Author Topic: End-User Suggestions for the next release of eCS  (Read 7178 times)

agena

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End-User Suggestions for the next release of eCS
« on: September 13, 2014, 10:33:49 am »
Hello,

as I am un/fortunately stubborn, I would like to ask the eCS devteam to consider some suggestions for a new version of eCS, at least concerning:

- File Management:

The GUI file manager needs a lot of dedication. I managed to copy files with a mouse movement from here to there without noticing it.

Due to kind advice from our forum, FC/2 made the day.

- FAT32/NTFS support

Plain FAT USB sticks are natively supported, FAT32 and NTFS sticks are not.

- Programme Editor:

e.exe with line numbering and a `goto line`search statement would be great.

- SIGFPEs & Dave Yeo's Assembler Patch

Projects using doubles or floats are not well supported by current GCC eCS editions. This is a real strain. Just including a brilliant ASM solution provided by Dave Yeo makes the day - without knowing it, you are lost.

Greetings from the Rhineland,

Alex

#ifdef __OS2__
  short fcr;
  __asm__ volatile ("fstcw           %0 \n"
                    "or         $63, %0 \n"
                    "fldcw           %0 \n"
                    : "=m"(fcr));
#endif
« Last Edit: September 14, 2014, 12:44:42 am by agena@alex »

ivan

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Re: End-User Suggestions for the next release of eCS
« Reply #1 on: September 13, 2014, 02:20:51 pm »
There is a slight problem with your request.  Anything that is part of the base OS/2 can't be changed because it still belongs to IBM.

FAT32 has support, you must install it as it is not part of OS/2.  There are also some problems with it in that you can't format anything with it.

As I understand it there is a very incomplete port of NTFS that appears to read some NTFS volumes but no writing to them.

E.EXE is original OS/2 so I very much doubt there will ever be any changes there.

The other things, who knows.  If there are enough programmers prepared to dedicate their time to porting and/or disassembling as necessary to make replacements the situation may change - if nor then it won't which is a pity.

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Re: End-User Suggestions for the next release of eCS
« Reply #2 on: September 13, 2014, 03:53:41 pm »
Hi

This are my suggestions about eCS UX back on 2011 - http://www.os2world.com/wiki/index.php/Comments_and_Suggestions_about_eComStation_User_Experience

Quote
There is a slight problem with your request.  Anything that is part of the base OS/2 can't be changed because it still belongs to IBM.
Yes and no. There are very interesting things that can be done "patching" over what it exists. For example I think that Styler/2 did was "magic" for OS/2 GUI at it's time. But the fact that we need access to the source code to provide a long term for the future is a fact, and since IBM will not provide it, I always insisted that our dream should be to open source clone the close source components of the platform.

Quote
FAT32/NTFS support
I think that FAT32.IFS is good enought, but what it is better is that it can be improved since it is open source.  - http://trac.netlabs.org/fat32

NTFS never lift off. It is read only, but sometimes it crash. The NTFS implementation is close source from Mensys/Pasha and I didn't found interest from they to open source it. Maybe with clear open source/collaboration rules it can be futher developed, but it is also not seen as a priority.

...to be continue.
Martin Iturbide
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... just share the dream.

Doug Bissett

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Re: End-User Suggestions for the next release of eCS
« Reply #3 on: September 13, 2014, 06:50:48 pm »
Quote
- File Management:

The GUI file manager needs a lot of dedication. I managed to copy files with a mouse movement from here to there
without noticing it.

The GUI file manager has had some work, but IMO, the updates make it not usable.

You can move files, or folders, without noticing it on all platforms, that I know about. That is a user problem, but you CAN set it to ask for verification, every time (which very quickly becomes a PITA).

I sometimes use FM/2 http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/download/pub/os2/util/browser/fm2-3-22-0.zip, but that is so complicated that I avoid it most of the time. The advantage is that it is still being developed.

Quote
- FAT32/NTFS support

Plain FAT USB sticks are natively supported, FAT32 and NTFS sticks are not.

Well, they are, as long as you create a proper partition on them, and add the LVM information (REQUIRED for anything larger than 2 GB). The easy way to do that is to use DFSEE, which has a menu item to do it. The main "problem" with that is, that it is a destructive process, so you need to copy the contents elsewhere before doing it.

The FAT32 driver works pretty well, but it is best to REM the CACHEF32.EXE line in CONFIG.SYS. It works much better, and faster, without the cache. The NTFS driver will work in R/W but is set to Read only by default (for good reason). I suggest just don't use it at all. I think that the main problem with NTFS is that Microsoft has copyrighted the method, so it is not really legal to do anything with it, although Linux seems to have found a way.

Quote
- Programme Editor:

e.exe with line numbering and a `goto line`search statement would be great.

There are MANY alternate editors that will do what you want. In fact E.EXE has been replaced with AE.EXE http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/download/pub/os2/apps/misc/ae1_9_8.zip, which fixes problems, but adds no new features (already included as E.EXE in later versions of eCS). There is also EPM.EXE, which can be modified as desired by the user. You can find pre packaged mods to do various things with it.

Quote
- SIGFPEs & Dave Yeo's Assembler Patch

Projects using doubles or floats are not well supported by current GCC eCS editions. This is a real strain.
Just including a brilliant ASM solution provided by Dave Yeo makes the day - without knowing it, you are lost.

True. This is a problem with the guy who creates the GCC support. He just hasn't got around to trying to fix the problem. I don't know if the source is available for somebody who might comprehend it, or not. Currently, I suspect that there are probably about 2 OS/2 programmers who could fix the problem, if they had the source. Meanwhile, programmers must use the work around. I would suggest that you leave the requests for fixes, to those who understand the situation. We don't want to piss off the guy who does it, or we may get left with nothing (it has happened before).   :(

Dave Yeo

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Re: End-User Suggestions for the next release of eCS
« Reply #4 on: September 13, 2014, 08:03:52 pm »
NTFS is overly complex and probably even MS doesn't have it documented. This makes it awfully hard to re-implement and even took the Linux community a long time to get a semi-usable NTFS driver.
The sigfpu problem really needs to be fixed in the OS/2 source as it is internal to the Presentation Manager and doesn't exist on all versions of OS/2. There is a bug open about working around it in libc, http://trac.netlabs.org/libc/ticket/296