JPV's MorphOS 2 Review - Revision history

ASiegel at 18:35, 15 December 2009

2009-12-15T18:35:58Z

ASiegel at 18:34, 15 December 2009

2009-12-15T18:34:18Z

ASiegel at 18:31, 15 December 2009

2009-12-15T18:31:22Z

ASiegel: /* General */

2009-12-15T18:29:41Z

‎General

ASiegel at 18:28, 15 December 2009

2009-12-15T18:28:20Z

ASiegel at 18:17, 15 December 2009

2009-12-15T18:17:37Z

ASiegel at 18:15, 15 December 2009

2009-12-15T18:15:44Z

ASiegel at 18:08, 15 December 2009

2009-12-15T18:08:45Z

ASiegel at 17:58, 15 December 2009

2009-12-15T17:58:49Z

ASiegel at 17:49, 15 December 2009

2009-12-15T17:49:45Z

@@ Line 53: / Line 53: @@
 As mentioned, mouse pointers have 15 different modes now. Pointers can look different if you are doing something with the mouse or if you can move or resize a window, click a link, etc. Pointer images are actually separate PNG pictures for each state, which makes them easily customizable and they can also be very colorful and have transparency and shadowing effects. MorphOS offers 8 different pointer themes by default.
-The appearance in general feels very polished. You can change the whole look of the system with new improved skins (Video: [http://jpv.wmhost.com/morphos2_review/videos/morphos2_skins.avi]) and each screen can have its own skin defined. There are also about 30 different screen blankers from traditional 2D blankers to demoscenish 3D blankers ([Video: [http://jpv.wmhost.com/morphos2_review/videos/morphos2_blankers.avi]). You can also modify the behaviour of the startup screen when MorphOS loads. Its graphics and information texts are changeable, with a couple of premade themes offered. As a finishing touch there are lots of good looking wallpapers.
+The appearance in general feels very polished. You can change the whole look of the system with new improved skins (Video: [http://jpv.wmhost.com/morphos2_review/videos/morphos2_skins.avi]) and each screen can have its own skin defined. There are also about 30 different screen blankers from traditional 2D blankers to demoscenish 3D blankers (Video: [http://jpv.wmhost.com/morphos2_review/videos/morphos2_blankers.avi]). You can also modify the behaviour of the startup screen when MorphOS loads. Its graphics and information texts are changeable, with a couple of premade themes offered. As a finishing touch there are lots of good looking wallpapers.
 Among the most interesting features are the screen titlebar modules ([[Media:Review_jpv_05-sbarmodules.png|Pic 5]]). Titlebars have been bit of waste of space traditionally, but now you can populate them with all kinds of more or less useful modules. You can put there information about used memory, CPU load, network traffic, currently playing audio file, date and time. Modules can also be functional like containing a volume control slider, an eject menu or a debug menu. User can freely select which modules are shown and arrange their order. You can also add new 3rd party modules by copying them to SYS:Classes/Screenbar directory. And that's not all, the screenbar modules are visible on every MUI screen! You can see all the information when you are, for example, on a browser's own screen. No need to switch back to the Ambient screen anymore (Video: [http://jpv.wmhost.com/morphos2_review/videos/morphos2_screenbar_modules.avi]).

@@ Line 53: / Line 53: @@
 As mentioned, mouse pointers have 15 different modes now. Pointers can look different if you are doing something with the mouse or if you can move or resize a window, click a link, etc. Pointer images are actually separate PNG pictures for each state, which makes them easily customizable and they can also be very colorful and have transparency and shadowing effects. MorphOS offers 8 different pointer themes by default.
-The appearance in general feels very polished. You can change the whole look of the system with new improved skins ([[http://jpv.wmhost.com/morphos2_review/videos/morphos2_skins.avi|Video 1]]) and each screen can have its own skin defined. There are also about 30 different screen blankers from traditional 2D blankers to demoscenish 3D blankers ([[http://jpv.wmhost.com/morphos2_review/videos/morphos2_blankers.avi|Video 2]]). You can also modify the behaviour of the startup screen when MorphOS loads. Its graphics and information texts are changeable, with a couple of premade themes offered. As a finishing touch there are lots of good looking wallpapers.
+The appearance in general feels very polished. You can change the whole look of the system with new improved skins (Video: [http://jpv.wmhost.com/morphos2_review/videos/morphos2_skins.avi]) and each screen can have its own skin defined. There are also about 30 different screen blankers from traditional 2D blankers to demoscenish 3D blankers ([Video: [http://jpv.wmhost.com/morphos2_review/videos/morphos2_blankers.avi]). You can also modify the behaviour of the startup screen when MorphOS loads. Its graphics and information texts are changeable, with a couple of premade themes offered. As a finishing touch there are lots of good looking wallpapers.
-Among the most interesting features are the screen titlebar modules ([[Media:Review_jpv_05-sbarmodules.png|Pic 5]]). Titlebars have been bit of waste of space traditionally, but now you can populate them with all kinds of more or less useful modules. You can put there information about used memory, CPU load, network traffic, currently playing audio file, date and time. Modules can also be functional like containing a volume control slider, an eject menu or a debug menu. User can freely select which modules are shown and arrange their order. You can also add new 3rd party modules by copying them to SYS:Classes/Screenbar directory. And that's not all, the screenbar modules are visible on every MUI screen! You can see all the information when you are, for example, on a browser's own screen. No need to switch back to the Ambient screen anymore ([[http://jpv.wmhost.com/morphos2_review/videos/morphos2_screenbar_modules.avi|Video 3]]).
+Among the most interesting features are the screen titlebar modules ([[Media:Review_jpv_05-sbarmodules.png|Pic 5]]). Titlebars have been bit of waste of space traditionally, but now you can populate them with all kinds of more or less useful modules. You can put there information about used memory, CPU load, network traffic, currently playing audio file, date and time. Modules can also be functional like containing a volume control slider, an eject menu or a debug menu. User can freely select which modules are shown and arrange their order. You can also add new 3rd party modules by copying them to SYS:Classes/Screenbar directory. And that's not all, the screenbar modules are visible on every MUI screen! You can see all the information when you are, for example, on a browser's own screen. No need to switch back to the Ambient screen anymore (Video: [http://jpv.wmhost.com/morphos2_review/videos/morphos2_screenbar_modules.avi]).
 Shell uses MUICON by default now and it gives more features and configuration options ([[Media:Review_jpv_06-shell.png|Picture 6]]). There's a button bar at the top of the shell window and buttons can be modified according to the user's preferences. Keyboard shortcuts are also user defineable and things like automatic name completion have many options for customization. Several different terminal emulations are supported, which makes for example SSH work much better than earlier. With a search function you can find text strings from the visible area as well as from the back buffer. Shell works as tabbed, so you can add new pages, but also detach them as separate windows. You can save sessions and restore them next time. A saved session will contain the current directory, variables, paths and the command history for example.
@@ Line 63: / Line 63: @@
 Ambient is the desktop of MorphOS, like Workbench is on the Amiga. It's fully MUI-based and has become much more advanced and versatile than Workbench. Lots of file management features have been copied from Directory Opus 5, which makes external filemanagers needless for the most.
-Ambient windows are very configurable ([[http://jpv.wmhost.com/morphos2_review/videos/morphos2_ambient.avi|Video 4]]). They can be used as plain and simple like on the Amiga, but they also can work in a browser mode, where you can have custom toolbars with functions for the filemanagement, filesystem navigating etc ([[Media:Review_jpv_07-window.png|Picture 7]]). One nice example for the toolbar is the "Bookmarks" button, which gives you the option to open any predefined location into the current window with a single selection. In the browser mode you can see the whole directory path for the current location as separate buttons for each level. You can then click anywhere in the path to change the directory by several levels at once. It also remembers the path already visited, so you can jump deeper too. Windows also have a configurable status bar, which gives information about selected items and directory contents. The appearance can be modified quite extensively with MUI settings.
+Ambient windows are very configurable (Video: [http://jpv.wmhost.com/morphos2_review/videos/morphos2_ambient.avi]). They can be used as plain and simple like on the Amiga, but they also can work in a browser mode, where you can have custom toolbars with functions for the filemanagement, filesystem navigating etc ([[Media:Review_jpv_07-window.png|Picture 7]]). One nice example for the toolbar is the "Bookmarks" button, which gives you the option to open any predefined location into the current window with a single selection. In the browser mode you can see the whole directory path for the current location as separate buttons for each level. You can then click anywhere in the path to change the directory by several levels at once. It also remembers the path already visited, so you can jump deeper too. Windows also have a configurable status bar, which gives information about selected items and directory contents. The appearance can be modified quite extensively with MUI settings.
 Files can be viewed traditionally in the icon view or in the list view, but as a new feature there's a thumbnail mode for both views. You can see preview images of the pictures etc instead of the standard icons. With a realtime scaling you can resize them on the fly too. You can zoom the icons with the control key and mouse wheel in the icon view, for example. Clicking the right mouse button over an icon opens a contextual menu, which contains some common actions for the file handling, like copy and paste functions familiar from other non-amiga operating systems ([[Media:Review_jpv_08-menu.png|Picture 8]]). The menu contains different actions for different filetypes and those can be modified and added freely by your own taste.
@@ Line 224: / Line 224: @@
 Development has been active with regular updates since the 2.0 release. Support is good, you can get in touch with the developers directly and you usually get help and fixes quickly.
-And the speed then? It is fast, really fast. It's something that mainstream users won't believe until they see it. Actual operating system boot time is only some seconds and everything opens and closes without delays ([[http://jpv.wmhost.com/morphos2_review/videos/morphos2_video.avi|Video 5]]).
+And the speed then? It is fast, really fast. It's something that mainstream users won't believe until they see it. Actual operating system boot time is only some seconds and everything opens and closes without delays (Video: [http://jpv.wmhost.com/morphos2_review/videos/morphos2_video.avi]).
 All in all, if you want to continue your Amiga hobby, and take it into whole new levels, MorphOS 2 is well worth the price and will give you fun for years again! It has also become complete enough to be a nice option for people looking for new alternative platforms, even if they don't have any Amiga background.

@@ Line 55: / Line 55: @@
 The appearance in general feels very polished. You can change the whole look of the system with new improved skins ([[http://jpv.wmhost.com/morphos2_review/videos/morphos2_skins.avi|Video 1]]) and each screen can have its own skin defined. There are also about 30 different screen blankers from traditional 2D blankers to demoscenish 3D blankers ([[http://jpv.wmhost.com/morphos2_review/videos/morphos2_blankers.avi|Video 2]]). You can also modify the behaviour of the startup screen when MorphOS loads. Its graphics and information texts are changeable, with a couple of premade themes offered. As a finishing touch there are lots of good looking wallpapers.
-Among the most interesting features are the screen titlebar modules ([[Media:Review_jpv_05-sbarmodules.png|Pic 5]]). Titlebars have been bit of waste of space traditionally, but now you can populate them with all kinds of more or less useful modules. You can put there information about used memory, CPU load, network traffic, currently playing audio file, date and time. Modules can also be functional like containing a volume control slider, an eject menu or a debug menu. User can freely select which modules are shown and arrange their order. You can also add new 3rd party modules by copying them to SYS:Classes/Screenbar directory. And that's not all, the screenbar modules are visible on every MUI screen! You can see all the information when you are, for example, on a browser's own screen. No need to switch back to the Ambient screen anymore (Video 3).
+Among the most interesting features are the screen titlebar modules ([[Media:Review_jpv_05-sbarmodules.png|Pic 5]]). Titlebars have been bit of waste of space traditionally, but now you can populate them with all kinds of more or less useful modules. You can put there information about used memory, CPU load, network traffic, currently playing audio file, date and time. Modules can also be functional like containing a volume control slider, an eject menu or a debug menu. User can freely select which modules are shown and arrange their order. You can also add new 3rd party modules by copying them to SYS:Classes/Screenbar directory. And that's not all, the screenbar modules are visible on every MUI screen! You can see all the information when you are, for example, on a browser's own screen. No need to switch back to the Ambient screen anymore ([[http://jpv.wmhost.com/morphos2_review/videos/morphos2_screenbar_modules.avi|Video 3]]).
 Shell uses MUICON by default now and it gives more features and configuration options ([[Media:Review_jpv_06-shell.png|Picture 6]]). There's a button bar at the top of the shell window and buttons can be modified according to the user's preferences. Keyboard shortcuts are also user defineable and things like automatic name completion have many options for customization. Several different terminal emulations are supported, which makes for example SSH work much better than earlier. With a search function you can find text strings from the visible area as well as from the back buffer. Shell works as tabbed, so you can add new pages, but also detach them as separate windows. You can save sessions and restore them next time. A saved session will contain the current directory, variables, paths and the command history for example.
@@ Line 63: / Line 63: @@
 Ambient is the desktop of MorphOS, like Workbench is on the Amiga. It's fully MUI-based and has become much more advanced and versatile than Workbench. Lots of file management features have been copied from Directory Opus 5, which makes external filemanagers needless for the most.
-Ambient windows are very configurable (Video 4). They can be used as plain and simple like on the Amiga, but they also can work in a browser mode, where you can have custom toolbars with functions for the filemanagement, filesystem navigating etc ([[Media:Review_jpv_07-window.png|Picture 7]]). One nice example for the toolbar is the "Bookmarks" button, which gives you the option to open any predefined location into the current window with a single selection. In the browser mode you can see the whole directory path for the current location as separate buttons for each level. You can then click anywhere in the path to change the directory by several levels at once. It also remembers the path already visited, so you can jump deeper too. Windows also have a configurable status bar, which gives information about selected items and directory contents. The appearance can be modified quite extensively with MUI settings.
+Ambient windows are very configurable ([[http://jpv.wmhost.com/morphos2_review/videos/morphos2_ambient.avi|Video 4]]). They can be used as plain and simple like on the Amiga, but they also can work in a browser mode, where you can have custom toolbars with functions for the filemanagement, filesystem navigating etc ([[Media:Review_jpv_07-window.png|Picture 7]]). One nice example for the toolbar is the "Bookmarks" button, which gives you the option to open any predefined location into the current window with a single selection. In the browser mode you can see the whole directory path for the current location as separate buttons for each level. You can then click anywhere in the path to change the directory by several levels at once. It also remembers the path already visited, so you can jump deeper too. Windows also have a configurable status bar, which gives information about selected items and directory contents. The appearance can be modified quite extensively with MUI settings.
 Files can be viewed traditionally in the icon view or in the list view, but as a new feature there's a thumbnail mode for both views. You can see preview images of the pictures etc instead of the standard icons. With a realtime scaling you can resize them on the fly too. You can zoom the icons with the control key and mouse wheel in the icon view, for example. Clicking the right mouse button over an icon opens a contextual menu, which contains some common actions for the file handling, like copy and paste functions familiar from other non-amiga operating systems ([[Media:Review_jpv_08-menu.png|Picture 8]]). The menu contains different actions for different filetypes and those can be modified and added freely by your own taste.
@@ Line 224: / Line 224: @@
 Development has been active with regular updates since the 2.0 release. Support is good, you can get in touch with the developers directly and you usually get help and fixes quickly.
-And the speed then? It is fast, really fast. It's something that mainstream users won't believe until they see it. Actual operating system boot time is only some seconds and everything opens and closes without delays (Video 5).
+And the speed then? It is fast, really fast. It's something that mainstream users won't believe until they see it. Actual operating system boot time is only some seconds and everything opens and closes without delays ([[http://jpv.wmhost.com/morphos2_review/videos/morphos2_video.avi|Video 5]]).
 All in all, if you want to continue your Amiga hobby, and take it into whole new levels, MorphOS 2 is well worth the price and will give you fun for years again! It has also become complete enough to be a nice option for people looking for new alternative platforms, even if they don't have any Amiga background.

@@ Line 53: / Line 53: @@
 As mentioned, mouse pointers have 15 different modes now. Pointers can look different if you are doing something with the mouse or if you can move or resize a window, click a link, etc. Pointer images are actually separate PNG pictures for each state, which makes them easily customizable and they can also be very colorful and have transparency and shadowing effects. MorphOS offers 8 different pointer themes by default.
-The appearance in general feels very polished. You can change the whole look of the system with new improved skins (Video 1) and each screen can have its own skin defined. There are also about 30 different screen blankers from traditional 2D blankers to demoscenish 3D blankers (Video 2). You can also modify the behaviour of the startup screen when MorphOS loads. Its graphics and information texts are changeable, with a couple of premade themes offered. As a finishing touch there are lots of good looking wallpapers.
+The appearance in general feels very polished. You can change the whole look of the system with new improved skins ([[http://jpv.wmhost.com/morphos2_review/videos/morphos2_skins.avi|Video 1]]) and each screen can have its own skin defined. There are also about 30 different screen blankers from traditional 2D blankers to demoscenish 3D blankers ([[http://jpv.wmhost.com/morphos2_review/videos/morphos2_blankers.avi|Video 2]]). You can also modify the behaviour of the startup screen when MorphOS loads. Its graphics and information texts are changeable, with a couple of premade themes offered. As a finishing touch there are lots of good looking wallpapers.
 Among the most interesting features are the screen titlebar modules ([[Media:Review_jpv_05-sbarmodules.png|Pic 5]]). Titlebars have been bit of waste of space traditionally, but now you can populate them with all kinds of more or less useful modules. You can put there information about used memory, CPU load, network traffic, currently playing audio file, date and time. Modules can also be functional like containing a volume control slider, an eject menu or a debug menu. User can freely select which modules are shown and arrange their order. You can also add new 3rd party modules by copying them to SYS:Classes/Screenbar directory. And that's not all, the screenbar modules are visible on every MUI screen! You can see all the information when you are, for example, on a browser's own screen. No need to switch back to the Ambient screen anymore (Video 3).
 Shell uses MUICON by default now and it gives more features and configuration options ([[Media:Review_jpv_06-shell.png|Picture 6]]). There's a button bar at the top of the shell window and buttons can be modified according to the user's preferences. Keyboard shortcuts are also user defineable and things like automatic name completion have many options for customization. Several different terminal emulations are supported, which makes for example SSH work much better than earlier. With a search function you can find text strings from the visible area as well as from the back buffer. Shell works as tabbed, so you can add new pages, but also detach them as separate windows. You can save sessions and restore them next time. A saved session will contain the current directory, variables, paths and the command history for example.
 ==Ambient==

@@ Line 46: / Line 46: @@
 Old versions of MorphOS were a bit problematic to get usable at first, because there wasn't any TCP/IP stack or FAT filesystem support by default. The most users had to use a CD to transfer critical external components to the system. Those problems are completely gone now. The new integrated NetStack TCP/IP stack works reliably and faster than any older option. System mounts attached FAT formatted USB mass storage devices and internal harddisks automatically with a new native FAT filesystem.
 As mentioned, mouse pointers have 15 different modes now. Pointers can look different if you are doing something with the mouse or if you can move or resize a window, click a link, etc. Pointer images are actually separate PNG pictures for each state, which makes them easily customizable and they can also be very colorful and have transparency and shadowing effects. MorphOS offers 8 different pointer themes by default.
 The appearance in general feels very polished. You can change the whole look of the system with new improved skins (Video 1) and each screen can have its own skin defined. There are also about 30 different screen blankers from traditional 2D blankers to demoscenish 3D blankers (Video 2). You can also modify the behaviour of the startup screen when MorphOS loads. Its graphics and information texts are changeable, with a couple of premade themes offered. As a finishing touch there are lots of good looking wallpapers.
 Among the most interesting features are the screen titlebar modules ([[Media:Review_jpv_05-sbarmodules.png|Pic 5]]). Titlebars have been bit of waste of space traditionally, but now you can populate them with all kinds of more or less useful modules. You can put there information about used memory, CPU load, network traffic, currently playing audio file, date and time. Modules can also be functional like containing a volume control slider, an eject menu or a debug menu. User can freely select which modules are shown and arrange their order. You can also add new 3rd party modules by copying them to SYS:Classes/Screenbar directory. And that's not all, the screenbar modules are visible on every MUI screen! You can see all the information when you are, for example, on a browser's own screen. No need to switch back to the Ambient screen anymore (Video 3).
 Shell uses MUICON by default now and it gives more features and configuration options ([[Media:Review_jpv_06-shell.png|Picture 6]]). There's a button bar at the top of the shell window and buttons can be modified according to the user's preferences. Keyboard shortcuts are also user defineable and things like automatic name completion have many options for customization. Several different terminal emulations are supported, which makes for example SSH work much better than earlier. With a search function you can find text strings from the visible area as well as from the back buffer. Shell works as tabbed, so you can add new pages, but also detach them as separate windows. You can save sessions and restore them next time. A saved session will contain the current directory, variables, paths and the command history for example.
@@ Line 95: / Line 87: @@
 Virtual filesystem support makes possible to browse all kinds of archives and disk images like normal directories. You can open and copy files from the ISO images without burning them first for example.
 Panels have got some new elements like bookmarks and a view watcher to help navigating between different views. Otherwise the panels still work as basic program launchers.
@@ Line 101: / Line 96: @@
 A new shell command "Open" utilizes Ambient's mimetypes too. You can open files by the mime editor's definitions from the shell. For example, "open test.avi" plays the video and you don't have to know which player or options are needed from the shell. It also opens directory paths into the Ambient windows, web addresses into the browser, etc.
@@ Line 167: / Line 156: @@
 [[File:Review_jpv_Lcdmonitortest.png|LCD Monitor Test|100px|thumb|right]]
 [[File:Review_jpv_Showgirls.png|Showgirls|100px|thumb|right]]
 MorphOS 2 includes a good amount of different kinds of applications and utilities, which will cover the basic needs. Here is a list of the most important ones in random order.
@@ Line 172: / Line 163: @@
 [[Media:Review_jpv_Hdconfig.png|HDConfig]] - A completely new partitioner.
 [[Media:Review_jpv_Mounter.png|Mounter]] - Very useful tool for mounting and unmounting different kinds of partitions, like Linux partitions etc.
 SFSDoctor - To check and fix your SFS partitions.
 Snoopium - Shows which files and resources different programs try to use. It's based on SnoopDos.
 Grabber - Handy program for taking screenshots.
 GraphicBoards - Shows detailed information about the installed graphics boards.
 MiniCalc - Simple calculator.
 [[Media:Review_jpv_Muiprocalc.png|MUIProCalc]] - Powerful calculator especially for programmers.
 Multiview - A new version of the traditional viewer. It looks better and supports unicode characters etc.
 TaskManager - Shows CPU load of tasks and can change their priorities and send break signals.
 [[Media:Review_jpv_Ed.png|Editor]] - Simple text editor.
 Apdf - Updated version of the PDF reader.
 [[Media:Review_jpv_Lcdmonitortest.png|LCD Monitor Test]] - Capable utility for monitor testing and even repairing.
 RemoteShell - SSH client, which has support for ssh2 protocol.
 [[Media:Review_jpv_Showgirls.png|ShowGirls]] - Really feature-rich image viewer and editor, especially good for processing digital photos. It contains many different viewing modes from thumbnails to 3D accelerated effects. It has good browsing options for image directories. Image processing functions are comprehensive and a preview for processing effects is simply ingenious. There is a line in the centre of the image and left side of it shows the preview of the effect while right side shows the original image. You can move the line around with the mouse and see how the effect would look compared to the original image if executed. Changes in effect settings will be updated to the preview image in realtime.
 [[Media:Review_jpv_Sketch.png|Sketch]] - Image processing and painting program for the basic needs.
 Sputnik - WebCore-based modern web browser, which is usable, but not ready yet.
 [[Media:Review_jpv_owb.png|Origyn Web Browser (OWB)]] - Modern and well-working web browser.
 iKill - For removing and freezing crashed programs and their resources.
 ==Summary==

← Older revision		Revision as of 18:15, 15 December 2009
Line 162:		Line 162:

	MorphOS 2 includes a good amount of different kinds of applications and utilities, which will cover the basic needs. Here is a list of the most important ones in random order.		MorphOS 2 includes a good amount of different kinds of applications and utilities, which will cover the basic needs. Here is a list of the most important ones in random order.
		+
		+	[[File:Review_jpv_Hdconfig.png\|HDConfig\|120px\|thumb\|right]]
		+	[[File:Review_jpv_Mounter.png\|Mounter\|120px\|thumb\|right]]
		+	[[File:Review_jpv_Muiprocalc.png\|MUIProCalc\|120px\|thumb\|right]]
		+	[[File:Review_jpv_Ed.png\|Editor\|120px\|thumb\|right]]
		+	[[File:Review_jpv_Lcdmonitortest.png\|LCD Monitor Test\|120px\|thumb\|right]]
		+	[[File:Review_jpv_Showgirls.png\|Showgirls\|120px\|thumb\|right]]

	[[Media:Review_jpv_Hdconfig.png\|HDConfig]] - A completely new partitioner.		[[Media:Review_jpv_Hdconfig.png\|HDConfig]] - A completely new partitioner.

@@ Line 49: / Line 49: @@
 As mentioned, mouse pointers have 15 different modes now. Pointers can look different if you are doing something with the mouse or if you can move or resize a window, click a link, etc. Pointer images are actually separate PNG pictures for each state, which makes them easily customizable and they can also be very colorful and have transparency and shadowing effects. MorphOS offers 8 different pointer themes by default.
 The appearance in general feels very polished. You can change the whole look of the system with new improved skins (Video 1) and each screen can have its own skin defined. There are also about 30 different screen blankers from traditional 2D blankers to demoscenish 3D blankers (Video 2). You can also modify the behaviour of the startup screen when MorphOS loads. Its graphics and information texts are changeable, with a couple of premade themes offered. As a finishing touch there are lots of good looking wallpapers.
 Among the most interesting features are the screen titlebar modules ([[Media:Review_jpv_05-sbarmodules.png|Pic 5]]). Titlebars have been bit of waste of space traditionally, but now you can populate them with all kinds of more or less useful modules. You can put there information about used memory, CPU load, network traffic, currently playing audio file, date and time. Modules can also be functional like containing a volume control slider, an eject menu or a debug menu. User can freely select which modules are shown and arrange their order. You can also add new 3rd party modules by copying them to SYS:Classes/Screenbar directory. And that's not all, the screenbar modules are visible on every MUI screen! You can see all the information when you are, for example, on a browser's own screen. No need to switch back to the Ambient screen anymore (Video 3).
 Shell uses MUICON by default now and it gives more features and configuration options ([[Media:Review_jpv_06-shell.png|Picture 6]]). There's a button bar at the top of the shell window and buttons can be modified according to the user's preferences. Keyboard shortcuts are also user defineable and things like automatic name completion have many options for customization. Several different terminal emulations are supported, which makes for example SSH work much better than earlier. With a search function you can find text strings from the visible area as well as from the back buffer. Shell works as tabbed, so you can add new pages, but also detach them as separate windows. You can save sessions and restore them next time. A saved session will contain the current directory, variables, paths and the command history for example.
 ==Ambient==
@@ Line 68: / Line 82: @@
 Ambient has got a new "My MorphOS" directory and you can open any volume or assign with it ([[Media:Review_jpv_10-mymorphos.png|Picture 10]]). It works like a root directory and thus extends Amiga's traditional directory structure a bit. You can open it from a icon on the desktop, from the Ambient pulldown menu or optionally by double clicking any empty space on the desktop. Ambient windows can also contain a "Device list" button for it.
 Ambient uses PNG icons by default, but other formats are supported too. For example old GlowIcons and NewIcons formats from the Amiga will work, as well as newer dual-state PNG icons. Ambient also has built-in viewers for text, image and audio files. The viewers have basic functionality like search for the text and scaling, rotating and browsing the directory for the images.
@@ Line 77: / Line 100: @@
 One of the most important new things for the Ambient is a mime editor, which is used to modify the handling of the different filetypes ([[Media:Review_jpv_11-mime.png|Picture 11]]). You can define what will happen when you double click, drag & drop or select some other action from the context menu for a certain file. Each action can contain several commands, which will be executed when the action is performed. Commands can be Ambient's internal commands, AmigaDOS commands or different types of scripts ([[Media:Review_jpv_12-actioneditor.png|Picture 12]]). You can also provide them with arguments like the respective filename etc. Practically anything you ever want to happen when you click a certain type of file is possible to do with it. Mime types are organized hierarchially and higher level definitions are inherited to the lower levels. This way you can make some common options for example for all video files, but then each separate format can also have their own options. You can also define some common options for all directories, devices and files. Each filetype or group can have their own default icons. It's possible to make own default icons for each device too, then you can have different icons for the CD drives, USB and Samba mounts etc.
-A new shell command "Open" utilizes Ambient's mimetypes too. You can open files by the mime editor's definitions from the shell. For example, "open test.avi" plays the video and you don't have to know which player or options are needed from the shell. It also opens directory paths into the Ambient windows, web addresses into the browser etc.
+A new shell command "Open" utilizes Ambient's mimetypes too. You can open files by the mime editor's definitions from the shell. For example, "open test.avi" plays the video and you don't have to know which player or options are needed from the shell. It also opens directory paths into the Ambient windows, web addresses into the browser, etc.
 ==MUI4==
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 The font requester gives you a possibility to organize fonts in different groups. With one click you can view for example all fixed width, bitmap fonts or your own favourite fonts. Font list shows the available sizes for the fonts and you can select both the font and its size with just one click. A preview mode renders each font in its own style into the list ([[Media:Review_jpv_16-fontrequester.png|Picture 16]]).
 ==Under the Hood==
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 There are many improvements in the window and mouse handling. Mouse actions can be sent to the underlying window even if it's not activated. It helps a lot with volume controls etc. You don't have to activate a music player window with the left mouse button to be able to change a volume setting with the mouse wheel for example. Windows can be maximized to fullscreen by a couple of ways. The window zoom gadget can be configured to switch the window size between normal and fullscreen instead of the two traditional obscure sizes. There are many new similar options to control the windows ([[Media::Review_jpv_17-icontrol.png|Picture 17]]). Another good example is bringing windows to front and back. It can be made normally for one window, but also for whole window families. If you have an application with many separate windows, you can send all those windows to back or front at once ([[Media:Review_jpv_18-hotkeys.png|Picture 18]]).
 MorphOS has pretty good debug features, but for a normal user the most important thing is to check the ramdebuglog occasionally. Badly behaving programs can cause unstability like on all Amiga compatible systems. You can't get rid of it without breaking the compatibility with the legacy software, but with the logs you can eliminate problematic programs and make the system more stable. In any case MorphOS seems to be the most stable Amiga compatible operating system I have ever used.
 ==Applications==

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 After a boot from the install media you are greeted with a good-looking welcome window ([[Media:Review_jpv_01-install.png|Picture 1]]). For the first time ever an Amiga compatible operating system also opens directly to the monitor's native resolution by using the DDC. You are presented with options to read more about MorphOS, to install it on a HD with IWizard program or to continue using the system from the install media.
 The installation program is polished and looks elegant. You get basic settings defined with few steps without going too detailed at this point. You'll already notice a couple of the new features compared to the earlier MorphOS versions. Like PNG mouse pointers, which can have 15 different states instead of original two ([[Media:Review_jpv_02-pointers.png|Picture 2]]). Old SCSIConfig has been replaced by a new HDConfig program as the default partitioning tool. And of course the new network settings ([[Media:Review_jpv_03-network.png|Picture 3]]). Finally you just select a destination partition for installing. Much better than it used to be.
 ==General==