Explorer

• One of the "Special" shortcuts in StarTap is Explorer. This is not a separate application, it is a part of StarTap itself. The Explorer screen is divided into the familiar two panes of Windows Explorer. In the bottom pane is the tree display of the directories on your machine, and at the top is the contents of the one currently selected directory.
• At the very top is the Toolbar / Menu which contains commands that should be familiar: Delete, Cut, Copy, Paste, New Folder, Large Icons, List, Details, and Close. The Menu has some additional commands: Properties, Find Files, Migrate!, Paste Shortcut, Paste CF Shortcut, and Vertical. These are described below.
• Of course, with StarTap / Explorer, you don't have to use Cut and Paste to move files around. Just pick 'em up and drag 'em to where you want them to be! Tap on a file or a directory, but don't release the pressure on the stylus. Now drag the stylus toward the destination. This can be one of the directories in the Tree View, or one of the directories in the List View, or the List View window itself. You can even drag a document onto an application, and it will execute it.
• The Report view shows three columns: Name, Size, and Modified. Tap on any of these to sort the files by that criteria. You can also view a directory in Large Icon or List modes.
• To rename a file, do the "slow double tap:" Tap on the file once, to select it, and then tap again. The Input Panel pops up, and the name of the file is selected in place for editing.
• To select multiple files to delete, pop up the keyboard, select Ctrl, and then tap on the files to select. Doesn't work for Copy, yet!
• To execute a file - either a program or a document that's associated with a program, just double tap on it. By the way, you can tell if a document is associated with an application by just looking at its icon. If it shows a specific icon, then you can probably open it by double tapping on it. If it just shows a generic "file" icon, then no dice. Neither Windows CE nor StarTap knows what to do with those files! Actually, this doesn't apply to image files. If you've selected the internal Image Viewer, StarTap will open them, whether they show as being associated with an application or not.
• In the Explorer Menu, Edit has a couple of entries that may be new to you, in addition to the familiar Cut, Copy and Paste. Paste Shortcut will create a Windows CE shortcut of the kind that you find in the Start Menu. Just select a file, Copy it, then move to the directory you want to place it in and Paste Shortcut. Double tapping the shortcut will execute the file, or, if you've placed it in one of the Windows / Start Menu folders, it will show up on the Start Menu. Many people don't know that you can create shortcuts to documents, as well as programs. Create a shortcut to a NoteTaker .pwi file, put it in the Start Menu, and you can select it from there. Windows CE will run NoteTaker, and have it load the file for you.
• Also in the Edit menu, is a really new entry: Paste CF Shortcut. These little devices have the annoying habit of "waking up" the Compact Flash / Storage Card more slowly than the rest of the machine. If you create a shortcut to a program that resides on the Storage Card, and assign a button to it. Windows CE will not be able to find it if you press the button when the machine is off. You'll get an error message.
• Paste CF Shortcut gets around this problem. Select Copy for a program on the Storage Card, use Paste CF Shortcut to create a shortcut somewhere in the Start Menu, and then you can assign a button to it. If you press the button while the unit is off, the machine will now wait quietly for the Storage Card to come to life, and then run the program. Much more friendly behavior!
• In the File menu, there are several items which deserve description: Find Files, Properties, Edit Lnk, Associate, and Migrate!
• Find Files lets you search for filenames by either "strings" or "filespecs". A "string" is just a portion of a name: search for "calc" and StarTap will find calc.exe, Cool Calc.exe and any other file that has "calc" in its name or extension. A "filespec" is more specific, and StarTap is very flexible in the kinds of wildcards that it supports for searching. For example, if you search for c*c.*e, StarTap will find every file which has a name that begins with "c", ends with "c" and with an extension that ends with "e". You can also use "?" to stand for any single character.
• Send and Receive use the IRDA infrared port to transfer files to and from another PPC. Select the file that you want to send from StarTap's Explorer on one unit, and select the directory to put it in on the other. Select Send and Receive, respectively, and the file will be transferred.
• Files can also be received by PPC's that are *not* running StarTap. Just select Receive from NoteTaker's menu on the receiving unit, and Send as normal. Note that NoteTaker must not have a file currently open. The Receive option only shows when NoteTaker is displaying a directory.
• Properties shows the precise file size and attributes for individual files, but directories are more interesting! For a directory, StarTap will count all the files, folders, and subfolders that are in the directory, and report the number of each, as well as the total amount of storage space used by the contents of the folder. Also, since each folder resides on some "disk" (either Main Memory or the Storage Card), Properties reports on these, also. Total Space, Used Space and Free Space are all shown.
• Edit Lnk allows you to edit the conventional shortcuts of Windows CE. Select a 'lnk' file in the List View, then select Edit Lnk. A dialog will allow you to browse for a moved application, add switches to the command line, etc.
• Associate allows you to edit and create the associations between document types and the applications that understand 'em. Select a document in the List View, then Associate. The dialog allows you to browse for the application to use, or remove the association entirely. A Note: some applications are very picky about whether or not the document name that they are handed has double quotes around it. Try the association both with and without Quotes.
• Both Edit Lnk and Associate are used to fix broken links that usually point to applications that are no longer there. They may be somewhere else, or they may have been removed completely. When StarTap / Explorer finds a broken link, it shows an exclamation mark icon for that file in the List View.
• Migrate! is used to move StarTap from one location to another. Select a destination directory for the StarTap program, and then select Migrate! StarTap will shut down, move itself and it's files to the new directory, and start up again.
• The bar that divides the two panes is movable: just drag it up and down. Also, if you don't care for the default horizontal division, change it! In the Explorer Menu, select View / Mode. There are 4 choices: the Tree View can be placed at the Top or Bottom, Left or Right. Top and Bottom divide the screen horizontally, while Left and Right divide it vertically.
• In the View Menu, you can also selectively hide files from the List View display. Select Filter, and then you can Hide Apps, Docs, files in Ram or Rom, or directories.
• You also have control over whether StarTap produces warning messages for certain actions. Select View / Warn, and you can turn on and off warnings for Deletes, and Drag / Drop operations.
• To go back to the main screen of StarTap, just Close Explorer. If you go back to Explorer later, it will display the same directories you were looking at before.
• The display of directories is a two step process in StarTap: after the file names are shown, you can scroll the list, select files, delete, copy, and paste. For even a large directory, this takes just a moment. You cannot change to another directory until the icons have been filled in. For a large directory, like /Windows, this takes a few seconds.