Amiga TaskBar - By Robert Ennals Release 3 Please read this document to the end, as it contains important information. What is it? More observant Amiga users may have noticed that Windows 95 has a nice little bar at the bottom of the screen called the Taskbar. This bar allows you to switch between active programs. Although I prefer AmigaDos to WimpDos (Windows) I rather liked the taskbar and so I decided to write an Amiga version. I hope you like it. TaskBar is Freeware. You may use it and distribute it freely, but if you like it, pass it on. Features Only 26k Completely font and screenmode sensitive Recognises new windows when opened Notices when windows close Start button to launch programs Nameless windows given name of owner task Customerisable number of buttons Installation Simply copy the TaskBar into WBStartup and copy 'TaskBar.prefs' into ENV: and ENVARC: Functions Amiga Taskbar can bring to front, maximise and panel any windows on the workbench screen. Bring to Front > Simply left click on the window's button. Maximise > Click on the window's button with the right mouse button held down Panel > Click on both windows' buttons with the right mouse button held down Select a non listed window > Click on 'Other' and a button can be created for a window Change the number of buttons > Select the Icon from Workbench and enter your desired number as the value for the BUTTONS tooltype. For a normal Hires or DblPal screen I recommend 4 or 6 buttons. Force TaskBar to use button names of a preset length > Change the MAXCHARS tooltype. To let TaskBar make an educated guess (normal) bracket out the tooltype. Force the width to a set value (eg if using Autoscroll) > Change the FIXWIDTH tooltype Bracket it out for full screen Quit >Select the window. If you want to be sure not to click on a button then use the right mouse button. Once the window is selected hit a key. Launch a program > Click 'Start' then select your desired program Add a program to the start menu > Load up the file 'EnvArc:Taskbar.prefs and add an entry' entries are of the form Look at the example file and you will see what I mean. Troubleshooting When my selected program is launched from the start button, it can't find it's files. > Instead of launching the program directly, execute a script that cds into the program's directory and then runs it. TaskBar says it can't find TaskBar.prefs > Copy this file into ENV: and ENVARC: I can't select the TaskBar because I keep clicking on buttons > Select it with the right mouse button I have MagicMenu and this stops TaskBar from sensing my right mouse button. > First select TaskBar with the Right Mouse Button. Then do whatever you want to do. MagicMenu will not interfere when TaskBar is selected. Changes since last release (release 2) > Bug that crashed TaskBar when no window selected fixed. Thankyou to all the people that spotted this one. > MAXCHARS tooltype added to specify the number of characters per button if you are using a weird font that causes text to overflow > Start button added So many people asked me to do this that I just had to. > Various other little tweaks > Program size increased from 13k to 26k. This is because the previous release was crunched. unfortunately the cruncher caused problems on some machines so I am now distributing TaskBar uncrunched. > Release 2 used up 300k. I have now knocked this down to around 150k and it should get better. Thanks to Jens Andersson for spotting this. Known Problems Most problems that you may experience with TaskBar are due to the owner of the window rather that taskbar. I am afraid that some applications just do not like other tasks such as TaskBar taking control over their windows and fiddling with them. There aren't any serious problems, but some windows simply will not panel or maximise properly. I am afraid that there is no way around this. Fortunately most recent programs that handle windows cleanly will work perfectly with TaskBar. Possible problems A button does not do anything > The owner task may have closed or changed the pointer to the window without TaskBar noticing. A window is not added to the list when I open or select it > Due to limitations of the OS TaskBar cannot always tell when a new window is created or selected. If you want to add it to the buttonlist, simply click on 'Other' I realise that my buttons look a bit odd when you click on them. This is because, due to limitations of gadtools, I had to write the text manually over the buttons. In the next version I will probably bypass Gadtools altogether. The Author This Program was written by Robert Ennals. Contact me if you find a bug, have an idea for an improvement, or just want a chat. Email JaNET : ennals@kingston.ac.uk AOL : ennals@aol.com Tel : England-(01)81-941-5201 Postal Address 19 Belgrade Road, Hampton, Middx, England, TW12 2AZ It would be nice if you could inform me if you release TaskBar in a collection, publish it on a coverdisk, or review it in a magazine. Future Updates If I get mail telling me that you want me to do an update then I do it, otherwise not. I'm not going to waste my time putting in a feature if nobody wants it. > Open on every screen - Not just workbench > Show windows from other screens on the taskbar > Iconise or hide windows > Shanghai windows to different screens > Handle MUI windows via Arexx > Allow more than one row of buttons > Make Buttons prettier > Make a TaskBar Web Site for updates etc > Make start button cascading and allow dirs etc to be specified (working on this one now) 3.0 - This release bugs fixed crashed if user selected no window on other popup compression system caused problems used to take up 300k features added Start button (due to popular demand) MAXCHARS tooltype My upgrade philosophy More observent users may notice that in general I tend to have a lot of releases for my programs. This is because, like many other Shareware authors, I believe in continuous updates. This means that as soon as I have implemented a new feature and am sure that is working, I make a release. This is something that is much harder to do with comercial software. Thanks > All the people who malied me to give support, bug fixes and preferences as to what updates I should do. > Damir Petkovic - For spotting the popup bug > Jens Andersson - For suggesting many features including the MAXXHARS toolype, and noting the memory problem. > Christopher Guelicher of Amiga Technologies GmbH - For suggesting the FIXWIDTH tooltype > All the people who mailed me to tell me how much they liked TaskBar