No need for lot of drive icons on Desktop with this

[ParanoidLittleMan]

I had some good idea how to solve easy access to lot of drives (partitions) on Desktop without having icons for all them.

 

As may see, it started as usual with icons for A-C, when there is hard disk/Flash card connected. TOS is btw. improved 1.04, and this is latest feature what I added.   To select some other partition/drive user needs only to hold down drive letter - usually A-P, and click on drive icon. Then it will turn to that drive icon, and can open it, do usual operations as reading some text, copy files, starting SW ...

This is mod of TOS code, so needs changing of TOS ROMs with programmed EPROMs .

So far did only TOS 1.04 UK. Will be not hard to add to other lang. 1.04 TOSes. Plan to do this with 1.62 too, but it will need some time, because AES code is different (no Line-A emulator) even if Desktop is functionally same.  And maybe with 2.06 too .

More details will be next days on my WEBpages ...

[mikro]

Wouldn't be easier just adding keyboard shortcuts as per TOS 2.x? I.e. ALT+drive letter = open new window, CTRL+drive letter = update the current one. 

Edited July 31, 2022 by mikro

[ParanoidLittleMan]

9 hours ago, mikro said:

Wouldn't be easier just adding keyboard shortcuts as per TOS 2.x? I.e. ALT+drive letter = open new window, CTRL+drive letter = update the current one. 

It would be harder to implement, and longer code - free space in i1.04 is now very limited.

And more important is that what 2.06 does - when updating current one with different drive content , it does not change icon on Desktop.

It remains same, so later can not open desired drive with just doubleclick . The goal is to have those drive icons on Desktop with which will work/play in current session.

[ParanoidLittleMan]

And here is video of most likely final version - since iTOS by PP supports up to 30 partitions we are short with drive letters. And space on Desktop to show all them, even in medium res. Actually, there is limit of max 25 logical drive icons what Desktop supports. So, options for simple changing of drive letter of icon is really useful.

This is with iTOS 1.62 .  Since can not enter some special characters with single key press, there is way to advance drive letter with + on NumPad, and of course to lower with - there.