[jawsscripts] hairy problem on a project, re differing coordinates yielded in terminal emulation installations

ah Mighty scripters.
ok, I've got a really hairy one that I'm very desirous of any assistance with, 
that anyone might be able to give me. although it's not directly scripting 
related, but it kinda is.

The explanation is a tad lengthy, but I wanna try and be as thorough as I can, 
and present you with as much information that I can into the problem, so as to 
hopefully minimize people having to ask if I've checked this or that etc.
so, ... if you could bear with me to read through it?

Last year with the so kind and considerate help and fantastic knowledge of 
people on this list,
and serious input from another guy who isn't on this list,
I was able to complete scripting up a system for pizza hutt call centre order 
takers, such that a blind person could work in their call center and do the job 
of filling out all the necessary details 
on the various screens to take orders, confirm addresses, store opening/closing 
times where applicable, confirm pricing for products, read back the pizzas to 
the customer in human language rather than code, type any special instructions, 
etc.
now apparently Sighted Order takers have only "dumb terminals," connected to 
what I believe is called an A S 400 server? if I have the terminology right.

But in order to give jaws a chance at the thing, of course it needed to be 
opperable in a windows environment.

So, pizza hutt installed on a windows box,
what seems to be being referred to as a 5250 terminal emulation software called 
IBM client access express, version 5.0, as indicated in the about box, and was 
thus able to connect to the as400 server using this setup, causing the main 
ordering terminal window to occur in this environment.


So last year, I was able to complete this system on that Pc and the Blind 
ordertaker has been happily employed and using it for a year.
That pc was a generically built one from a shop I trust that I've been using 
for many years, with reputable components etc.
But it wasn't a branded one.

Now they wish me to make efficiently accessible, what they call the advanced 
CSR functions, and they've given me a newish
pc, this time a branded hp one, (hardware specs detailed at the end,)
again loaded with the same version of the IBM client access express terminal 
emulation software, that was put on the original pc.

ok now here's the problem.
on the NEW development PC, there's a few serious display rendering anomalies, 
that are simply causing the system I previously built, not to function at all 
on this new PC. and I obviously simply must find out why, and how I might fix 
it, before I can begin to start coding up anything else.
Because, wisely or unwisely, pretty much everything I've done in the scripting 
code of the system I built,
in being able to glance at, and handle the autoLoading of new frameSets into 
memory to cope with speaking right frame/field  labels for differing screens, 
has all been done pretty carefully using absolute pixel coordinate functions. 
like GetTextInRect()
etc, Which I found to be the most reliable method for both triggering and often 
also glancing at/gathering data for display in virtulal viewer upon double 
Click of the keystroke, for easier review etc.
I.e. this GetTextInRect function isn't robust in the sense that it didn't use 
either application window, or current window relative boarders, but absolute 
ones. Even though some of the functionality I used, did use frames, which 
presumably would've at least been application window boarder relative.

There are a couple of issues, and I'll take the major one first.
But they're all display coordinate related.

1. the X/Y coordinate of the top left hand corner, of the actual terminal 
window itself, is sitting approximately 28 pixels lower in absolute terms 
relative to the top of the screen on my new pc, than it sits on the prior one.
The x coordinate however, is identical on both pc's.

This is my primary problem.

2. The TitleBar, Menu Bar and Graphic Toolbar of the actual IBM client access 
express 5250 program,
which lie above this main terminal window, are also not sitting in identical 
spots re their absolute Y coordinates, but, for example they're only off by a 
margin of 3, 7 and 8 pixels, in case of the TitleBar, menuBar and ToolBar 
respectively.
I.e. with the old PC that's working, the TitleBar is sitting at an absolute Y 
coord of 13, whereas the old Pc, it's sitting at a Y coord of 10.
The menu bar sits at a y coord of 29, whereas the new pc they've given me to 
use now, menu bar sits at a y coord of 36.
The ToolBar below this, starts on the old working pc, at y Coord 54, whereas 
the new one it starts at an absolute y Coord of 62.

But, as I say, the top left corner of the emulation window itself, on the old 
working pc, starts at an absolute y coord of 82, whereas on the New pc, it's 
found at an absolute Y Coord of 110.
So this to me means there's some anomaly between the bottom of the toolBar, and 
the top of where the terminal window itself starts, which I've gotta try and 
get to the bottom of, and eliminate.

All the specs related to the toolBar I can think to check, via right clicking 
on it and going into toolBar styles, are the same on both pc's.
Jaws reports The graphics as 18 by 16 on both PC's, when the "show text on 
toolBar" option is unchecked.

3. on the old PC, jaws reports the font inside the main terminal screen itself, 
as IBM 3270 19 point, whereas on the New Pc, it's reporting as IBM 3270 18 
point.
This effectively means, that each line turns out to be 26 pixels in height on 
the old working pc, and only 24 pixels in height, on the new one. which of 
course means that as one progresses vertically down the screen,
the absolute coordinates are going to get further and further at variance 
between the two systems, and things will thus break by degrees depending on 
which part of the screen we are relying on things being at identical absolute 
coordinates relative to the top lefthand corner.

Of course both app windows have been checked for maximization.
every other view and toolBar styles related issue I can think of to check, has 
been checked on both pc's, and appear identical.

We've of course checked Screen Resolution and color bit Depth on both PC's, and 
they report identical. Both have windows xp professional service Pack 2 
installed on them.

the old pc is a generically built one as I say, but has a separate NVidia 
Display adaptor  in it model Geforce 7300GS, (with either 128 or 256 meg ram, I 
can't quite remember which,)
3.0ghz Single core CPU, 1 gig system Ram.

The new Pc is 
an hp3530, with only 512 meg system ram, and a 2.8GHZ CPU, using if memory 
serves, an onboard intel extreme graphics adaptor, I think the 865G chipset? 
don't quote me on that last spec though as I haven't written that down?

any clues anyone might throw at me to solve this one would be ever so 
greatfully recieved.

thanks.

geoff c.



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