lSwitcher for OS/2, Version 2.81 ******************************** Copyright (C) 2010-2014 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 =========== This software is a task switcher application for OS/2 and eCS, which includes an enhanced replacement for the standard Alt-Tab switcher and a feature-rich task bar. The program is implemented as both a standalone application and as a widget for XWorkplace WPS enhancer by Ulrich M”ller. Functionalities of both incarnations of the program are very similar. INSTALLATION ============ The standalone application and the widget cannot be used at the same time. Remove the widget from XCenter widgets directory before running LSWITCH.EXE. Run LSWITCH.EXE from an OS/2 command shell or file folder or place it in the startup folder for automatic start at boot time. The /I command line option can be used to specify program settings file, see below*. To enable support for DOS full screen sessions run LSWITCHd.EXE in each such session or place it in AUTOEXEC.BAT. Resource file LSWRESEN.DLL** must be in the directory where the program executable is. LSWHOOK.DLL must be in the program directory or in a directory specified in LIBPATH statement of CONFIG.SYS. To use the lSwitcher widget place LSWIDGET.DLL LSWITCH.HLP and the resource DLL LSWRESEN.DLL** in the PLUGINS\XCENTER subdirectory of the XWorkplace installation. LSWHOOK.DLL in this case needs to be in a directory specified in LIBPATH statement of CONFIG.SYS. After restarting XCenter, lSwitcher widget will show up in the list of available widgets. To be able to use the Alt-Tab switcher capability of the widget in DOS full-screen sessions you will need to run LSWITCHD.EXE in each DOS full-screen session. Any errors which the widget may encounter during its initialization are reported in XWPLOG.LOG file which resides in the root or VAR\LOG directory of your boot drive. *The settings are saved in the OS2.INI or, if the /I is added to the program command line, in the file specified by the . This file is created in the same directory the program executable is. Widget settings are always saved in the file LSWITCH.INI, which is created in the XCenter widgets directory. **Only the English resources have been tested. In version 2.71 the English dialog was extensively reworked I have made the structural changes to the other national language dialogs. Since some items were added to the string table, they will appear in English as I have zero language skills. If anyone is interested in updating the translations I will be happy to include them in future updates. They should be base on the English dialogs and menus. in the resource directory on netlabs or can be obtained directly from.us. The new help file also needs translation. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ================ First of all we would like to thank the following people for comments, suggestions, bug reports, and other feedback on this program: Julian Buss Alessandro Cantatore Alexander Conon "Doodle" Ian Douglas Don "Freiheit" Eitner Tim Erickson Alfredo Fernandez Diaz Javier Arias Fernandez Klaus Fuchs Michel Goyette Cristiano Guadagnino Tomas Hajny Johann Harrieder Martin Iturbide 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 Lewis Rosenthal Antonio Manara Rossini Danis Tazetdinov Karel Wesseling John Wibawa Sebastian Wittmeier Denis Zavorotny Vladislav Zhuk 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 this program possible: Tomas Hajny -- Czech translation Alfredo Fernandez Diaz -- Spanish translation KNOWN PROBLEMS/RESTRICTIONS =========================== If you press Alt-Tab (or Ctrl-Tab if it is enabled) in an FS session and then release the Alt (Ctrl) very quickly the lSwitcher can sometimes get stuck in the popup state. Press and release the Alt (Ctrl) key one more time to switch to the task you've chosen. The program appears to be incompatible with the VShield TSR, which is a part of ViruScan for DOS by Network Associates Inc. If both lSwitch.exe and VShield.exe are loaded in a DOS session, this session may crash after a while. The reason seems to be a bug in the VShield's INT08 handler. This is partially confirmed by the fact that VShield causes a crash in combination with some other programs hooking this interrupt. I have not found a reliable workaround for this problem so far. Hidden and minimized to viewer windows are always restored to the current virtual desktop. 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 me know. The buttons in the Xcenter widget may lose their icon when the first program of a group is closed. This may happen when using icon view and group. Closing and reopening Xcenter fixes the issue. Reduce Desktop fails if it has already been called by another program (i.e. xWorkplace) HOW TO CONTACT THE AUTHOR ========================= If you have any comments on this program, please contact the Netlabs lSwitcher Group Gregg Young ygk@qwest.net Andy Willis abwillis1@gmail.com If you find a defect or wish to request an enhancement please file a tacket at http://trac.netlabs.org/lswitcher TRADEMARKS ========== Some words and/or phrases in this document may be trademarks of some companies.