Introduction
People.iro is an evolved version of the BeOS People application that can be used to manage and create People files. Originally, People.iro began life as a icon-template-painter, but it felt like an orphaned child window of the original BeOS People application so I went back, rewrote the whole thing and added a number of additional features such as multi-lingual support, field names based on actual mime type names, and the ability to hide or show specific fields.
Installation
To install this program simply use "Expand-O-Matic" (by double clicking on the zip file icon) to place the People.iro directory and files to wherever you choose. If you have a previous version of this program then overwrite the existing files, otherwise when you use the new version, BeOS may still only show you the old one.
Features
There are 4 main features of People.iro that are described in detail below and these are:
People.iro is provided with English and Italiano by default, but you can find more languages on this page here. Although it is very simple to use your own language by creating a text file that contains the translation. A sample file containing the British English translation can be downloaded here with information about the translation file.
For a language file to be used it must be placed in the following directory: /boot/home/config/settings/People.iro/Languages otherwise it will not be known to the program. If this folder does not exist you may create it yourself or choose the "Create Language Folder" menu option from the "Misc" menu (this will only be visible if the folder does not exist) and click "OK":
To select a new language for People.iro you should go the preferences window (from the "Preferences..." menu option in the "Misc" menu). From here you can choose the language for the user interface from the first menu and also how the field names are chosen. The changes (for all the options) are not instantaneous - you must either confirm them by clicking on yes/tick or ignore them by clicking on no/cross.
Note that all of the options apply to all of the windows - sadly (but not for me!) People.iro does not support specific languages for specific people files.
An interesting feature of BeOS is its support of attributes. These manifest themselves in their entirety for the People file type, as all of the information is stored in attributes and not in the file itself (the file is incidentally empty). These attributes have two types of names: internal and public. The internal names are used by the system and programs and should not be changed, however the public names are a different story. There exists a number of MIME file-type replacements at sites such as BeBits that are basically translations of the existing file types.
People.iro allows you to customise its display of the attributes by either showing their field names according to your file-type or according to your current language. So if you have a French version of your file-types but are using People.iro in Spanish you can choose whether the fields appear in French or Spanish. Or alternatively, if you have not modified your file-types, but are using People.iro in Italian you can view the field names in either English or Italian.
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Note that of course any other program (or even the find command) will treat the attribute names as they appear in the file-type, but until BeOS is multi-lingual this issue will not be resolved (easily).
When you first run People.iro all of the fields are visible and it appears very similar to the existing People application, but with the addition of a number of icons at the bottom that are the main link to the People.iro icon-template-painting focus of the past - see the icon information below.
Although a number of these fields are very useful (name, e-mail, etc.) you may not have a need for all of them - the facsimile and company name fields being the ones that I don't need, but these will be different for everyone.
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To alter the visibility of any of the fields you must select and deselect the appropriate check boxes in the Preferences window (by selecting the "Preferences..." menu item from the "Misc" menu). Once you have confirmed your choices *all* of the windows will appear like this.
The icon-template-painter support
The default Person icon is a nice shade of orange and without a doubt you should have your own orange legion after a while, but sometimes it can help to add a dash of colour here or there - hence People.iro. Actually, these ideas were formed after seeing an excellent icon set for BeOS called Personic, but I believe they are called Cypress Person Icons on BeBits.
There are two main components to the icon section of this program: the icons on the main People.iro window and the the actual icon window itself. The icons on the main window show the current icon that the file has (orange by default), a history of the previous icons to help apply colour coding to groups of files (or cringe everytime at some "inspired" choices), and the button to access the icon window.
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The icon window is quite simple: there is a large representation of the current icon, a palette to choose the colours from (the BeOS 256 colour palette for all icons) and a way to turn on and off automatic shading. By selecting a colour from the palette the large person will be updated in one of two ways: firstly the lit up part of the person will take the chosen colour and the shaded parts will try and colour themselves accordingly, or secondly the shaded parts will take the chosen colour and the lit up part will not alter.
These actions are controlled by the control in the top right of the window. By selecting the small square, the angled shape will become additionally selected (but not as strongly as the square) and the shading will be done automatically. If you select the angled shape then the the small square becomes unselected and any colour changes will only affect the shading.
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Disclaimer
The People.iro package (all files in the archive) is (c) Robert Clarke. All rights reserved. This software and the accompanying files are distributed "as is" and without any warranties whether expressed or implied. No responsibilities for possible damages or even functionality can be taken. It is freely usable and freely distributable for non-commercial purposes as long as the original archive remains unchanged. In no event shall I be held liable for any damages arising from the use of this software.
Final words...
If you have a question, a problem, or a request, or even a new language, please tell me via e-mail at daikumo@hotmail.com.