Re: Mouse under XP

["Robert Holmgren" holmgren@xxxxxxxx]

** Reply to message from Robert Grigg  on Sun, 07 Mar 2004
08:22:21 -0800


> I wonder if anyone has had encountered this problem. My mouse does not work
> normally when I use XYWrite 4.16 in a dos/command window (running in
> Windows XP, Home Edition). Its behavior is decidedly impaired. On the one
> hand, I can position the text cursor using it, but doing so sometimes turns
> on the select mode, sometimes not. On the other hand, I cannot reliably
> select text using it. The highlight feature of text selection does not work
> at all, even if text is in fact selected.

Is Quick Edit Mode "off" under 9x, but "on" (the default) under NT?

Under all Windows OpSyses, XyWrite does not detect mouse movement when you use
a console window with Quick Edit Mode "on". Under NT, with QEM turned "off",
XyWrite detects the mouse and positions the cursor with it, and DeFines a word
with a double click, but won't display a text $tring while in the process of
DeFining it unless you **turn off ("hide") the mouse pointer altogether** --
which completely relinquishes system control over the mouse to XyWrite, and
permits DeFining to to be displayed while in-process. Unfortunately, that also
renders the mouse cursor invisible in a console window, so you don't know where
the bloody thing is. It works perfectly with a Hidden Mouse Pointer, except
that you can't see it.

Here's the interesting part, which you may not have noticed: whether the
cursor is visible or invisible, $tring DeFining IS happening! You just can't
see it or watch it while it's happening. If you hold down the LMB and blindly
DF a $tring, and then you issue a manual "func FF" or "func DO" or MU MD or
something like that, immediately the DF block is displayed.

What's happening here is that XyWrite's mouse call to the operating system is
being stepped on by the system mouse driver, and that in turn probably crashes
XyWrite's internal routine so that the usual screen refresh doesn't get
executed.
So draw your own conclusions. Disable the system mouse driver, and XyWrite's
mouse works. Something is stepping on toes. M$Word and WPerfect for DOS are
probably Windows-mouse-aware. XyWrite never has been. 9x probably uses an old
DOS mouse driver, and thus works. I haven't tried it, but a hardware rather
than software cursor might also work.

Once again, we're looking at the fact that XyWrite was not designed to be run
in a (deeply compromised) console window -- it was designed for FullScreen. It
knows nothing about DOS boxes.

-----------------------------
Robert Holmgren
holmgren@xxxxxxxx
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