FLY (DOS GUI)

Features

 . 16 bit DOS Graphical User Interface (GUI).
 . Source code (TP7) available (under a separate download - see below)
 . Drag/Drop placement of Icons
 . Supports Image Icons of any size up to 128x128
 . Icons easily created using conventional drawing packages (Paint,
   NeoPaint etc).
 . Quick Text Icons supported (handy for dropping a reminder on the desktop)
 . Calendar supports full display of a month at a time with fast preview of
   daily entries.
 . Combine with your existing preferred File Manager (I use Dos Navigator
   and its great), Word Processor (e.g. Word5.5), SpreadSheet (e.g. Quatro-Pro)
   Paint (e.g. NeoPaint), Image Viewer (e.g. PictView), Email/Newsreader (I
   prefer Yarn/UKA_PPP) and Web browser (Arachne is great) under DR-DOS (I
   love 7.03 and its task-switching/multitasking features) and you'll have a
   powerfull office GUI desktop.
 . I personally use FLY's desktops extensively on a daily basis for such tasks
   as reminders and design/concept layouts, dropping notes, lines, arrows,
   images etc onto the desktop very easily (spider-map/brainstorm type layouts).
 . Calendar entries easily imported into other programs (Email etc).
 . Management of Bulk Calendar entries easily performed
 . Up 65,000 Desktops
 . Up to 100 Icons per Desktop
 . Desktops can be arranged to meet your current designs/concepts (Spider
   plan/brainstorm layout).   Null Icons (Icons with no command/action
   associated) can be used as labels.
 . Pop Up help
 . Fast Icon Selection
 . Fast Desktop Switching
 . Free's all memory prior to executing a program
 . Highly configurable - add your own Screen Saver, define your preferred
   editor, spell checker etc.
 . User definable Hot Key support
 . Keypad simulation of Mouse
 . Mouse Over Icon Helpful Text display

When FLY executes a program, all memory is released for that program to execute. If you use the MEM command, you wont even see any footprint (memory) allocated to FLY. Yet when the program completes, FLY pops back up again (its NOT a TSR but uses the systems internal linkage pointers instead).

Being a 16 bit program, it runs on a very wide range of PC's ranging from old 386's up to the latest W2K. And the core program unit is only around 120K in size (disk space).

The following are a reasonable representative set of screen-shots from FLY.

My Main Desktop. Note that Icons can be any size up to 128x128 and are simple BMP's that can be created using the likes of Paint, NeoPaint etc. Alternatively they can be textual based, just select the add icon text type option and start typing - handy for dropping quick reminders onto your desktop.

The Calendar

with context (Mouse over date) Popup of individual diary days contents

You don't even need to use a Mouse as all Mouse actions can be replicated using the arrow keys (move mouse), tab (to next Icon), - toggle (emulate right mouse press for drag/drop), ENTER (left mouse click) and PageUp/PageDown for scrolling. The numeric keypad digits can also be used to jump around the screen with 7, 8 and 9 moving the mouse to the top left, middle and right (respectively), 4, 5 and 6 moving to the middle of the screen (left, middle and right) and 1, 2 and 3 jumping the mouse to the bottom left, middle and right. So with careful placement of Icons, you can execute up to 9 icons on a desktop with just a couple of keypresses.

Switching between desktops is easy, just click on the desktop and up pops a desktop selection list.

The TP7 1.0.2i FLY source is somewhat messy and on my todo list to be cleaned up. Latest versions of the source are available by Emailing cml55uk@nsworld.com

Combined with the FLY Desktop GUI, my setup principally consists of Quatro-Pro graphical spreadsheet which has excellent graphing features including annotation options (don't forget to switch to graphics mode e.g. options|display mode|graphics mode), PictView for image format display and conversion between a wide range of formats, NeoPaint for image creating/editing, Word 5.5 (DOS graphical) word processor (multiple windows with cut/paste, spell checker etc), Dos Navigator - for file management, Arachne (GUI) DOS Web Browser and Email (supports viewing PDF's, Windows Word ...etc type content via plugins), Yarn UKA_PPP/NosBox News Reader, ORG disk defragmentor, and a more recent addition of Envision (GUI desktop publisher) all running under Caldera's DR-DOS (OpenDOS) operating system. Yet I don't even have a hardisk! - as it all runs from a USB2.0 256MB FlashStick on an old Cyrix 686 300Mhz PC bought at a Computer Fare for next to nothing.

DR-DOS's taskswitcher is just great, flick between applications with a single key combination.

The ramdisk driver I use is xmsdsk.exe predominately because it allows you to set the ramdisk drive letter (I use R:)

My PC's a OHCI type USB so usbaspi.sys and di1000dd.sys are the two drivers I use to enable the USB flashstick at boot-up time.

Together with FLY's source code, other sources are available e.g. for Dos Navigator, Arachne, LSPPP...etc - I've personally got most of them together with the compilers, alternatively hunt around on the net.

Within some bat files I use Memory Mark/Release (TSR unloader) to ensure that all memory is correctly released.

I also use termin.com to release vector 0x60.

This x_mail.exe is from an older version of UKA_PPP that can be used to replace x_mailn.exe in that newer version if you are experiencing (as I did) difficulties with blank FROM: addresses on posting mail. (Just copy this x_mail.exe to x_mailn.exe).

For a wealth of other DOS downloadable's check out Richard Bonner's extensive list