Opus Magellan 2

by Neil Bothwick

(from Amiga Format, UK, Issue 121, March 1999)

 Amiga file managers have been around for almost as long as the Amiga, getting more powerful with each new release. From the humble beginnings of programs like Dux and DirUtil grew such classics as SID2 and Directory Opus 4. All of these shared the same basic layout of two file windows and a bank of buttons.

As they grew in power they gained file recognition and the ability to view files or run programs by double-clicking them. At the same time the Amiga's own file manager, Workbench, was gaining features and power. With hindsight, it was inevitable that someone would work to combine the two into a single, powerful GUI with the best features of both Workbench and the file managers. That's what happened a few years ago with Directory Opus 5 and, after several upgrades, Opus Magellan II adds even more features, power and speed to Workbench.

Magellan II, like its predecessor, is a full Workbench replacement. Rather than running it as a separate program on its own screen, and switching to it whenever you need to copy, delete or view files, it forms an integral part of the familiar Workbench environment, adding its power and ease of use to all Workbench operations.

Anatomy of Magellan 2

A customised Opus Workbench. The backdrop is picked at random on each reboot, the toolbar at the top is a button bank to launch programs. Just below this on the right are three start menus. The two windows near the top are in Icon and Icon Action modes, below these are two listers, copying files from Aminet to hard drive. The bottom window is the filetype editor, configuring a Picture filetype. The icon position preferences are set to display disk icons down the left side of the screen and AppIcons along the bottom.

Installation

Magellan II is available as an update to the previous versions, first time buyers get a set of Opus 5.5 disks and the Magellan II update disk. They need to install 5.5 first and then update it to Magellan II. It's no big deal having to run two installers, but it would have been better if a single installer took care of the whole operation. I mentioned this to GP Software and the next run of
disks may have a single installer. To get the full power of the program you need to install it as a Workbench Replacement. This isn't as dramatic for your system as it sounds, all your standard Workbench files are left intact and you can still get into a standard Workbench by holding a shift key when booting, although you'll soon wonder why you ever wanted to.

First impressions

Rebooting after installation reveals a Workbench with very few apparent changes, but behind the scenes there is a lot more power waiting for you. An Opus lister can be displayed in one of three modes, Icon mode works just like Workbench and
is 100% compatible, but with several useful extras. Name mode shows a sorted listing of files and directories like other file managers have done, the difference is that you aren't restricted to two static windows but can open listers wherever and whenever you want. Double-click on the Workbench background to open a new lister, the default setup opens in name mode with a list of devices and assigns in the window, much faster than double-clicking through several drawers on Workbench. Although the default configuration has a bank of buttons for the usual copy, delete etc. functions, this is pretty redundant.
Name mode listers have a toolbar across the top of each lister covering the main functions, user-configurable of course, and a menu of other operations. Almost everything about a name mode lister is configurable, from the information listed for each file and the order they are listed in to the size, colour and placement of the lister. In addition to the default settings, you can have custom setups for specific directories.

The third display mode is Icon Action, this has an icon display like Workbench but with many of the features of Name mode, such as lister toolbars and menus. Drag and drop is fully supported for copying and moving files and, as with everything else, if you don't like the default actions you can change them. Unlike Workbench, Opus is fully multi-threaded, try copying a file from a floppy disk with Workbench and you'll have to wait for it to finish before you can use any other Workbench window, with Opus only the listers involved in the copy are affected all others continue to work.

Themes

I doubt many people still use a four colour, grey and blue Workbench, so it's good to know that Magellan users can customise most visual aspects of their Workbench. Separate background images for the Workbench, listers and requester are configurable, and Opus will pick a different random backdrop each time it starts if you wish. Sounds can also be attached to various events, and while the novelty of having a sample played every time you open or close a lister soon wears off, an audile warning of errors, or when long processes such as FTP file transfers are completed, is useful. New for Magellan II is the ability to save out a set of background, sound, font and colour settings as a Theme. These can be reloaded and changed without affecting other aspects on your setup. There is also an arexx script to convert existing Windows themes to the Opus format, now you can make your Workbench look like and sound like your favourite TV show, film, sport or whatever.

Filetypes and arexx

One of the most powerful features of Opus, further enhanced in Magellan, is its file type recognition. It comes with a large selection of pre-defined filetypes, new ones can be added and existing ones modified through its filetype editor. For each filetype you may define actions to be performed on double-click, control double-click, drag and drop and user functions. You may also define the default icon image to be used in Icon and Icon Action modes. In any of the display modes, a popup menu appears when you press the right mouse button of the file name or icon. This menu contains standard commands that you may add to for each filetype. For example, the double click action of the ILBM filetype is to show it with Opus' internal viewer, graphics card owners would probably change this to another viewer, and add menu items to load the image into PPaint, ImageFX, ImageStudio or all three.

Anything you can do with directly Opus can also be done through it's arexx interface. don't worry if you don't know arexx, there are many scripts already available to add features and power. The ArcDir script makes LhA and LZX archives behave as if they were directories. Double-clicking on an archive displays the contents in the lister and these can be copied, viewed or deleted like any other file, copying files into the lister adds them to the archive. Dragging an archive into another lister unpacks it into that lister with no need for scripts or buttons.

The World on your Workbench

The FTP module has been completely overhauled. Any FTP site can be opened in a lister as if it were a drive on your machine. There's no need for any special FTP commands and you can set the default behaviour for FTP listers as well as specific parameters for each site. The ability to copy entire directories, along with the option to only copy files newer than those in the destination window, makes updating a web site as easy as opening two listers, pressing the Select All button and the Copy button. Set a sound sample to play when FTP copies finish and you don't even have to wait to see when it finished. It is also possible to execute scripts on FTP events, such as taking your TCP stack offline when the copy is finished.

Buttons, menus and more

Opus supports button banks, but these are a far cry from the old text based buttons. Icons can be used for buttons, with added backgrounds, and each button may have as many actions as you wish. The first three handled by the mouse buttons and the rest by a popup menu. An action can be to run an Opus command on the current lister, start a program or open another lister. Start menus provide another easy way of running program. Each start menu can have up to three levels of options, providing a wide range of actions at the cost of very little Workbench space. User menus can be added to the Workbench title bar, as many as will fit, for each menu you may define as many options and sub options as will fit on your screen. This makes programs like ToolManager and ToolsDaemon unnecessary.

Is it worth it?

Opus Magellan is a powerful program, with a huge range of configuration options. This has a price in that to get the most from it requires some effort from the user to set it up to suit their own needs, as the saying goes "there's no gain without pain".

However, an initial setup that demonstrates more features would be a better starting point than the current one. If you want to just copy a file from A to B then this is not necessarily for you, it would be like using a Porsche to go to the supermarket. But if you want to improve the speed and efficiency of workbench in a way that suits your needs, this is the way to go.

The upgrade price from the previous version is a little higher than expected but
there's nothing to compare, on the Amiga or any other platform. The answer to the question has to be a definite yes.