lSwitcher for OS/2, Version 2.93.0 _________________________________________________ Copyright (C) 2010-2023 Netlabs lSwitcher group Copyright (C) 1997-2009 Andrei Los LICENSE ____________________________ This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as contained in the file COPYING in the distribution package. The full source code is available at svn.netlabs.org/repos/lswitcher. See http://trac.netlabs.org/lswitcher for details. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. DESCRIPTION ____________________________ lSwitcher is a powerful task switcher application for OS/2, ArcaOS, and eComStation, an enhanced replacement for the standard Alt-Tab switcher, implemented as a Presentation Manager (PM) popup window, or Popup, a text mode task list, or List, for full screen OS/2 and DOS sessions, a feature-rich task bar, or Taskbar, and an XWorkplace XCenter widget (the Widget), with functions similar to the Taskbar. INSTALLATION ____________________________ lSwitcher is distributed as a WarpIN package. We strongly recommend you uninstall any previous version. If you have previously installed the Widget you will need to manually remove (pre 2.90 versions) it if you plan on using the lSwitcher Taskbar. If you have a version prior to 2.80 installed you will need to manually uninstall it. Only install the components you intend to use. Some additional configuration may be required in order to get the most out of the application. If you experience problems with lSwitcher following installation try rebooting before reporting the problem as the old lswhook may not unload from memory in some cases. Note: The lSwitcher hook and lSwitcher common packages are required for all installs. The Taskbar and the Widget cannot be used at the same time. If the Taskbar is desired, install the lSwitcher Taskbar package and don't install the lSwitcher Widget for XCenter package. If you want lSwitcher to start automatically, create a shadow of the program object in the Startup folder, or add LSWITCH.EXE to STARTUP.CMD. Alternatively, lSwitcher may be started manually from its Workplace Shell (WPS) object or LSWITCH.EXE may be run from an OS/2 command prompt from its installed location. Additionally, the /I command line option may be used to specify the settings file to use. LSWITCH.INI created on the first startup of the Taskbar in the lSwitcher install directory is the default. Note: The resource file (LSWRES*.DLL) must be located in the program directory. The WPS hook (LSWHOOK.DLL) must either be located in the program directory or in a directory specified in LIBPATH. To use the Widget, install the lSwitcher Widget for XCenter package. When using the Widget, LSWHOOK.DLL must be in a directory specified in LIBPATH. After restarting the XCenter, lSwitcher will be available as a new widget to add. During initialization, the Widget will create its settings file (LSWITCH.INI) in the PLUGINS\XCENTER subdirectory. Note: Simply placing the Widget in the PLUGINS\XCENTER subdirectory (installed or not), will prevent the Taskbar from opening if the XCenter is open. To be able to use the Task List in full screen DOS sessions, it is necessary to install the lSwitcher DOS TSR package and load the LSWITCHD.EXE TSR in each full screen DOS session or add it (along with the full path to the program file) to AUTOEXEC.BAT. Note 1: The path to LSWITCHD.EXE must be DOS-accessible. The default is BootDrive:\OS2\MDOS\LSWDOS. Note 2: The DOS TSR (LSWITCHD.EXE) depends upon lSwitcher itself (either the Taskbar or the Widget) to be running in order to function. * Only the English and Spanish resources have been thoroughly tested. In versions 2.71 and 2.90, the English dialogs were extensively reworked. The same syntax changes were made to the other national language dialogs. Some items added to the string tables will appear in English only, until properly translated. If anyone is interested in updating the translations we will be happy to include them in future updates. They should be based on the English dialogs and menus, located in the resource directory in the source code repository at Netlabs, or obtained directly from us. The help file also needs translation. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ____________________________ The original author: Andrei Los The Netlabs lSwitcher Team Andy Willis Gregg Young Steven Levine Lewis Rosenthal Alfredo Fern ndez D¡az We would like to thank the following people and projects for comments, suggestions, bug reports, and other feedback: Doug Bissett Julian Buss Alessandro Cantatore Alexander Conon "Doodle" Ian Douglas Don "Freiheit" Eitner Tim Erickson Javier Arias Fern ndez Klaus Fuchs Michel Goyette Cristiano Guadagnino Tomas Hajny Johann Harrieder Mart¡n It£rbide Reb James Andreas Ludwig "Jiki" John Martin David Mediavilla Nenad Milenkovic Romulo Silva Neiva Nick Dmitry Novoseletsky Sander Nyman Konstantin Okounkov Dariusz Piatkowski Lech Wiktor Piotrowski Henk Pol Sergey Posokhov Mike Reichel Loris Rinaldo Antonio Manara Rossini Danis Tazetdinov Rich Walsh Karel Wesseling John Wibawa Sebastian Wittmeier Denis Zavorotny Vladislav Zhuk The XWorkplace project (the priority dialog topic background information was based heavily upon the XWorkplace documentation) https://trac.netlabs.org/xworkplace Special thanks to the following people who provided translation of the README.TXT and program resources and thus made the existence of localized versions of lSwitcher possible: Tomas Hajny - Czech translation Alfredo Fern ndez D¡az - Spanish Tae Wong - Polish translation KNOWN PROBLEMS/RESTRICTIONS ____________________________ Under certain circumstances, a "phantom" button may be left on the Taskbar/Widget. When this happens, a "phantom" entry is also left in the OS/2 Window List. The cause is a PM application started from a VIO which ends with an open VIO window titled Completed:"program name" (e.g., starting Mplayer from Firefox to play a video). This is a long standing bug in PM. The workaround is either to close and restart lSwitcher or to place the name of the window (mplayer.exe for the example above) in the Taskbar exclude list. CPPCheck-gui.exe also causes this problem. Pressing the activation hotkey combination (Alt+Tab or Ctrl+Tab, as configured) in a fullscreen session and then releasing Alt (or Ctrl) very quickly may result in the List not dismissing. Press and release Alt (or Ctrl) once more to switch to the selected task. Minimized or hidden tasks are always restored to the current virtual desktop when using XPager. This is an XPager feature/limitation. This program uses several undocumented operating system features and may not work properly in some system configurations. If you encounter such problems please let us know. The Reduce Desktop workarea feature should not be used if it will be called by another program (i.e., XWorkplace). The behavior is undefined. It has been reported that lSwitcher doesn't play well with the SkyScrapper multi-desktop application. lSwitcher was reported to vanish randomly. The current workaround is to use a different virtual desktop application. It is possible this has been fixed in version 2.91 and later. If you try it and it works please report that to us. The program appears to be incompatible with the VShield TSR, which is a part of ViruScan for DOS by Network Associates, Inc. If both LSWITCHD.EXE and VSHIELD.EXE are loaded in a DOS session, this session may crash after some time. The reason appears to be a bug in VShield's INT08 handler. This is partially confirmed by the fact that VShield reportedly causes crashes in combination with some other programs hooking this interrupt. We have not found a reliable workaround for this problem to date, and as VirusScan for DOS was discontinued sometime before 2007, it is unlikely we will address this issue. Currently, Win-OS/2 fullscreen sessions are not supported by lSwitcher. Pressing the default activation key combination (Alt+Tab) from an active Win-OS/2 fullscreen session will produce the familiar Win-OS/2 task switcher. If Ctrl+Tab has been configured as the activation key combination, it is also ignored by Win-OS/2 (focus changes to available program groups and running tasks in Program Manager) CONTACTS ____________________________ If you have any comments on this program, please feel free to join the Netlabs lSwitcher Users mailing list by sending an email to: lswitcher-user-on@2rosenthals.com and confirm your registration. If you find a defect or wish to request an enhancement please file a ticket at: https://trac.netlabs.org/lswitcher Source code is available at: http://svn.netlabs.org/repos/lswitcher Mailing Lists There are currently two mailing lists for lSwitcher: one for users, and one for developers. To subscribe to the developer list: Send email to: lswitcher-dev-on@2rosenthals.com and reply to the confirmation email. To subscribe to the user list: Send email to: lswitcher-user-on@2rosenthals.com and reply to the confirmation email. Web archives of lists are available here: http://lists.2rosenthals.com/lswitcher-dev/List.html http://lists.2rosenthals.com/lswitcher-user/List.html NOTICES ____________________________ IBM, OS/2, Presentation Manager, Workplace Shell, and Win-OS/2 are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Microsoft, Windows, Win-OS/2, and Program Manager are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. ArcaOS is a trademark of Arca Noae, LLC in the United States and/or other countries. eComStation and eCS are trademarks of Xeu.com BV in The Netherlands and/or other countries. Other products mentioned may be trademarks of their respective owners.