ADPro Interface
20 messages in this thread
Perry…
Just a question about the file requestors, and user interface in general.
I was at my local dealer today, playing with ADP2 (mine's not here yet) and
pondered the question as to why the user interface is in low rez. Is it to
save chip ram?
If you were to go to a high res interface, anything that required a file
requestor type gadget (scrolling lists for operators, loaders and savers,
and of course, a file requestor itself) would be able to display
significantly more items on the list. For example, you could probably quite
easily get all of the loaders and savers on a single reqestor with no
scrolling needed on a higher resolution version of the user interface. It
would be nice to have this as an option, I guess.
What do you think?
Jim
That's certainly true Jim. Future incarnations of ADPro will probably
change. The current low resolution user interface screen is, by-and-large,
a hold over for historical reasons.
pk
Perry..
Good stuff. I wonder if it would be worth while having some sort of patch
available that offers no changes to the program itself, just the user
interface.
I think it would. That is, make it available for those who don't mind
spending the extra bytes out of chip ram needed to support such a display.
Any plans to support new video modes under 2.04? (i.e. save a screen to
productivity mode, etc). Actually, I wonder if having some 'preset' buttons
like they have in Imagine, would be a good idea. (i.e. hotkey type buttons
that set your 'scale' operator resolution to ham, ham-lace, low, hi res,
etc.)
Jim
Re: New Video Modes…I'll let you in on a secret…ADPro 2XX already
supports more video modes than meets the eye. The modes kick in
automatically on machines which support them.
pk
pk–
OK, first I was teased by your manual, now I am teased by your message to
Mr. Ogilvie. Perhaps this question will skirt any legalities that may
otherwise prevent you from answering the magic question:
* When do you expect that users will be using ADPro's "secret" modes?
* What kind of video modes will kick in automatically, in ADPro?
Dying to know,
Jonathan
– via Whap!
I can't tell you about most of them. But some of them I can
mention…support for SuperHiRes and Productivity mode on machines which
support them. The other modes (which are all in there and working) can't be
described.
pk
"The other modes (which are all in there and working) can't be described."
^
"
Hmmm… must be hard to document something that you can't describe. 🙂
– Whapp!ng from the North Coast Michael
Perry…
I was at the dealer's today using his A3000. I'm not sure what I was
doing wrong, but I could only get the upper button to display low, high,
and superhi resolution. How do you get productivity mode?
It's not important to me, just a passing curiosity. I can't see a situation
where I would need such an image.
Jim
Productivity mode is in the left hand button on the lower row. If you
machine supports it…it will say: NTSC, PAL, VGA. The VGA signifies
productivity mode.
pk
Ah. Ok. I imagine you have to have one of the 'monitors' in your WB startup
drawer to get it to work. I noticed they took theirs out, for some reason,
and as a result I guess that productivity wouldn't be 'available' unless
you ran one of those monitors.
Jim
I'm probably barking up the wrong tree, but I'd personally like ADPro to
open on the Workbench, rather than it's own screen. If I had a choice it
would stay about the same relative size, so that it would occupy about 1/4
of a WB hires/interlace screen. Even less on an oversized screen. That
would be the MOST memory efficient way to go, and make it easier to work
with as well, IMHO. Of course you'd have to open screens for the custom
WYSIWYG graphics operations….
Perry,
Please give a lot of thought to interlace flicker if you feel you must
go to high-res for the ADPro screen in the future. I would much rather it
remain lo-res, though the it makes the font look pretty rough on my 19"
monitor. Most people don't take the time to make interlace screens look
good on non-flicker-fixed systems, assuming that everyone should just get a
flicker-fixer. Single horizontal lines and all that. Just an opinion.
Karl
– via Whap!
Karl,
Actually, I'd just like ADPro to open on the Workbench screen. I think
ADPro's only real failing is the low-res screen–with 200 lines of
resolution and an 11-point system font, you only get *7* files and devices
showing in the requester at a time… On a laced screen I wouldn't be doing
so much futzing with scroll bars. By opening ADPro in a window on a
workbench screen (and it would fit right now without changing a thing on
the interface 😉 , then you could stick with medium-res and I'd get
high-res. That'd be perfect.
That's what I want too. If they just kept the same size window, it would
fit very nicely on my WB hires-interlace screen! Just 1/4 sized! And put
a little zoom box on it, so that I can move it out of the way temporarily,
too.
That would be ideal for me. I like things on my WB whenever practical.
–jp–seattle–
I wrote a hack a week or so ago that let you open ADPro on the Workbench
screen in a draggable window. Aside from the colours being wrong, my WB
screen not being deep enough, and ADPro popping it's screen to the front
all the time – it was pretty cool.
(No I don't plan to release it – I just wanted to see how it would look).
Hope ASDG makes WB operation part of ADPro, though.
…Steve
I think the interface is just fine. I would appreciate a file requester
that put directories first though. Khalid's requester works really well
from that standpoint and when I'm really hopping around, I will substitute
it.
Also, it would be real nice if the save requester could use the most
recently loaded image name as a default. I remember seeing this comment
before, but I thought bore repeating. Another brilliant idea: Save the
current source directory with all the other configuration information. I
sincerely doubt that anyone stores their images in the ADPro directory.
So, anything noteworthy planned for the update next year?
Lee Bosch
– via Whap!
Lee, I always load ADPro from the CLI. The default LOAD directory in that
case is the directory you started from. I like that.
I suppose putting a TOOLTYPE in the Icon would be ok, so that when launched
from the WB it would go to that default dir?
ie. TOOLTYPE LoadDir=dh1:24pics
SaveDir=dh1:24pics
would cause those to be used. I suppose you could do pretty much the same
thing via an ARexx macro? Have you tried this?
–jp–seattle–
Could write a script file, name it ADP24, set the script bit:
CD dh1:24bitPix
Run ADPro:ADPro
CD SYS:
. . . . . JimDoc