Copyright: 1996 One Guy Coding


Introduction
Vern 32 for Win 95 and Win NT 4

Vern is the Virtual Environment Resource Navigator. Vern allows you to have many programs running at once with each occupying its own Virtual Screen. Vern displays a representation of each of the Virtual Screens which we will refer to as VernSpace. That is, a mini window on the surface of Vern is a representation in VernSpace of the actual program running in its Virtual Screen. Phew!

Running Vern results in a cleaner looking desktop and can actually speed up the look and feel of Windows. When a program is sitting in an area of VernSpace that is not currently active (ie. visible) , the Operating System will not waste time redrawing that application.

For example, after running Vern you could launch a Word processing program in one Virtual Screen, activate Vern and switch to the next Virtual Screen. Run a Spreadsheet program, switch to the next Vern cell and run a copy of your favourite game (Minesweeper.) When the boss comes around the corner hit Ctrl+Alt+Up (provided the Ctrl-Alt hotkeys have been activated) to move back to the Spreadsheet program.

This image shows a program called EditPad running in the current Vern cell.  Word is running in the cell adjacent to this.  There are 6 Virtual screens with an effective resolution of (1024*3, 768*2) = (3072,1536).  Click on the image for more info.


Changing virtual screens
Changing Cells

Changing Vern cells is easy. Activate Vern (hit the Vern activate hotkey or click on the Vern icon in the System Tray) and switch between cells by clicking on the destination screen. Any programs that were running in the current screen have now been displaced by the windows in the destination Virtual Screen.

Vern is capable of displaying dozens of virtual screens but you will probably want to limit the number to between 5 and 10, depending on your own taste. I prefer having a column of between 6 and 8 Vern cells on the right hand side of the screen (of course, this may reflect my right-handed bias.) If the Auto Activate option has been turned on Vern will switch to the currently active window automatically. Clicking on a program button in the Windows task bar or using the Alt-TAB task switcher will automatically switch you to the virtual screen where your program happens to be located.

If you turn on the Ctrl-Alt Hotkey option you can switch to the next or previous Vern cell with Ctrl+Alt+Up, Ctrl+Alt+Down, Ctrl+Alt+Left or Ctrl+Alt+Right hotkeys.


Moving or Sizing Vern

You can drag Vern to a new screen location either by turning the caption bar on in the Options menu or by clicking anywhere on Vern (make sure you’re not clicking on one of the mini windows) and dragging the program to a new location. If the Auto Hide option is turned on and you drag Vern to one of the four edges of the screen the program will hide at that location when it loses focus. To restore Vern simply move your cursor over the area where Vern is hiding.

Resize Vern the same way you would resize any Windows application. If the Freeze Cell Count option is selected in the options menu you will increase or decrease the size of the Vern cells when resizing (holding the Ctrl key will toggle the Freeze Cell Count option for the duration of the resize causing cells to be added or removed when resizing.) If the Proportional Resize option is selected Vern will increase, or decrease the size of the individual Vern cells in proportion to the screen dimensions.


Mini Windows

The mini windows on the surface of Vern are representations of the actual windows that are under Vern’s control. You can display these mini windows with or without the 3d style borders (Show 3d Mini Windows) or with or without icons (Show Mini Icons.) Dragging one of the mini windows to a new location within Vern Space will cause the actual window to also be moved to that location in the Virtual Screen. If the Snap to Desktop option is turned on, Vern will always ensure that the mini windows remain entirely within the boundaries of any given Virtual Screen after you’ve dropped the mini window in its new location.

Click on a mini window, and the actual program window corresponding to the mini window will be activated causing Vern to switch to the Virtual Screen where the program happens to be located.

If you have turned on the Show Flyouts option you will see a small flyout which displays the Window Title of the mini window when the mouse cursor moves over top of that mini window.


Setting Priorities

You can set window priorities for any of the Windows that are movable by Vern. Right click on the surface of Vern and select the Priorities menu. Select the Process who’s priority you would like to change. You can set the priority of a program to be one of Low, Normal or High, or if you’re feeling devious you can kill that process.

You might want to change priorities if you are running numerically intensive applications and want them to run faster (or perhaps even slower so that you can work more comfortably on the computer while the task is running). Reports of execution times being halved by setting priorities to high have been reported (Mathematica).

You will not likely have to bother with Window priorities except for CPU intensive applications.


Glueing Windows

Some programs just don’t work well with Vern. For example, Photoshop has many owned popup windows that are automagically repositioned by the main Photoshop window whenever it is moved. I’ve heard that this results in havoc (although I’ve never tested it myself) and that the popups endup all over the screen when switching Virtual Screens. The best solution is to Glue these programs to the desktop. If you Glue a program class (or title) Vern will no longer try to reposition that program when switching Virtual Screens.

If a program does weird things when you switch Vern cells, try glueing it to see if the problem stops.

See the Glue tab of the Vern Properties dialog box.


Hotkeys

Hotkeys are set in the Hotkey tab of the Properties dialog box. Set a hotkey to raise Vern (F12 by default). If you turn on the Ctrl+Alt hotkey you can switch to the next or previous Vern cell with Ctrl+Alt+Up, Ctrl+Alt+Down, Ctrl+Alt+Left or Ctrl+Alt+Right hotkeys.


Main menu

Click on any of the menu items for a description of its function


Options menu

Click on any of the menu items for a description of its function


Properties dialog

Right click on Vern and select the Properties item from the main menu to open the Properties dialog box. Here you can set Options, Cell Properties, Hotkeys, Glue, Register or view the About or License tab.

Click on the [image] button in the upper right of the caption bar of the Properties dialog box and then click on the item you need help with for context sensitive help.


Keyboard navigation

When Vern is active:

Cursor	Move upward one cell.  If wrap is on you will move to the bottom most cell if moving up from the top most position.
Cursor	Move downward one cell
Cursor	Move left one cell
Cursor	Move right one cell
Home	Move to the first cell in the current row
End	Move to the last cell in the current row
Page Up	Move to the first cell in the current column
Page Dn	Move to the last cell in the current column
1 through 9	Move to the nth cell.  If there are more horizontal cells than vertical this option will move horizontally, otherwise it moves vertically.
Ctrl-1 through Ctrl-9	Holding down the control key reverses the direction as described above.
Ctrl-Alt-Shift-S	Creates a system snapshot that can be useful for analysing problems with the interaction of other programs with Vern.
When Vern is inactive:

Ctrl-Alt-	Provided that the Alt-Cursor hotkeys are being used move up to the next higher vern cell and activate vern
Ctrl-Alt-	Raise vern and move down one cell
Ctrl-Alt-	Raise vern and move left one cell
Ctrl-Alt-	Rasie vern and move right one cell


Mouse navigation

When Vern is active:

Left click	Change to the cell where the click is registered
Right click	Open the Main Menu

When Vern is inactive:

Right click	on an MDI child window caption bar, or any minimise, restore or maximise button to raise vern
Mouse Switch	Provided that mouse switching has been activated move the cursor near the edge of the screen in the direction you would like to travel in vern to change vern cells


Registering Vern

All shareware by One Guy Coding is covered by the All In One Guy Coding Registration Code, which is a fancy way of saying that if you register for one of my programs you are automatically registered for all other One Guy Coding Shareware.

Credit Card Registration

Registration by credit card costs 20$ US currency.  Credit Card Registration information is also available at my website http://www.cam.org/~oneguy.  See the registration section for details.

Cheque, Cash or Money Order

If you want to pay by cheque, cash or money order the cost is $20 US (20$ Canadian funds for Canadian customers.) Send your cheque or money order, payable to One Guy Coding, to,

One Guy Coding

4112 Hotel de Ville

Montreal, Quebec

Canada

H2W 2H1

Be sure to include your return snailmail address or email address so I can send you a registration code.  EMail, of course, is preferred.

Registration Form for Cheque or Money Order Registrations

Full Name	_________________________________________________
Address	_________________________________________________
	_________________________________________________
	_________________________________________________
City	_______________	State / Province	______________
Country	_______________	Zip/Postal Code	______________
eMail	_________________________________________________
#Copies @ 20$ per	_______________
Total	_______________
Please Register today!


Snail Mail
Snail Mail: Standard Internet putdown of Regular Postal Mail.


Credit Card Registration

I am using the Kagi Shareware Registration service to process my Credit Card orders.   You can submit your Credit Card Registration for One Guy Coding shareware to them via eMail, FAX or regular postal mail.

Secure Online Credit Card Registrations can now be made at

http://order.kagi.com/?LV

Once you arrive at that link, be sure to select the Secure page!

To register by Credit Card you use the register.exe program that came with Vern (or any other One Guy Coding shareware application).  Since all One Guy Coding applications are covered by one registration code (the so-called All in One Guy Coding Registration Code) any of my versions of register.exe will do.  If you don’t have the register.exe program you can download it from my site at http://www.cam.org/~oneguy/Registration.  I can also attach the register.exe program and eMail it to you if you’re having trouble downloading it from that site.

The register.exe program prompts you for the necessary information for submitting your registration to kagi,

•	Registration Name

•	eMail address

•	Postal Address

•	Credit Card (Visa, MasterCard or AmEx) info

This information is then encoded in a format suitable for sending securely via eMail, Fax or postal mail.  The output can be copied to the clipboard (or saved to an ASCII file) and pasted into an email message addressed to sales@kagi.com or it can be printed, faxed or postal mailed.

The Register program was written by  Greg Kochaniak http://www.nb.net/~gregko/winregis.htm).


Kagi eMail

sales@kagi.com


Kagi Fax

+1 510 652 6589


Kagi Postal Mail

Kagi

1442-A Walnut Street #392-LV

Berkeley, California, 94709-1405

USA


Kagi Shareware Registration
Kagi Shareware Registration Service

http://www.kagi.com/


One Guy Coding

Author	Steeve McCauley
eMail	oneguy@cam.org
Web:	http://www.cam.org/~oneguy


Virtual Screen
Normally your screen dimensions are limited by the resolution of your monitor, say 1024x768 pixels. A virtual screen represents an area of one screen width and one screen height and any program(s) that happen to be running in that screen area.. Vern allows you to have more than one screen area over which to distribute your programs. For example, if you have Vern arranged as 3 horizontal virtual screens, your total virtual screen area would be 3 times the screen width by one screen height, for a total virtual resolution of 3072x768 pixels.


Drag
Position the cursor over the object to be dragged, depress the left mouse button (if your mouse is left handed do the opposite) and while holding down the mouse button move the object to its desired location. This is a very common operation in any windowing environment so if you are unfamiliar with this action you might want to practice dragging things around. Oh yeah, after you reach the destination you should release the mouse button.


Resize window
Move the mouse cursor to one of the four edges (to resize horizontally or vertically) or to one of the window corners (to resize both horitontally and vertically). Once the cursor changes to a double headed arrow (normally) click and hold the left mouse button and drag until the desired size is reached.


On top
Keep Vern on top of all other running programs when this option is selected. This option has little effect if Vern is auto hiding.


Double click
If this option is selected you must double click to change Vern cells.


Hidden
When Vern loses focus it is automatically hidden if this option is selected. You must show the Vern in the SysTray in order to use this option. Focus can be restored via the systray, or any of the Vern hotkeys.


Auto hide
If you turn this option on you can have Vern hide against any of the four edges of the screen. Turn on the option and drag Vern to the edge where you would like it to hide (you must tuck the program up against the edge.) When Vern loses focus it will hide against that edge and can be restored by simply moving the cursor over the area where Vern is hiding.

Note: the auto hide delay can be reset in the registry. Run regedit and open the registry key under HKEY_CURRENT_USER,

Software\One Guy Coding\Vern\1.00

the default autoHideDelay value is 150ms. Change this to any value you like and restart Vern.


Mouse switch
If you opt to turn this option on you can change Vern screens by rubbing the edge of the screen in the direction you Vern to move. The sensitivity for this operation can be set via the Switch Sensitivity sub menu in the main Vern menu.


wrap
Select this option to have Vern cycle from the top to bottom or right to left (or vice versa) when traversing through the Vern cells.


Freeze cell count
To have the number of Vern cells frozen turn this option on. When resizing Vern with this option on the cell size will increase or decrease accordingly. Likewise, if this option is off, cells are added or removed when resizing Vern. Holding down the Ctrl key toggles this action (ie. if you’ve opted to leave the Freeze Cell Count option off then you can temporarily turn the option on while resizing by holding down the Ctrl key.)


Lock position
Turn this option on to prevent Vern from moving or being resized. This option is convenient in environments where you might want to Child- or Newbie-proof Vern’s screen location.


Proportional resize
When resizing Vern this option forces the Vern cells to retain the same proportional dimensions as the screen dimension.


Auto activate
Most users prefer working with Vern with the auto activate option turned on. If Auto Activate is on Vern will automatically switch to programs running in other virtual screens regardless of whether the program is activated from the Windows Task bar or the Alt-TAB task switching hotkey or automagically by the OS itself.

If this option were off, you would have to switch to the cell manually by activating Vern and clicking on the cell containing the program you wish to switch to.


Ignore minimised
If this option is on Vern will ignore minimised windows when auto activating.


Snap to desktop
When dragging mini windows this option, when selected, forces the program to remain within the boundaries of the Virtual Screen in which it is dropped.


Hide off screen
If you turn this option on, programs are hidden when they are not in the visible Virtual Screen. This also means that they disappear from the Windows Task bar and the Alt-Tab dialog. This option is meant mostly for those who run dozens of programs and like to switch between them using the Vern mini windows.


Show caption
This option toggles the caption bar on and off. The caption bar is well suited for use when the cell labels have been set.


Show flyouts
This option toggles the display of the little flyout windows when the mouse cursor passes over top of one of the mini windows on the surface of Vern. The flyouts display the current window text for the window represented by the mini window.


Show in SysTray
Toggles the display of the Vern icon in the SysTray of the Windows task bar. Left click on the SysTray icon to raise Vern or right click on the icon to open the Vern context menu.


Show 3d mini windows
Toggles the display of the 3d style borders on the mini windows.


Show mini icons
Toggles the display of the icons in the mini windows. If this option is turned off the window text is partially displayed on the surface of the mini window.


Track desktop bitmaps
If this option is turned on, Vern will track (ie., record) any changes to the desktop bitmap via the Windows Display Properties dialog box and restore that background whenever the cell is revisited. Warning: tracking desktop bitmaps can be sluggish.


Track desktop bitmaps
When selected, Vern will track (ie., record) any changes to the desktop background colour set via the Windows Display Properties dialog box and restore that background colour whenever the cell is revisited. Warning: tracking desktop colours can be sluggish.


Restore all
This option forces all programs (under Vern’s control) to be restored to the current Vern cell.


Flyout font
Select the font to be displayed in the flyout windows. You must also have the Show flyouts option turned on.


Label
Sets a label for the current Vern cell. The keyboard accelerator for this action is Ctrl-L. Cell labels are displayed in the caption bar if (and only if) the caption bar is being shown.


Switch to menu
This flyout menu lists all programs that are currently running and under Vern’s control. To switch to any of the program windows in the menu just select the appropriate entry in the flyout menu.


About Vern
Displays the About tab of the Vern properties dialog box.


Help
Opens this help file.


Close
Restores all running windows to the current virtual screen and closes Vern.


Mouse switch sensitivity
If the Mouse switch option has been turned on this flyout menu allows you to set the sensitivity for mouse switches.


Add to Startup Folder
Click on this option to add or reset the startup folder link. Once this startup folder shortcut has been added Vern is loaded every time you start a windows session.


Cell width
Adjust the slider to increase or decrease the width of the cell. If the Proportional resize option is set the cell height will be automatically adjusted as well.


Cell height
Adjust the slider to increase or decrease the height of the cell. If the Proportional resize option is set the cell width will be automatically adjusted as well.


Window text
Text from the caption for the currently glued window. If you are listing window titles you can edit this text to glue a window containing any given text string.


List classes
Select this button to display Window Classes in the list boxes rather than Window Titles.


List titles
Select this button to display Window Titles in the list boxes rather than Window Classes. Some programs use dynamically assigned Window Classes (that is, they change each time you launch the program) which makes Glueing these classes temporary. You can select all or part of a window title string.


Unglue list
This list box displays the Window Classes or Titles that are not currently glued.


Glue list
This list box displays the Window Classes or Titles that are currently clued.


Glue
Click this button to Glue the selected Window Class or Title. If you are glueing a Window Title you can edit the actual string that is glued in the edit control above.


Unglue
Click this button to unglue the selected Window Class or Title.


Hotkey text
Displays the currently selected hotkey text for the selected hotkey action.


Hotkey list
List the available hotkey actions.


No hotkey
No hotkey is used for the currently selected hotkey action.


Hotkey
Select one of these function keys for the specified hotkey action.


Hotkey modifier
Select any combination of the modifiers Ctrl, Shift or Alt for the current hotkey.


Ctrl+Alt Cursor hotkey
If this check box is selected you can raise Vern and select a new Vern cell with the Ctrl+Alt cursor hotkeys. For example, hold down Ctrl+Alt+Up to raise Vern and move up one cell, Ctrl+Alt+Right to raise Vern and move right one cell, etc.


Editpad program
The program called EditPad is running (and visible) in the current Virtual Screen. This program would be visible on your monitor.


EditPad flyout window
This flyout appears when the cursor moves over the EditPad program above. If you moved the mouse cursor over the Word program to the right, the caption of that window would be displayed in the flyout.


Word running in VernSpace
Word is running offscreen in the second Vern cell. If you click on the Word mini window Vern will switch to this virtual screen. Drag the mini window to another Vern cell to change its location in VernSpace.


Current Virtual Screen
This current Virtual Screen is displayed on Vern in a different colour than the inactive cells. Vern colours are based on the system colours set in the Windows Display Properties dialog box under the appearance tab. The colours are taken from the 3D Objects item.


Vern Caption bar
The caption bar can be displayed or hidden. If displayed you are able to see the cell label.


VernSpace
Click on this cell to change to this virtual screen. Right click on the cell to open the Vern menu. You can also drag Vern to another screen location by clicking on any area of Vern where no mini window is shown.