SymbOS 2.1 Final released

Van OeiOeiVogeltje

Paragon (1433)

02-09-2014, 22:48

First question
Is the install procedure easier now?

Van edoz

Prophet (2482)

02-09-2014, 23:14

Yes very easy..... That is one of the main changes!!!

Van NYYRIKKI

Enlighted (6067)

05-09-2014, 10:58

Aah... SymbOS news are always the ones that I wait most. Nice...

Van Prodatron

Paragon (1843)

05-09-2014, 11:24

What I wonder is, if the new install procedure is really easy now for everyone?

Van edoz

Prophet (2482)

05-09-2014, 11:35

OeiOeiVogeltje wrote:

First question
Is the install procedure easier now?

Did you tried it ? I love it

Van giuseve

Paladin (787)

05-09-2014, 18:58

Wonderful !!!
It only needs an APP installer
...and a Office-like suite
...and maybe more audio format to be played

uhm,

sorry, I'm a bad man :-)

Van Trebmint2

Master (242)

05-09-2014, 21:21

IMHO the most impressive software ever on the CPC or MSX or PCW

Van edoz

Prophet (2482)

05-09-2014, 21:50

It is!!! I'm so glad that prodatron did the port to MSX!!! I totally agree!

What will it bring in the future ? It does not matter everything is nice!!

I made an impression for 16 color icons :S

Van TheKid

Paragon (1238)

05-09-2014, 23:19

Very impressive indeed.
Question, I want to make some pictures for symbos (sgx). Apperently in Symstudio you can do this, but the link is broken and I can't find it anywhere. Is this project discontinued ? Is there a manual how to make pictures for symbos ?

Van edoz

Prophet (2482)

06-09-2014, 00:21

TheKid wrote:

Very impressive indeed.
Question, I want to make some pictures for symbos (sgx). Apperently in Symstudio you can do this, but the link is broken and I can't find it anywhere. Is this project discontinued ? Is there a manual how to make pictures for symbos ?

Yes .. it seems it is still possible.. but It is broken in Symstudio (the last build I have) So I tried an other earlier build and I was able to do it again. But this earlier build is very unstable. I did some tricks to get it working. I will try to make a manual for you. If you have some BMP files I could use your files to make the manual :D

Van Maggoo

Paragon (1217)

06-09-2014, 04:21

Trebmint2 wrote:

IMHO the most impressive software ever on the CPC or MSX or PCW

+1 on that!

Van TheKid

Paragon (1238)

06-09-2014, 10:24

Hi edoz, here are 3 bmp files. I didn't know the desired resolution, so I made 2 pics 512x212 (screen7) and one 256x212. Could you also enclude in your manual where to download the proper working Symstudio (the one you are using) ?

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/19449864/three_bmps.zip

Van TheKid

Paragon (1238)

06-09-2014, 10:26

ps, can you put your 16 color icons available for download aswell, they really look nice

Van edoz

Prophet (2482)

06-09-2014, 10:47

Thanks for the bitmaps...I will include the Symstudio which is able to create backgrounds in the Manual.
It will try to create it later today...

About the 16 colors Icons. This is not supported for desktop icons in the 2.1 release. My images was just an idea how it would look with 16 color icons .. and yes ... it looks nice !! (like the control panel icons!)

Van edoz

Prophet (2482)

07-09-2014, 19:27

TheKid wrote:

Hi edoz, here are 3 bmp files. I didn't know the desired resolution, so I made 2 pics 512x212 (screen7) and one 256x212. Could you also enclude in your manual where to download the proper working Symstudio (the one you are using) ?

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/19449864/three_bmps.zip

I tried to make a manual for SymStudio and how to make a new background image. But it seems that Symstudio is so unstable that I was not able to make a proper manual. I'm sorry for that. I think we have to wait until the new Unify is released by Trebmint .. (The new development suite)

But.. there is also an other way to create your own backgrounds:
See : Other Option!

Of course I did the ones for you. Only for one I was not able to center it .. but I will try again:

And my own creepy dog :D

here the ZIP file:

DOWNLOAD

Van edoz

Prophet (2482)

07-09-2014, 21:03

some others

DOWNLOAD

Van Lord_Zett

Paladin (807)

07-09-2014, 22:55

startiong to look great now symbos use 16 colors
now sc8 mode
more colors!

Van edoz

Prophet (2482)

07-09-2014, 23:26

Some new once :

DOWNLOAD

Van Prodatron

Paragon (1843)

07-09-2014, 23:28

I like the 2nd one!

Van edoz

Prophet (2482)

08-09-2014, 00:30

Van Prodatron

Paragon (1843)

08-09-2014, 01:00

Please make a start-screen desktop picture for every 8/16bit homecomputer from the 80ies!

Van TheKid

Paragon (1238)

08-09-2014, 07:27

haha, cewl. Thanks. I will take a look at option 2. I will let you know how it went

Van TheKid

Paragon (1238)

08-09-2014, 07:42

I like the 'new' backgrounds, thanx again Another question, as a regular user of Total commander on PC, I like the Sym commander. The option I'm missing is the File rename option. Does Sym commander have this feature and I overlooked ? Or is it something for sym commander 1.5

Van Prodatron

Paragon (1843)

08-09-2014, 13:53

Yes, you can rename a file, too. Select it, but don't mark it (and don't mark any other files) and press the "Move" button. Maybe a little tricky indeed, if you don't know it...
SymCommander 1.5 should support recursive copies/moves/deletes

Van edoz

Prophet (2482)

08-09-2014, 13:57

You could also use the command line as there is REN

Van TheKid

Paragon (1238)

08-09-2014, 15:03

@edoz : I know, that's how I renamed the file now, but like I said, I thought it would be a nice 'new' feature for SymCommander 1.5
@Prodatron: thanks, I'm didn't know the move trick Looking forward to the 1.5 version

Van Prodatron

Paragon (1843)

08-09-2014, 20:21

Lord_Zett wrote:

startiong to look great now symbos use 16 colors
now sc8 mode
more colors!

Would be quite slow unfortunately. 256 colours is an option for the Graphics9000. The problem is, that it will be probably too much work to render 256 colour graphics down in 4 or 16 colour modes.

Van TheKid

Paragon (1238)

08-09-2014, 22:24

I think I found a little bug. I have Symbos installed in a:\symbos. I've made the directory a:\symbos\graphics\misc. I placed the sgx files of this post in this directory.
When I select eddy1.sgx and set it as default background, the background turns orange. If I select any other sgx, same result. When I copy the sgx to a:\symbos and select it as background it works. So apperently the background image has to be located in the root directory of symbos.

Van Prodatron

Paragon (1843)

08-09-2014, 22:34

The reason is, that the full path for the background graphic is limited to 31 chars (to save memory in the config). Your path unfortunately is 33 chars
Maybe I should add a message there...

Van TheKid

Paragon (1238)

08-09-2014, 23:24

okay, got it. Like I said it's a minor thingy I can live with a picture of eddy being in the root dir or one dir up
But it's a good idea to give some kind of warning if the location exceeds the amount of characters.

Van Prodatron

Paragon (1843)

08-09-2014, 23:35

Yes, you are right, thanks for the hint!

Van TheKid

Paragon (1238)

08-09-2014, 23:41

btw, option 2 worked for me. My symbos is enhanced with yet another iron maiden background
And comming back on an earlier question, with sym commander is it possible to rename a file by double clicking on the filename, or by pressing F2 ?

Van Prodatron

Paragon (1843)

09-09-2014, 00:00

Double clicking will start a file. There is currently no support for "slow double clicking".
But F2 sounds good... SymbOS doesn't support the double taken F-keys of the MSX, but we can use just F1 for this....

Van TheKid

Paragon (1238)

09-09-2014, 07:52

Like you know in windows F1 is help and F2 is rename, so I would suggest using the same F-keys. And ofcourse, in the pulldown menu 'Commands' add the 'Rename File' option, just for completeness sake

Van iamweasel2

Paladin (715)

09-09-2014, 15:58

Great to know that there's a new version of this amazing OS, SymbOS. I really liked the new background images, specially the Metal Gear one. Just a suggestion, would it be possible to have a option in SymbOS so that each time Symbos starts it picks a random image stored in a specific folder and use it as background picture ? That way everytime you start SymbOS you would have a different background. If this option is available, I plan to have pictures of all the MSX classic games as a desktop background of SymbOS.

Van Trebmint2

Master (242)

09-09-2014, 16:16

I think its safe to assume that a future Symbos will allow you to set up a background slideshow... but since I've signed an NDA with prodatron not to reveal what's coming next I can't tell you about Symbos 3.0 and the even prettier desktop, themes, multicolour icons, widgets, more apps, more colour, networking, SGL, added hardware support etc etc.

Van edoz

Prophet (2482)

09-09-2014, 18:22

Trebmint2 wrote:

I think its safe to assume that a future Symbos will allow you to set up a background slideshow... but since I've signed an NDA with prodatron not to reveal what's coming next I can't tell you about Symbos 3.0 and the even prettier desktop, themes, multicolour icons, widgets, more apps, more colour, networking, SGL, added hardware support etc etc.

Van TheKid

Paragon (1238)

09-09-2014, 23:52

I have some suggestions.
Can the SymSee tool be enhanced with a delete option. Now when I'm browsing through my sgx pictures, I have to open sym commander and switch between the both in order to delete sgx files.
Can Sym-commander support mouse scroll to make the file list go up and down (or can't this be done since there are no msx mouses with a scroll wheel) ?

When I'm viewing the pictures, and use sym-commander to delete a picture, symsee will give an error when I it comes accros this picture again (by pressing the previous or next buttons).

Van Prodatron

Paragon (1843)

10-09-2014, 00:30

@iamweasel2: That's a funny feature (random backgrounds on startup). Never saw it somewhere else. But 3.0 is quite flexible in this case, so it should be possible
@TheKid: The F-key functionality should work soon. Hope to be able to use the double taken as well.
Yes, I use the delete option in Irfanview quite often, too It's not a problem to integrate it in SymSee. And then skipping deleted pictures... ok... Nice new items on the todo list now, thank you very much!

Van TheKid

Paragon (1238)

10-09-2014, 07:40

No problemo, you did a hell of a job and the symbos project is very impressive. I'm glad to contribute to make it even better

Van NYYRIKKI

Enlighted (6067)

10-09-2014, 07:59

TheKid wrote:

Can Sym-commander support mouse scroll to make the file list go up and down (or can't this be done since there are no msx mouses with a scroll wheel) ?

Actually it is supported already...

Van edoz

Prophet (2482)

10-09-2014, 09:53

NYYRIKKI wrote:

TheKid wrote:

Can Sym-commander support mouse scroll to make the file list go up and down (or can't this be done since there are no msx mouses with a scroll wheel) ?

Actually it is supported already...

Yes it works here also like a charm.. If you get used to the scroll wheel you don't want without I anymore.. :D :D

Van TheKid

Paragon (1238)

10-09-2014, 13:23

okay, can it be i'm using symbos with openmsx that the scrollwheel isn't supported ? Or is it a setting within symbos ?
I also saw in the movie you double clicked a sgx file to view it from within sym-commander. When I do this I get an error saying path not found. I found the solution though. I've placed all apps in a subdirectory called apps and aperently, the apps must to be in the root folder where symbos.exe is

Van NYYRIKKI

Enlighted (6067)

10-09-2014, 14:45

Yes, none of the MSX emulators support scrollwheel ATM... Maybe in future when it get's a bit more popular...

The application paths and file associations can be changed from Control Panel / System (Note: "%" as part of path means SymbOS home directory)

Van Prodatron

Paragon (1843)

10-09-2014, 20:26

@TheKid: SymSee doesn't need to be in the root folder. Each file extension (like SGX) can be associated with an application, and the pathes of them have to be defined. Like NYYRIKKI said the path of the associated application was wrong on your configuration. Did you already had a look in Control Panel -> System -> File types? The home directory (% placeholder) is defined at Control Panel -> System -> System path.

Van TheKid

Paragon (1238)

10-09-2014, 21:54

Yes, found it, thanks. Symbos keeps getting better every time I boot it

Van TheKid

Paragon (1238)

10-09-2014, 22:35

I tried to use symrom.exe to load comic bakery. On execute symbos hanged. Is there some kind of conversion that needs to be done in order to run a rom file ? (btw I am running on openmsx on a turbor r machine).

I also saw in the configuration panel extensions that could be loaded bij the apps appsnap.exe and appddump.exe but I can't find these apps. Are they not released yet ? Or are they named different ?

Van Prodatron

Paragon (1843)

10-09-2014, 23:43

AppSnap (it loads CPC emulator snapshots and executes it on a real CPC machine) and AppDdump (it dumps disc images to a real floppy disc) are Amstrad CPC specific applications, so they are not included in the MSX package.
Regarding SymRom.EXE it would be better to ask NYYRIKKI...
Is it this one?
http://msx.fi/nyyrikki/software.html
http://msx.fi/nyyrikki/files/symrom.lzh

Van NYYRIKKI

Enlighted (6067)

11-09-2014, 11:15

Actually I've noticed this weird hanging situation on SymROM sometimes. I think there is something that I just don't do right in memory handling or something... If you start few more programs and then try again the problem might go away... I'm not really very experienced with SymbOS, so the problem would be a bit hard for me to debug.

Van TheKid

Paragon (1238)

11-09-2014, 13:10

Okay, this is weird. Like you suggested I've opened several other programs and then symrom it works I thought you could play the game in a window, but it actually restarts the msx and boots the game So since I don't think I'm gonna use this option very much, I can live with it

Van Prodatron

Paragon (1843)

11-09-2014, 14:01

TheKid wrote:

I thought you could play the game in a window

Unfortunately running virtual machines on the Z80 is not supported yet

@NYRRIKKI: Maybe you reserve some memory for loading the Roms in a wrong way?

Van TheKid

Paragon (1238)

11-09-2014, 17:38

Hi there, me again with some questions
- Is it correct that in symcommander the options View FIle, Edit File, Search and Compare directory don't function yet ? They are marked white.
- With the file associations I set notepad to view txt and ini. When double clicking a ini file it is opened. I would expect the same result when I select this file, and press the View or Edit buttons in the lower right, but they don't react.
- Is it possible to change the orange color of the dialogscreens in white ? And if so, where can I change this ?

Van edoz

Prophet (2482)

11-09-2014, 20:27

About symcommander. Yes those options are disabled. How knows if prodatron will make them available in future.
About notepad. Are you opening the symbos.ini file ? This is not possible as it is binary data...
in the control panel you can change colors.. But for main frames this is not supported in the current 2.1 release... But I know now almost for sure that this will be possible in the next release you can't wait I think...... as it would be amazing nice!

Van Prodatron

Paragon (1843)

11-09-2014, 20:49

SymCommander would view/edit files with its own tools or a linked one, like the original. This isn't implemented yet. At least the edit option should be there in the next version (it will probably use Notepad ). Regarding the viewer I would really like to implement something here, too. Let's see...
Oh yes, Edoz is right, SymbOS 3.0 will support alternative colours ("themes") for the dialogue screens!

Van TheKid

Paragon (1238)

12-09-2014, 07:54

Haha, cool, can't wait for 3.0
it's like prodatron says, I want the same behavior for those two buttons as double clicking a file. I understand that the edit button only is usefull for textbased files like ini or txt. But the view button could have a look at the file associations and the open the file according to it. So .sgx files with appsee, .rom with symrom ect.

Like I said before, overall I'm very impressed and I like the way you guys try to get as close to the original. Everytime I boot Symbos, I discover new things like when the appzilla icon changes colors when loading a page It also great to see how you guys respond to questions on this forum, thanx for that.

The thing I'm missing the most is some manuals about how to customize symbos. I've had this issue with .sgx files but that is covered now and I'm able to make some nice backgrounds. But I would also like to know, how can I make my own icons, fonts, .dox files and music files (a little piano would be nice too. appPiano.exe ).

Is it even possible to make those files as a user, can you convert windows .ico to symbos.icn ? Can you convert a rtf to dox. if I want to make a little user manual page in dox format about how to make .sgx files, can this be done in a user friendly way ?

Or are all these things possible in symbos version 3.0

Van edoz

Prophet (2482)

12-09-2014, 13:59

Yes.. the colors in the 3.0 will be very nice as you can see it in the screenshot created by prodatron.

Link

TheKid: Are you running it in OpenMSX with GFX9000 support ?

Van TheKid

Paragon (1238)

12-09-2014, 15:40

Yeah, those 16 colors do look very nice indeed
I'm running openmsx 0.10 with Panasonic FS-A1GT with ide (sunrise) and ram1mb extension without GFX9000 support. (never actually tried GFX9000 anywayz).

Van Manuel

Ascended (19469)

12-09-2014, 16:40

Note that if you use a recent development build, you can also use MegaFlashROM SCC+ SD for SymbOS in openMSX.

Van edoz

Prophet (2482)

12-09-2014, 17:31

Is it also possible to use the sunrise MP3 player in OpenMSX ? That would be cool!

Van Manuel

Ascended (19469)

12-09-2014, 18:43

It's not emulated.

Van edoz

Prophet (2482)

12-09-2014, 20:31

I just created a new video for Sym Video Player. To try if it was possible

Download VID file for Symbos

Van edoz

Prophet (2482)

19-09-2014, 14:51

I'm sorry to say.. but the last movie I created was not so good (it was a bit slow I found out). The Frame rate was to high as I tested it only with an 7 Mhz. MSX. So I changed the FPS and did the conversion to a smaller resolution and now it seems that it runs better on different machines.. I changed the video from above and I added 3 others in the new ZIP file.

You can download the correct one is this ZIP file. It contains

Download Here!

Van Maggoo

Paragon (1217)

19-09-2014, 23:23

@Edoz: I'm getting an error message when trying to open the zip file with the videos... saying the zip file is invalid.

Van Prodatron

Paragon (1843)

19-09-2014, 23:51

Seems, that it hasn't been uploaded completly

Van edoz

Prophet (2482)

20-09-2014, 08:59

Yes. it seems so. I think my web space is limited till 100 Mb. Seems to be full.
I uploaded it to an other location. I cannot change the link in the other post anymore. You can download it here:

Download Here!

Van edoz

Prophet (2482)

26-09-2014, 01:16

Hi All,

I'm working on the My Computer, explorer application.
Don't expect it soon as I have to do a lot .. and it cost a lot of time to do ..

I hope you like it ?