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Where in the previous section the outside ‘face’ of the desktop is described, we here will see how it can perform any given task.
As stated earlier, tasks are supposed to be scheduled through workorders. In the workorders' file, objects can be passed from one task to the other, and so, from one desktop to the other.
The internal performance of the desktop is done by task functions, because desktop performance is in fact task performance. These functions facilitate the general behaviour of any task.
Interaction between the desktop's internals and its interface are performed through the backbone functions, as stated in the previous section.
Statical properties of the desktop's inside are:
  • the file objects, i.e. the objects that are passed from previous task performance;
  • the desktop objects, i.e. the objects that are handled by the task, that are ‘in use’.
Dynamical properties of the desktop's inside are:
  • the activated services, i.e. all server services that are, by ‘programming’, made available to the task;
  • the programs to be performed by the task as a result of any action from the outside, and thus passed to the task through the backbone.
Programs are the general definition of the task's behaviour. They are defined by a ‘proces designer’ when he ‘builds’ the task.
desktop functions

This is how it works:

Any action passed through the backbone results in a more or less complex series of service calls, may be from the backbone functions, may be from the task functions.
Backbone functions include:
  • passing desktop objects through the backbone to or from the interface functions;
  • performing service calls to the interface functions (opening and closing interfaces);
  • performing service calls to the servers available throughout the model (via the backbone itself) to activate their services for the task (opening the servers).
Task functions include:
  • passing desktop objects to and from the file objects of the workorder;
  • manipulating desktop objects, such as copying them, remove them, reorder them, find their key/index, and so on (the objects' properties can not be manipulated directly, only via service calls to the applicable servers);
  • performing service calls to the activated services of applicable servers, using desktop objects and eventually resulting in new or changed desktop objects.
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