posted by Eugenia Loli on Wed 21st Nov 2001 17:39 UTC
"The Desktop"
The shortcut icons on the left of the desktop are hard-coded, but they are good enough to load for you the main applications bundled with the base AtheOS installation. A (very) basic file manager, a CPU and memory monitor, Emacs, and of course, your best friend in the AtheOS world, the AtheOS Terminal, called ATerm. ATerm is basically an xterm-type terminal and it is vital to know how to use unix commands and Bash, as most operations under AtheOS will involve the command line (however, by being a modern OS, AtheOS is GUI-only, it does not offer a fullscreen text mode). Make sure you use a fixed font that includes the full character set instead of the one supplied with AtheOS because you will get screens like this, instead of like this. Copying the LucidaConsole ttf font from my Windows partition for example, and use it instead of the default fixed font, saved my day. AtheOS uses the FreeType library, so it supports True Type fonts, in a gorgeous anti-aliased mode.
In the AtheOS desktop you will also find the 'Preferences' application, which it will help you modify some of the AtheOS default settings. You will be able to change keymaps, set font defaults, change screen resolution and select a different window manager theme or modify color themes for the GUI widgets.
By pressing ALT+F1..F12 you can utilize the workspaces (virtual screens) available in AtheOS. Each workspacce can have its own resolution and color depth, but a common background image/color.
Two additional, must-have, third party applications that any AtheOS user should download is Launcher, which considerably eases the process of launching applications, and Locator, a file find utility. AtheMgr is also a must-have, as it manages the killing of bad-behaving processes, which can be very handy at times.
The GUI is pretty basic, but it is fully functional. Its app_server is written in C++ and the AtheOS GUI API is also 100% C++ and object oriented. Being a web designer myself, I am always nit picking a bit about the visual stuff, so I could say here that the GUI could do with the help of a GUI designer. Font and Widget spacing, general aesthetics are far from ideal, but as I said, works fine. That's just more than enough for a one-man project, as AtheOS is. A lot of GUI-related classes have not been implemented yet, so several people who are porting or developing their GUI applications to AtheOS, are often bumping on limitations. Word has it that Kurt is planning to completely re-write the whole GUI part at some point.
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