Re: using oed

["Robert Holmgren" holmgren@xxxxxxxx]

** Reply to message from Paul Breeze  on Fri, 18
Nov 2005 13:45:23 GMT

>> Are you setting colors with an external utility?

> I use a sanserif font loaded with vga.com but after
> using oed in this way, the font has reverted to the
> default windows font.

As I suspected. Look, VGA.COM just pokes a different font into memory where
the M$ system screen font normally resides. Same with color attributes. These
assignments, because in live memory, are fragile and changeable. Many many
programs will reset these memory segments to what *they* want -- after all,
you're running them in the same memory space as XyWrite. You *asked* them to
run, therefore they feel (justly) entitled to use the fonts and colors they
want. This is not an OED phenomenon; this is endemic in XyWrite whenever you
change the environment in memory.

Solutions are several and simple. First, you can get the OED launcher program
(OEDXP.EXE) out of your bloody memory space! In the U2 frame that calls OED
(frame OED,OEDDOS), I do this automatically with NB|XyWin, because they call a
child process and it freezes XyWrite's screen -- no good. But you can do the
same thing in Xy4 also. Either:
-- change the statement
...{greater_than}"V4.02">...
from "V4.02" to "V4.01" (because V4.018 is greater than V4.01 but less than
V4.02)
   OR
-- remove the statement {greater_than}"V4.02"> entirely, as well as
the  EndIf that follows shortly thereafter.

Both of the above will now shell to an iteration of the command processor, and
then launch OED with a START /SEPARATE command. Both require that KMD.EXE be
in the Dos PATH, e.g. in C:\WINNT\system32

Second, you can simply reissue your VGA.COM commands after starting up the OED.
Something like
 BX dos/nv/x/z /c [d:\path_to_Editor\]vga.com font
[d:\path_to_Editor\]fontfilename.fntQ2
ought to do the trick. But obviously, the first option is easier.

Whatever you do, you must reload U2 after you edit it:
 LOADHELP

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