Well, using MorphOS gives me quite another experience than using Windows or OS X or Linux. Much of the reasons seem to be more like a feeling, but I want to track down that feeling and collect what MorphOS actually is doing different than other mainstream OSes.

1st thing that springs to my mind is the window handling - active windows do not automatically jump to front, but only on users comand (i.e. double click).

If you think of _using_ MorphOS instead of some mainstream OS - what's your first difference that comes to mind?

Everything on MorphOS is fast, instead of fat.

Quote:

The most thinks are user configurable in MorphOS. You can change it to put it on the same level of
feeling.

These are some things that are different and aspects I enjoy about the MorphOS and Amiga style environments in general.

- Custom Screens and Public Screens -
I have always liked the concept of using custom screens and public screens that can take over the display and co-exist alongside the desktop. I prefer to having programs like Scribble, ImageFX, TV Paint, Audio Evolution and Dopus 4 on their own screens for instance. It's like creating the perfect environment that the application has full control over instead of having to share some kind of standard desktop environment. It feels like you have escaped the boundries of the standard desktop operating system and gone on to a custom purpose defined space for each game/application to reside in.

- Menu Bars at top of screen -
I also really like menu bars at the top of the screen instead of hooked into the application window. I get a kind of twitch muscle memory of locations of menu items and can use a simple gesture to the memorized position without having to find the location where the menu bar will open each time because the window has changed size or position.

- Very few wizards -
I do not like flipping through sequential pages confirming each action individually to accomplish a task. Luckily only the first installation has anything similar to this.

- Snapshot and saving of directory path locations -
Simple things that mean every time you use the system things are back where you
want them to be.

- Configurability -
MorphOS has more options per capita about letting the user decide how things should look and operate than almost any other OS I can think of and without having to go and modify scripts or recompile stuff.

- Backwards and Forwards compatibility / Error Tolerance -
This is something of a lost art on other operating systems where each new release breaks all kinds of software from working correctly. On MorphOS I still use stuff made for Amiga in the 80s and 90s, incredible! Also, often new versions of applications or games will work on much older versions of the operating system as long as it doesn't ask for some specific new component or library versions that didn't exist back then. I can even open a 20 year old library and use it's features in a new piece of software if so desired. I can run applications that run on a 68k cpu even though I have a PPC system. This offers so much dynamic flexibility and compatibility vs other operating systems that are so rigid and demanding of every single resource matching up perfectly with the latest builds. As an example of error tolerant behaviour, If a system resource isn't found in one place it will look in many other likely locations or if a version doesn't match exactly it could still work as long as the API calls are present and perform a similar function. This creates a very error tolerant operating environment that doesn't fail just because something isn't 100% exactly as expected.

- Automatic hardware recognition -
This is something MorphOS is very good at. Your sound, graphics, USB devices etc. are found dynamically and correct drivers and devices are used to make them useful.

- USB -
I have never seen any operating system offer so much information and settings regarding USB devices plugged into the system. If I plug something into another computer it basically fails or works without giving me hardly any information or a way to attempt to fix this issue in a nice GUI.

- Save Use Cancel -
It's a great feature to be able to save a setting, test it temporarily or cancel making any kind of changes when modifying prefs. I often change a setting temporarily and when I reboot it's back to the last saved behaviour without having to go change it back again manually.

- Icons -
Very easy to replace change or modify icon images and all information associated with them by several easy methods. It's nice to be able to actually see an icon as a .info file instead of being hidden away. MorphOS makes it very easy to change a PNG image into an icon by just renaming.

- No hidden stuff -
Another great feature is the relative lack of hidden or invisible files. Most OS components and settings, icons etc are easy to access and rearrange by simple file management software or even using the desktop itself

- Shell -
I do not have to type CD to browse into a directory. It doesn't require case sensitive filenames. I do not have to type full path to something if I already browsed into that directory.

- System directory structure and filenames -
I find it much easier to have human readable simple names like C: Devs: Libs: Fonts: etc. to a bunch of obtuse sys/ usr/ root/ bin/ sbin/ proc/ etc/ with hundreds of nested directories stuff to hunt through to find a file or system component

- User Startup sequence and WB Startup -
These are about the simplest and easiest way to modify startup behaviour of an OS I can think of. One method uses shell scripting and one method is simple drag and drop.

- Application locations and installations -
It's nice to unpack an application/game and copy it wherever you want instead of having a package manager put it into some unknown location and most likely scattering misc files all over a convoluted directory structure that you will never be able to find or remove by hand ever again. This is all about transparency of operation instead of obfusication of simple tasks.

- Ram Disk -
I love having a very fast temporary ram disk to work with temporary files that then disappear when I reboot. It's like a scratch/work area that can be erased and reset for reuse over and over again.

- Window depth arrangement -
I can leave some windows to the back and move other to the front very easily instead of always having a forced click-to-front that obscurs what I am trying to look at when I click on something else. It's very handy to be able to compare and copy information between multiple open windows without worrying about obscuring one with the other all the time.

- ASL filerequesters -
Having a simple movable and resizable vertical list of files and directories seems better to me than some rectangular shaped thing that scrolls horizontally, is often not resizable and may consist of several panes of nested directories. Those usual kind of file requesters will also most likely forget where they were last pointing to every single time they are re-opened within the same application meaning you have to browse through 10 directories again to find the place you were last working in.

Maybe we can continue my thread instead?

https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?topic_id=9987&forum=3#111643

Quote:

The idea is to collect differences here. Not necesarily better things, but _different_ things.
I.e. not "what makes MorphOS good", but "what makes MorphOS unique".
Of course both questions are overlapping partially.

@Zylesea

I thought "unique" implied "good"

Quote:

Assigns

In addition to volumes, MorphOS retains the concept of assigns. In the simplest sense, an assign is pseudonyms for a volume or directory paths. As with volumes, assigns are suffixed by a colon, and are also mounted at the top level of the filesystem.

An example of an assign is 'sys' - which is a pseudonym for the system volume 'MorphOS'.
The path to Odyssey web browser, normally expressed as:
MorphOS:applications/owb/owb
can therefore also be expressed as:
Sys:applications/owb/owb

Another example of an assign is 'envarc' - which is a pseudonym for the directory 'prefs/env-archive' on the system volume 'morphos'.
This directory path can therefore be expressed either as:
MorphOS:prefs/env-archive
Sys:prefs/env-archive
or simply
Envarc:

Assigns can also refer to multiple locations. The 'c' assign is an example of this. The primary location is morphos:c, however it is also a pseudonym for the location morphos:morphos/c.

Assigns addressing multiple locations are prioritised in the order they are created (In this case sys:c is created first, then mossys:c added).
Consequently the command:
c:foobar
will first search the location
sys:c
for the file 'foobar'. If the file is not found, the location
sys:morphos/c
will then be searched.

[ Edited by boot_wb 22.06.2014 - 10:32 ]

The jumping windows are the most annoying feature to me, when using other OS than MorphOS.