Here are two new screenshots showing the SkyOS 5.0 transparent/freeform-windows and rounded-windows support as well as window shadows.
New SkyOS pre-5.0 Screenshots
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
These shots are not using the WindUI theme that will be default.
Seems pretty ugly. They need some more work on it.
Actually it is the WindUI theme, albeit somewhat incomplete. It’s easy to make a snazzy, pretty GUI in Photoshop but implementing it is a different story.
As of now it is at 4.9 Alpha 2. If you want SkyOS to be pretty use the WindUI theme. I think the screen shot was not taken with that theme becuase the min, max, and close buttons are being written.
This screenshots doesn’t show the WindUI theme as it will be for SkyOS 5.0. (Although the theme is called WindUI already).
At this point we will start to implement the visible parts of the WindUI. The last weeks I focused on implementing the needed SkyGI features like freeform windows, transparency, translucent windows, rounded windows and window animation. (This is why the screenshots were uploaded, just to show that all needed features are ready).
Our GUI team designed a lot of really great mockups for the WindUI theme and applications. The complete visible WindUI part should be done in the next few weeks.
This is a neat project. Linux started out this way. I love to see this kind of thing.
I can’t wait for SkyOS 4.9/5.0 to come out. I tried 4.0 but I couldn’t get my Logitech PS/2 mouse to work, hopefully it will once you release those two versions.
Again keep up the good work.
Sandman
Those screenshots look like ass. I hope they clean up the look before they do much else with it
When programming an Operating System, programmers usually work on what’s under the hood before anything else. The eye-candy is always the last thing programmers work on. It will look like the mock-up just give them time.
Sandman
Does anyone know if it supports multible users? I was reading the about page but didn’t see anything about multiuser support. If it does support multiusers, how well is the seperation?
Sometimes you must laugh at the way some people behave. The OS is still in beta. They are still working on the GUI, so yes, it will look a little bit off. If you think this GUI looks ugly, try looking at Motif.
My thoughts exactly, I’ll see if robert is planning support for this. If not, I’ll write a 3d party app to do it.
i’m very proud of robert’s progress in the last couple of months.. especially for a 1 person project with no funding. i’m hoping that he fixes the other gadgets (OK/CANCEL, etc) shading so that 2 sides are dark, 2 sides are light, rather than the 3 dark sides he has now. that and fixing the font spacing (see the letter e crash into the next letter etc) should make a big overall difference.
also it seems like the window shadows are much darker (maybe twice as dark) than they should be.. hopefully it is adjustable.
I like the idea of the whole project – but considering the recent competition for a new GUI design I *really* hope that this is not going to be the look for the next release. Those window borders are ugly – plain and simple.
THe scroll bars are ugly. The buttons are ugly. I can’t believe this is the result of such a competition as it is simply repulsive. Rounded windows and transparency are not required to make an OS look nice. Good graphics for a window border are what counts. Rectangles can look way better than this stuff.
On a lighter note I am wholly in support of the project because the way I see it the more alternative options the better.
Right now SkyOS does not support multiple users. We are going to be adding that function in a future version. Right now, there are more fundamental things to take care of.
The interface you see there, as Robert said, is not the WindUI theme. It is actually called “Fusion”. The new WindUI interface will look a lot more like the mockups you’ve seen. There actually is still a teaser shot on the front news page that I made that shows the new WindUI and explorer interface (though they are hard to see, on purpose, its a teaser). As soon as we get the WindUI theme in place, we will come out with some more shots.
ATI wouldn’t send us a test card, and we don’t have any money to buy one. Luckily, a very generous person has agreed to send us a test Radeon, so we will hopefully be getting hardware acceleration support for ATI, alongside Nvidia.
THe scroll bars are ugly. The buttons are ugly. I can’t believe this is the result of such a competition as it is simply repulsive. Rounded windows and transparency are not required to make an OS look nice. Good graphics for a window border are what counts. Rectangles can look way better than this stuff.
Well, you have to remember that that is only your opinion. There are a good number of people that disagree. That being said, we have options to toggle on/off rounded windows, drop shadows, etc.
Wow. The SkyOS team wrote accelerated nvidia drivers? I’m assuming those are not 3d, but still. That’s impressive.
I noticed that in the screen shots there was an option for anti-aliased fonts. But the desktop as a whole (fonts included) looked very much non anti-aliased. Are you guys planning on implementing anti-aliasing for more than just the fonts?
The WindUI mockups looked pretty amazing.
Oh, one other thing you might want to consider is instant apply as in GNOME. At first I didn’t think much of it myself, but now that I’ve been using a GNOME desktop for a while, I really like instant apply.
Anyways, good job!
The drivers right now are not 3D, only for 2D. It really makes the desktop great. We will get 3D acceleration sometime in the future. Its a little trickier than 2D. =)
I’m not sure about the AA fonts. You’ll have to wait for Robert on that one.
But they have a lot of work ahead of them. I’m sure it will look excellent when it(WindUI) is finished.
Personally, I think it’s pretty incredible what a couple of dedicated people can create. Like someone else said, Linux started this way.
You guys should be proud. There ain’t many people that can create a whole new OS from scratch.
Keep up the great work!
can anyone tell me if sky has a bootloader that can replace grub or if i can give sky a line in my grub.conf?
-dan
I tried installing SkyOS over the weekend, but was unable. Does SkyOS require an existing FAT/ext2 partition? Because in the installer, the “Repartition” button isn’t enabled. Any idea if SkyOS will have a partitioning tool in its installer anytime soon?
In the available download version, you do have to have an already formatted FAT partition. We are aware that this is not the best arrangement, and will be fixing it ASAP. We had a lot of major stuff to do first, but rest assured, we don’t like the situation any more than you, and will be fixing it at our earliest convenience.
win31/win95 + macos8
I supposed by this thinking, we should all still be driving a 1973 Chevy Vega too.
Just a question, not meant to be a flame: Does Sky support Anit-aliased fonts? The font’s in that picture are jagged. I couldn’t see going back to non-aa fonts after having them on X.
Off topic: Does anyone know why WindowsXP has ClearText fonts off by default?
what about a bootloader entry… what should the kernel line look like?
eg linux is /boot/bzImage
What kind of apps have been written/ported? Has the ubiquitous Abiword made the transition to SkyOS?
I am putting together basic old pentium systems to give to needy students for email/web/writing papers. At the very least, I show them how to save a paper as a word doc onto a floppy so they can print it in the computer lab or on a friend’s machine. I have been using Vector Linux on these boxes mostly, but have dabbled with BeOS, FreeBSD, OpenBSD. I am even thinking of trying Contiki on some 486’s. Anyway, this looks like another candidate for me to try.
Yes, antialiasing is supported. I will upload a few screenshots showing the WindUI theme/new backgrounds and enabled antialised-fonts in the next days.
Could’nt see anything on the website to indicate what the intention of this is. At last check there were 200+ “distro’s” of Linux alone…
* Yet another hobby OS just for fun ?
* Yet another serious attempt to address some perceived shortcoming in other OS’s ??
* Vanity coding ???
WTF is it about?
I remember well the period where everyman and his dog was announcing a new html editor. Is an OS the new html editor?
garbage
Do you think so?
Not to be smug, but do you think someone who isn’t serious about their project would have worked on it from 1997 to the present?