DOpus5 frustration

I've been using DiskMaster--DM2 for a quarter of a century. When OS4 included DirectoryOpus, I gave it a couple of tries as a possible replacement, but I couldn't figure out what the icons in the Toolbar meant, so I went back to DM2.

When this announcement came up I downloaded and installed what I assume is version 5.90. And I started through the manuals to see how to work it. I was looking at the manuals via Workbench. Neat; all I had to do was click on the Dopus5 icon in my Apps drawer, and there is a Documents icon which lets me at Dopus55.pdf, which opens automatically and legibly. The possibility of the program's use as a Workbench replacement was very interesting.

After reading the manual for a while, I got the idea that it might make sense to read it from the actual DOpus window, and be able to see what it was talking about, so I tried it, clicking on the Apps icon in on the DOpus screen, and then on "DOpus55.pdf." And up comes a "Directory Opus Request" rather than a text file, saying "The file 'DOpus55.pdf' could not be identified. Launch Filetype Sniffer to investigate?"! I gave it the go-ahead, and was told, "There is a filetype installed which matches the selected file. Do you wish to use [it] ...?" Whatever that means.

No obviously better option, so I click "Use" and find myself back where I started. "Aha!" I think. "I should just select the file 'DOpus55.pdf' and then click 'Read' in the command box!" Sure, if I want to read hex!

What the heck is going on?

Dopus5 is for those who want to dig in into details and setup it for their needs. Its come with some preinstalled default options , but they pure , very basic, and just to have something to start with. If you want to use it normaly, you need to understand basics of dopus (and dopus4, and dopus5).

On pure workbench opening of pdf via dbl-click works because some one (os4 devs) setup for you by default deficons to open pdf files via apfd, but for dopus5 there is no default settings for pdf, you need to set that filetype yourself and choice with what app you want to open it (apdf, qpdf, whatever else). You need to spend some time to congiure dopus5 as you need.

There is too many in dopus5 about all of this to explain it in that post, so better dig in and play with it. But, in brief, you can:

1). use filetype sniffer and setup filetype and co same as you do in dopus4. filetype sniffer just help you with it. And that what starts by default when you dbl-click on unknown for dopus5 filetype (you can disable filetype sniffer of course in dopus5 settings).
2). not use filetype sniffer, but just go to filetypes menu and do same as you do in dopus4: i.e. manually setup filetype you need.
3). right click over file and choice "open with" where choice your pdf reader (later it will be remembered, and when you will do "openwith" again, there will be your apdf).

And probably there is more option. But if you can't deal even with dopus4, then probably you better stick with DM2 imho. Dopus5 are beast, and if you have such problems with basics, you will have more frustration with dopus5 for sure.

@kilaueabart

I was a DM2 user for many years as well. I switched to DOpus5 with WB 3.1 or 3.5 and loved it. As Kras1e mentiones Dopus5 is a beast with a vast amount of configuability. It takes time to get it setup properly but when it does it just sings.

Two tricks for working with Dopus5 on AmigaOS4. First, holding shift while clicking a file will launch by icon. Second, swtching the view to "icon" (right click the title bar) will show pretty much the standard WB window, it will also use DefIcons so files types will be recongnized.

I hope Dopus5 development has not stopped. I'd like to see their built in file system be replaced by DefIcons, or atleast use Deficons as a fall back before the sniffer dialog.

I'd also like to see all the Dopus customized prefs be placed in to ENV: so they are not over writen when a new version is copied over.

To kras1e and the Dopus5 team, thank you whole heartedly for your efforts!

Bill "tekmage" Borsari

I have been using DOpus 4 for many years (and bought DOpus 5 back when it arrived over a decade ago, but never really liked its different approach).

But as for setting up a PDF filetype/class (which I believe is the same problem in v4 and v5), I struggled for years and ended up just keying it on the file name extension, "PC style". I never found a way to make it reliably recognize the content.

And I believe the default DefIcons setup actually does the same, or rather, it keys on finding either the .pdf file name extension or "%PDF" in the first bytes; so it probably also falls back on the extension in the end.

Best regards,

Niels

@kilaueabart

Maybe this will help:

@nbache



If you match the first 4 bytes in the PDF file it should work, auto detecting the PDF format is bit more tricky.

25 50 44 46

Anyway detecting file type by file extension is faster then open a file to check some content of the file, maybe some thing to keep in mind when you have 1000 of files in directory.

Anyway its also nice to be able to indemnify files that might have wrong file extension.

So there are always cons and pros.

@Severin:

I see you also have both the extension and the content checks in your definition, just like DefIcons. Do you know for sure which of the two (or both) actually succeeds? I.e. have you tried using only one or the other?

@LiveForIt:

Quote:Well, that's what I've been trying (and what DefIcons does as well), but admittedly only with the character representation ("%PDF"), not the hex values. Maybe the % sign can make problems, although I doubt it.

But I'll try with the byte values when I get a chance, just in case.

Yeah, pros and cons. But it's probably quite unusual to come across a PDF file without the .pdf extension, as it is meant as a universal format, so everybody wants them to work also on Windoze.


Best regards,

Niels

@nbache

mostly it's in order of testing so %PDF works most times, I doubt *.pdf is ever used, I just have it there as a fallback. It would probably be better to swap them and check *.pdf first and fallback to %PDF for those times when websites send you a pdf file that's just a load of numbers with no extension.

@Severin

Wow, yes! That almost did it.

All I have to do now is figure out why it opened the file on my Workbench screen instead of the DOpus screen. We'll see (or at least I will) whether I'm smart enough to figure that out. (I started feeding punched cards to main frames in 1967, but didn't have a computer of my own until 1978, so I'm a bit behind...)

@kilaueabart

I really do need to get busy and get my DOpus tamed like you are doing. You are inspiring me to do just that!

Regarding which screen the PDF opens on.... if you are using AmiPDF to open and display the file, AmiPDF will open wherever it is set to open in its settings. On my X1000, AmiPDF is configured to open on a public screen named "Workbench," so that's where it starts up no matter where I launch it from.

If you ALWAYS want it to open on the DOpus screen, you can set it to do that. If you sometimes want it to open on Workbench and sometimes on DOpus screen, then I don't know how to do that or if it's possible. I sometimes want to do things like that because I have two graphics cards and two monitors, so I will keep reading along.

@kilaueabart

Dopus is my workbench so haven't tried this:

AppDir:AmiPDF {f} pubscreen {Qs}

should work.

@mbrantley

go into a shell...

> appdir:amipdf ?
FILE,PAGE/N,PAGENAME/K,OWNERPASS/K,USERPASS/K,ZOOM/K,PUBSCREEN/K,FULLSCREEN/S,PAPERSIZE=PS/K,
PAPERWIDTH=PW/K,PAPERHEIGHT=PH/K,PSLEVEL1/S,TEXTENCODING=TE/K,QUIET/S:

PUBSCREEN/K lets you pass a command line option to tell AmiPDF what screen to open on and it overrides the default setting.

@Severin

Jokes on me again, I guess.

I have four windows open on DOpus that look pretty much like the four you showed me. "File Types" isn't populated like yours, but I do have the PDF line.

The left-hand "Document, PDF" looks like yours, except no Default Icon.... I couldn't find one that looks like that.

My "Document, PDF : Double-click" looks the same as yours, except that the name bar looks different, no silver piece of disk behind the name when selected, and the ghosted selector has "Command" rather than "AmigaDOS."

The right-hand "Document, PDF" doesn't have "Match" in the selector unless I click "Add" or "Insert." And this one isn't having the results I would expect. ANYthing I double-click on gets me "maybe not a PDF" and "PDF is damaged" messages, unless it actually is a PDF, and then it doesn't matter whether there is a ".pdf" suffix or not. Well, I don't get those invitations to Sniff anymore, so not all bad.

Changing the line in "Document, PDF : Double-click" to "AppDir:AmiPDF {f} pubscreen {Qs}" works. Thanks for that. (It didn't work on the first try, maybe because I hadn't resaved the File Types document yet.)

@kilaueabart

Name or title bar is differnt because of my workbench theme, nothing to worry about, neither is the icon, it's from a set of icons I downloaded many years ago for my A4000. both make no difference to dopus.

You must use amigados to run the program if you want to use command line options like pubscreen.

Quote:

You must have it exactly the same as in my window, if you have added match and not told it what to match it could match everything or nothing. It's not something I've ever tried.

@Severin

I probably wasn't clear. The three lines in the window proper are the same as yours,

Match %pdf
Or
Match Name *.pdf

If I select any of those three lines, "Match," "Or," or "Match Name" show up in the requester below them, But your picture has "Name" with nothing selected. That's what puzzled me.

Now that the manuals come up on DOpus proper, I have been experimenting, but it looks like I have to do a lot of reading. I found a section that tells about all kinds of neat commands, but still haven't found anything that tells how to invoke them, if they don't happen to be in that column of buttons.

It'll be fun. Thanks again.

@kilaueabart

Match is case sensative, so %pdf will not work but %PDF will.

Most filetypes have a 'magic number' which is the first few characters in a file.

Eg. to match a png use:
Match $89504e470d0a1a0a

the lasst 4 characters can not be entered from the keyboard so the 8 characters have to be given in hex code.

Jpg is ??????JFIF (the first 6 chars in the file can be anything, the ? means ignore this character).

Python scripts are:

Match (nocase) #!python
Or
Match (nocase) #!c:python
Or
Match Name *.py

IFF files are a little different, for those you use Match FORM and set it to AIFF, 8SVX, ILBM etc.

If you look on aminet you can find collections of filetypes for dopus5, you just need to update what to do with them eg. double click, drag'n'drop, popup menu entries etc.

@Severin

I had %PDF, just "misspoke."

I spent some time following Epsilon's blog suggestions on setting DOpus up, but still have frustrations.

#1. There is a row of icons at the top of file lists. Totally different from the ones shown in the documents (e.g. p. 37 of DOpus55.pdf). Epsilon offers no hints. Some of them are obvious, but what is a safe way of finding out what the less obvious ones are supposed to do? E.g., one of them is supposed to abort an action; might that be the red arrow? Right-clicking on the green arrow makes it look like the green arrow + pencil to the right. Is that redundant?

#2. Everything I try to double-click on still tries to open as PDF. Do I need to set up a double-click ASCII file Filetype somehow? How?

Meanwhile, I see that I can right-click on ASCII files and read with Multiview, so this is not a crippling problem.

@mbrantley

What one needs is a standard way to configure DOpus eg a config file and maybe an app that people can use to create configs easily.

This way there is a ordered way to save configs uniform system.

It would be great if in near future one could download configs and install easily.

@kilaueabart

I have written a blog entry today to explain the DOpus 5.9 toolbar icons with examples on my X1000.

I hope this helps you out. The link is here:

http://amigax1000.blogspot.com.au/201 ... olbar-icons-on-x1000.html



Catcha,
Epsilon

@kilaueabart

The easiest way is to put the mouse pointer over a gadget and press the help key. this will tell you what function is attached to left clicking that button if it's a built in command.

you can also alt-click the button to call up the toolbar button bank editor and the button editor for that specific button, then just double click any of the ticked entries to see what commands are used.

Dopus5 has lots of builtin help just hover the mouse and press help (try the prtscr or scroll lock key).