MorphOS-News.de reports that Martin Heine has published some screenshots of MorphOS from CeBIT. For the first time you can now also see screenshots of Win32 Apps running on MorphOS. Bochs on MorphOS/Pegasos (G3 600) needs around 80 seconds to load Windows and around 20 seconds to start Word. Here is also a high res picture of the Pegasos machine. MorphOS-News.de also reports that it was also announced that the ProStationAudio Platinum will be included with MorphOS.
Screenshots of MorphOS from CeBIT; High-Res Pegasos Picture
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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Out of interest, how long did it take to rewrite Bochs for the PPC Amiga platform?
No sign of Amiga OS 4 at CeBIT then? It gets more and more tempting to buy a peg. Hyperion should at least demonstrate something sooner rather than later.
Eugenia, what are your opinions on the GUI design of these MorphOS shots?
They didn’t have to rewrite it, just port it. Bochs works on MacOSX as well. Bochs is an emulator, while VMWare is a runtime (and this is why VMWare doesn’t work on anything but x86s, while Bochs can be ported everywhere easily. On the other hand, runtimes are faster while emulators are much slower).
And this ain’t AmigaOS btw. It is MorphOS (which includes a runtime engine to enable it running some Amiga programs — similar to MacOSX when running MacOS9 applications). 😉
It’s written in portable C, so i guess it wouldn’t have taken long to port it.
> Eugenia, what are your opinions on the GUI design of these MorphOS shots?
Needs more work. It lacks AA fonts, lacks more inviting colors on its windows by default etc. But I don’t think MorphOS is finished yet, so I am sure people are still working on it.
Eugenia, have you ever thought about producing a mock-up screenshot of your dream GUI, or even making it into a theme for an existing DE?
There is no such thing as the “perfect UI”. Even if I create something that I really like *for me*, chances are that I will be fed up with it after 2-3 months.
What can exist is a “well done, good enough UI that the majority of people are possible to like” . But there no such thing as a “perfect UI” because people are different, even ourselves are changing with time. UIs are a variable, a moving target. But there can be approximations and this is what UI designers should targetting to.
BTW, you are talking about “themes” which is only one aspect of a UI. The majority of the positive (or negative) user experience comes from the usability aspect of the UI, not just how the colors of the widgets look. 😉
“Needs more work. It lacks AA fonts, lacks more inviting colors on its windows by default etc. But I don’t think MorphOS is finished yet, so I am sure people are still working on it.
”
It looks very nice to me. I didn’t see any fonts on those screen shots which were big enough to want to be anti-aliased. It looks like they are mostly using XHelvetica, which is a small sizes bitmap font that is very readable in practice.
I would like to knoe if the Bochs emulator is running in the A-box (Amiga sandbox) or in a sandbox of its own. Impressive anyway, although presumably pretty slow on a 600MHz CPU.
It does look nice indeed, I just am a little at odds for a new platform,something else for me to develop for, one thing that I hope for is that they will include a Linux subsystem so that Linux apps can run on it instead of having to do a total rewrite of the source code.
Was there are reason they covered the Windows window with Amiga windows? One Windows window was nearly completely obscured… just curious.
ISTR that MorphOS includes a native version of the ixemul.library, which makes porting of UNIX sources simpler.
But really, you do not want to taint every system out there with UNIX mannerisms. There’s not much point to it if all you do with every system is run LS and WGet.
And this ain’t AmigaOS btw. It is MorphOS (which includes a runtime engine to enable it running some Amiga programs — similar to MacOSX when running MacOS9 applications). 😉
Well, a bit like MacOS, perhaps, but not a runtime engine like VMware. The entire API is, at the moment, Amiga based, with certain extensions, so unlike VMware, what we’re seeing is about as native as you can possibly get.
The GUI could still use some work. The framework is all laid out, since they have ditched GadTools and old kits and run everything through MUI (Magic UserInterface), which is a whole lot more modern, configurable and extensible. But the spit and polish is certainly lacking even in these official screen shots. Certainly, they’ve made new, fresh window borders, but they look tacked on when they use MarbleDark as a window backdrop, MagicWB-ish gadgets and oddball colours everywhere. They’ve obviously spent some time on window panes, while leaving the window contents be, something which I can only attribute to lack of time, since the GUI should, based on my experience with MUI, be configurable through and through.
They cannot have ditched GadTools as MUI uses Gadtools…
They’ve used “MagicWB-ish” gadgets because MUI (at the time I am writing this) simply cannot use 8/16/24bit gadgets as you would do in a “themable” GUI: it is limited to the MagicWB palette ;(
The GUI look has nothing to do with lack of time…
> Needs more work. It lacks AA fonts, lacks more inviting colors on its windows by default etc.
MorphOS GUI is configurable and it has support for AA fonts. I use anti-aliased fonts here.
They cannot have ditched GadTools as MUI uses Gadtools…
Oops, my mistake. But does this mean that GT programs don’t use the MUI looks in MorphOS? That’s certainly below my expectations and what I’ve read in the specs sheets.
Bloody shame about the MUI limitations living on. It’s about time they dig Stuntzi or whatever his name was out of the grave and put him to some coding.
They still could have dropped MarbleDark, though. =)
>BTW, you are talking about “themes” which is only one aspect >of a UI. The majority of the positive (or negative) user >experience comes from the usability aspect of the UI, not >just how the colors of the widgets look. 😉
By theme i should have written “Window Manager”, designed by yourself and implemented by a coder, maybe a heavy modification of an existing WM to comply with existing infrastructures.
They cannot have ditched GadTools as MUI uses Gadtools…
Are you sure? My recollection (possibly mistaken) was that MUI used BOOPSI, as did GadTools, but that MUI’s libraries did not depend on gadtools.library.
For example http://www.sasg.com/mui/autodocs/index.html
Never mind; looked a little further & found http://www.sasg.com/mui/autodocs/MUI_Application.html
Does anybody know if MorphOS is already running on x86 or is somebody busy with it? I love to see it running on x86, or AMD64.
Please stand in line along with the ARM, MIPS and PA-RISC crowd. You belong to a minority, and the MOS developers certainly have better things to do than supporting this or that processor.
I don’t know if MOS uses it, but AFAIK there are AA fonts available for AmigaOS – http://www.amiga.pl/ttengine/index-en.html
-pekr-
>I don’t know if MOS uses it, but AFAIK there are AA fonts >available for AmigaOS – http://www.amiga.pl/ >ttengine/index-en.html
>-pekr-
If it’s 68k then MorphOS does. AFAIK
MUI doesnt use gadgets from GadTools or anything other but everything is selfmade. This because system default gadgets were too limited (and this havent changed much lately).
But MUI should really get rid of MagicWB theming… it was cool when desktops were running on 16 col screens but today everyone uses true color.
>I don’t know if MOS uses it, but AFAIK there are AA fonts available for AmigaOS – http://www.amiga.pl/ttengine/faq-en.html
In MorphOS you can have anti-aliased fonts in every application.
Sorry to say this people, but the user interface as presented at cBit (and as seen on screenshot of Main Preferences Application) reminds me too much old DOS text-mode applications… The same colors, the same ugly look.
Today, people pay much more attention to how the OS looks. And this one looks quite not pleasing.
This is not the GUI that was shown at the 2003 CES, in Las Vegas. I remember it being all black and BeOS looking. I was impressed at how fast MorphOS booted up, somewhere around 6 or 7 seconds. When your finished, just turn off the computer, no need to go through a shut-down procedure. I think it may become the new BeOS replacement.
Never said MUI used gadtools for drawing the gadgets… I just said MUI used gadtools. Gadtools not only means Gadgets…
As for the gadgets colors limitation: I don’t know which part of MUI is responsible for this but I really hope it will be fixed SOON… so that we can finally have a normal looking GUI with the same color shames for window gadgets AND GUI gadgets !
If it ever becomes a BeOS replacement, I hope it won’t have the same fate
>Sorry to say this people, but the user interface as
>presented at cBit
This is just one look. At the other machine for example
there is a completely different look.
BTW: Genesi are still seeking for motivated people, so if
you think you can help with “the best UI look ever” or
something else which you think you can contribute to the
OS, you should get in contact with Bill Buck and Raquel
Velasco ([email protected]).
>BTW: Genesi are still seeking for motivated people, so if
you think you can help with “the best UI look ever” or
something else which you think you can contribute to the
OS, you should get in contact with Bill Buck and Raquel
Velasco ([email protected]).
Here is a GUI I have created… Unfortunately, it could not be used in current MorphOS because of the above limitations…
http://nogfx.free.fr/morphos/gui_problem.png
(above window is the one I have created… the bottom window is how current MorphOS looks like (it could be slightly modified… but not to look like the one above))
Please remember you can still have background pattern in buttons. And not only in buttons but in the listview etc. Only gadget borders are limited in colors and shape. A GUI you created is *almost* possible.
I’m shocked that they still use MUI, it did have the nickname Tragic User Interface back in the early days
The only amiga program that I could tolerate MUI in was moviemui the local imdb…
>I’m shocked that they still use MUI, it did have the nickname Tragic User Interface back in the early days
What else could they use ?
(Developping a whole new GUI for ABox does not have much sense… since QBox should replace it… with a much better GUI I hope
)
And despite these problems, MUI is even in advance when compared with any other GUI (automatic resizing, classes…)
“I’m shocked that they still use MUI, it did have the nickname Tragic User Interface back in the early days”
That must have been a long time ago. It works fine nowadays.
The only problem is that the author is a recluse.
@ Leo
“Here is a GUI I have created… Unfortunately, it could not be used in current MorphOS because of the above limitations…”
Those limitations will be removed in the not-too-distant future. 24BIT replacements for all MUI graphics are already in the works, by the way.
Please rest assured that we are aware of the lack of consistency and are trying to solve this as soon as time permits. Thanks for your input, anyway.
@André: Ok, so tell me when it will have been implemented: I’ve got nice GUI ready for MorphOS…
And please include somewhere a list of things being implemented/soon to be implemented in MorphOS: this may avoid such posts…
@ Leo
“Ok, so tell me when it will have been implemented: I’ve got nice GUI ready for MorphOS…”
Sorry, I won’t name any deadlines. There have been enough promises in the past.
“And please include somewhere a list of things being implemented/soon to be implemented in MorphOS: this may avoid such posts…”
Take a look at the public feature list. This gives a good overview about what we are working on. However, please note that this list is already fairly long and lacks some details (i.e. good-looking, but “minor” features such as transparent menus with soft shadows, etc.).
>Take a look at the public feature list.
What I’d like to know is what is:
.Already implemented
.Being implemented
This list does not tell me anything about that…
>Sorry, I won’t name any deadlines.
I’m not asking for deadlines: when it WILL BE FINISHED, just ANNOUNCE it somewhere
Regards,
Leo.
I thing I like the look…
And I like it further more that this Harddiskrecording program will be included in da package…
hmmm.
Seems that it fits my major needs
/me needs some time for earning the money 😉
Leo, your GUI suggestion is much much nicer than the currently presented one… It ‘s alot more pleasing for the eyes (I especially don’t like these dark-gray colors and the dark-gray/yellow combination. Awful)
My humble opinion about the interface (and an idea for the devs): the question is not how skinnable or customizable the GUI is. The question is what the user sees when the OS loads the first time – whether he/she will be astonished or just say a “naah…”
(in BeOS there was almost no option for customizing, maybe adjust the colors abit, but no backgrounds/other shapes/etc — and still the GUI was beautiful).
I think the devs should pay more attention to the interface, as it is the “face” of the operating system.