COLOR changes color of entire screen - MS-DOS

I've been runnning 4DOS 6.02/MS-DOS 6.22 for quite some time on my old
DOS game box. Recently I've started playing with DOSBox under WinXP on
my primary system. It seems that on my WinXP machine, both 4DOS 6.02
and 4DOS 7.91 change the color of everything onscreen when COLOR is
used inside a batch file. Once the batch file exits the previous
screen colors are displayed so it like COLOR is changing the video
page (if I remember the terms correctly). This behavior occurs whether
I run 4DOS inside DOSBox or directly from the desktop.

I use "COLOR BLA ON BLA" to hide the cursor while waiting for user
input so it effectively blanks the screen, which is highly annoying.
Any ideas on how to get around this?

Mez

4dos@sunfire.org пишет:
> I use "COLOR BLA ON BLA" to hide the cursor while waiting for user
> input so it effectively blanks the screen, which is highly annoying.

If your goal is just to hide the cursor without changing anything else,
then you can use SETDOS instead and remove that black-on-black setting.
(See http://jpsoft.com/help/setdos.htm#s - you can use "SETDOS /S0:0".)

Regards,
Lucho

On Nov 2, 10:23 am, Luchezar Georgiev wrote:
> 4...@sunfire.org ÐÉÛÅÔ:
>
> > I use "COLOR BLA ON BLA" to hide the cursor while waiting for user
> > input so it effectively blanks the screen, which is highly annoying.
>
> If your goal is just to hide the cursor without changing anything else,
> then you can use SETDOS instead and remove that black-on-black setting.
> (Seehttp://jpsoft.com/help/setdos.htm#s- you can use "SETDOS /S0:0".)
>
> Regards,
> Lucho

I've tried SETDOS before and it doesn't work (the cursor still
dispays) which is why I used COLOR instead. I just tried it again
under 4DOS 6.02 & 7.92 and 4NT 5.0 and it the cursor still displays.

Here is the start of my batch file up to the INKEY command:

SETLOCAL
SET MENUDIR=G:\DOSGAMES
SET BGFILE=%MENUDIR%\BACKGRND.ANS
SET STDCOLORS=BRI CYA ON BLA
SET TITLEFG=BRI WHI
SET FG=BRI YEL
SET BG=BLA
IF "%_4VER%"=="" GOTO NO_4DOS
IF NOT EXIST %MENUDIR%\MENU.BTM GOTO SET_DIR
:START
SET GAME=
SET OPTION=Q
CD %MENUDIR%
IF NOT "%BGFILE"=="" TYPE %BGFILE%
rem COLOR %FG% ON %BG%
SCRPUT 4 26 %TITLEFG% ON %BG% -------- MAIN MENU --------
SCRPUT 5 21 %FG% ON %BG% Arcade Games #1
SCRPUT 6 21 %FG% ON %BG% Arcade Games #2
SCRPUT 7 21 %FG% ON %BG% Combat Games
SCRPUT 8 21 %FG% ON %BG% Miscellaneous Games
SCRPUT 9 21 %FG% ON %BG% Racing/Flying Games
SCREEN 15 59
rem COLOR %BG% ON %BG%
SETDOS /S0:0
INKEY /C /X /P /K"ABCDEQ" /W10 %%OPTION%

Any other ideas? I appreciate your help.

Mez

4dos@sunfire.org wrote:

> I've tried SETDOS before and it doesn't work (the cursor still
> dispays) which is why I used COLOR instead. I just tried it again
> under 4DOS 6.02 & 7.92 and 4NT 5.0 and it the cursor still displays.

What you are seeing is not the normal command line cursor, but the INKEY
cursor, which would be more obvious if you changed your line

INKEY /C /X /P /K"ABCDEQ" /W10 %%OPTION%

to something like

SCREEN 11 21
INKEY /C /X /P /K"ABCDEQ" /W10 Select one option: %%OPTION%

I don't know a way to hide the inkey and input cursors except to set the
foreground color to the background color (and back!)


--
Mit freundlichem Gru?,

Klaus Meinhard

On Nov 2, 11:29 am, "Klaus Meinhard" wrote:
> 4...@sunfire.org wrote:
> > I've tried SETDOS before and it doesn't work (the cursor still
> > dispays) which is why I used COLOR instead. I just tried it again
> > under 4DOS 6.02 & 7.92 and 4NT 5.0 and it the cursor still displays.
>
> What you are seeing is not the normal command line cursor, but the INKEY
> cursor, which would be more obvious if you changed your line
>
> INKEY /C /X /P /K"ABCDEQ" /W10 %%OPTION%
>
> to something like
>
> SCREEN 11 21
> INKEY /C /X /P /K"ABCDEQ" /W10 Select one option: %%OPTION%
>
> I don't know a way to hide the inkey and input cursors except to set the
> foreground color to the background color (and back!)
>
> --
> Mit freundlichem Gru?,
>
> Klaus Meinhard

Thanks for the information. Maybe a recommendation for a future
enhancement would be to have the inkey and input cursors obey global
cursor settings.

Mez

4dos@sunfire.org пишет:
>>> I've tried SETDOS before and it doesn't work (the cursor still
>>> dispays) which is why I used COLOR instead. I just tried it again
>>> under 4DOS 6.02 & 7.92 and 4NT 5.0 and it the cursor still displays.
>> What you are seeing is not the normal command line cursor, but the INKEY
>> cursor, which would be more obvious if you changed your line
>> INKEY /C /X /P /K"ABCDEQ" /W10 %%OPTION%
>> to something like
>> SCREEN 11 21
>> INKEY /C /X /P /K"ABCDEQ" /W10 Select one option: %%OPTION%
> Thanks for the information. Maybe a recommendation for a future
> enhancement would be to have the inkey and input cursors obey global
> cursor settings.

Sorry, can't reproduce this. Here, after hiding cursor with SETDOS /S0:0,
both INKEY and INPUT do obey this setting and hide the cursor.

A simple method for hiding the cursor is switching to graphics mode - not
Windows emulation of text mode in graphics mode, but true graphics mode.

Regards,
Lucho

Hi Lucho,

> Sorry, can't reproduce this. Here, after hiding cursor with SETDOS
> /S0:0, both INKEY and INPUT do obey this setting and hide the cursor.
>
> A simple method for hiding the cursor is switching to graphics mode -
> not Windows emulation of text mode in graphics mode, but true
> graphics mode.

I see the same thing here under XP SP3, no general cursor but blinking
cursors for inkey and input.

How would II achieve this switch to graphics mode? Wouldn't it be easier
if 4DOS would treat these cursors the same way like 4dos@sunfire.org
proposed?


--
Mit freundlichem Gruß,

Klaus Meinhard

Klaus Meinhard пишет:
>> Sorry, can't reproduce this. Here, after hiding cursor with SETDOS
>> /S0:0, both INKEY and INPUT do obey this setting and hide the cursor.
>> A simple method for hiding the cursor is switching to graphics mode -
>> not Windows emulation of text mode in graphics mode, but true
>> graphics mode.
> How would I achieve this switch to graphics mode?

Using a video mode switching tool like ftp://ftp.sac.sk/pub/sac/graph/z.zip

> Wouldn't it be easier if 4DOS would treat
> these cursors the same way like 4dos@sunfire.org proposed?

As I wrote, it does just this here. I can't reproduce your problem here.

Regards,
Lucho

Luchezar Georgiev wrote:

> > Wouldn't it be easier if 4DOS would treat
> > these cursors the same way like 4dos@sunfire.org proposed?
>
> As I wrote, it does just this here. I can't reproduce your problem
> here.

But you could look at the source code and see if there are differences
in displaying the cursor.


--
Mit freundlichem Gruß,

Klaus Meinhard

Klaus Meinhard пишет:
>> As I wrote, it does just this here. I can't reproduce your problem
>> here.
> But you could look at the source code and see if there are differences
> in displaying the cursor.

Yes I've done that before replying on this and found nothing suspicious.
Without detailed information (the exact operating environment: operating
system, video mode, etc, exact steps to reproduce the problem, as little
assumptions as possible) I couldn't reproduce it.

Regards,
Lucho