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1992-05-06
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WBLink V1.00
by Dave Schreiber
WBLink is copyright 1991 by Dave Schreiber, All Rights Reserved.
WBLink is freely distributable, but the author retains all rights in
regards to the program. Permission is granted to distribute this program
for a minimal charge (for copying, handling, etc.).
WBLink is a small utility I wrote in order to deal with what I think
is a deficiency in Workbench 2.0: namely, there's no way to create a link
from one file to another using Workbench (a link is like a second (or
third, etc.) name for a file; although both the original program and the
link have their own icon, there's only one copy of the program actually on
disk. See the description of 'Makelink' in the AmigaDOS reference section
of the manual that came with 2.0 or your Amiga for more information).
WBLink creates an 'AppIcon' that allows you to create links easily.
To run WBLink, either double-click on it's icon or type 'Run
WBLink' from the CLI. If you'd like it to be run automatically when you
boot up, you can put it in your 'Wbstartup' drawer. When run, WBLink puts
up an icon on the Workbench; if you drop the icon for a file or drawer
onto WBLink's icon, a link to that file or drawer is created. The naming
convention is similar for the Copy menu selection: the first link, for a
program named 'prog' for example, will be named Link_to_prog. The second,
Link_2_to_prog, etc. Once the link is created, it can be renamed and moved
anywhere on the drive (although if you move it to another disk, regular
copy of the file is made and put on the destination disk, instead of a
link; this is due to a limitation in the way the Amiga's OS handles
links).
Note: while WBLink creates links to files and drawers, it copies
.info files. This means that you can position a file and its link
independently (whereas if WBLink created a link to both the file and .info
file, every time you moved the original file's icon, the link's icon would
move to the same location).
If you double click on WBLink's icon, a requester pops up that gives
you the version and release date of WBLink, along with an opportunity to
quit WBLink. To quit, click on the 'Quit WBLink' button. The 'Don't Quit'
button closes the requestor, but leaves WBLink running.
To give you an idea of the usefulness of links, let me describe one
use I have for them. I have a number of programs that I run often that I
would like to have directly on Workbench for easy access. Unfortunatly
Workbench tends to slow down if you leave out a lot of icons. My solution
was to create a drawer called 'Dock' (after the NeXT's feature of the same
name) and leave that out instead. In that drawer, I placed links to my
frequently used programs. With this arrangement, I have easy access to my
programs without cluttering up or slowing down Workbench. Moreover, this
takes up only a few kilobytes on my hard drive (whereas making copies of
the programs to put in Dock would have taken up over a megabyte).
If you're interested in how WBLink operates, I've included the source.
To compile, using SAS/C V5.10a, type the following in the command line:
lc -Lcd -v WBLink
If you have any questions, comments, etc. regarding WBLink, please
don't hesitate to get in touch with me at:
Dave Schreiber
1234 Collins Lane
San Jose, CA 95129-4208
e-mail: davids@ucscb.ucsc.edu