Installing the enclosed icons
Installing the enclosed icons
In order to get you started I've created a DESKICON.RSC file containing 81 icons along with a NEWDESK.INF file where I've assigned most of those icons to various file types.
This means that you're saved the tedious work of getting started and will get a very nice setup (if I may say so myself!) with icons for the most commonly used files. After having installed these files you may continue assigning icons to other files, installing programs, adding extra icons or customizing your setup in other ways.
Since TOS 2.06 can save desktop window size/positions I've also organized the windows in a way that I think most people will be happy with when they're opened.
Go to the section named: icons.htm adding, editing and creating icons for TOS 2.06 to learn more about how to organize or even edit/create your own custom icons.
The DESKICON.RSC and NEWDESK.INF files (as well as an ASCII text version of this page and a .IMG version of the screenshot shown further down on this page) are all found in the [[../software/ software]] folder of this user-guide.
Installation procedure
Assuming that you haven't already made a working setup on your computer (in which case, just back up DESKICON.RSC and NEWDESK.INF which you can revert to in case you don't like the setup presented here)...
- Copy the enclosed DESKICON.RSC file to the #root root of your boot-drive.
- Copy the enclosed NEWDESK.INF file to the #root root of your boot-drive.
- Reboot (restart) the computer. This will load all the icons and their file-assignments.
- You will see the desktop with the trash-can, hard disk drive C and floppy disk drive A. This might not correspond to your actual system, so go to the "Options" menu, then select The "Options" menu#install_devices "Install Devices".
This will present you with desktop icons for all available hard disks, CD-ROM drives, floppy drives etc. If there are any drives you don't want (e.g. floppy drive B which isn't needed on a system without a second disk drive) you may click on that device once (to select it), then go to the "Options" menu and select The "Options" menu#remove_icon "Remove Desktop Icon". - Go to the "Options" menu, then select The "Options" menu#save_desktop "Save Desktop" to save your current desktop setup.
"Root of the boot drive"==
- Boot Drive: the startup drive where you keep your ACCessories, AUTO programs etc.
This is usually drive C on a hard disk, or on a floppy-disk system it's the same disk you have your ACCessories and AUTO programs on, inserted into the drive each time you start the computer (a tips.htm#boot_floppy boot floppy disk).- Root: not inside any folders. The same place as where your ACCessories are found on the boot drive/disk.
The icons
Here's a screenshot of all the icons from the "DESKICON.RSC" file.
Note that although most of them have names, this has nothing to do with the icon assignment/installation in any way. It's just there for your convenience, so you get some sort of idea what they're all being used for.
I've named many of them with the same file names/file masks as I've used when installing them to correspond to their file types. If you look closely you'll also see a small "tick" mark to the left of some icons. This indicated that the icon is in use (has been installed, representing a file/folder/drive/program etc.).
File assignments
To save you lots of time I've gone through the various file types you're most likely to encounter and assigned them to icons. This means that for example all files ending with ".JPG" will have the same icon, representing them as JPEG image files.
Here's a complete list of the files I've assigned to the various icons (using The "Options" menu#install_icon "Install Icon" in the "Options" menu)...
| Name | Type | Matches the file-types |
| AUTO | Folder | AUTO folder |
| *.APP | File | GEM Application |
| *.APX | File | GEM Application (disabled) |
| *.PRG | File | GEM Program |
| *.PRX | File | GEM Program (disabled) |
| *.ACC | File | Accessory |
| *.ACX | File | Accessory (disabled) |
| *.TTP | File | TTP (TOS Takes Parameters) command-line application |
| *.GTP | File | GTP (GEM Takes Parameters) application |
| *.TOS | File | TOS (The Operating System) application |
| CPX | Folder | CPX module folder |
| *.CPX | File | CPX (Control Panel Extension) module |
| *.CPZ | File | CPX (Control Panel Extension) module (disabled) |
| *.SET | File | Setup file |
| *.INF | File | Information file |
| *.CFG | File | Configuration file |
| *.CNF | File | Configuration file |
| *.SYS | File | System file |
| *.BAK | File | Backup file |
| *.TXT | File | ASCII text file |
| *.DOC | File |
1st Word/Word Plus or ASCII text file [[#doc [[*]] |
| READ*.* | File | Readme ASCII text file (READ.ME, README.1ST, READ_ME.NOW etc.) |
| CLIPBRD | Folder | Clipboard (temporary) folder |
| SCRAP.* | File | Clipboard (temporary) file (SCRAP.TXT, SCRAP.IMG etc.) |
| *.HYP | File | ST-Guide hypertext help file |
| *.RSC | File | Resource file |
| *.IMG | File | IMG image file |
| *.GIF | File | GIF image file |
| *.JPG | File | JPEG image file |
| *.GEM | File | GEM image file |
| *.PI1 | File | PI1 image file |
| *.PI2 | File | PI2 image file |
| *.PI3 | File | PI3 image file |
| *.SND | File | SND audio file |
| *.AIF | File | AIFF audio file |
| *.HSN | File | HSN audio file |
| *.AVR | File | AVR audio file |
| *.SMP | File | SMP audio file |
| *.WAV | File | WAV audio file |
| *.AU | File | AU audio file |
| *.FNT | File | GEM font |
| *.SPD | File | Speedo GDOS font |
| *.TTF | File | TrueType font |
| *.HTM | File | HTML (HyperText Markup Language) file |
| *.LZH | File | LZH (Lharc) compressed file |
| *.ZIP | File | ZIP compressed file |
| *.ARC | File | ARC compressed file |
| *.ZOO | File | ZOO compressed file |
[[*]] The ".DOC" extension belongs to files created with the "1st word" and "First Word Plus" word-processors, but since they can also read/write plain ASCII text files people went on naming plain ASCII files ".DOC" as well (instead of the more correct ".TXT" ending).
The mentioned programs can read both formats just fine, but viewing a ".DOC" file which has been saved as a word-processor document gives all sorts of strange formatting characters.
To confuse the issue even more, "Microsoft Word" documents from PCs or Macs share that same ".DOC" file-ending, but are of course totally incompatible with the above.
Anyway, since most ".DOC" files are actually plain ASCII text files anyway I use the built-in viewer of TOS (or a replacement, such as "GUCK" to display any text file, and for the occasional word-processor formatted ".DOC" file I use "1st Word".
Incidently, GUCK actually reads 1st Word/First Word Plus word-processor documents, but without a standard font (you lose out on the bold/italic/underlining etc.)
The 12 default icons in TOS
As explained in the section about icons.htm#default_icn organizing, editing/creating icons, there are 12 icons which come as part of TOS 2.06 itself, but are replaced whenever a "DESKICON.RSC" file is used. To keep the correct order of the default file-assignments you should start off any "DESKICON.RSC" with those 12 icons, then add your icons after these.
The icon file I've made includes these icons, so use it as a base for whichever icon setup you want to create.
All of this (and more) is explained in the mentioned section of this user-guide.