BeTips.net

If you’re having problems with the Riva TNT video chipset, there are a few things you should check before giving up.
Look in your system’s BIOS for a setting called „video bios shadow.“ Turn that off. Set your AGP graphics aperature size to 16mb. That should allow it to boot and work like a charm.
If after making the BIOS setting changes and installing the RIVA TNT driver, a blank screen still comes up, remember that [ALT + CTRL + SHIFT + F12] will restore the default resolution of 640 x 480 x8bpp, which you can then change to your preferred resolution.

If you have an internal, jumpered modem, you must configure your card to either COM3 or COM4. In the Devices preferences panel, pull down File | New Jumpered Device. Set the Device Type to „Serial Controller,“ and set the IRQ 4. Under I/O Port Ranges, select New and enter 0x03e8 (for COM3), length 8. When you press Done, you’ll see: 0x03e8 – 0x03ef.
The address for COM4 is 0x02e8 – 0x02ef, IRQ 3.
If everything went well, you now can use the Modem Settings control in the DUN panel to choose the right COM port for your modem.
Good Luck!

The following information was once the tip „Add jumpered device on COM2,“ but has been consolidated into this tip. This information comes from Isen Kusima (cycnus at geocities dot com).
If you’ve got a modem wired to COM2 but the PPP panel only shows you options for COM3 and COM4, here’s what you do:
1. Open the Devices preferences panel.
2. Go to New Jumpered Device | Modem.
3. Choose COM4.
Now, if you watch Devices carefuly, you’ll see your modem.
4. Double click on the modem (in the Jumpered Devices section).
5. If you choose COM4, you don’t need to change the IRQ. (COM4 and COM2 use
IRQ 3… if not yet IRQ 3, change it to 3).
6. In IO Port Range: change 0x02e8 - 0x02ef to 0x02f8 -
0x02ff.
7. Reboot.
If you reboot and get an error message saying your video card isn’t supported, return to the Devices panel and look at the Resource Usage tab. Check to see if there are any conflicts listed there. If there are, you can fix them manually. Alternatively, you can go enter your machine’s BIOS (usualy by pressing DEL or F2 during boot and search for „PCI and PNP Setup.“ Make sure you set „IRQ 3 used by ISA“ to YES so that no devices other than your modem will use IRQ 3.
Remember:
COM2 & COM4 use IRQ 3
COM1 & COM3 use IRQ 4
If the user want to use COM2, the easiest way is from COM4. The user only needs to change the resource (change the ‚e‘ to ‚f‘, 2e8-2ff — in other words, 2f8-2ff). The IRQ is already set to IRQ3, since COM2, and COM4 share the same IRQ.
Same for COM1 — set it up from COM3, change the ‚e‘ to ‚f‘, 3e8-3ef — 3f8-3ff. The IRQ is already set to IRQ4, since COM1 and COM3 share the same IRQ.

When you drag a selection out of ShowImage and onto the desktop, a new file containing that selection is created on the desktop. Most users figure out as much within about five minutes of playing with ShowImage in R4 (where this feature first appeared).
What is less known is that, by holding down the control key when you drop the clipping on the desktop, the Tracker will display a menu which allows you to choose the image file format to create the clipping in. If you would like a JPEG clipping (say, to put on your web page), just choose

image/jpeg

from the menu, and that’s what you’ll get!

Enter a non-existent URL into NetPositive and you’ll receive a goofy or poetic error message, usually in the Japanese Haiku format (5-7-5 syllabic structure). For example:
An ephemeral site.
I am the blue screen of death.
No one hears your screams.
There are dozens of different messages buried here, so keep trying for more. If you’d rather see plain old boring error messages, see the tip Access Hidden Preferences.
There’s another NetPositive easter egg not related to error messages. See if you can find it in the About box, or buy the BeOS Bible for the answer…

As you first begin experimenting with the Twitcher, you may think it isn’t as fast as Windows‘ Alt+Tab. This is because it does so much more, and gives you options between cycling through just the windows in the current workspace or all windows. If all you really want to do is toggle quickly back and forth between two apps, make sure those two apps are in the current workspace, and minimize all apps and/or windows besides those two. Now a quick tap on Ctrl+Tab will move you quickly between those two windows, ignoring everything else for lightning-fast window switching.
Bonus: Most applications will let you switch between open windows via Ctrl+Opt+Tab (Opt is the Win key for most users). To make this work, you must tap the Tab quickly — if you hold it down you’ll get the Twitcher as usual.

If you chose to install Bootman during installation, you’ve got an excellent new multi-OS boot menu. If you later add new operating systems or additional bootable BeOS partitions to your system, you can modify your boot menu by typing bootman into the Terminal.

If you’re migrating to BeOS from Windows and just can’t get used to the fact that Alt is used as the primary modifier key rather than Ctrl, use the Menu preferences panel to swap the role of these two keys. The change will occur immediately, no reboot required. Note that you’ll now have to use Alt+C to stop a running job in Terminal. You’ll also have to make the mental translation between these two keys any time you’re reading BeOS-related documentation.
Personally, I don’t think it takes that much effort to get used to using Alt rather than Ctrl. Your muscle memory will stumble a few times in the first few weeks, but after you grow accustomed to it, it will really make sense to use the default BeOS configuration. I strongly advise living with it for a while before swapping modifier keys.

At long last, R4 brings us the ability to toggle between running applications from the keyboard. The Twitcher is similar to Windows‘ Alt+Tab feature, but includes a few improvements over Alt+Tab. If you haven’t changed your default modifier key, tap Ctrl+Tab to wheel quickly through open apps that are not minimized and not open in another workspace.
If you press and hold Ctrl+Tab, the Twitcher’s interface will appear, giving you a keyboardable equivalent of the Deskbar. Through the Twitcher interface, you have access to all open applications, regardless of whether they’re minimized, and regardless what workspace they’re in. This interface differs from its Windows cousin in that you won’t end up with a separate entry for every open window. For example, whereas Windows will show 14 different entries in the TaskBar if you have 14 different Explorer windows open, Twitcher (like the Deskbar) will show only one entry for the Tracker, and only one entry for NetPositive.
To move backwards through the wheel of open apps, add the Shift key to the mix.
To navigate through open windows belonging to a given application, use the Up and Down arrows on your keyboard.
Bonus tip: While the Twitcher interface is open, you can click with your mouse on any of the applications‘ icons to select that app immediately!

As of R4, Pulse gains a number of configurable options not formerly present. To get a list of all options, type
Pulse --help
into Terminal. Pulse can be run in „mini“ mode by specifying the --mini flag and following it by a width in pixels, for example:
Pulse --mini --width=100.
You can also specify a color for the LEDs in both idle and active states, and for the frame border. For example:
Pulse --mini --width=100 --activecolor 0x2e8b57 --idlecolor 0xfa8072
Though I prefer to run Pulse in this manner as a Replicant in the Desktop, you can also now shove Pulse into the Deskbar by specifiying a width of 9:
Pulse --mini --deskbar --width 9 &
See the tip Tweaking WindowShade for more on finding equivalencies between colors and their hex values.

The title tabs on all BeOS windows appear flush-left on every window by default. If you need to get a title tab out of the way quickly, hold down the Shift key and drag your tabs left of right. What could this possibly be good for? You can now use your title tabs to arrange a sequence of windows as if they were tabs on manila folders, to toggle quickly amongst an array of open document or Tracker windows, for example.