Customize Your Startup in TempleOS

Nov 10, 2019

If you like TempleOS but are offput by the documentation not giving you an ArchWiki tutorial, go back to Linux! Nah, you don't have to; I kid! TempleOS is neat, but I never truly liked the startup screen: three windows, two terminals, and that pesky AutoComplete popup... yuk.

Let's fix it up to be a bit cleaner. Heck, let's stop that Take Tour prompt and add an image! And while we're at it, let's change the background color! This is the end result:

The main files you will be working with are under the C:/ and C:/Adam/ directories:

• C:/StartOS.HC.Z
• C:/Once.HC.Z
• C:/HomeSys.HC.Z
• C:/Adam/AutoComplete/ACInit.HC.Z
• C:/Adam/Wallpaper.HC.Z
• C:/Doc/Start.DD.Z

When you have configured the system the way you want, simply type in Reboot; and hit the enter key!

Control Number and Layout of Startup Terms

For the number of terms, either add or remove users on lines 24-26 in C:/HomeSys.HC.Z:

CTask *user1,*user2; user1=User; user2=User;

I simply only allowed 1 user, thus one term on startup.

For the term's startup layout, change line 28: WinTileVert;. I set it to WinTileHorz; so it will fill up the screen appropriately.

Disabling Left Term Tip of Day and Tour

To change the initial left term startup behavior, from the defaults, edit C:/Once.HC.Z. Find case BOOT_SRC_HARDDRV: if you want to change the default behavior when booting from hard disk. I simply commented out the existing code. You could do other things, like play a little melody or reorganize how everything displays.

Disabling the Top / Debug Term

Edit C:/StartOS.HC.Z and comment out or remove lines 20-22:

Dbg("Type 'Gl'"); DocTermNew; WinVert(2,10);

I would recommend against this because errors will print and overlay your active term session.

Have AutoComplete in the Background

Edit C:/Adam/AutoComplete/ACInit.HC.Z and change line 160 from ON to OFF. This effectively will hide AutoComplete on startup, but still leave it active if you try to access it with the keyboard shortcuts.

Changing the Wallpaper Background Color

Edit C:/Adam/WallPaper.HC.Z, do a find and replace on BLUE to your color of choice. I chose to use LTBLUE, the light blue, Commodore64-esque blue color. I'd suggest you have a background color variable and change that once.

Customizing the New Term Header

Edit C:/Doc/Start.DD.Z and format and add whatever you want. I added a pointer to a custom 2D sprite I made: