New article on CPCWIKI: "Graphical User Interfaces for the Amstrad CPC"

[Prodatron]

Oops, I completely forgot about this article! Now I have the mag in front of me (and found out, that it's the same issue, where they reviewed my word processor "CPC-Word" )
I will add some more information about SI-BOF, which I found in the article, in CPC-Wiki now.

CU,
Prodatron

[Ygdrazil]

Hi Gryzor

I have not had any luck making GENO work (Besides getting to the opening screen)

If you really want to have a go then I have uploaded the CP/M 2.2 systemdisc to the CP/M 2.2 article:

http://cpcwiki.eu/index.php/CP/M_2.2

And the GENO disc image I am was using at:

http://cpcwiki.eu/index.php/GENO

And the complete list of files for geno in the ZIP files also in the article

Regards,
Ygdrazil

Hm, mind sending me the material to take a look? Maybe I can get past the intro

[Gryzor]

Hm, rats. First of all, there are a couple of files missing - Geno.doc and info.doc, for instance. From what I read, it would seem to me this is not the complete archive - maybe you need to insert another disk and then press any key...

[Grim]

Out of curiosity, I tried to run Geno and it was a bit tricky...

First, the raw files must be copied on a system formatted disc (the dsk linked in the wiki page is a data formatted disc, CP/M couldn't read it when I tried).

Then I had alot of obscure Bdos errors when trying to run geno. So I played around with the files/disc with the disc editor in WinAPE and also the ramform command... I don't know exactly what I did but finally, it ran, it's all in german and I didn't understood a thing :)

I made a zip archive (see the attachment) with some screenshots of Geno, including the dsk (system formatted) I used and a snapshot of Geno running on a CPC 6128 (firmware v3 & Parados 1.0).

[Gryzor]

Mmm the sceenshots see self-explanatory enough... Did you manage to open any windows?

[TFM]

I think the article should start by defining what a GUI is and then show some GUI examples for the CPC!
(FutureOS?)

Well, what does GUI mean? Graphical User Interface. So the definition is inside:
- Graphical: Most of the used parts must be graphical. Or let's say you work more with graphic than with commands.
- User: The communication is done between the user and the CPC.
- Interace: The interface transducts information from the user to the CPC and vice versa.


Now, let's make it a bit more interesting... What's NOT a prerequisite of a GUI?

- A GUI must NOT look like MS Windows or Apple OS-X

- A GUI must NOT be totally graphical, means even a file-name makes it a bit textual.

- The term GUI doesn't implement how parts of it have to behave, if they must have colors or not, if they have to be flexible or not, etc.


So if I look at the FutureOS GUI now, then I see a GUI that is not MS-Windows like (for some very good reasons), but it consists mostly of graphical elements. So TurboDesk is a new variant of a GUI. Just to fix that point.


TFM/FutureSoft

[Gryzor]

Well, I just googled "GUI definition" and read the first ten results, they all say the same thing, more or less, and none of them says "most of the parts are graphical". In fact, I was rather surprised by how absolute they all are in their graphical insistence. You don't work *more* with gfx, you work *only* with gfx

The fact that GUI stands for Graphical User Interface and not for Mostly Graphical User Interface (mGUI!) speaks tons about what you're trying to say.

I guess that when you say "A GUI must NOT look like..." you really mean "a GUI doesn't need to look like...". Fair enough, though after decades of development most aspects of basic GUI design have (unfortunately) been explored and everything boils down to similar things.

But when you say "A GUI must NOT be totally graphical", that's just your opinion, and frankly, you don't explain the reasoning. To me, the more non-graphical elements you have in a UI the more you get away from G. Ok, sure, there may be a OS or a UI layer that conceivably also has text elements but this doesn't necessarily mean it's good.

I think it boils down to this: a UI can have textual elements but only as long as their function can be replicated by graphics-related commands: so that I can go into the command line box or a console window and do things faster, if I'm an advanced user, or do it more easily through WIMP if I'm not. At least functions (like file-handling) that are essential for day-to-day jobs.

[TFM]

Well, I just googled "GUI definition" and read the first ten results, they all say the same thing, more or less, and none of them says "most of the parts are graphical". In fact, I was rather surprised by how absolute they all are in their graphical insistence. You don't work *more* with gfx, you work *only* with gfx

Sorry, but this is absoulute science fiction. As long as file-names exist, there will be no GUI due to the above definition. So maybe the people in china are the only one who can create a GUI, because every file becomes its own sign.

Can't you see the discrepancy between "want to be GUI" and the reality. There it no GUI today, which is able to work without text.

The only text you see in the FutureOS GUI is text of file-names and some messages. That's nothing else than in Windows, in an file-window I see filenames (always, even if they are located under icons). And I see blue screens, also nothing else than textual reports, messages etc.

So where it the difference?

Have a nice day, TFM

[Gryzor]

No - you seem to confuse information showing with UI elements. If you take it as far as you say, then you can't have a GUI word processor, because it shows text!

[TFM]

No - you seem to confuse information showing with UI elements. If you take it as far as you say, then you can't have a GUI word processor, because it shows text!

Ok, I agree. So a file-window displays information like a wordprocessor window. All the functions can be done by icons, so what are you missing?

However, no need to answer, we got just two different points of view.

The last week I asked the people in the FutureOS group which kind of (G)UI they would like. I got a lot of interesting informations. So let's see what future will change...

Bye,
TFM