Things to Think About

Secrets of the Thing alternate desktop by Dan Dreibelblis...

As with any major change in your computer setup, there's bound to be some 
casualties software-wise. And one of the first casualties of my switching 
over to MagiC 5 as my main operating system was a big one - Neodesk 4.

The popular desktop replacement program from Gribnif, which had stood by 
me thick and thin in allowing me better control over my desktop since 
1991, had decided to rebel against being used as the overlay for MagiC by 
refusing to leave the system when the computer was to be shut down. See, 
when Neodesk boots up, it also sets its hooks deeply into the
system. And, as you also know by now, MagiC requires one to run a shutdown 
procedure - which removes any programs still in memory and makes sure 
certain files are written before you can turn off your computer. 
Unfortunately, Neodesk isn't compatible with this procedure, and when shut 
down by MagiC, will reboot itself back in memory, whereupon MagiC will 
attempt to shut it down again, ad nauseum.

Unfortunately, Gribnif had no solutions in their manual on how to get 
MagiC to work with Neodesk - and when you consider that Neodesk was 
designed to work with Gribnif's own multitasking AES replacement, Geneva, 
it sort of makes sense why. On the other hand, having seen what a 
difference speed-wise and compatability-wise MagiC makes on any Atari 
computer, I knew something had to give - and that was to be Neodesk. That 
now led me to a new problem - finding a replacement desktop to replace the 
replacement desktop.

Now I know what you're thinking - why not use the desktop replacement 
included with MagiC 5, namely MagXdesk? Granted, that desktop is certainly 
not bare-bones, in fact it's not unlike having a TOS 2/3/4 desktop with 
its ability to have programs launch from off the desktop. To me, however, 
going to the relatively blaw MagXdesk after utilizing the many powerful 
features of Neodesk is like switching to generic vanilla ice cream after 
savouring Breyers Deluxe Vanilla.

Thankfully, a solution soon came a few days after the problem first 
appeared - namely, a new version of the Thing desktop, v. 1.27. The first 
English version of the desktop in about two years since Thomas Binder took 
over development from Arno Welzel, thanks to some hard translation work by 
Peter West from the UK, Thing (which is pronounced "ding", and means in 
German "the meeting place") is a very popular desktop replacement, not 
only for MagiC but also for N.AES. It's also the official desktop used in 
the new Milan TOS-compatible, and this version also purports to work with 
Geneva. It will work with Single-TOS as well, but you get the best use out 
of Thing in a multi-tasking enviroment, as you will soon see.

And soon I was taken by Thing - enough to register it with Joe Conner's 
Interactive within days of installing it. Why? Some very powerful 
features......

Iconizable and adjustable windows

What to do when you have a number of windows that you just have to move 
out of the way to get at a desktop icon, but you don't want to shut the 
window? Well, if you have the proper AES installed, you'll notice that 
there's now a gadget in the upper right-hand side that will allow you to 
reduce the window down to an icon that sits at the bottom of the screen - 
clicking on the icon again will bring the window back up and in position.

Another cool feature is the ability to tell Thing how the windows are to 
be handled when they pop up on screen - in other words, if you have 
multiple windows, Thing will arrange them so they won't overlap! This 
feature of course works best in higher resolution modes, or if you're 
running a larger desktop screen if you're using a TT with a large monitor 
or a Falcon using a screen-stretcher like Videlity.

Desktop pop-ups

While Thing obviously doesn't have pull-down menu functions in open 
windows like Neodesk (which is quite handy), there is a neat way around 
having to constantly go up to the main menu bar to access functions like 
search, get info, sort, create folder, etc. Just go inside the window in 
question, give a quick click on the right mouse button, and a menu will 
pop up onscreen with all these functions listed, to be selected by the 
left mouse button. A smaller list is generated when doing the same trick 
from within group windows.

A similar trick can be done OUTSIDE the windows - a quick click will pull 
up another menu onscreen that will list the names of any icons on your 
desktop, including disk drives, programs, and groups - very handy if any 
of these have been covered up by windows. The menu can even scroll if 
there are enough icons onscreen.

AV Server

One of the best features of this desktop - and the one that makes it so 
popular with many Atari users - is its ability to act as an AV server. 
Namely, it's designed to actually interact in a multitasking enviroment 
with programs so that other programs set within Thing as installed 
applications (like text viewers, archiving programs, etc.) will be 
launched when a particular function is required.

As a good example, take aFTP (a program for going to FTP sites online and 
snagging files), which is designed for working in an AV server enviroment. 
Download a .ZIP file and ST ZIP be launched with the ZIP file loaded and 
ready to depack! Download an .LZH program and your LZH application will 
come up fully loaded and ready to depack the file; download a document and 
your designated text viewer will come up with the document loaded. See how 
powerful this function can be?

This also pops up in Thing's font handler function - again in aFTP, if you 
go into its menu and go to its font configuration, Thing's font window 
will pop up and you can use its sizing and chooser to set up how the text 
in aFTP's window will appear.

Of course, programs really have to be written to take advantage of an AV 
server, but one can see just how good this works, especially when online 
on the Internet. Something for all programmers to consider....

Media eject

Thing also supports the media eject standard that exists for removable 
media drives, like CD-ROMs and cartridge-based hard drives like ZIPs and 
Syquests. Just highlight the drive in question and hit control/shift/J, 
and watch the media pop out! This function also appears in the 
inside-window pop-up.

Groups

Like Neodesk, Thing allows for arranging sets of icons into groups which 
can then have a single icon assigned to call up the group of icons in a 
window. How it differs, however, is that when you make any change in a 
group window (resizing, repositioning, changing names of programs) the 
group window will automatically save the new configuration! Also like 
Neodesk, you can assign long file names to the programs in the group 
window, as well as the name of the overall group icons.

Long filename support

Since MagiC, MiNT and N.AES all support the ability to use long file names 
on hard drive partitions, it's imperative that the desktop also has that 
ability as well - and Thing does this quite well. It also allows you to 
name files on these partitions using both upper and lower-case lettering.

Background tiling

okay, so this function is also found in Neodesk. However, in my opinion 
Thing handles this function much better, as the background tiles aren't 
messed-up colour wise in the higher multi-colour resolutions on the 
Falcon. Background pictures can be tiled across the screen or centred on 
it. Thing comes with a number of interesting tiles, including an "Intel 
Outside" 3-D logo and what appear to be stucco and shag rug patterns - 
MagiC also comes with a number of tiles as well which are more colourful. 
I myself snagged a few tiles from the demo of Jinnee which is floating 
around the net - I now have what appears to be interlocking shale tile on 
the desktop. Please note that to work the patterns all must be in .IMG 
format.

Folder on desktop behaviour

One small but important thing I've discovered is how a folder behaves when 
it's on Thing's desktop or in a grouping - when you click on the close 
gadget when you're through, the folder closes >completely<, in other words 
if the folder is nested in several other folders it will just close with 
one click! This makes having folders you access on an ongoing basis handy 
to keep on top of the desktop (for instance, I keep the folder where all 
my downloads go on the desktop - I just open the folder to look, and close 
it when I'm done).

I'm sure that there must be some other things I've missed in this 
overview, but I think that this should suffice for now. I certainly hope 
that this review will make you at least curious enough to set it up on 
your computer and try it out. And the shareware price (which works out at 
around $45 CDN at current exchange rates) is certainly right.