At Ease
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At Ease was an alternative to the Macintosh desktop developed by Apple Computer in the early 1990s. It provided a simple environment for new Macintosh users that was especially helpful in allowing them to work independently without supervision. At Ease sits on top of the Finder desktop, providing a simple tab panel oriented graphical user interface where applications and documents are represented by icons on large buttons.
Features
- Panels — At the main At Ease desktop, there are two "panels" which are accessed with tab buttons. One displays your applications and one displays your personal documents. When a panel is full, another is created and you must change the current page.
- Multiple users — At the time At Ease was released, System 7 did not support multiple users. At Ease provided an easy and safe way for Macintosh users to store personal files on their computer and protect them from other people using the same computer.
- Sharing — At Ease allows files to be shared with other users.
- Privileges — The main user (known as the "Administrator" or "Owner") can set what programs and documents the user has access to.
- Secure — At Ease allowed passwords to be set for each user, to make sure that one user cannot log on to another users' account
At Ease for Workgroups
At Ease for Workgroups allows users to log on to a server from any workstation the has the At Ease software installed. At Ease for Workgroups introduced a number of network specific features not found in the original At Ease. The workgroup version enabled client configuration, network access and restrictions on how the clients computer can be used. At Ease for Workgroups also included an Administration program that can add users and workgroups to the network.Today
Built-in support for multiple users was implemented into Mac OS 9, bringing all of the features straight into the Mac OS and eliminated the need to install and use a different environment.Even though At Ease was discontinued, certain aspects of its innovative user interface have continued to influence Mac OS. For example Mac OS 8 and Mac OS 9 included the Platinum interface theme, which some may claim draws upon the visual styling of At Ease. In Mac OS X, the use of the Dock to provide a configurable list of commonly launched applications vaguely resembles the model of At Ease. Additionally Finder's model of only showing one folder per window at a time also resembles the original At Ease.
See also
External links
- [Versiontracker — Apple At Ease - 5.0.2]
- [Toastytech GUIs - Apple At Ease 2.0]
- [Apple - Older Software Downloads]
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