QuikMenu III font problem

[Nobsi]

Hello support team,

I am evaluating your superb product Quikmenu III as a menu system for a DOS based BIOS update and diagnosis system for our panel PC product line. Unfortunately there is a problem with Quikmenus main font on the test system. While all the selectable fonts for the menu entries are ok, the main font (used for the title and bottom line and all the system buttons) is messed up. Only the characters A to Z are shown correctly, all other characters are shown as rugged bit patterns.

I contacted the BIOS vendor and he says the reason could be some missing old fonts they removed from the BIOS. Since Quikmenu is a graphical system, does it really rely on font tables in the BIOS?
Is there something I can do about this. If so, which font is required by Quikmenu. Can it be loaded by some fancy helper tool or is it possible to force quikmenu to us one of the file fonts which work fine?

I sent this request with a screenshot also as email to tech@neosoftware.com

Thanks in advance,
Norbert Ruland

[Neosoft Support]

I'm sorry that you're having a problem getting QuikMenu III's main font to display correctly on your computer. If I remember correctly, the main font used for the interface is actually stored in the video card's memory. Evidently, the memory where the font resides is being partially overwritten by part of the operating system, which explains why some characters look OK and others do not. A similar problem also occurs when running QuikMenu III under Windows XP. However, the same computer will display the fonts correctly if booted in DOS mode. Unfortunately, most newer PCs and video cards are designed primarily for use with Windows and provide little support for older DOS-based programs like QuikMenu III.

As you noticed, the fonts used for the icon captions are a different type of
font and are not affected by the memory problem. As far as I know, the only way to replace the main interface font with the one of the icon fonts would be to rewrite a portion of QuikMenu. Without doing more research, I'm not sure how much work such a rewrite would require. We primarily sell Windows-based products now since the demand for older DOS-based products like QuikMenu III is very small. If your company is interested in purchasing a large number of units, or if you're interested in paying for the modifications we can certainly consider making the changes.

[Nobsi]

Hello Customer Support,

thank you very much for your fast respond. I did not expect any answer at all and now I am very positively surprised

> If your company is interested in purchasing a large number of units,
> or if you're interested in paying for the modifications we can certainly
> consider making the changes.

If the price for the modification is in a reasonably limit (say below 1000 US$) we would be interested in the modification.

We would use the menu system for the testing phase of our panel PC devices before the final XP Embedded image is copied on the devices. So the test image (including Quickmenu III and testing applications) would be temporary copied to every device but exchanged when our QA engineer finishes testing and before the device leaves the test workplace. Would such a use fit within the license rules?

If the font problem of Quickmenu can't be solved, I sadly have to look for another DOS menu system. In this case, are you aware of any other DOS menu system that comes near to quikmenus functionality?

With best regards,
Norbert Ruland

[Neosoft Support]

I will try and determine how much the modifications to QuikMenu would cost and contact you privately with a quote.

[Nobsi]

I just want to say that NeoSoft has solved the problem to my full satisfaction for an adequate customizing amount. So I'm now fully happy with the product and can say that the NeoSoft support is outstanding even for "dated" products.

[neelakantan]

hi
i have the same problem as listed by another user (NOBSI) regarding the fonts in quikmenu iii for dos.

the alphabetical characters are displayed ok; but the other characters are not showing.

my machine details are: Compaq presario notebook 2111ap with piv processor; ati graphics chip;

i am not sure about ur statement that the videomemory area is being overwritten by system info. because i used a clean boot option with no TSRs; also provided hma and umb ems with X= to protect the memory under 1 mb;

i believe it is something to do with the old 16/16 font tables which are not supported;

i understand from the postings that the trouble was sorted by the support team; pray exactly what was the solution

regards
neelakantan

[Neosoft Support]

We're no longer actively developing QuikMenu III for DOS, but we do have a fix for the font problem you describe. You can use the link below to download the fix:

http://www.neosoftware.com/software/qm3update.zip

After downloading the file, unzip the contents into your QuikMenu folder, replacing the existing files with the same names.

[neelakantan]

dear support team
thanks for the prompt reply;
i will run the suite and revert
regards
neelakantan

[Patrick]

Dear Neosoft,
I know this is an old topic and an even older programme, but I'm facing just the same problem as all the others here in this thread. Sadly your link to the update of QM3 has been expired by now. Could you make it available again to me by any means? Much appreciated!

Is it possible to obtain a registered copy of QM3 anywhere on the web nowadays?
Kind regards!

[Neosoft Support]

You can find QuikMenu III here:

http://neosoftware.com/order-legacy.html

[Patrick]

Thank you very much, I donloaded the trial version but still the font problem as described above.
I'd love to buy a full version, but without the update you posted years ago it's not useable on modern videocards, I guess. Please?