New GUI for the Atari 8-bit

[flashjazzcat]

Try something like this then:

Symbiosis at work... I was just thinking we could double the vertical resolution that way.

 

EDIT: I must say, your design looks damned cool:

 

Edited August 30, 2014 by flashjazzcat

[+MrFish]

I wonder if perhaps you are letting Windows "get in the way", so to speak. You've already named the thing "Task Manager", which matches Windows. And now, you've outlined a design that will basically replicate the analogous tool on Windows; right down to everything being named the same. I'm not saying this is a mistake, but understanding your own assumptions as such might give you pause for thought toward a different design.

 

Jon's got more than enough material to pause for thought for the next 15 years. He's just had his head in the wringer for months working on the new multi-tasking system and getting things transferred over to cart. It would be nice if he could throw something like this together using whatever he feels like at the moment, as a basis, without having it scrutinized. It's not like this is something that is being finalized for release. Give him some breathing room.

[Eyvind Bernhardsen]

This GUI is really impressive. I would not have believed it was possible to do this on the Atari if you'd showed it to me back in the 80s.

 

The discussion of the CPU cost of drawing the pointer reminded me of something: In OS X, the pointer disappears when you're typing into a text field (to prevent it from interfering with your view of what you're typing), and only reappears when you move the mouse.

 

Borrowing this feature would let people turn the pointer off just by hitting a key. Worth a try?

 

[+MrFish]

Symbiosis at work... I was just thinking we could double the vertical resolution that way.

 

EDIT: I must say, your design looks damned cool:

 

Man, that was fast! I guess you're in the groove after all the coding you've done on it lately.

[+MrFish]

EDIT: I must say, your design looks damned cool:

 

I like the graph type you were using at first too. But I think that type works better visually when there is more space for drawing the peaks and valleys, and maybe even having the consecutive drawto points spaced by at least 2 pixels horizontally, so there's less crowding. I think you're keeping it compact in order to have room for the list of processes though, eh?

[Prodatron]

FJC did a major step and demonstrated that real preemptive multitasking now finally really works on the 6502/A8 including visualisation inside the new GUI. Thats so impressive. Quite funny that people are more interested in the name of the Task Manager and the way how the graph is beeing displayed Maybe I am too technical oriented without any marketing abilities

Edited August 30, 2014 by Prodatron

[+MrFish]

FJC did a major step and demonstrated that real preemptive multitasking now finally really works on the 6502/A8 including visualisation inside the new GUI. Thats so impressive. Quite funny that people are more interested in the name of the Task Manager and the way how the graph is beeing displayed

 

Actually I'm more interested and impressed by what Jon has accomplished, by a long-shot. But... it's my job to pay attention to how things look, as much as Jon will tolerate me.

[pixelmischief]

Jon's got more than enough material to pause for thought for the next 15 years. He's just had his head in the wringer for months working on the new multi-tasking system and getting things transferred over to cart. It would be nice if he could throw something like this together using whatever he feels like at the moment, as a basis, without having it scrutinized. It's not like this is something that is being finalized for release. Give him some breathing room.

Are you saying that my message was scrutinizing or that it encroached on FJC's "breathing room"?

[pixelmischief]

Quite funny that people are more interested in the name of the Task Manager and the way how the graph is beeing displayed Maybe I am too technical oriented without any marketing abilities

If by "people" you mean me, I would say that I could care less about "Task Manager" as a name for the thing. I was merely cautioning against allowing the overwhelming proliferation of Microsoft Windows to give rise to the assumption that this tool with similar function should be a clone of the Windows Task Manager.

Edited August 30, 2014 by pixelmischief

[+MrFish]

Are you saying that my message was scrutinizing or that it encroached on FJC's "breathing room"?

 

Pretty much.

[Prodatron]

@pixelmischief: For me the achievement is so huge from a technical point of view, that political stuff currently isn't interesting at all But of course I understand! The A8Gui is Mac related regarding the design, so maybe the apps should be called like on the Mac.

Edited August 31, 2014 by Prodatron

[+Ripdubski]

"Activity Monitor" since its profiling and eventually have tasks. One wonders how hard it would be to graph SIO usage.

[pixelmischief]

Pretty much.

He's a big boy, Mr. Fish. Let the man speak for himself. If FJC feels at all judged or pressured by my statements, he should let me know. I'm an admirer and a fan, and would be happy to stfu if my opinion on the project is unwelcome. And inasmuch as I was not talking to you in the first place, you might do the same.

[+MrFish]

He's a big boy, Mr. Fish. Let the man speak for himself. If FJC feels at all judged or pressured by my statements, he should let me know. I'm an admirer and a fan, and would be happy to stfu if my opinion on the project is unwelcome. And inasmuch as I was not talking to you in the first place, you might do the same.

 

If you're talking about the project you're talking to me as well. We welcome opinions, but it's a good idea be considerate of things you may not know much about.

[pixelmischief]

If you're talking about the project you're talking to me as well. We welcome opinions, but it's a good idea be considerate of things you may not know much about.

That's fair.

[+MrFish]

That's fair.

 

Alright, cool. Back to business as usual...

[flashjazzcat]

The discussion of the CPU cost of drawing the pointer reminded me of something: In OS X, the pointer disappears when you're typing into a text field (to prevent it from interfering with your view of what you're typing), and only reappears when you move the mouse.

 

Borrowing this feature would let people turn the pointer off just by hitting a key. Worth a try?

Sounds good to me. This would work well in a text editor, where window refresh will be about the biggest strain on performance in any area of the UI.

 

"Activity Monitor" since its profiling and eventually have tasks. One wonders how hard it would be to graph SIO usage.

Perfectly descriptive. SIO usage should be measurable in just the same way as with any other activity, since the SIO routines will be built into the OS. I had another idea, too, which I think would be invaluable for developers and - again - is found in OS X: the ability to create a logged snapshot of a task's supervisor calls and messaging activity.

 

As for the other points: simmer down folks. I didn't take offence at pixelmischief's remarks (and I trust this is evident from my response), so there's no real reason for anyone else to get upset either: after all, most of the UI elements in question haven't even been coded up yet. And pixelmischief isn't the first person to intercede with observations on UI design when I am up to my neck in machine code: this being a GUI, it's hard to clearly separate what's on the screen from what's going on underneath.

 

If I need unlimited breathing space, I can just keep away from the thread. But I like to post frequent updates when I put together something I find exciting (and which I think may be of interest to others), and I like to acknowledge the responses. This can take a bit of time, and it can be distracting, but given how off-topic this thread has gone in the past, I find nothing objectionable about a query on UI design which was (hopefully) answered with a couple of friendly sentences. I would claim the monopoly on being ratty for myself at the moment, anyway, after slogging away for about eight weeks straight.

Edited August 31, 2014 by flashjazzcat

[flashjazzcat]

I like the graph type you were using at first too. But I think that type works better visually when there is more space for drawing the peaks and valleys, and maybe even having the consecutive drawto points spaced by at least 2 pixels horizontally, so there's less crowding. I think you're keeping it compact in order to have room for the list of processes though, eh?

The list of processes will go on a different tab. If you check out the SymbOS task manager (which I'm using as a template for now, since it's good-looking and functional), the lower half of the performance tab is taken up with "Totals". The graphs could still be a bit bigger, though: they're currently the size they are to minimize the bitmap storage overhead (100 bytes per graph). In truth, they'll probably have to be bigger once the titled frames are added.

[+MrFish]

The list of processes will go on a different tab. If you check out the SymbOS task manager (which I'm using as a template for now, since it's good-looking and functional), the lower half of the performance tab is taken up with "Totals". The graphs could still be a bit bigger, though: they're currently the size they are to minimize the bitmap storage overhead (100 bytes per graph). In truth, they'll probably have to be bigger once the titled frames are added.

 

Yeah, I know how Windows and SymbOS' task managers are setup. I thought you might be putting something a little bit more abbreviated together to start with. I'll try not to interject too much. I know you like to play around with designs some yourself.

[Heaven/TQA]

what makes me confident is that nowadays there are so many new devices and expansions so an new OS can fully take advantage... (RAM, RAM carts etc)... maybe I missed important notes in the thread (I am more into Fractals right now so more game/demo mode and not OS ) what will be the min. system specs to run this?

[Irgendwer]

Of course the wait prior to erasing (until VCOUNT has ticked over eight times since the NMI fired) could be used to perform other useful work, I guess.

 

Thanks for the explanation! Thought a little about the constraints and had no better idea instantly. (Only such crude things like copying the screen lines under mouse pointer to an other buffer, putting the mouse on it and display that buffer by LMS changes in display list, so original screen data isn't touched. When reducing output frequency, this could go on cycles on par... ).

Regarding the VCOUNT wait: Since graphical output is forbidden, wouldn't that be a good place to prepare some work for the scheduler?

[flashjazzcat]

Yeah, I know how Windows and SymbOS' task managers are setup. I thought you might be putting something a little bit more abbreviated together to start with. I'll try not to interject too much. I know you like to play around with designs some yourself.

Well, I'd be interested to see the MrFish visualisation of an activity monitor containing the same functional elements as the SymbOS Task Manager. The salient point about the graph is that its height should optimally be a factor of 100 - i.e. 25 or 50 lines. If the graph is 25 lines high, we convert the percentage value into the peak value thus:

 

LSR @

LSR @

 

No need for any fancy division routines. I think when the right graph has "Memory" written above it, the graph will need to be at least forty pixels wide otherwise it'll look unbalanced. So that's 40 by 25 (125 bytes), or forty by fifty (250 bytes). The latter (nearly a page) is probably the optimal size for the graph, and offers a good level of detail.

 

...what will be the min. system specs to run this?

I expect the minimum specs to realistically be XL/XE, 128KB, mouse, disk drive.

 

Regarding the VCOUNT wait: Since graphical output is forbidden, wouldn't that be a good place to prepare some work for the scheduler?

I was thinking the same thing, although the mouse pointer NMI is "elastic", unlike the scheduler IRQ which happens at a fixed position in every frame. But it's a really appealing idea!

Edited August 31, 2014 by flashjazzcat

[Stefan Both]

Two ZIPs of an older version can be downloaded here:

http://www.atari8.co.uk/gui/index.html

Jupp... I downloaded it. Got a st-mouse today. Now i can start testing

[twh/f2]

Good point! ST mouse?

I remember this old gray devices had a pretty low comfort.. By todays standards I would not even think about taking an Atari ST mouse.

 

Are there any optical ST compatible mice today? Or adapters for USB?

 

greetings,

twh!

[flashjazzcat]

Frames and string controls done, tabs next:

 

 

Note: I make no presumptions about this being a finalised design for the activity monitor, especially since I've yet to see what kind of visualisations MrFish is cooking up. I think the size of the dialog box font will be up for discussion. I'll get my hand slapped for using the icon font here, but it does seem to strike a nice balance between readability and compactness. Regardless of whether this particular dialog ends up looking this way, good use of limited space is always going to be a prime concern.

 

Probably exacerbated by uncertainty about general design guidelines and font choice (and thus control spacing), but boy I am already hankering after a resource editor.