October 1, 1998
Calling all Trekkers, or anybody else who wants some variety and extra ease when browsing Windows 95 or Windows 98! Z-desk provides a faster, simpler, and easier way to navigate around many aspects of your computer as well as throwing in some other cool features, like sounds, and a display called "systems check." At every turn Z-Desk makes your PC sound or look much like the computer screens on Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Voyager.
How it Works
When launched, Z-Desk puts a small icon on your system tray. To turn Z-Desk on,
left-click on this icon, and to make it disappear, simply reverse-click on it. Its
transition from full screen to out of your way is lightning fast and makes Z-Desk very
usable. A hot-key user can also put Z-Desk in the background with Control-B or minimize it
to the tray (hide it) with Control-H.
When Z-Desk is on, it is always full screen but may be in the background at all times, if you wish. There are several screens and each screen has a similar layout. The title of the particular screen you are on is displayed at the top, and the control bar is displayed on the right side. Beneath the control bar is text which displays the date and time. Since the interface is designed to simulate a Star Trek-like computer console, the buttons are all rectangular and look similar to this one. They are quite colorful.
The first screen you see when you launch Z-Desk is the desktop screen pictured below scaled "way" down to speed download time. As you can see, it says Desktop in the upper left corner of the screen, and has the control bar on the right side. The links on the left side are the same shortcuts that are on my desktop. Single-clicking on these has the same effect as clicking on a shortcut on the desktop. Each of the color bars that you see are the rectangular buttons (icons, if you will), that I mentioned. So, each one has a different name corresponding to the items on your unique desktop.
There are some buttons in the middle of the desktop screen towards the bottom. These buttons control master "volume" program and launch the "run" and "find" programs included in Windows. The volume control displays volume as a percent of maximum volume and decreases in increments of 5%. The inclusion of these buttons is a terrific idea, if you ask me. This is a good example of how Z-Desk follows the theme of turning your screen into a control console.
The next option on the control bar is the Communications screen. This allows you to launch your dial-up networking connections and HyperTerminal connections. As you can see, the motif for the border has changed from blue on the Desktop screen to yellow on the Communications screen. This default can be changed on all the screens but the default options are really quite nice.
The Control Panel screen is seen below. Control Panel allows you to launch each control on your control panel as if you used the Windows application for that purpose. The default motif for this is green, and this screen also has an interesting tree shape as you can see. This can also accommodate any additional CPL applications if you have more controls than those in the Windows default.
Below the Control Panel screen you find the Favorites screen. Favorites allows you to browse your Internet favorites. Clicking on one of these will launch your default web browser and automatically navigate to the site listed just like an Internet link. The directories are shown by placing a semi-circle in front of the name of the directory. A single click will take you into the directory and to get out of the directory simply click on the button labeled "<<<." Sounds are always emitted as you make these choices.
While my image only shows one column of entries, I found that you can have over sixty Favorites displayed on the screen. At that point, you will have four columns showing.
The Programs screen allows you to browse your start menu. The structure of this is slightly different than the structure of Favorites screen. The directories are the rectangular buttons on the left, and the program links are the buttons in the middle. Here also, to go back up in the directory tree click the button labeled "<<<."
One of the most distinctive features of Z-Desk is the default WAV files that play a Star Trek like beep-beep followed by the spoken phrase "accessing." This happens when the menu on the left (a duplicate of your Start menu) is clicked. When that happens the sounds are played and the contents of the menu are expanded into the middle of the Z-Desk screen. When you then open the program with another click, a similar Star Trek sound is played. There is a different sound when the folder is collapsed back with the "<<<" bar. It is actually very cute. Almost every action in Z-Desk has a similar type sound associated with it, whether it is in the control panel or the desktop. The sounds are upbeat and have evoked a "Cool...." from visitors near my workstation.
The Personal screen is a nice touch because it allows users to set up a group of needed links that aren't accessible by Z-Desk in any other way. Here you can put links, programs, files, folders, etc., and Z-Desk will open them when their button is clicked. The button will display the same name as the file or shortcut it refers to. The screen will show one column until you have more than fifteen entries listed, then it displays two.
As you can see, when there are a great number of files, the size of the button shrinks dramatically. The small size is aesthetically pleasing on a real screen but the screen shot here is somewhat misleading. In fact, the larger font on the buttons is almost too large for my taste, so I prefer these thinner rectangles and smaller fonts.
The next screen shot shows the Task List screen. The buttons simply launch the programs currently running in your task bar. These items change as you run more programs, of course. Clicking on one will bring it to the foreground. This means that you could shrink your Windows 95 or Windows 98 task bar to a single thin line at the bottom of your screen and use this consistent interface of Z-Desk to switch tasks.
Other Fun Options
Z-Desk has many options, and they are all covered in one dialog screen. This window
is opened by pressing the button labeled "OPTN" on the control bar that is
always visible on the right side of your screen while Z-Desk is running. The first
option is the language in which you want to run Z-Desk. You can choose system
defined, English, or German.
Next, it appears that you should be able to change the font size and face. I didn't have much luck making use of the Font Change dialog. Since I like the look of a smaller font than the default, I tried to change the font size every way I could. When I used the Font Change dialog, Z-Desk seemed to accept the change in the dialog box but not reflect it in a change of appearance. Exiting and restarting did not help correct this either. Z-Desk seems to be locked into using a 16 point font regardless of your lower choice. The size won't change and trying to change it repeatedly crashed the program for me. The author, when contacted, said that you can't change the font size. All displays scale the text automatically to the actual items that have to be displayed and this is not in the documentation. You can change the font type however, and that will provide lots of further variety.
You can change the frequency and duration of the color change and animation. The "animations" are the buttons changing from the actual label to something that has to to with Star Trek theme. This change may be a slight color shift or it may take the form of the rectangle being briefly replaced with a phrase like "weapon systems inoperable." (You never know when you're gonna need those weapon systems!) It is all in good fun and the only possible distraction here is in the moments that the phrase that is shown reads something to the effect "error with 4563." This is a Star Trek sort of message, but a novice user might really think the computer was having an error reported. I think it might be a slight improvement for the Z-Desk folks to avoid any potential confusions like that. After all, it is the sort of interface that simplifies the Windows operating system and, therefore, might be used by novices!
The display click-box allows you to turn a rendering trick on and off. This will help slow machines receive a screen display before all the animation ideas are rendered. But, to actually turn off the animations, themselves, it is necessary to set either the duration or the frequency setting (or both) to zero.
You can change the color of the menu options to a random color, or the base color of the screen, and you can choose whether or not you wish the buttons to be solid or gradient. The next item selects the speed with which the System Statistics displays.
Base Colors lets you select and change base colors. You can change the base colors for all of the different screens. There are two base colors: Primary and secondary. To change them, you simply double-click and use a color picker that is displayed.
The option for sounds allows you to mute all sound and change the sound for selected events from the default to your own custom sound. You can change the sounds for Select, Launch, Comm, and Program menu switching.
Date/Time allows or disallows the time and date to be put underneath the control bar. Background allows or disallows Z-Desk to always go to the background and Volume allows or disallows the volume control display on the Desktop screen.
The Display Interval's function eluded me, its name suggests that it regulates the time and something is displayed. But apparently this controls the speed, in seconds, of Z-Desk's attempt to update the task list displayed.
Something else that should be noted is that pressing the OK button once doesn't seem to do the trick and you have to press it twice to get the window to go away - it may just be a slow response time as options are updated. The same seems to apply for the cancel button. In addition, some Program changes don't take effect until you close Z-Desk and open it again.
Cool Features
Z-Desk has some really cool features among its simple screens. It can perform a
"system check" in which it checks your system statistics. System Check
shows current user, Windows build, type of processor, amount of memory free, and many
other things. This screen can be pulled up by clicking "SYST" on the
control bar. As it opens it makes clever sounds that are again reminiscent of the Star
Trek Starship Enterprise. But, be a bit careful when you use this function.
Once started, it won't stop to let you click something else until it is finished scrolling
out everything it has to say at the speed you set. This can be annoying it you have
a slow system and set SYST Display Speed to the slowest.
Additional items can be added to the DTOP, PRGM and PSNL menus by drag and drop. That is, just open a My Computer folder, navigate to the shortcut you would like to add to the PSNL (personal) view, and then drag it to the PSNL screen. Z-Desk will prompt you to confirm the action and then add it alphabetically in the list of icons rectangle bars.
Finally, when you click exit on the control bar you get the following screen. It allows you to either quit Z-Desk, shut down, restart your system, or log on as a different user. Once again, no need to see the Windows' conventional interface if you so choose.
And finally, if you choose to quit Z-Desk, you will be asked to confirm that you want to quit. This seems like one too many confirmations to me.
The makers of Z-Desk recommend that you run a color depth of 16 bits (65536 colors) or better and a screen resolution of 800 by 600 or higher is recommended. Z-Desk runs on Windows 98 or Windows 95. It is a shame it is not made for the HPC operating system, Windows CE 2.x - it would be extremely appropriate for a touch screen machine.
Conclusion
Z-Desk is a good program. The only annoyances I encountered was the confusion about
options and font changes. The sounds and colorful interface make it fun to use, and
it provides an escape from the normal Windows interface. The Star Trek
motif is cute, but in my own personal opinion, the buttons don't seem to be as restrictive
to the Star Trek computer buttons as you might think from the
advertisements. That's a plus.
The program works fine and it adds simplicity and order to the graphical interface. It sort of reminds me of the (now gone but once very popular) program "AutoMenu." You can download and decide for yourself by clicking here. The cost of the program is $US 15.00.
This program is a cute and simple novelty shell for Windows 95 and Windows 98. Z-Desk only has minor annoyances and I give it three out of five Go Inside Review Lights.
Copyright © 1998 by Shawn Lankton.
"Go Inside" is a David Boles Trademark