FreeLists / arachne / [arachne] Re: arachne -s

["Bastiaan Edelman, PA3FFZ" <bastiaan.pa3ffz@xxxxxxxxx>]

Arachne at FreeLists---The Arachne Fan Club!

Yes it is confusing... and this laptop computer does only support
640x480.
The directions for use can be better, must be better.

Bastiaan

On Sun, 09 May 2004 12:15:30 -0800, Ray Andrews wrote:

> Arachne at FreeLists---The Arachne Fan Club!

> John, all:

> I've got a possible bug report with the 'arachne -s' setup
> routine in 175 and earlier:

> So you type 'arachne -s'. Then you get a text screen letting you
> choose XMS, EMS or Disk.  Then you get similar screen letting you choose
> VGA, EGA or CGA.  Now things get tricky -- on my system the graphic
> screen that follows shows 'VGA' ticked (as you'd expect given the
> choice made in the last text screen), but in the top right of the
> screen it says 'VESA detected', which would lead you to think that
> the 'VESA' box, *not* the 'VGA' box should be ticked by default.  (Indeed,
> since Arachne can detect the card type, the previous text screen seems
> to be useless at best, misleading at worst).

> Now, given that Arachne has detected VESA, one naturally goes down to
> the VESA choices on the right of the screen and picks one --  but unless
> you've remembered to move the left hand tick from VGA to VESA, the result
> is an error and suggested reboot.  Perhaps there should be no VESA tick
> box on the left but a message telling you to pick one of the
> *specific* VESA choices on the right -- that way there is never more
> than one box ticked at any one time which should be more idiot proof than
> the current setup where two boxes need to be ticked for any given
> VESA setup.

> So I get the above figured out, tick the VESA box, then tick one of the
> VESA specific choices.  Only 640 X 480 works without trouble.  With any
> other selection, I get an 'errorlevel 0' message at the top of the screen,
> then I press a key and get to a graphical error screen that suggests
> a reboot ... even though there is nothing wrong! ... I can hit the
> 'restart Arachne' button with no problems, or just ignore the message and
> continue using Arachne at any resolution I want.  I have an error report
> where there is no error.  This is the sort of thing that could put a
> potential new user of Arachne right off.

> Furthermore, when one is making a choice in the graphical setup screen,
> the white 'VESA compatible card or driver' tag on the left seems to
> suggest that only the white choices on the right are available, even
> though they all can be made to work (inspite of the non-error mentioned
> above).  Below the 'white' choices on the right are grey choices in
> blue text and grey choices in red text -- what's this all about?

> Can anybody confirm my experience? ... perhaps it's just due to my
> particular card.  (On my other machine the 8 MB PCI card is detected
> as 'trident', so I can't make a fair comparison).  It seems to me
> that this part of setup could be better managed -- opinions?

> Ray Andrews,
> Arachne Sanitary Engineering Ltd.
> Vancouver, Canada

> -- Arachne V1.73 GPL/B3 :The best in freeware!

> Arachne at FreeLists
> -- Arachne, The Web Browser/Suite for DOS and Linux --

-
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Technische Redactie CQ-PA
Bastiaan Edelman, PA3FFZ
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