Introduction to PIC (Program Instance Control) V2.00e

July 5, 1995

What is PIC?

Green Willow PIC is a Shareware productivity tool 
designed to save you time and frustration by putting 
programs that you frequently use onto a toolbar so that 
you do not have to search for them in Program Manager 
groups each time you want to run them.  To run a program 
installed on PIC, you just click its button on the PIC 
toolbar.

The PIC toolbar is organized as a collection of up to 52 
independent button sets identified with titles of your
choice and by letters of the alphabet for fast call up.
Each button set typically contains a set of up to 10 
programs or help files, ect., that you often use together.

To get you started, we provide button sets containing
standard Windows programs.  But as you will see when you
start using PIC, we make adding new buttons and button 
sets so easy that you will soon be creating your own to 
streamline the way that you like to work.

System Requirements

PIC requires Windows 3.1+, WfW 3.11 or OS/2 running on
compatible hardware.

Installing PIC

Install PIC by running SETUP.EXE provided with the PIC
distribution files.  Run SETUP from Windows or OS/2.
Please be sure that all of the PIC distribution files
are on the same directory on some disk and that this is
NOT the destination directory for the installed version
of the program.

If you download PIC from a BBS or the Internet, all of
the files should be in one compressed distribution file.
In this case, it's best to unzip the compressed PIC
distribution file to a floppy disk first.  Then run the
SETUP on this floppy.

For example, from the Program Manager menu select "File"
and then from the drop-down menu select "Run...".  Then
in the edit window of the Run box type something like,

               a:setup

if, for example, the PIC files are a floppy disk in the
a: drive.

Previous Users

Please be sure to read the section of this file that
describes how to keep your original button configuration.
(See "Users with Previous PIC.INI Files" below.)

Standard Installation

In the installation, PIC is installed to the Program
Manager Startup group is so that PIC will automatically
run whenever Windows starts up.  This is usually just
what you want.  But, if not, you can modify the startup
option from within the PIC program after you get it
running as follows:

When PIC is running, click on the upper left corner
of the PIC button bar to open the system menu.  Select
"Run..." from the menu.  Then click on the "Help" button
and find the "PIC Setup" topic in Help for descriptions
of the several ways that PIC can be configured.

Uninstalling PIC

For various reasons (hopefully not because you didn't
like it!) you may need to remove PIC from your system.
PIC can be completely removed by running its companion
REMOVE.EXE utility.  This program is copied into the
PIC directory by SETUP at the time you install PIC.
This utility can be accessed by any of the following
methods:

  1. From any Windows File menu, select "Run..." and
     then "Browse..." into the PIC directory and then
     select REMOVE.EXE.  At this point, the Run Edit
     window will display something like:

           C:\GWPIC\REMOVE.EXE

     Select the OK button to execute REMOVE.

  2. Use the "Run..." command from the PIC system
     menu exactly as in method 1.

  3. Locate the "Program Instance Control" group in
     the Program Manager group Window.  Click on the
     "Remove PIC" icon to run REMOVE.

The REMOVE utility will provide complete removal
instructions and will require that you select the
OK button before the removal process actually
begins.  REMOVE will take all PIC changes out of both
WIN.INI and SYSTEM.INI if PIC made any changes to
these files.  It will also remove the PIC directory
and delete the GWPIC.INI file in your windows 
directory.

Changes to WIN.INI and SYSTEM.INI

When you first install PIC by using its SETUP utility,
the only changes made to your system are to add icons
to Program Manager groups.

If you later decide to change the way PIC is installed
from within the PIC program while it is running, PIC
may change WIN.INI and SYSTEM.INI.  But, please note
that PIC can easily undo any of the changes that it
might make to WIN.INI and SYSTEM.INI.  All of the
commands that effect the INI files are accessible
from the "Run.." command on the PIC system menu as
follows:

  1. If you type "pic /run" in the PIC Run box,
     the PIC path is appended to the "run=" entry
     in the [Windows] section of WIN.INI.

  2. If you type "pic /load" in the PIC Run box,
     the PIC path is appended to the "load=" entry
     in the [Windows] section of WIN.INI.

  3. If you type "pic /shell" in the PIC Run box,
     the PIC path replaces the program name that
     normally follows "shell=" in the [boot] section
     of SYSTEM.INI. (The original shell name is saved.)

  4. All of these changes are removed by typing
     "pic /uninstall".  Also any changes that were
     made by a previous command are removed before
     a new command makes a change to either WIN.INI
     or SYSTEM.INI.

PIC Directory

The only installation option is the name of the PIC
directory. This directory can be renamed, if necessary
but, in general, you should NOT make it a subdirectory
of your Windows directory because of possible multiple
configuration issues which are discussed next.

File Locations

As a new user, you will probably not need to be concerned
with the issues discussed here because PIC will quite
efficiently take care of all of its file management
behind the scenes.  However, if you are a system
administrator or if you have a previous version of PIC
and want to use your original PIC.INI file, you may need
to know where PIC places its files.

After installation, PIC.EXE along with a few text files
and the default INI files will be located in a directory
probably called C:\GWPIC unless you have renamed it. The
INI files that you find in this directory are used ONLY
to create the working INI file which will be placed in
your Windows directory by PIC the first time you run
the PIC program from Windows.

That is the organization recommended by Microsoft and is
very convenient if either you run PIC on a network or if,
like the developer on this side of the keyboard, you boot
more than one operating system.  In this case, you must
install PIC separately on each operating system, (WIN 3.1
and WIN95, for example) or network node. This will result
in only ONE home directory for PIC (e.g., C:\GWPIC) but
each operating system or network node will get a separate
GWPIC.INI file in its local Windows directory when PIC
runs.

Users with Previous PIC.INI Files

For the reasons discussed above, this version of PIC
organizes its files differently from previous versions.
If you are using a previous version of PIC and want to
retain your current PIC configuration, you will need to
replace the GWPIC.INI file with your original PIC.INI
file.  This is how to do it:

  1) Delete any existing copy of the file:

                     GWPIC.INI

     that you might find in your Windows directory.
     If you find a copy there, it was created as a
     default by the new version of PIC.

  2) Find the file:
                     PIC.INI

     in the directory that contains your old PIC
     1.0 files.

  3) Rename this PIC.INI file to GWPIC.INI.

  4) Move your renamed file directly into the Windows
     directory. (Not into a subdirectory of it.)

  5) Finally, delete the remaining PIC 1.0 files.

If you follow the steps above, all of your previous
configurations will be retained.

Customizing PIC

As with previous versions, PIC will run standard Windows
programs without requiring any configuring.  However,
since this version makes custom configuration incredibly
easy, naturally, you will want to add your own buttons
to the button bar.  To see how to do this, run PIC and
when it is active, click on the upper left corner of the
PIC button bar to call up the system menu.  Then select
"Modify Buttons.." from the menu.  At this point, if you
don't instantly see what you need to do, just click on
the Help button.

The evaluation version of PIC will allow you to create
up to 10 separate button bars of 10 buttons each. The
registered version (which is the only one you are
licensed to use for purposes other than evaluation)
will create up to 52 separate, simultaneous button bars
for a total of 520 maximum independent buttons.  More
than enough for even the REALLY SERIOUS uses.

BUG REPORTS

Finally and most importantly, this is still a fairly 
"green" version of PIC.  If you find any problems in the
software, please let me know about it.  Once a problem 
has been identified, I can fix it fairly quickly and will
do so. The interval from the time a problem is identified
until it appears as a new version on CompuServe is usually
a couple of days.  If you would like a new copy sooner 
than that, I can probably e-mail one to you (I haven't 
had time to actually try this yet; but it should work OK 
if you are using a MIME-compliant e-mail program).

Enjoy,

Ray Connell
Green Willow Software
CompuServe 73277,1501
rayconl@netcom.com