31.Mar.2022
Amiga Future (website)
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Do it yourself: A500KB - a mechanical keyboard for the Amiga 500
Henryk Richter's project A500KB is a mechanical keyboard for the Amiga 500 which can be mounted with either the original keys of the Amiga 2000/3000/4000, the A1200.net replicas or keys from Mitsumi, Cherry and KailH, respectively.
For Power, Drive and Caps-Lock LEDs he uses RGB LEDs, with their colour being configurable by an AmigaOS programm. (snx)
[News message: 31. Mar. 2022, 14:36] [Comments: 0]
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31.Mar.2022
Amiga Future (website)
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Do it yourself: MicroSD interface for the Parallel Port
Based on the design concept by Niklas Ekström, 'RetroNynjah' has published his "Retroninja Amiga Parallel SD" project at the title link. It allows to use microSD cards via the Amiga's Parallel Port. Since the latter does not include a power source, this has to be supplied using a USB connector. (snx)
[News message: 31. Mar. 2022, 14:25] [Comments: 0]
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31.Mar.2022
Amiga Future (website)
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Emulator: vAmigaWeb 2.0 Beta 1 Update 3
The Amiga emulator vAmigaWeb is based on vAmiga for Mac OS and runs in the web-browser and as a Progressive Web App (PWA) on mobile devices, respectively (amiga-news.de reported).
Despite the rather small update suggested by its version number, its current release now also supports Amiga harddrive files (.hdf), which also works when they are compressed in a ZIP file. Besides this, bugs in ActionButtons have been fixed. (snx)
[News message: 31. Mar. 2022, 14:01] [Comments: 0]
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31.Mar.2022
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Chip-Ram expansion for Amiga 500, 2000, Commodore CDTV: RAMesses
Developer Andrew Hutchings reports on his website LinuxJedi about his latest development 'RAMesses': this board upgrades an Amiga 500, 2000 or the Commodore CDTV to 2MB chip RAM without soldering or cutting the motherboard. It is based on the board developed by Matt Harlum, which converts an 8375 Agnus to work in a normal Amiga 500, adding 2MB of chip RAM. However, this required craftsmanship and soldering experience.
So Hutchings decided to design a board that solved this problem. The RAMesses board uses a PLCC connector that plugs into the Amiga's Agnus socket, and an 8375 Agnus that plugs into the bottom of the board. Additionally, there is an adapter that fits under the Gary chip and provides some additional signals. The Gary chip overwrites all motherboard and expansion RAM, so it is easy to install regardless of the motherboard and configuration. This means that no modifications need to be made to the Amiga's motherboard.
Additionally, there is a jumper on the top of the RAMesses board. As the developer writes, some games state that they need 1 MB, but actually mean 512 KB chip and 512 KB Slow RAM. This jumper reconfigures the board to provide Slow RAM. From 2MB Chip RAM this will change to 1MB Chip and 512KB Slow RAM.
It should be noted that the board requires an 8375 2MB Agnus chip. In the first batches there was still the possibility to get the RAMesses together with an 8375, but this is now unlikely. Thus, the chip has to be purchased separately. Likewise, he recommends a PLCC extractor tool for removing the Amiga's Agnus before installing this board, specifically Piergiacomi's PLCC-84 extractor tool .
RAMesses is available in his new 'Retro Supplies' store for about 90 Euros. (dr)
[News message: 31. Mar. 2022, 06:44] [Comments: 0]
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31.Mar.2022
Twitter
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Shoot'em up: Sixth demo version of Jackal
NeesoGames has released the sixth demo version (YouTube video) of its game Jackal, created with the Scorpion Engine. Changes:
- Level 1 boss has an indicator to show where the tanks will spawn
- New enemy in Level 2 (Jeep throwing 'nades)
- Level 3 preview (fully navigable but no boss fight yet)
- New explosion graphics
- Animated exploded turrets
- Fixed foreground issues with fort walls and pillars
- Enemies have been rebalanced
- Memory optimizations, bugfixes and more!
According to the developers, this version might be a bit unstable because of a lot of things have been refactored. A complete third level including the boss fight has been announced for the seventh update. (dr)
[News message: 31. Mar. 2022, 06:05] [Comments: 0]
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31.Mar.2022
Arne Urbaniak (E-Mail)
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Amiga disks on PC: Copy program G-Copy 0.1
After the release of A-Copy, a program similar to X-Copy for reading and writing ADF disk images under Windows using the ADF drive hardware, Arne Urbaniak has now written 'G-Copy', a corresponding application for the Greaseweazle.
This is currently available in version 0.1 and is intended for testing. Unlike A-Copy, which was written using Microsoft's free and open source software platform '.NET', G-Copy, as the author writes to us, was completely new and written in Python. Basically, the two applications are to be merged as time permits, though there would be many more Arduino-based controllers, all with their own configurations and command parameters. In addition, there would be many requests for implementation of other systems and formats (Atari, Apple, TI99).
Features of version 0.1:
- Doscopy: ADF file -> disk and Disk -> ADF file
- Nibblecopy: SCP file -> disk and disk -> SCP file (incl. copy protection)
- DMS2Disk: HD-DMS file -> disk
- DMS2ADF: HD-DMS file -> HD-ADF file
- IPF2Disk: HD-IPF file -> disk
- Delete, format, QFormat
Tasks still to be done:
- Bamcopy
- Copy start-end from the hard disk to the correct place of the file
- Copying the correct part of the file to the floppy disk
- Writing to several destinations
- better troubleshooting
Download: gcopy.zip (30 MB) (dr)
[News message: 31. Mar. 2022, 04:47] [Comments: 0]
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30.Mar.2022
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Connector board for FPGA Amiga clone: MiSTress ITX
Recently we reported about an expansion for mounting the FPGA Amiga clone MiSTer into an Amiga 1200 case, called MiSTress 1200. Now there is also a conversion kit, MiSTress ITX, for mounting the MiSTer FPGA into an ITX/Micro ITX PC case. The MiSTress ITX board offers all connectors that the official MiSTer Analog I/O 6.1 board has, plus an integrated USB hub with six available ports and a selectable I2S Audio DAC output.
The board implements also a dual function front button header to plug the front button of your case: short press access MiSTer OSD, long press calls USER button function (core dependant). Further information under the title link. (dr)
[News message: 30. Mar. 2022, 07:14] [Comments: 0]
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30.Mar.2022
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MorphOS: Screenbar plugin Uptime 1.5a
The #amigazeux team has updated the Screenbar plugin 'Uptime' for displaying uptime - the time the computer system is running and functional - for MorphOS to version 1.5. Changes:
- Added a savety requester when trying to reset the uptime record.
- Uptime records can be reported via MagicBeacon now with configurable frequency.
- Now comes with a real Installer script courtesy of InstallerGen by Rob Cranley.
- Text can now be rendered off-center by specifying a pixel offset.
- It's now possible to have the gauge frame drawn around or over (default from previous versions) the gauge itself at the edges (see settings).
- Cycle gadget for adjusting the frame type now shows a small preview image.
Update: (04.04.2022, 17:48, dr)
Thanks to a hint from Guido Mersmann a bug in the installer has been fixed with version 1.5a released yesterday, which now copies the MagicBeacon images correctly to SYS:Prefs/Applications/MagicBeacon instead of MOSSYS:Data/MagicBeacon. (dr)
[News message: 30. Mar. 2022, 06:40] [Comments: 1 - 04. Apr. 2022, 17:52]
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29.Mar.2022
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History: Commodore's 'ChessMate'
In its latest blog entry, the 'Commodore International Historical Society' has reported on the history of Commodore's 'ChessMate'. (dr)
[News message: 29. Mar. 2022, 07:21] [Comments: 0]
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29.Mar.2022
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Sound module: First batch of ZZ9000AX is delivered
The ZZ9000AX is the sound module for the multifunctional Amiga expansion card ZZ9000 (amiga-news.de reported). Yesterday it was announced that the first batch is shipping now, which was originally planned for January already. Interested users who order now will be part of the second batch, which is expected to be shipped in June 2022. (dr)
[News message: 29. Mar. 2022, 07:13] [Comments: 0]
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29.Mar.2022
Robert Smith
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Video: Introduction on Artificial Intelligence
In his latest video, Robert Smith shows the basics of artificial intelligence (AI) using neural networks. He elaborates on how to develop them using genetic algorithms and confronts them with various problems to see if they can solve them (see also MIT's introductory lecture on this topic). (dr)
[News message: 29. Mar. 2022, 06:50] [Comments: 0]
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29.Mar.2022
Martina Hřebcová (Mail)
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Analysis: PPC architecture evolution in Amiga world (Czech)
Martina Hřebcová is known for her detailed reviews and analyses of Amiga hardware, for example about the use of graphics cards under the Sam440ep-flex or the Pegasos I. Now she takes Amiga users on a discourse about the PPC architecture used in AmigaNG systems: Czech original text, machine translation. (dr)
[News message: 29. Mar. 2022, 05:57] [Comments: 0]
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28.Mar.2022
Apollo Team (ANF)
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Apollo-Team: Maggie 3D Chip - preview video
The Apollo team shows a preview of the Apollo Maggie 3D chip, which is already included in all V4 models, in a short YouTube video. This Maggie chip is also intended to make the Amiga 3D capable. This first early preview video demonstrates basic 3D modeling as dungeon demo. (dr)
[News message: 28. Mar. 2022, 06:59] [Comments: 0]
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28.Mar.2022
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Blog: Installation of AmiKit on Windows/macOS and Raspberry Pi
The blog Epsilon's World shows in its latest entry how to install the recently released AmiKit XE 11.6.1 on Windows 11 and macOS Monterey. In a previous article the author already described how to install AmiKit XE 11.5 on a Raspberry Pi 4 and Pi 400. (dr)
[News message: 28. Mar. 2022, 06:23] [Comments: 0]
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27.Mar.2022
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Aminet uploads until 26.03.2022
The following files have been added until 26.03.2022 to Aminet:
nfs3.lha comm/net 10K 68k Mount NFS3 shares using bsdso...
less-mos.lha dev/gg 661K MOS Viewer program similar to "more"
MuManual.lha docs/misc 944K 68k mmu.lib: examples, includes, ...
keymap_espanol.lha driver/inp 2K Keymap for Spanish PC keyboards
StarDriveSCSI.lha driver/med 56K 68k Microbotics StarDrive SCSI dr...
cybergraphx_espanol.lha driver/vid 1K CyberGraphX spanish catalog (...
F1GP2022Carset.lha game/data 7K 2022 Carset for F1GP
AttackPETSCIIRobots.lha game/demo 6.6M 68k Attack of the PETSCII Robots ...
AttackPETSCIIRobots_i... game/demo 880K 68k Attack of the PETSCII Robots ...
Exult_RTG.lha game/role 50M 68k Amiga port of Ultima 7 (Exult)
jfduke3d.lha game/shoot 1.3M 68k JFDuke3D Amiga Port
ZDOOM_AGA.lha game/shoot 21M 68k Amiga port of ZDOOM (DOOM)
ZDOOM_RTG.lha game/shoot 21M 68k Amiga port of ZDOOM (DOOM)
perfectpaint_espanol.lha gfx/edit 8K Perfect Paint spanish catalog...
AmiArcadia.lha misc/emu 4.4M 68k Signetics-based machines emul...
AmiArcadia-OS4.lha misc/emu 4.9M OS4 Signetics-based machines emul...
W4R_HM2B.lha mods/anaki 42K 68k Hit Mouse 2 Beta 2008 MED Mul...
W4R_HM2B_SideB.lha mods/anaki 121K 68k Hit Mouse 2 Beta Side B MED M...
ancient.lha util/arc 668K MOS Decompression routines for an...
avalanche.lha util/arc 64K OS4 ReAction unarchive GUI for xf...
MMULib.lha util/libs 746K 68k Library to ctrl the MC68K MMUs
DevInfosNG.lha util/misc 1.2M OS4 All about the aos4.1 hardware
TestProgram.zip util/misc 665K 68k Versatile Amiga Test Program
kingcon_espanol.lha util/shell 1K KingCON spanish catalog (1.8)
ScreenTime.lha util/time 63K 68k Screen clock, configurable wi...
(snx)
[News message: 27. Mar. 2022, 09:11] [Comments: 0]
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27.Mar.2022
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OS4Depot uploads until 26.03.2022
The following files have been added until 26.03.2022 to OS4Depot:
arabic_console_device... dri/inp 3Mb 4.1 An arabic console device, line &...
amiarcadia.lha emu/gam 5Mb 4.0 Signetics-based machines emulator
igame.lha emu/uti 318kb 4.0 Frontend for launching WHDLoad g...
d3gnop.lha gam/mis 193kb 4.0 THE Pong clone in MiniGL
sopoblock.lha gam/puz 83kb 4.0 Cute tiny MiniGL puzzler
avalanche.lha uti/arc 64kb 4.1 Simple ReAction GUI for xadmaster
(snx)
[News message: 27. Mar. 2022, 09:11] [Comments: 0]
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27.Mar.2022
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MorphOS-Storage uploads until 26.03.2022
The following files have been added until 26.03.2022 to MorphOS-Storage:
EMagicBeaconModules_0.... Development/E MorphOS MagicBeacon mod...
EReggaeModules_0.1.lha Development/E MorphOS Reggae modules ...
EMUIModules_0.4.lha Development/E MorphOS MUI modules for...
Less_590.lha Development/GeekGadgets A paginator similar to ...
Ancient_2.0.0.lha Files/Archive Decompress ancient formats
ScummVM_2.6.0GIT.lha Games/Adventure 2D Point-and-Click adve...
MUIwake_0.4.lha Network/TCP Wake On Lan with MUI gui.
Wayfarer_3.2.lha Network/Web Wayfarer is the latest ...
Collection-JeuxVideo_1... Office/Database Collection-Jeux video e...
ModernArt_3.3.lha System/Ambient/Blankers Screen Blanker by Matth...
MouseCoords_1.4.lha System/Ambient/Screenbar Display Mouse coordinat...
(snx)
[News message: 27. Mar. 2022, 09:11] [Comments: 0]
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27.Mar.2022
MorphZone (website)
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MorphOS: Web-browser Wayfarer 3.2
By version 3.2 of Jacek 'jacadcaps' Piszczek's web-browser Wayfarer, support of WOFF/WOFF2 fonts has been implemented and, besides fixes of a few minor quirks, the support of ligatures has been improved. Wayfarer requires MorphOS 3.16 and at least 1 GB of RAM. A CPU with 1.5 GHz or more with Altivec is recommended.
Download: wayfarer.lha (26 MB) (snx)
[News message: 27. Mar. 2022, 09:11] [Comments: 0]
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27.Mar.2022
Prince (Mail)
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Video tutorial: Episode 28 of assembler coding course
'Prince', founder of the demo group 'Phaze101', is currently streaming the assembler programming course "Corso completo di programmazione assembler in due dischi" in English on Twitch and uploads the respective episodes time-delayed to YouTube. Now episode 28 was published. (dr)
[News message: 27. Mar. 2022, 08:38] [Comments: 0]
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27.Mar.2022
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ReAction-GUI for XAD: Avalanche 1.5
In the course of reporting on updates of various tools from Unsatisfactory Software, we had also mentioned Avalanche for the first time, a graphical user interface created with ReAction for the unarchiving tool XAD. Now Chris Young has released version 1.5. Changes:
- Add option to use xvs.library to scan the extracted files for viruses
- Fallback to xfdmaster.library if file not recognised
- Support encrypted archive entries
- Installer no longer overwrites existing icon on update
- Add Archive Info menu option - currently shows the filetype only
(dr)
[News message: 27. Mar. 2022, 08:32] [Comments: 0]
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26.Mar.2022
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Amiga Addict available from newsagents in England, Irland, USA, Australia soon
Print magazine Amiga Addict is anouncing on Twitter that the English publication will soon be available from more than 300 newsagents in the United Kingdom as well as in selected stores in the USA, Irland, and Australia.
The current 11th issue features a review of THEA500 Mini plus the following topics:
- Interview with Amiga magazine legend Nick Veitch
- A personal look back at Amiga Power
- Talking about Buffee with Renee Cousins
- The legendary Scorched Tanks with its creator Michael P Welch
- h0ffman's new game Knightmare reviewed
- The second part of our walk through the Cinemaware back catalogue
- AA's Top 100 Best Amiga Games Ever!
(cg)
[News message: 26. Mar. 2022, 23:49] [Comments: 0]
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26.Mar.2022
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THEA500 Mini: 'Citadel' and user manual available
Starting April 08, interested users can purchase the THEA500 Mini (in North America only on May 31).
If you want to shorten the time until then, you can already study the user manual. Furthermore, the first game of the Bonus USB Games Pack has been released with Citadel, which we reported about a year ago, and can already be downloaded. According to Saberman's YouTube video, this is version 1.3, in which some bugs have been fixed, gameplay and player controls have been improved, and the game's graphics and level design have been updated. The game is basically intended for the THEA500 Mini, but was here tested on an A1200 with 8MB FAST-Ram. (dr)
[News message: 26. Mar. 2022, 21:34] [Comments: 0]
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25.Mar.2022
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A-EON confirms lack of an AmigaOS 4 license
A few days ago, Alinea announced that the X5000 was back in stock. Their listing of a complete system includes a digital copy of AmigaOS 4, but according to a former Hyperion manager, A-EON no longer has a valid AmigaOS 4 license - which brings up the question where Alinea is purchasing X5000 motherboards bundled with an AmigaOS 4 license. Approached by amiga-news.de, Matthew Leaman from A-EON and Amigakit confirms that "there are no active OEM agreements for A-EON hardware". According to him each reseller makes "his own arrangements for any third party software they resell".
Since Alina claims (German) to be purchasing hardware and software from the same source, that means there has to be another layer in the distribution channel - somebody who has access to valid OS4 licenses, bundles them with motherboards purchased from A-EON and then sells them to Alinea and maybe other dealers.
Neither Matthew Leaman nor Simon Neumann from Alinea wanted to discuss details of the current distribution model with amiga-news.de. Leaman only confirmed that the boards currently on sale are not new production runs, they are supplied from existing stocks. We asked both Ben Hermans (Hyperion) and an entrepreneur who is rumoured to be the middleman described above for a statement, but have not heard back from either party so far.
Note from staff: In his original statement (German) at os4welt.de, Simon Neumann explains that one of the reasons for the new price of a X5000 system - 2400 Euros instead of 2100 Euros - is the substantially higher wholesale price the German dealer has to pay. An additional middleman between A-EON and dealers selling to endusers would explain that, since the middleman obviosly has to generate profit as well. (cg)
[News message: 25. Mar. 2022, 13:02] [Comments: 0]
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25.Mar.2022
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Blog: 'Tables' and 'Strings' in programming language COBOL
Carl Svensson, author of the ARexx tools RxEnv, deals in his latest blog entry with 'Tables' and 'Strings' in the COBOL programming language in response to a corresponding article on The Craft of Coding.
A (no longer maintained) compiler is also available for AmigaOS, along with syntax parsers for GoldEd 4.7 and GoldEd 5.0. (dr)
[News message: 25. Mar. 2022, 07:30] [Comments: 0]
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25.Mar.2022
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Programming language: AmiBlitz 3.9.0
The latest version 3.9.0 of the programming language AmiBlitz contains some major changes and a few optimizations:
Adjustments to libs handling: To be able to reduce the amount of loaded blitzlibraries at startup, I divided the former to biglib-files ACIDLIBS and DEFLIBS into four biglib files that are organized according to their purpose:
- baseLibs: base libraries everyone needs or other libs depend on
- utilLibs: libraries that contains several useful functions
- csLibs: libraries that make use of the custom chips hardware
- osLibs: libraries that are wrapper libs for standard amigaos libraries
So if you don't use oslibrary functions or don't do graphics an sound stuff, you can just disable that file from being loaded.
Major internal changes:
- converted tons of code from asm to basic
Minor adjustments:
- added tooltype DISABLE_HIGHLIGHTING to improve performance on lowend machines
- added tooltype DISABLE_LOCALIZATION to reduce needed of memory on lowend machines
- removed tooltype STANDARDEDITMODE, only the new behaviour is supported now
- removed tooltype OLDSEARCH, only the new behaviour is supported now
- removed tooltype USE_ASLDIMS
- renamed tooltype NO_DISPLAYBEEP to DISABLE_DISPLAYBEEP
- renamed tooltype NO_WELCOME to DISABLE_WELCOME
- renamed tooltype TOKENBOLD to BOLD_TOKENS
- added menu entry "Autolayout" to perform an auto arrangement of all open windows per menu call
- added wrapperlib for gadtools.library to osLibs
- reorganized settings window
- added new iconify gadget for source window (OS3.2+)
- updated GlowIcons for all icons in the AmiBlitz3 drawer
Adjustments to tools:
- AB3LibsManager: implemented the new biglibs handling with 4 biglibfiles
- AB3LibsManager: added new column to commandlist table that shows dependencies to other libs
- AB3LibsManager: added shortcuts for some buttons
(dr)
[News message: 25. Mar. 2022, 06:16] [Comments: 0]
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