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Text File | 1991-09-15 | 29KB | 624 lines

VBBSReader Author: Ian Gunn Address: 51 Martingrove Pl NE Calgary, AB T3J 2S8 Phone: (403) 293-7102 Credits: I would like to thank Stephen Vermeulen for his contribution to the Amiga communitee as well as writing the WriteVMSG program that is used in VBBSReader. NOTE: If you're having problems with VBBSReader, then scroll downwards to the Possible Problems area. If you cannot find a solution in the list then please contact me and I'll help you out. VBBS is a revolutionary Bulletin Board System created by Stephen Vermeulen. If you have not yet logged on to his board, then I would encourage you to do so. The BBS number is (403) 284-2048. You will need TERM. A program specifically created to take advantage of the multitasking capabilities of VBBS. VBBSReader is released into the public domain. I only ask that this VBBSReader.doc file accompany the VBBSReader program. VBBSReader was made with CanDo. This is my first attempt at a reader so your feedback is encouraged. The purpose of this reader is to allow you to read messages found on the VBBS bulletin board system. It offers you as the user an alternative method to reading/posting messages from READ (another VBBS message reader). I would encourage you to read through the following documentation to help you. The section on Operation and Possible Problems is probably where you will get most of your help. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Set Up: The following files should reside in the same directory as VBBSReader: VBBSPostButtonMenu VBBSPostMessageCard VBBSReader.info VBBSReaderButtonMenu1 VBBSReaderButtonMenu2 VBBSReaderHelpButtons VBBSReaderSIGSelect VBBSReaderTimeSelect VBBSReplyMessageCard VBBSReaderKeyword VBBSReaderKeywordAdd WriteNull WriteVMSG WriteKeywordVMSG Don't worry about these files, VBBSReader uses them. The only program you need to run is VBBSReader. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Operation: Assumption: The following steps assume you have logged onto VBBS at least once and selected SIGs from the VBBS main button menu. Step 1) Single click on the VBBSReader icon. Select the INFO option on the Workbench window (INFORMATION under 2.0). Select ADD on the bottom right hand of the screen. Type in the location of the message system on your system. (NOTE: This will be the same as Term's MESSROOT=somedir. Example: MESSROOT=f1:vbbs OR MESSROOT=dh0:vbbs NOTE: You must include the MESSROOT= and it must be in capitals and as is above. The path name doesn't have to be in capitals. Select ADD on the bottom right hand of the screen a second time. Type in the name you wish to be known in the message area. Most times this will be your real name. This will be the same as Term's USER=User Name Example: USER=Ian Gunn NOTE: You must include the USER= and it must be in capitals and as is above. Your name doesn't have to be in capitals. Once you are satisfied, click 'Save' on the bottom left hand side of the screen. This will save the location of your message base on your system.. Step 2) Double click on VBBSReader. Step 3) Select a SIG from the list provided. The first message should appear. Now you may select a button at will. I would recommend reviewing the function of each of the buttons listed below. Note: I would suggest you run Age (another great program from Stephen Vermeulen and it's for VBBS) once a day. This means changing KEEPDAYS found in the Tool Types to KEEPDAYS=1. The reason for doing this is USENET can pile up quite quickly. Unfortunately if a new usenet message appears and you have 100 or so messages in a USENET SIG that you have already read, then it takes a few minutes to get to that 'new' message. By running Age once a day, you will get rid of this problem. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The following is a list and description of the buttons of VBBSReader: Select SIGs - This button brings up a requester displaying all the available SIGs. Just click on one and you will now be at the first message of that SIG. The CTRL S is the keyboard equivalent Protect Message - Protecting a message does a lot more now then just protecting it from delete. A large requester opens up once you select Protect Message. This is the Keyword Selection Requester. The idea behind the Keyword Selection Requester is: you wish to keep the current message for some reason. Mainly this message has some piece of important information contained within. Well once you have a number of these messages around (say 40 or so), do you want to be forced to go through each message you have saved from the MANY BBSs you have called and the many SIG areas within each of those BBSs? Not likely. Well now you do not have to. When you protect a message, you can now 'attach' a list of 'keywords' to the message. For Example: Example Message ------------------------------------------------------- Message #1 From A BBS in Calgary in the Video SIG There is a great Imagine object of a Shuttle located on the LakeSide BBS. I would recommend getting it. 3D Fanatic ------------------------------------------------------- Let's say you wish to protect the above message. A list of Keywords appears from the Master List. You might select: Imagine, 3D Objects and LakeSide BBS as keywords. Then you might 'ADD' Shuttle to the Master List and Selected List. Just select 'ACCEPT' to attach those keywords to the message. At a later date, you might wish to retrieve the message or a collection of messages with one or some of the keywords in them. In another utility (called VBBSSearch due out in October '91) the messages will be collected and their names will be recorded. You can then quickly retrieve these messages. What this does in the long term is build yourself a reference library of messages. These could include reviews, messages from important people, events, addresses or whatever you wish. It's totally up to you on how you wish to construct your reference library. See below for the options within Keyword Select. The message is also protected from deletion. The CTRL X is the keyboard equivalent UnProtect Message -This will Unprotect the current message, so you can delete the current message. The CTRL C is the keyboard equivalent Original/ - This feature allows you to view the original message Reply To of the reply you are currently looking at. This is a toggle, so when you select Original, it will be replaced by "Reply To". Selecting it again will bring back the reply you started with. TimeFilter - This button brings up the time filter. This filter enables you to select the reading dates. All messages falling between the indicated dates will be viewable by the user. The default reading dates are from the last time you read until the time you started reading messages. This is an excellent feature when you wish to search through a message base only knowing roughly when the message was sent. The CTRL T is the keyboard equivalent Less/More - This button is to toggle between two button menus. When you Buttons first start off, the menu with only one button line will appear. For those just wanting to read you will probably only require this. If you select 'MORE BUTTONS', you will be shown the larger button menu. Obviously you will have more functionality on the 'MORE BUTTONS' menu at least through the mouse. You can select 'LESS BUTTONS' and it will bring back the one line button menu. Keep - Saves the current message to a file in the current directory. The CTRL K is the keyboard equivalent Post - Posts a message in the current SIG. Once you select this button, you will be prompted for the person you are sending the message to and the subject of the message. Once you hit the 'ENTER' to accept the SUBJECT, you will then be given an empty screen to type in your message. You have lots of space to type in your message. So don't worry about running out of space at the bottom. Unfortunately there isn't a word wrap so remember to hit the 'ENTER' key when you get near the end of the line. See the list of POST commands below for sending your message. The CTRL P is the keyboard equivalent Reply - Replies to the current message. Once you select this button, you will be prompted for the person's name you are sending and the subject. Since this is a reply the person's name will already be in the 'To' area. You may change it if you wish. You are then given the message you are replying to in '>'. This is the standard way of quoting another message. At this time you may go in and delete what stuff you do not need and add your reply. See the list of POST commands below for sending your message. The CTRL R is the keyboard equivalent Scroll Up - Scrolls up one page of the current message. The CTRL Up Arrow key is the keyboard equivalent Scroll Down - Scrolls down one page of the current message. The CTRL Down Arrow key is the keyboard equivalent Top - Goes to the top of the message. Bottom - Goes to the bottom of the message. Previous - Goes back ONE message of the current SIG area. It also moves to the previous SIG, if you have hit previous enough that you are now at the Top of the current SIG. The CTRL Left Arrow key is the keyboard equivalent Next - Advances ONE message of the current SIG area. It also moves to the next SIG, if you have read all the messages in the current SIG. The CTRL Right Arrow key is the keyboard equivalent First - Displays the first message in the current SIG area. Note: This will display the first reply to a message if you are in the local message area. If this does not seem to do anything, then it's likely there is only the one message falling between the Time Filter dates. Last - Displays the last message in the current SIG area. Note: This will display the last reply to a message if you are in the local message area. If this does not seem to do anything, then it's likely there is only the one message falling between the Time Filter dates. When Posting a message: There are four additional buttons when you select REPLY or POST. Cancel Post - This cancels any work currently being done in a POST or a REPLY. Import Text - This button allows you to bring in text from another text file. Ensure you have your cursor located in the correct spot before invoking this button. Clear Screen - Clears the message from the screen giving a clear slat to start a message over again. This doesn't affect the Subject or the Address. Send - Writes the message out to disk/ram. This will take 3 to 4 seconds, so please be patient. The CTRL W is the keyboard equivalent ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- When modifying the Time Filter: There are a number of buttons to enable you to customize the dates to your satisfaction. Start Time - This is a toggle. The first time the Time Filter, the default time will be indicated (reads: "Use the 'Last Read SIG' date") Select this and you will be able to modify the message start date End Time - This is NOT a toggle. You can change this to any date you want after March 1991. Please remember to ensure you do NOT set this date before the Start Time. Obviously this will cause problems. -M - Subtract one month off the current date (actually it's 30 days). -D - Subtract one day off the current date. -H - Subtract one hour off the current date +M - Add one month to the current date (actually it's 30 days). +D - Add one day to the current date. +H - Add one hour to the current date ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- When protecting a message: The Keyword Select Requester will give you two lists. One of the Master Keywords and the other one of selected keywords (usually empty). Just select a keyword you wish to attach to the current message with your mouse. It will appear in the righthand list. You can select as many keywords as you wish, but try to select meaningful keywords. If you wish to add a keyword to your message that does not exist, then just select 'ADD'. You will be prompted with a small requester. Just type in the new word and hit ENTER. The the new word will be added to both lists. If you wish to remove a keyword from the selected list, then just select the keyword with the mouse (righthand list). It will disappear from the list. Once you are satisfied with your choices, just select ACCEPT and the keywords will be attached to the message and the message will be protected. (see unprotect above to unprotect a message). If at any time you wish to exit without saving anything, then just select CANCEL or the close gadget (top left). Accept - attaches the keyword list to the message and protects the message. Sort Right - Sorts the righthand column of keywords. Add - Adds a new keyword to the Master List and the Selected List. Sort Left - Sorts the lefthand column of keywords. Cancel - quits the Select Keyword Requester, does not protect message or attach keywords. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Other Functionality: From the menus: To access the menus you must first select somewhere in the text display area. Interlace/ NonInterlace : This is a toggle that allows you to choose which screen you wish to use when reading messages. Those lucky enough to have a A1950 multisync monitor will be able to get a full 42 lines of text displayed at once. Of course if you have a flicker fixer or don't mind the flicker you can enjoy the 42 lines as well ;-) You must select INTERLACE from the menu each time you go into VBBSReader if you desire to work in INTERLACE. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Possible Problems: 1) Problem: When I double click on VBBSReader it starts up, but quicky ends. Solution: Go back to the Operational Steps above. You must ensure you have typed in the correct message path into the Tool Type of VBBSReader. Again just follow the steps above. 2) Problem: Boy is this slow. Solution: Get a faster Amiga :-) Sorry couldn't resist. VBBSReader on a stock Amiga is not super fast. I have tested this on a 68000 machine with 512K using a floppy system. It's not fast as you can imagine. The longest clocked time it took for a USENET message to appear was 13 seconds. This was a very LONG message. The average time was only 3 to 4 seconds. Unfortunately for local messages, preformance drops through the floor. I would not recommend using VBBSReader if you are only going to be using Local messages on a floppy system. If you're going to be reading USENET, then the 3 or 4 second delay is quite reasonable. If you find this unacceptable, please give me a call. 3) Problem: I cannot get back to the WorkBench screen. Solution: Click in the text display area in the top part of the screen. Click on the right mouse button. The title bar at the top will disappear and you will only see the Front/Back gadgets. You may now send this screen to the back. 4) Problem: VBBSReader quits during normal operation. Solution: A message is corrupted or there is a problem with VBBSReader. Please contact me with the details. If you have any more problems with VBBSReader that are NOT listed above, please call me and I'll get you back up to speed. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Since VBBSReader now reads all messages found on VBBS, there is no need to separate the message bases. This is offered only as information for those that might wish to separate the two message systems for other reasons. Manual Instructions to Separate USENET messages from local messages: Assumptions: DH0:vbbs <-- location of VBBS_HOST directory memacs <-- editor - it's on the 'Extras 1.3' disk, COPY it to your c: directory (or use your favourite one) NOTE: Only type the information within the quotes, do not type the quotes. Step 1) Open up a CLI window Step 2) Type 'makedir DH0:vbbsother' Step 3) Type 'copy DH0:vbbs DH0:VBBSother all clone dates' Step 4) Type 'cd DH0:vbbsother/vbbs_host' Step 5) Type 'copy allsigs mysigs' Step 6) Type 'memacs mysigs' Step 7) Move the CURSOR, using the arrow keys, to a non-USENET line Step 8) Using the DEL key or the backspace key, delete all characters on that line. Make sure you remove the blank line as well. Do this by hitting the DEL key or the backspace key (experiment with it). Step 9) Repeat Steps 7 & 8 until all the non-USENET areas have been deleted (see below for current list) Step 10) Select SAVE and EXIT from the menu (left most menu). Step 11) Type 'cd DH0:VBBS/VBBS_Host' Step 12) Type 'memacs mysigs' Step 13) Exactly as in Steps 7 through 8. Except this time delete the USENET Sigs. Step 14) Select SAVE and EXIT from the menu (left most menu). ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- You will need to make a second copy of Term and Term.info" Assumptions: DH0:termdir <-- location of your current Term program and its icon DH0:TermUsenet <-- location of your second copy of Term Step 1) Type 'makedir DH0:TermUsenet' Step 2) Type 'copy DH0:Termdir.info DH0:TermUsenet.info' Step 3) Type 'copy DH0:Termdir/Term DH0:TermUsenet' Step 4) Type 'copy DH0:Termdir/Term.info DH0:TermUsenet' Step 5) Close down the CLI (assuming you don't use the CLI) - Type 'ENDCLI' ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Modifying the TERM tooltypes: Step 1) Single Click on the Term in the TermUsenet directory Step 2) Select INFO (INFORMATION under 2.0) from the Workbench menu Step 3) Using the arrow buttons in the Tool Type, advance through the list until you see "MESSROOT=DH0:VBBS" (assuming we use the assumptions from above) Step 4) Click in the text area of the tool type region Step 5) Change 'MESSROOT=DH0:VBBS' to 'MESSROOT=DH0:VBBSother'. Step 6) Select SAVE at the bottom to save your tool type changes. You are now ready to start the second version of TERM. You'll now be able to only download either USENET Sigs or Non-Usenet SIGs. This will allow you to use VBBSReader on the USENET messages. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- USENET Sigs non-USENET Sigs CSA_Misc Test_SIG CSA_MultiMedia Amiga CSA_Programmer General CSA_Graphics AmiExpo CSA_Hardware AMUC CSA_Introduction Hardware CSA_MarketPlace Music CSA_Games Announcements CSA_Audio (this list keeps on growing) CSA_Reviews CSA_DataComm CSA_Emulations CSA_Advocacy CSA_Applications CompFonts CompGraphics RecHumor CSA_Tech CompPostScript (this list keeps on growing) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Version Description ------- ----------- 1.0 This version uses CanDo 1.02. It currently only traverses one level of replies. You currently cannot REPLY to any message or POST a message. Also you have to go through all the messages in a particular group, since I cannot implement Stephen's message date system yet. Until the next version of CanDo appears (1.5), I'm unable to read in binary characters. This means that any 'regular' messages in the VBBS message tree are unreadable. So my advice to those using VBBSReader is to only use it when reading USENET articles. 1.1 A large number of features have been added and a couple bugs with the NEXT/PREVIOUS buttons have been fixed. Unfortunately this version still suffers from the lack of ability to read a VBBS message, but it will traverse the USENET messages. All buttons on the screen are functional. I have disabled Post and Reply until VBBSReader can accurately send a message to VBBS. You can now Delete the current message or Delete ALL messages in a SIG. There is a Keep button for those important messages you wish to see again. 1.2 I have removed the 'Original/Reply To' button and replaced it with a First and a Last Button. These allow you to quickly to go to the end of the messages within a SIG or the beginning of the messages in the current SIG. I have also added 'Protect Message'. This does exactly the same as ARCHIVE does in Stephen Vermeulen's READ program. Note: Do not run AGE and VBBSReader together. Only use one or the other for now. I have also fixed up a couple of bugs in regards to looking at SIG areas with no messages and VBBSReaderConfigProg had a small bug in it as well which is now squashed. 1.3 The only change I made with this version is that it now works with CanDo 1.5. Look for 1.5 modifications in the next versions. I've also upgraded the documentation. 1.4 Not a public release. This version was very near completion when I started working on the ability to read local messages for 1.5. It ended up that including this ability was some work, but I was able to complete in 3 or 4 days. Hence I held up release of 1.4 so as to include the ability to read local messages. 1.5 Yes it's here!!! You can now use VBBSReader to read all messages on the VBBS builtin board system. There is now no need to separate the two message sections. You no longer need VBBSReaderConfigProg. I will be releasing VBBSMenu, which will be able to configure your entire VBBS system to your liking. A number of new features have been added since 1.3. Most of these were as of input from Craig Lever. Thanks Craig. An interlace option, available from the menu, allows you to toggle between an interlace screen and a non-interlace screen. This means you can have up to 42 lines of text display. I've introduced two button menus. One for those wishing to maximize their viewing space by only taking up one line. The other is for those wishing more functionality through the mouse. I've made the SIG Select area into a requester. This allowed me to place a couple of other buttons onto the screen. Some of these new buttons include SIG Select, Unprotect and Less/More Buttons. Each of these buttons are explained above. As you finish reading a SIG, the system will let you know and will automatically advance to the next SIG. This saves you re-selecting the SIG Select button. I've also included the ability to go to the previous SIG by selecting PREVIOUS enough you end up at the start of the previous SIG. Another addition is the use of the alternate keys instead of using the mouse. CTRL Up Arrow - Scroll Up CTRL Down Arrow - Scroll Down CTRL Right Arrow - Next Message CTRL Left Arrow - Previous Message CTRL A - Gives you more About information CTRL R - Reply to a message CTRL P - Post a message CTRL S - Bring up the SIG Select Requester CTRL T - Bring up the Time Filter CTRL W - Send a Post/Reply (available only when sending/replying to a message) As you can see from above you may now send messages or reply to them. Still another feature that has been added, is the ability to set time filters. You can select two dates. All messages that fall between these dates will be available for you to read. The default dates are: Last time the messages were read and the current date. 1.51 A number of bug fixes, including the NEXT/PREVIOUS bug. I've also been able to make it a bit more efficient. 1.52 Made it compatible with VBBSMenu. Fixed a number of small bugs. 1.53 Another round of bug crushing. Hopefully most of them have been destroyed. 1.60 The ability to attach keywords to 'Protected' messages has been added. You now have the ability to Import Text from a text file into your messages. You can also Save individual messages to a file. All the control windows, that were screens before have now been converted to windows. This should save on memory as well get a bit more speed out of the system. Three new alternate keys have been added. CTRL X - Protect Message CTRL C - UnProtect Message CTRL K - Keep Message If you have any suggestions on improvements or features you wish to see added, please let me know. Thanks for taking the time to try out VBBSReader. VBBS is Copyrighted by Stephen Vermeulen CanDo is Copyrighted by Inovatronics, Inc