           DV Commander version 1.8 by William E. Allen [75300,272]
        Copyr 1989-92 by William E. Allen PO Box 834, Howell, MI 48843



                                  WHAT'S NEW?

       Here is a quick look at what's  new and changed in version 1.8 of
       DV  commander.  Read  this  file  if  you  are currently using DV
       Commander to see how the changes might affect you.
       
       Version 1.8 02/17/92
       
       * Menu separator lines
       
         Added the  %separator  special menu command which will insert a
         seprartor line like those used in DESQview's own menus.
         
         Also changed the  menu window frame  slightly  to exactly match
         the way the DESQview menus look.
         
       * Menu highlight bar follows mouse 
       
         The highlight bar now tracks when the mouse is moved as it does 
         in DESQview's own menus and panels.


       Version 1.7 04/15/91

       * DIsable / ENable commands

         Added DIsable and ENable commands to control access to DESQview
         menus. This  can be useful in  setting up a turnkey  system and
         with games that insist on using your {DESQ} key.


       * Execute Command

         Added an Execute  command that will let you  run any program in
         its own DESQview window. This  command is very powerful. Please
         see the documentation for details.


       * Pre-emptive menus

         The sub-menus are now pre-emptive. This means that if you press
         the menu selection letter before the  menu has a chance to dis-
         play, it will execute  your selection immediately without show-
         ing the menu.


       * Reorganized the manual

         The manual now has a table  of contents and the commands, which
         were  in no  particular order  before, are  now in alphabetical
         sequence.


       Version 1.6 01/01/91

       * Desq command

         The Desq command stacks keystrokes  that open the DESQview main
         menu and  execute commands from  it. You can  use this command,
         for example, to  set the DESQview video options,  or to use the
         DESQview menus to change colors.  You can also use this command
         to cause DESQview to switch to another window.


       Version 1.51 12/01/90

       * Justify command

         You can now optionally add [row, col] parameters to the justify
         command. The  window will be  positioned so the  row and column
         are in the upper left corner of the window.


       Version 1.5 10/03/90

       * Name change

         First of all  I shortened the name. Instead  of DVCOMAND I have
         changed the  name to DVC. I  find the new name  to be much more
         convenient to use  from the command line and  I found that many
         people  renamed it  to DVC   anyway. Of  course you  can always
         rename the  executable file to any  name you wish and  you will
         probability  want to  do this  if you  have many  DVP and batch
         files that would need to be changed.


       * DV style menus

         The "style" of  the menus have changed to  make them conform to
         the look of DESQview's own menus. Specifically the frame is now
         made of solid lines and the  title is centered inside the frame
         like DV's menus and screens.

         A new  form of the description  (the first positional parameter
         on  each line  of your  menu  files)  can be  used to  make the
         selector letter appear on the far right of the description like
         DESQview's menus. For example the menu line:

           "D=DESQview Datebook"  DA

         would display in the menu as:

            DESQview Datebook    D


         A new special line of the form:

             %menu "Applications Menu"

         allows you  to give a  name to the  menu. If omitted, the title
         from the  DVP used to execute  the DVC MENU command  is used as
         the menu title.


       * Additional menu parameters

         Three additional positional parameters, TITLE, EXEC, and MEMORY
         have been added to those you can specify when defining lines in
         your menu (*.MNU) files.

         TITLE lets you override the  program title specified in the DVP
         with any  string, up to 30  characters, that you want.  This is
         the title that will show in the DESQview SWITCH menu and in the
         frame of the window when it is not zoomed to a full screen. The
         EXEC  parameter  allows  you  to  override  the default program
         parameter in  the DVP. MEMORY,  the last positional  parameter,
         gives you the ability to  override both the minimum and maximum
         memory specified in the DVP.

         These  new parameters,  along  with  the DIRECTORY  and PROGRAM
         PARAMETERS parameters, allow a single  DVP to be used in varied
         situations.

         Since  the parameters  are positional  they can  not be omitted
         except on  the right. You can  use an asterisk (*)  to hold the
         place of any parameter you do  not want to specify. For example
         if you wanted (for some strange reason) to modify the amount of
         memory allocated  to the DESQview Datebook  from the default in
         the DVP of 64 to, say,  128k and leave all the other parameters
         alone you would use a line in your menu file something like:

           "D=DESQview Datebook"  DA  *  *  *  *  128

         where  the four  asterisks hold  the places  of the: DIRECTORY,
         PROGRAM PARAMETERS, TITLE, and EXECUTE parameters.


       * Menu positioning

         Previously  DVC would  always position  the menu  in the  upper
         right corner of the screen. It  will now honor the starting row
         and column from DVP that executes the DVC MENU command provided
         the starting row, column is within 1,1 and 19,54.


       * Spawn command

         A new  command, SPAWN, lets  you open any  DVP while optionally
         overriding the DIRECTORY, PROGRAM  PARAMETERS, TITLE, EXEC, and
         MEMORY. Essentially  this new command  lets you open  a program
         from  the  command  line   with  exactly  the  same  positional
         parameters you would specify on a line in your menu file.


       * Color switch

         A new  command line switch,  /C=hh, lets you  specify the color
         that DVC  will use. hh is  the hex attribute for  the color you
         want DVC  to use. It defaults  to /C=07. You must  set USES ITS
         OWN COLORS to Yes if you specify this new switch.


       * Quiet switch no longer needed

         You no  longer need to  specify the /Q  command line switch  to
         keep  DVC  from  displaying  its  copyright  information on the
         screen.

         You can type  DVC without any parameters to  show copyright and
         registration information and you can  type DVC HELP to show the
         help screen.


       * Enhanced mouse support

         Mouse support  has been enhanced somewhat.  As before, you must
         still  virtualize  the  window  that  is  running DVC for mouse
         support to be enabled. This  is because the mouse driver writes
         directly to the video buffer.

         The mouse cursor is not displayed  until you move the mouse. It
         is  displayed as  a diamond  just  like  DV uses  but it  works
         differently from DV. When in a  menu, clicking on the item that
         is highlighted executes  the item but clicking on  an item that
         is not highlighted  only moves the highlight bar  to that item.
         The highlight bar  does not follow the mouse  cursor as it does
         in DESQview's menus. The mouse  cursor can not be moved outside
         of the menu window.

         Clicking the right button acts  like the ESCape key closing the
         menu  without doing  anything. You  can press  both buttons  to
         bring up the DESQview menu.


       * Uses more memory

         DVC now requires the minimum memory to be set to at least 128k.
