Amiga Developer Blog

Happy Christmas

Today one of our developers, Daniel has published a new article on the Amiga Developer Blog:

Raising The Toolbar

The blog covers the exciting new Toolbar Gadget Class

@amigakit

Thanks! I found it very useful!

The article is great and really interesting. Thanks Daniel for writing it.

A little follow-up. The multiple image sets feature mentioned towards the end of the article is demonstrated in the "ToolBarBackfill" example in the Enhancer SDK. In real life the feature is used in my Rave audio editor, which provides an option to select from two toolbar image sets: a 24x24-pixel one (same size as AISS) and a 32x32-pixel one (a larger set for 4K display users).

@trixie
Where Can I download the Enancher SDK?

@nubechecorre

It should be part of the Enhancer Software Core 1.1 pack, downloadable from www.amisphere.com.

I was wondering what's ongoing with OS4.1 / ExecSG etc. development, then with small search I found this post (http://blog.amigadeveloper.com/), but surprisingly (not?!?) there are alraedy almost 6 months since the last update.

Any news you could share with us?

@Tohe

Just bear in mind this has nothing to do with "official" updates, from Hyperion. These are third party updates that like to mimic OS files (by cloning or superseding version numbers) and confusing the fuck out of users.

AEon has taken it upon itself to try and rewrite the OS one little piece at a time, without much success I might add.

You buy "Enhancer" at your own risk. I might even question the name, IMO...

Simon

The name is a deliberate reuse of the name of a piece of very early Amiga software that added some functionality to the OS

@NinjaCyborg

No it’s not.

Amiga Developer Network (“Amiga Developer” for short) is part of Amiga.org. It was formed in 1997 to promote development in our community. As the present day owners of Amiga.org we have supported and resourced this important part of Amiga.org for many years.

Historical Reference:

https://web.archive.org/web/1997061217 ... /www.amiga.org/developer/

@amigakit

I might be wrong, but i'm pretty sure @NinjaCyborg refers to "Enhancer" and not "AmigaDeveloper" as the reused name.

If i remember corrctly it was a package that came out for AmigaOS1.x as some sort of gathered tools and was called "Enhancer"...

Understood. I wondered if he was referring to the Amiga Developer CD, keeping on topic with this thread. I have now read Rigo’s comments and see the context.

LOL yes I'm talking about Enhancer. Boy, if you spent as much time answering customer service emails as you do showing how thin skinned you are you might actually have some happy customers.

@NinjaCyborg

Harsh. I reckon the confusion would have been avoided if you had stated that you were referring to an off topic item.

Quote:

Every component that we write from scratch is free from legal entanglements that have blighted this community for at least 12 years. We are sidestepping the legal obstacles and supporting our paying customers with ongoing software development. The Enhancer Software has provided the most significant features to OS4 in over a decade: 3D Shaders, Video Acceleration, OpenGL ES 2, Sensor API, Power Management, 2D Radeon RX and HD drivers. We are determined to continue to deliver more than periodic "house-keeping" releases to end-users with more significant advances.

I understand that our initial releases of the commands needed more features for compatibility. We are now iterating our releases quickly, beta testing and improving them at every step.

Quote:

Up until 2015, the regular price of OS4 was 99 EURO. Since then Hyperion are continuing to charging a mere 29 Euro for OS4.1. Is this discounted price a credible investment in future "meaningful" development? Will it generate any money to pay developers for the features we all want to see?

When users buy Enhancer Software they know that the money gets wholly invested back into further development. It does not go to lawyers, legal expenses or paying debts.

@amigakit

It's great that you are writing software to support and/or enhance the experience for AEON customers ... just don't give the programs the same name as those supplied in AmigaOS itself. Simple!

@Steady

+1

I agree completely. Stubbornly refusing to rename their stuff to end the confusion is just shitty.

Didn't really see where my question about development active leads... but nice to see the answers.

Actually my interest is towards ExecSG and also the Enhancer package - and ofcourse the official 4.1 development. The official 4.1 update late last year was a really nice surprise, but for me would be *very* nice to know that how things are going...

About the Enhancer - when I installed my x5000 first time and then installed Enhancer on top of that I soon realized that it broke the sound settings, so I've already used to install Enhancer with carefully selected items.

For me Enhancer is essential package including all the drivers etc. and I'm happy to pay for that - as I would be happy to pay for OS4.x major updates too.

@steady @orgin

The replacement system commands we offer are *optionally* installed by the end-user. Users can make a decision to select or deselect them in the install so it’s their free choice to use them or not.

We will need these for a larger project coming down the line later this year.

They are being constantly updated and improving rapidly.

They have the major benefit of not being based on old Commodore source code so they are free from legal entanglements, licensing agreements, cannot be held hostage for years between releases. We are not building our house upon sand.

@amigakit

So it'll continue on the stubborn shit move path then, great.