A new Alpha of the Apple II Desktop has been released. This update of the Apple II Desktop, a graphical mouse driven interface, includes a bevy of enhancements to the program including:
- Current time shown on right side of menu bar, if system has a clock. (#7)
- Up to 13 volumes are shown on the desktop (was 10). (#20)
- Up to 12 Desk Accessories are shown in the menu (was 8). (#90)
- Drag “unlimited” number of icons (was 20). (#18)
- Menus allow click-to-drop, click-to-select interaction. (#104)
- Add Special > Check Drive command to refresh a single drive. (#97)
- Show Text File DA: Keyboard support. Escape quits, arrows scroll. (#4)
- Reorganized/renamed several menu items. (#13)
- New icons for graphics, AppleWorks, relocatable, command, and IIgs-specific file types. (#105)
- Desktop icon shown for AppleTalk file shares. (#88)
- Improvements to several existing icon bitmaps. (#74)
- DAs with high bit in aux-type set are skipped. (#102)
- Icons for volumes positioned more predictably and sensibly. (#94)
- GS/OS filenames (supported by ProDOS 2.5) are shown with correct case. (#64)
- Text and Graphics files can be previewed without leaving DeskTop (File > Open, or double-click).
There are also five new Desk accessories included in the releases including This Apple, Eyes, Screen Dump, Key Caps, and Rub Basic Here.
Joshua Bell, the curator of the Apple II Desktop Github page also took on a ton of bug fixes in the original program. The last version released by Apple was in November 1986 and while it was quite good at the time, it was a bit too little to really take hold of the market when introduced.
Previously Jay Edwards had taken on the mountainous task of trying to re-work the program with some success but in his announcement, he left a number of enhancements in a list that he wished could be done.
Version 1.2a is available from the Apple II Desktop Github page at:
https://github.com/inexorabletash/a2d/releases
