[Coco] Full GUI DriveWire 4 beta

[Robert Gault]

Aaron Wolfe wrote:
> Hi CoCoNuts,
>
> I've got a new version of DW4 ready.  The goal of this version is that
> everything can be done via the GUI from initial configuration to
> regular operation and even some fairly exotic configurations.
>
> If you've got a 32 bit Windows machine and could take the time to give
> it a whirl, I'd really appreciate bug reports.  I'll package things up
> for additional platforms soon, but wanted to try and slay any show
> stopping bugs before going through that process.
>
> The software is here:
> https://sites.google.com/site/drivewire4/beta/dw4beta-3.9.83_win32.zip
>
> Unzip, double click "GO.cmd", and cross your fingers :)  A friendly
> GUI wizard should pop up and walk you through a few initial
> configuration items, then the software should be ready to use.  That's
> the theory at least...  bug reports, feedback and suggestions are
> welcome.
>
> -Aaron
>

Aaron,

I downloaded the zip file and installed it on a WinXP SP3 machine that already 
had Java installed. Double clicking on GO.cmd started everything up with the 
minor inconvenience of WinXP asking if I wanted to UnBlock the Java app.
I was able to easily mount the enclosed dw4_extras.dsk in the server gui and 
read the contents from my Coco3 running NitrOS-9 or the DW-ROM used with DW3.

The gui is almost as easy to use as the DW3 gui. There are many more options and 
the command line area (while currently undocumented) must provide even more 
flexibility over DW3.
The documentation on Sourceforge is clearly in the early stages. It is not 
complete enough for me to understand the full potential of DW4. A great help 
would be specific examples to demonstrate each capability of DW4.

I suspect that users who only want to connect their Coco to their own PC should 
stick to DW3. If you want to connect your Coco to a Drivewire server over the 
Internet, then DW4 is for you.
At first glance, I don't see any advantage of DW4 over DW3 for non-Internet use. 
That's probably the result of the preliminary documentation.

Hopefully these comments are not too much of a disappointment. The software did 
run immediately without problems. Just consider my lack of enthusiasm due to me 
being clueless. :)

Robert