ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi LASK) (11/25/89)
Fri 24-Nov-89: Some time ago there was a discussion on the InterNet news on the problem caused by the fact that the ordinary "underline" cursor shows too weakly on certain laptops. There were requests for a utility changing the cursor into a block. I do know that there is a nice blockcur.zoo utility that was distributed through the UseNet Binaries, that is comp.binaries.ibm.pc. Nevertheless, making the cursor a block involves interesting programming problems, and I wanted to look at those myself. To be effective and permanent, a cursor size changing program must be made resident, and this one is a text-book problem for trying out writing a TSR (terminate and stay resident) program. The result of my experiments is a BIGCURS.EXE program. It is a resident program that keeps altering the cursor to a block even in cases where the program you are running keeps altering the cursor size. I also wrote a similar BIGNCURS.EXE program, which is not resident, and its effect is thus transient. I also included a ADJCURS.BAT batch file as an optional user interface to these programs. Writing a TSR utility is a tricky business, and I cannot guarantee, that BIGCURS.EXE will be well-behaved under all circumstances. I have made these new utilities part of my fourth utility package and upgraded it to be tsutld11.arc. Available by anonymous ftp as usual. ................................................................... Prof. Timo Salmi (Site 128.214.12.3) School of Business Studies, University of Vaasa, SF-65101, Finland Internet: ts@chyde.uwasa.fi Funet: vakk::salmi Bitnet: salmi@finfun TSUTLD11.ARC Fourth set of Utilities, T.Salmi Filename Comment Date Time CRC -------- -------------------------------- ---- ---- --- ADJCURS.BAT Batch shell for adjusting cursor 11-24-89 18:53:02 8060 BIGCURS.EXE Make cursor better visible 11-24-89 19:09:52 3598 BIGNCURS.EXE NonResident temporary big cursor 11-24-89 19:10:14 49D1 TODAY.EXE Scan disk for files made today 10-16-89 08:04:34 6110 TSPROG.INF List of PD programs from T.Salmi 10-28-89 16:59:34 D436 TSUTLD.INF Document 11-24-89 19:18:24 F973 TSUTLD.NWS News announcements about tsutld 11-24-89 17:47:46 FBD7 VAASA.INF Info: Finland, Vaasa, U of Vaasa 06-23-89 08:30:20 88AB ---- ------ ------ ----- 0008 38999 27724 29%