Topic: No reverse video on screen continuation (1 of 10), Read 63 times
Conf: Installation, Configuration
From: Paul Falzer
Date: Friday, November 12, 1999 09:00 AM

In VPW 5.16.1 running on NT4 workstation SP5, when my editing screen is set to a white background (values 112-126), the continuation character does not show in reverse video. However, when the editing screen is set to any color other than white, the continuation character displays correctly. The continuation character is value 173 and my display is set to true color. Any ideas?

 


Topic: Re: No reverse video on screen continuation (2 of 10), Read 54 times
Conf: Installation, Configuration
From: Ted Green
Date: Monday, November 15, 1999 08:40 PM

The problem with the continuation character color has been "kludged" in VEDIT PLUS 5.16.1 dated 11/15/99. The color can be changed with Config(C_STAT), just as it always could in the DOS version. It will be "fixed" in 5.20 by having a new color attribute just for this character.

 


Topic: Re: No reverse video on screen continuation (3 of 10), Read 52 times
Conf: Installation, Configuration
From: Paul Falzer
Date: Tuesday, November 16, 1999 11:11 AM

I changed Config C_STAT to a variety of colors, with no effect.

 


Topic: Re: No reverse video on screen continuation (6 of 10), Read 49 times
Conf: Installation, Configuration
From: Ted Green
Date: Friday, December 03, 1999 12:27 PM

At 11:12 AM 11/16/99 -0500, you wrote:
>I changed Config C_STAT to a variety of colors, with no effect.

C_STAT changes the continuation character color in the Windows version
of VEDIT+ 5.16.

VEDIT+ 5.2 and later will have a new config color, C_W_CONTCHAR for the
Windows version and C_CONTCHAR for other versions.

You may have noticed that the Windows version uses C_W_... while the
DOS version uses C_... as the Config() names. This allows one VEDIT.CFG
file to work with both versions.

 


Topic: No reverse video on screen continuation (4 of 10), Read 46 times
Conf: Installation, Configuration
From: Pauli Lindgren
Date: Monday, November 22, 1999 03:54 AM

I guess this should go to 'suggestions' conference, but since we are already in the topic of color configuration...

Currently, you have to change both text color and background color simultaneously. I guess it was easier to implement in DOS that way, but perhaps that does not have so much importance in Windows.

So, would it be possible to change the color configuration so that you could configure the text color and background color independently? This would make it easier to change the background color of a window without changing all the color settings.
This would also make it possible to have different background color on different windows and still have syntax highlight on each of them. Also, it would make it possible to see the syntax highlight on cursor line even if you have set 'Highlight current cursor line' option on.

-- Pauli

 


Topic: Re: No reverse video on screen continuation (5 of 10), Read 45 times
Conf: Installation, Configuration
From: Ted Green
Date: Monday, November 22, 1999 01:05 PM

We probably won't significantly improve VEDIT's color configuration
until version 6.0. One big reason is that it will require changes
to all the macros that use color. The current config values use
4 bits for the text and 4 bits for the background; we will have to
change this to 8 or even 16 bits for each. Therefore all the color
values will become huge numbers.

 


Topic: Re: No reverse video on screen continuation (7 of 10), Read 47 times
Conf: Installation, Configuration
From: Pauli Lindgren
Date: Friday, December 17, 1999 09:14 AM

I don't see why configuring the text and background colors separately
would require 8 or 16 bit values to be used. If you have 16 different
colors, you only need 4 bits.

Of course, if the configuration system is changed, that would make
the old config commands more or less incompatible. That is a problem.

Perhaps you could change it so that background color 0 would be
transparent color, and all the other color combinations would work
as they are now.

Then add one new configuration option for setting the window background color
(default black). If you do not change the background color, then all the old
configuration commands would work as before.

But if you select blue background, then after that, command such as
Config(C_TEXT, 10)
would create green text on blue background.
This way, you could change the background color of each window
without changing the syntax colors etc.

Another improvement, independent of the one above, would be
the ability to change the color palette.
Currently, you can use only the 16 basic colors. Most of the
color combinations are useless, since e.g. yellow text on
white background is quite unreadable.
If one could change e.g. all the background colors dark and
all the text colors light ones, then you could use all the
possible combinations. Further, I personally would like to
use some less saturated colors.

 


Topic: Re: No reverse video on screen continuation (8 of 10), Read 45 times
Conf: Installation, Configuration
From: Ted Green
Date: Friday, December 17, 1999 01:01 PM

At 09:15 AM 12/17/99 -0500, you wrote:
>I don't see why configuring the text and background colors separately
>would require 8 or 16 bit values to be used. If you have 16 different
>colors, you only need 4 bits.

The entire problem is that users want at least 64000 colors to choose from.

>Perhaps you could change it so that background color 0 would be
>transparent color, and all the other color combinations would work
>as they are now.
>
>Then add one new configuration option for setting the window background color
>(default black). If you do not change the background color, then all the old
>configuration commands would work as before.

No, this would be a completely different kind of color support and many
macros that change color would need to be modified.

>Another improvement, independent of the one above, would be
>the ability to change the color palette.

I don't think that exists in Windows. That was an old DOS thing which
required programming the hardware directly, which is no a no-no.

> I personally would like to use some less saturated colors.

See you want 64000 colors too.


Ted.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ted Green (ted@...) Greenview Data, Inc.
Web: http://www.... PO Box 1586, Ann Arbor, MI 48106
Tel: (734) 996-1300 Fax: (734) 996-1308 VEDIT - Text/Data/Binary Editor

 


Topic: Re: No reverse video on screen continuation (9 of 10), Read 47 times
Conf: Installation, Configuration
From: Pauli Lindgren
Date: Tuesday, December 21, 1999 04:22 AM


> The entire problem is that users want at least 64000 colors to choose from.

Maybe someone wants 64000 colors but that is NOT the problem here.
The problem is that if you change the background color of a window,
then you have to change all the text and syntax colors, too
(since there is background color defined in each of these settings).
Another problem is that you can not have different background colors
on different windows if you are using syntax highlight.


>No, this would be a completely different kind of color support and many
>macros that change color would need to be modified.

No, the method I described would be completely compatible with the
old system as long as the user would not change the background color.
Therefore, you would not need to change any macros if you did not want to.

But maybe it is better to make a completely new color support
for Windows version, instead of trying to retain compatibility.


>>Another improvement, independent of the one above, would be
>>the ability to change the color palette.
>
>I don't think that exists in Windows. That was an old DOS thing which
>required programming the hardware directly, which is no a no-no.

Changing color palette does NOT require programming the hardware directly.
You can always do it in software. In fact, if you are using high color
or true color mode, there is no hardware color palette at all.
Still most programs, including Windows itself, allow changing
text and background colors.


> See you want 64000 colors too.

No I don't. Currently, there are only 12 different color settings
in Vedit, so 16 colors is more than enough. I only want to select
these colors from a larger palette.
(And as I said, this has nothing to do with the problem of changing
text and background colors independently).

If you make a new color system, it should not be limited to
64000 colors. Most computers these days have 16 million colors,
(8 bits for red, green and blue each), so that is what should
be used. In the setup window, you would then have three numbers
(red, green and blue) for each color setting.

 


Topic: Re: No reverse video on screen continuation (10 of 10), Read 43 times
Conf: Installation, Configuration
From: Ted Green
Date: Tuesday, December 28, 1999 01:34 PM

Based on the thoroughness of your previous feedback,
I will carefully study your suggestions when I am
ready to enhance VEDIT's color support. However, it
will have to wait until other features promised
for version 5.2 are completed. Thanks.