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I'm having issues with controlling the size of a text-mode program. This is a database program (Dataflex) that I recently had working on Windows 98 DOS mode and now am moving it to Linux.

I have tried altering the resolution of console-mode using How do I increase console-mode resolution?, but that has no affect on the program size.

I have also tried changing the columns and rows variables which doesn't work. Also this which broke my Grub entirely.

Currently the program takes up the top left 1/4 of my screen. It looks tiny. I'd attach a picture but I don't have the 10 reputation points yet.

Has anyone else solved issues on controlling the size of a text-mode program? Or know of any solution. Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks.

Edit: I have 10 points now so I'll attach a picture. I had to take it with my phone, since I don't have access to terminal while using the program. I can interact with the program just fine, but it's just the size that's an issue.

Image of program size

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Wolfe
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    The "size" seen there is probably controlled by the application to fit into a standard size terminal window in the GUI of 80x24. It's probably hard-coded as such. – Thomas Ward Apr 15 '15 at 18:19
  • I've thought of this, but that would completely unreasonable for a database program. I've gotten the same program to run in DOS in fullscreen, without issue. Do you know of another text-based program that I can test this with? If I'm able to go fullscreen with that then the issue would be with the program itself and I can fix it as such. The program mentions using the Environmental Variables “COLS” and “ROWS”, but that doesn't seem to change anything when set. – Wolfe Apr 15 '15 at 18:38
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    either stty size or both tput rows and tput lines will describe what terminfo knows.

    How did you move it to Linux? How did you make it work before? Is it running under wine? What language is it written in? Do you have access to the source code?

     – grantbow Apr 18 '15 at 17:45
  • I don't think there is enough information to answer this yet. What do the dataflex documents from DataAccess say about this? – grantbow Apr 18 '15 at 17:53
  • The program is written in 4GL-all procedural, no objects. The program does not run under wine. The source code was written by a fellow employee and there is nothing in there specifying the size of the program, as far as I can tell. I moved the program from Windows 98 by basically just taking the source code that was written and recompiling it under the Linux version of the program. I'm becoming quite frustrated because after compiling/changing the source code to work under Linux everything works perfectly except for the size of the program. – Wolfe Apr 20 '15 at 17:00
  • On the Windows 98 version there was an option to just make the program “fullscreen”, we checked that and the program occupies the full space of the screen. The installation guide for the Linux program specifies setting two variables: “ROWS” and “COLS”. I have done so but to no avail, the screen size seems stuck on 80 COLS and 25 ROWS. Is there a way to force a large size? I am not an expert in Linux, but I can get around fine. The switch from Windows is an attempt to create a multi-user database. – Wolfe Apr 20 '15 at 17:01
  • By Linux, do you mean some version of redhat? – grantbow Apr 21 '15 at 16:42
  • Could you please post the output to the following command: uname --kernel-release&&lsb_release --code --short&&echo $TERM&&tput cols&&tput lines as tou probably need to do the opisite of what you're trying to do. You need to make the screen smaller so that the application becomes bigger... – Fabby May 05 '15 at 10:31

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The dataflex KB should provide the instructions that you require. If they don't work it's a support issue with DataAccess. TERMINFO must be set in addition to ROWS and COLS.

grantbow
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  • Thanks. I have already read the document that you linked, but the help is still appreciated. I have gone through many documents since encountering this problem and have finally come upon an obscure text which said, “Dataflex is only supporting 80 COLS and 25 ROWS”. The program was made in 2002, so I suppose back then it made sense. I ended up just opting for a smaller, square, monitor and running linux text-mode in 640x480. The code needs to be revamped, eventually, to work in Visual Dataflex (but that's another problem entirely). Thanks for the help. – Wolfe Apr 22 '15 at 17:39