xywin clipboard crashes

[Allan Needell NASSH100@xxxxxxxx]

David,

I understand that Jack has privately sent you the keyboard fix for clipboard
crashes. I'm sending it to the list in case anyone else has had the problem.
I hope experienced users will forgive the elementary details. I know I
appreciated long explanations of simple things when I first got the courage to
start looking under the hood of Xywrite and Notabene. I am assuming its better
to start at a basic level and then let group interactions gradually ratchet up
the level of explanations, as long as there are constant reminders that all
levels of questions are welcome and appropriate.

If you look in the xywin keyboard file xw.kbd you'll see that the various
copy/paste keyboard hotkeys accomplish their feat in a roundabout way. They
first clear help using the XH command and then use the JM (jump menu) command,
which tells Xywin to look in the xwmenu.mnu file and execute the commands
listed there under "copy" and "paste." There must be a good reason for this,
but I don't know what it is. I haven't looked inside the menu file, but I'm
told that it invokes the standard windows copy and paste to clipboard
functions. But it must take too much time or something, and this method is
what seems to cause crashes when moving large blocks of text.

I've found that executing the windows copy and paste commands directly solves
the problem.  To do this you have to modify the keyboard file. Select a set
of hot keys. I chose Control-c (for copy) and Control-v (for paste) because I
am used to these from other programs. Find the CTRL table in the keyboard
file. Look for the numbers 46 and 47 (which stand for the c and v keys
respectively). Comment out the existing definition by adding a semicolon at
the beginning (that way you can restore the old setting if something goes
wrong), and add the new definitions as follows:

;46=XH,JM,(,C,o,p,y,)
46=MW,c,p
;47=XH,JM,(,P,a,s,t,e,)
47=MW,p,a

The MW function invokes the windows action called by the following argument.
Obviously cp is copy and pa is paste. With this change, store the keyboard
file and reload it. (You can simply quit and restart XyWIN.) Test CTRL-c and
CTRL-v and see if the problem is fixed. It works for me. If not, there is one
other thing to try, but I don't see why it should be necessary. Add the
NI command at the beginning of each statement (e.g. 46=NI,MW,c,p). The NI "no
interrupt" command tells Xywrite to ignore any underlying windows or dos
actions associated with that keystroke. That definition also works for me.

That's it. You can choose instead to alter other keys (like Control-insert and
Control-x) just look for the key number in the chart at the beginning of the
keyboard file. And please let me know if this does not solve your problem. ÿAE

Allan Needell, Dept. of Space History, Nat'l Air & Space Museum
   Smithsonian Institution, MRC 311, Washington, DC 20560 i:
nassh100@xxxxxxxx; b: nassh100@sivm; CServe: 71461,1115
      tel 202/357-2828; fax 202/786-2947