Elena Novaretti has released a small patch for version 3.5 and 3.9 of AmigaOS adding transparent support for 24-bit PNG icons and alpha channel transparency. Comparison workbench screenshots: 256 color classic icons and 24-bit PNG icons with the patch installed.
These are so unworthy osnews. I’m sure there are more important things happening on OS or even Amiga/MorphOS front..
Actually any news from the Amiga (OS4/MOS) front is good. Besides I am kinda tired of worthless Linux distribution reviews. This is change and change is good.
It’s just a fun little patch, so what really the problem?
I believe it’s kind of cool that you can make 16 year old (upgraded) computers look like the latest releases of Linux and other OSes.
BTW, I removed all background, window textures and replacement buttons from those screenshots to keep the emphasis on the icons.
P.S. People emulating AmigaOS 3.5/3.9 through UAE can use this small patch as well.
I would think that SVG support would be better then .PNG but both would be great IMHO.
How about showing us a pic in which Amiga OS actually looks good instead as a whole ?
What I like about this patch is that it’s fully transparent and appears to be fully system friendly. Simply rename a .png into a .info and you have an icon. It doesn’t matter if it’s actually a large sized photograph and will function just like an ordinary Amiga icon. Other applications such as icon Toolbars can immediately make use of them etc.
Now for the negatives. Ordinary Amiga icons will show a transparent version of the selected icon while dragging them, PNG icons however all show the same ‘dragging image’. Also ordinary Amiga icons usually consist of a selected and an unselected image, PNG icons only change color when selected.
@ Anonymous
> How about showing us a pic in which Amiga OS actually
> looks good instead as a whole
AmigaWorld user cockney_dave added some backdrops to his PNG icons:
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/d.hutchinson/PowerWB.png
He did not add window border textures and didn’t change the default buttons, but you can of course customize this as well.
AmigaOS3.1 (with customized buttons) http://www.stormloader.com/amiga/osnews/aiab1.htm
AmigaOS3.9 (with customed border textures and buttons)
http://www.iksnet.it/Grab/ikir-39.jpg
AmigaOS4 also has some nice (and featureful) gradient support:
http://www3.telus.net/NeRP/OS4_on_A1.png
Now just use your imagination.
The images I uploaded were solely intended to put the emphasis on the icons.
“I would think that SVG support would be better then .PNG but both would be great IMHO.”
Don’t understand why SVG should be better than PNG, as the first is a vector graphic format, the second is a bitmap format, hence two different worlds.
I agree tho that support for both formats would be cool.
Mike, I think that what you’ve shown to us is a good example (good example how look of Amiga desktop “evolved”) of what Anonymous called not good looking…
The first one looks good, simple, readable etc., the second, rather good still, although is starting to show what I’m thinking about, but the third one is almost a perfect example why I think that many Amigans desktops look simply HORRIBLE. Many elements that aren’t needed for anything, not matching window/toolbar/button/desktop backrounds, colors that cause your eyes suffer..that’s commodity (luckily this one particular theme also menaged to look rather good apart from showing that things like this are possible in AOS, but unfortunetelly most Amiga desktops are just showing off that certain things can be done)
Lucky thing is that the last one looks really good…
As does AROS imho, from the screenshots – they both have that Amiga feel to the interface…
But perhaps it’s just me…(windows classic in XP, Fluxbox, etc. here)
@ zima
Fully agreed with you.
The default grey AmigaOS3.x/2.x look originates from 1990 with the release of the Amiga 3000. After some years this wasn’t really a nice default look anymore and as people ugraded their systems many people customized their workbenches.
However there were many people with different opinions and tastes and after a while almost every Amiga workbench looked completely different from the other.
Many users mixed alot of different ideas, often resulting into configurations only pleasant to themselves.
AmigaOS 2.0 (released 1990) up until AmigaOS3.1 (1993) run well on 7Mhz Amiga with 1 or 2 MB total memory (that is graphics mem + other!).
Long after big C= bankrupted, in order to sell as many AmigaOS3.5 and AmigaOS3.9 copies as possible the default GUI look didn’t change much either with these releases and mostly only features were added and some longstanding bugs were fixed. OS3.5/3.9 Requirements: 14 Mhz 020, 4Mb and a CD-ROM.
Now with AmigaOS4 to be run on much faster PPC hardware, AmigaOS will finally get a good default look again, still with all the flexibility AmigaOS users have gotten used to.
AmigaOS4 is the biggest upgrade AmigaOS has ever seen. AmigaOS’ low bloat footprint, efficiency, modularity, customizability and responsiveness are still aimed to become some of its greatest advantages. AmigaOS also still handles many things very cleverly, like its screens, tooltyes, locales, etc, so many Amiga users hope the OS will offer enough unique features to become big once again.
Amiga computers still hold a good reputation within various fields such as within the movie industry (mixing graphics with real video, like in Disney’s Dinosaur, rendered graphics such as used in Babylon5, SeaQuest or Terminator 2). Also Amiga were often used in embedded settings (even at NASA) and hopefully this reputation could be of advantage to the sales of Mini-ITX AmigaOne boards, which is small enough to fit into c64 or PSX cases. 😎
I think this one looks the best:
http://www.stormloader.com/amiga/osnews/aiab1.htm
The icons are very conistently styled, most of the at the same angle. The colours are nice too, very varied but not too gaudy. A nice touch is the way the diffeent folders are like different coloured filing cabinets. And the way haw the preferences icons have little question marks next to them.
Do you know who designed this icon set? And if all the icons in this set are available as png or any other type of image.
Thanks.
>These are so unworthy osnews. I’m sure there are more
>important things happening on OS or even Amiga/MorphOS
>front..
I’ll admit, when i first saw it, my impression was the same. A little dry on Amiga news are we?
Cant see my point? Put the release of linux kernel test8 along side this one, and you’ll get the point.
But i guess it is almost bigish in the AmigaWorld. I mean, its a great thing to have, and some people are licking their lips about it. And if i had a decent Amgia systems, i’d use the patch/hack too.
also, the news item @ amiga.org said it was 32bit icon support, not 24!
24-bit wouldn’t allow for alpha transparency because 32-bit is 24-bit color with an 8-bit alpha channel.
I just used Elena’s description of her patch: “24-bit icons with alpha channel transparency”.
The reason why I thought it would be fun to include this as a news item is because you can make old 16 year old computers look like new systems. In the headline it clearly states “classic”.
Personally I don’t consider a new Linux kernel update or the latest WinXP bug/leak news to be more interesting. It was more intended as a fun little newsitem, just like for instance when Slashdot covered the possibility to go online with ancient c64 computers and I believe it’s kind of sad the replies started out so negatively.
Instead of the news item being not newsworthy, I believe the “this is not newsworthy” comments to be not comment worthy.
@ ?!?!?!
> Do you know who designed this icon set?
The ProLite icon set was specificly designed for Amigas by Eric van Velthooven (aka LazaruZ).
“…
Amiga computers still hold a good reputation within various fields such as within the movie industry (mixing graphics with real video, like in Disney’s Dinosaur, rendered graphics such as used in Babylon5, SeaQuest or Terminator 2). Also Amiga were often used in embedded settings (even at NASA) and hopefully this reputation could be of advantage to the sales of Mini-ITX AmigaOne boards, which is small enough to fit into c64 or PSX cases. 8-)”
One thought about this – I think it won’t come back simply because of one poor hardware choice in new Amigas: Via, with their horrible pci, unusuable for any profssional (especially video) task
Too bad
>Via, with their horrible pci
Why? My PC works fine. What is wrong with my PC?
That’s because you’re using it as a home computer, not video workstation – you’d be UNABLE to use it in second role.
Thanks for use my screenshots Mike
http://www.iksnet.it/Grab/ikir-39.jpg
Amiga Power