Welcome to XFolder!

XFolder was written to give the OS/2 Workplace Shell (WPS) some features which I have always missed.

In my view, the WPS ist still the one feature which makes OS/2 stand out compared to other operating systems. While other operating systems (especially Linux) have by now reached a stability which is at least comparable, if not greater than OS/2's, there is nothing that I know of which can compare to the WPS in terms of productivity, flexibility and superior overall concept.

However, IBM has -- even after the last update, OS/2 Warp 4 -- not fully exhausted the WPS's potential, especially with respect to the following:

- Even thouth the OS/2 "templates" concept is very powerful, it is not very comfortable to always have to drag objects from the Templates folder in order to create objects -- especially since this folder takes ages until all objects are displayed. On the other hand, although Windows 95 is a truly evil operating system, its folders there have a handy function: you can put links into the "\Windows\ShellNew" directory, and these can then be created from all folders.
- The truly superior object-oriented concept falls short of its potential when it comes to context menus. There is just no function to modify context menus globally for all objects.
- The same applies to folder sorting.
- OS/2 traditionally does not like keyboard shortcuts.
- The OS/2 Shutdown is a sensible feature, but it can neither be terminated nor configured in any way.
- In many places the WPS is not as productive as it could be, because in certain situations, the user always has to perform the same actions sequentially, which could be abbreviated. For example, one almost always changes the title after creating an object, one almost always goes through 18 menu pages to change a certain folder setting, and after expanding a folder tree view, one needs to scroll down the folder contents manually.
- Oh yes, and folder status bars would be handy too, without having to load extra software which slows down performance.

XFolder addresses these problems by introducing a number of WPS class replacements. Among others, XFolder replaces the WPS folder class ("WPFolder") to introduce the many features which are described in this online reference.

Previous versions of XFolder pretty much dealt with context menus "only"; by now, however, XFolder has come to a point where it's improving many aspects of the Workplace Shell at many different places. To implement this, XFolder by now not only replaces the WPFolder class, but many others too. These replacements should be totally transparent to you: they just introduce new features, and you don't have to deal with any WPS internals.

XFolder contains exactly those features I have missed working daily with OS/2; I hope that you consider XFolder just as useful as I do.

XFolder does not primarily intend to be a replacement for other popular WPS enhancers. It is intended to fill gaps, not to be competition for other freeware utilities. You might however find features in XFolder which are otherwise available only in shareware or commercial programs, because I strongly feel that OS/2 needs more freeware programs. After all, this is what makes Linux alive.