At 8:08 AM -0300 5/5/2003, Dave Swanson wrote:
>To the best of my knowledge no, there is no way to stop Windows from
>selecting a line of text when you move the mouse to the left margin and
>click the mouse button.
You are correct, from a user's viewpoint. I just found out that
*an application* can tell Windows whether to use a "hot" left margin
or not (and, if so, how wide such a margin is). Please see below.
>I just gotta ask, why does it matter?
Please see below for a detailed explanation of my needs (well, perhaps
"my wants" :-)
>The mouse is in the margin of the
>document at the time. It's not like margins are chaulk full of selectable
>goodness. What difference does it make if the big mean Microsoft decided to
>make things a bit easier and turn this dead non-productive margin space into
>an area for making quick selections of text.
The challenge is for an hp3000 terminal emulator. I want to put the cursor
on the leftmost character within a screen that has zero (or close-to-zero)
overhead in terms of window borders. See below for the differences between
the Mac (which allows me to fly in *and "land"* at high speed without any
concerns) and Windows (which forces me to slow down as I "approach for
landing" if I want to keep my pointer from flipping on me just before touch
down).
>As for user preference. There are multiple ways to select a single line of
>text aside from the one you describe. If you got a problem with the freaky
>right-pointing arrow, then don't use that method. Try another one. Heck
>there are at least two methods I can think of off the top of my head which
>can be achieved without even touching your mouse!
But I am NOT interested in selecting ANY text in this case :-)
All I want is to be able to LOCATE (or to place) the terminal emulator's
CURSOR at a precise location, with grace and speed, without anybody (or
anything) tripping me at the crucial moment.
>Sorry if this comes off as a little heated, but it sounded more like you
>were moaning about a feature than asking for help on it. If that wasn't your
>intention, I apologize. In my defence it is Monday, and I'm only two sips
>into my morning coffee.
No problem. Moaning is OK, after all, so please go easy on me :-)
At 11:57 AM -0700 5/5/2003, Gavin Scott wrote:
>Alfredo writes:
>> Place the pointer just past the left margin of the paragraph
>> until it changes to a right-pointing arrow, and then click.
>
>> Is this a hard-wired Windows feature or is there a way to
>> configure it to suit the user's desires?
>
>Here's a workaround for Reflection.
>
>Go to Setup->Display->/Screen\ and set the Column width to 84 (or four more
>than whatever you normally use). Then, assuming you're sitting at a single
>":" MPE prompt, press the space bar three times and then type <ESC>4 to set
>the left margin in the fifth screen column.
>
>Now your whole screen is effectively shifted over four characters (and we've
>extended the width of the screen by four characters so things don't wrap
>differently). You now have an extra four columns of "swiping room" at the
>left of each line. Four columns may be overkill, and you can make it only a
>single column if you like by setting the terminal width to 81 and just
>hitting <ESC>4 when the cursor is in the second column.
>
><ESC>9 will turn off the left margin.
>
>Some quick testing suggests that most programs seem to work well in this
>mode.
>
>If you don't care about only having 79 columns rather than the usual 80,
>then you can skip setting the Reflection screen width and just use <ESC>4
>and <ESC>9 to switch on and off an extra column of space (assuming you're at
>a single character prompt like a ":" at the time.
Very clever and extremely creative, Gavin! But I would be paying a very
high price: I would be increasing the width of each terminal-emulator
screen.
As you suspect, I am a minimalist when it comes to my screen real estate.
I have been playing around with all kinds of terminal emulators to make
my life as an MPE-IMAGE programmer as easy (and as productive) as
possible.
Specifically, I want to have as many MPE sessions as possible
per screen. I have a 23" Apple Cinema Display (1920x1200) connected to
a Titanium PowerBook (1280x854). I get 3 full sessions plus a
half-hidden session on the Cinema Display (100 rows each) and 2 full
sessions plus a half-hidden session on the PowerBook's display (70 rows
each).
On my Dell Inspiron 8500 (1920x1200 built-in monitor -- the same
resolution as the 23" display, but on a smaller physical size), Windows XP
nicely allows me to throw out a lot more unnecessary overhead per
window ("unnecessary" for me, but perhaps vital for normal people).
I have reduced all the window-overhead settings to their barest minima,
including title bar, window border, caption buttons, font sizes for menu,
and what-have-you.
I have even reduced the width of the scroll bar down to the smallest size
that I can get away with, and I have eliminated the terminal's status bar
and terminal frame. We are talking about a Formula-One car here,
stripped down to its essential elements :-)
I can squeeze 140 rows per terminal-emulator session (141 if I choose to
hide the menu bar, but it turns out that this is a bit inconvenient :-)
I love my Mac-based setup and it has served me well in terms of my
hp3000 terminal-emulation needs. But the performance of Classic Mac OS 9
terminal emulators is less-than-stellar under Mac OS X (and native-mode
Mac OS X terminal emulators are "not quite there yet" in terms of what I
want). Granted, I tend to push the envelope more than is reasonable, so
it is *my* fault and not the emulator's fault.
Be it as it may, I decided to explore Windows alternatives and I
searched for *the absolute best* resolution on a PC laptop. I looked
everywhere and -- to nobody's surprise, I would say -- it turned out
that good-old Dell had the best (1920x1200) and, as a bonus, it also
had the best price, the best delivery, the most convenient ordering
system, and so on. This is my second Dell in just a few months and
I was *very* impressed by the evolution of their design. The Inspiron
8200 is a bit clunky but the 8500 is beginning to look suspiciously
like a Mac Titanium PowerBook. No wonder Dell is eating HP's lunch!
But I digress. I started playing around with Windows XP and its hp3000
terminal emulators. (Almost) everything is great (and, in fact, some
things are much better under Windows than on my Mac setup, although
there are a few things that are still much better on the Mac -- sigh, I
wish I could find *the* perfect solution).
The *one* annoying thing I found is the subject of this thread. It turns
out that, after some intensive conversations with wise Windows gurus, the
*application* is in charge of defining the left margin (if any) where
the pointer changes into a right-pointing arrow. I'll have a chat with
the developers of the terminal emulator in question and I am sure the
issue will be fully resolved to my satisfaction. Most people, of course,
will continue to enjoy this feature. Who knows? I might even become a
fan of this feature myself. But I want to have the liberty to turn it off
if I want to do so.
>You could automate the whole thing in a couple of command files, including
>the setting of the Reflection terminal width, but I think this would require
>sending a high-level configuration parameter command to Reflection Command
>Language via an escape sequence since I don't think there is a simple escape
>command for setting the column width to something other than 80 or 132.
All of this is very nice, of course, but (from my perspective) this would
be like working hard to improve DBUNLOAD/DBLOAD. I am looking for a
*radical* solution (i.e., one that attacks the roots of the problem,
not the consequences), such as the one I developed in the early days of
Adager :-)
Radically yours,
_______________
| |
| |
| r | Alfredo [log in to unmask]
| e | http://www.adager.com
| g | F. Alfredo Rego
| a | Manager, R & D Labs
| d | Adager Corporation
| A | Sun Valley, Idaho 83353-3000 U.S.A.
| |
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