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newswatcher-readme
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This directory contains a beta version of NewsWatcher with
experimental modifications to allow it to work over serial (dialup)
lines. This version has not been extensively tested and should be used
at your own risk. This version is designed to work either over dialup
or highspeed (using MacTCP) lines. If you have problems with this
version (even when using it with MacTCP) DO NOT BOTHER John Norstad
with trouble reports. Send all trouble reports to:
ray@sfu.ca
The serial connections are made using the Communications Toolbox and
scripts are used to navigate the connection. This works in the same
way as serial connections for the SFU version of Eudora. This includes
the navigations strings method as documented in Appendix D of the
Eudora documentation and the scripts as documented in the C- manual
(available from ftpserver.sfu.ca in pub/mac/eudora/doc/scripts).
A number of example scripts and navigation strings are available in
this directory. The script in NW-Dialup-Script-1.0.hqx is for use at
SFU and is not likely to be useful at other sites. It may be of use as
an example of writing a fairly complex script.
If you are going to use Serial NewsWatcher over a dialup line directly
into a Unix box, then there are two scripts/navigation strings that
may be of use to you. To use either of these, simply put them into the
Preferences folder of you System Folder. The following short
description of these scripts should help you make use of them.
NW-Direct-Unix-Navs
This file contains a set of navigation strings much like the ones in
appendix D of the Eudora documentation. These navigation strings
should work fine with Eudora as well. They contain two extra
navigation strings that Eudora doesn't use, but are needed by
NewsWatcher to handle moving the .newsrc file.
To handle the problem with echoing, these navigation strings use
srialpop to handle the terminal settings. Note that the standard
version of srialpop written for use by Eudora will not let you connect
to the NNTP port or to the Telnet port. In fact it needs a bit of
smarts to talk to a Telnet port. A version that can do that is
available in the srialpop directory.
NW-Direct-Unix-Script
This is a script that does much the same thing that the navigation
strings mentioned above do. The one major difference is that the
script does not use srialpop. NewsWatcher handles the echoing from the
Unix machine itself. This has the advantage that you don't need
srialpop running on Unix. It has the disadvantage that the echoing
slows things down a bit.
Rolling your own
The following notes might help in writing the scripts. You should also
be familiar with Appendix D of the Eudora documentation (available
from ftp.qualcomm.com) and the C- documentation (C- is the language
that the scripts are written in if you go that route).
The "Navigate In" script is used to get connected to a point where a
telnet command can be issued by NewsWatcher. Note that NewsWatcher may
leave itself in a state where it has not issued a telnet command, so
connecting to a terminal server that will time out in such a
circumstance is not a good idea. Also note that NewsWatcher cannot
handle echos of any kind. The scripting language has a way of handling
echos but the navigations strings do not. If you cannot get the host
to turn off echoing then you will have to
run a program like srialpop after
modifying it to accept telnets to ports 119 and 23, and teaching it to
talk to a telnet port. A version of srialpop that does this is
available in the directory pub/mac/newswatcher/srialpop.
Finally, you may have to
alter the form of a number of strings that are used by the scripts and
NewsWatcher to do various serial connection things. They are kept in
STR resources and my be changed with ResEdit, or if you are using
scripts, from the Navigate In script with the Save function. For
example:
Save(1202, "telnet %s %d\r");
Save(1204, "echo \\\004 | cat %s -");
The strings to look at are as follows:
STR default value string use
----- --------------- ------------
1201 \n Line end character
1202 telnet %s %d\r Telnet Command
1203 cat - > %s Put file command
1204 echo \\\4 | cat %s - Get file command
1205 \004 End of file character
Note that the form of the telnet command uses "%s" rather than the
Eudora "%p".
The "Navigate Mid" script is responsible for getting the connection back
to a state that another telnet command can be issued. Little more is
needed here but a script that will pause for a short while to make
sure that the other end is ready for another telnet command.
The "Navigate Out" script is responsible for ending everything. If you
know you are using a modem, this could be an empty script (hanging up
the phone should disconnect you). The example scripts are nicer about
issuing a logout command.
Two extra scripts that are not needed by Eudora are needed by
NewsWatcher to connect to the host that contains the .newsrc file.
The "Navigate Telnet In" script is used to log into a telnet
connection to the host that contains the .newsrc file. The telnet
command itself will already have been given, so the script must supply
the id and password and whatever else is needed to log in.
The "Navigate Telnet Out" script is used to log out of the telnet
connection. This will usually be just a logout command.