Category : Alternate Operating Systems - Quarterdeck DesqView, CP/M, etc
Archive   : QMTEK601.ZIP
Filename : SK-PLUS.TEC

ID:SK SideKick Plus in DESQview
Quarterdeck Technical Note #151
by Stan Young

SideKick Plus can be run in DESQview, but will typically require
a great deal more memory than the original SideKick (Version
1.5). While Borland makes a point in its advertising that
SideKick Plus takes no more than 64K of memory, THIS IS WHEN
SIDEKICK IS NOT ACTIVE! When SideKick Plus is active, it takes
between 256K and 440K depending on the number of SideKick
utilities installed and the size of their data. If you have
problems of any kind while running SideKick Plus in a window, try
giving it more memory.

General SideKick Plus Setup:

In general, set up SideKick Plus as you normally would. The only
suggestions would be that you disable SideKick's background
communications facility and that if you have expanded memory, set
up your modules in SideKick to use it. Also, since memory is a
consideration, we would suggest you install only the modules you
intend to use and for those utilities that expand themselves
within the module (such as Notepad, giving the option of 1 to 9
notepads), avoid making them bigger than you need.

Alt Key conflict:

After bringing up SideKick Plus with the activate key and opening
a utility, you can bring up the SideKick menu by holding down the
Alt key for several seconds. If, when the menu come up, you
select the next utility you want with the Alt key combination,
there is no problem, but if you let go of the Alt key before
making a selection, the DESQview menu will come up. This is
normal since this is the default key DESQview uses to bring up
its menu, if you hit the ESC key at that point, you will go back
to SideKick. For most people this is probably a "glitch" they
can live with, but if you are not one of those people, you must
redefine the DESQview key (see manual) since there is no way to
redefine this key usage for SideKick.

Running SideKick Plus before DESQview:

This is easy. It simply does not work. If you load SideKick
Plus before DESQview, the system will hang up when you try to pop
up SideKick. Apparently there is some manipulation of interrupts
that is performed by SideKick Plus in preparation for swapping
itself out of memory that is incompatible with running DESQview.
We will undoubtedly look into the problem, but it is likely that
a solution to this problem can only come from Borland.

Running SideKick Plus in a DESQview window as a non-resident
program:

SideKick Plus provides a command line option "/G" for running
SideKick Plus in a non-resident mode. It is generally suggested
that this option be used when loading SideKick Plus into a
DESQview window. Loaded in this fashion, SideKick Plus will load
and bring up its main menu. When you exit SideKick Plus, it is
removed from memory. In this mode, SideKick Plus runs as a
standard application in DESQview. This is the mode that both
Quarterdeck and Borland recommend for running SideKick Plus in
DESQview.

Running SideKick Plus in a window as a resident program:

SideKick Plus can also be used as a resident program within a
DESQview window. There are certainly potential conflicts when
this is done, but it has been tested with a limited number of
programs and appears to work. To run SideKick Plus in a window
with another program, make a batch file that first runs SideKick
Plus and then runs the other program. To run a fairly full-sized
SideKick Plus, you need to allocate enough memory for the program
plus xxK to cover the resident overhead of SideKick Plus. If you
are running SideKick Plus with a small program, you may have to
allocate even more memory due to the fact that SideKick Plus uses
256-440K when active.

When you pop up SideKick Plus in the window, it will swap a
section of the program running in that window out to disk or
expanded memory and swap itself in. Please note, in general,
your access to SideKick Plus will be much faster if you take the
preceding suggestion and load it in its own window and use
DESQview for your switching.

Communications in SideKick Plus:

The SideKick Plus manual (on page 353) indicates that SideKick
Plus somehow uses IRQ2 for communications. It is unclear exactly
what this means since the normal hardware IRQ's for
communications would be IRQ3 (Comm 2) and IRQ4 (Comm 1). IRQ2 is
never used for a serial port in any configuration that we are
aware of. In any case, SideKick communications seem to have
problems in DESQview versions prior to 2.2 which are due to the
unconventional use of the hardware interrupts. We were able to
work around some of these problems in version 2.2 of DESQview,
however SideKick Plus will still interfere with the use of both
COM ports concurrently.

Alternatives:

SideKick Plus offers some advantages over the original SideKick,
but has some disadvantages as well. It is certainly not
perfectly suited for use in an environment such as DESQview. You
may want to consider sticking with the original SideKick, which
can be run before DESQview or resident in a window (even in
multiple windows). You might want to consider the DESQview
Companions, which is a set of four utilities (Notepad,
Calculator, Datebook and Communications package) that have low
memory overhead and are well designed to run in DESQview. Or you
may want to consider WordPerfect's Library programs. These are
also individual utility programs that run well in DESQview since
WordPerfect supports the DESQview screen call.

Copyright (C) 1991 by Quarterdeck Office Systems
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