Suzy B Software 2/Suzy B Software CD-ROM 2 (1994).iso/bootup/boot_n2z/neosecrt/neosecrt.txt

Text File | 1995-05-02 | 91KB | 1,882 lines

S  E  C  R  E  T  S      O  F      N  E  O  D  E  S  K
======================================================


 How to make better use of Gribnif's alternative desktop
 for the ST, TT and Falcon lines of Atari computers




 _________________________

 B Y   A L   F A S O L D T

 -------------------------



Technology Writer, Syracuse Newspapers and Newhouse News Service

Computer pagination trainer and programmer, the Herald-Journal,
the Herald American and the Post-Standard

Syracuse, New York



Copyright (C) 1992 by Al Fasoldt. All rights reserved.






I N T R O D U C T I O N
-----------------------


What's the object of this, anyway?
----------------------------------

Some folks never know what's on the other side of the hill. A
reviewer extolling a software program designed for IBM-compatible
PCs recently raved about two unusual features: "You can even drag
program icons out of a window to install these icons right on the
desktop. Furthermore, you can drag a document to one of those icons
to have the program automatically run and load the document."

What he was describing is something savvy ST and TT users have taken
advantage of for quite some time -- an "object-oriented" interface
for their computers, in which icons (tiny pictorial representations
of actions or things) can be manipulated on the screen using a
mouse. Instead of typing commands onto the screen, the user
instructs the computer to do any task by selecting an icon and
doing something with it -- double-clicking on it or dragging it to
another icon, for example. Rather than typing commands such as
"XCOPY C:\BIN\FOO *.* /S A:" onto a blank screen, the user of an
object-oriented interface merely deals with things -- objects of
one kind or another, all represented by icons -- on the computer
screen.

The way these icons were placed on the screens of the first
experimental object-oriented interfaces in the late 1970s and early
1980s made the screens look a little like the desks in a typical
office. They had icons for filing cabinets (disk drives in the
computer system), for folders (directories on a disk), for a waste
basket (the bit bucket, or the act of erasing a file), for a pile of
notes, and for many other things. These early interfaces also had
windows that opened up to show more icons or to hold running
programs.

The metaphor of the computer-as-desktop is just one way of
representing the way we deal with a personal computer, and it may
not be the best way, but it stuck. With the introduction of the
Apple Macintosh in 1984 and the Atari ST and the Commodore Amiga a
year later, the notion of a desktop on the screen began to gain
popularity among users who had always viewed the standard PC
command-line interface as crude and inadequate. In the
IBM-compatible area, Microsoft's Windows took a halting step in that
direction in its first two versions and then went a lot further in
Windows 3.0 and 3.1. IBM, creator of a hybrid interface called OS/2
1.0, also adopted the same sort of desktop in OS/2 2.0, and, at the
same time, the GeoWorks company invented its own Mac-like interface
for PCs -- one that actually surpasses the Macintosh in many ways.
By the 1990s, "object-oriented" computer desktop interfaces had
become, at last, the standard way of working with a personal
computer.

Until recently, the ST's desktop interface, although easy to use,
has been the weakest of all these systems. Although it uses icons
and windows, the ST's "Graphics Environment Manager," or GEM, did
not gain many of the full functions expected in an object-oriented
interface until the release of version 2.05 of the ST's built-in
operating system, known as TOS (for "The Operating System"). This
was superseded by version 2.06 when Atari added support for
1.44-megabyte floppy drives. A similar TOS-based GEM, now at
version 3.06, is built into the TT, and a slightly improved TOS,
version 4.xx, has been engineered into the latest Atari, the
Falcon030.

But the GEM desktop built into the latest versions of TOS, while
far superior to the original version, lacks many of the features of
an alternative desktop called NeoDesk. Among the advantages of
NeoDesk are its advanced windowing system, its interprocess
communication between properly written desk accessories and the
desktop operating system, its recoverable deletions, its ability to
iconize certain running programs, its management of environmental
variables, its built-in icon editor, and its control over desktop
fonts. These features and other aspects of NeoDesk have earned a
following world-wide, with the loudest praise coming from Atari
itself -- by its virtual cloning of many of NeoDesk's basic features
in the improved GEM desktop. (Atari even named its new GEM interface
"NewDesk," which merely substitutes an English prefix with the same
meaning as "Neo," which is derived from Greek.)

NeoDesk, developed by Dan Wilga and sold by Gribnif Software, has
undergone its own transformations, too. The current version, NeoDesk
3.02, is the major revision, although Wilga expects to update
NeoDesk soon. The only significant feature missing from version 3.02
is support for multitasking, but it is not clear whether this will
be added when Atari's MultiTOS becomes available in 1993 or '94.

It is version 3.02 that this documentation deals with. Any
revisions of NeoDesk will be noted in future editions of this
article.


So why not just read the NeoDesk user manual, pal?
--------------------------------------------------

NeoDesk comes with a good manual, lacking only a real index to make
it an excellent one. This is intended only as a supplement to that
manual, written from the perspective of an experienced user and
dedicated fan. As with all good software, there is no single
"correct" way of using NeoDesk; instead, each user is likely to find
what works best in each unique situation. It is with that
understanding that I present this personal perspective.


Um, what user manual? I think the dog ate mine.
-----------------------------------------------

Many NeoDesk users apparently do not have the manual that Gribnif
supplies with NeoDesk. Although this is not the forum for preachments
on the ethics of piracy, I suggest that any NeoDesk user who does not
have an owners manual should get one from Gribnif. This is easy to
do; all that's necessary is to purchase the software, and you'll
get the manual free. I'm making this as clear as I can: In no way
in this document intended as a substitute for that manual.


 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Author's note:

This may be freely distributed in any form, but only if it remains
intact. You do not have permission to edit this or use it
commercially in any way.

If you have comments or questions, and especially if you find errors
in this work, you can reach me at these addresses:

 Al Fasoldt
 Syracuse Newspapers
 Box 4915
 Syracuse, NY 13221

 GEnie: a.fasoldt
 America Online: Al Fasoldt
 Internet: [e-mail]

This is Version 1.0, written in November 1992 at the computer
center at Countless Pines, Baldwinsville, New York.


 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *



P A R T   1 :   W I N D O W S   3 . 0 2
---------------------------------------


No, Microsoft didn't invent them
--------------------------------

Microsoft, the world's richest and biggest software company, has
been selling 1 million copies a month of its PC desktop software
called Windows 3.1. Windows 3.1 is actually more than a desktop;
it's a complete computing environment that provides multitasking of
properly written programs. For a fast PC with a large hard-disk
drive and a lot of memory, Windows 3.1 is an excellent addition.
NeoDesk is not the same kind of software. Except for a few programs
written specifically for NeoDesk or modified to work internally
with NeoDesk's code, NeoDesk cannot do many of the things that
Windows 3.1 does. The most obvious example is the lack of true
multitasking in NeoDesk.

Yet Microsoft didn't invent windowing software; it borrowed much of
the action and appearance of Windows from Apple's Macintosh. Apple
had itself borrowed the ideas of using windows, icons, a mouse and a
pointer -- the "WIMP" interface -- from Xerox's Palo Alto Research
Center. GEM, the Atari's windowing system, was developed immediately
after the Mac's system, borrowing many of the Mac's features while
avoiding the odd and unnecessary split operating system that Apple
had burdened its baby with.

(A bit of trivia: Microsoft, having kludged together its initial
version of Windows in the mid-'80s, saw the smoothness of GEM on an
early ST and began to worry that both the Mac and the ST would take
away sales from PCs. To keep its money in what it saw as a likely
marketplace, Microsoft licensed a GEM word processor to Atari called
Microsoft Write -- and then promptly abandoned the Atari market. A
second bit of trivia: Digital Research, which had developed versions
of GEM for PCs and for the ST, had to modify, and weaken the
operation of, the PC version of GEM because of complaints from Apple
that PC GEM worked too much like the Mac's windowing system. But
Digital Research did not alter the ST's GEM, which apparently had
already been put into production. Oddly, Digital Research had a
falling out with Atari soon after the first ST reached the market,
and there is no indication that Digital Research has had any
involvement in the ST/TT GEM since 1985.)

So GEM and the NeoDesk enhancement of GEM have been around longer
than Microsoft's current version of Windows. In many ways, NeoDesk
works much more intuitively than Windows, especially in all of its
file manipulation and program-launching operations. And, most
importantly for anyone who wants to get work (or play!) started
quickly, NeoDesk is much faster than Windows if the two systems are
run on comparable CPUs.




P A R T   2 :   W H A T ' S   T H E   B I G   D E A L ?
-------------------------------------------------------


Why it makes sense to be gooey
------------------------------

I have met many users of NeoDesk who treat it as nothing more than
a slightly fancy covering for the GEM desktop. They like the look
of NeoDesk, and like the way some of the file operations are
handled -- the ability to select all files in a window with a
single click, that sort of thing.

When I ask them how they have NeoDesk set up, I often get blank
stares. When I talk about installed applications, I sometimes get
no response at all. And when I refer to such things as
drag-and-drop, the conversation is nearly always one-sided.

For these users, a graphical user interface is little more than a
convenient way to copy files and run programs. You draw a
rubber-band box around a few files and drag them to another window,
and NeoDesk does all the rest. You open a window, find the program
you want to run, and double-click on the icon or the filename.

That's great -- or is it?

Actually, it's not much of an improvement over the old way of doing
things, when you had to type commands onto an empty screen. You can
copy files and run programs the old way -- using a command-line
interface -- and get things done very quickly.

Then why use NeoDesk? If NeoDesk (or the GEM desktop itself) is
used only as an easy-does-it file-management shell, I can't think of
many reasons to use either of them. I know many users, in fact, who
never see their GEM desktops; their STs or TTs boot right up into a
powerful shell program such as HotWire or either of the two common
CLI shells, Gulam and TomShell. But NeoDesk is much more than a way
to manage files and run programs, because it offers the most
advanced object-oriented interface for the ST and TT. Here are some
of the ways you can use the real power and flexibility of NeoDesk,
all of which are detailed later in this guide:

 - You can easily install two document types for each of NeoDesk's
"installed applications" (and you can install more than two with a
little bit of fiddling). An installed application is a program that
automatically runs when you double-click on one of its document or
data file icons. When the installed application runs, it also loads
the document or data, ready for your use. (By the way, the GEM
desktop has included a more limited version of this feature ever
since the first ST, although many users have never realized it.)

 - You can install NeoDesk-compliant desk accessories as icons on
the desktop. Double-clicking on one of these icons opens the DA.
Closing the DA reduces it to an icon again. This ability to iconize
running programs is extraordinarily handy, and is perhaps the
best argument for using NeoDesk.

 - You can choose to have some windows showing icons and others
showing text, and the text can be large or small.

 - You can set variables for the operating system's environment,
something that even the latest ST and TT TOS desktops ignore (even
through control of the environment is built into TOS).

 - You can perform "drag-and-drop" operations within windows and on
 the desktop, a feature offered only in later versions of Atari's
 GEM desktop. The term refers to dragging the icon of a document
 or data file to the icon of a program icon, which then runs, loads
 the file and opens it up.

- You can record and play back macros from the desktop. Macros are
small programs that duplicate the effects of keystrokes or mouse
clicks.

 - You can create and change both monochrome and color icons from
 within NeoDesk.

 - You can place all of the files you are deleting into a trash can
 that holds the files for as long as you want in case you need to
 restore them.

 - You can reorder the actual, physical listing of files in a
 directory to place your most-used files near the beginning, or to
 correct the loading order of AUTO folder programs.

 - You can quickly switch from one desktop configuration to another
 with a single keypress. This means you can choose a simple
 desktop, with only a few icons and windows showing, for some
 operations, or a full desktop, with all the bells and whistles, for
 more serious work.

 - And you can do much more. These are just the highlights.




P A R T   3 :   G E T T I N G   S T A R T E D
---------------------------------------------


Get a load of this
------------------

NeoDesk's main software module is a file named NEODESK.EXE.
Ordinarily, the ST and TT cannot run executable files ending in
"EXE," but Gribnif apparently chose this non-standard filename
extension (in the ST and TT world, at least) to make sure that
another, much smaller, module named NEOLOAD.PRG would have to be
run first.  When NEOLOAD.PRG is run, it launches NEODESK.EXE.

Why did Gribnif adopt this unusual way of launching NeoDesk? The
answer lies in two other functions of Neoload. In addition to
serving as the launcher for the main NeoDesk software, Neoload
monitors the status of the Atari's operating system in order to
report on system memory registers whenever the OS crashes, and it
holds off running NEODESK.EXE until all desk accessories have
finished loading.

The system-monitor function of Neoload is not, by itself, unusual.
Other system monitors are available, including one that is very
similar to the monitoring function of Neoload. The information that
it lists on the screen after a crash is primarily useful to a
software developer, although Neoload has a secondary function of
providing a graceful recovery from minor system crashes. (However,
you should always reboot after any system crash, even one that has
been intercepted by NeoDesk's system monitor, because memory
locations may have been corrupted, and there is no way to restore
them otherwise.)

It is the third function that matters most. This function operates
only when NEOLOAD.PRG is run from the AUTO folder when the computer
boots up, and it is the source of a great deal of confusion over how
NeoDesk works. If you are auto-running NeoDesk without placing
a copy of Neoload in the AUTO folder -- in other words, if you
merely install NEOLOAD.PRG file in the NEODESK folder as the GEM
auto-boot application in TOS 1.04 or above -- Neoload may launch
NEODESK.EXE too soon, before the computer's desk accessories finish
loading. If this happens, NeoDesk or some of the desk accessories
can lock up or behave erratically.

To prevent this, you must place a separate copy of NEOLOAD.PRG in
the AUTO folder of your boot disk. (It can be placed last or near
the end of the list of files in the AUTO folder.) Special code in
Neoload delays the running of NEODESK.EXE until after all desk
accessories have been initialized. The process goes like this:
First, the copy of NEOLOAD.PRG in the AUTO folder installs itself in
memory; then when the operating system tries to auto-run the other
copy of NEOLOAD.PRG (the one in the NEODESK folder), the Neoload
that is in memory intercepts the second running of Neoload, and
instead runs NEODESK.EXE itself after the accessories have been
installed. (On the ST and TT, desk accessories must be initialized
in memory at the time of boot-up unless you are using CodeHead
Technologies' MultiDesk Deluxe, which can load and unload desk
accessories at any time if it is run as a program; if it is run as
a desk accessory itself, MultiDesk Deluxe has to follow all the
rules and be initialized at boot-up.)

NEOLOAD.PRG is actually run only once in each session (the time
between boot-up and shutdown), no matter how many times you may quit
NeoDesk and load it again. You can easily see this for yourself.
Try running NeoDesk the regular way (from the AUTO folder using
Neoload as described above, or by running NEOLOAD.PRG from the Atari
desktop) and then copy the NEODESK.EXE file to a second file named
NEODESK.PRG.  If you quit NeoDesk, you can double-click on
NEODESK.PRG from the GEM desktop and re-run NeoDesk. The copy of
NEOLOAD that is still in memory provides a hidden launcher for the
program, even when the name has been changed.

NEOLOAD.PRG has been criticized as the source of conflicts with
some other software. Charles F. Johnson of CodeHead Software has
repeatedly urged ST and TT users to take Neoload out of the AUTO
folder whenever they report a problem with one or more CodeHead
products. If you want to do this, remember that Neoload installs
itself in memory and remains there no matter where it is located
when it is first run. If there are memory conflicts, they may not
necessarily be solved by removing NEOLOAD.PRG from the AUTO folder,
if you run Neoload separately.


Thanks for the memory
---------------------

NeoDesk takes a considerable amount of memory to run -- about 240
kilobytes in my main system, and perhaps more in others.
Ordinarily, when you run an application -- a word processor, for
example -- from within NeoDesk, only a small amount of your
computer's memory is relinquished. This amount appears to be about
23 kilobytes. For users with 4-megabyte STs or who have TTs with 4
or more megabytes of memory, this should not be a problem in most
circumstances.

But anyone with a 520ST and many users with 1-megabyte STs will
want to set up NeoDesk so that it removes most of its code from
memory when running an application. To do this, choose "Yes" in the
"Unload for Execute" option that appears in the dialog box in the
"Set Preferences" drop-down menu. NeoDesk will then relinquish all
but 35K while any other program is running.

When you set NeoDesk to unload most of its code from memory this
way, however, you probably will notice a considerable delay after
an application exits as NeoDesk reloads its main module from disk,
especially if you are running NeoDesk from a floppy disk. You may
be able to speed up operations by taking advantage of NeoDesk's
selective "Install Application" feature, which allows you to
specify which applications can be run without unloading NeoDesk.
Programs that do not take up much memory when run can usually be
installed with the "Unload for Execute" option turned off.

To do this, open the folder where the application is located and
click once on its icon or filename, then drop down the "Options"
menu and choose "Install Application." Ignore the first two fields
at the top and click on "No" under the "Unload for Exec." option,
then exit the menu and save the NeoDesk configuration (it's under
the "Options" menu also).

You could also choose the opposite approach, of course, especially
if you have enough memory to run most of your applications without
unloading NeoDesk but need to gain maximum RAM space for a few
programs. You'd merely choose "Yes" under "Unload for Exec." for
the specific applications that need the breathing room.

Gribnif points out that NeoDesk will not let you install more than
15 applications in this manner. This is not actually the case,
however, since the limit of 15 applies only to each separate ".INF"
file used by NeoDesk. (NeoDesk uses its own version of a
"DESKTOP.INF" or "NEWDESK.INF" file, which contains the data for
the way you have configured all of NeoDesk's options.) You can get
around this limit of 15 installed applications -- and most of the
other limitations of NeoDesk's configuration as well -- by pressing
a single function key that loads a different configuration.

If you want to make desktop operations as fast as possible, you'll
want to keep NeoDesk loaded when most applications are launched. To
save every last bit of memory, check first to see if you can
eliminate some of your desk accessories or AUTO folder TSRs
(so-called terminate-and-stay-ready programs such as screen savers,
corner clocks and the like). If you are using CodeHead's excellent
MultiDesk Deluxe desk-accessory manager, try reducing the number of
active desk accessories; many DA's will work perfectly well as MDX
accessories, which take up no extra memory, since they use the same
memory pool as all other MDX DAs.

If you use a hard-disk drive with a cache -- an area of memory that
stores data from the hard disk for faster access -- you probably
would be wasting much of the cache if you set up NeoDesk to unload
itself when executing programs. The cache, if set large enough to be
of any real use, is likely to store the disk-based NeoDesk code in
memory and reload it straight from RAM when the program exits. In
such a situation, you'd get better results from NeoDesk and from the
cache if you check the "No" box in the "Unload for Execute" option.

(And to repeat what may not be obvious, make sure you click on the
"Save Configuration" option after making any changes to NeoDesk's
setup!)

Another way to save memory is to delete all icons that you are not
using from NeoDesk's active icons. Each icon in this group takes up
about a third of a kilobyte of memory, even if it never appears on
the desktop or in a window. Be sure to save all the icons first in a
separate file, so that you'll be able to add any of the icons you
take out as you acquire more software. (Icon editing tips appear
later in this text.)



Does it matter how your "other" desktop is set up?
--------------------------------------------------

The Atari's operating system always runs the GEM desktop when you
quit NeoDesk, even if you went straight into NeoDesk during the
bootup routine. (The GEM desktop never gets a chance to load if
NeoDesk is auto-booted, but it will appear later if NeoDesk
terminates.) Is there a difference in the way NeoDesk behaves if the
GEM desktop is bypassed at startup?

No, but there may be problems with a few programs, which may fail to
recognize some of your hard disk partitions or your ramdisk(s) if
the Atari's built-in desktop was not given a chance to load before
NeoDesk runs. Normally, even if your GEM desktop does not have an
installed icon for a drive (Drive P:, for example, which would be
used as a ramdisk), NeoDesk and the programs that run under NeoDesk
will operate properly with Drive P: as long as it is installed on
the NeoDesk desktop. But if you find a program that refuses to
recognize a drive that is installed in NeoDesk, quit NeoDesk and
make sure the drive is installed on the GEM desktop. When you rerun
NeoDesk, the problem should go away.




P A R T   4 :   A P P L I E D   L O G I C
-----------------------------------------


Let the desktop do the work for you
-----------------------------------

When Apple introduced the Macintosh eight years ago, personal
computing suddenly became easier. Much of this was a result of the
Mac's windows and icons and the simple way that it could be made to
copy and move files or even entire subdirectories -- or folders, in
a lexicon that soon became popular on other platforms. But more than
anything else, the Mac was easy to use because its operating system
associated data files with applications. Generally, a Mac user
never has to run a program directly; all that's necessary is to
double-click on a data file, and the rest is handled by the Mac.

On the Mac, all applications -- computer jargon for programs of
any kind -- work this way, and so there is no such thing as an
"installed application." Apple works with software developers to
assign data types and icons to all new software, so that
applications install themselves, so to speak.

The ST, TT and Falcon work the same way, except that applications
must be installed by the user. Here, in its basics, is how the
process works, first through the GEM desktop, and then through
NeoDesk:

Let's suppose that you are using ARC.TTP as your standard software
for extracting archived files that have the ".ARC" filename
extension, and you are using LZH201.TTP or one of its variations
as your standard program for extracting archived files with the
".LZH" extension.

One way to use these utilities would be to double-click on their
icons or filenames from the desktop and then to fill in the
"parameters" box that appears when they run. (As
"TOS-Takes-Parameters" programs, they require command-line
instructions when they are invoked.) A typical set of parameters
for ARC.TTP might be "x FILENAME.ARC" to extract all the files from
the archive named FILENAME.ARC.

But ARC.TTP and LZH201.TTP are specially written to accept just the
filename itself as a parameter. You could, of course, run them from
the desktop and type in the filename of the archive, but there's a
much easier way -- by associating a filename extension when you
install each program in the GEM desktop's "Options" menu. (You must
save the desktop to make the change permanent, of course.) Then,
all you need to do is to double-click on the archive's icon or
filename; the archiving utility automatically runs and extracts the
files.

Here's another example, which is perhaps just as common. Suppose
your favorite word processor is 1st Word. This application, one of
the first GEM-based editors for the ST, saves all its texts with a
".DOC" filename extension. If you want to edit or read a 1st Word
document, one way to do it is to open up the folder where 1st Word
is located, double-click on the 1st Word icon or filename, and then
select the document you want to edit or read from the file selector
that appears.

But the easy way is to install 1st Word in the desktop, with ".DOC"
as its associated filename extension. Then any time you click on a
file that has ".DOC" as its extension, 1st Word will automatically
run and load the text.

(Those of you who use this feature of GEM on a regular basis will
have to bear with me for a while, since I'm convinced that only a
small fraction of Atari users know about this feature.)

This method of associating data files with applications does not
work with all programs, but it operates with most of them. It's
important to note that some applications may require specific
filename extensions, but others such as text editors usually have no
restrictions. For example, I have MultiWriter, the
soon-to-be-released commercial version of ST Writer, installed as an
application that automatically runs and loads files that have a
".92" and ".93" extension, since all of my newspaper columns use
the year in that way.

To link applications with their data types -- filename extensions,
in other words -- within the GEM desktop, click once on the icon or
filename of the application and drop down the "Options" menu.
Choose "Install Application" and type in the filename extension you
want to associate with the program. Newer versions of TOS allow you
to choose how the operating system sets the filepath (among other
options) when you install an application, and you may want to change
the default setting, too, if you have a later version of TOS. (Use
the default setting to start with, and change it to the only other
option if the application doesn't run right.) Be sure to save the
desktop when you are through.


TOS me another file, please
---------------------------

Using the procedure described above, you can associate only one
data type (filename extension) with an application under any version
of TOS. But it's a simple matter to create multiple data types for
a single application if you are willing to edit the information
file. In earlier versions of TOS, it's called DESKTOP.INF, and in
later versions it's NEWDESK.INF. First, make a copy of the
information file in case you mess it up. Then, using a text editor
such as STeno or EdHack or a word processor that can edit and save
ASCII text, edit the information file so that you have two entries
instead of one (or three, and so on) for the installed application,
changing the filename extension for the other entry.

Here is an example from a DESKTOP.INF file:

#G 03 04   E:\STW\STWRITER.PRG@ *.STW@
#G 03 04   E:\STW\STWRITER.PRG@ *.TXT@

And here is one from a NEWDESK.INF file:

#G 03 04 000 E:\STW\STWRITER.PRG@ *.STW@ @
#G 03 04 000 E:\STW\STWRITER.PRG@ *.TXT@ @

Note the difference! Your computer is likely to crash if you do not
have the correct wording for each line in the information file.

The filename extension used to denote the data type does not need to
be written in full. You can use wildcards if you like. If, for
example, you wanted to associate ST Writer with files that had the
extensions ".90", ".91" and ".92", you could edit the line this way:

#G 03 04   E:\STW\STWRITER.PRG@ *.9? @


Information, please
-------------------

NeoDesk's default information files -- the ones that NeoDesk
automatically uses when it loads -- follow the naming convention
chosen by Atari in 1985, with "NEODESKH" denoting the information
file for the ST and STe monochrome (high-resolution) desktops, and
the last letter of the filename changing to "M" for ST/STe medium
resolution and "L" for ST/STe low resolution.  (Both of those are
used in color displays only.) In version 3.02, NeoDesk does not have
default filenames for the three TT resolutions, so you must supply
your own. I suggest the convention of using the official Atari
resolution number for the last character in the filename ("4" for TT
low-resolution, "5" for TT medium resolution and "6" for TT high
resolution). If you want to be consistent for all information files,
you may want to use "1" for ST and STe low-resolution, "2" for
ST/STe medium resolution and "3" for ST/STe high-resolution.

In every case, the filename extension must be ".INF" for NeoDesk to
automatically recognize its desktop information file. While you can
use other extensions, I don't recommend it.

Let's lay this out in an easy-to-see fashion. For the six
resolutions in the ST, STe and TT, these are two recommended sets
of NeoDesk information filenames you should use:

 NEODESKL.INF for ST/STe low resolution
 NEODESKM.INF for ST/STe medium resolution
 NEODESKH.INF for ST/STe high resolution
 NEODESK4.INF for TT low resolution
 NEODESK5.INF for TT medium resolution
 NEODESK6.INF for TT high resolution

Or:

 NEODESK1.INF for ST/STe low resolution
 NEODESK2.INF for ST/STe medium resolution
 NEODESK3.INF for ST/STe high resolution
 NEODESK4.INF for TT low resolution
 NEODESK5.INF for TT medium resolution
 NEODESK6.INF for TT high resolution

(NeoDesk information filenames for the Falcon030 may need to be
assigned differently. Contact Gribnif for guidance on using NeoDesk
with the Falcon.)


Installing an application
-------------------------

NeoDesk's "Options" menu lets you associate one or two data types
(filename extensions) with each application. This is easy to do.
First, choose the application, click once on its filename or icon,
and drop down the NeoDesk "Options" menu. Move your pointer to
"Install Application" and click once. A dialog box will open with
two blank text fields. Type in the filename extension for each data
file you want to associate with the application, then click on the
"Install" button. Make sure you save the NeoDesk configuration, also
under the "Options" menu, after doing this.

One of the most common installed applications for many users is
ARCSHELL.PRG, a shareware archive manager by Charles Johnson and
Little Green Footballs Software. ARC Shell handles all the chores
of creating archives and extracting them. As a shell, it does not
do the actual archiving and extracting itself; you must also have
ARC.TTP, a common archiving utility, and one of the current "LZH"
utilities. By installing ARC Shell in NeoDesk with the data types
"ARC" and "LZH" as the extensions, ARC Shell will run and load the
archived file any time you click on a filename with an ".ARC" or
".LZH" extension.

But some archived files have a different extension, ".LH5." (These
are files compressed with a newer version of Thomas Quester's
LHARC.TTP, using a different compression method than older versions
of the software.) To get ARC Shell to automatically run and load a
file with the extension ".LH5," you need to be able to associate
three data types with a single application.

You might also want to associate three or more data types for other
applications as well. Many graphics viewers are available that can
show a half-dozen or more different types of pictures, each with a
different filename extension. Unless you edit the NeoDesk
information file, you won't be able to link the graphics viewer
(or any other application) with more than two files.

Here's how to add extra data-type associations. You can edit the
appropriate NeoDesk information file much as you would edit GEM's
DESKTOP.INF or NEWDESK.INF files. But you must do it very
carefully; NeoDesk will not load and use the file if it is not the
correct length or if lines are out of place.


Editing the NeoDesk ".INF" file
-------------------------------

If you do not want to customize the NeoDesk information file, DO
NOT EDIT IT. Changes you make to NeoDesk's configuration through
the "Options" drop-down menu are automatically saved in the NeoDesk
information file for the current resolution when you choose "Save
Configuration" under the "Options" menu. However, you will have to
edit the ".INF" file if you want to assign more than two data types
to an application. Follow these instructions carefully.

Let's suppose that you want to edit the NeoDesk information file to
add data types (filename extensions of data files) to your list of
installed applications. Make things easy for yourself by checking
to see whether you've already installed an application; it's much
easier to copy an entry in the information file than it is to
create a new one from scratch.

First, make a backup copy of the current NeoDesk information file.
The easiest way to do that is to open a desktop window on the
NeoDesk folder and click once on the icon or filename that
represents the NeoDesk information file for the resolution you are
working in. (This may seem too obvious to mention, but it's an easy
mistake to choose the wrong ".INF" file.) Then drag the icon or
filename to a blank portion of the window and let it go. NeoDesk
will place a dialog box on the screen saying "Name conflict during
copy." It will list the original name and the new name, showing that
they are the same.  NeoDesk places your text cursor at the end of
the "New name" entry line, waiting for you to type in a different
filename.

The usual procedure, permitted by the way GEM dialog boxes work, is
to hit the ESC key (at the upper left of the keyboard), which
erases the entry line so that you can type a new filename. But
there is a shortcut, shared by all properly written GEM
applications: When you text cursor is placed at the end of the
entry line of a dialog box, any single character you type is
substituted for the last character of any three-character filename
extension. This means you can merely type "X" to change the full
filename from, for example, "NEODESKH.INF" to "NEODESKH.INX." Note
that this technique works in Atari's TOS-based GEM desktops as well.

A further shortcut is to press the Return key instead of clicking
on one of the alert boxes. GEM dialogs usually offer a default
response box, shown with a heavy border; this is what is chosen
whenever you press the Return key. The default in the NeoDesk "name
conflict" dialog box is "OK," so pressing Return tells NeoDesk to
make a copy of the file listed on line 1, using the name you have
chosen on line 2.

Using STeno (my recommended choice) or any other text editor, you
can now edit the COPY of the NeoDesk information file. Before
loading the information file into your editor, you must turn off
the editor's built-in word-wrap function. If you can't turn it off,
change it to its widest possible setting (while giving serious
thought to acquiring a better text editor!). Load NEODESKx.INF into
the editor.

About halfway into the file, you'll see a section that looks like
this (taken from my own NEODESK5.INF file):

;Applications: type,flags,name,path,extensions(2)
152 128 ARCSHELL.PRG C:\ARC\ .ARC .LZH
152 128 ZOOSHELL.PRG C:\ARC\ .ZOO .
152 128 STZIP.PRG C:\ARC\ .ZIP .
152 128 MULTDESK.PRG C:\MULTDESK\ .AC? .
152 128 MDXTITLE.PRG C:\MULTDESK\ .MDX .
152 128 MULTIWTR.PRG C:\WORDPROC\ .91 .92
152 128 ARTGALRY.PRG E:\TOOLS\SYSUTILS\CODEUTIL\ .TN? .PNT
152 0 FLASH.PRG C:\TELECOMM\FLASH\ .DO .
152 128 VIEW_TT.PRG G:\GRAPHICS\VIEW132D\ .SPC .SPU
0 0 ^ ^ ^ ^
0 0 ^ ^ ^ ^
0 0 ^ ^ ^ ^
0 0 ^ ^ ^ ^
0 0 ^ ^ ^ ^
0 0 ^ ^ ^ ^

The first line of this section is a comment line. It doesn't matter
what it says, as long as the line starts with a semicolon (;),
although you'd be smart to leave it alone. The next nine lines list
installed applications, and the last six lines are place-holders,
ignored by NeoDesk. For every line you add that lists an installed
application, you MUST take out one of the place-holder lines, so
that the number of lines after the comment line always equals 15.

Look for the line that lists the application you want to add a data
type to, then copy it to one of the place-holder lines. Change the
entries at the end of the line to the filename extension(s) you want
added. Follow the way NeoDesk organizes the wording exactly,
including backslashes and spaces.

Here's what the revised section of the NeoDesk information file
looks like after I added ".LH5" as a data type to the ARC Shell
application:

;Applications: type,flags,name,path,extensions(2)
152 128 ARCSHELL.PRG C:\ARC\ .ARC .LZH
152 128 ARCSHELL.PRG C:\ARC\ .LH5 .
152 128 ZOOSHELL.PRG C:\ARC\ .ZOO .
152 128 STZIP.PRG C:\ARC\ .ZIP .
152 128 MULTDESK.PRG C:\MULTDESK\ .AC? .
152 128 MDXTITLE.PRG C:\MULTDESK\ .MDX .
152 128 MULTIWTR.PRG C:\WORDPROC\ .91 .92
152 128 ARTGALRY.PRG E:\TOOLS\SYSUTILS\CODEUTIL\ .TN? .PNT
152 0 FLASH.PRG C:\TELECOMM\FLASH\ .DO .
152 128 VIEW_TT.PRG G:\GRAPHICS\VIEW132D\ .SPC .SPU
0 0 ^ ^ ^ ^
0 0 ^ ^ ^ ^
0 0 ^ ^ ^ ^
0 0 ^ ^ ^ ^
0 0 ^ ^ ^ ^

Note that I placed the second entry right below the first one. You
don't need to do this (in most respects, NeoDesk doesn't care what
order they are in), but having them together makes it easier to spot
the two of them later. Note also that NeoDesk uses two patterns for
the filename extension list. The line listing an application
associated with two data types ends with the last character of the
second data type, but a line listing an application associated with
only one data type ends in a space-period combination. You MUST
follow this format.


INFinite wisdom
---------------

Within the NeoDesk information file itself, or (preferably) within
NeoDesk's "Set Preferences" menu (under the "Options" drop-down
menu), you can add to the list of executable file types or change
the ones that are already listed. Normally, the only executable
file types are those that end in these extensions: .APP, .PRG,
.TOS, .TTP and .GTP, in addition to the special NeoDesk-compliant
applications, which have the extensions .NPG and .NTP. The
extensions have these meanings:

 .APP - Application
 .PRG - Program

(Applications and programs are the same thing. They are standard
GEM programs, although they do not need to have GEM windows.)

 .TOS - "The Operating System" program, which does not make use of
 the GEM desktop built into the operating system, and does not
 ordinarily provide access to desk accessories.

 .TTP - "TOS-Takes-Parameters" program, a TOS program that normally
 requires command-line input from the keyboard, from another
 program or from any other source. A common .TTP program is
 ARC.TTP, and a common parameter for ARC.TTP is an archiving command
 followed by the path and name of the archive. (Example: ARC.TTP X
 MYFILE.ARC, which tells ARC.TTP to extract the files in the
 archive named MYFILE.ARC.)

 .GTP - "GEM-Takes-Parameters" application, an .APP or .PRG that
 behaves like a .TTP file.

 .NPG - "NeoDesk Program," a specially written .APP or .PRG that
 communicates with the NeoDesk kernal. There are only a few .NPG
 applications.

 .NTP - "NeoDesk-Takes-Parameters," an .NPG program that accepts
 command-line input.

NeoDesk has another category of executable files. These are batch
files, which technically are executable only in the sense that they
are scripts for a batch-file interpreter. CLIs (command-line
interfaces) usually include the ability to run batch files, as do
such shell programs as Gulam and TomShell. Two types of batch file
can be installed in NeoDesk: .BAT (a standard batch file) and .BTP
("Batch-Takes-Parameters"), a NeoDesk-specific batch file run by the
NeoDesk CLI desk accessory. Installing the extensions .BAT and .BTP
in the NeoDesk information file tells NeoDesk to run the CLI or
shell of your choice, feeding the batch file to the CLI or shell for
immediate execution, any time you click on a filename or icon with
either of those extensions.

You must first list the path and name of the CLI or shell in the
"Paths" submenu under the "Set Preferences" menu, which is accessed
in the "Options" drop-down menu. if you do that, NeoDesk offers a
keyboard shortcut to run your CLI or shell. This is Control-B. This
shortcut will not work if you have not installed the CLI or shell
in the "Paths" entry line.

What is not clear in all this is the fact that you can choose
different extensions from the standard ones. Instead of .PRG, for
example, you can use .P, and instead of .TOS, you can use .T. (You
could use .A for .APP, something like .B for .BAT and .R for .TTP
-- paRameters, maybe?)

Why would you want to do that? One reason might be to make it
harder for interlopers to mess with your files, if you are a
software developer. (A user who did not know that executable
filename extensions had been changed would not know what do to with
your files.) Another advantage might be that pathnames
become shorter when filenames are as short as possible. Some
applications arbitrarily limit the length of pathnames, and the
operating system itself imposes its own limit. Here is a typical
full pathname, followed by a shortened version that takes advantage
of file and folder renaming and single-letter extensions:

 C:\WORDPROC\1STWORD\WORDPLUS.PRG

 C:\WDP\1W\1WP.P

Although this may seem trivial and perhaps even silly, many users
might find good reasons to keep pathnames and file extensions short
if they use CLIs or shells. A common shell that is not usually
thought of as a shell are the two Flash telecommunications programs,
the original Flash and the new compatible version, Flash II. It is
quite simple to set up scripts that automate file-handling through
either of the two applications, and the command strings in such
scripts can exceed the operating system's limits if the pathnames
are too long. Here is an example of a DO script command in Flash
that saves archived versions of new or altered AUTO folder programs
whenever it is run:

 >exec c:\arcfiles\arc.ttp u c:\backup\autofldr.arc c:\auto\*.*|

Everything from the "u" (update) command to the end of the line is
being passed to ARC.TTP as a parameter. If the file "AUTOFLDR.ARC"
were nested deep inside several folders, each with long names,
Flash probably would not be able to pass the full parameter to
ARC.TTP because Flash's own command-string limit would be reached.
Using .R instead of .TTP would help, as would briefer folder names,
as in this example:

 >exec c:\afile\a.r u c:\bk\afl.arc c:\auto\*.*|

(Experienced users will point out that the pathname above could be
made even shorter by eliminating the superfluous ".arc" extension
from the archive name.)

Note that the same technique works in the standard desktop
information file, too, although the changes can only be made by
editing the DESKTOP.INF or NEWDESK.INF files so that such
abbreviated extensions as ".P" and ".T" are listed instead of or in
addition to ".PRG" and ".TOS."




P A R T   5 :   P I C T U R E   T H I S
---------------------------------------


Placing a pretty background on the desktop
------------------------------------------

Many NeoDesk users have enjoyed desktop background pictures for
years. This facility is now available to any Atari user through
Warp 9, the CodeHead screen accelerator and desktop utility. Any
Degas-format graphic with the extensions .PI1, .PI2, .PI3, .PC1,
.PC2 or .PC3 can be used as a background picture in NeoDesk. The
best candidates are pictures that leave a fairly large blank area,
so that you have room for desktop icons. Cheesecake (or "beefcake")
photos are nice, if you like that sort of thing. A large fuji
symbol (the official Atari logo) looks classy, and can be placed in
the upper left quadrant of the screen.


Placing a useful background on the desktop
------------------------------------------

NeoDesk's background can be more than a pretty picture. If you have
even the slightest artistic talent, you can create a new look for
the ST high-resolution Atari desktop along the lines of a NeXT
computer desktop through David Becker's ZeST interface builder.
Although Becker intends his program as a means of creating actual
interfaces -- as he has demonstrated with his ZeST experimental
interface, complete with notepad, calendar and other "aplets" -- I
have used the ZeST interface builder for a much more basic purpose.
I have drawn dozens of NeXT-like desktops and saved the screens
using SNAPIT.PRG, a screen-capture utility by Don Simpson. (It is an
AUTO folder program that intercepts the Alt-Help key combination,
which otherwise would dump the screen to a printer, and saves the
screen as a Degas image.) These NeXT-style screen pictures can then
be used as desktop backgrounds. The effect can be startling to
anyone who is accustomed to the typical Atari desktop, since the
ZeST screen background can contain three-dimensional borders, boxes,
buttons and sliders -- none of which is native to the ST or TT.

If you are interested in trying this yourself, here's a tip: Make
ZeST buttons the same size as NeoDesk icons and label them within
the ZeST interface builder. This works very well for icons that
represent disk partitions, the trash can and a printer. Then install
the ZeST screen as a NeoDesk background and install your icons
inside the ZeST buttons. After this is done, run the NeoDesk icon
editor (drop down the "Options" menu and choose "Edit Icons") and
change all the icons that you have placed inside the ZeST buttons
to blank icons, using the "Clear" function. You will then have
NeXT-like buttons instead of icons, and these buttons will even
change from gray to black when you click on them. (The clear icons
turn black when selected.)


Placing a notepad on the desktop
--------------------------------

NeoDesk is distributed with a desktop background picture that is
blank except for an image of a notebook with a spiral binding. This
is a neat way to organize your desktop notes -- a feature of
NeoDesk that has not been copied (as many of its other features
have) in the latest official Atari desktops. To write in this
desktop notebook, double-click on any part of the page and start
typing. Pressing the Return key takes NeoDesk out of the
desktop-notes function.


Placing a picture of the desktop on the desktop
-----------------------------------------------

One of the easiest screen tricks any NeoDesk user can pull is to
take a snapshot of a typical desktop (using Don Simpson's
SNAPIT.PRG, mentioned above, or any other snapshot utility) and
then to select that snapshot as the background picture for NeoDesk.
By altering THAT desktop, which of course includes the
representation of the other desktop as the background, and then
taking a snapshot of it, you can create another background that
looks quite unusual. It could have, for example, 14 open windows
showing (seven for each desktop) even when you have no windows open
on the real desktop. As you can see, there is no limit to the
number of times you can do this.

You could also take a snapshot of the original Atari desktop and
use that as a NeoDesk background, if you find yourself longing for
the bad old days.




P A R T   6 :   I C O N    D O   I T
------------------------------------


Take a drag
-----------

Little needs to be said about the ability that NeoDesk users have
of placing icons on the desktop, since this is now a feature of the
latest official Atari desktops also. You simply open up a drive or
folder window and drag the icon from the window to the desktop.
Close the window or move it out of the way, then arrange the
desktop icon any way you want it.

But both NeoDesk users and those who use the new TOS/GEM desktops
sometimes fail to realize that this facility extends to ANY icon --
not just to icons that represent applications. In other words, the
desktop can display icons representing texts, batch files,
telecommunications scripts, audio-sample files and hundreds of
other file types. In NeoDesk, even desk accessories written to
communicate with the NeoDesk kernal can be installed on the
desktop. If you are an experienced user and know all about this
already, you may wish to skip this section; the explanation I am
about to give is quite basic, but I'm sure it will be useful to
many NeoDesk users.


Why not just hide those icons away where they belong?
-----------------------------------------------------

If you use the "Show as Icons" option under the "View" drop-down
menu, every file in every root directory and folder on your floppy
and hard disks will be shown as an icon. The reasoning behind the
use of icons instead of file names is simple: Icons for different
functions and for their various data files can be shaped or colored
differently, so they can be readily identified. To use just one
example, your word processor can be identified as an icon that
shows a pen and a piece of paper, and the text files that it
creates can be represented as icons that show pages placed in a
neat stack. In another example, your telecommunications software
can be shown as an icon of a telephone, and the script files that
it uses (especially if they are DO files) can be represented as
little telephone note pads with "TO DO" written on them.

The important point here is not that icons for applications such as
word processors and telecomm programs should look pretty or be
informative; that much is taken for granted. What I am pointing out
is that data files should be clearly related to their applications
by the careful assignment of icons -- using, to cite other
examples, icons that show a musical staff for the data files for a
sound-sampling application, icons representing a bookshelf full of
books for the resource files for system applications, and so on.

That way, a quick glance will tell you what data files go with
various applications. This is much more informative than a text
listing of files, and that means you are less likely to waste time
searching for the right files every time you use your computer.

But that's only the beginning. The next step takes advantage of the
drag-and-drop capabilities of NeoDesk (a facility shared by the
latest TOS desktops, too). You can do this without the need for any
prior setup in NeoDesk; in other words, you do not need to create
any "installed applications" in the NeoDesk information file to
make use of drag-and-drop, since it is built into the operating
system itself.

This means you can open a window onto a folder on a floppy or hard
drive, click on a data file icon, drag it to an application icon
and drop it there, and the application will run and load the data
file. If you haven't tried this before, you can practice on any
file that has been archived with ARC.TTP. (It will have an ".ARC"
file extension.) Drag the icon for that file onto the icon for
ARC.TTP and let it go; the ARC program will automatically run, load
the archived file and extract its contents.

But why go to the trouble of opening a desktop window to do this?
You can do the same thing from the desktop itself if you install
these icons on the desktop. By dragging a data icon to an
application icon and dropping it there, you accomplish three
operations in one move. You run the application, load the data file
into the application and instruct the application to perform a
default function -- displaying a text file in the case of a word
processor, perhaps, or extracting the contents of an archive in the
example of ARC.TTP.

Stay with me, because even THIS is not the full story. You can take
advantage of NeoDesk's installed-application function and its
drag-and-drop operation to add flexibility to the way you use your
computer, if you install both data and application icons on the
desktop. I'll give you an example from my own NeoDesk setup. In
fact, it's the setup I'm using to write and edit this text file.

On my NeoDesk desktop, I have placed an icon for this text file and
icons for three versions of STeno, the Gribnif text editor. Two of
the STenos are desk accessories, and the other is a standard GEM
program. The STeno icons are clustered near the text-file icon for
NEOSECRT.TXT. Also nearby is an icon for READTEXT.TTP, a text
analyzer written by Paul Lefebvre, and an icon for a spell-check
program. Within NeoDesk's information file, I have installed
1STVIEW.PRG as the default text viewer. (I cannot praise 1stView
enough, since it is able to show multiple texts in separate windows
in one double-click, displays all the text attributes such as
italic and boldface in 1stWord documents, and shows GEM image files
as well. It doesn't make my coffee in the morning, but perhaps the
CodeHeads will come up with THAT utility.)

Double-clicking on the icon for NEOSECRT.TXT displays this article
in a 1stView window. Dragging the same icon to one of the STeno
icons loads the text into STeno and opens it up in a STeno window,
ready to edit. Dragging the icon to the text-analyzer icon gives a
quick accounting of the file's word count, sentence length and
probable readability, and dragging the icon to the spell-checker
icon loads it into the spelling program.

All this is done in a sort of intuitively sensible way. I could
perform the same tasks, with the same range of choices, in many
different ways -- through HotWire, the program linker and launcher
from CodeHead, or by means of batch files written for a shell
program, to give two examples. But the most logical way, once you
are accustomed to the idea that icons represent not just files but
actions, seems to be the route that NeoDesk takes.


You can't really click on a DA and get it to run, can you?
----------------------------------------------------------

Desk accessories are special applications that are always running.
They are loaded into the computer's memory when it boots up and
remain there, ready to go to work. (CodeHead's MultiDesk Deluxe
provides a way to get around the need to have all desk accessories
loaded at boot-up, and is highly recommended.) Desk accessories are
accessed through the "Desk" menu at the upper left of the screen.

Desk accessories normally will not run (or drop down if they are
already loaded) if you double-click on their icons. There are two
ways to get around this. One is to install MultiDesk Deluxe in
NeoDesk as an application that has the associated data type ".ACC";
if this is done, double-clicking on any desk accessory will cause
MultiDesk to start up the the desk accessory just as if the DA were
a standard program. This has immense advantages, but it has at least
one major disadvantage: The DA takes all its bags and baggage with
it when you exit the desk accessory, since it was not loaded at
boot-up and therefore is not running in the background while you are
doing something else. (This is in no way a criticism of MultiDesk
Deluxe, which is behaving in an entirely proper fashion.)

It is just that sort of background operation that makes many desk
accessories useful. Excellent examples are STeno, the Gribnif text
editor, and STalker, its companion telecommunications software.
Other examples are CodeHead's own Warp 9 Control Panel and its
excellent file utility, MaxiFile. Because a desk accessory loaded at
boot-up is always available at the desktop and in any properly
written GEM program, it can hold data for you for quick recall -- a
calculator DA is a good example -- or it can retain
work-in-progress that you can return to at any time, as you can do
with a text-editor DA such as STeno or the CodeHead Head_Ed editor.
It can even perform an active operation such as a file transfer
while you are running another application, in the example of
STalker.

With this in mind, you can appreciate the usefulness of a desk
accessory that can be treated like a standard application. If you
place the icons for any NeoDesk-compliant desk accessories on the
desktop, you can employ the drag-and-drop technique with them just
as you would a regular program. In fact, you can do that with a
significant advantage. Because a NeoDesk-compliant desk accessory
is already loaded and running, dropping a data icon on its icon
triggers a faster response in the drag-and-drop race. The
difference is response time depends on a number of factors, such as
whether you are working solely from floppy disks (in which case
the NeoDesk DA would load the data file at least 10 times faster
than an application running from a floppy) and whether you are
using a fast hard disk with a large cache (in which case the
speedup would be slight).

STeno and STalker are NeoDesk-compliant desk accessories, as are
the DAs that Gribnif supplies with NeoDesk -- a control panel,
a printer queue and a recoverable-trash DA. The NeoDesk
command-line interpreter DA, sold separately, is also
NeoDesk-compliant.

These special desk accessories have another advantage. They can be
listed in NeoDesk's "Accessories" submenu within the "Set
Preferences" menu, so that NeoDesk can assign special hotkeys that
will call them. These hotkeys are Control-0 through Control-9
(Control-1 is actually first on the list, with Control-0 last). The
DA hotkeys work only on the desktop, but they are quite handy.

And there is yet another distinction of these desk accessories. By
placing icons for these DAs on the desktop, you are doing, in
effect, what users of graphical interfaces for other computers are
able to do -- you are iconizing a running program. In Windows,
OS/2 and GeoWorks for the PC and such interfaces as Open Look and
Motif for Unix computers, a single click on a gadget of an open
window will reduce the window to an icon. In NeoDesk, a single
click on the close gadget (the oval button at the upper left) of a
STeno or STalker DA window will reduce it to an icon in the same
way. If you work with NeoDesk-compliant desk accessories in this
fashion, you are adding much of the power of the other graphical
interfaces to your ST or TT, while avoiding all the overhead
associated with these systems.


Pick a name
-----------

When you install icons on the desktop, the label below the icon is
nothing more than the filename or the folder name attached to the
icon by the operating system. It will always be in capital letters,
and may not be as descriptive as you would like. You can change
these labels to anything else. Click once on any icon and choose the
"Install Desktop Icon" submenu under the "Options" drop-down menu;
type in any descriptive label, using upper-and-lower-case letters,
which look a lot classier than something written in capitals. You
can even type in any of the symbols in the ST, TT and Falcon
character set -- yes, even "Bob," the famous hidden face in the
high-order alphabet! Do this for each icon, then save the desktop
configuration. (The Control-X key combination will do this, if you'd
like a shortcut.)


Make 'em look good
------------------

NeoDesk's icon editor is a marvel of clear design, like the Apple
Macintosh's built-in icon editor, which it resembles. However, some
operations may not be obvious. Here are a few tips.

1. Whenever you edit an icon, work on a copy of the icon, not the
original. Do this by dragging the icon to a blank area of the
icon-resource window (the one that opens when you double-click on
the "icons" icon after choosing the "Edit Icons" option) and
letting it go. You'll find the duplicate icon at the bottom of the
display. Once you have edited the duplicate to your liking, you can
delete the original by dragging it to the trash can.

2. To substitute one icon for another, drag the good icon to the
icon you want replaced and let it go. The other icon will disappear,
with the new icon in its place. You can do this with any icon in
the resource file.

3. Import icons into the NeoDesk icon resource file by
double-clicking on any other icon resource file and dragging any of
the other icons into the main icon window.

4. When you are assigning colors to icons, you are not limited to
the number of colors shown at the bottom of the icon editor. Other
colors can be aliased from this palette by assigning two different
colors, one for the data and another for the mask, to a group of
adjacent pixels in the icon. On an ST in low resolution or on a TT
in any of its color resolutions, you can easily get pastels and
earth-tone colors this way.

5. Choose your own spacing for icons on the desktop. You're not
limited to preset icon spacing as you are with the Atari desktops.
You can nudge them horizontally or vertically until they are
actually touching, if you want. Ideally, if you assign brief labels
to your icons, you can arrange them so that they are about half
their own width apart horizontally and about a quarter-inch apart
vertically.

6. Making all your icons line up in a perfect vertical or
horizontal row is easy if you use the "Snap Icons to Grid" function
under the "Options" drop-down menu. But you may want to use another
method if you are trying to line up only a few of the icons, since
the "snap icons" operation makes ALL the icons line up on an unseen
grid. Here's how to do it: Align all the icons you are working with
along the side or bottom of the desktop, to make sure they are
flush against a border; this gives them perfect alignment
vertically or horizontally. Then use the rubber-band technique to
select all the icons and drag them where you want them. They'll
stay aligned with each other when you do that.

7. If you have a lot of folders buried deep inside other folders on
your hard drive, install some of them on the desktop. A
double-click on any of them will open the deeply nested folder
immediately. That's much faster than opening the drive window and
clicking through many levels of folders to go where you want.

8. If you have some folders that contain a group of short files
that all have the same purpose, such as batch files or NeoDesk
information files, you can show many of them in a small window by
setting up one window to "Show as Text" under the "View" drop-down
menu. If you have an ST with a monochrome monitor, a TT with a
monochrome or color monitor or a Falcon with a VGA monitor, you can
squeeze even more filenames into the window by choosing "Small Text"
in that same menu. Unlike the Atari desktops, NeoDesk lets you show
a text listing in one window and an icon listing in another.




P A R T   7 :   T H E   K E Y S   T O   S U C C E S S
-----------------------------------------------------


Form and function
-----------------

Both NeoDesk and the official Atari desktops in TOS versions from
2.05 on up have programmable hotkeys. These keys, which operate
only on the desktop, can be programmed to perform various tasks, and
are cleared out whenever an application or desk accessory is active
as the top window. (The top window for most applications is the
application's main window, although multitasking programs and many
desk accessories allow the desktop itself to become the top window
while they are running.) In other words, any hotkeys you create on
the desktop will not interfere with hotkeys or function keys that
are built into any of your programs.

By "hotkeys" I am referring to both the set of separate keys at the
top of the keyboard labeled "F1" through "F10" and the keys on the
main keyboard. Both NeoDesk and the later TOS desktops allow you to
assign any "Fkey" function key and any keyboard character key to
certain actions, but in other ways the two desktops differ.
NeoDesk's method uses an actual macro program, which records a
series of desktop operations for later playback, while Atari's
method merely links a single keystroke to a single operation. The
NeoDesk method is much more powerful and far more flexible.

The TOS desktops have these limitations:

1. They allow the assignment of only 20 Fkeys, from F1 to Shift-F10.

2. They do not let you use Control- or Alt-key combinations with
either the Fkey assignments or keyboard hotkeys.

3. They do not recognize the Esc, Tab, Backspace, Delete, Help or
Undo keys as assignable hotkeys.

4. They will not perform any function associated with a file except
to run an executable program.

NeoDesk offers these advantages:

1. You can choose from a total of 120 possible Fkey combinations
alone. That is, any Fkey can use Control, Left Shift, Alternate,
Right Shift, Control-Left Shift, Alternate-Left Shift, Left
Shift-Right Shift (and so on) as modifier keys.

2. Any keyboard keys can be used with any of the modifier keys, in
any combination, for macros. Thus you could assign a particular
action to Control-LShift-Alt-RShift-A, for example.

3. Any key on the keyboard except the four modifier keys (Control,
Alternate and the two shift keys) can be used as a macro hotkey. For
example, the Undo key, which ordinarily has no function on the
desktop, can be mapped as the "Close Window" key.

4. Most importantly, a NeoDesk macro can perform any function that
can be done from the desktop. It can run an application, show a
text, open a specific drive or folder window, load a NeoDesk
information file, and do any of dozens of other functions. A
NeoDesk macro can even load a different set of NeoDesk macros.
Without question, NeoDesk's macro function is one of its salient
strengths.


How NeoDesk does it
-------------------

NeoDesk does not record keystrokes and mouse movements when you
create a macro. Instead, it keeps track of system activity. This
is, at the same time, a much better way of recording macros than
the typical method of mimicking keystrokes and mouse clicks, and a
much worse way. It all depends on what you want a macro to do. If
you want a macro to exactly reproduce every keystroke and every
single- and double-click of your mouse, you should purchase
CodeKeys from CodeHead Software. It is difficult to use well, but
it is possibly the most powerful utility program you can add to your
ST, TT or Falcon. However, if you want your macros to reproduce the
results of your keystrokes or mouse clicks, NeoDesk's macro function
is ideal.

Perhaps an example will make this distinction clear. Suppose you
have installed the icon for EDGE.PRG, the Diamond Edge hard-disk
maintenance utility, on your desktop. You start the begin-macro
function in NeoDesk, run Diamond Edge, and then exit. At that time
you end the macro and assign a key combination to it.

Any time you want to run Diamond Edge, you can simply press that
hotkey. Does that mean that NeoDesk is double-clicking on the
EDGE.PRG icon for you? (This is what CodeKeys would do, if you were
to create a macro to run Diamond Edge from the NeoDesk desktop with
CodeKeys.) You can find out by removing the EDGE.PRG icon from your
desktop and pressing the hotkey again; Diamond Edge runs as before.
What NeoDesk recorded when it monitored your activity when creating
the macro was that a file named EDGE.PRG in a specified folder and
path was being opened and, therefore, run.

This difference between the way NeoDesk records and runs macros and
the way an external program such as CodeKeys runs them is crucial.
Because NeoDesk monitors all its system activity, its macros can do
anything that you can do at the keyboard or with the mouse. We'll
have a few dramatic examples of this below.


Make me a macro
---------------

NeoDesk macros are easy to create and even easier to use. You can
drop the "Options" menu down and click on "Begin Macro," or press
Control-Esc. From that point on, your desktop operations will be
recorded until you end the macro with a menu click or a second
Control-Esc. The macro also will end if NeoDesk runs out of macro
space.

NeoDesk then asks you to assign a "Keyboard Shortcut" -- a hotkey
-- to the macro. You can click on the "Read Key" box and press any
key on the keyboard, and then decide whether you want to add any of
the modifier keys to the hotkey by clicking on one or more of the
four modifier-key buttons. (Any combination is possible.)

Then click on one of the three radio buttons at the bottom (Install,
Remove, Cancel). "Install" saves the macro in the NeoDesk
configuration stored in your computer's memory. The macro will run,
but it will not be saved permanently unless you choose "Save
Configuration" under the "Options" drop-down menu. "Remove" erases
the macro from memory. "Cancel" does not operate the way you might
expect: Rather than canceling the macro, it cancels your decision
to end the macro. Think of it as the "Cancel-macro-end" button and
you'll understand it better. If you are creating a macro and decide
to cancel it, you must click on "Remove" and not "Cancel."


Macros that do more than run programs
-------------------------------------

NeoDesk macros are great for running your favorite applications
with one keystroke. But if that is all you do with NeoDesk macros,
you are missing out on a lot of NeoDesk's flexibility.

Macros can chain programs together; that is, a single NeoDesk macro
can run a series of programs, with each succeeding application
running when the previous one stops. (Just keep the macro recorder
on while you do this yourself from the desktop.)

Macros can show text files. Big deal, right? Not if one of your
text files happens to be a list of macro-key assignments -- in
other words, a Help file. After you have set up your macros, open up
your word processor or text editor and write a neat, single-page
list of macros and their functions. Entries could look something
like this:

 Diamond Edge..............F2     Close all windows....RS-Undo
 ST Fax....................F3     Close window............Undo
 ST Writer.................F4     Close folder..........A-Undo
 Flash II..................F5     Select all items......Insert
 Good HD backup............F6     Send formfeed............C-F
 GEnieLamp..............LS-F3     Reload configuration.....A-R
 Spell check..............A-F4    Load macro set #2.......LS-2

In this list, "LS" stands for "Left Shift" and "RS" stands for
"Right Shift." "A" means "Alternate" and "C" means "Control."

If you decide to create a macro that lists macro-key assignments, I
suggest you follow the convention of using F1 to display the Help
file. Then make use of the NeoDesk Desktop Notes function by
writing a short desktop note that says the following:

 Press F1 for Help

This keeps most of the Desktop Notes capacity free for other memos.


Special macros, or how to make them call themselves
---------------------------------------------------

One of the mysteries of NeoDesk, to many users, seems to be one of
the menu items under the "Options" drop-down menu. It's always
grayed out, and that means you can't do anything with it. So why is
it there?

In truth, this menu item -- "Load Configuration" -- is not always
grayed out, but there is something you need to do to before you can
use it. It switches from gray (the universal indication in most
user interfaces that a menu item is turned off) to normal as soon
as you click on any NeoDesk configuration file. In other words, if
a NeoDesk configuration file ending in the extensions ".INF,"
".MAC" or ".NOT" is selected, the "Load Configuration" function is
enabled. This allows you to load another configuration into NeoDesk
-- another complete Neodesk information file, another set of macros
or another collection of desktop notes.

NeoDesk's pre-assigned hotkey for that function is Control-L. So,
by clicking once on an alternate NeoDesk information file and
pressing Control-L, NeoDesk will immediately take on a new
configuration.

But that's too much trouble, especially since a macro can do it
all. Do the same thing while recording a macro, and then save the
macro under a key combination that makes intuitive sense -- Alt-I
for the main alternative information file, for example, and
Alt-Shift-I for a lesser-used one.

Do the same for macro keys. Somehow, there's a sense of minor
triumph in getting a macro program to load and unload its own keys.
First, of course, you'll need to create separate sets of keyboard
macros, saving them under different names (but all with ".MAC"
extensions). Then click on each of the macro-key sets one at a
time, creating new macros among the primary macro keys that load
each of the other macro-key files. But be careful to include one
macro in each set of macros that reloads the main set.

If this is confusing, let me try a simple explanation. Here is a
set of three macro keys, which in this small example could be the
primary NeoDesk macros:

 F1 Show Help file
 F2 Run Aladdin
 F3 Load macro set 2

Here is macro set 2:

 F1 Run WordPerfect
 F2 Run spell checker
 F3 Load macro set 1

That's how easy it is. Keep your layout simple at first; if you're
not careful, your macros-calling-macros operation can become too
convoluted to follow. This, in itself, is a good reason to maintain
a Help file that can be viewed with a single keystroke. (Ideally,
of course, each set of macro keys should share many common macros
-- keystrokes for closing windows, for selecting all files in a
window, and so on, and especially for viewing the Help file. But I
cannot emphasize enough the need for a macro in each set of macros
that returns you to the master macro assignments. If you leave that
out, you will have to manually load the original macros back in.)




P A R T   8 :   E N V I R O N M E N T A L   C O N C E R N S
-----------------------------------------------------------


PATH=, and all that garbage
---------------------------

NeoDesk is unusual in offering complete control over the Atari
system environment. By "environment" I am referring to an area of
memory that the operating system uses as a sort of information pool
that all applications can make use of. The concept of a system
environment may be familiar to MS-DOS users, who often need to set
the DOS environment through such statements in their bootup files as
"PATH=;C:\;C:\DOS" and so on. The ability to set environmental
variables was built into the Atari operating system from the start,
although few users know about it.

The system environment can contain pointers to locations in your
file storage where certain support files can be found, and it can
tell an application where to create temporary files. It can do a
lot of other things too, if the applications that are running
support it.

That's the problem. Most applications do not make use of the
environment in any creative way, and so the system environment is
one of those aspects of NeoDesk that you could safely ignore most
of the time. But if you take advantage of it, you may find it
surprisingly useful when running some applications.

The most common use is to set a temporary-path variable, available
to any application that checks the environment. Archivers that are
properly written look for a TEMP statement to find the designated
location of a temporary storage area to hold scratch files that are
deleted after the archive is finished. ARC.TTP and Thomas Quester's
LZH programs look for that variable; STZIP.TTP apparently does not.
To enter a variable for a temporary storage area, create a folder
on a partition of your hard drive (or on a large-capacity floppy
disk) that has 1 megabyte or more of free space. Name the folder
TEMP. In the "Edit Environment" menu under the "Options" drop-down
menu, type "TEMP=C:\TEMP\" (or whatever the pathname is) in one of
the environmental-variable slots, and then save the configuration
file. In my own setup, I have a second temporary-path variable
named "TMP=C:\TEMP\" because some applications look for a "TMP"
variable instead of one named "TEMP."

Another function of the system environment is setting a general
PATH variable. This is used by all GEM applications to locate their
resource files, and is entered as "PATH=C:\PATHNAME\". If you make
use of this variable, you can place all the ".RSC" files of every
GEM application in your collection into a single folder (or into a
group of folders, if you have more than 100 or so), and of course
you can then remove all the ".RSC" files from their scattered
locations among dozens or even hundreds of folders. This GEM
pipeline for resource files should work properly for all
applications that follow standard programming guidelines; I have
seen only a few programs that could not find their ".RSC" files
this way. If an application complains through an alert box that it
cannot find its ".RSC" file, you can move that particular file back
into the same folder that the application runs from.

Desk accessories present a difficulty for this method, however.
Because DAs run before NeoDesk takes control of the system
environment, they will not find their resource files and therefore
will refuse to load. STeno and STalker are two common desk
accessories that must locate their resource files before NeoDesk
loads. (This problem is not solved by installing NeoDesk as an
auto-running application under the TOS desktop.)

You can get around this in two ways. One is to place the resource
files for desk accessories in the root directory of your boot drive
(or in the folder the accessories are loaded from, if you use
ACC.PRG or MultiDesk). The other is to avoid using NeoDesk's
environment manager and use Ian Lepore's GEMENV.PRG instead.
GEMENV.PRG runs from the AUTO folder, is easily configured, and has
the advantage of working with the TOS desktop as well as the
NeoDesk desktop.




P A R T   9 :   T R A S H Y   S T U F F
----------------------------------------


TOS out your old receptacle
---------------------------

NeoDesk comes with a recoverable trash can, which can be used as a
NeoDesk-compliant desk accessory or as a stand-alone application.
In either method of operation, dragging an icon of a file or
a filename to the special NeoDesk recoverable-trash-can icon removes
the file from view and makes it appear to be deleted. At regular
intervals, you click on the trash can and select the files you want
NeoDesk to dump. At that time they are erased. Until you empty the
trash, you are able to open the trash can and take out any files
you have decided to keep.

This is an excellent idea, and is the way some other operating
systems work. (The Apple Macintosh's trash can also saves files
that are deleted, but it does not save them indefinitely the way
NeoDesk will do if you fail to empty the trash; this is both good
and bad, depending on how much disk space you have available and
how much you value your files.)

However, there are a few cautions that you should be aware of.

First, the way NeoDesk's recoverable trash can stores its
pending-delete files and folders is non-standard. (If there WERE a
standard, it would be non-standard, if you know what I mean.) This
means that any application that searches through root directories
and folders for all available files and then reorganizes them to
improve disk performance will scramble everything being saved in
the recoverable trash can. To make this as clear as possible, if
you use Diamond Edge, Cleanup ST or any other hard-disk
defragmenter, you must first empty the NeoDesk trash can.

Second, the sole purpose of tossing anything away is to get rid of
it. This may seem too obvious for a comment, but if you use a
recoverable trash can as a regular way of putting files and folders
into suspended animation, you probably are ignoring some basic
housekeeping duties. Old files that are not needed just get in the
way.

Third, you may wish to consider an even better recoverable trash
can if you are worried about the danger of using a disk utility
when files and folders marked for deletion are in the NeoDesk trash
can. This better method is simple: Create a folder named TRASH on
your hard disk and assign a trash-can icon to it (call it "Trash
folder" when you place it on the desktop). If you have files that
you want to delete but are unsure if you may need to refer to them
in the next week or so, drag them onto this icon the same way you
would drag them into the trash. Every now and then, open this
folder and drag all the files you know you don't need into the real
trash can.

This method has no drawbacks, except of course for the progressive
loss of disk space if you forget to empty the trash folder.
Hard-disk defraggers will cause no harm, since everything in the
trash folder is still alive and well -- and, of course, visible to
the rest of the operating system. A minor inconvenience of this
method is that restoring files to their former folders is not
automatic, as it is with the NeoDesk trash can; you have to
remember where they came from and put them back manually. But it's
a lot safer.




P A R T   1 0 :   O R D E R   O U T   O F   C H A O S
-----------------------------------------------------


A,B,D,C and so on
-----------------

NeoDesk can show the contents of a root directory or folder in five
different orders, sorting by name, date, size, type, and, in
effect, none of the above. It is this last sort option that matters
most, because it shows you the actual physical order of each file
and folder in the disk directory. This is important because the
Atari operating system loads and runs programs in the AUTO folder in
the order that they are found in the directory. It also loads desk
accessories in the order they are found in the boot disk's root
directory. It does not use alphabetical order, as many users assume.

Among the mysteries of the way directory entries are ordered is a
genuine oddity. Normally, directory entries are written anew each
time a file is created in the folder or moved into it, with the
latest additions taking up a directory slot at the end of the list.
But this does not hold true if a file is deleted and another file is
copied into the folder; the operating system sometimes will place
the latest file's directory entry into the slot just vacated, and
sometimes will put the new entry at the end.

The only way to know for sure what order the files are in is to
view the list with the "No Sort" option turned on, under the "Sort"
drop-down menu. This would hold only academic interest except for
the "Reorder Items" option in the "Sort" menu, which lets you
arrange the contents of a folder or a root directory in any way you
like. When you click on "Reorder Items" a second time, NeoDesk
rewrites the directory listing to match the exact order of files in
the top desktop window.

Reordering files in the AUTO folder is a common activity among
Atari users, and NeoDesk makes it easy. But NeoDesk should also be
used to reorder the desk accessories in the root directory of the
boot disk, too, because of a second quirk in the way the ST, TT and
Falcon operate. Desk accessories are always listed in the "Desk"
menu in alphabetical order, but they are loaded in directory order,
and the order that they load can be very important. MultiDesk
Deluxe, for example, should always be loaded last.

Finally, reordering a root directory or folder in any location has
a further benefit. When NeoDesk rewrites the directory, all the
slots still occupied by deleted files and folders are cleared out.
This makes directory searches appreciably faster; the difference in
a directory with hundreds of files in it (and perhaps just as many
deleted file entries) can be measured as a factor of five or more.

However, keep in mind that this kind of directory cleanup
eliminates most chances of restoring files that have been deleted.
The rough-and-ready method of file restoration used by many
utilities depends on the presence of a valid directory entry for
every file that has been deleted -- which NeoDesk's reorder function
eliminates.




P A R T   1 1 :   D E S K T O P   T R I C K S
---------------------------------------------


What, no icons?
---------------

Among your alternative NeoDesk configurations can be one that
presents a blank desktop or one that shows nothing but a desktop
background picture. The only item visible on such a desktop
is the main GEM menu bar. This is a neat little trick, one that you
will not see on many computers under Windows, OS/2 or the Macintosh
Finder -- nor, of course, on other Ataris.

Every experienced Atari user knows the drawback of a desktop with
absolutely no icons. Because no device icons are installed, there
is no way to access any files.

Actually, this is not the case. The only thing you can't do is
click on a drive icon. You CAN drop down the "Options" menu and
load another configuration, however, and you can run any macro,
since macros do not access the drive icons.

So the way to do this is to create an alternative desktop that has
no icons on it. Delete all of them by selecting them in a group,
pressing Control-D and then clicking on the "Remove" box, and then
saving that desktop under a unique name. I suggest NEOBLNK3.INF for
an ST high-resolution desktop, for example. (The "3" indicates ST
hi-res, following official Atari practice for GDOS device names.)
Then record a macro that loads that desktop information file. Make
sure you have another macro that restores your standard desktop.


Where's my trash can?
---------------------

Another nifty trick is to take the trash can out of the desktop for
those times when inexperienced users are going to work or play at
your Atari. NeoDesk has no built-in way of deleting files without
dragging them to the trash can, so your data will be safer if your
trash can is stowed away. (However, anyone with the slightest
cleverness can figure out ways of getting around this, so be
warned!) Again, make sure you have a macro that will reload the
standard desktop.


Just a couple of choices
------------------------

Another trick is to create an alternative desktop that has only a
few icons in it, perhaps just the icons for a basic word processor,
a spelling checker and a telecommunications program. New users who
become confused by too many choices will find such a desktop very
friendly.


It's up to you
--------------

Perhaps the best neat trick of all is to use your imagination to
set up your NeoDesk desktop in a way that suits you best. You're
the judge of what you want; do it your way, and by all means make
it fun.