Skinnable winUAE panels

[onkelarie]

It's probably too far fetched, this idea... What would be neat is a possibility to 'skin' the winUAE panels (main configpanel and ADF selection panel). With that option in place, fullscreen emulation would pretty much cancel out the look and feel of windows (XP/Vista/7, etc) and create the opportunity to skin Amiga-like (1.2, 1.3, 2.0 etc) selection/config panels.

[john4p]

Well, you could change your complete Windows to look Amiga-like. That'd effect the WinUAE UI, too...

For example: http://www.wincustomize.com/skins.as...d=4750&libid=1

[s2325]

Any chance to find skin similar to Workbench 1.3?

[onkelarie]

The stardock solution is a nice possibility, but the footprint of that application is a bit too large to my liking.

[Toni Wilen]

Current GUI: never. Possible future portable GUI (wxwidgets?): if GUI platform supports it (afaik wxwidgets has some kind of skinning support)

[Boo Boo]

Great idea

[bLAZER]

QT also has skinning support, using standard CSS.

[Hewitson]

Why make WinUAE bloated with unnecessary graphics.. An emulator should be small and fast, they aren't designed to win any fashion contests.

[Photon]

I think you just mentioned the item at the very bottom of my feature request list for WinUAE... No wait, it's not even on the list.

But as mentioned you can skin Windows. That's an even better idea becuase when you switch to WinUAE UI you see Windows all around the UI... blergh

[Leandro Jardim]

I think would be interesting to implement the entire WinUAE in some kind of portable graphics library (like SDL) and then implement a GUI in SDL but with skinning support, a bit like emulators as ScummVM, Stella, ATARI 800 and VICE does.

This should make a more portable WinUAE and this is good for EUAE, PUAE, everybody; also should provide possibly a skinnable GUI; and it could use the WinUAE graphics engine to draw the GUIs, what should reuse the existing WinUAE existing code base. Interfaces for console and SDL could be implemented as a WinUAE plugin and loaded dinamically. The user could choose the better GUI for your needs; skinnable or not skinnable; slow and bloated or fast GUIs.

A GUI for WinUAE would be an interesting thing to implement, at least by the words of Bill Gates.

Interesting also, is to show all configurations on the main panel as icons, a bit like Virtual PC does. The icons could be logos of products, pictures of coverdisks, etc, each for the type of program that configuration is supposed to run.

Another thing I thought, is to provide a special file selector that show adfs with costumizable icons, a bit like Gnome and KDE does on X-Window or even like Workbench does with .INFO files. ADFs could then look like workbench disks, pictures of coverdisks, each for the type of file that image is supposed to store.

But all this is a lot of work and I do not forget that Toni is pratically alone on his odissey for the perfect WinUAE.

But I think everybody approves his modifications to the "UAE machine".

[Maren]

I normally don't care for this type of eye candy, I just want them interfaces to be as fast, as uncluttered and as technically minimalistic as possible, but I have this project in the works where I'm booting straight into WinUAE through a heavily stripped-down version of XP with no applications at all, only drivers, powerstrip and the command line. So far so good, but it would be killer to have a WB 1.3-based GUI for that extra touch realism

[Jimbo]

Originally Posted by Hewitson

Why make WinUAE bloated with unnecessary graphics.. An emulator should be small and fast, they aren't designed to win any fashion contests.

+1 here

[Leandro Jardim]

Originally Posted by Jimbo

+1 here

Despite my earlier post in this thread, I have this sentiment about emulators too.

That my idea of pluggable video drivers for WinUAE is very, very overkill, not to say its very hard to do. But if someday WinUAE use a portable graphics library like many emulators are being converted to, WinUAE will need a builtin GUI, themeable or not. Its the best way to keep WinUAE small, fast and not dependent of other thirdy-part libraries.

WinUAE already has the best interface of all emulators around there. The GUI of big emulators like Virtual PC and Virtual Box are much weaker than the GUI olf WinUAE and not to say the set of features too!

I see emulators like little computers that works like "magic" inside another computer. Which looks and behaves like a more strong computer. A bit like portable computers. At least this is the way I like they look and feel, I dont know you.

One thing I see even in some simple interfaces of other emulators, and that I feel lack in WinUAE, is a menu bar and a toolbar for the main window, integrated in WinUAE as shortcuts to the configuration window.

For example to quickly change configurations, floppies, speaker volume, mouse and joysticks, make screenshots, copy and paste text, and not less important pause and resume the emulation. In a sense, everything that can be done directly on the chassis of a real AMIGA.

[AmigaFriend]

Originally Posted by Leandro Jardim

One thing I see even in some simple interfaces of other emulators, and that I feel lack in WinUAE, is a menu bar and a toolbar for the main window, integrated in WinUAE as shortcuts to the configuration window.

For example to quickly change configurations, floppies, speaker volume, mouse and joysticks, make screenshots, copy and paste text, and not less important pause and resume the emulation. In a sense, everything that can be done directly on the chassis of a real AMIGA.

I absolutely do not see the need of a toolbar when you can do everything with keys in your keyboard.

Screenshot? Press PRT SCR
Pause? Press PAUSE and so on...

The things i try to learn in the most used emulators are the shortcut keys for pause, print screen, save and load save state etc.

Btw WinUAE has one of the strongest key remaping options in any emu i use. And you can do now what you're saying. You can remap to your keys or controllers most used functions as controlling sound, floppies, emulation speed, mouse, joystick and keys remapping and the list goes on and on. With a bit of work on your side you can have your perfect environment without using a mouse at all.

Check the input panel and see what i'm talking about.

And with a real Amiga chassis remember you only had keys to make CTRL+Amiga+Amiga to reset. You don't need a toolbar for that also in WinUAE

[Leandro Jardim]

Ok, ok... I respect your ideas and you respect mine...

Read my mouth: I want to be your friend!

Not only of you but of everybody.

I gave only a suggestion and I do not expect that you or anyone do anything for me... But in turn, I do not expect that you take it so severely...

[AmigaFriend]

Originally Posted by Leandro Jardim

Ok, ok... I respect your ideas and you respect mine...

Read my mouth: I want to be your friend!

Not only of you but of everybody.

I gave only a suggestion and I do not expect that you or anyone do anything for me... But in turn, I do not expect that you take it so severely...

Irmão do outro lado do Atlântico!

Never! I respect your ideas also and they are very well welcome. I was just saying my 2 cents in this feature and in the meantime making you aware that WinUAE is very much customizable. That goes exactly to some of the requests you made about easy setup or access to common features of WinUAE through the keyboard.

I want also to be your friend and yes i've read your sig.

Nonetheless I apologise if you think I was too arsh was not my intention at all.