I was wondering if it is possible to change graphic environment on Haiku (Iââ¬â¢m sorry, Iââ¬â¢m a newbie and maybe this is a fool question).
Anyway… if this is possible, Iââ¬â¢d like to ask a question:
since gecko has been ported to BeOS (www.mozilla.org/ports/beos/), is it therefore possible to port an environment like Orchestra (http://www.symphonyos.com/orchestra.html) on Haiku? I think it would be cool and fast enough… and it looks modern and very elegant to me!
Maybe this is foolish… Iââ¬â¢ve tried. I’d like to know your thoughts…
Bye! 
Marco.
I don’t want this posting to sound rude or anything, but…
OMG, I visited the page you linked to, and wonder if I understood that right?
Quick poll for developers: Who of you would want to trade the BeOS API for HTML + Perl scripts for desktop applications ??!
Seriously, one of the advantages of BeOS and its successor, Haiku, over the likes of Linux is the fact, that there’s one very good and unified graphical user interface, rather than dozens of window managers, desktop environments etc.
I got it… thanx for the attention… as I was supposing the question was foolish :roll: Please forgive a poor, disoriented, newbie…
Is there any documentation you could recommend me to learn how to personalize Haiku/BeOS (I’m running BeOS Developer Edition 1.1 to learn something about BeOS… my interest was captured by Haiku’s elegance concept but I preferred to learn starting from a stable edition of the OS…) look?
Thank you.
Marco.
You should ask on the mailing list. The Haiku devs might know more.
markomanka wrote:
I got it... thanx for the attention... as I was supposing the question was foolish :roll: Please forgive a poor, disoriented, newbie... Is there any documentation you could recommend me to learn how to personalize Haiku/BeOS (I'm running BeOS Developer Edition 1.1 to learn something about BeOS... my interest was captured by Haiku's elegance concept but I preferred to learn starting from a stable edition of the OS...) look? Thank you.Marco.
Everyone was a newbie once. To answer your question, I need to ask you one: what do you mean by ‘personalize’?
–DarkWyrm
…and don’t post that to the mailing list, please. There’s some people who would get annoyed by that.
I completely agree with ChrisK, it’s a great feature that there is one unified desktop.
There aren’t a huge number of options for personalisation. If you “ctrl-alt-shift click” on the main BeOS “start” button, you’ll see a menu for window decor. The preferences contain everything else you can modify - scroll bar look, fonts, menus, desktop backgrounds.
If you just get used to the BeOS look for a few days, you may well grow to love it (as I did!)
LOL 
I won’t post such a request on the mailing list, as you wish… I’m not intended to bother developers…
Anyway I still continue wondering why is there so few possibilities of personalization for the graphical environment… since BeOS (and Haiku as well) seems to be dedicated to multimedia, graphics and animation (I can’t find program like Maple, MatLab, Mathematica, MevisLab ported to it!)
…I would like to “animate” its appearance also… I like a lot its leaf, polished, theme… But I would like a more glassy, smooth style for the windows… and I would like a 3d like organization of the desktop… maybe with someting like a leaf falling down from a tree to the water on the background (not animated… but 3d!)…
…Surprisingly I discovered I’m not the only one who would like the Orchestra to be ported to BeOS (but this is probably because we are more experienced with X windows Manager and we are more aware of the possibilities with it)…
Anyway… You’re a great community, I love the way you’re answering me like we are all talking of something important for everyone of us… I love this warm!
And, behind my posts… I really love BeOS… and Haiku especially!
tb100 wrote:
...and don't post that to the mailing list, please. There's some people who would get annoyed by that.I completely agree with ChrisK, it’s a great feature that there is one unified desktop.
There aren’t a huge number of options for personalisation. If you “ctrl-alt-shift click” on the main BeOS “start” button, you’ll see a menu for window decor. The preferences contain everything else you can modify - scroll bar look, fonts, menus, desktop backgrounds.
If you just get used to the BeOS look for a few days, you may well grow to love it (as I did!)
…Oh… :o
A friend (Maurice) on another forum (BeOSonline) told me I can change a bit the graphic environment by using BeTheme and Theme… I thought it was slight different from what you’re suggesting and decided to post it here… 
Thank you for your attention
Marco.
DarkWyrm wrote:
markomanka wrote:I got it... thanx for the attention... as I was supposing the question was foolish :roll: Please forgive a poor, disoriented, newbie... Is there any documentation you could recommend me to learn how to personalize Haiku/BeOS (I'm running BeOS Developer Edition 1.1 to learn something about BeOS... my interest was captured by Haiku's elegance concept but I preferred to learn starting from a stable edition of the OS...) look? Thank you.Marco.
Everyone was a newbie once. To answer your question, I need to ask you one: what do you mean by ‘personalize’?–DarkWyrm
Thank you for your great courtesy… as I posted a couple of posts ago, I’d like to put BeOS GUI a few steps forward the way Sun it’s walking thru with its “Project Looking Glass”… java operability (maybe I’d prefer python… don’t know), 3d look, maybe animation, smoother and glassier look for icon and windows… I don’t know… BeOS seems multimedia oriented more than office or mathematics devoted… and I’d like a GUI telling it loud! (even if I’d like to use BeOS as a base dor my computation efforts!)
…“see” you soon
Marco.
P.S.: I’d like to learn how Haiku API is organized and to learn whatever could be useful to help with development… if you have any idea, please suggest me a source!
To prove that I can be a nice guy, as well, I’ll provide you with a few links…
There have been a few threads about the visual appearance of (future versions of, because thingks like advanced effects and GUI “skins” won’t happen in R1 anyway) Haiku, already, like:
My version of GUI. Your opinions, additions are welcome (Unfortunately, many of the linked images don’t seem to work anymore)
and a more controversial one here:
Speed, Speed, Speed, Slow down and think
There’s also the Glass elevator project that discusses future versions of Haiku (Have a look at its Mailing list archives).
Michael Phipps seems to have summed up (a part of) the suggestions for Haiku R2 in this message. You can, for example, copy and paste the attachement (the block of lines beginning with “TXVsdGktdXNlcgoKc…” and ending with “…BraXQgb3IgPz8/CgoK”) into a decoder and click “Decode” to get a plain text version.
Good stuff. I had never read that file by the fearless leader.
ChrisK wrote:
To prove that I can be a nice guy, as well, I'll provide you with a few links... :wink:There have been a few threads about the visual appearance of (future versions of, because thingks like advanced effects and GUI “skins” won’t happen in R1 anyway) Haiku, already, like:
My version of GUI. Your opinions, additions are welcome (Unfortunately, many of the linked images don’t seem to work anymore)
and a more controversial one here:
Speed, Speed, Speed, Slow down and think
There’s also the Glass elevator project that discusses future versions of Haiku (Have a look at its Mailing list archives).
Michael Phipps seems to have summed up (a part of) the suggestions for Haiku R2 in this message. You can, for example, copy and paste the attachement (the block of lines beginning with “TXVsdGktdXNlcgoKc…” and ending with “…BraXQgb3IgPz8/CgoK”) into a decoder and click “Decode” to get a plain text version.
Thank you very much! I’ve already known that you are a nice guy… but I’ve enjoyed to have a confirmation! I’ll take a look at these links sooner…
“See” you soon
Marco
Remember BeOS R5 is a circa 1999-2000 OS - none of the effects you are asking for were available anywhere then.
I really don’t understand how people come along, claim to be a newbie who loves BeOS and yet instantly ask how to make it look/behave like some completely other system.
The fact that there are no little eye candy animations etc adds so much to the feeling of responsiveness. That’s what BeOS is IMHO. I recently spent a few days soley in windows, and booting back into BeOS was so nice to see how responsive a computer can actually be. We really can’t lose that feeling and make BeOS into another derivative form-ahead-of-function OS.
Simon
tb100 wrote:
Remember BeOS R5 is a circa 1999-2000 OS - none of the effects you are asking for were available anywhere then.I really don’t understand how people come along, claim to be a newbie who loves BeOS and yet instantly ask how to make it look/behave like some completely other system.
The fact that there are no little eye candy animations etc adds so much to the feeling of responsiveness. That’s what BeOS is IMHO. I recently spent a few days soley in windows, and booting back into BeOS was so nice to see how responsive a computer can actually be. We really can’t lose that feeling and make BeOS into another derivative form-ahead-of-function OS.
Simon
The answer to your question is pretty simple…
I love the concept of elegance behind its working style… it’s easy, it’s linear… not redundant, fast… and I can see a big, a great, potential for its successive development… but of course, being it 5-6 years old I can see something to work about… and the GUI is the first impact with the users and the simplest thing to talk about in general terms…
Hope I’ve answered your lover’s question…
I’m not here to say BeOS isn’t good… I’d like to be part of the next BeOS!
Further… I’d like to discuss about the future of Haiku, faceing the 64bit computing challenge and the multiprocessor, multicore challenge… I guess Haiku is absolutely worth the effort of developing a “new” kernel with a “new” filesystem starting from its history to put it back in the arena of the great OS… but I’m not able, at this time, to face such a discussion… so I post about the GUI… only because I’m enjoing what I have got and I want to ensure a prosperous future.
OK, probably my words sounded a bit heretical to the most of you (my posts were even pointed in another thread as an example of “evil” proposals :shock: )… When I decided to post one so breaking question I was keeping in mind that the real past of BeOS is its ability to break up traditions and go straight forward… This was the way BeOS made possible perfomances and functions (e.g.: innate multithreading and innate multiprocessors support, journaling filesystem,…) never (<- about) seen before in a “desktop” (I prefer to refer to it as workstation) OS… far before Unix and Windows… with a wonderful GUI and an incredible easiness…
Now I can’t see why we have to defend our “traditions” if not our will to be at the highest level an OS can reach… just innovate… we have not to demonstrate that present solutions are the best but that, if something better could be done, it could only be done in BeOS!
See you soon
With love and respect
Marco.