Auto-activation Mode may be found useful for centralising the use of the WintextCom Personal Information Manager(tm) directory, so that it is always prominent when no other application is being used, especially by visually impaired users who may find the desktop icons less effective than the directory. Auto-activation Mode is particularly suitable if you have WintextCom Personal Information Manager(tm) starting up automatically when you start your computer, since it virtually guarantees that the directory will be displayed and ready to use at the end of the Windows boot procedure, unless you startup group includes another application that comes into the foreground.

In auto-activation mode, WintextCom Personal Information Manager(tm) makes itself the active application whenever you are not working in any other program and there is no other program idle in the foreground. This is normally the case if there is nothing else running at all, or if you have all programs minimised to the task bar. WintextCom Personal Information Manager(tm) activates itself in these circumstances, displaying the directory in most cases, perhaps the communications window if it were last active before WTC went into the background.

Auto-activation Mode effectively prevents the desktop from becoming the foreground window. WintextCom Personal Information Manager(tm) will come up whenever the system would normally be idle showing only your Windows desktop. If you want to access the desktop icons, you can explicitly minimise the system by pressing WindowsKey+M. WindowsKey+M is the standard Windows command for minimising all application windows to task bar icon, and WintextCom Personal Information Manager(tm) recognises it and will not activate itself, allowing you to work with the icons on your desktop. Auto-activation Mode comes into effect again as soon as another program, or WintextCom Personal Information Manager(tm) itself, is accessed.

Auto-activation can only take place if WintextCom Personal Information Manager(tm) is running in the background at the time Windows becomes minimised, so running in Hide Mode is strongly recommended if this feature is to work effectively.

You set Auto-activation Mode by adding the "A" setup directive to the WintextCom Personal Information Manager(tm) configuration to provide two parameters. The first parameter is the interval in milliseconds at which WintextCom Personal Information Manager(tm) tests whether Windows is minimised, and the second parameter is the maximum number of open windows for auto-activation to occur. Due to system windows like the desktop itself, open windows will be detected even if you do not have any programs active.

The recommended setting is an interval of half a second and maximum of 2 windows:

"A500,2".

Note capital A, the directive is case-sensitive. You can place the above setting (without quotes) at the end of the configuration line in the modem port or modem port and initialisation dialogue box, or you can add it directly to the setup file via change/review settings.

It is possible that a different interval and/or windows maximum will be required on any particular system. With the above, a third open application window visible on the screen is considered to be a user application window and WintextCom Personal Information Manager(tm) will not activate itself. Try the above setting, and if it does not seem to be having the expected effect, experiment. Beware, however, that it is not a good idea to have WintextCom Personal Information Manager(tm) set to start up automatically with Windows while you are experimenting with auto-activation settings, as adverse effects on the system, requiring a reboot, are possible, especially if the scanning interval is made too small.

It can occasionally happen that WintextCom Personal Information Manager(tm) will fail to activate even when there are no windows open, in which case, press the Windows accelerator assigned to the software or click one of its icons. Auto-activation Mode does not have any consequences for normal activation, you can invoke the software at any time you need it whether you are in another application or not.

It can also occasionally happen that WintextCom Personal Information Manager(tm) will persistently come into the foreground when you intentionally minimise the system with WindowsKey+M. In this situation, shut down WTC completely, perform whatever task you require at the desktop, and start WTC again when needed. This occasional issue is unlikely to constitute a problem, and is of no moment whatsoever for users who do not use the Windows desktop icons, but rely upon the Launchpad capabilities of the WTC software to open programs and documents.

A variation of Auto-activation Mode can be achieved by providing a negative windows maximum. The positive value is till used to specify the maximum number of visible windows that constitute no open application windows, but instead of activating itself, WintextCom Personal Information Manager(tm) puts the Windows focus on the desktop icons. This setting might be of interest in some situations, such as to simplify desktop access for visually impaired users. It allows you to select individual desktop icons as normal but will not let you Tab away from them, and ensures that the icons are focussed, not the start button or any other desktop object, when the computer is idle with no program windows open.

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