OPUS MAGELLAN 2 REVIEW


By

Ray Hawkins


HISTORY


If there is one thing that makes the Amiga stand out from other personnel computers it has to be its workbench environment. However, the standard Commodore WIMP system is far from complete by itself, much use has to made of the CLI in order to carry out the simplest of housekeeping tasks. Cosmetically it also looks awful with its four colour chunky icon set.
Over the years there have been many cosmetic packages available for the Amiga user to smarten up the bland standard desktop. The Magic Workbench Icon set being the first and most easily installable. Still only just four colours AND you had to pay to get the fully working registered version. Ugh! Whoever thought that you should have to pay for icons? Alas, the Magic Workbench did nothing to enhance the operating system.
Next on the scene came the NewIcon set. Again very easy to install and NO registration fees to pay. Great! Colour palettes ranging from 16 to 256 if you could spare the chip memory. But again no facility for additional housekeeping. Just pretty isometric icons!
Whilst all this was happening Jonathan Potter in conjunction with GPSoftware were developing versions of a cracking little program called Directory Opus. Directory Opus started life as version 4.12 and was a disk based stand alone file editor.
I can remember CU Amiga magazine giving away a full version of Directory Opus 4 to commemorate it's 100th cover disk way back in February 1995. Yes folks, it was THAT long ago. This little program did all the things with ease that workbench couldn't do just by clicking on a few buttons. It was also easy to install to hard drive and I wondered at the time how I ever got by without it.
For anybody that hasn't heard of Directory Opus, where have you been all these years? Well DO4 as I shall now call it was a twin lister file editor where you could, copy, rename, move, delete, read, view, play and perform many other actions on your files either on disk or hard drive, and all without the use of the CLI. However, DO4 did nothing to permanently enhance the look or performance of your workbench.
This was all to change a few years later when GPSoftware released Directory Opus 5. DO5 was designed to be hard drive only and to be used as a workbench replacement. But oh dear, was this version a nightmare to configure or what? Numerous Amiga magazines gave away FULL working copies on either coverdisks or on CD along with tutorials to try and show the reader how to use it.
I remember spending hour after hour attempting to set up DO5's filetypes to display a simple ASCII text file, and failing! The principle of DO5 was fine, a workbench replacement that was able to perform ALL actions on ALL types of files, but trying to set the beast up properly was next to IMPOSSIBLE. Only one course of action remaining, delete it from my hard drive and go back to using DO4 for general housekeeping!
I think Jonathan Potter and his team must have realised the problem that folk were having as there was soon to follow a number of upgrades to Directory Opus, finally ending up with version 5.8, Magellan 2.

THE REVIEW


Opus Magellan 2 is straight forward enough to install to your hard drive, although it is done in two parts. First you install Opus v5.6 and enter your registration details and follow up immediately with installing the Magellan 2 program over the top of it.
Magellan 2 makes various changes to Opus v5.6 and automatically updates it to V5.8. You have to enter your registration details all over again and then reboot your Amiga. At first you won't see many changes to your workbench screen other than a large button bank on the right hand side and a Opus replacement workbench title bar.
My first impressions were, is that all I get for my £50? But waiting to be unleashed is a new tremendously powerful replacement workbench. If you have any sense then NOW is the time to read the well documented manuals to see what can be done. The options, both visual and practical are almost impossible to review in an article such as this, because the permutations of how Opus performs and looks are almost unlimited.
The main power behind Opus is in its listers rather than the simple icon mode that Commodore's standard workbench uses. The listers are 100% user definable not only in size but screen mode and colour. Add to that Opus can display your listers in various modes and you will soon appreciate the power of the program.
Listers can be in Name mode and will show all your files sorted into what ever order you prefer. Icon mode will display your files using traditional workbench icons regardless of wether Commodore standard, Magic Workbench, NewIcons or whatever icon set you use. Icon Action mode is a mixture of the two previous modes and looks very classy, but watch that chip memory especially if displaying NewIcons. Graphic card users will have no problems what so ever and might wish to display all in 256 colours, wow!!
Selecting the Environment editor from the Opus title bar opens up a whole load of "goodies". From here you can edit EVERYTHING you can see on screen. Random backdrops, fonts in colours of your own choosing, sounds for events such as inserting disks etc. There are a couple of themes to play around with on the installation disk. You can even import "Themes from the dreaded Pee Cee if you want to. Just change the Pee Cee's picture image from bitmap to IFF and away you go.
Arexx lovers are not left out in the cold either. Opus fully supports Arexx scripts and there are a multitude of them saved to their own storage drawer on installation. Using them could not be simpler, just set the path to Opus as per the instructions and that's all there is to it. I have set up Opus to display via Visage all pictures in a lister at random. Yes folks, a built in picture slideshow.
Have any of you folks reading this review ever booted your Amiga and forgot that you left a CD in the drive? I have, loads of times and cursed when the CD ROMS icon displayed itself right in the middle of my drive icons, messing up my display. Not with Opus as you can define the areas on your screen where you want to display your icons. NEVER a messed up display again. Full AppIcons are supported too.
Opus is also happy to display all formats of pictures, IFF, JPEG, PNG and any others you can throw at it. You will however have to set up Opus's internal filetypes before it can display all the different types of pictures. This was where older versions of Opus fell over badly as setting up filetypes by hand was almost impossible. Opus Magellan 2 solves this big problem by employing a "Sniffer".
When Opus comes across an un-regonised filetype, up pops the "Sniffer" window. Many options are available from this window but the one I use is for Opus to automatically create the filetype for me. Dead easy, and after a few hours use your new workbench will be able to display any picture, read any text file including AmigaGuides or play numerous sound samples or music modules just by double clicking on its name or icon.
One of the programs greatest features is a Pee Cee style "Start" button. Now I don't want to hear any abusive or vulgar remarks made here! The Start button is again in the tradition of the program, highly configurable. Again it's easy to set up. Opus fully supports "Drag'n'Drop" so just drop your favourite programs icons on it and the job is done. It would pay however to read the manual or use the "On Line Help", yes it's got that as well, and create a more structured Start button as I have done.
You can also have a "Favourites" button too. Clicking this button will display a customised list of all your favourite programs ready for launching.
On the subject of buttons, as if Opus wasn't powerful enough as it is, you can have banks of buttons set up to perform any sort of action or to launch your programs. Users of "Dock Icons" are in for a treat here too. You can set up banks of Dock Icons to suit your needs and tastes. Opus will display ANY Dock Icon image so you are not limited to what's included in the package. If fact there are no Dock Icons supplied with Opus, so you have to find your own.
One of the main advantages of Opus is its frugal use of memory. You would think that a highly configured workbench set up in 16 colours would gobble up most of your chip RAM. Wrong! OK. I do use FBlit which goes a long way in preserving my 2 megabytes of chip memory, but I now have MORE memory left over by using Opus compared with a standard workbench just displaying NewIcons.
Stability? I use a fair number of workbench "hacks" such as FBlit, MagicTV, MagicMenu, Workbench Start-up Plus, MCP, PicBoot and Birdie to name but a few and under a standard system my Amiga was prone to the odd crash or Guru. I certainly wasn't expecting much better upon installing Opus, but I was in for a very pleasant surprise. Opus works fine with ALL these "hacks" and as if by magic my Amiga has now become 100% stable which just goes to prove what a superb program it is.
Overall I have found Opus Magellan 2 as a workbench replacement to be 100% stable and in the last year that I have used it I have found it to be also "bug free".
One minor criticism is that the manual does not cover everything in as much detail as I would like.
An example of this is the random display of backdrops. What the manual doesn't tell you that if your backdrop files have icons, that from time to time Opus will select an icon as the backdrop and then display nothing at all. It took me months to figure this so called "bug" out and of course the solution was very simple, just delete the backdrops icons, you don't need them anyway!
I have submitted a screen grab of my workbench to give you an idea of what can be done. Sorry it's in Hi-Res interlace mode but DMC can not display SVGA screen modes. Remember folks this is the way I wanted MY workbench to look, you could configure it a million different ways, that's the beauty of Opus. (Sorry but the screen grab is not available, unless you subscribe to THE CRYPT disk mag)
Overall I would rate Directory Opus Magellan 2 at 9/10. I would give the program a huge 10/10 rating were it not for some items not properly covered in the documentation. I would say however that I could NEVER go back to using a standard Commodore workbench again.
Now any of you reading this article and thinking that I have or am about to upgrade to OS 3.5 and that you don't need Opus, think again? Opus works a treat with OS 3.5 and makes a good operating system a GREAT one.

WHERE TO GET IT?


Alas, Jonathan Potter has moved on to pastures new and as far as I am aware GPSoftware have faded away. However the GOOD news is that this super package is still available from:-
Power Computing Unit 82a, Singer Way, Woburn Road Ind Est, Kempston MK42 7PU Tel 01234 851500 Fax 01234 855400 www.powerc.com sales@powerc.com Price £49.95
Or check out their advert in Amiga Active.
There is also a lot of support and help available for those lucky people than have internet facilities, check it out now.
Also if anybody needs any help with installing or the setting up of Opus then contact me with your problems via THE CRYPT magazine and I will only too pleased to help you.

Ray Hawkins.


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