X-Master 1.3

X-Master manages Palm OS system extensions (aka Hacks) 

HackMaster, developed by Edward Keyes in 1997, has been the de-facto standard 
for managing Palm OS system extensions that patch system traps (so-called 
Hacks).  

X-Master is a free 100% compatible successor to HackMaster and offers various improvements, both technical and in the user interface. 

Installation/Upgrade

The ZIP archive contains two files, X-Master.prc and X-Master-Light.prc. The 
latter is a stripped down version of X-Master for users running low on free 
memory. It is identical to the full version except for the patch info and the 
sets functionality. If you are not concerned with the extra KB, install the X-
Master.prc file.

X-Master is a regular Palm OS application. After starting X-Master, the list of 
system extensions (Hacks) found on your handheld is displayed. Active extensions 
have a checkmark to the left.

X-Master will recognize if you have HackMaster running and will take over the 
set of active Hacks from HackMaster. Because it makes no sense to have two 
utilities with the same functionality, it will then remove HackMaster from your 
handheld. 

If you use a different extension (Hack) management application like EVPlugbase 
or TealMaster and want to use X-Master, you should first deactivate all 
extensions in the other program. Note that using multiple extension managers at 
the same time may lead to unpredictable results. You should eventually delete 
the other application. 

You can install newer versions of X-Master over the old version without 
deinstallation. Please perform a soft reset if you upgrade from version 1.0. 

To remove X-Master from your handheld, first deactivate all extensions, then 
delete X-Master just like a regular program in the launcher. 

Details

The Details dialog lists version, status (active/inactive) and the Palm OS 
functions that the currently selected extension patches. You can 
activate/deactivate a system extension.  

To get general information about a particular system extension, tap on the (i) 
in the upper right corner of the Details dialog.

If you tap on the Delete button, the system extension will be deactivated and 
removed from your handheld. This includes all data and the preferences.

Reset

All system extensions are automatically deactivated by the system after a reset. 
X-Master will display a dialog asking whether you want to reactivate your 
formerly active collection of system extensions. You can have this popup 
automatically confirmed after 5 seconds if you check the corresponding 
preference option.

Sets

If you have many system extensions installed, chances are you do not want to 
have all of them activated at the same time. X-Master provides support for easy 
switching between multiple sets of active extensions. 

By tapping on menu->Extensions->Create Set you can store the currently active 
set of system extensions. Once you have sets defined, a popup trigger in the 
upper right corner will appear that let you select or edit your sets. 

You can define up to 30 sets. Note that the activation order of extensions 
within a set matters, i.e. you can have two sets that contain the same 
extensions but in different order.

To switch between sets with a simple stroke in any application, install and 
activate the free XMSwitchSet extension.

Extension patch chain

The extension patch chain dialog, available through menu->Extensions->List All 
Active, lists all applications that alter system functions. The first called 
extension comes first. Note that this list may include applications that are not 
X-Master compatible (i.e. do their own trap patching). These applications will 
not appear in the main X-Master extension list.

Preferences

In the preferences, you can select whether you want the original HackMaster 
style layout (with little (i) and (...) buttons next to the extension name, or 
the default layout with Configure and Info buttons at the bottom.

By default, X-Master sorts active and inactive extensions alphabetically with 
all active extensions coming first. When you select strictly alphabetically, all 
extensions will be sorted alphabetically, regardless of their activation state. 
When you select Activation order, the list order will mirror the activation 
order with the most recently activated extension coming first.

Order of activated extensions

Sometimes, the order in which extensions are activated matters. Some extensions 
may not work if a different extension is activated first. 

For technical reasons, for any patched system function, the last activated 
extension will be called first. 

X-Master retains the order in which you activate the extensions after resets and 
in sets. To find out the current order in which extensions are called, view the 
extension patch chain or select the preference option to display activation 
order. 

Compatibility

X-Master runs on all Palm OS devices with at least Palm OS 2.0.

X-Master is fully compatible with HackMaster. It uses the same protocol and the 
same activation procedure as the original HackMaster. All Hacks written for 
HackMaster should work.  

A small number of Hacks falsely checks for the presence of the original 
HackMaster. Such Hacks can be identified in a text editor by containing the 
strings "HackMaster" or "dwHM". If you find such a Hack, please contact the 
respective developer and ask them to remove this test or extend it to include X-
Master as well. If they have any technical questions, we'd be glad to help.

X-Master fixes many shortcomings of the original HackMaster program. It 
therefore makes obsolete various third-party hacks and applications that have 
been specifically written to fix such HackMaster faults. If X-Master finds such 
an application, it will display an alert. You should disable and remove these 
hacks and applications.

X-Master is compatible with LeftHack. X-Master can be moved to Flash ROM.   

Troubleshooting

Because system extensions call deeply into the operating system sometimes subtle 
problems occur if several extensions interfere with each other, or if the 
extension was not written for the current operating system.

Things to try if a system extension is not working properly or if your handheld 
is unstable after activating a certain system extension:

is the extension (Hack) compatible with your Palm OS version and hardware?
is it working if all other extensions are disabled?
perform a soft reset
Version history

Version 1.3 (09-May-2001) 

more compatibility enhancements
include new Palm OS 4.0 patch names
compatibility fixes
X-Master will no longer try to activate a patch if this patch is not available on the current OS
reversed patch chain list to be consistent with main list (first called extension comes first)
supports direct calling from Launcher III
support for JackFlash
support for Handera 330
support for XMSwitchSet extension

Version 1.2 (11-Feb-2001) 

fixed bug with garbled function names
fixed various sets bugs
improved sets handling
added set update functionality
reduced space between lines so that 11 extensions fit on one page
added light version with smaller memory footprint (no patch info and no sets)

Version 1.1 (5-Feb-2001) 

fixed Visor incompatibilities 
(our sincere apologies to all Visor users who suffered crashes with 1.0!)
many other bug fixes 
added beaming

Version 1.0

initial public release

Thanks to Mike McCollister for numerous valuable suggestions. Special thanks to 
Takanori Nakane for the Japanese translation.


(C) LinkeSOFT GmbH, 2001 http://linkesoft.com/

This software is freeware by LinkeSOFT. You may freely distribute it, provided 
that the program and this copyright is not altered in any way.

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