Workbench is the desktop environment[1] and graphical file manager of AmigaOS developed by Commodore International for their Amiga line of computers.

Workbench provides the user with a graphical interface to work with file systems and launch applications.

From release 3.5 the operating system was renamed "AmigaOS" and subsequently "Workbench" refers to the native file manager only.

These representations may be considered somewhat unusual by a modern user, but at the time there were no commonly accepted metaphors and Commodore chose to use different idioms from their competitors (Apple had already pursued legal action to prevent other software companies from offering graphical user interfaces similar to its own).

Workbench utilizes the Amiga's native windowing system called Intuition to provide the graphical user interface.

Intuition manages the rendering of screens, windows, and gadgets (graphical elements, equivalent to widgets).

This is achieved through Exec, the Amiga's multi-tasking kernel, which handles memory management, message passing, and task scheduling.

This setup streamlines the process of launching games (which typically do not require Workbench) and ensures that memory is not used unnecessarily by the OS in memory-limited systems.

Subsequently, "Workbench" refers to the native graphical file manager only, in contrast to the Amiga's ROM-located parts of the OS in its "Kickstart".

For example, the gauge meter showing the free space on a file system was replaced with a percentage in Workbench 2.0.

The Amiga User Interface Style Guide,[2] was published which explained how applications should be laid out for consistency.

Workbench 2.0 introduced AmigaGuide, a simple text-only hypertext markup scheme and browser, for providing online help inside applications.

Finally, Workbench 2.0 rectified the problem of applications hooking directly into the input-events stream to capture keyboard and mouse movements, sometimes locking up the whole system.

Localisation was added to allow Workbench, and any installed programs that had localization, to appear in any supported language.

The established AmigaGuide hypertext system gained more usability by using document links pointing to mediafiles, for example pictures or sounds, all recognized by the datatypes.

These releases included support for existing third-party GUI enhancements, such as NewIcons, by integrating these patches into the system.

Additionally, Workbench 4.0 includes a new version of Amidock, TrueType/OpenType fonts and movie player with DivX and MPEG-4 support.

For example, the tooltype "CX_POPKEY=ctrl alt f1" defines that the application (a Commodity) will activate the user interface in response to the key sequence Ctrl-Alt-F1.

The colours used in the icon are normally only stored as indices to the Amiga Workbench screen's current palette.

This problem was partly solved by a third-party system called NewIcons, which adds additional features to the standard .info files.

In comparison to the competing Mac OS and Atari, the early Amiga Workbench (pre-Workbench 2.04) featured, as the default, a 4 color blue desktop screen with color icons at 640 × 200 NTSC American standard or 640 × 256 on European PAL television sets, in contrast to the 512 × 342 black and white interface presented by the Mac.

Workbench contributed many other unique features/philosophies to intuitive GUI design (starting with version 2.04/2.1): The freedom in customization and the multitude of color settings and aspects available to the user were sometimes seen as chaotic.

Before Workbench 2.0, there were no user interface design guidelines, so the look and feel of menu options could be different from one application to the next (i.e. the layout of basic items like Load, Save, Open, Close, Quit, etc.).