Choose Your Desktop Interface

The default Athene desktop is Wintel 2000, which we promote due to the familiarity that it breeds with Windows users. As people tastes tend to differ widely on how the ideal interface should function, we provide additional desktops that are worth trying if you like alternatives. These include Omega Workbench, a clone of the Amiga Workbench interface; and Indigo, an original design with a scrolling desktop.

Omega Workbench

Omega Workbench is based on the Amiga Workbench interface, with some minor modifications to keep it modernised. The interface is designed to be very tight - the fonts are simple, the titlebars and window borders are small and the menus follow a simple black and white design. Sticking to the basics results in Omega Workbench being the fastest of the Athene desktops that are available. On slower machines it can tend to be the desktop of choice.

The Omega Workbench features a draggable screenbar, which is useful when you have many full-screen applications open. Draggable screens function like maximised windows, but they have advantages in making it easier to group and control their own windows. At the top-left of the workbench screenbar, the Omega logo can be clicked and a program menu will drop down allowing you to run any of the installed programs on your system. This is convenient if you have you used the entire desktop space and the desktop icons are no longer visible.

Indigo

The Indigo desktop was created from scratch in order to demonstrate the functionality of a very large desktop space. It provides a 4x4 screen area, the equivalent of 16 desktops in a vast scrollable space. This allows you to open as many applications you need and have them positioned around the desktop without the windows overlapping each other. With such a large viewing space it would be easy to lose your applications, so clicking the taskbar buttons will instantly scroll the selected window into view.

Indigo also borrows some features from the Omega and Wintel desktops by including the draggable screenbar and taskbar at the bottom of the screen. Indigo doesn't use icons - it has a simple array of buttons visible on the left hand side of the screen. Because the buttons are small, you can fit a large amount of them on one side of the screen. Also, application windows can't overlap the buttons, which means they'll always be available no matter how cluttered the desktop gets.

Wintel 2000

Wintel 2000 is a fairly close approximation of the Microsoft Windows interface. The intent is not to create an exact replica, but to put things where a Windows user would expect to find them so that they don't get lost. For instance, the program menu is accessed at the bottom left corner of the taskbar, and the volume can be controlled by clicking the audio icon on the bottom right. Application windows are represented in the middle of the taskbar. Each window follows the standard button layout - you can minimise applications to the taskbar or maximise them to fill the display.

Some common areas normally found in Windows have been replaced in favour of better solutions. The control panel is replaced by the System Options program, which provides a one-stop-shop for system configuration. Explorer's half file manager, half browser approach has been shunned in favour of a committed file management system. Our approach is to stick to the basics and do them well, so most of the extra fluff that you might expect in a Windows style interface is kept to a minimum.

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