Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!mit-eddie!mit-amt!mit-atrp!ralph From: ralph@mit-atrp.UUCP (Ralph L. Vinciguerra) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech Subject: Re: Talking to Workbench Message-ID: <3374@mit-amt> Date: 8 Dec 88 17:30:03 GMT References: <3039@sugar.uu.net> <6457@netnews.upenn.edu> <6458@netnews.upenn.edu> Sender: usenet@mit-amt Reply-To: ralph@atrp.media.mit.edu (Ralph L. Vinciguerra) Distribution: na Organization: MIT Amiga Users Group c/o MIT Cognitive Info. Processing Group Lines: 36 In the interest of making the workbench useful for all functions (so that even normal users of the machine can get things done) I have done several things: (1) I created a "visible" workbench disk. I essentially created and attached an icon to every file and directory on the workbench. (2) I created a set of workbench tools which let you manipulate icons fairly easily. Their names are: - FloatIcon - (makes an icon have no "snapshotted location") - CopyIconImage - Yep, one icon to many icons. This if my favorite ! - CopyDefTool - Copies the default tool from one icon to many icons. - BecomeTool - Yep. - BecomeProject - You bet. After a little more testing, I'll send them to comp.{binaries,sources}.amiga if folks are interested. My current hurdle is that you are forced to close the workbench window containing the altered icons to get the changed represented. Any ideas net-folks ? (3) I wrote a little ARexx program, with an icon, which reads a directory and attaches an icon to all files which have none. Then using the above tools I can fix things. Although all these steps are somewhat painful, they do make it possible for a person to use an amiga and even do system management type stuff and not use a CLI. Gee, what a concept ! :-). I'm hoping, praying, begging, that CBM's newer workbench will support some more advance functionality. My next project: The info workbench function doesn't even show the DATE of the file it gives info on. Come on guys ! I'll just have to write another little workbench tool I guess.... P.S.: If all this is being addressed in the next workbench, let me know!