README FOR FEFFER 0.9.2


WARNING:
========
THE CODE / PROGRAM PROVIDED HERE IS HIGHLY EXPERIMENTAL!
THE CONTENTS OF THIS ARCHIVE ARE NOT INTENDED TO BE DISTRIBUTED TO THE PUBLIC!
USE AT YOUR OWN RISK!

That being said - here we go:

---- what it is -------------------------------------------------------------
Feffer is intended as a simple interface to the registry parts that belong to 
INNOTEK's Font Engine for OS/2 and eComStation (called "ft2lib" hereafter).
Instead of manually digging your way through the registry with REGEDIT2 for
example, simply use FEFFER to manage the support of applications by ft2lib.

The name "feffer" comes from...:
(F)ront-(E)nd (F)or (F)ont (E)ngine (R)egistry

...now, ain't that smart? ;-)

---- what it does -----------------------------------------------------------
FEFFER adds/deletes and edits the registry entries for the ft2lib accordingly
to what you do in the GUI of feffer. In addition, it enables you to TEST-add
an application to the list of ft2lib-supported programs by writing the needed
registry data and launching the application so that you can judge whether it
was a good idea or not...

---- what more --------------------------------------------------------------
In this beta version, there's not much more yet. Oh yes - the crash recovery:
If test-adding and launching an application kills your system and you need to
reboot, feffer will recognize the application upon the next restart and will
ask you, if you want to delete that application from the list.

---- what you need ----------------------------------------------------------

  - this archive. ;-)

  - OS/2 and/or eComStation with Innotek's font engine installed and working
    properly.

  - sputils.dll by Tim Mecking (aka spTim). This is available from hobbes.
    Use http://hobbes.nmsu.edu//cgi-bin/h-search?key=sputils

  - rexx working on your machine, together with rxutils.dll
    This comes with the installation of os/2 and|or eComStation.

  - A BACKUP OF YOUR REGISTRY!!!    THIS IS HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
    If you're in lack of a tool in order to do that, simply go to your
    \os2\system directory on the os2 boot drive and make a backup of
    SYSTEM.DAT and USER.DAT ...at least, this is better than nothing.

---- installation -----------------------------------------------------------

 1) From the sputils package (see above) unzip the sputils.dll file and put
    it into a directory which is part of your systems LIBPATH.
    (In most cases, putting it into \os2\dll will work)

 2) Put all files of THIS archive into a directory of your choice.
    (Okay, you might just drop this readme here, but make sure at least the
    2 bitmaps (yes.bmp and no.bmp) and the feffer.exe file are present)

 That's it. Now run feffer.exe.
 Make an object for it, if you want.

---- usage ------------------------------------------------------------------
C'mon, this is beta and I explained what the program is about. Find out for
yourself how it works... ;-) Serious: It's quite self-explaining.

---- future plans -----------------------------------------------------------
If enough people find this useful (more than two that's to say) I'll keep
"improving" and fixing feffer. Some things that came to my mind so far are:

 - rework the "check if program is currently running" stuff
 - put bitmaps and stuff into a single file
 - make a "localizable" version that loads strings from... eh.. somewhere
 - support for turning on/off additional features of ft2lib (hinting, etc.)
 - import/export list of programs known to work with ft2lib
 - VIO version to repair/manage the registry keys
 - options to control feffers behaviour
 - do a real testing ;-)
 - provide a useful manual
 - quality-control the source code and docs
 - better internal error handling
 - ability to get detailed debug information for better support by author ;-)
 - code cleanup
 - a more sophisticated GUI
 - a tool to backup/restore the registry (if there's no such tool yet)

---- known bugs/problems ---------------------------------------------------

1) the check if a program is currently running is done upon (test-)adding it
   to the list. And then, no more again. This is ridiculous, because if it 
   is NOT running while adding it, it might be running later, when changes
   are applied. In addition, if a running program was added in "inactive"
   state, a simple toggle will make it active and no further check is done.
   I need to think that over again. (-> see future plans, #1)

---- author ----------------------------------------------------------------
Send bug reports and/or feature suggestions to:
 email: warpcafe@yahoo.de

---- credits ---------------------------------------------------------------
If you think feffer is a good idea, then please note that it wasn't mine.
Instead, Gregory L. Marx is the guy you should adress your thankfulness, as
he originally came up with that in december 2005 on the os2world.com bounty
system site.

If you think FEFFER does a real great handling of the registry, then please
note that FEFFER would be as useful as a dead racoon if it wasn't for 
Tim Mecking's GREAT utility "sputil" which enables feffer to read/write data
from/to the registry and to build a list of running programs.

If you wonder what feffer was "made" with:
Nothing but REXX enhanced by David C. Morrill's great IBM-EWS tool "DrDialog"
that makes feffer have a GUI and come as a standalone .EXE file.
