AmigaWorld.net has interviewed Matthew Kille, the founder of the software company Zeoneo who is also the designer of the default AmigaOS4 graphical user-interface. His company developes both for AmigaOS4 and the Amiga Digital Environment. Please note however that the currently presented AmigaOS4 GUI at various ‘OS4 on Tour‘ events is not yet finalised. This includes a couple of the common UI components and the main overall color scheme.
I find the actual look of the GUI kinda yucky, much prefer the MUI style of interface. I know looks aren’t everything but it does have a very primitive 80’s vibe going on. Oh, and that brushed metal business on some of the buttons looks cheap…
ps… I miss my Amiga 🙁
Can’t wait for the “Is Amiga OS ready for the Desktop” series everywhere on the web.
Kinda looks like MOTIF come ot think of it.
I don’t know. The original Amiga’s graphics “look” was sort of cartoonish.
Especially with those silly clouds appearing with Zzz’s in them when the system was doing something.
It was, very very colorful, and in some cases, too many colors, given what I was use too. i.e. Macintosh
So the UI kinda looked cartoonish and kinda gaudy in its use of color.
I think the best look AI I have seen is someof the Enlightenment skins. For pur usability I guess the Macintosh looks very professional.
Although, lately, the Mac is getting a little too cutesy too. (MY programs bouncing up and down when I click on them, giving me a nausea sensation. Sorta like when your on a trapoline…)
🙂
I think the biggest problem is that the UI’s don’t do 3D yet. I know in X v4.4, 3D interfaces will be employed for the use of the window managers.
Can’t wait.
-gc
The new AmigaOS4 will offer most of MUI’s features by default, but instead of an add-on it’s cleanly implemented into the OS itself, it wouldn’t be much of a problem to make AmigaOS look like your current MUI using applications.
Also note that MUI will be available for AmigaOS4 as well.
“It was, very very colorful, and in some cases, too many colors, given what I was use too. i.e. Macintosh”
Considering the Mac had only two colors (black and white), the Amiga would tend to look colorful.
As soon as the Mac II came out, there were for a year or two more colors on the Mac. That 8-bit screen display made a big difference. The Amiga caught up with AGA.
1. Does the boing ball icon in the screen title bar actually do anything, or is it just for show? If the latter, is that an example of bad design? (taking up screen estate bu doing nothing)
2. Is the mouse pointer an arrow, or a pointing hand? (saw that in an old screenshot, asked it on the last round, didn’t get an answer I think)
Who’s to blame.
Responsive, consitstent, etc. works for me, but the insistance of presenting the GUI in the god-forsaken puke colors and textures is unforgivable. Who cares how “RETRO” it is or what Amiga fans like.
It looks ugly and it really isn’t.
Vic
1) If you’re asking about the Mac OS X, then the answer is: It bounces while the application is loading and stops bouncing when the application is ready for use. PS: I turn it off so the triangle under the icon will blink while the application is loading. The triangle will allways appear under a running application.
2) The mouse is an arrow. It’s only a hand when you are trying to drag something around and only if the application wants to change the pointer. This works much the same way as Windows; except there are fewer types (only: Hand, Arrow, Beach Ball). An application can also use custom pointers.
Actually, i think the look is okay.
Textured dialogs should be banished to hell. Textuing the dialogs IMHO is okay, as long as it is subtle. OS X does a good job at that, and the numerous themes copying it.
Keep up the good work Matthew, all these cooks are complaining, etc (although they most probably never will get an amiga). You don’t see them odoing the job, now do you ?
Take Care
Kevin
2) Not only applications can use custom pointers, also users can use/draw/customize it using prefences (system configuration like Windows control panel) as you can do with every icon
(since the first release back in the eighties)
is okay… I actually like it a bit…
But what is more important for me(technical-wise)… that it is really customizable…
Good job
Hope that you find really a good GUI for the final release…
Good luck & regards
-A
A grey (yes, grey) that dark looks like its from the early nineties… AT LEAST. Even Windows gave up on that shade.
The brushed metal also makes the overall look even more inconsistant.
Its just TOO retro for my liking. Everybody but Amiga has moved on
Hi
I’m not an Amiga user [I only had an A500 10 or 12 years ago and it was really impressive. Two years later when I bought a PC/386 I was really disappointed: No sounds and high quality graphics at all…] but does AmigaOS4 have menus and menubars? I can’t see one in those screenshots.
They’re still there – you will be able to hold down the right mouse button to get a menu as you always could. You will also be able to customise it so that the menus pop-up under the pointer and/or are “sticky” so you don’t have to hold to button down. The look will be customisable as well (semitransparent menus, rounded menus etc).
@Joe P:
No, I’m talking about the screenshot of AmigaOS; it has a boing ball in the upper-left of the screen. That’s a “Screen title bar” in AmigaSpeak.
@jt:
I understand that, in fact I programmed various pointers when I had an Amiga 500 running AmigaOS 1.3 (eg a skull laughing at the loser of a minesweeper clone I wrote)
Let me try to clarify the question.
In one of those first four screenshots, the Pointer Prefs windows is visible. That window shows someone editing the pointer, and the pointer is of a hand with a pointing finger. What I’m asking (and still no one has replied) is whether a pointing hand is the new default pointer, or if the default pointer is still the old red arrow (which I much prefer to everyone else’s black & white arrows). Since pointers don’t show up in screenshots, I can’t tell from the screenshots, unless someone who has seen it, or who knows some other way, tells me.
So, can anyone tell me that? I’m sorry to be such a pain about this, but I’m curious.
“In one of those first four screenshots, the Pointer Prefs windows is visible. That window shows someone editing the pointer, and the pointer is of a hand with a pointing finger. What I’m asking (and still no one has replied) is whether a pointing hand is the new default pointer, or if the default pointer is still the old red arrow (which I much prefer to everyone else’s black & white arrows).”
The default pointer is definitely NOT that hand, which was just something someone was playing around with.