Answers from e-Zine!

Welcome back to your source for answers to all your OS/2 questions! Each month we bring you tips, tricks, questions and answers from our readers and contributors. If you've got a question or tip you would like to share with us, send it in!

Q -- I recently installed and reinstalled Warp 4. Now, when I right-click an object and select "Create another" from the pop-up menu, I see multiple choices of "Folder", "New folder", etc., up to nine times for the same choice. Can you tell me what causes this and how to fix it?

A -- Actually, this is not necessarily a Warp 4 problem. We have seen it happen in Warp 3 (and Warp 4) numerous times.

Basically, some WPS classes are getting reregistered and adding identical types to your system. There are many apps that register their own classes and it would be hard to discern exactly which is causing the problem. The most thorough way to fix this is to reinstall OS/2 (which we've done numerous times).

An easier, and possibly just as effective, solution is to try running CHECKINI from WPTools v19 which is freeware and can be found on most file archives including the OS/2 Supersite. This utility 'cleans' your INI files and may possibly get rid of these extra classes.

Or you may try a class deregistering utility such as Dereg (which is also freeware and also available on most archive sites including the OS/2 Supersite). With it you will be able to see a (long) list of all classes registered on your system and hopefully there will be obvious duplicates so you can highlight them and deregister them. Use caution when deregistering classes however. Don't carelessly deregister classes you might still need!

TIP -- I have run OS/2 in our agency for five or more years since we migrated from DOS. OS/2 has been a reliable and stable platform, once I learned to handle the hardware (interrupts, IOaddresses, etc.). We run eight machines. One is a print/file/CD-ROM server with three printers attached. (Some say it can't be done but a SoftIO card from AXXON Computers, Windsor, Ontario makes it a snap). Another is a fax/accounting machine. One DOS Gateway runs Lanyon on Lantastic NetBios for connection via X.25 to WORLDSPAN, our Airline Reservation System, and prints our tickets. All our machines connect via direct modems to other travel suppliers.

Here is a set of instructions developed by myself that has installed Warp 4 from a CD-ROM over a Lantastic Network. The help desk at IBM doesn't seem to know how to do this: "Do it our way... you don't use LanServer?" etc.. And the cost of reaching Artisoft via long distance is high.

Q -- Do you have any idea how to reset the WarpCenter back to the way it was when I installed Warp 4? I really liked having the pull-down menu to start command prompts. One time, while I was switching resolutions, I rebooted and got a message that the WarpCenter data file was corrupt and was being rebuilt. It came back with the Command Prompts pull-down menu missing and I have not figured out any way to put them back.

A -- The WarpCenter is object oriented so all you need to do to add the Command Prompts folder (or any other object) to it is drag the folder (usually found in your OS/2 System folder) to a blank area on the WarpCenter, somewhere between the 'Select object tray options' icon (the little blue 'bar' made up of three squares) and the 'Assistance Center' icon.

A shadow of the object you drag to the blank area will appear on the WarpCenter (the original stays where it was). Now when you click this shadow of the Command Prompts folder on the WarpCenter, you will get the pull-down list of command prompts again.

If there is no empty room between these two icons you may need to make another 'tray'. To do this, right click on the WarpCenter, select 'Add tray' and enter a name in the dialog. You will now have a blank area to drag objects to.

TIP -- Here is a nifty trick for really making the trays in WarpCenter helpful. Rather than using the main Drives icon, open it as an icon view and drag a copy of each drive icon to the WarpCenter. Then you're only one click from opening any drive as a tree, or two clicks from opening them in details or icon views. I have trays for all my major categories like System, Business Apps, Internet, Multimedia, Graphics, Development, etc..

Q -- I am running Warp 4 on a 486/66 with 16MB and a Trident 8900c 1MB SVGA card at a resolution of 800x600x256. Whenever I use Netscape Navigator/2, it looks fine itself, but it changes my system palette to some strange colors. What's going on, and can it be fixed?

A -- The problem is a combination of your 256 colour resolution and OS/2 Warp's "palette manager". In the Netscape Navigator "Options" menu, choose "General Preferences..." and then select the "Colors" tab. There is a "Palette aware" checkbox that you should uncheck. From the Netscape Navigator on-line help:

Palette aware When using a display driver that only supports 256 colors check this if you wish to use the OS/2 palette manager. Using the OS/2 palette manager will result in more accurate colors but it may cause your desktop and other applications to change color when Navigator starts and when you change focus. Turning off palette manager will eliminate the color changes but will result in less accurate colors in images displayed by Navigator. By default the box is checked to ensure Navigator displays the image as accurately as possible. This option has no effect on systems with more than 256 colors or systems running the VGA driver.

That's it for this month. If you have a tip or question that you don't see covered here, don't forget to send it in!

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