QED configures Windows dialog boxes just how you want them
Utilities for Microsoft Windows 95 and Windows 3.x often do such esoteric things as defragment hard drives or find orphaned entries in the Win95 Registry. Q.E.D. from Qualitas Inc. gives more immediate gratification. Windows environments rely on their dialog boxes to list files, fonts and many other types of user-selectable information. Unfortunately, you can't resize these boxes to make more room for long filenames or numerous folder entries. This isn't a
Utilities for Microsoft Windows 95 and Windows 3.x often do such esoteric things as
defragment hard drives or find orphaned entries in the Win95 Registry. Q.E.D. from
Qualitas Inc. gives more immediate gratification.
Windows environments rely on their dialog boxes to list files, fonts and many other
types of user-selectable information. Unfortunately, you can't resize these boxes to make
more room for long filenames or numerous folder entries.
This isn't a problem if you run Windows at 640- by 480-pixel resolution.
But with higher-resolution graphics cards and larger monitors, you're probably working at
800-by-600 or 1,024-by-768 resolution, so the dialog boxes take up only a small part of
the screen.
Dialog boxes work with the lowest common denominator in monitors. A notorious
example is the Windows 95 File, Open dialog box, which shows only a few entries. The
scroll bar will reveal the rest of the folders and files, but constant scrolling is
inconvenient and time-consuming.
To the rescue comes Q.E.D., which stands for Qualitas Enhanced Display. Q.E.D.
scales Windows 95 and Windows 3.x dialog boxes to a usable size. The utility is sorely
needed for Windows NT but isn't available for it yet.
The helpful Q.E.D. configuration screen gets the most out of your dialogs. You can
set horizontal and vertical screen sizes and then test without having to leave the
application. A dialog editor lets you customize dialogs in most programs, and it
automatically scales for programs that do not use the Common Dialog Dynamic Link Library
file.
With this editing tool, I could search for a .dll file that contained a dialog, open
it and manipulate the embedded objects. Users can search folders for .dll files that have
specific titles or text-you don't need to know which file has which dialog in it.
When a dialog is configured to your liking, you can run a test to see the dialog as
it would appear in its normal application. If you have problems with the way Q.E.D.
handles some dialogs, you can configure it not to intervene.
To keep dialogs pure, you can't add or delete objects or modify text.
Q.E.D. is a sleeper that does not sound useful until you load it up. It's best for
in-house or contract applications that tend to have quirky, crowded dialogs.
The utility works by backing up and replacing the Common Dialog .dll files in a
Windows system directory. For programs with dialogs embedded in their .dll files, Q.E.D.
intercepts the call and resizes the dialog.
Changes made to dialogs with the Q.E.D. editor are saved not to the .dll but rather
as .qed files. That means you can return to your original dialog without any
problem.
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