Seems the indexing processes of AREV need to have focus inorder to actually work, if this is wrong please correct me but that is my findings at the moment.

There has been talk here about returning focus to AREV after it calls a different application. This I already have figured out.

Incase anyone wants to know I use this method.

SUSPEND EXIT CMD /C START command.bat

command.bat has an EXIT command at the end

Problem

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Ok so my problem is running AREV on a computer where other AUTO applications are running. AREV is not calling these programs they are just running together with AREV. AREV needs to somehow keep FOCUS or have FOCUS return to it so that the Indexing Processes will continue to function.

Programs

AT&T Mail Client - poles mailboxes for mail

Pegasus Mail - poles mailboxes for mail / sends mail

AREV - runs indexing processes

Any Sugestions ????

Thanks Everyone!!!!

This suggests that you have the "Always Suspend" flag set in the pif. This can cause you a world of hurt. Ensure it is unset.

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It is off already so I dont think that is the problem.

Is "Yield time to Windows" set in the Arev Workstation Hardware settings?

ARev indexing should only need focus to check for keyboard input to interrupt the background indexing process otherwise it should proceed without interruption.

Not using 3.12 - using 3.111 so no yield option available.

I dont think that would matter in this case.

Point I am getting at is another program has FOCUS on the computer running AREV how does AREV get FOCUS back to run the indexing.

Or will indexing run when out of FOCUS??

If the PIF is set up correctly, as described earlier in this thread, Windows will grant a time slice periodically to Arev to do whatever it will. How this happens depends upon the version of Windows.

I think it's possible, though, for another DOS application to wrest full control away from other DOS applications. Ideally, you should have no other DOS applications running on the machine that's running an indexer.

Background indexing will run without focus.

ARev background indexing only needs focus to check the keyboard buffer to interrupt indexing if there is keyboard activity.

No activity, no interruptions. When the ARev session is in the background there will be no keyboard activity.

How is keyboard activity distinguished from other activity? Recall that the indexing process is kicked off by INPUT.CHAR, which is the main keyboard interface in Arev. Whether the keyboard is used or not, Arev polls it. So I don't really follow what you're suggesting here.

Also, Arev, as far as I know, doesn't use any Windows events. Perhaps I'm just misunderstanding what you're suggesting.

However, I do know this. If the PIF is not set up properly, as described earlier in this thread, all Arev-related computation will instantly come to a halt when Arev is minimized or pre-empted by a new foreground application. If the suspension lasts for longer than the NLM parameter defining how long to keep a session alive, then the NLM will drop the workstation session, and Arev operations will fail even when Arev returns to the foreground.

INPUT.CHAR will only poll the keyboard buffer for the NTVDM session it is running under.

If I have the editor open in ARev and then switch focus to Internet Explorer and press the escape key twice the ARev session does not see the escape key. The editor is still open when I switch back to the ARev session.

What's so hard to understand about that?

: INPUT.CHAR will only poll the keyboard buffer for the NTVDM session it is running under.

True. But it will be polling the keyboard incessantly.

: If I have the editor open in ARev and then switch focus to Internet Explorer and press the escape key twice the ARev session does not see the escape key. The editor is still open when I switch back to the ARev session.

Sure. No argument there. But I think that's sidestepping the issue. I think the issue is whether ANYTHING happens in Arev when it does not have focus. That depends on shortcut settings, and depending upon the Windows version, it's dependent on not only the shortcut settings of Arev but of other DOS applications that may be running.

At a client I run a standalone indexer machine in Arev 3.12. After each index update it looks in a queue and can start MS Word for Windows which prints a merge letter and closes.

The Arev session doesn't need to get focus, again.

Dave

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