PLUG-IN for Windows v2.60 --> Plug It In!
Fills the holes in Win3.1 & Win95. Award-
Winning utility (5 major awards!). Title Bar
displays, Alarms, Scheduler, App Installer,
Sound Support (Events, Talking Clock, etc),
PowerButton to access a multi-level QuickRun
menu, Custom Cursors, Nested Groups, Resource
Alerts, System Info, Screen Saver HotKey,
Run with History List, and LOTS MORE!
From Plannet Crafters. Registration $20

PLUG-IN for Windows v2.60 --> Plug It In!
Fills the holes in Win3.1 & Win95. Award-
Winning utility (5 major awards!). Title Bar
displays, Alarms, Scheduler, App Installer,
Sound Support (Events, Talking Clock, etc),
PowerButton to access a multi-level QuickRun
menu, Custom Cursors, Nested Groups, Resource
Alerts, System Info, Screen Saver HotKey,
Run with History List, and LOTS MORE!
From Plannet Crafters. Registration $20

+-----------------------------------------------------------+
+---> Welcome to "Plug-In for Windows, Version 2.60" <---+
+-----------------------------------------------------------+

PLUG-IN FOR WINDOWS README.TXT (August 23, 1995, Version 2.60)

This file contains the following sections:

- Special Notes for Users of Windows 95
- What is Plug-In for Windows?
- What is new in Plug-In for Windows, Version 2?
- Installation Notes & System Requirements
- Installing Over a Previous Version of Plug-In
- Special Notes for Users of Plug-In V2.00 - V2.20
- Moving Your Plug-In Data Directory
- Notes for International Users
- Conflicts With Other Utilities
- Excluding Apps from Plug-In's Title Bar Displays and Event Sounds
- Update Issues for Owners of Plug-In 1.x
- Ordering the Update Diskette if you Currently Own Plug-In 1.x
- Details on Plannet Crafters T-Shirts
- Where can I obtain the Talking Clock files?
- The Plannet Crafters Support BBS
- The Plannet Crafters FTP Download Site
- Now That We've Got Your Attention!
- How to Use the Restrictions Settings
- How to De-Install Plug-In
- Change History
- How to Contact Plannet Crafters

SPECIAL NOTES FOR USERS OF WINDOWS 95

This version of Plug-In has been modified to work with Windows 95 (Win95)!

We are hard at work on a major update to Plug-In which will take full
advantage of the many new features in Win95. We expect to ship this new
version early in 1996.

In the meantime, you can still get a lot of use out of the current
version of Plug-In. Please refer to the special Win95 topic in
Plug-In's HELP. There are a number of notes to help you better
understand how Plug-In and Win95 work together. Please note that this
special HELP topic is the only source for documentation on using this
version of Plug-In with Win95. The rest of the HELP text remains
unchanged and there is no mention of Win95 in the Plug-In configuration
dialogs.

As far as installation goes, simply follow the directions below, as there
are no substantial installation differences between Win3.x and Win95.


Plug-In for Windows

WHAT IS PLUG-IN FOR WINDOWS?

Plug-In Fills the holes in Windows!

Plug-In is an enhancement utility for Windows. It seamlessly integrates
with Windows and works with any Windows Desktop. Plug-In feels like a
natural extension of Windows...

Plug-In is highly praised by the press as well as a legion of loyal users!
It is winner of Windows Magazine's Win 100 Award (1993 & 1994 & 1995)
and Byte Magazine's / Jerry Pournelle's User's Choice Award (1992 & 1993).
In addition, it was 1st runner-up for best Windows Utility at the
1994 PC Magazine Shareware Awards.

The registration fee is only $20

Major features include:

- Control Center dialog coordinates all of Plug-In's functions.

- Lots of enhancement for Program Manager (Nested Groups, custom icons,
custom titles, etc.)

- Title Bar displays (date, time, resources, stopwatch, etc.). This
option is very configurable to meed your needs.

- Power Button (sits next to the System Menu button on active applications)
gives instant access to the QuickRun menu. The QuickRun menu is very
full-featured, and includes multi-level menus, fixed window sizing,
task lists, dynamic Program Manager groups, etc.

- Custom Cursors. Change all the standard system cursors. Now includes
a "Cursor Wrap" feature.

- Full Sound Support. If you have a sound card, you're in for a treat!
General and application-specific events, chimes, talking clocks.

- Resource Alerts. Monitors memory, system resources, and disk drives.
Ability to display a message, play a sound, and/or launch a program
when the alert thresholds are passed.

- Screen saver enhancements. Instant-On/Instant-Off HotSpots,
Shortcut Key.

- Alarm and Scheduler facility. Very sophisticated alarms ... display
messages, play sounds, and launch programs. Lots of options.

- System Information. Displays lots of useful information about your
system and the Windows environment.

- Install Application. Painlessly install applications from floppy or
CD-ROM. Allows you to view README files before proceeding with the
install program.

- Run with History. An enhanced run command with history list.

- The ability to use Plug-In as your Windows shell (primary desktop).


WHAT IS NEW IN PLUG-IN FOR WINDOWS, VERSION 2?

Lots! In fact, there is so much new functionality that it could be
considered a new product. Please see the above list of features and
be sure to look in our on-line help for full details on how to use
the new capabilities!


INSTALLATION NOTES & SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

Plug-In works with all flavors of Windows 3.1, including Windows 3.1,
Windows 3.11, Windows for Workgroups 3.1 and Windows for Workgroups 3.11.
Plug-In also functions with the newly released Windows 95 (Win95)!
Plug-In is designed to be an integral part of Windows and is thus
always "running" ... however, it uses your memory and processor
sparingly! The Plug-In package includes a number of sound files. If
you do not intend to use these, you may delete *.WAV from your Plug-In
home directory to free-up some disk space. If you also have the
talking clock files, but do not need them, you may delete *.SAY and
*.DAT from your Plug-In home directory.

Plug-In takes between 0.5 and 1.5 MB of disk space (depending on
whether or not you are using the sound files). It uses between
2% to 3% of system resources when it is running.

Once you have unarchived (or copied) all of Plug-In's files to a
directory on your hard disk (e.g., C:\PLUGIN), run PLUGIN.EXE from
Windows. Plug-In has a built-in install program which will setup
its data files in a subdirectory of your Plug-In home directory.

If you are updating an existing version of Plug-In, see the next
section.


INSTALLING OVER A PREVIOUS VERSION OF PLUG-IN

NOTE!: If you are installing from Plug-In's master diskette (which
you receive when you purchase Plug-In), simply run INSTALL.EXE
from the diskette (Hint: Use Plug-In's Install Application
feature!).

If you are installing by using the "freely distributable" software,
please read these notes:

1) If you already have a version of Plug-In running on your system, you
must first shut it down before running the new version of Plug-In V2!

For Plug-In 1.x, select "Options | Configure Plug-In | Remove" from
Program Manager's menus

For Plug-In 2.x, select "Shutdown Plug-In" from the Plug-In
Control Center dialog (double-click on the
Power Button, or select Options | Configure Plug-In
from the QuickRun menu.


2) UnArchive Plug-In V2. You can overwrite the existing Plug-In
files if you wish.

3) Run PLUGIN.EXE from the Plug-In V2 home directory, and you are on
your way.


SPECIAL NOTES FOR USERS OF PLUG-IN V2.00 - V2.20

This release contains a large number of changes from previous
versions of Plug-In V2 (Versions 2.00 thru 2.20). Following
are some notes to help you with the update process:

- Plug-In V2.50 uses a different technique for updating the title
bar displays. While this new method is much "safer" than the
previous one, you may notice an occasional flicker or even a
short period where the title bar displays are removed while
using certain applications. This is due to a delay between when
an application repaints its title bar and when it gives up
control of the processor so that Plug-In can do its work. In
normal operation, you won't even notice any difference.

- Plug-In now stores its data files in a separate directory. When
you first run the new version of Plug-In, it will create this
directory and move your data files from the Plug-In directory to
the data directory. This new directory is called PLUGDATA and
will be located in your Plug-In home directory. However, if you
are running Plug-In from a network drive, it will create the
PLUGDATA directory in your Windows directory. This whole process
is completed automatically and does not require any action on your
part. One of the benefits of this new data directory is that
you can easily backup your Plug-In data files and it also results
in less clutter in your Windows directory (which is already crowded
with lots of files).

- The sound playback mode will be changed to "Asynchronous" when
you update to V2.5. This was done to avoid a problem with some
sound drivers where sound apps would report "sound device in use"
when they started. However, you may find that you enjoy the
"feel" of synchronous playback mode better. Please feel free
to change it back to synchronous by using the Sound Options dialog.

- We now have an "Exclude" dialog, which will allow you to easily
exclude the title bar dislays and/or event sounds from any
application you desire.

- For more details on changes in Plug-In V2.5, please see the
"Change History" at the end of this file.


MOVING YOUR PLUG-IN DATA DIRECTORY

There are a couple of simple considerations if you wish to relocate
your Plug-In data directory.

1) You can copy all the files to another directory. We recommend
that whatever directory you choose is a separate directory used
only for storing Plug-In's data files. By default, this directory
is called PLUGDATA and is located in your Plug-In home directory.

PLEASE do not move your Plug-In data directory while Plug-In
is running! You could lose valuable data!

2) If you simply run Plug-In from a different location (for example,
if you are updating to a new version and installed in a different
directory), Plug-In will offer to move the data files for you.

3) If you move the data files manually, there are a couple of ways you
can inform Plug-In about the move:

a) Edit WIN.INI, and look for a section called [Plannet]. Replace
the "Plug-In=" entry with the new path, save the file, and
restart Windows

b) If you move the PLUGDATA directory from your old Plug-In home
directory to your new home directory, Plug-In will automatically
detect the change if the old directory is renamed or removed.


NOTES FOR INTERNATIONAL USERS

Plug-In has fairly complete support for many international countries.
We support international date/time formats and even the Talking Clock
feature has the ability to use 24 hour format.

New in this version of Plug-In is an "International Settings" dialog
(accessed from the General Options dialog in Plug-In's Control Center).
This dialog allows you to modify a number of important text strings
used by Plug-In. This gives it a much more "integrated" feel when
you use Plug-In with an international version of Windows.


CONFLICTS WITH OTHER UTILITIES

There are several programs on the market (both commercial and
shareware) that offer some overlapping functionality with Plug-In.
While most of these programs do not cause serious conflicts, you
might see some unexpected behavior. For example, if you are
using another utility that displays information on active title
bars, you will see both applications fighting to paint on the
title bar. Another example is utilities that assign sounds to
system events.

Please note that almost everything in Plug-In is configurable.
If there is a feature you don't desire, check the Control Center.
Chances are you can disable it or modify the settings to your liking.

If you find that Plug-In's Power Button is not functioning, it is
most likely caused by another utility which intercepts and (improperly)
devours mouse messages. The solution is to ensure that Plug-In starts
*after* the utility that is causing the problem. The easiest thing to
do is place Plug-In as the last item in the LOAD= line in your WIN.INI
file, or place it in your StartUp group. Please see the on-line help
for further details.

We are currently aware of a few utilities that have problems when
Plug-In is running:

1) Icon Hear-It and Icon Do-It. If these programs are loaded prior
to Plug-In AND you have icon movies assigned to group icons, the
group icons with the movies will appear as black squares. The
solution is to have Plug-In load prior to these utilities. Please
note that due to the way Plug-In initializes, this workaround is
only possible in the registered version of Plug-In.

2) Wired for Sound Pro. This program can cause a GP Fault in Program
Manager if Plug-In is running. While this problem is not due to a
bug in Plug-In, we have devised a workaround for those who wish to
continue using Wired for Sound. You need to add "WFS=1" to the
[Settings] section of PLUGIN.INI (in your Plug-In data directory).
Before using this fix, please take a look in the "INI-Switches"
subsection of "Tips & Techniques" in the Plug-In help file.

3) AnyView Pro (Binar Graphics). This utility has a problem with any
application that modifies menus in another app. This is due to
its "OptiMemm" feature, which by default is set to "high". To
use AnyView and Plug-In at the same time, all you need to do is
set the OptiMemm feature in AnyView to "LOW".

4) Lotus Notes. Depending on your configuration, the QuickRun menu
accessed from the Power Button in the Lotus Notes title bar will
not do anything if you select a menu item. We are looking into
this and hope to have a fix shortly.


EXCLUDING APPS FROM PLUG-IN'S TITLE BAR DISPLAYS AND EVENT SOUNDS

New in this version of Plug-In is an "Exclude" dialog, which allows
you to easily exclude Plug-In's title bar displays and/or event sounds
from any applications you desire. This gives you total control over
how Plug-In interacts with your programs.

The list of default excludes includes:

ChessMaster 4000 (title bar and sounds)
Myst (title bar and sounds)
SideKick for Windows (title bar)
WordPerfect for Windows (title bar)
Ami Pro for Windows (title bar)
Lotus 123 for Windows (title bar)
InterNetworks (title bar)

You can, of course, change any of these defaults to suit your wishes.
For example, it is possible in SideKick to disable its use of the
title bar, in which case you may want to re-enable Plug-In's title bar
displays for SideKick.

For full details on this feature, please refer to the on-line help.


UPDATE ISSUES FOR OWNERS OF PLUG-IN 1.X

The registration scheme has changed in Plug-In V2. As a
current owner of Plug-In 1.x, you are entitled to a complimentary
Plug-In V2 registration.

If you wish to order the update diskette, your new registration
info will come with the package. Please see the next section,
"Ordering the Update Diskette..." for full details.

If you want your new registration info, but do not desire the
update diskette, please send us mail, fax, or e-mail (no phone
calls, please). Include your name, address, and phone; and
specify that you are a registered user and want the new
registration info. We will mail your registration info to
you.


ORDERING THE UPDATE DISKETTE IF YOU CURRENTLY OWN PLUG-IN 1.x

If you currently own Plug-In 1.x, you can obtain the released
version on diskette. This diskette contains lots of new icons,
cursors and sound files (including the Plug-In Talking Clock).

To order the update, contact Plannet Crafters by phone or send
us an order via mail, fax, or e-mail.

The cost for the new master diskette is:

$8 (including shipping / handling in the U.S. and Canada)
$10 (including shipping / handling for International orders)

Please be SURE to include your full name and address so that we can
verify your ownership status in our database.

Also, Georgia residents must add 6% sales tax ($0.48).


DETAILS ON PLANNET CRAFTERS T-SHIRTS

We have a new logo - the galactic diskette - and have put it on high
quality ash gray t-shirts. Our logo colors are shades of blue with an
olive green saturn ring. The image appears large on the back and small
over the left breast. They are available in Large and Extra-Large and
cost only $10. Shipping and Handling is $3 (no S&H if ordered with
another Plannet Crafters product), and we use Priority Mail. Contact
us to place your order today!


WHERE CAN I OBTAIN THE TALKING CLOCK FILES?

Due to size constraints, the Talking Clock files are packages in a
separate archive. The filename is PITALK2?.ZIP, where "?" is the
current revision level of Plug-In. So, if you obtained PLUG260.ZIP,
look for PITALK26.ZIP. The size of this file is approximately 300K.

If you can't find this archive locally, you can always obtain it from
the Plannet Crafters BBS or via the Plannet Crafters FTP Site (see below).
Of course, when you purchase the product, we ship you a master diskette
which contains the Talking Clock files, plus lots of other goodies.

Once you obtain the Talking Clock files, place the contents in the same
directory as Plug-In. Note that the Talking Clock feature requires a
sound card or a special PC speaker driver. This special speaker driver
is available from our BBS and FTP site. The filename is PISPEAK.ZIP

Note: If you have already obtained the talking clock files from a
previous version of Plug-In V2, please be aware that we have updated
the female voice as of Version 2.5.

Note2: We now have a few additional variations on the Talking Clock
voices (echo effects, etc.). You can download these files from our
BBS or FTP download site. We plan to have a number of other voices
available in the not-too-distant future.


THE PLANNET CRAFTERS SUPPORT BBS

This BBS is a good way to obtain detailed support. We provide individual
answers to your questions. We also have plans to provide additional
files on the BBS that may not be available elsewhere (such as additional
sound files).

Also, our BBS is the best place to guarantee that you are obtaining the
most current version of our software products.

The phone number is 770-740-8583. It has multiple lines, supports
high-speed (28.8 KBPS; V.34 / V.FAST) modems, and is operational
24 hours/day.


THE PLANNET CRAFTERS FTP DOWNLOAD SITE

We now have a full-time FTP (File Transfer Protocol) site so that you can
easily download the latest version of Plug-In (and other Plannet Crafters
products) if you have internet access.

- The FTP site is ftp.uu.net
- Logon with a user id of anonymous and enter your e-mail address as
the password
- The Plannet Crafters file directory is /vendor/plannet

Please note that this site is not guaranteed to be available in the
future. We hope to setup shop on the internet (our own domain, web
pages, etc.) in the not-too-distant future. However, we will try to
keep the above FTP site available for as long as possible.

If you have any questions regarding use of this FTP site please ask us.
However, we are not equipped to provide a tutorial on the basic use
of FTP software.


NOW THAT WE'VE GOT YOUR ATTENTION!

We want to thank all of you for making Plug-In a major success
for us! It is your enthusiasm that has driven us to create this
major upgrade to the original Plug-In. We hope you enjoy it!

And, you can be assured that we aren't resting on our laurels.
There are lots of good things in store for the future...


HOW TO USE THE RESTRICTIONS SETTINGS

Plug-In now supports a set of restriction settings as an aid to system
administrators. These settings can be used to prohibit the modification
of most of Plug-In's features. To use this feature, simply create a
file called RESTRICT.INI in the Plug-In home directory. It is recommended
that this file be made read-only so that end-users cannot modify it.

The format of the RESTRICT.INI file is:

[Restrictions]
GE=1
PM=1
CC=1
RA=1
QR=1
TB=1
AS=1
SO=1

Each of these settings can be set to "1" (restricted) or
"0" (not restricted). Note that the default for each entry
is "not restricted".

"GE" disables the General Options dialog
"PM" disables the Program Manager Options dialog
"CC" disables the Custom Cursors dialog
"RA" disables the Resource Alerts dialog
"QR" disables the QuickRun Config dialog
"TB" disables the Title Bar Config dialog
"AS" disables the Alarms & Scheduler dialog
"SO" disables the Sounds Config dialog

Please note that the purpose of these settings is to disallow end-user
modifications of configuration data. However, the individual features
are not disabled (unless, of course, you disable specific features
prior to enabling the restrictions settings).

If you have further questions about the use of the restrictions settings
and/or questions about using Plug-In in a networked environment, please
feel free to call us!


HOW TO DE-INSTALL PLUG-IN

If you wish to de-install Plug-In from a system, do the following:

1) If you have used Plug-In's nested groups (with Program Manager),
you should first un-nest all nested groups by dragging them to
Program Manager's desktop.

2) Disable "Run Plug-In when Windows starts" in the "General
Config" dialog and press the OK button. (If you fail to do
this, you must manually remove the Plug-In entry from either
the StartUp group or the "Load=" line in the WIN.INI file.)

3) Shutdown Plug-In by selecting "Shutdown Plug-In" in the
Plug-In Control Center dialog.

4) In the Windows directory, delete the following files:
GROUP.EXE and PLUGIN.* (may not exist)

5) Delete all files in Plug-In's home directory (assuming
this directory contains ONLY Plug-In files!). Also,
be sure to delete any files in the Plug-In data directory
(default is PLUGDATA under your Plug-In home directory).


CHANGE HISTORY

Version 1.00 (September 28, 1992)

- The original Plug-In for Program Manager!

Version 1.31 (April 16, 1993)

- The last release of Plug-In for Program Manager, Version 1

Version 2.00 (May 4, 1994)

- Very major update from Version 1.x. So many new features
that it is really a new product!

Version 2.10 (May 17, 1994)

- Fixed a bug in Application-Specific Events (sound support) that
would cause application errors.

- Save Settings was fixed to avoid a problem whereby an open
nested group would become permanently open.

- Disallow operations on a group with the title of "Groups".
It is not permitted to have a group named "Groups" because
of the way Plug-In interfaces with Program Manager.

- Fixed some problems with udpating the Title Bar displays

- Several smaller fixes

- Cleaned up the Help file a bit.

Version 2.11 (May 31, 1994)

- Fixed an interaction with some video drivers that could cause strange
behavior when running full-screen DOS apps (e.g., no text displayed,
but typing seems to work).

- Running Plug-In on HP OmniBooks would display a message
stating that "Program Manager could not be found".

- Several smaller fixes.

- Several changes / updates to the README.TXT and online help files.

Version 2.20 (September 25, 1994)

- We moved! So, we updated our address and phone information.

- Invalid date / time settings caused problems. We now display
a message and abort the load process.

- Erroneous message was displayed if PLUGIN.INI was not present
during Plug-In's Mini-Install process.

- Chimes would not chime if the "Chime Between" times had an
"end time" of 12AM (or 00h) and a "from time" not set to
12AM (or 00h).

- We now accept JCB credit cards.

- Added a switch to reset the sound driver immediately after
Plug-In starts. If you encounter a problem where sounds
won't work unless you hit the "Test" key in a Plug-In
dialog, please edit your PLUGIN.INI file (in your Windows
directory) and add "ResetSound=1" to the [Settings]
section. Please let us know if this does or does not
solve the problem on your system!

- CD-ROM changes were not always detected by Install
Application.

- Eliminated a situation that could cause a nested group to
become permanently "open".

- Added a message to clarify the location / parent group when
creating a nested group.

- Right Click menu on desktop would not stay open if your
mouse was jittery or moved slightly.

- Several changes / updates to the on-line help, README.TXT
and other text files.

Version 2.50 (January 24, 1995)

- There are several NEW features and LOTS of smaller changes! Please
note that the list below lists mosts of the changes, but we probably
missed a few of the smaller ones...

New & Improved
--------------

- Overall robustness has been greatly improved! Since Plug-In is a
system-level utility, it interacts with other running applications.
Although it was rather rare (Plug-In has been consistently praised
for its stability), there were applications which conflicted with
Plug-In. With the exception of a couple of specialized utilities,
we have eliminated all known conflicts!

- Install App now allows for browsing and redoing the drive search when
it fails to find any install programs.

- Exclude dialogs allow you to easily exclude the title bar displays
and/or Plug-In sounds from any specified applications.

- Added an option to disable the QuickRun menu item in Program Manager.
Since the QuickRun menu is always easily accessible, this menu item is
somewhat redundant.

- International Settings Dialog gives control over some of the more
visible text strings used by Plug-In. In addition to being of value
to our international users, this dialog can be used to further
customize Plug-In to your liking. For example, you might wish to
change the default 3-character month strings to their full names.

- Restrictions section added. System Administrators can prevent users from
modifying the QuickRun menu, Resource Alerts, and Sounds Settings, Etc.
For details on using this feature, see the section on Restrictions
above.

- Plug-In now has the ability to function as the Windows Shell (i.e.,
replace Program Manager or other third-party shells). This feature
will appeal to you if you if you like to have the ultimate in
uncluttered desktops. It also is great if you like to run large
desktops (i.e., memory and resource hogs), because you can easily
unload the desktop if you temporarilly need the extra memory and/or
resources.

- In conjunction with allowing Plug-In to function as a shell, we now
allow Program Manager to be run at any time and still have all the
added Plug-In functionality. So, if you use Plug-In as your shell,
you can run Program Manager as you need it, and shut it down when
you don't.

- Plug-In now supports a separate data directory, instead of forcing its
data files to be located in the Windows directory. In addition to
making it easier to manage these files, this also allows you to easily
backup your valuable Plug-In data. Note: The default location for
this directory is PLUGDATA in your Plug-In home directory (it will be
in the Windows directory if you are running Plug-In from a network
drive).

- New Talking Clock voice for the default (female) voice. We've also
released an additional collection of talking clock voices for your
enjoyment.

Bug Fixes
---------

- Talking Clock, Chimes, and long sounds wouldn't work in certain countries
(e.g., France, Netherlands).

- Talking Clock would display an error message if the sound device was in
use. This was annoying under certain conditions (such as when a screen
saver with sound support is active).

- Pentium processors would be displayed as 80486's in the System Info
dialog

- Chimes at midnight would chime only once instead of 12 times.

- System Resource Alerts could occur too often if the percent of free
system resources hovered right around the user-defined threshold.

- Cursors other than standard size (32 x 32 pixels) could cause Plug-In to
crash.

- Plug-In exit sound didn't always wait to complete before Windows
terminated.

- Plug-In start sound wouldn't play if another sound was currently in
progress.

- Items entered into the Run history list were lowercased, which caused
problems with some commands which are case sensitive.

- 'Control + Alt + Spacebar' had been used to activate the QuickRun menu
in an app (similar to using 'Alt + Spacebar' to activate the system
menu in an app). However, this caused problems with macro recorders,
so it is no longer a feature.

- Under certain circumstances, running a program using dynamic Program
Manager groups in the QuickRun menu would result in the working
directory being improperly set.

- If there is an error playing an hourly chime, we will disable the
chime. This is to help prevent repeating error messages.

- Plug-In's title bar displays were sometimes incorrect on apps that
allow the title bar to be dynamically disabled.

- Plug-In wouldn't show up on certain app's main windows (such as Eudora
and Netscape)

- The title bar displays on dialog boxes with unusual border styles would
be off by a pixel or two.

- The vertical positioning of the title bar display could be off if only
the right-hand side of the display was active.

- If you setup a minimized QuickDOS app from the QuickRun menu, it failed
to execute in the background.

- The 'Prompt for Parameters' dialog (QuickRun) failed to supress the
display of ampersands in its title.

- If Plug-In is run a second time, it brings up the Control Center,
which is handy. However, some users would end up with Plug-In
specified in the LOAD= line in WIN.INi *and* their StartUp group,
which would cause the Control Center to come up as soon as they
started Windows. We now do not bring up the Control Center if
Plug-In is run a second time within the first 60 seconds after
Windows is started.

- The Program Manager iconic display of memory / system resources didn't
look right if the user had less than 10MB of memory (including swap
file memory).

- Right-Click menus of group items in Program Manager were not sorted
properly.

- The Capture dialog now sets the window to default if the chosen
application is minimized.

- Certain date formats didn't display properly

- Added a workaround for a problem that occurred if Plug-In and
Wired for Sound were running at the same time. The workaround is
described in the "Conflicts with Other Utilities" section earlier
in this README file.

- Alarms and Chimes have an option to operate between certain hours,
but it didn't work if the hours crossed through midnight. In other

words, 'between 6PM and 9AM' now works.

- The 'Play Sound' action would be enabled for a new alarm even if the
alarm sound was set to .

- Some dialogs would allow OK to be pressed even if all the needed info
was not entered.

- We had some problems on some Japanese machines due to the way drive
letters are assigned (drive A can be the hard disk and drive C can be
the floppy)

- Sometimes the hourly repeat interval for an alarm would not be
properly set.

- We no longer reset the ProgMan Hotkey if one is not defined via
Plug-In.

- If a user enters a commandline such as 'D:MYAPP.EXE' (with no
directory specifiers), we now look for 'MYAPP.EXE' in the root
directory of drive D

- In very rare situations we ran into a problem on Windows startup
where a GPF would occur inside TOOLHELP.DLL. This has been fixed.

- Items in the sound list could not be in deeply nested directories.

Version 2.50a (February 2, 1995)

- This is a slipstream release (i.e., we didn't change the version
number, timestamps, etc.). We fixed a very minor problem that
made it awkward to exclude sounds only (e.g., leave title bar
displays active) using the exclude dialogs. There was a workaround,
but it wasn't obvious so we decided to do a quick fix.

Version 2.51 (February 7, 1995)

- Made some minor changes to the default sound-list assignments.

- Minor touchups to two of the default sounds (SFX1.WAV and SFX4.WAV).

- Added an option to disable the license bar at startup (for
registered users only)

- Minor help and readme changes.

Version 2.51a (February 27, 1995)

- This is a slipstream release (i.e., we didn't change the version
number, timestamps, etc.). In case you are wondering why we
occasionally produce "slipstream" releases, it has to do with
creating a balance between quickly solving problems in Plug-In
and preventing users from needlessly downloading updates they
don't need. If we increased the version number every time we
did even a very minor release, lots of users would download the
new version just to have the "latest-and-greatest" version of
Plug-In. Since downloading software has some cost associated
(for most users), we have decided to do "slipstream" releases
when we feel the problems solved are very minor and/or rare.

If the staff at Plannet Crafters tells you that something has
been fixed in a "slipstream" release, you can always guarantee
that you will get the latest version of Plug-In by downloading
it from the Plannet Crafters BBS or the Plannet Crafters FTP
Download Site.

In this release, we fixed two very rare problems:

a) Fixed a problem where an app would appear to hang with a
flickering menu bar when doing certain operations. Prior to
this version, the workaround was to exclude the title bar
displays from the problem app.

b) Fixed a problem that could prevent the Power Button from
displaying the QuickRun menu. This was caused by other
utilities that also capture mouse events, but failed to
properly pass these events on to other utilities. Prior
to this version, the workaround was to ensure that Plug-In
was the last utility to load when Windows started.

Version 2.52 (May 15, 1995)

- If you assigned a large wave file as a Plug-In Start sound,
the start sound would play, but other event sounds would be
disabled.

- We stop checking a drive being monitored by the resource
alerts if it becomes unavailable for any reason

- It was possible to get Plug-In to exit when it was serving
as the Windows shell.

- Small corrections to the Help file and some dialogs

- Our area code is being replaced with a new one in a few months,
so we added some notes about this in the registration dialogs,
online help, and this ReadMe file.

- We have a new FTP download site.

- Changed the default sounds for Restore Up/Down and Minimize.

- Creating a new nested group in Program Manager didn't always
inherit the correct custom icon.

Version 2.60 (August 23, 1995)

- Several changes to allow Plug-In to work with Windows 95.

- Several small fixes and documentation updates.


HOW TO CONTACT PLANNET CRAFTERS

If you have any questions about Plug-In, please contact us at:

Plannet Crafters, Inc.
P.O. Box 450
Alpharetta, GA 30239-0450
USA

phone (770) 998-8664 (9-5 Eastern U.S. Time)

fax (770) 998-8197 (24 hours/day)

bbs (770) 740-8583 (28.8 KBPS; multiple lines; 24 hours/day)

ftp download site: ftp.uu.net (/vendor/plannet)

E-Mail addresses
CompuServe: 73040,334
Internet: [email protected]
[email protected]
America Online: DMandell
Prodigy: VSFB48A
MSN (Microsoft Network): PlanCraft

Thank you for trying Plug-In for Windows!

PLUG-IN for Windows v2.60 --> Plug It In!
Fills the holes in Win3.1 & Win95. Award-
Winning utility (5 major awards!). Title Bar
displays, Alarms, Scheduler, App Installer,
Sound Support (Events, Talking Clock, etc),
PowerButton to access a multi-level QuickRun
menu, Custom Cursors, Nested Groups, Resource
Alerts, System Info, Screen Saver HotKey,
Run with History List, and LOTS MORE!
From Plannet Crafters. Registration $20

+-----------------------------------------------------------+
+---> Welcome to "Plug-In for Windows, Version 2.60" <---+
+-----------------------------------------------------------+

PLUG-IN FOR WINDOWS README.TXT (August 23, 1995, Version 2.60)

This file contains the following sections:

- Special Notes for Users of Windows 95
- What is Plug-In for Windows?
- What is new in Plug-In for Windows, Version 2?
- Installation Notes & System Requirements
- Installing Over a Previous Version of Plug-In
- Special Notes for Users of Plug-In V2.00 - V2.20
- Moving Your Plug-In Data Directory
- Notes for International Users
- Conflicts With Other Utilities
- Excluding Apps from Plug-In's Title Bar Displays and Event Sounds
- Update Issues for Owners of Plug-In 1.x
- Ordering the Update Diskette if you Currently Own Plug-In 1.x
- Details on Plannet Crafters T-Shirts
- Where can I obtain the Talking Clock files?
- The Plannet Crafters Support BBS
- The Plannet Crafters FTP Download Site
- Now That We've Got Your Attention!
- How to Use the Restrictions Settings
- How to De-Install Plug-In
- Change History
- How to Contact Plannet Crafters

SPECIAL NOTES FOR USERS OF WINDOWS 95

This version of Plug-In has been modified to work with Windows 95 (Win95)!

We are hard at work on a major update to Plug-In which will take full
advantage of the many new features in Win95. We expect to ship this new
version early in 1996.

In the meantime, you can still get a lot of use out of the current
version of Plug-In. Please refer to the special Win95 topic in
Plug-In's HELP. There are a number of notes to help you better
understand how Plug-In and Win95 work together. Please note that this
special HELP topic is the only source for documentation on using this
version of Plug-In with Win95. The rest of the HELP text remains
unchanged and there is no mention of Win95 in the Plug-In configuration
dialogs.

As far as installation goes, simply follow the directions below, as there
are no substantial installation differences between Win3.x and Win95.


Plug-In for Windows

WHAT IS PLUG-IN FOR WINDOWS?

Plug-In Fills the holes in Windows!

Plug-In is an enhancement utility for Windows. It seamlessly integrates
with Windows and works with any Windows Desktop. Plug-In feels like a
natural extension of Windows...

Plug-In is highly praised by the press as well as a legion of loyal users!
It is winner of Windows Magazine's Win 100 Award (1993 & 1994 & 1995)
and Byte Magazine's / Jerry Pournelle's User's Choice Award (1992 & 1993).
In addition, it was 1st runner-up for best Windows Utility at the
1994 PC Magazine Shareware Awards.

The registration fee is only $20

Major features include:

- Control Center dialog coordinates all of Plug-In's functions.

- Lots of enhancement for Program Manager (Nested Groups, custom icons,
custom titles, etc.)

- Title Bar displays (date, time, resources, stopwatch, etc.). This
option is very configurable to meed your needs.

- Power Button (sits next to the System Menu button on active applications)
gives instant access to the QuickRun menu. The QuickRun menu is very
full-featured, and includes multi-level menus, fixed window sizing,
task lists, dynamic Program Manager groups, etc.

- Custom Cursors. Change all the standard system cursors. Now includes
a "Cursor Wrap" feature.

- Full Sound Support. If you have a sound card, you're in for a treat!
General and application-specific events, chimes, talking clocks.

- Resource Alerts. Monitors memory, system resources, and disk drives.
Ability to display a message, play a sound, and/or launch a program
when the alert thresholds are passed.

- Screen saver enhancements. Instant-On/Instant-Off HotSpots,
Shortcut Key.

- Alarm and Scheduler facility. Very sophisticated alarms ... display
messages, play sounds, and launch programs. Lots of options.

- System Information. Displays lots of useful information about your
system and the Windows environment.

- Install Application. Painlessly install applications from floppy or
CD-ROM. Allows you to view README files before proceeding with the
install program.

- Run with History. An enhanced run command with history list.

- The ability to use Plug-In as your Windows shell (primary desktop).


WHAT IS NEW IN PLUG-IN FOR WINDOWS, VERSION 2?

Lots! In fact, there is so much new functionality that it could be
considered a new product. Please see the above list of features and
be sure to look in our on-line help for full details on how to use
the new capabilities!


INSTALLATION NOTES & SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

Plug-In works with all flavors of Windows 3.1, including Windows 3.1,
Windows 3.11, Windows for Workgroups 3.1 and Windows for Workgroups 3.11.
Plug-In also functions with the newly released Windows 95 (Win95)!
Plug-In is designed to be an integral part of Windows and is thus
always "running" ... however, it uses your memory and processor
sparingly! The Plug-In package includes a number of sound files. If
you do not intend to use these, you may delete *.WAV from your Plug-In
home directory to free-up some disk space. If you also have the
talking clock files, but do not need them, you may delete *.SAY and
*.DAT from your Plug-In home directory.

Plug-In takes between 0.5 and 1.5 MB of disk space (depending on
whether or not you are using the sound files). It uses between
2% to 3% of system resources when it is running.

Once you have unarchived (or copied) all of Plug-In's files to a
directory on your hard disk (e.g., C:\PLUGIN), run PLUGIN.EXE from
Windows. Plug-In has a built-in install program which will setup
its data files in a subdirectory of your Plug-In home directory.

If you are updating an existing version of Plug-In, see the next
section.


INSTALLING OVER A PREVIOUS VERSION OF PLUG-IN

NOTE!: If you are installing from Plug-In's master diskette (which
you receive when you purchase Plug-In), simply run INSTALL.EXE
from the diskette (Hint: Use Plug-In's Install Application
feature!).

If you are installing by using the "freely distributable" software,
please read these notes:

1) If you already have a version of Plug-In running on your system, you
must first shut it down before running the new version of Plug-In V2!

For Plug-In 1.x, select "Options | Configure Plug-In | Remove" from
Program Manager's menus

For Plug-In 2.x, select "Shutdown Plug-In" from the Plug-In
Control Center dialog (double-click on the
Power Button, or select Options | Configure Plug-In
from the QuickRun menu.


2) UnArchive Plug-In V2. You can overwrite the existing Plug-In
files if you wish.

3) Run PLUGIN.EXE from the Plug-In V2 home directory, and you are on
your way.


SPECIAL NOTES FOR USERS OF PLUG-IN V2.00 - V2.20

This release contains a large number of changes from previous
versions of Plug-In V2 (Versions 2.00 thru 2.20). Following
are some notes to help you with the update process:

- Plug-In V2.50 uses a different technique for updating the title
bar displays. While this new method is much "safer" than the
previous one, you may notice an occasional flicker or even a
short period where the title bar displays are removed while
using certain applications. This is due to a delay between when
an application repaints its title bar and when it gives up
control of the processor so that Plug-In can do its work. In
normal operation, you won't even notice any difference.

- Plug-In now stores its data files in a separate directory. When
you first run the new version of Plug-In, it will create this
directory and move your data files from the Plug-In directory to
the data directory. This new directory is called PLUGDATA and
will be located in your Plug-In home directory. However, if you
are running Plug-In from a network drive, it will create the
PLUGDATA directory in your Windows directory. This whole process
is completed automatically and does not require any action on your
part. One of the benefits of this new data directory is that
you can easily backup your Plug-In data files and it also results
in less clutter in your Windows directory (which is already crowded
with lots of files).

- The sound playback mode will be changed to "Asynchronous" when
you update to V2.5. This was done to avoid a problem with some
sound drivers where sound apps would report "sound device in use"
when they started. However, you may find that you enjoy the
"feel" of synchronous playback mode better. Please feel free
to change it back to synchronous by using the Sound Options dialog.

- We now have an "Exclude" dialog, which will allow you to easily
exclude the title bar dislays and/or event sounds from any
application you desire.

- For more details on changes in Plug-In V2.5, please see the
"Change History" at the end of this file.


MOVING YOUR PLUG-IN DATA DIRECTORY

There are a couple of simple considerations if you wish to relocate
your Plug-In data directory.

1) You can copy all the files to another directory. We recommend
that whatever directory you choose is a separate directory used
only for storing Plug-In's data files. By default, this directory
is called PLUGDATA and is located in your Plug-In home directory.

PLEASE do not move your Plug-In data directory while Plug-In
is running! You could lose valuable data!

2) If you simply run Plug-In from a different location (for example,
if you are updating to a new version and installed in a different
directory), Plug-In will offer to move the data files for you.

3) If you move the data files manually, there are a couple of ways you
can inform Plug-In about the move:

a) Edit WIN.INI, and look for a section called [Plannet]. Replace
the "Plug-In=" entry with the new path, save the file, and
restart Windows

b) If you move the PLUGDATA directory from your old Plug-In home
directory to your new home directory, Plug-In will automatically
detect the change if the old directory is renamed or removed.


NOTES FOR INTERNATIONAL USERS

Plug-In has fairly complete support for many international countries.
We support international date/time formats and even the Talking Clock
feature has the ability to use 24 hour format.

New in this version of Plug-In is an "International Settings" dialog
(accessed from the General Options dialog in Plug-In's Control Center).
This dialog allows you to modify a number of important text strings
used by Plug-In. This gives it a much more "integrated" feel when
you use Plug-In with an international version of Windows.


CONFLICTS WITH OTHER UTILITIES

There are several programs on the market (both commercial and
shareware) that offer some overlapping functionality with Plug-In.
While most of these programs do not cause serious conflicts, you
might see some unexpected behavior. For example, if you are
using another utility that displays information on active title
bars, you will see both applications fighting to paint on the
title bar. Another example is utilities that assign sounds to
system events.

Please note that almost everything in Plug-In is configurable.
If there is a feature you don't desire, check the Control Center.
Chances are you can disable it or modify the settings to your liking.

If you find that Plug-In's Power Button is not functioning, it is
most likely caused by another utility which intercepts and (improperly)
devours mouse messages. The solution is to ensure that Plug-In starts
*after* the utility that is causing the problem. The easiest thing to
do is place Plug-In as the last item in the LOAD= line in your WIN.INI
file, or place it in your StartUp group. Please see the on-line help
for further details.

We are currently aware of a few utilities that have problems when
Plug-In is running:

1) Icon Hear-It and Icon Do-It. If these programs are loaded prior
to Plug-In AND you have icon movies assigned to group icons, the
group icons with the movies will appear as black squares. The
solution is to have Plug-In load prior to these utilities. Please
note that due to the way Plug-In initializes, this workaround is
only possible in the registered version of Plug-In.

2) Wired for Sound Pro. This program can cause a GP Fault in Program
Manager if Plug-In is running. While this problem is not due to a
bug in Plug-In, we have devised a workaround for those who wish to
continue using Wired for Sound. You need to add "WFS=1" to the
[Settings] section of PLUGIN.INI (in your Plug-In data directory).
Before using this fix, please take a look in the "INI-Switches"
subsection of "Tips & Techniques" in the Plug-In help file.

3) AnyView Pro (Binar Graphics). This utility has a problem with any
application that modifies menus in another app. This is due to
its "OptiMemm" feature, which by default is set to "high". To
use AnyView and Plug-In at the same time, all you need to do is
set the OptiMemm feature in AnyView to "LOW".

4) Lotus Notes. Depending on your configuration, the QuickRun menu
accessed from the Power Button in the Lotus Notes title bar will
not do anything if you select a menu item. We are looking into
this and hope to have a fix shortly.


EXCLUDING APPS FROM PLUG-IN'S TITLE BAR DISPLAYS AND EVENT SOUNDS

New in this version of Plug-In is an "Exclude" dialog, which allows
you to easily exclude Plug-In's title bar displays and/or event sounds
from any applications you desire. This gives you total control over
how Plug-In interacts with your programs.

The list of default excludes includes:

ChessMaster 4000 (title bar and sounds)
Myst (title bar and sounds)
SideKick for Windows (title bar)
WordPerfect for Windows (title bar)
Ami Pro for Windows (title bar)
Lotus 123 for Windows (title bar)
InterNetworks (title bar)

You can, of course, change any of these defaults to suit your wishes.
For example, it is possible in SideKick to disable its use of the
title bar, in which case you may want to re-enable Plug-In's title bar
displays for SideKick.

For full details on this feature, please refer to the on-line help.


UPDATE ISSUES FOR OWNERS OF PLUG-IN 1.X

The registration scheme has changed in Plug-In V2. As a
current owner of Plug-In 1.x, you are entitled to a complimentary
Plug-In V2 registration.

If you wish to order the update diskette, your new registration
info will come with the package. Please see the next section,
"Ordering the Update Diskette..." for full details.

If you want your new registration info, but do not desire the
update diskette, please send us mail, fax, or e-mail (no phone
calls, please). Include your name, address, and phone; and
specify that you are a registered user and want the new
registration info. We will mail your registration info to
you.


ORDERING THE UPDATE DISKETTE IF YOU CURRENTLY OWN PLUG-IN 1.x

If you currently own Plug-In 1.x, you can obtain the released
version on diskette. This diskette contains lots of new icons,
cursors and sound files (including the Plug-In Talking Clock).

To order the update, contact Plannet Crafters by phone or send
us an order via mail, fax, or e-mail.

The cost for the new master diskette is:

$8 (including shipping / handling in the U.S. and Canada)
$10 (including shipping / handling for International orders)

Please be SURE to include your full name and address so that we can
verify your ownership status in our database.

Also, Georgia residents must add 6% sales tax ($0.48).


DETAILS ON PLANNET CRAFTERS T-SHIRTS

We have a new logo - the galactic diskette - and have put it on high
quality ash gray t-shirts. Our logo colors are shades of blue with an
olive green saturn ring. The image appears large on the back and small
over the left breast. They are available in Large and Extra-Large and
cost only $10. Shipping and Handling is $3 (no S&H if ordered with
another Plannet Crafters product), and we use Priority Mail. Contact
us to place your order today!


WHERE CAN I OBTAIN THE TALKING CLOCK FILES?

Due to size constraints, the Talking Clock files are packages in a
separate archive. The filename is PITALK2?.ZIP, where "?" is the
current revision level of Plug-In. So, if you obtained PLUG260.ZIP,
look for PITALK26.ZIP. The size of this file is approximately 300K.

If you can't find this archive locally, you can always obtain it from
the Plannet Crafters BBS or via the Plannet Crafters FTP Site (see below).
Of course, when you purchase the product, we ship you a master diskette
which contains the Talking Clock files, plus lots of other goodies.

Once you obtain the Talking Clock files, place the contents in the same
directory as Plug-In. Note that the Talking Clock feature requires a
sound card or a special PC speaker driver. This special speaker driver
is available from our BBS and FTP site. The filename is PISPEAK.ZIP

Note: If you have already obtained the talking clock files from a
previous version of Plug-In V2, please be aware that we have updated
the female voice as of Version 2.5.

Note2: We now have a few additional variations on the Talking Clock
voices (echo effects, etc.). You can download these files from our
BBS or FTP download site. We plan to have a number of other voices
available in the not-too-distant future.


THE PLANNET CRAFTERS SUPPORT BBS

This BBS is a good way to obtain detailed support. We provide individual
answers to your questions. We also have plans to provide additional
files on the BBS that may not be available elsewhere (such as additional
sound files).

Also, our BBS is the best place to guarantee that you are obtaining the
most current version of our software products.

The phone number is 770-740-8583. It has multiple lines, supports
high-speed (28.8 KBPS; V.34 / V.FAST) modems, and is operational
24 hours/day.


THE PLANNET CRAFTERS FTP DOWNLOAD SITE

We now have a full-time FTP (File Transfer Protocol) site so that you can
easily download the latest version of Plug-In (and other Plannet Crafters
products) if you have internet access.

- The FTP site is ftp.uu.net
- Logon with a user id of anonymous and enter your e-mail address as
the password
- The Plannet Crafters file directory is /vendor/plannet

Please note that this site is not guaranteed to be available in the
future. We hope to setup shop on the internet (our own domain, web
pages, etc.) in the not-too-distant future. However, we will try to
keep the above FTP site available for as long as possible.

If you have any questions regarding use of this FTP site please ask us.
However, we are not equipped to provide a tutorial on the basic use
of FTP software.


NOW THAT WE'VE GOT YOUR ATTENTION!

We want to thank all of you for making Plug-In a major success
for us! It is your enthusiasm that has driven us to create this
major upgrade to the original Plug-In. We hope you enjoy it!

And, you can be assured that we aren't resting on our laurels.
There are lots of good things in store for the future...


HOW TO USE THE RESTRICTIONS SETTINGS

Plug-In now supports a set of restriction settings as an aid to system
administrators. These settings can be used to prohibit the modification
of most of Plug-In's features. To use this feature, simply create a
file called RESTRICT.INI in the Plug-In home directory. It is recommended
that this file be made read-only so that end-users cannot modify it.

The format of the RESTRICT.INI file is:

[Restrictions]
GE=1
PM=1
CC=1
RA=1
QR=1
TB=1
AS=1
SO=1

Each of these settings can be set to "1" (restricted) or
"0" (not restricted). Note that the default for each entry
is "not restricted".

"GE" disables the General Options dialog
"PM" disables the Program Manager Options dialog
"CC" disables the Custom Cursors dialog
"RA" disables the Resource Alerts dialog
"QR" disables the QuickRun Config dialog
"TB" disables the Title Bar Config dialog
"AS" disables the Alarms & Scheduler dialog
"SO" disables the Sounds Config dialog

Please note that the purpose of these settings is to disallow end-user
modifications of configuration data. However, the individual features
are not disabled (unless, of course, you disable specific features
prior to enabling the restrictions settings).

If you have further questions about the use of the restrictions settings
and/or questions about using Plug-In in a networked environment, please
feel free to call us!


HOW TO DE-INSTALL PLUG-IN

If you wish to de-install Plug-In from a system, do the following:

1) If you have used Plug-In's nested groups (with Program Manager),
you should first un-nest all nested groups by dragging them to
Program Manager's desktop.

2) Disable "Run Plug-In when Windows starts" in the "General
Config" dialog and press the OK button. (If you fail to do
this, you must manually remove the Plug-In entry from either
the StartUp group or the "Load=" line in the WIN.INI file.)

3) Shutdown Plug-In by selecting "Shutdown Plug-In" in the
Plug-In Control Center dialog.

4) In the Windows directory, delete the following files:
GROUP.EXE and PLUGIN.* (may not exist)

5) Delete all files in Plug-In's home directory (assuming
this directory contains ONLY Plug-In files!). Also,
be sure to delete any files in the Plug-In data directory
(default is PLUGDATA under your Plug-In home directory).


CHANGE HISTORY

Version 1.00 (September 28, 1992)

- The original Plug-In for Program Manager!

Version 1.31 (April 16, 1993)

- The last release of Plug-In for Program Manager, Version 1

Version 2.00 (May 4, 1994)

- Very major update from Version 1.x. So many new features
that it is really a new product!

Version 2.10 (May 17, 1994)

- Fixed a bug in Application-Specific Events (sound support) that
would cause application errors.

- Save Settings was fixed to avoid a problem whereby an open
nested group would become permanently open.

- Disallow operations on a group with the title of "Groups".
It is not permitted to have a group named "Groups" because
of the way Plug-In interfaces with Program Manager.

- Fixed some problems with udpating the Title Bar displays

- Several smaller fixes

- Cleaned up the Help file a bit.

Version 2.11 (May 31, 1994)

- Fixed an interaction with some video drivers that could cause strange
behavior when running full-screen DOS apps (e.g., no text displayed,
but typing seems to work).

- Running Plug-In on HP OmniBooks would display a message
stating that "Program Manager could not be found".

- Several smaller fixes.

- Several changes / updates to the README.TXT and online help files.

Version 2.20 (September 25, 1994)

- We moved! So, we updated our address and phone information.

- Invalid date / time settings caused problems. We now display
a message and abort the load process.

- Erroneous message was displayed if PLUGIN.INI was not present
during Plug-In's Mini-Install process.

- Chimes would not chime if the "Chime Between" times had an
"end time" of 12AM (or 00h) and a "from time" not set to
12AM (or 00h).

- We now accept JCB credit cards.

- Added a switch to reset the sound driver immediately after
Plug-In starts. If you encounter a problem where sounds
won't work unless you hit the "Test" key in a Plug-In
dialog, please edit your PLUGIN.INI file (in your Windows
directory) and add "ResetSound=1" to the [Settings]
section. Please let us know if this does or does not
solve the problem on your system!

- CD-ROM changes were not always detected by Install
Application.

- Eliminated a situation that could cause a nested group to
become permanently "open".

- Added a message to clarify the location / parent group when
creating a nested group.

- Right Click menu on desktop would not stay open if your
mouse was jittery or moved slightly.

- Several changes / updates to the on-line help, README.TXT
and other text files.

Version 2.50 (January 24, 1995)

- There are several NEW features and LOTS of smaller changes! Please
note that the list below lists mosts of the changes, but we probably
missed a few of the smaller ones...

New & Improved
--------------

- Overall robustness has been greatly improved! Since Plug-In is a
system-level utility, it interacts with other running applications.
Although it was rather rare (Plug-In has been consistently praised
for its stability), there were applications which conflicted with
Plug-In. With the exception of a couple of specialized utilities,
we have eliminated all known conflicts!

- Install App now allows for browsing and redoing the drive search when
it fails to find any install programs.

- Exclude dialogs allow you to easily exclude the title bar displays
and/or Plug-In sounds from any specified applications.

- Added an option to disable the QuickRun menu item in Program Manager.
Since the QuickRun menu is always easily accessible, this menu item is
somewhat redundant.

- International Settings Dialog gives control over some of the more
visible text strings used by Plug-In. In addition to being of value
to our international users, this dialog can be used to further
customize Plug-In to your liking. For example, you might wish to
change the default 3-character month strings to their full names.

- Restrictions section added. System Administrators can prevent users from
modifying the QuickRun menu, Resource Alerts, and Sounds Settings, Etc.
For details on using this feature, see the section on Restrictions
above.

- Plug-In now has the ability to function as the Windows Shell (i.e.,
replace Program Manager or other third-party shells). This feature
will appeal to you if you if you like to have the ultimate in
uncluttered desktops. It also is great if you like to run large
desktops (i.e., memory and resource hogs), because you can easily
unload the desktop if you temporarilly need the extra memory and/or
resources.

- In conjunction with allowing Plug-In to function as a shell, we now
allow Program Manager to be run at any time and still have all the
added Plug-In functionality. So, if you use Plug-In as your shell,
you can run Program Manager as you need it, and shut it down when
you don't.

- Plug-In now supports a separate data directory, instead of forcing its
data files to be located in the Windows directory. In addition to
making it easier to manage these files, this also allows you to easily
backup your valuable Plug-In data. Note: The default location for
this directory is PLUGDATA in your Plug-In home directory (it will be
in the Windows directory if you are running Plug-In from a network
drive).

- New Talking Clock voice for the default (female) voice. We've also
released an additional collection of talking clock voices for your
enjoyment.

Bug Fixes
---------

- Talking Clock, Chimes, and long sounds wouldn't work in certain countries
(e.g., France, Netherlands).

- Talking Clock would display an error message if the sound device was in
use. This was annoying under certain conditions (such as when a screen
saver with sound support is active).

- Pentium processors would be displayed as 80486's in the System Info
dialog

- Chimes at midnight would chime only once instead of 12 times.

- System Resource Alerts could occur too often if the percent of free
system resources hovered right around the user-defined threshold.

- Cursors other than standard size (32 x 32 pixels) could cause Plug-In to
crash.

- Plug-In exit sound didn't always wait to complete before Windows
terminated.

- Plug-In start sound wouldn't play if another sound was currently in
progress.

- Items entered into the Run history list were lowercased, which caused
problems with some commands which are case sensitive.

- 'Control + Alt + Spacebar' had been used to activate the QuickRun menu
in an app (similar to using 'Alt + Spacebar' to activate the system
menu in an app). However, this caused problems with macro recorders,
so it is no longer a feature.

- Under certain circumstances, running a program using dynamic Program
Manager groups in the QuickRun menu would result in the working
directory being improperly set.

- If there is an error playing an hourly chime, we will disable the
chime. This is to help prevent repeating error messages.

- Plug-In's title bar displays were sometimes incorrect on apps that
allow the title bar to be dynamically disabled.

- Plug-In wouldn't show up on certain app's main windows (such as Eudora
and Netscape)

- The title bar displays on dialog boxes with unusual border styles would
be off by a pixel or two.

- The vertical positioning of the title bar display could be off if only
the right-hand side of the display was active.

- If you setup a minimized QuickDOS app from the QuickRun menu, it failed
to execute in the background.

- The 'Prompt for Parameters' dialog (QuickRun) failed to supress the
display of ampersands in its title.

- If Plug-In is run a second time, it brings up the Control Center,
which is handy. However, some users would end up with Plug-In
specified in the LOAD= line in WIN.INi *and* their StartUp group,
which would cause the Control Center to come up as soon as they
started Windows. We now do not bring up the Control Center if
Plug-In is run a second time within the first 60 seconds after
Windows is started.

- The Program Manager iconic display of memory / system resources didn't
look right if the user had less than 10MB of memory (including swap
file memory).

- Right-Click menus of group items in Program Manager were not sorted
properly.

- The Capture dialog now sets the window to default if the chosen
application is minimized.

- Certain date formats didn't display properly

- Added a workaround for a problem that occurred if Plug-In and
Wired for Sound were running at the same time. The workaround is
described in the "Conflicts with Other Utilities" section earlier
in this README file.

- Alarms and Chimes have an option to operate between certain hours,
but it didn't work if the hours crossed through midnight. In other

words, 'between 6PM and 9AM' now works.

- The 'Play Sound' action would be enabled for a new alarm even if the
alarm sound was set to .

- Some dialogs would allow OK to be pressed even if all the needed info
was not entered.

- We had some problems on some Japanese machines due to the way drive
letters are assigned (drive A can be the hard disk and drive C can be
the floppy)

- Sometimes the hourly repeat interval for an alarm would not be
properly set.

- We no longer reset the ProgMan Hotkey if one is not defined via
Plug-In.

- If a user enters a commandline such as 'D:MYAPP.EXE' (with no
directory specifiers), we now look for 'MYAPP.EXE' in the root
directory of drive D

- In very rare situations we ran into a problem on Windows startup
where a GPF would occur inside TOOLHELP.DLL. This has been fixed.

- Items in the sound list could not be in deeply nested directories.

Version 2.50a (February 2, 1995)

- This is a slipstream release (i.e., we didn't change the version
number, timestamps, etc.). We fixed a very minor problem that
made it awkward to exclude sounds only (e.g., leave title bar
displays active) using the exclude dialogs. There was a workaround,
but it wasn't obvious so we decided to do a quick fix.

Version 2.51 (February 7, 1995)

- Made some minor changes to the default sound-list assignments.

- Minor touchups to two of the default sounds (SFX1.WAV and SFX4.WAV).

- Added an option to disable the license bar at startup (for
registered users only)

- Minor help and readme changes.

Version 2.51a (February 27, 1995)

- This is a slipstream release (i.e., we didn't change the version
number, timestamps, etc.). In case you are wondering why we
occasionally produce "slipstream" releases, it has to do with
creating a balance between quickly solving problems in Plug-In
and preventing users from needlessly downloading updates they
don't need. If we increased the version number every time we
did even a very minor release, lots of users would download the
new version just to have the "latest-and-greatest" version of
Plug-In. Since downloading software has some cost associated
(for most users), we have decided to do "slipstream" releases
when we feel the problems solved are very minor and/or rare.

If the staff at Plannet Crafters tells you that something has
been fixed in a "slipstream" release, you can always guarantee
that you will get the latest version of Plug-In by downloading
it from the Plannet Crafters BBS or the Plannet Crafters FTP
Download Site.

In this release, we fixed two very rare problems:

a) Fixed a problem where an app would appear to hang with a
flickering menu bar when doing certain operations. Prior to
this version, the workaround was to exclude the title bar
displays from the problem app.

b) Fixed a problem that could prevent the Power Button from
displaying the QuickRun menu. This was caused by other
utilities that also capture mouse events, but failed to
properly pass these events on to other utilities. Prior
to this version, the workaround was to ensure that Plug-In
was the last utility to load when Windows started.

Version 2.52 (May 15, 1995)

- If you assigned a large wave file as a Plug-In Start sound,
the start sound would play, but other event sounds would be
disabled.

- We stop checking a drive being monitored by the resource
alerts if it becomes unavailable for any reason

- It was possible to get Plug-In to exit when it was serving
as the Windows shell.

- Small corrections to the Help file and some dialogs

- Our area code is being replaced with a new one in a few months,
so we added some notes about this in the registration dialogs,
online help, and this ReadMe file.

- We have a new FTP download site.

- Changed the default sounds for Restore Up/Down and Minimize.

- Creating a new nested group in Program Manager didn't always
inherit the correct custom icon.

Version 2.60 (August 23, 1995)

- Several changes to allow Plug-In to work with Windows 95.

- Several small fixes and documentation updates.


HOW TO CONTACT PLANNET CRAFTERS

If you have any questions about Plug-In, please contact us at:

Plannet Crafters, Inc.
P.O. Box 450
Alpharetta, GA 30239-0450
USA

phone (770) 998-8664 (9-5 Eastern U.S. Time)

fax (770) 998-8197 (24 hours/day)

bbs (770) 740-8583 (28.8 KBPS; multiple lines; 24 hours/day)

ftp download site: ftp.uu.net (/vendor/plannet)

E-Mail addresses
CompuServe: 73040,334
Internet: [email protected]
[email protected]
America Online: DMandell
Prodigy: VSFB48A
MSN (Microsoft Network): PlanCraft

Thank you for trying Plug-In for Windows!

Please read README.TXT before using this product!

If you already have a version of Plug-In running on your system, you
must first shut it down before running the new version of Plug-In 2.0!

For Plug-In 1.x, select "Options | Configure Plug-In | Shutdown" from
Program Manager's menus

For Plug-In 2.x, select "Shutdown Plug-In" from the Plug-In Control Center
dialog (double-click on the Power Button, or select
Configure Plug-In from the QuickRun menu.

For further details on installation, please refer to "Installation Notes"
and "Installing Over a Previous Version of Plug-In" in the README.TXT file.

Thanks ... and we hope you enjoy the new product!