Magic user interface
Magic user interface | |
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Basic data
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Maintainer | The MUI for AmigaOS Development Team |
developer | The MUI for AmigaOS Development Team (originally Stefan Stuntz from SASG) |
Publishing year | 1993 |
Current version | 5.0 (January 30, 2017) |
operating system | AmigaOS 68k from 3.X / PPC from 4.X |
programming language | C. |
category | GUI toolkit |
License | Shareware or bundle |
German speaking | Yes |
muidev.de |
The Magic User Interface ( MUI ) is a commercial , object-oriented GUI toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces for AmigaOS from version 3.X / 4.X. This is free of charge for end users of programs that use MUI. Freeware can also be used free of charge in your own applications; a license fee is charged for commercial products.
Range of functions
MUI provides programmers with a number of ready-made controls as well as an API for creating their own controls, with which the implementation of complex GUIs has been significantly simplified. The four-color standard palette of the AmigaOS has also been supplemented by four more colors in order to achieve a better display of the control elements. The color palette is adapted to the extensions MagicWB and NewIcons , which in turn extended the Amiga Workbench to include more "colorful" file symbols.
Color palette from MUI & MagicWB | ||||||||
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colour | ||||||||
red | 149 | 000 | 255 | 59 | 123 | 175 | 170 | 255 |
green | 149 | 000 | 255 | 103 | 123 | 175 | 144 | 169 |
blue | 149 | 000 | 255 | 162 | 123 | 175 | 124 | 151 |
Users of MUI applications have the option of setting their appearance with the configuration program MUIPrefs globally or individually for each program in great detail. Not only background colors or patterns as well as font for text display, but also the display of the control elements themselves can be changed. The size of the controls and program windows is automatically adjusted by MUI. In addition, MUI enables the saving of window sizes and positions, keyboard control and the minimization of running programs.
distribution
MUI was very popular with both programmers and users: Over 900 applications use it for their GUI. These include, above all, some equally popular programs such as the web browsers IBrowse and Voyager , the mail clients MicroDot II and YAM , the IRC client AmIRC , the FTP client AmFTP or the control program of the TCP / IP stack Miami .
history
With the appearance of version 2.0 of the AmigaOS, a new object-oriented interface for implementing reusable control elements was provided with BOOPSI . This was easier and more flexible than direct programming of the Intuition interface, which is encapsulated by BOOPSI . Along with ClassAct (later ReAction ), MUI was one of the first libraries to use this new technology.
In August 1993, MUI was first published as version 1.0. The software is available on the website and especially on the popular Aminet . After numerous intermediate versions, the last official version 3.8 was published on February 12, 1997.
With the decreasing importance and the turbulent history of Amiga and AmigaOS from 1999 the situation becomes unclear. At first it was said that MUI should be used in the repeatedly announced AmigaOS 4 MUI. This was eventually discarded in favor of ClassAct .
In MorphOS , the operating system successor started around 1999/2000 with a similarly changeable history, it became part of the new operating system and its ambient interface as "MUI4" . An unofficial MUI derivative "Zune" was also integrated in AROS , a source-text compatible reimplementation of the previous AmigaOS.
MUI for AmigaOS is now actively being further developed by the "MUI for AmigaOS Development Team" and is available in version 5 for AmigaOS3.X and AmigaOS 4.X. Registration for use in new programs is still possible (as of June 2017).
See also
Web links
- Official website
- Website of the original developer Stefan Stuntz
- 2.2.1: What is MUI? German Amiga FAQ
Individual evidence
- ↑ MUI: license conditions
- ↑ List of programs that use MUI
- ↑ List of popular MUI programs
- ↑ a b MUI: program and version history
- ↑ MUI: Official download page
- ^ MUI: Information on distribution
- ↑ Amiga Status Announcements OS News
- ↑ More AmigaOS4 Details Emerge OS News
- ↑ Overview - GUI Toolkit MUI. MorpOS
- ↑ Zune Application Development Manual ( Memento of the original from March 25, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. AROS
- ↑ MUI: order and registration