
#: 19252 S13/WordStar  [SWVENDOR]
    12-Dec-01  15:52:12
Sb: RE: Timing Question
Fm: Phil Griffin-Allwood > [barkerall]
To: All > [all]

Wednesday, December 12, 2001

In November and December of last year a discussion took place on the 
cursor timing in WS7.  Robert Sawyer posted a series of answers which I 
turned into a FAQ (see below).

In the last week an OS/2 user, Warp 4 and eCS (aka Warp 4.5+) reported a 
similar problem with cursor speed in an OS/2 windows to the WordStar 
List.  I sent him the FAQ.  Applying it immediately fixed the problem on 
the Warp 4 system.  Playing with the video installation had to be done 
before it worked on the eCS setup.

Here are his settings which are currently working:

============


                              Miscellaneous Menu

 A  Sign-on message..............................08E8       INITID
 B  Longest delay (sign-on)......................2000       DLONG
 C  Medium delay (menus).........................1000       DMED
 D  Short delay (doc align)......................500        DSHORT


                            IBM Compatibility Menu

 A  IBM compatible ROM BIOS......................ON
 B  IBM counter/timer for beeping................OFF
 C  Put characters directly in video RAM.........OFF
 D  INT 1C timer interrupt.......................OFF
 E  Hardware cursor movement.....................OFF

============

He also reported that DAlIGN was set to 15000.

Since the timing fix appears to work with more than one operating 
system, I would like Robert's permission to either post the FAQ as I 
have edited it, or to post a version of it from him (to the CompuServe 
files and my Web Space).  It does need changing to make it explicit for 
more than one operating system.

I suspect other's in the future are going to encounter the same sort of 
problems with WS7 in Windows, so I want to make the information readily 
available.

Phil

============

              Fixing the Timing with WordStar in a Window
              from CompuServe postings from Robert Sawyer


On Windows systems, the cursor in WordStar 7 Windowed session can have a 
timing delay.  Robert Sawyer looked at the problem can came up with the 
following suggested solution:


[1] Go to WSCHANGE menu C (Computer), B (Operating System), C (IBM 
compatibility), D (INT 1C timer interrupt), and change the setting from 
the default value of ON to OFF.

The downside of this is that WordStar ends up timing delays (such as the 
default two-second delay at help levels 2, 3, and 4 between pressing a 
control-key menu prefix and the menu actually appearing) based on the 
assumption that you're using an old 1992-era PC, so they appear almost 
instantaneously.

But there's a workaround. Go to WSCHANGE menu D (WordStar), C (Other 
features), G (Miscellaneous), C (Medium delay (menus)), and change the 
value to a much higher number; the default is 2,000, which in theory 
should give 2000 milliseconds, or two seconds, but with the INT 1C timer 
interrupt turned off, really gives you a much shorter time. But you can 
up this value to as high as 65,535, which on my system is enough to give 
about two seconds worth of delay again.

[2] Go to WSCHANGE menu D (WordStar), B (Editing Settings), B (Typing), 
C (Paragraph alignment), F (Delay value for auto-alignment), and change 
the default value of 500 to a much higher number (65,535 is the maximum; 
I've set mine to 15,000). Without this patch, you won't be able to use 
^T at the end of a line to suck up a word from the following line.

[3] Next, go to WSCHANGE menu D (WordStar), C (Other Features), G 
(Miscellaneous), D (Short delay (doc align)), and change the value from 
the default of 200 to a much higher number (again, 65,535 is the maximum 
allowed; I've set mine to 10,000). Without this patch, you might not be 
able to interrupt a ^QU or ^QQ^B with an <Esc> command.

[4] You might have a look at your settings on WSCHANGE's mouse menu 
(D,C,H). Mine [Robert Sawyer's] are:

 A Mouse support................................ON
 B Mouse for left hand..........................OFF
 C Horizontal motion sensitivity................5
 D Vertical motion sensitivity..................5
 E Horizontal move before scroll................20
 F Vertical move before scroll..................20
 G Delay before horizontal scroll...............300
 H Delay before vertical scroll.................300
 I Total time for double-click..................22

Also, you might look at the Windows PROPERTIES for your WordStar 
sessions. On the "Misc" tab, under mouse I have both check boxes 
(QuickEdit and Exclusive mode) cleared. And, of course, you might look 
at the actual Windows settings for your mouse, on the Windows control 
panel, particularly such things as double-click speed (I have my 
double-click timing set closer to the SLOW rather than FAST end of the 
slider on my Logitech mouse's control panel). All best wishes.

============

Explanations for [1], [2], and [3]:

[1] On the initial logon delay (DLONG), I [Robert Sawyer] have had mine 
set to 0 since time immemorial, so that the copyright notice doesn't 
linger; I've never seen that problem with the file directory not coming 
up.

[2] DALIGN (the one on the Paragraph Alignment menu) controls WordStar's 
delay before auto realignment after you type or delete text within an 
existing paragraph.

[3] DSHORT (the one on the Miscellaneous menu) controls a bunch of 
things:

 the delay between ^QQ and repeated commands

 how fast the cursor bounces between text found by a ^QA operation
 and the Y/N question in the title bar

 how long WordStar will delay before showing a directory or a prompt
 if you're typing fast

 how long WordStar's cursor will hesitate in a line shorter than the one
 it was just on before snapping to the last character in that line, if
 you've turned on the feature that causes WordStar to be able to pass
 over shorter lines without losing track of what column the cursor was
 in

