The Datafile PD-CD 5/DATAFILE_PDCD5.iso/utilities/u/utopia/Docs/history

Text File | 1996-08-06 | 8KB | 140 lines

History of utopia
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Don't take all this history twoddle as gospel please anybody, as I only wrote it after version 0.75 (I think).

Pre-release versions:
¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨

0.01  utopia started off as two simple utilities that I knocked together called
      HotKore and Clok, the clok window design has survived to the present
      version although the method of making it 3d has changed. Also, it was
      opened and closed via Shift-F11 as well. HotKore just used F11 to reset
      the filecore and the algorithm for reset still survives.

0.50  this first version of utopia merely had an info,display and quit option
      and was going to be a hyped up version of Clok. It could only display the
      time, date and free memory.

0.55  added wimp mode, icon number, cache status and mouse co-ords to the
      display option also added the pointer and caret features, namely wrap
      around, large, flash and autofocus. Added the save and load state option
      and created nicely coloured menu items. Added the redraw and hourglass
      off functions.

0.60  very quickly added remove caret option as it was dead simple, added
      scaled movemet to the pointer menu and created the security option adding
      all 3 security options in this version; protect, network and id. Had the
      idea for loading options as well. Created an iconbar option. Tried to add
      interactive help and failed miserably.

0.65  implemented the no action,wipe and iconsprite features and created the
      'other' option menu to display miscellaneous items in this version for
      example, alerter, filecore fix. Tried again with the interactive help, I
      just can't get it to work for menus.

0.70  added the no run error 'other' option from my program typeinfo and put in
      the basic max memory option which reduces all slots to minimum only when
      clicked. Also added the mousestep and psycahdelic mouse options to the
      program. Gave up on the interactive help, try it to see the terrible
      message I left for you.

0.75  Added the full time and nothing displays, purely becise they were simple
      to add and don't take up much memory, also it gives just a couple more
      options. Added the window scroller but it was still a little dodgey.
      Added the setup menu option and transferred iconbar to it, also added
      open window on startup, and save the window position when saving setup.

0.80  Finally got round to adding the caret finder (crosshairs), it's not very
      nice though and looks dead cr*p. Also added the fonts option for the
      windows but I still used 2 templates files, bad practice! Can't get fonts
      in menus to work properly, withou having BASCompress (which uses them)
      loaded.

0.81  Got the find caret option to look a little better and added the hotkey to
      the window scrolling option.

0.85  Only one fonts template file now, impressive hey. Also added the shutdown
      checker, well classy.

0.90  Corrected the shutdown checker so that if you try and quit utopia from
      the task manager when you decline the option to shutdown, it asks you if
      you want to quit from utopia, I think this still has a few bugs in it.
      Also managed to get fonts working in menus, very classy, still some items
      aren't visable though.

0.91  Now corrected the menus feature so that the menus aren't coloured when
      I'm using font menus.

0.92  Sepearated the fonts in windows and fonts in menus options as I found
      that the fonts in the menus could get a tad irritating.

0.93  Added all the virtual desktop features of the scrollable desktop,
      scrollable desktop boundary setting and the retieve feature, which I know
      doesn't always work. Note that this would have gone up to version 0.95 as
      it has so many new developments, but I'm running out of versions before
      version 1.00.

0.94  Spent a whole day working out how I could get it to work when compressed
      with BASCompress.

0.95  I am thoroughly fed up with the entire fonts in menus scene, when I
      re-booted my computer after writing the last part of this history, when I
      used menu fonts, the menu came up with no text in it! I have now disabled
      the menu fonts option for the forseeable future, but I've left it in the
      menu, because it reminds you that this software, is being constantly
      developed!

0.96  Fixed the large pointer so that if you quit when it's enabled, it will
      revert to the normal pointer before quitting. Also moved loads of the
      procedures to reason 0 in the wimp poll rather than just having them in
      the REPEAT loop before "Wimp_Poll" is called. If that meant nothing to
      you don't worry, it's meant to make it a bit lighter on CPU usage. I did
      this because I noticed that Strong ED 2 was scrolling very slowly on the
      down arrow button, I think there is an improvement to the speed, but the
      CPUUsage graph (Apps 2) shows an increase, so I don't know. Also tried to
      improve the memory maximise options by using SYS "OS_ReadDynamicArea" to
      compare the slots with the last time they were altered, and only minimise
      if they were different, it only seems to work for the RMA, I'll continue
      to experiment.

0.965 I have now managed to get the memory checker to search for a new minimum
      each time the slot is changed and set that as the level above which to
      trigger the reduction. Also I have managed to get it to reduce every time
      the memory change takes place. The advantage of this is that if the
      memory slots change every 5 mins. originally they were being updated
      every poll loop, and it takes a long time to reduce the slots with only
      OSCLI comands to do it, therefore only reducing when necessary, almost
      halves the processing time utopia was using, cause for celebration! I
      only wrote this slot 20 mis after version 0.96 but I don't keep a diary
      and I'm enjoying this history file lark. It probably makes a very bad
      read but who cares. Also tidied up the no run error algorithm so that it
      only fits on one line and is a lot faster as a result.

0.97  Discovered quite a major problem, in that when the wimpmode was changed,
      if utpoia tried to write the new mode to the display window, the window
      handle changed and couldn't be redrawn after the mode change as complete!
      Needless to say this fatal error is now fixed. Also added the nice little
      'hi' heart in the info window having seen the mouse in the CopyU demo.
      Fixed bug so that if you turn the alerter on after loading, it doesn't
      beep.

0.975 Removed the way that the minimise memory option worked so that it doesn't
      require the memalloc module which is really bad anyway. Added display
      time on option in display menu.

0.976 Made it so that AM times no longer have a zero before them. And also
      shortened the display procedure so that it need only be included once,
      shortening the total code.

0.98  Loads of new stuff; removed all the grey out variables when the options
      are not selected, so that everything can be configured, even when it
      isn't being used. Added keep to front/back and added load to *toolsprite
      and alarm functions.

0.981 Moved the Max memory and Set up menus so that they are off the main menu
      rather than the 'Other' submenu. Was much harder to do than it sounds.

1.00  Added the time up feature, counter and the startup banner, for the
      shareware version.