FileBar 2.05 Review

By Chris Wenham (November 7th 1995)

The small things count too.

What do you get if you take the Windows 95 'Start' bar, remove the dopey 'Start' button, flush the hoop-la, can the Rolling Stones, make it more intuitive, chuck in some virtual desktops, and reduce the resource requirements by about two thirds?

FileBar.

FileBar is an excellent example of what you get when you don't mess around with a load of unnecessary code and bulky graphics clotting up the place. Yes that means it's plain and unadorned, but do you really need a megabyte of RAM soaked up with shiny buttons and pretty pictures for something that's just going to launch another program?

That's what FileBar is though - a program launcher. It looks just like a regular menubar and can sit at the top or bottom of your screen, or pop up with a click of the mouse button. The first two menus; FileBar and Task List are fixed, but everything after that is user configurable. When you go to launch a program it's just a case of picking the right menu and clicking on the program name. No folders to open, no icons to memorize, just click-bam-boom. It's time to get spartan.

FileBar as a Workplace Shell replacement
Most people use FileBar as a replacement for the Workplace Shell (WPS). The WPS swallows up a good meg or two of RAM when it loads, FileBar only uses a third or fourth of that space - giving you more room to run programs in. Even better, it reduces the amount of swapping the OS has to do - which always speeds up your system.

Here's an easy way to tell if your computer is doing too much disk swapping:

Put a potted plant in between the front of your computer case and a window. If after a week, the plant is leaning closer to the hard drive light, your computer is probably swapping too much.

The answer is to either get more RAM or cut back on the stuff you try to load each day. The least expensive, of course, is to cut back. FileBar helps that task tremendously. After using WPS for a week, I got used to the speed at which the system ran on my 8 megabyte system. After replacing it with FileBar the performance was very much faster. Task-switching was much quicker when running the same number of applications, and that counts a lot.

Not only does the reduced memory requirements speed you up, but the interface does too. I mean, it's just a menu bar. You're not wasting time opening folders left and right, instead you're... well, to compare it to the desktop metaphor, opening drawers instead. Neater and more tucked out of the way. Plus it takes a LOT less screen real-estate.

Virtual Desktops
The idea of virtual desktops isn't new, you imagine that you have a desktop that is x screens wide and y screens high, and your monitor is your 'window' to any one of those screens. You can then, say, run your applications full-size all the time and just flip back and forth between screens - easing the hassle of managing multiple overlapping windows.

There are several virtual-desktop utilities already available for OS/2, 9 Lives and PageMage are two shareware types, Object Desktop is a commercial utility that also has them. On the Windows side, there is BigDesk for shareware, and Dashboard - a product similar to Object Desktop but lacking most of OD's functionality.

Way back in the old days when I had Windows, I tried BigDesk for a while. Of course, since Windows couldn't really run that many applications concurrently and always needed re-starting every couple hours to clean out the USER resources, I never used virtual screens except to play around for half an hour and lose interest. OS/2 gave me just a wee bit more stability and multitasking power, and now I find I can't live without 'em. Take my virtual desktop's away, and I CAN'T WORK!

FileBar, again with a spartan philosophy, doesn't give you any scaled down representation of your virtual desktop (or as it calls them - "Work Areas"). Just a button bar with numbers on it. You can configure it to a 3x3 grid, or a horizontal/vertical row. I prefer it arranged as a horizontal row - that way I can run my applications with as much disk space as possible and still have the bar in view for switching around. You do have the option to keep it floating on top at all times, but I find that obtrusive and inconvenient.

What's more convenient is the fact that it's integrated into the rest of the shell. The Task List in the menu bar keeps track of all windows running - same as the Window List you get when pressing Ctrl-Esc - but when you switch to an application there, it automatically switches to the correct desktop. Something that the Window List can't do. Not only that, but buried in a submenu under each running application is the 'Move To' option - where you can tell FileBar to send the window to any one of the nine desktops.

Flexibility
FileBar can be used as more than just a WPS replacement for memory starved systems, it can be used as a WPS enhancement or a Launchpad replacement too. When configuring FileBar and adding programs to it, you can either type in the file information yourself or drag a WPS object to the drop-box area. Beware though, those WPS objects stop working if you use FileBar as a WPS replacement. Well, sort of. You can load WPS from FileBar and then use those objects. Otherwise, you can just tell it where the file is/browse for it, and give it information on what kind of program it is. It manages Win-OS/2 without a hitch, and even gives you the familiar DOS/WIN settings box to fine-tune the session.

Comparing
At the beginning of this review, I compared FileBar to the Windows 95 'Start' bar, which does resemble FileBar somewhat. This is a bit of a loose comparison since I don't use Windows 95, but I'll go with what I know.

With Windows 95 you have to click on the 'Start' button every time you want to launch a program, with FileBar it's more spread out - you can pick from things like 'Command Prompts', 'OS/2', 'Win-OS2', 'Dos', 'Games', etc etc, all available right away. Windows 95 also lists the applications running across the length of the bar, FileBar tucks them into the 'Task List' menu. Lastly, Windows 95 adorns its menu entries with icons, FileBar doesn't.

One Bug
In the use of FileBar I've only noticed one glaring bug, and that's with the virtual desktop/work areas. Some dialog boxes and windows don't like being shuffled around, and after switching from one desktop and back, you may find the controls shifted over or blank. In a really bad case, the only thing to do is to kill the program.

Summary
A computer newbie or someone vain for pretty pictures and adornments might not like FileBar. It's plain and needs a bit of wading through dialog boxes to configure it and set up your applications. However, it will make your system go faster if you're currently using WPS, and just how much complexity do you need in a shell anyway? The features are supposed to be in the applications, after all.

Okay okay, so I still covet the Workplace Shell, it does look nicer and some of those object classes are rather nifty. But I've only got 8 megs, and in the end, speed counts.