Page-Line Mode Problems

[tjh@xxxxxxxx]

As a number of users have noted, there are some real bugs
in Page-Line view (formerly known as Formatted view).

1. Phantom cursors: the cursor blinks at one place, but
it's really somewhere else. (Happens to me on perhaps one
out of 50 cursor positionings.)

2. Phantom text: text from some other part of the document
appears where it does not belong; the document itself is OK
but the screen is wrong. Quite rare; seen maybe once in three
months of daily use.

3. Screen freeze: the screen stops updating; page up, for
example, has no effect on the display although you can see
the page-line indicator values change. Somewhat rare, seen maybe
once a month.

I have observed these across a number of versions from Signature 1.0
forward to XyDOS 4.017. Problems 2 and 3 *seem* to occur on rather
short documents, not long ones, which is strange.

I've seen them under booted DOS and OS/2, and on a 386SX, a 486
laptop, and a Pentium.

I do use linear cursors, which is not the default and which I
gather most of you do not use. The linears don't always work
properly within menus, and perhaps there is some connection.

Notwithstanding the problems, I do use P-L quite a bit as it is
the only way to see page breaks on screen and I find that quite
useful. It would be nice to get these things fixed, but TTG's silence
on the question of whether 4.017 is the last DOS release of XY would
seem to indicate that it's the end of the line.

........................................................
Thomas J. Hawley             tjh@xxxxxxxx
Burke & Parsons           tel +1 212 354 3800
1114 Avenue of the Americas     fax +1 212 221 1432
New York NY 10036-7743