After my saga of weird-and-wonderful hardware problems earlier in the year, I finally reached the “resignation” stage – and I’ve been slowly rebuilding my BeOS environment from scratch. Most of my “must-have” applications are still available on BeBits (or BeShare) – but there are three that I haven’t been able to find. And unfortunately, using BeOS without them has illustrated how dependent I had become on all three.
Update: my BeOS install has been made whole again! My thanks to “Makita,” who posted a link in the comments to a zip file that contains FWorkspaces – thanks also to Finn, who sent in the version of UniversalScroller I was looking for. And a huge thanks to Oscar Lesta for sending in a “Dockbert care-package” with source and recent binaries. I’ll mirror the zip files and update the article with links shortly.
Read on for the details.
The first is Dockbert. I know many BeOS users aren’t fans of Dockbert, but I became enamored of it for two reasons: it doubles as an app launcher and switcher (I prefer using a single application for that, rather than a combination of Deskbar and a separate laucher). And numero deux, the ability to right-click an app and select “Bring all windows to this desktop” – a feature I constantly found useful with BeMail and multiple desktops.
While I did find a working download link, it doesn’t seem to work with any newer OpenTracker releases. And while I would attempt to build it from source, I haven’t been able to find the source anywhere.
The second is FWorkspaces: an input_server filter that lets you switch workspaces by pressing the function keys (rather than pressing Ctrl-F1, etc) – sadly, its BeBits link is dead and I haven’t been able to find it on BeShare. I might just have to revoke its prestigious BeDoper Master’s Award!
The third is Universal Scroller 1.8 – an app with many functions, but I use it maily so that a single-click of my middle mouse button / scroll wheel acts as a double-click of the left mouse button (yes, I’m too lazy to double-click). The main thing I liked about 1.8 is that I could hold down the option (Windows) key and get the “open folder and close parent” behaviour in Tracker by single-clicking my middle mouse button (which eliminates the “folder clutter” problem when using Tracker in “spatial” mode).
While newer versions are still available on BeBits, those don’t seem to work while a key is held down – meaning that the trick above no longer works.
If anyone knows where those applications are still available for download, or has a copy they can send me, it would be much appreciated. I’d also like to mirror them on BeOSNews and add a download link on the BeBits pages to save others the hassle of hunting for them (assuming the original developers have no objection, of course).
| Category: News - Comments RSS - Post a Comment - Trackback |
| « News catchup | Should Haiku go 64 bit? » |