Beta 6.0 feedback thread

[David]

Now that some of you have tried it, what is your impression?
Is there something can be improved, or is it fine the way it is?

For reference, I include the list of changes:

Visual changes
-> Got rid of the dissolve APPS menu effect when starting
-> The popup-bar indicating LCD contrast has been removed, since I thought it was unnecessary.
-> A black (empty) battery icon now means your batts are good.
-> Replaced the old App1 logo with Sir Robin's logo.
-> A scrollbar has been added to the programs list.
-> Added the opportunity to display free memory as a percentage, rather than bytes.
Settings
-> Added a "use failsafe LCD delay" option. Maybe it will help those who have crappy LCD drivers, I don't know.
-> An options menu has been created, from where you can alter the settings.
Main screen
-> Added shortcut keys to page up/down/home/end of programs list.
-> Program information will become updated first when you release the up/down key. This speeds up the browsing.
-> Program sorter has been rewritten, and now runs @ 15 Mhz on compatible calcs. I tested NimbusOS with 250 progs on a TI-83 Plus, and the sorting speed was still acceptable
Safeguards
-> You will be asked to confirm, when archiving under low battery conditions.
-> Program writeback becomes automatically disabled when batts are low.
-> Installed put-away notification for asm programs. This means APD, pressing 2nd+quit/off or linkport activity during a bcall GetKey, will not cause memleaks anymore.
-> The error handler for basic progs has been improved. Now it displays the error string as returned from TI-OS, along with the progname in which the error occured, and also the statement that triggered the event.

[Rezek]

1- Don't show 'Unknown' programs! At first glance this seems like a good idea, but it shows external program levels, programs such as desdata, etc...
2- Expanding on that, perhaps allow the user to enter in from the GUI new program types, with an offset of where the description is at and where to start executing the program? Going on a tangent here...
3- In an options menu, 'Enter' and '2nd' should be inter-changable! This took me a sec to figure out.
4- 'Alpha' should go to the options menu

[David]

[DarkerLine]

My suggestions:
-Basic programs should be detected as such when they start with :: but don't have a description. In fact, maybe detecting all Basic programs should be an option.
-NimbusOS also doesn't detect if something was stored in Ans on the last line of the program (in which case, it is displayed instead of Done). Some of my programs, at least, output answers that way, so detecting this would be helpful.
-Maybe one of the options would be to wait for a keypress after Basic programs are finished running? I know I can't read output in the few milliseconds that "press any key" flashes.
-allow the user to type in an amount for the APD delay, instead of increments of 15 seconds.
-in Basic program descriptions, colons don't seem to be detected as such, but are perceived as newlines. For example, a description of "TETRIS:THE GAME" would appear as TETRIS
-the "loading..." text when loading an assembly program isn't centered and isn't uppercase. It also displays on the homescreen after exiting from NimbusOS.
-maybe keys should be more MirageOS-compatible? (Mode to exit, alpha for otpions, etc.) Even better would be the ability to change the keys.

[Rezek]

[DarkerLine]

That's why I was suggesting making it an option, so that you could turn it off and not see the subroutines.

[leofox]

My basic formula programs dont work with Nimbus because they use Ans on the last line to display the result. You might want to fix that.

Also, the pause at the end of the prog doesnt seem long enough. Maybe you can make it so that it stays paused until a key is pressed?

[David]

[katmaster]

where do we sign up to try it :biggrin:

[bananaman]

I haven't found any bugs so far, but I definately agree with the basic programs not being shown unless you want them too.
I suggest to make the choice of showing all basic programs, only ones starting with :: and showing none.
I'm not sure why, this might be a bug but the same thing happened with wizards on my calc, sometimes the far left 5 or 6 pixels don't change when the screen gets scrolled and all the titles of games get messed up. I have an 84+ silver. OS v. original on calc.

[CompWiz]

I agree about the Basic programs not being shown(unless you enable some option) and also no-shell assembly programs. I mean, on my calc, all I have is fakeres3, some game levels, and a few of those blue screen progs. I don't really ever run those from a shell anyway(fakeres3 won't work from it anyway).

Also, just curious why you don't use [MODE] as a quit button.

bananaman: try enabling safe lcd delay from the settings menu, it gets rid of some of the wierd visual bugs. (at least on the 84+SE)

[bananaman]

I looked at the bug topic and my error has been detected by one other 84+ user, it's exactly the same as the first post in that topic.

[CompWiz]

If all 84+SE users have a problem with the display unless the option to use a safe LCD delay is selected, why don't you have NimbusOS automatically enable the LCD setting if the calc is an 84+SE.

[bananaman]

It doesn't matter if you have LCD safety set. It always does it. No matter what your settings are.
I tinkered around more and it only happens when moving the selector and the screen doesn't scroll.

[David]

[David]

[chipmaster]

Plus the LCD safe thing does not fix the problem.

[CompWiz]

Try This program. It fixes the lcd driver settings on 84+, 84+SE, and 83+SE. The difference is noticible in some programs.

[chipmaster]

I tried that and I still am noticing a problem. The only difference I notice after running that program is that the leftmost portion of the screen takes a little while to appear on startup, but the affect I previously described still happens

[CompWiz]

David: Do you plan to ever support MirageOS programs?