main page


Installation and setup examples

Lots of neat things can be done with TOS 2.06, but some of the installation parameters and other ways of doing it can be a little tricky. I will try to explain a few things here which can be put to practical use in a variety of ways...


____________________________________________


Installing an application to handle a single type of file
TOS 2.06 allows you to define a single file-type for each program installed (we will later discuss how to modify the setup file to allow for several files to be handled).
Let's say we want all HTML files (named ".HTM" on the Atari ST because of the 8+3 filename limitation) to be opened up in the "CAB" (Crystal Atari Browser) web-browser when double-clicked. Just following these simple steps:


____________________________________________


Installing an application to handle several file-types
The "Install application" menu only allows you to define one file-type for each program which isn't very useful considering that a graphic viewer can handle several formats (such as ".GIF", ".JPG", ".IMG", ".IFF", ".BMP", ".PCX", ".PI3" etc.).
The same goes for audio (sound)-file players and decompression programs as well, to mention a couple more among the many applications that are available out there.
As explained in the Atari TOS desktop survival kit, you can bypass this limitation in TOS 2.06 by manually (and carefully!) editing the "NEWDESK.INF" file which is where all this information is stored.

Let's follow the steps of making the image-viewer "GrafTool" handle .IMG, .GIF and .JPG graphic formats. After a successful installation you will be able to simply double-click on an image file of the above formats and GrafTool will display them!

The following examples are shown for GrafTool, but you can apply the same method for any other program which you want to handle multiple file-types....


____________________________________________




Step-1: installing "GrafTool"


____________________________________________




Step-2: adding multiple file-types

Now that we've done the actual installation of the program we can continue by adding several types of files for it to handle.
As you can see, the "Install application" window doesn't allow for any more than one type of file to be handled by each program, so we have to bypass this limitation by manually editing the "NEWDESK.INF" file, which is where all information about program installations, icons, window placements and other things related to TOS are stored.

What we're about to do here is a little more complicated than pointing and clicking with the mouse, but by carefully following this guide even novices should be able to handle it.



____________________________________________


Installation parameters
TOS 2.06 allows you to define several useful parameters which are unfortunately a little complicated to figure out as they're not obvious and haven't been very well documented anywhere.
I've covered all of the settings elsewhere in this user-guide, but three of them are a bit more complicated and need some further explanation. I'll try to shed some light on this and clear up a few details...

Single-click (to select) a program, then go to the "Options" menu and select "Install Application" which will present you with the following window:

   

Any program can of course be run by double-clicking it, but by "installing" programs you will gain certain benefits and extra features, such as:

Note: it's a common misconception that every program needs to be installed.
Installation only adds specific parameters which might be needed to instruct certain programs on how to behave. Other programs can be used to their full extent without any prior installation.

In the case of programs not being installed, the "Default Directory" and "Parameter" settings (as explained in detail below)
from the "Desktop configuration" menu are used. (note that some programs rely on specific settings here in order to work! Read on....).


____________________________________________




Arguments 

Programs with ".TTP" (or ".GTP") endings aren't normal Atari ST programs as they don't have graphical menus/windows/mouse control but instead rely on something as old-fashioned as command-line input (remember when you had to type in complicated commands using MSDOS or UNIX?).
Not very user-friendly, and totally a waste of time in this day and age, right? Not necessarily...    

In this example we'll be using "ZIPJR.TTP" to decompress any .ZIP file by simply double-clicking them.
"ZIPJR.TTP" has several parameters/options, and as you can see we've used 3 of them. According to the "STzip" documentation (which also includes "ZIPJR.TTP" among its programs), these parameters do the following:

IMPORTANT: Please note that there's an empty space at the end of the arguments! If you forget about this it won't work. Also remember to add a "-" at the beginning as this is the usual way a command line option is given.
Translated into what a command-line text input of this would look like (using a command line shell such as "Gemini") with a .ZIP file named "TESTFILE.ZIP":

       ZIPJR.TTP -xrg TESTFILE.ZIP
Without the space at the end you'd end up with the following (which of course doesn't make sense and won't work):

       ZIPJR.TTP -xrgTESTFILE.ZIP

Other ".TTP" (or ".GTP") programs may use other "arguments" and have other minor differences in order to work, but the principle is the same as in the above example. In addition to reading the documentation you might have to spend a little time experimenting to get it right.


____________________________________________




Default directory/Input parameter 

Now let's move on to a couple of options determining where files are located (so the program can find its files!).
In the following example we've installed the ASCII text-editor "7up".

   


Default dir:
This is the directory where the program starts looking for its files (many programs have setup and resource (.RSC) files) and some of these programs are too "stupid" to know where to look for them. Other programs know where they're located regardless of the setting here. So it's hard to set a general rule for all software.
Be prepared to spend a little time experimenting with certain programs until you get it right.

____________________________________________




Parameter: 

The parameter defines how a file is sent to the program. This applies to the following situations:

              

(The parameter setting does not affect setup, resource (.RSC) or other files which the program needs in order to work properly. Their locations are defined by the program itself, or by the default directory setting).

The two possible parameter settings are:


____________________________________________




Default directory/Parameter examples 

There are 4 possible combinations of the "Default directory" and "Parameter" settings. The different settings give different results for different programs. Some of the more "intelligent" programs don't need to rely that much on these settings while others rely completely on them.

We'll take an example of the latter, where we will be using the ASCII text editor "7up" (version 2.09e) to open a text file named "README.TXT".
The program and the text file are located on two separate drives:

     


Example 1
In this example 7up is installed with the following directory/path settings:

Default directory: Top window
Parameter : File name

   


Example 2
In this example 7up is installed with the following directory/path settings:

Default directory: Top window
Parameter : Full path

   


Example 3
In this example 7up is installed with the following directory/path settings:

Default directory: Application
Parameter : File name

   


Example 4
In this example 7up is installed with the following directory/path settings:

Default directory: Application
Parameter : Full path

   


____________________________________________




Additional notes about default directories and windows 

In all of the examples above, the text file ("README.TXT") is made available by having its directory window opened on the desktop.

     

If you find yourself working on the same file a lot it might be more convenient to make a shortcut of this file on the desktop, which is easily done by dragging the file's icon on to the desktop (nstead of having to open the file's directory window all the time).

     

From then on you can work with it in just the same way as you did before (when you had the file's own directory window open)....


As we will see, these same actions will give different results (when "Default directory" is set to Top Window) as this Top Window may now be a completely different one, or there may not even be any window open on the desktop at all!

When the Top Window on the desktop is different from where the file (i.e. "README.TXT") is located:

When there are no open windows on the desktop at all:



____________________________________________


Installation parameters (for non-installed applications)
Go to the "Options" menu, then select "Desktop Configuration" which gives you the ability to configure certain global settings.

   

The settings in this window have been explained earlier in the sections about the "Options" menu, but we will now take a closer look at the following:

Set default directory as:
... and
Set input parameter:

These are the same two settings you'll find when installing an application (the "Options" menu). There are however a couple of differences and things to keep in mind:

...... keeping this in mind, read the detailed explanation on how these parameters are used.


____________________________________________




A configuration that works with all programs 

The default settings (if you haven't changed anything yourself, or don't have a NEWDESK.INF file available) in Desktop Configuration concerning default director and parameter are as follows:

Default directory: Top window
Parameter : File name

....which works with most programs, but not everything.

Remember... the settings in "Desktop Configuration" found in the "Options" menu apply to any programs previously NOT installed, which in other words probably means the majority of all your software.

However, the following setting are guaranteed to work with any program:

Default directory: Application
Parameter : Full path

   

... so why didn't Atari use this setting as default in the first place?
An estimated guess is that by using "Top window" as the default directory, whenever you open the file-selector in a program (to open or save a file) it'll default to the same window you opened the file from on the desktop. Very practical for the user, but completely useless if the program won't find its files!
So to rectify any such problems you end up with two choices, depending on how the majority of your software prefers these settings to be and your choice in the matter:

...or



main page