Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

Author Topic: Reaction vs MUI (as what concerns the API)  (Read 20203 times)

Description:

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline kamelito

Re: Reaction vs MUI (as what concerns the API)
« Reply #89 from previous page: May 11, 2012, 12:08:04 PM »
Maybe OpenStep should be ported to Amiga using Gnustep source code...

Kamel
 

Offline lsmart

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Join Date: Jun 2009
  • Posts: 433
    • Show only replies by lsmart
Re: Reaction vs MUI (as what concerns the API)
« Reply #90 on: May 11, 2012, 05:25:15 PM »
Quote from: kamelito;692726
Maybe OpenStep should be ported to Amiga using Gnustep source code...
This may have been a good idea in 1999, but as it turns out open source hasn`t really caught on in the Mac world and today you would have to ask yourself if there is more than one person that would use it. GNUSTEP itself is a project that is moving slowly and isn't really used much. Porting it to AmigaOS would not make Amiga developers switch API and no new developers will gain interest.
While Objective-C is a great language, the Cocoa Toolkit is evolving and rivals the Java class libraries in complexity and feature creep. It is beyond the might of a single coder to maintain a compatible implementation. Furthermore a lot of the stuff that was added, when Apple bought NeXT is more demanding in terms of performance. Take UAE on MacOS: it has a significant lower frame rate than it's windows counterpart on the same machine. NeXT computers were quite snappy for business use but they were speced with a high-end 68030 at the least. And a NeXT Station did not even do double buffering in games or screensavers to avoid slow movement. Mind we are talking about 4 grey tones in 1024x1024pixels - not truecolor! I guess MUI is significantly faster than GNUSTEP on the same hardware.

If you want to build a great toolkit that will run on an Amiga 1200 you'd better code it in 68k assembly language and limit configurability to fonts and colors only. Then you can do really amazing dynamic interfaces without allocating half of your memory for stack.

 If what you need is just what you see in something like Cygnus ED, you can safely stick to the regular Boobsie Gadtools and forget about the gradients and fancy list/table-gadgets of MUI. At least I won`t miss it.

Heck, in my day  a list/table was a sequence of characters. Why do people now want a whole spreadsheet application in a window that will just list the tracks of an audio-CD?
 

Offline golem

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Join Date: May 2002
  • Posts: 430
    • Show only replies by golem
Re: Reaction vs MUI (as what concerns the API)
« Reply #91 on: May 11, 2012, 05:56:53 PM »
Just from a user and cosmetic point of view; I like the Thick sliders you can do with OS3.9 Reaction apps. I really like that 3D type look. Can MUI apps do the same?
                                                             
A1200 desktop, Blizzard 1260, OS3.9BB2, Indivision Mk II, SCSI Jaz, Ethernet
A1200 desktop, Blizzard 1230, OS3.1, Ethernet
A500, OS1.3
 

Offline kamelito

Re: Reaction vs MUI (as what concerns the API)
« Reply #92 on: May 11, 2012, 08:05:09 PM »
Well I suppose that Cocotron got better than GNUStep in less time.  Kamel http://www.cocotron.org/  
Quote from: lsmart;692757
This may have been a good idea in 1999, but as it turns out open source hasn`t really caught on in the Mac world and today you would have to ask yourself if there is more than one person that would use it. GNUSTEP itself is a project that is moving slowly and isn't really used much. Porting it to AmigaOS would not make Amiga developers switch API and no new developers will gain interest.
While Objective-C is a great language, the Cocoa Toolkit is evolving and rivals the Java class libraries in complexity and feature creep. It is beyond the might of a single coder to maintain a compatible implementation. Furthermore a lot of the stuff that was added, when Apple bought NeXT is more demanding in terms of performance. Take UAE on MacOS: it has a significant lower frame rate than it's windows counterpart on the same machine. NeXT computers were quite snappy for business use but they were speced with a high-end 68030 at the least. And a NeXT Station did not even do double buffering in games or screensavers to avoid slow movement. Mind we are talking about 4 grey tones in 1024x1024pixels - not truecolor! I guess MUI is significantly faster than GNUSTEP on the same hardware.

If you want to build a great toolkit that will run on an Amiga 1200 you'd better code it in 68k assembly language and limit configurability to fonts and colors only. Then you can do really amazing dynamic interfaces without allocating half of your memory for stack.

 If what you need is just what you see in something like Cygnus ED, you can safely stick to the regular Boobsie Gadtools and forget about the gradients and fancy list/table-gadgets of MUI. At least I won`t miss it.

Heck, in my day  a list/table was a sequence of characters. Why do people now want a whole spreadsheet application in a window that will just list the tracks of an audio-CD?
 

Offline amigadave

  • Lifetime Member
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Join Date: Jul 2004
  • Posts: 3836
    • Show only replies by amigadave
    • http://www.EfficientByDesign.org
Re: Reaction vs MUI (as what concerns the API)
« Reply #93 on: September 08, 2012, 07:03:29 AM »
I haven't read all of this thread, so go ahead and shoot me if I post anything that has already been discussed.

From what little I have read, it appears that MUI is more modern (*) than Reaction or ClassAct.  Because some version of MUI is available on all, or almost all flavors of Amiga inspired platforms, or architectures, it makes more sense to use it for any programs which the author would like to port to other Amiga inspired platforms.

I am only just beginning to learn how to program on/for any flavor Amiga platform, so I am not educated about which is better and why.  It just seems to make more sense to use tools that are available on all the platforms you are interested in, common tools, so you don't have to convert your software from one set of tools to another, if/when you want to port your software from one platform to another.  If that common sense approach doesn't apply in this situation, please educate me on why this is not the case for programmers interested in writing software for AmigaOS1.x to 3.x, AmigaOS4.x, MorphOS3.x, and AROS (**).

(*) Probably both MUI and ReAction/ClassAct are outdated compared to the same type of tools used on mainstream systems.  This is just an assumption of mine, not based in any facts.

(**) I own and use all forms of the Amiga experience, and want all of them to succeed and prosper.

I am not implying that programming with Reaction or ClassAct is a bad idea, but if you have any plans to make your code portable to MorphOS in particular, where it is difficult, or much more time consuming to port a Reaction or ClassAct program and it would be so much easier to program it from the start with MUI, then I would opt for using MUI.

Now for the stumbling block that everyone outside the loop of Development Team insiders may know, but the rest of us plain Amiga, AmigaOne, AROS, & MorphOS users probably don't know.........

Why doesn't the author of MUI create, or allow a MUI4.0 version for AmigaOS4.x, or even AmigaOS3.x?  As far as I know, the last version of MUI for AmigaOS3.x is the 3.8 version, for AmigaOS4.1.5, the last, or highest version of MUI is MUI3.9, but for MorphOS3.1, MUI4.0 has been available for years.

AmigaOS4.1.5 developers want to have MUI4.0 and any versions that come after that, but the hint I got from a reliable source told me that MUI4.0 is not available for AmigaOS4.1.5 for unknown reasons.

This makes it look like some kind of political reason between the author of MUI and the management, or ownership of AmigaOS4.1.5.  I have no idea what is behind these reasons, or what the reasons are.  I don't need to know and don't want to know, but I sure would like what ever parties are preventing MUI4.0 and beyond from being spread to every Amiga and Amiga-Like platform available, to get together and work out what ever past differences they have, so Amiga programmers can use the same, latest version of MUI on any Amiga, or Amiga-Like (hate that term) system they want to use, or program for.

I know that I am sticking my neck out to get my head chopped off for bringing this subject up, and maybe I am just ignorant about something that everyone else knows about already.  Or this subject is Taboo and that is why I have never seen anyone else ask the question "Why can't we get MUI4.0 for AmigaOS4.1.5, or AmigaOS3.9, or AROS (maybe AROS has MUI4.0 and I just don't know it)?  Maybe there isn't any problem between the author of MUI and the owners, or management of AmigaOS4.x, and there is some other logical reason why we have had MUI4.0 for MorphOS for years and AmigaOS4.1.5 only has MUI3.9.

Although I do not agree with the author of MUI stopping support for AmigaOS3.x, I can understand that he might want to use his limited spare programming time on just one platform, or architecture, and if he decided to support a Next Gen PPC platform, he might wish to stop further maintenance and improvements for the 68k Amiga computers.  I don't understand why he wouldn't write MUI4.0 for both AmigaOS4.1 and MorphOS3.1, since they are both PPC Next Gen. Amiga computer platforms and are very similar in many ways.

Now let me find my flameproof suit and prepare for the attacks on my stupid questions, and/or suggestions.
How are you helping the Amiga community? :)
 

Offline krashan

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Join Date: Jan 2003
  • Posts: 247
  • Country: pl
  • Thanked: 1 times
  • Gender: Male
  • Hardware designer and programmer
    • Show only replies by krashan
    • Personal homepage
Re: Reaction vs MUI (as what concerns the API)
« Reply #94 on: September 08, 2012, 08:14:48 AM »
When we talk about AROS, it has its own MUI clone named Zune. Nothing stops AROS developers to upgrade Zune to be compatible with MUI 4, the same way nothing stopped them to make it compatible with 3.8.

Offline wawrzon

Re: Reaction vs MUI (as what concerns the API)
« Reply #95 on: September 08, 2012, 10:58:28 AM »
krashan, can i contact you because of remaining problem of digibooster3 beta under aros68k. perhaps yet another zune bug. id like to know what could cause that.
 

Offline wawrzon

Re: Reaction vs MUI (as what concerns the API)
« Reply #96 on: September 08, 2012, 11:09:38 AM »
Quote from: amigadave;707131


Why doesn't the author of MUI create, or allow a MUI4.0 version for AmigaOS4.x, or even AmigaOS3.x?  As far as I know, the last version of MUI for AmigaOS3.x is the 3.8 version, for AmigaOS4.1.5, the last, or highest version of MUI is MUI3.9, but for MorphOS3.1, MUI4.0 has been available for years.

AmigaOS4.1.5 developers want to have MUI4.0 and any versions that come after that, but the hint I got from a reliable source told me that MUI4.0 is not available for AmigaOS4.1.5 for unknown reasons.

This makes it look like some kind of political reason between the author of MUI and the management, or ownership of AmigaOS4.1.5.  I have no idea what is behind these reasons, or what the reasons are.  I don't need to know and don't want to know, but I sure would like what ever parties are preventing MUI4.0 and beyond from being spread to every Amiga and Amiga-Like platform available, to get together and work out what ever past differences they have, so Amiga programmers can use the same, latest version of MUI on any Amiga, or Amiga-Like (hate that term) system they want to use, or program for.

I know that I am sticking my neck out to get my head chopped off for bringing this subject up, and maybe I am just ignorant about something that everyone else knows about already.  Or this subject is Taboo and that is why I have never seen anyone else ask the question "Why can't we get MUI4.0 for AmigaOS4.1.5, or AmigaOS3.9, or AROS (maybe AROS has MUI4.0 and I just don't know it)?  Maybe there isn't any problem between the author of MUI and the owners, or management of AmigaOS4.x, and there is some other logical reason why we have had MUI4.0 for MorphOS for years and AmigaOS4.1.5 only has MUI3.9.

Although I do not agree with the author of MUI stopping support for AmigaOS3.x, I can understand that he might want to use his limited spare programming time on just one platform, or architecture, and if he decided to support a Next Gen PPC platform, he might wish to stop further maintenance and improvements for the 68k Amiga computers.  I don't understand why he wouldn't write MUI4.0 for both AmigaOS4.1 and MorphOS3.1, since they are both PPC Next Gen. Amiga computer platforms and are very similar in many ways.

Now let me find my flameproof suit and prepare for the attacks on my stupid questions, and/or suggestions.


same reason why os4 developers do not allow for fixing warp3d on 68k. luckily they have not much to offer anyway, as far as im concerned, they can keep all their code to themselves, nothing essential gets lost that way.

the only ground to have some sort of cooperation upon, beyond what parts us, is and ever was aros. it works or will soon work on almost every hardware we expect to have supported inclusive x86, 68k, ppc like sams and likely mini-macs at some point. perhaps even x1k, as some developers were willing to get one. whoever commits to aros commits to the whole. the rest everybody has to answer for himself. thats it.
 

Offline takemehomegrandma

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Join Date: Oct 2002
  • Posts: 2990
    • Show only replies by takemehomegrandma
Re: Reaction vs MUI (as what concerns the API)
« Reply #97 on: September 08, 2012, 12:44:06 PM »
@amigadave

Back around when Amiga officially died, there were an effort made to create a new system to evolve the Amiga independently of Commodore/Escom/Gateway/Etc. The people behind this effort were many of those who made/kept Amiga really useful during the later part of its life time, by giving it PowerPC/PowerUP, retargetable graphics, retargetable audio, USB, a modern GUI environment, etc, etc, etc. Developers were hired, stuff were licensed/bought, and the result was MorphOS (and the Pegasos) which built on all the best Amiga standards and technologies available, and continued evolving from that.

When the Linux game porting company Hyperion a few years later was about to give their shot of doing the same thing, they essentially had to settle with much of the leftovers stuff that MorphOS hadn't already snatched. To remedy this, they started massive FUD campaigns against MorphOS and its technologies to rally their followers, and MUI has always been one of the targets for this. You even see examples of the results from this in this very thread. They (both OS4 core developers (like the Friedens) and others) have made it perfectly clear what they think about MUI over the years, there can be no misinterpretations. To put it mildly, they don't want it, they don't need it, and Reaction is so much better so *this* is what OS4 is using.

MUI was never free, money has been invested by Genesi/MorphOS into MUI development and to have it in MorphOS, it's being developed by the MorphOS team, Stefan Stuntz is considered a core MorphOS developer, MUI is tightly integrated as a central core component in MorphOS, nothing like the third party add-on it was back in the days. MUI4 is one of many clear and obvious competitive advantages of MorphOS, one of many easily perceived reasons to use MorphOS instead of OS4. Anyone persisting in using OS4 (for whatever reason) must learn to live with the limitations of the OS4 standards and technologies (after all, those technologies and standards are the reasons you choose it in the first place, right?), anyone wanting the many benefits of MorphOS should simply start using MorphOS, it's as simple as that!


@Krashan
Quote
nothing stopped them to make it compatible with 3.8.


I didn't know that it was? In full?

Edit:

I found this page: http://aros.sourceforge.net/introduction/status/zune.php
« Last Edit: September 08, 2012, 01:24:50 PM by takemehomegrandma »
MorphOS is Amiga done right! :)
 

Offline krashan

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Join Date: Jan 2003
  • Posts: 247
  • Country: pl
  • Thanked: 1 times
  • Gender: Male
  • Hardware designer and programmer
    • Show only replies by krashan
    • Personal homepage
Re: Reaction vs MUI (as what concerns the API)
« Reply #98 on: September 08, 2012, 06:15:44 PM »
@wawrzon

Sent you a PM, but I'm not sure it worked. I've got a message the PM was sent, but do not have it in "sent" folder. Simply write to krashan at teleinfo pb edu pl, or use Facebook if you find it convenient.