Intuition (Amiga)

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Intuition is the native windowing system and user interface (UI) engine of AmigaOS. It was developed almost entirely by RJ Mical. [1] [2] Intuition should not be confused with Workbench, the AmigaOS desktop environment [3] and spatial file manager, which relies on Intuition for handling windows and input events. Workbench uses Intuition to produce displays and AmigaDOS to interact with filing system: AmigaDOS is built on Exec (OS kernel). [4] [3] [5]

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Intuition is the internal widget and graphics system. It is not implemented primarily as an application-managed graphics library (as most systems, following Xerox's design, have done), but rather as a separate task that maintains the state of all the standard UI elements independently from the application. This makes it responsive because UI gadgets are live even when the application is busy. The Intuition task is driven by user events through the mouse, keyboard, and other input devices. It also arbitrates collisions of the mouse pointer and icons and control of "animated icons". Like most GUIs of the day, Amiga's Intuition followed Xerox's lead anteceding solutions, but pragmatically, a command line interface was also included and it extended the functionality of the platform. Later releases added more improvements, like support for high-color Workbench screens and 3D aspect. Replacement desktop file managers were also made available, such as Directory Opus Magellan and Scalos interface.

Initial releases used blue, orange, white and black palettes. This was intentional – in a time before cheap high-quality video monitors, Commodore tested output on the worst televisions they could find, with the goal of obtaining the best possible contrast under these worst-case conditions.

Intuition in Release 2 of Amiga operating system

Intuition was heavily extended upon release of version 2 of the AmigaOS. The Basic Object-Oriented Programming System for Intuition (BOOPSI) was introduced. It allows a programmer to build graphics user interface using object-oriented programming. Some built-in classes are provided (like "gadgetclass" or "imageclass"), and it's also possible to build own classes on top of existing, or completely new (on top of "rootclass").

Other GUI toolkits

Due to the limitations of Intuition's basic widget set, developers adopted other third-party GUI toolkits, such as Magic User Interface (MUI), and ReAction. These object oriented UI engines driven by "classes" of graphic objects and functions with new standard gadgets, animated buttons, true-color icons, etc. offered developers standardized and more attractive interfaces. MUI and similar systems abandoned the separation of the User Interface between the application (which specified gadgets to be displayed) and the Intuition task (which actually managed gadgets for all applications, even when they were busy).

Modern day successors to the Workbench environment include Ambient for MorphOS, Scalos, Workbench for AmigaOS 4 and Wanderer for AROS. There is a brief article on Ambient and descriptions of MUI icons, menus and gadgets here (aps.fr) and images of Zune stay at main AROS site.

A new object-oriented toolkit for all Amiga-like platforms (AmigaOS, MorphOS, AROS), Feelin, was introduced in 2005, and makes extensive use of XML guidelines. It uses its own memory management system, and its memory-pools system shares the embedded OS's semaphores. Feelin also features a non-centralized ID allocation system, a crash-free object invocation mechanism, and an advanced logging system. Details and images on Feelin can be found at its website.

Reception

Stewart Alsop II said in 1988 that Intuition was among several GUIs that "have already been knocked out" of the market by Apple, IBM/Microsoft, and others. Stating that it "was slapped together in about six months ... and that lack of forethought or vision shows", he criticized Intuition's drive letters, lack of network support, and "hundreds of other small features". [6]

Related Research Articles

The graphical user interface, or GUI, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicators such as primary notation, instead of text-based UIs, typed command labels or text navigation. GUIs were introduced in reaction to the perceived steep learning curve of command-line interfaces (CLIs), which require commands to be typed on a computer keyboard.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of the graphical user interface</span>

The history of the graphical user interface, understood as the use of graphic icons and a pointing device to control a computer, covers a five-decade span of incremental refinements, built on some constant core principles. Several vendors have created their own windowing systems based on independent code, but with basic elements in common that define the WIMP "window, icon, menu and pointing device" paradigm.

In computing, a desktop environment (DE) is an implementation of the desktop metaphor made of a bundle of programs running on top of a computer operating system that share a common graphical user interface (GUI), sometimes described as a graphical shell. The desktop environment was seen mostly on personal computers until the rise of mobile computing. Desktop GUIs help the user to easily access and edit files, while they usually do not provide access to all of the features found in the underlying operating system. Instead, the traditional command-line interface (CLI) is still used when full control over the operating system is required.

MorphOS is an AmigaOS-like computer operating system (OS). It is a mixed proprietary and open source OS produced for the Pegasos PowerPC (PPC) processor based computer, PowerUP accelerator equipped Amiga computers, and a series of Freescale development boards that use the Genesi firmware, including the Efika and mobileGT. Since MorphOS 2.4, Apple's Mac mini G4 is supported as well, and with the release of MorphOS 2.5 and MorphOS 2.6 the eMac and Power Mac G4 models are respectively supported. The release of MorphOS 3.2 added limited support for Power Mac G5. The core, based on the Quark microkernel, is proprietary, although several libraries and other parts are open source, such as the Ambient desktop.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Graphical widget</span> Element of interaction in a graphical user interface

A graphical widget in a graphical user interface is an element of interaction, such as a button or a scroll bar. Controls are software components that a computer user interacts with through direct manipulation to read or edit information about an application. User interface libraries such as Windows Presentation Foundation, Qt, GTK, and Cocoa, contain a collection of controls and the logic to render these.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ambient (desktop environment)</span> MUI-based desktop environment for MorphOS

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 fully asynchronous, simple and fast. Ambient remotely resembles Workbench and Directory Opus Magellan trying to mix the best of both worlds.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Magic User Interface</span> Widget toolkit for AmigaOS

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 system according to personal taste.

BOOPSI is an object-oriented programming system for AmigaOS. It extends the AmigaOS windowing environment (Intuition) with an object-oriented subsystem allowing a hierarchy of object classes in which every class defines a single GUI widget or interface event.

AmigaOS is the proprietary native operating system of the Amiga personal computer. Since its introduction with the launch of the Amiga 1000 in 1985, there have been four major versions and several minor revisions of the operating system.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Workbench (AmigaOS)</span> Graphical user interface for the Amiga computer

Workbench is the desktop environment and graphical file manager of AmigaOS developed by Commodore International for their Amiga line of computers. Workbench provides the user with a graphical interface to work with file systems and launch applications. It uses a workbench metaphor for representing file system organisation.

Zune is an object-oriented GUI toolkit which is part of the AROS project and nearly a clone, at both an API and look-and-feel level, of Magic User Interface (MUI), a well-known Amiga shareware product by Stefan Stuntz.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">AROS Research Operating System</span> Operating system

AROS Research Operating System is a free and open-source multi media centric implementation of the AmigaOS 3.1 application programming interface (API). Designed to be portable and flexible. As of 2021, ports are available for personal computers (PCs) based on x86 and PowerPC, in native and hosted flavors, with other architectures in development. In a show of full circle development, AROS has been ported to the Motorola 68000 series (m68k) based Amiga 1200, and there is also an ARM port for the Raspberry Pi series.

ReAction GUI is the widget toolkit engine that is used in AmigaOS 3.2-4.1.

Amiga support and maintenance software performs service functions such as formatting media for a specific filesystem, diagnosing failures that occur on formatted media, data recovery after media failure, and installation of new software for the Amiga family of personal computers—as opposed to application software, which performs business, education, and recreation functions.

Kickstart is the bootstrap firmware of the Amiga computers developed by Commodore International. Its purpose is to initialize the Amiga hardware and core components of AmigaOS and then attempt to boot from a bootable volume, such as a floppy disk. Most Amiga models were shipped with the Kickstart firmware stored on ROM chips.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">AmigaOS</span> Operating system for Amiga computers

AmigaOS is a family of proprietary native operating systems of the Amiga and AmigaOne personal computers. It was developed first by Commodore International and introduced with the launch of the first Amiga, the Amiga 1000, in 1985. Early versions of AmigaOS required the Motorola 68000 series of 16-bit and 32-bit microprocessors. Later versions were developed by Haage & Partner and then Hyperion Entertainment. A PowerPC microprocessor is required for the most recent release, AmigaOS 4.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scalos</span> Widget toolkit and window manager for AmigaOS

Scalos is a desktop replacement for the original Amiga Workbench GUI, based on a subset of APIs and its own front-end window manager of the same name. Scalos is NOT an AmigaOS replacement, although its name suggests otherwise. Its goal is to emulate the real Workbench behaviour, plus integrating additional functionality and an enhanced look. As stated on its website, the name "Scalos" was inspired by the fictional time-accelerated planet Scalos in the Star Trek episode "Wink of an Eye".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hollywood (programming language)</span> Programming language

Hollywood is a commercially distributed programming language developed by Andreas Falkenhahn which mainly focuses on the creation of multimedia-oriented applications. Hollywood is available for AmigaOS, MorphOS, WarpOS, AROS, Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS. Hollywood has an inbuilt cross compiler that can automatically save executables for all platforms supported by the software. The generated executables are completely stand-alone and do not have any external dependencies, so they can also be started from a USB flash drive. An optional add-on also allows users to compile projects into APK files.

This article deals with programming languages used in the Amiga line of computers, running the AmigaOS operating system and its derivatives AROS and MorphOS. It is a split of the main article Amiga software. See also related articles Amiga productivity software, Amiga music software, Amiga Internet and communications software and Amiga support and maintenance software for other information regarding software that runs on Amiga.

References

  1. ↑ Mical, Robert J.; Deyl, Susan (1987). Amiga Intuition Reference Manual. Amiga Technical Reference Series. Addison-Wesley. ISBN   0-201-11076-8.
  2. ↑ "Robert J. "RJ" Mical". The Amiga Museum. 2016. Retrieved 2022-05-23.
  3. 1 2 "The Amiga Workbench". The Amiga Museum. 2016. Retrieved 2022-05-23.
  4. ↑ "The Amiga Operating system – Kickstart & Workbench". The Amiga Museum. 2016. Retrieved 2022-05-23.
  5. ↑ "Carl Sassenrath". The Amiga Museum. 2016. Retrieved 2022-05-23.
  6. ↑ Alsop, Stewart II (1988-01-18). "WUI: The War Over User Interface" (PDF). P.C. Letter. 4 (2): 1–4.
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