Coding: I would like to be able to "Leave Out" or "Put Away" icons programmatically

[matthey]

Thanks. Let me know what you can. It would be nice to do this without having another dependency like ARexx but worse come to worst I can do that. I modified the .backdrop file but changes didn't take effect so I assume there is something I need to do to make the system recognize the changes. Reset WB didn't do it (what is that good for anyway?!)

It's possible to send an ARexx command to a program's ARexx port without "using" ARexx. The port is a standard Amiga Port and the message contents are a standard string (including numbers). The program may open ARexx itself to parse the command that is sent though.

Here is a guide with the Workbench Arexx interface (AmigaOS 3.5+)...

http://www.heywheel.com/matthey/Amiga/WBguide.lha

This guide should already be installed if you are using the unofficial AmigaOS 3.9 BoingBag 3 and up. If installed, you can use the help key at any time from Workbench to bring it up. You can also use the help key while in the menu to bring up help for a particular menu item. It's not very thorough with the help but the Workbench ARexx documentation is quite good. It looks like the icons you want to put away or leave out would have to be selected with the "ICON" command (or let the user do it) then the "MENU INVOKE ICONS.LEAVOUT" or "MENU INVOKE ICONS.PUTAWAY" command used to do the work. Using the "WORKBENCH" ARexx host is a lot better and more reliable than hacking it even if you send the command directly to this port without opening ARexx.

[matthey]

So what you're saying is that what it does is undocumented and has no immediately visible effect. Mysterious and powerful indeed.

Nah, it's in my WB guide . ResetWB closes and reopens all Workbench windows. It's even more useful than "Redraw all" .