** 1 page review / 888 words **

Ease 5

Kev Beardsworth takes a look at the latest update to this replacement desktop...

** EASE01.GIF here **

I've experimented with just about every Atari replacement desktop. Finding a desktop which provides the ultimate working environment has been my personal quest for the Holy Grail. However one desktop has eluded my detailed attention, but thanks to Atari Computing that's all changed.

Ease was originally written as a MagXDesk replacement and MagiC certainly pushes any desktop to its limits. As a MagXDesk replacement Ease is up against stiff competition from Neodesk and Thing. Like all shells under MagiC, Ease is started by adding an entry in the MAGX.INF file which includes its path and program name after the SHL command. This can be performed automatically when installing MagiC or by subsequently editing MAGX.INF using any ASCII text editor.

Ease takes a whooping 54 seconds to arrive at the desktop on my system with the "Load fonts at start up" option switched on and 24 seconds with it switched off. Since turning off this option restricts you to the system font inside Ease it's not much of an option for most users. It's bad enough waiting for Ease to load once per session but if you plan to unload Ease from memory during program execution in a single TOS setup you'll be left with plenty of time to read the manual! I understand the delay is due to Ease only loading into memory the icons actually used. I'd personally welcome an option to load all the icons into memory in exchange for faster loading, Thing does this and arrives at the desktop in only 14 seconds complete with all installed NVDI/Speedo fonts.

Once at the desktop Ease appears neat and tidy, the default icons are functional and can be edited using the built-in icon editor as desired. Icon files are saved internally in Ease's own proprietary format but standard RSC files can be imported and exported which is good news for icon collectors. Desktop icons have to have labels, which is one of my pet hates - even the TOS Newdesk could handle icons without labels.

Configuring Ease is straightforward thanks to the modern well-designed interface. All the main dialogs are displayed in windows and both these and all the alerts sport the neat 3D design where system resources allow. Despite this Ease dialogs have fallen behind its competitors, there's no keyboard shortcuts and most of the windowed dialogs are modal which means other Ease functions are blocked until its closed again! This is positively multitasking unfriendly, very strange!

Ease configuration is divided into two main areas, called Settings and Applications. The later offers the features found in the TOS Install application dialog with the added ability to support more than one file type and define "Hotkeys" for easy program launching. Software can also be configured to auto start on booting Ease which is handy so long as you always run the same software each session. The Settings sections deals with everything else from how windows should appear to how individual drives are assigned.

Naturally Ease features several "Wow!" features. The most impressive is the drive tree popup. Hold down the left mouse button over a drive icon for a configurable period of time and Ease displays a file tree. From here you can navigate the entire hard drive partition without opening a window. In a similar vein left clicking anywhere on the Ease desktop background displays a desktop popup which displays a list of all icons currently on the desktop. This great little feature really comes into its own when your desktop icons are buried beneath piles of open application windows. The built-in Notepad facility is useful for creating on-screen reminders and, if you use it, saves installing an equivalent stand alone utility.

From the version number, it's fairly obvious that Ease has been around for a while. So what's new in Ease 5? The main additions are long file name support and "on-the-fly" resolution changing. Long filename support works very well under MagiC 5 and it's a great bonus to be able to give files proper descriptive names. Another valuable new feature is the addition of some new icons in each window info line. These enable font selection, display mode, auto-resize and file extension filtering but the extension list has to be manually created - it would be much nicer if Ease intelligently displayed the extensions contained in the window.

Although I'm personally disappointed with Ease 5 it is reliable, easy to set up and use and for these reasons deservedly attracts a loyal following. However, when pushed hard in a demanding multitasking environment, Ease doesn't measure up and I'm left to continue my quest for the Holy Grail.

** Product boxout **
Product name: Ease 5
Publisher: ASH
UK distributor: System Solutions
Contact: +44 (0)181 693 3355
Cost: Special offer price £39.95 (normally £49.95). Also included with MagiCMac/PC
Requires: Any Atari, 1Mb memory minimum and hard disk recommended
Pros: Looks good, reliable, easy to setup and use
Cons: Slow to load, modal dialogs, included with MagiCMac/PC but not MagiC
Score: 75%
** End boxout **

** EASE02.GIF **
The main Settings dialog. As icons are selected different configuration options are displayed

** EASE03.GIF **
The main Application dialog, based on the TOS Install applications dialog with useful added extras