New features and many bug fixes/updates are seen in SkyOS way. New screenshots too.
SkyOS, Updated
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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It still looks like WIndows
I noticed they changed the title bars a bit…but it still is VERY Windowsy. Anyone know if it possible to stick something like Gnome on this?
Dont really like Gnome… a new UI is in order here
Dont really like Gnome… a new UI is in order here
Good…I was becoming afraid that Sky was trying to become a Windows clone. Though it would be nice to have a Gnome port
Has there been any sketches/mock-ups of what the new UI will be like?
The Windows 98/2000 is pretty generic, but useful.
I personaly hate having the “close window” button right next to the “fit window” and the “shrink” buttons.
I’ll have to try the bootable CD ISO
Thanks Robert,
Vic
I personaly hate having the “close window” button right next to the “fit window” and the “shrink” buttons.
I couldn’t agree more. I hate accidently closing a window when I meant to hit the “maximize” button.
The GUI of SkyOS is themeable. At least, most widgets.
You can positition the titlebar buttons everywhere on the window or even remove them. Additionaly, you can change the icon, colors, font,… .
Well alrighty then
I didn’t try it out becuase from the screenshots it looked like it was a Win95 clone.
Since the buttons and various widgets are cusomizable then it is worth playing with. Now I will download it.
As mentioned multiple times on this page and http://www.skyos.org already, I’m not really a designer. To be honest, designing visual parts of SkyOS is on of the most difficult tasks for me. 🙂
does skyos support the png standard completely? if so, could it be used to create alpha-blended icons and other graphics? i also agree, if a new gui isn’t in order, a new theme sure is.
skyos is coming along well, good work robert.
PNG is supported.
The icons (at least on the desktop) are alpha blended. (32bit .ICO). Just drag them and you will see the different alpha levels for each pixel.
robert, great work! coming along well!
have you thought about having a contest and have someone create a new theme/gui for skyos? or possibly a redesign of your website? i’m thinking you should stick to programming the os and let someone else do the web/design work, that way skyos will continue to be amazing!
“I hate accidently closing a window when I meant to hit the “maximize” button.”
That’s funny, because I never use the maximize button, but I DO hate when I accidently maximize a window when I meant to hit the “close” button 🙂
BFD.
I would say that a “windows look” is an ideal starting point for many of these Hobby OS’s.
While many readers of this site are anti-Windows people (Come on… There’s so many more important things in life to get up in arms about other than “it looks like an MS product”), a common UI that people are familiar with is probably a good starting point to getting people to try the OS out. Most of these elements can probably be changed (just as Windows itself can be) to something you like better once the OS moves beyond the “try me and see” stage.
Just because it’s not another generic Eugenia/Beos design or a Gnome clone doesn’t mean that the functionality, and/or stability and speed of the product is the same. The superficial look of the OS is important, but since none of us are likely to make a hobby OS our primary OS, a common look/feel is a good way to get people to check some of these alternatives.
I’d rather see the builders of these hobby OS’s focus more on functionality (missing and perceived) before they worry about pleasing the anti-MS folk by wasting time on a totally unique look.
As an extreme example of this, what’s the point of having a great looking OS if all’s it does is boot? I’d rather have an OS that did a ton of things, but had a basic GUI than one which looks great but has limited support and capabilities.
Looks are generally one of the easier things to change down the road. Being able to easily add a USB stack, for example, is a lot more difficult, but such items are also more important to the long term survival of a maturing OS.
My opinion…
I’ve been using Gnome for over a year now and I love it. but…
Even SkyOS has a better file selector than us…
Oh well. Good job Robert! Amazing work!
“I personaly hate having the “close window” button right next to the “fit window” and the “shrink” buttons.”
I remember seeing that in a Microsoft publication announcing the forthcoming Windows 3, and thinking that they would surely fix it for the actual release.
They didn’t.
Windows 3.0, 3.1 and 3.11 all had the close button on the opposite side of the title bar as the min/max buttons. The close button next to the maximize button was introduced in Windows 95, and no, it never made any sense to me at all. It’s as bad as those old Apples that have the power button as a key on the keyboard. Sadly this close button placement has been copied into KDE/Gnome and even OSX (though all three buttons are on the left instead of the right side of the title bar). This is IDIOTIC and something we need to move away from. When you’re building a new OS from the ground up, you’re supposed to learn from the mistakes of the past and not repeat/perpetuate them, IMO.
I hate having the close button and the minimize|maximize|restore buttons on opposite sides of the title bar. It sucks to travel clear over to the left to close a window and travel clear over to the right to m|m|r a window. I like the one stop shopping offered by KDE Gnome and Windows (post 95).
If you like it the other way, then get a theme that somebody dinked up to work that way.
Great job on SkyOS. it looks really nice.
This OS is looking great. Sure the window decorators are not the best, but that is a minor superficial thing that can always be changed later on (it sounds like, via theming). The system boots quickly, is responsive and has a fairly coherent feel to it. It is amazing work for one person.
>this close button placement has been copied into KDE/Gnome
>and even OSX (though all three buttons are on the left instead
>of the right side of the title bar).
I don’t say it’s a good solution with OS X, but at least with OS X the distance between the buttons is larger than on Windows, so it’s a bit less likely to miss the button, also the order makes more sense on OS X:
close-minimize-fit
so if you miss the close button and accidentaly hit the button next to it (minimize) at least the window will still go away, whereas on windows it’ll blow itself up to the maximum size (quite the opposite of what you wanted).
>This is IDIOTIC and something we need to move away from.
>When you’re building a new OS from the ground up,
>you’re supposed to learn from the mistakes of the past and not
>repeat/perpetuate them, IMO.
I do agree, and they should go with the way it was done in Nextstep or the “old” Mac OS
That is either minimize on the top left and close on the top right (NeXTSTEP), or
Close on the top right and windowshade and fit on the top right (ye olde Mac OS).
Of course I meant ‘close’ on top left for the old Mac OS.
Why is there no preview function?? 😉
would really attract some more people trying it and maybe… get involved somehow with it…
Anyway, you’ve a great Job done.
Regards
Andreas
(The scrollbars function very buggy – it’s just that they do not work like they usually do(on other OS))
Why don’t you people just double click on the border to maximize? Seems a lot easier than have to navigate to the maximize button, trying not to hit the close button. I like them the way it’s done in most OSes – having them grouped together..
Double clicking my title bar causes the window to roll up and I like that way. So your idea is a non-starter for some people.
Double clicking my title bar causes the window to roll up and I like that way. So your idea is a non-starter for some people.
Personally, no matter what the OS, I always try and configure the buttons as closely as possible to:
When clicking titlebar:
—————————–
Single Click, Left Button: Nothing (gain focus)
Dbl. Click, Left Button: Maximize/Restore
Single Click, Middle Button: Maximize vertically
Single Click, Right Button: Roll up/Down
Shift Single Click, Right Button: On Top/Not on Top
In Linux I can customize KDE fairly close to the above (I have to middle click the maximize button to max. vertically, but still…)
In Windows, I use an awsome utility called Winshade 3.0, which is no longer being produced apparently, but before the parent company disappeared (“Bluecarpet.com”; Their website indicates a rebuild, but has for some time), they began giving away Winshade, and their site included the neccesary registration information (it was formerly shareware).
How anyone can work in Windows without it, or something similar, is beyond me (I’ve even gotten our IT department to approve it for use on my work PC). Stardock’s Windowblinds app offers most of Winshades functionality (and of course a whole lotta skinning features), but can not match all of the functionality of Winshade. And since Winshade was/is free, and Windowblinds costs $$, it’s a no brainer which to choose.
When using Beos (which I haven’t been able to do since getting a new P4, but I did just see yesterday that there’s a new release of BeOS with P4 patches, so this might change), I appreciate the zippiness of the GUI, but long for such simple configurability of my mouse. Has anyone found a way to handle such mouse/window actions with the Beos?
This is really more of a useable OS now. If I read the doc’s correctly then one (in future) could actually run windows apps and linux and maybe even beos apps all at the same time and under the same OS. Really some good stuff there.
What does JBQ think of it?