@vidarh

Quote:

Has MUI been bad for the users? MUI started out in exactly that position of being a third party UI toolkit with no official endorsement, coming in addition to the officially endorsed alternatives.

btw MUI respects many of suggestions written into Amiga Interface Style Guide, all suggestions to feel user good when use an Amiga UI, and they are avaiable without more work for a dev. The only really "bad" thing was some of these useful features were not avaiable for a not register version of MUI, but Zune has not this limitation for users.

@vidarh

Quote:

But it's reality on practically every platform in existence. The Amiga platforms have had a wide range of different UI libraries without "official" endorsements going back to well before AmigaOS 2.x.

Please, don't get me wrong. I'm not against having 2 UIs. I do think it is a good idea.
It allows more tools to the developers and more apps to the users.

What I do not want to see is some point in the (near) future where the UI fails to work
due to some 'unnecessary' change to the OS and now everybody is POed at each other and the
whole platform suffers. The users can't use their software, the developers see nothing
but hard work to fix things, the OS guys catching hell for trying to stay current.....

All I'm saying/asking is that there be a OK, yup, can do, from all the OS guys as to
keeping the new UI relevant on their systems and distributing it with the OS. I do not
see a problem here for open source as long as it's allowed to be distributed along with
commercial products.

I do not know if you will agree or not, but in the early days, MUI could really be a PITA
to users, and those on a tight budget finding out they had to pay for MUI to run a app
they just paid for could get angry to the point of not using any MUI related software.
Everybody lost.

Perhaps a coalition of developers could be formed to present their desires to all the
OS guys, and the OS people simply agree to support the UI by not doing anything
unnecessary that would make it fail. They do not have to be pals, have dinner together,
or allow their children to get married to each other, just agree.

That can't be too much to ask.

@Mechanic

Well, OS4 guys have already stated any existing amigaos toolkit sucked deeply and that QT was the way to go in the future, anyway. So i doubt they'll care a lot about this discussion.

@Fab

QT was the way to go?!? Really? Could you please give me a link where they say this?
I know Rogue has commented that none of the existing Amiga UI toolkits are a good
enough if he had the choice of using any GUI in future OS versions. But "sucked deeply" I missed.

There are other reasons why AmigaOS4 won't use MUI4 as you very well know.
As a commercial OS Hyperion need to able to control the development or atleast be able
to influence the future of said toolkit. Not just follow the MorphOS team's development
and wait for new features to be added when the community has the time to add them.
What if the MorphOS team or community adds or changes something that the OS4 team
does not want or is somehow screwing up things for them.. No, the OS teams needs to
control their own UI toolkit's, exactly as the MorphOS team has control over MUI4.
IMHO of course

Btw if a new advanced UI was created is it not better to do ReAction and MUI wrappers
for those apps needing those UI's.

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@Fab

Quote:

Fab wrote: @Mechanic Well, OS4 guys have already stated any existing amigaos toolkit sucked deeply and that QT was the way to go in the future, anyway.

I really don't know if they said that or not. Perhaps they were looking at QT (?).
Anyway, it can't hurt to ask them, not necessarily to support zune, but at least to
have a look at it as an optional UI they could allow for, or work around. Or something
like that.

If they are not interested, , , well, that does not make them bad guys, just on a different
path.

I would support this effort. Sounds good to me. But hey, I'm one of the guys near the bottom of
the pile.

@ShInKurO

Quote:

I don't want flame about Feelin or any other framework but: even if a framework is a beautiful, open, modern, etc... if it is not used by many programs then it's an HOLE for a series of tecnical reasons I can't explain in few lines. MUI is not only is one of most advanced framework on the Amiga platform (the most advanced one?), but the most important thing is it has an history of bugfix and APIs behaviour is very well known. Zune in the latest years has done big steps forward because many Amiga software which are done for MUI now are executable with Zune and so we have fixed so many Zune bugs you have no idea at all. Zune in few time could substitute MUI3.8 at all... Now I leave you to do 2+2 about Feelin, Reaction, stormwizard, etc... Even if they are IMO worst than MUI, the fact they aren't used by many programs and they have not many classes as MUI (even opensource ones) makes these frameworks bad in absolute.

Before I respond, I'd like to apologize in advance if some aspects of my response are based on misunderstandings. It's obvious that English is not your native language. And if your "Location" is accurate, I'd presume your native tongue is Italian (or perhaps French or German, or even something else ). Since I don't speak any Italian (or French or German) of consequence, that means we'll have to muddle through in English. So, please give me the benefit of the doubt if I should misinterpret the intent behind your words.


You speak as if you are an authority on Zune. Perhaps you contribute to the project? Could that not unfairly bias you against anything other than Zune? Even if that's not the case, you do appear to have a strong opinion against anything other than MUI/Zune. Which in my opinion has the side-effect of creating a new front in the partisan bickering that has been rife in the Community since the fall of Commodore.

Now it's true that Feelin isn't in use for many if any programs. Which effectively puts Feelin in a Catch-22 situation. It isn't being used, so why use it? I'm also aware that Feelin has been criticized for certain shortcomings. Though, to be honest I don't recall many of the specifics. But then again, Feelin a free and open framework that can be improved. Zune may be free and open, but MUI certainly is not (yet?).

If the primary argument in favor of MUI/Zune is its prevalence, I could counter with straw-man that dumping AmigaOS, AROS, and MorphOS in favor of Windows is ideal, because after all Windows and its UI framework(s) are more prevalent. That would, of course, be counterproductive and that's not what I want to be. However, I would like to point out that adopting MUI, specifically MUI 4, even via Zune, creates the potential argument for dropping support for anything else. Which would give a distinct and unnecessary advantage to the MorphOS camp in my opinion.

[NOTE]
Let me be very clear, I'm not knocking MorphOS. I'm just expressing a fear that in such a fragile market as this, adopting any proprietary framework will just create further instability. This discussion revolves around a key technology relating to MorphOS and controlled by the MorphOS development team (AFAICT, more below).
[/NOTE]

If the secondary argument in favor of MUI/Zune is its technical superiority. I'd have to ask, "Is it really?" Now, I'm not familiar with the internals of Feelin, MUI, or ReAction (or wxWidgets for that matter). I'm not even clear on the generally accepted pros and cons of the three Amiga originated solutions I've spoken of. It's been ages since I kept abreast of the technical aspects of each (as best as I could understand them). So, I can only accept that what you say about Zune becoming an almost perfect drop in replacement for MUI 3.8 (in certain cases?) as being true. And from what I've gathered, there has been some progress in including some MUI 4 functionality in Zune. But do we really all agree that MUI is just so much better than anything else? Do we all agree that Feelin, for example, is so absolutely inadequate that it should be abandoned? Are there no disadvantages at all to basing the present and future Amiga UIs on MUI and its successors?

Another issue that concerns me just who exactly controls the source and licensing for MUI? It's unclear to me (at least) that the MorphOS development team legally controls the source and licensing of MUI, even if they effectively control it. BTW, I'm also similarly concerned about ReAction. From what I recall, the use of any components found in AmigaOS 3.5/3.9 in AmigaOS 4 is still a bit of a grey area (do you all remember the Amiga Inc. vs. H&P fiasco?). Now I suppose it's possible that Chris Aldi (who as I understand it) developed ReAction for 3.5/3.9 may have blessed Hyperion's further use and development of ReAction. But is that so? I personally don't know or perhaps just don't recall.

Furthermore, adopting MUI 4 as the base line could also mean constantly playing catch up with any successors to MUI 4. Much in the same way the open source Mono is playing catch up with Microsoft's .net. Granted, that Feelin may need some catching up to do with respect to its base feature set compared to present Amiga UI frameworks. - Again, I don't know just how far behind Feelin is in terms of being a viable alternative. Though what I've seen on the web site makes me believe it isn't completely useless. Especially if it got more attention. - But once it reaches a certain point of development, it wouldn't necessarily be dependent on providing compatibility to features or functions defined by a proprietary framework such as MUI 4 and beyond.


Restating my core opinion for the last time; adopting a proprietary framework, even one reverse engineered, is not the the best way of implementing an across-Amiga-platform UI paradigm. I would rather see the use of some non-Amiga derived/inspired framework like GTK, Qt, wxWidgets, or other OSS framework then a proprietary one. While I can appreciate the views of those in favor of MUI, I personally (as an Amiga fan) cannot and do not endorse them. Not unless MUI itself becomes a free and open reference for all concerned.


That being said, I fully understand that due to the prevalance of MUI in legacy applications, there needs to be some means of providing compatibility for those applications. To that end I whole-heartedly support making Zune fully compatible with MUI 3.8. But that's as far as I think it [Zune] should go.


Please be very mindful of the sentiment in my signature when considering my opinions.

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@vidarh

Would re-implementing MUI 4 be trivial compared to encouraging the development of Feelin? That is a sincere question. As I made clear in my response to ShInKurO, I don't know enough about Feelin of MUI 4 to make an informed decision on the technical merits of either. My stance is more of an ideological one.

As to loosing the 'feel' do to wxWidgets, I don't know. Personally, most of the WxWidget applications I've used do a pretty good, if not an excellent one, of recreating the look and feel of the host environment. Is it perfect, perhaps not. But then again, I dare say that all the various Amiga UI frameworks have their own quirks that can contribute to an inconsistent user experience.

And as for GTK or Qt, read my response to ShInKurO as I address them specifically. To clarify why I did not make mention of GTK or Qt in my original response. It was because Feelin originates on the Amiga and that wxWidgets attempts to accurately mimic the host UI, that I felt might make them more acceptable to all present Amiga derived platforms. That's not to say that GTK or Qt could not be made to mimic the look and feel of the Amiga, just that the two examples I used might be better suited to doing so.

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@clebin

Quote:

clebin wrote: @ShadesOfGrey / ShInKurO / vidarh Also - I don't think any other API has enough influence to become the de facto choice for developers. For all its faults, MUI/Zune is the only one with the history and existing application base to get a consensus. It's a bit like the early days of AROS. There was years of fruitless discussion about the best way forward and no code written. In the end they had to take a pragmatic approach and follow OS 3.1. We all know the downsides of that - but if they hadn't taken that tough choice, AROS probably would never have existed. Developers can get newer APIs later on. But surely the #1 priority right now must be to share apps and unite the platforms to make them stronger? Chris

I can accept the need for MUI 3.x compatibility for legacy applications and even more modern applications. My concern is that adopting MUI 4 as the de facto standard relegates just about everything else to the scrap heap. Or at least makes the development of any other alternative far more difficult... Including anything derived from non-Amiga platforms. Not to mention that MUI 4, and ostensibly its successors, are part of the MorphOS team's bread and butter. Do we want a common framework that essentially exclude the concerns one group or another?

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Quote:

Fab wrote: @ShInKurO Indeed. Feelin had some nice new ideas about xml and using id instead of pointers (or something), but there's 0 (yes, zero!) application using it, except the demos and prefs program itself. You can be sure you would find tons of issues in any new application using it. Besides, it wasn't stable, and lacked much in basic functionality too. So feelin is no option at all, in my opinion. Improving MUI/Zune with some of the Feelin idea would make more sense. Reliability is essential in a toolkit, and that's what MUI offers. And that includes knowing its limitations/bugs, too, which is better than finding new limitations/issues in a totally unknown toolkit.

Arghh... Lost my entire post due to an inadvertent touchpad mouse-click and pressing "Backspace" (i.e. go back). I'll try an recreate the main thrust, but damn that's frustrating.

So is it your opinion that Feelin should be abandoned? As well as anything else. After all, MUI is 'good enough' why bother with anything else? Seriously I want to know. These discussions influence whether I bother supporting the Amiga platform in any shape or form. Why is there such willingness by so many to support a proprietary framework to be imposed on the entirety of Amiga than look to a free and open solution for cross platform compatibility?

What happens when if MUI 5 rolls around? Do we have to wait for Zune to catch up while one platform gains an advantage over all the others? I mean look at the whole Mono situation. There always playing catch up with Microsoft and that just makes Mono look inferior to .net. Wouldn't the same hold true of Zune compared to MUI 4< à la MorphOS? At least until or unless MUI is free and open.

I'm not looking to be trite or condescending in anyway. I'm however very frustrated. Frustrated that so few bridges have been mended. Frustrated that the same ideological arguments that tore Amiga apart after the fall of Commodore keep resurfacing. Frustrated that this will all just kill Amiga... And kill it very slowly.

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Quote:

vidarh wrote: @Fab Quote: ndeed. Feelin had some nice new ideas about xml and using id instead of pointers (or something), but there's 0 (yes, zero!) application using it, except the demos and prefs program itself. And those parts (XML + using id's) could easily be cleanly layered on top of MUI as an entirely optional library for app developers that wants it, similar to what libglade does for GTK for example. After having looked at the Feelin source I suspect that'd actually be less work than bringing Feelin to an advanced enough state.

In any case, I, myself, am still concerned about adopting a standard seemingly controlled by one faction in the Amiga Community. A commercial entity at that. Perhaps it's my paranoia at the litigious nature of some players in the Amiga realm, or living in a country that supports and seeks to impose 'IP rights' at the expense of all other rights. I don't know. But all in all I think my fears are justify. If only because it creates that much more friction among one or more factions against an other or other in the Amiga Community.

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@ShadesOfGrey

You have very wise and good thoughts.

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@Samwel

Ok, the exact wording was "sucking dead hamsters". Sorry for the mistake. :)

http://www.amigans.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?post_id=54067#forumpost54067

Anyway, they do what they want, and I totally agree that our toolkits show their age (except MUI still runs circles around Reaction), and it's perfectly understandable they should have control of the toolkit they base their OS on. But i have serious concerns about the "amiga feeling" if they choose an alien framework like QT. You'll inevitably lose a part of the identity with such a move.

Anyway, this topic was just about MUI/Zune, and not about OS4 main toolkit (whatever it is or will be). MUI is still used in most "modern" amiga applications, and having MUI4 API compatibility could help porting. Nothing more, nothing less.

Last edited by Fab on 25-Aug-2010 at 08:59 PM.

@Metalheart

Uh, FYI, I'm an American and I don't call the things I fear Communism, I call them "Right-wing 'Christian' Conservatism" .


Seriously though. Most Americans don't have a knee-jerk reaction to name their fears, Anarchist, Socialist, Communist, Nazi, Black, Mexican/Latino, Chinese (whether or not in combination with Communist), etc., etc., etc. Oh, I almost forgot, Muslim. It's just sometimes, to our detriment, we don't speak up when the irrational fears of a vocal minority paint us all as overzealous cranks.

Back on topic.

No offense to Snuffy, who I believe (and hope) is addressing the legal limitations of the cross-pollenization(sp?) of certain aspects of key technologies pertaining to AmigaOS and MorphOS.



BTW, in case my use of "Christian" above offends anyone. I meant it in the same way those ideals of "Right-wing 'Christian' Conservatives" are shared with the "Right-wing 'Islamist' Radicals". If you happen to the type of Christian who supports those ideals... Well, I am most definitely and sincerely not regretful in anyway that you are offended.

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Quote:

paolone wrote: @salass00, but also many others Not to be harsh, but isn't Feeling a bit off-topic in this discussion? Shinkuro has made a interesting point about the future of Zune (and, after all, our GUI future in general, since MUI is the best-known and accepted toolkit for Amiga OSes: having it free and up-to-date would be good for everyone), so deciding what's best between MUI, Zune, ReAction and Feeling is not the aim of this topic.

But ShInKurO's initiative completely ignores our common history. There are ideological concerns here. I still remember the flame wars pitting ClassACT vs. MUI... Perhaps not the details, but certainly the level of animosity they engendered. Furthermore, are you willing to completely ignore the concerns and opinions of other stake holders? As well as potentially stifle any attempts at developing anything other than MUI or a MUI compatibility among all Amiga platforms.

Are these concerns really not valid?

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@ShadesOfGrey

Feelin doesn't bring anything valuable compared to the other toolkits (xml description is really a detail). And the fact it was never tested in real world conditions and that it already shows many issues with just the prefs program isn't too engaging.

And about MUI, as i said above, it also shows its age (for instance, lack of unicode or advanced/rich builtin classes), but its core is very nice to use and doesn't have much to envy to toolkits like gtk or win32 (quite the contrary). In the amiga world, MUI is the only one to have proper notifications, drag'n'drop support, "advanced" classes (sometimes builtin, sometimes external), proper iconification/screen management/whatever and much more...

@Fab

Seems you mos guy log every small step os4 guys says and does :) Anyway i had some laughs :)

Last edited by Kicko on 25-Aug-2010 at 09:16 PM.
Last edited by Kicko on 25-Aug-2010 at 09:16 PM.

Quote:

ShInKurO wrote: @paolone I prefer to have find and reported Zune bugs compared with MUI instead to dev with limitations imposed by other Amiga frameworks... It's very strange many users and devs have so different POV which can create damage to their platform. I've begin to dev on Amiga after to have understood and tried all most common Amiga frameworks, so MUI was smarter choice in the Amiga programming world because its advantages are more then disadvantages... I found really useless to program on a platform like the Amiga choosing something only because someone tells me what framework to use for a political choice. I've chose what is right for users and devs POV. A dev wants see his program to be executed on multiple systems it can, while user POV is to have a program useful, easy to use, and with few bugs. MUI/Zune ensures me all that in a easier way.

Perhaps I misjudged you. It would seem your just as willing to impose your choice on everyone else because it was your choice. That in and of itself is a political decision. I'd hoped to expand this beyond a simply partisan discussion. To hopefully begin a dialog that could address the concerns of more than those of the Blue or at least Bluish camps. Again, I'm not knocking MorphOS. Though perhaps I'm knocking some of its supporters. Anyway, my concern again is that MUI is a key technology ostensibly controlled by the MorphOS development team. Which if imposed on every other Amiga derived platform gives the Morphos development team a distinct and unfair advantage in shaping all other Amiga derived platforms...

Oh well. I guess the Amiga platform is destined to implode into oblivion. I don't know how long I'll continue to watch. Perhaps one day, and it may be one day soon, I'll stop paying attention all together. Maybe I'll have to pin my hopes on an Amiga inspired platforms like Haiku or Syllable. As opposed those derived from it, AmigaOS, AROS, and MorphOS.


How depressing. I'd hoped that some day things would improve. But I increasingly get the feeling that it's already too late. AmigaOS and MorphOS will fade into oblivion and the only things left will be AROS. Which I don't think will be more than a curiosity, given the alternatives, without AmigaOS or MorphOS as part of the greater Amiga ecosystem. UAE, will provide a nostalgic way for those who once had an interest in Amiga to relive those memories on a casual basis. And then the few Classic Amigas that can hold on to life; and/or the retro-engineered Minimig and Natami for the die-hard-core Amiga users who either wondered what might have been, or simply didn't care for anything other than the bare metal.

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Quote:

Tomppeli wrote: @ShadesOfGrey You have very wise and good thoughts.

Thanks, that makes me feel a little less depressed. I hope that there are more than two, three, or four people who share some of my concerns.

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Quote:

Fab wrote: @ShadesOfGrey Feelin doesn't bring anything valuable compared to the other toolkits (xml description is really a detail). And the fact it was never tested in real world conditions and that it already shows many issues with just the prefs program isn't too engaging. And about MUI, as i said above, it also shows its age (for instance, lack of unicode or advanced/rich builtin classes), but its core is very nice to use and doesn't have much to envy to toolkits like gtk or win32 (quite the contrary). In the amiga world, MUI is the only one to have proper notifications, drag'n'drop support, "advanced" classes (sometimes builtin, sometimes external), proper iconification/screen management/whatever and much more...

Besides being free and open.

It's proprietary and closed.

OK. You've convinced me, lets choose a cross platform framework that advantages one faction because we all now how well that's going to go over. Lets start a new Red vs. Blue war. I'm sure we'll all benefit from that.

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@ShadesOfGrey

Quote:

What happens when if MUI 5 rolls around?

Does it matter? Without MUI 4 features it is much more work to port Ambient or OWB from MorphOS to other platforms. Currently Zune doesnt support even MUI 3 features in full so it needs work.

MUI 4 essentially makes it easier create complex applications. This is why Ambient and OWB need it (tabs for example, but there is lot more under the hood). But you dont always need MUI 4 features, not even MUI 3 features. There are new MUI applications which would run even on MUI 1.x and you can port software from MorphOS to Zune even today (i.e. Screen Recorder which was ported lately) with some limitations. It is just if Zune supported more MUI 3 and MUI 4 features ports would be easier to you.

MorphOS is not going to ditch MUI.

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