"Ahem...
Well it's been awhile since my last foray into the great GUI debate. I have
been auspiciously absent for a year or two due to what I consider an alarming
trend towards a gratuitiously ugly standard, namely MagicWB....
MagicWB appears to be an oxymoron from the ground up. The term "magic" would
seem to imply a technological achievement which surpasses human comprehension.
Although from a visual standpoint it may be difficult to comprehend why anyone
would settle for this pedestrian, monochromatic interface, it is all quite
easily explained: Amiga users are in such despair over the lack of ANY
standardization that they will eagerly embrace whatever looks better than
Commodore's laughable attempt at what is known in the industry as a Graphical
User Interface (GUI). It would seem, however, that style, taste, and/or design
are not any of the chief concerns of those who would endeavor to better the
situation. Over the years, there have been those who have tried to foist upon
many an unsuspecting user their interpretation of what an attractive, workable
environment should look like. Many of them have gone unpunished, including
that individual who designed a Workbench around a color scheme which included
such delightful hues as fluorescent green and beige. Makes me wonder if Dr.
Kevorkian offers gift certificates... Other incarnations have ranged from
blatently insipid to overtly disgusting, the latter dominated by what is known
as MagicWB. In deference to SEA (the Society for the Elimination of Acronyms),
we will refer to MagicWB and other such counterparts as UGLI's (Unprofessional
Graphic Layout Interface).
[...]
Now, WorkBench institutes some standards and guidelines for operation. For
example, disk windows often contain gadgets for controlling window position,
size, and termination, but lack any easily accessed, point'n'click hurt-me
buttons, such as the ability to format the hard drive (although I would
actually enjoy a feature like that, especially if it would allow me to format
the hard drive in someone else's computer...).
[...]
Until recently, I was content to remain uninvolved in this
seemingly endless, lemming-like parade over the MagicWB cliff because I had my
own Workbench design and seldom, if ever, made contact with any other Amiga
user. I had, to my surprise, actually forgotten exactly how rancid the
original Commodore Amiga icons were. When MagicWB arrived on the scene, it
took me slightly less than 6 seconds to come to the realization that this was
really just a cruel joke heaped upon the Amiga community by some fiendish,
diseased pervert in an attempt to prove once and for all that those who owned
Amigas lacked the higher brain functions of color recognition, compound
speech, and the ability to switch off "Dukes of Hazzard" re-runs."
[...]
