Guru Fodder

By OS/2 Zone Magazine

WHY WARP'S SWAPPER IS LARGER THAN 2.X'S.
The reason that Warp's swapper is larger than its predecessor's is for the simple reason that it holds more. In the older versions of OS/2, the DLLs that formed the operating system were kept as much as possible in memory. This meant two things. Firstly that you needed more memory to run OS/2. And secondly, if they were swapped out to disk when needed, the system had to effectively stop whilst they were loaded back in.

As part of optimising the code in Warp so it would run in 4M, IBM's engineers designed the DLLs of Warp so that more of Warp's code could be swapped out to the disk. This means that less memory was needed to run the operating system. However it also means that your swapper is initially bigger than 2.1's.

The really amazing thing here though is that not only did the engineer's get more of Warp's internal code out of memory and onto disk, but they also managed to get it to go faster when loading and unloading.

GETTING RID OF LAUNCHPAD
I find it hard to believe, but a friend of mine doesn't like the Launchpad found in Warp. Well after looking around the place I found out that there are other people who also dislike Launchpad. (There are sick people out there. 8-)

Anyway just shredding the Launchpad object will not dispel it. What you have to do is go into your Config.sys and alter the SET AUTOSTART line. All you do is remove the word Launchpad from the above line and presto, no more launchpad after your next boot.

If after a couple of weeks you find that you miss Launchpad, then all you have to do is replace the word Launchpad in the SET AUTOSTART line of the Config.sys and it will be back again.

RAISING THE LAUNCH
If you have a messy desktop a lot of the time but you hate having the Launchpad Floating on Top. Then by simply double-clicking mouse button one on any blank space of the desktop you will raise launchpad to the top of the heap.

GETTING OLD PRINTERS TO RUN ON WARP (MAINLY POSTSCRIPTS)
Warp now uses a new system for accessing the printer port and your printer. Previously, OS/2 would (Like DOS) use an interrupt to access the printer port. But as many people have discovered, in considerate hardware manufacturers have taken to using the printer port interrupts (5 and 7) for other hardware such as sound cards. This has caused many a problem for PC owners.

Now Warp uses a Polling technique to access the printer port. This means that OS/2 regularly checks the port address for data rather than sitting around waiting for an interrupt. Thus freeing the interrupt for other things. However, some older printers won't run with a polling system on the printer port. If this is the case, a deeply hidden (in the command reference that is) fix is to add a parameter to the .sys driver in the config.sys (print0.1.sys) thus:

print01.sys /IRQ

Which activates the IRQ for the port and switches it back to an IRQ driven system.

YOU CAN NEVER GET ENOUGH STUFF IN AN OS/2 WINDOW.
After finding out about the Rmview command, I was stuck with the fact that although Rmview gave out a lot of information, I could not see it all in the OS/2 window.

Then a couple of days later I come across this `MODE' command. All you have to do is specify how many columns and rows you want and magically they appear. No more 24 rows that couldn't even display a well stacked directory.

The format of Mode is quire simple, just:

Mode***, ###

Where *** is the number of columns you want and ### is the number of rows you want. I found 80 columns and 100 rows works really well.


 * NOTE: This only seems to work with OS/2 windows and not OS/2 full screen.

TEMPLATE WARNING
I use Templates a lot for writing articles for Zone and there is one thing which catches me out time and time again.

Normally when you create a new file by dragging and dropping a template, you can work with it immediately. However with Warp templates, you have to be a bit careful. Generally the first thing I do after dragging a new document, is to find the name of it by using the ALT+Click combination on the name. Then I normally use the delete key to delete the default name and type in my own.

However, under Warp I kept having problems. It would drop out of the name editing if I pressed the delete key really fast, and delete the new file. If I was not watching what was going on I would lose a couple of the other files as well as the delete commands attached themselves to the next selected icon. What was going on?

It seems that Warp does something extra when a template is dropped to create a new file, and that what ever it is doing, takes place about a second or two after the drop action. It also looks as though whatever is done effectively re-selects the icon, thus dropping you out of edit mode on the name.

So a word of warning if you like to use this feature. (it is worth the hassle) Give the newly created file a couple of seconds before you start editing the name. Preferably four or five if you can. Then you will find that you won't have any problems whilst editing, and won't accidentally delete other files as I have done on occasion.

DO YOU USE ALL THOSE FONTS?
A easy way to save some of your time when OS/2 is booting, is to get rid of the fonts you're no using. We have all done it before, you get a CD or even 3.5 with a ton of fonts on it and you load them all up to see how they look. Then after a little bit of playing you have a desktop and every other folder configured with a different font.

Three weeks later you revert back to the standard system fonts because you've had enough of looking at gothic fonting for your work folders while you can't remember the artist in you ever liking old Greek for your game icons. These fonts have a tendency to pile up in long forgotten directories. They take up storage space as well as boot-up time because OS/2 reads them in during boot-up. By using font palette that comes with OS/2 you can delete the fonts that you don't use and get back some boot-up time as well as disk space.


 * NOTE:Derek at one stage had over 400 fonts on his system with storage space lost to the fonts, of about 15 Mb. He also had the OS/2 components of these. Later he tried converting them to TrueType to see how the would go in his Win-OS2 sessions. The storage requirement for them took up almost 60M of space and they were not as reliable in terms of WYSIWYG printing. UGGG!

ARCHIVES ARE GOOD, BUT DO YOU NEED TO MAKE A NEW ONE WITH EVERY BOOT-UP?
If you have activated "Create Archive on boot up" in you desktop settings notebook, you will create an Archive of your desktop and all the important file for OS/2. But this can work against you.

A friend of mine had Archive activated when a serious problem trashed and then crashed his system. The guy however walked away from the computer for a second and didn't get to enter the maintenance menu. This meant that OS/2 archived the system, more importantly archived a trashed system. Another re-boot and upon entering the maintenance menu my friend found only an archive of the trashed system and not a working system like he had hoped.

To get past this problem and to save some boot-up time try using the create archive option about once a week or when ever you find the system in a large way. To do this just activate the "Create Archive on boot up" in the desktop settings notebook and then reboot. After the reboot just deactivate the setting again.

EVER HAVE THE PROBLEM OF DELETING FILES THAT YOU REALLY WANT?
NO you say? Then don't read on.

Still with me ay? In your config.sys there is a line which is by default commented our with a 'REM' statement which you might want to activate.

This line sets the DELDIR environment for your system which in turn controls the undelete options for OS/2. If the command is activated, when you delete a file, the file is moved to a safe part of the hard drive in case you decide to undelete the file later. This can slow a delete operation a little because OS/2 has to move the file around each time you delete a file, but if it saves your butt, who cares ?

Also note that there is a DELDIR line commented out in the autoexec.bat for your DOS sessions and if you want to backup deleted files under DOS, you will need to un-rem this line as well.

THE OPTIONS YOU GET WITH WARP'S MAINTENANCE SCREEN
One of the good things about OS/2 Warp is the ability to recover desktops easily. With Warp if you are having problems with your playing around with the config.sys or you just tried to get the video card to run 2000*2000 with 2^80 colors, you have a way out. After you have turned off the system using the power button and reboot press (Alt+F1) when you see the little white rectangle beside the writing "OS/2" during bootup. The key combination at this stage will take you into the maintenance screen where you have a number of options to choose from.