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WordPerfect 5.1 Mouse Support (memo ver. 2.0) |
The information in this document applies to:
WordPerfect® 5.1 for DOS
Problem
Solutions: This document has been written by the mouse development team at WordPerfect with the hope that you will use it to solve many of the complex and confusing mouse installation problems that arise on occasion. Definition of Terms Mouse movement in WordPerfect is shown on the screen by a reverse video block (when in graphics, an arrow is used). This block is called the mouse pointer. The mouse pointer is independent of the current cursor location. A mouse usually has two or three buttons. The left button is used as the here/select button. The right button is used to activate/execute things. Both buttons can be pressed at the same time to generate a cancel. It there is a middle button, it is used as a single button cancel. A mouse button click is when a button is pressed and then released. A double click is when a mouse button is clicked twice before the double click time has elapsed. When a mouse button is pressed and then the mouse is moved, it is called a drag, and is referred to as dragging the mouse. Clipping is used to mean that the mouse is not allowed to move beyond a certain area of the screen. For example, in the Merge More list, when you drag the mouse it is "clipped" to stay within the confines of the small window. General Mouse Theory A Mouse as an input device A mouse (or trackball, etc) is an input device that you can attach to your computer. Like printers, mice are manufactured by different companies and use different rules of operation. Also like printers, mice have different resolutions and other odd behaviors. Since different companies design and create mice that return different information to the computer, a standard was necessary for programs that wanted to use a mouse and not worry about who manufactured it. The industry settled on a format now called MOUSE.COM. A Mouse.Com program is a TSR (Terminate and Stay Resident) program that programs the mouse and receives its actual hardware input. A Mouse.Com TSR makes the mouse input available to any program in a standard format. Each type of mouse will require a Mouse.Com that is designed to read and handle that mouse's output. If MOUSE.COM is a standard, why are there mouse drivers in WP? 1st, Since mice and their associated Mouse.Com programs need to match, we felt it would be easier for our WP users to not have to worry about those issues. 2nd, The Mouse.Com standard is a poor standard and doesn't really give us the mouse movement information in the best possible way. 3rd, And most important, each Mouse.Com TSR takes upwards of 10k away from the user (we've seen one that uses 30k!). We looked into the issues and decided that we could write our drivers in less than 1k, which we did (actually 600 bytes). Problems with the MOUSE.COM protocol. One weakness with Mouse.Com is in passing control from one program to another. When WP starts up with the Mouse.Com driver selected, the initialization portion grabs control of the Mouse.Com TSR and tells it that we are now the program to notify in case of any mouse events. When it is time for WP to shut down, there is no way for us to tell if there was a program that passed control to us. If the other program didn't know to tell the Mouse.Com TSR to go back to its previous state, it may not have mouse control. This means that if you have a program that is using the mouse, and then you run WP; when you exit WP, unless your other program had the ability to realize that its mouse input has been disconnected and to re-install itself, it will no longer have mouse support. This control problem is evident with some TSR's. What our drivers do. There are 3 parts to each mouse driver. The first portion is the initialization routines which programs the mouse hardware or serial port so that it will send the information to us in the correct format for that mouse. The second portion of the mouse driver is the actual code that receives control whenever the mouse has information to tell us. This driver code converts the mouse information into WP's standard format and buffers it into WP's internal buffers. The buffer is processed along with keypresses. This is so that you can type with the keyboard and move the mouse at the same time and WP will respond to your commands in the order they actually occurred. The third portion of the mouse driver removes the programming that was done in the initialization of the driver. This is so that when WP shuts down, things can continue on as they were before WP started. Pull-Down Menus With the Keyboard The Alt-= key activates the pull-down menus Supported keyboard commands are: Mnemonics, as shown in the menu Arrow keys for movement Home followed by an arrow key Page up and down keys Screen up and down keys Enter key to execute a selection Space, or the Escape, key backs up a level; for example, from a sub- menu to its parent, or from a pull-down menu to the menu-bar. Macros created from the pull-down menus with the keyboard look just like they were created from function keys, and are thus familiar when edited. With The Mouse The Right Button activates the pull-down menus. The Left Button is used to make selections. The Middle Button acts as the cancel key (as do both buttons). Dragging the mouse with the left button held down selects your options without activating/executing one, this is useful to find what things can be done with the mouse in the current menu. Letting go of the left button on a selected (highlighted) item, executes it. Letting go of the left button while nothing is selected exits you from the pull-down menus. Executing a menu item with a sub-menu moves the select (highlight bar) into the sub-menu and waits. There is a delay before a sub-menu is shown (show delay). Once a sub-menu is showing, there is an equal delay before an item not in that sub-menu can be selected (select delay). These two delays allow the mouse movement to feel natural. When dragging the mouse through the pull-down menus, if you move the mouse from the currently drawing menu to another menu, the currently drawing menu will stop drawing, not finish, restore the screen under it, and then the newly selected menu will begin drawing. This helps WordPerfect to keep up with the mouse movements on slower computers. (by the way, a MAC can't even do this...) With the Keyboard and the Mouse The above keyboard and mouse actions can be mixed as desired. Setup Options for the Pull-Down Menus (Setup, Display, Menu) You have the ability to select an attribute to be associated with the menu- bar mnemonics, and text characters; and the pull-down menu mnemonics, and text characters. This works just like the 'Menu Letter Display' works in 5.0. With these options you can customize your menus looks to your personal tastes. You can allow the Alt key when pressed and released alone to activate the pull-down menus. You can select a division line between the menu-bar and your text. You can allow the Menu Bar to remain on the screen. Setup Options for the Mouse (Setup, Mouse) WordPerfect 5.1 does not require Mouse.Com or any other TSR to support the mouse. We have internal drivers that we use to support most mice. If yours is not on the list, or you would like to, you can use Mouse.Com and WP will use that as the driver. See below for more detailed information on the mouse drivers and autoselect. For serial mice, we need to know which com port the mouse is in. You can select a double-click time that suits your needs. You can select a sub-menu delay time. This value is used to determine how long the show and select delays are when using the mouse in the pull-down menus. The Acceleration factor determines how amplified the mouse movements become. This lets you adjust how the mouse responds to physical movements, to suit your personal tastes. The larger the number is here, the less you can move the mouse before it is accelerated. You can select the left-handed mouse option, which switches the functions of the left and right buttons. Assisted mouse pointer movement causes the mouse pointer to move to where the cursor is when asking for input. Pull-Down Menus Layout, Modes and Disabled items The pull-down menus are structured very similar to those of the OS/2 PM version. We want our users to feel comfortable moving to the OS/2 version if/when that time comes. When an item in a menu is non-selectable for some reason, it is bracketed on each side. An example of this is case convert without block on. Menus, both full-screen and bottom-line The Left Button is used to make selections. The Right Button acts as the exit key and exits from the pull-down menus. The Middle Button acts as the cancel key (as do both buttons). Dragging the mouse with the left button held down selects your options without activating/executing one, this is useful to find what things can be done with the mouse in the current menu. Letting go of the left button on a selected (highlighted) item, executes it. Letting go of the left button while nothing is selected does nothing. Yes/No questions in a menu, once selected, click on "Yes" for Yes, and click on "No" for No. The right button does an exit, leaving the default value. Note that the mouse logic flows exactly as the menu logic has in 5.0. You make a selection and then decide yes or no for that selection. Lists The Left Button is used to make selections. The Right Button acts as the exit key and exits from the pull-down menus. The Middle Button acts as the cancel key (as do both buttons). A double click of the left button, is used execute the selection (acts as the enter key). To scroll in a list, press the left button on an item, them drag the mouse to the top or bottom of the list, and the list will scroll in the appropriate direction. Lists and Menus When a list and a menu are both on screen at the same time, the mouse can be used to select an item in the list, and then an action to perform from the menu. An example of this is list files. Document Positioning and Blocking To position in a document, you position the mouse pointer where you would like your cursor, and click the left button. This works across all functions and columns. When you position in a column but under any existing text, you are positioned to the bottom of that column, even if the that location was not currently on screen (the text is scrolled). To block text with the mouse, you press the left button (which positions to the start of the block) and then drag the mouse pointer to where the block is to end. Where you let go of the mouse left button, determines the end of the block. Note that you can then use the cursor keys to modify the block as necessary, before you select the desired action to perform on the block. A click of the mouse's left button will turn block off and position you to the click position. When in reveal codes, the mouse is only supported on the top half of the screen. Clicks and drags below the normal window are ignored. When in split screens, mouse clicks and drags in either window are valid. When necessary the mouse code will switch documents for you. Window Editor; when prompting the user for input, like retrieve When WordPerfect prompts for input (a string or number, not a yes/no question), you can position the mouse pointer where you would like your cursor (in a valid region) and click the left button to move the cursor there. A double click of the left button is used to execute the selection (acts as the enter key). General Mouse Questions and Answers What can we check for outside of WordPerfect to make sure the mouse is set up correctly, if it is not working in WP? Each mouse will come with some type of program that you can use as a "test program" to see if it is installed correctly (often called "Test.Exe"). There is usually some sort of "control-panel," program and/or a small painting type program. Any of these, or any other program shipped with the mouse, was designed so that the mouse user can test his installation. If the mouse works in other programs and not in WP, should it always be set to MOUSE.COM? If the mouse is working in other programs, they most likely have Mouse.Com installed. If you select Mouse.Com then the mouse should work in WP. One way to test and see if they have installed Mouse.Com, is to try auto-select in WP (19Jan90 release and later). The first thing we check for is Mouse.Com, and if found, it is selected. You need to remember that since Mouse.Com is a TSR, it needs to be run from DOS before you run WordPerfect. I have a TSR, which after use (from within WP), kills the mouse. What can I do? See the explanation "problems with in the Mouse.Com protocol". If a TSR uses the mouse and in the process, takes control away from us, we are dependent upon them to give us back control. If you are using WP's drivers the switching should be correct. Even if the TSR is buggy, you should be able to re-select the mouse in WP to solve the problem. A simple mouse driver select macro should do the trick (Alt-M?). Why can it take several presses of the right mouse button to bring up the menu bar? The mouse has several defined functions. If the right button is pressed and the mouse is moved, this means that you are "dragging" the mouse and thus moving the cursor (or scrolling). If you press the left button and move the mouse, you are "dragging" the mouse and blocking text. When dragging the mouse and the pointer is near a border; top, bottom, or the sides, the mouse "clips" the motion (doesn't allow the pointer to leave the boundary). When a clip occurs, the mouse assumes motion, and so the menu bar not appearing may seem to be more prevalent in these locations. If the user is pressing the right button to bring up the menu bar, and there is enough movement to classify as a "drag", WP treats this as if they are trying to move the cursor, and doesn't bring up the menu bar. To see if this is the problem, the user could lift the mouse off of it's pad, and then press the right button. When lifting the mouse, there is less chance of mouse movement occurring. As a note, for ease of use, we allow the mouse to move up to the value of a full character cell width before we call a "click" a "drag". How do you select "None" for a mouse? With the 19Jan90 release of 5.1, you can get to the mouse select menu, and "*" the currently selected option. This will un-select it leaving you with "None" as the selection. Common User statements and Suggestions "My Mouse doesn't work!" Is the right driver selected? This is the most common cause. Does it work with their Mouse.Com installed (from DOS), and selected in WP? Does their Mouse.Com work with other programs? Is the cable attached securely? "My Mouse Pointer stopped working!" Is the cable attached securely? Is the right driver selected? Does the test program work (with their Mouse.Com installed)? "My Mouse Pointer moves erratically!" Is the correct driver selected? This is the most probable cause. Is the acceleration factor too high? On an optical mouse, is the mouse pad oriented correctly? Are they printing a large document with lots of graphics? Mouse Hardware Information In general, there are 3 types or classes of mice. There is the Serial mouse, the Bus mouse, and the PS/2 mouse. The guidelines given here can only be general, because mice manufactures do their best to provide exceptions to the rules. Serial Mice A serial mouse is connected to the computer through a serial port, which can be either a built in serial port, or a serial card plugged into a bus slot. The connector, which is directly attached to the computer (not any type on in-line adapters), will have two twist screws that you can twist into nuts attached to the computer to hold the plug in place. Bus Mice A bus mouse is connected to the computer through a card plugged into a bus slot in the computer. The plugs which attach this type of mouse to the interface card are "push in" circular type plugs, with no twist or other attaching devices. Often, while the actual plug is circular, the plastic molding you hold when handling the plug is square on 1 side. PS/2 Mice A PS/2 mouse is connected to the computer through a built-in port specially designed for PS/2 computers. The plug which attaches this type of mouse to the computer is round, and the plastic molding that you handle is also round. There is usually some sort of marking to indicate which side of the plug faces up when plugged into the computer. It is important to note that one mouse (for example the Microsoft mouse) can be plugged directly into a bus card and thus be used as a bus mouse. Then, with an adaptor it can be plugged into a serial port and used as a serial mouse. It can also be used with another adaptor as a PS/2 mouse. Because of this, you can't look at the mouse itself and determine which type of driver to select, it depends upon how it is attached to the computer. Mouse Autoselect Criteria The mouse Autoselect feature (first supported with the 19Jan90 release) will help the user determine his mouse type. The Autoselect feature does have its limitations. This is the sequence of events and things the autoselect code checks for as it attempts to identify a mouse in the computer. Note that the first mouse found will be the one selected. If you desire a different mouse to be active, you must manually select it. 1. Does a Mouse.Com TSR exist? 2. Is this a PS/2, and if so is a PS/2 mouse attached? 3. Is there a bus card installed? 4. Is there a serial port (COM1 then COM2)? If so, is a Logitech compatible mouse attached? If so, is a Microsoft compatible mouse attached? The autoselect code serves it purpose by selecting a mouse driver that will work for the attached mouse. What the code cannot do is determine which brand name the compatible mouse is. For example, if Sears sells the SR2000 mouse which is Microsoft Serial compatible, and the Sears SR2000 mouse is listed in the menu as an option, when you auto-select, the Microsoft Serial mouse will be the selected option. This is because while we can tell that the mouse is Microsoft compatible, we cannot tell which of the many compatible mice it may be. This will be the same for all "compatible" mice. If the user cannot get his mouse to work, you can use the brute force method and try every driver that we provide. The mouse drivers you can select that will try all of the different drivers are: 1. IBM PS/2 Mouse For all PS/2 mice (if they have a PS/2 machine) 2. Logitech Serial Mouse For all Logitech Serial compatible mice 3. Microsoft Serial Mouse For all Microsoft Serial compatible mice 4. Microsoft Bus Mouse For all Microsoft bus compatible mice, both the old and the new bus formats 5. Mouse Systems Serial Mouse For all Mouse Systems Serial compatible mice 6. Mouse Driver (Mouse.Com) For any input device that has a Mouse.Com TSR that can drive it. Note that the Mouse.Com TSR must have been loaded into DOS before entering WordPerfect Table Of Useful Mouse Information Manufacturer Model Interface Number Serial Auto of Buttons Emulation select --------------------------------------------------------------- CH Products RollerMouse Serial or 4 Microsoft Yes (trackball) PS/2 The driver for this mouse is called "CHMOUSE". If they have a PS/2 mouse they should use "CH2MOUSE.SYS". The switches available are for the serial version to determine the comport they will use. Example: "CHMOUSE /2" means load the driver and use comport 2 as the serial input. CH Products allows ports 3 and 4 to be used; we don't in our drivers, yet. If they have the RollerMouse attached to com3 or com4, they will have to use "CHMOUSE.COM". We have had a problem with an IC chip on this device. When entering WP the cursor would sometimes jump around and possible select something. This was fixed by getting an updated chip from CH Products. If this happens to the user, and nothing else seems to be the problem, you could refer them to CH Products. This device also has DIP switches on the bottom. These switches change the functionality of the trackball. CH Products has them originally set: 00001000 (0 meaning off). This will make the trackball's top buttons stay on when you press once, then off when you press again. (It is like holding the button down on another mouse). We (WPDev) have this mouse. Dexxa DLX Serial or 2 Microsoft Yes International Bus Genius- KYE Dyna Mouse Serial 3 Mouse No International GM-6X Systems GM-F303 Serial or 3 Mouse Yes, if PS/2 Systems PS/2 Dyna Mouse PS/2 2 Yes GM-S2 Dyna Mouse Serial 2 Mouse No GM-6000 Systems Dyna Mouse Serial 2 Microsoft Yes GM-U2 or PS/2 Dyna Mouse Serial 3 Mouse Yes, if GM-F301 Systems/ Microsoft Microsoft The Genius mouse has several drivers. The driver we have is version 8.08. This will determine if the user has a bus mouse or a serial. Some of their mice have a switch on the bottom which determines the serial emulation it will use. It will emulate either the Microsoft or the Mouse Systems mouse. The button on the bottom of mine has a number on each side, inside of an arrow. If they push it towards the side with a "2", they are in Microsoft emulation. If they press it towards the side with a "3", they are in Mouse Systems emulation. This mouse also has a user selectable sensitivity. If they press on the right button and move the switch on the bottom back and forth it will be in a very sensitive mode. The middle button is normal mode, and the left button is slow mode. When it is in high sensitivity mode, and acceleration is set very high, the mouse can move the cursor from side to side on the screen by moving only about 1/2 inch. They can execute the driver in their config.sys or from the command line. In their config.sys file the driver is called GMOUSE.SYS. From the command line the file name is GMOUSE.COM. Their is no way that I know of to remove the driver from memory. This driver has a problem with being loaded multiple times. This occurs from the command line if you run "GMOUSE.COM" several times for a serial mouse. If you have both a bus and a serial mouse attached, you need use the /n parameter to activate the serial mouse. Note that if they are using the mouse in Microsoft emulation and then change the switch on their mouse, it will no longer work in WP until they re-select their mouse as the Mouse Systems mouse (and visa-versa). We (WPDev) have the GM-F301 mouse. IBM PS/2 Mouse PS/2 2 Yes All PS/2 mice use the same interface. No matter which company's driver is used, if it supports the PS/2 mouse, it will work. IMSI Imsi Mouse Serial 2 Microsoft Yes or Bus Imsi Mouse Serial 3 Mouse No Systems The IMSI 3-button mouse if made by Mouse Systems for IMSI. It looks and acts exactly like the Mouse Systems mouse. We (WPDev) have both of these mice. Logitech Series 9 Serial, 3 Logitech Yes Mouse Bus, or PS/2 Serial Serial 3 Logitech Yes Mouse TrackMan Serial 3 Logitech Yes (trackball) The Logitech driver is installed with "MOUSE" from the command line. To remove it the command is "MOUSE OUT". The Logitech TracMan and some newer series 9 SERIAL mice have a problem with the current autoselect. They may or may not be selected, and won't work either way. The computer needs to be powered down, then select the Logitech mouse manually. Note that this has been fixed and will ship with the next release of WP. We (WPDev) have these mice. Microsoft Microsoft Serial, 2 Microsoft Yes Mouse Bus, or PS/2 Microsoft's driver is invoked by "MOUSE". It is removed with "MOUSE OFF". It has parameters to tell it where the mouse is located. The most important being "/cx". (x being the comport that the serial mouse is attached). We (WPDev) have these mice. Mitsubishi M-Mouse Serial 2 Microsoft Yes International E-Mouse Serial 2 Microsoft Yes S-Mouse Serial 2 Microsoft Yes The E-Mouse doesn't always auto-select. We've found that moving it helps... Mouse Omnimouse Serial 2 Mouse No Systems II or Bus Systems White Mouse Serial, 3 Microsoft Yes Bus, or PS/2 PC Mouse / Serial 3 Mouse No PS/2 Mouse Bus, or PS/2 Systems PC Mouse II Serial 2 or 3 Microsoft Yes or Bus Field Mouse Serial 2 Microsoft Yes or Bus The driver is "MSCMOUSE.COM". To remove: "MSCMOUSE /U". The parameter available to select a serial line is "/x" where x is the comport number. To select a bus mouse, the switch is "/cx" where x is the IRQ number. We (WPDev) have the PC Mouse II. Numonics Manager Serial 3 Mouse Yes, if Mouse Systems/ Microsoft Microsoft Manager Serial 3 Mouse Yes, if Mouse Systems/ Microsoft Cordless Microsoft PC_Trac Trackball Serial 2 Microsoft Yes Z-Nix Z-Nix Mouse Serial 3 Microsoft Yes or Bus Z-Nix Super Serial 3 Microsoft Yes Mouse or Bus Driver is "MOUSE.COM". Note that the mice we have tested of this type don't operate smoothly and should not be recommended to customers. We (WPDev) have the Super Mouse. Unsupported Mice WordPerfect does not support a few mice and other input devices in their "native" modes. Remember that WP will support ANYTHING that has a Mouse.Com TSR that can convert its input into a form we can use. Tablets that don't emulate mice (via Mouse.Com). Light Pens that don't emulate mice (via Mouse.Com). Any other input device that doesn't emulate a mouse (via Mouse.Com). The Mouse Systems Bus mouse, which is actually a serial mouse on a bus card. Note that we DO support this mouse either with Mouse.Com, or by using the mouse in any serial port in the computer other that the one it came with. Yes, we are saying that if they don't use the card they paid for, but just plug it into another spare COM port, it will work (as a serial mouse). |
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