═══ 1. Introduction ═══ LA Times for OS/2 Version : 2.00 Copyright (c) 1993 by Steven Gutz An NNTP New Reader for OS/2 2.x with IBM TCP/IP 1.2.1 or later. ═══ 1.1. What is LA Times? ═══ LA Times is a multi-threaded 32-bit OS/2 application which can select and read NNTP network news. The program provides capabilities to receive and send news messages, as well as sending SMTP e-mail. Any news article can be saved via menu selection to disk or printed to a selected output device. LA Times requires OS/2 2.0 or later and IBM TCP/IP 1.2.1 or later. ═══ 1.2. What's new to this release? ═══ Now that IBM has released NR/2 as part of the basic TCP/IP package, the aim of LA Times has changed. In order to meet its goal, LA Times has been packed with more advanced features than both the previous version, and NR/2. Some of these new features are listed below: o Vastly improved server communications. LA Times 2.0 is now much faster than 1.x. o Drag-and-Drop fonts and colors from the system palettes. o Non-modal design permitting reading multiple articles from multiple groups. o Direct printing capability. o True editor capability while reading or editing articles, postings and email. o Kill support for authors and subjects. o A pull down list of frequently used strings (like smileys) in the article editor. o Sorting by article number (ascending or decending), author and subject. o Percent complete indicator for network operations. o Auto-refresh and new news notification. o News group creation notification. o True threaded news reading. (Marking of cross threaded articles) o Unlimited number of groups, subscriptions and subjects (Limited only by memory). o Supports multiple servers. o Supports multiple users. ═══ 1.3. Credits ═══ I would like to thank all of the people who helped beta test this release and made suggestions which made it better. Tim Moloney Jon Hacker Chris Hawkinson William Chase Wade Komisar Richard Stanton Phil Stimson Daniel Tran Colin Longman David Dunlap You all have helped create a much better product. ═══ 1.4. Disclaimer ═══ Neither the LA Times product nor the author are in any way affiliated with the Los Angeles Times. Please do not credit or condemn the Los Angeles Times Newspaper for any features contained within this program. ═══ 1.5. Revision History ═══ Version 1.00 - 1993 June 30 o Initial Release Version 1.10 - 1993 July 26 o Corrected connection problems during first-time execution of the program. o All server command are now terminated with a hard CR-LF rather than LF. o Pressing the "Next" button on last article no longer hangs the program. o LATimes no longer requires a server supporting the XHDR command. o The read article indicator has been changed from a "*" to a checkmark. o Main window update is now much quicker o A -l command line option has been added to provide a log-file to be used for bug reporting. o The main window size and position is now saved on exit. o The program will no longer display the connection message box. o Corrected other numerous minor bugs reported from 1.00 o When Posting/Followup messages, LA Times now prevents any user interaction. This prevents server confusion which cause the program to get out of sync. Version 1.20 - 1993 August 6 o Corrected problem of missing groups during subscription process. o Groups which the server does not support are now removed from the list of available groups. Version 2.00 - 1993 November 4 o Second Release ═══ 1.6. Known Bugs ═══ o If the program is maximized and windows are moved around, then the program window is restored to some smaller size, it is possible to make windows "unreachable". To work around this, re-maximize the window and move the inaccessible window to the bottom left corner before restoring to program window. If you encounter additional program errors or bugs, please contact the author. ═══ 1.7. Contacting the Author ═══ If you have questions, suggestions or bug reports, you can reach the author at any of the mail addresses below. The author can guarantee to answer mail from all registered users, and will make an effort to answer queries from non- registered users as well. Snail Mail Steven Gutz R.R.#5 Pembroke, Ontario CANADA, K8A 6W6 Internet Mail gutzs@crl.aecl.ca CompuServe Mail 73121,231 ═══ 2. Registration ═══ Like all good shareware, LA Times for OS/2 is not free. To use this program you must pay for it, but the price for LA Times is reasonable. In addition to recognizing the effort that went into this program, your registration also insures that you are kept updated with the latest program revisions. So try LA Times for 30 days, and if you like it, then please register it. The price is $25US which includes postage to any destination in the known universe. To register, display the Registration Form and select "Services/Print..." from the menu. This will copy the registration form to your printer. Fill out the form and mail it along with a check or money order for $25US to the address indicated at bottom. Once registered you will receive the latest version of the program. As a registered user you are entitled to a free upgrade to the next release of LA Times. For this reason it is very important that you fill in one of the specified email addresses on the registration form. This guarantees that you will be contacted when new versions are released. Upgrades are generally done by FTP download (free) or by mail by sending $5US to cover shipping costs. Volume discounts of LA Times are available as follows: 001-010 Units $25US 011-050 Units $22US 050-100 Units $18US >100 Units $15US Site License $2000US ═══ 3. Registration Form ═══ LA Times 2.00 Registration Form Send $25 (U.S. funds) with this completed form to Steven Gutz R.R. #5 Pembroke, Ontario CANADA K8A 6W6 Name ______________________________________________ Address ______________________________________________ ______________________________________________ Province/State ______________________________________________ Country ______________________________________________ Postal/Zip Code ______________________________________________ Internet Address (optional) _____________________________________ Compuserve ID (optional) _____________________________________ Where did you get LA Times? _______________________________________________ _______________________________________________ Your signature below acknowledges the following: USERS OF LATIMES MUST ACCEPT THIS DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY LA Times is supplied 'as is'. The author disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, including, without limitation, the warranties of merchantability and of fitness for any purpose. The author assumes no liability for damages, direct or consequential, which may result from the use of LA Times. In any case the maximum liability of the seller will be limited exculsively to product replacement or refund of the purchase price. Your signature _______________________________ Thank you for registering LA Times - I look forward to supporting you. Steven Gutz ═══ 4. Installation ═══ LA Times 2.0 ships with an installation program. Insert the disk containing LA Times and type INSTALL You will be prompted for a source drive\directory and a destination drive\directory. Enter the correct parameters and click the "OK" button to begin the installation. The "Cancel" button aborts the installation. If you are upgrading from a previous version, it is recommended that you remove the previous version or install the new version in a different directory. If you are installing the shareware version of LA Times you do not need to run the install program. Simply use an UNZIP program to decompress the LA TIMES archive to the desired directory. ═══ 5. Starting LA Times ═══ To start LA Times from the command line simply enter LATIMES [-arg1, -arg2, ... -argn]. The program will then start by performing a connection to the default news server. If this is the first time LA Times has been executed, a dialog box entitled Select LA Times NNTP Server will be displayed. This dialog consists of a list box which will initially be empty. In the edit line at the top of list box, enter the address of the server you wish to connect to, then press the "Add" button, and the server will be added to the list. You can then connect to that server by pressing the "OK" button. For more information on the server dialog box see Setting up server connections ═══ 6. Command-line Parameters ═══ There are 3 command-line parameters recognized by LA Times. -s Permits you to add, remove or select news servers from the active server list. This option will let you change the default server that LA Times connects to on start up. -l Enables data logging. The log file is use when reporting software bugs -p Permit users of non-standard news servers to configure the TCP/IP port number used to connect to the server. By default LA TIMES uses port number 119. ═══ 7. Setting Up LA Times ═══ This section describes the initial set up sequence for LA Times. ═══ 7.1. Setting up server connections ═══ LA Times supports connections to multiple servers through the Select LA Times NNTP Server dialog. This dialog will be displayed automatically during the first execution of the program, or you manually invoke it by specifying the -s command line argument when you start LA Times. This dialog contains a combination listbox which has an edit window attached. If you have previously executed LA Times, the edit window will contain the currently selected default server. If the list contains more than one server entry, you can select another server as your default by choosing it from the list and pressing the "OK" button. If you would like to add an additional server to the list, enter the server's name in the edit window and press the Add button. This will add the server to the list. If you want to remove a server from your list, select the server from the listbox and press the Remove button. ═══ 7.2. LA Times for Multiple Users ═══ LA Times has built-in support for more than one user, and setting up this configuration is easy. First install LATimes as normal, but place the LATimes program directory in the path statement of your CONFIG.SYS file. Then make a directory for each user, and have each them run the program from that working directory. You can also create a desktop object for each persons' version of the program, but make sure you specify the correct working directory. It is also a good idea to copy the LATIMES.MAC file from the LA Times directory to each users' working directory. This contains a list of frequently used strings for the LATIMES editors. ═══ 7.3. Frequently Used Editor Strings ═══ LA Times has support for automatic insertion of frequently used strings while in editor mode (editing email, postings or replies). By default, LA Times includes a number of "smileys" and acronymns, but you can add your own to the list simply by editing the file LATIMES.MAC in your working directory. Each entry must be separated by a carriage return, and although LA Times set no limits on the length or number of entries you may have, OS/2 menus do not permit scrolling, so you are limited to 20-30 entries for 1024x768 displays (less for VGA). ═══ 8. LA Times Basic Windows ═══ The following is a list the basic windows provided by LA Times and a brief description of their operation. GROUP Contains a list of all available USENET news groups provided by the selected server. New subscriptions are select from this list. SUBSCRIPTION Contains a list of USENET news group subscriptions selected by the user, and an indication of the number of unread subjects in each group. SUBJECT Contains a list of USENET news group articles available for reading. LA Times can have a subject window open for each news group subscription. ARTICLE Displays a selected article for reading, saving and printing. LA Times supports up to 8 article windows at a time. EMAIL Similar to an article window, the EMAIL window contains a user's article response which can be edited and mailed using the SENDMAIL program in IBM TCP/IP. POSTING Similar to an article window, the POST window contains a user article which will be posted to USENET. This article can be a new creation or can be a reply to an existing article. ═══ 8.1. GROUP Window ═══ The GROUP window contains an up-to-date list of all USENET news groups supported by the selected NNTP server. You can select multiple news groups from this window for subscription. Select one of the following for more information: o Subscribe o Search ═══ 8.2. SUBSCRIPTION Window ═══ The subscription windows contains a list of all USENET groups to which you are currently subscribed. You can double click on any group in the list to display its subject list. The subject window is divided into 3 fields as follows: Subscription Shows the news group names to which you have subscriptions Unread Displays the number of article which you have not read. Total Shows the total number of news articles available from LA Times. Note that if you have the "Show previously viewed subjects" configuration option disabled, then this field will have the same value as the "Unread" field. Select one of the following for more information: o Refresh o Unsubscribe o Read o Posting ═══ 8.3. SUBJECT Window ═══ The subject window contains a list of subject headers for a selected group. You will see that there are several columns displayed. Below is a brief description of each: Check This field is blank for any article which has not been seen. If you have the "Show previously view subjects" option enabled, a check mark in this field will indicate that this subject has already been seen. If you have the "Show killed subjects" configuration option enabled, killed subjects will also be shown and marked with a "K" indicator in this field. Number This field lists the message number for this article. This unique number is provided by your NNTP server and is used to identify this subject. Author The author field contains the name or email address of the creator of this message. Re: The Re: field contains a check mark if this article is a reply to some previous article. Articles without a check mark in this field indicate the start of a new news thread. Title The title field contains the subject of the new article. You can change the sort order of the subject window, by using the sort configuration option. Select one of the following for more information: o Read o Posting o Search o Mark o UnMark o Kill ═══ 8.4. ARTICLE Window ═══ Article windows contain the text of an article you are currently reading. LA Times supports reading up to 8 articles simultaneously. Select one of the following for more information: o File o Edit o View o Insert o Search o Posting ═══ 8.5. EMAIL Window ═══ The EMAIL window is similar to the article window. It contains a reply message which can be sent via SMTP e-mail to the author of an article. This feature of LA Times requires the installation of the SENDMAIL program, which is part of IBM TCP/IP. Select one of the following for more information: o Edit o EMail o Search ═══ 8.6. POSTING Window ═══ The POSTING window is similar to the article window. It contains a reply message which can be sent to a USENET news groups. Select one of the following for more information: o Edit o Posting o Search ═══ 9. LA Times Configuration ═══ LA Times uses a CUA compliant notebook control for all of its configuration. When you first start LA Times, this notebook will be the first window you see. The notebook contains several pages for configuration information. These are listed below: User Contains the configuration for the user. This includes such information as the your user name and email address, and your organization. General Contains the general configuration of LA Times features Color Contains the color configuration for LA Times Fonts Contains the font configuration for LA Times Sorting Configures the sorting technique used for sorting subjects Signature Permits you to edit your optional signature file. Kill File Permits editing of the kill file. ═══ 9.1. User Configuration ═══ The user page of the configuration notebook contains the following fields: E-Mail Address Enter your full internet e-mail address, ie. jonesr@server.mail.com. This string is inserted in the "From:" field of all articles and follow-ups you post to USENET. Full Name Enter your first and last name in this field. This will be included with all articles and follow-ups you post to USENET. Organization You can optionally enter an organization string in this field. ═══ 9.2. General Configuration ═══ The General configuration notebook page contains items which affect the general operation of LA Times. These are listed below: Inform about new group creation If selected, LA Times will tell you about any new USENET groups which have been created since the last use of the program Skip read articles with Next/Previous Article options If set, the program will skip articles which you have already seen when you are performing Next and Previous article operations. If uncheck the Next/Previous operations will go to the next or previous article regardless of the "seen" state of the article. Keep posting log file If checked, a log file (LTPOST.LOG) gets appended with a copy of every article or follup-up posted to USENET. Keep e-mail log file If checked, a log file (LTEMAIL.LOG) gets appended with a copy of every e-mail message issued by the program. Beep on new news If checked, the program will beep each time the auto-refresh feature detects new news messages. Show previously view subjects If selected, LA Times will display all of the previously viewed subjects in the subject list windows. Note that this will only applys to subjects viewed from the present time onward. If this button was selected and is now being unselected, any subjects which you have previously viewed will be permanently removed from the subject window. Show killed subjects If selected, LA Times will display all killed articles in subject list windows. Note that this will only apply to killed subjects from the present time onward. If this button was selected and is now being unselected, any subjects which you have previously killed will be permanently removed from the subject window. AutoRefresh You can set the time in minutes for a refresh of the news lists to occur. If non-zero, the program will query the server for new information after the specifed time period has lapsed. Setting the refresh time to zero will disable the auto refesh feature. ═══ 9.3. Sort Configuration ═══ The sorting configuration notebook page permits you to the set the method used to sort and display subject headers. There are currently four options as follows: Ascending Number Subjects are sorted by ascending article number Descending Number Subjects are sorted by descending article number Author Subjects are sorted alphabetically by author name Title Subjects are sorted alphabetically by title ═══ 9.4. Signature Configuration ═══ This configuration notebook page will permit you to edit your signature. The signature gets appended to all e-mail, and articles you issue with LA Times. The signature is completely optional. If you choose not to use a signature then leave this page blank. ═══ 9.5. Kill File Configuration ═══ This notebook page will permit you to remove entries from your kill file. You can select the "kill" entry you wish to remove and by pressing the button you can re-enable reception of messages previously killed by the selected entry. ═══ 9.6. Color Configuration ═══ This notebook page permits you to drag foreground and background color selections from the system color palette to color chips shown in this window. Each of the basic windows can have its background and text colors changed. To change the foreground color, you must drag the color selection while holding down the key, as specified in the OS/2 user documentation. The colors selected will not take effect until the next time a window is created. For the group and subscription windows, this will be the next time you run the program. Note:Depending on your display hardware, some colors in some windows will be displayed incorrectly. You may have to select different colors. (This problem seems to be caused by certain graphical controls in OS/2). ═══ 9.7. Font Configuration ═══ This notebook page permits you to edit the font for each of the basic windows. You can select the basic window for the font change using the radio buttons shown at the left. The rectangle at the right will show you the font which is currently selected. By default all fonts are initially set to 10 point proportional system font. ═══ 10. Appendicies ═══ This section list all the miscellaneous information not described anywhere else in this document. ═══ 10.1. Appendix A - Server connection errors ═══ This appendix will describe the errors you may encounter while trying to connect to an NNTP news server. Server Undefined This error occurs when the server name is incorrect. Check that you have specified the name correctly in the server configuration dialog. Re-run the program with the "-s" command line option. Network Socket Unavailable This error occurs when there is no network socket available for use. If this error occurs, try rebooting since the problem is probably a hung TCP/IP process. Server Connection Timed Out This error occurs when the connection to the specifed server could not be made. Check the address/server name specifed in the server configuration dialog. Re-run the program with the "-s" command line option. This error can also occur if the server returns an incorrect response during the connection. If this error persists, please contact the author. ═══ 10.2. Appendix B - Kill file format ═══ The kill file, LATIMES.KIL, is a standard text file containing all of the information on killed articles. This file may be edited using any editor. The format of all lines is as follows: ■■ The "■" character can be entered by holding thr key and typing "254" from the nueric keypad. This is a single character "A" for killed author or "S" for killed subject. Contains the range or scope of the kill. "A" for all newsgroups or a newsgroup name for a specific group. Text pattern that if matched causes a kill. This can be a message subject or an author name. ═══ Selecting groups for subscription ═══ You can use the mouse click to select or deselect news groups. Mutliple groups selections are also possible. Then by choosing the "Subscribe" menu option, you can subscribe to the groups you have selected. Once selected, the new subscriptions will appear in the subscription window, and LA Times will begin loading information about the new subscriptions. ═══ Searching the Group Window ═══ LA Times provides for searching of the USENET group list. When the search option is selected, a search string dialog will be displayed. Enter the string you wish to search for, then press OK. If the search string is found, the matching item will be displayed. Note: search strings can be a substring. ═══ Refreshing the Subscription Window ═══ You can refresh the subcription window anytime by selecting this option. It will query the NNTP server for up-to-date information regarding unread articles in this group. ═══ Unsubscribing to USENET groups ═══ This menu options will remove the currently selected subscription from your subscription window. If you wish to resume viewing this group at a later time you will have to resubscribe. ═══ Reading USENET groups ═══ If you select this option, a subject window will be displayed for the currently selected group. ═══ Posting from the Subscription Window ═══ If you wish to post a new article to USENET you can select this option. When this option is selected from the subcription window, the posting window it creates will be blank. ═══ Reading articles ═══ This option will create an article window for the currently selected subject header. It has the same effect as double-clicking on a subject header. ═══ Posting from the Subject Window ═══ If you select the posting option, you can post a new message to USENET. By default the news groups field of the new posting will contain the group you are reading, and the subject field will contain the subject from the currently selected item. ═══ Searching the Subject Window ═══ You can search for strings within the subject window by using this option. You are prompted for a search string, and a case insensitive search of each message entry is performed. Note that all fields of each entry are searched. ═══ Marking Subject Entries ═══ The marking options permit you to mark article(s) as "seen" - ie place a check mark beside them. There are 3 basic marking functions as listed below: Mark Current Marks the currently selected subject header(s) as "seen". It also marks these articles in all other groups to which you currently subscribe. You can select multiple subjects for marking by holding the CTRL key and clicking the left mouse button. Mark Thread Marks all items in the same subject thread as seen. Mark All Marks all articles in the current group as seen. ═══ Unmarking Subject Entries ═══ The unmarking options permit you to unmark article(s) that have been previously marked. There are 3 basic unmarking functions as listed below: Unmark Current Unmarks the currently selected subject header(s). This operation will also unmark the selected subject(s) in all other groups to which you subscribe. You can select multiple subjects for marking by holding the CTRL key and clicking the left mouse button. Unmark Thread Unmarks all items in the same subject thread. Unmark All Unmarks all articles. ═══ Killing Author and Subject Entries ═══ The LA Times kill feature will give you the ability to ignore selected subjects and authors. The article kill can span the current news group or all news groups to which you subscribe. ═══ File options ═══ Using the file menu, you can save the article to a file, or append it to an existing file. Additionally, you can print an article to a selected printer in your system. ═══ Edit options ═══ Using the edit menu, you copy, cut or paste article information. ═══ View options ═══ The view menu option give you the capability to do the following: o Display article header information o Go to the next article o Go to the previous article. o Go to the next article in the current thread o Go to the previous article in the current thread ═══ Insert options ═══ The insert option is unique to LA Times. It permits you to insert special or frequently used strings into your articles. By adding items to the LATIMES.MAC file, you can add items to this list. This menu is useful for inserting items such as acronymns or smileys :-) into you articles. You can add or change items to the list by using a text editor to edit the LATIMES.MAC file. Insert on item per line. ═══ Searching the Article Window ═══ You can search for strings within the article window by using this option. You are prompted for a search string, and a case insensitive search of the edit window is performed. The "Find Next" option will reposition you to the next matching search string in the article. ═══ Posting from the Article Window ═══ If you select the posting option, you can post a follow-up article or email follow-up to the author of the article you are reading. ═══ Edit options ═══ Using the edit menu, you copy, cut or paste email information. ═══ EMail options ═══ Using the email option you can enter or modify the address information for the e-mail, and you can send the current message to the address you have specified. If you have previously created a signature file, this will automatically be appended to the end of the EMail message. ═══ Searching the EMAIL Window ═══ You can search for strings within the email window by using this option. You are prompted for a search string, and a case insensitive search of the edit window is performed. The "Find Next" option will reposition you to the next matching search string in the email message. ═══ Edit options ═══ Using the edit menu, you copy, cut or paste posting article information. ═══ Posting options ═══ Using the posting option you can enter or modify the address information for the article to be posted, and you can send the current message to the USENET group(s) specified in the address information dialog. If you have previously created a signature file, this will be appended to the end of the posted article. ═══ Searching the EMAIL Window ═══ You can search for strings within the email window by using this option. You are prompted for a search string, and a case insensitive search of the edit window is performed. The "Find Next" option will reposition you to the next matching search string in the email message. ═══ New groups available ═══ This dialog will display a list containing all new news groups which have been created since LA Times last checked. You can select any groups in this list for subscriptions. Pressing the OK button without any selections will permit you to ignore the new groups. ═══ Printing Options ═══ This dialog will display a list of available printers on your system (network printers are also shown). You can select one of these printers to have your output sent to a specific device. The job properties button will let you configure the output device in a specific way.