Volume names, click-through

[ncafferkey]

Hi,

I've noticed a couple of things that are different in V5 than in V3.5 (the previous version I've used) that are not to my taste. One is that the device name rather than the volume name of an edited file is used. For a file on a hard drive, this merely seems strange, but when files on removable media are being edited, it could lead to a user accidentally saving a file in the wrong place.

The other annoyance is that there is no "click-through" behaviour when switching between applications, i.e. you have to click once to activate the window, and again to carry out any action. AFAIK this is different from most Amiga software.

[Thomas]

One is that the device name rather than the volume name of an edited file is used. For a file on a hard drive, this merely seems strange, but when files on removable media are being edited, it could lead to a user accidentally saving a file in the wrong place.

I agree with this. It was announced as an improvement in V4 but actually I find it worse than before. Using volume names is one of the strengths of AmigaDOS. If one wants to work with drive letters he should use Windows.

Bye,
Thomas

[olsen]

Hi,

I've noticed a couple of things that are different in V5 than in V3.5 (the previous version I've used) that are not to my taste. One is that the device name rather than the volume name of an edited file is used. For a file on a hard drive, this merely seems strange, but when files on removable media are being edited, it could lead to a user accidentally saving a file in the wrong place.

Well, I may have gone a bit overboard with that feature. The idea behind this is that the volume name isn't necessarily unique. Thus, if you have two disks around with the same names, CygnusEd saving a file may just write it to the wrong volume. Which is not necessarily a rare problem. But it also happens in conjunction with removable media. Changing this back to using volume names instead of device names would "solve" one problem at the expense of another.

Which one is more important?

The other annoyance is that there is no "click-through" behaviour when switching between applications, i.e. you have to click once to activate the window, and again to carry out any action. AFAIK this is different from most Amiga software.

Yes, this is different. It added it because I got annoyed with the block marker changing whenever I activated the CygnusEd window by clicking inside it. Of course, if you use a Commodities tool like the old AutoPoint, then you can activate the window by merely moving the mouse instead of clicking.

Would this be something that could find a place as a config menu item?

[ncafferkey]

Yes, since these features have pros and cons, I think a couple of menu options might be appropriate.

Having said that, would it be possible for CED to remember the volume ID for each file rather than just the volume name? I vaguely remember something about DOS identifying each volume by the combination of name and date.

Also, an alternative behaviour for click-through might be to allow selection of a view on the activating click without moving the cursor etc.

[olsen]

Yes, since these features have pros and cons, I think a couple of menu options might be appropriate.

Fair enough.

Having said that, would it be possible for CED to remember the volume ID for each file rather than just the volume name? I vaguely remember something about DOS identifying each volume by the combination of name and date.

That's correct, but not all file systems maintain that volume name + volume creation date = unique identifier. Some even make up the information you can obtain via the dos.library/Info() function, which means that each time you check you get a different date, or (worse) they always report midnight January 1st 1978 as the volume creation date.

Also, an alternative behaviour for click-through might be to allow selection of a view on the activating click without moving the cursor etc.

I mentioned moving the cursor because it annoyed me. But the click behaviour is not necessarily limited to things that happen to the cursor in response to the click that activated the window. I guess this feature is best controlled through a config menu item.