1. (WINDOWS) Override default GDI system font spacing to eliminate problem with some TrueType font sizes not scaling correctly.
2. (WINDOWS) The FONT= parameter in MIAME.INI now accepts a second, optional argument, which can be either ,ANSI or ,OEM or ,DEFAULT to specify the desired symbol set. The default is now OEM (previously it fixed at DEFAULT, which resulted in the use of the ANSI character set for most TrueType fonts.) The main problem with the ANSI character set is that it doesn't contain the line drawing characters. With this update you can now get the line drawing (graphic) characters in just about any good TrueType font (such as Courier New and Andale Mono) making them much more attractive.
Examples: FONT=Andale Mono,OEM ; specify OEM charset FONT=Andale Mono ; defaults to OEM charset FONT=Courier New,ANSI ; specify ANSI charset 3. (WINDOWS) When using a font that supports the OEM character set, a further improvement has been made to line drawing so that even without turning on bevelling, you should not ever get inter-character gaps in the lines, regardless of how spaced out the font is. (Previously the lines would start to break up with certain combinations of font size and window size.)
4. (WINDOWS) In the spirit of making it easier to experiment with different fonts, a Font selection dialog has been added to the Settings menu. The dialog is a bit dumb in that it appears to allow to change styles and sizes when in fact the only thing that has any effect is the font facename. But it gets the job done, and not only is it much easier than modifying the MIAME.INI and restarting A-Shell, your selections are also saved in your settings file. Thus, you can override the MIAME.INI font selection by changing the font and then saving the settings.
(Since the default settings file, default.ash, is usually shared by all PC's on a LAN, you might want to save your new settings under a different name, and then modify your shortcut command line to add "-o " so that you have your own settings independent of all other users.)
5. (WINDOWS) The bevelling logic has been improved somewhat so that when the background is too light or too dark (so that the highlights or shadows in the bevelled lines would not be readily visible), it reverts to using regular line drawing characters in the foreground color.
6. (WINDOWS) The Settings..Colors dialog now permits you to define custom colors. (These are saved in the settings file, e.g. default.ash). Now you can break out of the rut of having to use the same old boring color scheme.
7. (WINDOWS) SET.LIT 1.1(128) now supports a new command which allows you to redefine one of the background colors (0-7) to match the standard Windows color used for dialog box backgrounds (typically gray.) If you then use that color for your screen background, it will adjust automatically when the user changes the Windows Desktop color scheme. The syntax is:
SET TERM SYSBCOLOR n
where n is a number between 0 and 7, or -1 to disable the feature.
For example, if you have a boring green-on-black application, and you'd like to take the first step towards making it look a bit more like a normal Windows application, you could use the following:
SET TERM SYSBCOLOR 0
This would redefine background color 0 (usually black) to instead match the current Windows Display settings (usually gray.) If you don't like the standard gray scheme, then go to the Control Panel Display applet "Appearance" tab, and change the color scheme to something else. Your A-Shell application window will adjust right along with all your other Windows apps.
Note that this only affects the window background color. At the same time, you might want to change your foreground color to be more Windows-like (typically Black or Blue.) If you application never changes color explicitly, then you can accomplish the change yourself just by using SET TERM FCOLOR n (where n would be 0 for black and 2 for blue.) On the other hand, if the application does explicitly set the foreground color, say to green, and you would rather have it black, then you can redefine the green foregound color (6) using the Settings..Colors dialog to be something else.
Once you get a pleasing color scheme set up, remember to save your settings (File..Save As) or else they will be lost when your exit A-Shell. Also, note that the SET TERM SYSBCOLOR setting is not saved, so you would have to put that in your startup command file if you wanted it to be re-established each time. Or, you can also do it from within a program, using: XCALL MIAMEX,91,1,N where: N is a numeric variable which equals -1 to disable the system background color feature, or 0-7 to set it.
You can use XCALL MIAMEX,91,0,N to retrieve the current setting.
