Hewlett-Packard Co has announced a push-button utility panel that provides users with a faster way to work in Microsoft Corp’s Windows 3. Dashboard appears at the bottom corner of the screen and provides a series of controls for multiple-screen views of programs and pushbutton icons to launch applications and organise groups. It includes printer and facsimile output controls and gauges to monitor system resources and memory. The Extended Screen Manager is like a miniature multiscreen monitor that can be customised to offer three, five, seven or nine screen views for application organisation and switching. Instead of searching through overlapping windows, subwindows and minimised icons, users can access active applications. Quick-launch buttons can be customised like a radio’s preset buttons and users can launch all the most commonly-used applications from the panel in one step. Program group controls provide fast access to programs and program groups and the last can be tailored to include groups within groups, a feature not available through the standard Windows Program Manager. Each program group is represented by a pushbutton icon that can be activated to display a pop-up menu of applications stored in that program group, or mini-icons representative of each application. Dashboard is claimed to offer faster access and control over printing and it enables users to reconfigure or change the default printer in a single step. Dashboard can be configured to recognise any printer or facsimile machine with a personalised description and icon. To drag-and-drop print, users drag a file onto the desired peripheral icon to print or send via facsimile automatically. The Dashboard system resource and memory gauge presents detailed information about available memory and system resources. Users can set the resource gauge’s warning indicator to sound an alarm when the system resources or total memory reach a predetermined threshold, and an alarm clock can be configured to set off a variety of alarm sounds, display a message or launch an application. The entire Dashboard is customisable so that users can rearrange the order of features in Dashboard or hide the redundant ones. The Dashboard panel can be minimised to a single icon and a hot key configured to hide the Dashboard or bring it into view. Multiple configurations can be saved and recalled. Dashboard is $100 and available through major US retail chains. It runs on any MS-DOS-compatible desktop, laptop or portable with an Intel 80X86 microprocessor, 640Kb of base memory and 2Mb of extended memory running MS-DOS 3.2 or Microsoft Windows 3.0.
