PC World Komputer 1995 November/PCWK1195.iso/inne/podstawy/os2/nakladki/pc2v190.exe/PC2.HLP

OS/2 Help File | 1995-05-01 | 121KB | 2,879 lines

ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 1. PC/2 Help for Help ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

                     PC/2 - Program Commander/2 Version 1.90
                   for IBM OS/2 2.x, 3.x Presentation Manager
                     Copyright (C) by Roman Stangl May, 1995

Please select one of the following topics for further information:

o About the utility PC/2
o Installing PC/2
o Using PC/2 as a WPS addon
o Concepts of the Popup Menu
o Starting a Program from PC/2
o Setting up the Popup Menu

   - Adding a Submenu
   - Adding a Program
   - Adding Popup Menu controls
   - Resorting a (Sub)menu
   - Runtime parameters

o Setting up the Desktop
o PC/2's Desktop Overview Window
o PC/2's Spooler Control window
o PC/2's compatibility to other applications
o Error Messages
o Questions & Answers

Note:  PC/2 contains "WPS 2 PC/2" WorkPlace Shelll migration tool in its
package. For further information about WPS 2 PC/2 select Help from the WPS
Object WPS 2 PC/2 itself. WPS 2 PC/2 is installed on your Desktop during
installation of the PC/2 package.

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ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 2. Help for About PC/2 ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

                     PC/2 - Program Commander/2 Version 1.90
                   for IBM OS/2 2.x, 3.x Presentation Manager
                  Copyright (C) by Roman Stangl Roman May, 1995

E-Mail:

o InterNet: [e-mail]

o IBM VNET: 61821799 at VIEVMA

o FidoNet: Roman Stangl @ 2:310/14 LA BAMBA BBS Tel.: (Int. Code +43 +1
  +6156811)

o FidoNet: Roman Stangl @ IBM Austria National Support BBS Tel.: (Int. Code +43
  +1 [phone])

The PC/2 package (consisting of the OS/2 PM application PC/2 and the WPS
program Object WPS 2 PC/2) is classified as Freeware. Under the copyright, you
are allowed and encouraged to freely use, distribute or modify this program
under the following conditions:

o The complete source code and all executables must be included. This rule also
  applies for any modifications/recompilitions you've made. Just drop me a
  short note descibing the changes.
o You may only charge for the costs of duplicating. Distribution on InterNet,
  FidoNet or similar is preferred. Therefore, this program must not be sold by
  immoral "Public Domain & ShareWare" dealers that charge a price way over the
  actual duplication costs.
o Any commercial use is prohibited without contacting me beforehand, except for
  incorporating the concept or code in any future release of OS/2 by IBM.  This
  however this clause doesn't apply to individual private use.
o You don't want to port this utility to MS Windows, Windows NT (Nice Try), or
  Windows96 (or whatever "Chicago" will be called when it is ready)

You are encouraged to upload this utility to your favorite file-server or BBS.
Please dooublecheck that no file from this archive is missing, if you change
the archive to a different compression scheme. Please retain the same name,
regardless of the compression method you use. PC/'2 archive is named
PC2vxyy.ZIP, where x is the major and yy the minor version, e.g. 190 for
version 1.90 (PC2v190.ZIP).

If you find this program useful and want to honor many weeks of work writing
this utility, you are welcome to send me a small fee of about 50 to 150
Austrian Schillings (about 5 to 15 dollars) to my home address. Of course you
don't need to pay again, when a new release of PC/2 comes out. Please send any
donations in cash - it is a lot of trouble to work with foreign money orders or
equivalent, here in Austria, plus the banks charge an arm and a leg!

Suggestions are welcome. Because of the Freeware status of PC/2 I am not going
to send new versions or anything else by mail (which is likely to become a
never ending story), however I try to do my best to do support via E-Mail.  As
my time is limited, contributors' get priority treatment.

Thanks to all those people who sent me proposals and bug reports to improve
this utility! Special thanks to Mario Semo, Carrick von Schoultz and Markus
Hof, Roman Fischer, Alex Stewart, Ingo Pflanz, Rolf Knebel, Michael Wakunda,
Stefan Hora, Monte Copeland, Roland Emmerich and Joe Hartman (thanks Joe,
without your support, PC/2 and its documentation would not have experienced
such a quality improvement) who gave me advice, source code, valuable hints, or
other support to improve PC/2

Also, thanks to anyone who makes "undocumented" information available, too!

My home address is:

  Roman Stangl
  Strebersdorferstrasse 46
  A-2103  Langenzersdorf, Austria

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ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 3. Installing PC/2 ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

You have obviously started PC/2 once, because you are reading this help panel.
The installation is straight forward, with a REXX script that installs PC/2.
However here are some points to take note of:

o The installation installs an icon on the Desktop and starts the help panels
  of PC/2. To ensure that OS/2 starts PC/2 automatically the next time you boot
  your system, you must start PC/2 again (you then can notice that the
  background behind the icon changes).

  If you have added SET RESTARTOBJECTS=STARTUPFOLDERSONLY in your CONFIG.SYS
  then you must add a shadow of PC/2 to your startup folder to ensure PC/2 is
  started the next time you boot OS/2.

o PC/2 requires access to the PC2HOOK.DLL and PC2SPOOL.DLL files. PC/2 tries to
  find these files either in the current directory when the LIBPATH environment
  variable contains .;, or in a path that is included in the LIBPATH
  environment variable.

  PC/2 will not be able to run if PC2HOOK.DLL can't be loaded, and won't be
  able to provide the PC/2 Spooler Control Window, if PC2SPOOL.DLL can't be
  loaded.

  The file PC2.HLP may be either accessible in the directory, where PC/2 is
  started from, or in a path that is included in the environment variable HELP.

   If you have problems running PC/2, ensure that the working directory of PC/2
  is accessible by these variables in your CONFIG.SYS.

o The installation program assumes that you are using the default profile
  PC2.CFG containing a standard pre-defined Popup Menu. If you want to use
  another Popup Menu, you have to restart PC/2 and add your preferred profile
  as a commandline option. Click to the next help panel to get more information
  about commandline parameters. You may also use your favorite editor to import
  one profile into another, but you have to ensure that you don't violate the
  syntax rules of the profile.

o PC/2 looks for its initialization file, PC2.INI in the directory where PC/2
  was started from.

o You can only run one copy of PC/2 concurrently.

o If you select a DOS or WIN-OS2 Program to be started via PC/2, the time-slice
  of their sessions is optimized (the DOS-Settings are modified to
  IDLE_SECONDS=5 IDLE_SENSITIVITY=100) to get better performance. This is
  useful for most DOS games.

o You may use PC/2 with or without the WPS installed, you may even use PC/2 as
  a replacement for the WPS. To do so, you must install PC/2 first. Then you
  have to ensure that PC2HOOK.DLL and PC2SPOOL.DLL are accessible by PC/2. You
  also have to ensure that PC2.HLP is accessible in the PC/2 directory, or in a
  path pointed to by the HELP environment variable in your CONFIG.SYS file.
  Then replace the statement

  SET RUNWORKPLACE=C:\OS2\PMSHELL.EXE with

  SET RUNWORKPLACE=[path]PC2.EXE or

  SET RUNWORKPLACE=[directory]PC2.EXE

  where where [path] is the full pathname of the directory (including the drive
  letter, e.g. C:\PMAPPS\PC2\PC2.EXE) and [directory] is the pathname of the
  directory (excluding the drive letter, e.g. \PMAPPS\PC2\PC2.EXE) you
  installed PC/2.

  Warning: If you specify only the directory you installed PC/2 into, then be
  sure that this directory is found on your boot drive.

  This feature is useful when using PC/2 as the shell process for an OS/2
  maintenance setup created by BOOTOS2. See the compatibility section  for more
  information.

  The next time you boot, PC/2 will be started as a replacement for the WPS. Be
  careful, OS/2 seems to dislike any parameters added to the program started as
  a replacement for the WPS! Of course, you can start the WPS from a command
  prompt by typing START PMSHELL or add a corresponding entry to PC/2.

  Warning: When running PC/2 as the Workplace Shell process, you can't
  terminate PC/2, because the WPS process should not terminate, neither by
  closing PC/2 from the Window List, nor by closing it from the Exit smarticon
  or the Exit OS/2 menuentry. Any WPS process will automatically be restarted
  by OS/2 immediately following its termination (you may notice this fact when
  the WPS traps, it will restart immediately, and rebuild your desktop).

  Warning: PC/2 has not been tested on all OS/2 versions or installed software
  and hardware (simply because I don't have them), so there is no guarantee of
  PC/2 being bugfree!.

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ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 4. General Help for PC/2 ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

PC/2 - Program Commander is an addon or replacement for the WPS (Workplace
Shell). The user can configure a Popup Menu that will appear when mouse button
1 is clicked anywhere on the Desktop. From this freely configurable Popup Menu,
you can select an entry - which is launched immediately.

PC/2 lets you define Hotkeys too. Pressing the Hotkey defined for a program the
program is switched into the foreground or, if it is not already running,
launched immediately.

PC/2 also allows you to expand the Desktop up to an 81-fold Virtual Desktop,
you may define Hotkeys to switch to an application on any Virtual Desktop by a
simple keypress.

You may also switch to any Virtual Desktop directly by doubleclicking with
mouse button 1 on PC/2's Overview Window.

PC/2 also enables you to define a UNIX-style behavior of switching the input
focus from one window to another. This allows you to have the input focus in a
window which is not the topmost window. (Sounds complicated, but try it; you'll
like it!)

PC/2 additionally provides a simple Spooler interface. You can manage the
printer queues and jobs on your local machine - a necessity when using PC/2 as
a WPS replacement (because without the WPS you have no spooler available unless
you use PC/2's spooler interface).

PC/2 allows you to customize the fonts used by the Popup Menu, the Overview
Window and the Spooler window, just by dragging fonts from the Font Palette to
PC/2.

Warning! On some display drivers you may not be able to set up every font lable
in the Font Palette exactly. Instead, you may just get a similar font.

For example. the Popup Menu might look like:

You have selected the item Prompts, which is a Submenu containing seven more
items. E.g., the item OS/2 Window starts a windowed OS/2 command prompt, when
selected. This Popup Menu is fully configurable - you may add, change or remove
items. An item can either be a Submenu containing more items, the name of a
program, or a Menu Control.

The complete Popup Menu can be modified, but the Menu Control Desktop Menu must
be defined before the Popup Menu will be displayed after mouse button 1 clicks.
If you have not defined this Menu Control, the Setup dialog appears after mouse
button 1 clicks enabling you to add this control.

Your configuration is read from the default profile PC2.CFG each time PC/2 is
started and saved every time you save your changes. You can of course overwrite
the default configuration filename to a file named Filename.ext by invoking
PC/2 with the following commandline option:

PC2 [-Profile Filename.ext] or

PC2 [/Profile Filename.ext]

where Filename.ext conforms to a filename of a PC/2 profile. Both FAT and HPFS
filename naming conventions are accepted. A few sample configuration files are
provided in this package.

As the default, the Popup Menu appears if you double-click once on the Desktop,
if no option, or the following option is specified:

PC2 [-DoubleClick] or

PC2 [/DoubleClick]

You may select a single-click instead, by invoking PC/2 with the following
commandline option:

PC2 [-SingleClick] or

PC2 [/SingleClick]

Please be sure not to combine both click behavior options. If you don't specify
this option, a user-modifiable default behavior is taken from PC2.INI. Of
course the options changing the click behavior and the configuration filename
options may be combined.

You may disable that PC/2 automatically starts the sessions having the style
Autostart, but PC/2 does preserve this style in the configuration file save.
This may prove useful when customizing the Popup Menu. To disable the Autostart
style, invoke PC/2 with the following commandline option:

PC2 [-NoAutostart] or

PC2 [/NoAutostart]

You may also select the behavior to ignore the Autostart style, by selection of
the Ignore Autostart checkbox on the Virtual Desktop Settings dialog.

Because some people use PC/2 as a WPS replacement, PC/2 contains a Menuitem to
ShutDown OS/2. By selecting this entry, it is safe to power off your PS/2 or PC
after all disk activity has been stopped, although no windows are closed. If
you run PC/2 as a WPS replacement, you may want to start the WPS either by
starting PMSHELL.EXE from a command prompt or by starting a PMSHELL Menuitem
with PC/2. You then can follow the WPS initialization by heavy disk access and
buildup of your Desktop with objects. PC/2 requires to "see" the Desktop (in
technical terms the window handle of the Desktop) to be able to catch mouse
button 1 clicks. If you start the WPS, the Desktop also undergoes changes too.
Therefore, PC/2 checks regularly if the Desktop has changed, so you may have to
wait a little bit after the WPS was started, before PC/2 recognizes mouse
clicks again..

I would strongly recommend starting PC/2 during OS/2 boot. If you don't want to
use the default profile, don't forget to add /Profile Filename.exe to the
Parameters entryfield in the Settings of PC/2.

The reason why I wrote this utility was primarily that many programs installed
on a system require many folders and icons on the Desktop. But to start a
program, I don't want to open and close folders, so I made shadows on the
Desktop messing it up, and adding overhead, thereby slowing things down.

Using PC/2 as a WPS replacement, you will get:

o a remarkable performance increase and boot time decrease, especially on
  systems equipped with less than 8 MB memory,
o improved overall system performance and response times due to less swapping.
o the ability to run multimedia or network software with acceptable
  performance, even with 8 MB or less,
o or the ability to create a maintainance partition ( for example by using
  BOOTOS2) without losing immediate access to your favorite programs.

The solution I prefer, is to click on the Desktop - this gives me an immediate
menu, from which I can easily select an application to be launched from this
menu, or alternatively launch (or switch) to an application by simply pressing
a Hotkey. So PC/2 will help you to start your programs more quickly, without
needing to open and close folders, and all the overhead of the WPS. Of course,
to gain this speed, and and overhead savings, you lose some of the "niceties"
of the WPS, for instance, you can't start applications from icons.

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ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 5. Concepts of PC/2 ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

The basic idea behind PC/2 is to have a configurable Popup Menu available to
start programs quickly, without having to open and close folders.

The Popup Menu, popped up when you click with mouse button 1 anywhere on the
Desktop (just like button 2 for the Desktop Menu), consists of menu items
(sometimes called menuentries). An item may be a Submenu, which contains
further items, or the title of an Application, or Menu Control items. A Submenu
contains of a little arrow right beside the title of the Submenu. (Mouse button
1 is on most systems the left mouse button.)

To change the font of the Popup Menu, drag a font from the Font Palette to the
smarticon bar of PC/2's Overview Window. This font will be saved when you exit
PC/2.

You can imagine this Popup Menu as a tree, with Submenus as branches, and
applications as leaves on a particular branch. PC/2 allows you to freely build
your own tree. To do so you have to click on the Desktop with the left mouse
button and select SetupConfig Menu from the Popup Menu. A dialog box appears,
where you can add, modify or remove Submenus and Applications. The listbox
displays all Submenus and Applications of one level (like a cut through the
tree). Of course you may change this level up and down.

Note: You must have defined the Menu Configure Menu before PC/2 will display
its Popup Menu on mouse button 1 clicks. If you don't define it, PC/2 displays
its Setup dialog after each click until you have added this control.

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ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 6. Help for starting a program via PC/2 ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

After you have configured the PC/2 Popup Menu, you click on the Desktop with
mouse button 1, select the Application you want to start and click on it. The
Application will be started as if you were clicking on an icon.

One advantage starting an Application this way is that you can manipulate many
startup parameters governing how the Application is started.  This is one thing
you can't do with many icons. E.g., you can start it invisibly (useful for a
backup program), and making it only visible by selecting it from the window
list. You may also specify the size of the Application or that you want to
start it in the background. You can even set its priority or define a Hotkey to
switch to it.

You can also start WPS Objects that are not Folder (WPFolder class) or Program
(WPProgram class) type WPS Objects, if they have an ObjectID defined. Most OS/2
WPS Objects get installed with a predefined ObjectID by default during
installation (see OS2_20.RC for a more detailed information), and many
applications (e.g. IBM C Set++, Toolkit, ...) defined an ObjectID for their WPS
Objects too.

Folder or Program WPS Objects and other WPS Objects that have a defined
ObjectID can be dumped automatically by WPS 2 PC/2, to create corresponding
Popup Menu entries.

You can also open any WPS Folder by PC/2 after dragging the folder onto PC/2 to
create a corresponding menuentry.

Warning: You can start WPS Objects via their ObjectID and open folders only if
the WPS is running, because only the WPS can process the request made by PC/2
to open them.

To close an Application, select the corresponding option from the Application
or terminate it from the Window List. Alternatively, you may use PC/2's Kill
smarticon to close the application's window.

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ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 7. Help for PC/2 Setup ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

In the listbox, all Submenus and Applications of one level (imagine a cut
through the tree) are displayed. A Submenu has an arrow right beside it.

 For instance, assume the listbox contains 6 Submenus and 2 Applications
resulting in the following Popup Menu:

Select the item Config Menu to configure the items appearing in the Popup Menu.
The Setup dialog appears, allowing you to adjust all items of the current
level.

You may want to get into the Submenu Prompts. Just select the Submenu Prompts
and click on the button Level Down >>. The listbox will now be filled with all
Submenus and Applications of the Submenu Prompts. To get one level up, simply
press << Level Up. If nothing seems to change, you may be either at the highest
level (the root of the tree) or at the deepest level (a leaf of the tree) of a
Submenu.

To configure the Popup Menu, just select an item and/or invoke functions by
selecting the following pushbuttons..

Pushbutton: Description:

Level Down  After selecting a Submenu, click on Level Down. The listbox
            contents are replaced with the Menuentries of the Submenu.

            You may alternatively doubleclick on a Submenu to change to.

Level Up    Selecting Level Up chains up into the next upper Submenu level,
            unless the root level is reached.

Add Submenu To add a Submenu, press the button Add Submenu. The Menu
            Installation dialog is displayed, allowing you to add a new
            Submenu. After pressing Ok in that dialog, the Submenu will be
            inserted either after the selected item, or at the end of the list,
            if no item was selected.

Add Program To add an application, press the button Add Program. The Program
            Installation dialog is displayed, allowing you to add a new
            Application. After pressing Ok in that dialog, the Application will
            be inserted after the selected item, or at the end of the list, if
            no item was selected.

Add Control To add a Control press the button Add Control, and a dialog
            appears, allowing you to add Menu Controls predefined by PC/2.

Change Entry To change a Menuentry that corresponds to an executable
            application, select the application and then invoke Change Entry to
            display the Program Installation dialog.

            Alternatively, you may just doubleclick on a Menuentry to display
            the Program Installation dialog.

Remove Entry ,To remove an application or an empty Submenu, select the Menuitem
            and click on the button Remove Entry.

Resort Menu To resort a Submenu press the button Resort Menu. A new dialog is
            displayed allowing you to resort the currently listed Submenu.
            Press here to get more information about the Resort dialog.

If the listbox is empty, you can't remove or change anything. You also can't
select any item, but in this case, you can add a Submenu or an Application by
just pressing the buttons, without needing to select an item.

(WPS 2 PC/2's icon) By using the listbox on this dialog page together with WPS
            2 PC/2, you can easily convert WPS Objects into menuitems for
            PC/2's Popup Menu. Assuming that you have extracted details about
            WPS Objects by dropping them onto WPS 2 PC/2's icon on the Desktop,
            just drag them from WPS 2 PC/2's Status bitmap and drop it onto the
            Submenu/Program Configuration listbox. PC/2 then generates Popup
            Menu items automatically and adds them to your Popup Menu. This
            lets you copy the settings of WPS Objects easily, without entering
            them manually.

            For more information about WPS 2 PC/2 just select help from the WPS
            2 PC/2 WPS Object, which you can install by PC/2's installation
            program, if it is missing.

Once you have configured your tree of Submenus and Applications, just press
Save to bring them into effect and save them to the profile, or Cancel to make
them temporarily effective, but without saving them to the profile on disk.

Example 1    Example 2

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ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 7.1. Setup example 1 ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

Assume the listbox contains the following items resulting in the following
Popup Menu:

You want to remove the Submenu References, rename the Submenu Tools to
Utilities and add a Submenu Demos.

 1. Select the item References. You can now press the button Remove Entry to
    remove the submenu, but only if this Submenu is empty. If it isn't empty,
    get into this Submenu by pressing Level Down >> and remove all items.
 2. To rename Tools to Utilities select the item Tools and press the button
    Change Entry. A dialog box appears allowing you to rename this item.
 3. Select the item, after which you want to insert the new Submenu. Then press
    the button Add Submenu to add one. A dialog box appears allowing you to
    enter the title of a new Submenu.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 7.2. Setup example 2 ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

Assume that you have remove all items, leading to an empty listbox. Now you
want to add the Applications Backup and Terminal.

 1. The listbox is empty, so you can't select any item. Just press the button
    Add Program and a dialog box appears, allowing you to enter all the data
    required for the new Application.
 2. Now the listbox contains the item Backup, select it and press the button
    Add Program a second time. Again you get a dialog box, where you enter the
    data for the Application Terminal.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 8. Help for PC/2 Menu Installation ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

This dialog is used to get a name for a Submenu, which is then added to the
Popup Menu. You can enter whatever you like, e.g to make a Submenu that
contains OS/2 utilities you might enter Utilities.

If you have chosen in the previous dialog to change the name of a Submenu, then
overwrite the pre-entered text.

Press Ok to accept, or press Cancel to ignore the data you entered.

Examples

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ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 8.1. Menu installation examples ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

Assume you have entered the following Submenu Titles:

Title:      Purpose:

Prompts     You want to add a Submenu named Prompts, that contains OS/2 and DOS
            fullscreen and windowed command prompts.

Spreadsheets You want to add a Submenu named Spreadsheets for your spreadsheet
            programs, such as Lotus 123/G or Excel.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 9. Help for PC/2 Program Installation ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

This dialog is a notebook consisting of the following pages:

Page:       Tab title:

Application This page is used to define an application's title, path, filename,
            working directory, command-line parameters and DOS settings.

Session     This page determines the type of session you want to add. Select
            between PM, OS/2, DOS and WIN-OS2 sessions.

Style       This page can be used to define the appearance of an application.
            If the application doesn't overwrite attributes, you may define the
            style, size and position.

Hotkey      This page is used to define a Hotkey which will switch to the
            application and bring it into the foreground.

            Warning: If you don't have filled in the Window Name entryfield
            correctly on this notebook page, you will not be able to use PC/2
            features successfully, including Hotkeys, specifying the sessions
            startup position or keeping the session on the active Desktop. I
            strongly recommend to read the online help, including the
            Frequently asked chapter, carefully.

Priority    This page can be used to overwrite the default priority assigned to
            an application.

            Caution: Changing the priority may cause serious problems, because
            the application may be set to consume the full CPU!

Environment This page is used to add environment variables to, or to replace
            the environment inherited from PC/2 to the application started from
            PC/2's Popup Menu.

Press Ok to accept, or press Cancel to ignore the data you entered in all
notebook pages.

For more information about one of the above notebook pages, select:

o Application Settings
o Session Settings
o Style Settings
o Hotkey Settings
o Priority Settings
o Environment Settings

Example 1

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ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 9.1. Application Settings ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

This dialog is used to get the title, the path and filename, the working
directory and parameters of a Menuitem, which is then added to the Popup Menu.

For a normal user it is the easiest way to use the following guidelines.
According to the type of application you add, some fields may not be editable
or visible:

Fieldname:  You would enter:

Program Title: Here you enter the name which should appear on the
            applications's titlebar, which may be overwritten by some
            applications. For OS/2 and DOS windows, this will also be the title
            in the window list. You may also name the Objects here, you want to
            add.

            For better navigation through the Popup Menu, you may add a tilde
            (~). When a menuentry has a tilde before a letter, the letter is
            treated as a mnemonic. After activating the Popup Menu, you can
            type a mnemonic defined for a session to start it, instead of
            selecting it with the mouse or keyboard.

            When defining a mnemonic, ensure that the entryfield Window Name on
            the Hotkey Settings page is filled in correctly.

Path and Filename: Here you enter the fully qualified path and filename. E.g.,
            you might enter c:\os2\cmd.exe to obtain an OS/2 command prompt, or
            c:\os2\mdos\qbasic.exe to start the basic interpreter.

            If the executable is located in the path specified in the Working
            Directory entryfield, you may supply the executable's name
            excluding path information.

            Here you also enter the name of WPS Objects. WPS Objects are
            referred either by their defined Object ID (Identity) e.g
            <WP_DRIVES> or <WP_INST> for preinstalled Objects, of e.g.
            <WP_USER_CALC> or <WP_WIN_PBRUSH> which can be extracted by the WPS
            2 PC/2 WPS Object, unless they represent Folder or Program objects
            (then their settings are taken instead of their ObjectID, which may
            be available too). Preinstalled WPS Objects usually have a defined
            name; you may need to take a look into the file OS2_20.RC to get
            further information.

            PC/2 can only launch WPS Objects named by their defined ID, so be
            careful to get either the correct ID from OS2_20.RC or by
            extracting the WPS Object in question by using WPS 2 PC/2. You
            can't use the Program Template to create Objects if you want them
            to add to PC/2, because PC/2 can't define the Object ID of such
            Objects, so try to use any installation routine that probably
            creates a Program object with an ObjectID.

            Here you would also enter the path and filename of a seamless
            WIN-OS2 application. WIN-OS2 applications prefixed by a !
            (exclamation mark) immediately before the filename get started
            minimized, applications prefixed by a ^ (caret) get started
            maximized. To start more than one application, separate
            applications by a , (comma). (By the way, this is a feature of OS/2
            and should be therefore also available for your WIN-OS2 WPS
            Objects!)

Working Directory: Here you enter the directory where the EXE, HLP and DLL
            files of your application are located. Before the application is
            started, a change drive and change directory call is made to make
            this directory the working directory.

Parameters: Here you enter the parameters passed to the application. PC/2
            allows you to be asked for commandline parameters before the
            application is invoked. Press on Commandline Parameters to find out
            more about this feature. Assume that you want to use VIEW.EXE to
            view the command reference.  You would enter:

            c:\os2\book\cmdref.inf.

            If you have selected the WIN-OS2 Program Manager PROGMAN.EXE to be
            started as a seamless WIN-OS2 application, you may enter 1 and only
            1 additional WIN-OS2 application.  This application will be started
            by the Program Manager in the same WIN-OS2 session. The Program
            Manager itself will be started minimized. You may also change the
            application's style by using !, ^ and , characters as described in
            Path and Filename.

DOS Settings: Selecting this pushbutton opens the standard OS/2 DOS settings
            dialog (OS/2 DOS support must be installed of course). You can then
            customize the DOS settings exactly as you would do with a WPS
            program Object. The settings are then set into the multiline
            entryfield. You can of course write them by hand, but this is
            discouraged, because of spelling mistakes easily made. DOS settings
            are valid for DOS applications, and WIN-OS2 is just a special DOS
            application. By default, for a new DOS application the DOS Settings
            IDLE_SECONDS=5 and IDLE_SENSITIVITY=100 are defined.

            As seamless WIN-OS2 sessions are also DOS type sessions, you may
            strongly want to adjust the Settings of WIN-OS2 sessions for better
            WIN-OS2 performance than the default settings, e.g you may want to
            increase the memory by adding DPMI_MEMORY_LIMIT=8.

File Find:  If you click on this button, the standard file dialog of OS/2 is
            displayed where you can select the application you want to install.
            The application parameters (e.g path) will then be inserted
            automatically in the corresponding entryfields.

Drag & Drop: You can alternatively use the Drag & Drop operation to create a
            Program Popup Menu entry. There are 3 basic kind of objects you may
            want to drop onto this notebook page:

            1. Program objects, which are *.EXE or *.COM files of PM, OS/2
            windowed, DOS or WIN-OS2 applications. Just select one application
            from, say, a Drives object or from a filemanager, drag it into the
            dialog over any area that accepts it and drop it.

            2. Batch file objects, which are *.CMD or *.BAT type batch files
            for OS/2 and DOS command processors (CMD.EXE and COMMAND.COM).
            These batch files are automatically installed to be run through a
            copy of their command processors (see the online OS/2 command
            reference for more information about CMD.EXE and COMMAND.COM).

            3. WPS Folder Objects, which are opened by the WPS on request of
            PC/2 when selected from the Popup Menu. If the WPS is not running,
            PC/2 can't open menuentries of this type.

            You can't create a menuentry for any object of a different type by
            dropping them onto this dialog, you have to use WPS 2 PC/2 in this
            case. Data extracted from the WPS by WPS 2 PC/2 can then be dropped
            onto PC/2's Setup dialog.

            The notebook settings will be adjusted according to the application
            you dragged into.

For a power user, the data entered may be less. Because the OS/2 API
DosStartSession() is used to start the application, all rules for this API
apply as described in the toolkit. Hence you may leave the entryfield Path and
Filename blank and then select from the Session Settings group an OS/2 or DOS
fullscreen or window, to get a command prompt.

You may also start an application indirectly through a secondary command
processor by specifying c:\os2\cmd.exe as the Path and Filename and use then
the /C or /K option of CMD.EXE in the Parameters entryfield. (For further
information, type start view cmdref cmd in an OS/2 command prompt, to get
online information about the command processor.)

Press Ok to accept, or press Cancel to ignore the data you entered in all
notebook pages.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 9.2. Session Settings ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

Here you can select the type of application you want to add. By default, PC/2
tries to determine the type of an application you installed via the standard
file dialog or via Drag & Drop.

Option:     Description:

Determined by WPS This default selection lets the WPS choose the type of
            application when started.

OS/2 Full-Screen The session is a command session, started in full-screen.

OS/2 Window The session is a command session, started in a window on PM.

Presentation Manager The session is graphical PM application.

DOS Full-Screen The session is a DOS command session, started in full-screen.

DOS Window  The session is a DOS command session, started in a window on PM.

WPS Object  The Object-ID of the WPS Object to be started is contained in the
            entryfield Path and Filename:. The session can only be started when
            the Object-ID is assigned.

Seamless WIN-OS2 The session is a seamless WIN-OS2 session. Be sure that your
            graphics adapter supports such sessions. Currently all seamless
            WIN-OS2 sessions are separate sessions.

Real Mode   The seamless WIN-OS2 session is started in Real Mode. Real Mode
            compatibility is only provided by OS/2 2.0.

Standard Mode The seamless WIN-OS2 session is started in Standard Mode.

386 Enhanced Mode The seamless WIN-OS2 session is started in 386 Enhanced Mode.
            386 Enhanced mode compatibility is only provided by OS/2 2.1.

Separate Session When checked, the seamless WIN-OS2 session in Standard Mode or
            386 Enhanced Mode is started in a separate session (loading another
            copy of the WIN-OS2 environment) otherwise the session is started
            into a common WIN-OS2 session (loading the WIN-OS2 environment only
            once).

You generally have to verify that the Program Type setting corresponds to the
application you installed, for most programs you can use Determined by WPS if
you aren't sure.

According to the Program Type that is selected, some settings may not be
editable or visible.

OS/2 and DOS Fullscreen or Windows are only used if you want to start a command
prompt as the application. In this case, you would usually enter in the the
entryfield Path and Filename of the group Program Data, the path of the
corresponding command processor. An advanced technique to select the type of
command processor only with these radiobuttons is described under the group
Program Type.

To add a seamless WIN-OS2 session without a corresponding WPS Object defined,
select the Seamless WIN-OS2 radiobutton. Another group of buttons will be
enabled, allowing you the select the Settings of the WIN-OS2 session. Although
there is a Separate Session checkbox, seamless WIN-OS2 sessions will currently
always be started as separate sessions.

Warning: Under OS/2 2.0 GA, seamless WIN-OS2 sessions may only be started with
the WPS running, otherwise the system hangs. There also seems to be a problem
with a real mode session, because such a WIN-OS2 session starts to load, but
doesn't finish successfully. Under OS/2 2.1 GA you may start seamless WIN-OS2
sessions with or without the WPS installed.

Press Ok to accept, or press Cancel to ignore the data you entered in all
notebook pages.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 9.3. Style Settings ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

You can select one of the radiobuttons and any of the checkboxes to define the
style the application should be started with.

Warning: PC/2 can only request that an application is started by OS/2 with the
selected style, but it can not force the application not to overwrite these
recommendations.

Some applications overwrite the default style settings, for example by reading
them from a profile, and adjust themselfs immediately before becoming visible.
PC/2 won't be able to prevent applications from doing this, for example, no-one
will be able to move PC/2's Overview Window outside of the Desktop, because
PC/2 itself rejects such manipulations.

PC/2 can't force such applications to accept the styles you selected.

Option:     Description:

Restored    The default style defined by the session itself is used.

Maximized   The session's default style is modified to maximized.

Minimized   The session's default style is modified to minimized.

Invisible   The window created by the application is invisible.

No Autoclose The window created by the application is not terminated when the
            application shuts down.

Background  The window is created in the background. This option may be useful
            for sessions that get started by a Hotkey on a Virtual Desktop, to
            avoid switching the focus from the current Desktop.

Autostart   A session marked with this setting will by started automatically by
            PC/2 during PC/2's invocation. This feature works similar as the
            startup folder of the WPS.

User defined Size & Position The session's default size and position is
            modified to the values entered. PC/2 forces the window to the
            entered position, even when the application overwrites these
            values. You may specify a position relative to the origin of the
            Virtual Desktops (the "middle" Desktop of the 9 Virtual Desktops),
            useful when the. Virtual Desktop feature is enabled.

E.g. if you selected Minimized, Invisible and Background buttons, the
application will be started minimized, in the background and invisible (this
may make sense for a backup program).

Press Ok to accept, or press Cancel to ignore the data you entered in all
notebook pages.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 9.4. Hotkey Settings ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

PC/2 supports the definition of Hotkeys to switch from the current application
to other applications just by pressing a Hotkey. If the Hotkeyed session is on
another Virtual Desktop, PC/2 switches to this Desktop and switches the
application into the foreground.

Warning: Hotkeys defined are detected by PC/2 systemwide, that is they may be
stolen from any PM applications, unless the application has defined an
accelerator for this Hotkey, or you have selected No systemwide Hotkeys on the
General PC/2 Settings notebook page.

PC/2 supports 0 ... 9 and A ... Z in combination with either the CTRL-Key or
the ALT-Key as Hotkeys, giving you 72 different Hotkeys at maximum. This set of
keys is the optimum compromise between CPU requirements and keys available on
all possible keyboard layouts.

If PC/2 can't detect the application running the pressed Hotkey is defined for,
it starts the application as if it was invoked by PC/2's Popup Menu. Starting
applications by pressing a Hotkey is another alternative delivered by PC/2,
when invoking programs delivered by PC/2.

PC/2 allows you to mark the application as non-movable around the Virtual
Desktop. By defining this style, the application always keeps on the active
Desktop, regardless what Virtual Desktop you are switching to.

Control:    Description:

Window Name If you have either marked the application as non-movable, defined a
            Hotkey or a mnemonic, you must fill this entryfield with a string
            that equals or is part of either the application's name on its
            titlebar or the application's name in the Window List. If you use
            one of the two features and you leave the entryfield empty, PC/2
            copies the string from the Program Title entryfield into the Window
            Name entryfield, when you press Ok. after automatically removing
            the tilde defined for the mnemonic.

            Be sure that the string you entered matches only with the current
            application, because the first match of this string with any
            applications's titlebar or its entry in the window list will be
            used. You may want to start your application without these options
            first, to get its titlebar name or its entry in the window list.

            Warning: I strongly recommend you fill in this entryfield if you
            experience unexpected results. PC/2 uses the Window Name to
            identify the current sessions for all running sessions.

Keep on active Desktop Checking this flag keeps the application always on the
            current Desktop regardless to which Virtual Desktop you move.

Enable Hotkey This flag says you want to define a Hotkey for this application.
            The controls necessary to define the Hotkey will be enabled. You
            may want to select the session started in background, if it will
            get started on a Virtual Desktop, to avoid losing focus from the
            current Desktop.

Default     Once you press the Hotkey, the Desktop is switched to the Virtual
            Desktop the application is located on and activates it.

Maximized   The same as for Default is done, but the applications window is
            maximized too.

Restore     The same as for Default is done, but the application's window is
            restored too.

CTRL-Key    You define a Hotkey which ranges from 0 ... 9 and A ... Z in
            conjunction with the CTRL-Key.

ALT-Key     You define a Hotkey which ranges from 0 ... 9 and A ... Z in
            conjunction with the ALT-Key.

            You must select a key in the range between 0 and 9 or A ... Z from
            the dropdown box, which in conjunction with the CTRL-key or ALT-key
            is used to switch to the application. You can define 72 different
            keys this way as the maximum.

Current Window List To define the style non-movable or the Hotkey, you may
            start the application first without these options and grab its
            titlebar name from its window or its window list name from the
            Current Window List.

PC/2 prior to version 1.90, PC/2 could not detect Hotkeys pressed in OS/2 or
DOS windows, but for other windows, when you have defined a Hotkey, you had
just to press the key on the keyboard that has the defined Hotkey character
labeled on. Said otherwise, this approach was NLS-independent.

Version 1.90 and above of PC/2 is also able to detect Hotkeys in OS/2 or DOS
windows, but now you have to define the Hotkeys based on the US-keyboard. The
new approach of detecting Hotkeys is now NLS-dependent.

To explain this in more detail, assume that you have a German keyboard. A
German keyboard looks like the US-keyboard, but has the keys Y and Z exchanged,
that is the Y key is on a German keyboard where the Z key is on a US-keyboard
and vice versa. Now assume you want to define for a program the Z key as a
Hotkey. Because the Z key on a German keyboard is at the position of the Y key
on a US-keyboard, you have to define the letter Y in this dialog's drop-down
box, but to use the Hotkey you have to press CTRL or ALT in conjunction with
the Z key.

I'm sorry that this is a bit complicated, but the only way I have found out to
detect Hotkeys both in PM and OS/2 or DOS windows is by using the Scan-Code of
a key, which is the same for a key at a certain physical position on the
keyboard for all languages, regardless which NLS-dependent letter is printed
on. Which letter is printed on a certain physical key on a keyboard is
dependent on the country the keyboard is used at. Similar, because PC/2 detects
the physical position of a key on the keyboard and not the letter printed on,
you have to translate the Hotkey's letter to the position of the physical key
on a US-keyboard that has this letter printed on.

Caution!  All keys defined as Hotkeys in PC/2 are no longer available for other
applications, because once a key is defined as Hotkey no other application
except PC/2 gets this key. This is a limitation of the Hotkey feature, because
only this way PC/2 can ensure that if a Hotkey is defined, the Desktop switches
to this application. The Hotkey launches the application, if the application,
the Hotkey is defined for, is not running. If you need a certain key, which is
defined as a Hotkey in PC/2, change the Hotkey to an unused key.

Even if a Hotkey is defined, you may pass this key to a application, when the
SHIFT-key is pressed and hold before the Hotkey. When PC/2 detects SHIFT is
pressed together with the Hotkey, it ignores the Hotkey by passing it to the
application that currently has the focus.

Press Ok to accept, or press Cancel to ignore the data you entered in all
notebook pages.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 9.5. Priority Settings ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

PC/2 allows you to specify the priority of the applications you start via the
Popup Menu. OS/2 has the following priority classes and deltas to select from:

Priority Class: Description:

Idle time   Idle-time is the lowest priority class a session or thread can run
            under OS/2. You may use this option for task that should only be
            performed if enough CPU-resource is available, i.e. for a
            background NFS (Network File System) Server or BBS.

Regular     If not specified otherwise, the priority class Regular is the
            default class of all sessions and threads. For this default class,
            the priority delta of 0 is the default.

No Change   This option just doesn't change the priority. The application is
            started with priority class Regular and priority delta 0.

Time Critical Time-critical priority class is used for time-critical sessions.
            Examples may be real-time data acquisition.

Foreground Server Foreground Server is the highest priority class available and
            should be only used for small assembly language applications
            because they really eat up the CPU time.

Priority Delta The priority delta selectable between 0 and 31 is defined for
            each priority class. I.e., a session with Regular priority class
            and priority delta 25 has a lower priority than a session with
            Time-critical priority class and priority delta 3.

Extreme caution!  Changing the priority from the default selection may cause
serious performance impacts on your system. Be very carefully when selecting
higher priorities, because the higher the priority, the higher the CPU
time-slice a session consumes deteriorating overall system performance.

Note! You can't change the priority of DOS session (and WIN-OS2 sessions are
DOS sessions) because allowing this would lock PM for unknown reasons.

For example, if you set an OS/2 command prompt to a Time-critical priority, you
may not be able to switch to other sessions until the command prompt is waiting
for input.

Press Ok to accept, or press Cancel to ignore the data you entered in all
notebook pages.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 9.6. Environment Settings ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

PC/2 allows you to specify the environment of the applications you start. If
you don't specify any special environment settings, the the started application
inherits the environment of PC/2. PC/2 itself inherits its environment from the
process it was started from, which is either the WPS or the OS/2 Shell process
itself.

You may either add settings to the settings that already get inherited from
PC/2, or you may replace settings defined in PC/2's environment with a
different value, or you may modify existing settings with additional values..

For OS/2 versions 3.00 (WARP) and above, you may also specify the settings
BEGINLIBPATH and ENDLIBPATH, which are not part of the process's environment,
but are actually the process's information area, to be technically exact. Even
if both are not part of the environment, PC/2 and the OS/2 command processor
CMD.EXE allow you to treat both settings like environment variables, because
this is more consistent for the user.

Warning: The BEGINLIBPATH and ENDLIBPATH settings are not available for OS/2
2.x, because the Operating System doesn't support it, and will be ignored for
these versions.

An entry in the environment specifies the value of a environment variable, and
entry has therefore the following form:

ENVIRONMENTVARIABLE=VALUE

where ENVIRONMENTVARIABLE is the name of a environment variable and VALUE is
the value it gets assigned. You may replace VALUE by anything you want, but
ensure that you use the correct spelling. Both ENVIRONMENTVARIABLE and VALUE
are case sensitive, and both get inherited to the started process with case
sensitivity preserved. Part of VALUE may also be %ENVIRONMENTVARIABLE which
gets replaced by the VALUE of the same ENVIRONMENTVARIABLE of the parent
process.

For example, to add the environment variable MYPROG with the value MyValue
you'd write:

MyProg=MyValue,

or to replace the PATH environment variable of PC/2's environment you could
write:

PATH=C:\;D:\MYPROG;D:\MYPROG\DLL;,

or to append the path X:\TOOLS; before and Z:\NETWORK\; after the existing
DPATH environment variable of PC/2's environment, you may write:

DPATH=Z:\NETWORD\;%DPATH%X:\TOOLS;.

Warning: You can't replace the LIBPATH variable, which, although it's treated
like a environment variable in CONFIG.SYS, but does not belong to a process's
environment, but to the process itself. The LIBPATH is a systemwide resource.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 9.7. Program installation example 1 ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

Assume you want to add Lotus 123/G:

Fieldname:  You would enter:

Program Title: Lotus 123/G

Path and Filename: c:\123g\123g.exe

Working Directory: c:\123g

Parameters: (none)

Lotus 123/G is a Presentation Manager application so you would select
Presentation Manager as program type. The program style may be Maximized,
because more information is visible. The priority may be left at the default
selection No Change.

Assume you want to add the WPS Object System Clock (located in the folder OS/2
SystemSystem Setup):

Fieldname:  You would enter:

Program Title: System Clock

Path and Filename: <WP_CLOCK>

Working Directory: (n/a)

Parameters: (n/a)

The System Clock is a WPS Object, so WPS Object is selected as the program
type. You may have to look into the file OS2_20.RC to get the defined name of
preinstalled WPS Objects. Most settings are not available for WPS Objects.

Assume you want to add the WPS clock object with the ObjectID <WP_CLOCK>. First
you must extract the ObjectID by using WPS 2 PC/2. Then drag the extracted
object from the WPS 2 PC/2 window onto PC/2's Setup dialog, to create a
menuentry within the Popup Menu. After you have created the clock menuentry,
you can view its settings by editing the menuentry:

Fieldname:  You would enter:

Program Title: System Clock

Path and Filename: <WP_CLOCK>

Working Directory: (n/a)

Parameters: (n/a)

The System Clock is a WPS Object, so WPS Object is used as the program type.
Assuming that you extracted the ObjectID as outlined before, then the Object ID
is <WP_CLOCK>.

Sorry, this may be a little complicated, but it is the only way to get a known
Object ID.

Assume you want to add the WIN-OS2 Program Manager. Open the Program
Installation dialog, and either enter the path information (e.g
c:\os2\mdos\winos2\progman.exe) or drag PROGMAN.EXE into. If you have entered
the data manually, you also must check the seamless WIN-OS2 session. Further
assume that you want in the same WIN-OS2 session to also start the WIN-OS2 File
Manager WINFILE.EXE -  then you'd add it to the Parameters entryfield:

Fieldname:  You would enter:

Program Title: Prog & File Manager

Path and Filename: c:\os2\mdos\winos2\progman.exe

Working Directory: c:\os2\mdos\winos2

Parameters: winfile.exe

You can only add a single Parameter to the WIN-OS2 Program Manager.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 10. Help for PC/2 Control Addition ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

This dialog allows you to add Menu Control items to PC/2's Popup Menu. Except
for Break Separator and Menu Separator, you may only add 1 instance of the Menu
Control to the Popup Menu. The Menu Control Configure Popup Menu Settings must
be added to the Popup Menu in order that PC/2 displays the Popup Menu after
mouse button 1 clicks, otherwise the Setup dialog will be invoked after each
mouse click until you have added this Menu Control. PC/2 supports the following
Menu Controls:

Control:    Description:

Menu Settings This button is used to add the Menu Control to be able to
            configure the Popup Menu via the Setup dialog.

Desktop Settings This button is used to add the Menu Control to configure the
            Virtual Desktop feature.

About PC/2  This button adds the About PC/2 Menu Control.

ShutDown OS/2 This button adds a Menu Control, which, when selected, displays a
            message box allowing you to shutdown OS/2 just by clicking on Ok or
            pressing the Enter key.

Help        This button adds the online help Menu Control item.

Exit        This button is used to add the Menu Control to be able to exit PC/2
            via a message box by just clicking on Ok or pressing the Enter key.

            When running PC/2 as the WPS process, this menuitem will be
            disabled, because a WPS process should not terminate.

Break Separator This button is used to add one break separator Menu Control.
            You may add this Menu Control to convert a large single-column menu
            to a smaller multi-column menu. This Control is a Menu Control that
            you may add as often you prefer. I suggest to use this Control only
            to break Menuitems not being a Submenu.

Menu Separator This button is used to add one separator Menu Control. You may
            add this Menu Control to enhance the readability of the Popup Menu.
            This Control is a Menu Control that you may add as often you
            prefer.

Press Ok to accept or press Cancel to ignore your modifications.

<Backward>                 <Forward>


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 11. Help for PC/2 Resort ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

This dialog box contains two listboxes, the left one that displays the
currently available Menuentries and the right one that displays the currently
resorted Menuentries. Select one or more Menuentries from the left listbox and
press the Reorder button, to resort it to the right listbox. For the remaining
Menuentry(ies) repeat this procedure, until the left listbox is empty. Instead
of selecting a Menuentry and then clicking on the Reorder button, you may
doubleclick on a Menuentry.

You can cancel the resort before you have done any sort, but you have to resort
the complete Submenu once you made one resort operation.

All sorted Menuentries in the right listbox can't be started with PC/2 until
you complete the resort by pressing OK.

Warning: You have to press OK in the Setup Dialog to write the resorted
Menuentries structure to the configuration file.

Because a Break Separator is a style of the preceding Menuentry, you can't
resort a Break Separator standalone, you can only resort its owning menuentry
which automatically resorts the Break Separator too.

<Backward>                 <Forward>


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 12. Help for PC/2 Startup Parameters ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

PC/2 allows you to replace the commandline parameters of your application
completely or partly.

 For example, assume you have a TCP/IP communications package installed on your
system. You also have added an Menuitem that starts a file transfer program
named FTP. FTP requires the name of the host you want to connect to, as a
parameter. To prompt you for this parameter immediately before FTP is started,
you would modify the parameters entryfield of the PC/2 Program Installation
dialog like [Please enter host address]

Further assume that you selected the Menuitem FTP from the Popup Menu. Just
before FTP is started, a dialog box is displayed, requesting the host address
from you. You would type something like ftp.cdrom.com, then the file transfer
program will be invoked as if you typed FTP ftp.cdrom.com from a commandline.

Generally, the syntax for the commandline parameters is:

Parameter(s) 1 [Text] Parameter(s) 2

Assume you typed FirstFile.doc as the first, and ThirdFile.doc as the second
parameter. You would be asked by a dialog box what to replace [Text] with.
Assume you entered MyFile.doc then the program will be invoked with the
commandline parameters FirstFile.doc MyFile.doc ThirdFile.doc. The string
[Text] would have been replaced by MyFile.doc. Of course both parameters may be
omitted, both may contain more than one parameter or only one of them may
present. Omitting [Text] would start the application without asking you for a
commandline parameter prior.

You may also use this dialog to add a second WIN-OS2 application to a WIN-OS2
session, if the first application is the WIN-OS2 Program Manager.

PC/2 allows you to edit commandline parameters similar to the WPS (open the
Settings notebook of any application, position the cursor into the Parameters
entryfield and press F1 or Help to get further information).

Press Acceot to accept the parameters you entered, or press Ignore to replace
the user editable Parameter(s) with an empty string.

<Backward>                 <Forward>


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 13. Help for PC/2 Desktop Setup ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

PC/2 supports Sliding Focus and Virtual Desktops.

The Sliding Focus gives you a behavior you may know from X-Windows - you don't
have to click on a window to activate it and to switch the input focus to it -
the window below the mouse pointer is automatically activated. Just move the
mouse pointer from one window to another to switch the input focus. You'll
notice that the window below the mouse pointer always has a highlighted frame,
which OS/2 uses to signal the active window as having the input focus. You may
use the SHIFT-key to temporarily suspend the Sliding Focus, which you may find
useful for some programs, e.g. online help displayed with VIEW.EXE, because
OS/2 doesn't expect mouse movements to switch the active window.

A Virtual Desktop is a Desktop enhancement that expands the size of your
display and controls which part of the virtual display is covered by your
physical screen. For example assume that you are running OS/2 on an XGA-2 at a
resolution of 1024 * 768 pixels. Your display has then 1024 columns and 768
rows of pixels, giving you a Desktop where application windows can be seen. We
will call this the physical Desktop. Of course you can start windows outside
this Desktop, on one of the Virtual Desktops, but you won't be able to see them
unless you switch to this Desktop.

To summarize the graphics, assume you are using an XGA-2 display adapter at a
resolution of 1024 * 768 points:

 1. The physical Desktop, that is the screen you are currently looking into is
    located at the center of all Virtual Desktops, after invoking PC/2 The
    lower left point of is then the origin in the Virtual Desktop with
    coordinates of (0, 0). All coordinates on the Virtual Desktop are then
    counted relative to this absolute origin, counting positive on the right
    and upper direction and negative to the lower and bottom direction.

 2. The Virtual Desktop to the left to your Display after starting PC/2 has
    negative horizontal coordinates. In our example, this point would be
    (-1024, 0).

 3. The Virtual Desktop right to your Display after starting PC/2 has the
    absolute coordinates of (1024, 0) in our example.

    On a VGA screen at a resolution of 640 * 480 the coordinates would be (640,
    0), as you have hopefully assumed.

 4. When you are using OS/2, you have usually a physical Desktop in front of
    you, where the WPS (WorkPlace Shell) is running. After invoking PC/2, the
    WPS is drawn on the Overview Window with the name Desktop. Behind the WPS,
    which is a Presentation Manager application just covering the while screen,
    is the image of the physical Desktop, named Display, but it is covered by
    the WPS, so you can't see it.

    Now assume you move the physical Desktop onto the Virtual Desktop where the
    IBM Web Explorer, (named IBM WebE in our graphics), runs. The physical
    Desktop will then be at 2 in our graphics, and you would be able to see its
    name Display then, because it is not longer covered by the WPS.

Simply speaking, imagine the Virtual Desktop as an up to 9 * 9 array of
Desktops, with the physical Desktop, that is the display, just covering 1 of
all Virtual Desktops. You just navigate your display around within the Virtual
Desktops as you would do on a map from sector to sector. Distributing
applications on the Virtual Desktops simply helps you to avoid having all
application's windows on your display.

Now assume that you move the physical Desktop left, all windows you have
started will move right, so some shift out on the right side and some shift in
on the left side of your display.

Controlling the windows is exactly that what PC/2 does for you. If you move
your mouse pointer on the leftmost column of your display (column 0), all
windows move rightward, as the physical Desktop moves leftward within the
Virtual Desktop. The same principle is used on the rightmost columns and the
top and bottom rows. If you move your mouse pointer into a corner of your
display, the physical Desktop even will move in two directions, leading to a
horizontal and a vertical movement.

Of course you can only move your physical Desktop in one direction, as long as
this movement keeps it within the Virtual Desktop, whose size you can select
from 1 * 1 up to 9 * 9.

The Sliding Focus gives you a behavior you may know from X-Windows, you don't
have to click on a window to activate it, the window below the mouse pointer is
automatically activated. Just move the mouse pointer from one window to
another, to switch the input focus.

All settings are saved and will be used when PC/2 is loaded unless you have
specified a different behavior with the Commandline Parameters.

Caution: You may want to disable the Sliding Focus on a machine used for
development. When using a debugger (e.g. IPMD) your machine is likely to lock
with the Sliding Focus enabled.

You can use the Virtual Desktop on a development machine, just avoid switching
between Desktops when a debugger is active.

Trap popup screens also make changes in the focus order so I would suggest you
use the keyboard to dismiss these dialogs.

For more information selecte help for one of following notebook pages:

o Virtual Desktop Settings
o Physical Desktop Settings
o General PC/2 Settings

Once you have configured the notebook pages, just press Save to bring them into
effect and save them to the profile, or Cancel to make them temporarily
effective, but without saving them to the profile PC2.INI on disk. If your INI
file is corrupted, PC/2 assumes default values, which you then can edit and
save to a new INI file.

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ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 13.1. Virtual Desktop Settings ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

This dialog is used to control the Virtual Desktop feature of PC/2.

Fieldname:  Description:

Virtual Desktop Select this checkbox to enable the Virtual Desktop feature of
            PC/2.

Move OS/2's Desktop This checkbox allows you to move the Desktop within the
            Virtual Desktop like any other window. The Desktop is another name
            for the WPS (WorkPlace-Shell). You may check this option if you
            don't need the services provided by the WPS on all Virtual
            Desktops.

Click to Move If you prefer to click to a surrounding row or column, before the
            physical Desktop is moved, select this option, otherwise you can
            change to another Virtual Desktop by just moving the mouse pointer
            on a surrounding row or column of your Display.

Overview Window You may also want an Overview Window, that contains the current
            layout of the Virtual Desktop. Select this checkbox to enable this
            feature. You may doubleclick with mouse button 1 on any of the up
            to 81 Virtual Desktops to immediately switch to this Desktop.
            commandline option, to move the physical Desktop.

Expand WPS to Virtual Desktop When selecting this feature, the WPS is expanded
            to the size of the Virtual Desktop. You may then distribute WPS
            Objects to any of the Virtual Desktops. If you have a scroll bar on
            your WPS, this feature removes the scrollbar when your WPS
            completely fits into the Virtual Desktop.

Desktop Scrolling The scrollbar Desktop Scrolling enables you to define the
            scrolling factor that is applied to your Virtual Desktop, when
            switching to the next Virtual Desktop, by clicking on a surrounding
            row or column. You can select between 0 and 100 % with 5%
            increments, with 100 % being the default one.

Virtual Desktop count These two spinbuttons enable you to define the number of
            Virtual Desktops in horizontal direction and vertical direction,
            both in the range of 1 to 9. The first spinbutton determines the
            number of Virtual Desktops in the horizontal direction, the second
            spinbutton the number of Virtual Desktops in the vertical
            direction.

Single Click Select this option if you want to activate the Popup Menu or
            switch to another Virtual Desktop with a single click with mouse
            button 1.

Double Click Select this option if you want to activate the Popup Menu or
            switch to another Virtual Desktop with a double click with mouse
            button 1.

Preselection Check this item if you want PC/2 to automatically select the first
            entry of your Popup Menu for you. If the first item is a submenu,
            it will be opened automatically.

Sliding Focus Select this checkbox to enable the Sliding Focus feature of PC/2.

            Note! Even if this setting is enabled, you can temporarily prevent
            the focus from moving by holding down the SHIFT-key when moving the
            mouse.

Preserve Z-Order To preserve the Z-Order of the windows, that is, the order in
            which a window in the foreground overlaps a window behind, also
            check the Preserve Z-Order checkbox.

            Note! Even if this setting is enabled, you can temporarily prevent
            changes of the Z-Order by holding down the SHIFT-key when moving
            the mouse.

Hide Titlebar To hide the titlebar of PC/2's Overview Window select this
            option. This increases the space available to paint a reduced image
            of the Virtual Desktops.

Hide Smarticons To hide the smarticon bar of PC/2's Overview Window select this
            option. This increases the space available to paint a reduced image
            of the Virtual Desktops too, at the cost of not being able to
            manipulate PM windows on the Overview Window.

Press Save to accept the configuration and save it into PC2.INI, or press
Cancel to ignore any changes you made. If your INI file is corrupted, PC/2
assumes default values, which you then can edit and save to a new INI file.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 13.2. Physical Desktop Settings ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

This dialog is used to control the physical Virtual Desktop feature of PC/2.

Control:    Description:

OS/2's Desktop Name PC/2 has to know the name of this Desktop, so you have to
            ensure that you type its name in the entryfield. Under OS/2 2.0
            it's usually named OS/2 2.0 Desktop, but it changes under OS/2 2.1
            to Desktop, if you haven't installed it over an existing OS/2 2.0
            system. You may rename the Desktop by clicking with mouse button 2
            on the Desktop selecting DesktopSettings (or Settings under OS/2
            Warp) and selecting the General notebook page. Changing the title
            can be used to replace OS/2 2.0 Desktop by Desktop. Also ensure
            that you translate it into your national language, if you don't use
            an English OS/2 version.

Window List Name PC/2 also must know the name of the Window List. The Window
            List is usually named Window List but you have to ensure that it is
            translated into your national language, if you don't use an English
            OS/2 version.

Button 2 titlebar click lowers Z-order Select this checkbox if you want to
            click down mouse button 2 on any window's titlebar to set this
            window to the bottom of all windows. This moves the window you
            clicked on behind all other windows, lowering its Z-Order to the
            minimum. The window under the mouse pointer is moved to the
            foreground and activated, if it is not the same you clicked on.

            By holding the Ctrl-key while clicking with mouse button 2 on a
            window's titlebar, the window under the mouse pointer gets not
            moved to the foreground and activated. This allows you to kick a
            window into the background without affecting the Z-order of other
            windows.

            By holding the Alt-key while clicking with mouse button 2 on a
            window's titlebar, the titlebar acts as if you haven't checked
            PC/2's option Button 2 titlebar click lowers Z-order. This allows
            you to move the window or activate any special features the window
            supports.

Keep on top Select this option if you want the Overview Window to always stay
            on the top of the Desktop, even if another window has the focus.

Use Spooler Control Window PC/2 provides a Spooler Control Window, which allows
            you to manage the printer queues and jobs of your local
            workstation. This feature is primarily to provide printer
            management, when PC/2 is running as a WPS replacement, because the
            standard OS/2 Spooler management is a SOM application, and requires
            the WPS to be running.

            By default PC/2 starts the Spooler Control Window only, when PC/2
            is running as a WPS replacement. When selecting this checkbox, the
            PC/2 Spooler Control Window is also available when you run PC/2 on
            top of the WPS (which increases PC/2's memory requirements
            slightly). Changes of this setting aren't available immediately,
            but the next time you start PC/2.

Background Bitmap Check this option to add the background Bitmap support of
            PC/2. PC/2 then allows you to define a bitmap, which is displayed
            on PM background. PM background means all the background of OS/2
            that is not covered by the WPS. For example if you have 3 Virtual
            Desktops, having the WPS as the centered one, then the 2 Virtual
            Desktops beside the WPS will display the background bitmap.

Normal      This option displays the bitmap unsized. The bitmap is centered.

Scaled      This option scales the bitmap so that is covers the complete
            screen.

Tiled       The bitmap is tiled covering the complete screen with the tile
            count selected in the Tile count spinbutton. You can select a tile
            count of 1 to 99 although OS/2 seems to limit this to about 20.

            Caution! Under OS/2 3.00 Warp this seems to hang OS/2 completely,
            requiring a soft reset. A defect (PMR 4X472) has been opened
            against OS/2 Warp, so this may be fixed by a future CSD (Corrective
            Service Diskette).

            This bug is not a problem of PC/2, since it works correctly under
            OS/2 2.x.

Find Bitmap... Select this pushbutton to use the standard OS/2 file dialog to
            locate the bitmap file you want to display.

Path to Bitmap Either fill this entryfield by selecting a bitmap with the file
            dialog by clicking on Find Bitmap... or enter the fully qualified
            path to  the bitmap manually.

Press Save to accept the configuration and save it into PC2.INI, or press
Cancel to ignore any changes you made. If your INI file is corrupted, PC/2
assumes default values, which you then can edit and save to a new INI file.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 13.3. General PC/2 Settings ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

This dialog is used to control PC/2 settings that have a general character.

Control:    Description:

Normal ShutDown (WPS method) Check this item if you want PC/2 to perform a
            Shutdown of OS/2 the way the WPS does, when selecting ShutDown from
            its context menu. When this item is checked, and you select
            ShutDown from PC/2's Popup Menu or SmartIcon, OS/2 informs all
            application that OS/2 is going to shut down, giving them a chance
            to write unsaved changes to disk. Some applications, e.g. OS/2
            command processors, even ask if you are sure to close them.

Ignore Autostart Check this item to ignore the Autostart style of applications
            in PC/2's Popup Menu, without having to remove this style from all
            applications individually. You may find this feature useful when
            temporarily exiting PC/2 and reloading PC/2 without launching the
            applications having the Autostart style set a second time.

            You may also specify the commandline option -NoAutostart, as
            described in General Help for PC/2, to get the same behaviour.

No systemwide Hotkeys Check this item to allow PC/2 Hotkeys to be detected
            only, if either PC/2, the Window List, PM or the WPS is active
            window when pressing a Hotkey. This prevents PC/2 from stealing
            Hotkeys from your application software you are working with.

            For example, if you have defined the Hotkey CTRL+U to start a host
            upload program, you usually don't want to invoke this upload, when
            pressing CTRL+U in EPM to undo a typing mistake.

Press Save to accept the configuration and save it into PC2.INI, or press
Cancel to ignore any changes you made. If your INI file is corrupted, PC/2
assumes default values, which you then can edit and save to a new INI file.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 14. Help for PC/2 Overview Window ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

PC/2's Desktop Overview Window displays a sized image of all windows available
on all Virtual Desktops and allows direct manipulation. Of course PC/2's
Overview Window must be enabled before it is displayed.

To change the font of the Overview Window just drag a font from the Font
Palette to the Overview Window. This font will be saved the next time you exit
PC/2.

The Overview Window is controlled by smarticons, located at the top of the
window. The currently active smarticon is framed and pressed. If mouse button 2
is pressed on a window, the action corresponding to the active smarticon is
performed.

To perform actions on the windows displayed in PC/2's Desktop Overview Window,
the following smarticons may be used:

Icon:       Description:

Exit PC/2   Click on this smarticon to exit PC/2.

            When running PC/2 as the WPS process, this smarticon will be
            disabled, because the WPS (or WPS replacement) process should not
            terminate.

Move window Selecting this icon changes the pointer to a window pointer cursor,
            allowing you to select and move a window by clicking and holding
            mouse button 2.

Hide window Selecting this icon changes the pointer to a window pointer cursor,
            allowing you to select and hide a window by clicking mouse button 2
            on it. The window can be made visible again by selecting it from
            the Window List.

Set to top  Selecting this icon changes the pointer to a cross wires cursor,
            allowing you to move a window on the top of the Desktop by clicking
            mouse button 2 on it.

Set to bottom Selecting this icon changes the pointer to a cross wires cursor,
            allowing you to move a window to the bottom of the Desktop by
            clicking mouse button 2 on it.

Kill a session Selecting this icon changes the pointer to a cross wires cursor,
            allowing you to terminate a window by clicking mouse button 2 on
            it.

Maximize window Selecting this icon changes the pointer to a cross wires
            cursor, allowing you to maximize a window by clicking mouse button
            2 on it.

Minimize window Selecting this icon changes the pointer to a cross wires
            cursor, allowing you to minimize a window by clicking mouse button
            2 on it.

Restore window Selecting this icon changes the pointer to a cross wires cursor,
            allowing you to restore a window by clicking mouse button 2 on it.

ShutDown OS/2 Selecting this icon changes the pointer to a window pointer
            cursor and displays a message box asking to continue ShutDown of
            OS/2. If you chose to continue ShutDown, OS/2 closes all file
            buffers and suspends all disk access without closing the running
            applications. This ShutDown method shuts down OS/2 immediately
            without any further user interaction, however active programs do
            not get informed to write unsaved data to disk.

            When activating the Ignore Autostart checkbox, PC/2 doesn't ask you
            to continue ShutDown of OS/2, but performs a ShutDown as the WPS
            does. This is described in more detail at the Virtual Desktop
            Settings help. This ShutDown method may take a while and usually
            required user interaction, however all applications get the chance
            to write unsaved data to disk.

PC/2 Help   Selecting this icon changes the pointer to a window pointer cursor
            and displays PC/2's online help you are reading now.

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ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 15. PC/2's Spooler Control Window ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

PC/2 supports a Spooler Control Window, which is simply a container filled with
the available printer queue and job information available on the local machine
PC/2 is running.

To change the font of the Spooler Control Window, just drag a font from the
Font Palette to the Spooler Control Window container. This font will be saved
the next time you exit PC/2. The PC/2 Spooler was primarily added to be able to
manage print jobs on systems PC/2 is running as a WPS replacement. Any WPS
replacement has to start the OS/2 spooler and provide a mechanism to manage
print jobs.

To be able to display PC/2's Spooler Control Window, you must select the
menuitem PC/2 Spooler from PC/2's Popup Menu (of course you have to add this
menuitem via the Control Addition dialog.

If the container is empty, PC/2 can't find any printer queue on your local
workstation.

Menuentry:  Description:

Refresh     Select this item to refresh the Spooler window container
            immediately from the real-time printer queue status of the local
            workstation. When you don't select this item, the Spooler window
            container gets refreshed regularly.

Hold job    Select this item to set the currently selected job(s) to hold
            status.

Release job Select this item to set the currently selected job(s) to normal
            status (this request will be ignored for jobs being in the normal
            status).

Delete job  Select this item to delete the currently selected job(s). The jobs
            will be removed from the printer queue by the OS/2 spooler in a few
            seconds.

Hold queue  Select this item to suspend the currently selected queue(s). All
            jobs running in these queues will suspended from printing, too.

Release queue Select this item to set the currently selected queue(s) to the
            normal status (this request will be ignored for queues being in the
            normal status).

Help        Selecting this item just displays the online help panel you are
            currently reading.

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ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 16. PC/2's Compatibility with other applications ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

This section provides information about compatibility with some (but certainly
not all) useful packages. (EWS is the abbrevation for Employee Written
Software, a program of IBM to promote programs written by its emplyees outside
of IBM. OS2TOOLS is the OS/2 utilities archive on the IBM internal use only
IBMPC conference disk.)

Program:    Compatibility information.

BOOTOS2     This package, available as EWS (or from OS2TOOLS), allows you to
            create a bootable system to either diskette or harddisk. The
            bootable system can range from a single command prompt, over a PM
            to a complete WPS setup. This is useful for creating a bootable
            maintenance partition on a logical FAT (because HPFS requires a
            CHKDSK when not shut down correctly) drive (requiring under 10 MB
            disc space), allowing you to recover a unbootable production
            partition (e.g. changes in CONFIG.SYS which made it unbootable) or
            to remove files, which would have been locked when booting from
            your production partition.

            After creating a PM setup, the standard OS/2 command processor
            CMD.EXE is your Workplace Shell process.

            By replacing the line SET RUNWORKPLACE=\OS2\CMD.EXE, which BOOTOS2
            creates in your CONFIG.SYS, by SET RUNWORKPLACE=\PC2\PC2.EXE,
            assuming you have installed PC/2 into the directory \PC2 on the
            boot drive, PC/2 will be a more comfortable Workplace Shell
            process. You can of course copy your existing PC2.CFG file to this
            directory, to continue fast access to your favorite programs.

IPFCPREP    This package, available as EWS (or from OS2TOOLS) is a great help
            for writing online help panels (that is compiling *.IPF files into
            *.HLP files). This package contains a preprocessor that adds
            conditional compiling, macros and some more things, which the IPFC
            (Information Presentation Facility Compiler) is definitely missing.

PMPRINTF    This package, available as EWS (or from OS2TOOLS) is a great help
            for debugging PM programs. This package contains an object named
            PRINTF.OBJ, which can be linked in into an executable to replace
            the standard C-function printf(), which writes to stdout, by a
            printf() that forwards the output into the window of a PM server
            application. This allows real-time traces of stdout output, which
            you can get otherwise for PM programs only by redirecting stdout to
            a file, and analysing the file afterwards.

PMSPY       This package, available from OS2TOOLS is a great help for debugging
            PM messaging. This package consists of a spy, which allows you the
            see (of course you may define filters to see only some of) all PM
            messages sent within a process and between processes.

PMTREE      This package, available as EWS (or from OS2TOOLS) or is a great
            help for analysis of the hierarchy of all PM windows and within PM
            windows. It allows you to see which controls a window consist of,
            and which styles, resources, process IDs, window text, position and
            size,... are assigned to a window.

OS/2 2.x    PC/2 was successfully tested with OS/2 2.10 and 2.11 US. It may
            also be compatible with OS/2 2.00, but this was not tested.

OS/2 WARP   PC/2 is fully compatible with OS/2 WARP. Using previous versions of
            PC/2 (1.70 and before) may cause problems when using the Virtual
            Desktop. Of course, you can continue to use the Launchpad together
            with PC/2.

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ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 17. Help for PC/2 Errors ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

PC/2 can't verify all user input for validity, so some user input may cause
some PC/2 functions to fail. In this case, a message box is displayed
containing the module and the sourcecode linenumber that failed. Also, an error
message is displayed, containing which error occurred and what should be done
to resolve the problem.

E.g. you might've configured to start the program VIEW.EXE by writing
c:\os3\view.exe in the entryfield Path and Filename in the Program Installation
dialog. This of course leads to an error, because when OS/2 tries to start this
item, it can't find the directory \os3\ simply because it should read \os2\. A
message box is displayed saying an error occurred, and that the user input
should be corrected.

Some messages aren't even errors, just warnings (e.g. the message that informs
you that the file PC2.INI does not exist or must be updated from a previous
version of PC/2).

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ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 17.1. Help for running PC/2 ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

PC/2 detected that one instance of PC/2 is already running in your system. PC/2
can only be run once concurrently, this instance will therefore shutdown
itself.

Please ensure that only one instance of PC/2 gets started concurrently, to
avoid this error message. This limitation also applies when running two
different versions of PC/2, which also may trap all instances of PC/2 due to
version incompatibilities.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 17.2. Help for loading DLLs ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

PC/2 requires access to the DLL PC2HOOK.DLL. OS/2 reported that this DLL or a
function within this DLL couldn't be loaded successfully.

Please ensure that PC2HOOK.DLL is in the directory PC/2 was started from. You
should also ensure that you don't use the DLL from another version of PC/2,
because they are very likely incompatible. You can check the version by
comparing the file dates, which should be identical.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 17.3. Help for accessing PC2.INI ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

A problem occurred accessing the profile PC2.INI. You will usually get this
message when PC2.INI can't be accessed, either because PC/2 can't read from it,
or write to it.

When you are running PC/2 for the first time, this message just informs you
that an empty or non-existant profile was found. Once you enter some
configuration data, PC/2 will then create this file, which will then be used
for future invocations.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 17.4. Help for loading PC2SPOOL.DLL ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

PC/2 requires access to the DLL PC2SPOOL.DLL. OS/2 reported that this DLL or a
function within this DLL couldn't be loaded successfully.

Please ensure that PC2SPOOL.DLL is in the directory PC/2 was started from. You
should also ensure that you don't use the DLL from another version of PC/2,
because they are likely incompatible. You can check the version by comparing
the file dates, which should be identical.

This message is only informational - you may continue using PC/2, however the
Spooler interface is disabled.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 17.5. Help for creating working thread ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

To improve overall system performance, OS/2 was designed to support
multithreading for applications. PC/2 also uses this feature, to perform
time-intensive tasks with a second working thread, to avoid unresponsiveness of
PM.

During creation of this working thread, an error occurred. PC/2 will not be
able to continue.

You may have run out of resources - close some windows or applications and
retry. You may have run out of threads; if you are using applications that take
full power using multiple threads, increase the THREADS count in your
CONFIG.SYS then.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 17.6. Help for accessing PC2.CFG ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

A problem occurred accessing the profile PC2.CFG, or the profile you specified
using the -Profile commandline parameter. You will usually get this message
when PC2.CFG can't be accessed, either because PC/2 can't read from or write
to.

When you are running PC/2 for the first time, this message just informs you
that an empty or non-existant profile was found. Once you enter some
configuration data, PC/2 will create this file, and use it for future
invocations.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 17.7. Help for PC/2's hooks ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

PC/2 requires to be able to hook into two hooks provided by OS/2 - (the Input
hook and the Sendmessage hook), in order to intercept mouse movements, key
presses and window positioning.

If you experience this error during initialization of PC/2, you can't continue.
Ensure that PC2HOOK.DLL is accessible in the directory you installed PC/2 into,
and rerun PC/2 again.

If you experience this error during shutdown of PC/2 it is recommended to shut
down OS/2 to avoid possible data loss.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 17.8. Help for dialog creation ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

You selected an option that required further user intervention. PC/2 tried to
load a dialog window to get the necessary user input, but loading the dialog
failed.

You may have run out of resources.  Close some windows and applications and
retry again.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 17.9. Help for changing directory ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

PC/2 tried to change the current working directory on a drive. OS/2 reported
that a call accessing the directories was unsuccessful, however you may ignore
this message and continue your work.

You may notice that a selected session didn't get started, or the working
directory on a drive wasn't changed correctly.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 17.10. Help for changing priority ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

PC/2 allows you to specify the priority for some session types, which required
PC/2 to change its priority, because the current priority gets inherited to
sessions started by PC/2

You may ignore this message and continue your work, however a shut down is
suggested to avoid potential data loss.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 17.11. Help for starting a session ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

An error occurred when PC/2 tried to launch the selected session. You may
verify the parameters you entered for the session and retry the operation.

If a module name is given, that is a DLL of the product to be started, you may
have to add this DLL to a path pointed to by the LIBPATH environment variable,
or alternatively specify the BEGINLIBPATH or ENDLIBPATH settings under OS/2
Warp.

You may also check the following items:

o Is the executable's name correctly spelled?

o If you don't have specified a working directory, does the executable's name
  include full path information?

o Is the working directory spelled correctly?

o Are all DLLs required by the application accessible for the OS/2 loader?
  (Refer to your application's documentation on how to install the product
  correctly.)

o Is the application's environment specified correctly?

o Is the application's session type specified correctly?

o Have you tried to start the application through a command processor (CMD.EXE
  for OS/2 programs, or COMMAND.COM for DOS programs)?

o Have you tried to start the application using the same parameters as entered
  in the application's Program Installation notebook in a command processor
  window?

If the failure persists, you may have run out of resources, close some windows
and applications and retry again. You may have run out of threads.  If you are
using applications that take full power using multiple threads, increase the
THREADS count in your CONFIG.SYS then.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 17.12. Help for accessing media ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

PC/2 tried to access removable or non-removeable media to determine the media's
parameters. OS/2 reported that a call accessing the media was unsuccessful,
however you may ignore this message and continue your work.

You may notice that a selected session didn't get started, or the working
directory on a drive wasn't changed correctly.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 17.13. Help for PC/2 as WorkPlace process ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

When running PC/2 as WorkPlace Shell (WPS) process, you will not be able to
close, and therefore terminate, PC/2. PC/2 will ignore any requests to close
from the Window List and the Menuentry and Smarticon to close PC/2 are disabled
during PC/2's initialization.

This is not a limitation of PC/2, OS/2 always restarts the application
configured as the WorkPlace process, when this process terminates for some
reason. You may have noticed that the WPS itself gets restarted when it traps
due to an error caused by itself or its registered WPS Objects.

If you no longer want to use PC/2 as the WorkPlace process, please refer to
Installing PC/2 on how to undo the changes you made to use the PC/2 as the
WorkPlace process.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 18. Help Questions & Answers ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

The following questions and answers is the online help version of PC2.FAQ.

******************************************************************************
                            Frequently Asked Questions

                   PC/2 - Program Commander/2 Version 1.90 for
                      IBM OS/2 2.x, 3.x Presentation Manager
                      Copyright (C) by Roman Stangl May, 1995

                               Version 1.90 Draft
******************************************************************************

 1.) How can I configure PC/2 to display the Popup Menu on the Desktop, using
     a Mouse Button 1 singleclick instead of the default doubleclick?

     First, you may select the Configure Desktop dialog on the Popup Menu to
     select the type of default mouse click action.  This information is
     written to the PC2.INI profile.
     Second, use the commandline option "-SingleClick" or "/SingleClick" to
     overwrite the default behavior read from PC2.INI. If you run PC/2
     as a WPS replacement, you can't use any commandline option, since
     OS/2 seems to dislike commandline options on programs run as the WPS.
     However, this doesn't prevent you from setting the default behavior using
     the Configure Desktop dialog.

 2.) PC/2 assumes that OS/2 is installed on drive C: , but I use drive H: !

     Either start with a blank menu and add your programs, or use an editor
     such as EPM.EXE to change all " C: " occurrences to " H: " in the
     profile.
     The profile is named PC2.CFG by default.

 3.) How do I add DOS Settings correctly?

     If you wish to do this using your text editor, ensure you use the
     exact same spelling as found in the settings of a typical DOS
     program. They have usually ON/OFF or numbers as possible
     selections. For ON/OFF, you add =1 or =0 to the setting, e.g.
     HW_TIMER=1. For numbers, add =xxxx, e.g. EMS_MEMORY_LIMIT=1024 or
     DOS_VERSION=DOSPROG.EXE,5,0,255. But the really easy way to do this
     is to use the standard DOS Settings dialog, which is displayed when
     you click on the DOS Settings pushbutton.

 4.) How can I add batch files?

     Batch files aren't executable files, so they need a command
     processor to interpret them. Therefore, you have to select a
     command processor, (e.g. CMD.EXE) and add /C filename.bat or /C
     filename.cmd to the parameters entry field. You may wish to look at
     the command reference of CMD.EXE and COMMAND.COM for more details.
     If you use the standard file dialog to find the batch file you want
     to add, PC/2 automatically add this batch file as an argument to the
     command processor.

 5.) Is HPFS supported?

     Yes, PC/2 fully supports HPFS. However, if a filename contains spaces,
     you have to place it in double-quotes, e.g. at a command prompt you
     would type DIR "[d]\OS!2 2.0 Desktop\*" /s to list all files of the
     Desktop directory. The same is true for PC/2, e.g. if you want to start
     a batchfile that conforms to HPFS-filename conventions, you may create
     an entry like this : (Note: Replace [d] with a drive letter, e.g. E: )
        Program Title:      HPFS-Test
        Path and Filename:  [d]\OS!2 2.0 Desktop\Prompts\Command Processor.exe
        Working Directory:  [d]\OS!2 User Applications
        Parameters:         /C ""[d]\OS!2 2.0 Desktop\Run Me.cmd""
     Note: Passing HPFS-filenames to command processors may require two
     double-quotes (e.g. CMD.EXE does). Also take a look at the help pages
     for CMD.EXE to get more details. Open up an OS/2 command line prompt, and
     enter: help cmd.exe - this should get you to the right section.

 6.) How do I start a full-screen WIN-OS2 session?

     Create a full-screen DOS command prompt that uses WINOS2.COM as the
     executable's name. (e.g. [d]\OS2\MDOS\WINOS2\WINOS2.COM, where [d] is the
     drive letter you installed WIN-OS2 onto, e.g. C: ). Then add the required
     DOS Settings (e.g. the following settings greatly improve performance on
     a 8514/A adapter (and probably on other adapters too):
        VIDEO_8514_XGA_IOTRAP=0
        VIDEO_RETRACE_EMULATION=0
        VIDEO_SWITCH_NOTIFICATION=1
        XMS=64
        EMS=0
        DPMI=4 (or more than 4, if you run a lot of Win apps)
        IDLE_SECONDS=2
        IDLE_SENSITIVITY=100
        HW_ROM_TO_RAM=1
     Thanks to Timothy Sipples for them!

 7.) How do I control what mode and session type a Windows application runs
     in?

     Just enter the application's data and select the mode the seamless
     WIN-OS2 session should run. This includes realmode, standard or
     enhanced 386 mode, both in separate sessions or in a common VDM.

 8.) How do I start a VDM from an image?

     First create the image, then create an entry of a fullscreen or windowed
     DOS session. Then add to the DOS settings:
        DOS_STARTUP_DRIVE=[path]DISK.IMG
     where [path]DISK.IMG is the path and filename of the image you want to
     start. Caution! On OS/2 2.0 (2.0 GA) it doesn't work; I don't know why.

 9.) How do I start a VDM that boots from drive A: ?

     Same as item 8.) says, only adjust the DOS settings to:
        DOS_STARTUP_DRIVE=A:
     Caution! On OS/2 2.0 (2.0 GA) the system traps, I don't know why.

10.) Why has PC/2 an option to shut down OS/2?

     Some people use PC/2 as a replacement for the WorkPlace Shell (this saves
     up to 4 MB memory!) and they can't click with button 2 to get the WPS
     Popup Menu, from where shutdown is usually selected. So, it is provided
     on PC/2's Popup Menu. PC/2 requests OS/2 to clear all file buffers. After
     all disk activity has been stopped, it is safe to power off your system.
     PC/2 don't close the programs, but after the disk activity has stopped,
     all processes are frozen (you can not switch to or select programs
     anymore).

     If you set up "Normal Shutdown" in the PC/2 Desktop Menu, when you click
     Shutdown OS/2 on the PC/2 Popup Menu, PC/2 will act just as the WPS does,
     when doing a normal shutdown.  In other words, apps are notified they are
     about to be shut down, and, depending on the application, you may get
     several questions asking something to the effect "Do you really want to
     do this?"

11.) How do I add commandline parameters at runtime?

     E.g. assume you created a Menuentry that starts the editor EPM.EXE.
     After you selected EPM, just before it is started, you can request
     a dialog box from PC/2, where you can enter any commandline parameter
     by adding a [...] construct in the parameters entryfield of the Program
     Installation dialog. This work similar to the same WPS feature.

12.) How do I install PC/2 as a replacement for the WPS?

     First, install PC/2 in the normal way. Second, edit your CONFIG.SYS to
     replace the statement (Note: substitute your drive name instead of
     [d], e.g. C: ):
        SET RUNWORKPLACE=[d]\OS2\PMSHELL.EXE
     to
        REM * SET RUNWORKPLACE=[d]\OS2\PMSHELL.EXE
        SET RUNWORKPLACE=[d]\path\PC2.EXE
     or
        REM * SET RUNWORKPLACE=[d]\OS2\PMSHELL.EXE
        SET RUNWORKPLACE=\path\PC2.EXE

     Where [d]\path is the drive and path (e.g. \PMAPPS\PC2 on drive C: )
     where you installed PC/2. (The second method can be used to add
     PC/2 as the Workplace process of a maintenance partition, e.g.
     created by the BOOTOS2 package). Second, ensure that all PC/2
     *.DLLs are in the directory PC/2 is running from, or in a path
     pointed to by the LIBPATH environment variable in your CONFIG.SYS.

     The next time you boot, the WPS will not be loaded (you can verify this
     by a blank screen displayed instead of the normal Desktop and objects.

     Not using the WPS saves memory and reduces boot time!

     Of course, you can also start the WPS later, either by starting
     PMSHELL.EXE from a command prompt or from a PMSHELL Menuitem of PC/2.
     You can follow the WPS initialization by heavy disk access and buildup
     of your Desktop with objects. To use the Popup Menu on the newly started
     WPS just wait a few seconds until PC/2 knows about this new window.
     PC/2 displays the Window List on PM too, just as the WPS does by
     clicking mouse buttons 1 and 2 together.

13.) How do I add WPS Objects to start them via PC/2?

     The important thing is, that you have to know the WPS Object ID
     (Identifier) to be able to add them to PC/2. For preinstalled Objects,
     you can find the ID in the file [d]\OS2\OS2_20.RC (where [d] is the
     drive you installed OS/2 onto, e.g. C: ).
     Alternatively, you may use WPS 2 PC/2 to extract the Object ID from
     WPS Objects not being Folders or Program Objects, when available.
     The ID of Objects, created as outlined above, may than be added in the
     entryfield Path and Filename in the Program Installation dialog, with
     the Program Type WPS Object.
     Note that this function is not supported when PC/2 is used as the
     replacement for the WPS, as it is the WPS that services starting
     the Object ID's.

14.) How do I use Drag'n Drop?

     In addition to the standard file dialog, you may use Drag'n Drop to
     add applications in the Program Installation dialog. E.g. you may
     use a drive object, select one (only 1!) application, and then drag
     it into the dialog and drop it onto any area that accepts it (any area
     that isn't covered by text, buttons, entryfields,...).
     You can also drag one WPS Folder Object onto the first page of the
     Program Installation dialog, to open it when selecting it from the
     Popup Menu.
     PC/2 will try to determine the type of the application you added
     automatically (programs or folders), but you can still change it.

15.) How can I add WPS Objects, and what WPS Object classes are allowed?

     The simplest way is to use WPS 2 PC/2. Just drag the WPS Objects you
     want to add to PC/2's Popup Menu, onto the WPS *icon* of WPS 2 PC/2
     (Not the open WPS 2 PC/2 application).
     Then open the WPS 2 PC/2 application window by clicking on the icon
     mentioned before. Now drag the status bitmap (the full suitcase) from
     WPS 2 PC/2 onto the Setup dialog of PC/2, and voila, for each WPS
     Object extracted, a new menuentry is created within PC/2's Popup Menu.
     WPS 2 PC/2 can extract data from WPS Objects of classes WPProgram,
     WPFolder, any WPS Object that has an Object ID defined, or WPShadow
     Objects of the classes mentioned previously.
     E.g. you can't extract your WPS Printer Object, or a Drive Object,
     unless an Object ID is assigned to these Objects.
     Note: When running PC/2 as a replacement shell for the WPS, these
     functions are inoperative, as they require the WPS to service them.

16.) Does PC/2 change to the root of all drives except for the working dir?

     Yes, PC/2 changes to the root of all non-removable drives before the
     selected application is started.

17.) Which versions of OS/2 are supported?

     PC/2 was developed under OS/2 2.1 GA, 2.11 GA, and WARP GA, but I would
     expect it to work under OS/2 2.0 and any Service Level too.
     Under OS/2 WARP for Windows, using a tiled background bitmap hangs OS/2
     solidly, requiring a reboot.
     Under OS/2 WARP Fullpack, using a tiled background bitmap just hangs
     PC/2, so in this case, just use CTRL+ESC to terminate PC/2. A defect
     (PMR 4X472) has been opened against OS/2 WARP, so a future CSD
     (Corrective Service Diskette) will hopefully repair this defect.
     This bug is not a PC/2 problem, since selecting a tiled background
     bitmap works correctly under OS/2 2.x.

18.) How do I enable the Virtual Desktop and/or Sliding Focus?

     Start PC/2, click on the Desktop and select SETUP Desktop. A dialog box
     will appear, where you can enable these features. Just press help for
     further information.
     To temporarily suspend the Sliding feature, just hold down the SHIFT key
     while moving the mouse.

19.) How does the sliding Focus work?

     For all pointer movements, OS/2 generates messages that contain the
     window where the message originated. PC/2 hooks into these messages
     and determines the active window. If the active window is not the
     window that originated the message, it makes the message originating
     window active.
     Of course, PC/2's window, the Desktop and the window list are treated
     differently. To preserve the Z-order of the windows, also check this
     option.
     Caution! Sliding Focus does not work well, when running seamless
     WIN-OS2 sessions. To temporarily suspend Sliding, just hold down the
     SHIFT key while moving the mouse.

20.) How do I use the enabled Virtual Desktop?

     You may know that a VGA-display has usually 640 columns and 480
     rows (numbered from 0...639 and 0...479). If you position your mouse
     pointer over the surrounding rows and/or columns of your display
     (here columns 0 or 639 and/or rows 0 or 479) PC/2 SHIFTs all windows
     that exist on your system (with some exceptions like window list) in
     the opposite direction. Some windows may slide out, some may slide in
     from the other direction.
     You may click on any Virtual Desktop on the overview Window to
     immediately switch to that Virtual Desktop.

21.) How does the Virtual Desktop work?

     First, for all windows, OS/2 tracks their coordinates in data structures.
     PC/2 queries and adjusts them according to the mouse movements the
     user makes. For instance, if the mouse pointer is over column 0 on the
     screen, PC/2 adds to the x-position of all windows for example 50 % of
     the x-dimension of the screen. The windows appear to move rightward (out
     of the display) because the display SHIFTs leftward within the Virtual
     Desktop. Because windows are usually aligned on byte-boundaries, they
     may not appear on their original place if you SHIFT one unit in one
     direction and one unit in the opposite direction.

22.) How do I start applications on the Virtual Desktop?

     In the Program Installation dialog, you can define the size and
     position that the application should use. For instance, you can enter
     a position of -200 in X, which would position the application to the left
     of your Physical Desktop.  All coordinates are in relation to your
     Physical Desktop.  In other words, an x setting of -1 would position your
     application 1 pixel (out of a possible 640 in VGA) to the left off of your
     Physical Desktop.

     PC/2 forces the window to the position you entered, however the
     application may determine its size itself. To allow PC/2 to find the
     window, ensure that you enter the applications Window List entry or
     titlebar text to the Window Name entryfield on the Hotkey notebook page
     of the Program Installation dialog. You don't need to enter the complete
     Window List or titlebar text, just any substring that matches with the
     text.
     *However*, you must ensure that this substring matches *only* with the
     application you want. Results are unpredictable if multiple applications
     contain the same substring.

     Some applications are "stubborn", that is, no matter what you do to
     specify your xy coordinate position for the application, it refuses to
     obey, and starts where it wishes.  For instance, a DOS windowed session
     that changes from 80x25 line mode to 80x28 line mode during startup
     causes just such a condition.


23.) What's the name of the Desktop?

     OS/2 2.0 introduced the name "OS/2 2.0 Desktop" for the Desktop window,
     which normally is the WPS. OS/2 2.1 and OS/2 WARP  use the name
     "Desktop" instead, if you install it over a newly formatted system.

     OS/2 2.1 and WARP may use a different name, if you install it over a
     previous OS/2 system, so please read the README file provided with your
     version of OS/2 carefully.

     You may use the Notebook that appears after clicking mouse button 2 on
     the WPS at page Desktop-Settings to change the Desktop's name.
     Your Desktop may have a name translated to your national language.

24.) What's the name of the Window List?

     The Window List (known as Task List in OS/2 1.x) is just named
     "Window List". It may have a name translated to your national
     language.

25.) What about seamless WIN-OS2 support, without a corresponding WPS object?

     PC/2 allows you to start seamless WIN-OS2 sessions, as separate sessions
     or in a common VDM. This means, if you start a Windows application in a
     separate session, a complete copy of the WIN-OS2 environment will come up.
     This wastes memory, so I suggest to start Windows applications into a
     common VDM whenever possible.

     This seamless WIN-OS2 support works also without the WPS installed,
     under OS/2 2.1 GA with no problems, but OS/2 2.0 GA hangs during load.
     So under OS/2 2.0 GA, only start seamless WIN-OS2 sessions if the WPS is
     running.

     Under OS/2 2.0 GA you can only successfully start WIN-OS2 sessions in
     standard mode. 386 enhanced mode is not supported by OS/2, and real mode
     starts to load, but doesn't complete successfully for unknown reasons.
     Under OS/2 2.1 and WARP, real mode is not supported, so you can only start
     Standard mode and 386 Enhanced mode sessions.

26.) How many applications can I start within a seamless WIN-OS2 session?

     For a separate session usually only 1, but you may start the Windows
     Program Manager as the first, and any Windows applications as a
     commandline parameter, which the Program Manager will start for you.
     If you start the Program Manager, you can of course start any Windows
     application from it, but make sure that you have enough storage defined
     in the DOS Settings (usually DPMI_MEMORY_LIMIT=16 or so).

     For separate sessions, the limit is determined by your system
     configuration (e.g. how much memory you have in your kingdom. <smile> ).

27.) How do I define a program's priority?

     Just select the last notebook page from the Program Installation dialog.
     Warning - changing a program's priority may have severe impacts on your
     system's performance, giving all CPU time to the application.

     You may set a tape backup or image conversion program to a lower priority
     or a real-time data acquisition to a higher priority.

     For DOS sessions (and WIN-OS2 sessions are DOS sessions), the priority
     can't be changed, because this would lock PM for unknown reasons.

     You can't change the priority of WPS Object either, because the WPS
     actually starts them after a request from PC/2.

     On OS/2 Warp, you can adjust the priority of DOS sessions via the DOS
     Settings dialog, in the Settings Notebook.

28.) How do I define a Hotkey to switch to a session?

     Just select notebook page 4 from the Program Installation dialog.
     You may define any key from the pool keys 0 to 9 and A to Z combined with
     either with the CTRL or the ALT key. Once a Hotkey is defined for an
     application, it is no more available for other sessions. You may define
     Hotkeys for 72 different sessions as the maximum.

     If PC/2 detects that the user pressed a Hotkey and the application the
     Hotkey is defined for is not running, PC/2 launches the application,
     otherwise, PC/2 will jump to the application already running.

     You may temporarily suspend the Hotkey feature by pressing and holding
     the SHIFT key while pressing the Hotkey. PC/2 will then ignore the
     Hotkey and pass it over to the application that currently has the focus.

29.) How does the Hotkey feature work?

     PC/2 knows which Hotkeys are used if you have defined them. However, PC/2
     also needs to know at least a part of the application's titlebar text or
     Window List entry to switch to, so you have to fill in the entryfield
     "Window Name: " (on the Hotkey notebook page) with the session's titlebar
     text or Window List entry.

     For a session's Window Name either use part of the string that appears
     in the session's titlebar, or part of the string that appears in the
     Window List for this session.  This is most important that you follow
     this procedure, otherwise results become unpredictable.

     If you press the Hotkey for a session, PC/2 searches all titlebars
     and the Window List for the text from the "Window Name" entry and
     switches to that session when a match was found.
     PC/2 not only switches to the session the Hotkey is defined for, but
     also switches to the Virtual Desktop the session resides on.
     If neither the Window Name can be found on any window's titlebar nor
     in the Window List, PC/2 assumes the application is not running and
     launches it. This is why it is important that you ensure your entry in
     the "Window Name" entryfield accurately relates to the titlebar name of
     the running session's Window List entry.

     You may temporarily suspend Hotkey detection, if you press the SHIFT key
     simultaneously with the Hotkey. PC/2 then will *not* steal the Hotkey,
     but passes it on the the window that had the focus while the keypress.

30.) Why should I use the Hotkey feature?

     Well, you don't need to use it, but you may find it very useful to
     quickly switch to a certain session, for example a host terminal
     emulator and than switch back to a compiling environment residing
     on different Virtual Desktops.

31.) I have defined some Hotkeys - now these keys are not available on other
     sessions any more!

     Once you have defined a Hotkey, this Hotkey will be "seen" by PC/2
     when it is pressed, because PC/2 "steals" them, before the application,
     the key was pressed in, gets the notification for that key. Hotkeys are
     detected systemwide, unless you check the option "No systemwide Hotkeys".

     PC/2 will not see the Hotkey, if this Hotkey is the same as a accelerator
     key, because PM translates character keys into accelerators before PC/2
     has the chance to detect it. See 52.) for an explanation of accelerators.

     For example, the EPM editor has defined an accelerator key for CTRL+U,
     to invoke its undo function. You can define CTRL+U as a Hotkey for your
     terminal emulator, but PC/2 will never see this key. To allow PC/2 to
     see CTRL+U then, you have to switch the focus to a window that has no
     accelerator defined for this key, e.g. the Window List.

32.) I switched to another window - now the Hotkey feature doesn't work
     anymore!

     The window you switched to has probably defined an accelerator key, that
     matches the Hotkey (see also 52.), the Hotkey can't be seen by PC/2 then.
     See 31.) for more information.

33.) I defined a Hotkey but the wrong window is activated!

     You have probably defined a Hotkey for an application and have
     inadvertantly started more than one copy of this same application. PC/2
     only switches to the first application window, and ignores all other
     sessions containing copies of the same hotkeyed application.

     Be sure that you don't start more than one instance of a session a
     Hotkey is defined for. A session is a PM, windowed OS/2 or DOS
     application that displays at least one window on PM (Presentation
     Manager).

34.) How to I define a Hotkey for a certain window (e.g. Drive C object)
     even if it wasn't started from PC/2?

     Assume that you have opened the Drive C - Tree View object from the
     OS/2 System->Drives object of the WPS and you want to define ALT+C
     as its Hotkey.
     Create a new menuentry and skip to the Hotkey notebook page of the
     Program Installation dialog. Enable the Hotkey feature and select
     ALT+C as the Hotkey.
     Then select the entry of the Drive C object from the Current Window
     List MLE and doubleclick on it. The selected entry will also be
     filled into the entryfield Window Name. Now save the changes and
     voila, you can now use the newly defined Hotkey.

     As the Drive objects are WPS Objects too, Drive objects can only be
     opened while the WPS is running.

35.) Do I need to completely fill in the Program Installation dialog to
     define a new Hotkey?

     No, you just need to fill in the Hotkey labeled notebook page. PC/2
     uses the text entered in the entryfield Window Name to compare with
     all windows' titlebars and Window List entries. If the text matches
     any of these entries, (or subset of the entry) the window the entry is
     defined for is activated.

     To use the Hotkey feature, just ensure that the text entered in the
     entryfield Window Name is part of any window's titlebar or Window List
     entry.

36.) I have 2 OS/2 windows with the same name. Will the Hotkey work?

     Yes, but only for the first window whose titlebar or Window List entry
     matches to the Menuitem Window Name. You have to ensure a unique title
     for a window to allow PC/2 to exactly identify a window and activate it
     through the Hotkey function.

37.) How do I access the Window List on PM?

     If you are positioned over the PM with the mouse pointer, just press
     and hold down a mouse button and then click the other while not moving
     the mouse pointer. The Window List will appear with the mouse pointer
     in center (when the complete Window List can displayed then).
     The PM is the bottommost window which you can see as your Desktop's
     background, if either you don't run the WPS or you moved the WPS to
     an other Virtual Desktop.

     Of course pressing CTRL+ESC works too.

38.) What is the feature "Button 2 titlebar click to set window to
     bottom" useful for?

     Even if you don't use the Virtual Desktop feature, you may find
     that sometimes you like to switch to a window which is under the
     currently active one, but you don't want to move or minimize the
     active one to get the other window to the top. If this option is
     on, it enables you to just click mouse button 2 on the active
     window's titlebar to push this window to the bottom. The window
     previously behind the active window now becomes the topmost window.
     Note that with this function enabled, you can't activate window
     movement with mouse button 2 anymore - however you can still
     accomplish this using mouse button 1.

     Pressing the CTRL key while clicking on the titlebar only moves the
     window to bottom; pressing the Alt key activates the default action
     of the titlebar (usually activating the move window tracking frame).

     Therefore, the CTRL and Alt key may be temporarily used to suspend
     the default PC/2 behavior.

39.) Can a Hotkey defined for PC/2 itself?

     Yes, just enter PC/2 as the string to match on the Hotkey notebook
     page in the Program Installation dialog and assign a Hotkey e.g.
     ALT+P.

40.) When switching to a Virtual Desktop with a Hotkey, how is the window
     aligned?

     PC/2 moves the Desktop on the Virtual Desktop at the rate you defined
     with the Virtual Desktop Scrolling scrollbar on Desktop Setup dialog.
     The movement stops either when the middle point of a window becomes
     visible on the screen the first time, or a surrounding edge was hit.
     If you set the Virtual Desktop Scrolling to 100 % you will probably see
     the best results.

41.) How do I activate and use the PC/2 Spooler Control Window?

     To be able to select the PC/2 Spooler, just add a the PC/2 Spooler via
     the Control Addition dialog to your Popup Menu. Then select the newly
     created item to show the PC/2 Spooler.
     The PC/2 Spooler is a container where you can manipulate the printer
     queues and print jobs of your local machine by pressing mouse button 2
     on any row you want to apply an action. A Popup Menu occurs, which you
     can use to select actions.

     Note that when running PC/2 as the WPS replacement, the PC/2 Spooler
     Control Window is the only way you can control your queues and jobs.
     Even more, without the PC/2 Spooler Control Window, the OS/2 spooler
     would not even be started!

42.) Why does the Overview Window sometimes not correspond to the real Desktop
     application mix?

     The Overview Window does its updating by event triggering.

     This means that an event (creating, destroying, sizing or moving a
     window) is the prerequisite for all windows available on the Desktop to
     get shown on the Overview Window.

     For example, because many events are generated when a Window is created,
     PC/2 ignores all events during working on the first event.
     So when PC/2 is drawing a window on the Overview Window as a result of a
     window creation, and another window is created (but doesn't trigger any
     action by PC/2 because PC/2 is already busy with the previous event) it
     will not be displayed on the Overview Window.

     To compensate for this, PC/2 redraws all windows again, when another
     event is triggered. However, even then, there is a low possibility that
     a window doesn't get recognized by PC/2.

     When the system is idle, no event triggers PC/2 actions and PC/2 is
     therefore idle too.

     PC/2 versions previous to 1.80 took another approach. They always drew
     the windows available, loading the CPU to a permanent 15 % even when
     the system was doing nothing. I am happy to say, this is no longer the
     case.

43.) I have configured a Popup Menu, but always get the Setup dialog when
     clicking on the Desktop.

     To display the configured Popup Menu, the Menu *must* contain the entry
     "Configure Desktop", otherwise, the Setup dialog will be displayed.

     To add the menuentry "Configure Desktop", select the pushbutton
     "Add Control" from the Setup dialog. Then select "Configure Popup Menu
     Settings" to add the entry "Configure Desktop" to your Popup Menu.
     Now you will get the Popup Menu when clicking mouse button 1 on the
     Desktop.

44.) How can I change the default fonts used by PC/2?

     You can change the font of the Popup Menu, the Spooler Window and the
     Overview window by simply dragging a font from the font palette:

     +) to change the Popup Menu's font, drop the font onto the Smarticonbar
        on PC/2's Overview Window
     +) to change the Spooler Window Container's font, drop the font onto the
        container
     +) to change the Overview's Window font, drop the font onto the Overview
        Window (all fonts will be accepted, though some fonts produce not
        exactly the requested result).

45.) What is the addon WPS 2 PC/2 used for?

     WPS 2 PC/2 is a WPS Object, residing in WPS2PC2.DLL. This DLL must reside
     in a directory that is accessible through the LIBPATH environment
     variable in your CONFIG.SYS.

     When WPS 2 PC/2 is installed and registered to the WPS, you can extract
     settings from WPS Program and Folder objects to be used within PC/2's
     Popup Menu.

     To extract the data from WPS Objects, just select the and drag them
     over to WPS 2 PC/2's closed icon on your Desktop, and drop them to let
     WPS 2 PC/2 extract their contents.

     To add extracted WPS Object data to PC/2's Popup Menu, open the
     WPS 2 PC/2 Object and PC/2's Setup dialog, and drag the Status bitmap
     (Full suitcase) from WPS 2 PC/2's window onto the Submenu/Program
     Configuration listbox on PC/2's Setup dialog.

     Menuitems corresponding to the settings of the WPS Objects you extracted
     will be added at the bottom of the current level of the Popup Menu (you
     probably will notice that the listbox gets filled with the top-level
     WPS Objects converted to Popup Menu entries).
     From now on, you can use exactly the same settings of your WPS Objects
     from PC/2's Popup Menu without entering them twice (even DOS settings
     will be extracted).

46.) How can I open WPS Folder Objects from PC/2's Popup Menu?

     Just create a Program Menuitem by selecting Add Program from PC/2's
     Setup dialog. Then drag one WPS Folder Object on PC/2's Program
     Installation dialog (and replace the Program Title field for better
     readability) - that's all.

47.) What is the difference between the "slow" and "fast" version of PC/2.

     Beginning with version 1.90, PC/2 slightly changed the way how the
     Overview window is updated.

     Up to version 1.80, PC/2 used to updated the Overview window only on
     the screen, causing some flicker. This approach is called "slow" because
     it gives the best performance for video chipsets, that have a small
     performance of moving data from main memory to video memory (e.g. the
     8514/A adapter because of its IO-mapped design). This version is called
     PC2SLOW.EXE and can either be renamed to PC2.EXE or you change the
     settings of PC/2's WPS Object.

     Beginning with version 1.90, PC/2 defaults to draw most changes of
     the Overview window into memory first, and just copies it onto the
     screen, when the drawing has finished, eliminating most flicker.
     This approach is called "fast" because for modern video chipsets
     (e.g. XGA, S3) there is no performance impact of moving data from
     main memory to video memory. This version requires a slightly more
     memory).

48.) Why does an installation update of PC/2 not work with active CM/2?

     IBM Communication Manager/2 locks the DLL PC2HOOK.DLL when running,
     therefore you have to stop and shut down CM/2 prior to run an update of
     PC/2.
     This behavior of CM/2 is not expected and I can't explain it -
     but there are potentially more programs out having this behavior. So
     I suggest you shut down or not start applications prior to running an
     installation update of PC/2, if you experience problems installing PC/2.

49.) Why does selection of a tiled background bitmap hang OS/2 Warp 3.0?

     OS/2 WARP has a bug, when requesting display of a tiled background
     bitmap. It even behaves a little different between OS/2 WARP and OS/2
     WARP Fullpack. A defect (PMR 4X472) has been opened against OS/2 WARP,
     so a future CSD (Corrective Service Diskette) will hopefully repair this
     defect.
     This bug is not a PC/2 problem, since selecting a tiled background
     bitmap works correctly under OS/2 2.x.

     During beta test of OS/2 WARP Fullpack, I informed OS/2 development
     3 times about this bug (on an IBM internal forum, and via a note), but I
     have not yet heard back yet, in time for the cutoff date of this release.

50.) Do I have to change anything in CONFIG.SYS to run PC/2?

     No, PC/2 is so smart that it can locate all its files (the DLLs, the
     online HLP and configuration files) in the directory PC/2 was started
     from! This also holds true then using PC/2 as the WPS replacement.

     In contrast, many other programs require modifications in your CONFIG.SYS
     or that you copy some files in certain directories.

     Just WPS 2 PC/2 requires its DLL and HLP file in the directory \OS2\DLL
     and \OS2\HELP, because the WPS requires them in a path pointed to by the
     LIBPATH and HELP environment variables. Both files will be copied by the
     installation automatically.

51.) I have defined a Hotkey, but now my favorite program doesn't get this
     key!

     When you have defined a Hotkey, PC/2 "sees" that Hotkey when any PM
     window (PM programs, OS/2 and DOS windows) has the focus unless:

     *) a application has defined an accelerator for this Hotkey, then PC/2
        won't be able to detect it (see 52. for more information),

     or

     *) you have selected the checkbox "No systemwide Hotkeys" on the Desktop
        dialog notebook - using this option, PC/2 detects Hotkeys only when
        either PC/2, the Window List, or the WPS are the active tasks when
        pressing the Hotkey.

52.) What is referred as an *accelerator* key?

     An accelerator is a special OS/2 PM (Presentation Manager) resource, that,
     when pressed, informs the window having the focus not by its ASCII
     character code, but by a special message.

     As PC/2 *detects* only Hotkeys by their character code, not by any
     special message they may produced, PC/2 can only *see* a Hotkey, when
     the PM window having the focus when the Hotkey was pressed, does *not*
     have defined an accelerator key for this Hotkey.

     For example, the EPM editor has defined an accelerator key for ALT+S,
     to invoke its split line function. You can define ALT+S as a Hotkey to
     launch PMSEEK, but PC/2 will never see this key, when pressed having
     EPM as the focus window.
     To allow PC/2 to see ALT+S then, you have to switch the focus to a
     window that has no accelerator defined for this key, e.g. the Window
     List, PC/2, the WPS or PM itself.

53.) Which sequence is used by PC/2 when autostarting programs?

     PC/2 uses a recursive depth-first search, when searching the Popup Menu
     for applications marked to be autostarted. For example, assume your Popup
     Menu looks like the following graphics (tree view):

                           +----+     Px ... x'th program menuentry, not
                        +--| A2 |                 not having autostart flag
                        |  +----+                 set
                        |  | P1 |
                +----+  |  +----+     Sy ... y'th submenu menuentry
             +--| A1 |  |  | A3 |
             |  +----+  |  +----+     Az ... z'th program menuentry, having
             |  | S2 |--+                         autostartt flag set
     +----+  |  +----+     +----+
     | S1 !--+  | S3 |-----| P2 |
     +----+     +----+     +----+
     | A5 |                | P3 |
     +----+     +----+     +----+
     | S4 |-----| P4 |     | A4 |
     +----+     +----+     +----+
                | P5 |
                +----+
                | A6 |
                +----+

     \----/     \----/     \----/
      root      first      second
     level     submenu    submenu
                level      level

     Having above Popup Menu, invoking PC/2 would autostart applications in
     the following order:
     A1 --> A2 --> A3 --> A4 --> A5 --> A6

     To define a certain sequence for your applications to autostart, you have
     to position their menuentries according to above graphics.

54.) Are duplicate menuentries allowed?

     It is possible to have multiple menuentries for the same applications,
     but I *strongly* recommend creation of just *one* menuentry for a single
     application.
     PC/2 currently does *not* support a concept of "shadow menuentries",
     behaving similar to WPS Shadowobjects.

55.) What's the difference between the Program Title and Window Name?

     The Program Title is the text displayed for an application's menuentry in
     PC/2's Popup Menu. Some applications (e.g. OS/2 and DOS windows) even use
     this text in their titlebar, but mode applications (e.g. EPM) choose to
     set their titlebar text according to their own preferences.

     The Window Name is the text used by PC/2 to identify one certain PM
     window among all windows on PM. To identify a certain window, PC/2 uses
     the Window Name text and matches it with all windows on PM. A window is
     identified when the menuentry's Window Name matches either the window's
     titlebar *or* the window's Window List entry. The first window of all
     windows on PM which matches with the menuentry's Window Name is assumed
     as the window launched by this menuentry by PC/2.

     If you choose not to fill the Window Name entryfield, PC/2 just copies
     the contents of the Program Title entryfield into Window Name.

56.) How can I use a Hotkey that starts a program, each time the Hotkey is
     pressed instead of switching to the running instance?

     Just ensure that the program's Window Name entryfield contains a text,
     that never occurs on any window's titlebar *or* Window List entry.

     For example I prefer CTRL+O to start an OS/2 window each time I press
     CTRL+0. I do so be entering the following data for this OS/2 window:
        Program Title:      OS/2 Window
        Window Name:        HK OS/2 Window
     Under the assumption that now other window on PM contains the string
     "HK OS/2 Window", CTRL+0 will always start a new OS/2 window.

     Of course, if I for example would invoke EPM "HK OS/2 Window", then my
     OS/2 Window's Window Name "HK OS/2 Window" would be successfully matched
     with this EPM session when pressing CTRL+0, and the Hotkey would switch
     to this EPM session instead of starting another OS/2 window.

     Just ensure that it is very unlikely that any PM window contains the
     Window Name in its titlebar *or* Window List entry, to start a new
     instances of the program each time the Hotkey is pressed.

Also, please read the help panels.

Enjoy! Roman

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