FPos

_______________________________________________________________________________ == FPOS == _______________________________________________________________________________ Beta version 0.80 released July 3, 2007 (C)Copyright 2004 R.L.Walsh - all rights reserved An open-source project licensed under the Mozilla Public License Please send your comments & questions to: Rich Walsh <rws@e-vertise.com> _______________________________________________________________________________ - About FPos - _______________________________________________________________________________ FPos sheds light on one of the largest and least understood os2.ini entries: PM_Workplace:FolderPos. FPos lets you review its contents - and delete most of it. Cleaning it up will produce a smaller os2.ini that's less likely to be corrupted as the WPS loads and saves the file. As the name suggests, these entries save a folder's position along with the colors and fonts it uses. However, it saves this info for every view you've ever opened. Open some folder in Tree view by accident and the result is an entry you may never use again. Worse, it also saves all this info for every Properties notebook you've ever opened - not just for folders, but for files, program objects, everything! (Have you ever wondered why checkini reports "folder position for non-folder object"?) Deleting the entries for views you never use and for most/all Properties notebooks presents little risk: none of this is critical data. If you make a mistake, you can simply open the folder in question, resize it, and reapply your choice of colors and fonts. And, when you're all done with FPos, there's no need to reboot or restart the WPS. FPos was created to demonstrate the features of Remote Workplace Server ("RWS"). RWS enables stand-alone programs to interact with the WPS as though they were part of it. Programs can manipulate WPS objects in ways that were not available previously: query their titles, paths, icons, etc.; popup their menus; and more. RWS is an open-source project. Contributions of code from developers and suggestions from users is encouraged. To foster widespread use, RWS is licensed under the generous terms of the Mozilla Public License. _______________________________________________________________________________ - Installing FPos - _______________________________________________________________________________ Both FPos v0.80 and its companion utility, Iconomize v0.80, require access to the dlls rwssrv08 and rwscli08. Other programs may require these as well. You have two choices: - put FPos.exe, the two dlls, and Iconomize.exe (if you have it) in the same directory - put the two dlls in a directory that's on your LIBPATH, and put FPos.exe (and Iconomize.exe) wherever you wish The first time you run FPos, it will register the "RWS08" WPS class. This class, contained in RwsSrv08.Dll, hosts the server portion of Remote Workplace Server. It creates no permanent objects and will only be loaded by the WPS when you run a program that uses RWS. Note: Each version of RWS operates independently and will never conflict with earlier or later versions. You can run programs that require different versions of the RWS dlls simultaneously without any compatibility problems. _______________________________________________________________________________ - Using FPos - _______________________________________________________________________________ When FPos loads, it has to "wake up" every WPS object that has an entry in PM_Workplace:FolderPos. This may take 5-30 seconds. For every entry, the display identifies the: object's title, the view this entry represents, the size of the stored data, and the object's full path. It also shows the entry's key in os2.ini and identifies its position within the file. Initially, the list is sorted by title. You can click on any column heading to sort the list in ascending order based on that column. Clicking on the heading again will resort it in descending order. While most columns sort alphanumerically, View is sorted in a "natural" order. If you want to change this or you want to reverse the ascending/descending indicators, click on Options->Settings on the main menu. To delete items, doubleclick on them, or press Delete or Enter, or click MB2 and select Delete or Undelete from the popup menu. Items will be marked with a red 'X'. They will not be deleted from os2.ini until you close FPos or select one of the options on the File menu. You will then be asked to confirm that you want to delete them. Right-clicking on a group of selected items presents a limited menu that lets you delete or undelete all items. Right-clicking on a single item provides a more versatile menu. You can open the view this entry represents, locate the item (i.e. open the folder containing it), or popup the object's WPS menu. When you close FPos's main window or any of its popup windows, it will save the window's size, position, colors and fonts. Closing FPos will also save the current sort order and any settings you've changed. To reset everything to their original values, check 'Restore all defaults' on the Options-> Settings dialog, then restart FPos. _______________________________________________________________________________ What Should I Delete? _______________________________________________________________________________ It may be easier to answer the question "what should I save?". The answer here is: your preferred view for folders you access frequently, along with folders where you've explicitly set the colors and fonts. The entries you should delete are those whose views say "Error", "Unknown", and "Settings". You should also delete entries whose view has a number after it, e.g. "Icon-1". For folders you seldom access, delete all views; for folders you use frequently, delete the views you seldom use. On my system, nearly all of the folders in the Desktop tree are set to Icon view and have been assigned a particular color scheme. Every other folder on the system (other than Drive objects) is set to Details view. Sorting the list by Path made it easy for me to identify the views that were unnecessary and should be deleted. Sorting by Number can help identify entries that are seldom used: generally, those with low numbers haven't been changed in a while, those with high numbers have been updated recently. Important!! XWP/eWP uses PM_Workplace:FolderPos to store info about the status bars it adds to folders. Don't delete an XWP entry unless you also delete the view entry it goes with. For example, if you only have it add status bars in Icon view, save the XWP entries for folders that you open in Icon view, and delete then for folders you open in Tree or Details view. _______________________________________________________________________________ - File List - _______________________________________________________________________________ All files are timestamped July 3, 2007 at 00:08:00. 1. FPos.Exe 2. FPos.Txt 3. RwsSrv08.Dll 4. RwsCli08.Dll 5. Rws08.Cmd 6. LICENSE _______________________________________________________________________________ Rich Walsh Ft Myers, FL July 3, 2007 _______________________________________________________________________________