Amiga.org
Amiga News and Community Announcements => Amiga News and Community Announcements => Announcements and Press Releases => Topic started by: System on June 13, 2003, 11:47:58 PM
-
AmigaWorld.net has posted (http://amigaworld.net/modules/features/index.php?op=r&cat_id=6&rev_id=16&sort_by) 5 new official AmigaOS4 screenshots. The latest shots show several appearance differences regarding the GUI. AmiPDF, YAM and Colonization are amongst the software shown.
-
Gahhhhh!!! Just lemme BUY IT ALREADY!!!!
-
Looking better every day :-)
-
Gimme! Gimme! GIMME! GIMME! :-D
-
Gimme! Gimme! GIMME! GIMME!
a man? :-D
-
We'll be seeing alot of screenshots the upcoming weeks i think .... Alot of os4 on tour dates ... alot of screenshots ...
-
Yay!
:-)
If only we had this in 1996-7.
Still , I like these shots and 80% complete!
Not long now.
-
a man?
No! Unless I can sell him and get OS4 first with the proceeds! :-D
-
a man? :-D
after midnight?
;-)
-
I like very much the buttons in the picture with the outward look gradients :-)
The blue active colour is very amigish (1.3 era) and the grey non-active windows reminds the 2.x and after Amigas. I like them all, just the grey screen bar doesn`t fit very much, I`d like to see a screenshot with a white classic screen bar and the windows with the active blue in outward look.
I just can`t wait to buy it! :-D
Hyperion should definetly include (or implement) in AmigaOS depthMenu (http://kufel.immt.pwr.wroc.pl/~its96992/depthmenu/news.html)! that way we will not be needing a long bar (which takes much screen real estate) like in M$Windows to bring back and forth the windows.
here is depth menu when you press right mouse button in the depth gadget of any window. (lists all opened windows in the wb, minimize etc are not part of the program, its a module.)
(http://kufel.immt.pwr.wroc.pl/~its96992/depthmenu/img/shot_window.gif)
and here in the screen depth gadget
(http://kufel.immt.pwr.wroc.pl/~its96992/depthmenu/img/shot_screen.gif)
-
:-D
-
I'm happy to report that we have a commodity "Depth to Front" by Stefan Falke which does exactly that: it provides you with a list of all active windows.
Seems we beat you to it ...
This is just one of quite many subtle improvements of the OS that OS 4 offers.
-
@Dagon
Have to agree with you. Even on the depth menus i like the pushed in look of the currently selected item. Though i'd use a darker grey as a fill rather than blue.
But for the title bar, i always have a dark grey and black text. White just seems odd to me for some reason. Not sure why, but it seems a little plain looking. Ok, just my personal tastes.
Anyway, the screenshots are kickin. No doubts about that.
Ivan
-
Well ok, there are three minor things i dont like about it but I expect they are changeable anyway.
1) I never did like that kind of sizing gadget. A simple triangle works. I'm very used to the 3D look of visual prefs. That and, it makes the right border a bit wide and klunky looking. (but thats adjustable too right?)
2) The lines bordering gadgets are short and undefined leaving things rather flat looking. The gadgets themseleves look cool though. Silverish and black borders. A grey gradient fill might be even better though.
3) The scrollbars extend outside of the container. I thought it was just me at first so i loaded up a paint program and had a closer look. Sure enough, the scrollbars aren't inside of the container. Hope thats fixed up before release.
At least there is a waaay better colour scheme and a much cleaner, crisper look than the old old screen shots. I went crosseyed looking at those. This is a much more professional look. Worlds better imho.
Ivan
-
Actually, one more thing. :)
There is a black border line around all the windows. What happened to left and top being trimmed with a white line and right and bottom being trimmed with black?
Ivan
-
A, perhaps stupid and slightly off-topic, question:
I know QS screenshots are supposed to show a lot of programs and what not to look productive, but OS4 has what OS3.1 is worshipped for (by me :)) - multiple screens, right?
That is one of the greatest (and most missed everywhere) features I have ever seen. Different screens with different resolution, depth and content. Ahhh.
Oh, I just thought of something; MUI, at least, has that PSI or whatever manage to make its own screens for its application, so I guess what I really want to know is if
a) OS4 reaction supports it in a similar way.
b) It is difficult to implement on newer graphics boards, so it is not implemented / not working (I do not know why it would be so, but perhaps newer graphics chips cannot deal with two resolutions at once...what do I know, right? :)).
Sincerely,
-Kenneth Straarup, gotten a little worried with the cluttered up WB in the screenshots.
-
I really like the new screenshot, and the mere fact that there are so many of them lately makes me happy already, but...
Am I the only one who thinks that the slightly changed look looks much better and less dull than the to-be-default look? The blue being alot brighter lightens the whole shop up imho.
Justin
-
Best screenshots yet, AmiPDF looks cool, and check out the true-type
display on IBrowse and YAM, great stuff :-)
Agree with Dragon on DepthMenu, use it myself great little program,
hopefully it will find its way into OS4's contributions drawer :-)
-
SWEET...
And since my favorit game is Colonization, I just have to love this :-)
Can't wait till AOS 4.0 is released....
-
I like very much the buttons in the picture with the outward look gradients
I like the whole image look !
Alessandro
-
Looks sweet! :-)
-
Someone please tell me that the system will support flat style buttons.
It appears that we also desperately need some look- and- feel guidelines. I realize that it's early on, but every application and utility that I've seen so far looks completely different.
And please - why fully justify buttons in dialogs? This is an Amiga oddity that I could never understand. Why move the mouse to the extreme corners of a dialog just to select between 2 different options?
-
Instead minimize, maximize etc in this (http://kufel.immt.pwr.wroc.pl/~its96992/depthmenu/img/shot_window.gif) picture we could have a list of all iconified programms, so that we can deiconify them. (Or at least I hope that all iconified programms -not only the MUI based- will be listed in the tools menu)
-
MUI, at least, has that PSI or whatever manage to make its own screens for its application
The program you're looking for is called "Screens" under OS 4. You can define custom public screens and edit the GUI prefs for these screen.
I'll try to include it in the next batch of screenshots. :-)
-
Someone please tell me that the system will support flat style buttons.
Sure. Just don't have gradient pattern and select "flat" as the border style -> black square flat buttons.
I realize that it's early on, but every application and utility that I've seen so far looks completely different.
Some of these where legacy applications. Some where MUI. MUI will have a preconfigured look that matches the OS 4 Intuition look.
This is an Amiga oddity that I could never understand.
It definitely makes it harder to hit the wrong button by accident.
-
;-) Now this is really getting there.
:-) In the first screen, I see that the window gadgets have just a taste of 3-D, and not too much. It looks like OS 2.x, updated. Very new, yet very familiar, at the same time.
On the tools dock, there's an icon called "Access." Does this relate to the new file system, or is it just some application or other?
:-? In the second screen, I see YAM, which seems to have been updated. It seems that the right edge of the "Forward" button is chopped off, but that's just due to the window not being wide enough to include it. It it using MUI, here?
(http://amiga.org/images/subject/icon3.gif) On the third screen, I agree that the sizing gadget makes the right and bottom borders seem a little awkward. Maybe it's just that I'm used to borders that wide having scroll bars in them, and they're absent, here. Maybe the right and bottom borders could be thinner than the sizing gadget, until the window reached full size, then the sizing graphic could become invisible, but still functional, until the window was reduced to less than full size, again. On the other hand, that may confuse people who weren't used to it, yet.
The 3-D effect is still spot-on, though.
;-) Screen Four shows IBrowse running in a MUI window which looks just like the intuition windows. Appropriate. Notepad seems to have gained a few buttons. This is a welcome change, since one now needn't use the menu all of the time. On that note, I wonder if the Magic Menu functionality allows the user to call up menus with the touch of a single key, as Windows does with the alt key? I've gotten used to that; it's nice to just keep going without switching contexts to the mouse so frequently.
I like that the information window includes graphics, here. Very intuitive. The graphic foreshadows the flavor of the message, sort of the way I've taken to abusing Amiga.org's emoticons.
I wonder if the user can define his own graphics for this?
:-D With Screen Five, I see that the active window is a little lighter shade of blue, and that the scrollbar buttons have a bit of 3-D shape to them. All the buttons have slightly rounded corners, now. Cool.
Two minor niggles: the checkmarks are still un-anti-aliased, flat, (vector?) images, and the sizing gadget seems to be flatter, now, or maybe that's just me.
On the plus side, again, the brushed metal look seems to have been toned down a bit, by reducing the range between lightest and darkest shades. I like it. It's good to break up the monotone gray with a little texture, but not so much that it distracts from the elements or text in the foreground.
Overall, the implementation here is done well, but maybe the blue is a little too pale for my taste. Something between the two might be best.
Also of note, In the system drawer, I see tools to start, stop, and restart the USB bus. That's curious. And color me dense for not noticing right away, but the boot partition is now called "OS4:" by default, instead of "Workbench:" That seems appropriate, too.
All in all, this is shaping up to be a very nice default look for AmigaOS 4.0, out of the box. This is what the new customer will see on the display model in the stores, and one never gets a second chance to form a first impression.
:-) Hyperion can be proud of this.
-
On the tools dock, there's an icon called "Access." Does this relate to the new file system, or is it just some application or other?
This is a "Docky", a plugin for the dock. In this case, when you press the menu button over it it will pop up a list of all screens and the windows on this screens.
It seems that the right edge of the "Forward" button is chopped off, but that's just due to the window not being wide enough to include it. It it using MUI, here?
Yes, the window was too narrow. I didn't notice it, though. Yes, this is MUI.
With Screen Five, I see that the active window is a little lighter shade of blue, and that the scrollbar buttons have a bit of 3-D shape to them. All the buttons have slightly rounded corners, now. Cool.
Well, screen 5 was me experimenting a bit. I tried different settings, like rotating the gradients so that they seem to stick out instead of carve in, a different activation color to match the background, and different button styles. That was all without exchanging actual graphics
the checkmarks are still un-anti-aliased, flat, (vector?) images
High up on the todo list (the checkmarks/radio butons fall into the 20% not-yet-done range) :-)
Overall, the implementation here is done well, but maybe the blue is a little too pale for my taste.
Well, like I said it was me playing with the color sliders. Don't consider shot #5 to be anything more than an experiment on how to see how you can customize the look without touching the graphics :-)
Hyperion can be proud of this.
Credit for the look must really go to Matt and Massimo ;-)
-
Screen 1 shows a pdf document, it gives something
about NOVA API. Is NOVA finished and will it be included
IN OS 4.0???? :-P :-P
-
Still looking good. However, I don't like the window gadgets on the activated windows. Close is ok, but minimise/zoom/depth stick out a bit too much. They may be better with a shade of blue rather than grey/white. Looking at it again, with just close and depth gadgets they look good, but with zoom and minimise as well they are "too much".
I don't like the scrollbar arrows that are in the window borders, they are fine within the windows, but in the borders they look odd in "button look", they should fit in with the window border design like the close etc gadgets do. ie. they look ok in AmiPDF and Notepad, but not in the drawer windows or - presumably - MultiView (which also has scrollbars in the window border). Hopefully these are configurable independently.
I notice that FormatCDRW and Format are two separate programs. Can you format CDRWs with the Format... option in the Icons menu?
Chris
-
Good- finally a decent-looking default text-editor :)
Colonization looks pretty nice too. I'm glad they're talking about making posting U*ix apps easier.
Zoltan
-
I went through the screenshots again this morning ....
I am very happy to see a working GUI that reminds me so much of the familiar AmigaOS 3.1 Workbench that I run on my Amiga 2000HD, yet at the same time offers many enhancements provided by add-on programs which I could not run on my old machine.
Let me explain ...
My Amiga 2000HD does not have an accelerator, ... it has a 68000 CPU, 1M Chip RAM and 4M Fast RAM, so I can only run programs written purely for the 68000 CPU. Anything else will eventually crash.
Over the years, I have tried out several excellent add-on programs to enhance my Workbench and add extra functionality. However, the system often crashed and I ran into difficulties finding purely 68000 versions of these programs.
Eventually, I settled on a simple "look" very similar to the default AmigaOS 3.1 Workbench, ... white menus with black writing along the top of the screen, active window with light-blue border and plain grey background, inactive windows with plain grey border and plain grey background. I added a nice Workbench background picture, changed the disk drive icons, created icons for some of my own scripts, and used default icons for just about everything else. I also run a program to change the "click-to-front" characteristics so I can click once in any window (or border of that window) to bring it to the front and make it active at the same time.
Of course, I also allow certain programs, such as AWeb and FinalWriter97, to open custom screens in their own colours.
Now back to the AmigaOS 4.0 GUI screenshots ...
At first I was a little worried. The first screenshots showed windows with a brushed metal background, that my wife and son thought was too dark and smudgy. I reminded them that we could change the colours and backgrounds.
Then the next set of screenshots came out showing some windows with the plain grey background we are used to. Thanks guys.
We can change colours, textures, borders, buttons, backgrounds. We can even make our borders and buttons into "innies" or "outies".
Regarding more eyecandy, choice of themes, etc. ...
On some threads, people have been clamering for more eye-candy, different themes and a more up to date look similar to what is available with the latest verions of Microsoft Windows or Apple Mac OS or the various GUI's used with Linux and Unix.
We have also seen some very beautiful renderings done by SimoAmi and others.
And, I agree that it would be "nice" to have these choices ... someday.
Maybe the next upgrade will allow us to do more.
Meanwhile, we can already change colours, textures, borders, buttons, backgrounds.
IMHO that is a pretty good start ...
-------------
redfox