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!Help file for !NetReader (version 1.06 4th Oct 1997) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Shareware ©1994-7 Paul Vigay (30 day evaluation) (Read the 'History' file for details of changes between versions) Conditions of Use: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This application is SHAREWARE and may be copied freely subject to the following conditions being obeyed at all times. a) Copyright and all rights remain the property of Paul Vigay (the author) b) All files are copied in their entirety without alteration. c) Usage of this application is entirely at the users own risk. No responsibility will be taken for any loss or damage, financial or otherwise which may arise from usage of this application. d) You register yourself by sending me a donation of £20.00. In return you will be eligible to receive free upgrades as and when I produce them. (in exchange for a blank, formatted disc disc and SAE.) e) This application should NOT be distributed by Shareware or PD libraries without my express written permission. This is so that I know who has the latest version, and I know you are not charging too much for it. Purpose ~~~~~~~ To provide a quick and simple way of reading and writing offline email messages for use with the Ant Internet Suite or the CIX internet provider. 1st time Use ~~~~~~~~~~~~ If running NetReader for the first time, then please read these instructions before you start. This will make it simpler for you to set up new user accounts without getting anything wrong. Copy NetReader to where you want it to reside on your hard disc or network. The 'default' unregistered version of NetReader does not have any users set up in it's database, so first of all you need to create some local users. Obviously if you're using this for personal, home use, it's quite likely that you will only want one user anyway. Load NetReader by double-clicking on it's icon in the filer display. This will load NetReader and ask you to register if this is the first time you've used it. Either click 'Register' if you have registered and have the relevant username and ID handy. If not, click on 'Continue' which will continue with the unregistered version. Please note that the unregistered version is the full version, so I'm relying on users trust to register if you find NetReader useful to you. Once NetReader has appeared on the icon bar, the first thing you should do is create a new user. There are a few things to note before doing this..... Firstly, each user known to NetReader has it's own 'user directory' containing all their personal email messages, signatures, address books, personal choices etc etc. This is setup automatically for you by NetReader, together with suitable filepaths for message files. If you want to use NetReader with the Ant Internet Suite, you MUST load your copy of the Ant Suite BEFORE you try creating new users. This will allow NetReader to see your copy of Ant and automatically setup the relevant file- paths to save you having to do it manually. Obviously, if you've customised Ant, you can manually set NetReaders filepaths (explained later) if you desire. Setting Global choices ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Click MENU over NetReader's icon bar icon and click on the 'Choices...' option. This will open the choices window from which you can select a number of parameters you can setup for NetReader. If no user is logged in (which is probably the case if this is the first time you are using NetReader) then the only option available will be 'Global choices'. Click on this now. There are currently only two global choices (more may be added later depending upon user feedback). These are password protected to stop users other than the main administrator (if there are multiple users) from changing them. The default password is "None". Once you've entered the password, the following two options will become available:- User dir path: This is the directory that will contain all the private user directories. If you want to change it from it's default setting, which is to create user directories in the same parent directory as NetReader itself, either type in a new filepath or drag the whole icon to a suitable filer display window. Local domain: Allows you to set a domain name to be appended to any email addresses that don't include a domain. This allows NetReader to automatically root local user names. For example, if you enter the local domain "cix.compulink.co.uk" then when a user sends an email addressed to just "pvigay" then NetReader will automatically add @ and the local domain to it. N.B. If you enter "localsite" then NetReader will automatically send the message to a local user (if contained within NetReaders user list) without having to send the message via the internet itself. Your message will effectively be posted straight into the destination persons inbox. Default user: This will invariably be blank if you're using NetReader for the first time, so you may need to edit this later. Basically this will set the default username for the main login window - to save you having to select a new user each time you use NetReader. It works in a similar vein to the same option within the Ant Internet Suite. Clicking on Close will close the global choices window but NOT save these options. To do that you must click on SAVE in the main choices window. You can change the Global password by entering the previous password correctly (and the options above will un-grey themselves) and then entering a new password in the password icon and clicking 'Save' choices. Whatever word was previously entered in the password icon when the choices are saved will be set as the future password. N.B. To enter or change the password, your version of NetReader needs to be registered. This prevents unauthorised users tampering with the files within NetReader to try to edit the password without permission, because if the files are tampered with, NetReader will assume it's unregistered. Once you have changed (or just looked at) the global choices you are ready to create a new user.... To Create a New User ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Click SELECT on the NetReader icon. This will open a main login window allowing you to enter a username and password. If you had created a list of users AND set a default user (see above) the default user would automatically be entered for you. To create a new user, click SELECT on the small menu selector icon to the right of the user name box. This will give a list of current users known to NetReader. The top option will be 'Create new user'. If you haven't entered the password in the global choices, this option will be greyed out. This is to stop individual users from creating users etc and is useful when you have NetReader available to other people to use and you don't want them 'playing'. If you haven't entered the password, go back and do it now. Once you have opened the 'Create new user' window. All you need to do is enter a username and a suitable password. The password must be entered twice for verification. If you wish NetReader to automatically use the Ant Internet files, you must ensure that the Ant Suite is loaded and also ensure that any username you enter is THE SAME as one used within the Ant Suite. If Ant INS has been seen. NetReader will scan Ant's user file for a username matching the one provided to NetReader and if found, will extract that users directory paths etc and setup NetReader accordingly. Once you have entered a username and password, click 'Create user' to actually create the user. This will generate a user directory and setup all the relevant default files for that user. You will then automatically be logged on using the new user. BEFORE you continue, you may like to examine the user choices which will now become available. Open the choices window again, as described above and you will see that all the various choices are now available. All the choices other than the global ones can be set individually for each user, which allows users to setup their own preferances. These will now be described in detail: User Choices ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Personal The 'Personal' choices consist of your email address, any relevant signature you may want, a self-reference code and the ability to add a random fortune cookie to your signature when you sign a message. These are all relatively self-explanatory. The self reference code is any string of characters that NetReader will use to scan each incoming message to see if there are any references to you. You may like to set this to your surname for example. NetReader will then highlight any lines in the message text which contain this string. You will notice at the top of the window there is a mode selector. Each user can have up to five different modes of email. This allows for people using different accounts etc, or slightly different email formats. At present only Ant Internet and Cix Internet are supported. If you only use Ant, then you can ignore this. Files This allows you to set the source and destination filepaths for message files. Again, you have the facility for up to five modes, each with their own files. If Ant has been seen when you set the user up, the filenames should have been filled in automatically. The source file is the file that NetReader will examine when you attempt to read new messages. If using Ant, this will be the INBOX within the relevant user directory. The Reply file will be the directory (or file) to which NetReader saves any replies or new messages that you may send. If using Ant, this should point to the spool.queue directory within the Ant Suite itself, and end in NR_ (or a similar unique code). If using Ant, NetReader will automatically append a unique message ID on the end, so that multiple users will not overwrite previous messages and all messages will be sent correctly next time the Ant suite dials out and does a mail transfer. If you are using Cix, then you can just enter a filename which will be uploaded to Cix. I have included a couple of script files for ArcTerm7 and Hearsay II users within the Misc directory. If you tick the 'Store sent messages' box, then each reply or message that you send will be stored within the user directory that NetReader setup for the user. This is stored within the filepath set up in the global choices. Colours This is self-explanatory and allows each user to customise the colours used in the various windows. Misc This allows a number of various options to be set. Again, many are self- explanatory. The tabs stops basically adjust the width (in spaces) of each tab encountered in messages. The width of the reply window is just that and sets the number of characters wide for the reply window. This should be upto 78 characters to avoid the messages looking funny or wrapping at the wrong point. Future versions may allow this to be set independently for each mode. The filename convention for exploding will basically limit filenames to 10 characters (ADFS) or 8 characters (DOS) for when you 'Explode' a message file into individual files (explained later). Multi-tasking while loading, simply allows you to carry on using the computer while messages are being loaded - handy for extremely long message files. Auto cancel store will cancel the storing of messages as you move forward through the message file (explained later). Message headers will set the level of header information provided when you export messages. Three settings are available; Short, Long or Full. Auto Expire allows you to set the maximum length messages are stored for, before they mark themselves for deletion. (explained later). Once you have set the various options you require, click 'Save' in the main choices window to save the choices back to disc for future use. Click 'Cancel' to re-load the previous choices, or click 'OK' to just set for this session and not save back to disc. Logging on and reading messages ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Once you have created at least one user, you can log onto read or write messages. Click SELECT on the NetReader icon and enter a username and password. Once these details have been correctly entered, a 'Select mail mode' window will appear, containing a number of modes available. Some icons will be greyed out, depending on the version used and how NetReader has been setup. There are actually 15 icons. Three icons for five email modes. These are a large icon, labelled with the relevant message mode and two smaller icons to the right of the main one. Each one of these can be selected (if not greyed out) by clicking SELECT on it. The main (wide) icon will read the current INBOX for the relevant message system. The first small icon (the one in the middle) will only be selectable if some messages have been stored. This will open the 'stored' messages file. (explained later) The far right small icon will open the file containing any stored copies of email messages you have sent. This will only be available if you have told NetReader to store copies of the messages you send (explained earlier in the 'user files choices'). Clicking on logout will log out and leave NetReader in a mode whereby another user can login. Alternatively, you can drag a specific INBOX file to the relevant icons in the mode selector window to load that specific file using the relevant mail transport. Once you have clicked on an icon, the message file will be loaded and the main message window and toolbar will appear. The Main Message window and Toolbar ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The main message window contains the text of the current message. NB. Any URLs detected within the message text will be highlighted and if you have a suitable browser loaded, can be clicked upon to launch them. Currently only ftp and http transports are supported. Others may be supported depending upon user demand. Also, if you click on a 'mailto:' tag, NetReader will automatically open a reply window with the correct email address filled in for you. If you subsequently cancel sending the message, NetReader will revert back to the original sender. The toolbar at the top contains a number of icons which are for information and control. The ones on the left will display the relevant header information (such as from and date) of the current message being displayed. To the right of the top icon is a small count (such as "1 of 6" or something) which informs you of how many messages there are in the message file, and which message is currently being displayed. The control window contains several icons on the right hand side. These are: (graphic) LED: The LED, if illuminated, informs you that the current message contains a reference to you. The LED appears red if illuminated, otherwise it is grey for off. This is dependent on the value you have entered for the self-reference in the user choices section (above). Last: Display the previous message in the file. Next: Display the next message in the file. Goto: Lets you select which message you want to display. (Clicking on this option opens another window containing a list of all messages, their subject titles and the sender. You can jump to a specific message by double-clicking SELECT on the relevant line entry. N.B. Any subjects highlighted in red indicate a reference to your userID contained in the message. (The colours can be changed via the 'user choices') Just below the Last and Next icons is a small graphical chart showing the relative position within the file of the current message. Reply: Opens an editable 'reply' window in which you can type a reply message. (see below) (graphic) Address book: (to the right of the reply icon) Clicking on this will open your personal address book. NetReader will automatically scan the list of names to see if the sender of the current message is already in it. If it is, NetReader will display the details for you. If not, NetReader will extract the email address for the current user and fill in the email bax for you. If you want, you can fill in the rest of the details and click SELECT on 'Save' to add the new email address to the address book for future use. You may browse the address book, by clicking on the small 'menu' icon to the right of the full name box. You can delete entries from the address book by ensuring that the full name is entered, and then clicking Delete. Store: Store this message within !NetReader for later reference when you move onto another message. This will store the current message in a seperate file so that you can purge the main message file if you like. (graphic) Bin: Tag this message to be deleted when you Quit ! NetReader. NB. Closing the file (see below) will ask you for confirmation before deleting any tagged messages. NB2. If you delete ALL the messages then the message file will also be deleted. This icon will automatically be controlled by the expiry settings in the 'user misc choices' window. However, you can override it by clicking on it. If the current message is a reply to an earlier message, or has replies made to it, later in the file, a small 'threading window will open' Message Threads ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ When reading messages, some may be replies to previous messages, while some may have replies to themselves. If the current message is referenced elsewhere in the message file, the computer will open a small 'Thread' window, just underneath the CONTROL window. This has four functions:- A 'Previous' option, allows you to find the previous message that the current message is a reply to. The 'Next' icon takes you to the next message given as a reply to the current message. Clicking MENU over the 'Thread' window, displays a menu (after a short delay) displaying all messages that are replies to the current message. SELECTing one of these will jump straight to it. If you click on the 'Back' icon you can step back through previously read messages. The Main Menu ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Main Menu currently contains six options:- Export: Export the current message as plain ASCII text. This opens a standard RISC OS save dialogue box. Explode: Allows you to automatically 'explode' the messages in the message file into individual files. NetReader will automatically create filenames consisting of valid characters in the message 'subject' line. N.B. Duplicate names will automatically be numbered and new directories will be created automatically every 70 messages. As messages are 'exploded', they are also flagged for deletion, irrespective of their age. You can also tell NetReader to automatically purge the original source file after exploding. This is handy if you want to quickly extract all messages and delete the original file. (See also, choices window for DOS/ADFS filenames) New message Enter a new message to send to the current news group. Jump to... This lets you jump to any message in the source file. N.B. This is the message in the file, entered by number, not the Newsgroup message or the message subject. (see above for going to messages by subject reference) Search for: Allows you to enter a string to search for. !NetReader will then search through the entire message file until it finds a message that contains the target string. !NetReader will then display the relevant message. N.B. Search is NOT case-sensitive. Killfile: Leads to a submenu, of which currently only one option is available: Add name to file: This will add the name of the sender of the current message to your 'Killfile'. This is a file within !NetReader.Stored, in which you can store the names of any people whom you don't want to read their messages. This can be useful for people who send nothing but 'flame' messages and thus waste your time in reading. The header information is displayed as normal, so if you do want to read the message, simply click on 'Killfile active' in the main control window. This will re-load and display the message. Quote: This option is normally greyed out unless you have opened the reply window by clicking on 'Reply' in the control window. If you are typing a reply, this option will simply copy any marked lines in the original message into your reply message. When it has made the copy, the original lines are automatically un-marked. Utils: Gives a sub-menu from which you can set flags for a range of messages as follows:- Tag: Tag messages for deletion. Untag: Mark messages NOT to be deleted. Read: Mark messages as "Read". Unread: Mark messages as "Un-read". Find self: Find the next message to have a reference to your user ID in it. Close file: Close this file, forgetting about any 'delete' tagged messages. After closing the file, clicking SELECT on the !NetReader icon will simply open the stored messages file. The Reply Window ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The reply window contains a fairly primitive text editor by which you can edit your replies to messages. Dragging a text file into the reply window allows you to import ASCII text files into your reply. In later versions this will allow you to send email attachments. The line length of replies can be adjusted via the 'user choices' (see above) You can move around by using the normal cursor keys, or by clicking SELECT on the mouse. There are also the following key functions:- f10 Delete line Shift f10 Insert Line Delete Delete the character to the left of the caret. Copy Delete the character to the right of the caret. Insert Toggle Insert/Overtype mode CTRL ⇦ Move to beginning of line CTRL ⇨ Move to the end of the line CTRL ⇩ Move to the bottom of the reply CTRL ⇧ Move to the top of the reply Shift ⇦ Jump to the previous word Shift ⇨ Jump to the next word The editor will word-wrap automatically if you type off the end of the line. You can select a subject or email address by clicking MENU over the relevant icon and choosing the required value from the menu. To add your own value, the bottom entry is writable and will be added to future menus automatically. This is a new feature (v0.10 upwards) and will described in more detail in the forthcoming user manual, available free to registered users. Clicking MENU when the mouse pointer is over the reply window will give you the 'Reply menu'. This is currently as follows:- Sign: Sign the message with your signature (see below) and close the reply window. Send: This will close the reply window, still adding the reply to the reply file, but without appending your signature. Abort: Forget the reply and close the reply window. Adding your own random quotes: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Inside the !NetReader.Files directory is a file called "quotes". This is the file that stores all your 'fortune cookies'. You can use a normal text editor to add your own, as long as you separate each entry with a zero code. This can usually be done (in !Edit, at least) by holding down the Alt key and pressing 0 on the numeric keypad, then releasing Alt. For the technically minded, !NetReader generates a random number between 0 and the size of the "quotes" file. it then uses this number as a pointer into the file. !NetReader will then read 'backwards' until it finds a zero code and then read the quotes it finds until another zero is encountered (or the end of the file). Therefore quotes can be longer than one line, but don't have more than 80 characters on one line, or the end message may look funny. Future Enhancements/Bugs ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I have tested NetReader quite extensively, but there may still be a few bugs present, especially because there are so many combinations of options, choices and parameters which work with other settings. Do contact me if something occurs which is not how you would expect it to occur. I have a list of things yet to do to NetReader, but thought I would release this version in case it is of use to other people. Please DO feel free to offer feedback and comments. NetReader was primarily written for my own use, but has grown and extended to the extent that other people may like it, so any feedback is welcome. I am working on attachments (as soon as I can find the documentation required). At present, attachments can be added to, or extracted from, emails by using !UUCoder by John Allen (http://www.bramber.demon.co.uk/john/soft.html). You can simply export or import files from NetReader into !UUCoder and vice- versa. Please also contact me if you feel that I've left anything out of these preliminary instructions, or worded something in a way that is confusing. When NetReader is completed I will start to write a full manual, which will be available to registered users. Contacting the author ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ !NetReader was written by Paul Vigay, who can be contacted at: 104 Manners Road, Southsea, Hants., PO4 0BG England Latest versions and help are available 24hrs a day, 7 days a week from my BBS: Dial (01705) 871531 (ANSI,8N1) and mail the sysop if in trouble. Also, check out my web page at: http://www.interalpha.net/customer/pvigay/shareware.html or via Email: pvigay@cix.compulink.co.uk or Arcade/World of Cryton BBS TECHNICAL BITS ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Appendix A: ~~~~~~~~~~~ Usenet message file format on CIX Message files should be in the following format (either LF or CR,LF line terminated) #! rnews 1511 Article: 36614 of alt.alien.visitors Path: cix.compulink.co.uk!uknet!miclon!xmission!charnel.ecst.csuchico.edu!psgrain!rainrgnews0!news.teleport.com!ip-pdx1-08.teleport.com!vx From: some@one.com Newsgroups: alt.alien.visitors Date: Tue, 1 Nov 1994 02:47:21 +1000 Lines: 19 Message-ID: <vx.1485.037EB59E@teleport.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: ip-pdx1-08.teleport.com This is a test message. #! rnews 1207 Article: 36615 of alt.alien.visitors Path: cix.compulink.co.uk!uknet!miclon!xmission!charnel.ecst.csuchico.edu!psgrain!rainrgnews0!news.teleport.com!ip-pdx1-08.teleport.com!vx From: any@one.com Newsgroups: alt.alien.visitors Subject: Re: Aurora, Groom Lake, and Rosewell?? Date: Tue, 1 Nov 1994 02:49:08 +1000 Organization: Fragile Liquid Lines: 14 Distribution: world Message-ID: <vx.1486.03805910@teleport.com> References: <391k9l$dde@usenetp1.news.prodigy.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: ip-pdx1-08.teleport.com Another test message. ©1997 P.Vigay