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VINST122.DOC ------------ [Supplement to VDE.DOC] Instructions for VINSTALL 1.22 (08/88) Installation Utility for Video Display Editor MSDOS Version (c)1988 E. Meyer VINSTALL is a utility that lets you customize your copy of the VDE editor. Most of this involves options that you need not concern yourself with at first: in the course of using VDE, you will discover how you want these things set. However, there are important changes you will need to make to VDE before using it, if you have a computer that: * Is not fully IBM compatible (BIOS, video). * Experiences "snow" problems with programs that write directly to video memory (older style CGA adapters). An uninstalled copy of VDE will ask you whether it is running on an IBM compatible computer. Once you have used VINSTALL this message will disappear. Note: VINSTALL modifies the file VDE.EXE. Always keep an unmodified original copy of all VDE files in case problems arise. ================================= CONTENTS ================================= 1. RUNNING VINSTALL. How to use VINST.EXE to modify VDE.EXE. 2. INSTALLATION. Installing for different computer hardware: ============ Screen size; IBM compatibility; Colors; Fonts; Snow. 3. USER OPTIONS. Customization of many initial VDE settings. 4. PRINTER INSTALLATION. Using special printer features: print modes, graphics, etc. 5. MACRO KEYS. Installing a default set of macro keys. 6. FUNCTION KEYS. Installing the function keys. 7. GRAPHICS. Modifying the default set of graphics characters. 8. RESTORE DEFAULTS. Undoing previous modifications. =========================== 1. RUNNING VINSTALL ============================ Your copies of the program files will have names like VINST12.EXE and VDE12.EXE. Feel free to rename these to VINSTALL and VDE, as will be assumed here. When you run VINSTALL you must give it the name of a copy of VDE to modify: A>vinstall vde.exe VINSTALL is fully menu-driven; it will present you with a set of categories that corresponds to each section below, starting with Installation; you select the values you want to change. Note: the version numbers of VINSTALL and VDE (and any auxiliary key or printer files, see below) must agree, or you will get an error. VINSTALL is largely self-documenting, and steps you through each item individually. If this is your first time running the program, take advantage of its "Help" option before you start in, for some basic instructions. You may also find a good ASCII chart helpful. VINSTALL uses several different types of data entry: TEXT - Just type in the character(s). LOGICAL - Yes/No. Just type "Y" or "N". DECIMAL - Enter a number from 0 to 255. HEX - Enter a two-digit hex byte value 00-FF. (Don't omit lead zeros.) BYTE STRINGS - fixed length: enter the required number of hex bytes. variable: enter the (hex) count for the number of bytes, followed by the bytes themselves. Example: (02)1B3D. The max- imum length is given in square brackets [#]. This format is referred to below as "(#),bytes". VINSTALL can't check for illegal values; be careful what you enter! What follows is a more detailed explanation of installation items, in about the same order as in the VINSTALL procedure. ============================= 2. INSTALLATION ============================== When you run VINSTALL on an uninstalled copy of VDE, this selection will be made automatically. You must describe the computer you are using; most importantly, whether it is 100% IBM PC compatible. The IBM PC installation gives the best performance, but requires an IBM standard BIOS and a supported video adapter (MDA,CGA,EGA,VGA). You can customize the display (colors, fonts etc) to your preferences. The non-IBM installation will run on any system that supports ANSI standard screen control sequences (eg, the ANSI.SYS screen driver -- you must have DEVICE=ANSI.SYS in your CONFIG.SYS file). You must also specify the size of your screen. This installation can also be used on IBM compatibles, in the event that direct video access is undesirable. COMMON PARAMETERS: Clock speed in MHz (01-FF) - Set this hex value to reflect your CPU clock speed; common values are: 48 = 4.77 MHz A0 = 10.0 MHz 80 = 8.0 MHz C0 = 12.0 MHz Adjust the value if desired to change the length of delays in VDE. (You may need to increase this value for faster 80x86 computers.) IS THIS AN IBM PC COMPATIBLE? - Set this to "Y" for best operation on a computer with fully IBM compatible BIOS and video adapter. If you choose "N", no BIOS calls are used, and the screen is displayed (more slowly) with MSDOS standard character output. The rest of the installation depends on your choice here. IBM PC PARAMETERS: Screen colors - you can select three video attribute bytes: one for normal text; one for the header and menus; and one for highlights (prompts, etc). Each is two hex digits, for a background and foreground color. You will see a color palette displayed on screen; the color digits are: *0 = BLACK 4 = red *8 = GREY C = brt red 1 = blue 5 = magenta 9 = brt blue D = brt magenta 2 = green 6 = brown A = brt green E = yellow 3 = cyan *7 = WHITE B = brt cyan *F = BRT WHITE (*-Only 0,7,8,F work on monochrome systems.) Any digit may be used for the the foreground, but only 0-7 for background (8-F produce blinking video... ugh). You will probably want the header and highlight attributes to have the same background. The defaults are: 07 (white text on black) for normal video; 7F (bright on white) for header; 70 (black on white) for highlights. Use VDE font in EGA mode (Y/N) - When the Alt-E command is used to display 43 lines on an EGA (or 50 on VGA), you can choose one of two fonts. VDE's own font is thinner than the ROM font, and you may find it more readable. "Y" selects this font; "N" selects the standard (fat) ROM font. Snow removal (Y/N) - Usually No; try this first. Some older CGA systems experience ugly "snow" when programs write directly to video memory. If this happens to you, set this option to "Y", and VDE will time its video access according to horizontal retrace intervals. (Display speed will be slightly reduced.) NON-IBM PC PARAMETERS: (automatically set for IBM PC) Viewable columns (80-255) - normally 80; set to the column width of your display, if different. Viewable lines (16-255) - normally 25; if you have a shorter or longer default display (on entry to VDE), enter the length here. Enable fast scroll (Y/N) - Does your computer respond to the ANSI sequences for insert/delete line (Esc-[-L,M)? If so, set this to "Y" for a faster display. (Default is "N", as MSDOS ANSI.SYS does not support these codes; there are enhanced console drivers, such as NANSI.SYS, which do. VDE will not work properly if you select "Y" when your console driver does not support these codes.) Horizontal scroll delay (01-FF) - This hex parameter creates a delay between scrolling the cursor line and the rest of the screen, when the screen shifts horizontally (past column 80). A moderate delay is useful if your screen display is slow, as it minimizes interference with typing. The default value is 40; you can adjust this to suit your taste. (01=minimal; FF=very long, almost suppressing full redisplay.) ============================= 3. USER OPTIONS =============================== You can select or change a variety of default settings in your copy of VDE, according to your taste. "Default" means the state assumed when VDE is first run, or in the absence of any user commands. Create BAKup files (Y/N) - Should a backup file be made when you save over an existing file? Choose "Y" to play safe, "N" to save disk space. Mark end of file (Y/N) - Should an EOF marker (^Z, 1Ah) be placed at the end of a file when writing to disk? Most software won't care; some early MSDOS software may require this. Originally No. Default file mode (W/A/N) - Which of the three file modes "W","A","N" described in VDE.DOC do you want as the default? (Originally "A".) Auto mode select filetypes - You can specify two filetypes (or type masks, using "?" wildcards) as exceptions to the above default: for example, you could declare all ".ASM" files to be automatically "N" mode, or all files ".?88" to be "W" mode. Any mode option ("/M") explicitly specified still overrides this. Drive to find COMMAND.COM - In order for VDE's Alt-R (Run) command to work, it must be able to find a copy of the DOS command interpreter. It will look in the root directory of the drive you specify here. The original setting is for the current default drive, indicated by "@". Default insert on (Y/N) - Do you want the INSERT toggle to start out ON when first entering VDE? (Originally No.) Default ruler on (Y/N) - Do you want the Ruler line (^OT) to start out ON when first entering VDE? (Originally No.) Default HCR display on (Y/N) - Do you want Hard CR display (^OD) to start out ON when entering a Document ("W/A" modes) with VDE? (Originally Yes.) The default is always OFF in "N" mode. Default hyphenation on (Y/N) - Do you want hyphenation (^OH) to start out ON when first entering VDE? (Originally Yes.) Default case-insensitive search (Y/N) - Do you want string searches (^QF) to be case insensitive by default? (Originally No.) If yes, the /I/ option will force a case sensitive search. Left and Right margin columns (1-255) - Default margin settings for "W/A" modes. Set both to 1 to entirely disable wordwrap and reformatting. Suppress header by default (Y/N) - Do you want the header display (^OQ) to start out OFF when first entering VDE? (Originally No.) Scroll overlap (0-255) - This is the number of lines overlap between screens when scrolling with ^R/^C. The smaller, the larger the scroll. Originally set to 2, for a nearly full scroll. Keep this smaller than your screen size! Ring bell on error (Y/N) - Do you want the bell to ring when a VDE error message displays? (Originally No.) BS (^H) deletes to left (Y/N) - Do you want the Backspace (^H) key to delete characters? Originally No - it just moves the cursor left nondestruc- tively, as in WordStar. DEL deletes to right (Y/N) - Do you want the Delete key to remove the charac- ter to the right? Originally No - it deletes to the left, as in WordStar. Hard Tab display spacing - This determines how any hard Tabs (^I) in your text will display. Usually 8, this can be made 2, 4, 16, or any other power of two. Other values will produce erratic results. Variable tab stops - Enter up to 8 variable tab stop columns, in ascending order. Fill unused values with 0. Defaults: 6, 15, 35, 55. Show time as AM/PM (Y/N) - Do you want the Time stamp to display in 12 hour format (eg 1:21 PM)? Originally Yes. If No, the time shows in 24 hour format (eg 13:21). Show date as Day,Month (Y/N) - Do you want the Date stamp to display in European format (eg 15 January)? Originally No, meaning US Format (Month, Day, eg January 15). DEFAULT CHARACTERS: You will be asked whether (Y/N) you want to continue to this section. Ordinarily you will NOT want to. However, if you find that VDE's standard assignment of characters conflicts with some special application, you can change these values. If you do, remember the new ones! For the control codes, use only ASCII 00-1F. Avoid codes with standard meanings: ^H,I,J,L,M,Z (ASCII 08,09,0A,0C,0D,1A). If you like, you can fill unused places in the Print toggles/switches section with 0FFh. Wildcard character - Normally "_", this is the character that will be taken as a wildcard (and case ignore flag) in FIND strings. Block mark character (00-1F) - Usually 00 (^@), this is the control code that temporarily marks off a block. Print Toggles (00-1F) - These codes, normally ^B,^D,^S,^Y,^T,^V, call up the toggles defined in your printer installation. Print Switches (00-1F) - These codes, normally ^Q,^W,^E,^R,^A,^N, call up the switches defined in your printer installation. ========================= 4. PRINTER INSTALLATION ========================== Printers vary enormously. By default VDE uses a very simple printing routine that will always work, but can't take advantage of your printer's special features. You will want to improve on this. VINSTALL can use special Printer Installation files to store printer definitions. These should have a file type of ".VDP". You have the option to read in or write out such a file, as well as editing the following values individually. This makes it easy to pass your installation along to others. VDE.ARC includes two basic printer drivers, EPSONFX.VDP and EPSONLQ.VDP. Both implement the print toggles and switches according to their usual WordStar purposes (see below); the difference is in their handling of graphics. You can modify these, or construct your own from scratch. Printer ID - Identify the printer you are installing. (16 characters) IBM graphics printer (Y/N) - Normally No; if you can print the IBM extended ASCII characters, set this to Yes. If No, VDE will "emulate" graphics on printing, choosing standard character combinations that come close. (Try this out; it's very useful.) Send LF after CR (Y/N) - Normally Yes. But with some printers, which manufac- ture their own LF on receiving a CR, you will want No here. Page length (0-255) - Set the number of text lines to print on a page. (Does not include another 3 lines for a header, if used.) Setting to 0 disables pagination permanently. Top margin (0-255) - Set the number of blank lines to skip as a top margin before printing each page. This value (not included in the page length) can be used to position the paper properly. Default is 0. Left margin (0-255) - Set the number of blank columns to skip as a left margin before printing each line. Useful if you can't set the margin on your printer with an initialization string. Default is 0. Printer initialization - Enter an optional string of code (#),bytes to send to the printer before each print job, to set default margins, print modes etc. Printer uninit - Enter another optional string (#),bytes to send to the printer after each print job, to restore printer to desired state on exit. Codes for toggles (on/off) - For each of the six printer toggles, you need to tell VDE the codes to send to your printer to produce the desired effect, then turn it off again. The conventional meanings of the toggles are: ^B boldface ^S underline ^T superscript ^D doublestrike ^Y ribbon/italic ^V subscript but you can use them for anything you want. Example: Your printer requires the codes ESC-U-01 to turn underlining on, and ESC-U-00 to turn it off. You would enter (starting with the byte count): ^S toggle on [07]: (03)1B5501 and off [07]: (03)1B5500 You should find the necessary ASCII hex codes in your printer manual. Codes for switches - The same idea, but for switches, which send the same codes every time they are used. WordStar calls the switches: ^Q,^W,^E,^R user1...4 ^A,^N alternate, normal pitch but you can use them for anything you want. ============================== 5. MACRO KEYS =============================== The default macro definitions are those attached to the commands Esc-0..9 when VDE is first entered. By changing them you can configure VDE to suit your own specialized writing requirements. (Any Keys defined with Esc-# while running VDE override the defaults.) VINSTALL can use Key Definition files to store macro key sets. These should have a file type of ".VDK", and are compatible with those used by the CP/M VDE, except that they will extend to 1024 bytes rather than 512. You have the option to read in or write out such a file, as well as editing the keys individually. VINSTALL gives you a display much like this: Macro Keys: (03C6 bytes free) <---- note room (up to 03F4 = 1012) [Esc-0]<> [Esc-1]<> <---- "<>" flag means empty [Esc-2]<> [Esc-3]^[;^C <---- normal macro key [Esc-4]<> [Esc-5]<N>World Wide Widgets Inc. <---- "<N>" flag means no-rpt key [Esc-6]<> [Esc-7]<Q>^QR^KB^QC^KK^KC <---- "<Q>" flag means quiet key [Esc-8]<> [Esc-9]<> This is pretty straightforward; you just select the number of the Key you wish to redefine, then type in the new definition, much as you would in VDE. All the same rules apply (but VINSTALL will accept longer keys, up to 128 bytes). If the new definition is too long to fit it will be rejected. VDE.ARC comes with a macro key file EXAMPLES.VDK, containing three example macros taken from VDE.DOC: [Esc-1]<Q>^QR^N^[^[D^OF [Esc-2]<Q>^[~.1^S^[1^[~.<^[2^D^[= 2^[=^M2 [Esc-3]<Q>^QS^X^[=^M]^S^V ^V^D^[![ These are: Put date at top right of file; Move to start of current sentence; Soften a hard-CR paragraph. (Note that "Esc" displays as "^[".) ============================ 6. FUNCTION KEYS ============================== VDE also has a set of forty Function-keys, corresponding to the [F1]... [F10] keys in their normal, Shift-, Ctrl-, and Alt- usage. These are very similar to the MACRO keys discussed above, except: they are shorter (32 bytes maximum); they are always "quiet, no repeat"; and they cannot be changed on the spot within VDE. You can easily configure these to match the standard function-key configuration for Wordstar's key overlay, or in any other way you like. VINSTALL can use Function-key Definition files to store function key sets. These should have a file type of ".VDF". (They are not interchangable with ".VDK" files.) You have the option to read in or write out such a file, as well as editing the keys individually. VINSTALL gives you a display much like this: Function keys: (01C9 bytes free) <---- note room (up to 01D6 = 470) [F1]<> [F2]<> <---- "<>" flag means empty [F3]<> [F4]^OL5^M^OR60^M <---- normal function key [F5]<> [F6]<> [F7]<> [F8]<> [F9]^PS [F0]^PY This works just like the macro keys above, except there are four sets of 10 keys to define (<N>ormal, <S>hift, <C>trl, <A>lt). VDE.ARC includes a sample file WS4.VDF, which you can read in to define the function keys according to the WordStar 4 default usage: NORMAL SHIFT CTRL ALT [F1] ^J ^OD ^QF Vertical bar graphic [F2] ^U ^OC ^QA Horizontal bar [F3] ^PS ^L Upper-left corner [F4] ^PB ^QI Upper-right corner [F5] ^Y ^KY ^OL Lower-left corner [F6] ^T ^KU ^OR Lower-right corner [F7] ^KV Upper T [F8] ^KC Lower T [F9] ^KS ^KB ^QS Left T [F10] ^KD ^KK ^QD Right T ========================== 7. GRAPHICS CHARACTERS ========================== VDE's handling of graphics assumes an IBM compatible PC. However, it may work usefully for other MSDOS computers, if your video system supports a set of extra characters for ASCII codes with the high bit set. VDE allows text to contain a limited (but variable) set of 32 IBM graphics characters, restricted to the ASCII range 80-FE. (These are entered with the Alt-G command in VDE.) The default set includes box pieces and other useful things, and has some room free, but you can change it to include whatever you need. The important thing to remember is that these are the only graphics codes that VDE can manage: if you load a file containing graphics not in this set, unless there is room to add them, they will turn into grey blobs (graphic #6)! So don't feel obliged to fill your set completely. You will be shown the current definitions, in the same format as the VDE Alt-G command. You can pick any one (A-Z, 1-5) to change, or type "-" to clear them all. (Graphic 6 cannot be changed; it always remains a grey blob.) New graphic codes are entered by hex value, from 80 to FE; a full list of graphics characters can be displayed for your selection if you need it, by typing "?". An entry of FF is considered "open", and can be used on loading a file to accomodate any extra characters needed. Note that your Printer Installation determines how graphics will print. =========================== 8. RESTORE DEFAULTS ============================ This option on the VINSTALL menu is provided in the event that you want to undo any changes that you (or someone else) has made to your copy of VDE. This should return VDE to the state it was distributed in: installation for IBM PC, all User Options restored to their defaults, printer set to a basic Teletype, no Macro or Function Keys, original Graphics characters. --- Eric Meyer, 401 12th Ave SE #139, Norman OK 73071 --- ==============================================================================