Ambient desktop
Encyclopedia
Ambient is a MUI
-based desktop environment
for MorphOS
. Its development was started in 2001 by David Gerber. Its main goals were that it should be simple and fast. Ambient remotely resembles Workbench
and Directory Opus
Magellan trying to mix the best of both worlds.
Ambient is localized for various languages and while part of MorphOS it is also available separately. There are various visual effects in Ambient which are taking an advantage of hardware accelerated visual effects in MorphOS.
Magic User Interface
The Magic User Interface is an object-oriented system by Stefan Stuntz to generate and maintain graphical user interfaces. With the aid of a preferences program, the user of an application has the ability to customize the outfit according to personal taste....
-based desktop environment
Desktop environment
In graphical computing, a desktop environment commonly refers to a style of graphical user interface derived from the desktop metaphor that is seen on most modern personal computers. These GUIs help the user in easily accessing, configuring, and modifying many important and frequently accessed...
for MorphOS
MorphOS
MorphOS is an Amiga-compatible computer operating system. It is a mixed proprietary and open source OS produced for the Pegasos PowerPC processor based computer, PowerUP accelerator equipped Amiga computers, and a series of Freescale development boards that use the Genesi firmware, including the...
. Its development was started in 2001 by David Gerber. Its main goals were that it should be simple and fast. Ambient remotely resembles Workbench
Workbench (AmigaOS)
-Overview:Commodore named their Amiga computer's first operating system Workbench 1.0 and continued with the Workbench name until version 3.1, when it was changed to AmigaOS, prompted by Apple renaming their propriety OS from "System" to "MacOS"...
and Directory Opus
Directory Opus
Directory Opus is a popular file manager program, originally written for the Amiga computer system in the early to mid 1990s...
Magellan trying to mix the best of both worlds.
Features
Ambient does not strictly follow the Amiga Workbench interface paradigm but there are still many similarities: while programs are called tools program attributes are called tooltypes, data files are projects and directories are drawers.- support for ARexxARexxARexx is an implementation of the REXX language for the Amiga, written in 1987 by William S. Hawes, with a number of Amiga-specific features beyond standard REXX facilities. Like most REXX implementations, ARexx is an interpreted language...
scripting language - default icon library for hundreds of fileformats
- fully asynchronous, multi-threaded design
- fast asynchronous file I/O functions and file notifications
- support for PNG and other AmigaAmigaThe Amiga is a family of personal computers that was sold by Commodore in the 1980s and 1990s. The first model was launched in 1985 as a high-end home computer and became popular for its graphical, audio and multi-tasking abilities...
icon formats - built-in icon, workbench and wbstart libraries
- built-in applications like disk formattingDisk formattingDisk formatting is the process of preparing a hard disk drive or flexible disk medium for data storage. In some cases, the formatting operation may also create one or more new file systems...
and commodities manager - panels which are used as program launchers
Ambient is localized for various languages and while part of MorphOS it is also available separately. There are various visual effects in Ambient which are taking an advantage of hardware accelerated visual effects in MorphOS.
Desktop icons
The native icon format in Ambient is a PNG icon but there is built-in support for other Amiga icon formats. Ambient introduced special icon format called DataType Icons where the icon is simply any image file renamed to include .info extension. Those icons are read using Amiga DataType system.| Original Amiga icons | MagicWB | NewIcons | GlowIcons | GlowIcons32 | DT Icons | PNG | DualPNG | |
| Colours | 4 | 8 | 256 | 256 | 16M | 16M | 16M | 16M |
| Alpha blending | ||||||||
| Icon size | N/A | N/A | 36×40 | 46×46 | 46×46 | 128×128 | 128×128 | 128×128 |
| Second state image | ||||||||
| Embedded metadata |
Development status
In 2005 David Gerber released Ambient source code under GPL and is now developed by the Ambient development team.See also
- Amiga WorkbenchWorkbench (AmigaOS)-Overview:Commodore named their Amiga computer's first operating system Workbench 1.0 and continued with the Workbench name until version 3.1, when it was changed to AmigaOS, prompted by Apple renaming their propriety OS from "System" to "MacOS"...
- MorphOSMorphOSMorphOS is an Amiga-compatible computer operating system. It is a mixed proprietary and open source OS produced for the Pegasos PowerPC processor based computer, PowerUP accelerator equipped Amiga computers, and a series of Freescale development boards that use the Genesi firmware, including the...
http://www.stuntz.com/muibeta_20070425.lha - ScalosScalosScalos is the name of a commercial desktop replacement for the Workbench Amiga original GUI, based on a subset of APIs and its own front-end window manager of the same name....
http://scalos.noname.fr