Desktop, taskbar and apps

FAQ › EUZOS Desktop › Desktop and apps · Nederlands

What is it?

After login the desktop replaces the login screen. It has:

• the bar (top by default, or bottom), with the menu button, the task buttons and on the right the status icons and the power button;
• the desktop area: a calm background with the EUZOS logo and the hint "Open the menu with the EUZOS logo at the top left"; no files on it;
• the mega menu, opened with the menu button or the Windows key, with four columns: Apps, File management, Tools and Configuration;
• windows for every app (move, resize, minimise, maximise, half screen), one task button per window;
• the welcome panel with your most recently opened apps, right after login.

Apps that are larger than EUZOS itself (Chromium) live as signed packages in apps/ on partition 2 and are installed from the app catalogue of the profile server (apps command).

How do I…?

Can I connect an external monitor (HDMI)?

On the HP Pavilion 15-cs3 (Intel Ice Lake) yes: plug in an HDMI monitor and after a moment it lights up as an extension of the desktop to the right of the built-in screen (windows can be dragged over, the mouse crosses). Before you sign in, and while the screen is locked, the monitor shows only the background of the login screen. After sign-in a monitor icon appears in the bar next to wifi; click it to switch the monitor off, mirror instead of extend, put it left or right, pick the resolution or make it the main display. Your choice is remembered per monitor in your profile. Other Intel laptops (Tiger Lake, Alder Lake: e.g. the HP ProBook 450 G9) and USB-C monitors follow later; see docs/DISPLAY.md.

My HDMI monitor shows dots or flickers. What can I do?

Tiny coloured dots on thin lines, sparkles in video or flicker usually mean the HDMI signal does not suit that monitor (or cable). Click the monitor icon in the bar, open Advanced and click "Picture interference (dots or flicker)? Try another signal setting". The monitor gets a different signal setting at once and the panel asks "Is the picture better?": Yes, keep saves it for this monitor on this PC (it is used again after a restart and when you plug it back in); No, or no answer within 15 seconds, puts the previous setting back immediately (so a monitor that goes blank always comes back). Click again to try the next setting. Reset to default removes the saved setting. Only an administrator of this PC (admin policy device) can do this; for others the option is greyed. Example: the Samsung C49J89x on the HP Pavilion is clean with the second setting. Support can do the same in the console (display hdmi level); known monitors will later get the right setting automatically through an update (layer-1 quirk data, docs/LAYERED-UPDATES.md).

How do I open an app?

Click the EUZOS menu button at the top left (or press the Windows key alone). The mega menu slides in:

Mouse, finger or keyboard (arrows, Tab, Enter, Esc). Opening an app that is already open brings its window to the front (one window per app; the browser can have several, and Notepad opens a new window every time: one document per window). Terminal is only in the menu when showing the console is allowed (terminal::terminal_allowed, the same rule as the console; see Console).

How do I switch between windows?

Every window has a task button in the bar (icon and title). Click: minimised → back; visible → to the front; in front → minimise. When the titles do not fit they are shortened with "…", and finally a +n button takes the rest (click: next window to the front; also Alt+Tab).

How do I resize a window or snap it to half or a quarter of the screen?

Drag any edge or corner of a window to resize it (it never gets smaller than its app allows). In the monitor icon's panel, Resolution opens a list of all modes: pick one and only that one is applied. With two screens, a short press on a window's "move to other screen" button moves it; holding it for 3 seconds opens a pop-in to put the window on the left or right half or one of the four quarters of its screen (Esc closes it).

What does a right click on a taskbar item do?

It opens a small menu above the bar: Close window (when the app has a window) and New window (only for the browser, Draw, Notepad, Terminal, PDF viewer, Media player and Files). Esc or a click elsewhere closes it.

How do I move the bar to the bottom or hide it?

Settings › Appearance: Position of the bar Top or Bottom, Automatically hide the bar, and Hide the bar for maximized windows. A hidden bar slides in when the mouse rests on the screen edge for a moment or a finger swipes in from the edge. The choice is stored in your profile (balk=boven|onder, balk-verbergen=aan|uit, taskbar-hide-maximized=on|off).

Why does a maximised window no longer cover the bar?

Since 28-10-2026 the bar stays visible by default: a maximised window fills the space above or below the bar, without overlap. If you prefer maximised windows over the whole screen with the bar hidden (as before), turn on Settings › Appearance › Hide the bar for maximized windows; the windows change right away. Fullscreen (a video's fullscreen button, browser fullscreen) always uses the whole screen and hides the bar. On an extended screen (HDMI) there is no bar, so a maximised window fills that screen. With the setting off a maximised window also ends at the bar when Automatically hide the bar is on; the bar then stays visible while that window is in front. When you unplug the HDMI screen, its windows come to the laptop screen fully inside the space next to the bar.

How do I change the theme, language or profile colour?

• Theme: Settings › Appearance › Theme: Dark, Light, Automatic (light from 7:00 to 19:00) or Custom. Console: screen theme dark|light|automatic|custom.
• Custom colours: with Custom you pick the accent, the background (light or dark) and the taskbar colour: choose which one with Accent | Background | Taskbar, then click one of the 12 swatches or type a hex code (#7c3aed) and press Enter or Apply. The text colour follows by itself: EUZOS keeps all text readable (WCAG AA, contrast 4.5:1). When it had to adjust a colour for that, the note says Adjusted for readability. The login screen always keeps the standard theme: your colours only appear after you sign in.
• Language: Settings › Language (34 languages); applies right away.
• Profile colour: My profile (four colours); it colours your avatar, the titles and the windows.

All of these go back to the profile server, so your next login on any PC looks the same.

What is the Modern taskbar?

Settings › Appearance › Taskbar style: Standard (the bar as you know it) or Modern. Modern is a floating, semi-transparent blue bar (with Custom: your taskbar colour) with margins around it and round corners. The EUZOS logo sits in the centre and opens the menu; your pinned apps stand left and right of it (the first half left, the rest right), running apps that are not pinned follow on the right. Hover over an icon and it grows a little; a line or dot below an icon shows that it runs. The clock, Wi-Fi, battery and notifications stay at the right end. Maximised windows end above the bar, as with Standard.

The default pinned apps are Browser, Files, E-mail, Notepad and Settings. For now you change them in the console: screen taskbar pin notepad, screen taskbar unpin email, or screen taskbar to see them.

What is in Settings?

How do I set a background image?

Settings › Background has two cards:

• Desktop: Choose image… opens Files as a picker (My files, a USB stick, OneDrive); double-click a picture (PNG, JPEG, GIF or WebP, at most 20 MB and 8000 × 8000 pixels). It appears behind your windows on every screen. Placement: Fill (cover the screen, crop the edges), Fit (the whole picture, bars around it) or Center (its own size). Restore default brings back the EUZOS background (also on the profile server). The choice and the picture follow you: the picture is kept encrypted in your profile folder on this PC and, sealed with a key from your own profile, on the profile server (at most 1 MiB; a larger one is stored a little smaller). On another PC it is fetched in the background after you sign in: until then you see the default, and Settings says "Fetching your picture from your profile…". If it cannot be fetched (offline, or an older profile server) Settings says so and you see the default; background sync in the console tries again.
• Login screen: the same, but for this PC: it shows before anyone signs in, on the lock screen, and on an external monitor while nobody is signed in. Everyone sees it, so choose nothing personal. Only an administrator of this PC can change it (the admin policy device, or a test build).

A large photo is scaled down to the screen and stored as a small JPEG; a phone photo is turned upright. Console: background shows what is set (and where the desktop picture is); background sync fetches or stores the desktop picture again; background login default (admin) restores the login screen.

Can the profile server see my desktop picture?

Not from its database: the PC seals the picture (ChaCha20-Poly1305) with a key derived from your storage key, which the server keeps only encrypted in its vault. It is not end-to-end, though: the server operator, who has the vault's key file, could in principle unwrap your storage key and open the picture (the same as for your encrypted profile folder). One picture per profile (Work or school, Personal), at most 1 MiB; it is deleted when you restore the default, choose another picture, or when the account is deleted. Details: docs/PROFILE-PROTOCOL.md, "Desktop background on the server".

Can I hide the small text under the icons, and what is the date under the time?

Yes. Settings › Appearance › Text under the taskbar icons. On (default): the Wi-Fi name, the battery percentage, USB-C or HDMI under the monitor and speaker, and the date under the time. Off: only icons and the time. Point at an icon and the same text appears in a small tooltip next to the bar, with the option on or off; point at the time for the date.

How do I change the date and time format (24 or 12 hour, DD-MM-YYYY, MM/DD/YYYY)?

Settings › Language, below the languages: choose your country (it sets the usual date order and clock), then change a part if you want: the date pattern, Month as a name and Clock 24 or 12 hour. The example line shows the result. It applies to the bar, file lists, mail, history and the lock screen. The time zone is not changed. File names such as screenshots keep the sortable 2026-11-02 form.

What are the icons on the right of the bar?

The yellow SSH label (only while SSH sessions are open), the speaker (volume panel; only with a sound card), Wi-Fi with the network name and strength (Wi-Fi panel), the battery with the percentage (battery panel; only with a battery), the time and the power button. In an SBX session the bar also shows the orange SANDBOX label, and in an offline session the Offline label, left of SANDBOX (euzos_ui::desktop).

What is in the power menu?

On the desktop: Lock, Turn off screen, Sign out (asks "Sign out?") and Restart (asks "Restart?"; signs out first). On the login screen: Restart, Shut down and Console (Console not in a production build).

How do I get the welcome panel back?

It appears after login (Settings › Appearance › Welcome on/off, profile key welkom). Console: screen welcome.

How do I install an app such as Chromium?

• During installation: tick Chromium in the installer's Apps step. The installer writes \EOS\FW\APPS.TXT with chromium=yes to the internal disk; after the first boot a background thread waits for internet (and, with a download server, for a login), asks the app catalogue (GET /api/apps/chromium) and installs it. A bar at the bottom shows the progress ("Installing Chromium… x of y MiB"); after an error it retries (30 s up to 30 min).
• By hand: apps install chromium (via the catalogue), or apps install https://…/<NAME>.APP (description and .sig directly).
• Server Admin: apps install srvadmin (see Server Admin); then Server Admin is also in the menu (APPS) as a graphical app, for admins only.

Every package is checked (Ed25519 signature with SIGNPUB.TXT, version not lower than before, SHA-256, block hash) before it applies, and again every time it is loaded. Updating an existing app automatically is planned; today apps install <name> by hand fetches a newer version.

How do I write or edit a text file (Notepad)?

Open Notepad from the menu (column Tools), or double-click a text file in Files (.txt, .md, .csv, .log, .json, .ini, .cfg and other text files; for any other file: right-click › Open with Notepad). Every file gets its own window.

• Open (Ctrl+O) and Save as (Ctrl+Shift+S) use the Files dialogs: My files (your encrypted profile folder), USB sticks, OneDrive and SharePoint. Save (Ctrl+S) writes back to where the file came from; an untitled text asks for a place. New (Ctrl+N) empties the window.
• Unsaved changes: the title gets a *; closing, New and Open first ask Save / Don't save / Cancel.
• Editing: select with the mouse (double-click a word, triple-click a line), Shift+arrows, Ctrl+A; Ctrl+C/X/V use the system clipboard (also with the browser, mail and Chromium); Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Y undo and redo; Ctrl+arrows jump by word; Ctrl+Home/End to the start and end.
• Find (Ctrl+F, Enter = next, Shift+Enter = previous, Aa = match case), Replace (Ctrl+H, also Replace all), Go to line (Ctrl+G), Word wrap (switch in the toolbar), zoom with Ctrl +/−/0 or Ctrl+wheel (10–500 %).
• The status bar shows line and column, the number of characters, the zoom, the line endings (Windows CRLF, Unix LF or Macintosh CR: kept as the file had them) and the encoding. Notepad reads UTF-8 (with or without BOM), UTF-16 with a BOM and otherwise Latin-1 (Windows-1252); it always saves UTF-8.
• Files up to 16 MB; a larger one gets a clear message. The text is only in memory while the window is open and is wiped when it closes. Signing out closes Notepad without asking: save first.

What can the Hardware app show?

Cards SYSTEM (device, processor, cores, architecture, memory, screen), STORAGE (internal SSD with model, serial number, size; sticks), NETWORK, SOUND, INPUT and FIRMWARE AND ACPI, plus collapsible USB devices and PCI devices. Collected on open from what the kernel already knows (kernel::hardware::collect), without setting anything up.

Details

• Start: profile::login → desktop::start(profile): starts the Wi-Fi state for the bar, sets the session language, loads browser favourites and engines, touchpad/mouse/touch settings and mail accounts from the profile, plays the login sound, preloads Chromium, and shows the desktop (screen::desktop_show). The desktop holds the profile; when it goes away (logout, screen off) the profile wipes itself.
• Windows (libs/window, docs/WINDOWS.md): the browser, the terminal and the apps from the menu are windows. The saved desktop (buf) is only redrawn when the desktop itself changes; windows are composed per damaged rectangle, at most ~60 frames/s.
• Apps the kernel draws itself (kernel/src/apps.rs, drawing modules in libs/ui/src/apps/): Files (the explorer, see Explorer), Hardware, SSH settings (kernel/src/sshd_settings.rs: sshd on/off, sessions with Disconnect, authorized keys from AUTHKEYS.TXT by fingerprint), MCP settings (no pairings yet; an Add pairing button marked "coming"), E-mail (see Mail), My profile, Settings.
• Terminal (kernel/src/terminal.rs): the same shell as the console in a window, at most one; scrollback of 3000 lines; Ctrl+V pastes only the first line and never executes it. It can do everything the console can.
• Linux and Wayland apps (Chromium): run through the Linux layer with the own Wayland compositor (kernel/src/screen/wayland.rs, docs/WAYLAND.md).
• Toasts: short notices at the bottom centre, in their own layer above every window.
• Visible to others in Settings is only shown and logged.

Reference

Console commands

apps only exists on x86-64 (internal SATA or NVMe disk). The full screen reference is on Screen lock.

Functions and modules

Config files

Since 27-10-2026 EUZOS writes English config file names, keys, values and confirmation words (for example WIPE-…, environment= in PROFILE.TXT); the old Dutch names (marked legacy here) are still read and accepted (docs/ENGLISH.md).

Profile settings of the desktop (Dutch keys on the wire): balk (boven|onder), balk-verbergen (aan|uit), taskbar-hide-maximized (on|off, English), welkom (aan|uit), thema (donker|licht|automatisch), taal, kleur (6 hex), recent (list of recent apps), desktop-background (default or <32 hex>,<fill|fit|center>). Full list: Login › Protocol messages.

API endpoints

See Profile server › Apps and downloads.

Protocol messages and formats

• App description <NAME>.APP (signed, .sig next to it): starts with EUZOS-APP 1, keys name=, package=, size=, sha256= and optionally blocks=/block-hash= (format: libs/profiledir/src/apps.rs). The kernel reads both these and the legacy Dutch keys (naam=, pakket=, grootte=, blokken=, blokhash=); the release tools still write the Dutch keys so that older kernels can read the descriptions (docs/ENGLISH.md).
• Catalogue answer (GET /api/apps/<name>, euzos_install::apps::read_catalog): first line beschikbaar or niet_beschikbaar, then naam=, versie=, grootte=, sha256=, beschrijving= (description URLs), pakket= (package URLs), optionally downloadbasis= (the download server, ending in /) and, for a workplace server, werkplek= and werkplek-tls=.
• Recent apps (recent= lines): <app key>, time and title; app keys browser, terminal, email, bestanden, hardware, mcp, ssh, instellingen, profiel (part of the signed profile format, so they stay Dutch; on the console screen app takes the English names files, settings, profile and accepts these as aliases).

See also

• docs/DESKTOP-DESIGN.md
• docs/APPS.md
• docs/WINDOWS.md
• docs/WAYLAND.md
• docs/LANGUAGES.md
• docs/USER-STORAGE.md (apps/ on partition 2)
• docs/CHROMIUM.md
• FAQ: Login, Screen lock, Browser and Chromium, Console