Photo shows SysBar/2 0.15 running on @Macarlo's Warp 4.0, playing CD
SysBar/2 Updated
to Version 0.15
|
SysBar/2 0.15 just
released. SysBar/2 includes a variety of useful applets which take up very little
screen space, including a digital clock, CD player, task switcher and pipe monitor.The
author of SysBar product series is Dmitry
I. Platonoff, 24-year software engineer from Omsk,
Russia (West Siberia)
The file sbr2_015.zip (194,5Kb) is just uploaded on Hobbes
What is SysBar/2
-----------------------------
By Dmitry I. Platonoff
SysBar/2 is a next generation of SysBar, a toolbar-style utility.
The first version (Win16) was written in 1995 under the impression of Win95 taskbar
(once seen in early betas). It looked like a OS/2 Warp 4.0 WarpCenter (more than
year before it! ;) with the same functionality - taskbar, trays & info displays.
I use it now as a Win-OS/2 shell and even in Win NT 3.51 as a
program launcher.
NEW: cell logging, event-driven program launch, clock cell, new setup dialogs, random
track order, driveletter autodetect.
FIX: inoperate "new exception" button, minimum icon size set to 8
In this new generation I've decided to split the whole product into a set of small
utilities. The set consists now of the four modules:
- clock (the one I really missed from Windows SysBar) - it lives well
on the top of WarpCenter's clock :) ;
- a floating task switcher;
- a pipe monitor - the utility which can retrieve system information,
can read data from any number of named pipes and display it in the
useful form as a row of cells;
- a CD player (I don't like huge windows like CD-in-a-Box or Albatros).
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
-All you need is a 486 computer and OS/2 Warp 4.0. It will work also under 3.0 (and
even 2.1x - I just have no such a system to check, please report me the results
if you try).
INSTALLATION
-There's no sophisticated installation software supplied. Just unzip the package
in any directory and enjoy! ;) There is a folder creation script, called SB2_FLDR.CMD.
It will create the SysBar/2 folder on your desktop and all the required program
icons.
The files in package are:
FILE_ID .DIZ 417 - package description
SB2_CD .Exe 31,665 - CD player executable
SB2_CLCK.Exe 20,906 - clock executable
SB2_FLD1.ICO 4,026 - folder icon
SB2_FLD2.ICO 4,026 - open folder icon
SB2_FLDR.CMD 1,080 - folder creation script
SB2_Pipe.Exe 43,967 - pipe monitor executable
SB2_TSWT.Exe 29,783 - task switcher executable
sysbar2 .dll 20,328 - a DLL with common GUI subroutines
\docs - documentation
\info_src - information source script sample
USAGE
All the modules have the same look, behaviour & controls. You can drag them
anywhere with left mouse button and invoke a pop-up menu with right button (with
the one exception: in Task Switcher it will work only when clicking the empty edge
of the window, in other cases you'll get a task-specific action).
All the modules have modern-looking properties dialogs. All the changes you make
will apply immediately. Each module stores configuration in its own text .Cfg file.
You can view and alter these files easily (if needed). You can also specify a config
file name as a first command-line parameter (it is useful, for example, when starting
multiple pipe monitor instances to show different pipe sets).
All the actions are simple and easy to understand. In addition I'll describe some
task-specific features...
* CLOCK
It does the only thing - it displays time, month and date and allows you to adjust
these values. That's all.
* TASK SWITCHER
It displays a set of icons representing all the current jobs and windows. You can
filter them (hide or show) and perform a number of actions.
You may define exceptions to control application visibility and other parameters.
Every exception must have a title to match the application title beginning. (For
example, "Desktop" entry will apply to the desktop icon, and "OS/2"
entry will match all the windows such as "OS/2 Command Prompt", "OS/2
System", etc.). For every exception entry you can set its visibility in Task
Switcher window and in system task list (called with Ctrl-Esc). You can also make
it "non-jumpable" (exclude from Alt-Esc switch sequence).
DO NOT ADD AN EMPTY STRING TO THE FILTER!
Mouse controls (when clicking an icon):
LEFT BUTTON - switch to task if this task is inactive or minimize
if it has focus currently;
RIGHT BUTTON - pop-up menu (a complete copy of task's system menu);
RIGHT with LEFT (clicking RIGHT BUTTON when holding LEFT already) -
minimize task's window;
LEFT with RIGHT - close window (kill task).
Mouse button can be swapped of course.
* PIPE MONITOR
It can:
- display CPU load percentage;
- display available drive space;
- monitor specified file size and count;
- display current power or battery usage status;
- display the current time;
- open a number of named pipes (in the server mode) and read data
from these sources. Any text arrived through the pipe will be
displayed in a separate (for every pipe) cell using its own
colour. This is useful for displaying system information, for
debugging purposes, messaging, etc.
Number formatting options.
There are some types of cells which can display byte amounts (like
a filesize or available drive space). These number formatting
options allow you to setup how to show numbers, when the Pipe
Monitor should use Mbytes, Kbytes and bytes and how to name them.
For each cell of this type you can setup its own number formatting
options or use default (they are on the second page of display
settings.)
Cell setup.
There is a "Cells" page in the properties notebook. It allows you to manage
information cells of the Pipe Monitor. You can create
cells, setup them, assign special parameters, etc.
Every cell has its own name and color. You can also type a string
in the "Prefix" field. This string will be placed in the beginning
of the cell text (to let you know what this cell about :). Another
field named "Empty" defines a string which will be displayed when
the empty message arrived or when nothing to display (for example,
no files for file monitor).
You can assign two applications for each cell: one to launch when
you double-click the cell and another to launch at every text change
(USE IT WITH CAUTION! Do not setup such a thing for frequently
updated cells like clock or CPU meter! But this is good to start
your mail reader when your mail arrived. Note also that this program
will not be launched on empty message or of you clear the text
manually.) Just enter an executable name, e.g. "d:\my_dir\my_app.exe",
or use "Browse" button.
All the cell changes may be logged in the internal buffer or external
log file. You can assign the file name, turn on timestamping and
select the size of internal buffer which allows you to browse the
latest changes.
When creating a cell you must setup its data type and some special
parameters. If you press "Setup" button a cell setup dialog will
appear. You must select cell type and set its options.
There are the following cell types exist:
- "CPU load meter", a cell that shows CPU load percentage. It has
only one parameter: refresh timeout (in seconds);
- "available memory", shows the amount of free phisical memory. It
also has refresh timeout only;
- "pipe listener", a named pipe reader. It will accept any text
arrived through the pipe and display it in the cell.
It has two parameters: the exact pipe device name (e.g.
"\pipe\my_pipe", it's a name of pipe for your information
source program to send data to) and the expire timeout
(optional). This timeout lets you make cell's content time-
censitive, it will "expire" and disappear after specified
number of seconds (useful for irregular info sources);
- "disk free space", a cell that displays available space on the
specified drive. Its parameters are: drive, refresh timeout
and number formatting options;
- "file monitor", a file monitor which shows size and (or) count
of the file(s) specified by mask. Its parameters are: file
specification, refresh timeout and number formatting options;
- "battery status", a power or battery usage monitor. Its parameter
is the refresh timeout. NOTE: it will work only if you have
advanced power management driver installed (APM.SYS);
- "clock", shows current time. It has the same refresh timeout and
two switches: to turn on/off seconds and AM/PM or 24-h mode.
There is an information source example supplied. A pop3 mailbox
peeker and a REXX script, that shows a few simple ways to retrieve
system information like hard disk space, swap file size, scan
inbound directories, etc. You can modify it for your own needs.
All these sources (as well as your own ones) must be started manually
from startup.cmd, Startup folder, of from where you like (look at
repstart.cmd).
AND DON'T FORGET TO SETUP APPROPRIATE PIPES IN MONITOR!!!
* CD PLAYER
It can play audio CDs. The commands are: play, stop, pause, eject,
next track & previous track. There are four time display modes -
try 00-00 button.
It doesn't use OS/2 multimedia support.
FUTURE PLANS
* COMMON
- "stick together" feature (=> Terje Flaaronning);
- colour drag'n'drop (=> Terje Flaaronning);
- activation corners and screen edges (=> Thorsten Haude);
- rollup feature (=> Ronny Ko).
* CD PLAYER
- disc recognition, disc & track name display;
- CDDB support (both local files and internet connections);
- programmable track order (=> Ingmar Hensler).
* CLOCK
- alarms (pop-up messages & scheduler) (=> Alexander Ernst);
- a calendar (=> Tibor Nagy).
* PIPE MONITOR
- more powerful information source.
* TASK SWITCHER
- window attribute control;
- global task management commands.
* !!! NEW COMPONENTS
- launch panel;
- calculator (=> George Brink).
* !!! IMPORTANT
- I'm looking for beta testers;
- if you think that SysBar/2 docs should be translated to any
language you like - just translate and send all this stuff to
me. It will be included in the next release of the product;
- if you want to write your own version of English docs - DO IT!
I need a fresh look at all this software.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I want to thank these people which helped (and still help) me in my work:
Andrew Tereshechkin (aka Red Alligator)
for the inspiration that made me to start this project,
for criticizing all the CD players in the world (including
mine :), for ideas, suggestions and a lot of testing work
my wife Helga
for love and support
Igor E. Fedorenko
for OS/2 API tips and some ideas;
for POP3 mailbox peeker code
Maxim Penzin
for testing and for some useful ideas (especially for the
idea of Pipe Monitor)
Sergey I. Yevtushenko
for CPU load meter code
Peter Fitzsimmons
for showing me the way to access the system menus
Gianluca Della Vedova
for Italian version of README
Chris Wenham
for the article in OS/2 e-Zine magazine
Ronny Ko
for the review in OS/2 Computing! magazine
testers:
Andrew Tereshechkin
Maxim Penzin
Gianluca Della Vedova
Thorsten Haude
Bjorn Tore Hoem
Antonio Manara
Denis Dubensky
Stepan Kazakov
Vit Timchishin
and also...
George Brink
Stanislav Grushko
Serge Popov
Alexander Ernst
Emmanuele Vigni
David Cougle
Panacea Tech Support
Alexander Bezborodov
Thorsten Haude
Yasushi Ono
Alexander Krapivin
Andrey Buzanakow
...for additional testing and for attention to the product
SUPPORT
WWW support page: http://www.lab321.ru/~dip/sysbar2/
FTP server: ftp://sysbar:sysbar@lab321.ru
There's a mailing list exists for SysBar support and discussions:
sysbar-project@lab321.ru.
To subscribe (subscription is free) send a message to majordomo@lab321.ru
with "subscribe sysbar-project" in the message body.
If you don't want to deal with this list you can send your questions
to sysbar@lab321.ru or directly to me.
All your notes, suggestions, bug reports, etc. are welcomed via e-mail
or in that mailing list. Please report your SysBar/2 version when
sending a message (especially with bug reports).
CONTACT AUTHOR:
Dmitry I. Platonoff
2:5004/8.4@fidonet
dip@lab321.ru
Platonoff also can be found on IRC as "dip" in #OS2Russian, sometimes
in #os2prog,
#OS/2 rooms on EFnet, #Russia, #RusShtirlits on MSN, etc.
@Macarlo, Inc.
@Macarlo's Shareware & Web
OS/2
Java Lobby Member
Java Site Accredited
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