1) How did you hear about MorphOS?

I believe it was Piru, that sneaky devil. We probably consumed some beers while talking so I was easy to lure in.

2) When did you first try MorphOS (version, hardware), and what made you decide to give it a try?

My memory can fail me sometimes but I think it was 1.3 when I really started using MorphOS. The machine I bought at tahat time was Pegasos1 G3, later sold it and got back to scene with Pegasos2 G4 .. later sold it and got back to scene with MacMini. So .. its a lot of returns

3) What was/is your 'ususal OS' (ie one that you're most accustomed to) and what did you find most confusing / frustrating when first trying out MorphOS?

All OS's have their limitations. A few years back I was at friends place and got to try out OS4.. I managed to crash OS4 in about three minutes while typing text in Shell. Now THAT was frustrating

4) Were there any simple concepts that you just 'didn't get' until explained by a friend/asked in the forums (eg right-clicking for menus, finding system settings, etc)?

There have been several occasions where I needed help, always got help in IRC from friendly developers and/or regular users.

5) What limitation or annoyance frustrates you the most (Or is there anything you are expecting to work which doesn't work)?

3.1 was quite usable apart from network speed which got fixed in 3.2 with the new tcp/ip stack. The biggest limitation is still browsing. While it's gotten a looot better there are still sites which don't work 100% properly.. usually the ones containing videoplayer/audioplayer. Me wants me pr0nsitez to show hot steamy axxion!

Quote:

More exactly many sites still require Flash 9 or 10, rather. That said, you can always try spoofing as ipad. Even pr0n sites might want to reach ipad audience, after all. :)

Yasu,
Quote:
I have used an Amiga for the last 30 years, virtually every day, but MorphOS has features, and options that aren't obvious on the 'surface' and needs better printable documentation that explains more of the system, and how to switch on those features that you want, and switch off the ones you don't that are optional.

MorphOS is not Workbench, but generally it is a good substitute/replacement.

I still find that when you're in a drive/folder/directory window that using the right mouse-button offer options related to the icons, even when you are not over a specific icon and/or have highlighted it, and not the Ambient desktop as a whole, and that to create a new folder/drawer you need to use the menu as the 'A'+'n' only opens a new Shell window. I find this really annoying, and surely can't be that useful to many, as the shell is not a main desktop utility for many as Ambient is an icon environment - what used to be called a 'WIMP' system (Windows, Icons, Mouse, and Pointers). So why isn't there some consistency about this key use, as creating a New Folder is more likely to be important to an end user than opening a New Shell window, surely a different key combination could be thought of that would not clash with the one for creating a New Folder, and then 'A' + 'n' could be a system wide keyboard shortcut.

I often use Windows and I have to say that as 'Shift' is basically a 'Switch/Toggle' key that the use of it to modify the Upper and Lower case of letters when the 'CAPS' Lock key is active makes a lot of logicl sense, so when the 'CAPS' Lock key is lit, and you then press the Shift key it makes the case of a letter that would, without pressing the Shift key make the letter Uppercase, that by holding down the Shift key makes the character Lower Case, and this makes much more sense than ONLY when the Shift key is pressed, or when the 'CAPS' Lock key is active as is the case with Amiga or MorphOS.

Some keypresses like Control + 'X' or 'C'or 'V' I see have been adopted from the Windows World, while still retaining the Amiga-like alternatives, nice touch, though it doensn't work in all aplications that are already coded the older Amiga keypress way.

Also, I don't understand why there isn't a menu option to back up one level from within a folder. I have modified the keystrokes so that I can do this by pressing 'A'+'/', but why there isn't a menu option, like there is in Workbench I cannot understand how this keystroke/menu has been forgotten when the Operating System was being developed, as it is so useful, or why there isn't an icon near to the 'close window' icon that allows you to click on it to go back up the directory tree with just a mouse-click.

I use 'Alt-Tab' on my Amiga, that you can get from Aminet, as switching from application by using a keystroke, and choosing either by menu/mouse click, or keyboard/Return key is far more efficient, and I don't understand why this feature appears to be missing from MorphOS.

Some of the preferences are 'squirreled away' as well, as a right mouse button press over the screen change/move backwards icon, at the top right corner of each screen or Ambient seems a rather obscure way of having those features available for modification, all this is of course my own opinion, and maybe I have missed some of the options, and preferences, as I am not as conversant with it as I am with my Amiga Workbench 3.9 system as yet, but I'm getting there.

I had hoped on OWB that I would have been able to choose, move from Tab to Tab quite easily via the keyboard, but as yet I haven't found a way of doing this. On Firefox you can 'Control' + 'TAB' to go forward through your browser tabs, and backwards by additionally holding down the 'Shift' key as well as 'Control' + 'TAB', or by using 'Control' + '1' through sequentially to '0' to choose a specific Tab, but there does not seem to be an option to do any of this, but even in IBrowse this was basically possible, so it should be included in OWB as well - that's if I haven't missed it being there somewhere, hidden in the 'dark'

Documentation seems to be the missing key, something that's printable that covers virtually all the features, options, and default keys & settings, a PDF that any user can print ut, and keep close by for reference, or just lookup, as and when required.

Of course, other well programmed software is still needed to make it a complete operating system, with good usability. There is no PPC fully featured DTP application for the OS, or support as yet for modern printers. Scanner support is only for much older hardware, and needs updating.

I don't see why there is no built-in Icon Editor that any icon can be modified or saved as a PNG Icon. Amiga Workbench 3.9 offers any icon - even default ones, without a directly associated icon to be saved, and in doing so creates the necessary .info file so it does have an Icon, but MorphOS does not appear to have this luxury. It requires you to locad the Icon into Sketch, and fiddle about with it, which on the occasions I have done so, has caused the program to crash, so I'm not that impressed with Icon support.

Someone who is a natural graphic artist can maybe do a lot more, and do it a lot more easily than I can, but I can use Icon Editor in Workbench 3.9 quite easily, but MorphOS seems to make it difficult to do this, as far as it affects me and as far as I have managed to get, in between program crashes and getting frustrated that is.

I like MorphOS, so I have a registered Mini Mac, and might consider other MorphOS upgrades, but I want to see further improvements before I commit further to the cost of further licences, and hardware.

So far, it's looking good, and I hope to see it improve a lot more, and be a part of that environment, as the majority of it has been a joy.

>Documentation seems to be the missing key

+1

I'm very happy with the current state of the OS, but sometimes simple things excape me because they are not documented.

Hi NewSense!
OWB has the feature to choose/browse between tabs. CTRL+TAB, CTRL+TAB+SHIFT work and CTRL+numeric pad does the same.
If you open a window and browse inside directories you can use mouse and click on back button to go up a level or press tab to select a button (parent, back, forward, etc) and press return/enter to confirm.
A simple way to browse inside windows and dirs is to move cursor keys to select the one you want and if you selected a directory/image/or program you can open it pressing return/enter. You can select and open all directories you like going backward pressing back space key.

@NewSense

Quote:

It's true makedir could be added in the default shortcut list, but the good thing is Ambient is highly configurable, so you can add it yourself. Go to Ambient settings -> keyboard and add a new custom hotkey : name it makedir for instance, add the combination you want (doubleclick and press your shortcut to capture it) and edit the command with "internal" as type and "makedir %S" as command string.

Quote:

They should at least work in all MUI applications (and you can change all these shortcuts in MUI settings as well). Non MUI applications might only handle legacy shortcuts, of course.

Quote:

There is, it's backspace. And it's visible in Ambient shortcuts definitions.

Quote:

There is such a feature when you use right mouse button over a window depth gadget. And you can also show this windows menu by a shortcut if you configure it in IControl settings (window selection entry, IIRC).

Quote:

Just for the record, this is intuition handling this screenbar (and more) menu, not Ambient itself. It's important to make a difference between Ambient that is just the desktop application, from Intuition which handles the windows/screens behaviour.

Quote:

And there are 2 ways to do it, including standard ones.
amiga/ctrl + pg up/pg down
amiga/ctrl + tab number (with shift it would add 10 to the number).
There's also ctrl + [shift] + tab, but it only works if the focus is outside the webview (like clicking in url address or navigation bar, for instance). I might do something to try and fix this latter to also work when webview has the focus, though.

Quote:

Well, you could even use an old icon editor to deal with old style icons. And for PNG icons, given there can be transparency involved, it's more about a painting program than a simple iconeditor, so the choice was rather ok, and it gives you total freedom with what to use to draw your icons.



[ Edited by Fab 02.07.2013 - 08:41 ]

Jambalah, Quote:
You are so right, I don't know how that didn't work before as I feel sure I tried that, and nothing seemed to happen, but it does now, THANKS
Quote:
I am not really sure what you mean, when I am in a folder/directory, as there is no 'back' button to do that - I think that you may have confused what you mean with a requester window in which there are volume ':', or a directory tree gadget '/', but there is not in a normal folder window that I am aware of, unless there is some setting in Ambient that allows you to modify the default setting to show such a set of gadgets. If that is what you mean that if you couldexplain how I would set that up I'd be very grateful.

> I am not really sure what you mean, when I am in a folder/directory, as there is no
> 'back' button to do that - [...] there is not in a normal folder window that I am aware of,
> unless there is some setting in Ambient that allows you to modify the default setting
> to show such a set of gadgets. If that is what you mean that if you couldexplain how
> I would set that up I'd be very grateful.

Settings -> Ambient -> Window -> Enable browser mode

You discussed browser mode vs. non-browser mode there:

https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=9&topic_id=7196&start=25

Quote:

Probably on amiga.org or ann.lu

Quote:

Around 2002 on my BPPC, then I had a Pegasos G3 in 2003. Originally I got sick of waiting for OS4, then when it did come out I used it and saw what a POS it was. Also it did not escape my notice that the coders of MorphOS seemed to be the "famous stars" of the Amiga scene, whereas the OS4 coders were not......

Quote:

I mostly use Linux day to day, OSX 10.8 for Logic Pro and Amiga OS 3.9 on my A3000/060/PIV/Deneb and various A1200's. I don't find MorphOS particularly confusing or frustrating, probably due to using Amigas for 24 years. :)

Quote:

There's been the odd thing I didn't get since I started using MorphOS again but nothing major and the users here and on IRC have been very helpful.

Quote:

The Amiga/MorphOS API is both beautiful and horrendous at the same time and I've found it quite difficult starting to code for it after such a loooong break. I'm too proud to ask for help so I just stumble on.

I got a G5 recently and it doesn't detect my screen as being capable of 1920x1080 and forces it to some variant of 720p but I haven't had the time to look into it properly yet. Can't think of anything else that bugs me.

Oh, the speed of the trackpad cursor on my PowerBook is really slow even when set to max speed in the prefs. That really gets on my nerves as it causes a lot of pain in my knackered old wrists.

Quote:

You are welcome!

[ Edited by Intuition 04.07.2013 - 02:11 ]

Andreas_Wolf,
Quote:
Not as such, someone mentioned browser mode, but my main concerns were about icons at that stage, and the mention of browser mode sort was kind of wasted on me at that time, as I had no use for it, and so never had a look at those setting options, but now you've pointed me in that direction then I'll see if that works for me. However, I still don't understand why on the non-browser mode Ambient there is no option in the default menus to go back up the directory tree, without modification, which is what I've had to do.

Thanks for your suggestion, Andreas, and I'm sure it won't all be wasted, it is just that I would have thought the default Ambient would have had a 'reversing' feature with regard to directory/folder structure, but it could do with this default feature, in my opinion, without having to opt for 'browser mode'.

Fab,
Quote:
I'll have a go at your suggestion, and hopefully that will modify Ambient to my liking - Many Thanks for your help.

Quote:
Yes, Simplemail seems to only allow the older Amiga-type Copy/Cut/Paste option via the 'Amiga' key combination, but I generally use that method anyway, if I've not been using Mac or Windows just before using my MorphOS or Classic Amiga PPC/68k system.

Quote:
That's another keypress learned, but where are the Ambient shortcut definitions on MorphOS kept, in which drawer/folder?

Quote:
OK, but I would prefer to be able to use just the keyboard rather than a right mouse click, it's much more instantaneous, than guiding a mouse to a point on the screen, and right clicking over it, but I'll try to find the IControl settings and modify them as required - again thanks.

Quote:
OK, it's just that I had never encountered a right click option on OS3.9 over a screen-to-back button in the topmost right corner of the screen with visual options incorporated in it, so I naturally thought Ambient would be handling that, but if you say it's Intuition then I'll trust your Intuition, and knowledge on the subject. Thanks

Quote:
OK, that's some more keys to learn, but is there some documentation that can be read that relates to such features (keyboard shortcut list) for OWB within the program. I'm writing this on one of my Windows systems, at the moment as I've got some data transfer ongoing, and thought it rude to not have replied by now, to your extensive and thorough list of answers to my questions, so if the docs that explain this are in any guide or PDF for OWB that comes with the application then I'd be sorry to have mentioned it.

Quote:
Do you know if Icon Editor from OS3.9 will run under MorphOS 3.2 as I could use that, as I've not had much success with Sketch as it has locked-up my system a few times now, and I thik I may have only completed one icon edit before it locked up my system, and lost all I'd done. If you've not realised I'm not that impressed with Sketch - as yet.

I almost forgot to ask, why are there no options to save a page as html, or save an image from a webpage with OWB, as you get with every other browser that I've used. All the options I get, with a right mouse click, are watch video, or reload video or similar, but not to save an image or download the page as html, etc.

Bye the way, thanks guys for all your help so far.

I like OWB a lot, but I've got to learn more about it I know, but I feel sure there is more to harness, or make more obvious as to how to accomplish tasks that seem to be out of reach, but the lack of knowledge of how it does things may be what is hampering my progress so far.

NewSense,
Quote:
If you want a really nice painting kind of program for MorphOS download TVPaint. After you are done editing your icon image(s) with TVPaint then use something like ImageFX or ShowGirls to scale/crop/save/etc. as PNG. If you need to copy/replace an icon just open the icon information window and drag'n'drop a new icon over the old one. There is a good chance the OS3.9 icon editor would work if the correct Re-Action/Class Act GUI toolkit was installed. You could also scan aminet and see if an older icon editor would work. A lot of 2.x/3.x software will work ok on MorphOS.

You can also do a lot of file related stuff with Directory Opus 4 which I use in conjunction to ambient all the time just like I did when I used an Amiga and workbench. Having only a graphical desktop isn't always handy for file operations so Dopus4 is a fantastic thing to have around. Have it open on it's own screen (Workbench:Clone) and make sure to select some larger fonts like (XCourier 15) and (XHelvetica 13) though as the defaults are too small on higher resolution screens.

TV Paint:
http://www.amigafuture.de/downloads.php?view=detail&df_id=3598

Dopus 4.16:
http://dopus.free.fr/download.php

Quote:
Menu: Project->Save as HTML... or Menu:Project->Save as PDF...
Also right clicking an image should show you "Save image as..." but maybe not for a video or other content


[ Edited by realstar 07.07.2013 - 00:20 ]

Quote:

Hmm? What I've been using OSX it has exactly the same keyboard combination for copy/cut/paste with Amiga... I felt like home because I didn't have to use that frigging CTRL like on Windows. For me it seems that Windows is pretty much the only OS using those non-standard CTRL-key options... for other OS'es CTRL-C is to break program, not for copying.

Quote:

IControl -> Hotkeys -> All Windows: Depth Menu. Then you can hit the keyboard shortcut and use the cursor keys to select wanted window.

[ Edited by jPV 07.07.2013 - 10:29 ]

Use the mouse and not stupid keyboard hotkeys.

1) How did you hear about MorphOS?

In Dan Woods video "why im an amiga user in 2011" on youtube
I loved Amiga back in the mid 90s but got sucked into the windows world when it became popular around 3.11/95

2) When did you first try MorphOS (version, hardware), and what made you decide to give it a try?

On a Mac mini G4 i bought. I was in a mood wanting to try new things out and was messing around alot with virtual box at the same time.
I also have i Linux PC but i do not use it very much at all as i use MorphOS.
3.1 was the first version i tried.

3) What was/is your 'ususal OS' (ie one that you're most accustomed to) and what did you find most confusing / frustrating when first trying out MorphOS?

I use OSX for my everyday use and have never been much disapointed with it at all, quite the opposite i like it alot.

4) Were there any simple concepts that you just 'didn't get' until explained by a friend/asked in the forums (eg right-clicking for menus, finding system settings, etc)?

After a 2-3 hours playing around with the OS i pretty much found most of the things i use. There was some settings in OWB i had to ask for but it was no biggie.


5) What limitation or annoyance frustrates you the most (Or is there anything you are expecting to work which doesn't work)?

I was annoyed over the slow internet connection i got with MorphOS in 3.1 but it seems alot better in 3.2.
What i miss for the moment in MorphOS.
A presentation software (keynote/power point).
Some more printer drivers.
Larger file system (127 gb limit).

But actually most of the things have worked for me even if sometimes i had to look things up.

> What i miss for the moment in MorphOS. [...] Larger file system (127 gb limit).

IceFS can do that.

Cool! Ill try that.

Quote:

It was actually that same video that made me interested in MOS as well! I think it was the balanced presentation that sold it. He didn't come out as a fan boy. It was the fan boys that made me buy that crappy AmigaOne 500 and blantly told me to "suck it up" when I was pissed that the system was unusuable (it has gotten better now, I know, but when I sold the system after a couple of months it was still pure sh*t, and I mean it). So I turned to AROS, but now my main system is MorphOS and Windows since I can use most of my everyday stuff with MOS but not with AROS. Windows is there for all the other stuff I can't do.

Hello,

Firstly, thank you to Ravi who I met at the VCF in Snibston for the MorphOS 3.2 trial CD. Unfortunately it fails to boot for my iBook G4 from 2004. I get the following message and it goes no further:

Quark/OpenFirmware
console active
System: PowerBook6,5 Rev <>
CPU0: <PPC7447A> Version 0x8003 Revision 0x102
CPU0: CPUClock 1199999997 BUSClock 13312428

More specs reported by Profiler: 768MB RAM
1.2 GHz PowerPC G4 (1.2)
L2 Cache: 512KB
Bus Speed: 133 MHz
Boot ROM Version: 4.87f1
ATI Mobility Radeon 9200
Type: Display Bus: AGP VRAM Total: 32 MB, Devide ID: 0x5c63
Revision ID: 0x0001 ROM Revision: 113-xxxxx-142
Resolution: 1024 x 768 Depth: 32-Bit Color

[ Edited by djrikki 08.07.2013 - 19:57 ]

[double post]

[ Edited by ASiegel 15.07.2013 - 12:19 ]

Fab,
Quote:
I was testing this feature of Ctrl + number keys, Shift key etc., and noticed that if the mouse pointer is in the window of the browser that often the keyboard presses are not recognised, and nothing happens.

Fab, are you aware of this problem?

Also, in OWB, is there a way to move the navigation buttons onto the Menu line, as a lot of screen space is taken up by both lines which take up less than half a width of the screen, on a fairly normal 1024 x 768, or larger screen, and is there a way to add a Help button to link to any documentation for OWB so a FAQ and other Help can be gained while still using the program/browser. Thanks

Tom01
Quote:
I don't say to you that you should not use stupid mouse presses/movements, and I'm sure we'd all appreciate a few less comments worded like that, rather than making such remarks, which are uncalled for. Thanks

NewSense,
Quote:
Actually MorphOS already supports many modern printers. Every model, that supports postscript (most "middle-to-higher end models)

Of course "cheap (until cartridge change) inkjets" are a completely different issue, but I don't think you were referring to them.

@NewSense:
sorry for not being so much clear in my previous post! As Andreas explained I was referring to browser mode feature and that's why you weren't able to find any button to browse.

NewSense,
Quote:

Inside OWB Project menu you have two options: save as HTML and save as PDF. They do exactly what you are looking for.
About images simply place the pointer on an image and click right mouse button and you will find different options to treat images:

open image in anew window
open image in a new tab
save image as
copy image
copy image location
block image from (website name of image)

If you copy an image you can paste it inside a drawing program. I managed to paste to ShowGirl and ArtEffect but not to Sketch or Paint.

I bought a G4 to try mos but it's broken anyway'm an old Amiga user, I had a 1200 many years ago I used to play is enough, after all this time he discovered aros but it was still immature as a system, I use only systems amiga days all belong in Right now I'm waiting on my G5, I used aros for a while, then I bought an Amiga OS4 and xe but broke down, however, saw the lack of the browser (there are but they are not like here on MorphOS) which is essential for me, however abandoned OS4 because computers cost as much as a G5, I paid 150 Euros and is much more powerful of all computers that support os4 without taking into account that morphos than OS4 is more comprehensive than many features (for example ambient, the shell etc..).
Anyway I went on aros but it is still a very immature and there are few programs emulation 68k I do not like, even if you can say with utilzzare sufficiency daily in the global context was wondering more, morphos I think it's the perfect system for me, reminds amiga, I can use old programs 68k smoothly, a good browser, supports my old printer, the price for development is not a problem (if not not exist), the hardware is cheap, what you ask for!!!

Hi all

Jambalah,
Quote:
I realised that when Andreas mentioned browser mode, but I don't use it as a general rule, though I should give it a go I suppose - but thanks for mentioning it.

Quote:

I'm aware of that, but often there are only the options of Back, Reload, Watch video, Download video - even when there is NO video to download such as on this page, and on this page it does not offer the option to download the background, or save the background image, which I find strange, as all the other browsers I use, I seem to think, do offer this option.

I've used the save as PDF a few times to try to workaround that problem, but on some sites it 'crops' the edge of the text too closely and you end up with 80% of the first character on the left hand side, usually, on each line of text, which is a bit annoying - but better than nothing.

Of course, on some websites you don't get much of the original content, or the way it is set out looks nothing like the way it was when it was viewable on the monitor, but you do get some of the content saved, either as text and/or as graphics

Some PDFs don't end up as viewable as they seem on screen, as they sometimes have animated 'GIF' files and then you get a black background or the whole image blacked out, or some other strange visual effect, and there are obviously graphic elements on a page, but a right mouse click, when hovering over them just offers the basic menu again of Back, Reload, Watch video, Download video.

Don't get me wrong I can see that a lot of work has gone into OWB, and it's good, really good, but it would be good to have better documentation for it, and built-in Help, and when you save as HTML then the page HTML should also save the graphic elements for the page, so it could basically be loaded up off-line, and look just about the same, as you can do with Firefox.

I'd also like to be able to get the scroll bar to move from the bottom to the top, or vice versa or anywhere in between to move continuously in the direction of where a mouse button is held down in the scroll bar until the bar actually reaches the mouse position with just the one mouse press, as you get in Firefox, rather than having to keep clicking it to advance it to the next bar position, and then the next, etc. as that seems a logical step to improve on.

I know I can use the page up/down keys, but why doesn't it / hasn't it been made to work with the mouse as well?

I'm sure there are features I'm overlooking day to day because there is so little thorough printable documentation available about the browser and it's options, but you've all been very helpful, so big thanks.

[ Edited by NewSense 13.07.2013 - 02:51 ]