Playing with GrandView

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Posted by Jack Crawford
Sep 16, 2009 at 08:31 AM

A question for our resident GV experts (Derek & Cassius).

The recent references to GrandView whetted my appetite (again) so I thought I would have another go at running v.2 under Win XP.

I see from earlier posts here that the syntax /A/V/L/T/W was suggested. However, I can’t see anything in the help materials describing start-up switches. Can someone describe what these do?

Specifically, I would like to run GV in a window but of a larger size than currently appears. Fiddling with the DOS properties gives me the correct size display but as soon as GV loads it reverts to a smaller size. Any ideas?

Thanks in advance

Jack

Posted by Cassius
Sep 16, 2009 at 04:13 PM

Derek has apparently had better success running GV under Win XP than have I. Many of the things I could do in Win 2000, won’t work for me in XP, but most seem to work for him.

/A I don’t know what this does—can’t find in Reference
/V Displays 43/50 lines`per screen
/L Loads the last saved GV windo setup
/T Disables network support
/W Disables GV’s functions ALT-TAB and ALT-Spacebar for Windows compatibility

There are several more command line parameters.

Currently, I am running GV using a shortcut to the program
c:/Program Files/Grandview/GV.exe /L/V . (/W doesn’t seem to be needed)

In the GV “shortcut” properties panels:

I use True Type only fonts; Font size 13x22. This seems to work best for me
All memory options “Auto”

All screen options checked, but run in a Window, not full screen so I have ready access to Windows functions including Cut & paste.

In Misc. tab, I allow fast pasting, warn if still active, always suspend background, and have all Windows shortcut keys checked.

Compatibility tab has 640x480 resolution, 256 colors, and Windows compatibility mode doesn;t seem to make a difference.

GV is complex with many hidden features. Even with the paper Reference Guide, it took me a long time to master it. And G-d knows if it will run at all under Vista or Win 7. GV has fontd (shown by colors), but no graphics. Mouse (touchpad) won’t work for me; I think it does for Derek.

A few notes:

Close with ALT-Q
Press ALT-F1 to activate menu bar
Many functions are hidden. See: Setup - Key Options
Almost any function can be assigned to almost any key option.
“Force left” and “Force right” are very useful.

-cassius

—————————————
Jack Crawford wrote:
>A question for our resident GV experts (Derek & Cassius).
> >The recent references to
>GrandView whetted my appetite (again) so I thought I would have another go at running
>v.2 under Win XP.
> >I see from earlier posts here that the syntax /A/V/L/T/W was
>suggested. However, I can’t see anything in the help materials describing start-up
>switches. Can someone describe what these do?
> >Specifically, I would like to run GV
>in a window but of a larger size than currently appears. Fiddling with the DOS
>properties gives me the correct size display but as soon as GV loads it reverts to a
>smaller size. Any ideas?
> >Thanks in advance
> >Jack
>

Posted by Derek Cornish
Sep 16, 2009 at 06:28 PM

Jack,

I just use “/A /V” at present. I’ve been using /A for years but had completely forgotten why, until you asked. It supresses the initial splash screen, which is dramatic but slow. There’s quite a lot of GV arcana in the original outliners.com archives, e.g: http://www.outlinersoftware.com/archives/viewt/2160

More or less everything else is as Cassius has mentioned. In the Misc tab, I don’t check the “Alt-Enter” shortcut key, which switches GV from its DOS window to full screen. This is because (a) I never use “full screen” as my laptop DOS fonts are awful, and I get an almost full-size DOS window with my current font setting (see below); and (b) because within GV itself “Alt-Enter” makes a new child heading or sub-heading.

One general point about setting up GV in XP: When one makes a Grandview shortcut icon (the “gv.pif”) by right-clicking on “gv.exe” this provides access to a complete range of settings - the ones Cassius discussed. On gv.pif’s “fonts” tab I have GV set to use 9x15 TruType fonts.

Once one is in Gv, however, one can access another set of settings by right-clicking anywhere on the top line of the initial menu screen (or any other screen thereafter). By top line I mean the top frame of the screen, which contains the name of the program (Granview, with a little c:\ icon in front of it). In addition to “Move, Size, Minimize, Maximize, Close”, right-clicking on the frame also provides access to Edit functions (including cut and paste to and from Windows), Defaults, Properties, and Hide Mouse Pointer.

This Properties tab has a small set of sub-tabs: Options, Font, Layout, Colors. On the Font tab I have 12x14 Raster checked, and this gives me pretty much a full-size window on my 15” laptop screen. Just why there are two potentially conflicting ways of setting up the fonts is a mystery to me, but it works. I have an idea that the 12x14 raster font may not be a standard one but one I bought from Uwe Sieber for $8. http://www.uwe-sieber.de/dosfon_e.html

I have experimented with a variety of ways of getting better cut-and-paste between DOS and XP than the ones provided by XP’s DOS window. TameDOS http://www.tamedos.com/ is probably the best of all programs for tweaking DOS programs in XP, but it is very fiddly to set up, and I’ve not unfortunately persevered enough to get it working satisfactorily - so I currently don’t use it.

Incidentally, as well as Cassius, prresent and past experts on GV in this forum include Steve Cohen, and Steve Zeoli. They have a much deeper appreciation of the scope of the program than I do.

Good luck!

Posted by Cassius
Sep 16, 2009 at 09:36 PM

Per Derek’s “top bar,” right click Menu/Properties/Font setting, I use 6x12 raster for a 12” screen. Also on Layout tab, I use 80x50 for buffer & window size. I had to play around A LOT to get a screen I was somewhat satisfied with. I could never get the full GV screen to show both large enough and without the need to scroll down 3 lines to see its bottom.

Are you SURE you want to do this? Be prepared to spend a LOT of time! And I don’t just mean setting GV up in Windows…I spent a lot of time learning and customizing GV for my needs. By the way, it also has keyboard macros.

-Cassius

Posted by Jack Crawford
Sep 16, 2009 at 10:04 PM

Thanks for the various suggestions. I’ll experiment with them and see how I go.

I’m prepared to invest a reasonable (but not unlimited) amount of time ito see whether GV meets my writing/drafting needs. I would have been perfectly happy with Notemap if it wasn’t so buggy.

BTW I thought Cassius was Steve Cohen’s alter ego. I may have my lines crossed of course. ;-)

Thanks again

Jack

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