Themes and WimpSA puzzle

I installed Chris Wraight’s Theme Manager. When the new Window Manager (“WimpSA”), which says it is version 5.01 (13 March 2008), is not placed in PreDesk then Verma shows that my WindowManager is version 5.00 (23 Feb 2006) and is in ROM. If I do put WimpSA in PreDesk and reboot, then Verma shows that my WindowManager is version 5.00 (07 Oct 2007) and is not in ROM. Now it happens that I do have a copy of WindowManager 5.00 (07 Oct 2007) in a file called “wimp” hidden away on my hard disk where nothing in !Boot can see it, which I downloaded as a binary from the ROOL site. I have gone through !Boot over and over to see if any application could be loading up a WindowManager module before the desktop starts, without success. I have removed all the extraneous fancies like SmartMenu and LongFileNames that might conceivably do things. I am really puzzled as to why Verma is not showing WindowManager 5.01 when WimpSA is in PreDesk. What can be happening? My RO is 5.13.

Curiouser and curiouser! I unsqueezed WimpSA and the unsqueezed version said Windowmanager 5.00 (07 Oct 2007). When I resqueezed it, that is how it stayed. So it looks as if the version/date 5.01 (13 March 2008) was simply an artefact of the original squeezing process!

So it looks as if the version/date 5.01 (13 March 2008) was simply an artefact of the original squeezing process!

I can assure you that squeeze does not alter version numbers.

Well unmodsqz can! The WimpSA module in my PreDesk directory has help string:

WindowManager 5.01 (13 Mar 2008) Development version

I copy to another directory, and unmodsqz the copy, and then its help string says:

Window Manager 5.00 (07 Oct 2007) Development version

How do you explain that? It is repeatable. Where does the unsqueezing process get the different help string from?

By the way my unmodsqz is version 0.04 (20 Mar 2001).

Where does the unsqueezing process get the different help string from?

When a module is squeezed it’s squeezed in its entirety, ie including its header. The squeezed image gets a new, appropriate header. Upon unsqueezing the original header is restored.

The squeezed header of the WimpSA module has been updated to reflect its build date but the unsqueezed header has not, my mistake.

It would be easy to fix but as Steve has expressed his unhappiness with modules being upversioned outside of ROOL I’m awaiting to hear how he/ROOL would like to proceed with this.

Thanks – mystery solved! By the way, in my efforts to find out what was going on I removed a couple of desktop enhancers (SmartMenu, LongFileNames) because they used WimpSWIVe, and I had a vague, but maybe incorrect, impression that the new Window Manager might be incompatible with that. Can anyone provide more definite information on this point?