1=Usher 1.4a As the unobtrusive usher quickly assists theater patrons find and take their seats, the unobtrusive Usher quickly assists Windows users find and launch their applications. New features with 1.4a Version 1.4a is a bug fix: - Fixes a subtle [extensions] bug. New features with 1.4 Version 1.4 is a good mix of new features and bug fixes: - An Options dialog box now exists. Currently there are only two settings you can change: Show Usher icon -- if checked then the Usher icon will appear on the screen Ask before quitting -- if checked then Usher will ask if the user really wants to quit NOTE: Show Usher icon should be checked if you normally don't always run a Windows application (such as Clock). Windows 3.0 doesn't behave correctly when no icons appear on the bottom of the screen. IMPORTANT: If Usher is used as the shell, and the Adobe Type Manager (ATM) is loaded then Show Usher icon must be checked on! These settings are stored in your win.ini file. - The icon, if you allow it to appear, now has a system menu associated with it. In addition, the About and Options menu items appear there. - A new macro, @RESOURCE@, will display the percentage of free system resources available just like the Program Manager. This options will also appear automatically if you choose the @DEFAULT@ macro. - Usher should now work with the Adobe Type Manager (ATM). - Usher now uses the [Extensions] section of the win.ini file. This means you can launch a document and Usher will automatically lauch the application associated with that document as listed in the win.ini file. For example, launching usher.wri will automatically launch MS Write since the win.ini file lists wri=write.exe ^.wri under the [Extensions] section. - Usher, as the shell, will now launch applications listed on the command line when you envoked Windows. For instance, typing "win control" will launch Windows and immediately run the Control Panel application. Typing "win usher.wri" will launch Windows and immediately run Write and load the usher.wri document. - The Run... dialog now contains a "Run Minimized" checkbox to launch applications in their icon form. - You can also specify that an application is to be run minimized in the usher.ini file. Simply put an asterisk (*) in front of the application name. For example, to start MS Word: MS Word = e:\winword\winword, e:\winword\docs (normal startup) MS Word icon = *e:\winword\winword, e:\winword\docs (iconized) - Bug fix: you can no longer open several About or Exit Windows dialog boxes by rechoosing their menu item. - Bug fix: Usher now correctly changes to the specified directory listed on the load= and run= win.ini lines. - The @ARRANGE@ option will automatically arrange the icons on the desktop. - The @EDITINI@ option will launch the Notepad application and load in usher.ini for editing. You can specify an editor by changing the ini variable in the [extensions] section of the win.ini file. By default ini files are associated with notepad. - The @DEFAULT@ macro menu entries have been rearranged into a more logical grouping. - The @INFO@ macro automatically creates a submenu called Information. - Usher still only takes up 9K of memory! New features with 1.3 Version 1.3 mainly consists of bug fixes: - Usher now has an application icon that appears on the bottom of the screen when you use Usher as the shell. Believe it or not, this simple addition to Usher fixed several minor bugs. If you click on the icon, no menu appears. New features with 1.2 Version 1.2 mainly consists of bug fixes and documentation enhancements. - Better handling of mouse button up (sticky menu) activations. - Added some nifty tips to this documentation! New features with 1.1 Usher is now more flexible than ever while remaining easy to use! It is important to note that existing usher.ini files for Usher 1.0 must be modified before using with Usher 1.1. Please continue reading this file for the easy fix. The following improvements have been made to Usher 1.1: - Usher now supports separate menus for the left, middle, and right mouse buttons. Note that the middle button only works if you have a three button mouse. - You can tell Usher to use "sticky menus". Normal menus appear via clicking and holding the mouse button down. With sticky menus you don't have to hold the button down. - @LINE@ directive to put separating lines into your menus. - @TIME@ and @DATE@ directives to add time and date indicators. - @MEMORY@ directive to add a free memory indicator. - @RUN@ to put the Run... menu entry into your menus. - @USHER@ directive to put the About Usher, Reload Usher, and Close Usher into a menu. - @EXIT@ directive to put Exit Windows into a menu. - @DEFAULT@ directive which combines many of the above directives in a standard layout. - @INFO@ directive to output the type of CPU and math coprocessor, and if Windows is running in 386 enhanced mode, standard mode, or real mode. - The Run... dialog box has been improved. It now follows an extended search sequence before deciding it can't find a file. However, Usher doesn't associate file extensions (*.doc) with an application (Winword). - Warning: Usher 1.1 will not work with Usher 1.0 files!!! You must enclose your existing menu structure in a "root" menu. For example, this tells Usher to display the following menu when the left button is pressed down: =down = MS Word= e:\winword\winword.exe, e:\winword\docs MS Write= write.exe <>= DOS Box= c:\command.com <>= - Please see the updated usher.ini file for examples. Features in 1.0 - Supports up to 10 levels of menu hierarchy. - Requires only 9K of memory. - Usher can replace or work with your existing shell. - Has a Run... dialog box for executing other programs. - Its menu configuration file can be reloaded without restarting Usher (or Windows). - The current working directory can be changed before launching an application. - The current date and time are displayed as menu entries. - An Exit Windows entry exists for quitting Windows. Description Usher was written to replace memory- and resource- hogging shells such as the Program Manager and hDC Window's Express. Usher is a pop-up menu of applications that appears when the user clicks with a mouse button on the desktop. This menu can have hierarchical sub-menus for grouping applications together. For example, the main menu heading might be Utilities with a sub-menu for system utilities called System. Important: Usher can be run as the shell or an application under an existing shell. Usher takes up only 9K of memory, so users with less than 2 Meg of memory might want to replace their existing shell with Usher. If you would like to continue running your existing shell as your main shell, just add usher.exe to the load or run command line in the win.ini file. Otherwise, change the shell entry in the system.ini file to shell=c:\win30\usher.exe (or whatever). Usher automatically figures out if it is the shell. Quick Setup 1. Copy usher.exe and usher.ini to your Windows directory 2. Run Windows 3. Use the Run... under the file menu in your existing shell to run usher.exe 4. Click on the desktop with the left mouse button Many of these sample menu options won't do anything on your machine (because Usher can't find the applications). However, if you like it, then see the directions below on how to modify the usher.ini file for your own applications. Remember, if you want to replace your existing shell with Usher, change your system.ini file to read shell=usher.exe. Otherwise, add usher.exe to your run= line in your win.ini file to use automatically with your existing shell. usher.ini Although the usher.exe file can exist anywhere, the file called usher.ini must exist in your Windows' subdirectory. This file describes how Usher will form the menu entries. Here's the format for the usher.ini file: