[Oberon] ETH N-O Native/Beta directory display

[Charles Angelich]

>Message: 1
>From: Stefan Salewski <Salewski at PHYSnet.Uni-Hamburg.de>
>Organization: Uni Hamburg
>To: oberon at inf.ethz.ch
>Subject: Re: [Oberon] ETH N-O Native/Beta directory display
>Date: Sun, 18 Aug 2002 14:31:03 +0200
>Reply-To: oberon at inf.ethz.ch
>
>On Sat, 17 Aug 2002 21:56:35 Charles Angelich wrote:
>
>> Hello Chris -
>>
>> On further reflection and with more tweaking I think I've
>> come up with a more satifisfactory solution to your request
>> to sort Oberon directories using reverse order by date.
>>
>Hello Charles,
>
>nice to see that you have overcome your problems with 
>mouse-buttons, narrow displays and few documentation of 
>ETH-Oberon.

Thanks.  I have a short learning curve in combination with
4 installs of Oberon.  I now have ETH Oberon 3 for W31,
ETH Native/Beta (640x480 and 1024x768 displays on dif machines)
and Oberon V4 for W31 executing on two machines.  I can read
the documentation on the 1024 without reformatting but as I
said the font is really too small even for younger eyes IMO.

I modified Oberon.Mod to autodetect display sizes and increased
the Font.Default to Oberon14.Scn.Fnt for the 1024 and above
display settings. ;-)

>A few words to your changes of System.Directory \d:
>If System.List() is only called by System.Directory(), then it 
>will cause no trouble if you change it to your desire. But 
>Texts.WriteInt*() is used by many other Procedures! So your 
>changes will have system wide consequences. If you need these 
>changes, it may be better to make a copy of this Procedure (with 
>a new name) and call this modified copy from within List().

I agree but it seems that the whitespace (empty char) within the
Oberon#.Scn.Fnt is only one-half a full "box" for the char?  Any
routine attempting to pad with a whitespace would be "off" by
one half the required spaces as the code is written.  Either
the fonts files need to be corrected or this doubling of whitechar
is necessary.

I haven't verified this using the fonteditor but I do intend to
pursue this further to be certain my assumptions are correct on
this.

>I think your solution can not be perfect with proportional 
>(kerned) fonts: I guess not all digits will have the same width.

I thought that too but it appears the digits do, in fact, all use
the same `box' size (they are not kerned).  The number "1" (one) 
is offset in it's box which causes what appears to be misalignment 
when it is the first digit used.  This should be corrected within 
the font file IMO.

>Please keep in mind: Modifications in the code of an operating 
>system can have bad consequences. With ETH-Oberon it is not too 
>diffical to do such modificions, but before we can integrate a 
>modification in the next version (distribution), we have to be 
>very carefully.

I agree with your concerns which is why I put the code here in the
list for others to review.  If there are obvious conflicts or not
so obvious I am open to suggestions or further refinements to
isolate this from interference with other routines dependent
on less-than-accurate whitespacing.

Consider this as an observation being made by a person who has
taken the time to RTFM for more than one version of Oberon and
who has now installed 3 versions of Oberon: The existing display
of the directory when using "\d" looks like a last-minute hack
rather than a finished piece of code.  It detracts from Oberon
and does not add to it's appeal.

Again this is not to be insulting, I have taken the time to
find a way to correct this omission and am not just hammering
ETH or it's people.  I want to be helpful when I am able and
this really really looks bad as it is now IMO.



Charles Angelich

The Ghost in the Machine!

DOS and W31 Tech website:
http://www.undercoverdesign.com/dosghost

Stories, poems, music, and photos website:
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