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1993-09-20
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OFF-LINE MAIL, AND HOW TO USE IT- AN INTRODUCTION
By: Martin Moran
You may, at 3:00am, have discovered the joy of being in the
middle of an on-line reply to a private message, and being rudely
interrupted by the host system telling you that you have "LESS THAN
TWO MINUTES REMAINING *flash* *flash*!". (The nerve!) Being quite
annoyed, you may even have dashed off a terse note to your Sysop,
requesting more time so that you can respond to more messages,
response may have been "Use an off-line mail reader."
HUH?
Off-line mail is one of the most versatile and convenient
offerings from a BBS system. If you participate in message bases
regularly, especially Fidonet or local networked systems like
Telenet Canada [TNC], you know how the messages can pile up. You
know that you may not be able to read them all in one on-line
session, let alone reply to any. Your salvation is off-line mail,
which gathers all your pending unread mail, compresses it with the
archiver of your choice, and allows you to read and reply to
messages *off-line* using your favourite text editor; you can even
add those witty (or not so witty) lines to the end of your
messages, which are called "taglines".
But let's start from the beginning. First, you have to choose
a reader to use. Any BBS worth it's salt will have at least one
off-line reader available for download in it's file areas. If not,
someone on that board will be able to upload one for you. There
are many different readers, and unfortunately, you are on your own
with selecting the right one for you- I can at least give you some
names to look for, though. You just have to ensure that the mail
reader that you choose is compatible with the mail system that your
BBS uses (more on that in the section "<D>ownload a Packet",
below.) All of these mail readers are released under the shareware
concept, by the way, and they all give you a set time to evaluate
the program before registering, so that you can see how you like
it.
GETTING YOUR MAIL- THE BBS SIDE.
Getting your mail is simple- just go into the off-line mail
section of your favourite BBS, and look at the prompts- their usual
configuration is: <C>onfigure
<D>ownload a mail packet
<U>pload a reply packet
(Those are the three that we are really concerned with- some
systems may have more areas available than this.) I'm sure that
you can figure out what to do with each, having reached this stage,
but let's look a little closer.
::: <C>onfigure
This first area is very important- and be forewarned that it
may be listed under a different name. This is the area where you
will choose which areas you want to download in you packet, how you
want them to be compressed (ie: .ZIP, .ARJ, .LZH), and what
download protocol to use.
To start, the best thing to do is choose the areas that
interest you, including any that you currently read on-line, and,
of course, the personal mail and netmail areas. Next, select the
compression scheme you wish to use, be it .ZIP or any other that
the board supports; the choice should be made on what you are most
comfortable using.
There may be other options that you can choose, such as
extended menus (or no menus at all!), but at this point, you are
now finished your configuration; after this, it only gets easier,
because now you just read and reply to the messages!
::: <D>ownload a mail packet
This one is self evident- if you choose this option, the BBS
end of the offline mail program will collect all the messages in
the area that you specified, compress them with the program of your
choice, and prompt you for the download when the above processes
are complete.
::: <U>pload a reply packet
This one is also self explanatory- use this selection to
upload your reply packet to the BBS, which then gets uncompressed,
and the messages "tossed" into the correct message bases.
OFF-LINE MAIL FORMATS.
There are two main types of off-line mail formats- .QWK (or
"QWaK", as it is called), and The Blue Wave Off-Line Mail System.
.QWK is an older standard, and the packets that you download will
have the name <BBSNAME>.QWK, where <BBSNAME> is the name of the
bulletin board where the packet originated. Blue Wave, at present a
proprietary system approaches the matter differently- it names the
packet <BBSNAME>.??#, where <BBSNAME> is the name of the system where
the packet originated, ?? are the first two letters of the day of the
week when the packet was downloaded, and # is the packet number. For
example, a typical packet would be:
MYBBS.QWK
for QWaK systems
OR
MYBBS.WE2
for Blue Wave- this packet would be downloaded on a Wednesday, and
would be the second packet downloaded on that day.
If you are on a board that supports .QWK packets, which will
probably be a majority of them, you must have a .QWK compatible
reader to be able to read them. Fortunately, all major readers
have support for .QWK mail packets, even the Blue Wave offline reader.
The differences between the two main packet formats are actually quite
minor when compared- the only noticeable difference to the user is that
you can only have one mail packet with the name ???.QWK at any time,
requiring a renaming of older packets, whereas with Blue Wave, renaming
is not required due to the packet naming scheme noted above. Fortunately
again, all major readers will rename packets for you- Blue Wave
packets included.
*** Note: only the Blue Wave Off-Line Mail Reader can read the
Blue Wave packet formats- you only have the one choice for mail readers
if this is the system that your BBS uses, as the Blue Wave format is a
proprietary system. It does have the added ability to read both Blue Wave
and .QWK mail packets, however, making it the most versatile of the
readers.
READING AND REPLYING TO MAIL: THE USER END.
As mentioned before, you have to have chosen a mail reader by
this time, so we will assume that you have one. You also need a
text editor to enter your replies, and you can use anything from
the simple EDIT.COM included with DOS version 5.0 and above, right
on up to major word processors like Word Perfect and Word Star.
Having used both ends of the spectrum myself, I recommend something
in between- there are many shareware text editors available, and
all of them are excellent. The most popular by far are Boxer and
QEdit, both available on several southern Ontario bulletin boards,
but there are others, including local offerings like AEdit,
programmed right here in the Metro Toronto area. (When using these
programs, a good idea would be to use a spell checker, as there
usually aren't any included. The best by far is ShareSpell, which
is shareware, and also available locally.) The larger word
processing programs should be avoided, if possible, as they are
slower and bulkier than their counterparts in the shareware world,
and also require special commands to save as DOS text, (or ASCII),
which is the standard format for mail messages. I recommend QEdit,
but again, go with what you feel comfortable with, and test out
something else if you aren't happy with what you are using.
I can't give any instructions on setting up your reader, other
than to read the documentation- that's what it is there for. If
you have your reader set up properly, with the proper command lines
for your compression program, text editor and spell checker, you
should have no problems at this point- just enjoy reading and
replying to your mail!
THE READERS.
As I said, I can't choose a reader for you. I can, however, offer some
suggestions.
::: SLMR- The Silly Little Mail Reader.
I had the pleasure of using this reader for roughly 3 months,
before The Blue Wave, my reader of choice, began to recognize .QWK
packets. It is a gem of a little program, and quite powerful when
considering the limitations of .QWK mail. It has been repackaged
and named Off-Line Express, so look for either one. If .QWK is the
only mail package used on the boards you call, then this would be a
good place to start, but remember, there are others.
::: The Blue Wave Off-Line Mail Reader.
The Blue Wave Mail System is to .QWK as VHS is to Beta- .QWK
was there first, but VHS is easier. It offers extreme flexibility,
with features such as filtering out names or subjects, using
keywords to find messages that interest you, as well as a powerful
macro feature that lets you bundle certain areas (that you define)
according to your pre-defined keywords and filters, or only
personal messages in a certain area. It also lets you choose
message bases, define keywords and filters, and write your macros
OFF-LINE, then upload them to the host system. This would be an
excellent reader for first time users, as it is simple to use, but
also a perfect reader for veterans looking for more. And remember,
only the Blue Wave reader can read Blue Wave mail!
::: WinQwk
As it's name implies, WinQwk is a windows reader for .QWK
format messages. It's very popular with Windows users, although I
believe it is the only reader available for Windows.
::: Silver Xpress
I haven't had the opportunity to use Silver Xpress, but it IS
another VERY popular .QWK reader. Many people believe it to be more
useful and powerful than SLMR, and it is worth a test!
If you run across any other readers you are curious about,
just ask someone who uses them- they will be more than happy to
describe it's features for you.
TAGLINES.
Finally, we come to taglines. Taglines are a very personal
matter- some people hate them, most people like them, and some are
obsessed with them. Taglines are those little, non-relevant lines
at the bottom of mail messages, inserted by the mail program,
either randomly or selected by the user. Let me show you a few, so
you know what I mean:
Unable to locate Coffee -- Operator Halted!
hAS ANYONE SEEN MY cAPSLOCK KEY?
My other computer is a 486.
SENILE.COM found . . . Out Of Memory . . .
Taglines, as you may have guessed, are the electronic version of
the bumper sticker- tack one on to your message, and it may
brighten someone's day- just please, no "Beep if you're horny!"!
Most mail programs let you insert taglines- in fact, most let
you STEAL other taglines that you find in other messages. There is
even an entire conference on Fidonet for witty taglines- well, as witty
as taglines get, anyway. Just remember that there are also some Fidonet
conferences that don't allow them at all.
There is one program that deserves mention at this point, and
that is The John Hancock Tagline Manager. This program is a
tagline beautifier, which lets you add colour, style and panache to
your tagline. It is limited to 50 character long taglines, but is
still a heck of a lot of fun!
PROFESSIONAL MAIL SERVICES.
To date, it would appear that none of the BBS mail readers
offer compatibility for mail systems like MCI Mail, Compuserve or
GEnie, or business class e-mail systems like MicroSoft Mail or
cc:Mail from Lotus. These may be in the works, but I am unaware of
anything that will read/write mail in these services other than
those provided by the host service, like The Compuserve Information
Manager or cc:Mail from Lotus; the patent restrictions would
probably prove too much for any shareware developers.
Off-line mail is definitely a boon to all BBS users, and if
you are presently plagued with a lack of on-line time to reply to
messages, or just want to reply in the comfort of your own home,
off-line mail may be the choice for you! And remember- it will just
give you one more thing to do at 3:00 am!