A clean desktop where we see the WarpCenter and some Object Desktop's component. From left to right, the WarpCenter bar has an object browser which contains the objects of the desktop, a task browser, lock, find objects, shutdown, the system activity monitor which can display the disk, power and CPU usage, the tray browser to allow drag and drop of objects in the trays, the assistance center and a clock/timer. A 'browser' is like a pull down menu with icons. This bar will not appear in the next screen shots, since I like better Object Desktop's Control Center. Nonetheless, WarpCenter which is still very good comes with OS/2 Warp 4. It can also be located at the bottom of the screen too, and can be set to auto-hide until the mouse hits the edge of the screen.

Object Desktop is a commercial product which adds functionality to the OS/2 desktop, and most of it will be shown during the tour. The Control Center's has an information area (drive space, swap size, time, can also have CPU meter, etc.), and the four "bitmaps" up there are virtual desktops. The Tab LaunchPad (Object Desktop) and Control Center can be arranged, placed and duplicated at will. Object Desktop's Window List also includes a command history, for frequently executed commands.

Both MOD and MID (on the Desktop) are shadows of actual folders contained somewhere else on your system, but they act exactly like their big brother folder. They will not get lost if you move the original object and you can even locate the original object from the shadow!

OS/2 is fully Object Oriented via SOM and the base concept of Object Orientness is that everything is built on the same code. This means that all of the objects resemble the way the other objects function too. In OS/2 this also translates into drag and drop. For examples, you know how to change the icon for a program object, you now can do it for any other objects (ie.: folders, data files, templates, etc.). Just like in real life! If you have a spread sheet data file, it is a spread sheet data file since it is defined using the data file codes, it is not a binary junk that some program will decode: a toaster is a toaster, but a better toaster is still a toaster.

Table of Contents