XFolder is programmed in C, using the Warp 3 Developer's Toolkit. All XFolder versions until 0.72 were programmed using the IBM C-Set/2 compiler. Thanks to the generous support of Mark Mellin, who sent me VisualAge C++ 3.0, all versions from XFolder 0.80 will have been compiled using that compiler, which has a number of helpful improvements over the earlier IBM compilers.

I'm just a university student in Germany and cannot afford to buy $500 integrated developments, however powerful and convenient they may be. This is why I've been programming Borland Pascal 7 for DOS for years and went on to REXX during 1997, a result of which is my (in my view) very valuable CommandPak package for improving the OS/2 command shell. (It is also available from my homepage.)

The German OS/2 magazine "OS/2 Inside" (which is said to be the best OS/2 printing in the world) has issued a CD-ROM "Top OS/2-Vollversionen Vol. 1". In English, this means something like "Top OS/2 full versions". Yes, I know German is difficult ;-)

This CD miraculously contains a COMPLETE IBM C-Set/2 (C/C++ Tools 2.01 with the WorkFrame/2 V1.1 and V2.1). Although this was published in the days of OS/2 2.x, the Warp 3 Developer's Toolkit also comes on this CD. All this is available for only DM 28 (some US-$20), which is just an unbelievable bargain. All the software is in English.

You may order the "Top OS/2 Vollversionen" at the following address:

    AWi Vertriebsservice
    "OS/2 Inside Shop"
    Bretonischer Ring 13
    85630 Grasbrunn
    Germany

You will have to include a cheque over DM 28 plus DM 6 for shipping, at least when you're ordering from within Germany. If you're ordering from somewhere else, you might want to contact these people first and ask if they ship to outside of Germany at all.

For more on OS/2 Inside, you may check their (German) homepage at http://www.os2-inside.de/.

(Please note that I am in no way affiliated with OS/2 Inside, but I believe that this CD-ROM could finally be a way to allow everyone to start serious programming for OS/2. That's why I'm "advertising" for this CD-ROM.)

While IBM has stated that it will no longer support SOM altoghether, it is still a great technology, although it needs quite a bit of reading until you know what's going on. The C-Set/2 in conjunction with the Warp 3 Toolkit contains everything for developing powerful WPS classes. It is sufficiently documented to understand the basic WPS functionality, enabling me (who neither knew C nor the OS/2 API, but only OOP with Pascal and Windows 3.1) to build XFolder's basic functionality (version 0.11) in a triplet of days. (Things become more difficult with more sophisticated features, but that's another story.)

Valuable reading, aside from the Toolkit docs, can also be found in the four IBM OS/2 V2.0 Redbooks, which I found on an old Hobbes CD-ROM and might still be available on the commonly known FTP sites. It is quite outdated (dealing only with OS/2 V2.0), but the system's basic concepts have pretty much remained the same.

I also strongly recommend the Electronic Developer's Magazine for OS/2 on the WWW, which has published fabulous articles on all aspects of OS/2 programming. There are two series about WPS programming, one starting in volume 2 issue 8, the other one in volume 5 issue 10.

If you have the above tools, you should be able to program the WPS in a jiffy. All you still need then is a good portion of patience, since the WPS runs in a single process (PMSHELL.EXE), and bugs in your project will make the whole thing crash repeatedly. Check the helpful "Debugging WPS applications" section in the Toolkit WPS Guide to compensate at least the most annoying problems.