Object Desktop enhances the appearance and functionality of the standard OS/2 Task Manager, which is also referred to as the Window List.

The enhanced Task Manager has sculpted borders and icons for each running task. New buttons are available for Settings, Filter, Show, Hide, Close, Help, Tile, and Cascade. A Command Prompt field enables you to issue commands and click the Run button to execute them. The field saves the commands so you can reuse them with a single mouse click rather than re-typing them.

Show.

Brings the selected task to the foreground and makes it the active window.

Help.

Displays online help for using the Task Manager.

Hide.

Hides the selected task window.

Tile.

Tiles all task windows so they appear beside one another.

Close.

Closes the selected task.

Cascade.

Displays all task windows in a stack, so all window titles are visible.

Settings.

Opens the Settings notebook for establishing the appearance and functionality of the Task Manager. Refer to the next section for details.

Filter.

Opens the Filter dialog, which is used to remove tasks from the Task Manager list. Refer to the Filtering the Task List section for details.

The field which has a Run button is used to enter OS/2 commands. Any program that can be run from an OS/2 prompt can be run from the Task Manager. For example, use the E command to open a text file in the system editor, or the Dialer command to log on to the Internet. To run a windows application, type: Win [program name]. Previous commands are saved in the field's drop-down list.

To establish settings for the Task Manager, click the Settings button in the Window List or double-click the Task Manager icon in the Object Desktop folder. The Options page is displayed first.

Task Manager Enabled.

By default, the enhanced Task Manager (Window List) is enabled. If you prefer the standard OS/2 appearance, unmark the checkbox. Afterwards, the only way to access the Settings notebook to enable the enhanced Task Manager is to double-click the Task Manager icon in the Object Desktop folder.

Selecting Settings

Lock to Center of Desktop.

Mark the checkbox to display the enhanced Window List in the center of the OS/2 Desktop.

Command History Size.

Specifies the number of commands that are saved in the recall list of the Task Manager. To view the list of saved commands, click the arrow button.

Icon/Task Display.

Choose small or large icons for display in the Task Manager. To view more tasks at once, you can change the default display of a single, vertical column to multiple, horizontal columns by marking the checkbox beside Flow Tasks Horizontally.

Enhanced Task Switching

You can now use Alt+Tab to switch between open windows. Each time you press Alt+Tab, the title of an open window appears. As you cycle through all the open windows and find the one you want, release the Alt+Tab keys and the window is displayed.

By default, Alt+Tab is enabled to display the active window titles. If you prefer the standard behavior of Alt+Tab, which highlights the active window itself, unmark the checkbox beside Alt+Tab Switch Enabled on the Options page of the Task Manager Settings notebook.

Filtering the Task List

To reduce the number of tasks listed in the Task Manager, open the Filter page of the Settings notebook. (You can access the page directly by clicking the Filter button on the Task Manager). You can remove windows and objects from the list of running tasks. For example, you may want to remove the Desktop - Icon View since it is always visible. Eliminating tasks that you never switch to makes it easier to find the tasks you want on the Window List.

Enter a task name in the first field, or click the arrow button to view a list of all running tasks, as shown in the following figure.

Click the Add button to add the task to the list of defined filters.

To remove a task from the list, highlight it and click the Remove button. The task reappears in the Task Manager.

To display all tasks without using the Remove button, mark the checkbox beside Disable Filters. All tasks appear in the Task Manager. To remove the tasks listed under Defined Task Item Filters, unmark the checkbox.