Topic : User Manual for TeraDesk Author : Wout Klaren, Henk Robbers, Djordje Vukovic Version : February 2017 Subject : Documentation/Utilities Nodes : 87 Index Size : 2746 HCP-Version : 3 Compiled on : Atari @charset : atarist @lang : en @default : Main @help : @options : -i -t4 +z @width : 75 View Ref-FileContents 2 Installation TeraDesk Tera Desktop should be installed as follows: 1. Create a folder called e.g. DESKTOP or TERADESK anywhere on your floppy or hard disk (or in a RAM disk) to hold the Tera Desktop files. It is also possible, although a little untidy, to put them into the root directory of a disk volume. 2. Copy into this folder the files: DESKTOP.PRG (if you intend to use multi-tasking) OR DESKTOS.PRG (if you will work in single-TOS ONLY) OR DESK_CF.PRG (if you need a Coldfire-specific version) DESKTOP.RSC ICONS.RSC (if you will use monochrome icons) AND/OR CICONS.RSC (ONLY if your AES can support colour icons) Note that DESKTOP.PRG will work in single-TOS as well; DESKTOS.PRG just saves a few kilobytes of memory by not containing code which is not relevant in single-TOS environment, and by having a somewhat limited support for The AV Protocol (AV-protocol functions not likely to be used in single-TOS are removed). Beware that the single-TOS version may not properly interpret some configuration files created by the multi-tasking version, e.g. if they contain any references to Symbolic Links or long file names. If only DESKTOS.PRG is to be used it may be renamed to DESKTOP.PRG after copying, but this is not required. The program will register itself with the AES as "DESKTOP" anyway. On a Coldfire system, the DESK_CF.PRG program should be used instead of DESKTOP.PRG. Same as with DESKTOS.PRG the program can be renamed to DESKTOP.PRG but this is not required. The Coldfire-specific version should be compatible with MC68020 and higher processors as well. You can (but need not) also copy into this folder the configuration files TERADESK.INF and TERADESK.PAL from the \EXAMPLES folder. Note that these files are set for a hypothetical computer configuration, and may not be appropriate for your setup (Tera Desktop will attempt to obey all that is specified in the configuration file, no matter what the actual environment is, e.g. the example TERADESK.INF has desktop icon for drives A, B and C only, and, if that file is used, only those disk icons will be shown on the desktop). If you start Tera Desktop without TERADESK.INF in its directory, the program will complain that it can not find its configuration file. In order to avoid this message appearing again, activate "Save settings" in the Options menu. Of course, before saving, the configuration can first be set to any user's particular environment and taste by defining additional desktop and window icons, filetypes, etc. If you would feel more comfortable with Tera Desktop translated into some other language, you can replace DESKTOP.RSC (and maybe ICONS.RSC and CICONS.RSC) with translated files. All text strings used by Tera Desktop are located in DESKTOP.RSC, except default filenames and a warning that DESKTOP.RSC can not be found. It is thus possible to completely adapt Tera Desktop to other languages by using translated resource files. Check the links on TeraDesk's webpage for currently available translations, or make one yourself, using a resource editor. 3. If you use ST-Guide or other compatible hypertext viewer, copy TERADESK.HYP and TERADESK.REF from the \DOC folder to the folder where your other .HYP files are. When you first start Tera Desktop, install your hypertext viewer (program or accessory) as the application for the *.HYP filetype and save the configuration. The hypertext manual for TeraDesk will thereafter be available with the [Shift][Help] keypress. If you would like to have a translated hypertext manual instead, check the links on Tera Desktop's home web page for currently available translations, and replace the English TERADESK.HYP and TERADESK.REF with translated ones, if they exist. After copying the necessary files, Tera Desktop can now be started in the usual way by double-clicking on its name. 4. Tera Desktop's cooperation with some other applications will be improved if it is announced that certain protocols can be handled. In order to do so, the following environment variables can be defined: AVSERVER=DESKTOP FONTSELECT=DESKTOP These declare TeraDesk as the AV-Server (see The AV Protocol) and as the font-selector (see The FONT Protocol). In single-TOS configuration these protocols can be used by some accessories (such as ST-Guide); in multi-tasking configurations they can be used by concurrently running applications. See also Supported Protocols. How environment variables are declared depends on the variants of the OS and utilities used. 5. It is convenient to have TeraDesk start automatically at system boot. If you have TOS version 1.04 (also known as TOS 1.4) or higher, you can set this up by installing TeraDesk as an application, and changing its boot status from 'Normal' to 'Auto'. Remember to save the desktop configuration after this. From now on, TeraDesk will take over all desktop tasks. Before saving the desktop configuration, all other applications should be deinstalled, all unneeded icons removed from the desktop, and all unnecessary windows closed. This is not absolutely required, but will reduce the size of DESKTOP.INF (or NEWDESK.INF), and also free some memory. If you have TOS version 1.0 or 1.02 you must use a program such as STARTGEM to run DESKTOP from an AUTO folder. If you use Atari AES 4.1, you can put something similar to the following directive into your GEM.CNF file: shell path\to\TeraDesk\desktop.prg Then, the built-in desktop of AES 4.1 will not be loaded at startup, and TeraDesk will run as the desktop instead. Besides being more elegant than manual startup, this also saves some memory. If you use Geneva, N.AES, XaAES or MyAES, you should in a similar way specify TeraDesk as the default shell in the appropriate places in the configuration files of these AESes (i.e. in GEM.CNF, N_AES.CNF, XAAES.CNF and MYAES.CNF respectively). See the documentation for the relevant AES. If you use MagiC, TeraDesk should be specified as a shell via the #_SHL directive in MAGX.INF, as something like this: #_SHL PATH\TO\TERADESK\DESKTOP.PRG Note that in the case of a severe crash, MagiC will not restart with the shell specified in this directive, but will use its default shell (MagXDesk) instead. This is hard-coded into MagiC, and can be changed only by editing MAGIC.RAM. 6. Some versions of AES (e.g. Geneva 4) declare themselves as capable of handling colour icons, but some colour icons fail to work with Tera Desktop. In such cases, if the problematic icons can not be replaced, the CICONS.RSC resource file should be removed, and TeraDesk will fall back to using monochrome icons. Colour icons file can also be removed in other cases when there is a need to preserve as much free memory as possible. 7. The icon files supplied contain basic icon sets only. Users are encouraged to create their own, more extensive, icon files. They can add icons at will to the existing files, or use other icon files (for example, one can rename DESKICON.RSC and/or DESKCICN.RSC, used by the built-in desktop of TOS, to ICONS.RSC and CICONS.RSC respectively, and use them with TeraDesk. Any files used should contain certain icons essential to TeraDesk - see below). TeraDesk, since V2.0, handles icons by name, not by index. Icons with the following names (or their translated equivalents) should always be present in the icons resource file(s): FLOPPY, HARD DISC, TRASH, PRINTER, FOLDER, FILE, APP See also The icons files. 8. Some aspects of Tera Desktop's behaviour can be (or may be in the future) controlled through the environment variable TERAENV, mostly because they have to be set before any Configuration Files are loaded. The value of the TERAENV variable should consist of uppercase- letter flags. Currently, only flags 'A' and 'D' can be used, as in: TERAENV=A or TERAENV=D or TERAENV=AD which to some extent control the implementation of the ARGV protocol and the visual appearance of dialog objects respectively. If TERAENV is NOT defined, Tera Desktop will work normally. Note that this variable is evaluated only when TeraDesk starts. Later changes to TERAENV will have no effect. 9. Users are advised to load, check and save any existing TeraDesk's Configuration Files. As the format of configuration files may change slightly with new releases, following this procedure will ensure that they will be kept up to date as much as possible. See also: The ARGV Protocol Rendering of dialog objects