[Stripper]

By Colin Fisher-McAllum

I've been playing with a stripper. Every time I turn on she is there displaying all. Unfortunately this is not an exotic dancer, it's a new Freeware utility from Germany that is being supported in the UK by InterActive.

Stripper is a notepad, pure and simple, an electronic PostIt. It needs to be run in a multitasking environment by an AV-Server, such as the replacement desktop - Thing. In fact it is a real boon for this desktop as, in my opinion, one of its main failings has been the lack of a usable desktop notepad.

Online help is given via ST-Guide and I found it very easy to learn - despite one of the options being oddly named. However, let us not get ahead of ourself. The program can be run from the APPS folder under MagiC, installed as an application to run automatically or simply run from the desktop. I actually have it run from my APPS directory at bootup. Any saved notes are then displayed on the desktop either permanently or for a given time. I have mine set for five minutes. This gives me a reminder on screen each time I boot. I also have an icon on the desktop in case I want to re-run Stripper during a computing session.

[Screenshot] Configuring the program is simple. When first run you are asked to select a text file to display, for now, this can be anything. Once the file is displayed the options are found by left clicking in the window with a shift key held down. Install the path to your favourite text editor and save the settings. Everything else can be set individually for each note which can be created on the fly or selected from pre-written texts. The notes can be any size but only the first twenty rows are displayed, however the full text of any note can be sent to your editor. Background colour of the window can be selected as can the font and its size. The font colour cannot be changed.

The place where I got confused was after editing a note. To get Stripper to update the window you have to select the "Create New Text" option! This is obviously just a badly chosen description for the option, because everything else works just as you would think it would.

If you configure Stripper to time out, or simply quit the program, any open windows will be displayed next time the utility is run. If you don't want a note displayed again just close its window. Stripper will automatically shut down when the last window is closed.

Contact:InterActive
E-Mail:jconnor@cix.compulink.co.uk
Price:Freeware with suggested registration of £6+