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Text File | 1992-09-07 | 21KB | 493 lines

┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ Silver Xpress Off-Line Mail/Fax/Forms System Version 3.00 │ │ (c) copyright 1988-1992 by Santronics Software │ └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Welcome to the new Silver Xpress Mail System V3.00! Silver Xpress is the most powerful off-line mail system available for the growing BBS industry. Simply put, there is really nothing like Silver Xpress in the BBS world. Silver Xpress has been the basis for features and functionality in many of the off-line systems, and now with Silver Xpress 3.00, it will establish the basis once again with new technology and features which include fax, forms, mail driven events, off-line services, Groupware applications possibilities, interface menu customization and much more! ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │INSTALLATION: READ THE UPGRADE SECTION BELOW IF UPGRADING│ └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ To install Silver Xpress, type INSTALL.EXE at the DOS prompt. After the install, all you need to do is the following: 1. Check XPRESS.BAT (XPRESS for PCBOARD) and copy it over to your BBS directory. This is your DOOR batch file for Xpress. Edit it and make the appropriate changes to call this batch file from your BBS. 2. Xpress requires external utilities such as PKZIP, LHARC or others to compress mail. They must be callable from Xpress. Make sure they can located by putting them in a PATHED directory. You can copy to the Xpress directory if you wish. Thats it! If you have OPUS, MAX, Remote Access or QBBS you can type XPMAIL -J to run in local mode to test it out. (-J will use record 0 from the the BBS user database file) When you are all done and you want to get fancy, read the XPMAIL.DOC documentation. Other documents are available for quick reading are: WHATSNEW.300 : Summarizes all the major changes in v3.00. ADDENDUM.DOC : Last minute changes to DOC and System ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS │ │ o IBM PC 286 or clone (8088 available upon request) │ │ o Hard Disk with minimun 3 megs of extra space │ │ o IBM DOS or MS DOS 3.3 or better │ │ o 640K Ram Memory │ │ o Monochrome/Color Monitor │ │ o BBS like RBBS/PCBOARD/RA/QBBS/OPUS/MAX/TAG │ │ IDEAL SETUP │ │ o IBM DOS or MS DOS 3.3 or better │ │ o CGA Monitor or better │ │ o Hard disk with lots of extra space │ │ o 640K Ram Memory with 2K or more of Expanded/Extended memory │ │ o Your BBS <g> │ └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ ┌─────────────┐ │LIST OF FILES│ └─────────────┘ This is the list of files you should expect in this package: FILE_ID.DIZ - File Description For File Door Systems INSTALL.EXE - Install program README.300 - This file WHATSNEW.300 - Whats new in Silver Xpress ADDENDUM.DOC - Last minute changes to Silver Xpress/Documentation XPMAIL.DOC - Silver Xpress Sysop Documentation ORDER.FRM - Registration/Purchasing Information CHECKOFF.LST - Quick Check Off List to ensure installation is OK INSTALL.DAT - Installation control file (do not edit) PREINST.BAT - For Install program (do not edit) POSTINST.BAT - For Install program (do not edit) DISK.DAT - For Install program (do not edit) CALLXP.ZIP - Sample BBS files for calling Xpress (PCBOARD/RBBS Xpress do not have/need this file). XPBULL.ZIP - Sample Xpress Bulletins XPEXE.ZIP - Main Executables/system files for Xpress XPHELP.ZIP - Help files for online usage XPMISC.ZIP - Display files XPUTIL.ZIP - Utilities programs XPMENUS.ZIP - Sample/optional Xpress menus SAMPFORM.ZIP - Sample Silver Xpress Form for Order Entry. if you have anything different or missing, please contact us and inform us of any discrepancy. We want to ensure that your copy of Silver Xpress is not maliciously manipulated in any way. Silver Xpress was checked for viruses before and after the packaging process. ┌───────┐ │SUPPORT│ └───────┘ Support for this package is available several ways: 1) All customers can use the Silver Xpress International OPUS_XPRESS and/or XPRESS_SYSOP echo conferences for questions and comments. OPUS_XPRESS is the xpress user conference. It's only called OPUS for historical reasons. Please limit technical or non-user related questions to the XPRESS_SYSOP conference. You may also call the Santronics Software Xpress Support Remote Host Center at 412-864-2294 and leave a electronic message with your questions or comment. A reply will be available with 48 hours. All patches, minor upgrades and other files will be available on this Remote Host. Netmail is highly discouraged by Santronics Software for rapid response. Response will not be quarantee to be immediate and will take upto 1 week or more. 2) Customers who are unregistered can use our voice support line at 412-864-2060 (EST 9-5pm) for questions and comments. 3) Paid Version 3.00 registered customers have 1 hour of free support using our 800 number at 800-845-6944 (EST 9am-9pm). Have your sysop registration number ready. Unregistered customers may call this number if they are going to purchase or upgrade version 3.00. Keep in mind, the 800 number is NOT cheap, and we are not Microsoft and even they don't offer 800 support of any kind. Support Silver Xpress and we will in kind be able to offer such quality support. ┌───────────────────────────┐ │HOW TO PURCHASE THE UPGRADE│ └───────────────────────────┘ 1) Customers who registered Silver Xpress version 2.2x after 3/1/91 and before 4/31/92 are eligible for a free version to Silver Xpress version 3.00. To receive your free registration code, please fill out the order form (in order.txt), or you may call 412-864-2060. Make sure your registration code is provided. No new codes will be provided without one. 2) Customers who registered prior to 3/1/91 can upgrade by using filling out the order form, or call 800-845-6944 for credit card orders. The basic charge is $15.00 or $27.50 with printed documentation plus shipping and handling. ┌──────────────┐ │MANUAL INSTALL│ └──────────────┘ 1) MAKE DIRECTORY \XPRESS 2) PKUNZIP XPEXE.ZIP 3) If you upgrading, perform the UPGRADE steps in UPGRADE.DOC 4) Unzip the following into their respective directories: PKUNZIP XPMISC.ZIP into a MISC directory. md misc cd misc pkunzip ..\xpmisc PKUNZIP XPBULL.ZIP into a BULL directory. I would erase everything in there first. md bull cd bull pkunzip ..\xpbull PkUNZIP XPUTIL.ZIP into a XPRESS directory. pkunzip xputil PkUNZIP XPHELP.ZIP into a HELP directory. md help cd help pkunzip ..\xphelp 4) If need be, copy the XPRESS.BAT file to your BBS directory. This is the batch file which is called by the BBS. You will be able to edit this file from within XPADM.EXE. 5) Run XPADM.EXE. Note: XPADM is a "DO ALL" administation tool for Silver Xpress. It replaces XPUSER.EXE and XPCFG.EXE. It does take some memory to run. 6) After successfully creating/compiling the Xpress control file with XPADM.EXE you are now ready to run Xpress from the BBS. Make sure the XPRESS.BAT is correct for your setup. ┌───────────────────────────┐ │MANUAL UPGRADE INSTALLATION│ └───────────────────────────┘ Version 3.00 is a major revision. There are literally thousands of Silver Xpress setups ranging from v1.00 to v2.30 beta around the world. Each has it's own variation depending on the BBS they are running. Therefore it was decided a a DO-ALL UPGRADE program was too much to ask for to cover all possibilties. The upgrade steps below is for updating or upgrading from a previous Xpress version 2.27 or 2.30 beta installation. The goal in this upgrade is to retain your current XPUSER.DAT information and generate the new 3.00 information from it. The INSTALL program is designed to RETAIN the XPUSER.DAT. It will not delete it, so if the user file is all you are concern about, go with the INSTALL program. If you DO NOT CARE at this time about the Xpress User's information and wish to completely start fresh, then simply delete your entire old setup and start fresh by running the install system. In fact, this may not be a bad idea since 3.0x is a new generation of Xpress software. By having the user reconfigure his setup again, he would get more familar with Xpress at a faster pace by forcing him to look around the menus. You can run the INSTALL over your existing setup, it automatically upgrade the old Xpress user data file (XPUSER.DAT). It will delete a few old files but not all. So you may end up with some old files laying around. The best approach is to delete ALL files except XPUSER.DAT and XPDUPES.DAT (XPAREAS.DEF or AREAS.DEF for RBBS/PCBOARD) and then proceed with the INSTALL program. Otherwise follow these steps: 1) Remove ALL files and directories, but keep the following: XPUSER.DAT (and XPUSER.XUA if you a beta tester for Xpress) (RBBS/PCBOARD only) AREAS.DEF Betas would have XPAREAS.DEF instead and possibly XPFIDO.DEF depending on the version of the beta you last used. Delete everything else including sub-directories. MAKE SURE THE FOLLOWING FILES DO NOT EXIST! XPAREAS.DAT (only betas should have this) XPAREAS.RAW (only betas should have this) XPFILES.DAT (only betas should have this) XPFILES.RAW (only betas should have this) XPAREAS.ADX (only betas should have this) XPMAIL.CTL (or any CTL file) XPMAIL.PRM (or any PRM file) 2) PCBOARD/RBBS (including TAG) sysops only. Edit the AREAS.DEF and create two FILES: XPFIDO.CTL Put all your pure fido areas here. XPAREAS.CTL Put all your pure RBBS/PCBOARD areas here. It was separated because when you do a XPADM update, it was killing the fido information when re-reading the area information from the PCBOARD BBS. If you don't have PURE FIDO areas, then forget about the XPFIDO.CTL file. If you are a BETA then you might have these files already. Either way, from now on, PCBOARD and RBBS sysops have TWO files to maintain; XPAREAS.CTL for their normal direct BBS areas and XPFIDO.CTL for the direct fido areas. Note: By fido we mean, FIDO Areas NOT converted to your BBS format. 3) Now Run Install. The final step in INSTALL is that it will run the XPADM program for you. It will generate the above files once again in the new 3.0x format for you. 4) OPTIONAL! Silver Xpress now uses a file called XPPROT.CTL for it's file transfer logic and XPARCH.CTL for it's file compression and expansion logic. If you have customized HOT KEY for the file transfer and archiver selection menus, then you may want to EDIT these files to match your HOTKEYS. The default files use the standard X, Y, and Z for the file transfer system and Z, L, A, K, P and C for the compress hotkeys. The WORST that will happen is that your user's current selections may not be matched and thus he will have to select it again the first time he enters Xpress 3.0x. A very minor issue. 5) RUN (2.30 beta testers can skip this step) XPUCVT6.EXE xpuser.dat The converter will only convert the user file if it is in the old 2.27 format. Otherwise it will tell you it is already in the new format. 5) RUN (2.30 beta testers can skip this step) CVTXUA.EXE 5) RUN BCVTXUA Both CVTXUA.EXE and BCVTXUA require the presence of the XPAREAS.ADX file created by XPADM so it is important that XPADM is executed and successfully creates your setup the first time. If you notice your prior areas selections where not completely carried over, there is NOT much that can be done about this. The best advice is to delete the XPUSER.XUA file and allow the user to start fresh with new conference selection. 6) At this point we are pretty much done and you can go ahead and study how to call the XPRESS.BAT from your BBS. ┌──────────────────────────────────┐ │SOME NEW FEATURES IN SILVER XPRESS│ └──────────────────────────────────┘ INTERACTIVE HYPERTEXT HELP: You will find the XPADM hypertext help system to be very useful. Everything in Silver Xpress is explained, except where detailed information is required. Some of the details are explained here, but to get the most of Silver Xpress, you will need the full documentation. Just hit F1 where ever you need help. Use the ALT-F1 key to browse backwards in the help system. EXEC SWAPPING: Silver Xpress will utilize as much memory as required to successfully negotiate a mail session. Whenever a DOS operation is performed from Silver Xpress, it is quite possible to RUN OUT OF MEMORY, thus causing the DOS operation to be unsuccessful. When this situation occurs, you can use the built-in EXEC SWAPPING feature of Silver Xpress to free up memory prior to calling the DOS operation. If you insert certain prefixes to the command, it will enable certain exec swapping or other operations. Prefix Command none Xpress will use COMMAND.COM. Program must be on the path. ! Direct call to Program. Program must be Fully Qualified $ Exec Swap. Program must be fully qualified # Exec Swap. Xpress will call COMMAND.COM. Program on Path. W Pop up a window and run program using COMMAND.COM. No swapping will be perform so make sure the program has enough memory. Here is the format: W <x1> <y1> <x2> <y2> [command] [parameters] where x1,y1,x2,y2 are window dimensions. (Fully qualified means the complete drive:\path\filename.ext must be included). SUPPORT FOR 32,000 CONFERENCES: Silver Xpress now supports 32,000 conferences. INTERACTIVE HELP LANGUAGE: Silver Xpress sports a new interactice help language to allow you to effectively describe your setup. This language called VCC "Video Control Codes" and it is very similar to the OEC (or the MEC) language used by OPUS and Maximus respectively. With VCC, you can create any kind of help system for your Xpress users. You can also use it to create a menu system to run other programs. For instance, you may want to add a prompt to the NEWUSER.VCC file: Do you want to download Silver Xpress V3.00 n/Y: [menu]YN| [if]Y[dos]XMT /C 1 /T /A /Z C:\FILES\SXR300.ZIP A future version of Xpress will have VCC control the entire Silver Xpress session, not just the help. See the XPHELP.ZIP file and the HELP directory Xpress creates. SILVER XPRESS FORMS SYSTEM: The Silver Xpress Mail System now implements a powerful forms processing facility. If you are a system integrator, you will find Silver Xpress Forms System to be a powerful and flexible system to allow for most off-line data entry applications. If you are a professional sysop, and wish to investigate the possibilities Silver Xpress Forms may have for your organization, then download the file SXEDI100.ZIP from any Xpress Distribution Node. This document will explain how applications can be setup for your data entry needs. The file SAMPFORM.ZIP contains a real working example of the Silver Xpress off-line forms capabilities. (If you use this, don't forget to change the AREA NUMBER to your netmail area number). If you wish to get a free copy of Silver Xpress, we are offering the Silver Xpress EDI Distribution Program to sysops who implement the Silver Xpress off-line order form for users to process off-line. With SXEDI, users can order Silver Xpress off-line and when they upload the reply packet, the order will be sent to Santronic Software at fidonet 1:129/82. So the only criteria to using this system, is to be on FidoNet 1:129/82 and be willing to allow your users to send 1 type of NETMAIL (security is FULLY respected). Call 412-864-2060 to more information on this program. SILVER XPRESS FAXXPRESS SYSTEM: You can install a Fax Service for your users with the package contained in SXFX100.ZIP. A CAS compatible FAX card is required. SXFX100 is a "Lite" version of our commercial version FaXXpress. The lite version does not do any accounting. All it does is FAX. To install FaXXpress Lite, create a Uploaded Mail Service Call option and install the following FAXXPRESS information: Service Log Tag : FAXX Active Service : YES Apply to all Areas : NO When to Applu Service : AFTER TOSS Mail Area Number : choose one. Must be a valid BBS area Ascii Convert : NO Add Header : YES Erase Xpress Message : NO Strip Kludge for text : YES Text Storage Directory : C:\FAXQ (Xpress will make directory) DOS command to Issue : !C:\XPRESS\SXFAX.EXE %f C:\FAXQ Processing Message : FAX REQUEST! Success Message : FAX HAS BEEN QUEUED FOR SENDING! Error Message : FAX ERROR. REPORT TO SYSOP! Note: The BBS area must exist and it should be designated as a FAX area for OUTBOUND faxes only. You should make it PRIVATE ONLY so that people will not see other fax messages. SXFAX.EXE will take the fax request and immediate fax it. No log. HOST CUSTOMIZED MENUS: The Silver Xpress Reader V3.0x now uses a pull down menu system. The menu may be changed by using the SXDYMENU.EXE program. This program is available as SXDM100.ZIP and can be found on the Xpress Distribution Network. Silver Xpress Reader will always load the menu SXMENU.LIB. You can explore the alternate menu system with the sample 228MENU.LIB by typing: XPREAD -X228MENU.LIB A BBS can also define the menu you will see. If a sysop chooses to provide a customized menu with your mail packet, the user can not the override the setup. By customizing the menus for your users, you create a application specifically designed for your BBS. For example, you can create a menu for your readers: "Send Mail to Sysop" "Read OptiNet Mail Conference" "Sent Netmail" "Read Private Conference"" "Read LAN MHS Mail" or create a hard disk menu system for your users, like: "Run Genealogy Database Program" "Call BBS" 43/50 LINE MODE SUPPORT: You can tell Xpress to use 43/50 line mode support. Xpress will adjust it's windows dimensions in most places to take advantage of the added screen space. You can temporarily switch to 43/50 line mode by using the -V50 switch.