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MagCom version 1.0 Concord Software, Jasen M. Fici Copyright 1993 All Rights Reserved Copyright Copyright Magcom was written, and is owned by Concord Software. All programs and documentation distributed with this package are protected under United States and international copyright laws. All rights granted by these laws are reserved by the authors Jasen M. Fici and Concord Software. Under no circumstances shall any part of MagCom be redistributed in any way other than permitted in the distribution policy stated in this document. Table Of Contents Distribution Policy ......................................i Warranty .................................................ii License Agreement ........................................iii Chapter 1 - What is Magcom ? .............................1 Chapter 2 - Configuration & Set Up .......................3 Configuring MAGCOM.CFG ..............................3 File Name Conventions ...............................4 Magazines ......................................4 Publications ...................................4 Setting up Magcom to create magazines/publications ..5 Setting Up Magcom on a BBS ..........................6 Importing New Magazines .............................7 Chapter 3 - Creating a Magazine or Publication ...........11 Creating Magazines - The Script File ................12 Script File Commands ................................12 Required Commands ..............................13 Optional Commands ..............................14 The LEVEL command ..............................15 Compiling the Script ...........................17 Compiling Publications .........................17 Chapter 4 - Navigating Magview ...........................19 Starting Magview ....................................19 Viewing Articles ....................................19 Viewing the Article ............................20 Show Information on Article ....................20 Download Article ...............................20 In Closing ...............................................21 Foreward Distribution Policy This is an evaluation package of MagCom. MagCom is NOT in the public domain, nor is it free software. Instead, in order to make MagCom more use to the public, it is being distributed and redistributed as "shareware" under the following conditions : * MagCom is distributed in its original distribution form. Do not change, alter or delete in any way the contents of the distribution files. * MagCom is not to be distributed with any other software package without prior written consent from the authors. * MagCom can not be distributed for any cost exceeding a $10 maximum disk copying charge. * MagCom may not be used by any government agency, or affiliated government agency. Distribution of the REGISTERED version of MagCom in any way, shape or form is in direct violation of the law. -i- Foreward Warranty MagCom is provided "AS IS" without warranty of any kind. The authors will only be held responsible to the extent permitted under applicable law. The entire risk is assumed by you. If any part of MagCom is found defective, the authors are not liable for anything. DISCLAIMER : Concord Software, (and it's respective owners) make no representations or warranties, either expressed or implied, with respect to the contents hereof and specifically disclaims any warranties, merchantability or fitness for any particular purpose. Any software described in this manual is sold or licensed "AS IS." Should the programs prove defective following their installation or registration (which ever comes first), the user (YOU!), (and NOT Concord Software, its distributors, or its dealers) assumes the entire cost of all necessary servicing, repair, and any incidental or consequential damages (including but not limited to monetary damages) resulting from any defect in the software. Further, Concord Software and its respective owners, reserves the right to revise this publication and make changes from time to time in the contents hereof without obligation to notify any person of such revision or changes. Information in this document is subject to change without notice and does not represent a commitment on the part of Concord Software. -ii- Foreward License Agreement MagCom is distributed to the public as an EVALUATION copy under the concept of "shareware". You are hereby granted the right to use the evaluation copy for a period of 30 days since that day of first using MagCom. If you wish to continue using it after such time, you are required to register it with the authors (Concord Software). If you have any questions or concerns about this policy, please feel free to contact the authors. Registration is a simple process, simply print the enclosed file REGISTER.FRM to your printer, fill out completely, and mail it with your check or money order made out to Concord Software. You are hereby granted the right to use the registered version of MagCom under the condition that only one copy of MagCom may be used per registration. This means that if only one registration fee is sent by you, you will receive one copy of MagCom to execute on your computer. At no time are you permitted to run multiple copies of your registered version. If you wish to do so, each copy that you wish to run must be registered. Once again, MagCom is NOT free software. We are not giving away free copies. Instead, we are giving you the chance to try it before paying for it. -iii- Chapter 1 Chapter 1 - What is Magcom ? Magcom is a full featured, magazine and publication manager, viewer, and on-line door. It encompasses a rather wide range of functions, but is extremely easy to use. Who is Magcom for? In a word, EVERYONE! For the writers, and people who create publications, Magcom is a GREAT magazine management facility. It allows the authors to easily manage individual articles, full magazines, and entire publications (multiple issues of the same magazine). It creates compressed archives of magazine and publications on command, and allows for the easy distribution of such on-line-creations. For the sysop, Magcom can be used for a couple different things. First, for the sysop who wants the most complete and fully functional news/bulletin creator for their BBS, Magcom can not be out done. Second, almost painlessly, on-line magazines and publications created by authors who also decide to use Magcom (mentioned above), can be viewed, captured, or downloaded by their users. Magcom is the ultimate on-line magazine viewer! (and as far as we know, the only one). For the casual BBS users, Magcom can make your life EXTREMELY easier. No longer are you required to pan through an entire on-line document to get to the part that you want to read. Anything created with Magcom will allow you to view things in an orderly and structured fashion. It even allows you to download individual sections of a publication with the seven internal protocols supplied! Before we get down to the nitty-gritty, we need to get our vocabulary straight. Most of these terms mean just what you would think they would mean in the non-computer world, but you know how compu-buffs like to make life that much harder : article : An individual text pertaining to a given subject. It's composed of words, sentences, and paragraphs. Within Magcom, any individual text file is considered an article. All text files should contain no extended character or printer codes, and each line should be end with the standard line feed and carriage return. The most common text editor for creating such files is probably MS-DOS's EDIT.COM found -1- Chapter 1 in v5.0. magazine : A collection of articles. Magcom creates magazines automatically. A magazine usually serves a particular purpose, or follows a common theme throughout all the articles contained in it. publication : A collection of magazines. Magcom creates publications automatically upon request. -2- Chapter 2 Chapter 2 - Configuration & Set Up Configuring MAGCOM.CFG Magcom uses a single configuration text file. It is a regular ASCII file called MAGCOM.CFG, and contains only 2 lines of text. Don't be fooled though, simply because Magcom is that simple to set up, don't get the impression it isn't extremely powerful. Magcom contains 2 executable files : MAGCOM.EXE and MAGVIEW.EXE. Both of them require magcom.cfg to be present in the current DOS directory. NOTE that this does NOT mean that MagCom and magview are required to be there also. As a matter of fact, they can be located anywhere in your current DOS path. Line one (1) of MAGCOM.CFG must contain a path to a temporary directory set up exclusively for Magcom. It is essential that this does NOT point to any directories where ANY of your other data is contained, and it must not be the location of this program or configuration file. Magcom ERASES the entire contents of this directory many times throughout its execution, and is simply used as a work directory for extracting and compiling data. GOOD EXAMPLE : C:\TEMP\ BAD EXAMPLE : C:\DOS Get the point! Line two (2) of MAGCOM.CFG should contain either the word "yes" or "no" (excluding the quotation marks). If you are running a bulletin board system, and you wish to allow your users to be able to download magazines, or individual articles, this line should be set to yes. If you do not wish to give your users the ability for these file transfers, this line should be set to no. Magcom comes with seven (7) internal protocols all set up and ready to go, so there is no need for you to worry about any of the details of file transfers. Here is an example MAGCOM.CFG file, just in case you are not sure about all of this : -3- Chapter 2 C:\TEMP\ yes That's all there is to it! File Name Conventions Finally, before we get into more detail, the naming convention that Magcom and Magview use for magazines and publications should be explained. Magazines All magazines are named after their volume and issue number in the following way : VxxxIyyy.MAG xxx represents the volume number of that magazine, and yyy represents the issue number. Both of them are padded to the left with zeros (0). For example, issue 6, volume 12 a specific magazine would be named : V012I006.MAG Publications All publications are named after the first 8 characters of the magazine name. The magazine name is defined by the authors of the magazine in the script file that they create. Magcom creates publications (multiple issues of a magazine) by looking at the magazine name of each magazine and compiling them into 1 MAGNAME.PUB file. -4- Chapter 2 Setting up Magcom to create magazines/publications There are only 2 extra rules that people who wish to use Magcom as a magazine/publication creation program need to know about : First, you should ALWAYS maintain a separate directory for each different publication you wish to produce. It is also a lot easier if you create yet another directory for you to do your work on each magazine issue for your publication. For example, lets say you are the author of an on-line publication called "BROOM'S TODAY". You would first want to make a directory for all your publications, say C:\BROOM. Now from there, to keep everything completely organized, we suggest you place 3 sub-directories directly under this one : C:\BROOM\MAGS C:\BROOM\CURRENT C:\BROOM\TEMP All of your magazine editing sessions would be held in the CURRENT directory, where a copy of your MAGOM.CFG should be held, and the first line of it should point to the C:\BROOM\TEMP directory. All compiled magazines or publications could then be held separately in the C:\BROOM\MAGS directory. It should be noted that if you do not need to create publications, you will not have to have another copy of the magcom.cfg file in this directory, but if you do, you will need to have another copy located there. This will all be explained later in the Creating Magazines and Publications section. -5- Chapter 2 Setting Up Magcom on a BBS If you are a sysop who wants to set up Magcom on your system so that users may view on-line magazines that you receive, there are a few simple rules and configuration settings you need to be aware of. First of all, you will want to create a single directory where all of your magazines and publications will be stored. You can also keep your MAGVIEW.EXE and MAGCOM.CFG files in this directory. It will probably make things a little easier if you do. Magcom can be set up to operate just like any other BBS "door" or on-line game for your system. It doesn't even need any of the standard drop files required by most of these type of programs. To allow users to view all of the on-line magazines that you have, simply have your BBS program shell out to a batch file and send the following information : COMMUNICATIONS PORT USED BY MODEM BAUD RATE LOCKED BAUD RATE TIME LIMIT Simply set up your batch file to change to the directory that all of you magazines/publications are contained (don't forget the magcom.cfg either), and run MAGVIEW with command line switches to let it know the status of the above 4 settings. Of the 4 above parameters that can be sent to Magview, only the first 2 (communications port and baud rate) are actually required, the others are optional. The format for executing Magview is as follows : MAGVIEW -p{port_number} -b{baud_rate} -o{locked_baud} -t{minutes_left} If you BBS program executes door files by passing these parameters to the batch file in the form of parameters (used in your batch files as %1 %2 %3 etc. etc.), this is the simplest way to operate Magview. Magview also supports 3 other command line switches : MAGVIEW -l -6- Chapter 2 Executes magview in local mode. This command will tell magview not to initialize the communications port, and will not check for carrier detection. This is so the sysop can use Magview MAGVIEW -f{file_name.ext} Executes magview and automatically views a magazine or publication. If this command line is not found, Magview simply looks in to the current directory for all .PUB (publications) and .MAG (magazines) and gives the users a couple of pre-menus which allows them to choose which magazine or publication they wish to look at. Pretty easy huh? MAGVIEW -d{path_&_file_name} Executes magview and tells it to look for the standard DOOR.SYS dropfile supported by many BBS programs. If this command line is given, there is no need to send any of the 4 required parameters to get magview to work correctly with a user. Magview will automatically load this file and get all the information it needs. This is the preferred method of using Magview, since Magview will then be able to determine other things than just baud rate and time limit. It will also be able to determine if the user on-line has graphics capabilities, and the screen size of the user on-line. Importing New Magazines Since all magazines for a specific publication can be compiled into a single .PUB publication file with MagCom, there is no need for different directories for each different publication that the sysop may be receiving. The sysop can simply tell MagCom to add any incoming magazines to that particular publication with a little batch file trickery. This can look a little hairy at first, so make sure you read this over a couple times before you set yourself up for this. Assuming you have the following set up : You are a sysop and receive 3 different on-line magazine publications, which we will call MAG1, MAG2, and MAG3. You keep all of these publications in the directory named C:\MAGS You also have your MAGCOM.CFG file in this directory, and it reads like this : -7- Chapter 2 C:\TEMP\ YES So, in your c:\mags directory, the following files would now be found : magview.exe magcom.exe magcom.cfg mag1.pub mag2.pub mag3.pub Simply running MAGVIEW will give you or the user on- line a menu showing all 3 publications and letting them choose which one they want to look at, but more about that later. Anyway, if you receive a new issue of mag2, you would want to take the following steps to automatically add it to your mag2.pub file : 1) create a DIFFERENT temporary directory other than that pointed to in your magcom.cfg. For this example, lets call it c:\t2 MD C:\T2 2) change to that directory C: CD\T2 3) copy the magcom.cfg from your magazine directory into this temporary directory COPY C:\MAGS\MAGCOM.CFG C:\T2 4) If MAGCOM.EXE is not in your path, you will have to copy it to this directory also COPY C:\MAGS\MAGCOM.EXE C:\T2 5) Expand your MAG2.PUB file into the T2 directory. Magcom uses a compression method that is compatible with the popular LZH or LHA compression programs. The programs can be found all over BBS systems, and will be required for this step. -8- Chapter 2 IMPORTANT NOTE : You should NOT use these 3rd party compression programs for ANYTHING other than what is being described here. Magcom uses a slightly + format that these programs can decompress fine, but NOT compress. The only files you need from the MAG2.PUB are the ones that end in the .MAG extention, so the following command should be executed : LHA X C:\MAGS\MAG2.PUB *.MAG C:\T2\ It should be entered in the exact format used above (unless you are using different directory names of course). Please note the trailing backslash on the last parameter. It is essential that it be included, otherwise the magazines will not be extracted properly (actually, they won't be extracted at all!) 6) Now we want to add our newest issue of the publication to the directory. This example will assume that the new issue is being stored in a directory called C:\INBOUND. If you are receiving files VIA some kind of communications network, the magazines will probably be sent to your inbound file directory set up by your network mailer. COPY C:\INBOUND\{new_mag}.MAG c:\T2 For {new_mag} you can use DOS wildcards (probably *.*) to simply copy all the magazines in your inbound directory to our working directory. 7) Ok, now all magazines are currently stored in the T2 directory. Now, simply run MAGCOM CP {destination_dir} This will compile all of the magazines into a single publication. If {destination_dir} is omitted, as we will assume, Magcom will put the new .PUB into the current directory. For this example, it is c:\t2 8) Now, simply erase the old .PUB in the C:\MAGS directory, and copy the new one into it ERASE C:\MAGS\MAG2.PUB -9- Chapter 2 COPY *.PUB C:\MAGS 9) Get rid of all our temporary stuff CD \MAGS ERASE \T2\*.MAG ERASE \T2\*.PUB ERASE \T2\*.EXE ERASE \T2\*.CFG RD \T2 There you have it. A little complicated, and a little thinking involved, so here's the batch file again in it's entire form : MD C:\T2 C: CD\T2 COPY C:\MAGS\MAGCOM.CFG C:\T2 COPY C:\MAGS\MAGCOM.EXE C:\T2 LHA X C:\MAGS\MAG2.PUB *.MAG C:\T2\ COPY C:\INBOUND\{new_mag}.MAG c:\T2 MAGCOM CP {destination_dir} ERASE C:\MAGS\MAG2.PUB COPY *.PUB C:\MAGS CD \MAGS ERASE \T2\*.MAG ERASE \T2\*.PUB ERASE \T2\*.EXE ERASE \T2\*.CFG RD \T2 Well now, it doesn't look that bad anymore does it? There is an alternate way of doing this. If you want to keep magazines in their own private directories, with their own magcom.cfg file, and keep them all in their distribution form (most likely, the .MAG form). You would simply set up different doors in your BBS for each magazine. This way, whenever you received a new magazine, you would simply throw it into its directory. Magcom would take care of the rest. Since having a .PUB file instead of the multiple .MAG files does not really save any space (both are compiled and compressed), the second way is MUCH easier to set up and maintain. Just remember, that you will have to have a magcom.cfg file in each magazine directory, and access to the magview.exe from each one. -10- Chapter 3 Chapter 3 - Creating a Magazine or Publication If you are a NOT going to be using Magcom to create magazines or publications (i.e. you are a system operator who simply wants to put some magazines on-line for your users), you can skip over this chapter. BUT if you want a better understanding of how Magcom operates, we suggest that you read through it anyway! The program MAGCOM.EXE is used to create magazines and publications. Magcom does its magic by compiling a script file that the author creates. To many people, this can be a big turn off, but rest assured, there is no programming experience required to create these simple files needed to create a magazine. Magcom can operate in one of two modes : Compile Magazine : Reads a MagCom script file, compiles all the information and all the files needed to create a magazine, and creates a vXXXiYYY.mag file. This file is already compressed and ready to be transmitted across telecommunications lines. IMPORTANT : You should never change the name of a magazine created by Magcom. If you do, you will not be able to create a publication which is actually just a set of magazines (with some extra information) set into a single file. Compile Publication : Scans through all of the .MAG files in the current directory, and compiles all related ones (i.e. with the same title) into a single MAGNAME.PUB file. Again, although it is not required that the name of this file remain the same, if it is (especially the .PUB extention), Magcom will not be able to recognize it as easily as if you leave it alone. -11- Chapter 3 Creating Magazines - The Script File The heart of the creation of magazines is the script file that you create. This file contains all of the information MagCom needs to create a magazine. To compile a script file, the following command should be used : MAGCOM CM {script.ext} {destination directory} {script.ext} is the directory and file name of the script file to compile. {destination directory} is the directory that MagCom will place the finished product. If this option is not supplied, MagCom places the compiled magazine in the current directory. The default extention for all script files is .SCR. If you decide to use this extension, you will not have to add it to the command line of MagCom every time. For example, if your script's file name is MYSCRIPT.TXT, then you will have to execute MagCom like this : MAGCOM CM MYSCRIPT.TXT But if your scripts file name is MYSCRIPT.SCR, you would simply have to enter : MAGCOM CM MYSCRIPT Script files are simple text files that you create. They should contain no control codes, and no special formatting. Use a text editor that allows files to be saved this way. One of the most popular, and best known, is the editor that comes with MS-DOS called (simply enough) EDIT.COM Script File Commands Each text line in a script file can be indented (for clarity reasons). Magcom will ignore all "white -12- Chapter 3 space". All text lines that begin with a semi-colon (;) will be ignored by MagCom. This is provided for commenting reasons. All available commands within MagCom must be the first word on that line of text. All commands must also be on their separate text line. This is required for clarity and easier processing. A special note on file names : Through out a script file, many different file names will need to be included as you will soon find out. The file does NOT have to be located in the current directory. You may specify the location & file name required for that specific command. For example, the INTRODUCTION command can be used in the following manner : introduction c:\art\intro.ans c:\art\intro.asc Magcom automatically imports the file into the magazine. Required Commands Each script file MUST contain the following commands. These commands are required for the successful compilation of a magazine : date {date of magazine} The issue date of the magazine. The date should be entered in the following format : Month Date, Year Month should be completely spelled out. For example : November. Abbreviations are not to be used. Date is the day of that month (i.e. 1-31). Year is the full 4-digit year (i.e. 1993) title "{magazine name}" Title of the magazine. The title must be enclosed in double quotes ("). If you are going to be publishing multiple issues and volumes of a -13- Chapter 3 magazine, you must make sure that the magazine name is the same for all issues. Doing this allows MagCom to properly compile publications. If you do not plan on creating publications for you magazine, you should still use the same name here, because people who receive your magazine may like to keep all issues of your magazine compiled into a publication. They won't be able to do this if you name the magazine different every time. volume {volume number} Volume number of the magazine. {volume number} should simply be a number identifying the volume number. If you are creating a 1 time magazine, and won't be releasing subsequent ones, a 0 should be used here. issue {issue number} Issue number of the magazine. {issue number} should simply be a number identifying the issue number. If you are creating a 1 time magazine, and won't be releasing subsequent ones, a 0 here should also be used. theme "{theme of magazine}" The theme of the current magazine. The theme of the magazine is displayed when multiple issues of a magazine, or publications are shown. This allows people who are using magview to get a quick description of this magazine. {theme of magazine} should not exceed 40 characters in length. Optional Commands The following commands are available, but not required in your script : introduction {ANSI file name} {ASCII file name} The ANSI and ASCII file names that magview will show immediately when a user decides to view this magazine. The user has no choice and is forced to view this file. If the user has ANSI capabilities, the {ANSI} file will be displayed. If they do not, the {ASCII} file will be displayed. If you use this command, BOTH the ANSI and ASCII file names must be specified. If you do not wish to make one of the files, then the keyword NONE should be used in its place. For example, INTRODUCTION NONE HELLO.ASC would show an -14- Chapter 3 introduction file to users with ASCII capabilities only. Users with ANSI would be brought directly to the article menu. leaving {ANSI file name} {ASCII file name} The ANSI and ASCII file names that magview will show immediately when a user decides to quit this magazine. The user has no choice and is forced to view this file. If the user has ANSI capabilities, the {ANSI} file will be displayed. If they do not, the {ASCII} file will be displayed. If you use this command, BOTH the ANSI and ASCII file names must be specified. If you do not wish to make one of the files, then the keyword NONE should be used in its place. For example, LEAVING NONE GOODBYE.ASC would show an introduction file to users with ASCII capabilities only. Users with ANSI would be brought directly to the article menu. The LEVEL command The level command is the main part of a script file. It can best be explained by showing a quick example : level 1 "Editorials" level 2 "Jasen's editorial" jasen.txt author "Jasen Fici" menu editor.mnu level 2 "Joey's editorial" joey.txt author "Joe" level 1 "Movie Review" movie.txt (notice the indentation for clarity only!) Pretty tough huh? That's all there is to it. Each level defines one of two things : a) A sub-heading to more menus b) An actual article to be viewed Here is the format of a level command : level {level number} "{title} [{file name of article}[author {author's name}] [menu {menu file name}]] {level number} describes the current level that this text is to be placed under. Notice the numbering must be structured. -15- Chapter 3 Here are the rules and explanations for all level commands : 1) All level numbers must be between 1 and 30. 2) The first level command in your script file MUST be a level 1 3) If there is nothing present immediately after the "title", MagCom assumes that it is a subheading to another level. Therefore, the next level MUST be incremented by 1. 4) If the file name is present after the "{title}" section, MagCom looks for the existence of the file and adds it to the magazine. 5) If the keyword AUTHOR is found after the file name of the article, MagCom will take the name in double quotes immediately following the AUTHOR keyword, and place it in the magazine. This keyword is NOT required. 6) If the keyword MENU is found after the file name of the article, MagCom will look for the {menu file name} and add it to the magazine. This file will be displayed in place of the generic article listing usually shown. If you use this command to create your own personalized menus for your magazine, it MUST be only contained on the FIRST LEVEL COMMAND of that section. In our quick example shown above, the menu command is on the first level 2 command. When this magazine is first shown, the user is shown the generic listing of: Editorials .......... 1 Movie Review......... 2 If the user chooses 1 for Editorials, Magview would usually show the next level menu : Jasen's editorial.... 1 Joey's editorial..... 2 BUT since the MENU command was given on the Jasen's editorial level command, the alternate EDITOR.MNU text menu will be shown. Get it? For an example of how this all fits together, take -16- Chapter 3 a look at the EXAMPLE.SCR file and the .MAG file included with Magcom. Once you get the hang of creating these script files (believe us, it won't take long!), you will be creating magazines in no time flat. Compiling the Script Once again, to compile the script file you have created, use the following command : MAGCOM CM {script file name} [{destination directory}] Magcom will begin compiling the script file. If any errors are encountered, MagCom will abort processing and give you a one line description of what went wrong. Once Magcom has successfully compiled your magazine script, it will then try to create your magazine. If a magazine with the same name already exists in the destination directory, Magcom will warn you and ask if you want to overwrite it. BE CAREFUL! Since magazine names are generic, you have to make sure you are not overwriting a different magazine! Compiling Publications To compile a publication, simply place all .MAG files of the same magazine and run: MAGCOM CP [{destination directory}] Magcom will then collect all magazine issues, and create your .PUB file in the destination directory. If the destination directory is not given, it will place the publication in the current directory. -17- Chapter 4 Chapter 4 - Navigating Magview For both the system operator, or the user, Magview is about as straight forward as it can get. Use the procedures mentioned in chapter 2 for starting Magview. Starting Magview If no magazine or publication name if given with the -f command line parameter, Magview will search the current directory for all .MAG and .PUB files. Once they have all been located, magview will show all magazines and publications found. The user can then choose which magazine or publication they wish to view. If a publication was given with the -f command line parameter, or the user has chosen to view a publication via the menu described above, Magview will look inside the publication and show a menu of all available magazines within that publication. The user can then choose which magazine they wish to view. Viewing Articles Once a magazine has been chosen, Magview simply shows lists of all available articles (or subheadings to another list of articles), and allows the user to choose which one they wish to use. If magview has NOT been initiated in local mode (i.e. a user is on-line), and magcom.cfg allows for user downloads, and extra option [D] will be allowed from the magazine menu. If a user chooses this option, they will be allowed to download the entire magazine with one of the 7 protocols supplied my magview. Once this user has decided that they wish to download the magazine, magview compiles all the text (including introduction and leaving files) into a single text file. The user is then prompted as to which protocol they wish to use, and magview lets them download it. If a user has chosen to view an article, magview first asks the user whether they want to : 1) View the article 2) Show information on the article -19- Chapter 4 3) If magcom.cfg allows, download this individual article Viewing the Article If the user chooses to view the article, it will simply be displayed on the screen and over the phone (of course). Once the user has reached the end of the file, the user will again be given the option to download the article, or return to the article listings. Show Information on Article If the user chooses to view the information about the article, magview will tell the user the date that the article was written, the author (if known), and the title. They will then be brought back to the previous prompt. Download Article If the user chooses to download the article, magview simply prompts the user which protocol they wish to use, and send the user the uncompressed text of that particular article. -20- Chapter 4 In Closing Magcom and Magview are a result of years of on-line experience. Many, Many great publications are transmitted electronically in or as a single text file. Although many system operators make these magazines available for users to look at while they are on their system, and some even make them available for download, until this time, there has been no easy way for the user to do this (or the sysop to set it up). How can Magcom become successful? By you, the system operators and users. If you would like to see your favorite on-line magazines distributed in the MagCom format, you MUST pressure the authors of these magazines to take a look at MagCom. Don't harass, but make a simple suggestion. If enough people make the request, eventually they will see the possibilities of Magcom. The number one objection you will here from authors, is that magazines distributed in this format would not allow for users of non-based DOS machines to view it. Magcom does NOT have to be a switch of the way their magazines are distributed, but simply an addition. With the thousands of DOS based BBS systems available, distributing magazines in the MagCom format makes nothing but sense. Concord Software would like to thank the following people and companies for their part in Magcom : * TurboPower for their wonderful Async Professional communications library * Bob Ainsbury, Technojock Software Inc., for the product Technojock Object Toolkit * Borland International for Borland Pascal v7.0 * Last and not least, all the users of Harmony BBS (607)748-5276 who tested Magview If you are interested in obtaining other shareware products from Concord Software (namely, Harmony BBS (the most recent version), contact the BBS mentioned above. We are also available via Fidonet netmail at the address : Jasen Fici 1:260/445 (voice) (607) 786-3061 All products and companies mentioned in this documentation, including but not limited to MS-DOS and FidoNet, are the copyrights and trademarks of their respective owners. -21-