I'd like to help re-design riscos icons and perhaps improve riscOs UX. Where do I start?

I’m UX designer by trade. I’ve just recently tested riscOS on my RPI3 and I kind of like the potential of riscOS as modern OS to be used for daily usage.
I’d like to offer my help on improving the icons set, windows manager theme and even improving riscOS UX in general.
Where do I start?

Hello,

I’d like to offer my help on improving the icons set, windows manager theme

What sorts of improvements are you thinking of? I mean, what is it about the current icons or the current default window manager theme that you think needs changing?

About the RISC OS user interface, I was recently thinking it’d benefit from some sort of window list, functionally equivalent to the task bar in windows. Actually, does something like that already exist? It might be that RISC OS already has this feature and I somehow haven’t discovered it – it’s possible because when I use RISC OS, I spend most of my time using a text editor rather than interacting with the desktop interface.

Redesigning the iconset for RISC OS is reasonably easy, but there are some limitations on what’s possible. All graphics used by the RISC OS desktop are in the native Sprite format. To take a look at a complete theme file, navigate to !Boot.Resources.!ThemeDefs.Themes.Raspberry, in which you’ll see a number of files. You can copy these over into a new directory and start tinkering to create a new theme. This will then be selectable from the Themes icon in the Configuration tool, though you’ll need to reset to see them in action.

A few things to bear in mind:

• The Tools file holds sprites for the majority of the window furniture. In recent version of the OS the colours in this file are determined by colour tables within the spritefile, to allow tinting when a window receives the input focus. I intended to write a simple tool a long time ago to help in converting standard sprites to these versions, but never got round to it. I might have another go if there’s interest :)
• The Sprites, Sprites22 and Sprites11 files are a bit simpler. They define graphics for the various file icons, some window gadgets, and things like drive icons on the icon bar. These are all editable in Paint and have no funky colour problems. The three versions are for the three standard dpi settings on RISC OS (45×90, 90×90 and 180×180). Editing the last of these is a right pain at present, since Paint itself can’t convert dpi settings, but with any luck the ongoing Bounty will address this. In order to maintain backwards compatibility, it’s generally recommended to define these sprites either in a fixed or an optimised 256-colour palette. Alpha channel sprites, despite being supported by the OS, are not easy to design since Paint also lacks editing capabilities here (and, again, will hopefully gain them at some point).
• The CoFlags file sets some related visual options, such as the base window colour and tiling behaviour. You can get help on these options by issuing *help wimpvisualflags in a task window. I would love to see these flags extended to give control over button colouring, which is currently fixed to light grey (see Ticket 378 for more details).

More extensive UI changes would require changes to the Desktop (or ‘Wimp’) codebase. The current RISC OS UI is pretty basic, but for some that’s an advantage – the lack of whizzy transparency and animations makes the desktop very fast even on older hardware, which still forms an important share of systems in use. I’d personally like to see Alpha sprites adopted in a thorough manner, to enable blending into arbitrary backgrounds, but I think there’d be a variety of views on making more significant changes that radically altered the current lightweight UI model.

Hope that helps – shout out if anything’s unclear :)

I would love to see these flags extended to give control over button colouring, which is currently fixed to light grey (see Ticket 378 for more details).

The extra level of flexibility would be good. I have little experience of the Wimp code (other than reading it and thinking fu……….) but it seems to me that somewhere there will be a routine that draws the icon and as a part of that, picks the colour to set button faces. The colour and highlight colour ought to be look-up-able in the same way as the border colours.

So, count this as a +1.

I intended to write a simple tool a long time ago to help in converting standard sprites to these versions,

What exactly is that information supposed to be? I had a look at the tools and such and they were all sorts of funky colours (I can’t imagine that was done in Paint).

The current RISC OS UI is pretty basic, but for some that’s an advantage –

A machine that boots as standard ¹ in around 12 seconds? Yes please. A machine that doesn’t trash my media with endless swapping? Yes please. A machine where the error message and beep happen at the same time ²? Yes please. A machine that has a fairly simple API and isn’t too hard to program? Yes please…

¹ People will tell you that you can get Linux to boot that quickly. Yes, you can. Custom prepared kernels, a special rootfs, there are many tricks that can make a Linux device boot quickly. But the difference with RISC OS is that these aren’t tricks, it’s just that fast at starting.

² XP running on a 2.8GHz Pentium 4 and there’s still enough of a lag between an alert box and the clang! that I’ve often dismissed the message before the sound. I know technically this is because the sound playback is tasked out to an audio server service, but still, to not be able to sync it on a 2.8GHz box is extracting the urine somewhat, don’t you think?

The colour and highlight colour ought to be look-up-able in the same way as the border colours.

Yeah, I imagine it’s not the hardest job in the world, and the Ticket entry describes (what I think is) a decent interface for the improvement. However, there are a million of these ‘little’ jobs for hard-pressed developers, and in reality I imagine emending the Wimp code is a fiendish task. Unfortunately I’m not up to it, being restricted to BASIC and learning C (slowly), but it would be a nice addition if ever implemented.

It might be worth noting that the Wimp already has support for arbitrarily coloured icon faces, borders, etc, via the ‘C’ switch in an icon’s validation string. Presumably the code for that could be used as a template for a generic case wherein the icon’s default colours are set by a global theme.

What exactly is that information supposed to be?

The Wimp retains the RISC OS 2-era behaviour of changing the underlying toolicon colour when the input focus changes, even though the overlaid sprites in many themes completely mask this effect. In practice, that means a switch from wimp colour 2 (light grey) to 12 (cream). If you look in the new-style toolsprites files, you’ll see (at least) two ‘table’ sprites – ‘table_2’ and ‘table_12’. These are translation tables for the respective wimp colours. So all the toolsprites are defined using a fixed set of 256 colours, but are plotted according to the tables. That does make it tricky to design new toolsprites, without some kind of tool to convert the spritefiles automatically. Hence my (long deferred) intention to write one.

and in reality I imagine emending the Wimp code is a fiendish task.

It’s certainly not going to be helped by “Wimp01”, “Wimp02”, “Wimp03”, etc with functionality scattered all over the place.

What I really want to do is pull the Wimp code apart, so there is “Polling” and “Windows” and “Icons” and stuff that makes sense like that.
The thing stopping me (asides from the ages old problem is missing round tuits) is that there’s no point. If the upstream (ROOL) doesn’t use the same methodology, then when I next come to download the sources, it’ll be “Wimp01”, “Wimp02”, “Wimp03”, etc all over again.

It’s not just me, Justin did it too.

…I think it’s somewhere in here
(warning, it’s a 520Kish page, NetSurf on a Pi2 copes okay, but if your internet is slow, give it time…)

It’s certainly not going to be helped by “Wimp01”, “Wimp02”, “Wimp03”, etc with functionality scattered all over the place.

Scattered? I’m sure there’s a reason, but it’s tempting to suggest it involves smoking interesting tobacco adjunct/substitute.

Isn’t the UX (if it stands for what Google says it does) what makes RISC OS so attractive?

Why would anyone want to mess with it?

Mark you, I don’t follow this “themes” thing at all!

PS I never took to RISC OS 4 – why change directory icons from blue to green? Round all the corners you like, but why?

PPS Perhaps start by learning it’s RISC OS?

“UX” is a modern thing.

Back when we were a lad (etc), we had a User Interface and that was good enough. There’s a screen, there’s a window, there’s a mouse pointer, and there’s something to click on.

Now it’s about the User Experience (yup, UX rather than UE, go figure). It isn’t good enough to use something, you have to experience it.
The amount of times I’ve seen new app updates talking about “experience”, it makes me want to turn the air a deep royal blue. It’s a ....….ing app! I don’t want to experience anything, I just want to do whatever the app is supposed to do. Okay, pal? Can we do that? Just have apps that do what they are supposed to without crowing about how great it will be not to use them, but to experience them. Gah! Next it’ll pop up advertising trying to sell me a triple, venti, half sweet, caramel, soy latte macciato…

You experience a parachute jump. You experience getting laid. You might experience getting married, or climbing a mountain, some might say it’s the same thing.
You absolutely do not ever “experience” a weather app.

You experience a parachute jump.

Not me, squire!

You experience getting laid.

I’m a married man! Of course!

But my UX of RISC OS is second-to-none! Always a delight! Particularly when compared to other OSs (yes, others are available!).

Perhaps our OP should turn their attentions to those!

You absolutely do not ever “experience” a weather app.

Once upon a time there was a brewery, lets call the Whitbread, and they claimed to sell a “leisure experience”. This was in answer the CAMRA assertion that, since the request in their pubs was for a “pint”, the customer should be served a “pint” (clearly defined as 20fluid ounce of liquid). The full text was that they sold “a leisure experience not pints”
Cue CAMRA members visiting Whitbread pubs requesting “a leisure experience” :)

Anyway back to the Graphical User Interface (which has no “X’s” anywhere) – so do we want to prettify it, or improve it with some useful features?

do we want to prettify it, or improve it with some useful features?

Quite happy to have both, although I don’t honestly care one way or the other about the former…but if someone can do the former (without screwing anything else up…) and can’t do the latter, then I for one don’t mind if that’s their thing.

Mark you, I don’t follow this “themes” thing at all!

Out of interest, what don’t you follow? The point about themes is that a user can opt for whatever visual style they like. On a standard RO5 distribution, you can make the desktop look like RISC OS 5, or the ROL-era RISC OS 4, or even Acorn-era RISC OS 3. That’s surely a good thing – it’s not forcing any changes on anyone. One of the things I like about the system is that it’s totally configurable – a Raspberry theme looks fairly modern, or you can select Morris4 and be back in the 90s. What’s not to like?

so do we want to prettify it,

If it is actually a prettification, not a meaningless tampering, possibly. I thought 3D tool icons were good!

or improve it with some useful features?

That seems OK! Provided they’re not compulsory to use, and don’t consequently spoil some user’s existing “experience”!

Oh – is that where “themes” come in?

For me, “Ursula” was a nice lady I used to teach with!

If you [Menu] (middle button on mouse) click on “Apps”
Then [Select] (left mouse button) on the only option “Open’$’”
It should open a window “Resources:$.Resources”
Find the directory “Wimp” and double click [Select] (left mouse button).
Then double click “Tools” should open a sprite file with most of the wimp furniture.
These can then be edited. “Sprites” can also be edited.

Bump post
An old file of toolsprites I made back in 1995! If it works and you like it, feel free to use it (or abuse it!)
Just updated the Dropbox link from a previous post (August 2012)
ToolSprites
My preference and still using on RISC PC and several RPis now.

Still to test link when posted and confirm I have included the “iicon” I missed last time. (May not have been present 22 years ago.)

@Patrick

About the RISC OS user interface, I was recently thinking it’d benefit from some sort of window list, functionally equivalent to the task bar in windows. Actually, does something like that already exist?

There is a program called Switch (it’s under utility software). It uses a menu rather than a taskbar though.

@Chris

That does make it tricky to design new toolsprites, without some kind of tool to convert the spritefiles automatically. Hence my (long deferred) intention to write one.

I threw something together to see how my themes would work under the new scheme. It’s not perfect but might provide a useful starting point, you’re welcome to it if you want.

Is there any tool to convert PNG to native sprites icon format on OSX or Linux? All of my design tools are usually on MAC

My experience with riscOS is fairly new. I’ve heard about the OS but never have a chance to really try it until recently.
Coming from modern OS background where many conventional interaction are norms such as left click to click, right click to open menu, middle click /scroll wheel to scroll up/down, it actually feel very strange to use riscOS at first time. But definitely it was not pleasant experience when you make a transition from modern OS to riscOS since things are not working the same way

So when i mentioned about improving UX riscOS, i meant that we should subjectively looking at giving riscOS more optional customisation features that will make riscOS behave somewhat like normal modern OS would. For example: implement a option on Mouse Settings that allows Right Click to behave like Middle Click, or provide some way to adjust WIMP widget theme including button styling and stylise other UI widget etc….

implement a option on Mouse Settings that allows Right Click to behave like Middle Click

That is probably possible with some sort of filter to pick up mouse events and fiddle the button values. I seem to remember there was one that swapped the buttons around for “left handed people” (in scare quotes as I’m a leftie and have no problems with the usual order).
You’ll likely find very few people interested, though, as to use the right button for the menu function is:
a, a hangover from an API limitation that arose as a result of hardware restrictions – the early PC nice only ever had two buttons; that’s why the middle button sets the bit for the third button in the data stream
b, a failure to understand that the right button actually has a clearly defined purpose, there’s a clue in the name – Adjust – you use it to modify the currently selected things in some way… operations that on other systems usually involve the keyboard.

RISC OS was designed with three button behaviour from the outset, which is part of the reason our UI isn’t polluted with menu bars. It, in point of fact, predates Windows (3.1, the one that moved people away from DOS apps). Please don’t break our UI with conventions based upon hangovers of lesser UIs from the ’90s. From my POV, going from RISC OS to Windows (XP) seems like an act in dumbing down with a UI that is clearly half assed kludge upon half assed kludge.

From my POV, going from RISC OS to Windows (XP) seems like an act in dumbing down with a UI that is clearly half assed kludge upon half assed kludge.

We have Windows 7 at work and I frequently wish that I could right-click files to add them to my current selection. I don’t think Win 10 supports this either… and neither does MacOS.

We have Windows 7 at work and I frequently wish that I could right-click files to add them to my current selection.

And what about right-clicking in a scroll bar, or on a scroll icon? In RISC OS it will scroll in the opposite direction. I’m actually rather surprised that other OS’es never implemented that. And what do you think about extending a text selection with a right-click? If you’ve done that once, you realise what potential other OS’es are missing! Or right-double clicking on a directory, which will close the parent directory. Or right-clicking the close icon of a directory, which will open the parent directory.
Actually, I wished that modern OS’es would behave somewhat like RISC OS. No joke.

Actually, I wished that modern OS’es would behave somewhat like RISC OS. No joke.

Absolutely! If only RISCOS ran on really powerful hardware, and had the range of apps other OSes have…or indeed just a few key ones, but they’d need to keep up to date with file formats for compatibility with other people. Hey ho.

they’d need to keep up to date with file formats for compatibility with other people. Hey ho.

It’s a nice dream, but RISC OS is too fundamentally insecure. Look at technologies like DEP and address randomisation, and even they can be bypassed. All those ways to “root” a mobile phone or tablet? It’s basically breaking in through known weaknesses.

That said, there is a lot to be proud of about RISC OS. The Wimp is simple but very effective, and we’ve had decent font rendering for coming on thirty years. ClearType is poor in comparison…

Is there any tool to convert PNG to native sprites icon format on OSX or Linux? All of my design tools are usually on MAC

I think Imagemagick might contain some support, but probably not to the level that you’d require. One of the big differences between sprite files and image formats used by other platforms is that sprite files can contain multiple images, so foreign tools to manage them in non-clunky ways are pretty rare.

Some googling also reveals reaConverter and SPRtools (although for the latter you’ll have to build it from source).

But definitely it was not pleasant experience when you make a transition from modern OS to riscOS since things are not working the same way

The same could be said when switching between any of the major operating systems. Just try to make sure you can recognise which issues are a result of culture shock and which are deficiencies in the OS itself.

If you haven’t seen it yet, I’d recommend taking a look at the (work-in-progress) RISC OS 5 User Guide, which is an update to the user guide that was shipped with RISC OS 2 & 3 in the 80’s/90’s. There’s also this wiki page where the updates to the user guide are being coordinated, and this page which summarises many of the keyboard/mouse interactions used in the desktop (some of which might not be listed in the user guide yet, despite being supported for years).

So when i mentioned about improving UX riscOS, i meant that we should subjectively looking at giving riscOS more optional customisation features that will make riscOS behave somewhat like normal modern OS would.

Ideas are fine. Finding people to implement them is the hard part. If you want to see your ideas implemented you may have to do it yourself – which is likely to require learning C and ARM assembler (assembler being the most important, since the window manager is written in assembler).

From my POV, going from RISC OS to Windows (XP) seems like an act in dumbing down with a UI that is clearly half assed kludge upon half assed kludge.

We have Windows 7 at work and I frequently wish that I could right-click files to add them to my current selection. I don’t think Win 10 supports this either… and neither does MacOS.

Ctrl-click for Windows, shift-click or cmd-click for macOS.

Ctrl-click for Windows, shift-click or cmd-click for macOS.

I know – I suspect we all know – but Ctrl, Shift & Cmd are on the keyboard. It’s not a big deal, but right-click is better.

It’s a nice dream

Yes, I know that’s all it is. The Mac gets a lot more use than the Pi (I’m on the Mac at the moment), but the Pi is great for the things I do do with it.