Tera Desktop V1.41 Copyright 1991-1995 W. Klaren. V2.1 Copyright 2002 H. Robbers. V2.3 to V4.08 Copyright 2003-2017 H. Robbers, Dj. Vukovic
This is version 4.08 of the Tera Desktop, a replacement for the builtin TOS desktop for 16-bit and 32-bit Atari computers. This program is Freeware and Open Source. It is published under General Public License (GPL) which means that it may be copied and modified freely, providing that the original authorships are recognized where appropriate, and that it, or its derivatives, may not be sold. See the included COPYING file for the details on GPL.
Please note that the name of this project is 'Tera Desktop' or 'TeraDesk', not 'Terra Desktop'.
Tera Desktop binary distribution currently consists of the following files:
COPYING (A copy of the GPL license)
DESKTOP.PRG (All-environments Desktop)
DESKTOS.PRG (Somewhat smaller Desktop compiled for Single-TOS)
DESK_CF.PRT (Somewhat larger version compatible with Coldfire)
DESKTOP.RSC (English resource file)
DESKTOP.RSD (Resource object names definition file)
ICONS.RSC (Essential Mono icons)
CICONS.RSC (Essential Colour icons)
README.TXT (This file)
HIST_V34.TXT (Log of changes since Version 3.0)
TERADESK.HYP (English manual in ST-Guide hypertext)
TERADESK.REF (Reference file for the hypertext manual)
TERADESK.INF (Sample configuration file)
TERADESK.PAL (Sample palette file)There also exists a source distribution which contains the complete source tree of TeraDesk, to be compiled and linked with Pure-C 1.1 or AHCC. It is located at the web homepage of TeraDesk 3 and TeraDesk 4:
http://solair.eunet.rs/~vdjole/teradesk.htmTeraDesk uses the AHCM memory-allocation system developed by H. Robbers. Included in the source distribution of TeraDesk is the source of an older version of AHCM with functionality sufficient to build TeraDesk. Source of AHCM version newer than the one that is used in TeraDesk can be found in the distribution of the AHCC compiler developerd by H. Robbers at:
http://members.ams.chello.nl/h.robbers(the newer version of AHCM will produce slightly larger TeraDesk binary).
A note on the naming of distribution files:
Binary distributions have names in the form TERAnnnB.ZIP ("B" for "Binary"), "nnn" being the version number multipled by 100 (e.g. as "396" for 3.96).
Source-code distributions have names in the form TERAnnnS.ZIP ("S" for "Source").
Preliminary compilations sent to testers have names in the form TERAnnnP.ZIP ("P" for "Preliminary"). Contents of TERAnnnP.ZIP may vary.
It is recommended that translated resource and hypertext manual files are distributed in zip archives having names in the form TERAnnnx.ZIP, "x" being a character conveniently marking the language of translation.
Tera Desktop can be used on any Atari ST series computer and their offspring, TT, Falcon, Hades, Milan or emulators. Since version 4.04 it has been compatible with Coldfire. It uses about 200 - 300 KB of memory, depending on the complexity of configuration.
Although Tera Desktop can be used without the aid of a hard disk, the use of one is strongly recommended. Tera Desktop is not well optimized for use on machines with only one floppy drive and no hard disk. File copying in TeraDesk is done file-by-file which, when copying files from one disk to another on a machine with only one drive, will mean a lot of disk swapping.
Tera Desktop should work with all existing versions of TOS (i.e. starting with TOS 1.0) but it is much more useful with TOS versions 1.04 (also known as TOS 1.4) and above. However, it may fail on very old versions of Mint or Magic (probably older than 1.12 and 3.0 respectively).
Since Version 2.0 Tera Desktop runs on modern multitasking environments, such as: MagiC, TOS with Geneva, TOS with Mint and an AES (N.Aes, XaAES, MyAES or Atari AES 4.1) etc. It can run with memory protection.
Some features of Tera Desktop may be nonfunctional, depending on the version of the OS and the AES used.
Tera Desktop makes several inquires trying to determine TOS- and AES- versions and their capabilities and limitations. If some version of TOS or AES is not able to answer these queries, Tera Desktop tries to make guesses which may not always be correct. It is also possible that incorrect answer to a query is supplied by TOS/AES. In such case Tera Desktop may work with unnecessary limitations or else try to activate features which may not work.
Please, see HIST_V34.TXT for a list of new features and bug fixes since the last released version (4.07). Also, read the manual TERADESK.HYP (you will need ST-Guide for this) for more detailed information.
Before installing any new version of TeraDesk, you are advised to load and then save each TeraDesk configuration file that you use. This will update any older versions of the configuration file(s) to your current version. TeraDesk may report errors when reading too old configuration files. It may also be a good idea to make a backup of the current configuration files.
A folder named e.g. DESKTOP or TERADESK can be created anywhere on your floppy or hard disk, or in a RAM disk, to hold Tera Desktop files. It is also possible, although a bit untidy, to put Tera Desktop into the root directory of a disk volume/partition.
The following files should be copied to the location specified for TeraDesk:
DESKTOP.PRG (if you intend to use multitasking) OR DESKTOS.PRG (if you will work in Single-TOS ONLY) OR DESK_CF.PRG (if you need a Coldfire-compatible version) DESKTOP.RSC ICONS.RSC (if you will use monochrome icons) AND/OR CICONS.RSC (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 only relevant in multitasking environments, and by having a somewhat limited support of 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 in the multitasking version, e.g. if they contain any references to symbolic links or long filenames.
The Coldfire version should be compatible with 68020 and higher processors as well.
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 regiser itself with the AES as "DESKTOP" anyway.
On a Coldfire system, one should use DESK_CF.PRG instead of DESKTOP.PRG. Same as with DESKTOS.PRG the file can be renamed to DESKTOP.PRG but this is not required.
One can (but need not) also copy into this folder the files TERADESK.INF and TERADESK.PAL from the \EXAMPLES folder. Note, however, that these example configuration files are set for one hypothetical configuration, and may not be appropriate for your setup (Tera Desktop will attempt to obey everything specified in the configuration files, no matter what the actual environment is).
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 adjusted to any user's particular environment and taste by defining additional desktop and window icons, filetypes, etc.
If you use ST-GUIDE or other compatible hypertext viewer application, 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 upon [Shift][Help] keypress.
Cooperation of Tera Desktop 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 and as the font-selector. In Single-TOS configuration these protocols can be used by some accessories (such as ST-Guide); in multitasking configurations they can be used by a much larger number of concurrently running applications.
The manner of declaration of environmental variables depends on variants of the OS and utilities used.
If you use (Single) TOS version 1.04 (also known as TOS 1.4) or greater, you can set it up by installing it as an application, and then setting its boot status to 'Auto' (remember to save this desktop configuration). As from now on Tera Desktop will take over all desktop tasks, prior to saving the desktop configuration all other applications should be deinstalled, all unneeded icons removed from the desktop and all windows closed. This is not required but will reduce the size of DESKTOP.INF (or NEWDESK.INF) and will 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.prgThen, the built-in desktop of AES 4.1 will not be loaded at startup and TeraDesk will run as the desktop instead.
If you use Geneva, N.AES, XaAES, or MyAES you should in a similar way specify TeraDesk as the 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).
If you use MagiC, TeraDesk should be specified as a shell via the #_SHL directive in MAGX.INF:
#_SHL path\to\TeraDesk\desktop.prgAll 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 possible to completely adapt TeraDesk to other languages by using a translated DESKTOP.RSC and, possibly, ICONS.RSC and CICONS.RSC, if someone is willing to supply it/them. In the source distribution there exists a file named RESOURCE.TXT containing some comments that may be of use to people who wish to make such translations.
The icon files supplied contain a basic set of icons only. Users are encouraged to create thier own, more extensive icon files; they can add icons at will, or use other icon files (e.g. one can rename DESKICON.RSC and/or DESKCICN.RSC used by the built-in desktop of TOS 2/3/4 to ICONS.RSC and CICONS.RSC respectively, and use them with TeraDesk, but any files used should contain some icons which are essential to TeraDesk- see below).
Tera Desktop, 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 as defaults:
FLOPPY, HARD DISC, TRASH, PRINTER, FOLDER, FILE, APP
If any icon name can not be found in the icons resource file, TeraDesk attempts to use one of the default icons, according to item type. If the default icon does not exist either, the first icon in the icons resource file is used.
To facilitate adaptation of TeraDesk to other languages, names of the seven essential icons are not hard-coded but are read from DESKTOP.RSC. It is possible, by editing this file, to change the names by which the icons will be searched for in the icon resource file(s).
Some versions of AES (e.g. Geneva 4) declare themselves as capable of handling colour icons, but that fails to work with TeraDesk. In such cases, CICONS.RSC file should be removed, and TeraDesk will fall back to monochrome icons. Colour icons file can also be removed in other environments if there is a need to preserve as much free memory as possible.
Read the hypertext manual for more information.
Here follows a list of ideas that were considered as likely courses of further development of TeraDesk. Unfortunately, as time passes and the author/maintainer is not getting any younger, it becomes less and less likely that they will ever be implemented.
Further optimization of code to reduce size and memory use and increase speed.
Use of advanced features of the AHCM package to further improve handling of memory allocation when large blocks are allocated (e.g. when reading files or opening flying dialogs).
Improvement of the algorithm for file copying when floppies are involved. (this has become practically irelevant as floppies have disappeared).
Removal of the 2 GB limitation for manageable folder sizes
Complete compliance to the AV-protocol and Drag & Drop protocol (some of rarely used AV-protocol capabilities are currently unsupported).
Better implementation of memory-limit and no-multitask options.
Capability to change video mode in AESes earlier than V4.
Capability to shutdown Aranym from single-TOS.
Capability to show a 'tree view' directory window of all drives or maybe to show any directory window with 'tree view'.
Integration of a non-modal, windowed, long-names-capable fileselector by producing a special directory window with a menu bar. TeraDesk's already- existing capabilities for selecting and sorting directory items would be used, so a duplication of effort and memory waste that exists when a separate file-selector is used would be avoided. File-selector should be Selectric compatible. AV-protocol capabilities of TeraDesk may be used (or abused) here and a small auxilliary accessory may be needed for operation in Single-TOS.
Integration of a windowed command-line interpreter that will use the code already existing in TeraDesk for most (or all) of its functions.
Capability to run TOS programs in a window in single-TOS.
Capability to define more than one printer, on different interfaces, or to use GDOS/NVDI printing devices.
It will be appreciated, if problems are reported with a complete description of the problem and the configuration you are using (machine, TOS-version, autoboot programs, accessories etc.). Mention TeraDesk in the subject line of your e-mail.
THE AUTHORS OF TERA DESKTOP CAN NOT BE HELD RESPONSIBLE for any form of damage caused by this program or any of its components; usage of all components of TeraDesk is at your own risk. See also the accompanying file COPYING for the terms of the General Public License.
PLEASE read the manual and the development-history file before you use the program. You will need ST-Guide (not supplied with Tera Desktop) or another .HYP file viewer to read the manual.
Comments should be sent to: vdjole@EUnet.rs
If you intend to use TeraDesk, it will be appreciated if you send an e-mail to the above address; I may at some time ask a question or two about TeraDesk's behaviour.
Djordje Vukovic
Beograd; February 19th 2017