[Coco] MShell The Ultimate OS9 File Manager

nickma2 at optusnet.com.au nickma2 at optusnet.com.au
Mon Nov 17 00:28:06 EST 2014


The font looks a bit "squishy" (technical term!). Yes, impressive that
it does 28 lines in a 192 vertical screen resolution, but that is
probably why they look "squishy".

I work the opposite to you. I place high importance on the look of the
fonts, window gadgets, their positioning and the overall UI.

To me, that forms the basis of what the rest of the program will use.
It also let's me plan the operational code better, looking for ways to
ease the coding and find a standardization on the basic look and feel
of the interface.

The UI design is the first thing I plan before getting into the
operational code. It is the interface between human and machine. If
this interface fails then it reduces the usefullneess of the code
underneath. 

Nick

----- Original Message -----
From: "Bill Pierce" <ooogalapasooo at aol.com> "CoCoList for Color
Computer Enthusiasts" <coco at maltedmedia.com>
To:<ooogalapasooo at aol.com>, <coco at maltedmedia.com>
Cc:
Sent:Sun, 16 Nov 2014 20:59:55 -0500
Subject:Re: [Coco] MShell The Ultimate OS9 File Manager

 Nick, I forgot to mention, you cannot edit the fonts. I plan to do a
font editor module in the future, but my priorities lie in getting the
file I/O correct before venturing off into "pretty things". If it
can't read a disk file right, it can't do anything else. First things
first....
 BTW... the fonts are NOT the standard OS9 font system, they cannot be
edited with an OS9 font editor. I do have a crude basic09 editor that
Mike Knudsen created the original font file with, but it's buggy as
hell and I wouldn't let anyone try to edit anything with that
monstrosity.

As for the colors... try 'o" (options menu), 's' (change Screen
colors).
 Also... try reading the text file... it's all there. There's a
standard text file in the zip that will open in any text editor and a
copy on the disk for OS9 editors. No excuses :-P
 And Nick, did you notice the 28 line screens and not 24? And that's
on a standard 640x192 screen. I can get more if I go to 640x200, and
yes, OS9 will do that. But.... you have to make a new boot....
<laughing>
 Try looking at the MShell site a you might know all this as it's all
on the site as well as all the planned modules for MShell.
 https://sites.google.com/site/dabarnstudio/mshell---the-ultimate-os-9-gui

 And to all who downloaded the current MShell, I have noticed a few
problems that were not there in the previous version and I'm fixing
them right now. I should have another version up in a bit with fixed
routines. The problem seems to lie in the RSDOS copy routines.
Actually, it's due to the fact I had reduced the amount of memory
allocated to the graphics handler and its overflowing the stack when
printing the overlays during the copies. I also left some "debugging"
print statements in some of the PC file copy overlays. They don't hurt
anything, but they shouldn't be there :-) 
 I should have it fixed in an hour or so.

 Oh, and for who ever mentioned the hitting <ENTER> to change the
directories. The context menus are there because the right mouse
button is tied to "switch windows" which is absolutely wrong and
inhibits writing software to use both buttons. The context menus
should be "right click", but since I can't do that, all actions have
to be tied to left click. The <ENTER> key is MShell's equivalent to
left click so it also brings up the context menus. The only exception
is PC drive directories. Since DW4 doesn't allow "altering" the files,
I cannot "delete", "select" or "create" a dir, so there is no need for
a context menu there. Clicking twice (or hitting enter) on a PC dir
will just change it.
 I may add a "quick key" for immediate directory change in the future.
<CNTRL><ENTER> maybe?

 Bill Pierce
 "Today is a good day... I woke up" - Ritchie Havens

 My Music from the Tandy/Radio Shack Color Computer 2 & 3
 https://sites.google.com/site/dabarnstudio/
 Co-Webmaster of The TRS-80 Color Computer Archive
 http://www.colorcomputerarchive.com/
 Co-Contributor, Co-Editor for CocoPedia
 http://www.cocopedia.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
 E-Mail: ooogalapasooo at aol.com

 -----Original Message-----
 From: Bill Pierce via Coco <coco at maltedmedia.com>
 To: coco <coco at maltedmedia.com>
 Sent: Sun, Nov 16, 2014 5:20 pm
 Subject: Re: [Coco] MShell The Ultimate OS9 File Manager

 Nick,
 I've actually thought of using the hardware text screen, but I would
have to 
 write a "text mouse" routine. I tried that once with Sound Chaser and
it didn't 
 work. But I have alittle more knowledge on it since then.
 The colors are just 2 color 640x192 mode which only uses 16k, but
remember, 
 hires screens do not come from the 54k workspace nor system memory
(same in 
 Basic).

 I may "mess around" with a text mode soon, as screen refresh would be
faster.

 Bill Pierce
 "Today is a good day... I woke up" - Ritchie Havens

 My Music from the Tandy/Radio Shack Color Computer 2 & 3
 https://sites.google.com/site/dabarnstudio/
 Co-Webmaster of The TRS-80 Color Computer Archive
 http://www.colorcomputerarchive.com/
 Co-Contributor, Co-Editor for CocoPedia
 http://www.cocopedia.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
 E-Mail: ooogalapasooo at aol.com

 -----Original Message-----
 From: Nick Marentes <nickma2 at optusnet.com.au>
 To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts <coco at maltedmedia.com>
 Sent: Sun, Nov 16, 2014 4:41 pm
 Subject: Re: [Coco] MShell The Ultimate OS9 File Manager

 > It works!
 >
 > I did everything the same but used the line...
 >
 > dsave -s48 /sd0 ! shell -p
 >
 > what does "! shell -p" exactly do? Should it not work without this?
 >
 > Would the -s48 make the difference? I would have thought it work 
 > without this too, just slower.
 >
 >
 > Review...
 >
 > MShell is good. It is certainly better than Mvue. Haven't had time
to 
 > do a great deal of testing yet.
 >
 > A few questions..
 >
 > How does one edit the fonts and patterns being used?
 >
 > I assume it's a 2 color screenmode?
 >
 > It certainly beats all the command typing and is something the CoCo

 > OS-9 community should have had a long time ago.
 >
 > Because it doesn't used icons, I wonder if a well designed 80
column 
 > 16 color text mode could have been used? (Faster, less RAM, more
colors)
 >
 > Good work Bill.
 >
 > Nick
 >

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