Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!pasteur!cory.Berkeley.EDU!johnhlee
From: johnhlee@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Vince Lee)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: My AmigaDOS 1.4 wishlist
Message-ID: <16246@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 12 Aug 89 21:35:27 GMT
References: <12878@well.UUCP>  <16025@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> <1989Aug8.220028.13827@nc386.uucp> <16163@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> <455@eagle.wesleyan.edu>
Sender: news@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU
Reply-To: johnhlee@cory.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP (Vince Lee)
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Lines: 58

In article <455@eagle.wesleyan.edu> jtreworgy@eagle.wesleyan.edu writes:
>In article <16163@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>, johnhlee@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Vince Lee) writes:
>
>commodore shoudl make an alternate workbench (maybe SnoreBench?) where every
>icon for a directory looks like a folder and everything is black & white (or

Wait a minute!  I said nothing of the kind.
I like my color and custom icons.  What I was trying to say
was that Amiga Icons tend to look UGLY. Icons in interlace ALWAYS look ugly.
The only solution is to either:

1) process icons when running an interlaced WB to get their aspect ratio back.
   This means either shrinking them horizontally or stretching them vertically.
   The former means the loss of some detail.  The latter would nullify much
   of the benefit of an interlaced wb in the first place.  You'd have to
   resize your windows to fit the bigger icons.

2) extend the icon format to allow for two images, one for either resolution,
   with the option of doing #1 above if the second image is not present.

Any shrinking/expanding would be a preference option, of course.

The second issue I was trying to address was that Icons on the amiga tend to
be too big.  This must come from developers with inadequacy complexes trying
to show "my computer is better 'cause its got BIG icons!"

Unfortunately, the big icons are usually poorly-designed, lack detail, and are
just downright GAUDY AS HELL.  Part of this has to do with the fact that 
Workbench's vertical resolution is pretty low in non-interlace, and that most
monitors used with the Amiga are pretty coarse in dot pitch compared to the
MAC.  The above shrinking option would solve both problems.  For people
running in non-interlace, it would do nothing.  For those of us who like an
interlace WB, it would make disk icons square again, eliminate double-pixel
wide lines, and make the icons half as large in either direction, giving a
professional look.  Amiga stores could run a 2500 w/ a flicker-fixer on this
workbench and not have to explain why the icons are all so squat.

Awhile back, I wrote a WB replacement called WORPbench (WOrkbench Replacement
Program -Bench) which had the option of shrinking icons.  It used a smart
algorithm with had a color precedence when doing the reduction, thus keeping
single-wide pixels from disappearing and keeping icon symmetry.  Surprisingly,
It worked very well.  Every Icon I tried it on looked better when shrunk.

>green and white?) and so on. ... also I don't think the way the AMiga looks has
>much to do with it's business market penetration. Look at the Mac, it somehow
>managed to penetrate the business market with a 6 inch screen! I get headaches
                                                 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I think that just proves my point.  The Mac's 9-inch screen is LESS FUNCTIONAL
than the Amiga's, but it LOOKS BETTER because of the dot pitch.  In the same
vein, the mac desktop LOOKS MUCH BETTER than the standard Amiga Workbench,
which tends to look like a toy.  Unfortunately, of course, it currently works
better than WB too.

>mac to manage a huge inventory, forget it... that thing is pathetic) or do
                                                   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Yeah, but it looks nice. You want something that works?  Why'd you buy IT then?

-Vince