MacOS dock for AmigaOS 3.9

[Leandro Jardim]

I am looking for a MacOS X - like dock to use in place of the AmiKit taskbar. Anyone have developed one this way?

Thaaaanks guys.

[Retrofan]

@jPV made a nice Magellan bar:

http://jpv.wmhost.com/jpv_wb/jPV_WB_2009_02.png

[squidbass]

You could try also http://polymere.free.fr/Archives/PolyNetNG_1.31_68k.lha

[thomas]

Originally Posted by Leandro Jardim

I am looking for a MacOS X - like dock to use in place of the AmiKit taskbar. Anyone have developed one this way?

Thaaaanks guys.

Please describe the characteristics of the MacOS dock which you miss in AmiDock. From your description "something like the MacOS dock" I would suggest: AmiDock.

Note: you won't get transparency on WB 3.x if this is your main desire. It's simply not possible.

[Leandro Jardim]

Originally Posted by Retrofan

@jPV made a nice Magellan bar:

http://jpv.wmhost.com/jpv_wb/jPV_WB_2009_02.png

Pretty impressible visual. Whats the taskbar program him is using? Are there a tutorial teaching how to get something like this done?

Originally Posted by squidbass

You could try also http://polymere.free.fr/Archives/PolyNetNG_1.31_68k.lha

I remember of this program but could not find its homepage without your help, thanks very much!

Originally Posted by thomas

Note: you won't get transparency on WB 3.x if this is your main desire. It's simply not possible.

Oh oh, this is bad news, my interest was exactly on this mainly... Good bet.

[thomas]

One can fake transparency. As long as the parts which shine through don't change, you won't see a difference. But if the through-shining areas change, results are really strange (they only change around the window, the window area will not change).

[Leandro Jardim]

Originally Posted by thomas

One can fake transparency. As long as the parts which shine through don't change, you won't see a difference. But if the through-shining areas change, results are really strange (they only change around the window, the window area will not change).

I was going to ask about this trick.

I suspect this is what MagicMenu does to get the transparent menus, not?

[Retrofan]

Originally Posted by thomas

Note: you won't get transparency on WB 3.x if this is your main desire. It's simply not possible.

Hehehehe. That was till now (WB3.9). Here one is simulated with AmiDock, but the one of AmiStart is real (or that seems to me). This photo is with WinUAE using a 030 without Fpu, no rtg, HighGFX (1024x768), 256 colors, transparent bar (not rendered) and 75% transparency on the first menu.
I'm making it for my AmiKit Real.


http://img211.imageshack.us/img211/3...trighticon.png

[Leandro Jardim]

Originally Posted by Retrofan

Hehehehe. That was till now (WB3.9). Here one is simulated with AmiDock, but the one of AmiStart is real (or that seems to me). This photo is with WinUAE using a 030 without Fpu, no rtg, HighGFX (1024x768), 256 colors, transparent bar (not rendered) and 75% transparency on the first menu.
I'm making it for my AmiKit Real.


http://img211.imageshack.us/img211/3...trighticon.png

Very nice! You are a guy full of new ideas for your AmiKit Real.

One nice touch however, would be if the Amiga community could make a shiny 16 color AmigaOS 4 theme for VisualPrefs for you to put it together into your7 AmiKit. Could make AmiKit like a cheap upgrade for 68k AGA machines in comparison to true AmigaOS 4 PPC machines.

I was drawing my own AmigaOS 4 theme but it was erased together with my old hardfile. It was progressing nicely! I dont know if I could make other again (installing everything again and drawing the pixels all again is a pain in the neck). I would hate it if I could lose the bitmaps again... Bah.

[thomas]

Originally Posted by Retrofan

Hehehehe. That was till now (WB3.9). Here one is simulated with AmiDock, but the one of AmiStart is real (or that seems to me). This photo is with WinUAE using a 030 without Fpu, no rtg, HighGFX (1024x768), 256 colors, transparent bar (not rendered) and 75% transparency on the first menu.
I'm making it for my AmiKit Real.


http://img211.imageshack.us/img211/3...trighticon.png

I am quite sure that there is no real transparency shown on this picture, unless you have some kind of AROS Kickstart with improved layers.library.

Simple test: insert a floppy disk, move the icon in place so that it will be covered by the menu, then open the menu so that you see the floppy icon through the opened menu. While you keep the menu open, remove the floppy disk. I am sure that the floppy icon will not disappear until you close the menu.

Or use OS 3.9's animated icon program. Move an icon animation behind the menu. I am sure that although the program continues playing the animation, you will not see it through the "transparent" menu.

It's easy to make a menu look transparent because it is only open for a short time and the user has almost no chance to change the background while the menu is open.

A test for the transparent dock bar: open a window and move it to the bottom of the screen. Then bring the dock bar to front so that the window shines through it. Now move the window away. I am sure that the parts of the window which were behind the dock bar will stay in place until you refresh the dock bar somehow.

[Retrofan]

Of course you're true, it just uses at the bar the background as his, it must be the same kind of trick that I'm doing with AmiDock, but it's the best you can get. That's when using "not rendered", that is fully transparent. With Transparency (you can change the %) I haven't tried yet much, but surely there must be some kind of trick like that. The thing is that using transparency at the menus you see the icons behind them. BTW you know I'm full of hears for your suggestions if you want to help me with this.

Edit: Leandro that would be nice. In fact I haven't tried any other theme, and OS4 would be nice, I'm sure.

[thomas]

First try: colored icons hovering above a transparent textured platter. No functionality yet, you can click on the icons but nothing happens. Press Esc to quit.

Restrictions as described above apply: things that happen "behind" the dock after it opened won't show.

It's very slow on non-RTG screens.

[Leandro Jardim]

Originally Posted by thomas

First try: colored icons hovering above a transparent textured platter. No functionality yet, you can click on the icons but nothing happens. Press Esc to quit.

Restrictions as described above apply: things that happen "behind" the dock after it opened won't show.

It's very slow on non-RTG screens.

Ah, now I understand the fact that you warned about the fake Transparency of the window... For everyone that is not aware of this effect something looks wrong!

[thomas]

Not sure if we speak of the same things. On the screenshot above everything is right. But this one shows what happens if you change the background picture. I would say that everybody sees that something is wrong, not only people which are aware of the effect.

[Leandro Jardim]

Originally Posted by thomas

Not sure if we speak of the same things. On the screenshot above everything is right. But this one shows what happens if you change the background picture. I would say that everybody sees that something is wrong, not only people which are aware of the effect.

Sure, we speak.

I meant that for people that not know the details why it happen, one could say that AmigaOS is broken.