UH2@PSUVM.BITNET (Lee Sailer) (10/13/89)
I saw a demo of OS/2 and Presentation Manager, and though I didn't take notes there were some things I thought the Amigoids might be interested in. Maybe this has been discussed to death in a thread that I haven't followed, so I'll try to be very brief. The demo was running on a ps/2 m. 70 with 6 MB of main memory. Mainly what I want to describe is the user interface, and some simple ways that it differs from Intuition. Each window had its own menu bar, within the window. When the user clicks a choice on the menu bar, a pull-down menu appears, with a default choice highlighted. The user clicks again on his choice and the pull-down menu goes away. The window is resized by dragging on any part of the border in any direction. This looked pretty handy. On the desktop, there was an ARRANGE menu, with choices Tile and Cascade, which straightened up all the windows currenly open. This seemed pretty handy, too. At the desktop, there is an application that feels a lot like the PD program, Browser. That is, windows showing the filenames in directories which can be copied, renamed, deleted, or executed using mouse operations. The use of icons seemed to be reserved for what Amigoids call an iconofied window. That is, there is a running application, but if you don't want its window cluttering things up, you close it. The application stays resident, but the window turns into an icon. When you double click that icon again, the windows reopen. An interesting side effect of this is that icons have dynamic images. For example, there was a clock program that runs in a window, but when it is iconified, the icon, which now has a tiny clock face on it, continues to keep time. All in all, I was pretty impressed. Of course, I have no idea if it is a complete kludge underneath, but from what I saw it improved on the interfaces I know--Intuition, Mac, SGI (is that NeWS?).
chrisl@caen.engin.umich.edu (Chris Lang) (10/14/89)
In article <89286.092706UH2@PSUVM.BITNET> UH2@PSUVM.BITNET (Lee Sailer) writes: >Mainly what I want to describe is the user interface, and some simple ways >that it differs from Intuition. This is the one area, in my opinion, where OS/2 has a distinct edge over the Amiga. >Each window had its own menu bar, within the window. When the user clicks >a choice on the menu bar, a pull-down menu appears, with a default choice >highlighted. The user clicks again on his choice and the pull-down menu >goes away. The window is resized by dragging on any part of the border >in any direction. This looked pretty handy. This is indeed a handy feature. The menu bars and other "control windows" (Microsoftism for "gadgets") are very professionally done; they are both easy and intuitive to use and exceptionally easy to program. The Amiga comes close on the former, but leaves much to be desired when it comes to the latter. Surprisingly, almost all of the Amiga's flexibility is retained by allowing the programmer to substitute his own code for almost any of the default actions. (I realize 1.4 makes great strides in this and other areas, but I am referring to 1.3 throughout.) >At the desktop, there is an application that feels a lot like the PD >program, Browser. I assume you are referring to "File System" here. I find it much easier to use than any similar program for the Amiga, although I can think of a few things the Amiga may be better suited for. This is one more area where Amigoids might be able to take a few ideas from, although I think we're pretty good in this respect. >The use of icons seemed to be reserved for what Amigoids call an >iconofied window. That is, there is a running application, but if you don't >want its window cluttering things up, you close it. The application stays >resident, but the window turns into an icon. When you double click that >icon again, the windows reopen. This is one of the most peculiar aspects of OS/2 1.1. The API makes the use of icons very easy. In fact, if you open a child window in one of your application's windows, the application window becomes, in effect, a "mini- Workbench" (to bring an Amigan phrase into Intel land). These child windows can be iconified, and the icon will appear in the main window, just as an iconified main window would appear on the background screen - all WITHOUT writing a single additional line of code. For all this ease of use, icons are only used in OS/2 for representing minimized windows. This all changes in 1.2, which makes full use of icons in much the same way as the Amiga. (Somewhat ironic how just as OS/2 is getting icons in PM, we are getting textual windows for Workbench.) >An interesting side effect of this is that icons have dynamic images. For >example, there was a clock program that runs in a window, but when it >is iconified, the icon, which now has a tiny clock face on it, continues to >keep time. This is quite interesting, and not very well documented. The icon is simply another bitmap in the program's workspace, and can be drawn into just as easily as the program's window. (For that matter, ALL "controls" are really tiny windows - this provides a great deal of OS/2's flexibility, as well as being a major factor, I suspect, in its resource requirements.) >All in all, I was pretty impressed. Of course, I have no idea if it is >a complete kludge underneath, but from what I saw it improved on the >interfaces I know--Intuition, Mac, SGI (is that NeWS?). I can assure you it is not a kludge - the OS/2 API is the richest I have ever used or even heard about. I've been programming the Amiga for a couple of years and OS/2 for about 5 months, and I consider myself a far better OS/2 programmer than Amiga programmer. (Of course, part of that may be that I am getting paid for being an OS/2 programmer. :-) Sorry to be so verbose, but ever since I have worked with the OS/2 PM, I have wished many of its features would be incorporated into Intuition, although I still feel AmigaDOS/Intuition is more powerful than OS/2/PM, at least for the moment. -Chris -- Chris Lang University of Michigan 4622 Bursley-Lewis, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109 chrisl@caen.engin.umich.edu -or- chrisl@cup.portal.com (313) 763-1832 work: National Center for Manufacturing Sciences, 900 Victors Way, Ann Arbor, MI, 48108 (313) 995-0300