SCOUG OS/2 For You - August 1998

SOMEWHERE IN CYBERSPACE - With two X-programs this month, this selection of worthwhile software is fully qualified to join X-Files in the new television season of on-screen experiences. Both of these utility packages are relatively unknown but very valuable, and they're easy to download and easy to install. Gentlemen, start your modems: here are my suggestions for downloads this month.

X-it

(http://www.musthave.com/files/xit251.zip)

This program is the Swiss army utility knife of OS/2 functions. Now that you've just colored your title bars with CandyBarz (see last month's column), let's cover half of it up with new buttons.

You can add buttons that roll up a window (leaving just the title bar) and unroll it on the next click, or copy and paste without going to "edit" (and if you don't highlight any text, the entire document is copied), or open command line windows (the Warp Center button isn't always visible if you add to it), or go to a window's parent (two buttons allow closing or not closing when doing so).

There's an X-it configuration button to set which buttons will appear and where on the title bar they'll be.

And Warp 3 users can catch up on their Warp 4 neighbors a little with X-it's one-button program exit (the original X-it function, and hence its name).

Still other buttons give you pop up menus and the task manager.

To install, download and unzip the 732 KB XIT251.ZIP file. Put a shadow of the program file in your startup folder so it will always be available, and either reboot or launch the program directly.

To uninstall, just erase the files.

X-it version 2.51 is $25 shareware and takes up 381 KB of disk space after deleting the optional 569 KB LANGUAGE.ZIP foreign language file. If you want other languages, keep LANGUAGE.ZIP and read the README files.

XFolder

(http://www2.rz.hu-berlin.de/~h0444vnd/frames/xfldr.htm)
(http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/pub/os2/util/wps/xfld071.zip)

XFolder is a new enhanced Workplace Shell folder object. It registers five Workplace Shell replacement classes to give you a lot more functionality. There is some duplication with X-it's features (such as opening and closing the parent), but XFolder has many new features as well.

I especially like the status line at the bottom: you can see your drive space, or if any objects are selected you see the size of that object or that group of objects.

You can add entries to any of your Workplace Shell context menus, and XFolder gives you additional sort features, including global sort.

You can configure "hotkeys" for use within folders (several come preconfigured), and you can even shut down and restart the Workplace Shell only, without restarting OS/2.

A really nice touch is that tree views are automatically scrolled when you click on a "+" to expand the tree, unlike OS/2 which doesn't automatically scroll when you expand off the bottom of the screen.

Xfolder can display the full path of a folder in the title of the open folder window.

Also, with XFolder you can use a JPEG file for your background, not just a BMP.

And there's a very nice new "shutdown" feature, called XShutdown, which shows a shutdown status bar, can be canceled, and allows for an automatic reboot so you don't have to Ctrl-Alt-Del.

XFolder is user configurable, so you can set it up the way you like.

The current version is 1.71 which the author, Ulrich Moeller, says "contains tons of bugfixes compared to version 1.70". It's a 691 KB download, and once you've got it you just unzip the files. Installation instructions are in the README file, or just double-click on the XFLDR001.INF file.

There's an uninstall function, in case you ever want to remove XFolder. It deregisters the new folder class and restores your original folder class so you're back to where you were before you installed.

XFolder is freeware and takes up 986 KB of disk space.

Paul D. Wirtz is a systems integrator for Volt Information Sciences, Inc. and Vice President of the Southern California OS/2 User Group. He has a fondness for old-time radio.

CandyBarZ (July 1998) CandyBarZ puts custom gradient colors on your title bars.

Freetype (July 1998) Freetype is a replacement font rendering engine that greatly improves how fonts look on your screen.

X-it (August 1998) X-it adds function buttons to your windows.

XFolder (August 1998) XFolder adds Workplace Shell functionality, such as extra functions on menus, status lines, additional title information and hot keys.

SCOUG is a trademark of the Southern California OS/2 User Group.
OS/2, Workplace Shell, and IBM are registered trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation.
All other trademarks remain the property of their respective owners.