Desktop Settings

The first panel is used to configure the Desktop settings, with a variety of options to choose from:

Hidden Devices : enables you select devices that you do not want to show on the Workbench screen, although they can still be accessed by programs or via the Shell. Clicking on a box will cause a tick to appear and if you then click on Save, Use or Test, the corresponding drive icon will disappear from the Workbench screen. If you click on it again followed by one of the above buttons the process is reversed.

Keyboard Selection : has four options:
• Restart Delay - used to set the icon restart
  delay in seconds. Minimum value is 1sec.
  Maximum value is 10secs. Default is 3secs.
• Blink Duration - used to set the icon blink
  duration in milliseconds. Minimum value is 0ms.
  Maximum value is 1000ms. Default is 400 ms.
• Blink Rate - used to set the icon blinking rate
  in Hertz. Minimum value is 1Hz. Maximum value
  is 15Hz. Default is 9Hz.
• Test - not used.

Screen Title Format : enables you to customise the heading on the Workbench screen by typing into the text box provided. The only restriction is the number of characters that can fit on a single line across the top of the Workbench, and this depends on your resolution. For example, if your screen resolution is 800x600, then you will be able to fit roughly 110 characters across the screen.

But wait.... here's an even better offer! At no extra cost, you can also include system variables as part of the text by clicking on the 'Insert' button wherever you want to insert them, and selecting items from the various menus as shown below:

Amiga Auckland's AmigaOne running %c with %g graphics card and %mtm MB of memory

Amiga Workbench  %mf graphics mem  %mn other mem

Appearance : provides two further options to customise the Workbench screen:
• No Titlebar - ticking this box removes the Workbench title bar entirely.
• No Volume Gauge - ticking this box removes the space-used bar down the left-hand side of device windows. This is normally ticked by default.

Stack Size : enables you to customise the default size of the Stack allocated when a program is started. This can of course be over-ridden by the tool-type entry in the program's icon. The default value is 10KB.

Copy Buffer Size : enables you to set the buffer size when copying files from the Workbench.

Icons Settings

The second panel is used to configure the Icons settings, with a variety of options to choose from:

Options : Some of these are obviously provided for compatibility purposes and are of dubious benefit under OS4.
• No Color Icons - tick this for a laugh.
• No Newicons - tick this for more laughs.
• Mark Left Out Icons - might be useful if you use
• Column Dragging - can sometimes be useful.
• Drag with Label - some people like to do this.
• Live Drag Select - why bother ?

Images : Available in case you want to feel like you are still using your A500.
• Quality - you have a choice of 'Best', 'Good', 'Poor' and 'Bad'.
• Border Size - you have a choice of 'No Border', 'Small', 'Mid' and 'Large'.
• Images in - you have a choice of 'Graphics Memory', and 'Other Memory'.

Transparency : This is porobably the most useful part of the panel.
• Default Icons - icon transparency can be set anywhere between 0% and 90% to help distinguish Default Icons from Real Icons when 'Show All files' is selected. Default is 50%.
• Dragged Icons - icon transparency can be set anywhere between 0% and 90% for icons while they are being dragged using the mouse. Default is 10%.
• Include Disks - when this box is ticked, the transparency rules above are applied to disks as well as folders.

Action Buttons

When you make changes you can choose to 'Save' them permanently, just 'Use' them temporarily until the system is rebooted, 'Test' them to help you decide whether you have achieved what you expected, or you can 'Cancel' and lose all changes.

Return to Preferences Selection