A valuable gem for managing files - Software Review - GeoWorks Desktop 1.2 desktop accessory program from GeoWorks - Evaluation

Home Office Computing, Sept, 1992 by Charles Gajeway

A VALUABLE GEM FOR MANAGING FILES GEOWORKS DESKTOP

Rating:***

AT A GLANCE: Slick, quick, useful combination of accessories featuring a great DOS menu, easy file management and telecommunications. Good choice for those with 8088 and 286 machines or for those not willing to go to Windows.

DOCUMENTATION: Nicely written, well illustrated.

EASE OF USE: Very easy to learn and use.

SUPPORT: Good. Technicians are friendly and knowledgeable. Toll call; expect to wait a few minutes on hold. Also, GeoWorks maintains an America Online forum to answer questions.

VERSION REVIEWED: 1.2

LIST PRICE: $70

STREET PRICE RANGE: $50-$60

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS: 512K IBM compatible; hard-disk drive; CGA, EGA, VGA, or Hercules; mouse; DOS 2.0 or higher

PUBLISHER: GeoWorks, 2150 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley, CA 94704; (510) 644-9362

At first, GeoWorks Desktop seemed to me to be a "completer set" for GeoWorks Writer and Designer, the other programs in GeoWorks's Personal Office Series. In combination with one or both of the other programs, Desktop adds communications capabilities, desk accessories, some system enhancements, and a couple of games. The additions were useful, and well worth the modest price of the program, but it took me a while to figure out why you might want to use Desktop on its own.

The first thing I noticed was that instead of a single Workspace icon, Desktop's opening screen has four icons (Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced, and DOS Programs). I decided to take a logical approach and begin with Beginner.

Starting slow. As you might expect, the Beginner option offers a very simple environment, letting you choose from five "appliances," or desk accessories. There is a desk diary, a Rolodex-like address book, solitaire (as if I don't have enough distractions!), a calculator, and a notepad. The appliances are simple and intuitive, with nice touches such as an alarm clock and schedule printing in the scheduler/diary, and phone dialing (if you have a modem) in the address book. In Beginner, you can open only one accessory at a time, and it occupies the full screen.

Moving up. The Intermediate option brought up the File Cabinet screen. In this screen, you see the documents (files) and folders (directories) that you create as you work with GeoWorks appliances and programs (plus Tetris, a very addictive distraction). While you can scan non-GEOS files stored on disk, File Cabinet locks you into the Documents subdirectory on your hard drive. I found this limitation annoyingly claustrophobic in Desktop, where there are no full-fledged applications.

Really moving. This situation improved dramatically in Advanced mode. In this environment, PC/GEOS gives you access to all directories on your hard-disk drive. For convenience in navigating, there is a Back Out button above the work area; clicking on it moves you up one level in the directory structure. Or, if you prefer, you can use the Show Tree command, which displays a tree diagram that will be instantly familiar to anyone who has used PC Tools or the DOSSHELL command in MS-DOS 5.0.

There are four buttons at the bottom of the workspace that create even more convenience in disk navigation. Clicking on the Globe icon opens the World directory, where all your GeoWorks programs are stored. Clicking on the Documents icon opens the Documents directory (available in all modes). There is also a Tiles icon, which opens a separate window for any directory you wish to see, and a Full Screen icon, which opens the active window to full size.

Selecting the Advanced environment also lets you start a GeoWorks program directly, and puts PC/GEOS into a multiple-window mode, so that you can resire your various application windows and arrange them on the screen to your liking. For example, run your word processor in one window and your address book in another, side by side.

TeleStuff. The Advanced environment lets you use the included America Online and GeoComm telecommunications programs. GeoComm is easy to use and has enough flexibility to handle everyday telecommunications tasks; it uses a simple scripting language to automate 1og-ons and other routine procedures. America Online is an excellent information service with its own graphical interface, and GeoWorks maintains an active user forum on AOL.

The icing or the cake? All of these features were good and useful, but it is the DOS Programs environment that gives GeoWorks Desktop its true, stand-alone value. The single function of this environment is creating clickable buttons to run DOS programs. In many cases, all you have to do is choose the Create New Button command, find the program file you want to associate with that button, and then choose an icon for the button (icons for many popular DOS programs, as well as a variety of generic icons, are already included).

If necessary, you can append commandline options to the button, or create a batch file to set up and execute a program. In any case, clicking on a button you have created suspends PC/GEOS and runs the selected program. When you are finished working with the program and quit, you can either return to PC/GEOS or exit to DOS. This is one of the simplest and most attractive DOS menu utilities I have ever used, and it was so effective I could even run Windows from Desktop without a hitch.