The game is on (can we make MiNT/TOS this pretty?)

[leech]

Whatever happened to Z-Desk? I've seen a video two about it, and it sounded like it was in a pretty decent state, then it just stopped? Looked amazing though.

I think my biggest complaint (and it's already been talked about on the freemint mailing list) is that when something needs to spew out to the console, it just spews out all over the desktop. Then you get to play the game of moving a window around so you can see your icons again. But then TOS has always kind of done that, it's just with MiNT you can run both the GUI plus text output.

[mikro]

Hi Olivier,

of course you're free to do whatever you like but I think some of your reasons are not 100% correct:

So I not want correct bugs of other it's already annoying to fix my own!

You can always say "This change is too complex, please break it down to smaller pieces or write unit tests for it so we will be sure nothing breaks in the future".

- I know someone that will be happy to compil it and provide it on his website shouting he is the author of this code

While this is certainly possible, I can't imagine happening it. Everybody knows MyAES is, ehem, YOUR AES. ;) Do you know zView? Who's the author? Zorro, right? So how come I am / was doing last few releases? See, everybody knows the roots.

- I know where I want to go, it's a long way never finished! And I want to be sure to do what I want on it!

I can't see how how open source prevents you doing that.

- I know how I program, it's not easy to understand piece of software you have not write yourself, so for me it is more easy like this

Possible but then again, you're not obliged to explain anything to anyone. You can be an "asshole maintainer" and still give people chance to compile their own versions.

The magic of open source isn't in people fixing (or breaking) super complex stuff for / instead of you but sending a patch or two for things you don't really care that much about but someone else does and you wouldn't even know about it.

[OL]

Cool thanks! I think one of the reasons I haven't tried it yet is I saw the last release was a few years ago, so wasn't sure you were still working on it.

AES sounds like modern video card drivers, where they put in work around code in games that detect the executable, then run with different code to make performance not suck. But then again modern video card drivers are bigger than an entire collection of most 8-bit software libraries...

I do agree with inheriting other people's code. Sometimes it's a nice pleasant experience, just not very often. Most of the time it is horrendous... I recently had a conversation with a friend of mine where we were discussing his old boss's attitude of 'you shouldn't comment your code, it should be plain enough that everyone can instantly see what it does.' Well, sure that's fine in theory... I'd much rather 'this function does X' myself.. so I don't have to actually read the code to know what it does. Granted I'm just starting to learn myself, I can generally read most languages and figure out what they're doing though. At least what they are supposed to be doing...

Generally it is around 2 years between release for me, the time to do really news things, and after realease there is some fix version, because people try it and find bugs!
AES is not video driver this is the job of VDI

You probably not seen some time ago this demonstration : http://myaes.lutece.net/telechargement/myaes097demo.mp4

[OL]

The new version is not yet available because I work now on new desktop and I found a crazy bug in MyAES, but should be fixed soon.

hi Olivier,
you work on new desktop? Something like Z-Desk?

MyAES work perfectly normal with software that I use.

btw
regarding Atari AES: who add new functions?
N.AES was Atari Corp. from start or they buy it from someone?
After Atari Corp. dismiss, MagiC still continue to develop and Andreas Kromke decide what to add to AES alone?
XaAES and MyAES just implement function from existing N.AES and Magic? (I am not talking about e.g. widgets in GUI but rather AES function that are crucial for running some programs).

- I know someone that will be happy to compil it and provide it on his website shouting he is the author of this code

Yes I work to new desktop, I start it a long time ago but stop to work on MyAES 0.97, I'm back on it but a lot of redraw issue yet, near no implemented feature but it is very small using as possible MyAES, so very different than Zdesk and far less exciting I'm afraid!

mdesk.jpg

If MyAES work perfectly for you the 0.97 work far better than 0.96!
What is story behind Zbench and Kronos? From my point of view, as user, it looks like almost same piece of software so I suspect someone fork one code base...

I think NAES is simply an AES write from scratch as Magic, XAAES or MyAES!
When you wrote an AES you want at the end to do something more than other AES else you not write it, it is because you have an idea. In the case of AES the original design is simple but some function or way to work is really not multitask friendly, such as menu display, file selector, form_do...
XAAES and MyAES implement some function of NAES or Magic not all and add their own new function or features.

Some extension function I don't like at all, I think to extension using callback as ndialog function or Magic file selector, this is not safe not nice, this is not idea of AES.

Nothing relative to Zbench vs Kronos competition , I like a lot Zorro, we work together several time and it is so good developper with very good designer! It help me several time on MyAES, no not Zorro
No I was thinking to a famous guy at FCSA that wrote so many message if you see what I want to said!

[OL]

Whatever happened to Z-Desk? I've seen a video two about it, and it sounded like it was in a pretty decent state, then it just stopped? Looked amazing though.

I think my biggest complaint (and it's already been talked about on the freemint mailing list) is that when something needs to spew out to the console, it just spews out all over the desktop. Then you get to play the game of moving a window around so you can see your icons again. But then TOS has always kind of done that, it's just with MiNT you can run both the GUI plus text output.

Ztask is stopped, Zorro stop Atari development

In fact for your complain, the solution is quite simple, AES provide this for you, if a software write to screen, just rename it to .tos or .ttp, thats all and all text output will be display in a window even if it is GEM software.

[leech]

Ha, I actually knew that, I think the problem has been programs when they crash, the debug console is pretty much just 'puke on your screen' vs dumping it in a log.

[mikro]

Ha, I actually knew that, I think the problem has been programs when they crash, the debug console is pretty much just 'puke on your screen' vs dumping it in a log.

You can always use TosWin2 for those. I've recently fixed "all" of its bugs related to console output.

[leech]

Nice, the version I'm running is 2.7 from Nov 24, 2013.

[calimero]

Ztask is stopped, Zorro stop Atari development

Did Zorro give source codes (Zbench, Ztask, Zview, Zdesktop...) to someone?
If not, is there a chance that he will return to Atari development?

So Zbench and Kronos are completely separate applications? I guess that they are similar visually as you and Zorro work together

When you wrote an AES you want at the end to do something more than other AES else you not write it, it is because you have an idea.

I watched MyAES 0.97 video and I see what you mean

btw why do not you post your video of MyAWS 0.97 to YouTube, more people will see it there!

[stormy]

The biggest feature I would like added to MyAes would be a task manager like Xaaes has. Please forgive me if it does and I haven't found it

[joska]

Actually, the Falcon can do that as well. I once made a demo screen (never released as usual) that used a 320 pixels wide upper part and 640 pixels wide lower part (I think I used the 8 -bitplane mode).
If I remember correctly I came to the conclusion that some of the hardware registers of the Videl have an almost immediate effect (scanned every horizontal blank interrupt?) and if you were careful you could split the screen in two different resolutions. I don't think it's been seen in any released demo yet though.

The ST and STE can do this as well. I mixed low- and medres in a demo I wrote in 1990 (but did not finish until 2015...). Also, Magnetic Scrolls used this features in some of their graphical adventure games for the ST, they displayed lowres pictures but used medres for the text at the bottom.

[leech]

I remember Magnetic Scrolls, that looked amazing at the time. Pretty sure Ishar uses something similar, though it's both halves of the screen are the same resolution, but they had completely different palettes. You could see this when you'd move the mouse between the two and it'd change colour, it definitely had more than 16 on screen.

[joska]

Here's a screenshot from "The Pawn" on ST, showing both low- and medres at the same time.



When I played this game the first time I wondered why nobody else used this neat trick.

[leech]

I remember playing The Pawn on my Atari 800XL and thought it looked amazing. Then I saw it on the ST in magazines and was completely floored. Yet I never did play it on the ST. Hardly got very far on the 8bit. One game I wish was remade was Lucifer's Realm. A great game, that I initially thought was just text.. until SOME of the pictures showed up. Found out it was one of those weird cases were it semi-worked on an 800XL, but worked fine on my friend's 800. So I ended up running it with Translator and it worked then. Awesome graphical text adventure. Another good one was The Quest...

Sorry, went on a tangent there!

[DarkLord]

Here's a screenshot from "The Pawn" on ST, showing both low- and medres at the same time.

When I played this game the first time I wondered why nobody else used this neat trick.

One of the first games I got for my ST - thought it was amazing as well.

[joska]

Pics or it didn't happen! This is mostly a 'pretty desktop' thread. Now obviously beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but I want to see some of what the various Atari ST desktops can look like.

As you said, this is a matter of taste. The attached screenshot is of my Firebee's desktop at 1920x1080.

[leech]

That's awesome, I always loved the brushed look. Was one of the reasons I wanted a Mac back in the day (not sure though who first had the brushed metal look). That actually looks nicer than my current Amiga desktop. I figure once I get the SuperVidel working, I'll work on making my desktop nicer/more usable.

[OL]

The biggest feature I would like added to MyAes would be a task manager like Xaaes has. Please forgive me if it does and I haven't found it

Perhaps for 0.98 version!

[stormy]

The biggest feature I would like added to MyAes would be a task manager like Xaaes has. Please forgive me if it does and I haven't found it

Perhaps for 0.98 version!

Ol you are awesome

[EmpireAndrew]

I recently had a conversation with a friend of mine where we were discussing his old boss's attitude of 'you shouldn't comment your code, it should be plain enough that everyone can instantly see what it does.' Well, sure that's fine in theory...

Haha!
I'm curious as to the age of his old boss.
This is very prevalent in the industry today, but usually spouted by recent graduates who haven't had to maintain legacy code because they haven't been around long enough to need to do so. They're in for rude awakening...
It was also a popular phrase very long ago by egocentric types who felt comments should be excluded because "it was hard to write, it should be hard to read".

I sit in the middle.
You should try and write code that is clear and easily understandable but a few comments here and there to explain what some complex function does or the basic flow of a function is perfectly fine imho. Better to write a comment and not need it, than the other way around.
No-one gets penalized in our group during code reviews for adding comments, if anything you get a pat on the back as long as you don't comment every line or stuff like "adds the two values together", lol! If you don't have comments and some are needed you'll be told to go add them though.

Unit tests are very important as well, code without tests is rejected.
But even the presence of tests is not an excuse to exclude commenting entirely.

[leech]

Ha, he wasn't terribly old, not sure if he ever graduated college. He had a spiffy 'Certified Java' certificate though... He was also very much the latter; egocentric type...

This is the same guy who was mucking around with tomcat configurations on a production machine, forgot that they were running multiple instances, and so there was a port conflict somewhere and it failed to restart.

Oh, and his infamous lack of knowledge of how to read / use a patch file, so he ended up copy/pasting the + for the lines into the code.

[EmpireAndrew]

Good grief...

When he arrives at work is there straw and a drinking trough outside for the horse this cowboy rode in on?

[leech]

Let's just say he's one of the many reasons I'm extremely happy I no longer work there.

[FatRakoon]

I have always liked minimal.
To be honest, I absolutely loved the Vista / 7 Aero Glass Desktop, but since Windows 8, it has been quite simply, the most utterly disgusting use of visuals, that has EVER happened... Microsoft did that purely because they wanted into the Tablet life style, but as an owner of multiple devices wit hmultiple Operating systems, that for some sick fetishist reason, I actually use, Windows Phones and Tablets are just crap at best.

Im going off on one there, but hey ho!

As for the Atari Desktop, I have had a play about with ridiculous screens modes and colours, on the ATI in the CTPCI, and I loved the whole thing, absolutely I did, and I tried to make it look impressive, to show mates who laughed at the fact that I still use my atari, that they are NOT like the old 320x200 green Desktop they seemed to think they are, but while I showed it with a good number of big apps, ( Papyrus Office, IMGCOPY, etc, also showing how it uses Kobold seemlessly to copy a ton of files at PC speeds ) multitasking with some sweet tricks ( such as it automatically updating the files that CAB were showing as I editted them in QED with OLGA in the B/G ), and also how TOS programs, when run in a window, it can archive and unarchive loads of files each in their own windows... It was basically showing a 20+ year old computer doing things, that PC owners could only dream about doing with PCs that age... Sure, it was mostly only impressing me, but I suppose thats half of my goal I will admit.

The Atari Desktop, and all replacement desktops, are very much the same thing, at the core of them... I dont mean functions, but how they work, and theyt are all basically GEM but have various amounts of candy... Whether you are using GEM, THING, TeraDesk, Ease, Jinnee, or even NeoDesk, and whether you are using Mint, Geneva, or Magic, the fact still remains, that at the core of it all, is GEM.

So, no matter how well we try to whore up the desktop with themes, or AES replacments like XaAES, the bones are still going to be AES that needs to be compatible.

Unless someone wishes to do a full complete re-write of the AES, I am unsure that we will have the ability to make the Atari look like the Amiga Desktops.

But of course what do I know! - I tend to waffle without actually saying anything of any substance 90% of the time and the other 10% I lie through my teeth.

[jfl]

I am unsure that we will have the ability to make the Atari look like the Amiga Desktops.

Good grief. Who would want to do that?