# Object Desktop Professional

Version 1.5

### WHITE PAPER

Object Desktop Professional is Stardock's answer to the most common corporate requirements. Most companies request the need for security, document management, training assistance, system backup, and environment standardization across the company. Object Desktop Professional provides all this and more.

Target User

Primarily corporate users will be interested in the power of Object Desktop Professional. However, power users who demand nothing but the best environment to work with will also want Object Desktop Professional.

Object Desktop Vs Object Desktop Professional

Object Desktop is a desktop environment aimed for all users of OS/2 2.11 or later. Many reviews of Object Desktop have concluded that "If you use OS/2, you should get Object Desktop."

Object Desktop Professional is not aimed at all users.However, corporate environments do require the features offered here and no other desktop enhancement product on OS/2 or any other platform even approaches the feature set of Object Desktop Professional.

Object Security

Stardock addresses two key security issues most corporate users have:

1) Password protection to alter desktops, including moving, arranging or otherwise changing desktop objects.

2) Password protection to access folders and their contained objects.

Object Security includes features to address these requirements and more. First, you can protect the contents of a folder (or desktop) so no user can re-arrange objects, move them to new folders, or otherwise alter them in any way. The customizability of OS/2 is powerful, but if a company needs to manage a large number of systems, Object Security ensures that a standard desktop can be maintained. Secondly, you can password protect critical objects or folders. For example, say an IS manager wants to keep users out of the "administration" folder. To do this, the IS manager can simply go to the "Security" page of the settings notebook, type in a password, and lock the folder. The user knows that that folder is protected because a small key is superimposed onto the folder's icon. Since a system may be setup for use by a group of people, individual program objects can be password protected as well. This is useful in ensuring that sensitive data and programs (such as a Human Resources program) should only be accessible to those users with proper access.

Object Advisors

Corporations spend enormous amount of money on training and retraining their workers. The Object Advisor feature is intended to reduce these costsly expenses.

Since OS/2 is a terrific platform for developing custom applications and systems, many corporations setup customized desktops, objects and programs to manage their information resources. However, when a new user is exposed to these custom applications, a significant amount of training is needed for the user to learn a new application.

Object Advisors is a revolutionary component of Object Desktop Professional. It is unique in leveraging the power of OS/2's object oriented structure, and makes use of new technologies such as Web authoring and corporate Intranets. Here's how it works: when a user is new to a system, a "training mode" is activated. Once in training mode, when the mouse cursor is over a given object, a window appears and explains what the object does. The help information itself can contain rich text, multimedia data, links to other pages, or links to corporate intranet resources for more help.

The information displayed in Object Advisor's help windows is intended to be authored by corporations who wish to reduce training costs and leverage low-cost computer based training. Object Advisor data is authored in industry standard Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). Because of HTML's wide adoptance and growing toolset, professional, easy-to-use on-line help can be created for custom objects on a organization's desktop. The advisor help data itself can either be stored in a central place on an organizations WAN, or stored local to a particular machine. Object Advisors can also display in standard text mode if desired.

To illustrate the power of Object Advisors, consider a custom application labeled "TIL" that appears on desktops in a workgroup. To a new user, an icon in a folder labeled "TIL" may mean very little. But by entering training mode and placing the mouse pointer over the object, the new user is presented with a window and mentions that "The TIL application is called 'Truth in Lending' which allows us to verify that the information given to us by a customer is accurate. If it is not, this application will allow us to write a letter through choosing certain paragraphs from a listbox and then send that letter to a central printing facility where it is mailed to the customer." A simple explanation such as this created by the IS manager can save thousands of dollars in training costs over time.

Since the Object Advisor is internet and intranet aware, linking desktop help to a central repository of information is effortless. What's more, with new internet capabilities such as Java making their way into corporations, help and advising can be "live" content, with custom application code available in the advisor itself!

The power of Object Advisors will likely go well beyond what we present here as its flexibility gives rise to countless applicable uses.

Object Backup

It is generally agreed that backing up a system is absolutely critical. Yet, many corporations and end users simply don't. Why? Stardock identified three major reasons why end users do not perform timely backups.

1) It is inconvenient

2) Most backup packages are hard to use

3) Most backup packages do not allow you to continue working with your system with adequate performance.

Object Backup addresses these issues and more. First of all, Object Backup comes with Object Schedule. Simply drag and drop objects into a schedule folder, set a time and a frequency for execution of the operation, and it will automatically back up your system at the given time or interval. Object Backup is also extremely easy to use. Its interface has been designed so that even novice users can quickly and easily perform backups. In addition, when a backup is occurring, system performance degrades minimally, allowing the user to continue working on the system. In fact, when backing up to network devices, the user may notice little effects of the backup.

Object Backup supports a wide variety of devices: floppy backup to network device backup (i.e. network hard drives, tape drives, zip drives, etc.) to local tape backup (via ATAPI/IDE, the emerging standard for tape backup which few backup packages even support yet).

Object Viewing

Most corporations work with many different types of files. In recent years, the competitive tendencies of mainstream application companies have made it increasingly difficult to work with files from competing applications. As a result, many companies have been forced to "standardize" on a single set of applications which may not always be the best choice for a particular department. "Standardizing" does nothing to help when working with other companies who may have deployed on a different set of applications.

Object Viewing provides filters for hundreds of file formats - from the most common word processors to the most obscure database packages. In most cases, when an application is installed, the application installs megabytes of file "filters." The quality of these filters are usually not what the user would expect. In a time when features such as fonts, printers, etc. are built into the operating system, it seems ironic that filters are still delivered on a per application basis.

But filtering is only part of the story, Object Viewing filters and then displays the file when a file is opened. If the user does not have the associated application installed, the file will be displayed in a view window. From this view window, users can print the file (either from the viewer or by dragging and dropping the file to a printer) or interact with the file by copying text, graphics, cells, etc. from the file and pasting it in the application they want to use it in.

For example, imagine putting together a report in which you receive a spread sheet in Excel95 format. You are putting the report together with Ami Pro for OS/2 (or Describe or Word 6.0). Odds are, you'd be out of luck. With Object Viewing, you double click on the Excel95 file and the viewer will display the file. You can copy the cells you want to have in your report and paste them in your target application. Unlike most filters, the pasted object is not simply a bitmap of what you copied, it remains in its native cell like format so that you can edit the data.

A feature that is fairly unique in terms of filtering is the HTML filter, which saves enough time to pay for the entire product. Users can copy their website to disk, double click on it, and copy the contents of the view to a target application. The web page's formatting is preserved in the target application. (In fact, this white paper was originally a web document that was copied and pasted into Microsoft Word).

Object Viewer is certainly a compelling feature of Object Desktop Professional. It enables corporations and end users to choose applications that work best for them, and also work with files created by others even when the original applications are not available. Accessing a document repository on a corporate LAN is also dramatically simpler using Object Desktop Professional.

Note. The features below are also in Object Desktop 1.5.

Object Package

Object Package is a feature that facilitates the maintenance and central administration of corporate desktops. With Object Package, the contents of an entire desktop or portions of it are combined into a single file. This single file contains all of the object information of the original desktop objects, including program objects, shadows, printers, and more. All Workplace Shell properties are contained and are subsequently restored on demand. Everything needed to recreate a desktop, folder or program, is packaged and can be copied from machine to machine, or stored on file servers for rapid distribution of desktop changes.

The strength of Object Package lies in its unique features and unique design. The ability to manage Workplace Shell desktops as a single distributed object is a boon to every OS/2 user. With Object Package, it is easy to email a folder or desktop to a coworker, or to place standard desktop packages in a central directory on a corporate LAN.

Unique Features

Complete Storage

Object Packages store completely the properties of Workplace Shell objects. As an example, Folders can be customized with bitmapped backgrounds, colors, fonts, and more. Storing such a folder in an Object Package ensures that it will be re-creatable later, on the same system or any other.

The storage of data and customized icons for programs and folders is highly optimized internally to the package. For example, the data itself is stored in compressed form to save disk space and to reduce network traffic when transferring a package between machines.

User Interface

Working with objects instead of programs is inherent in the power of the OS/2 Desktop. The design for Object Package leverages the power of objects in the user interface, thereby eliminating time-consuming configuration steps. To create a snapshot of the desktop, for example, a user simply drags a copy of the Object Package template to a folder or the desktop, and chooses "Store Desktop." Alternately, objects can be simply dropped on the package for easy storage. There is no separate configuration step for storage of data files or icons, or paths for INI files or REXX scripts, since everything can be managed through the Object Package itself.

Complete Control and Editing Capabilities

Object Package is the only Workplace Shell backup/restore utility that allows you to interact with the package as an object. When a package is opened in its internal editor, a graphical tree-view inspector is displayed allowing elements of the package to be easily modified for custom desktop generation.

Conversion to REXX or INI.RC formats

Object Packages can be seamlessly be converted from to REXX or INI files through a simple context menu selection. The package can be used to generate a REXX script that describes the contained objects, and allows for creation of desktop objects in custom LAN logons and other programs. Similarly, a package can generate an INI.RC file which allows an IS manager to recreate desktops via OS/2's MAKEINI utility.

Workplace Shell Management

The Workplace Shell forms a complex web of registered "classes" that interact with each other, and must be installed properly to reproduce a folder or desktop. Object Packages store a snapshot of this information in an internal object database. When an Object Package restored, it reproduces the configuration necessary to ensure an object reproduction is properly constructed.

An Object Database

Object Packages are really object databases, complete with internal transaction and rollback control. This ensures that the data contained inside is protected and safe.

OS/2 Version Independence

Most companies with a large investment in an existing version of an operating system are slow to move to newer, better versions of the OS because of the difficulty in moving their environment to the new version. Object Package uses IBM's System Object Model technology to perform its functions, which ensures stability and availability between operating system versions. Packages containing Workplace Shell objects and/or desktops can easily be transferred to systems running OS/2 2.11, OS/2 Warp and the future OS/2 Warp v4 (code-named "Merlin").

Performance

Object Package works in the background and has excellent performance. A typical desktop can be backed up in just a couple minutes. Other products that attempt to backup Workplace Shell desktops can take more than an order of magnitude more time and lack Object Package's unique features.

Package Folder

Another feature that works in conjunction with Object Packages is a Package Folder. A Package Folder is created and assigned an associated package file, which can reside on the local system or remotely on a network resource. Whenever the package file changes, the Package Folder updates its content. This feature enables the maintenance of a set of desktop folders from a central place-the package itself.

The Technology

Object Package was developed to adapt to future changes in OS/2's Workplace Shell, using IBM's System Object Model (SOM) technology. Because of the care taken to develop this feature, Stardock Systems is confident that maintaining desktops and folders will take a giant leap forward today, and will be easily adaptable between OS/2 revisions.

Whether trying to distribute objects or standardizing desktops, Object Package makes Object Desktop a very compelling product.

Object Inspector

OS/2's object model is very flexible and powerful. However, obtaining information on objects residing on the desktop can sometimes be difficult. With the Object Inspector, a window will display (and save) information on the object you have your mouse over. Network administrators who have struggled to write REXX scripts to administer their desktops will appreciate the Object Inspectors as each object's setup data is clearly displayed.

Control Center

The Control Center provides a convenient way to monitor system resources, access programs and data, and work with virtual desktops. It can super-charge the productivity of average to advanced OS/2 users while maintaining an easy to use interface.

System Resource Monitors

The Control Center provides graphical monitors for the following system resources:

· CPU utilization

· Free Memory

· Swap file size

· Free disk space

· Laptop battery state

Virtual Desktops

The Virtual Desktop manager enables you to run programs in full screen mode or in a maximized state without cluttering your screen with overlapping windows. Using simple drag and drop actions, a user can launch programs and move programs between virtual desktops.

In the Control Center, miniature desktop sections, complete with open windows, icons, and titles, represent the virtual desktops. To switch to a different virtual desktop, a user simply clicks a desktop section in the Control Center.

Browser Objects

To launch views of objects and launch programs from the Control Center, create button objects in the browser section to "shadow" objects on your OS/2 desktop. By default, the Control Center is installed with browser objects for the OS/2 desktop itself, the OS/2 System folder, and some other useful folders.

When a browser object is clicked that refers to an OS/2 folder, the contents of the folder are displayed on a menu. When other types of browser objects are clicked, the default view of the referred object is displayed.

Enhanced Folder

Object Desktop inherits and then replaces from the base folder class. By doing this, it can provide all the features standard in the OS/2 folder, any existing desktop extenders, and then add Object Desktop features.

Features include:

HyperCache

OS/2's first third party cache for the desktop allows you to cache folders that you use often. Once cached, they open up instantly after bootup making navigating your system a fast and painless task.

HyperDrives

When you open a folder, OS/2 looks at each file, searches for its Extended Attribute (EA) for icon info, association info, detail info, etc. This takes time. HyperDrives can make OS/2 stop searching for the file info and instead have it take its best guess. This gives immediate performance benefits.

Browse Mode

Since the dawn of the Graphical User Interface (GUI), users have complained that their screens get cluttered with too many open windows. Browse Mode eliminates this problem by having the sub-folders window reuse the existing window and adding a return button to the title bar.

Enhanced Visuals

The Enhanced folder can also display icons and text as 3D raised or sunken objects which can make looking at icons and their titles a much more pleasant experience.

Object Navigator

OS/2 does not come with a true file manager. File managers provided by third parties are not true object-oriented file managers that take advantage of OS/2's Workplace Shell. Object Navigator integrates into the Workplace Shell to behave as if it is part of the base operating system.

Object Navigator can see shadows, program objects, long file names on FAT partitions, and works with OS/2's associations.

While the Object Navigator is much faster than the default OS/2 Drive Objects, it still provides all of the features of the Drive objects and then some. It combines the best features of a powerful file manager with the power of the Workplace Shell to provide a unique way of managing objects.

Tab LaunchPad

The basic purpose of an environment (whether program manager for Windows, Explorer for Windows95, or The Workplace Shell on OS/2) is to make it easy to access programs and data.

Program Manager on Windows 3.1 makes you wander through "program groups" which are often confusing to work with.

The Windows95 explorer is an improvement, but it expects a user to work with your programs via fly-out menus. Object Desktop's Control Center provides this feature as well, but also enables invoking context menus of objects and even remove objects from the menu via drag and drop (in Windows95, you have to use a utility to remove programs from the Start button).

The Workplace shell provides the LaunchPad (in OS/2 Warp) and soon the "Warp Center" (in OS/2 Warp V4 a.k.a. "Merlin" ). The LaunchPad was a good attempt to improve accessibility of programs and folders, but its design causes users to have to guess what is in each "drawer", and accessing LaunchPad drawers is itself cumbersome and frustrating. The LaunchPad also does not address the issue of how to manage programs already running. The Warp Center, a further improvement over the LaunchPad, gives users the fly-out menus present on the Windows95 start button and betters it by providing "Trays" which make organizing your programs a relatively painless task. Moreover, it addresses the LaunchPad's weakness with running programs by providing a pop-up list of running programs. But again, all of these features are available via Object Desktop's Control Center and the Control Center offers significantly more features than any of the above.

The bottom line is, users want to quickly and easily access their programs-period. This is where the Tab LaunchPad comes into play. Displaying programs and objects in a miniature notebook, users tab through program categories to access programs and data-which is the fastest way yet devised. The Tab LaunchPad requires no training (unlike the above methods), and adding and removing programs is as simple as drag and drop. In addition, running programs are displayed on a special "Tasks" Tab.

Example: You could set up your Tab LaunchPad to have an Apps tab, a Network Tab, and a Tasks Tab. By clicking on a tab, you can select between running programs, applications, and the corporate network quickly and easily.

Object Archives

Most computer users are familiar with ZIP, UNZIP (or PKUNZIP), LHARC, ZOO, etc. types of file compression. They are reliable, efficient, and industry standard.

Unfortunately, working with them can be complicated. Explaining to a user that they need to type "pkunzip -d -r file.zip g:\utility\files" can be frustrating. For this reason, only seasoned computer users generally use compression programs. This is unfortunate because the benefits of compressing files are obvious: reducing disk space usage and facilitating interchange of data.

In the past, programs have been made that allow you to work with these file formats. Again, the same problem arises, these programs have to be learned to be used safely and effectively and in the end, only seasoned computer users end up using them.

Object Archives changes all this and makes working with compressed archives so easy that it makes a good case of standardizing on compressed files throughout a company. Moreover, Object Archives is so powerful that it even lets you work with files from within an archive. That is, you can view, edit and save data right from within an archive. You can even run some programs from within an archive.

Essentially, Object Archives make your compressed archives look, feel, and largely behave like standard folders. A novice user may not even realize they are working with a ZIP file.

Since Object Desktop's original release, we have discovered that many people use Object Archives instead of a third party compression product (i.e. Stacker, DCF/2, etc.). ZIP files, for example, are extremely reliable and cross-platform. For example, Stardock uses Object Archives to store all of its documents in a single zip file. These files can be edited and saved directly from the archive, with updates occurring automatically and seamlessly.

Keyboard LaunchPad

As mentioned above, accessing programs and data are the basic purpose of an operating environment. Since the dawn of the GUI (Graphical User Interface) era, users who are comfortable working with the keyboard have increasingly been forced to work with the mouse even in cases where the keyboard would make more sense.

Some would argue that accessing programs from keyboard hot-keys makes a lot more sense than looking through folders or using screen real-estate with file launchers and browsers (i.e. like Explorer, Program Manger, LaunchPad, etc.).

The Keyboard LaunchPad allows users to associate a keyboard combination with a program object on the OS/2 desktop. It doesn't stop there, though. Users can also configure keyboard combinations for data files and folders as well. Configuring programs and folders for the Keyboard LaunchPad is as easy as drag and drop and typing the keyboard combination desired. No longer will touch typists be bound to the mouse-they can effectively leverage their hard-earned skills to navigating and using the OS/2 Desktop.

Example: Associate all of your Internet programs with Ctrl-Alt-I, and when this combination is typed, those programs will be launched.

Enhanced Task List

The Enhanced Task List makes managing your running programs easier than ever. Moreover, it allows you to filter out programs you don't want in the list and is much more pleasant to work with.

Global Enhancements

Object Desktop and Object Desktop Professional are environments. They integrate deeply into the operating system and change the way OS/2 looks and feels.

Global Enhancements include:

Smart Close a button that makes exiting programs easy. Simply click on the "X" button and the application or window is closed.

Text View makes the OS/2 system editor obsolete. Not only is it much faster to load, it has more features, is easier to use, and more pleasant to work with.

Enhanced "Look and Feel"

Object Desktop and Object Desktop Professional enhance the look and feel of the OS/2 desktop. The minimize and maximize buttons are modernized to fit the more "upscale" look of other operating systems.

A system with OS/2 and upgraded with Object Desktop has enhanced min/max buttons and a closed button.

Global Settings

Users can change the defaults for all folders with Object Desktop. Users can make all desktop folders look differently, maintain sorted order for all folders, specify details view as the default view instead of icon view, and much more.

Object Desktop can make all of your folders default to one that you prefer.

Conclusions

The developers of Object Desktop Professional are experienced and devoted users of the OS/2 Workplace Shell. They saw a need for enhancements that increase productivity and decrease the amount of time spent moving around the desktop in search of the right folder, program, or data file.

Like many OS/2 users, they grew tired of sifting through many open windows in search of a particular one. So they developed Virtual Desktops, which enable you to subdivide running tasks into different desktops. The result is minimized desktop clutter and an efficient way to switch between tasks. They also saw a need for viewing containers and their contents simultaneously. The Object Navigator, which replaces the OS/2 Drives object, displays a split pane showing a Tree and Contents pane. You can select objects from any drive to be used as "root" folders on the Tree pane. These features just scratch the surface of Object Desktop.

Object Desktop Professional organizes information for easy retrieval and enables accessing objects using a minimal number of keystrokes and mouse clicks. Working with documents and sharing files with other users is much easier when you use Object Desktop Professional. Additionally, Object Desktop Professional provides powerful security features, document management, system backup, computer based training, and a lot more.

Every OS/2 user should have Object Desktop or Object Desktop Professional on their system. It upgrades OS/2 to a higher level of power, ease of use, and performance.

You can reach Stardock Systems by one of the following methods:

Phone:

313-453-0328

Fax:

313-453-1480

Electronic mail:

info@stardock.com

Web:

http://www.stardock.com

CompuServe:

GO STARDOCK

If you are a corporate user interested in obtaining site licensing, ask your local VAR to contact us or contact Stardock and we can transfer you to our executive sales team.