Deskset - problems/bugs/grips/thoughts

[Chuck Musciano]

I have been using a pre-FCS version of DeskSet for several weeks now, and
confess that I really, really like it.  More than I ever thought I would.

To address your concerns:

> File manager : print filter - tries to print 3 times each time adding the
>                filter path to the invocation

Haven't seen this.  I just printed with the File Manager, and it worked
fine.

>              : when specifying an alternate editor to textedit you have to 
>                specify shelltool first as it shelltool vi.  If you only 
>                specify vi it will start a vi process that will run silently
>                in the background.  We are also getting inconsistent setups 
>                regarding number of rows in the shelltool

This isn't a bug.  It's just that the File Manager can't know if your
editor is windowed or not.  Thus, you must run non-windowed tools in an
explicit shelltool.  We invoke emacs this way, no problem.  I agree that
this is not obvious, and should be better documented.

>	       : it seems impossible to bind shell's to the shell icon
>	         and/or I'm having a heck of a time trying to get it to bind
>	         to certain types of files via their magic numbers (ie 68020).

All the bindings I tried worked.  You can only use 32x32 icons for
binding, which may be a problem.  I was able to bind all sorts of things.
I even wrote a little tool which puts a Frame Maker logo on my Frame
documents, and opens them in Frame Maker when I double click!

> Printtool    : core dumps

This is a bug.  To fix it, you must remove all entries from your printcap
which don't exist.  Most everyone has a few entries, like "ucbarpa" and
"versatec" in their printcap has a leftover from the original BSD printcap
file.  This kills printtool.  Remove everything but the valid entries and
printtool will work.

> Mailtool     : The you have new unread mail icon goes back to the no mail 
>                icon after 30 seconds

I've never had this happen.

> Perfmeter    : It is almost impossible to quit the perfmeter without 
>  	         iconifying first

Why?  Just make sure you click on the frame edge with the right mouse
button, and not in the window itself.  The frame edge will get you the
window menu, and you can select "Quit".

> Clock        : Comes up in icon mode regardless of -Wi option supplied or not

This does seem to be the case.  A bug.  Although I can understand why they
might do this, since the naive user can just type "clock" and a clock
appears on the screen.

> Cmdtool      : still doesn't allow file completion

Mine does.  Which shell are you running?  We run a locally hacked version
of csh, and it does completion, no problem.

> Calctool     : Function keys are on same button as numbers, as if they need
> 		 a shift key to activate them, but this is misleading.  Why
>		 aren't the numbers grouped together?  As a matter of fact
>		 the number buttons are smaller than the function buttons.
>		 If they layout is kept, why isn't it made so you have to
>		 hit a shift key to enable the functions that are on the
>		 same key as a number?

Calctool is just terrible.  SUpposedly, the interface will be fixed in the
next version.  I recommend *my* calctool, available from the Sun-spots
archive :-) [[Ed's Note: /sun-source/calctool.shar.{1,2} -bdg]]

In general, I think DeskSet is fabulous.  I love the OPEN LOOK interface.
(Keep in mind that I hated it when it was announced in 1988).  Sun has
really improved on the look and feel, and it is easy to understand and
use.  Pinup menus are the greatest thing since sliced bread.

The best part about DeskSet is the drag and drop feature.  Select a file
in the File Manager and drop it on another tool, and the right thing
happens.  Printtool prints any file dropped on it, tapetool will queue the
file for writing to tape.  Textedit will switch to the desired file.
Mailtool will open the file as a mail archive, if possible.  Even better,
drop a file into the mail composition window, and it will *automatically*
compress and uuencode it for you!  In the same way, drop a mail message
into the file manager, and it will either create a new mail archive file,
append to an existing archive, or *automatically* uudecode an encoded
message.  This is great stuff.

Mailtool's name finder finds mail addresses phonetically.  I typed in
"mushano" and it found "Chuck Musciano, chuck at melmac" as my address.
Again, a great feature for people on large networks.

The new calendar manager is interesting, but not quite as good as the
public domain calentool, I think.  It does have excellent transparent
sharing of other people's appointment files and such, though.

As you can tell, I am a real fan of DeskSet.  For $295, you can't go
wrong, especially since you are given an unlimited license, meaning one
$295 copy can be used for an infinite number of machines at your site.
The best part for us is that it lets us bring a lot of people up to speed
on OPEN LOOK without having to switch to OpenWindows yet.

For more info and opinions, see my review of DeskSet in the April Sun
Observer.

Chuck Musciano				ARPA  : chuck at trantor.harris-atd.com
Harris Corporation 			Usenet: ...!uunet!x102a!trantor!chuck
PO Box 37, MS 3A/1912			AT&T  : (407) 727-6131
Melbourne, FL 32902			FAX   : (407) 727-{5118,5227,4004}

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