** 1 page review / 896 words **

Groove Thing

Kev Beardsworth takes a look at Thing v1.20e...

** THI_MAI2.GIF here **

Thing v1.20 was recently released in Germany. The English version is currently available to registered users while the translation is completed by InterActive/TransAction.

Thing has always offered a well designed interface with lots of powerful features and the best AV server capability available. This latest release sees a host of new features, improvements and bugfixes which place Thing in a different league to the desktops we reviewed back in AC2.

Special relationship

Finally Thing and Geneva work together! For the first time since Geneva was launched there's now a serious alternative to NeoDesk. To install Thing with Geneva all you need to do is add an environmental variable and shell entry to Geneva's GEM.CNF file using any ASCII text editor (Everest, qed, Steno etc):

** NP font here **
# GEM.CNF: written by INSTALL.PRG
setenv THINGDIR=C:\THING (or your path to Thing)
<Any other setenv entries follow here>
shell C:\THING\THING.APP (or your path to Thing)
# end of GEM.CNF
** end NP **

** THINGGEN.GIF here **
 
If you're running a sixteen colour resolution or higher the most obvious change is the new 3D-look designed by Dirk Klemmt. If you prefer the original look 'n feel you can turn the 3D look off and enjoy the clean white dialogs displayed in mono and ST medium resolution.

** THID_SET.GIF here **

The Setup menu option includes a new window management dialog which offers near total control over how windows are displayed on screen. Like some other desktops, we already take Thing's real-time scrolling and auto-resizing abilities for granted but the options in this dialog are ground breaking. Are you fed up having windows open over your icons? No problem, windows can be set to avoid them. Do overlapping windows annoy you? No problem, windows can be configured to avoid each other! Used together these these options will intelligently open windows on the desktop until there's no more room - at which point Thing has one more trick up its sleeve. Thing, optionally, displays a ghost outline of the window for you to position interactively using the mouse!

These three features have revolutionised the way I use my desktop - no more careful positioning and saving all my window positions, now I just leave Thing to it! An option to auto re-arrange all the open windows (like Everest and Imagecopy) is still on my wish list but hey, I'm not complaining!
Window backgrounds can now display background patterns, in addition to a solid colour which is one step nearer the concept of "desktop themes", popular on Wintel machines.

If you use long filenames under Thing v1.09 you may have noticed Thing didn't handle the space character, this limitation has been removed, which further enhances cross platform compatibility.

Do you ever run out of memory loading large images or application? Under single TOS one way to claw back some memory was to unload the desktop from memory. This is now also possible when multitasking which may save you the hassle of rebooting to free up some memory.

Thing, via the Mask dialog, already offers excellent control over which files are displayed in windows. It's now possible to specify which files NOT to display using the tilde "~" character. For example, "~*.BAK" displays everything apart from backup files.

Groups gain the ability to automatically close their window after opening a file which saves some mouse legwork. Even better, files can be cut, copy and pasted between windows, using the usual keyboard shortcuts or menu entries, which makes file management a breeze.

Unfortunately the old key routines have been hacked so Thomas was forced to spend time programming new, stronger, routines and unfortunately means existing keys will not work with this release.

The registration cost has increased to DM 30 (£16 via InterActive) and there's an upgrade fee of DM 15 (£6 via InterActive) for a new key. The extra features more than justify the upgrade fee, but I can't help feeling honest users are paying the price for the illegal activities of a few pirates.

** THING02.GIF here **

** boxout **
Symbolic links & aliases

There is general confusion about the difference between symbolic links and file aliases. It doesn't help when documentation sometimes refers to symbolic links as aliases!

Symbolic links are implemented at the operating system level (for example, MagiC) and work as follows.
Consider a file called ABC.TXT on drive C:. If you create a symbolic link of that file called 123.TXT and save it elsewhere both files appear as "real" files on the desktop, in the file selector and everywhere else and changing one changes the other.

File aliases are a desktop feature (for example, Thing, MagXDesk etc). An alias of ABC.TXT can created using the desktop and handled as a desktop object, dragged to other icons, windows and so on but they do not exist as real files. Aliases are merely pointers to the original file, move the original file and the alias no longer works.

** Italics on **
Mario Becroft
** Italics off **
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** Product boxout **
Product name: Thing v1.20
Developer: Thomas Binder
Email: binder@rbg.informatik.th-darmstadt.de
UK support: InterActive
Contact: +44 (0)1206 852602
Email: support@inactive.cix.co.uk
URL: http://www.cix.co.uk/~inactive/
Cost: £16, upgrades: £6 including P&P
Requires: All Ataris with 1Mb memory minimum
Pros: Works with Geneva 006, reliable, consistent user interface
Cons: Icon Manager still hasn't been updated
Score: 91%
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