This program replaces the "iconise" function of the pinboard. As you know, you can iconise windows by clicking on their close icon whilst holding down the shift key. The behaviour of pinboard is not very comfortable in this respect, but using iconize, you can do nice things with the icons: you can get them to the front of the window stack and if you click on the back icon of a normal window it will fall behind the icons, making them easier to access. You can move the icon freely around and if you open the window and iconise it again, the icon does not appear at the window's position but at the last position of the icon. All this is very much like the X-Windows behaviour.
Installation:
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There's a problem with pinboard. Although there is a message, that should disable the "current iconiser" (usually pinboard), pinboard's programers did not read the PRM's; pinboard does not react correctly to that message. So it is important to start Pinboard and Iconize in the correct order.
The easiest way is to set up the desktop for saving a desk boot file, to start Iconize and to save the desktop, using the task manager's menu (see the computer's manuals if you are in any doubt).
You may prefer to change you boot file manually. Just add a line "*Filer_Run <Path specification>.!Iconize"; you must replace <Path specification> by the path of the directory where you put Iconize.
After a reset, Iconize should be installed and work correctly. For a short try you can also start several copies of Iconize (double click on its icon two or three times). Usually, one of the copies is then getting the relevant messages before Pinboard. Try it by shift-closing any window. If you get the usual flat icon lying on the backdrop it's pinboard you are talking to - if not you can go on with the next section.
Usage:
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There's really not much to say about using Iconize. You can drag the icons over the screen and you can double click on them to re-open the window. Every icon has a menu attached to it, where you can get informations about the window or the program. For a first introduction, you can use Acorn's iteractive Help program (or StrongHelp or something equivalent).
If you hold down the Shift key whilst pressing menu over a icon, you get the menu for the window, not for the icon (if there is any).
The first icon is generated in the top left corner of the screen. Subsequent icons are generated to the right of the previous, until a line is full and a new one starts below the first. If you select the "Reset counter" option, icons start in the top left corner again.
