05-09-95 Thanks for taking the time to try FastFinger. Please read the installation and user documentation below. After you've used this tool for a few days, please fill out the questionnaire at the end of this file and return it to me (email is fine: tundra@ct.covia.com). PLEASE: Do not redistribute these files to other people or onto BBS systems. WHAT FASTFINGER DOES ==================== FastFinger is a Windows utility which provides a "pop up" command line interface from which you may launch either Windows or MS-DOS programs. By using FastFinger you avoid having to navigate back to the Program Manager or File Manager windows to launch other programs. INSTALLATION ============ There are three files in the FastFinger distribution: FASTFNGR.EXE, HOTKEY.DLL, and VBRUN300.DLL. Copy all three of these into your WINDOWS directory. Launch FASTFNGR.EXE as you would any other Windows program. You may find it convenient to add it to the RUN= line of the WIN.INI file so that FastFinger is available each time you start Windows. USING FASTFINGER ================ When you first start FastFinger, it is running, but invisible. To make FastFinger visible, press the Alt, Ctrl, and spacebar keys simultaneously. Pressing this key combination again will toggle FastFinger back to its invisible state. To start a program, type the program name in the FastFinger command line window and press the Enter key. If you want to re-execute a command, use the mouse to double-click in the command window. A scrollable list of up to the last 20 commands will be displayed. Simply double-click on the command you wish to re-execute. By default, FastFinger assumes that you entered a program name without an extension. It searches the directories specified by the PATH environment variable to see if it can find your program with the .COM, .EXE, .BAT, or .PIF extensions respectively. FastFinger automatically launches either Windows or MS-DOS programs. If you know your program is an MS-DOS program and want to skip the searching described above, you can tell FastFinger to just pass the command line as you typed it to the DOS command interpreter. This is done by beginning the command line with an exclamation mark (!). Even if you do not use this escape mechanism, FastFinger will automatically insert it if your command contains redirection or piping characters (<, >, or |). NOW ITS YOUR TURN ... ===================== Please take the time to email back the following questionnaire. Answer each question with a number from 1 to 5 keyed as follows: 1) I Disagree Strongly 2) I Tend To Disagree 3) I Have No Opinion 4) I Tend To Agree 5) I Agree Strongly ___________________________________________________________________________________ QUESTIONNAIRE ============= I am an experienced MS-Windows User _____ I am unfamiliar with MS-DOS command lines. _____ FastFinger made Windows use simpler. _____ Using FastFinger slowed me down. _____ FastFinger is something I now use regularly. _____ FastFinger does nothing I need. _____ FastFinger is now part of my default environment. _____ OTHER COMMENTS: ___________________________________________________________________________________