Contents
Calmira Help Contents

Click on a folder icon to expand or collapse a list of topics.

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	Welcome introduces you to this version of Calmira and guides you through upgrading and installation.
	User's Guide contains all the information you need to get started and use Calmira effectively.
	Advanced Features provides help on Calmira's detailed settings and options to fine-tune your system.
	Developer's Notes are intended for Delphi programmers.
	Epilogue tells you more about Calmira and how you can get the latest version.

Windows and MS-DOS are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation.  Delphi is a trademark of Borland International, Inc.  4DOS is a registered trademark of JP Software Inc.  Netscape Navigator is a registered trademark of Netscape Communications Corporation.  All other products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.


Contents (expanded)
Calmira Help Contents

Click on a folder icon to expand or collapse a list of topics.

Collapse all

	Welcome introduces you to this version of Calmira and guides you through upgrading and installation.  Introduction  What's new in Calmira 2.1  Installing the program  Upgrading from previous versions  Quick Tour
	User's Guide contains all the information you need to get started and use Calmira effectively Main components  Computer  Icon windows  Explorer  Wastepaper bin  Taskbar  Start Menu  Shortcuts and Aliases  Desktop General usage  File management  Working with descriptions  Keyboard commands  Selecting objects  Internet features Dialog boxes  Bin properties  Desktop properties  File/folder properties  File system properties  Find files  Run program  Open With  Start Menu properties  System properties  Shortcut/Alias properties  Taskbar properties Troubleshooting  Common problems  Known Issues  General Troubleshooting
	Advanced Features provides help on Calmira's detailed settings and options to fine-tune your system.  Defining keyboard shortcuts  Customising your icons  Customising your bitmaps  Environment strings  Custom captions  Miscellaneous settings  Using script files  Format of a script file  Optimising Calmira  Optimising Windows
	Developer's Notes are intended for Delphi programmers. Re-compiling the source Technical Notes Translating into another language Distributing modified versions
	Epilogue tells you more about Calmira and how you can get the latest version. Calmira Source Release v2.1 Copyright © 1997-1998 Li-Hsin Huang Released 20th February 1998  Calmira Questions and Answers  Contacting the author  Obtaining the latest version  Distribution service


Contents (Welcome)
Calmira Help Contents

Click on a folder icon to expand or collapse a list of topics.

Expand all

	Welcome introduces you to this version of Calmira and guides you through upgrading and installation.  Introduction  What's new in Calmira 2.1  Installing the program  Upgrading from previous versions  Quick Tour
	User's Guide contains all the information you need to get started and use Calmira effectively.
	Advanced Features provides help on Calmira's detailed settings and options to fine-tune your system.
	Developer's Notes are intended for Delphi programmers who wish to create their own versions.
	Epilogue tells you more about Calmira and how you can get the latest version.


Contents (User's Guide)
Calmira Help Contents

Click on a folder icon to expand or collapse a list of topics.

Expand all

	Welcome introduces you to this version of Calmira and guides you through upgrading and installation.
	User's Guide contains all the information you need to get started and use Calmira effectively Main components  Computer  Icon windows  Explorer  Wastepaper bin  Taskbar  Start Menu  Shortcuts and Aliases  Desktop General usage  File management  Working with descriptions  Keyboard commands  Selecting objects  Internet features Dialog boxes  Bin properties  Desktop properties  File/folder properties  File system properties  Find files  Run program  Open With  Start Menu properties  System properties  Shortcut/Alias properties  Taskbar properties Troubleshooting  Common problems  Known Issues  General Troubleshooting
	Advanced Features provides help on Calmira's detailed settings and options to fine-tune your system.
	Developer's Notes are intended for Delphi programmers who wish to create their own versions.
	Epilogue tells you more about Calmira and how you can get the latest version.


Contents (Advanced)
Calmira Help Contents

Click on a folder icon to expand or collapse a list of topics.

Expand all

	Welcome introduces you to this version of Calmira and guides you through upgrading and installation.
	User's Guide contains all the information you need to get started and use Calmira effectively.
	Advanced Features provides help on Calmira's detailed settings and options to fine-tune your system.  Defining keyboard shortcuts  Customising your icons  Customising your bitmaps  Environment strings  Custom captions  Miscellaneous settings  Using script files  Format of a script file  Optimising Calmira  Optimising Windows
	Developer's Notes are intended for Delphi programmers who wish to create their own versions.
	Epilogue tells you more about Calmira and how you can get the latest version.


Contents (Developers Notes)
Calmira Help Contents

Click on a folder icon to expand or collapse a list of topics.

Expand all

	Welcome introduces you to this version of Calmira and guides you through upgrading and installation.
	User's Guide contains all the information you need to get started and use Calmira effectively.
	Advanced Features provides help on Calmira's detailed settings and options to fine-tune your system.
	Developer's Notes are intended for Delphi programmers. Re-compiling the source Technical notes Translating into another language Distributing modified versions
	Epilogue tells you more about Calmira and how you can get the latest version.


Contents (Epilogue)
Calmira Help Contents

Click on a folder icon to expand or collapse a list of topics.

Expand all

	Welcome introduces you to this version of Calmira and guides you through upgrading and installation.
	User's Guide contains all the information you need to get started and use Calmira effectively.
	Advanced Features provides help on Calmira's detailed settings and options to fine-tune your system.
	Developer's Notes are intended for Delphi programmers who wish to create their own versions.
	Epilogue tells you more about Calmira and how you can get the latest version. Calmira Source Release v2.1 Copyright © 1997-1998 Li-Hsin Huang Released 20th February 1998  Calmira Questions and Answers  Contacting the author  Obtaining the latest version  Distribution service


Introduction

Calmira is a complete 16-bit shell that lets you manage files, launch applications and control tasks.  It brings Windows 3.1 up to date with some of the advanced user interface enhancements from the Windows world, and for most people, provides welcome relief from the awkwardness of File Manager.

The installation is simple -- just copy a few files into a directory, and you are ready to go.  If you have used the Windows 95 interface before, you should feel quite at home, but in any case, it won't take long to get used to the new look and feel.

There are many settings and options which you can customise, and if that's not enough, then you can even re-write it (or get someone to do it for you!). Calmira is free and the source code is included in this package.  You are free to modify and redistribute it under the terms of the GNU General Public License, version 2 or later.


What's new in Calmira 2.0
What's new in Calmira 2.1

Changes since Calmira 2.0

Version 2.1 is a maintenance release to fix problems reported in 2.0, but it also incorporates some features that could not be added in time for the 2.0 release date.

New features

 Integrated taskbar

 Shell DDE for installation programs (see Start Properties)

 Full drag and drop functions for taskbar

 Incremental search for icon windows (press ".")

 Aliases can be placed in the Applet Tray (see Taskbar topic)

 Progress monitor showing bytes copied (click on the icon)

Icon windows and Explorer

 Window captions use the 4DOS descriptions

 Popup hints show exact byte size

 Computer window automatically detects network connections

 Explorer tree can return to the previous folder visited

 Explorer tree can be opened showing a pre-defined directory

 Folders do not display "0 bytes" in list view and hints

 Explorer tree does not refresh file pane on every click

Start Menu and Taskbar

 Taskbar can pop up when Calmira objects are dragged over it

 Applet tray icons are highlighted when an applet is loaded

 Start Menu always gains and restores the keyboard focus

 New macros $LargeIconFolder, $SmallIconFolder and $ListFolder

 Taskbar buttons have limited width for higher resolution displays

 The taskbar does not show a pressed button for minimized apps

 The Calmira desktop can be brought forward from the taskbar

 Animation of the popup taskbar has been slowed down

Miscellaneous improvements

 Shell reversal in Shutdown dialog (double click on the picture)

 Icon browser dialog accepts and returns environment strings

 Bin shows filename and original location in separate columns

 You can double click on a folder in the bin to view its contents

 Calmira does not automatically bin items from removeable media

 Shortcuts cannot be accidentally deleted with Alt+F4

 Progress bar's background colour can be adjusted

 Internet shortcuts can be activated with a user-defined command

 Run dialog can open root directories without a backslash

 Find dialog has an improved layout

 Windows 95 style progress bar

Bug fixes

 Icons no longer disappear when window contents are changed

 Icon captions are not wrongly drawn using the highlight colour

 The Taskbar now always remains on top of other programs

 Applet tray icons are no longer reversed after reloading

 Duplicate buttons are now removed from the Taskbar

 Exclusions list uses the second column for display

 Icon windows always gain focus when opened from the Computer

 ListKBDecimals setting has been re-activated

 Smart reloading of Start Menu works properly when caption is unchanged

 File Association page restores the registry index after page change

 Many problems in the previous Known Issues section have been resolved

Changes since Calmira 1.0

Icon windows and Explorer

 Windows can have better dimensions (2x2, 3x3...)

 Status bar can change to one-panel layout for narrow windows

 Title bar can display just the folder name without the path

 Full pathnames appear in popup hints over the status bar

 Miniature icons in list view, and new small icons view

 List view can display only the columns you need to see

 Multiple file specifications can be used for the filter

 Explorer automatically moves and resizes associated windows

 Option to capitalise the first character of each filename

 Registered files can have their extension hidden
 Folders can be deleted from the tree view

 You can print a file by dragging it to the Print Manager window

File management

 File association facilities in File Properties dialog box

 File processing can be interrupted while copying a file

 The Find, Run and Start Properties dialogs can be resized

 Drag-and-drop can be configured to move files by default

 The Run dialog can be set to close automatically

 Right mouse button can be used for fast file opening

 Bin operations use progress box

 Objects can be moved to the bin when deleted.

 Description files are merged when directories are merged

 Open With feature is available in the Find Dialog

 Aliases can have a user-defined extension

Shortcuts and aliases

 Shortcuts can be created from the desktop

 Aliases can be created by drag and drop to the destination

 Aliases can be created remotely without seeing the target object

 Internet shortcuts and aliases let you manage your links

Start Menu and Taskbar

 Optional large icons for first level of Start Menu

 Coloured Start Menu highlight bar

 Full keyboard and mnemonic key support in Start Menu

 Menus can be divided into equal sized columns

 Start button can be hidden when using the Taskbar on its own

 A hot-key can be assigned for the Start Menu to popup

 Hot keys can be assigned for sub-menus to popup

 Menu fields can be modified without causing a full rebuild

 All Desktop menu commands are available from the Start Menu

 Converted program groups are placed in selected menu

 Start Menu icons can use an darker display mode

 Startup group is skipped if the Shift key is held down

 Popup hints for icons on the system tray

Desktop

 Calmira can be brought forward by clicking on the desktop

 Windows are repainted before busy periods of processing

 Repaint Screen command corrects display glitches

 Open Folder command now accepts partial pathnames

 Shortcuts can be restored after accidental icon arrangement

Property sheets

 Advanced Properties can be expanded with a single click

 Messages when browsing icons can be turned off

 File Properties dialog can read file types from INI file

 Label text can be selected and copied to the clipboard

 Improved editor for references and menu items

 Lower resource usage for multi-page dialogs

 You can double click on an Advanced setting to modify it

 You can click once on a Start Menu node to expand and collapse it

 Applet tray can be modified from the Taskbar Properties dialog

Miscellaneous

 Windows can be resized in any direction

 Improved built-in graphics & more user-replaceable graphics

 Hot-key support extends across all Windows programs

 History lists can have a maximum size and be cleared

 Internal bitmaps (resources) can be substituted with BMP files

 Open Folder desktop command can create new folders

 Directory and Find lists can be copied to the clipboard

 Tips of the day to provide helpful information

 Improved browsing consistency throughout dialog boxes

 You can open a web page from Run dialog or Start Menu

 You can open a folder from the Run dialog.

 Select Folder window is now a proper dialog box with buttons

 Program Group Convert dialog has a more spacious layout

 INI files can be stored in Windows directory for network use

DOS command prompt and script support

You can write simple script files to:

 run a Windows program or new DOS program box

 open a document belonging to a Windows program

 open an icon window of the current prompt's directory

 open the explorer tree at the current directory

 activate a shortcut or Start Menu item

 run a Start Menu macro command

Bug fixes

 Version information can now be extracted from file in all directories

 Date and time columns in list view are properly aligned

 Lower likelihood of general protection faults in Taskbar

 Files can be dropped into workspace of programs (e.g. Notepad)

 Shift+cursor keys now anchors the start of the selection

 Command line from WIN.COM is processed

 Menu editor chooses a default file for browsing icons

 File System Properties sheet has scrollbar problem fixed

 The default Explorer window is a sensible height

 The Explorer tree takes hidden/system folders into account

 Open Folder command now accepts wildcards

 Wastepaper Bin header widths are properly saved

 Icon windows won't be duplicated using upper case captions

 Cursor changes to hourglass shape when launching programs

 Start Menu is painted correctly when system colours are changed

 Taskbar shows buttons for windows saved from previous sessions

 Date and time columns in list view should now be aligned

 Minimize Programs command correctly hides icons

 Taskbar colour can be changed

 Dialogs focus their first control

 Alt+Tab doesn't accidentally activate a shortcut

 Pressing Enter in System window will open an icon

 Open File With dialog accepts command line parameters

 Run Program dialog no longer changes current directory

 Print command Ctrl+P works from every directory

 Random window placement is more accurate regarding screen size

 File panel in Shortcut Properties dialog is enabled when required


Installing the program

System requirements

 386 processor or higher

 Microsoft Windows 3.1 or Windows for Workgroups 3.11

 At least 4 megabytes (MB) of memory

 A VGA monitor or better

 A mouse

Supplied files

You should have received at least the following:

Filename	Description
calmira.exe	The main program
explorer.exe	Launches the tree view window
wndhooks.dll	Contains low-level functions used by Taskbar
direxist.exe	A small DOS program to detect directories
calmira.ini	Stores main program settings
start.ini	Stores Start Menu structure and data
calmira.hlp	This help file
readme.txt	The latest documentation updates
license.txt	The GNU General Public License
file_id.diz	Information for vendors
start.bat	Runs Windows programs from a DOS prompt
folder.bat	Opens icon windows from a DOS prompt
open.bat	Opens files and folders
ctl3dv2.zip	Contains 3D controls library
source.zip	Contains the Delphi source code of Calmira
Installation

Copy all of the above files into a single directory on your hard disk, for example, c:\Calmira.  Avoid putting these in your Windows directory if possible.

The INI files are constantly modified, so the directory must have write permissions.  If you are using it over a network, you can make Calmira load its settings from the Windows directory.  See the Miscellaneous Settings topic for details.

3D controls library

Calmira requires the Ctl3dv2.dll module which is supplied in a ZIP file.  If you don't already have this file in your \Windows\System directory, unzip it to there.  Do not leave Ctl3dv2.dll in the same directory as Calmira.

Setting Calmira as the shell

If you don't need Program Manager any more, you can use Calmira as the Windows shell.  You need to modify the System.ini file in your Windows directory, so make a backup copy of it first.  Look for the [Boot] section, where you will find something like:

[Boot]

shell=progman.exe

Comment this out by adding a semi-colon in front of it, and add a line pointing to Calmira, for example

[Boot]

;shell=progman.exe

shell=c:\calmira\calmira.exe

Restart Windows for the new shell to take effect.  If you encounter problems when loading Windows, reset the shell to Program Manager and see the Common Problems section for more help.

Uninstalling

Simply delete all the files in the Calmira directory.


Upgrading from Calmira 1.0
Upgrading from previous versions

Upgrading from Calmira 2.0 to Calmira 2.1

You should replace all the Calmira 2.0 files except the two INI files, both of which are fully compatible with version 2.1.

Upgrading from Calmira 1.0 to Calmira 2.1

Replacing files

You should replace all the Calmira 1.0 files, except your Start.ini file.  It is important that you replace Calmira.ini because it contains new sections which are required for Calmira 2.1 to work correctly.  You can, if you wish, copy the shortcut sections across and set the NumShorts property in the [Desktop] sections accordingly.

Option changes

Several unnecessary settings have been removed, for example, the option to copy files in the background.  Calmira is permanently configured to use the more powerful settings. Options have only been removed when it is certain that performance on slower computers will not be affected.

General Notes

Icons

When new icons are added to Calmira's executable file, they are sorted by name and the index of existing icons are different.  So if your shortcuts or Start Menu items specified an icon index, some of these may need to be modified to show the correct icon again.


Quick Tour

Here are the major components of Calmira -- click on a graphic to jump to the desired topic.  Remember that you can get context sensitive help at any time by pressing F1, and right clicking on many objects will pop up a context sensitive menu.  Explore, and have fun...

Computer

Icon windows

Explorer

Wastepaper bin

Taskbar

Start Menu

Shortcuts

Desktop


Computer

This window contains the disk drives which have been detected, plus some useful programs.  When you close the computer window, Calmira will close down.

Settings dialogs

The computer window is the centre of Calmira, and if you right click between the icons, a popup menu appears, which lets you access dialogs to configure the program.  These dialog boxes are often available from other places but you can always open them from here.

When you right click on the Computer icon, the Start Menu appears (it is normally accessed from the Taskbar).  You can make the Computer's normal popup menu appear instead, through the System Properties dialog.


Icon windows

These windows provide many facilities for managing your files and programs.  Each window displays the contents of one folder, and each folder may only be shown by one window.  If you try and open a folder which is already displayed, the existing window is restored and brought to the front, as required.

If you right click over an icon, the icon's context menu appears.  Commands in the top half affect all selected objects, those in the bottom half work on the focused object.  If you right click in the space between icons or the grey window border, the window's context menu appears.  These commands affect the icon window or the folder that it represents.

To open the parent folder, press Backspace.  To close or arrange groups of windows, see the keyboard commands summary.

Alternative viewing modes

When there is not enough room on the status bar for two panels, only one panel is displayed, showing different information depending on whether you have selected any files.  You can still access the mouse operations of the right hand label, by shift-clicking on the single label.

The window menu lets you choose between large icons, small icons and list view.  Note that the small icons view is just a squashed version of the large icons view -- the icons are arranged in rows, not in columns as you might expect!

The Set Filter menu command lets you change the contents shown in the current window.  To set defaults for all new windows, use the File System Properties dialog.  From there, you can also choose whether to draw miniature icons for each file instead of using blank file icons.

Managing files and folders

First select the objects which you want to work with.  To delete, rename or describe them, pick the appropriate command from the context menu.  To copy things, drag the icons to the destination (either a window or another icon).  If you right-click during the drag, the operation is toggled between a copy and a move.

Incremental search

If you press the full stop key ".", a small dialog pops up which lets you enter a partial caption. The window highlights the nearest object as you type more characters. Press Esc to end the search.  The search is strictly based on the caption, as displayed on-screen, and not on the actual filename. To match a complete word, e.g. "myfile", enter "myfile" followed by a space.

See also:

File Management

Explorer

Shortcuts and aliases

Wastepaper bin

File System Properties


Explorer

This displays all drives and folders in a branching structure similar to File Manager.  Use it to give a broad view of your file system while you navigate through the folders.

Win95 Explorer style view

To combine the tree with an icon window for an interface like the Windows 95 Explorer, right click on the tree and check the "Show file window" menu item.  Now when you click on a node of the tree, the icon window is updated to display the contents of that folder.

Returning to the previously visited folder

The File System Properties dialog lets you control whether the Explorer travels to the most recently visited folder the next time you open it.  It will never return to a folder from a removeable drive, in case the disk is not present.

See also:
Icon windows

Desktop Properties


Wastepaper Bin

When you drop files or folders into the bin icon, they are moved to hidden directories instead of being deleted.  If you change your mind, you can restore them to their original location.  Otherwise, you'll need to empty the bin to free up the space used by the files.

Double click on the icon to open the bin window.

How to restore files

After selecting the items, choose Restore from the popup menu to move each file or folder back to where it came from.  Alternatively, drag the items to an icon window or shortcut.  This moves them all to that location.

Viewing folders in the bin

You can double click on a folder in the bin to show its contents in an icon window.  The binned files are placed in a temporary folder which may have tilde (~) characters and numbers in the name.  In general, you should not modify files and folders that are still in the bin, because Calmira may not be able to restore or keep track of them.

How to empty the bin

The popup menu has Delete and Empty commands, which deletes selected items and all trash, respectively.  If you choose Properties from the menu, you can configure the bin to clear trash automatically.

Using more than one bin directory

You can specify which drives to store trash on, and which folders to use.  If you have more than one hard disk drive, this could speed things up because trash from each drive can be moved quickly and need not be copied to another disk.

In the [Bin Locations] section, add mappings of drive=folder.  For example:

[Bin locations]

c=c:\windows\temp

d=d:\waste

f=e:\trash

This tells Calmira to store all files from drive F: in the folder e:\Trash.

Automatically binning deleted files

You can redirect all files deleted from Calmira's icon windows into the bin by selecting the "Move objects into bin instead of deleting" option from the File System Properties dialog.  When you press Del from an icon window, the effect is the same as dropping the objects into the bin icon.

When you choose this option and want to properly delete a file, press Shift+Del instead, or hold down shift when choosing Delete from the popup menu.

This setting does not affect files deleted by other programs, or from the Find Files dialog or Explorer tree.  You must manually clear out the bin to free up disk space, but remember that files could be stored on different drives so you need to check the [Bin locations] section if you need more space on a particular disk.


Taskbar

Each running process has a button on the bar and you can click on a button to switch to that task.  If you right click instead, a popup menu lets you minimize, maximize or close the window.

The start button has a special popup menu that lets you setup the Taskbar.  Choose Taskbar Properties from this menu to adjust the settings.  You can configure the Taskbar to always stay on screen or hide when the cursor moves off it.  It will always pop up when the cursor reaches the bottom of the screen.

Drag and drop

If a program normally accepts files dropped into its icon from File Manager, you can drop files from Calmira into that program's taskbar button.  You can also copy and move files and folders by dropping them into the taskbar buttons for icon windows.  A hidden taskbar will pop up when you drag objects to the base of the screen .

The Applet Tray

This is located on the Taskbar's clock, and it can hold a few icons for commonly used utilities.  These programs are treated slightly differently from those launched by normal shortcuts.  Firstly, Calmira doesn't run a new copy of the program if it is already running.  Secondly, the applets are not shown on the Taskbar, since they can be brought forward from the Applet Tray.  You can add and remove applets from the Taskbar Properties dialog.

Using aliases in the Applet Tray

If you need applet tray icons with more detailed settings (e.g. a specific icon), create a new subdirectory called "Tray" in Calmira's home directory and create some aliases there.  Open the Taskbar Properties dialog, and close it again to force the Applet Tray to reload.  The aliases will appear as small icons.

You cannot directly edit the icons that are in the tray -- you need to edit the original aliases and then reload them.  They behave like normal aliases, so each click will start a fresh instance of the program.

Excluding programs

There are some programs which you may not wish to appear Taskbar.  For example, programs which have icons that change appearance, like the Windows Clock, should stay as an icon on the desktop. Also, space on the Taskbar is valuable, so you should not show a Taskbar button for programs you don't often switch to.  Use the Exclusion tab page in the Taskbar Properties dialog to specify which programs to exclude.

Terminating a task

This feature is useful for killing off a stubborn program that won't go away, assuming it has not already crashed Windows.

1.  Choose Terminate from the Start button's popup menu.

2.  The cursor should change to a circle with a bar through it.

3.  Left click on the button of the offending program.

To abort the termination, right click anywhere on the Taskbar.

Warning: ending programs this way will not free all the resources and memory it has used, and could lead to the system becoming unstable.  You should consider restarting Windows after saving any opened files.

See also:

Start Menu


Start Menu

This nested menu is displayed when you press Start on the Taskbar. Each menu item is equivalent to a program item in Program Manager.  Additionally, it can open new windows and dialogs, and programs that are launched from the Start Menu will be shown by your chosen icon on the Taskbar, even Windows programs.

To edit the Start Menu, right click on the Start button and choose Start Properties from the popup menu.  From there, you can also copy your program groups and icons from Program Manager.

The System Properties dialog lets you choose whether to open the Start Menu when you right click over the Computer icon.


Shortcuts and Aliases

Shortcuts and aliases are references -- they point to another object such as a disk drive, folder, or file.  When you open or drop things into a reference, the effect is the same as if you had opened or dropped into the original object.  You can also create a link to an Internet address.

Shortcuts

These are icons on the desktop, and you can create them in two ways: either drag an icon out of a window and release the mouse, or right click on the desktop and choose an item from the New Shortcut submenu.

The shortcut is saved in Calmira's INI file when you quit.  To edit its properties, click on its caption and choose Properties from the menu.  Shortcuts are effective when used sparingly -- you would probably have shortcuts of your disk drives and a few important folders and utilities on your desktop.  Each shortcut is a real window and uses the same amount of resources.

Aliases

These are small files (with an extension ALS) containing an icon and some data that points to the original object. To create aliases of visible objects, drag them to another folder or window, and hold down the Shift key before releasing the mouse.  To create an alias of something not currently visible, right click between the icons and choose Create Alias from the window menu.

Aliases are just like other files, and you can copy, move or delete them without affecting the original object.  To change their properties, right click and select the Edit Alias command.

You can use aliases to give the effect of a free floating program group: move aliases into the one folder, create a shortcut of the folder, and change its icon.  They are also useful for creating "virtual links" to other folders, to change the apparent structure of your directory tree.


Desktop

If you right click on your wallpaper, the desktop menu appears, which gives you fast access to frequently used features.  There are facilities to let you create a shortcut at the point where you clicked, and arrange desktop icons and windows.

Activating Calmira using the desktop

When Calmira is hidden behind other windows, you can bring it forward by right clicking on the desktop while holding down the left mouse button.  If the desktop is covered by a maximized window, you can activate Calmira using the same method on the Taskbar's main body panel.

Opening and creating folders

The Open Folder command is particularly useful because it lets you quickly get to any directory without travelling through the tree.  To see only certain files, add a wildcard (which must include ? or *) after the folder name.  For example c:\Windows\System\*.dll.

To create a new folder, select this menu command, type in a new folder name, and you will be asked whether it should be created.  The new folder is opened for you in a blank window.

Differences between Open Folder and Run dialog

You can open an icon window from the Run Program dialog by typing in a folder name, which gives you the benefit of a history list.  However, the Open Folder command is a little more powerful because it can create new folders, and you don't need to type in the full pathname -- if you omit a drive, Calmira uses the drive on which Windows is installed; if you omit a leading backslash, Calmira adds it for you.

Some examples of what you can type for Open Folder:

Fully qualified folder name:	c:\programs ---> c:\programs

Leading backslash:	\programs   ---> c:\programs

No leading punctuation:	programs    ---> c:\programs

Drive identifier:	a: --> a:\

When Calmira needs to fill in the full path, it uses the drive on which Windows is installed.  This is because the "current directory" has little meaning since Calmira operates across all drives.  This is different from the Open batch file -- if you type "Open programs" at the DOS prompt, Calmira assumes that you want to open the "programs" directory in the current directory (which now has a meaning).

Creating a new folder on the desktop

Use the desktop menu to create a folder shortcut.  In the Shortcut Properties dialog, enter a caption and the name of a new directory, then press OK.  Calmira will ask you whether you wish to create a new directory.


File Management

Copying

1.  Ensure the destination is visible, as a window or an icon.

2.  Select which objects to copy.

3.  Drag them to the destination and release the mouse.

Moving

1.  Ensure the destination is visible, as a window or an icon.

2.  Select which objects to move.

3.  Drag them to the destination.

4.  Right click once.

5.  Release the mouse.

Deleting

1.  Select which objects to delete.

2.  Right click over one of the selected icons.

3.  Choose Delete from the popup menu.

Renaming

1.  Select an object to rename.

2.  Right click over the icon.

3.  Choose Rename from the popup menu.

Creating a folder

1.  Open the parent folder as an icon window.

2.  Right click in the space between the icons.

3.  Select Create Folder from the menu.

Refreshing windows

When you have used another program to change files or folders, existing icon windows must be refreshed to show the correct contents.  Press F5 or click on the left label on the status bar to read the directory again.

See also:

Working with descriptions


Working with descriptions

In the absence of long filenames in Windows 3.1, Calmira allows you to use 4DOS compatible  descriptions to label your files and folders.  When you upgrade to Windows 95 or Windows NT, you can turn the descriptions into proper long filenames.

Descriptions can either show up as popup hints (and an extra column in the list view), or be used as captions for the icons.  The File System Properties dialog lets you adjust the settings.

Adding and changing descriptions

After enabling the descriptions feature, open an icon window and select the files you want to describe.  Right click over one of them and choose the Describe command.  Calmira will prompt you for a description for each file.  Press Escape or the Cancel button to stop adding descriptions and save the descriptions you have accepted.

To delete descriptions, simply describe the files with empty strings.

Running 4DOS sessions simultaneously

Calmira keeps a copy of the descriptions in memory for each icon window, but if you use a 4DOS box to manage files, it may modify the descriptions so that the Calmira's memory copy is out of date.  When you next use Calmira to copy files, the old descriptions are carried across.

To prevent this, select the option to maintain up to date descriptions.  This causes descriptions to be read from disk before each update, to refresh the copy in memory.  There is still a risk in multitasking environments that conflicting updates will occur, so you are advised not to use two programs to modify the same directory at once.  Closing all icon windows will make it safe to modify the directory from the 4DOS prompt.

How descriptions are stored

When a directory contains a file or folder that has a description, a hidden file called Descript.ion is created which stores the extra data.  When files are copied, moved or deleted, the description file is updated.  When folders are copied or moved, description files are handled automatically without asking for confirmation, even though they have the hidden attribute.

Warning: Calmira 2.1 doesn't handle descriptions properly when you merge whole directory structures together  the description files are merged on the assumption that all files are replaced, regardless of whether the file operations actually succeeded.


Keyboard commands

Most key combinations are shown in popup menus.  The following are available from icon windows, but are not shown in the menus:

Keys	Command	Description
F2	Rename	Renames a file or folder
F3	Find	Opens the Find dialog
F5	Refresh	Reads the contents of the folder again
Ctrl+F5	Cascade	Stacks icon windows from the top left
Shift+F5	Arrange icons	Moves icons to the bottom of the screen
Backspace	Open parent	Opens a window to the parent folder
/	Close all	Closes all icon windows
*	Close others	Keeps only the active icon window
+	Close lower	Closes windows showing a child folder
-	Close path	Closes windows showing a parent folder
\	Go to root	Opens the current drive's root directory
Shift+Ctrl+drive	Open drive	Opens the root of the specified drive
Ctrl+E	Explorer	Displays the Explorer tree
Ctrl+O	Open folder	Prompts you for a folder to display
Ctrl+P	Print	Prompts you for a file to print
Ctrl+C	Copy text	Copies the selected text to the clipboard.  The result depends on whether you are in large icons, small icons or list view.
Ctrl+U	Undelete	Runs your chosen undelete program
Any letter	Search	Jumps to next file starting with that letter
?	Set filter	Opens the Set Filter dialog
. (full stop)	Inc. Search	Jumps to a file, given a partial filename
, (comma)	Select all	Selects/deselects all objects in window
Shift+T	Sort by type	Sorts according to the file extensions
Shift+N	Sort by name	Sorts according to the filename
Shift+S	Sort by size	Shows largest files first
Shift+D	Sort by date	Shows most recently modified files first
Switching between windows

Press Ctrl + Tab to cycle through each window in Calmira.

Browsing folders in one or more windows

The Desktop properties dialog contains the setting Browse through folders in the same icon window.  If you hold down ALT when double clicking on a folder icon, the folder is opened using the opposite of the current setting.

See also:

Defining keyboard shortcuts


Selecting objects

When you click on an icon, it becomes focused (with a dotted box around it).  It is also selected if it has a grey background.  Some file operations work on all selected items, others just work on the focused one.

To select a single item

Click on the icon with the left mouse button.

To select a range

1.  Select the first item in the range.

2.  Hold down SHIFT.

3.  Select the last item in the range.

To toggle the selection of a single item

Hold down CTRL when you left-click on it.

To select a block

Press the left mouse button when the cursor is to the left of an icon.  Then stretch the lasso around the icons you wish to select.

To de-select items

Click on an unselected object or click on an empty space.

To select or de-select everything in the window

Left click on the right hand label (shift-click if there is only one label displayed).  If there are items currently highlighted, all items are de-selected.  Otherwise everything is selected.

To select files using wildcards

Right click on the right hand label to open the Select Files box.


Internet
Internet features

Opening URLs through DDE

Calmira is set up to use Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0 installed in c:\IExplore.  To specify its directory, or use  another browser which supports DDE (Dynamic Data Exchange), follow these steps:

1. Open the System Properties dialog.

2. Select the Advanced tab page.

3. Open the [Internet] section.

4. Modify the ServiceApplication string to point to your browser.

    Do include the full pathname.

    Do not include the .EXE file extension.

For example,

[Internet]

ServiceApplication=c:\netscape\netscape

would be suitable for Netscape Navigator 3.0.

Opening URLs using a command line

Netscape Navigator 4.0 and other browsers may not work correctly using DDE, in which case Calmira can open an Internet shortcut by running a specific program.  If the CommandLine string in the [Internet] section is present, it will override any DDE settings.  Use the %url% variable to insert the address.  For example, to open URLs using Navigator 4.0, you can add:

[Internet]

CommandLine=navstart.exe -browser %url%

Specifying URL prefixes

In the [Internet] section, the URLPrefixes setting determines the strings that Calmira uses to identify an Internet address.  When it processes a command line, Calmira looks for the prefixes at the beginning of the command, and calls your web browser if one is found.  You can modify this setting to include any additional prefixes.

Shortcuts and aliases

Use these to quickly mark a web page or other Internet address.  When you create a new shortcut or alias and choose Internet as the type, Calmira looks for your browser program.  If the browser is running, the current location's title and URL are captured for you.  Otherwise, you must enter the details yourself.

Run dialog

You can type a URL into the Run Program dialog to open it.  Your browser is launched if it is not already running.

Start Menu

Type in a URL into the Command line field, and the effect is the same as for the Run Dialog.  You can use the Start Menu to organise Navigator style bookmarks missing from the Internet Explorer 3.0 Favourites feature.

To avoid having to keep the Start Menu Properties dialog open while you are browsing (or paste URLs manually), create aliases of URLs in a temporary folder.  Afterwards, the aliases can be dropped into the dialog's menu tree, which automatically converts the captions and addresses.


Bin Properties dialog

This controls the settings of the wastepaper bin.  You can access it by opening the bin window, and choosing Properties from the popup menu.  When the bin is hidden, the dialog can be opened from the Computer window.

Calmira does not automatically bin items from removeable media such as floppy disks. If you choose to use the bin for the Delete command, objects from floppy disks are deleted immediately.  To bin items from floppy disks, you need to drop them into the bin icon.


Desktop Properties dialog

This dialog contains settings that are associated with window management as well as those relating to the desktop.  To open it, right click on the wallpaper and choose Properties from the popup menu.  If you've disabled the desktop popup menu, you can open this dialog from the Computer window.

Right click on minimize/maximize box to close

Enable this setting to let you close any icon window by right clicking on the minimize/maximize buttons (as a substitute for Win95's new close button).  You need to run the Taskbar for this to work, because it relies on the Taskbar's mouse controller.

Close the window when right button is released

This setting works in conjunction with the previous one.  Turn it off to allow windows to be closed quickly without activating them or bringing them to the front.  Turn it on to prevent some programs from displaying a popup menu immediately after you close a window.

Animate cursor when dragging files over desktop

Turn off this option if your cursor flickers or disappears completely when dragging over the desktop.

Browse through folders in the same icon window

If you hold down the ALT key while opening a folder, this setting is temporarily reversed.

Treat Calmira windows as separate task windows

Turn this on to prevent all Calmira windows and shortcuts from being brought forward whenever you click on one of them.  However, this feature also causes the windows to appear in Task Manager and in the Alt+Tab list because they now belong to the desktop.


File and Folder properties dialog

Open this dialog from icon windows by selecting some objects, and choosing Properties from the objects' popup menu.  You will receive different information depending on whether you selected a file, a folder or multiple items.

File attributes

If you select multiple items, some check boxes may be greyed, which indicates that items differ in this attribute.  Leave a check box greyed to prevent the particular attribute from being modified.

Associating programs

When type in your own command to run, you need to include %1 on the command line where the document filename should be inserted.

Version information

Under Windows 3.1, only version information compiled by a Microsoft resource compiler can be reliably detected.


File System properties dialog

This dialog controls the built-in file manager.  To open it, choose File System from an icon window's popup menu, or open it via the Computer window. For details about file descriptions, see Working with descriptions.

Show miniature versions of icons

Turn this setting on to shrink large icons down to 16 x 16 when displaying small icons or list view (it only affects icon windows, not the Bin or Find Files dialog).  This display mode is slow!

Show folder/drive names for icon window captions

When this is turned on, icon windows display just the 8 letter directory name on icon windows, and root windows show the drive's caption from the Computer.

Do not show file extension for files with own icon

Calmira compares each icon to the blank file icon before writing the caption.  If this option is on, and the icon is not the blank file icon, then the 3 letter extension is truncated.  This feature is useful for reducing clutter, but if more than one file type uses the same icon (e.g. both GIF and JPG types use a graphics icon), then you won't be able to distinguish between files with the same 8 letter name.

Move objects into bin instead of deleting

See the Wastepaper Bin topic for details about using this switch.


Find Files dialog

This dialog lets you rapidly search for files in the background.  You can open it from the Start Menu, desktop popup menu, Computer window or icon windows.

Searching for files

To look for multiple sets of files, separate each wildcard with a semi-colon.  When you press the Search button, the search takes place in the background and you can carry on with other tasks.  The cursor changes to a pointer with an hourglass attached, and returns to normal when the search is complete.  Files and folders are displayed in the listbox as soon as they are found.

Opening an item

Double click on an item to open it, or right click on the listbox to display commands that let you open an item's parent folder or delete it.  Ctrl and Shift can be used to select multiple items, and they can be dropped into other programs.  To open a file using a specific program, right click and choose Open With.

The search speed

Calmira tries to ensure that there are no duplicates in the listbox.  You can gain maximum search speed if you specify only one wildcard for each search and clear the listbox between searches.

Tip: to search an entire drive, just enter a single drive letter in the Start From box.


Run Program dialog

This dialog lets you start a Windows or MS-DOS program, or execute an MS-DOS command.  You can open it from the Start Menu, desktop menu, Computer window or icon windows.

If you check the DOS command check box, the text you type in is passed to your command interpreter so you can obtain directory listings etc..  Otherwise, the text is passed to Windows to execute.


Open With dialog

This dialog lets you open a file with a particular program.  Select a file in an icon window, right click over it and choose Open With from the popup menu.  Type the name of a program into the edit box and press OK.

You can also choose a program from the listbox by double clicking on an item.  If you single click instead, the program's details appear in the edit box and you can edit the command before pressing OK.

Adding programs to the dialog

The [File Viewers] section of the INI file lets you add entries to the listbox.  Each line should be in the format <caption>=<command>. For example:

[File Viewers]

Notepad=c:\windows\notepad.exe

Write=c:\windows\write.exe

Pif Editor=c:\windows\pifedit.exe

You can include parameters within the command lines, and if you need to place the name of the document file at a specific point, insert the environment string %filename% at the required position.  For example,

viewer %filename% /p


Start Menu properties dialog

Open this dialog by right clicking on the Start button of the Taskbar, and choose Start Properties.  This dialog is not modal, so you can switch windows and drop items into the tree.

Creating new items

There are three ways of doing this:

1.  Press the Add or Insert buttons on the toolbar.

2.  Drag and drop files and folders from icon windows straight into the tree.

3.  Press the Import Groups button to copy items from Program Manager.

Creating new sub-menus

A sub-menu starts off as a normal menu item.  When you use the Insert button or drag nodes onto it, it becomes a menu.  When the contents are deleted, it becomes an item again.

Copying and moving items and sub-menus

Simply drag a node's caption to move it.  To drop a node into a closed sub-menu, hold down ALT before releasing the mouse button.  To copy a single item, hold down the CTRL key when dropping.

Editing an item

You can double click on a node without descendants to edit it.  Otherwise, click on the Edit button, press Enter, or right click for the popup menu.

Built-in menu commands

Instead of specifying a program to run, the command line field of a menu item can open or activate a window in Calmira.  The recognised commands are in the drop-down list.  The $Folder command opens an icon window, and requires a directory name as parameter.  If wildcard characters * or ? are present in the parameter, they are used as the filter.  For example:

$Folder c:\windows\*.exe	displays all the executables
$Folder c:\windows	displays all files
The icon property

To use a Windows bitmap (bmp) file for a menu item instead of an icon, type in the full name of the bitmap file in the Icon from edit box. This bitmap should be 16 x 16 pixels, but can have any number of colours.

To show a menu item without any icon (which also saves memory), specify <none> in the icon field.  If you just leave it blank, Calmira picks the icon for you.

Adding menu separators

A dash "-" as the first character of a caption will turn the entry into a separator line.  Each item must have a different caption, so use something like -1, -2 ... for multiple separators.

Breaking menus into columns

You can break a large menu into equal sized columns.  Edit the parent menu item's caption, and insert *<number> at the front of the string.  For example to break the Games menu into three equal columns, change the caption to *3Games.  The *3 will not be shown in the actual menu, but you need to include it when assigning a hot-key.

Using the keyboard with the Start Menu

An ampersand "&" in front of any letter in the caption will underline it for use as the accelerator.  To enable the keyboard for use with the Start Menu, Calmira must grab the focus whenever the menu appears.  Turn this feature on in the Preferences page.  You can also specify a keyboard shortcut ("hot-key") to bring up the Start Menu.

Adding items through the Computer

You can drag and drop objects onto the Computer icon, and they will appear in the Start Menu Properties dialog the next time you open it.  This saves you from having to keep the dialog on screen for long periods.

Rebuilding the Start Menu

If you are displaying a Windows 95 style menu with icons, the icons need to be gathered up before the Start Menu can be displayed again.  The "rebuild in background" checkbox lets you carry on with other tasks while this occurs -- the cursor changes to a pointer with an hourglass attached, and returns to normal when the Start Menu is ready for use.

If you add, move, delete items, or change icons, then a full rebuild is required.  If you only edit the caption, working folder or show modes of menu items, the menu will be automatically rebuilt without reading the icons again, which is much faster.

Note: if you have modified icon or bitmap files used for the menu, you must either edit an icon

or command field, or click on the Rebuild checkbox (twice if it is already checked).  This forces a full rebuild.

Adding items from installation programs

If Calmira is running as the shell, it can detect input from installation programs, and create new Start Menu items instead of Program Manager icons.  When an installation program has finished running, open the Start Menu Properties dialog, and the new groups and items will appear in the tree.  Press OK to accept the new entries, or Cancel to discard them.

See also:

Environment variables


System Properties dialog

This dialog contains global, screen display and network settings.  Open it from the Computer window by right clicking between the icons and choosing Properties at the top of the menu.

Play system sounds when displaying messages

The sound files are the ones that you choose from Control Panel.

Display page colours

Some of the "colour" names are actually Windows screen elements.  Use these "colours" to match Calmira's colour scheme to your current Windows colour scheme.  For example, assign the BtnFace colour to something which should always stay the same colour as Windows buttons.

Network page

The Network page is for local area networks, and allows you to connect directly to a device, bypassing the standard Windows for Workgroups dialog boxes. Type in a remote share name (usually in the form \\Server\Resource) and password, and the Computer window will be updated with new drives when you close the dialog. Ask your network administrator for a list of shared resources.

Advanced settings

The Advanced page contains an INI file editor that lets you modify Calmira's configuration file without the need to quit Calmira or use a separate text editor.  Double click on a section name or click on a book icon to show the settings it contains.  The identifiers on the left are not case sensitive, but the values on the right are.  The order in which lines appear does not usually matter.

Many of the INI file settings can be adjusted through various dialog boxes, and these should be left alone.  You should also leave settings that are updated automatically, such as window positions.

Note: Some settings will not take effect until you restart the program.

See also:
Miscellaneous Settings


Shortcut and Alias Properties dialog

This dialog lets you modify any reference.  To edit a shortcut, click once on its caption and choose Properties.  To edit an alias, right click on it and choose the Edit Alias command.

Changing the shortcut or alias type

Move the cursor over the label of the second edit box, and the cursor shape changes to a pointing hand.  Click on the label to cycle through all the different types.

Parameters field

As well as typing in parameters, you can specify where in the command line to insert the names of files which are dropped into the shortcut or alias.  Place the string %droppedfiles% at the desired location, and when you drop any files, it will be replaced with filenames.

Use document folder setting

This controls how dropped files are passed to programs via the command line.

When the box is checked, only the filenames are passed, and the location of the first file is temporarily used as the working folder.  Since the length of the command line is limited, this feature allows more files to be dropped, but might not work with all programs.

When the box is unchecked, the full pathnames are passed.

See also:

Environment strings


Taskbar Properties dialog

Open this dialog by right clicking on the Start button and choosing Taskbar Properties.

Refresh interval setting

This determines how often the Taskbar updates the button captions and removes any buttons for windows that have disappeared from the screen without being detected in the normal way.

Adding items to the Applet Tray

When you press the Add button, you are prompted for a new entry.  Enter the popup hint to be displayed, an equals sign, and the program's full pathname.  For example:

Calculator=c:\windows\calc.exe

You can only add Windows programs to the applet tray, and these programs should only use one main window, otherwise they may not be restored or re-activated correctly.

See the Taskbar topic for information about using aliases in the applet tray.

Adding exclusions

To exclude an ordinary program such as the Windows clock, just add its full pathname to the list.

If a program shows more than one window, the optional window class name lets you exclude only certain types of windows.  You can find class names by selecting Spy from the Start button's menu, and watching the button hints, which will now tell you the filename and class of each task.  When you have found the class name, separate it from the filename with a single space.


Common Problems

This section contains a list of more frequent problems and their possible remedies.  You can also find useful information in the Questions and Answers section.

"Out of resources" error when Program Manager shows plenty

See the Video Driver Incompatibilities section below

Icons disappear randomly and/or Start Menu is partially visible

This is a known problem caused by Adobe Type Manager (ATM).  If you are using ATM 2.0 or 2.5, manually edit your System.ini file and comment out the following two lines by adding semi-colons in front of them:

system.drv=atmsys.drv

atm.system.drv=system.drv

Contact Adobe to receive the latest drivers.  If you are using ATM 3.0 or higher, add the setting ATMIcon=off to the [Settings] section of Atm.ini.  This should allow Calmira to be displayed correctly, but there will be no ATM icon at the bottom-left of the screen.

You should see the Video Driver Incompatibilities section below.  Sometimes, this problem does not occur if you run Calmira as an ordinary application, using Program Manager as the shell.

Calmira doesn't run as the Windows shell

If you get the error message "Cannot run progman" or a similar one, check that you've included the full pathname of Calmira in the shell= line.

Otherwise, you can run Windows by typing WIN /B at the DOS prompt, which creates the Bootlog.txt file in the Windows directory.  Look at the last few entries in the file.  If Calmira fails to load due to "return code 3", try moving all the Calmira files into the Windows directory and editing the shell= line again.

If a driver or DLL has failed to load, Calmira may be incompatible with that file for some reason; there have been reports that replacing the file with a different version may solve the problem.

Program Manager loads even when Calmira is the shell

You can check whether Calmira really is the shell by opening the Shutdown dialog from the Start Menu -- the Quit Calmira option is disabled when this is the case.  If so, make sure Program Manager is not being loaded from elsewhere, such as the Load= and Run= lines of Win.ini, the Startup menu, or another utility.  If the Quit Calmira option is enabled, then your System.ini may contain another shell= line above the one specifying Calmira.

Wallpaper palette is not restored correctly

This is a known problem on 256 colour displays when Calmira is used with some programs that require an extended palette, i.e., more than just the 20 system colours reserved by Windows.  It also occurs with other programs when Calmira is not running.  The effect can be minimised if you use a 16 colour wallpaper, or you can use the Repaint Screen command from the desktop menu when required.

Keyboard shortcuts don't work

Make sure you have specified the key combinations correctly -- you need to add two or more keys from the set (Ctrl, Alt, Shift).  If you only specify Ctrl+A, for example, Calmira ignores the setting.  Also check that the caption you entered still exactly matches the shortcut or Start Menu item's caption.  For menu items, remember to include the ampersands (&) and any menu-break specifiers like *2.

You may need to disable other utilities which monitor the keyboard for special key combinations, although Calmira should work with well-behaved utilities like QuicKeys from Microsoft.

Programs can't find files in their home directory

Some programs need to be started from their home directory so that they can find INI files and other special files.  If you receive "Cannot find file" errors, you should use their home directory as the Working Folder field when creating shortcuts, aliases or Start Menu items.

"Stream read error" when opening an icon window

This could occur if Calmira tries to interpret a normal file as an alias.  By default, Calmira assumes that all files with an extension of ALS are alias files.  If there is a problem with this, you can move non-alias ALS files into a separate folder, or change the alias extension which Calmira uses (see Miscellaneous Settings).

Text and labels are mis-aligned

Calmira was designed using small screen fonts, and some of the windows and dialog boxes may look untidy when used with large fonts.  You can try changing some of the fonts by editing the INI file (see Miscellaneous Settings), otherwise, there is nothing you can do to improve the display except run Windows setup and choose a video driver that uses small fonts.

General Protection Fault in module VDOACM16.DLL

Calmira may not be compatible with this file, so if you encounter the above message, you need to disable the piece of software that is using it.

Programs crash when used with Calmira or

Calmira crashes when used with another program

Serious problems should rarely occur, but if they do, the most likely culprit is the Taskbar, because it interacts with other programs in unusual ways, such as resizing and moving their windows.

You can turn off these settings in the Taskbar Properties dialog to try and find the exact feature which is causing the problem:

 Keep Taskbar on screen all the time

 Fit maximised windows to space above Taskbar

 Move minimized window icons above the bar

 Hide the icons of minimized applications

To stop the Taskbar from intercepting mouse messages, add the line UseMouseHook=0 to the [Taskbar] section of Calmira.ini.  This may avoid some conflicts, but then the Taskbar won't be able to hide itself automatically.

Please read the General Troubleshooting section for more help.

Some Program Manager groups are not imported into the Start Menu

On some computers, not all of the groups or items get imported in the Program Group Convert dialog.  This seems to be dependent on Program Manager or the DDE interfacing, since problematic group files can successfully be converted on another computer.  There is no known solution at present.

"Access denied" message when copying or moving a file

Check that the file has not been opened by another application which is still running, e.g. you need to close Microsoft Word documents before they can be copied.

Cursor flickers or disappears when dragging across the desktop

Turn off the Animate Cursor setting in the Desktop Properties dialog.

New programs don't appear immediately on the Taskbar

Calmira doesn't show a button for a window until it has received an Activate message, which is sometimes lost or not sent.  Click on a different window, and click on the new application again to allow the Taskbar to detect the new program.

Small icons always appear faint

This could be due to the different ways that video drivers shrink bitmaps.  You can try setting the darker stretch modes in the Start Menu Properties and Taskbar Properties dialogs, but you may need to change your video driver to get better results.  See the screenshots in this help file for an example of roughly what the icons should look like.

Start Menu and Taskbar graphics suddenly change colour

Some programs which use an extended 256 colour palette can inadvertently modify the palette used by Calmira's bitmaps, replacing one colour with another.  You need to rebuild the Start Menu or Calmira itself to restore the bitmaps' palettes.

Video driver incompatibilities

Calmira may not work correctly with some video drivers that use more than 256 colours, or video drivers which are too old or badly written. Symptoms may include:

 "Out of resources" errors when resources are not low

 Disappearing icons in various windows

 A partially visible Start Menu

 Start Menu icons becoming random pixels

You should install the standard 640x480 16 colour VGA driver from Microsoft to test if the problem lies in the video driver.  If so, contact your graphics card manufacturer for a driver update, or use generic 256 colour Super VGA drivers from Microsoft, which are highly recommended.  They are often supplied on CD-ROMs from magazines, or you can download them from ftp.microsoft.com.

High-end video cards may also cause some of these symptoms if they perform various graphics optimisations.  You can try turning off the optimisations from the video driver's configuration program.

URLs are not opened by web browser

For Calmira's Internet features to work, you need a web browser that supports the standard DDE interface defined by Spyglass Inc.  This includes Netscape Navigator 2.0/3.0 and Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0.  Netscape Communicator users, see the Internet topic for help.

Sometimes repeating an action (e.g. clicking on a shortcut) should open the URL correctly.  You may also experience problems if your browser takes too long to load, causing the DDE system to time-out.  This may simply have no effect, or you may receive error messages, in which case, you must launch the browser using the command line setting.


Known issues

MS-DOS programs do not show the correct icon in Alt+Tab

This feature requires a particular shell DDE service for MS-DOS programs which Calmira does not implement.  Graphics mode is used most of the time, and the Taskbar shows your chosen icons for MS-DOS programs.  The Taskbar goes further than the shell DDE because it can show a different icon for each instance of a program, whether it is MS-DOS or Windows.

Install programs cannot retrieve Start Menu information

When Calmira is the shell, installation programs can add items to the Start Menu but cannot obtain information about the submenus and menu items.  This is because Calmira does not respond to the DDE command that requests program group information, and a future version may implement this feature.  If an installation program does not work correctly, turn off the install feature in the Start Menu Properties dialog.

Icon windows can show the same file or folder multiple times

The wildcards used in file filters for icon windows must be mutually exclusive.  For example, *.exe and *.com are mutually exclusive because a file cannot have both an EXE and COM extension.  If the filters overlap, you will end up with duplicate files, probably resulting in errors.

Taskbar icons are different when the Taskbar is reloaded

Some icons for the Taskbar are obtained directly from Calmira when programs are launched.  This includes programs that are started from shortcuts, aliases or the Start Menu, and the Taskbar does not retrieve the same icons if you unload the module and run it again.

Word for Windows 2.0 runs WinHelp if you click on the maximized caption

This is a side effect of preventing maximized windows from being moved.

New file associations do not change document icons

When you associate a file through the File Properties dialog, there will be no effect on the icons displayed until you restart Calmira.  However, the correct program will be launched when you double click on a document.

Extended ASCII filename characters not raised or lowered properly

If you create filenames using accented characters, these will not be displayed properly in Calmira because accented upper case characters are not converted to the correct lower case equivalents.  The underlying MS-DOS file system may or may not distinguish the filenames converted by Calmira; do not use Calmira to modify these files if you are in doubt.

Popup hints do not show descriptions in Small Icons view

The hints only work as expected in the Large Icons view.  To show descriptions with small icons, you need to use the List view and enable the description column.

Shortcuts can be re-arranged by Task Manager and other programs

All of Calmira's icons on the desktop are implemented as ordinary minimized windows, so it is possible for programs such as the Task Manager to move the icons to the bottom of the screen as if they were applications.  If this happens, you can open the About box and click on the logo, which moves the shortcut icons back to their last saved position.

Calmira's own icon arrangement commands accessed from the desktop menu will not disturb the placement of shortcuts.  There is currently no "Tile window" command.

Pixels on Start Menu icons are turned blue by the highlight bar

The Start Menu uses bitmaps instead of icons.  Bitmaps use less memory because they don't have a transparency mask, and the drawback is that they can only use simulated transparency by replacing all pixels of one colour (silver in this case) with another colour (the blue from the highlight).

The Taskbar is not hidden when the cursor moves over a scroll bar

The Taskbar only detects mouse movements over the client area of windows, which does not include window frames or scroll bars.

Icon windows do not refresh automatically like File Manager

Calmira does not detect notification messages about changes in the file system.  You must refresh icon windows manually when some files have changed.

Filters, column choices and icon view modes are not saved

Icon windows are always opened with the settings from the File System Properties dialog, even when their screen positions are saved.

Calmira's keyboard and mouse features do not work in Win32s programs

Calmira is a 16-bit Windows program, and the windows hooks, which it uses to detect messages being sent, are not triggered by 32-bit programs because they run in a different environment.

Hot-key assignments are activated when using Alt Gr

The Alt Gr key generates the same key combination as Ctrl+Alt.  Do not assign a command to Ctrl+Alt+<key> if you normally use Alt Gr+<key> to enter a special character.

Explorer tree's file pane closes with no error message

If you are exploring a hard disk and then click on the Explorer tree node of a floppy drive that doesn't contain a disk, the file pane closes automatically.  It is behaving like all other icon windows, which close when their directory is no longer accessible.  If you click on the floppy drive again, you will receive an error message.  A similar problem can be observed with shortcuts.

Files cannot be binned from the Find Files dialog

The Bin only accepts files and folders from icon windows.

Icons "drawn" by programs are not reflected in Taskbar buttons

Some programs paint their own minimised icons instead of specifying an fixed icon to use. There is no easy way to intercept this.

Microsoft Telnet crashes when run alongside Calmira

Start Menu colour cannot be changed

Progress box icon cannot be changed.

The Alt key activates Calmira windows and flashes the title bar

When you press the Alt key from one of Calmira's windows, all of the windows are brought to the front.  Also, the title bar of the active window flashes briefly when Alt is released.

The cursor is not released after right clicking during certain drags

You should not right click while dragging files from the Find Files dialog or Bin.  These windows use list boxes, and Calmira is unable to detect that files are being dragged.  The problem does not affect icon windows, where right clicking during a drag operation is essential for copying/moving files.

Association tab page displays blank registry entries

Some registry entries which are incorrect can cause the combo box on the Association page of the File Properties dialog to display just "(No command specified)" lines with no file type description.  Do not associate files with these entries.

Limitation on reported disk and file sizes

The largest whole number that Calmira can store is  2,147,483,647 which is equivalent to 2GB, so any disks or file systems that are larger than this will not have their sizes correctly reported.  Usually, sizes larger than 2GB will simply be reported as 2GB.

Menu separators can become parent items

You should not put a minus sign in front of parent menu captions, because they will be drawn as separator lines.

Menu separators can be "selected" using cursor keys

The separators of a 3D Start Menu are implemented as real menu items because normal separators cannot have a 3D effect.  The highlight bar will disappear when it moves over such items.

Adobe windows can't be closed with right click

You may receive a general protection fault if you attempt to close a window by right clicking on the minimize or maximize box of Abobe programs such as Acrobat Reader and Photoshop.

Folder names must not contain trailing spaces

When you use an "open folder" style command from anywhere within Calmira, make sure that there are no trailing spaces in the folder name.  For example "c:\games" is OK, but "c:\games " may cause problems because MS-DOS can find the directory, but the contents will not be accessible when Calmira appends a filename to the latter path.

Shortcuts accidentally created when opening from the Computer

When you double click on an icon in the Computer, you should not move the cursor out of the window until the program has finished loading.  If you move the cursor over the desktop during the load, a shortcut may be created because the program start-up has interrupted mouse messages, and Calmira believes that you are still dragging.

Minimized icon windows still show a pressed taskbar button

Some dialog boxes from other programs are truncated by the Taskbar

This problem is being investigated.


General Troubleshooting

If you are experiencing any difficulties that are not covered above, you can follow these guidelines to try and isolate the cause.  You should exit to DOS and run Windows again after trying out a software modification.

Visit the web site for the latest information

If you have Internet access, you can view up-to-date information about any bugs or incompatibilities that are discovered.  Otherwise, you can receive all published documentation if you order a new version by post.

Read the relevant help topics again

Make sure that you are using Calmira correctly, and understand how to use the features.  Many "problems" are simply a misunderstanding of the way things work, or minor omissions such as forgetting to type the full pathname or the working directory. Consult your Windows and MS-DOS manuals where appropriate and check the Calmira Readme file too.

Find out how to repeat the problem

You need to be able to write down a list of steps that can reliably reproduce the problems. An investigation often produces useful information and patterns, and you certainly need it if you want to report a bug.

Try to reproduce the problem on another computer

This is usually a good way to determine whether the problem lies with Calmira.  If it runs fine on a friend's PC, then find out what the differences are, and adjust your software configuration to match the other machine.

If the cause is an unusual program

Remember that Calmira should not be expected to work with every program on the Internet .  If you're having problems with utilities that perform special operations or tricks with graphics or the user interface, then the best solution is not to use the conflicting programs at the same time.

Make sure there is enough memory and resources

Calmira's behaviour is undefined if memory or resources are very low.  You may eventually get error messages, but before that happens, there may be strange effects on the screen such as areas not being fully repainted.  You can try and make more resources and memory available by following the guidelines in the Optimising Calmira and Optimising Windows topics.

Run Calmira as a normal Windows program

If this improves the situation, then follow the instructions in Common Problems for resolving shell issues.  Calmira should behave almost identically when it is the shell, so if there is a difference, it could be due to other drivers or utilities being loaded in a different order.

Dealing with general protection faults

When you get a GPF message, note down the filename in which the fault occurred (which could be a DLL file).  If it's not Calmira, find out which program uses the file and stop running it or disable the specific feature that uses the file.  Some of Calmira's non-standard operations, such as right clicking to close windows, do not work with all programs.

Unload all other applications except Program Manager

Of course, this is not applicable if your problem is to do with another application program, but if it appears to be confined to Calmira alone, then you should not run anything else while testing.

Unload all third party utilities

This includes everything in your Program Manager Startup group and in Calmira's Startup menu.  Look in Win.ini for the Load= and Run= lines and comment them out if they are starting any programs. Also uninstall Type Manager and similar low-level utilities.

Conflicts are most likely to occur when other utilities perform similar function to Calmira such as installing hooks to detect the mouse and keyboard, and modifying the behaviour of the desktop.

Run automatically loaded utilities later on

If you have programs that are causing problems in the Load= and Run= lines in Win.ini, or items in the Startup menu, try starting them manually after Calmira has completely finished loading and is idle.  If this works, you could write a script file to launch them manually in future.

Change your video driver to a simpler one

If you are using a third-party Super VGA driver, change to a generic Super VGA driver supplied by Microsoft, or the standard 640x480 VGA driver that is supplied with Windows.  Do not use more than 256 colours when testing for problems.

If your graphics card comes with extra utilities, use them to turn off any special features that your graphics hardware might have, and then remove the utilities from memory (unless Windows does not work without them).

Uninstall potentially unstable drivers

Look in the Drivers dialog of Control Panel.  If you've experienced any problems with some of the drivers before, then remove them.  Also unload plugins and other web browser related utilities, which are extremely prone to crashing.

Uninstall as many drivers and add-ons as possible

Sound and music drivers are unlikely to cause problems, but graphics, screen, and font related drivers often interfere, so they should be removed if you can re-install them easily.  Also disconnect network devices, and run Calmira from a local machine's standard hard disk with the minimum Windows setup.

Install a fresh copy of Windows

If you encounter a serious incompatibility problem but you really can't determine the driver or configuration that is causing the trouble, install another copy of Windows in a different directory.  Calmira should run correctly on all fresh installations, unless Windows is not configured properly for your hardware.  Once you get it working, install additional drivers and utilities one by one.

Reporting bugs

If you think you have really found a bug, I need to know as much as possible about the scenario in which it occurred.  This may include:

 The exact actions you need to perform to repeat the problem

 Similar situations in which there are no problems (for comparison)

 The software that need to be running for the error to occur

 Whether you had plenty of free memory

 How often it occurs

 Whether it only occurs with certain Taskbar settings

 Whether it seems recoverable or crashes Windows

 Any trends or patterns you've noticed

 Ideas you might have as to what is happening -- have a good think!

You should also try and reproduce the problem with one of the standard Windows applets -- if you report a bug which only occurs with a program that I haven't got, then there is not much that can be done about it!  If the program is a small freeware, send the URL for downloading.


Defining keyboard shortcuts

Calmira lets you assign hot-keys to activate any window, menu item or desktop shortcut.  Since many programs define their own keyboard commands, Calmira only allows you to specify key combinations that include two or more out of Ctrl, Alt and Shift.

Fill the [Keyboard] section of the INI file with keyboard mappings in the format caption=key.  For example,

[Keyboard]

System=Shift+Ctrl+F1

Drive (C:)=Ctrl+Alt+C

c:\windows=Ctrl+Alt+W

Notepad=Alt+Shift+N

When you press keys together with Ctrl, Alt and Shift, Calmira searches the list and obtains the caption.  It then searches all Calmira windows, shortcuts, and the Start Menu for a match (in that order), and activates the object if a matching caption is found.  If you specify a folder which is not shown in a window, then the folder is opened for you.

Finally, if nothing matches the text, the search extends to all windows on the screen, even those belonging to other applications.

In the above example, Ctrl+Shift+F1 will restore the computer window.  Ctrl+Alt+C might activate a shortcut to drive C.  Ctrl+Alt+W will open the windows folder, and Shiftl+Alt+N could run Notepad if it's in the Start Menu.

Note: to enable keyboard shortcuts to work from inside any Windows program, you must turn this feature on from the System Properties Dialog.

Tip: use the caption of "Start" to open the Start Menu using the keyboard.


Customising your icons

Supplying icons to Calmira

Calmira accepts global icon settings in two ways.  Firstly, the INI file [Icons] section holds a list of icon mappings in the form key=filename(index).  For example:

txt=c:\windows\progman.exe(17)

This associates the string "txt" with icon 18 from Program Manager (the index starts from 0, and is optional).  So you can edit the INI file to specify your own icons, or use the System Properties dialog if you prefer.

Alternatively, if you copy icon files (ICO) into Calmira's home directory, entries like this are automatically created, the "key" being the filename without the extension.  So if you copy a file called Txt.ico, the entry created would be:

txt=c:\calmira\txt.ico(0).

When a particular kind of icon is required, the list is searched and an icon extracted from the specified file.

Assigning icons to file types

Calmira uses registry information in WIN.INI to determine which programs to extract icons from, to use for representing document files. To override these settings, simply use the above methods to supply your own icons.  The example given would set the icon used for text files, regardless of the program you use to view them.

This process can assign icons for files which normally have no specific icon.  The registry is not modified in any way -- files are just displayed differently.

Icons for documents are only loaded when they are required (when you open an icon window containing the file types in question), but are not unloaded until you quit the program.  Bear this in mind when deciding how many you should have.  Each icon uses around 800 bytes of memory once loaded.

Replacing built-in icons

You can override the internal icons used for fixed objects.  Instead of specifying a file extension, use one of the special object names below.

Key	Used to display
_folder	Folders and minimized icon windows
_file	Ordinary files
_doc	Document files with no icon available
_tfile	Small file in list view
_tfolder	Small folder in list view
_tprog	Small program in list view
_compute	Minimized Computer window
_explore	Minimized Explorer window
_windows	Windows binary files with no icon
_msdos	MS-DOS programs
_multi	Multiple files in File Properties dialog
_finddlg	Minimized Find dialog
_rundlg	Minimized Run dialog
_hard	Hard drives
_floppy	Floppy drives
_cdrom	CD-ROM drives
_ramdisk	RAM disks
_network	Remote or network drives
_emptbin	An empty wastepaper bin
_fullbin	A full wastepaper bin
_internt	Internet shortcuts and aliases
_shutdn	Large shutdown icon in Start Menu

Notes

The small icons (_tfolder, _tfile and _tprog) must occupy only the top left quadrant of the icon image, that is, a 16 x 16 square.


Customising your bitmaps

Some objects in Calmira use bitmap pictures instead of icons.  These are usually loaded from Calmira's program file, but you can override some of them by storing bitmaps with special filenames in Calmira's home directory.  Use Paintbrush to create standard 16 colour BMP files of the correct size.

The built-in bitmaps are available in an un-compiled form for you to modify -- look in the archive Help.zip (used to make this help file!), which is contained in Source.zip.

Start button

Size: 26 x 18 pixels

Filename: Startbtn.bmp

Comments

The bottom left pixel is used as the transparent colour.

Explorer tree icons

Size: 192 x 16 pixels

Filename: Explrico.bmp

Comments

The bitmap is divided into 12 squares of 16 x 16 pixels.  The second and third squares are used to denote unknown and invalid drives, but they should never need to be used.  The last four squares are not fully used -- only the portions containing the default pictures are drawn to the screen.

Start Menu default icons

Size: 128 x 16 pixels
Filename: Startdef.bmp

Comments

These are used for the small Start Menu items.  The first square should be left blank, or contain an image to use when the icon is specified to be <none>.  To use the new bitmap, you need to force the Start Menu to rebuild fully by editing any menu item icon, and pressing OK.

Start Menu banner

Size: 27 x 256 pixels

Filename: Banner.bmp
Comments

The above sample has been rotated.  Calmira automatically draws the top (white) edge of the Start Menu, but you need to supply the left edge.  If your Start Menu is taller than the banner, then the top portion of the banner is copied as often as required.

Taskbar explorer icon

Size: 16 x 16 pixels

Filename: Taskexp.bmp

The bottom left pixel is used as the transparency colour.

Taskbar folder icon

Size: 16 x 16 pixels

Filename: Taskfold.bmp

The bottom left pixel is used as the transparency colour.


Environment strings

Shortcuts and aliases and Start Menu items can use MS-DOS environment variables in their settings.  The Target, Parameters, Command, Icon file and Working Folder fields (where applicable) can contain environment variable names (surrounded by %) like lines in MS-DOS batch files.  When you activate an object, the variable values are substituted for the names.

Special environment strings

%currentfolder% points to the directory showing in the active icon window (if none are active, the variable is empty).  This is particularly useful for the Working Folder field when you want to create or modify files in the folder being displayed.  For instance, if you use it for a Notepad shortcut, Notepad will always start up in the directory you are viewing, so you can open and save/create files without having to hunt through the tree.

%currentdrive% contains the drive letter of the active icon window, and can be used in a similar way to %currentfolder%.  Additionally, it is also available while the Disk Properties dialog is open, so your disk utility can be targeted a specific drive.

%droppedfiles% is only valid immediately after files have been dropped into a file shortcut or alias.  It contains the list of filenames, and you can place it in the Parameters field to insert the filenames between other parameters.  If %droppedfiles% is omitted, the files are just appended to the parameters list.

%filename% is only valid when used with the Inspect program and default viewer (set from the File System Properties dialog), and with entries in the [File Viewers] section.  It contains the name of the focused file, and is used to specify where on the command line to insert the filename.  If you omit this variable, the filename is appended to the end of the command line.

%calmira% points to the program's home directory.

%comspec% is defined automatically by MS-DOS, and gives the filename of the command interpreter (i.e. the MS-DOS shell), which is usually command.com.

%windir% is defined automatically by Windows and points to the Windows directory.

Note: a pre-defined environment variable that specifies a directory will not contain a final backslash unless it is the root directory.  For example %windir% usually has the value "c:\windows" with no trailing backslash.

User defined variables

The [Environment] section of the INI file is added to Calmira's own environment after loading, so it has the same effect as the MS-DOS set command.  As with MS-DOS, don't add the % characters when making settings -- they are only used when variables are referred to.

Use this section to store your own identifiers, such as folder locations and device names.  When a folder or device changes, just edit the environment and all shortcuts, aliases and menu items will refer to the right place automatically.  Settings made in the [Environment] section only affect Calmira, and does not require extra environment memory to be allocated.

Example

Suppose your CD-ROM drive is F: but it might change in the near future.  You can add the line cdrom=f: to the environment, and make your shortcuts and Start Menu items point to %cdrom%\filename.exe.  When you change the value of %cdrom%, all your links are instantly updated.

Note: the icon index is not affected by the environment, so you should use something like %filename%(1) when re-mapping the icon file.


Custom captions

Renaming your drives

Calmira does not distinguish between different types of floppy or removable drives.  You can override the default names given to disk drives by adding suitable descriptions to the [Drives] section of the INI file.  Assign a description to each drive letter that you want to describe, for example:

[Drives]

A=3½" Floppy

B=5¼" Floppy

E=Syquest

Descriptive captions on icon windows

Icon windows usually display just the 8 letter part of the directory name in the title bar. If you use icon windows to keep groups of aliases, you may want to give some of them proper captions.  All you need to do is add entries to the [Window Captions] section, for example:

[Window Captions]

c:\windows=Microsoft Windows

c:\winword\docs=Word Documents

Calmira needs to search through the list every time you open a new window, so use these settings sparingly.  Also, remember to remove the entries when you have deleted the affected directories.

Using file descriptions for window captions

If you run Calmira with 4DOS file description support, then the descriptions are automatically used for window captions.  Simply set the option to use descriptions for captions, from the File System Properties dialog.


Miscellaneous Settings

This article lists all the settings in Calmira.ini which cannot be edited using normal dialog box controls.  You can edit them using the Advanced page in the System Properties dialog, but you may need to restart Calmira for a few of the settings to take full effect.

The default or recommended values are shown, and the format of certain settings (e.g. colours) can be found at the end of this topic.

[Calmira]

MaxHistorySize=24

Determines the maximum number of entries in history lists

NormalHintPause=800

The number of milliseconds before a popup hint appears in dialog boxes. Icon windows use the separate hint delay setting accessed from the File System Properties dialog.

[Desktop]

DeskGridX=16

DeskGridY=16

The grid size used by "Line up icons" command in desktop menu

FilePaneCols=4

Number of columns in Explorer's file pane

[Display]

FontName=MS Sans Serif

FontSize=8

FontColor=clBlack

The font in icon windows etc.

RepaintBeforeHourglass=2

This switch controls how Calmira updates the screen before an hourglass is displayed.  A value of 1 repaints Calmira's own windows.  A value of 2 repaints all windows that require updating.

[File Types]

This section is used by File Properties dialog for unregistered files

exe=Program

com=MS-DOS program

dll=Dynamic link library

bat=MS-DOS batch file

pif=Program information file

[Layouts]

This section controls the dimensions of icon windows when automatic sizing is used.  The format is <low>..<high>=<columns>*<rows>.  Calmira uses the number of icons in the window to look up the dimensions to use, for example, a window with 8 icons will use a 3x3 grid.  The lines must be stored in ascending order, so you should edit this manually instead of using the Advanced page.

0..2=2*1

3..4=2*2

5..6=3*2

7..9=3*3

9..12=4*3

13..16=4*4

17..20=5*4

21..25=5*5

26..30=6*5

[Taskbar]

FontName=MS Sans Serif

The standard Taskbar font

MinAppHeight=60

The pixel position of minimized icons above the bar

UseMouseHook=1

Enables/disables mouse hook for compatibility

HintDelay=800

Delay before popup hints appear

ShowNoActivate=1

Allows the Taskbar to appear without changing the focus. Turn this off if the Taskbar seems to move behind other windows.

24HourFormat=h:mm

12HourFormat=h:mm AM/PM

FullDateTime=dddd, mmmm d, yyyy

Format for date and time display in the Taskbar's clock.  See the explanation of date/time formats near the end of the topic.

AdjustClock=control Date/Time

This line runs a command to set your PC's time when you double click on the Taskbar's clock.

[Sounds]

Replace <None> with a WAV filename, including the path

WindowOpen=<None>

WindowClose=<None>

WindowMinimize=<None>

WindowRestore=<None>

WindowMaximize=<None>

NotifyCompletion=<None>

BinDropFiles=<None>

BinEmpty=<None>

BinRestore=<None>

[Start Menu]

FontName=MS Sans Serif

FontSize=10

ProgramsGroup=Programs

[Start button]

FontName=Arial

FontSize=9

FontStyle=Bold

Caption=Start

Width=68

Left=3

Make the left offset negative to hide the button

[Programs]

This section controls the program items that appear in the computer window.

c:\windows\progman.exe=Program Manager

c:\windows\winfile.exe=File Manager

[File system]

DescriptionFile=descript.ion

4DOS users can modify this to use a different filename

DescriptionWidth=-1

Controls the pixel width reserved for descriptions in list view (-1 for auto)

ColumnPadding=8

The spacing between list view columns

ListKBDecimals=0

The number of decimal places to use when displaying the size of files in kilobytes.  This only affects List View mode in icon windows

LongDateTime=dddd d mmmm yyyy,  hh:mm am/pm

This string formats the date and time in the File Properties dialog. See the explanation of date/time formats near the end of the topic.

AliasExtension=.als

Use this setting to change the file extension used for alias files.  The default is ALS, but you can change it if there is a conflict with other kinds of files.

[Advanced]

This section contains the section names which appear in the Advanced tab page of the System Properties dialog.

[Internet]

The settings are described in the Internet Features topic.

[Colour descriptions]

This section is used by the Display page of the System Properties dialog.

[History lists]

This section is used by the General page of the System Properties dialog.

[Confirmation]

[Preferences]

[Applet Tray]

[Exclude]

[Start Menu]

These settings are accessible from various dialog boxes.

[Utilities]

These settings are accessible from the File System Properties dialog.

[Colors]

These settings are accessible from the System Properties dialog.

[Custom colors]

This contains the settings made from the Color dialog.

[Window positions]

Stores the co-ordinates of the icon windows for each directory, when you choose to save their previous location from the Desktop Properties dialog.  You can delete the lines containing directories that have been moved or deleted.

[Computer]

[Find dialog]

[Run dialog]

[Explorer]

[Start Menu Properties]

You do not need to modify these sections manually.

[Bin locations]

This section is described in the Wastepaper Bin topic.

[Drives]

This section is described in the Custom Captions topic.

[Environment]

This section is described in the Environment Strings topic.

[File Viewers]

This is used for the Open With dialog.

[Icons]

This section is described in the Customising Icons topic.

[Keyboard]

This section is described in the Defining Keyboard Shortcuts topic.

[Scripts]

The settings are described in the Using Script Files topic.

[OpenFileWith]

[Search for]

[Start from]

[Icon Sources]

[Browser Filters]

[Run Program]

These sections are used to save history lists.

Using INI files from the Windows directory

Calmira automatically creates and maintains INI files and the Start Menu cache in its home directory so that you can uninstall it easily.  If you install Calmira on a network, you can configure it to use the Windows directory by creating a a [Calmira] section in Win.ini and setting LoadFromWindir=1.

String lists

Some sections contain an ordered list of strings, which is stored in the following format: the Count entry specifies the total number, and each string is assigned to a value of Sn where n ranges from 0 to Count-1.  You will rarely need to modify such sections.

Date and time formats

Specifier	Information that is inserted
d	Day number (1-31)
dd	Day number (01-31)
ddd	Day abbreviation (Sun-Sat)
dddd	Full day name (Sunday-Saturday)
m	Month number (1-12)
mm	Month number (01-12)
mmm	Month abbreviation (Jan-Dec)
mmmm	Full month name (January-December)
yy	Two digit year (00-99)
yyyy	Four digit year (0000-9999)
h	Hour without leading zero (0-23)
hh	Hour with a leading zero (00-23)
n	Minute without leading zero (00-59)
nn	Minute with a leading zero (00-59)
s	Second without leading zero (0-59)
ss	Second with a leading zero (00-59)
am/pm	Uses 12-hour clock
a/p	Uses 12-hour clock

Characters enclosed in single or double quotes are displayed "as is".

Colour values

A colour setting can use one of these values :

clAqua, clBlack, clBlue, clDkGray, clFuchsia, clGray, clGreen, clLime, clLtGray, clMaroon, clNavy, clOlive, clPurple, clRed, clSilver, clTeal, clWhite, and clYellow

clActiveBorder, clActiveCaption, clAppWorkSpace, clBackground, clBtnFace, clBtnHighlight, clBtnShadow, clBtnText, clCaptionText, clGrayText, clHighlight, clHighlightText, clInactiveBorder, clInactiveCaption, clInactiveCaptionText, clMenu, clMenuText, clScrollBar, clWindow, clWindowFrame, and clWindowText.

You can also specify a 4-byte hexadecimal number instead, the low three bytes representing RGB color intensities for blue, green, and red, respectively. The value 00FF0000 represents full-intensity, pure blue, 0000FF00 is pure green, and 000000FF is pure red. 00000000 is black and 00FFFFFF is white.


Using script files

Calmira can read and execute commands from text files, allowing you to carry out multiple operations in one go, like very simple batch files.  Because the same file can be accessed from both Windows and an MS-DOS box running in Enhanced Mode, scripts also allow you to run Windows programs from the DOS prompt like Windows 95 and NT.

For example, you could type "start notepad" in an MS-DOS box to open the Windows Notepad.  Or you can create a shortcut that runs three programs instead of just one.

This article describes how to use script files with Calmira.  To learn how to write the scripts, see the topic Format of a script file.

Getting started

1.  Open the System Properties dialog.

2.  Enable both MS-DOS and Windows scripts check boxes.

3.  Open your Autoexec.bat in Notepad.

4.  Add the command set TEMPSCRIPT=c:\calmira.run.

5.  Reboot the computer.

6.  Try out the Start and Folder batch files from a DOS window.

7.  Using a text editor, create the following script named test.run:

start

c:\windows

notepad

start

c:\windows

write

8.  Double click on the icon of test.run -- two programs load at once.

Running scripts from Windows

The [Scripts] section has a WinScriptExtension setting that determines the files which Calmira will attempt to read when you double click on them in an icon window.  The default value is ".run", so all files with an extension of .run are assumed to be text scripts.  The System Properties dialog has a checkbox to run this feature on and off.

Running scripts from MS-DOS

Calmira checks for the presence of a special script file every few seconds.  By default, it looks for the file c:\calmira.run.  This filename can be changed using the DosScriptFilename setting in the [Scripts] section.  The DosTimerInterval specifies the number of milliseconds between each disk check.  If you are caching your hard disk, 2000 to 3000 milliseconds gives a good response time without any noticeable disk activity.

If the file exists, Calmira loads it into memory, deletes it immediately, and then processes the lines one by one, just as if you had double clicked on the file from an icon window.

Generating scripts from MS-DOS

Ordinary MS-DOS batch files can easily be used to create the scripts from the commands that you type (which is why each parameter is stored on a separate line!).  A batch file simply echoes a combination of keywords and its own parameters, and redirects them to be appended to the script file.

There is a slight problem -- since MS-DOS programs are pre-emptively multi-tasked under Enhanced Mode Windows 3.1, Calmira could try and read the script before the batch file has finished generating the lines.  So instead of writing the script directly, batch files should send the lines to another file, and then rename that file to the required script at the very end.

Sample batch files

The four supplied files, Start.bat, Folder.bat, Explore.bat and Open.bat expect an MS-DOS environment variable called TempScript, which points to a temporary filename in the same directory as the target script file (so that a simple rename will make the script "appear" for Calmira).  You can set TempScript to c:\calmira.tmp in your Autoexec.bat if the default c:\calmira.run is looked for.

Study the batch files to see how they work.  Each one resembles an MS-DOS command, complete with error handling and help.

Notes

Only one script can be executing at any one time.  Scripts cannot run themselves, or other scripts.


Format of a script file

A script is just a text file containing one or more "paragraphs" separated by blank lines.  A paragraph contains a keyword on the first line, followed by one or more parameter lines.  For example:

<Keyword1>

<Parameter1>

<Parameter2>

<Keyword2>

<Parameter1>

Each keyword is explained below:

Keyword	Folder
Purpose	Opens an icon window
Parameter 1	The current directory
Parameter 2	The name of the directory to open
Keyword	Start
Purpose	Executes commands in the same way as the Run dialog
Parameter 1	The current directory
Parameter 2	A command to execute
Parameter ...	A command to execute
Keyword	Explore
Purpose	Opens the Explorer tree
Parameter 1	The directory to open
Keyword	Macro
Purpose	Executes a built-in command (see Start Menu Properties)
Parameter 1	The built-in command to execute (e.g. $System)
Keyword	Activate
Purpose	Simulates a hot-key combination being pressed
Parameter 1	The caption of the object to activate


Optimising Calmira

Many of these issues are inter-related, so more conservative settings are likely to use less memory and resources, and speed up your system.  Experiment to find the most effective setup for your PC.

Using less resources

Resources are mainly consumed by windows (which include shortcuts, buttons, list boxes etc.), menu items, and graphics objects such as bitmaps.  It is difficult to avoid using a lot of resources if you want an advanced graphical front-end, but if you are short of resources, you can use slightly less by changing the way you run Calmira.

 	Use shortcuts sparingly -- each one requires one window for the icon and another one for the caption.

 	Make use of the multi-window closing facilities (keyboard commands and the desktop menu) to close unwanted icon windows as soon as you have finished using them.  As well as window handles, each icon window owns a set of popup menus too.

 	Close modeless dialog boxes (Find, Run etc.) as soon as possible.

 	Don't put too many items in the Start Menu, because each menu item uses up resources, and it's easy to forget how large the menu has become.

Using less memory

If you only have 4MB RAM, then you should also read the topic on optimising Windows to make sure that memory is not being wasted.

 	Use aliases sparingly -- each alias can use over 3K when it is being displayed in a window.

 	Make use of the window closing facilities to close unnecessary icon windows, especially those containing many aliases.

 	Calmira's memory heap may become fragmented after long periods of use, and some memory will not be released even when you close icon windows.  The best way to prevent this problem is to limit the number of icon windows that are ever open at the same time, if they contain a large number of files.

 	Don't specify too many document icons in the [Icons] section, because once loaded (when Calmira needs to display it), a document icon is not unloaded until Calmira finishes.

 	Reduce the file types which are searched for icons.  This is useful if you have directories full of files containing icons, ICO files in particular.  Just searching EXE files is usually enough.

 	Don't put too many items in the Start Menu, because each menu item uses a few hundred bytes of memory, and each small icon requires a 16x16 bitmap, which also consumes memory.

Speeding up Calmira

Reduce the file types which are searched for icons to just EXE files.  DLL files rarely contain useful information in their icons.

Turn off 4DOS description support if you never use it.

Limit the number of icons used for document files to prevent Calmira from extracting too many icons.  You can override the registry settings by using the [Icons] section to map different file extensions to the same icon, which loads it only once.

Turn off the miniature icon view to make scrolling faster -- shrinking icons is a very slow process.

Turn off the solid highlight bar on the Start Menu to significantly increase drawing speed.

Turn off the option scroll views while scroll bars are dragged (in the System Properties dialog).

When searching for files, only specify one wildcard and clear the list between searches.  This lets Calmira bypass the checks for duplicate entries and is much faster for long lists.

Don't keep too much trash because the bin checks through the files when Calmira loads, to read the size and date attributes.

Streamlining the INI file

There are two sections in Calmira.ini which should be well maintained to avoid slowing down the program.  You should quit Calmira and edit the INI file with a text editor for this.

If your icon windows have their positions saved then you need to clear out the [Window Positions] section to prevent it becoming too big.  Calmira doesn't update this section when folders have been moved or deleted, and it can grow very quickly.  Also, make sure that the [Window Captions] section does not contain unnecessary entries.


Optimising Windows

This article contains some suggestions for getting the most out of your setup. MS-DOS and Windows 3.1 have been around for so long that many people have forgotten to check their configuration regularly.  Calmira is a demanding program, so if your computer is not very powerful, you should try and get the maximum performance from your operating system.

Always back up important data and back up system files before you modify them.  Please remember that if you are not confident enough to modify your configuration, then don't attempt it!  You must know exactly what you are doing to avoid damaging your system.

Windows for Workgroups 3.11

Windows for Workgroups 3.11 supports for 32-bit file access which can speed up Calmira because it relies heavily on reading directories and files.  Calmira was mainly developed on Windows 3.1, but as of Version 2.0, Windows for Workgroups 3.11 is the recommended operating system, together with MSDOS 6.22.

Streamline MS-DOS

If you use SmartDrive, set Buffers=10, otherwise set Buffers=30.

Set the LastDrive parameter to the lowest letter possible.

Make sure your shell is not allocating too much environment space.

Check all your device drivers and TSR programs again.  Do you really need them, and are they configured optimally?  Read through their manuals and see if there are any extra switches you can use to improve performance.  Throw out unnecessary DOS utilities like Setver.

If you run memory-resident programs solely for use with Windows, you can move them into WinStart.bat in your Windows directory, which is executed only after Windows has started 386 Enhanced Mode.

Use SmartDrive to cache only floppy and CD-ROM drives if you are using the Windows for Workgroups disk cache.  You can reduce the SmartDrive buffer to 128K or less while running Windows.

Turn off expanded memory support using MemMaker if your DOS programs don't need EMS. Otherwise, add Min=0 on the EMM386 command line.

Run MemMaker every time you modify your DOS settings.  When asked, choose to make a custom setup, scan upper memory aggressively, optimise for use with Windows, make use of the monochrome memory region (see later) and discard existing EMM386 settings.

Follow the instructions in your MS-DOS manual for using MemMaker to optimise multiple configurations and find the best loading order for drivers.

Remember that config.sys has an Install= setting for loading certain memory resident programs which are not already loaded into upper memory blocks.  See your MSDOS manual for more details.

Improving Windows performance

Use a suitable video driver.  Using a display driver with a high resolution or large number of colours results in slower display performance.  Calmira is graphics intensive, and you are recommended to use a 16 colour VGA driver or 256 colour generic Super VGA driver from Microsoft.

Look for the latest video and sound driver upgrades from the original hardware manufacturers, or from Microsoft.

To save memory, do not use wallpaper, or use a small bitmap and tile it.

Run Scandisk and Defrag regularly to keep your disk in good condition.

Try not to load fonts that are not needed.  If you uninstall them from Control Panel, more memory becomes available, and you can always re-install the fonts if you keep them on your hard disk.

Try not to load drivers that are not needed.  Look in Control Panel to see what you've accumulated over the years...

If you run an application that seems to use up system resources or memory every time it runs, try to keep it open instead of closing and reopening it many times.

Check your screen savers to make sure that they are not overusing resources.

Look at the Taskbar's memory and resource indicators regularly.  If some programs appear to be using large amounts, try not to run them together.

If you suspect that RAM or resources are being leaked by some programs, use Calmira's "Restart Windows" facility frequently to reclaim them.

Look through all of your PIF files to make sure that their memory requirements have been set to the lowest possible values.  Programs which only use DPMI memory (Dos Protected Mode Interface) do not need any EMS or XMS memory.

Performance tips for 386 Enhanced Mode

Use a permanent swap file rather than a temporary one.

Enable 32-bit disk access and 32-bit file access if available.

If you have a Super VGA graphics card, use the MonoUmb.386 device driver that is included in MS-DOS, which allows Windows to use the monochrome memory region for running programs.  For full details, see the Readme.txt file in your DOS directory.

Turn off graphics port trapping for PIF files to speed up DOS programs.  Edit the PIF file's Advanced section and uncheck the port monitors (Text, Low Graphics and High Graphics).

Turn off FileSysChange setting in the [386Enh] section of System.ini to speed up DOS programs.  The feature allows File Manager to detect disk changes made by DOS applications, but this isn't used when you run Calmira.


Re-compiling the source

Introduction

Calmira was created using Borland Delphi for Windows 3.1.  This package contains all the files and resources needed to recompile the program from scratch.  You only need a standard version of Delphi 1.0 Desktop edition, although Borland Resource Workshop is useful for editing the graphics in the RES files (the Delphi 1.0 Image editor has some nasty bugs, as you've probably noticed).

Source files

Full source is supplied in Source.zip.  Make sure you re-create the stored directories when extracting the file -- if you are using Pkunzip, add the -d switch. Four sub directories will be created for you:

 Src contains parts of Calmira covered by the License

 Vcl contains Delphi components placed in the public domain

 Utils contains library units placed in the public domain

 Help contains the text and graphics used to build this file

Components

You can compile a working version of Calmira without installing the components, but you must install them in order to open the forms graphically.

Component	Filename	Description
TAppHolder	appholder.pas	TApplication visual interface
TBarGauge	bargauge.pas	Horizontal percentage bar
TBrowserLink	internet.pas	DDE client for web browsers
TCheckList	chklist.*	An array of checkboxes
TDragDrop	dragdrop.pas	Abstract ancestor for file drag-drop
TDropClient	dropclnt.pas	Accepts files from other programs
TDropServer	dropserv.pas	Drops files into other programs
TIconDialog	icondlg.* iconsel.*	Dialog box for selecting icons
TLabelSelect	labelsel.pas	Allows TLabel text to be selected
TMultiGrid	multigrd.pas	Main control in icon windows
TNotepad	notepad.pas	Publishes one TStrings property
TScrollTree	scrtree.pas	TOutline descendant
TStyleSpeed	stylsped.pas	TSpeedButton with new border

To install them, select Options| Install components, and select Calvcl.pas, which will register all of these components for you.  TIconDialog is added to your Dialogs palette, and the rest are placed on a new Calmira palette.

In addition, you must have all of the normal Delphi VCL components (except the database related ones) and the sample TSpinEdit control present in your design-time component library.

Utilities

Library	Filename	Description
Drives	drives.pas	Disk drive detection
Environment	environs.pas	Environment string management
Extended form	extform.pas	Enhanced TForm object
Files	files.pas	File copying, searching etc..
Miscellaneous	miscutil.pas	Useful routines
Object list	objlist.pas	TList descendant
Profile	profile.pas	Extended TIniFile
Streamer	streamer.pas	TFileStream that reads/writes variables
Strings	strings.pas	string formatting and manipulation
Version Info	verinfo.pas	Searches for file version information
Compiling the help file

The RTF file was created using Microsoft Word for Windows 2.0, but should be editable in other word processors that support RTF.

You will need Microsoft's protected mode help compiler (HCP.EXE) to rebuild the help file because there seems to be too much data for HC31 to handle.  Download HCP from Microsoft's software library at ftp.microsoft.com.  The program is DPMI compliant, so you can set up a PIF file to give it 384K of conventional memory and no EMS or XMS; it runs very smoothly in the background. The supplied Make.bat copies the source text to a separate file, which avoids file sharing problems if you have the RTF file open in a word processor.

The compression option has been deliberately turned off, because the resulting compressed help file actually results in a bigger Zip file -- presumably, PKZIP does a much better job when the help compiler doesn't get involved!


Technical Notes

No stack checking!

Stack checking has been turned off to marginally increase performance, and the stack size increased to 20KB for the main program and decreased to 8KB for the Taskbar.  Calmira actually needs a sizeable stack to handle recursion simultaneously with background "threads" such as file copying and re-building of the Start Menu.

While it is not totally safe to remove the stack checking code, the risk of overflowing the stack is small.  All recursive procedures and functions used in the main program have activation records much less than 256 bytes, and they are mostly involved with travelling the directory tree, which must be limited to 79 character pathnames anyway.  Even with four simultaneous threads at their deepest point of recursion, there should be more than enough stack for the VCL and other transient function calls.

Use of undocumented functions

Calmira uses two features of Windows that are not documented in the API help file, although they are generally known.  The first is the drag-drop server implementation in DropServ.pas, which builds the memory object that accompanies the WMDropFiles message.  The second is the WMSysCommand parameter codes used in CalForm.pas for window resizing.  File System Change Notification, as described by Schulman et al, has not been used in this release.

Exported interface

Calmira 2.1 does not have an API, DDE or otherwise, for communication with other programs.  However, the main module does exchange messages with the Taskbar, so it is possible to control a few functions such as activating the Taskbar and opening the Start Menu.  See the CalMsgs.pas unit for details.

There is one reserved and currently unused command for the WMCalmira registered message, which is CMReloadOptions.  This causes as many settings as possible to be reloaded from the INI file, and might be used by a future configuration utility.

Tip of the Day file format

Tips are stored in a plain text file, which has a number on the first line indicating the number of entries in the file.  Blank lines are ignored, and lines beginning with semi-colons are considered comments.  All other lines contain tips, and should be less than 255 characters in length.

To count the number of tips in a modified tips file, use the CountTip utility supplied in one of the source archives as both a DOS executable and the Turbo Pascal code.  Run it using:

counttip < tips.txt

This will check each tip for the length limitation, as well as output the number of tips found.

Possible causes of incompatibility

The only "unusual" code that Calmira contains resides in the DLL file, which implements hooks for the mouse, shell, window procedures and keyboard. Their potential impact on stability has not been investigated. The desktop window is subclassed to capture right clicks, but only for convenience -- it is also possible to move the code into the mouse hook to avoid the problems caused by multiple utilities subclassing the desktop.

Alias file format

Each alias is written to disk as a data stream consisting of a signature, the reference information, and an icon.  Strings are stored as variable length fields: one length byte, followed by the string data bytes.  Integers are 16-bit and booleans occupy one byte.

Field	Type	Comments
Signature	string	Any string prefixed by "CMSR"
Left	integer	Reserved for future use.
Top	integer	Reserved for future use.
Kind	integer	0=Drive, 1=Folder, 2=File, 3=Internet
Target	string	Contains a full pathname or URL
Caption	string
Icon filename	string
Icon index	integer
Parameters	string
Working folder	string
Show mode	integer	0=normal, 1=minimized, 2=maximized
Use document folder	boolean

TIcon.SaveToStream is used to write the icon data.

Bugs in previous source files

A large number of corrections have been made to all files from Calmira 1.0, and the What's New topic only lists some of the more obvious flaws.  If you are using any of the code in other projects, you should check with the files in this package.


Translating into another language

Editing the forms

The text embedded into the form files can be easily found by opening the DFM files in text mode from the Delphi IDE (use the Open File command).  You are less likely to miss any strings compared to editing the captions using the Object Inspector.

Editing embedded code strings

Most of the language specific strings used within the code have been gathered into two files. The first is a unit called Embed.pas, which contains some string constants that need to be stored in typed constants.  Each string constant has a prefix of SS.

There are a few additional strings inside some of the component units, such as the version information component, which can also be modified if required.

Plural words

The Strings unit declares the OneItem array which is used to add an "s" character to make some nouns plural where necessary.  You should use the Object Browser to search for all references to this array, and modify the code to use the grammar of the target language.

Editing the string tables

The second localisation unit is called Locale.pas and contains a list of integer constants (prefixed by S in standard Delphi fashion) which are used to give indices to the string tables.  You can leave this file alone and go straight to Locale.rc which is processed by the resource compiler.  After translating the strings, build Locale.res by running

brc -r -folocale.res locale.rc


Distributing modified versions

You are most welcome to release your own versions of Calmira; please read the through the GNU General Public License in the file License.txt that is supplied with the binary files. You may freely include any material from the original Calmira zip file, and also any technical information published on the Calmira home page

 	Give your version a new name to distinguish it from others, and state clearly what the differences are.  "Source Release" is used to identify the line of original versions distributed with full code, so you should replace it with something else unless you essentially translated the text.

 	Choose a filename carefully.  Calmir??.zip is reserved for updated versions of the original, and Calm10g.zip has been used to distribute a German version of Calmira 1.0.  You should check the popular Internet archives to make sure your chosen filename is not already in use.

If you would like some publicity, you can have a free web page on the Calmira site, or a link can be added to your own site, whichever is more convenient.


Calmira Questions and Answers

How can I print a file from Calmira?

Select the file in an icon window and press Ctrl+P.  Alternatively, drag the icon into Print Manager's window or minimized icon (not a shortcut, a file icon, or a button on the Taskbar).  The file must be registered with a program that can open and print it.

Can I change the picture on the Start button?

Yes, look at the topic on customising bitmaps.

What if I think I've found a bug?

Before you report it, read through the sections on Common Problems, Known Issues and General Troubleshooting.  The last contains guidelines on reporting bugs, and there are also some useful answers contained in the rest of the current topic.

Is Calmira going to become Shareware?

No, it will always be freeware. Shareware is not effective without a nag screen or some other limitation, and I don't want to trouble the people who really cannot afford it.

However, I've had to turn down a US$32,000 exclusive rights deal with a well known software company, in order to release Calmira 2.0 as free software.  So if you're doing okay financially, then a small donation would be greatly appreciated.

Can you add {some feature} to the next version?

If it could be useful to a large proportion of users, then it will be considered.  I usually rule out ideas that are beyond the scope of managing files, programs and tasks, and also those which are purely cosmetic features.  These include animations, calendars, diaries, alarm clocks, wallpaper facilities, desktop themes, Win95 style title bars and menus, and file viewers (just to name a few).

Good ideas will be considered by their level of demand, difficulty of implementation and resource requirements.  So the highest priority goes to features that are in high demand, quick to program, and don't use excessive memory or processing power.  Be prepared to justify your ideas in detail -- I may need a bit of convincing!

Why is there no "popup" help in the dialog box graphics?

This was discovered to be rather unhelpful because people don't always click on all the invisible hotspots, and so they miss out on essential information.  All the text is now completely visible, and every help page can be accessed through the << and >> browse buttons.

Why is the Taskbar listed in Task Manager?

The taskbar's window is managed independently from the other windows in Calmira, and Task Manager considers this to be a separate task.

Can the Taskbar be moved to other parts of the screen?

No.

Can setup programs add icons to the Start Menu?

Yes, just turn on the option from the Start Menu Properties dialog and restart Calmira.

Why do some resources seem not to be released?

Calmira's Delphi sub-system caches certain resources to speed up access when they are needed again.  It is quite normal for resources to decrease permanently by a few percent after an operation, provided this does not happen every time the operation is repeated, e.g., opening a dialog box. Almost all of your resources should be returned when you quit Calmira.

How do I run programs automatically at startup?

Open the Start Menu Properties dialog and create a sub-menu captioned "Startup".  The menu can be anywhere, at any level.  Inside this menu, put links to the program you want to load.

Can icon windows refresh themselves like File Manager?

No, File Manager is treated differently by Windows, and receives a special message from the operating system to notify about file changes.

Can I use 256 colour icons or bitmaps with Calmira?

No, Calmira does not support a 256-colour palette when drawing its graphics.  256-colour icons can sometimes be be loaded on certain combinations of video drivers and Hi-Colour or True colour video modes, but certainly not on 256-colour video modes.

Can I compress/edit/hack the executable files?

It is not recommended. Look in the sections on customising bitmaps and icons if you want to change the graphics.  Do not be surprised if Calmira doesn't work after you change the resources with a Shareware or freeware utility.

Does Calmira work under Windows NT 3.51?

No, it was never designed with Windows NT in mind.

Will there be a 32-bit version of Calmira?

No, the difference between the MS-DOS and Windows 95/NT file systems is too great for a quick port.

What does the Taskbar animation option do?

It slides the Taskbar onto the screen rather than just making it appear.  You may need a slower computer to observe the effect!

Should I upgrade to Windows 95 or stick with Windows 3.1 and Calmira?

I would advise that if you've got a 486-66 with 16MB RAM, or better, then you should upgrade to Windows 95 or you'll miss out on the all the benefits that a modern operating system brings.

Where does the name Calmira come from?

It was just made up.

How long did it take to write Calmira?

It's impossible to provide a figure, since the program was not developed full-time.  The first code was written around November 1995.

What was used to develop the program?

8MB 486DX-33

Windows for Workgroups 3.11

Delphi 1.0

Borland Resource Workshop

Word for Windows 2.0

How do I open an icon window's popup menu in List View mode?

Right click on a blank area of the status bar.

Will Calmira work correctly after 1999?

Yes.

Why do programs excluded from the taskbar show an icon?

Calmira assumes that you will eventually need to activate a minimized program that is normally visible, so it must either be accessible from the taskbar or the desktop. You need to use a third party utility to hide program icons completely.

How can I use more space for showing descriptions?

You can enlarge the grid size through System Properties for Large Icons view. In List mode, you can set the DescriptionWidth setting (see the help file index). For long descriptions, it may be best to use MS-DOS filenames for icon captions, and create a wide description column in List view.

Why is name sorting sometimes wrong in the List view?

If you use descriptions as icon captions, the sorting may appear to be wrong in the list view when you sort by "name". In Large Icons view, the captions are used for sorting, and this is maintained in the list view to prevent the icons from being re-ordered every time you change views. So the filename column may not be in order.

Can the Start Menu highlight follow the cursor movement?

No, the Start Menu is a normal Windows 3.1 menu which must follow the standard menu interacton style, i.e. you must hold down them mouse button to move the highlight bar.

Why does the progress bar sometimes stay at 0%?

The bar displayed percentages based on the number of files transferred, not the number of bytes copied. To monitor how many bytes have been copied, click on the icon in the top left corner.

Can I hide the Computer icon?

No, but you can give it a zero-length caption and a totally transparent icon, which should make it mostly invisible but still present on screen.

Can a Start Menu item be made to exit Windows immediately?

You can download a small utility that exits Windows without asking for confirmation, for example, "Bailout". Simply drop it into the Start Menu.

Why does the 'Unable to run program or view file' message appear?

If you activate a shortcut or Start Menu item, you could get this message even though the program runs normally. Check that the directory in the Working Folder field actually exists -- if Windows can't find the working folder, it may return an error value even though it has successfully loaded the program in question.

Why can't my taskbar resize maximized windows?

It's possible that you have another utility installed, which is interfering with the message hook that Calmira uses to detect window resizing. Look in the Troubleshooting sections of the help file to see if anything helps.

Why are program options spread across several property dialogs?

If every option in Calmira were to be accessed from one large dialog with tabs, there would be certain problems, including:

 Opening and closing the dialog would take a very long time

 A large amount of memory is consumed at once to create all the controls.

 The resource heaps may be severely depleted by too many controls.

 There would not be enough space to add new options.

Why is the Control Panel menu missing some icons?

The Start Menu is hard-coded with a typical set of entries, and Calmira does not detect any extra icons in your own control panel.  You can add them by creating menu items that use the command:

c:\windows\control.exe <source> <icon caption>

<source> is the name of the CPL file that runs the applet, and <icon caption> is the text seen in the Control Panel window.


Contacting the author

Your comments and suggestions are always welcome.  No major versions are planned, but bug fixes may be released if necessary.

If you have a query, please study the help and readme files carefully -- the main features of Calmira should be fully documented.  If you have Internet access, then visit the home page first.  Before sending bug reports, make sure you have read the Troubleshooting, Known Issues and Questions & Answers sections.

 	I reply to email as soon as possible, but I can't reply to paper mail unless it's really important (UK users can include an SAE to get a reply).

 	If you need help with a problem, please make some effort to solve it first!  Read the manual, ask around, and do some investigating.

 	Please don't send me any email attachments larger than 50K without prior agreement.  If you want to show me some software, just mail the URL.

Email	: lhh@tribbles.demon.co.uk

Web 	: www.tribbles.demon.co.uk/calmira/

Post	: 59 Bromefield

  Stanmore

  Middlesex HA7 1AG

  England UK

Many thanks to everyone who has contributed to Calmira, and helped to make it an extraordinary piece of software.  As you can imagine, a huge amount of time and effort has been put into development, but the end result wouldn't be so polished without the assistance of those who took the trouble to test out new features, find bugs, provide new code and ideas, and all the others who have supported me "behind the scenes" in everyday life.

Finally, if you find Calmira useful, then please help me by passing a copy on to anyone who might need it -- just think how your Windows 3.1 would now feel like without it!  And of course, donations and postcards are welcome.


Obtaining the latest version

The program distributed with this help file is Calmira Source Release 2.1, released in February 1998.  If any serious problems are discovered with this version, an update will be available as soon as possible.  Otherwise, Calmira 2.2 should be available in July 1998.

Naming convention

Calmira Source Release is distributed as calmir??.zip, with a major and minor version number.  The archive from which you received version 2.1 should have been calmir21.zip, and subsequent versions will follow this convention.

World Wide Web

Your first stop should be Calmira's home page at where there will be links for you to download the latest version or any patches.  If that's unavailable, try the Simtel and WinSite collections (which will always receive updates) or search engines that can point you in the right direction.

Calmira home page:	www.tribbles.demon.co.uk/calmira/
Simtel.net:	www.simtel.net/simtel.net/
Winsite archive:	www.winsite.com
CNet search engine:	www.shareware.com
FTP

Visit a Simtel.Net mirror site, and look for a newer version in the /win3/deskenh directory.  Simtel.Net is the first place that Calmira is uploaded to.

Bulletin boards

Check out a local BBS if you've only got a modem.  Calmira should reach popular bulletin boards fairly quickly, and you could ask a friendly BBS to fetch the update if it's available.

If you don't have access to any of the above...

The easiest way is to find someone who does, and ask them politely to help you download the program! You can write to computer magazines, or search through CD-ROM collections. Finally, you can also order a copy directly.

For email-only users

If you have an email account but no web access, I can mail you a mirror of the web site (as a small zip attachment) if it contains additional information.  You will need Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator to view the files.  No program files will be sent as email attachments -- you'll need to order a disk, but at least you can find out what's available first.


Simtel.Net mirror sites

Due to lack of space, only a portion of the mirror network is shown below.  To find Calmira, add /win3/deskenh/calmir??.zip to the site address, which will give you the full URL to access.

Location	Site address

US, ALL (primary)	ftp://ftp.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet

US, California 	ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/simtelnet

US, Illinois 	ftp://uiarchive.cso.uiuc.edu/pub/systems/pc/simtelnet

US, Massachusetts  	ftp://ftp.bu.edu/pub/mirrors/simtelnet

US, Michigan       	ftp://oak.oakland.edu/pub/simtelnet

Argentina          	ftp://ftp.satlink.com/pub/mirrors/simtelnet

Australia          	ftp://ftp.iniaccess.net.au/pub/simtelnet

Austria, Vienna    	ftp://ftp.univie.ac.at/mirror/simtelnet

Belgium            	ftp://ftp.linkline.be/mirror/simtelnet

Bulgaria           	ftp://ftp.eunet.bg/pub/simtelnet

Brazil             	ftp://ftp.iis.com.br/pub/simtelnet

Canada, Ottawa     	ftp://ftp.crc.doc.ca/systems/ibmpc/simtelnet

Canada, Vancouver  	ftp://ftp.direct.ca/pub/simtelnet

Chile              	ftp://sunsite.dcc.uchile.cl/pub/Mirror/simtelnet

China              	ftp://ftp.pku.edu.cn/pub/simtelnet

Czech Republic     	ftp://ftp.eunet.cz/pub/simtelnet

Finland            	ftp://ftp.funet.fi/mirrors/ftp.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet

France             	ftp://ftp.grolier.fr/pub/simtelnet

Germany            	ftp://ftp.mpi-sb.mpg.de/pub/simtelnet

Greece             	ftp://ftp.ntua.gr/pub/pc/simtelnet

Hong Kong          	ftp://ftp.cs.cuhk.hk/pub/simtelnet

Ireland            	ftp://ftp.iol.ie/pub/simtelnet

Israel             	ftp://ftp.huji.ac.il/pub/simtelnet

Italy              	ftp://cis.utovrm.it/simtelnet

Japan              	ftp://ftp.iij.ad.jp/pub/simtelnet

Latvia             	ftp://ftp.lanet.lv/pub/mirror/simtelnet

Malaysia	ftp://ftp.jaring.my/pub/simtelnet

Mexico             	ftp://ftp.gdl.iteso.mx/pub/simtelnet

Netherlands        	ftp://ftp.euro.net/d5/simtelnet

New Zealand        	ftp://ftp.vuw.ac.nz/pub/simtelnet

Norway             	ftp://ftp.bitcon.no/pub/simtelnet

Poland             	ftp://ftp.cyf-kr.edu.pl/pub/mirror/Simtel.Net

Portugal           	ftp://ftp.ip.pt/pub/simtelnet

Romania            	ftp://ftp.sorostm.ro/pub/simtelnet

Singapore          	ftp://ftp.nus.sg/pub/simtelnet

Slovakia           	ftp://ftp.uakom.sk/pub/simtelnet

South Africa       	ftp://ftp.is.co.za/pub/simtelnet

South Korea        	ftp://ftp.nuri.net/pub/simtelnet

Spain              	ftp://ftp.rediris.es/mirror/simtelnet

Sweden             	ftp://ftp.sunet.se/pub/simtelnet

Switzerland        	ftp://sunsite.cnlab-switch.ch/mirror/simtelnet

Taiwan             	ftp://ftp.ncu.edu.tw/Packages/simtelnet

Thailand           	ftp://ftp.nectec.or.th/pub/mirrors/simtelnet

UK, London         	ftp://sunsite.doc.ic.ac.uk/packages/simtelnet


Distribution Service
Calmira Source Release Distribution Service

To obtain a copy of Calmira directly, send £10 (10 British pounds) to:

Li-Hsin Huang

59 Bromefield

Stanmore

Middlesex  HA7 1AG

England UK

Payment should be by cheque, postal order or international money order for safety reasons, although cash is also acceptable. You will receive, as soon as possible:

1.	The latest English version of Calmira, together with patches or updated files if available (on 3.5 inch 1.44 MB floppy disks).

2.	Any extra documentation or information that is published.

3.	Any free utilities that might be created for use with Calmira.

No responsibility will be taken for any loss, damage or delay through the post.

If you have any comments or questions, I'll be happy to include a reply together with the software. To wait for a version different from the one you already have, please state exactly which one you've got, and the latest date by which you would like the disks dispatched.

As a guide, Calmira 2.2 is expected in July 1998, but there is no guarantee that there will be any post-2.1 versions at all.  In such an event, you will still receive the latest documentation, but you are therefore strongly advised to find on-line sources if possible.

Important points:

   The £10 is a distribution charge, NOT a registration fee.

   Calmira is free software, and there is no registration for it.

   The software you receive will be identical to the copies on the Internet.

   The software you receive can be used freely by any number of people.

   You can take advantage of this and share the cost with a few friends!