MERLIN & OBJECT DESKTOP
UPGRADE YOUR OS/2 SYSTEM TO A NEW LEVEL!
by Brad Wardell
Sneak peak of Object Desktop 1.5 with Merlin enhancements installed
(which will be FREE to all Object Desktop 1.5 users). Look how
Object Desktop integrates seamlessly into Merlin. I'm enabling
Browse Mode and looking at a 32bit Alliance ad that is stored in
a ZIP file (which saved me about 1.4 megabytes of disk space) with
a couple of "rolled-up" windows.
The power of IBM's System Object Model (SOM) in action! Object
Desktop inherits Merlin's look and feel and then improves
further upon it. Any new feature Merlin gets, Object Desktop
gets and Merlin gets the features of Object Desktop making
OS/2 + Object Desktop the world's most powerful environment.
Before you upgrade to Merlin, consider one of Object Desktop 1.5's
best features: Object Package. You can package up your existing
desktop (with your WPS programs, customizations, etc.) and then
unpackage it on Merlin saving you hours (or days) of setting up
your desktop to how you like it. Plus, for those programs that do
not have a simple way of creating re-creating their desktop folders
and icons, Object Package can save you a lot of time in reinstalling
those programs. Also, notice how the Control Center can be modified
to fit your needs (in each picture, the Control Center has been
changed). The "WarpCenter" that comes with Merlin does not allow
any real level of customization and is quite limited. In this
example, I have a couple of "fly-out" menus on my Control Center
including one that will list my minimized programs.
With the recent release of Object Desktop 1.5, OS/2 users have
been able to experience a new level of power, productivity and
ease of use out of the world's best 32bit desktop operating system
OS/2. Object Desktop adds so many new features to OS/2 2.11 and
OS/2 Warp that many have called it "a third party upgrade".
As OS/2 Warp 4.0 (codenamed Merlin) nears completion, many users
have wondered how Object Desktop and Merlin will get along and
if they share features. Afterall, if Object Desktop is essentially
the summation of all the wishlists from OS/2 users and Merlin
also has a lot of new features, what overlap is there?
The Answer: NOT MUCH.
This brief document will explain some of the cool new things in
Merlin, where they overlap and discuss how Object Desktop runs
on Merlin beta.
What they have in common
Object Desktop adds a close button to your OS/2 system. Merlin
detects if you have Object Desktop and replaces Object Desktop's
with its close button. The close button is generally not mentioned
in our marketing literature since it is not a particularly unique
feature (products like Xit, NPS, and others also add close buttons)
so Merlin having this feature isn't significant.
Object Desktop also enhances the Alt-Tab combination by showing
you what you are going to be switching to. Merlin also now allows
you to do this except that unlike Object Desktop, you cannot
filter out the tasks you switch to which is the primary reason
why people use our Alt-Tab feature to begin with.
OS/2 Warp added the LaunchPad and Object Desktop added the Tab
LaunchPad. Most Object Desktop users would agree that the Tab
LaunchPad is quite an upgrade from the regular LaunchPad. Merlin
adds the "Warp Center" which is similar in some ways
to the Control Center. It allows you to have cascading folders
(ala Windows95), can display information on your system (drive
space, CPU usage, etc.). However, it is not nearly as flexibile
as the Control Center, doesn't provide virtual desktops, doesn't
allow you to place other folders on it that can cascade, can only
be on the top or bottom of the screen, etc. In short, while the
Warp Center blows away the OS/2 Warp LaunchPad, it doesn't (and
wasn't designed to) compete with the Control Center.
Merlin also replaces the frame controls (min/max buttons, scroll
bars, etc.) which makes OS/2 look a lot nicer. Object Desktop
does the same thing and not surprisingly, in the current beta,
most people (including myself) simply disable Object Desktop's
frame controls since the Merlin look is still "new".
Also not surprisingly, Stardock will update its frame controls
to be more Merlin-style once Merlin ships. This update will be
free of charge.
Merlin also provides "full drag mode" which Object Desktop
does. In the current beta, Object Desktop's full drag takes up
noticably less CPU power than Merlin so many users (myself included)
use Object Desktop's full drag mode instead of Merlin's.
So what we have is Merlin and Object Desktop have a "x"
button, an Alt-Tab viewer, new buttons, and full drag mode. Object
Desktop is an $89.95 product, how much for the features I just
listed would you pay? $5 maybe? Merlin adds so many cool new and
unique features to OS/2 that we should discuss before going on.
But before going into that, I wanted to make sure users knew that
Merlin and Object Desktop work together and don't make either
obsolete (afterall, if Object Desktop had everything Merlin had
in it already, why upgrade to Merlin or vice versa?)
Cool Things ONLY in Merlin
Let me tell you what is in Merlin that I think is particularly
cool:
Much Better than OS/2 Warp in its default setup.
The installation setup makes a much much nicer default system.
OS/2 2.0 to OS/2 Warp 3.0 all leave dozens of folders and icons
all over your system. If you installed network support, you could
expect to see another dozen folders and icons on your desktop.
It was no wonder why many PC manufacturers refused to install
OS/2 on their systems: They would have to spend time customizing
it so that the system didn't look so confusing to a new user.
In Merlin, your default installation puts an OS/2 System folder
which just has system setup info, A "Connections" folder
which replaces the drives objects and adds network (and internet)
connections to it, and a programs folder where all your program
folders are placed (instead of on the desktop). This makes your
system much cleaner looking on installation and may make Merlin
a much more attractive pre-load.
Merlin is actually a terrific consumer OS.
Rumors are floating everywhere about Merlin's requirements. If
you decide not to be on a LAN, you can run Merlin on a 486DX with
8 megs of ram. It now comes with something called "TrapDoor"
which will allow you to boot to a TRUEDOS and run any DOS program
that way. Admittedly, your other programs are suspended while
in this mode but it is much faster than rebooting. DART and DIVE
support are also tightly integrated into OS/2 now which means
that OS/2 multimedia programs will run much better. Check out
Stardock's Trials of Battle (you can read about it in comp.os.os2.games).
It does mixing on the fly thanks to DART.
Merlin looks very nice.
Merlin sculps the Windows ala Windows95. Windows95 borrowed a
lot from OS/2 and I think turnabout is fair play. The new Merlin
look is so much more pleasant than OS/2 Warp's look. The areas
where IBM improved OS/2's look and feel happen to be only in places
where Object Desktop couldn't. For example, Stardock wanted to
change the notebook controls for Object Desktop but we couldn't
feasibly do it. Merlin does it. We also couldn't feasibly change
the look of the OS/2 button control but Merlin does it. But we
could change the look and feel of OS/2 folder windows and Merlin
doesn't touch that. We could add a status bar to folder windows
and Merlin doesn't do that either. The point being, IBM went
out of its way to add cosmetic enhancements that only the OS vendor
could do and not a third party making the combined Object Desktop
and Merlin look very appealing.
Merlin has great Internet integration.
In Merlin, your FTP sites are just another folder. You really
can't tell the difference between your regular folders and an
FTP site (except that the FTP site is a lot slower than a regular
folder if you're on a modem). Merlin will also have JAVA integration
which makes OS/2 the first desktop OS to have JAVA built into
it. This is signficant because most people would agree that OS/2
is a great OS but lacks native applications. Not now, with JAVA
catching on, OS/2 will be able to run all these JAVA programs
on the horrizon. Word Perfect has a JAVA version of its word
processor on the way, Stardock has JAVA software in the pipeline,
virtually every ISV has significant JAVA developments on their
way and OS/2 will be able to run them all. Through amazing luck,
OS/2's application availability problem is likely to largely go
away.
Open32
Some fairly well known apps (which I cannot discuss presently)
are being ported to OS/2 using Open32. Open32 allows you to take
most of a Win32 program and recompile it to be a native OS/2 program.
Essentially, the Win32 APIs are part of Open32 which means that
they aren't a "hacked port" since those APIs become
native to OS/2 itself.
VoiceType
In Merlin, you'll be able to control your system using VoiceType.
Now, admittedly I don't think this will be that big of a feature
immediately because most people won't feel comfortable talking
to their systems right away but for those who don't type quickly,
being able to dictate to WordPro or any other word processor certainly
has its advantages (I type ~120 words per minute so it wouldn't
do me any good <grin>).
TrueType
True Type support is in Merlin. In the beta, it is basically useless
because the font quality in Merlin is really messed up in this
beta but hopefully IBM will be addressing the font quality issue
so that it will be as nice as it is in Windows but the fact that
we'll be able to use True Type fonts as well as Adobe (our friends
that almost brought us Frame Maker) fonts will be a real treat.
Arranging
Merlin now allows you to arrange your objects so that they have
a gridded appearance. This is possibly one of my favorite cosmetic
changes to OS/2 in Merlin.
So Merlin definitely answers a lot of prayers of a lot of OS/2
users. It's the biggest overhaul OS/2 has received since OS/2
2.0. Of course, adding Object Desktop to Merlin makes it a much
more pleasant experience since it doesn't address most of the
things Object Desktop does.
Object Desktop Unique Features
Object Archives
One of the most popular features of Object Desktop is Object Archives.
Object Archives allows you to treat your ZIP, LZH, and other compressed
files as standard OS/2 folders. You can double click on them,
drag and drop from them, edit your files from within a ZIP and
even run some programs from within the ZIP file. Merlin integrates
FTP sites into the OS and Object Desktop integrates compressed
archives into the system. Anyone considering Stacker or DCF/2
should take a hard look at Object Archives since it provides much
of the same benefit using industry standard (and open) compression
like PKZIP.
Object Navigator
Merlin will not be adding a file manager, let alone a WPS file
manager. This makes Object Navigator the best and only workplace
shell file manager. It can see your shadows, long file names on
FAT partitions, program objects, associations, etc. With file
managers listing for nearly a $100 alone, Object Navigator makes
Object Desktop a pretty attractive purchase.
Text View
Merlin adds EPM 6.0, a great and quite powerful text editor. But
for day to day editing, E.EXE is still in Merlin with its "What
type of file is this" dialog. Object Desktop provides the
Text view which allows you to view, edit, and print your text
files and loads in just milliseconds.
Keyboard LaunchPad
Merlin is terrific for letting us talk to your PC using our voices.
Object Desktop complements this by letting you drag and drop objects
to the Keyboard LaunchPad, assign a hotkey to them and then able
to open those programs with by hitting the hot-key combination.
Want to load all your internet software? Just drag them all to
the Keyboard LaunchPad and then assign something like Ctrl+Alt+I
to them all. When you hit that hotkey combination, they'll all
load.
Tab LaunchPad
When it comes to getting at your programs quickly and easily,
especially in a corporate environment, there's still nothing that
works as well as the Tab LaunchPad. In version 1.5, the Tab LaunchPad
will even let you scroll through your tabs.
Control Center
WarpCenter has the same relation to the Control Center as Warp's
LaunchPad does to the Tab LaunchPad. It's better than not having
anything at all but the Control Center offers vastly more features
and function.
Object Package
If you're planning to move to Merlin, you'll want to get Object
Desktop now as opposed to after Merlin ships. This is because
Object Package can package your desktop environment and transfer
it to Merlin. This way, you won't have to re-customize your operating
system and reinstall WPS objects because Object Package and register
those WPS classes for you. It works the other way around, there's
an package of the Merlin desktop floating around which lets you
make your OS/2 Warp system set up like Merlin is (though not the
features of course). So you would want to buy Object Desktop now,
get your system just the way you want it and then package it once
Merlin comes out (4th quarter probably).
Browse Mode
This feature is so integrated into an Object Desktop OS/2 system
that people (including myself) regularly forget about it. This
feature is very effective in OS/2 Warp 3.0 as well as Merlin.
Here's how a Merlin or OS/2 3.0 system works now: You double
click on a folder and a window pops up, you double click on a
child folder and another folder pops up. You can set it up so
that the parent folder disappears but this is a noticable performance
hit and is distracting. With Browse Mode: You double click on
a folder and it pops up. You double click on a child folder and
the existing folder's contents disappear and are replace by the
child's contents and the title bar changes to the child folder's
name and a UP arrow button appears on the title bar allowing you
to go back up. This is not only a great way to reduce screen clutter
but it is quite a noticable performance boost.
HyperCache
Merlin has not changed the behavior of its caching and only Object
Desktop provides a solution to the caching problem. HyperCache
allows you to cache frequently used folders which can make a performance
boost.
HyperDrives
HyperDrives can speed the overall performance of your system by
circumventing some of the object information that OS/2 has to
read from each and every object it displays.
Object Desktop makes OS/2 (and Merlin) look a lot nicer
Merlin is a lot nicer looking than OS/2 Warp but Object Desktop
makes Merlin even more pleasing to the eye. The sculpting of
folders, the 3D effects to titles, etc.
Lot's of other stuff...
There are plenty of other Object Desktop features that are unique
to it that make OS/2 2.11 and OS/2 Warp (as well as Merlin) a
much more powerful, productive, and easy to use operating system.
The ability to have all your folders maintain sort order, status
bar on folders, 3D icon titles and 3D icon borders, Roll-up windows,
etc. None of this is in Merlin. As people have referred to OS/2
Warp + Object Desktop = OS/2 Warp 3.5, the same will hold true
for Merlin. Merlin = OS/2 4.0, Merlin + Object Desktop = OS/2
4.5.
Conclusions
Merlin is a great upgrade to OS/2 Warp. However, Object Desktop
already integrates into Merlin (even into the beta) quite well
and gives you a ton of features that most OS/2 end users and corporate
users have asked for. If you don't already have Object Desktop
1.5, now is a great time to get it. You can buy it virtually
anywhere: Indelible Blue, CompUSA, Micro Center, Kiyo Design,
or even from Stardock itself. If you live overseas, visit our
website for a list of resellers near you: http://www.stardock.com.
Hopefully, you can see the power of Merlin enhanced with Object
Desktop. Whether you're an end user or a corporate IS manager,
the productivity and utility of Object Desktop should hopefully
be clear. If you have any questions or comments, please email
me at bwardell@stardock.com. Please feel free to distribute this.
Whether you're using OS/2 2.1, OS/2 Warp 3.0, or planning to move to
OS/2 Warp 4.0 (Merlin), Object Desktop is something you should
have.
Snapshots of Object Desktop components running under Merlin.
