OS/2 e-Zine! - Review: Mr. File PM v5.2

Review: Mr. File PM v5.2

- by Chris Williams

One of the best benefits of working for IBM long ago was that I had access to all those neat little software toys and utilities, written by IBM employees to help make life so much easier. Today, many of those toys are available to anyone, free of charge, through the IBM Employee Written Software program. One of the utilities that has come to the public this way is Mr. File PM v5.2. While other file managers may have quite a bit more function, Mr. File is probably one of the better, basic, OS/2 based file managers you can get at any price. Having it available for free provides all the more reason to check it out.

Installing

Installing Mr. File consists of unpacking the .ZIP file to an appropriate directory and creating (if you like) a program object for the main executable. The first time you start Mr. File, it asks you to confirm where you want it to place its .INI file, the default being \OS2 on your boot drive. Most of OS/2's .INI files exist down this branch of the directory tree, and I have yet to find a good reason to put this file anywhere else, but I suppose you could if it bothers you.

Features

So, what do you get for the price of downloading and unpacking a 250K .ZIP file? A nice, quick, convenient, no frills file manager that is, at least on the surface, pretty intuitive to use. It comes with a nice list of basic features to help you navigate OS/2 file systems, including configurable pull-down menus and a toolbar, and the ability to run any OS/2 command as a separate process from the main program window. You are presented with one big file list and a list of available drives by default, but this can be changed to the common two window display (gif 11.5k) of a directory tree and file list. A limited form of text and details modes are the only choices for displaying directory contents. There are no status lines detailing swap file size, number and size of selected files or free memory to be found. Some of this information can be accessed by menu option or toolbar icon though.

Once you learn the functions associated with the toolbar icons, Mr. file becomes much more usable. Unfortunately, you must sift through the on-line help (which is adequate, but not meticulous) or look at the settings notebook, where you can select which icons appear on the toolbar, and memorize what each one does. There is no icon bubble help, or any other indication of their function except roughly drawn pictures which are often hard to interpret. Without the toolbar, you are left to the pull-down menus to guide your way. Clarifying what each toolbar icon does up front would speed up the learning process.

Mr. File also can be configured to execute specific commands for certain types of files. However, since the author has opted to maintain backward compatibility with OS/2 1.X, the file type is determined by its specific file name or extension as opposed to a Workplace Shell (WPS) object. This backward compatibility also means that, beyond observing basic drag and drop protocol, there is no extensive WPS integration of any kind with Mr. File. Most WPS features from other applications like Object Desktop do flow through Mr. File and enhance some of its function, though.

Should You Bother?

Overall, Mr. File PM is great for keeping track of files on different drives, quickly moving things around, or just to have a quick and dirty file manager available when you need one. It's not going to win any contests for functionality and there are some obvious places where it could stand some improvement. It does get the job done quickly and easily, though. If all you need to do is no frills management of the files on your hard drive, look no further and spend no more.

Mr. File PM v5.2
Author: Mike Kaczmarski
Registration: Free--IBM Employee Written Software

Chris Williams has been actively involved with OS/2 systems for the past six years. A former IBM employee, OS/2 Ambassador, and long time member of Team OS/2, he is currently a PC and network specialist for Perot Systems Corporation.

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