1. First steps
1.3 Getting to know the window
Activity bar, sidebar, tabs, status bar and the “Activity” panel: where things are and what they are for.
In short
- The window looks like Visual Studio Code's: if you know it, you will find your way right away.
- On the left the activity bar changes page; next to it, the sidebar shows lists and trees.
- In the center the tabs; at the bottom the status bar and the “Activity” panel with what is in progress.
- Ctrl+P opens a project by name from any page.
- Ctrl+Shift+P opens the command palette from any page, even from a terminal: start or stop a project, open it, launch an agent in it, change page.
The parts of the window
1 · Title bar
2 · Activity bar
3 · Sidebar
4 · Tab area
5 · “Activity” panel
6 · Status bar
| Part | What it contains |
|---|---|
| 1 · Title bar | The name Atollo and the open page; on the right minimize, maximize and close. Drag it to move the window, double-click to maximize it. |
| 2 · Activity bar | The page icons. At the top the working ones: Projects, AI (agents and local models), Databases, Web Servers, Terminals, Tools. At the bottom: Guide, Settings, Remove drive. A number on the Projects icon tells how many things are running: project actions, database versions, web server pools and the local models server. |
| 3 · Sidebar | The page title with its icons (including the book “Open the guide for this page”), often a search box, and panes that open and close with a click on their title. |
| 4 · Tab area | What you choose in the sidebar opens in a tab. The first tab of some pages is fixed: the “Quick panel” in Projects, “All tools” in Tools. |
| 5 · “Activity” panel | It opens from the status bar. It lists the installation in progress, the running database versions, the running web server pools, the local models server and the project actions, each with its output; “Stop everything” stops them all after a confirmation. |
| 6 · Status bar | On the left the Atollo item and the counter of what is running and of the errors, which shows or hides the “Activity” panel; on the right the open terminals, the editor status, the system (for example win32-x64) and, last, the Atollo version: a click checks for updates, and the result appears beside it (a check mark, the new version or a warning). |
The pages
Projects
The heart of the work: the list of projects, the “Quick panel”, creating new projects and the page of each project. How it works
Read →AI
All of the kit's AI in two panes. “Agents”: signing in to your account, plan limits and usage, and what the agents share (instructions, skills, MCP servers). “Local models”: the language models on the PC for Pi and the chat in the browser, the llama.cpp server, downloads from the catalog and from Hugging Face. How it works
Read →Databases
The kit's MySQL and MongoDB servers: starting, passwords, ports, versions, phpMyAdmin and mongo-express. How it works
Read →Web Servers
The Caddy and Apache servers shared among projects and the .localhost websites they serve. How it works
Read →Tools
The kit's languages, agents, databases and programs: install, update, remove, several versions. How it works
Read →Guide
This guide. Every page also has a book-shaped icon that opens the right topic. How it works
Read →Settings
Language, theme, network, GitHub account and who signs the commits, updates, privacy and framework instructions, saved by themselves; “The kit”, with its health, its copy and the diagnostics. How it works
Read →Remove drive
Closes everything the kit has opened, before you unplug the USB stick. How it works
Read →The status bar and the “Activity” panel
| Item | What it says | What a click does |
|---|---|---|
| Atollo (on the left) | Hovering over it shows the kit folder. | — |
| ▶ number · ⨯ number | How many things are running (project actions, every running database version, even several of the same database, the running web server pools and the local models server) and how many actions stopped with an error. It turns red if there is at least one error. | Opens or closes the “Activity” panel. |
| Spinner with text | A component installation in progress and the step it is on. | — |
| Open terminals | How many sessions the app's terminal panel has. | Shows or hides the terminals. |
| Editor running | The editor server is on (hovering over it shows its address). | — |
| win32-x64, darwin-arm64… | The system and the processor the kit runs on. | — |
| v0.x.y | The Atollo version. | — |
In the “Activity” panel you select each item to see its details: for a project action the status, the address and the live output, with “Open in the browser”, “Stop” or, if it has finished, “Remove”; for a database the name, the address, any errors, the log file and “Stop”; for a web server pool the address, the attached VirtualHosts and “Stop”; for the local models the address, the models in memory and “Stop”. “Stop everything”, at the top, asks “Stop the projects' actions, the databases, the local models and the web servers that are running?” and then stops actions, databases, local models and pools. If there is nothing, “nothing running” appears. You resize the panel by dragging its edge; a double-click on the edge brings it back to its initial height.
Useful shortcuts and habits
| Keys | What it does |
|---|---|
| Ctrl+P | Opens “Open a project” (⌘P on macOS): type part of the name, the platform or the language. Enter opens the project's page, Shift+Enter starts its default action, Esc closes. |
| Ctrl+Shift+P | Opens “Commands”, the command palette (⌘⇧P on macOS), from any page and also from a terminal. It offers “Start” or “Stop” and “Open” for each project, “Open … in the editor”, each installed agent in a project, “Start” or “Stop” for MySQL and MongoDB, “Go to” for the other pages and, when something is running, “Stop everything”. Every word you type must appear, in any order; ↑ and ↓ choose, Enter runs, Esc closes. |
| Esc | Closes confirmation dialogs and image zoom, and cancels the questions in the page (for example the one of “Stop everything” or of removing a terminal). |
- Hover the mouse over icons, dots and tags: almost everything has a tooltip that explains what it is or what it does.
- The language and the theme are changed in Settings › General › “Language” and “Theme”: by default the light or dark theme follows the operating system's, and it applies to the editor and the terminals too.
- The book-shaped icon in the sidebar of every page opens the guide topic that explains it.