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GIM17.DOC
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1994-11-02
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CHAPTER 17 ADVANCED TECHNIQUES
This chapter describes some tips and techniques which will
optimize GIM's performance. They are presented in no
particular order.
EMS MEMORY...
GIM is designed to operate in a minimal memory configuration.
That is, it is designed to run on the earliest PC with 512KB
of memory available.
However, it runs better and faster if EMS memory is available.
EMS memory is memory above the 1MB boundary, primarily
available on 386 and higher machines, although 286's can be
configured to provide EMS services. If your PC comes with
more than 1MB of memory, check to be sure that some Expanded
Memory Manager (such as Microsoft's EMM386.SYS) is installed
in your CONFIG.SYS file. If you are running GIM under
Windows, edit your GIM.PIF file to make sure that EMS memory
is made available. See your DOS or Windows manual for more
details.
The more EMS memory you can make available, the better.
For one thing, GIM loads a large portion of itself into EMS
memory, if available, for faster execution. (For DOS experts:
GIM3.OVR is the GIM overlay; this overlay is loaded into EMS
memory if available.) If EMS memory is not available, this
overlay is read from disk.
For another thing, GIM provides its own internal disk cache,
as a complement to any disk caching your system may already
provide. Some of this disk cache is in conventional memory,
and is therefore available to all systems, with or without
EMS. However, a much larger disk cache is available if EMS is
present, and this disk cache substantially speeds up GIM's
disk operations. (If you already have some other disk cache
in operation, this speed difference is less remarkable.)
DISPLAY ADAPTERS...
GIM uses text mode for most of its operations, and so for the
most part, GIM doesn't care what kind of a display adapter you
use.
However, when previewing printed forms, GIM uses graphics
mode, and so some comments are appropriate about the display
adapter on your system.
GIM is designed to recognize most of the common display
adapters, such as MDA (monochrome), CGA, EGA, and VGA.
GIM also recognizes the Hercules graphics adapter and VESA
Super-VGA, but special arrangements need to be made to
accommodate these situations.
In the case of the Hercules graphics card, you will need to
run GIM with the word "HERC" on the command line. That is,
instead of starting GIM by typing "GIM", you need to start GIM
by typing "GIM HERC".
For VESA Super-VGA, a couple of items are required. First of
all, the file VESA16.BGI, which should have been included with
your GIM software, must be in the directory from which you run
GIM. Additionally, your graphics card must be configured to
recognize VESA modes. Some graphics hardware recognizes these
by default; others require that you load a VESA graphics
device driver in memory. If your monitor supports Super-VGA,
chances are that it supports the VESA extensions; check the
documentation that came with your monitor for details. And
finally, it is necessary to include the keyword "VESA" on the
GIM command line. That is, instead of starting GIM by typing
"GIM", you need to start GIM by typing "GIM VESA".
Either the "HERC" or "VESA" keyword can be included in the
value of the "GIM" environment variable. You may want to set
this value in your autoexec.bat file.
As a side note, depending on the display adapter you're using,
GIM can support 43 or 50 line mode. See Chapter 6, entitled
"The Setup Area", for details.
NOVICE/EXPERT MODE...
GIM provides experienced GIM users with a feature that makes a
little more screen space available, if desired, by sacrificing
most of the space devoted to the menu bars.
This feature is called the "Novice Mode / Expert Mode Toggle",
and it is activated by pressing control-F10 from anywhere.
When you do so, GIM will ask you to enter an "N" for "novice"
or an "E" for "expert" and will then shift into the requested
mode.
What do you gain in expert mode? In expert mode, the menu bar
is confined to the very top row, freeing up two rows for the
rest of the display. All Areas use this extra room to expand
their displays. For example, the Family Area makes room to
show two extra children in expert mode than in normal mode.
What do you sacrifice in expert mode? Among other things, you
lose the title information at the very top left of the screen,
and you lose the "For help, press F9" message at the bottom of
the screen at startup. But above all, the principal thing you
sacrifice is the longer descriptions for the function keys
that are available on the menu bar in normal mode, because the
menu bar is highly condensed. For example, "View/Edit Person"
becomes "Persn", and "Utilities" becomes "Utils". Of course,
that's why this mode is designed for experts -- we assume that
you already know what the function keys do when you're in this
mode, and so the abbreviations are just meant to be gentle
reminders.
Note: like 43/50 line mode, expert mode has no effect in the
Folder Area.
COMMAND LINE PARAMETERS...
There are a number of options that can be specified from the
command line. These are not necessary under most conditions,
but are provided for certain out of the ordinary situations.
They are:
BIOS -- Use BIOS rather than direct video for writing to
the display. BIOS calls are slower, but sometimes
necessary, such as in the case where DESQview requires
them to prevent bleeding.
DEBUG -- Creates a GIMDEBUG.OUT file in the current
directory. Generally this is an uninteresting file, but
is used in certain situations to help the GIM Authors
resolve problem reports. See Addendum J of chapter 11 of
this documentation for an example.
GIM= -- Specify where program overlay (*.OVR) and
auxiliary (*.AUX) files are located. We don't use this
very often, if at all. We find it easier just to leave
the *.OVR and *.AUX files together with the *.EXE files,
and run the program from there.
HERC -- Specify use with a Hercules display adapter. See
"Display Adapters" above for details about this option.
NOEMS -- Disable automatic EMS use. There's no simpler
way to do this, but we're not sure why you would want to.
NOMOUSE -- Disable automatic mouse detection and use.
Should you wish to do this, it's easier to disable the
mouse from the Setup Area than to use this command line
switch; see chapter 6 of this documentation for details.
STARTUP -- Fool GIM into believing that you haven't set
your colors yet, and have it ask you to specify them when
the program starts up. An easier way to do this is to
press shift-F7 from the Setup Area; see chapter 6 of this
documentation for details. An even easier way to do the
same thing is to erase the GIMCOL.AUX file from your GIM
directory.
VESA -- Enable automatic VESA graphics use. As described
above, you will need to have the VESA16.BGI file in your
GIM directory, and your graphics adapter must handle VESA
graphics properly, in order for this switch to work.
Earlier versions of this program assumed VESA, and
required the NOVESA switch to turn VESA detection off;
this has changed, because the other method resulted in
too many cases of people with non-standard graphics
adapters calling us to report that GIM wouldn't work on
their computer.
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES...
GIM looks at the presence of a number of environment
variables. (See your DOS manual for more information about
environment variables.) In general, these serve the same
purpose as the command line switches described above. They
are:
BIOS
DEBUG
HERC
NOEMS
NOMOUSE
STARTUP
VESA
If any of these is present in the environment, it
does the same thing that the corresponding command
line switch does, as described above. The value of
these environment variables is irrelevant; they can
be set to anything at all and have the same effect.
GIM
If this is present in the environment, it should
contain a space-separated list of the options above
-- BIOS, DEBUG, and so on. Those values, when
present here, have the same effect as if they are
specified elsewhere.
GIMPATH
If this is present in the environment, its value is
interpreted as the location of program overlay and
auxiliary files, as described above.
GIMTINY
GIMSMALL
If either if these is present, they reduce the
amount of memory available to the heap, making more
memory available to the conventional memory cache
and the overlay. (See "Reading the Setup Area
Display" in chapter 6 of this documentation for more
information.) GIMTINY is reduces the heap more than
GIMSMALL does. Neither of these is recommended,
except as a last resort.
MULTITASKING...
If you are using a multitasking system, such as Quarterdeck's
DESQview, Microsoft Windows, or OS/2, you may be tempted to
run two or more instances of GIM simultaneously.
If you do so, you do so at your own risk. We do not recommend
it, although we mention cautiously that we do this ourselves.
However, we can get away with it because we wrote the program
and we know what pitfalls to avoid.
Below are some suggested pitfalls to avoid, but we make no
guarantees about this being an exhaustive list, and we DO NOT
accept any liability for damage to your data that results from
running multiple instances of GIM. Like we say, do this at
your own risk.
Do NOT open the same folder in two different windows. (If you
load SHARE.EXE in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file, GIM won't let you do
this, even if you try. See your DOS manual for details on
SHARE.EXE.)
Do NOT do the same kinds of things in two different windows.
For example, don't try to do a GFE import from two windows at
once. In particular, GFE, forms printing, grafting, and GIM
LISTS should all be avoided in two windows at once.
Avoid closing two folders at the same time. Avoid exiting GIM
in both windows at the same time.
(Oh, and a word about local area networks (LANs): we don't
know for sure how GIM will perform when multitasked in a LAN.
Be extremely careful and proceed at your own risk.)
MICROSOFT WINDOWS...
We have had no problems running GIM from a DOS window from
within Microsoft Windows. If you have any difficulty with
this, please bring any problems to our attention.
Will there be a version of GIM that runs as a Windows
application? We agree that there should be, and there
probably will be someday. Many of the things that have made
GIM somewhat difficult to design -- such as printer support,
Help windows, 43/50 line screen support, and mouse support,
among others -- would evaporate if GIM were a Windows
application.
Note that GIM.PIF, GIM.ICO, and GIM.BMP files are included
with the GIM distribution for use with Microsoft Windows.
QUARTERDECK'S DESQVIEW...
Here also, we have had no difficulty running GIM in a DESQview
window, and if you encounter any difficulties, please bring
them to our attention.
If GIM bleeds through your DESQview window with DESQview 386,
set "Virtualize text/graphics" to T and "Writes text directly
to screen" to Y. If this occurs with DESQview, that is, not
DESQview 386, add the word "BIOS" to the program's parameters.
Recommended DESQview DVP settings:
If you are using GIM in 43/50 line mode, remember to set the
"Window Position Maximum Height" to 43 or 50 with DESQview's
"Change a Program" option. However, if you're NOT using 43/50
line mode, be sure that the "Window Position Maximum Height"
is set to 25, otherwise strange things will happen to most of
GIM's displays!
Memory size (in K): 512
Maximum Program Memory Size (in K): 800
Maximum Expanded Memory Size (in K): (leave blank)
Uses its own colors: Y.
4DOS...
GIM is perfectly compatible with 4DOS. GIM has been
thoroughly tested with both the DOS and 4DOS command
processors, and no problems have been encountered.
INSIDE THE SOFTWARE DESIGN OF GIM...
GIM was written in, and compiled by, Borland Pascal 7.0.
If you're a programmer and would like to write applications
that interact with GIM's folder and auxiliary data files,
please contact us for technical notes about the file formats
and data structures involved. We may choose to withhold
certain pieces of proprietary information, but we'll be happy
to provide you with the information you need to build your own
GIM applications.