gno-docs/refs/gsh/comply.docbook
2012-09-03 23:27:31 -06:00

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$Id: comply.docbook,v 1.1 2012/08/25 07:19:01 gdr Exp $
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<appendix id="gsh-app-comply">
<title>Non-Compliant Applications</title>
<para>
GNO/ME wasn't really designed with the
intention of making
<emphasis>every</emphasis>
program you currently run work under
GNO/ME; that task would have been impossible. Our main goal was
to provide a UNIX-based multitasking environment; that we have
done. We made sure as many existing applications as we had time
to track and debug worked with GNO/ME.
</para>
<para>
However, due to the sheer number of
applications and authors, there are some programs that just plain
don't work; and some that mostly work, except for annoyances such
as two cursors appearing, or keyboard characters getting "lost".
The problem here is that some programs use their own text drivers
(since TextTools output was very slow at one time); since GNO/ME
doesn't know about these custom drivers, it goes on buffering
keyboard characters and displaying the cursor. There is a way,
however, to tell GNO/ME about these programs that break GNO/ME's
rules.
</para>
<para>
We've defined an auxType for S16 and EXE
files, to allow distinction between programs that are GNO/ME
compliant and those that are not. Setting the auxType of an
application to $DC00 disables the interrupt driven keyboard
buffering and turns off the GNO/ME cursor. Desktop programs use
the GNO/ME keyboard I/O via the Event Manager, and thus should
<emphasis>not</emphasis>
have their auxType changed.
</para>
<para>
You can change a program's auxType with the
following shell command:
<screen>
<command>chtyp -a \$DC00</command> <filename>filename</filename>
</screen>
</para>
<para>
where <filename>filename</filename> is the name of the
application. As more programmers become aware of GNO/ME and work
to make their software compatible with it, this will become less
of a problem, but for older applications that are unlikely to
ever change $DC00 is a
reasonable approach.
</para>
</appendix>