Although a good commodity, like a faithful dog, shouldn't be discarded as soon as you
get a new toy, there are some you wouldn't want to be without (no, I don't know what it
means either). Here's a list of some of the commodities and tools we consider invaluable
even now that we have Directory Opus. We have included NewIcons for you in the Icons
directory on the CD, all the others can easily be downloaded from AmiNet.
- MultiCX - [MCX280.lha util/cdity 66K]
This is one of those "does-everything" commodities like MCP, which gives you
mouse acceleration, screen blanking, middle mouse button functionality, opaque window
moving, a handy requester to assign things that need it, stops your drives from clicking
and generally does pretty much everything except make tea for you. MCP does all these and
more, but some people regard it as less stable than MCX since it also runs a patch in your
startup-sequence affecting a lot more low-levels things than MCX. However, if you use MCP
you can get rid of MagicFrames, PowerSnap and CycleToMenu, so it's probably worth a try.
- ARQ - [Arq1_83.lha util/cdity 43K]
ARQ is a great tool that really should have been incorporated into the OS when Kickstart 3
was being worked on, it's that old. Whenever the system puts up a requester, ARQ makes
sure it's centred in the screen and that the keyboard can be used to control it - RETURN
for yes or OK and ESC for no or cancel, and if the requester should have more than two
choices, the function keys could be used for them. ARQ is a touch flaky these days with
all the patches that people run, and in the way that Workbench and DOpus have moved on,
but it still runs fine if you use it before any other commodity in your WBStartup drawer.
- CycleToMenu - [CycleToMenu-21.lha util/cdity 52K]
Cycle gadgets were never really a good idea. Sure they were great if you only had a choice
between two or three things, but any more than that and it was a chore to have to click
several times in order to get to your choice. CycleToMenu turns cycle gadgets into pop-up
menus which makes it much better for long lists of things to choose between.
- MagicFrames - [MagicFrames.lha util/wb 54K]
If, as a lot of people do these days, you run your machine in a resolution higher than
640x256 (or 200 if you're in the states), you'll know that Workbench puts double thickness
borders on the vertical lines of gadgets (in order to make them look as thick as the
horizontal lines in said original screenmode). This looks pretty old-fashioned and
downright ugly. MagicFrames runs from your user-startup and ensures that all gadgets and
border \widths are a proper 1:1 ratio. As a side effect, the current version at time of
writing also changes the cycle gadget logo into a right-pointing arrow which looks better
for a pop-up menu.
- NewIcons - [NewIcons41.lha util/wb 655K]
Apart from the icons, you really only need the NewIcons package for two things now that
DOpus has internal support for NewIcons. The first is the additional tools for making
icons, InjectBrush and the like. The second is the actual NewIcons command if you would
like NewIcons AppIcons for your applications.
- PowerSnap - [PowerSnap22a.lha util/cdity 54K]
If you are running MCX (or MCP) then you'll be able to copy and paste in text field
gadgets, which is a good thing. But to be able to take text off the page, as in iBrowse,
you either need a program that does this itself, or you need PowerSnap. PowerSnap will
attempt to take text from where it wouldn't normally be copyable from. It's not perfect -
it doesn't handle proportional fonts at all, and it sometimes gets confused with multiple
lines - but it does make everything that little bit easier to deal with...
- TBClock - [TBClock.lha util/time 9K]
Another one that isn't perfect. TBClock is old, isn't very well programmed and can crash
your machine. However, it's better than the built-in DOpus clock in one very important
respect - it can appear in the titlebar for any Public Screen. This alone makes the very
occasional crash you might experience well worth it.
- WBStartup+ - [WBStartupPlus.lha util/boot 180K]
Place this über-commodity in your WBStartup drawer together with its two directories and
it gives you the ability to select which of your commodities you want to run at startup
and even allows you to turn the whole lot off. You also get a prefs program with it that
allows you to enable or disable commodities at will and also change their priority.
Fantastic!
- HappyEnv - [HappyENV.lha disk/misc 41K]
Not a commodity but a patch. This is probably one of the nicest hacks I've ever come
across. What it does is gets rid of ENV: from your RAM and basically uses ENVARC:.
However, it's not a simple reassigning of ENV: to ENVARC: that gets done, since you can
still do all the things you would be able to if you still had an ENV:, like only
"using" settings from a preferences program. It only copies files to the new
ENV: device that gets set up when you use it when they are needed, so a faster boot and
more available ram results. Neat-oh!
Pick a chapter:
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