MUI 4.0-2016R2 for AmigaOS4/PPC and AmigaOS3/m68k released

[eliyahu]

via amigaworld.net....

The MUI for AmigaOS development team is proud to announce the immediate release of version 4.0-2016R2 of the Magic User Interface for AmigaOS4/PPC and AmigaOS3/m68k.

Please find the release archives in our download section, at: download.muidev.de

Like all former releases a keyfile is required to enable all available settings. Old keyfiles from MUI 3.8 can be used without any restriction.

Please note that MUI4 for AmigaOS3/m68k is definitely targeted at powerful systems with a fast CPU and a fast graphic board. Although it is still possible to run this release on a real 68k machine an emulation like WinUAE is very highly recommended. Also colormapped screens with 256 colors at most are still supported, but MUI4 makes heavy use of fancy truecolor images and effects which cannot be provided on colormapped screens with the full range of possibilities.

[magnetic]

Awesome! Thank you so much. This is an underappreciated project in the amiga community. We are lucky to have MUI being actively developed.

[clint]

+1

[Dandy]

via amigaworld.net....

...
Like all former releases a keyfile is required to enable all available settings. Old keyfiles from MUI 3.8 can be used without any restriction.
...

Fine that old keyfiles work.
But where can one actually get a NEW keyfile nowadays?

Why can the "MUI for AmigaOS"-development team not generate and sell new keyfiles for their piece of work, if the rights owner to the old version does not answer to any contact attempts, not even by sending the keyfile after people payed the license fee (like here: http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?p=810306#post810306)?

Either remove the need for an old MUI keyfile from the new MUI v4, or generate/sell the keyfiles for it yourself!

I deem it 'higher nonsense' to offer a new, updated piece of software that requires license keys of an old and no longer supported version, that can't be bought anymore...

[polyp2000]

Serious Question :
Whats the point of MUI on OS4/PPC ?

What benefits does it really provide for NG AmigaOS. Back in the 3.x days MUI was needed to bring some shine and modernisations to the OS.

I've not used AOS 4 yet - but the screenshots I have seen have all been pretty swanky looking to me.

Nick

[kamelito]

MUI is not only about good looking windows but it's a framework to ease GUI development. It is then needed for some apps the biggest one being Odyssey.
If devs want to build multiplatform apps they use MUI as the official GUI framework for OS4 (Reaction) is not available elsewhere. (except AmigaOS 3.5 and up and I'm not sure it include all the latest OS4 classes)
Kamelito

[Dandy]

MUI is not only about good looking windows but it's a framework to ease GUI development.
...

AFAIR, you needed a license key to be able to use MUI 3.8 for GUI development.

Please tell me, where can new developers obtain a license key for MUI nowadays?

Stefan Stunz does not reply - even not if you bribe him with money.
And the "MUI for Amiga-OS"-developer team does not seem to be willing/allowed/able to generate and sell license keys for their own piece of work.

So, GUI development with MUI 4.0 is only meant for old developers, that already have a license key, right?

[Thomas]

Development is free. Only users need a keyfile if they want to unlock all the preferences. Otherwise MUI runs unlimited.

And MUI does not change the look of windows. It is *only* to ease GUI development. It may add some gadgets to the title bar of windows, but otherwise it does not change the look. It has its own buttons and control elements, though. So overall the MUI GUI might look better than other GUIs.

[cgutjahr]

Fine that old keyfiles work.
Why can the "MUI for AmigaOS"-development team not generate and sell new keyfiles for their piece of work

The "MUI for AmigaOS" team 'accidentally' released a version that did no longer require a keyfile. I don't think Mr. Stuntz is too keen on letting them handle registrations.

AFAIR, you needed a license key to be able to use MUI 3.8 for GUI development.

No, you only need a keyfile if you want to use MUI to its full extent, developing for it never was a problem.

You do have to pay licensing fees though, if you're selling a commercial application that requires MUI. That's why there's so few commercial releases using MUI (Drawstudio, Ibrowse...?) and lots of 'Shareware' releases.

I deem it 'higher nonsense' to offer a new, updated piece of software that requires license keys of an old and no longer supported version, that can't be bought anymore...

Agreed. Not to mention that AmigaOS has its very own GUI system which could use some attention aswell.

Jens and Thore are pushing MUI, because it benefits their cross-plattform approach (YAM...). For AmigaOS users (and, to a lesser extent, MorphOS and AROS people) this simply means that the amount of applications not properly adopted to OS4 (i.e. using Ringhio and application.library, OS4's support for translating codepages into the native ISO-8859 etc.) is going to increase.

It's like 1995/1996 all over again: no leadership, no strategy, no money - the obvious result is bedroom coders doing whatever they feel like doing.

[itix]

AFAIR, you needed a license key to be able to use MUI 3.8 for GUI development.

You don't need a license key to be able to use MUI for GUI development.

Long time ago, you needed a license to register custom MUI classes but this changed around MUI 3.0 or so.

Please tell me, where can new developers obtain a license key for MUI nowadays?

For class registration purposes developer should contact the MorphOS team. They allocate a tag space (this is not MUI key) a developer can use in custom classes. Somewhat detailed description and more than intent is required because the tag space is limited.

[kamelito]

Is this still valid?
http://www.sasg.com/mui/policies.html
Kamelito

[itix]

You do have to pay licensing fees though, if you're selling a commercial application that requires MUI. That's why there's so few commercial releases using MUI (Drawstudio, Ibrowse...?) and lots of 'Shareware' releases.

When I bought IBrowse 20 (!) years ago (heh) it came on two floppies (another heh). On the first disk was IBrowse 1.0 and on second shareware version of MUI 3.0 without a license key. I dont know if they paid something to Stuntzi to distribute shareware MUI but I doubt it (*). Bigger problem was that you had to ship MUI thus increasing costs and complicating install. Impractical in the world of 880K floppies.

Another thing is that it is easier to adopt old program to use ClassAct than MUI due to their different philosophy. However...

* Or maybe they did (see Kamelito's link).

Agreed. Not to mention that AmigaOS has its very own GUI system which could use some attention aswell.

It should be blown away and replaced with new class set.

RA/CA classes work surprisingly well and are quite feature rich for its time. But when developer is using CA he has to write tons of glue code to get simple things working together. It is also suffering from lack of class hierarchy and inconsistent notification system.

tl;dr CA/RA issues are not so much in the user side but its developer interface need streamlining.

Jens and Thore are pushing MUI, because it benefits their cross-plattform approach (YAM...). For AmigaOS users (and, to a lesser extent, MorphOS and AROS people) this simply means that the amount of applications not properly adopted to OS4 (i.e. using Ringhio and application.library, OS4's support for translating codepages into the native ISO-8859 etc.) is going to increase.

I think it is moot point.

The cross platform approach does not prevent using vendor specific extensions. YAM can use Ringhio and OS4 codepage translations when compiled to OS4 target, and it could use MagicBeacon and charsets.library on MorphOS, for example.

And there is multiplatform codesets.library that takes an advantage of some/all OS4 and MorphOS codepage translations.

It's like 1995/1996 all over again: no leadership, no strategy, no money - the obvious result is bedroom coders doing whatever they feel like doing.

Remember when computing was fun ;^)

[cgutjahr]

tl;dr CA/RA issues are not so much in the user side but its developer interface need streamlining.

Like I said, "it needs work". A priority for both the dev team and the users should be the/a native GUI system. What that would be, what it would look like etc. is up for debate - the only thing that's certain is that it can never be MUI, as MUI's development is controlled by the main competitor.

The cross platform approach does not prevent using vendor specific extensions.

Like Reaction?

And there is multiplatform codesets.library that takes an advantage of some/all OS4 and MorphOS codepage translations.

And if one of those systems gets actual UTF support, YAM users will be left behind... Same goes for a new scripting interface, embedded HTML, PDF or video rendering, etc. I remember a MorphOS only SimpleMail fork created for pretty much that reason.

My point is: the complete list of all noteworthy cross-plattform Amiga applications looks like this: YAM and Odyssey - with the latter's development slowing down to a crawl, now that Fab abandoned it. There was never a better time to just forgot about compatibility with other Amiga solutions, simply because all Amiga solutions are pretty much dead as far as application development is concerned. If one of the solutions will ever get in better shape again - cross-platform applications will automatically fall behind.

Remember when computing was fun ;^)

Lol, good point. At least we still had BBS meetings back then, and actual news to dicsuss at these meetings.