Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Software Issues and Discussion => Topic started by: star1 on March 29, 2003, 08:54:47 AM
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I was wondering what the Gui of os4 is going to be,
will it be purley MUI or will it have it's own gui which is still in the making.
Disregarding OS4 technical features, the gui an integral part of an os. I feel Amiga os lacks good looking GUI!!
I have looked at the screen shots of os 4 and they suck big time!!!
Anybody out there know anythig?? :-)
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Don't expect big changes from OS3.x. The new AOS4 is basically a port to the new PPC hardware. Although there are some welcome new features, most of it is what we have known for years. Once it gets out in the field and people start to pay money to Hyperion, it might become worth their while to put some more work into it. But to start with, their brief was to port the mish-mash of OS3 to PPC.
tony
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I for sure know that the look of OS4 is amazing and configurable.Nothing like plain OS3.x.
:-D
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The screenshots are only to show what can be done, and what can be customised. Amiga.inc have said that these aren`t how it will look, as they haven`t released the standard OS4 look yet. It will be a bit MUI like in that it will be very customisable, but not based on MUI, though it will still be used for programs which need it.
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Check out http://os.amiga.com/os4/ (http://os.amiga.com/os4/) it has the feature list and screenshots showing the configurability of the interface.
JS
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Coder's sick brains must have created those screenshots. Ugly fonts, , ugly textures, ugly colors and ugly icons :-)
Of course it was only for showing features...
Maybe there should be a place on amiga.org where you can upload and download suitable textures and background images?
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@Hooligan_DCS
Yes thats what Fleecy said at the WOASE. Well he didn`t call them sick :-)
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Maybe there should be a place on amiga.org where you can upload and download suitable textures and background images?
Everything in time. There is no reason yet (no AOS4.0), but that is a great idea!
One of my friends was commenting how ugly all that stuff looks, and how winXP looks superior comparing to new AOS MUI, and I didn't want to argue, there is no point. I'm sure that a lot of people will contribute with their own graphical solutions and there will be a lot of skins to DL. Still, if he's checking amiga.com to see what is going on there, maybe that is not too bad after all ;) I'm just waiting to see what will happen when M$ release their TCPA platform. There will be a lot of ppl disabled to do things which they used to do. If there is no option for MP3's or DivX movies, they will search for something else (some other os/platform). Not to mention that on TCPA platform user dont have root access, which means no privacy. I just hope when all that starts to happen, Amiga will have new OS with all must have applications, office, at least mozilla or opera browser, vector and bitmap drawing software, video editing tools, and all other little gadgets that are existing on all other platforms. And games, of course. New games. ;)
regards
levelLORD
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The gui framework used will be Reaction. MUI is there for backwards compatibility, we encourage people to use Reaction, though.
The term "good-looking GUI" is enough for some people to start a Jihad. I can tell you that the screenshots seen so far are not going to be the default look (yes, we heard the thing about the colors over and over - but you'll agree that the colors was something that could be changed in the 1.2 preferences already).
A lot of stuff was changed in Intuition under the hood, but also a lot was done to improve the looks and make it customizable. You will not be able to customize every aspect of the GUI with OS 4.0, but things will be added later with 4.1 and 4.2. However, you will be able to change a lot without going for patches - the functionality of VisualPrefs and Birdie are now part of Intuition.
Just to prevent people coming up with the rumour that intuition V50 is based on Birdie, I am talking about functionality not code. You'd think that it wouldn't be required to explicitly say something like that, but after hearing some of the rumours coursing around I feel inclined to point this out.
Having said this, I can already vividly imagine the comments about the new Intuition default look. If you ask ten people about how a good looking GUI should look like, you will get at least 12 different answers. :-D
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Hooligan_DCS wrote:
Coder's sick brains must have created those screenshots. Ugly fonts, , ugly textures, ugly colors and ugly icons :-)
Well, fortunately colors and fonts can be changed since quite some time...
Of course it was only for showing features...
Indeed. It was there to show to what degree the look can be changed. Taste is obviously quite diverse, and I am glad about that :-)
Maybe there should be a place on amiga.org where you can upload and download suitable textures and background images?
What about Aminet?
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Having said this, I can already vividly imagine the comments about the new Intuition default look. If you ask ten people about how a good looking GUI should look like, you will get at least 12 different answers.
Too true. What one man may call subtle, another calls boring. What one man calls exciting another calls loud.
Still, we've all seen the variety of looks available to users of OS3.x with all the hacks and patches available now. With that kind of scope available without having to use patches should enable even the most fussy of users to get the most comfortable of looks to suit them.
Suit you Sir?
-john
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Having said this, I can already vividly imagine the comments about the new Intuition default look. If you ask ten people about how a good looking GUI should look like, you will get at least 12 different answers.
That is true. We had a comparison between friends and the best ones were always our own ones. Even the one with AGA 256 coloured 640x512 hires-laced man said he has the best looking OS of us all :-)
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Ami603 wrote:
I for sure know that the look of OS4 is amazing and configurable.Nothing like plain OS3.x.
:-D
I agree with you Ami603 :-)
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What about Aminet?
The only thing with Aminet is that people are free to put up thier own descriptions, which can make finding somethings diffacult. Having a website dedicated to textures and the like would be a nice idea... hmmm...
Hehe, how about a website hosted in AREXX on an AmigaONE using OS4 sharing out custimzations for the OS4 GUI? May have to look into that :-)
JS
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jumpship wrote:
What about Aminet?
The only thing with Aminet is that people are free to put up thier own descriptions, which can make finding somethings diffacult. Having a website dedicated to textures and the like would be a nice idea... hmmm...
JS
I agree completely.
Winamps website for Skins is a great idea. You can get to see what they look like before you wast your time downloading them, installing them and deciding you dont like them.
@ rouge
Is there a theme directory for example.
Eg: Sys:prefs/themes
Eg theme for the wont of a better description has its own directory and gui.pref file or whatever in it.
Its would then be a standard place for themes to go
would make distribution of custom themes easier.
As i can bet no two people keep there birdie textures etc in the same place.
I like aminet and is great for classic software but for OS4 I think we need a site like download.com.
Maybe aminet.amiga.com if your reading HMetal :)
Some people hate it others love it. But you could log in. Search Items by author. Leave feedback on programs. Rate programs, discuss. etc.
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I was wondering...will all programs have the same GUI, meaning will all programs be converted to the reaction GUI now?
I remember that OS3.5 and 3.9 looked really messy because part of the tools (like the color window) were still based on the old gui.
Will programs like the new HDtoolbox, the tcpstack, all prefs and tools windows,... all have the same layout this time?
If i'm not mistaken, the screens released from HDprep looked to be based on the old GUI?
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z5 wrote:
I was wondering...will all programs have the same GUI, meaning will all programs be converted to the reaction GUI now?
Both GadTools and ReAction based GUIs will share the same look and feel, so it shouldn't matter (from a consistent look point of view) what GUI system programs use - unless they use MUI or something else that doesn't layout standard Intuition-based GUI elements.
Chris
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Thanks for your comments Rogue.
Every time new screenshots come out someone sqawks about the colours, fonts, etc.
Alas ... we will need at least 12 different default looks to choose from ... :-D :hammer:
Just kidding ....
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redfox
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Well, IMO, if you like toys and teletubbies, X(tra) P(roblems) GUI might look fascinating. I'm so used to AmigaOS 3.x GUI that I simply hate Windows look.
I wonder if Microsoft is heading for the fashion seen in fiction movies, where computer GUIs are very toy-like, ie. you get a message with a font that is about height of a cat and one big button in the middle of the screen :-D
BTW: why ReAction was chosen as official GUI? Programmers usually prefer MUI because it is more advanced(?). Please, note that I respect ReAction authors and don't want to start flaming - just a honest question.
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@Mr_Capehill
maybe because they couldn't get any exclusive deal for MUI,
or the money asked for licence to include a regged version
was to high (OS4 will come with unregged MUI).
Just my best guess.
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I do not know much about linux but what about KDE
and GNOME ???
They seem to have good GUI, can they be ported to os 4??
;-)
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star1 wrote:
I do not know much about linux but what about KDE
and GNOME ???
They seem to have good GUI, can they be ported to os 4??
;-)
I suppose it could be done in theory. But it would probably be ALOT of work. It's just a guess but, I'd say the programming interface to Intuition is nothing like the interface to X. If someone did write up a spiffy adapter class, it would be one helluva class!
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wasn't OS4 going to use ZUNE instead of orginal MUI?
personally I hope that all MUI #### is dropped as soon as possible.
it's ugly, unresponsive (compared to reaction), the new skinning of OS 4 will only work on reaction/intuition which will make MUI programs stand out as a sore thumb.
anyone working on any OS 4 program... drop any ideas of using MUI as a part of that, it will only make your programs look uglier and be alot less responsive (remember that MUI will forever stay 68k, reaction will be PPC)
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Well, IMO, if you like toys and teletubbies, X(tra) P(roblems) GUI might look fascinating. I'm so used to AmigaOS 3.x GUI that I simply hate Windows look.
I don't know, I kind of like my XP look. ;-)
(http://ronintech.com/screenshot.jpg)
And that IS Windows XP.
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I do not know much about linux but what about KDE
The amount of programming involved in porting KDE or Gnome to AOS would be signicant. First there would have to be some sort of X implementation, then you'd have to port the toolkits for KDE (QT) or Gnome (GTK) (whichever you wanted ported) and then you'd have to port the actual interface system. Not a trivial task. Besides, X is kind of slow. It's really quite good for what it is, but slow nonetheless. It was really designed for a multiuser system and the Amiga (at least through the 4.x versions) will not be multiuser, AFAIK.
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JurassicCamper wrote:
@ rouge
It's "Rogue" BTW ;-)
Is there a theme directory for example.
Eg: Sys:prefs/themes
Eg theme for the wont of a better description has its own directory and gui.pref file or whatever in it.
I don't remember the name, but it was something in SYS:Prefs/. Each theme becomes its own directory with all files in it, and you specify a directory. Other things like window border textures can be configured separately, same for gadget textures and the like.
Its would then be a standard place for themes to go
would make distribution of custom themes easier.
There might be a theme installer of some sorts. Dunno 'bout that.
As i can bet no two people keep there birdie textures etc in the same place.
Most likely not. These are hacks, so most people just put the stuff where it suits them. I don't think that the GUI prefs program enforces any placement though.
I like aminet and is great for classic software but for OS4 I think we need a site like download.com.
Maybe aminet.amiga.com if your reading HMetal :)
Some people hate it others love it. But you could log in. Search Items by author. Leave feedback on programs. Rate programs, discuss. etc.
I agree that a bit more modern features would do Aminet some good. But the big advantage of it is that it is distributed. You almost never get a crowded server where you have to wait for half an hour to start your download, like is the case with fileplanet.com for example. Just use your local mirror.
I think Aminet is one of the things that kept the Amiga alive over the years, and it should be able to do so when OS 4 is out ;-)
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z5 wrote:
I was wondering...will all programs have the same GUI, meaning will all programs be converted to the reaction GUI now?
The preferences programs will use Reaction in any case, as do all of the new tools. The Media Toolbox and Partition wizard are no exception, same for the Network Preferences, dialer, AmiDock config, AmigaInput prefs, and so on. They'll use a new preferences framework class.
Things like IBrowse will continue to use MUI of course.
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Kronos wrote:
maybe because they couldn't get any exclusive deal for MUI,
or the money asked for licence to include a regged version
was to high (OS4 will come with unregged MUI).
Just my best guess.
Nice to finally see such a comment :-) If [i}that]/i] is your best guess
The reason why Reaction was chosen is twofold:
For one thing, you have to pick one, and I personally like Reaction bettern than MUI. That is a matter of taste, of course, but I didn't like most GUI's I've seen in MUI using programs because they tend to look good on one configuration and horrible on the other.
Secondly, Reaction was already chosen for 3.5. We felt that it was a bad idea to agan change the GUI (GadTools->Reaction->MUI).
Exclusivity has nothing to do with it. Yes, the MUI version that comes with OS 4 will not be registered, it will however be preconfigured to roughly match the default look of Intuition V50, and I think the old key files will still work (for what it's worth, I have also registered MUI a few years back. Too bad there wasn't any regular update)
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@trgse
You see, my opinion is the exact opposite of yours. I hope ReAction dies quickly, no disrespect to the authors but MUI is THE best GUI out there.
I'm writing an app for OS4 and there is no way I'd even consider using ReAction, I even told Fleecy Moss this, no f##king way!
As far as a programmer is concerned MUI is awesome for creating gorgeous looking GUI's. Quick and easy.
From your comments I suspect you've only used MUI on an AGA 030 Amiga. In which case I'll agree with you that it is slow and unresonsive, but on my 060 it's the complete opposite!
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N7VQM wrote:
I suppose it could be done in theory. But it would probably be ALOT of work. It's just a guess but, I'd say the programming interface to Intuition is nothing like the interface to X. If someone did write up a spiffy adapter class, it would be one helluva class!
I had a look at porting GTK (the toolkit used by GIMP and GNOME) before my involvement with Hyperion, but stopped doing it out of lack of time. By that time the aMozilla team (anyone remember them?) also wanted to start aGTK. I agreed to lead the effort, some people agreed to help, but in the end I was the only one doing work, and so I stopped again (I guess that quite some projects fared this way in the past). I'd say that a skilled programmer would take about a month or so to get GTK ported.
Qt is a different story, because it is either usable under GPL (which does not work in the AmigaOS context) or under the Trolltech commercial licence, which is a bit too expensive.
Both toolkits offer good functionality, I'd say Qt is the better one though.
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Slash wrote:
As far as a programmer is concerned MUI is awesome for creating gorgeous looking GUI's. Quick and easy.
I think (and this is my personal opinion of course) that MUI interfaces tend to look ugly because people tend to design them around looks not functionality.
Also many people don't try their stuff under different configuration, with different font sizes and different background settings. The results look horrible.
I am not saying that you can't do good user interfaces (IBrowse or AmFTP or AmTelnet are good examples).
From the programmer's point of view, MUI introduced this macro-orgy-single-command-makes-a-userinterface kind of programming that I hate deeply. Apart from the fact that a user interface designer is a must-have, I think that these things make finding a syntax error or other problem very difficult. Most of all, it just tells you that your GUI failed to be created, and leaves the user with no clue how to solve the problem.
I also think that MUI is unresponsive, especially under load.
But I mentioned it earlier: GUI's is something that you can start a Jihad about. Some people think that the MacOS X Aqua user interface is the second best thing since sliced bread. I personally think that it wastes a lot of space, although it admittedly looks nice. Every system has its pros and cons.
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@Rogue
I also think that MUI is unresponsive, especially under load.
I hope MUI will not be slow , and wouldn't be slow on a G4 AmigaOne or on MorphOS/Pegasos. Because:
- If I have understood correctly MUI is PPC native these days under MOS. So on a G3/G4 it should be much faster and responsive.
- RTG cards are ten times more powerfull than the fastest p5/voodoo cards we are used to
- New, better and faster hardware and buses should make a difference aswell
I myself have always liked MUI. On a PicassoIV and 060/60 I haven't found it THAT slow to use.
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I don't really care what it looks like so long as all the buttons are in the right places. I still haven't gotten over how badly designed the HD toolbox is in those preliminary screenshots. Getting a non-techie to use an app like that is equivalent to torture, regardless of how ugly or pretty it is.
As for the ReAction vs MUI war, I tend to think there aren't any good independent GUI toolkits out there. That, and MUI is slow as a dog under WinUAE on my Athlon 2600+! I haven't used ReAction. I tend to limit my WinUAE sessions to old games these days.
@RedFox: Hey, I have that picture as a 20x30 poster on my wall! Just thought I'd share. :-D
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Hooligan_DCS wrote:
- If I have understood correctly MUI is PPC native these days under MOS. So on a G3/G4 it should be much faster and responsive.
- RTG cards are ten times more powerfull than the fastest p5/voodoo cards we are used to
- New, better and faster hardware and buses should make a difference aswell
I'm rather glad they took Reaction (allthough it is not that important for me).
It's better to start with something that is already fast on a slow CPU. We don't want to fall into that windows trap: it's not fast, but give it a turbo this or that processor and it will run ok.
I hope that the attitude behind OS4 still is to make something so fast and elegant as is possible. And not to throw something at the cpu and hope that it will run fast because the cpu is fast. After all, this is what made the Amiga so awesome imo.
But then, i don't doubt that OS4 will be elegant and fast. ;-)
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- If I have understood correctly MUI is PPC native these days under MOS. So on a G3/G4 it should be much faster and responsive.
I dont like the idea of throwing more cpu power
on stuff thats slow, i dont like mui that much,
and normal windows feels much more snappier than
mui, its good to know OS4 didnt go for mui as
standard gui.
MUI unregged with OS4 is good, so you dont feel like paying twice for it....i mean, everyone who
like mui have a keyfile anyway :)
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>Getting a non-techie to use an app like that is >equivalent to torture, regardless of how ugly or >pretty it is.
I think there is an expert and novice mode available, choosing novice will hide/remove all
the hi-tech-buttons...
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Hooligan_DCS wrote:
I hope MUI will not be slow , and wouldn't be slow on a G4 AmigaOne or on MorphOS/Pegasos. Because:
I'm afraid that isn't really the point. MU tends to behave sluggish under load not because it does anything computationally intensive, but because all rendering (as far as I remember) is done in the context of the task that uses it. Reaction and Inuition run in their own task, at priority 20, so the GUI will react immediately even if the task itself is busy, or the system is loaded, because high-priority tasks that become ready on the Amiga will almost instantaneously get the CPU.
If the task using MUI is busy, it will not update the GUI, and it will not draw the mouseclick on a buttun ontil it calls the update methods again.
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Waccoon wrote:
I still haven't gotten over how badly designed the HD toolbox is in those preliminary screenshots.
There is a lot of functionality that needs to go into the Media Toolbox, so it is either a multitude of windows, or a full single window. Also note that you can disable most of the stuff by using the normal and not the advanced mode.
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"As for the ReAction vs MUI war, I tend to think there aren't any good independent GUI toolkits out there. That, and MUI is slow as a dog under WinUAE on my Athlon 2600+! I haven't used ReAction. I tend to limit my WinUAE sessions to old games these days."
MUI is snappy here on Celeron 500.. it was okey
on 030/50. Something is wrong with your setup.
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Now i wonder, ok i use every hack in the book te let my OS3.9 look good but i'm pretty happy the way my wb looks.
Even ppl who did not see an amiga for almost 10 years find it good looking.
But yes there are parts who could be very much improved and yes it would be nice if you did not have to install all that stuff before it looks nice.
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As for the ReAction vs MUI war, I tend to think there aren't any good independent GUI toolkits out there. That, and MUI is slow as a dog under WinUAE on my Athlon 2600+! I haven't used ReAction. I tend to limit my WinUAE sessions to old games these days.
What's wrong with yourJIT-WinUAEsetup?
MUI is fine in my AthlonXP/nForce2/JIT-WinUAE box and it’s also fine in my older Athlon@1.3Ghz/VIA KT/JIT-WinUAE box.
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Well, IMO, if you like toys and teletubbies, X(tra) P(roblems) GUI might look fascinating. I'm so used to AmigaOS 3.x GUI that I simply hate Windows look.
wonder if Microsoft is heading for the fashion seen in fiction movies, where computer GUIs are very toy-like, ie. you get a message with a font that is about height of a cat and one big button in the middle of the screen
With standard WinXP (without WinXP Plus pack/StyleXP/WinBlinds enablers) one could select metallic silver theme instead of the blue teletubbies look.