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Microsoft OS/2 SDK PM 02-24-1989

Comments about COMTALK

Comtalk is a PM communications program.  It is broken up into five modules:

AVIO		This module controls AVIO interactions.  In this routine,
		the window size and scrollbars are controlled.

CIRCLEQ		This module controls the circular queue buffer with which
		the AVIO module updates the screen.

COMPORT		This module controls reading and writing characters from
		the communications port (makes DosDevIOCtl calls, etc...)

COMTALK		This module contains the main window procedure, and processes
		user input

THREADS		This module contains 3 secondary threads, which write characters
		to the COM port, read from the COM port, and one which takes
		characters read from the COM port and pushes them into the
		circular line buffer queue.

Possible improvements to this program include:  File transfer capabilities,
terminal emulation, small fonts (AVIO).  Also, it might be reasonable to
do away with Paging Mode, or make it like Windows Terminal (so that a scrollbar
through your entire buffer becomes present when you pause and look at things,
then only one screenful is present when you are not in that mode).


Directory Contents:
AVIO.C		AVIO module source routines
AVIO.H		AVIO module prototypes
CIRCLEQ.C	Circular queue module source
CIRCLEQ.H	Circular queue prototypes
COMPORT.C 	COM port interface
COMPORT.H	COM port interface prototypes
COMTALK		Makefile
COMTALK.C	Core routines
COMTALK.DEF	Definition file
COMTALK.EXE	Executable
COMTALK.H	Resource Identifiers
COMTALK.ICO	Icon
COMTALK.RC	Resources
COMTALK.SYM	Symbol file
GLOBAL.H	Definitions common to all modules
THREADS.C	Secondary threads module
THREADS.H	Secondary thread module prototypes


Problems:
    This application uses AVIO, but the implementation is not very clean.
    Merging in the AVIO support from the BROWSE sample might be reasonable.

    Also, the vertical scroll bar has only a page worth of range, instead
    of the entire lookback buffer.  (looking back a page can be done with
    PgUp and PgDn in "paging mode")

    When you "catch up" and are at the bottom line, in paging mode, you should
    automatically get out of paging mode.

    If you move the icon of COMTALK, sometimes the horizontal scroll bar
    appears atop it.  This is not a problem with the Browse scrollbar
    hiding/showing code.

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