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New to MorphOS?

Introducing Ambient

Not unlike the top surface of your desk, Ambient is what you see once you successfully boot into MorphOS. Ambient is the user interface between you and MorphOS, providing access to all it's features. Everything that you need to use on your computer can be neatly arranged only on this one screen. However, using ambient you can have an unlimited number of screens, but more about this later.

The desktop

To make this workspace less crowded, Ambient cleverly organizes all your belongings, similar to a system of neat drawers and files. On the top left corner you will see small icons, these are your actual partitions. Clicking on any of them you can open them in windows, and opening the drawers or executing your programs you can discover your entire file structure.

Also, at the top of the screen you will see a titlebar, consisting of the title of your screen and providing various information about your system. Holding down the right mouse button while over this titlebar will provide access to that screen's roll down menus even if the screen is crowded with windows. Ambient's menus provide you with ways to perform various tasks from copying text to formatting a hard drive, or even change your preferences, just to mention a few.

To make your life more easier, you can also have panels on the Ambient screen. Panels provide a convenient and quick access to the programs you use most often. See more of this at Managing panels.

My MorphOS

Also in the top right corner you will find the MyMorphOS icon. Through this one icon you can conveniently access all the others icons, regardless of the partitions they are residing in. Thinking of your belongings as a tree, MyMorphOS is like the central root of your well grown tree. You can reach all trunks originating from this root (your partitions), branches (drawers) and leaves (files).

Screens and screen switching

As we mentioned before, Ambient's desktop is not the only screen you can have. Unlike most modern operating systems, where you can use a maximum of 4 screens or desktops, in Ambient you can have a virtually unlimited number of screens. Some programs may have their own screen, and you can also create separate screens, and tell your windows or programs to relocate to the screen you desire, arranging your workplace the way you like.

These screens can be of different resolutions, or even color depth. Some may be public, enabling visiting windows of other applications, some may be custom, dedicated to only one particular program.

Switching screens is easy. In the top right corner of all screens

. Having more screens at your disposal has the advantage

Working with files and windows

Windows, just like screens, has a depth gadget in their top right corner

Compatibility

Classic Amiga

* Interpretive/JIT emulation
* WarpOS/PowerUP/Warp3D
* Various icon formats

FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

• Dual booting
• Supported expansion cards and peripherals

Troubleshooting

(The MorphOS 2.0 release date is 29.02.2008.)