L.A. Technical Architect Group - 04-08

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Exciting News

This was some of the more exciting news to be found on the OS/2 BBS:

APRIL 21, 1993 IBM US MARKET ANALYSIS

INFORMATION WEEK 04/19/93 P. 62, 64

"Information Week has learned that the Social Security Administration will sign a deal for 70,000 copies of OS/2, one of the largest single purchases of an operating system ever and an endorsement that seems certain to endow the32-bit desktop system with badly needed market cachet.

The deal couldn't come at a better time for IBM, which next month plans to make available OS/2 Version 2.1.

Evaluators of the latest test version of OS/2 2.1 say that it delivers on promises IBM made last December: a 32-bit graphics engine, the ability to easily run Windows 3.1 applications, and faster performance.

'We've found it stable and a lot faster than 2.0,' observes George Oliver, IS chief at Royal Bank of Canada in Toronto. 'IBM is listening to its customers,' adds Joel Shulman, automation specialist with Farmers Insurance Cos. in Los Angeles.

IBM needs shots in the arm such as a robust upgrade and the Social Security contract to build some momentum for its upcoming showdown with NT."

More Exciting News

More from the OS/2 BBS:

Subject: OS/2 Wins Infoworld Product of the Year Awards

IBM's OS/2 2.0 OPERATING SYSTEM CHALKS UP ITS 12TH AND 13TH INDUSTRY AWARDS

SOMERS, N. Y., April 26, 1993...OS/2* 2.0, the advanced operating system for personal computers, has been honored as "Product of the Year" in two categories by the readers of InfoWorld, a leading computer industry trade journal, IBM's Personal Software Products division announced today.

These two awards bring to 13 the number of industry citations that OS/2 2.0, which was introduced in March 1992, has won since last December.

In balloting conducted among the magazine's readers in March, IBM's OS/2 was named "Software Product of the Year" and overall "Product of the Year," both for 1992.

InfoWorld's awards recognize "superior achievement" in personal computer hardware, software and networking products, according to the magazine. Although the editors nominate the products in each category, the readers select the winners. The overall "Product of the Year" award is based solely on write-in votes from the readers.

"InfoWorld's readers represent an important audience for us and their grass roots support is an important measure of the industry," says John Patrick, vice president of sales and marketing for Personal Software Products. "As evidenced by these awards, OS/2 2.0 continues to achieve significant market momentum as the leading 32-bit operating system for today's high-performance personal computers."

The 11 awards won previously by OS/2 2.0 are:

  • PC Magazine - Dec. 22, 1992, "Technical Excellence" award winner for "Operating Systems and Software Standards"
  • InformationWeek - Dec. 22, 1992, "1992 Top Products -- the 10 Most Likely to Succeed"
  • PC Week - Dec. 28, 1992, PC Week Labs "Top Products of '92"
  • PC World - Dec. 1992, "PC Industry Achievement Award" for "Most Promising Newcomer, Software"
  • PC/Computing - Dec. 1992, "Most Valuable Product" (MVP) award for "Operating System Environment"
  • Corporate Computing - Jan. 1993, "Best Buy for 1993"
  • DATAMATION - Feb. 15, 1993, "Product of the Year" in the PC Software category
  • PC Magazine (Italy) - Feb. 3, 1993, "PC Technology Award"
  • Softwarove Noviny (Czechia) - Feb. 1933, "Product of the Year 1992"
  • Computer Language - Feb. 23, 1993, "Jolt Cola Award for Product Excellence" 1992
  • PC Magazine (Spain) - March 1993, "Product of the Year"
  • OS/2 protects customers' investments in existing software by enabling them to run tens of thousands of applications originally developed for DOS and Windows** as well as new applications designed specifically to take advantage of the advanced technology offered by OS/2.
* Indicates trademark or registered trademark of International Business Machines Corp.
** Indicates trademark or register

What is all about

Alan DuBoff started the Technical Architect Group (TAG) with the help of IBM. His objective is to provide an informative, technical forum to further OS/2 programming. The main emphasis of this group is aimed at educating and understanding the technical areas of OS/2.

TAG meetings are oriented toward developers. The focus tends to be on programming issues and tools. The questions addressed are: How can I get things done better and more efficiently than ever before?

Where is it and how do I get in?

The TAG meetings are held the second Thursday of each month at 6:30pm at IBM's facilities in Santa Monica. The address is:

       International Business Machines
       Building C, 3rd Floor
       2525 Colorado Ave.
       Santa Monica, CA  90406-4066

One does not need to join a group or go through any hassles to join. All you have to do is show up! The entrance, by the way, is in near the entrance to "Cutter's" restaurant. Go to the glass doors and wait to be let in (we have to be escorted upstairs).

To get there:

Exit to Cloverfield from I-10 westbound in Santa Monica (west of I-405). Turn right at the end of the exit ramp and travel north. Bear left to stay on Cloverfield. At the first light past Olympic on Cloverfield is Colorado. You can park for free in the DMV lot on the northwest corner. Walk one block east on Colorado. You can also park at the IBM building, but you either pay for parking or pay for a drink at Cutter's to get validation.

What Happened?

1.Rick Fishman spoke about notebook controls.

Notebook Controls

Rick Fishman (of Code Blazers, Inc.) spoke about programming notebook controls. Rick gave several hours of his time to explain about notebook controls and how they figure into OS/2. The presentation was given using Lotus Freelance for OS/2 and covered several areas. If you missed the meeting, you missed out on a great deal of information, including sample code (if you had a diskette). The major topics included:

  • Terminology
  • Uses
  • Coding
  • Coding Tips

Terminology

Page
A notebook page is one of the many screens that is available in a notebook control. The page is analogous to a page in a spiral binder.
Tabs
Major tabs are the titles that the user can click on (usually to the right of the page) which then turn the page. There are also Minor tabs which provide more information, but don't turn the notebook page.
Page Buttons
These can be found in the bottom right of pages that have Minor tabs. The buttons allow the user to do the equivalent of hit the next minor tab.
Status Line
A status line can be placed at the bottom of a notebook page to give the user more information.
Tab Scroll Buttons
When there are more major tabs than the system is able to display, it resorts to using Tab Scroll Buttons to indicate that there are more tabs. These appear as pushbuttons with arrows.

Uses

There are several situations where notebooks are very appropriate:

  • Configuration settings, with which we're all very familiar.
  • Replacement for MDI.
  • Elimination of cascaded dialog boxes.
  • On-line manuals.

Coding

Alas, Rick's samples will not be entered here, however, I'll go over some of the highlights and key points from his presentation.

  • A notebook is always a client of another frame or dialog.
    • Notebook tabs must be sized by the programmer because their default size is 1.
    • Trying to align tab text to the left (BKS_TABTEXTLEFT) is futile. They are aligned in the center anyway!
  • Here are the basic steps to creating a notebook control (basically copied from on of Rick's slides):
    • Create window or dialog box to contain the notebook.
    • Select styles for the notebook.
    • Create the notebook.
    • Set the notebook colors.
    • Set the dimensions of the subcontrols.
    • Insert blank pages.
    • Insert page.
    • Set status line text.
    • Set tab text.
  • Creating a notebook's frame window:
    • A notebook is scaled to the monitor (like a dialog box). You can set the notebook coordinates to dialog units, so that dialogs (which are often in notebooks) are scaled the same way.
    • Notebooks automatically provide some extra space to each side (beyond the size of the notebook page).

Coding Tips

Rick gave plenty of tips (above and beyond all the coding info). Let's get a quick overview:

  • Alt-Up arrow gets you from a notebook page to the notebook page and Alt-down gets you back.
  • Pages don't need to have tabs. If they don't, you should indicate "Page x of y"
  • Bitmaps can easily be used in place of the text in tabs. The bitmaps will be stretched however, unless the are owner-draw.
  • ALWAYS set the dialog box's owner to be the notebook. You're in for trouble otherwise.
  • To get rid of wasted space (outside of the notebook pages), look into the BKM_SETDIMENSIONS message.

Other Information

  • The Los Angeles OS/2 User Group holds meetings in Woodland Hills on the third Thursday of each month. Meetings are at 6:30 at the IBM building. For more information, contact Paul Duncanson at (805)584-8732. Note that this group is more user-oriented.
IBM
21041 Burbank Blvd.
Woodland Hills, CA

This is between De Soto and Canoga Ave.

  • You Bet Your ASCII (818-989-0310) is free programmer-oriented BBS that provides Uni-Net conferencing. It's worth checking out, especially since the price can't be beat!

About This News Letter

This was created using HyperWrite (from the March PDK). There are definitely some bugs, but once identified, you can avoid them.

If there's something you'd like to see different, let me know:

   Preston Rohner 
   (818) 997-0808 ext. 107 
   or leave a message on You Bet Your ASCII.

A word of apology: I had been in the process of making "links" and an index for this document, but this program (being in beta) doesn't seem to generate the links appropriately. So rather than mislead you, I removed the would-be features.