Making MorphOS AmigaOS 4 like

[Yasu]

I've heard a lot from people that they don't want to make a switch from AmigaOS 4 to MorphOS because of the "look and feel of the latter". So I thought about experimenting to see how close I can actually come to make MorphOS look and behave like AmigaOS 4.

But I don't own an AmigaOS 4 machine nor have much experience with one. So I want to ask the community about the things that are different. Things that an end user (potentionally) can change themselves.

Note: I'm not planning to start a flame war nor take this to a "MorphOS is superior" line of argument. I just want to see how far I can actually take this.

[Yasu]

For me the feel is the difficult part of the equation. I tried but I could never make Ambient + MOS Shell feel similar to OS4 Workbench + VincED Shell.

I will try to get as close as possible. Changing the icons and how prefs works will be easy. It's the rest I need help with.

[Yasu]

Making Ambient to feel like Workbench is very difficult. It is like trying to get Ferrari feel like Lada 1200.

But you can of course replace MorphOS shell with VincED.

Like I said, I'm gonna try to get as close as possible. Without breaking anything. If people then still find MorphOS icky there is not much I can do

Thanks for the tip!

[Yasu]

@Yasu

you might want to talk to @klesterjr about this. he's done work in the past on MUI themes, icons, ambient settings, etc. to get MOS to 'look and feel' like AOS4 better than i've seen others achieve so far.

-- eliyahu

Does he have a homepage about this?

[Yasu]

unfortunately, no. IIRC there was some issue about him using the icons from AOS4 without approval or some such nonsense, but i could be remembering wrong. the best thing would be to PM him. ken is an awesome guy. if anyone can help, it'll be him.

-- eliyahu

Yeah, last time I asked the Mason icons guy he said the same thing. But a lot of the icons are public domain fortunately.

I will PM him

[Yasu]

It's 15 mins work to get it look like this:



To get that:
1) Download OFour or FourOne skin and take it in use.
2) Copy icons from OS4 CD (drag&drop into Icon Information window). To get separate prefs icons, just copy icon for every prefs you want (use the actual name of certain prefs to icon name) and set Default Tool to ":MorphOS/Prefs/Preferences".
3) Disable "Separate files from drawers" from Ambient Settings to get drawers and files mixed like in AmigaOS.
4) Disable "Browser mode" from Ambient Settings to remove some filemanagement options and to get plain looking windows.
5) Set background pictures/colors and fonts to match OS4.

I guess that's a pretty good starting point. Then you can tune MUI to look OS4 too etc. If you have original OS4 CD, you can use the stuff found there to get authentic feeling.

That IS a good start. The question is if this is enough. There has to be more stuff that makes the systems so different it puts people off.

So, more suggestions please

[Yasu]

Yeah, I probably can come up with the solutions, but I too need to understand first what are the real causes. In many cases it just feels that it's the base attitude which is the problem, they just don't even try to get the system like they want before declaring the conclusion.

But it surely would be nice to hear some real details which are wanted to be different, or is it finally just other than concrete reasons why users decide which they prefer.

You could be right there.

And I also want to hear the details since I can't check for myself.

[Yasu]

You guys are right! It's all down to taste. I myself have made some major changes in MorphOS to make it more appealing to me. So trying to do this would be a fools errand. If you want to change something in an Amiga, it might take some time to get it right but it's simple enough.

How do I rezise the image?

[Yasu]

@ YASU

BTW Those are adapted Linux icons no?

Yes it is I've also made an "author approved" icon pack for MorphOS (it's PNG so it should work with AOS 4 and AROS. It contains some AOS 4 and AROS specific icons as well). You can download it here.

[Yasu]

Yasu
Thats really cool and good work, however I dont want to use linux icons if i m using a weird proprietary system I want weird original icons

Whatever rocks your boat I paid for the system so I'm changing it to look however I want