If the AmigaOS/MorphOS GUI looked like this would you still want it?

[iamaboringperson]

Billsey wrote:
To me, a GUI needs to do one thing, and one thing only: Transparently link me to the functionality of the applications running on the OS. You could call it, “Do your job quietly and get out of the way!”. The GUI should, nay must not be a distraction. In truth, it should be like a good referee, where you almost don't even notice that they're even there at all.

That would be a good GUI.

yep. im completly with you bilsey,

i have nothing against a pretty GUI, nor a customizable one
its just that it seems that people these days pick/judge an OS by its GUI/screenshots
to me, thats really sad...

a gui should be easy to use <- thats probably my number 1 rule for guis

too many people are worried about whats on the surface
computing is about doing things, and sure, the way it is done is also important, but the GUI is not the part that does it, its everything behind.

 :-)

[iamaboringperson]

In fact thats not a GUI at all, thats a graphical shell.

as many of you have guessed... those grabs are indeed just from X-Windows window managers
i was refering to the appearance rather than the software itsself

[XDelusion]

NO NO NO, I want to go ahead 2 steps not back 10. If Amiga OS looked like that I'd personally kill everyone behind it, with fine china no less!

 You can tell just from the pictures that that GUI has NO functionality.

I always liked how Dopus Magellan looked though, and it did not waste resources. Now imagine that with MorphOS Icons...

...that is how I can only dream OS 4 will some day look like.

[csirac_]

Come on you guys... What seems to have been shown here is Sun's CDE desktop, from Solaris 2.5 I don't know what the latest incarnations look like though..

It's all about the right tool for the job. Many Unix apps are used over an SSH session anyway - so you don't have a desktop environment at all. For example, I have some friends at Uni that use a molecular simulatory thingy called "SPARTAN" over an ssh tunnel to a 64 node SGI origin 2000 - VERY hardcore -  The app simply runs under your local window manager, whether it be X-Win32 for windows or something else. I've used an ASIC (IC design) CAD tool over ssh to some Sun Enterprise 4x sparc cpu systems. I have friends that use Anjuta for C/C++ coding over ssh to my own linux machines (since they are windows users, have to use gcc, and like the Anjuta IDE) You don't have to use the desktop environment on any of these things, just the app.

Have you considered that the window managers you see that appear crude and uninviting just require some effort by the user. A lot of Unix apps are not intuitive - you have to read the manuals - but when you read the documentation you understand that it is not INTENTIONALY made to be a &^#^ to use, there are good reasons for some of the "obscurity", usually it's actually logical, in general these things improve your productivity compared to the traditional mousy "right-click" or "pull-down menu" philosophy.

It's just that it requires your brain to get out of the windows mould and try something different...

But I will say this: it's usually more convenient for me to use a shell to start programs than go through a start menu. I have shells open permenantly for this purpose. Obviously if you are afraid of a CLI shell then owning your own unix machine that you have to admister for yourself just isn't for you - since the CLI is where most of the power is. Especially grep, sed, awk, bash scripting and perl

However I believe that the average joe windows user can get around in a suitably setup KDE/gnome GUI on Linux ok -  I gave a person an X11 session to my computer when their windows refused to boot (I got them to boot off a knoppix CD to runlevel 2, setup network, then use X -query ) so they could use openoffice/mozilla for an urgent assignment and they handled it fine.

- Paul

[redfox]

Ah yes ... mwm ... Motif window manager

Brings back many memories from work.

mwm is one of many window managers that can be used to create windows and gadgets on the screen.

Quite often in the Unix world, applications are actually hosted on other machines in the network and each user has either his/her own smaller Sun workstation or a pc equipped with an X server such as ReflectionsX or eXceed.

Works quite well if you have a fast network.

IMHO ...

It's what goes on inside those windows that really counts.  If you have a good application with a user friendly interface, it doesn't really matter which window manager you wrap around the window.

---------------
redfox

[XDelusion]

Ok so you guys would not mind  if Amiga OS looked like this either then?



I FEAR for the future, we would be the laughing stock of the OS world.

[redfox]

YIKES!

Point well taken.  I definitely wouldn't like that DOS look

[Siggy]

For me it's what it does, not what it looks like that's important.

A lot of the stuff I did with linux was done from a shell, or an xterm. Most of the stuff I did on the Amiga was through cli or an early version of DOpus.

The first time I used Xwindows I used FVWM, which looked a lot like that window manager, and ended up being very customisable (is that a word?).

Still, it's what it does over what it looks like - I prefer my 'clunker' running linux and Amiwm or Amithlon over my very speedy editing system running WinXP for 90% of things, because they enable me to do more of what I like with less B.S. (like 'outguessing me' over what I really want to do).

That's my 2c worth anyways.

Siggy

[iamaboringperson]

XDelusion

if amigaos had the choice of fullscreen text mode command line, i would love it!
of course, i would still want an optional gui

the first thing i do when i boot up my amiga is double click on the shell icon i have on my desktop - thats the only way

[XDelusion]

 Oh ya, I love my command line interface just as much as the next person, but I also want a very comfortable, clean, easy, stable, resource friendly user friendly, and responsive GUI that feels like a nice cool breeze, or a good lay if you will.

 Of course FULL Screen CLI would be a nice start, I feel you there. Infact I'd like to be able to have mutliple sessions like in Linux, where I can have a CLI session going on, then hit Right Amiga Key + F2 for instance, and flip over to another session which has work bench loaded! I really hate Linux man, but some of the features it has are very nice indeed. I do not know if classic CLI had the ability to run multiple commands in the back ground from one terminal window, but that should also be a feature, though I forget how to do that in Linux too. :/

 As far as GUI is concerned, I think BeOS came really close to being the perfect fit for me, except it would flake out every once in a blue moon, and it was in MUCH NEED of Dopus 2! I really liked the idea though that I could be converting an MPG to AVI divx 5 for instance, and take and actually MOVE the output file to anther directory or drive, while it was in the process of being created, you could also do the same with downloads as well. It was easy to assign file types to programs, which was always a pain in Linux and Amiga OS, and it seemed like no matter how much I did, it never seemed to slow down, even with only 1 processor and 128 MB RAM. It was ever a thousand times better on my current system with 256 MB RAM and 2 CPU's! Having played with Dopus 2 and BeOS I can say I have tasted what the future "could" be like, but fear it will never go, but I can always HOPE can't I.

[iamaboringperson]

I do not know if classic CLI had the ability to run multiple commands in the back ground from one terminal window, but that should also be a feature, though I forget how to do that in Linux too. :/

amiga os could always do that, using the run command:
run >nill: cruddyprogram

linux does it by '&' on the end of the line

[XDelusion]

aghh alright kool thankx
I always wondered what NILL was for in the start up scripts.

Startup scripts, another thing that makes Registery look like crap.

[Dr_Righteous]

I'd be happy as hell if ANY new OS looked/worked like DOS! Assuming of course memory management was fixed, large disk support, and it ran in 32 bit protected mode.

Three small core files that make up the OS? A directory of supporting commands? Hell yeah! Add a multitasking, multithreading, memory protected, 32bit GUI and you'd have a proper operating environment.

Yes, the combination of MS-DOS and Windows 3.x was poor at best. However, if steps were taken to fix those problems, rather than combining them into a single OS and/or removing DOS completely, we might have gotten somewhere in the PC realm.

Yes, I used DesqView... I WAS a BBS SysOp, after all.

[Waccoon]

XDelusion:  Ok so you guys would not mind if Amiga OS looked like this either then?

[Shot of DOS screen]

Wow, that looks just like a shot of the Elate shell!   :-)

Seriously, I think even the standard look of AmigaOS 2.0 is pretty good as far as looks go.  Acceptable colors, good window sizes, readable fonts, no extraneous borders, and so on.  What really matters is layout and technical writing.  A requester that says "Do you want to keep this file, Yes/No" is a turn-off.  A window with tiny fonts and 50 buttons is a turn-off.  Inconsistant terminology and sloppy alignment is a turn-off.  There's a hell of a lot more to a GUI than colors and borders.

Would I use an OS that has such an awful-looking interface?  My first reaction is to say yes, because the look isn't as important as the layout and design.  However, any GUI that looks THAT bad tells me the developers regard GUIs as an afterthought, and therefore, I probably won't like the layout and design at all.

So, I guess my answer is no.

Of course, I used UNIX in college, and am quite familiar with that GUI, so I have to admit that I HAVE used it... I just didn't like it one bit!

[Cymric]

iamaboringperson wrote:... thing against a pretty GUI, nor a customizable one its just that it seems that people these days pick/judge an OS by its GUI/screenshots to me, thats really sad...

I think it is used mostly to hide the fact that there is nothing underneath worth looking at :-). I always wonder why I never see anything other than Preferences windows, MP3-players, or pictures viewers on those screenshots too. Where's all the productivity software, like word processors, database interfaces, data visualisation tools, development IE, and so on? Speaking of which---vasty offtopic---does the Pegasos come with development tools out of the box? Any idea what the situation will be for AOS4.0?

[danamania]

> if the amigaos or morphos(whichever you prefer) had
> a plain dull unconfigurable GUI, would you still use,
> buy, and like the os?

Absolutely. That's my preferred OS look - very very simple, and completely out of the way window controls. It's always been my fave, since I worked with Sun systems at Uni, Microstation digital mapping in the mid 90s, and now the CDE theme in KDE in debian .

http://www.danamania.com/temp/screen2.jpg is a screenshot of my playabout linux desktop. It's all deleted now cos there was quite a bit else to using a linux desktop that just plain annoyed me .

dana