Unix with Amiga gui and graphics still may have a chance.
MUI is nice lightweight gui many devs will try it if avaible on unix.

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A chance for what?

How many times are you going to repeat this on every forum site, before you realize that almost no one here, or on the other sites, agrees with your "Unix" obsession?

Look at AROS hosted on top of Linux, it sounds like what you are looking for.

> Unix with Amiga gui and graphics still may have a chance.

https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=3&topic_id=9463&start=147

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I agree! So give me some suggestions on how to attract the hardcore geeks, and maybe some of them will help provide the "Sexy" in the future.

I am leaning toward creating some YouTube videos aimed at retro computer enthusiasts that will introduce those who never had an Amiga, and explain what it is, and why we still have a (small) active community. I am going to make it in a way that will raise curiosity, and hopefully get some new people to try MorphOS out, if they can find an old PPC Mac that they have, a family member has, or that they can buy cheap on eBay, or Craigslist, or what ever is the equal in other countries.

Anyone interested in helping, I could use artwork and ideas.

[ Edited by amigadave 20.09.2019 - 11:13 ]

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Except it isn’t. As someone who actually authored a Windows app based on a MUI clone (same layout concepts, AskMinMax and co) I can tell you that this is a dead end. It’s not just the fact that you need something that plays nicely with 3D, you also do not want a MUI like layouter because of its performance. It’s quite hard to make window resizing smooth with the askminmax approach for example. Another isssue is that your UX guys think in HTML and its hard to explain limitations of MUI to them. Relational positioning of UI elements is simply more flexible than MUI’s grouping of objects.

Ah and the app has had over 1M real users at its peak, it wasn’t some hobby project.

[ Edited by jacadcaps 21.09.2019 - 11:04 ]

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To get any people outside current amiga community.
Windows NT 4.0 was released in 1996.
Mac Os X 1.0 was released in 2001.
There will be no new users and developers without
- memory protection
- unix compatybility
- good drvers

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this clone is publicly available?

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yae amiga graphics has to be upgraded

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So mui need some better layout engine.

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At which point it wouldn't be MUI anymore...

For me better layout engine will not change mui character.
Even with old layout engine mui on unix will be something worth of use.
Even on ppc.
Without new people it will be soon just retro.

[ Edited by ppcamiga1 21.09.2019 - 16:54 ]

double post.

[ Edited by ppcamiga1 21.09.2019 - 16:54 ]

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One example of becoming LOUD!

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A "better" layout engine would replace the groups used in current sources and it would require replacing MinMax().

-> major rewrite of the GUI part of any MUI app needed, all classes broken without a rewrite
--> source compatibility gone
---> might fix other issues while your at it
-----> or just port an existing GUI engine, making it look "Amiga"
-------> MUI is gone

Not commenting about the underlying tech, but from user point of view MUI is just lovely. It allows users to make programs to look how they want, snapshot positions where they want, and has per program configs, etc. I'm not sure if any of the modern toolkits have this kind of freedom and easy config options for users...

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Sure. As part of the applications that use it. There is no SDK since it is proprietary.

Link

Re:GUI Layout engine

My main usage of MUI is from RapaGUI in Hollywood. From there it still has groupings but is represented in XML. How hard would it be to make a WYSIWYG GUI builder that uses the same XML format as RapaGUI for editing but exports to source for various GUI toolkits?

My biggest complaint about both MUI and Reaction is that the layout engines are not coded as source code for doing layouts but are genericly stored in MUIMaster.library or Layout.class respectively, which are bulky and slower than necessary. Thus the compiler cannot access the codes to optimize them itself. Even a JIT framework could optimize more than that.

If a new layout engine is to be made, BOOPSI and MCC files should be supported as a plug in but I haven't seen the source to know how hard it would be.

What do you think? Is it worth it?

Even MUI 3.8 may use custom layout, so no problem to add html like, while keeping compatybility.
ipla player has too simple gui, it should have no problem with layout.
probably the problem is elsewhere.

Summary:

- change the way MUI works

- rewrite (cyber)graphics

- add memory protection

- add a *nix underbelly

- "good drivers" aka borrow from bigger projects


Take your pick.

As was explained even good old mui 3.8 from 1997 allow to use custom layout.
cgx is not needed, everything below graphics may be cut off.


[ Edited by ppcamiga1 22.09.2019 - 13:59 ]

All existing (public) classes (internal or mcc) rely on getting AsMinMax() for layout.

Most apps rely on/use the existing layouter.

Custom layouts do exist but they are restrained to special cases and often only use classes defined in the same app (Ambient panels are such a case).

So someone would need to write a new layout routine that is versatile for most use cases, doesn't break old code AND is significant better than what we have.
To make full use of it one would also have to atleast touch all existing classes, at which point you could just put some "Amiga paint" on QT.......

As for CGX (refresh) not being needed, it is just as MUI an outdated design showing it's age.
If we are throwing out the old stuff, why not create a CGX_V6 that can stretch a screen over multiple monitors, maybe even connected to different cards?

Same "oh that would be nice" can be said bout almost every other part of the OS........

[ Edited by Kronos 22.09.2019 - 15:27 ]

Memory protection on AmigaOS/MorphOS is both easy and utterly pointless.

So what if you protect memory from illegal writes? The app doing it probably crashes anyway because of the write fail, and the way the OS is designed the resources put into that app aren't tracked in any easily traceable way. Libraries and files stay locked, memory stays allocated. CPU exceptions cannot be attributed to any process at the time of exception.

Changing this would simply either make the OS incompatible with AmigaOS software (and hence pointless), or result in so much manual tracing that the OS would barely move at all.

Similar but different limitations for true VM, 64 bit, multi core, and so on. AmigaOS cannot have these and remain AmigaOS, no matter how much you keep asking. That was writ in stone the first time Kickstart 1.0 was designed and compiled and third party starting writing software for it.

And this is also why it's almost impossible to entice new users to it no matter how loudly you broadcast it. It isn't a modern OS. It doesn't do what people in 2019 need. It never will be a modern OS. You never will get people outside Amiga fans to use it.

Deal with it and move on.

[ Edited by KennyR 22.09.2019 - 16:38 ]

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I "Almost" believe you when you say that we will never get people outside Amiga fans to use MorphOS, but not entirely. I've seen a few people who never used an Amiga, who are now part of this community, and are actively using MorphOS systems. Even met one or two of them. So, I'll continue to promote MorphOS, knowing that someday we will have a more modern version of MorphOS running on x64 hardware, which is fully 64bit capable, probably has memory protection, and also has SMP capabilities to use all cores of modern CPU's. It won't be backward compatible with MorphOS3.x, or any version of AmigaOS, but it will probably get a version of UAE ported to it, for the people who still want to run any of the ancient software on their new NG MorphOS systems.

Naysayers can continue to waste their time on these forums, but I choose to use my time here more productively. I'm still looking for people who have some time to create image, or video content that I can use, or people who have any other new ideas on how to best promote MorphOS.

Specifically, I would like to obtain videos of people doing actual work, or creating art, or music with their MorphOS systems. A video clip of them actually doing the work creating the art, or music, or work of other productive types, or even programming work. Any video clips of people using their MorphOS systems for things other than just web browsing and typing negative comments to forums.

[ Edited by amigadave 22.09.2019 - 09:56 ]

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Don't get me wrong, I'm not implying anything here, but who are these people and where are they? I would like to meet with them and see their daily usage of MorphOS.

Re:naysayers/outdated architecture

QBox was going to be a compatibility breaking release. The only way to support both releases any more is to build a virtual machine or cross architecture language. Hollywood would survive such a split. ObjectiveC frameworks could adapt as well with a recompile. C and C++ would need more ambitious changes comparable to an AROS backport though, if not a WebAssembly backend capable of running on the ABox and QBox environments.

As such it's time for a change as the subject of this thread indicates. What change though? Have I missed any choices?

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Jim Iggou is one who is active on this forum site, who said he had never owned an Amiga before becoming interested in MorphOS, although he had always been interested in the Motorola 68000 series of CPU's, and worked on a different project which used those chips. The other two or three I have met one at an AmiWest Show, but can't remember his name at the moment (which is not surprising), and I believe that one of the moderators at AmigaWorld.net & Amiga.org is a daily user who had not previously used or owned an Amiga. He is, or was a programmer with IBM I believe. I never said that they used their MorphOS systems daily, but they are active in the overall community, and use them from time to time, while owning other computers running Windows, MacOSX, or Linux, just like the rest of us. If you still doubt that we have users who never owned an Amiga before joining this community, search for them yourself, I don't have time to waste trying to prove anything to anyone.

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The title of the thread was meant to say that it is a time for a change in the way MorphOS is promoted, because in my opinion, we need more new users, and hopefully some of them will also be new programmers who will create MorphOS compatible software for us to use.

As for the Q-box thing, I'm pretty sure it was abandoned long ago, and the MorphOS Dev. Team is working on something new. It will look and feel something like our current MorphOS on PPC I think, but will be completely different "under the hood", and it will not be backward compatible with old Amiga software. It probably won't even be compatible with old MorphOS software, unless such software can be recompiled easily. But all of this is speculation on my part, except that at least one or two of the "Team" members has stated that work is being done on creating MorphOS for x64. That part I am sure of, but it might take years to complete.