Compatibility
43
desired area. Try choosing a mouse button emulation mode (-m flag) where the
cursor can be slid before clicking (see page 47). Use in combination with the -j-
flag (see page 50). The cursor may not track with your finger because of the
application's mickey-to-pixel ratio and/or acceleration or ballistic algorithms. The
-r flag (see page 50) can be used to set a non-standard mickey-to-pixel ratio, but
motion algorithms used by the application or driver are unknown and cannot be
simulated. If the application does not move the cursor and it does not use any
motion algorithm, it may then be possible to have the cursor jump to your
fingertip with the -j+ flag.
Alternatively, find out from the developer if the application or library can also
operate in an absolute mode. Sometimes a set-up parameter or flag can be used, or
a different input device specified during installation which also emulates the
mouse. Also, see the following section Light Pen Emulation.
Programmers: If you are the developer of the relative motion-based application,
you may be able to modify it to use coordinates rather easily. Typically, mickeys
are used only because properly scaled coordinates are not available in video
modes unsupported by MOUSE.COM. However, if you use mouse functions 7
and 8, (see Microsoft Mouse Programmer's Reference), you can force both the
mouse driver and MonitorMouse for DOS to scale to any resolution, such as
800x600. If you make this change to use absolute coordinates, you can discard the
mickey-to-pixel conversion code in your application and let the mouse driver do
it.
Light Pen Emulation
MonitorMouse for DOS can emulate BIOS light pen functions in text mode.
Applications written for a light pen can be used with the touchscreen.
This feature may be useful even if you have never used a light pen. If your DOS
application does not work well with MonitorMouse for DOS because the cursor
does not stay under your finger, (the application uses the mouse in relative mode),
and the application supports light pens as an input device, select "light pen" as the
input device and try it again with MonitorMouse for DOS.
