[Freedos-user] Update: EDIT 0.7b TO-DO list (from Fox), comments?

[Eric A. <eric@CoLi.Uni-SB.DE>]

Hi, some new answer:

> - all windows are inside the outmost window, and the top / side
>   borders of that waste space. if you resize it, you see the DOS screen.
I noticed that you CAN remove the border and the title! There are options
for that in the display option menu. If you remove the border, you can no
longer resize the outer window with the mouse. If you disable and then
after maximizing the inner windows enable again the title bar, the inner
window title bar will get hidden behind the outer window menu bar, but
that is no real problem imho.

> - if there are no files in a directory, the file selection menu should
>   skip the "Files:" list if you tab, and jump from Name: to Directories:.

As told, it would be good to first do some nice higlighting in the file
selection dialog to get a more direct feedback about which sub-items you
activate when. Design and implementation suggestions welcome.

> - alt up / alt down should both select the first sub-menu item, not the
>   most recently used one.

I actually like the FreeDOS EDIT "most recently" style better than the MS
EDIT "first/top" style... Comments?

> - there should be alt-number as shortcut for alt-w number, to select one
>   of the first 9 editbox windows.

I think Alt-W Number is acceptably short. Adding Alt-Number could cause
counterintuitive effects on Alt-Value "type any character" keyboard driver
features (even many BIOSes have such features).

> - nothing in the clock time display should blink at all

Agreed.

> Should the /R option disable the DOS shell option?

I think yes. That makes /R a "safe" mode (user cannot escape or mess
with things, apart from - if you did not attrib +r it - the EDIT config).
If you only want to read a file, but need DOS shell, just remember to
say no to "save changed file?" after the session, and omit the /R flag ;-).

> - a KITTEN translation would be nice, e.g. French or Polish.

It is easy to translate edit.txt (only in the source package) and then
compile the edit.hlp help database file from it. So whoever has too much
time for translations, start and enjoy... You can replace the hlp file
without having to recompile the exe. There are not too many other texts
inside the exe: Only the menu structure (menus.c), cancel/ok/yes/no button
names (dialbox.h) and some error messages here and there. If you want a
full translated exe, you would provide a menus.c in your language, and
optionally also some other patches for the few other messages. If somebody
really wants to start with this, I can move the messages to a more central
place, so that you only have to replace menus.c and, say, lang.c, to get
a fully translated binary.

> - The HELP menu bar item should be right aligned...

Not easily possible with D-Flat toolkit. I would leave that as-is: Items
are left aligned. One problem with this is that Options / Window / Help
menu bar items are not visible (but you can still press F1) in 40 column
text mode. Not that the help would look any sane in such a narrow mode...

(MS avoids the problem by forcing 80 column mode at edit / qbasic start...)

Eric

PS: One idea for an extra utility would be my fixed point calculator.
Use with a text entry field, decimal and hex output display fields, text
clear and decimal-to-clipboard and hex-to-clipboard buttons, for example.