With this in mind, I decided to write a really simple Desktop utility that I might actually use, and came up with WinPik, a tiny footprint organizer that splits directories and files into separate interfaces.

The directory tree is simply the standard Microsoft directory window from prior to the newer object tree.  I find this to be more compact, and thus faster.  However, not to be out of date, I plan to add some kind of object tree to a future update.  Just how, I'm not sure.

One needs only double click on a directory or click on a toolbar icon to view the files interface, with peer directories appearing as note tabs at the top.  This structure doesn't work very well for directories with a large number of sub-directories, but it's great where there are just a few directories where you'd like to browser for files.  This typically is what a user has or would like to have in his personal folders.  Thus, a kind of personal file structure is born.

As for a memo pad, I had downloaded the official Post-It Notepad and several similar shareware products and found, again -- too complicated.  These programs are just note pads, and didn't really have that much too them, but there didn't seem to be any real organization, and I wasn't sure what was happening to these notes that posted all over the desktop just as though they were glued to the monitor.

The Outlook memo pad is ok, but it just doesn't work when I get on the phone and need to jot something down quickly.  I've already jotted down the message on a real post-it note, by the time I've opened Outlook and moved to the proper location and opened a note. And organizing the notes brings us back to the Microsoft Object Tree, which I find useful for major directory organizing, but not simple use file browsing.

The bottom line is after playing around with these, I didn't use them, either.  So again, my criteria was make it easy!

WinPik creates a memo on a click and closes it on a click. Bottom line -- it's easy, it works, and I actually use it.

The next moderate upgrade will include a user alarm, but you won't have to manipulate through numerous menus and input boxes to set and access it.

A paths memory feature, a kind of "favorites" for directory paths, was introduced in our first product titled WinDos.  It takes just one click to set the path and two separate clicks to execute it.  Removing the path is a single-click.

I tried to do the same with WinPik's applications menu, but found I could not.  The problem was, unlike a directory path, an exact program name cannot always be clicked-to (like del *.bak, for example), so some kind of applications management dialog box was needed.  I managed to add a path on two clicks and edit and delete on 5.  It's easier than it sounds, and contains more options than a Windows icon.

The scheduler isn't written yet, but it will use the same dialog box as the applications menu.

File and directory utilities are a little weak as the program stands.  I haven't found a better solution for moving folders than the Explorer's drag and drop -- yet, and see no real compelling reason to reinvent the wheel.

My biggest complaint with Windows is in finding my data files, which seem to nest themselves several layers down in various places of the disk, so a quick retrieval user directory was a must.  The default is \Notebook, but it's user  configurable to "My Documents" or anything else.  Programs started from the application menu or carefully edited Windows shortcuts can find this direcotory, but the question is, will they?  A little effort setting the WinPik memory path to these various locations would work also.  But again, this is asking a lot of someone more apt to puck open a Command Prompt and type "notepad" rather than hunt through the Start Menu tree, which contains upteen programs right now, most of which I never use and a few of which I don't have a clue as to what they even do.

R. Bacci

ronald@berkeleydesigning.com