Msg: Re: New Windows installer for vDos-lfn

Hi Kari,

First of all, thanks for testing the vDos-lfn installer!

Regarding the installer did not install config.txt and autoexec.txt as you mentioned, I have noticed that this only happened if the destination directory did not exist. This can be easily fixed. I have updated the installer to address this issue. You can try the new version.

Regarding multi-monitor support, since I never tried this feature myself, I will look at this later.

Regard the window size such as LINS = 43 and COLS = 80 as you mentioned, I think this is an issue with different settings. For example, in vDosXy "FRAME=ON" is the default setting, but in "regular" vDos and vDos-lfn "FRAME=OFF" is the default. When you use the same settings, I did not really notice any difference regarding window size when you set LINS=43 and COLS=80, both height and width, and there are indeed 43 lines instead of 40 lines in vDos-lfn during my testing. Thus, it is probably simply caused by some setting in config.txt.

Regarding the free conventional memory, please note that vDosXy is based on an old version of vDos, while vDos-lfn is based on the latest version of vDos. We know that in latest vDos, 4DOS becomes the shell instead of the built-in one as in older versions of vDos. If you run MEM.EXE from e.g. MS-DOS 7.10 within vDosXy and vDos-lfn, you will notice that the 4K difference is simply caused by the resident 4DOS shell. There was no 4DOS shell in vDosXy, so the difference.

Thanks again for your testing!

Wengier

On Thursday, May 12, 2016 8:24 AM, Kari Eveli wrote:

Hello Wengier,

First, thank you for developing new versions of vDos. Kudos for a fresh
approach!

As the installer did not install config.txt and autoexec.txt (I had no
previous install in the installation directory), I had to add the files
from the portable version. So there might be something the matter in the
installer setup.

There are some differences in screen behavior compared to vDosXy: when
dragging with the mouse, the window movement is jerkier and sometimes
the window does not follow the mouse. On the other hand, VDosLFN can be
made full screen on a second screen, which is impossible with vDosXy.
This raises the question whether it would be possible to add support for
multiple monitors, so that you could make the application open on a
chosen monitor with a config.txt directive. Now, when you place a
shortcut on the Desktop in an area that is located on a secondary
monitor, the application window opens on that screen, which is kind of
multimonitor support already.

The screen and font sizes with the same window size directive (e.g.
WINDOW = 35) do not produce quite the same results. It seems that vDosXy
has slightly bigger fullscreen view. Fonts scale in somewhat different
fashion, it seems that the view in VDosLFN is squeezed vertically,
horizontally VDosLFN and vDosXy match. I used LINS = 43 and COLS = 80 to
test (43 x 80 is much used with Xy). Both show the same number of lines,
but the vDosXy window is taller by 3 text lines, horizontally both match
in length. Hence it seems that VDosLFN has a hard-coded 40-line window
height. This results in uglier font display in my opinion. Could this be
fixed?

Conventional memory is slightly larger in vDosXy 1.10 than in VDosLFN:
633 vs 629
and with 'XMEM = +1 XMS' directive that can be used in Xy3 or NB3 (which
do not have graphics mode!) the figures are:
697 vs 693

VDosLFN is slightly faster than vDosXy.

Best regards,

Kari Eveli
LEXITEC Book Publishing (Finland)
lexitec@xxxxxxxx

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12.5.2016, 1:41, Wengier W (Redacted sender wengierwu for DMARC) wrote:
> The installer will guide the installation of vDos-lfn on Windows, and
> in the case that the configuration files config.txt and autoexec.txt
> already exist in the destination directory