ÜÜÜÜÜÜ ÜÜÜÜ ÜÜÜ ÜÜÜ Ý ßÜ Ý Þ Ý ÝÞ Ý R’MWaçe SoftWare! ÍÍÍÍÝÍÍÍÜßÍÞÍÍÍÝÍÍÝÍÞÝÍÍÝÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ ÝßßßÝ Ý Þ Ý Ý Ý Þ Ý Þ Ý Ý Ý Þ Ý Ý Þ Ý Ý Þ Ý CopyWrite (c), 1994, Ron Mc Neill (Dr. Suess), All Rights Reserved! RAMWare SoftWare!, R’M¥et!, The Banner Maker, Quotamatic, The Restarter, RAMBar, "2 Cents", TG User Zapper, and R’MSW”RœD! are all TradeMarks of Ron Mc Neill. The RAMBar! started out as a simple little icon bar that provided the compatibility of the Program Manager Group files with the simplicity of having all your applications at the touch of a button!. I now know now why most Button Bars and Front End Programs use their own format (usually an INI file or something) for there Icon Groups! Reading the *.GRP files can get tricky. As far as writing to the groups, I believe Microsoft has that covered in there copyrights. Besides, the Program Manager handles that task fine. It just needs a little help from a USER FRIENDLY interface to work from. Recreating the wheel by trying to make RAMBar! act like a Windows Shell just doesn't seem practical. What I want is the convenience that Program Manager doesn't provide, like a compact Icon Bar, an attractive user interface, and ease of use. I strongly believe a Windows Program should look like a Windows Program, but not your Desktop, it should be as convenient as any Modern Desktop in any office (complete with buttons and everything!). If Microsoft intended a Windows program to simulate a piece of paper, why then does their default desktop look like a Windows program? I haven't seen any real desk that looked like a piece of paper. RAMWare SoftWare is committed to make your life as a Windows user (or DOS user) easier by providing utilities on a "Try Before You Buy" plan. Normally I make simple programs that are handy to have around (like my collection of batch file utilities, BATUTIL2.ARJ, that can turn a batch file into a powerful Menu program for DOS enabling color without ANSI drivers, getting input from users, etc., etc.). Just as DOS Shell is really a COMMAND.COM Shell, RAMBar! is a Program Manager Shell (COMMAND.COM really handles the "Shell" functions in DOS, DOS Shell simply provides ease of use and "shelter" from the command prompt). So therefore, The RAMBar is not a "Windows Shell", but a "Program Manager Shell" (or enhancer, if you prefer) and a very convenient, user friendly way to access your Program Manager Groups! The program groups are no longer edited using the Program Manager, version 4.0 comes with GROUPED.EXE that can be accessed from the RAMSHELL Menu. The RAMBar! no longer reads the Group files, "Dynamic Data Exchange" was introduced in version 3.0 that enables RAMBAR Shell! to "talk" to Program Manager (which by the way is in a hidden state) so it no longer needs to waste time reading data that's already in fast memory, it also helps keep the same data from being loaded twice into your memory as RAMBar! needs data, it simply "asks" for it and Program Manager is happy to provide the information and perform all needed tasks as a hidden shell. The same holds true with editing the Groups, RAMBar! simply "tells" Program Manager what it needs to do. If you need to get to Program Manager just click a menu selection and it instantly appears (just as all you need to do is select "Command Prompt" (or Shift + F9) in Dos Shell, BTW: DOS Shell, Windows, and Program Manager are all copyrights of Microsoft, all rights reserved (Sorry, I had to throw that in!)! I have however limited the "Icon Bars" to a maximum of 30 Items, as opposed to Program Manager's 50, this was done because most Windows Documentation on Resource Management recommends that program groups stay around 15 items or less (this saves the resources it takes to display all those icons!). I have however increased that to 30 though because some people like big groups but 15 items will fit in one button bar and that keeps a nice streamlined look in your Windows (NOTE: over 15 items will result in two rows of icons which makes things look a little bulkier). You can load bigger groups, RAMBar! will just ignore what is past the maximum, and will display an error letting you know that all items weren't displayed. The most popular change to RAMBar! has been the addition of RAMShell! It consists simply of a "Menu Bar" leaving all your attractive wallpaper for everyone to see. If you don't have Wallpaper (or just like to conserve resources, then select a nice pattern, and change your color scheme to make things a bit more pleasing to the eye. Not to mention, your Desktop is less cluttered! Want to "Tile", or "Cascade" your windows, Double click on your Desktop to activate the Task Manager. The RAMShell slightly resembles PCTools Desktop (Copyright Central Point SoftWare, All rights reserved). I like the Desktop's user interface, with a few exceptions. The main reason being it just flat uses too much memory for a desktop program. The Dynamic Data Exchange features of RAMShell make it a very powerful program, capable of doing almost anything with less memory being used (at least in this instance). More and more Windows applications are starting to include DDE capabilities (Microsoft Word, Microsoft Access, and Microsoft Excel are some I can think of off hand). The title bar displays the Date, Time, the amount of free memory in kilobytes, and the percentage of TOTAL free resources for monitoring your memory while you work. The Menu Bar specifies which group is currently active four buttons that Drop the menus and dialog boxes to configure RAMShell and run various features. The Menu Bar now features an Active Group Combo Box to allow easy selections of your Program Manager Groups. A "Colors" button has been added at your request to allow you to customize the RAMShell colors to taste.