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CU Amiga Super CD-ROM 6
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CU Amiga Magazine's Super CD-ROM 06 (1996)(EMAP Images)(GB)(Track 1 of 4)[!][issue 1997-01].iso
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executive_v2.00
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1996-10-27
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EXECUTIVE V2.00
===============
Here's the long awaited Executive V2.00. This is the fourth public
release. It took a long time to develop, particularly the new
Dashboard-client. But it's finally here, and the most notable
changes in this release are:
* Schedulers have been improved and a real multi-level feedback
queue scheduler, found on most UNIX systems, is now available.
* New client, Dashboard, lets you open multiple windows and
interactively create all kinds of meters on them and adjust
their parameters. Everything is user configurable.
* Improved compatibility.
* PatchControl and ScreenNotify support.
* CPU usage can be displayed with Amiga's power LED.
* The server and some clients are now commodities. Scheduling
can be disabled and enabled without restarting the server.
* ExecutiveAPI is a new low-level API for application programs
that wish to directly control scheduling.
* A small tutorial is included.
* Tasks can now be scheduled as a group, if necessary.
* Default catch- and dynamic ranges were changed. The new ranges
are -105 -- +1 and -70 -- -50, respectively. The install-script
changes the ranges to these new values if you haven't modified
the old default ranges. I suggest you use these new ranges,
for compatibility and performance reasons.
If you're using my Amiga port of NetBSD's SysLog software, get the new
V1.20 version of SysLog from Aminet, the file is util/moni/SysLog.lha.
Here's a full list of changes made after Executive V1.30:
* All schedulers have been significantly improved. The basic principle
behind each scheduler is the same, but they have been fine tuned and
their specific characteristics emphasized. Nice-value has now more
effect and focused task gets more CPU time than before.
* Catalog translator's name is now displayed in the About... menu and
when a program is started with the VERSION option.
* Added a real multi-level feedback queue scheduler, similar to what
is used in most UNIX operating systems, for example in all BSD
variants (NetBSD, FreeBSD, BSDI, etc.). The new scheduler is
called "FEEDBACK". See documentation for technical explanation.
* The 68020+ version of Executive used a CMP2 assembly command which isn't
supported by 68060.
* Added NewIcons, thanks to Philip A. Vedovatti for drawing them!
* When Meter was started with the NOTITLEBAR option, it stopped updating
when a new value was selected from the Show-menu.
* Dashboard is a new client which lets you open windows on public
screens and create any number of all kinds of meters (CPU usage,
free memory, SANA-II, VMM, Device I/O, etc.) on each window.
Everything is congigurable.
* ALoad, ALoad3D, Meter and Top now have invisible drag-, close-, depth-
and size-gadgets if the system gadgets have been disabled with NOTITLEBAR
or NOSIZEGADGET option.
* Added a Scan-button to the Tasks-section of ExecutivePrefs. It will
scan the system for tasks in the Magic Wand list.
* Added Amiga-Oberon interface for SysInfo.library. Thanks to
Thomas Igracki, <T.Igracki@bamp.berlinet.de>.
* Error requester windows are now opened on the screen where the
client's window is, not on default public screen.
* Fixed a bug that caused an Enforcer hit when Top was started with
the STDOUT option.
* Removed some unnecessary GUI-generation code. Timer and the GadTools
versions of Commander and ExecutivePrefs are now a bit smaller.
* GadTools versions Commander, ExecutivePrefs and Timer now use the
screen font for the GUI, not the system default font, which is always
non-proportional. The system default font is still used for listviews.
* Added a checkbox to ExecutivePrefs[_MUI]'s task-edit window, which is
used to choose if task's nice-value should be set to the given value
or if parent task's nice-value is used.
* MUI V3 is now required by all MUI-based clients.
* Added Croatian (Hrvatski) catalog.
* It's no longer necessary to give the JOINLONELY option with THRESHOLD
in Sa, as it will be set automatically.
* Sa displayed "NaN0.00%" for CPUTIME% if total CPU time was 0.
* Executive server and Acct now support PatchControl.
* Dashboard, Meter and Top use "vmem.library" to get virtual memory
statistics from GigaMem. It seems that there are other libraries
with the same name, and these of course aren't compatible. By
default these clients don't try to open the library, unless the
VMEM option is given.
* Added JUNK and FORCE options to Sa. These are used to strip
garbage from the summary files.
* Fixed a bug in Meter which caused values to disapper if the window
didn't fit on the screen after "Show graphs" was selected.
* If a new task is added in ExecutivePrefs and the task name is too long,
the name will be cut and an asterisk "*" added to the end.
* Fixed a refresh error in ALoad.
* When the server or a client is started from CLI, errors will now
be shown in a requester if the output is directed to NIL:.
* Meter didn't save device names into SHOW-tooltype with the
"Save config"-command.
* Meter now adds volume names to the Diskspace-submenu, as well as
devices. Volume names can also be used with the SHOW option.
New options NOVOLUMES and NODEVICES are used to disable volumes
or devices from the Diskspace-submenu.
* If Timer couldn't create an app-window, one signal bit wasn't freed.
* ALoad, ALoad3D, Commander, ExecutivePrefs, Meter, Timer, Top and
Uptime now open the AmigaGuide document asynchronously when
Help-key is pressed or when "Help" is selected from menu.
* Executive can now use the power LED to indicate when a task is
running. The new option, LED, enables this feature.
* The three bars in ALoad3D are now of different size. The thickest
bar is the 1 minute load average and the thinnest bar represents
15 minute load average.
* Fixed ExecutivePrefs[_MUI] filerequester. When a preferences file
is opened with the Open... menu, the file name will be correct in
the Save as... file requester.
* Reduced memory usage of the server and all clients by almost 4KB
by removing one atexit()-command from the code.
* Uptime's window is a now a bit wider, it should be of correct width now.
* Ps now has a new option, STATUS, which displays the same CLI processes
as the AmigaDOS Status command.
* ExecutivePrefs now warns the user about the IGNORE-type, as it
really shouldn't be used. It's there for a very few buggy programs
only. NOSCHEDULE should be used instead.
* Lots of changes in Meter:
- Graphs can be individually turned on/off by double clicking the value.
- The SHOW command line option or tooltype can be used to specify
if a graph should be displayed for a value. Just add a "-" after
the value name. For example: SHOW=fast,total-,cpuusage-,uptime
- If labels, numbers and bars are turned off, only a graph is displayed.
- The window can now be drawn without the standard window border
(BORDERLESS) and put behind all other windows (BACKDROP).
- Frames can be drawn for the window (WINDOWFRAME) and for individual
values (VALUEFRAMES).
- Space between window frame and value frames can be set using
SPACEHOR and SPACEVER options, and space between the values can
be set using the BETWEEN option.
* ALoad (not ALoad_MUI), ALoad3D, Top and Uptime are now commodities
and support Stefan Becker "screennotify.library".
* ALoad, ALoad3D, Meter, Top and Uptime now open a window on the default
public screen, if the specified public screen is not found.
* If ALoad's window was resized before it could redraw itself after
an earlier resize, size after the first resize was used.
* It's now possible to account ALL tasks with Acct, not just CLI commands
or programs started from Workbench. This is enabled with the new ALL
option in Acct.
* If signals were used for notification in SysInfo, RemoveNotify()
crashed when it tried to reply to unused notification messages in
the message port, which isn't allocated if signals are used.
* Acct now supports all versions of WBStart. Programs started with
it are properly accounted.
* By default, the maximum priority for a task to be catched is now +1,
it used to be +2. So tasks with priority +2 or higher are not scheduled
automatically. Dynamic range is now from -70 to -50, this lets tasks
which use approximately the same amount of CPU time to be round-
robined with the same priority.
* The SIMPLE scheduler was TOO simple, so I removed it. If you're
currently using this scheduler, please use the preferences program
to change the scheduler. The install-script automatically changes
the SIMPLE-scheduler to FEEDBACK during installation.
* Added a new "QUEUE" keyword to the Ps-client. When QUEUES or
FEEDBACK scheduler is used, this shows task's run queue.
* It's now possible to schedule a group of tasks so that their
relative priorities are maintained. This is done with the new
RELATIVE option, that is used together with CHILDTASKS. There
are some applications that use multiple tasks which are expected
to have certain priorities. Please read ExecutivePrefs documentation
on how to use this option.
* Added ExecutiveAPI, a simple, easy to use application programmers
interface to some Executive features. The most important feature
is the ability to control task scheduling without having to add
entries to Executive.prefs file.
* Meter and Uptime no longer disable interrupts while calculating
number of users logged in (MultiUser). This caused hardware overflow
errors in serial transfer.
* Disk usage bar in Meter displayed free space available on disk,
now it displays how much diskspace is in use, which is more logical.
* If SysInfo.library exists in LIBS:, it will be updated. Otherwise
user will be asked if the library should be installed.
* Added "About MUI..." menu item to all MUI-based clients.
* Fixed some backgrounds in Commander_MUI and ExecutivePrefs_MUI,
they are now user configurable.
* Improved/redraw most of the icons.
* New option in Top, CURRENT, displays current CPU usage instead of recent
CPU usage.
* Top's window now has a size gadget, if the SIZEGADGET option is given.
* New option, SCALESTEP, in ALoad[_MUI] controls which scalelines are
drawn. If SCALESTEP is 3, every third scaleline is drawn.
* ALoad[_MUI], ALoad3D and Top now have a BACKDROP option which makes
the window a backdrop window that is always behind all other windows
and can't be depth arranged.
* Executive is now a commodity. Scheduling can be disabled/enabled using
a commodities exchange program. Stat-client displays if scheduling is
disabled or enabled.
* Lots of changes in Magic Wands:
ADDED: FinalWriter, XiPaint, MagiC64, BlitzBlank, DeluxeMusic,
DreamTerm, SwazBlanker, MultiCX Blanker, Garshneblanker,
Termite.
REMOVED: Blanker, Flying Toasters!, Midnight, Rotor.
CHANGED: BServer - Schedule blankers with nice-value +20.
Garshneblanker - Schedule blankers with nice-value +20.
DesktopMAGIC - Schedule the blanker task with nice-value +20.
Brilliance - Recoqnize TrueBrilliance also.
MultiCX - The correct task name is "MultiCX".
MCP - Recoqnize MCP020 also.
WBStart Handler - Recoqnize V2.x also.
* Added labels to Magic Wand listview.
* Added a small interactive tutorial to the AmigaGuide documentation.
It takes you through some Executive features and clients. There's
now a small "Boxes" program in the Extra-drawer, which is used by
the tutorial.
* Updated the Meter screenshot.
* The documentation has been enhanced, lots of new information has
been added.
* There are some applications that support Executive through
SysInfo.library, added a list these to the Clients-section
of the documention.
* Price drop from 120 SEK -> 100 SEK (Swedish krona), other currencies
unchanged.
* Australian (20 AUD) and Canadian (20 CAD) dollars are now accepted.
* Postal Money Order is now accepted.
* Executive can now be properly installed on systems that are running
a utility which converts standard Amiga pathnames to UNIX pathnames,
i.e. "/" becomes ":". Normally the "/" refers to parent directory.
* The install-script now asks the user if he's using some of the
applications which require a special configuration for Executive.
The selected applications are automatically added to Executive
preferences.
* Executive now defaults to using timer.device instead of CIA-B
timer on 68020+ systems. The install-script will change CIA-B
timer to timer.device (which uses CIA-B).
* Numerous small bug fixes and improvements.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Changes made after V2.00beta:
* Dashboard no longer asks for confirmation when meters are cut.
* Fixed a bug in Dashboard: if load average was higher than 1.0, then
the first line for a load average graph was too high. The display
wasn't divided.
* The Install-script didn't work with new versions of Installer,
English was always used and no catalog was installed.
* Fixed a small vertical alignment bug in Dashboard's text-type meters.
* Hopefully Executive now works correctly with PatchControl.
* Dashboard and Top now work properly with sysihack and similar programs.
* Fixed a CHIP memory leak in Dashboard's bar-type meter.
* Fixed a small memory trashing bug in ExecutivePrefs. This occured
during first installation of Executive, when initial preferences
file was written.
* Because of an odd-address error Dashboard couldn't save the preferences
when running on 68000.
* Stat displayed "Total used CPU time" instead of "Total idle CPU time".
* Now clients that have a window will always display error messages
on windows, other clients display errors on windows only when
started from Workbench.
* There's no default SANA-II device name on Dashboard anymore.
* If Dashboard couldn't remove its DoIO() and SendIO() patches when
quitting, ScreenNotify was turned on and screens couldn't be opened
or closed anymore.
* Dashboard's round-type meters now work on a CyberGraphX display.
* If Meter used borderless window, the size was calculated incorrectly.
* Added Norwegian and Italian translation.