OS/2 Shareware BBS: 16 Announce/16-Announce.zip/odinfo.zip/OD_FAQ.sds

Text File | 1996-02-10 | 16KB | 296 lines

Object Desktop FAQ v1.21

February 1996

Q:  What is Object Desktop?
A:  Object Desktop is an advanced desktop environment designed to be the
    best productivity enhancement for OS/2 ever developed.  It provides a
    set of new functions to the operating system and new interfaces for
    getting to your objects faster. Once installed, you can expect to make your
    system faster, easier, more powerful, and well, just plain nicer to work with.

Q:  Does it replace the Workplace Shell?
A:  No.  It inherits from the Workplace Shell and adds new functionality to
    it.

Q:  So how much memory does it take?
A:  Very little.  A total of about 1 megabyte is allocated (with very
    little of that actually resident).  This is the true power that OS/2
    brings to the table.  OS/2 applications that inherit functions from the
    operating system can be small and fast.  This sort of benefit gives users
    a "sneak preview" of what OpenDoc could do.  Fat bloated programs could
    be greatly reduced!

Q:  How much does it cost then?
A:  The suggested retail price is $99.95.  However, the street price is
    usually significantly less than that.  You should be able to find it
    pretty much anywhere. Stardock has an introductory price of only
    $89.95!  Street prices should eventually be between $75 and $95
    depending on where you look.

Q:  So what REAL functionality am I getting for my money?
A:  Stardock has a history of providing software at extremely aggressive
    prices.  Take the best-selling OS/2 Essentials.  You get a full utility
    suite for under $40.  Stardock continues this with Object Desktop.
    To even approach the features you get in Object Desktop, you'd have to
    pay many hundreds of dollars on other platforms.  Below are some bread
    and butter features that we believe will convince you that Object Desktop
    is not only reasonably priced but very inexpensive.

   Specific features users have asked for are answered here.  Examples:

    1)  I want OS/2 faster! There should be a way to cache the Workplace
        Shell.

        Object Desktop adds this capability.  You can now HyperCache
        your often-used folders and eliminate virtually all disk access
        when accessing these folders.  HyperCache is the only third party
        caching software available for OS/2 so we cannot price compare but
        caching software on other platforms (such as DOS) cost as much as
        Object Desktop!

    2)  OS/2 users want disk compression features to save valuable drive
        space but are generally wary of adding device drivers or
        suffering a performance hit.  They also want more control over
        what they compress and what they don't.  Finally, they want to
        be able to take their compressed data to other systems that
        don't necessarily have a device driver based disk compression.
        With hard drives becoming so inexpensive, users have loudly and
        clearly said that what they usually do is simply Zipup their
        big files and data and then unzip them.  Or all the files they
        download or transfer from co-workers stay compressed until needed.
        Imagine if these "Zipped" files suddently become like folders? Where
        you could treat your zipped up data as if it were just in a regular
        uncompressed folder? What if we went further and even allowed you to
        RUN many of your programs RIGHT FROM THE ZIP file! No trick here,
        the power of OS/2 shows forth again through Object Desktop!

        Object Desktop provides Object Archives (Object Zip, Object Arc,
        etc.).  Why re-invent the wheel when everyone already uses ZIP,
        LZH, etc?  Object Desktop takes these files and turns them into
        Folder objects!  You can now access your data and run many of
        your programs directly from the archive! This is the power of
        OS/2 at work!  Virtually anything you can do with a regular
        folder you can now do with your archive files.

    3)  OS/2 users really do want a file manager but EVERY major file
        manager made for OS/2 was blind to things OS/2's special objects
        and capabilities, such as Shadow objects, long file names on FAT
        disks, program objects, etc.

        Object Desktop provides the Object Navigator, the first true
        Workplace Shell file manager.  It can do all of the above and
        more.  Because it is integrated into the Workplace Shell it uses
        your existing associations and other extensions you may have
        added to your system.

    4)  Corporations and end users both have asked for OS/2 to be more
        keyboard friendly. The crash protection and multitasking power
        of OS/2 won a lot of converts from DOS but not everyone was
        crazy about having to use a GUI.  Mobile users have long
        requested for OS/2 to make it easier to do things with the
        keyboard.

        Object Desktop adds the Keyboard LaunchPad.  You can now assign
        a program or whole groups of programs or projects to a single
        keystroke.  For example, a mobile user could start their entire
        set of I-net applications by associating their I-net
        applications to a keystroke such as Ctrl-Alt-I.  What's more,
        you are NOT limited to programs--folders and data files are
        also easily added.

    5)  OS/2 users have often requested a way to be able to better
        exploit OS/2's multitasking.

        Object Desktop provides Virtual desktops via the Control Center.
        Now, you can switch between your virtual desktops and operate
        much more efficiently.  How often has a Windows program, for
        example, used up the entire screen making it tedious to start
        other processes?  Now, you can just switch to another virtual
        desktop and have a clean screen.  It even monitors all your
        desktops in real-time!

    6)  OS/2 users have complained that accessing their program was too
        tedious.

        The LaunchPad introduced in OS/2 Warp was a big step forward but
        it doesn't go far enough for many users. Object Desktop provides
        the Tab LaunchPad.  Now, you can organize your programs into
        different categories separated by tabs.  Moreover, a "Tasks" tab
        is also on the Tab LaunchPad that allows you to minimize your
        programs to the Tab LaunchPad.  No more desktop clutter.

    These are just a few of Object Desktop's features!

Q:  I heard that Object Desktop makes OS/2 look like Microsoft Windows
    95?
A:  No.  Windows 95 borrowed a lot from OS/2 in terms of its look.
    Windows 95 has added a lot of window dressing to Windows, but it
    certainly doesn't have a monopoly on making things look "slick."

    The bottom line: one of Object Desktop's features is to enhance
    OS/2's visual appeal by giving OS/2 a much more modern and "slick"
    look.  An example of this is making OS/2's buttons and controls more
    intuitive.  These feature enhancements should not be confused with
    cloning any other operating system interface.  Moreover, our updates
    to the "look" of OS/2 were mainly to make OS/2's existing controls
    more 3Dish.

    But remember, making OS/2 slick was easy to do. It's not even a feature
    worth mentioning. We hope that IBM will eventually make OS/2 nicer to
    look at on their own.

Q: How much benefit to my productivity does Object Desktop give me?
A: Users on-line and directly to us have said that using OS/2 without
    Object Desktop is the same as having to use Windows 3.1's Program
    Manager after having used the Workplace Shell.

Q:  How does Object Desktop compare with a new utility called NPS WPS
    Enhancer?
A:  NPS is exactly what it says, a WPS enhancer.  It adds some neat
    special effects to OS/2 such as window shadowing and exploding
    window animations along with a couple of useful features such as
    easy copy and paste from a command line window.  However, Object
    Desktop and NPS have little in common feature-wise.  End users
    looking to add some neat gadgets to their system will probably like
    NPS.  Object Desktop is aimed towards improving your productivity
    and adding a number of much-needed features to OS/2.  There has been
    some confusion because both products enhance OS/2 (Object Desktop adds
    features and NPS adds special effects).  The two work well together
    but have as much in common as a Word Processor and a Spreadsheet.


Q:  Where will I be able to find Object Desktop?
A:  Most likely at your local store.  You can already find most Stardock
    products at stores such as CompUSA, ElekTek, Micro Center, Egghead,
    Indelible Blue and a host of other stores.  A list of places to buy
    our software is available on our WWW site,
    http://oeonline.com/~stardock.

Q: Does Object Desktop do anything to reduce "screen clutter"?
A: Yes.  Browsemode is a feature that almost every new OS/2 user says
"Why didn t someone think of this before?" It solves a fundamental headache
of the GUI that s been around since the first Macintosh. When you start
opening folders, it doesn t take long until you suddenly have a ton of windows
all over your screen!  Browsemode changes that. Once activated, when you
open a child folder, it updates the existing folder window and then places a
handy up button on the title bar to allow you to go back.

Q: What are some things Object Desktop does to improve OS/2's
general behavior?

A: It does quite a few things that you won't notice right away but you'll
learn to appreciate quickly.  Here are a few examples:

1) Ever open a folder and have objects scattered all over the place
and have to use the scroll bar to find your objects? Object Desktop
gives you the option to make all your objects default to being
listed in sort ordered with a single click.

2) Ever want to change the default icons for your data files and
folders? Object Desktop allows you to do this. Simply drag and
drop a new icon for a folder and then press the new "set as
default" button.  One time, for all objects.

3) Ever wish that OS/2 implemented "full drag"? This is the ability
of having the entire window move instead of just the outline which
can make it easier to place your windows properly.  Object
Desktop does this.

4) Ever wanted to have all your folders come up in Details view
by default instead of by icon view? Object Desktop lets you do
this easily.

Probably the single most powerful thing about Object Desktop is that
it allows you to do things with OS/2 that neither IBM nor Stardock would
have thought of. It truly unleashes the power of OS/2 for you.  There is
an Object Desktop screenshot contest on Stardock's WWW site.
On it, you'll see that users have found ways of taking OS/2 and Object
Desktop to the next level of power, ease of use, and flexibility. And
doing so in ways no one had ever thought of (including the developers
of Object Desktop) before.



Q:  Give me a "cool" example of Object Archives in action?
A:  There is an OS/2 arcade game called Havoc (on OS/2 Essentials).
    With Object Desktop, you can drag and drop a Zip object template to your
    desktop, drag and drop your Havoc folder onto the Zip object and now
    run Havoc directly from the ZIP.  On another system, a user could have a
    video file in a ZIP that they can play right from the ZIP file.  This
    saves them about 2 megs of disk space.

Q:  What else is cool about Object Desktop? Give me a couple "neato" things
    that it does.
A:  For one thing, it hooks into OS/2 to replace the Alt+Tab
    functionality to work similarly to what is provided in Microsoft
    Windows 3.1.  You can type Alt+Tab and a little window showing what
    you are about to switch to shows up.  It also places them in recently
    accessed order!

    Object Desktop also replaces the window list with a new and improved
    one that shows the icons of what you are running. It also has a
    button bar that makes it much easier to manipulate your tasks.  In
    short, the window list finally becomes a REAL task manager.

    An other feature that rarely gets discussed is the Workplace Shell
    text editor.  One of the most common features used in any operating
    system (whether DOS, Windows, OS/2, Unix, etc) is some sort of
    text editor.  OS/2 comes with EPM and the System Editor.  Object
    Desktop's editor is integrated into the actual operating system,
    which means that it loads up almost instantly and uses virtually no
    memory.  It is also considerably more powerful than the system
    editor and as about as flexible as EPM.

Q:  I heard that Object Desktop contains no executables!  How is this
    possible?
A:  Object Desktop integrates directly into the operating system via
    SOM. Because of this, the objects created by Object Desktop can
    easily be duplicated and modified by customers.  For example, many
    users create two or three control centers to put on the desktop:
    one Control Center only has virtual desktops turned on, another Control
    Center only has resource monitoring on, and a third one just has
    the clock turned on.  We aren't claiming this sort of thing can't be
    done by conventional programs, but with Workplace Shell objects, it
    is just a natural thing to do.  In essence, Object Desktop becomes part
    of OS/2.  It is not a "utility" or "application" in a sense.  It is meant
    as a third party upgrade to OS/2 and because of Stardock's close relationship
    with IBM, future versions of OS/2 will work seamlessly with Object Desktop
    as well.  Not to mention that because Object Desktop uses SOM to work its
    magic, compatibility problems are extremely rare!

Q:  So who is the target audience for Object Desktop?
A:  All OS/2 users.  Our goal is nothing short of migrating every OS/2
    user to Object Desktop.  Any person using OS/2 should have Object
    Desktop.  This is why we have priced Object Desktop so low (compare
    Object Desktop's plethora of features to stand alone products or
    other products on other platforms that have similar features and
    Object Desktop shows itself as a real bargain).  Stardock has also
    created extremely (or as one IS manager put it -- unbelievably) low
    priced site licensing guides.  Moreover, Stardock has very low
    priced OEM pricing to encourage OEMs to pre-load Object Desktop on
    their machines.  Admittedly, our marketing strategy is aimed at
    corporations who have been looking for the features found in
    Object Desktop for a long time.  For this reason, we also have
    great site licensing available.

    Whether you're an IS manager looking to increase your users
    productivity or reduce training costs, a PC manufacturing looking to
    give your systems a competitive edge, or an end user who wants to
    turbo-charge OS/2 to a new level.

As Matt Hite, a reviewer at I/O Magazine put it, "For all intent and
purposes, Object Desktop is a third party upgrade to OS/2.  It's what
OS/2 users have been asking for all these years!"

You can find more out more about Object Desktop on Stardock's World Wide Web
site:

http://oeonline.com/~stardock/

Stardock can be reached at 313-453-0328 or FAX [phone].