Software

Some time ago, people asked about ways to remove infrequently used apps from the home screen of the OmniGo to make room for the icons of additional applications. The following steps describe a fairly simple way for achieving the desired results:

1. Prerequisites: Apart from an OmniGo, you will need a GEOS-based file manager (probably the one written by Nathan :-)), a PC with an OG file transfer program (OmniCom, OGFTP, ORC) and a DOS prompt driver on your OG.
2. Use the file manager to create a subdirectory in WORLD in which to place the icons of the apps you want to remove and copy the apps from WORLD into that directory (each of them will take only 512 bytes of memory, so don't worry too much about duplicating them). You cannot *move* them because the files are stored in ROM, even though they show up on the RAM disk.
3. Use the file transfer program to download copies of the apps in the newly created subdirectory to your PC. Do not try to copy them from the WORLD directory, because there is a bug in the ROM file system of GEOS which results in parts of the files being lost when downloaded directly from ROM.
4. On the PC, enter the following commands for each of the program files just downloaded (they will all have names ending in .GEO, which are not identical to the ones found on the OmniGo):

   4a.	At the DOS prompt, type "debug <filename>.geo" (for example, JDEMO.GEO for the Demo application).
   4b.	At the "-" prompt, enter "e 128 3".
   4c.	At the "-" prompt, enter "w".
   4d.	At the "-" prompt, enter "q".

5. Now upload the modified files to the \GEOWORKS directory of the OG. You cannot upload them to the WORLD directory, because there are already other files of the same name there.
6. Reboot the OmniGo to get to the DOS prompt. Go to the B:\GEOWORKS directory if you are not already there. For each of the files copied, enter "copy <filename>.geo WORLD\<filename>.geo". After copying it, you can remove the original by typing "del <filename>.geo".
7. After copying all the files, you can enter "geos" to relaunch GEOS. You should now see the reorganized Home Screen.

[For the technically inclined...] How it works: The applications you see on the Home Screen are "mirrored" from copies originally residing in ROM. These small (280 bytes) files in ROM in turn point to the actual application code which is not visible in the file system. By copying files by the same name which are marked as non-applications (this is what the DEBUG patch is good for) into the WORLD directory, these files actually "shadow" the ROM copies, making them invisible for the Home Screen application.

A note: what this modification does is only rearrange the icons visible on screen, *not* free any memory (as said, you will even lose about a KByte for every application moved because of the duplicated "pointer" and "shadow" files). This isn't possible anyway, because unused apps will only occupy ROM, not RAM.

Tip by Marcus Groeber

Organizing the OmniGo's Home Screen 2

By default GEOS is configured to scan the ROM SYS: drive for programs and documents before looking in the B: and C: drives. By editing your GEOS.INI and NET.INI files, you can make GEOS ignore the programs on the SYS: drive. You can then copy only the programs you want on the Home Screen from the ROM drive.

Please see the note and warning at the beginning of the Tips page.

What you'll need:

• File Manager or OmniCom.
• Text Editor or OgEdit.

1. Use File Manager or OmniCom to copy NET.INI from the A:\GEOWORKS directory to B:\GEOWORKS.
2. Use File Manager or OmniCom to create a new directory called B:\GEOWORKS\WORLD\APPS.
3. Use File Manager or OmniCom to copy all the files in B:\GEOWORKS\WORLD to B:\GEOWORKS\WORLD\APPS.
4. Use File Manager or OmniCom to copy GEOS.INI to GEOS.NEW.
5. Use File Manager or OmniCom to copy GEOS.INI to GEOS.BAK.
6. Using Text Editor or OgEdit, open the GEOS.NEW file (or use OmniCom to download it to your PC and edit it there).
7. Change:
   [paths]
   ini = A:\GEOWORKS\NET.INI

   To:

   [paths]
   ini = B:\GEOWORKS\NET.INI

8. Using Text Editor or OgEdit, open the NET.INI file (or use OmniCom to download it to your PC and edit it there).
9. Change:
   [paths]
   top = SYS:\

   To:

   [paths]
   top = B:\GEOWORKS
   userdata = SYS:\USERDATA
   system = SYS:\SYSTEM
   document = SYS:\DOCUMENT

10. Using Text Editor or OgEdit, open the AUTOEXEC.BAT file (or use OmniCom to download it to your PC and edit it there).
11. Change:
    cd \geoworks
    geos

    To:

    cd \geoworks
    copy \geoworks\GEOS.NEW \geoworks\GEOS.INI
    geos

    NOTE: Press Fn-2 to get the backslash.

12. Reboot your OmniGo (SHIFT-ON-NEXT); if you were editing the files on the PC, upload them back to the OmniGo before rebooting.
13. When GEOS is finished loading, you should see nothing in your Home Screen except the APPS directory and any programs which you have installed.
14. Use File Manager or OmniCom to selectively move the files you want from the WORLD\APPS directory to the WORLD directory.

Source: Wayne Venables' FAQ

Preserving state files on soft reset