OK, your in the Finder. You’ve been plowing around you hard disk for hours, opening up tons of folders which are still open and scattered all over the desktop. Where is that folder you had just a minute ago… Arggggghhhhhh!!!
OK, now picture the same scene, but now imagine that all your open folder windows are arranged in a nice cascading fashion down the desktop. Nice, huh!! No problem jumping from folder to folder, since all the titles are visible. Over organized you say?? You bet, but I didn’t waste my time arranging them.
Introducing WinStacker, a Finder window arrangement utility that places your folder windows the way you like ‘em!!
How do I use it?
Just drop it in your Control Panels folder and re-boot. That’s all. It starts working automatically. Want to do some fine tuning, just open the WinStacker control panel and change the settings.
Show Startup Icon - Turns on/off the very cool animated startup icon.
Relate Initial Window to - Tells WinStacker where to put the very first window on a windowless desktop.
Nothing - Just what it says. Opens the window in the place you left it last.
Desktop - Places the window close to the upper-right corner of the desktop.
Main Screen - Places the window close to the upper-right corner of the main screen.
Align Desktop Items - Instructs WinStacker to apply the same window arranging rules for those items that are opened directly from the desktop, e.g. hard disks, trash can, floppy disks, etc... If left unchecked, these windows open in their "natural" position.
NOTE: This feature is not supported when running under System 6.x since there is no way to discern when an item that lives on the desktop is being opened.
Set Alignment - Lets WinStacker know how to arrange the windows. Just grab the “Upper Window” and drag it to the desired placement over the “Lower Window”. Hit OK and your ready to roll. WinStacker will use this same offset every time it aligns a window.
About - Displays the wicked-cool About Box and version number of this marvelous program.
NOTE for System 7 Users: By the way, WinStacker sports Balloon Help, so turn it on if you forget what the settings mean.
Anything else??
Yes, as a matter of fact:
• WinStacker does check for windows that would be positioned "off screen", i.e. part of the opened window would hang off the bottom or right side of the screen. If such a condition occurs, WinStacker will position the window back towards the top and/or left of the screen. I could make this an option, though. What do you think?
• There is a problem positioning newly created folders. As long as you create folders via New Folder from the Finders file menu, everything is cool. If, however, an application or other utility creates a new folder for you, then that new folder will not be positioned correctly when you open it. To work around this problem, move the incorrectly positioned window and then close it. Open it again and it's positioned correctly! I'm working to correct this problem, so don't report it as a bug. I'll post an Updater or a new version once the problem is solved.
• WinStacker doesn’t adjust the horizontal or vertical size of the window (this would be seriously over organized). It could do this, but I don’t think you would like it.
• WinStacker doesn’t work with other applications, just with the Finder, and just with Finder windows that have grow and zoom boxes, so Info windows, dialogs and alerts won’t be arranged.
Is That it??
Pretty much. If you have any comments, suggestions, incompatibilities, or bugs, keep them to yourself (just kidding). Please send them to one of the addresses listed below. US (Snail) Mail is OK, but E-Mail rocks.
WinStacker is freeware. Please feel free to distribute it. WinStacker is not in the public domain, however. All rights on WinStacker are reserved by the author Matthew E. Axsom, and this document must accompany the software whenever WinStacker is distributed. It may not be sold commercially (e.g., public domain and shareware disks). Exceptions are that user's groups and on-line services may distribute it as long as any costs are for the actual cost of the service (i.e., connect time or media costs). WinStacker is provided "As Is" without any warranties, and the author assumes no responsibility for any damage caused by this program.
Have Fun!
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Matthew E. Axsom
P.O. Box 1346
Keene, NH 03431-1346
Internet: chewey@aol.com
AOL: Chewey
Delphi: Chewey
Revision History
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1.0.1 - 03/01/94 - Corrected a problem that caused the OK and Cancel button within the Set Alignment dialog to become non-responsive to mouse clicks. This only occurred if the "Upper Window" was positioned below the level of the window positioning area.
02/25/94 - Fixed a bug that caused older Mac's not capable of supporting multiple graphic devices (Plus, SE, etc...) to crash. - Thanks to Ray Frye for reporting and tracking down this bug!!
