Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!decwrl!pacbell.com!tandem!netcom!ergo From: ergo@netcom.COM (Isaac Rabinovitch) Newsgroups: comp.windows.ms Subject: Re: Tip to users of interlaced monitors Message-ID: <27210@netcom.COM> Date: 7 Mar 91 08:21:15 GMT References: <1991Mar2.154529.19943@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> <6919@mace.cc.purdue.edu> Organization: UESPA Lines: 51 In <6919@mace.cc.purdue.edu> dve@mace.cc.purdue.edu writes: > Changing the Windows background color from white to darker colors > does reduce the flickers on interlaced monitor. But there is a > problem with this. By an ignorance in design of the Windows team > the color of HELP hypertext titles is green which is not user > changable. And green is very difficult to see properly on any > background color other than the default white. Since all windows > applications and tools (including the coming ones in future) all > use this same HELP tool, this quite confines the user to white > background unless he seldom needs any help, e.g. he always > RTFM (Read The Fu*king Manual) and memorizes it before doing any > thing. Actually, I think MicroSloth, er Soft's problem is not so much incompetance or laziness as too much gee whiz. They go around dreamily talking about a fancy "Object Basic" for windows (just a little behind schedule, of course), when a lot of us would settle for a simple, standard *procedural* Basic (or any other language) for batch-type chores and such. But though I, like you, enjoy ranting against MS, I occasionally take a break to actual try to deal with the problems they leave us with. After a silly excess of time spent playing with the Control Panel, I've found a couple of combinations that work well, one of which is: Really Serious=A4A0A0,C0C0C0,C0DCC0,0,FFFF00,0,FFFF,C0DCC0,FF0000,BDBD,808080,0,818181 (Add this line to the [Color Schemes] section in your control.ini file.) In point of fact, Help's hype-text titles aren't *always* green. As far as I can tell, Help *tries* to make them a different color from the background but you have to (a) pick a color that's sufficiently non-green to cause a changte and (b) pick a color that doesn't hide the *regular* text! Getting back to interlaced monitors: I only seem to have trouble when there's a lot of regular, small patterns on the screen. (What's interesting, but really distracting, is that they're worst when I'm not looking directly at them!) Unfortunately, when I specify certain colors with the Control Panel, it doesn't actually use those colors, but fakes them with a kind of color dither, as if I had a 16 rather than 256 color monitor -- and that produces a regular pattern that causes the famous flicker. Anyone know whether I should blame my driver or the control panel? -- ergo@netcom.com Isaac Rabinovitch netcom!ergo@apple.com Silicon Valley, CA {apple,amdahl,claris}!netcom!ergo (specific statement withheld at this time for operational reasons)