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A-Shell Consolidated Reference

Another characteristic of legacy text programs that tends to differ from Windows-style programs is that the former have a tendency to jam a lot more information on the screen. 24 rows by 80 columns doesn’t sound like much compared to 1024 x 768 pixels, but you will not find many Windows program which have more than a dozen or so rows of edit fields on a form. (You may see a lot of rows displayed in a spreadsheet-style grid, but rarely do they try to do normal data entry in such a small space.)

A-Shell/Windows offers a number of configuration adjustments (see the Misc. Settings dialog) to help deal with overcrowded screens, but as a general rule, the more crowded your screens, the more difficult it will be to get a pleasing effect on any but the largest, highest resolution displays. In the worst cases, you might need to consider the use of a Modal Dialog Box or a Tab Control to reduce the number of data entry fields on the screen at one time.