The Screen Painter in the Windows environment is designed to be used with a mouse. Under UNIX, there is currently no support for a mouse. To provide as much consistency as possible between screen painting in different environments (with and without a mouse), the Screen Painter, when no mouse is detected, and the UNIX Screen Painter provide Virtual Mouse functionality through the keyboard.
When no mouse is available during screen painting, the Screen Painter provides a virtual mouse facility that simulates mouse usage through the keyboard. Virtual mouse functionality is supported only when you are operating in the painting canvas. It is not available when pop-up dialogs are displayed, within the Painter menu, or in other parts of Zim.
The painting canvas is the area within which you paint a window and its contained display or form. Usually, all but the first row of the screen (that contains the painter menu) is used to display that part of the canvas with which you can work. If your window does not fit on the screen, scroll bars appear to enable you to move to different parts of the canvas.
As well as being used within the painting canvas, the virtual mouse can be used to open a menu (position the pointer over a menu item and press F7) and to manipulate the scroll bars around the painting canvas. Note that, once a menu drops down or a dialog pops up, virtual mouse behavior is immediately disabled and normal keyboard functions return.
The Virtual Mouse displays a pointer to indicate where your "mouse" is currently pointing. Just as with a regular mouse, the pointer is a specific row and column that is displayed in reverse video. The location of the pointer is changed using the direction keys which each move the pointer one position in the indicated direction.
The operation of the mouse buttons is simulated using function keys as follows (remember that the keys only have these meanings in the painting canvas):
| Key | Meaning |
| F7 | Equivalent to left click on the mouse. To do the equivalent of a Shift-Left Click operation, enter the key sequences defined for Shift in ZIMTCAP and then press F7. |
| F8 | Equivalent to a double click using the left mouse button. |
| F9 | Equivalent to right click on the mouse. |
| F4 | Equivalent to either a left mouse button-down or left mouse button-up event. For example, to move an object with a mouse, you normally select the object, press down the left mouse button, drag the object to a new position, and release the mouse button. Without a mouse, you would press F4, move the field using the direction keys, and then press F4 again. |
In the following topics , the operation of the Screen Painter is explained in terms of using a mouse. Operation, where no mouse is present, is explained in boxes like this:
If You Don't Have A Mouse. . . Text boxes like this explain how to carry out a specific Screen Painter operation when no mouse is available.