Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!sdd.hp.com!hplabs!hpfcso!hpfcbig!aaronf
From: aaronf@hpfcbig.SDE.HP.COM (Aaron Friesen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp
Subject: Re: standards for windowing software?
Message-ID: <7540063@hpfcbig.SDE.HP.COM>
Date: 22 Oct 90 15:14:16 GMT
References: <1990Oct20.123109.7287@cs.dal.ca>
Organization: HP SESD, Fort Collins, CO
Lines: 43

From: silvert@cs.dal.ca (Bill Silvert)
> I'd appreciate it if anyone could clarify a confusing dialogue I've been
> having with a local HP salesman about the way some software works in
> windows.

> Working with VUE I discovered that programs like
> vi and more assume a 24x80 window and won't adjust to work with any
> other size (for example, with a longer window they use only the top 24
> lines).  I commented that this seemed like a pretty serious shortcoming.

> The salesman just contacted me and said that he spoke to HP's software
> engineers, and they claim that by doing this HP is maintaining some kind
> of standard.  Software that adjusts to the actual window size is in
> their opinion "non-standard".

> Can anyone explain this to me?  Since vi and more get the screen size
> from termcap or terminfo when they load, what is nonstandard about
> getting the size of a window as well, which is after all a virtual
> terminal?  I can understand not adjusting to a resized window, but when
> you load a program it seems to me it should use the window you are in.

Actually, I believe that vi and more get the screen size from the current
environment.  Specifically, the LINES and COLUMNS variables.  When vi and
more start executing, these two variables are used to determine the size of
the screen (if they are not set, I believe it will default to 80x24).  
However, when you change the size of the screen, these variables are not 
updated.  Therefore, they must be reset to the proper values.  This can be 
accomplished by using an aliased command similar to the following (using ksh):

	alias rsize="eval `resize`"

This must be executed after changing the size of a window.  Both vi and more
should work as expected.

I would guess that what was being represented as being "non-standard" would
be if vi and more were able to adjust dynamically.

I hope this helps (it works for me!).

Aaron Friesen  aaronf@hpfcsup.hp.com

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