═══ 1. Using Your Group Folder ═══ To put objects in your new folder, just drag and drop a file on the folder icon. The file is then placed in the folder as is normally done with folders. When you open the folder at a later time, it appears in the group named Other. You can put objects in a folder and associate them with a group at the same time by dropping the objects on the one of the groups shown in the Groups pane or associate them with the currently open group by dropping them on the Contents pane. You can create new groups by selecting Create group from the group pop-up menu or Folder pulldown menu. You can rename a group using direct edit (Shift+F9 or Alt+Mouse Button 1). Also, you can reorder the groups by dragging one or more groups towards the top or bottom of the Groups list. Related information: o Creating standard groups o Why use Group Folder? o What is the Groups pane on the left? o What is the Contents pane on the right? o What is the Other group? ═══ 2. Why use Group Folder? ═══ To handle the problem of getting to an object in a folder, many users create a special folder to hold objects that they frequently use. But often this new folder becomes filled with objects, some of which are only used once a month while others are used hourly. Locating a desired object in such a folder can be like trying to find "a needle in a haystack". To solve this retrieval problem, Group Folder allows you to create visible subsections within a given folder. Thus, you have more control over the organization of the contents of folders. The grouping of related objects helps you locate the object you want more quickly. To see how the Group View can be used to organize a collection of objects in a folder, select Create standard groups from the menu bar and an example set of groups based on the objects installed with OS/2 will be created. Related information: o Creating standard groups o Installing Group Folder ═══ 3. Installing Group Folder ═══ Start the installation program, GFINST.EXE. It will prompt you for the path where you would like GFOLDER.DLL and GFOLDER.HLP copied. When the installation is complete, a new folder object called "Group Folder" will appear on your desktop. Note: GFINST.EXE, GFOLDER.DLL, GFOLDER.HLP should be on the same directory before starting installation. ═══ 4. Help for Group View ═══ Group View is an alternative way of viewing the contents of a folder. It allows you to associate the objects within a folder with different groups for quicker access. Related information: o Why use Group Folder? o Groups pane o Contents pane ═══ 5. Help for 'Other' Group ═══ The group named Other is like other groups. In addition, it has several other properties: 1. Objects not specifically added to a group in the Group Folder are added to the Other group. For example, if you drop an object on the Group Folder icon, it is automatically added to the Other group. Objects copied to an open view of the Group Folder other than Group View are also added to the Other group. 2. When a group is deleted the group's associated objects are automatically added to the Other group's list of associated objects. 3. The Other group cannot be deleted. All objects within the Group Folder that are not explicitly associated with a group are automatically added to the Other group's list of associated objects. Related information: o Deleting groups o What is a Group View? ═══ 6. Help for Groups Pane (Left) ═══ The Groups pane shows the list of groups for the Group Folder. Each group can have objects associated with it. Like paper clips used to group related pieces of paper in a folder, groups collect related objects. For example: Games Objects within the Group Folder associated with the Games group show in the Contents pane by double-clicking on the group with mouse button 1 or by selecting View contents from a group's pop-up menu. The icon of the group who's associated objects are shown in the Contents pane is "hashed", for example: Games Menu choices: o View contents o Create group o Delete o Selected contents Related information: o Contents pane o Creating standard groups o Changing default mouse mappings ═══ 7. Help for Contents Pane (Right) ═══ The right pane shows the objects that have been associated with the group that is open in the Groups left pane. The open group is indicated by the "hash" marks behind the group icon. The contents of a a group is shown in the Contents pane by double-clicking with mouse button 1 on a group or selecting View contents from the group pop-up menu. Related information: o Groups pane o View contents o Changing the list of objects associated with a group o Changing default mouse mappings ═══ 8. Help for Create Group ═══ This choice creates another group. To change the name of the group, use direct edit (Shift+F9 or Alt+Mouse Button 1). ═══ 9. Help for Delete (Group) ═══ This choice deletes the group. The objects that were associated with the deleted group are added to the Other group's list of associated objects. Related information: o What is the Other group? ═══ 10. Help for Create Standard Groups ═══ This choice creates several standard groups and fills each of them with copies or shadows of many of the objects shipped with OS/2. These groups organize the objects into easily understood categories. If you have never used a Group View before, select this choice to see an example of its use. Note: All the objects created by the Create standard groups choice are either shadows of existing objects, or copies of existing objects; they can be safely deleted from the Group Folder when you no longer need them. If you did not install all of OS/2 options, some of the objects above may not be created. The list of groups and objects created when Create standard groups is selected: Development Enhanced Editor Seek and Scan Files OS/2 Window OS/2 Full Screen Command Reference Icon Editor Games Solitaire - Klondike Reversi OS/2 Chess Games folder (shadow) System OS/2 System folder (shadow) Startup folder (shadow) System (shadow) Palettes Color Palette Font Palette Scheme Palette Misc Templates folder (shadow) Minimized Window Viewer (shadow) Shredder (shadow) Drives folder (shadow) Desktop (shadow) Help Master Help Index Information folder (shadow) Start Here Glossary ═══ 11. Product Information ═══ Copyright (C), IBM Corporation 1993, 1994, 1995 Group View is an alternative view of folder contents written by Dan Kehn (Internet ID kehn@vnet.ibm.com). Related information: o Why use Group Folder? OS/2, Warp, and LaunchPad are trademarks of IBM Corporation. ═══ 12. Help for View contents ═══ This choice displays the objects associated with the chosen group in the Contents pane. Select this choice or double-click a group with mouse button 1. Note: The objects associated with only one group can be shown in the Contents pane at any given time. Related information: o Groups pane o Contents pane o Changing default mouse mappings ═══ 13. Help for Selected Contents ═══ This category of choices is primarily intended for keyboard users. It allows the objects selected in the Contents pane to be associated with another group, copied and the copies associated with another group, or shadowed and the shadows associated with another group. Content selection choices: o Change group o Add to group o Remove from group o Copy o Create shadow Related information: o What is the Groups pane on the left? o What is the Contents pane on the right? ═══ 14. Help for Change Group (Selected Contents) ═══ The Change group choice is primarily intended for keyboard users. It allows you to associated the objects selected in the Contents pane with another group. Select this choice or drag one or more objects shown in the Contents pane to one of the groups shown in the Groups pane. Related information: o Selected contents ═══ 15. Help for Add to Group (Selected Contents) ═══ The Add to group choice allows the objects selected in the Contents pane to be added to another group. It allows you to associate an object in the Contents pane with one or more groups. Note: An object can be associated with more than one group, but can only be associated with the same group once. Related information: o Selected contents ═══ 16. Help for Remove from Group (Selected Contents) ═══ The Remove from group choice allows the objects selected in the Contents pane to be removed from a group. Note: A contained object is always associated with at least one group. If an object's last association is deleted, a new association is automatically added to the Other group. Related information: o Selected contents o What is the Other group? ═══ 17. Help for Copy (Selected Contents) ═══ The Copy choice is primarily intended for keyboard users. It allows you to copy and then associate the objects selected in the Contents pane with another group. Select this choice or drag one or more objects shown in the Contents pane to one of the groups shown in the Groups pane. For example, an object shown in the Contents pane on the right can be copied then associated with a different group by dragging it (while holding the Ctrl key) to one of the groups shown in the Groups pane on the left. Related information: o Selected contents o View contents ═══ 18. Help for Create Shadow (Selected Contents) ═══ The Create shadow choice is primarily intended for keyboard users. It allows you to create shadows and then associate the objects selected in the Contents pane with another group. The same result can be accomplished by dragging one or more objects shown in the Contents pane to one of the groups shown in the Groups pane. For example, a shadow can be created for an object shown in the Contents pane on the right then associated with a different group by dragging it (while holding the Ctrl and Shift keys) to one of the groups shown in the Groups pane on the left. Related information: o Selected contents o View contents ═══ 19. Help for Folder (menu bar) ═══ Choose the Folder menu bar choice to display a pulldown menu containing choices affecting the folder as a whole. More specific help can be requested from the individual pulldown menu choices. Related information: o Create standard groups o Create group ═══ 20. Help for View (menu bar) ═══ Choose the View menu bar choice to show a pulldown menu containing choices affecting the presentation of the Group View. The Sort groups choice sorts the groups alphabetically. The Sort contents choice sorts the objects in the currently shown group alphabetically. The Hide on open choice, if checked, will result in the Group View being hidden when you open an object shown in the Group View by double-clicking it or by choosing Enter. By default, a group is opened by double-clicking it and an object is opened by double-clicking it. If check Open on single-click is checked, groups and objects will be opened by a single click, similar to the OS/2 Warp LaunchPad. You can select groups and objects without opening them by using Ctrl+Mouse Button 1 or Shift+Mouse Button 1. ═══ 21. Help for Selected (menu bar) ═══ Choose the Selected menu bar choice to display a pulldown menu containing choices affecting the currently selected objects in the pane that last had the location cursor, either the Contents pane or Groups pane. Related information: o What is the Groups pane on the left? o What is the Contents pane on the right? ═══ 22. Programming API for Group Folder ═══ The Group Folder supports Workplace Shell setup strings. These strings can be passed to a Group Folder to create groups and objects within the groups. Generally this is done as part of a customized Group Folder installation. See GFOLDER.CMD, included with this package, for an example. NEWGROUP= Title of group to create. CREATEOBJECT= New object title. CLASS= Class of new object. IFEXISTS= Action to take if an object with the same title already exists in the Group Folder. Valid values are FAIL, UPDATE, or REPLACE. INGROUP= Title of the group to place the new object in. If unspecified, the new object is placed in the Other group. The setup string below would create a program in group "Productivity Programs": NEWGROUP=Productivity Programs; CREATEOBJECT=Enhanced Editor; CLASS=WPProgram; IFEXISTS=REPLACE; INGROUP=Productivity Programs; EXENAME=?:\OS2\APPS\EPM.EXE; PROGTYPE=PM This setup string can be passed to the Group Folder using the WinSetObjectData API, the REXX SysSetObjectData, or the Workplace Shell wpSetup method. The Group Folder creates an instance of the class specified in the CLASS keyword and passes it the entire setup string passed to the Group Folder including the NEWGROUP, CREATEOBJECT, CLASS, and INGROUP keywords (which should be ignored by the newly created instance). Note: Only one object can be created per setup invocation because the NEWGROUP, CREATEOBJECT, CLASS, IFEXISTS, and INGROUP keywords can only be specified once in the setup string. Other Group Folder setup strings: QUERYGROUPCONTENT Returns the Group Folder contents (gfx) into a named shared memory object: typedef struct // gfg { PSZ pszTitle; // group title ULONG cObjects; // number of objects in group HOBJECT *phObject; // pointer to array of object handles } GFGROUP, *PGFGROUP; typedef struct // gfx { ULONG cb; // size of entire export buffer ULONG cgfg; // number of groups GFGROUP gfg[1]; // array of groups } GFEXPORT, *PGFEXPORT; QUERYGROUPCONTENTLENGTH Returns the length of the Group Folder contents into a named shared memory object. RENAMEDEFAULTGROUP= Rename the default group. VIEWGROUP= Display the objects in the named group. Group Folder setup strings whose parameter value is the object handle in hexidecimal followed by the group name. For example: ADDOBJECTHANDLETOGROUP=2F03A,Games; Note: The object handle must belong to an object already existing in the Group Folder. ADDOBJECTHANDLETOGROUP= Adds the object with the specified handle to the named group. After this operation, the object may be referenced by more than one group. MOVEOBJECTHANDLETOGROUP= Moves the object with the specified handle to the named group. After this operation, the object is referenced by only one group. REMOVEOBJECTHANDLEFROMGROUP= Removes the object with the specified handle from the named group only if it is in more than one group.