Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!lll-crg!ames!ucbcad!ucbvax!decvax!decwrl!labrea!navajo!ali From: ali@navajo.STANFORD.EDU (Ali Ozer) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: Workbench improvements Message-ID: <1228@navajo.STANFORD.EDU> Date: Wed, 17-Dec-86 18:16:09 EST Article-I.D.: navajo.1228 Posted: Wed Dec 17 18:16:09 1986 Date-Received: Thu, 18-Dec-86 05:01:55 EST References: <1846@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu> Reply-To: ali@navajo.UUCP (Ali Ozer) Organization: Stanford University Lines: 40 > ... Amiga needs to support more caching-type ideas... > Charles Poirier (USENET)!vax135!cjp Actually, I am impressed with how much the Amiga supports caching type ideas already. For example, I am working on a program which calls OpenDiskFont() to open a font I designed. For now I have this font sitting in a directory other than sys:fonts, so I have to assign fonts: df1:tmp before I use my program or else OpenDiskFont() fails. Well, then my program runs, and uses the font, and at the end, does a CloseFont() to get rid of the font. Now, if you reassign fonts: back to the original directory assign fonts: df0:fonts and then run my program again, voila, it still finds the font from the other directory, without any disk searches. I guess this is also the way libraries and stuff work: Even if the reference count is zero, it is kept in memory in anticipation that someone will need it. Am I right? And I also assume this means that if someone else needs that memory in which the font (or the library) is cached, AmigaDos gives it up. Or else I hope it does. One idea to make life under WorkBench easier is to organize the disks better, of course... Try to put no more than 5-7 files per directory, and make sure you don't have zillions of files without icons, and life will be nice and quick (relatively). For example I love the way Fred Fish organized the IFF pictures in the latest batch of Fish Disks (one of 41..46, I forget which one). You go through several layers of drawers to get to the pictures, but at every level windows pop open and show their icons pretty quickly. [Forgive me if this was already so obvious that people did this all the time and on top of this thought that the WorkBench is slow; I come from a Tops-20 background where subdirectories and hierarchical file systems are not used as often as they should be.] Ali Ozer, ali@navajo.stanford.edu