5.1 The Tools page

How the page is laid out

The “All tools” table

Above the table are the filters: the search, “Platform”, “Type” (“All types” or one of the eight) and “Status” (All, Installed, Not installed, To apply, Used by projects), plus the “Expand” and “Verify” buttons. The columns: name, version, versions on disk, size, status, projects that use it, what it requires and the actions.

The rows are divided by kind. Each kind has a title row: the arrow to fold or unfold it, its name, how many components it holds (“3”, or “2 of 5” when a filter hides some), its description and a “Choose all: …” checkbox that chooses all its components that can be chosen; the checkbox in the header, “Choose all those shown”, does the same with all the visible rows. A click on a column header sorts the rows inside each kind (by name at first).

While work is in progress, four more states appear, only on the system shown: “in progress” (with the download percentage), “queued”, “to install” and “to remove” (choices not yet applied).

Acting right away, or choosing and applying

1. Tick the components to add and untick the ones to remove. The changed rows are highlighted in color.
2. At the bottom the bar says, for example, “2 to install (180 MB), 1 to remove”.
3. Press “Apply”: “Apply the changes?” appears with the list of what will be installed and removed. “Back” or Esc closes the question without changing anything.
4. Press “Confirm”. First things are removed, then installed; the progress runs in the bar (“Installing 1/3: …”). “Cancel” stops at the end of the current step.

• Removing a component is possible only with the checkbox and “Apply”, never with an icon: it is an operation that needs confirmation.
• Dependencies follow in both directions: choosing Kotlin chooses Java, removing Java removes Kotlin and Android. The labels on the rows explain it (“Needs Java: installed with it”, “Needed by Kotlin: stays installed while it is needed”).
• A component required by a project but not chosen has a triangle and the label “Needed by the projects: … Not chosen: choose it so they work.”
• A component deleted by hand from the disk is removed from the selection when the page opens, with a warning.

A component's tab

A click on the name opens the tab. At the top, like the page of an editor extension: the large logo, the name, kind, status and size, the description and the buttons “Install”/“Keep” and “Remove”/“Do not install” (choices to apply), plus “Official site”. Below, a bar with three sections, one at a time:

“Platform”, “Expand”, “Verify” and “Check the files”

• “Platform” chooses which system to view (and prepare) the components for: Windows x64 or ARM64, macOS Apple Silicon or Intel, Linux x64 or ARM64. The same kit on a USB stick opens on all six: from here you can prepare the programs for another system before taking the stick there.
• “Expand” adds a status column for each of the six systems; “Collapse” goes back to the one of the chosen system.
• “Verify” asks every installed component to respond with its version, and adds a ✓ or ⚠ mark in the status cell.
• “Check the files” compares the files of every installed program with those of its installation: it finds the files missing or changed, for example on a damaged USB stick. Every damaged folder shows how many files changed and how many are missing, the first paths and “Reinstall”; with more than one there is also “Reinstall all”. If everything is fine, “No damaged file” appears with the number of folders checked.
• “Reinstall” puts the program's files back at the same version; projects and databases are not touched. Files added after the installation (pip packages, gems, workloads) and those the kit or the programs change on purpose (httpd.conf, config.inc.php, the logs) are not damage. Rust, Android and TinyTeX are not checked: their folder is theirs to change.
• A component installed before Atollo kept the manifest appears in the “Without a manifest” list: it is checked from its next installation or update.

The “Updates” box

In the Tools side bar, below “Components” and “Overview”, the “Updates” box lists the installed components that have a newer version at their source: instead of “Update all” blindly, you see what changes and choose. The number of those behind appears on the box's title and on the Tools icon in the activity bar (“New versions: 2”).

• Each row: the name, the installed version → the new one (for example 2.100.0 → 2.103.0), “What changes” and “Update”.
• “What changes” opens the component's release notes in the browser (its source's changelog or releases page); if the component has none, its official site.
• “Update” updates only that component, like “Update” in its row of the table; when the work ends the row disappears from the box.
• The versions are asked by themselves after the start, at most once a day, only with “Automatic update” on in Settings; “Check now” (the circular arrow on the box's title) asks them at once. At the bottom, “Checked on …” says when.
• “Everything up to date.” when nothing is behind; “Not checked yet…” until the versions have never been asked. The components that are part of the app, at a pinned version, do not appear: they follow Atollo's version. Versions are compared by numbers (2.10 comes after 2.9), and an older version at the source is not an update.