserted. The problem is, not a lot of programs actually support this.

That's why PowerSnap was created. You can press and hold a definable qualifier key, and drag the mouse over ANY monospaced text, and it will be put in the PowerSnap clipboard. Press another qualifier key combination, and the text will be inserted. This is one of the those tools that it is hard to live without once you've installed it.

It's also very easy to use, which is a nice advantage

GUI
The Workbench GUI, in my opinion, still beats the pants off the Windows GUI. But many would argue that it needs a bit of updating. Ok, I would partly agree with that, and VisualPrefs is something you should think about if you want to change the way your Workbench looks.

You can customise just about anything you'd care to think of. Window title bar height, the Window title text position, the look of the buttons in the window, the look of most of the GadTools gadgets that Workbench uses, and more! And as an added bonus, there are loads of localisation catalogs on Aminet so you can use it with ease if English is not your main language.

You might also want to check out Birdie, which allows your Workbench windows to have patterns in their borders and titlebars. Very nice if you have the memory for it.

Screen Resolution
Are you stuck with a Philips 8833 monitor? Can you only use a 640x256 screen? Want to use a 640x512 Hires Laced screen, but can't because of the headaches involved? Don't care about the number of colours you have to use on your Workbench screen? If the answer to all of those was yes, then MagicTV2 is for you. It works by sitting in the background and doubling up the horizontal lines on your screen in 640x512 screen- mode, meaning that there is hardly any flicker! Check it out.

And finally...
WBInfo

The Workbench Icon Information requester is a bit dated, and doesn't have the functionality is should have. Swazinfo tries to cure this, and does a very good job too. It even gives you the freedom to use the old Workbench Info requester if you like, and allows you to change the icon type you are viewing, along with various other options too. Well worth a look.

And that's it for this issue. Enjoy the programs, and next issue we'll look at various things to do with startup sequences. See you then!

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