ScuzzBlog: Diaries February 2021 Entry 11th February 2021: Post 1: DOpus IV - What is Directory Opus? DOpus IV - What is Directory Opus? The theory behind Directory Opus is quite simple. On the screen there are two windows. These are called Directory Windows. You can read a directory into each of these from any device accessible by the Amiga.You can select files and/or directories in either of these windows, then manipulate them almost any way you like. Selected entries can be copied to the opposite window, deleted or renamed; text files can be read, picture files can be viewed, and sound files can be heard. Directory Opus offers much more than these 'bare bones' features ..... In truth Directory Opus is a replacement for your Workbench window based interface. Once into the Workbench and successfully into DOpus you really need nothing else other than the installed software. It will manage all your needs and permit the editing of tooltypes and system scripts plus mount files and configurations. You can study the contents of any drawer and interrogate the files including by default all those pesky hidden files. It lets you archive, compress and de-crunch files without leaving DOpus. Drawers can be created, renamed and copied together with moving and copying associated 'info' files. For me there is no better file manager than DOpus simply cus it offers endless possibilities in terms of customisation. You can task so many buttons and menus to undertake a multitude of operations and basically replace your Workbench from a single easy to use interface. If you don't have DOpus then get it straight away. If you don't know how to use DOpus then learn. It really is so important to an Amigan. DOpus IV - What is Directory Opus? The DOpus companion disks. Making a LHA creation tool Setting up drive buttons. I assume you have DOpus set up on the Amiga DOpus 4 with the drives bottom left From the menu click the 'Configure' selection Next select Drives These are your bank of five drives Only one shows from the main window To scroll through them you right click More on that in a while. I will now check the 'scuzz' drive Clicking 'scuzz' opens this next window Clicking the magnifying glass opens the VOLUME or DRIVE window showing the mounted drives on the computer. This can be very useful when checking to see what drives are mounted I Click Work and then find scuzz and click that Clicking Work and then scuzz gives us the Work:scuzz/ path which is correct The search tool will place the directory path into the listing. This then becomes the directory for that button. The very upper area has a name that you can edit to suit what ever you want. The right hand colours are for the button colour and the left the colour of the text to be used. You must press 'RETURN' when you have edited the text for it to appear in the top box I close the previous window and save if I am happy Now when I click the 'scuzz' button it opens that directory or drawer in the pane selected. Either of the left or right panes can be selected The Drive selection list is obtained by right clicking any of the bottom left buttons This will scroll through all five banks of drive buttons until you find the one you want Or you can go to the Configuration menu again and select to have the button banks as a slider Now you have a slider to scroll through Drives Note that the config files for DOPus are in the DOPUS 'S' drawer. If you look you will see other configs that I have acquired and downloaded If you go on the Aminet site there are numerous configs that you can try out. Be careful though to save your original. You can load configs from the main interface, but they will become the main DOpus config if you choose to save as such. Let's see if you have understood what I did Lets change b494 to RAM We click the magnifying glass to find RAM or RAM disk Don't forget to make sure you use the search functions to find the exact directory you want Next edit the words to say RAM and edit the colours and font text if you choose When you have edited the wording for the button don't forget to hit return so it appears in the top area. You can then change the colours etc So with the button now set for RAM you can say access directory T and place in right pane and copy, extract, etc into RAM say from files you have in the left pane. This is useful if you have LHA files in Work say and want to extract into RAM before moving them or using them You will see buttons for Arc Ext, unaARChive and LHA that I can explain in another tutorial for archiving purposes. Also note that buttons have a folded corner This gives a single button two functions. The left click activates one and the right click the one that is hidden The hidden buttons can be viewed from the Configuration menu under Buttons and is the second bank shown If you have copied your DOpus disk and are being prompted for the floppy each time you use it, then you need to create an ASSIGN in your user-startup as I explained in a previous tutorial DOPus 4 was released on CU Amiga cover disk 100 and I think this can be downloaded from the web Hope that helps. Next time I will set up some buttons and show how to edit the main drop down menu Check out the series in CUAmiga for the guide on how to use DOpus. Dont forget to check out Aminet for all those useful guides , configerations and tools. JUST CLICK THIS LINK

If you can only see this CONTENT window
then click the image above for the full site

Last updated 11th February 2021

Chandraise Kingdom

Keep the Faith
scuzzscink 2021