Back to main page
We still get mail from some people who can't make our CD work, and yet we've spent many months honing it to make it the easiest Amiga CD in the world to get to grips with. There can't be many actual real live problems left with it now,but of course if you know of some, please send in your AFCDSurvey (in the +System/Info drawer) and note the difficulties you're having. A lot of the things that people complain about are carefully made decisions:
What's the point of the dashes at the start and end of the drawer names? These are there to separate out important directories from less important ones. If you look at our CD in a file manager's lister you'll see that all the content directories are at the top of the lister, while less important (or system-related) ones aren't and are thus kept to the bottom of the directory list. If you like to use the Shell, we understand that it can be awkward to type out the whole name, which is why we recommend KingCON (which you can find in the +System+/Tools/WB/KingCON1.3 drawer). This has filename completion so you don't have to type it all out.
I don't like AFCDView/Prefs Oliver Roberts has done a sterling job of creating a single tool to do all the work on the CD, and he's extended it beyond what we originally thought possible. AFCDView gives you, the user, the ability to choose exactly which viewers you want to use to see files on the CD. You can stick with the defaults if you like, or you can set up your own way of doing things. Both will change over time to offer more services than they currently do and improve further. If there's something you'd like to see in either one, let us know. Coming soon will be an appicon that will allow you to drag and drop any files onto AFCDView so they can be loaded no matter what the default tool.
I want to click on the results in AFCDFind and get it to open the window on Workbench Unfortunately, because Workbench has no ARexx port, this isn't possible. However, it can be done with any version of Directory Opus Magellan, which we also thoroughly recommend to anyone using our CDs. This will allow you to click on the results in the AmigaGuide window and bring up the appropriate window for the button you've clicked on. Also, having Directory Opus will allow you to extend AFCDView's filetyping system since you can set it to use Opus filetypes as a fallback if it doesn't recognise the filetype you've double-clicked on. Since AFCD43 you can now do the same thing in Scalos.
I can't get Ben_Speaks to work What can I say? If you have your browser correctly set in AFCDPrefs (the default works fine) then it will work every time. If you don't, we can't help you. Be aware that the demo browsers on the CD try to write to their directories, which are write-protected (being on CD) and may open a window telling you so. You might not be able to see this because your browser window is covering it up.

The best solution is to copy one of the browsers to your hard drive and edit your prefs by making use of AFCDPrefs.

Obviously you might find it hard to see the answers to these two questions if you can't get AFCDView, or the web browser to work, but we've included them because we want you to know that we know... :)

I can't get AFCDView to work Make sure you have a recent version of AFCDView in your C: directory (you can do this by double clicking on the AFCD_Install icon in the +System+ drawer) and all should be well. If you wanted to, you could always add a path statement for the CD's c: drawer. The version of AFCDView on AFCD41 onwards will actually check to see if a later version exists on the AFCD you have in the drive, and will also prevent you from entering "AFCDView" as the default tool for the filetypes in AFCDPrefs.
How can I speed up my web browser? The easy answer is to get a faster machine and a graphics card, but not everyone can afford that kind of solution. However, if you run iBrowse, you can change the preferences so that the browser puts text up first and fills in the pictures afterwards. Simply go to the HTML Display settings in the general prefs and make sure that the "wait for" buttons are all unticked.
If I'm browsing some of the third-party websites on your CD, I can't get back to the websites page easily. We know, and that's why from AFCD43 you can click on the little "Goto:" gadget at the top of the browser window which will reload whatever page is highlighted in the list to its right. Admittedly, this won't be amazingly useful for Ben Speaks! or the FAQ, but it should prove handy for the Websites page, and possibly for the afb page too.
I know our CD might seem confusing for new users at first, but we've spent a long time getting it right and we hope that as you get more used to it you'll appreciate this. Don't forget that if you have any suggestions we welcome them as a chance to improve the CD, but don't be surprised if we've already thought of them - a lot of work's gone into making the AFCDs the best there are.
Back to main page