A lot of people have rushed to submit the news, but CattBeMac was the first one to do so. Hyperion Software has released some never seen before screenshots of the upcoming Amiga OS 4, with full support for transparency.
AmigaOS 4 Screenshots Released
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
The shots look good … and the good thing about it is that its actually AmigaOS4 that will run on a PPC based new Amiga computer :-)))
Its a great day …
Kees Witteveen
Amiga.org
They sure do look nice, with transparency and rounded(!?) menues, but do Amiga still use bitmap fonts, or is it just AA that is missing?
This is not yet the finalized look of a standard AmigaOS4 installation, the bottom line however is that the user should be able to change the entire look as desired.
AmigaOS4 and new AmigaOne motherboards [ http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=925 ] are expected for May/June 2002.
> but do Amiga still use bitmap fonts
Hyperion licensed 12 professional TrueType fonts from Agfa for next generation AmigaOS releases. More screenshots will follow.
cuz that really looks like ass to me. yeah, it works, and that’s great.. but its hideous. not just talking about colors and the “skin” on items either.
nivenh
CRAP! It’s pretty ugly, IMHO.
When I vist that link. I get a nice 2 paragraphs telling me about the screenshoots, but alas there are no screenshoots to see. Anyone else having this probelm?
kinda looks like solaris, sans toolbar.
must… resist… temptation… to plug… Be….
> CRAP! It’s pretty ugly, IMHO.
Good to see that Microsoft employees still are trolling Amiga related forums.
AmigaOS will have a fully costumizable and skinable GUI by default. Be sure some Amiga artists are working with Hyperion/Amiga Inc to design to best looking GUI they can come up with, note that they have had a highly configurable GUI available to them, long before anyone else.
> Anyone else having this probelm?
Maybe you should press the “New Intuition” an “New Menus” buttons. Several tumbnailed pictures will appear underneath these buttons, press them.
I don’t exactly belong to the amiga generation, so those of you who are knee-deep in history will have to excuse my artificiality. I hope this is not about looks. Or that looks are things they will eventually improve. Because, unless you are an Amiga fan, these screenshots are really ugly and retrograde. Even when compared to Gnome
And no, I don’t work for MS, although I wish to hell I did
When I see articles like this and the posts that follow, it almost makes me wonder if Sega or Nintendo should decide to come out with a new operating system just because they could make a really awesome GUI for it.
I’ll admit that I have this same tendency to maybe put more emphasis on GUIs than they deserve, but I just found the whole thing amusing today and couldn’t resist commenting (sorry Eugenia).
Don’t piss your pants just yet…
I haven’t read anything suggesting AOS4 will support transparency. In fact I very much doubt it will.
What you’re probably looking at is fake transparency like crappy X11 window managers are known for.
Definitely the most BUTT UGLY UI I’ve seen, since KDE…
hey, at least it is not as slow as QNX gui, every time I move a window or scroll, I see waves
Win32 is the most user friendly UI I have seen for x86 (no, I never worked on a mac long enough)
This doesn’t look like the same kind of transparency that X11 window managers sometimes have, no, because I don’t think any X11 window manager has transparency. There are “transparent” terminal programs which are made to fit with certain window managers, and those have the fake transparency you’re talking about.
The menus in these screenshots are clearly showing what’s behind them. Whether that’s “fake” depends on your definition of real. That’s what any real transparency algorithm would be doing. AmigaOS may not support transparency at an API level, but if the goal is only to provide the eye candy of transparent menus that’s not really a hindrance. (And for all I know OS 4 may indeed support alpha channels. It’s not rocket science.)
Other than that the colors kind of clash, and like Mike Bouma said, which is stated on the website… these are not the final product and that we’ll see some more GUI goodness later. I can admit when Apple was first showing off Aqua, I thought it was ugly (the ‘Dock’ especially), but they improved as more screenshots were released, so just sit back and wait. I think the reason they released these early was because the Amigans have been getting ansi (did I spell that right!@#$%^&*?) on seeing something… which is understandable 🙂
hey, at least it is not as slow as QNX gui, every time I move a window or scroll, I see waves
Win32 is the most user friendly UI I have seen for x86 (no, I never worked on a mac long enough)
Try BEOS =)
I am not a microsoft fan but god that’s horrible. Pastel colors with transparent rounded windows and scrappy looking pixel edges. Kinda like the early stages of some hobby linux window managers. Transparency and Skinning have to be among the top most worthless cosmetic features of an OS. I know this is just the initial stages of development but I can only hope they run in the opposite direction.
It sure does look kinda UGLY and OLD. Why not get some ideas from the following sites:
http://www.wincustomize.com/skins.asp?library=22
http://www.windowblinds.net/
http://www.kde-look.org
http://www.themexp.org
Ex-Amiga User
Someone didn’t take Blue’s Clues class on GUI Design Principles 101, did they?
Transparency is a complete and utter waste of time, especially for drop-down menus. Now the user has to look harder to find a function. Its very cool if you’re a themer, but real-world users get annoyed by it.
When releasing a new version of an OS, update your widgets, for god’s sake! Amiga should hire someone to redo their widget sets. (In the word’s of Wired – ‘Tired’). These look as nasty as WB3.1 did on my Amiga 500.
(Off on a tangent) No-one except hardcore Amigans will fork out a whole bunch of cash for a PPC system that is by current standards underpowered in terms of raw CPU power. Amiga is pointing the proverbial gun at the head and pulling the trigger by not embracing x86. You can argue that they have to compete with Microsoft but tell this to the Linux x86 users out there. Its bad enough trying to compete on the software front without creating an even smaller niche by now relying on hardware too.
Fake transparency would be software-driven. Are they using the GFX hardware to accelerate the transparency? I would hope so. I sure don’t need my cpu to jump every time I open a menu.
Well this was disapointing. I though amiga back in the day had the killer desktop when others sucked. I was hoping to see something absoulty beautiful. Alas it was not to be. Hopefully like mentioned this is not final and will get better. It’s not just the colors though. Everything had that same square blocks in blocks no depth look that the unix’s have had. Beos, windows, and mac seam to understand the concept of having some roundness in things and a look of some depth.
Also what is this hang up with transparencies? I think there are more important things than that. Most people here seam to think the GUI needs some work. But the big news seams to be the transparencies. Am I the only one who finds these anoying and ugly? I don’t have a clue how you would use them. I have tried to use them on things and the just make things hard to use, are hard on the eyes and don’t look good. Maybe it is just me. I have no issues with them being there if people like them thats great. It just seams like other things need work before working on them.
none the less, i’m glad to see work moving forward on amiga. good work. just work on some colors
I dunno…. I think the new desktop looks great (without the transparencies). But then again, I am a fan of simple desktops that are just plain functional rather than having photo-realistic icons and such. I like the Geos appearance a lot better than I like Windows XP’s look for example.
Maybe I’m just old fashioned… I dunno…
This is a very early realease, and one of which skinning is not supported. Skinning shoudl be introduced in AmigaOS4.2 or ealier…
This screen shots are very nice and proves work is being done and that AmigaOS4 is NOT vapourwear, however some people particapating in the OS wares will still say so…
I hope one of these Amiga projects delivers the goods. That brought back great memories. Looks beautiful, to me. Because I know what’s under the hood…
HEY, R.J.!
Of course, as we’ve stated. This is not a release version and infact, consumer release targeted out side the Amiga Community will only be released AT version AmigaOS5.0…
That is, the OS is on an upgrade path. That path ends at 5, where no dbout soem major functionality is chucked in. The OS4x series are just to keep Amigaians interested!!!
Yes, it is good to see things moving forward. Having something out there will allways be better than nothing. When can we expect 5.0?
If all the time they’ve wasted so far has just been spent polishing the GUI, I will not upgrade from
OS3.9. I can customize the GUI today by adding MagicMenus (which has transparency mode),
set the Screen & Windows fonts, etc. I’d rather see them (Amiga Inc.) devote some time to writing better documentation on how to Program OS3.9. I just wasted over two hours trying to find
some help on using a single graphics function.
Perhaps there are some people that read OSNews that aren’t aware that Amiga Inc. already has several other projects that use x86 CPUs (you can have’em, my 68060 50Mhz Amiga A4000T has all the speed I need thanx, because the OS doesn’t spend so much time doing disk-swapping, etc).
Looks like a cross between early-90’s O/S2 and an X-windows display.. ugly ugly ugly
Yes, those screen shots are ugly.
They show work by a programmer who is coding the configurability of
the GUI. Many options which were only available with hacks and patches
are being properly built into the OS.
That’s what the shots are about.
The coder is probably color blind. It doesn’t matter. There is a
designer working on the graphics.
Uhm…you obviously haven’t got a PPC system. I for one would love to finally have a PPC native OS for my PPC amiga as it’s now merely collecting dust.
NB: This has nothing to do with what’s good for Amiga Inc., it’s just what’s good for me. 🙂
Hyperion: “But the overall idea is indeed that you can change everything on screen the way you like it.”
Here are some ideas:
http://ksi.ii.uj.edu.pl/armo/amigallery/pix/amigaos4.png
http://www.lightrave.vuurwerk.nl/amigaos/amigaos5/aos5-screenshots….
http://simoami.freeservers.com/FutureAmigaOS.html
http://corp.intercom.it/~amigaws/Eng/OS4GUIDesign.html
http://www.amiga-club.de/aida/archiv98/0014.html
Old AmigaOS look:
http://www.trotta.de/club/wb-txt/index.php
This reminds me of um, an Amiga…
Has anything actually changed in the last 12 years?
Surprised they didn’t rip off Aqua – after all the look of AmigaDOS 2.0 was a rip off of NeXT…
I assume they’ll have something better when it Arrives.
Ex-long time Amiga Fan.
—
BTW whats this with Amiga and Atari fans going for the Coldfire chip?
Whats the point of using a slow embdded chip when x86 or PowerPC will kick it’s ass? At least the bigger Amiga companies are doing this.
“Because, unless you are an Amiga fan, these screenshots are really ugly and retrograde. Even when compared to Gnome
”
=> I AM an Amiga fan and I DO think it is ugly and old-fashionned !
Regards,
Nogfx.
“Because, unless you are an Amiga fan, these screenshots are really ugly and retrograde. Even when compared to Gnome
”
=> I AM an Amiga fan and I DO think it is ugly and old-fashionned !”
I’ve never owned an Amiga in my life and I don’t consider myself an Amiga fan. But I think the new desktop looks great. Simple, fuctional, everything a desktop should be, and nothing that it shouldn’t be (gigantic photorealistic icons that contribute nothing to my working efficency, etc.)
The main point of these screenshots was to show some of the GUI configuration options available to the user. Sadly only few commented on these featues.
AmigaOS 2.x GUI configurabilty was amazing, before OS/2 or Linux even existed! Keep up the good work!! Yummie PPC native AmigaOS. 😛
I am an amiga fan, and I agree the GUI is ugly. But the point wasn’t to show off the GUI. It was to show that the PPC Amiga OS is working.
There are GUI enhancements being worked on. From the original posting by a guy at Hyperion at ann.lu: Before you complain, nearly everything can be changed and these shots do not yet include the new system graphics by Matt Chaput.
Matt Chaput designed the “GlowIcons” system and he has taste, which is more than I can say for most programmers, myself included. 😉
Can anyone point me to a reference that explains why people still care about the Amiga? These screenshots and the functionality they imply seem pretty lame.
I love those screenshots! I didnt grow up with an amiga but I am a fane evn tho ive never tried an amiga since its very hard to get here……..other then that its real Good Screenshots! (And what do linux and MS freaks know Anyway? Beos forever!)
hmmmmmm a Nintendo operating system…..NOS heheheh
Maybe i should install it in me car
and put a bumper sticker saying
THIS CAR GOT NOS!
P (that would kick ass tho)
…having a passable GUI in the first place. Even this (http://gm.benews.com/archives/BeOSExp.jpg) doesn’t look that bad.
Beside subject, here’s FYI for Chris Whatley & others:
Old Amiga OS look:
http://www.trotta.de/club/wb-txt/index.php
Some Classic Amiga functionality:
http://www.amigapro.com (check the showcase)
Has anyone read the text before judging the screenshots? I see everyone saying that its ugly and that XP/MacOS is better.
Yes XP looks real nice but so does 2000!
Yes, MacOS looks nice… thats about it.
These few pages are just samples of what can be done, the different skinning that can be done and the colouring that can be done. I quite a few things which everyone should have read:
“For the first set, we chose to highlight the many different customisation options that a user can apply to the AmigaOS4.0 interface. Taken from a VGA setting on one of the core team development machines, this set highlights such effects as transparency, shadow, texture, gadget shape and colour”
“These screenshots are very preliminary and must not – by any means – be considered as the definitive appearance of the AmigaOS 4.0 GUI. Work is still in progress, and a lot of improvements are being added, including the user’s ability to configure almost everything.”
“Work is still in progress…”
Thanks you… that is all.
“Has anyone read the text before judging the screenshots? I see everyone saying that its ugly and that XP/MacOS is better.”
I don’t understand why people think XP looks nice anyway. XP looks horrible. XP looks like something you would find on “My first computer” from a toy company or something. XP looks like it was designed based on feedback from circus clowns (that’s about how colorful and gaudy it is).
Granted you can change this so that XP looks like Win2K, but the default WinXP configuration is UGLY.
Hello Chris,
> Can anyone point me to a reference that explains why
> people still care about the Amiga?
Amigans are fond on their platform because it offered features way more advanced compared to its competitors at the time. Everything from Autoconfig, Pre-Emptive Multitasking, Screens, Shared Libraries, Windowed CLIs, Advanced Multimedia and many GUI features/customizations all found their origin on the Amiga platform or were far better implemented than on rival platform, sometimes more than a decade earlier than current mainstream platforms. Currently the main advantages people differentiate the Amiga platform with are great efficiency, flexibility, high responsiveness and top performance.
Somewhere in the comments someone stated that the GUI looks like a cross between OS/2 and X-Windows. That’s funny as these screenshots actually look more like AmigaOS, which existed years before both of these. To be correct, the AmigaOS GUI has had alot of influence on the development of newer GUIs. Take the good old MUI for example [ http://www.sasg.com/mui/gallery/Stefan_Stuntz/PSI.jpeg ] , it was a major inspiration for modern day Window managers on Linux. BTW a new PPC native version of MUI 4.0 is being developed for AmigaOS. So Chris now you may better understand why AmigaFans want to see a new AmigaOS. It was the king of the Desktop and still today does make more sense in terms of structure, efficiency and multimedia abilities. The new AmigaOS will finally be able to take advantage of modern hardware. Of course its going to be a niche OS, at least for a while considering current software monopolies. But given the AmigaDE becomes a success it will offer AmigaOS the oppertunity to break free of this monopoly.
Please read the initial statements before you look at the screenshots. They’ll tell you that these are “mock-ups”, proof of concept, and far from what it might actually look like in the end. What you’re supposed to see is the functionalities they’ve added to it, not the looks of it. If they simply made it the classic grey and blue, people would probably complain that no changes were made, which obviously isn’t the case.
Anyway, how things will lokk will only be decided by the user in the end as everything will be customizable. 🙂
Mike Bouma, have you considered of applying some PR person job at Amiga Inc?
Really, I think you should! (AI PR department would get immense improvement)
Yes Samface, I agree with you. It is a little disappointing to see that the comments aren’t more targeted to what was being demonstrated in the screenshots. The coders have done an excellent job implementing these features in the new PPC version of AmigaOS. This example picture of a GUI idea of one of the coders working on the AmigaOS GUI:
http://corp.intercom.it/~amigaws/Images/OS4GUIDesign.gif
A notice by the coder regarding this design: “There’s still very much room for improvement in the above design, since I’m a programmer, not a designer or a professional graphic artist.” People should have to keep that comment in mind when they look at these screenshots. He provided the functionality, there are other people at work designing the GUI look as well.
Instead of the above design, a standard AmigaOS4.x design could look like this:
http://simoami.freeservers.com/cgi-bin/i/images/AmigaOS4GUI.jpg
The entire GUI look isn’t finalized yet, the functionality is far more important as in the end, the user should be able to decide for himself what the GUI should look like.
This interview with one of the coders gives a good overview of what
else is being improved for AmigaOS 4
http://www.kicker.nu/amigarulez/html/sections.php?op=viewarticle&ar…
It seems rather an ambitious project to me. The GUI consolidation is
only a small part.
this is a good proof of concept:
alpha bending
free shaped widgets
pixmaps
etc…
about everything you need to have a 100% customizable environment.
why Bitching something that isn’t interesting ATM (the artistic look)
I know people interested mor on how speedy the whole environment is.
Im just dreamming about something…
And if OBOS team and Amiga team work together one day?! It will be the perfect day!
I never used Amiga, but for what people talks, it looks a little like BeOS.. And its for PPC…
Joining forces to make a big OS could be the solution against Microsoft!!!
(sorry my really bad english.. Im workin on that!)
>Because, unless you are an Amiga fan, these screenshots >are really ugly and retrograde. Even when compared to >Gnome
If Gnome would work the way it looks, it would be a great windowmanager, but as we all know… its damn slow..
As they say, who likes to be beautifull has to suffer.
>CRAP! It’s pretty ugly, IMHO.
Thats a settings issue with this forthcomming OS. 😉
but I understand that as a proof of concept, this is fine. It’s just to demo what will be possible to do, right? And surely, just because something is possible doesn’t mean it will be used or abused, I hope.
I don’t like the way the fonts look. I am sure they’ll improve that, though.
I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t use my accustomed screen name like that. You might hate me for defending Microsoft (occasionally, when I think they deserve it) but we shouldn’t all be just a bunch of dittoheads, IMO. Makes for bad discussions. Or maybe just an honest mistake? No big deal either way.
“Linux sucks too, but it sucks less than everything else out there.”
– Linus Torvalds
I’ve read several times that a lot of the BeOS enginers were iether well into AmigaOS or programed for it in some way.
– no wonder BeOS turned out to be such a sweet OS 
Ben Hermans posted the following interesting message on the Amiga News Network:
“In the last 48 hours interest in the OS 4 screenshots was such that it threatens to overwhelm the server.
– 50000 visitors (!)
– 9000000 page views
– 2.2 million files transfered
– 17.67 GB of traffic All within 48 HOURS”
I agree with you completely, Simba. The nicest thing about XP is that you can revert to the Win2K look. I have referred to Windows XP for about a year now as “a stable product with a ‘designed by Disney’ interface”.
I cannot understand why everyone (including some Linux distros) wants to emulate Windows XP. But then, some otherwise sane, adult, people continue to believe the Earth is flat.
Both Windows9x/XP GUIs suck.
It looks ugly, but to be true, who cares about? Nobody needs AmigaOS4. For what? Running the old ugly Amiga apps out there? Come on dudes… Stoneage is over.
If you realy want to see how configurable the Amiga OS is you can check out some sreenshots of OS 3.9 here:
http://www.amigafuture.de/interactive/workbench.php
OS4 can only get better so dont just look at the funny appearance on a 640×480 256 colour screen and get put just yet. Those OS4 pics are just showing off individual features such as rounded menus etc.
I wish people would think and research before reacting.