[GEM Development] New features for GEM

[John Elliott]

: 
: > -We need a way to make GEM browse in complex structures of
: > directories. By now, you are limited to a certain length and you
: > cannot open, for example, a file which is in the 9th subfolder:
: > DOCMENTS\IMAGES\AGOSTO\HOLIDAYS\EUROPE\SPAIN\ASTURIAS\LUANCO\FOTO.IMG
: > I think this is an imperative feature.
: 
: This is an interesting bug.  I was not aware of it.  Ben?  John?  Why does
: it exist, and can it be fixed?  By the way, Ben, did you ever get time to
: look into your new desktop release?

  At the time GEM was written, MS-DOS was limited to paths that were 64
characters long. So all the path buffers in GEM have this limit built in.
Ironically, Digital Research's own DOS didn't have this limitation until
DR-DOS 7 (when it was brought in for strict bug-for-bug compatibility). 
 
: > -International codepage. This is a lack in GEM, you cannot write
: > correctly with Spanish characters.
: > Very important feature too.
: 
: Yes, but I have no idea how to do that...

  Try SYSFONT. It's not the 'proper' solution (which would be to load
character sets dynamically from EGA.CPI like ViewMAX does) but it does allow
you to set the screen font to match your codepage.

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John Elliott           |BLOODNOK: "But why have you got such a long face?"
                       |SEAGOON: "Heavy dentures, Sir!"    - The Goon Show 
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