The first replacement desktop I used was Ease. At the time I bought it I thought it was great and recommended it to a number of people. Then Joe Connor joined 42BBS and I took a look at his Thing [chuckle chuckle - Ed]. I mean, of course, the replacement desktop he supports via InterActive. It wasn't long before Thing had elbowed Ease off my system. Not that Ease is bad, I am just comfortable using Thing.

Having seen Ease 4 on other peoples machines, I can see it is still an excellent desktop with some useful features that I would like to see added to Thing - eg, directory trees, desk notes etc. However there are things missing from Ease that I use with ease in Thing every day. Installing multiple applications to a file type, for example. If I double click on a *.GIF, a dialog opens giving me the choice of loading the picture into Imagecopy, TruePaint or Apex. Drag a text file to my printer icon and I can chose to load the document into IdeaList or Everest for printing.

Also, having got used to TOS 4.04 desktop, in which you can have icons on the desk without having text descriptions below them, I was delighted when Thing also supported this. Text descriptions on icons is a bit like wearing belt and braces - unnecessary.

Thing is a little memory hungry, but as I have 14Mb RAM on my Falcon, this does not bother me. However, for those with less RAM, Thing can be de-installed before running applications. Also, there is no Icon editor in Thing, only a utility to assign icons.

I have recently been looking at no|Desk. I think the best way to describe it is as a 'desktop construction kit'. It can be set up to run with very little memory overhead, but you lose many of the extras. If, however, you have the RAM to use all it's features you will be very impressed. For example, archives can be opened as a desktop window from which files can be added or removed. Talking of windows, no|Desk displays a list of buttons relating to the file extensions in that directory. A simple click on one of these buttons masks out all the other files. No need to open a dialog box to set the mask - very tasty. The drive structure display works a treat and the search option is excellent. It has a powerful built in CLI [Command Line Interface]. I'm sure those of you who can remember how to use a CLI will find it very useful. no|Desk uses no|System and, in my opinion, is very attractive, especially in 256 colour mode.

So why isn't no|Desk a major player in the desktop article? Although Tom Thomason [Falcon Pro Centre, Sweden] has translated the resource and text files into English, much of the program is still in German. In fact too much for me to comfortably use the desktop through the heavy learning curve needed to master this very powerful desktop. As soon as there is a more anglicised version available it will be my pleasure to write a full review for AtariPhile.

Joe Connor, editor of Atari Computing has this to say...

I first encountered a replacement Desktop back in 1989 when I bought a copy of Neodesk for my Mega ST/SM124 system. It was love at first sight - all my perceived shortcomings in TOS removed at a stroke, I became a Neodesk fan. At the time I was working for a company running several Mega ST systems with 21" Viking monitors. I couldn't wait to install Neodesk and dazzle my boss into buying several copies but unfortunately we ran into several niggly problems running at 1280x960 resolution and reluctantly reverted to TOS.

With my faith in Neodesk irrevocably dented I searched around for alternatives. I found Teradesk to be simple and reliable and used that until Gemini came along and TeraDesk ran out of development. Gemini introduced the AV-Protocol, which made it possible for Gemini to communicate with Desktop accessories behind my back! The integrated command line (Mupfel) was a revelation, far and away the best CLI available for the Atari platform - I still use it with Thing to run some of the key generators for InterActive.

I first got involved with Thing during the early stages of its development, at the time I was actively seeking German software for InterActive to support and before long we put an English release together. I ran Thing in tandem with Gemini for around a year switching between the two for beta testing and making comparisons. Slowly Thing caught up then overtook Gemini in terms of features at which point I just stopped booting Gemini. Since then Thing has continued to evolve and is currently my favourite Desktop on any platform at any price! Thing combines a powerful range of features with the ability to plug-in external utilities and near-complete AV-Protocol support.

Nothing is perfect and Thing is memory hungry as I discovered recently after switching from TOS to MagiC (I now run the same software under MagiC PC, MagiC Mac and MagiC on my Atari)! Out of necessity I reverted to the built-in MAGXDesk and instantly freed up over 500Kb memory - I was quietly impressed. MAGXDesk is amazingly small, includes some AV-Protocol functionality, offers excellent icon handling and is the only Desktop which can be removed from memory under MagiC when running programs - effectively leaving even more free memory for applications.

MagiC Mac and MagiC PC (but not MagiC for the Atari platform) come bundled with Ease. After six months of using Ease on a daily basis (trying to understand why some people rave about Ease) I put it to you the only thing Ease offers over MAGXDesk is the file popup, an icon editor and a few window tools! Ease is the weakest of all the Desktops reviewed (and a couple we didn't!) but don't take my word for it, compare the points for and against each Desktop and make up your own mind.

How come MagiC PC and MagiC Mac comes bundled with Ease, yet MagiC Atari does not? All three have MAGXDesk built-in. There's no such thing as a free lunch and I would prefer Ease to be un-bundled and the price reduced. I now own two copies of Ease I don't use and don't want but can't sell because I have no separate Ease master disks.

To summarise, I don't trust Neodesk, cannot understand why Ease is popular and I like and use both Thing and MAGXDesk.

Kev Beardsworth gives us a history lesson...

Four powerful and popular desktops, which of the four do I use and why? To understand the logic behind my choice it's important to realise that one or two pieces of software and one or two developments in hardware have influenced my decision.

First there was the desktop built into TOS 1.02. The word basic immediately springs to mind. Basic was ideal though while I was using a 520 STfm with one floppy drive. The addition of a 30Mb hard drive and 2Mb of RAM quickly showed me just how basic, basic could be. I wanted to be able to launch programs quickly without having to first open a window or search - what was in those days endless harddisk space - for lost files. Neodesk 3 was all the rage then so I joined the masses and bought a copy. Wow what a change, the difference was amazing. I could drag program icons onto the desktop for instant access, search for files or folders. The options seemed endless and I continued to use Neodesk for many months content in the misapprehension that nothing could get better than this.

You can see from the main texts that I couldn't have been more wrong. Just as everything in the Atari market seemed to be going stale they launched the Falcon. I couldn't afford one but fate was already about to lend a hand. At that time I worked for the largest privately owned tool hire company in the country. My job was to maintain the motor vehicle fleet. To help me in my quest they offered me a new PC. I said "no", and to say they were surprised is an understatement. I explained that there was a better option, I wanted a Falcon. They surprisingly agreed and within a month a brand new Falcon was sitting on my desktop.

The tables were turned on Neodesk. The desktop built into TOS 4.01, now called Newdesk, was easily Neodesk 3's equal, if not superior. I used Newdesk for sometime. However the launch of Geneva - the only useable multi-tasking system available for the Falcon at that time - turned everything on its head once again. Dan Wilga, Geneva and Neodesk's author, had supplied with the Geneva disk an update file for Neodesk 3. This update made Neodesk 3 Geneva aware, so back I went. Newdesk was still better then Neodesk 3 but the enhancements gained by using Geneva forced the issue. The Geneva docs also promised a new Neodesk, version 4.

I remember Neodesk 4's arrival as my wife rang me at work to tell me it had arrived. I know it's sad but I couldn't wait to get home. Unhappily, although the features list was impressive this first release was quite buggy. Later versions of Neodesk 4 have been very stable and it remains today my second favourite. As you will see though it has some very stiff competition. The buggy version of Neodesk 4 and one other event led me to my next desktop replacement.

Cue Freedom, what a piece of software, the most powerful file selector ever written. I saw its potential immediately and it saw Geneva, they hated each other. I was now in a quandary, if my system isn't working perfectly I can't do a thing on it. After many conversations with Joe Connor and all sorts of attempts to get Freedom and Geneva working together I switched, at his suggestion to Gemini. He explained that to get the best from Freedom you really needed to use a desktop that was also an AV server, so Gemini it was. I also dabbled with Ease around this time. Nice bodywork, shame there's nothing under the bonnet.

I have to say that Gemini working with Freedom gave me a more powerful system than Geneva and Neodesk, yes the AV Protocol is really that powerful. So I stuck with it.

I'd settled down at last. I was totally happy with my system, but that Joe Connor character raised his head again and said, "Kev, have I got someThing for you".

I spent a warm summers day at Joe's house and played with the most powerful desktop I'd ever seen, Thing. I didn't like the icons supplied but that was soon changed and development of Thing flew. I got new updates almost weekly and each version was more powerful than the previous one. It could do stuff I hadn't even thought of. For a start it's modular so you can use the best software for searching - Parafin, formatting - Kobold, printing - IdeaList, file management - Kobold again. You can install many apps to one file type, brilliant.

It fully supports the AV Protocol, the font protocol, drag and drop and the Magic operating system. Thing is THE desktop replacement for the Atari computer. It has never crashed in hours of use and is written with 100 percent legal code, hackless, if you prefer. It's not just the major features that make it the leader in my eyes. Little attentions to detail such as not having to have labels under desktop icons or having the open option in the file menu always available give it the edge.

Used in conjunction with Freedom this minor feature becomes very powerful indeed. Imagine clicking on the open menu option, Freedom pops up, going to Freedom's file history option and picking that file you've been working on for days now. Thing then starts the installed app for the file and sends it over. Not only that but Thing asks you which program you wish to use - if you've more than one installed for that file type - now that's power, that's Thing.

Domhnall Dods comes to the aid of Ease...

Ease was for many years the only real alternative to Neodesk for those who did not like the plain TOS desktop. In recent times it has had more of a run for its money with the arrival of viable shareware alternatives such as Thing and no|Desk. Thing seems to be a front runner among the more prominent players in the Atari field and indeed it is a very good desktop. So why do some of us still persist with Ease?

Well despite a number of features which are not implemented (yet) Ease still leads the way in a number of ways. It's very much down to personal choice but Ease just feels right for me. I have tried Thing but just couldn't warm to it. Perhaps I'm getting stubborn in my old age but I still prefer Ease. I won't go over all the features which it shares with the other desktops because those are the reasons for using any replacement desktop in preference to TOS. Features such as using the right mouse button rather than double clicking, have become almost a standard feature these days. Instead I will pick on just one or two features that make Ease stand out from the rest of the bunch.

I have to confess to being something of a fan of icons. Ever since I got my first Falcon I have been fascinated by the different possibilities for playing around with different colours etc. Ease comes with its own built in Icon editor and allows the budding artists among us to customise the look of the desktop by creating brand new icons or editing existing ones. Speaking of pretty desktops although it can be more fiddly than others to get an image on the desktop (it has to be named ease.img) Ease does score over the others in that it gives far greater control over the way in which the image is to be displayed. This can be used to create interesting effects or simply to make the image look as if there is no background surrounding it at all (as is the preference of a certain AtariPhile editor).

The desktop filetree popup is invaluable when navigating around a large hard drive or increasingly these days around a CD Rom. The ability to wander back and forth through the directory structure without endless opening and closing of windows is a real timesaver. Having got used to this particular feature I quite simply could not go back to being without it. It's a difficult thing to explain but once you've tried it you'll see what I mean.

Finally I would pick out the desktop memos, electronic "post-it" notes if you like. If like me you are blessed with a poor memory and a busy life, Ease comes to the rescue! Rather than cover the monitor with paper notes as I used to, I can now arrange notes on screen so there is no risk of them falling off and getting lost, nor do they obscure the screen when I run a program. Ease allows full control over the colour of both the note background and border as well as the ability to use any installed font in any point size or colour. Personally I assign different colours according to priority or urgency, with review deadlines for AtariPhile going in large yellow letters against a bright red background! [I should think so too - Ed]

As I said at the start, the choice of desktop is a very personal one. There are so many excellent alternatives these days for the Atari user that the choice is more difficult than ever. What I would say is give each a fair hearing, and, if possible try out a demo version before parting with any cash. Despite the advances made by others, Ease is still the best choice around. With version 5 just around the corner I'm sure it will be an even better choice in the near future. Watch this space.....