*** MOONCOMET DESKTOP *** Designed and developed at MoonComet Software House by Mandar Chitre CONTENTS -------- AUTHOR'S NOTE INTRODUCTION LICENSE CRAP REGISTRATION FORM INSTALLATION GENERAL GUIDELINES BUGS TO DO WISHLIST YOU WANT TO HELP ? AUTHOR'S NOTE ------------- I haven't had much time to write a good documentation or help file, so that will have to wait. But something to start off with.... Files Description ----------------------------------------------------------------------- MCDESK.EXE The desktop! FOLDER.EXE Folder / Program Group manager MCTASK.EXE Task manager HIDE.EXE Utility to hide applications KILL.EXE Utility to kill applications MCDESK.TXT You are reading it! McDesk offers you a very configurable desktop. The other programs are not integral parts of the desktop, but form excellent companions. It is very easy to use, in spite of it's large configurability. INTRODUCTION ------------ McDesk along with it's other utilities provides a configurable mutli dekstop shell with a powerful task manager and folders. It fully supports drag'n'drop and many other features, which you will wonder how you lived without! It also supports simplistic security. ** Features ** * Multiple desktops * Each desktop can have it's own backdrop/color * Password protection for desktop * Password protection for configuration mode * Swarm (idea from Xwindows screensaver) * Animated icons * Cut/paste icons across desktops * Startup/Shutdown sequences * No more minimized icons messing up your screen * Right click for task list * Double click for task manager * Full drag'n'drop support LICENSE CRAP ------------ Copyright (c) 1995 MoonComet Software House Desgined and developed by Mandar Chitre All rights reserved IMPORTANT: Read this license agreement before installing this software. Starting the installation process will constitute agreement to the conditions of this license. If you are not willing to be bound by the terms of this license agreement, do NOT proceed to install and use this software and also delete all the files belonging to this software from your disk. This software is FREEWARE. That means you can use and distribute this software free of charge but you must not sell this software. If redistributed, all files in the original package must be distributed unmodified. Please fill out the registration form below and email it to eng30239@nus.sg so that I can keep track of the usefulness of the software and carry on further developments. Thanks. DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY THIS SOFTWARE (including instructions for its use) IS PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND. THE AUTHOR DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES RELATING TO THIS SOFTWARE, WHETHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND ALL SUCH WARRANTIES ARE EXPRESSLY AND SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIMED. THE ENTIRE RISK ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THE SOFTWARE AND DOCUMENTATION REMAINS WITH YOU. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR, OR ANYONE ELSE INVOLVED IN THE CREATION, PRODUCTION, OR DELIVERY OF THE SOFTWARE BE LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER (INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, DAMAGES FOR LOSS OF BUSINESS PROFITS, BUSINESS INTERRUPTION, LOSS OF BUSINESS INFORMATION, OR OTHER PECUNIARY LOSS) ARISING OUT OF THE USE OF OR INABILITY TO USE THE SOFTWARE OR DOCUMENTATION, EVEN IF THE AUTHOR HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. REGISTRATION FORM ----------------- Name : Address : Country : Email : Profession : Computer Usage : Programmer / Applications User Environment : Office / Home How would you rate McDesk ? Horrible / Bad / Good / Very good / Excellent Sugestions : INSTALLATION ------------ To install McDesk, 1. run MCDESK.EXE 2. hold down the left mouse button on the rightmost area of the status bar 3. choose Configure from the popup menu 4. right click on the screen to bring up menu 5. choose Options 6. select Use as shell 7. click OK 8. Say YES when it recomends restarting of windows and presto, it'll start up with your new desktop! To install McTask, 1. Edit your SYSTEM.INI 2. Add the line TASKMAN.EXE=MCTASK.EXE in the [Boot] section 3. Copy MCTASK.EXE into a directory on PATH 4. Restart Windows sorry, I didn't have to time to write a auto install routine! To install the others: FOLDER,KILL,HIDE 1. Copy them to a directory on PATH thats it! GENERAL GUIDELINES ------------------ STATUS BAR The status bar is live; you can click on the status bar to bring up various menus. The left most part of the status bar which displays the system resources, pops up into an application list for the desktop. The central part which displays the name of the current desktop, pops up into a list of available desktops. The rightmost part of the bar pops up into a system menu and a hotlist MODES The desktop functions in two modes: Normal and Configuration. In Normal mode, you can not alter the looks of the desktop, but you can launch applications by clicking on icons or selecting the program name from the application list. You can change desktops by selecting the desktop name from the desktop list. You can also launch programs from the hotlist. Right click will bring up a tasklist. The desktop can be switched to configuration mode through the system menu (click on the right part of the statusbar). In configuration mode, right click brings up a context sensative menu. Right click on an icon will bring up a property box. Double click on the screen will allow you to add icon, though a better method is to drag'n'drop from File Manager. Drag'n'drop to the right part of the status bar will add to hotlist. In configuration mode, choosing a program from the hotlist will bring up it's property box. Desktops can be changed and applications from the application list can be launched as normal. You can use rubberband drawing and/or control-left click to select icons for batch movement or cut/paste. STARTUP AND SHUTDOWN Create desktops called StartUp and ShutDown. The applications on these desktops will automatically be executed on startup and shutdown of windows. You can then delete these desktops so that they don't appear in the desktop list. They will not be truely deleted, you can access them anytime by just adding the desktop (same name) again. Be careful, dekstop names are CASE SENSATIVE. GOODIES I don't have much time to explain each and every feature of the shell, so I'll cover the basic features and leave the rest for you to discover. ** Features ** * Multiple desktops * Each desktop can have it's own backdrop/color * Password protection for desktop * Password protection for configuration mode * Swarm (idea from Xwindows screensaver) * Animated icons * Cut/paste icons across desktops * Startup/Shutdown sequences * No more minimized icons messing up your screen * Right click for task list * Double click for task manager * Full drag'n'drop support All settings are stored in MCDESK.INI in Windows directory. So it is easy to change things in the text file if needed. FOLDERS Folders can be created by adding an icon to run FOLDER.EXE followed by the name of the folder. eg: Program: FOLDER FOO will activate a folder called FOO. The folders are stored in the same directory as FOLDER.EXE; they are not in text format. The folder will remember it's position. Single click on top left of the folder will close it. To get the folder's menu, right click on it's title bar. You can have auto-masks for folders so that the folder can pick up files matching certain masks automatically. Use ";" to separate multiple masks. eg: Folder mask: c:\docs\*.sam;c:\work\*.sam will pick up all .sam files from the docs and work directories. The folders also support drag'n'drop. To move icons around, use the Shift key because single click starts up the applications in the folder. Right click brings up the property box.... no special mode for configuration for folders. MCTASK Double click on desktop and discover for yourself! KILL and HIDE These two utilities are especially useful in the StartUp and ShutDown desktops. They accept one parameter on the command line. A window with that name will be closed or hidden by the utilities. eg. Program: HIDE Trumpet Winsock hides "Trumpet Winsock" window. BUGS ---- MCDESK: I hope none! KILL: Too small to have bugs ;) *touchwood* HIDE: FOLDER: Given GPFs a couple of times (unknown reason) Normally no trouble, but if you find any please let me know the circumstances under which it caused the GPF MCTASK: On some systems, the first time McTask starts up the application list is empty. Double clicking on the Show all icons checkbox solves the problem. Please direct bug reports and suggestions to Mandar Chitre MoonComet Software House 1102/B6, Lakaki Road, Pune 411 016. INDIA. or email to eng30239@nus.sg TO DO WISHLIST -------------- * Write a good help file * Installation program * Program Manager group import YOU WANT TO HELP ? ------------------ If anybody out there is good at writing help files, your help would be greatly appreciated. I am seriously very busy now.... and without a good help file half the prospective users would give up ! Any suggestions on additional features are welcome, but I can't promise you that I'll have them implemented immidiately.... but eventually I'll put them in. Please send in the registration form! Thanks and good luck, Mandar Chitre.