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┬─┬─────┐ ┬─┬──┬──┐ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ ├───┬─┘ ┌┬──┐ ┬┬─┐ ┌┬──┐ │ │ │ │ ┌┬──┐ ┬┬ ┬┬ (tm) │ │ │ ││ │ │├─┴┐ ││ │ │ │ │ │ │├──┤ ││ ││ ┴─┴ ┴── └┴──┘ ┴┴──┘ └┴──┘ ┴─┴ ┴ ┴ ┴┴ ┴ ┴┴ ┴┴──┘ ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ The Ultimate QWK Mail Management System Version 1.2 User's Guide Copyright (c) 1993, Parsons Consulting All Rights Reserved ---------------------- DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY ---------------------- THIS SOFTWARE PROGRAM AND DOCUMENTATION ("ROBOMAIL") IS BEING OFFERED FOR EVALUATION PURPOSES "AS IS" AND WITHOUT WARRANTIES AS TO PERFORMANCE OR MERCHANTABILITY. BY USING ROBOMAIL, YOU ARE EXPRESSLY RELEASING DAN PARSONS FROM ANY LIABILITY RESULTING FROM THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE AND DOCUMENTATION. THE USER MUST ASSUME THE ENTIRE RISK OF USING ROBOMAIL. BECAUSE OF THE DIVERSITY OF CONDITIONS, HARDWARE AND OPERATING ENVIRONMENTS UNDER WHICH ROBOMAIL MAY BE USED, NO WARRANTY OF FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE IS OFFERED. THE USER IS ADVISED TO TEST AND SUPERVISE ROBOMAIL THOROUGHLY BEFORE RELYING ON IT ----------------- LICENSE AGREEMENT ----------------- 1) RoboMail is being distributed as ShareWare. This program is not free. You are granted a limited license to evaluate RoboMail for a period not to exceed 21 days. After 21 days, you must either pay for and register your copy of RoboMail, or immediately discontinue its use and remove it from your computer. 2) You may keep as many backup copies of RoboMail as you wish, but you may not run RoboMail simultaneously on more than one computer. Additionally, you are granted the right to share RoboMail with others, as long as you distribute the RoboMail archives exactly as you received them, with all associated files included. REGISTERED USERS MAY NOT DISTRIBUTE THE SEPARATE FILE ROBOMAIL.KEY FILE 3) Under no circumstances may you charge a fee or receive any other form of consideration for distributing the RoboMail files without express written consent from the copyright holder, Dan Parsons. RoboMail is a product of: Parsons Consulting (312) 752-1220 Voice 5020 S. Lake Shore Drive (312) 752-1222 Fax Suite 3301 (312) 752-1258 BBS Chicago, IL 60615 ================================ ROBOMAIL 1.2 REGISTRATION FORM ================================ Remit to: Parsons Consulting 5020 S. Lake Shore Drive Suite 3301 Chicago, IL 60615-3249 U.S.A. ------------------------------------------------------------------ | Item | Quantity | Price | Total | |-------------------------------|----------|--------|------------| | RoboMail version 1.2 | ________ | $35.00 | __________ | | | | | | | RoboMail/Robocomm package | ________ | $65.00 | __________ | | | | | | | Shipping (Outside U.S. only) | ________ | $5.00 | __________ | |---------------------------------------------------|------------| | | | | Total amount enclosed | __________ | ------------------------------------------------------------------ Check desired disk format: ( ) 5.25" ( ) 3.5" Disk Density: ( ) Low Required ( ) High Payment by: ( ) Check or money order (U.S. funds only) ( ) MasterCard ( ) Visa ( ) PO # ______________ Card #: ____________________________________ Exp. Date: _________ Signature of card holder: ____________________________________________ Name: ________________________________________________________ Company: ________________________________________________________ Address: ________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________ Phone: ________________________________________________________ FLASH: INSTANT GRATIFICATION REGISTRATION ONLINE AT GROUP ONE BBS! Call Group One BBS and register with MasterCard or Visa and receive your personalized key file immediately! >>>> 312-752-1258 <<<< INTERNATIONAL DISTRIBUTORS - RoboMail is now available directly from distributors in several countries. If you are currently evaluating RoboMail and you live in one of the countries listed below, please contact your distributor to register your copy of RoboMail: United Kingdom and Ireland -------------------------- Contact RoboMail UK on London 081-500 5000. VISA/Access/MasterCard or EuroCard accepted Australia and New Zeland ------------------------ My Computer Company 25 Albert Street (P.O. Box 99) Erskineville NSW 2043 AUSTRALIA Phone: (02) 565-1991 Fax: (02) 550-4459 BBS: (02) 565-1044 The Fidonet RoboMail support conference is available in Australia through the My Computer Company BBS (3:712/411) and the latest copy of RoboMail can be file requested using the magic name ROBOMAIL. South Africa ------------ Fincompt Technologies P.O. Box 4472 Randburg 2125 SOUTH AFRICA Contact: Ian Gerada Phone: +27 11 789-6192 Fax: +27 11 789-6081 BBS: +27 11 789-6085 (Netline Flagship) TABLE OF CONTENTS ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ WHAT IS ROBOMAIL?................................................. 1 ABOUT SHAREWARE................................................... 3 TECHNICAL SUPPORT................................................. 4 SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS............................................... 4 QUICK START AND TIPS FOR EXPERIENCED USERS........................ 5 AUTOMATIC INSTALLATION............................................ 6 MANUAL INSTALLATION............................................... 6 GETTING STARTED................................................... 6 KEY CONCEPTS...................................................... 7 Archive Actions.............................................. 8 Message Classes.............................................. 8 ROBOMAIL USER INTERFACE BASICS.................................... 9 Getting Help................................................. 9 Using the Keyboard........................................... 9 Pick Lists.................................................. 10 Using a Mouse............................................... 10 CUSTOMIZING YOUR ROBOMAIL INSTALLATION........................... 11 Configuration............................................... 11 Directories ........................................... 11 Utilities ............................................. 11 Message Settings ...................................... 12 Auto-Pilot ............................................ 12 Mail Importing ........................................ 13 System Settings ....................................... 13 Mail System Settings........................................ 14 Conference Settings......................................... 15 Quick Conference Setup................................. 16 Customizing Screen Colors................................... 17 IMPORTING MESSAGE PACKETS........................................ 17 Interactive Processing...................................... 17 Command Line Processing..................................... 18 Automatic Packet Archiving.................................. 18 Filtering Incoming Mail..................................... 19 The IMPORT.LOG File......................................... 19 EXPORTING OUTBOX MESSAGES........................................ 20 Interactive Processing...................................... 20 Command Line Processing..................................... 20 Recalling Exported Replies.................................. 21 READING AND PROCESSING IMPORTED DATA............................. 21 News, Welcome and Goodbye Screens........................... 21 New File Listings........................................... 21 Bulletins................................................... 22 Recent Messages............................................. 22 Finding the First Unread Recent Message................ 23 Automatic Bookmarks.................................... 23 Personal Messages........................................... 23 Messages to ALL in Personal............................ 23 Snoop Mode.................................................. 24 OutBox, Archive and Chron Messages.......................... 24 Multi-Part Messages......................................... 24 Wide Messages............................................... 24 _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page i ANSI Art and Music.......................................... 25 File Attachments............................................ 25 Using the Attachment Manager........................... 26 The Quit and Resume Bookmark................................ 26 Message Processing.......................................... 27 MESSAGE NAVIGATION............................................... 28 Assisted Reading Mode....................................... 28 Overriding Archive Assignment.......................... 30 Using the Auto-Pilot........................................ 30 Manual Navigation........................................... 31 Moving Forward and Back................................ 31 Finding Unread Messages................................ 31 Thread Movement........................................ 31 Moving Between Conferences............................. 32 Processing Before Moving............................... 32 Manual Archive Action Assignment............................ 33 Looking Up Threads in Other Message Classes................. 33 Viewing the Message Index................................... 34 Sorting Conference or Folder Messages....................... 35 Numeric Keypad Navigation Summary........................... 35 Function Key Command Summary................................ 36 Tagging Messages and Writing Text Files..................... 36 Bulk Tagging and Untagging............................. 36 Printing Messages........................................... 37 CREATING OUTGOING MESSAGES....................................... 37 Composing a Message......................................... 37 Replying to a Message....................................... 38 Automatic Quoting...................................... 38 Forwarding Messages......................................... 39 Addressing Messages......................................... 39 Accessing the Address Book............................. 41 Cross-Posting.......................................... 41 Sending Copies......................................... 41 Re-Editing an Outgoing Message.............................. 42 Re-Addressing an Outgoing Message...................... 42 Re-Sending a Chron Message.................................. 42 Placing Outgoing Messages on Hold........................... 43 Discarding Outgoing Messages................................ 43 Notes on Message Splitting.................................. 43 USING ROBOMAIL'S EDITOR.......................................... 43 Navigation Commands......................................... 44 Text Editing Commands....................................... 44 Block Management Commands................................... 44 File Management Commands.................................... 44 Other Commands.............................................. 45 Indenting Paragraphs........................................ 45 Tips on Quoting............................................. 45 Using Quick-Merge Files..................................... 46 Merge Macros................................................ 46 Setting the Right Margin.................................... 46 Control Characters in Messages.............................. 47 USING ROBOMAIL'S SPELL CHECKER................................... 47 Editing Your Personal Dictionary............................ 48 _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page ii USING MESSAGE FOLDERS............................................ 48 Copying Messages to Folders................................. 48 Deleting Folders............................................ 49 Folder Message Management................................... 49 Replying to Folder Messages................................. 49 USING ROBOMAIL'S ADDRESS BOOK.................................... 49 SEARCHING YOUR MESSAGE DATABASE.................................. 50 Global Searches............................................. 50 Conference and Folder Searches.............................. 50 Creating Search Expressions................................. 51 Wildcard Searches...................................... 51 Boolean Logic.......................................... 51 Saving and Restoring Search Expressions..................... 52 OFFLINE CONFERENCE MANAGEMENT.................................... 52 Quick Conference Drop....................................... 53 Setting Pointers............................................ 53 ALL ABOUT TAGLINES............................................... 54 Importing and Exporting Tagline Files....................... 54 Sorting the Tagline File.................................... 54 Querying the Tagline File................................... 54 Using an External Tagline Manager........................... 55 Selecting Taglines.......................................... 55 Conference-Specific Tagline Files........................... 55 Stealing Taglines........................................... 56 MAINTAINING YOUR MESSAGE DATABASE................................ 56 Bulk Marking................................................ 56 Bulk Processing............................................. 57 Discarding Aged Out Messages................................ 57 Packing Your Data Files..................................... 58 Viewing the Database Status Screen.......................... 59 Message Management Tips..................................... 59 RUNNING ROBOMAIL BY COMMAND LINE SWITCHES........................ 60 Command Line Examples....................................... 61 THE ROBOMAIL ENVIRONMENT VARIABLE................................ 62 Environment Variable Examples............................... 63 PERFORMANCE OPTIMIZATION TIPS.................................... 63 KEEPING A GOOD BACKUP............................................ 65 TROUBLE SHOOTING................................................. 65 _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page iii WHAT IS ROBOMAIL? ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ RoboMail is a complete system for managing your offline mail activities. It allows you to read and reply to messages downloaded from any BBS using the QWK/REP packet format for mail transfer. Rather than reading one packet at a time, RoboMail maintains a common database of messages from all the mail systems that you communicate with, offering a fresh, new perspective on your messages that will greatly enhance your offline mail productivity and enjoyment. With RoboMail managing your mail, you build your own customized knowledge base by controlling the way messages flow in and out of the system. You can choose to Age, Keep or Discard messages individually, or based upon system wide or conference specific defaults. RoboMail's database orientation provides significant benefits over standard mail reading systems. Among these are: ■ An amazing new "Control Panel" view which gives you an instant overview and point-and-shoot access to all the data in your system. ■ A seamlessly integrated system of user-definable folders for grouping and holding messages of special interest. You can define an unlimited number of folders and each can contain an unlimited number of messages. ■ You can quickly refer back to your "archives" of messages from previous packets and your own previously sent replies when reading through your newly imported mail. ■ You can easily cross-post your replies and forward messages to users on other mail systems. ■ You can keep or age copies of all the outgoing mail you create in a separate section called the "Chron File," and re-send any message with a single keystroke. ■ Once your mail for the day has been imported, which can be accomplished automatically via command line switches, there's no delay as you move between conferences on your various mail systems. RoboMail's automatic bookmarks ensure that you can quit and resume your reading sessions at will without fear of loosing your place. ■ Conference listings which can show all conferences, or just those containing messages. ■ Selective archiving and naming of all bulletins and file lists received with your mail packets. Other features of RoboMail include: _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 1 ■ Unlimited capacity for storing messages. RoboMail can handle an unlimited number of messages in up to 9,999 conferences on each of an unlimited number of mail systems. The amount of message data RoboMail can manage is limited only by your available disk space. ■ Extremely fast and efficient database i/o routines. RoboMail's database are highly self maintaining, tracking and recycling aged out messages and orphaned space in data files during new message importing. ■ Command line support for unattended data imports, exports and maintenance with full logging of activity. ■ A powerful internal editor, designed with message writing in mind. Unique quoting capabilities are built into the message viewer and editor. ■ A sophisticated internal spelling checker with a customizable, unlimited capacity personal dictionary. The speller can be used with both the internal or an external editor. ■ Internal tagline management, with conference specific tagline files, taglines up to sixty characters long, unlimited tagline capacity, sorting and a variety of automatic selection methods. ■ Sophisticated message addressing capabilities, with support for cross-posting, forwarding, re-usable distribution lists, a variety of carbon copy notations, PostLink and InterNet routing, receipt requests, high-ascii stripping. ■ Full support for external editors, tagline managers, file listers and archive viewers. ■ Integrated address book with a notepad for each entry. ■ Integrated unlimited-length ASCII file viewing for bulletins and informational screens. ■ Support for Wildcat style file attachments, with a unique attachment directory which provides an overview and file management functions for all file attachments in your system. ■ Extremely fast global or conference specific queries with support for multiple keywords, wildcards and boolean logic. ■ A sophisticated, fully mouseable user interface with support for VGA interface characters and VGA 50-line mode, or any video mode supported by your hardware. Fully customizable color schemes. ■ DESQview, OS/2 and Windows awareness, supporting RSIS i/o for lightning fast screen displays, as well as time-slice yielding _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 2 when running in the background under multi-tasking operating systems. ■ Fully cross-referenced context-sensitive online help. ■ A tutorial system to assist new users in learning to use RoboMail. ■ A filter list for excluding messages from unwanted people. ■ Built-in ANSI art and music capabilities. Options for automatic and/or non-stop display, high-intensity background colors and VGA 50 line mode are supported. ■ Conference specific settings for tagline files, alias names, default archiving behavior, PostLink and InterNet routing, auto-ansi display, messages to ALL in personal mail, and Fido-Mode. ■ Mail system specific settings for message archiving defaults, message-splitting length, mixed-case subjects, receipt requests and attachments, Fido-Mode as well as a unique mail door "driver" system that enables easy offline conference management for a wide variety of QWK compatible mail doors. ABOUT SHAREWARE ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ RoboMail is a fully-functional ShareWare program, available on many public-access bulletin board systems throughout the world. Users are encouraged to try the program for up to 21 days to determine if it meets their needs. Users who decide to continue using the program after the evaluation period must "register" their copy to receive a key file which removes the ShareWare reminder notices from the program. A tremendous amount of work has gone into the development of RoboMail, and we continue to improve and support the program every day. Please do your part to ensure continued development of high quality ShareWare by registering your copy of RoboMail as soon as you decide to continue using it. To register, print out and fill in the ORDER.FRM file that is distributed with the evaluation version or phone Group One BBS at the number shown below for quick, online registration. _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 3 TECHNICAL SUPPORT ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ Technical support is available via electronic mail on Group One BBS. Located in Chicago, Illinois U.S.A., this BBS is available 24 hours a day with HST/v.32bis compatible modems. The public access telephone number is: (312) 752-1258 Technical support inquiries may also be sent via electronic mail to: CompuServe: 72167,3662 Internet: 72167.3662@compuserve.com User-to-user and hosted support is also available in RoboMail and Robocomm conferences on the following national and international mail networks: * ILink * RoboNet * PlanoNet * Intelec * Smartnet * RIME * NAnet * U'NI Net * WildNet SYSOPS -- A RoboMail support conference is currently forming on Fidonet. For information on picking up this conference, please contact Peter Wadsworth on The Coconino County BBS at 1:125/28. In addition to hosting the Fido RoboMail support conference, Coconino County always maintains the latest version of RoboMail as requestable files. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ o A hard disk with at least 1.5 megabytes of disk space free. o 520K bytes of available conventional memory. o Utility programs to handle compression and decompression of incoming an outgoing mail packets. RoboMail supports ZIP, ARJ and LZH format mail packets. By default RoboMail will look for PKZIP.EXE, PKUNZIP.EXE, ARJ.EXE and LHA.EXE to handle these files. You don't need all of these programs to run RoboMail, just the ones that are needed for the mail packet formats you use. o Although not strictly required, RoboMail's performance is significantly enhanced when running on systems which can provide Expanded (EMS) memory for RoboMail's virtual memory manager. By default RoboMail will use up to 1 megabyte of Expanded Memory. _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 4 QUICK START AND TIPS FOR EXPERIENCED USERS ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ If you're an experienced PC user, familiar with other off-line mail readers and anxious to dive right in to RoboMail, you can get started quickly by simply extracting all the files from the RoboMail distribution archives into a sub-directory (usually \ROBOMAIL) of your hard disk. Before starting RoboMail, make sure that you have FILES=30 (or more) in your CONFIG.SYS file and that the utilities necessary to extract your QWKS and compress your REPS are available in a directory on your PATH statement. If you have a mouse, make sure its driver is loaded. RoboMail would be most pleased if you would provide it with at least 520K of conventional memory and 1024K of expanded (EMS) memory. To speed up "swapping" when running outside utilities, try to provide an additional 640K of EMS or XMS if possible. When you start the program for the first time, RoboMail will make some necessary data files and ask you to take the new user tutorial. It's a good idea, and should only take about half an hour to complete. If you are using EMSNETX network drivers or QEMM for memory management with the "stealth" feature active, you may experience an incompatibility with RoboMail's usage of the EMS page frame for overlay management. If RoboMail "hangs" during DOS shells or exits abnormally while you are using it, please add the following line to the end of your AUTOEXEC.BAT file and re-boot: SET ROBOMAIL=/OP0 If you will be running RoboMail in Windows, DESQview or OS/2, be aware that RoboMail will automatically yield idle time back to the operating system when running under these operating systems. For this reason, you may want to set up RoboMail's session settings to allow background operation. This will enable you to do other things during lengthy data management operations, without placing a drag on the CPU during normal interactive processing. See the enclosed ROBOMAIL.PIF and RM-PIF.DVP files for suggested settings for Windows and DESQview. Windows and OS/2 icons are provided in ROBOMAIL.ICO and RMOS2.ICO. _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 5 AUTOMATIC INSTALLATION ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ If you received RoboMail on disk, insert the disk into an available floppy drive. Change to that drive by typing the drive letter followed by a colon and run the automatic installation program by typing INSTALL. Follow the instructions that appear on the screen to complete the installation procedure. MANUAL INSTALLATION ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ If you downloaded RoboMail from a BBS or other online service, you should follow the following instructions: ┌─╖ Verify that your system is set up to provide at least 30 file │1║ handles. To do this, make sure that the FILES= line in the ╘═╝ CONFIG.SYS file in the root directory of your boot disk specifies a number of 30 or greater. If you change the value, make sure to re-boot so that the new settings will be in effect. ┌─╖ Create a sub-directory to hold the RoboMail files. Although it │2║ is not required, \ROBOMAIL is the suggested name and will be ╘═╝ used in the documentation and help file examples. To create the sub-directory, type MD \ROBOMAIL at the DOS prompt. ┌─╖ Extract the RoboMail distribution files into the \ROBOMAIL │3║ directory. For example, if the files you downloaded are in ╘═╝ the ZIP format and you have the PKUNZIP utility, you would type: PKUNZIP ROBOM*.ZIP \ROBOMAIL ┌─╖ Start RoboMail by typing ROBOMAIL at the DOS prompt. The first │4║ time it is run, RoboMail needs to create its data files and ╘═╝ some sub-directories to hold incoming and outgoing mail. After this process is complete, you will receive a welcome message asking you to begin the tutorial for new users. GETTING STARTED ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ RoboMail contains three forms of user documentation. The User's Guide, which you are reading now, is designed to give the user an overview of all aspects of the program's operation. It does not, however, delve deeply into the specific operation of every screen in the program. For that type of information, you should make liberal use of RoboMail's online, context sensitive help system, which is accessible at any time with a press of the [F1] key. New users should definitely begin with the tutorial, which consists _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 6 of a brief text file and demonstration mail packet. During installation, RoboMail will place the TUTORIAL.QWK packet in your incoming mail directory, where it will be ready for use during the guided tour contained in the TUTORIAL.DOC file. If you haven't done so yet, please make a printout of the tutorial documentation and begin following along with it. KEY CONCEPTS ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ Before beginning our discussion of the operational "nuts and bolts" of using RoboMail, we need to get a little RoboMail-specific vocabulary under our belts. RoboMail is a sophisticated database system tailored exclusively to the needs of electronic mail users. In the current version, the program only manages messages from BBS systems which exchange mail via the QWK packet "standard." RoboMail's base architecture is not specific to any one mail standard, however, and the system will continue to develop RoboMail so that it can access other electronic mail providers and formats in the future. In this way, RoboMail will become an integrating environment for many, if not all, of your electronic mail activities. Think of RoboMail as an interactive "filter" for the constant stream of messages moving back and forth between your computer and the BBS mail systems that you call. Some messages that come through contain valuable information that you'll want to keep around for a period of time, or indefinitely, while others are of little or no value. By setting up default message management parameters for each of the conferences on the mail systems you call, you teach RoboMail how to deal with the majority messages that pass through your system. As you read and respond to the messages that come in, RoboMail works in the background, constantly maintaining a customized, rotating buffer of the information you've seen, ready for review at the touch of a key. Over time, your message database will provide you with an extremely valuable resource for reviewing past activity while facilitating your participation in your conferences. To accomplish this, the RoboMail message management cycle follows four consecutive steps: 1 - Mail (QWK Packet) Importing 2 - Reading and Archive Action Assignment 3 - Processing/Archiving 4 - Reply (REP Packet) Exporting RoboMail's databases are highly efficient and self-maintaining. By setting up the majority of your conferences on a rotating cycle where old "aged-out" messages are "recycled" during the Mail Importing process, your RoboMail data files will settle in at a certain size over time. Routine maintenance of the files is only needed in special circumstances which we will discuss later. Because of its database orientation, RoboMail introduces some concepts _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 7 which are unique among QWK mail readers. The following two sections introduce a few of these new concepts. Archive Actions ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To help you most effectively cope with the large amount of messages which may flow through your message database, RoboMail provides a specific framework for message management. The central concept of the message management philosophy is that you must let RoboMail know what you want to do with each message you receive. Usually, this will be accomplished by assigning a default "archive action" to each message conference you participate in. However, you are free to override the default and assign specific actions on a message-by-message basis. The assigned Archive Actions for each message are displayed on the upper right portion of the message viewing screen. Three options are available: AGE Messages with the "Age" archive action are kept in the system until the message date plus number of age days assigned to the message is earlier than the current system date. Once a message has "aged out" it becomes a candidate for recycling during the new mail importing process. By default, RoboMail will assign "Age 7 days" status to all conferences. KEEP Messages with the "Keep" archive action remain in your RoboMail database indefinitely. They will not be removed unless you specifically tell RoboMail that you want to get rid of them. DISCARD Messages with the "Discard" message class are permanently destroyed when the conference they are in is processed. The space they occupied in RoboMail's databases is marked for recycling. Message Classes ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ RoboMail automatically organizes all the messages in its database into "Message Classes." The classes correspond to the columns in the system window of RoboMail's main screen, called the "Control Panel," which shows the number of messages in each class for each of your mail systems. RECENT Messages that have not yet been read, or that have been read, but not yet "processed" into other message classes. The is the first stop for messages after being imported from an incoming mail packet. The messages in the "Personal" column of the control panel are a sub-set of Recent messages. _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 8 ARCHIVE Messages that have been marked with "Keep" or "Age" status and processed out of the Recent message class. Messages marked with the "Age" archive action will display the number of days beyond the message date that they are to be protected. After "aging out," a messages may be recycled by RoboMail whenever a new message record is needed. OUTBOX Messages you have created which have not yet been exported to the format needed for upload to the BBS. CHRON A "chronological" record of old outbox messages that have previously been exported for upload to the BBS. Only outgoing messages which were saved with the "Copy to Chron" option turned on will be copied to the CHRON file during export. FOLDERS Contain messages which you want to categorize and keep for future reference. Any message displayed by RoboMail can be copied into one or more folders. ROBOMAIL USER INTERFACE BASICS ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ Getting Help ~~~~~~~~~~~~ RoboMail offers context-sensitive online help throughout the program. Simply press [F1] whenever you require further explanation about the available options or command keys and the online help system will provide details. For help on using the help system, press [F1] again while a help screen is displayed. The help system also contains a full index of all available topics. To see this index, press [F1] while the main "control panel" screen is displayed and select "Help Index" from the related topics list on the right hand side of the screen. RoboMail also offers "Hint Lines" which appear at the bottom of the screen to remind you of the most common commands that are available. When you are in the internal editor a large set of hints at the bottom of the screen can be toggled on and off with the [Alt-H] key. Using the Keyboard ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ RoboMail's keyboard interface is consistent throughout the many screens you will encounter while using the program. When data entry screens are displayed, use the following keys to fill in the required form: _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 9 Key Purpose ─────────────── ───────────────────────────────── F1 Context Sensitive Help [Down] / [Up] Move to next / previous item SpaceBar Push, Check, or Select item Tab / Sh-Tab Next / previous data element <─┘ Go to next element or push button Ctrl <─┘ Accept/Save data and continue Esc Abort data entry and back up Keys For Text Fields Purpose ─────────────── ───────────────────────────────── Ins Toggle INSert status Del Delete character on cursor BackSpace Delete character to the left Ctrl-BackSpace Delete word left Ctrl-Y Delete to end of field Home / End Beginning / End of field Ctrl <-/-> Previous / Next Word F10 Display pick-list (if available) ╔═════╗ ║ TIP ╟───────────────────────────────────────────┐ ╚═══╤═╝ Use [Ctrl <─┘] as a shortcut to save and │ │ continue on all data entry screens. │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Pick Lists ~~~~~~~~~~ Many data entry fields in RoboMail have pop-up pick lists available. To see them, press [F10] while the cursor is positioned within the field. For example, when you are addressing a message, you can press [F10] for a pick list at the BBS, CONFERENCE and TAGLINE prompts. You can also get a pick list of appropriate files at any prompt that asks for a file name. Just press [F10] for a pop-up directory. Using a Mouse ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ RoboMail has full support for your mouse. Make sure that the appropriate MS-Mouse compatible driver is loaded before you start RoboMail and a mouse cursor will appear whenever there are options which can be selected by the mouse. Use the left mouse button to make selections and the right mouse button to duplicate the function of the [ESCape] key, which will back up to preveious levels of the user interface. _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 10 CUSTOMIZING YOUR ROBOMAIL INSTALLATION ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ All of RoboMail's user-customizable configuration settings can be accessed via the [F2] key. Simply press [F2] from the main "Control Panel" screen or while viewing or editing any message for a menu of available configuration options. Configuration ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Select "RoboMail Settings" from the [F2] pop-up menu to access RoboMail's main configuration system. All of the settings in this section are grouped on six different screens. Use your mouse or the [PgUp], [PgDn] and arrow keys to position the cursor items you wish to change. When you are satisfied with your changes, select the "Save" button or press the [Ctrl-Enter] shortcut key. The following is a summary of the options available on these screens. See the online help (Press [F1] to access it) for detailed explanations of each item. Directories (1) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ On this screen, RoboMail allows you to specify the: o Location of incoming mail packets o Location of outgoing reply packets o Location for storing file attachments o Archive extraction work directory Utilities (2) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ARCHIVE MANIPULATION -- The only third party utilities required by RoboMail are used for extracting and creating compressed archive files. When processing incoming mail, RoboMail will automatically detect the archive method used by your mail systems and call the appropriate utility. The currently supported archiving methods are ZIP, ARJ and LZH. RoboMail's default settings for the most popular versions of these utilities will work without modification in the vast majority of cases. The default utilities and configuration settings are: Create ZIP: PKZIP %T @%S Extract ZIP: PKUNZIP -o %S %T Create ARJ: ARJ a %T !%S Extract ARJ: ARJ e -y %S %T Create LZH: LHA a %T @%S Extract LZH: LHA x -m %S %T At runtime, RoboMail will translate "%T" to the name of the _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 11 "T"arget file being created and "%S" to the name of the "S"ource file list of files to be included in the archive. Please note that RoboMail uses a target file list method when creating archives. For this reason, the utilities you use must be able to select the files to include in the new archive via a file list. By default, RoboMail will free up 256K of memory for use by the archiving utilities. If you need to modify this, use the "Archive Create/Extract RAM" setting on the Utilities configuration screen. FILE VIEWERS -- Use RoboMail's internal text file viewer, or specify an external utility (and the memory it requires). Also, specify the archive viewing utility to be used when examining attached files in the attachment manager. Message Settings (3) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ MESSAGE EDITOR -- Use RoboMail's internal editor or set up your own editor for creating and replying to messages. This section also allows you to use RoboMail's internal spell checker when returning from your external editor. MESSAGE HEADER STYLE -- Select the order the "To" and "From" fields appear in message headers. QUOTING STYLE -- Determines the method RoboMail will use for formatting the text you are replying to in your outgoing message. TAGLINES -- Specify the system default tagline file as well as the method RoboMail will use when selecting taglines for you. Auto-Pilot & Sounds (4) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ AUTO-PILOT -- RoboMail's Auto-Pilot provides a quick way for experienced users to read and process their recent mail. These settings allow you to specify the navigation and message archiving actions that will be executed whenever you press the [.] (period key) while reading messages. When using the [.] and [Enter] keys to read mail, you can tell RoboMail to automatically issue a Page Down command as you read through messages that are longer than one screen by selecting either or both of the "Automatic Page Down" check boxes. PERSONAL MESSAGE BEEP -- This option allows you to control the behavior of RoboMail's audible alarm when a message addressed to you is displayed. SOUNDS - Provides a quick way for you to limit all the sounds that are produced by RoboMail during normal operation. _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 12 Mail Importing (5) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ NEW FILE LISTS -- This option controls the way RoboMail archives the available file lists received with your incoming mail packets. NUMBER OF PREVIOUSLY IMPORTED QWK FILES TO ARCHIVE -- Use this option to specify the number of mail packets that RoboMail will keep on your disk after they have been imported into your database. Archived mail packets are kept in your configured incoming mail directory. They are numbered up to the level you specify in this option and the first letter of their file extension is replaced with a "!" character. DEFAULT AGE DAYS FOR NEW SYSTEMS -- Use this option to specify the number of "Age Days" that will be assigned to a new system when it is first imported into RoboMail. RoboMail will assign this default number to new mail system records as they are created. You will have an opportunity to modify the value for the individual systems before the value is assigned to all the conference records for the new system. System Settings (6) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SET VGA 50-LINE MODE AT START-UP -- Select this option if you have a VGA compatible video system and you want have RoboMail set the video mode to 50 lines when first displaying the control panel screen. Note that you must exit and re-start RoboMail for changes to this setting to take effect. USE VGA INTERFACE -- If you are running in 25-Line mode and you'd like RoboMail to modify the VGA character set to display fancy radio buttons and check boxes, select this option. Note that this option will be automatically disabled if you subsequently start RoboMail in OS/2, Windows or DesqView. ENABLE EXPLODING WINDOWS -- Res ipsa loquitur. DO DBV CLEAN-UP IN THE BACKGROUND -- To speed up operations in interactive reading mode, RoboMail has the ability to do some of its needed "house keeping" in the background. This option is enabled by default. De-select this option if you would like to disable this feature. You can tell when RoboMail is doing its background processing by looking for a cute little happy face character in the upper right corner of the screen. ASK ABOUT OUTBOX EXPORT WHEN EXITING ROBOMAIL -- Select this check box if you want RoboMail to prompt you to export OutBox messages when you quit the program with active messages in your OutBox. MOUSE OPTIONS -- Are controlled with the mouse settings box. Leftys can use this option to swap their function of their _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 13 mouse buttons. You can also use this option to completely disable all mouse operations if you prefer. PROGRAM SWAPPER -- These options are used to control the types of memory and disk subdirectory that RoboMail will use when swapping itself out of memory to launch other programs. If you are experiencing problems when RoboMail is shelling to DOS or when running other programs, try disabling one or both of the EMS and XMS options. Also, make sure that the directory specified for swap files exists on your hard disk. Mail System Settings ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Each mail system that you read mail from has its own settings screen in RoboMail. To access the screen, highlight the system ID on the control panel screen and press [Enter], or select the "System Settings" options from the [F2] configuration pop-up menu. The mail door configuration settings control offline conference configuration requests. If an imported mail packet contains a complete DOOR.ID file, RoboMail will be able to fill in many of the options on this screen automatically. If not, you will need to fill them in or press the "Driver" button to pick the correct mail door configuration driver for the system. The YOUR NAME, SYSOP NAME, LOCATION and PHONE NUMBER fields on this screen are extracted from the incoming mail packets and are not editable. The DOOR, VERSION, and SYSTEM fields are informational only and serve no functional use in RoboMail. The CONTROL NAME field should be filled in with the name to which offline configuration messages should be addressed. The ADD, DROP and RESET fields should be filled in with the correct keywords for selecting, abandoning and resetting conferences. The CONFIG SUBJECT field should only be filled in if the mail service supports multiple configuration requests in a single message. The information you enter in this field will be used as the message subject when making a multi-part offline configuration request. Check the MIXED CASE SUBJECTS ALLOWED box if you want RoboMail to allow mixed case message subjects in outgoing messages to this BBS. Check the FORCE HIGH ASCII STRIP (FIDO MODE) box to set the default option for individual conferences on this mail system. If this BBS requires that all messages contain low order ASCII characters only, you should activate this option. The SPLIT REPLIES AT XXX LINES options allow you to control the way RoboMail handles long outgoing messages to this mail system. If _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 14 you enable this ability, long OutBox messages will be split into multiple parts during the export process. Many BBS systems limit the allowable length of posted messages, so you should make sure that this option matches the requirements of the mail system. The CONF DEFAULT radio buttons control the default archive option that will be assigned to all conferences on the mail system as they are scanned into RoboMail. The default is to Age messages 7 days before recycling. You should adjust the age days option to suit your needs. Make sure you are certain if you decide to assign "Keep" status as the default. You'll be surprised how quickly large databases of messages can accumulate. The CHRON ACTION radio buttons control the action that will be assigned to outgoing messages that have "Copy to Chron" status as they are added to your chron file. The default is to Age your outgoing messages for 7 days in the chron before they are available for recycling. Set the age option to the length of time you want to maintain your messages in the chron. The RECEIPTS radio button indicates the type of "Receipt Request" notifications that are available on the BBS. RoboMail will automatically detect and allow receipt requests in conferences which are using the PostLink networking system. If the mail system also allows local receipt requests using the RRR prefix in the message subject, select the appropriate radio button to indicate this capability to RoboMail. If Wildcat/Tomcat style file attachments are allowed on the mail service, then select the TOMCAT STYLE radio button to inform RoboMail of this capability. Conference Settings ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This setup screen allows you to set all options that are specific to the individual conferences on the mail systems you call. You can access it in a variety of ways: ■ By pressing [F2] while reading messages and selecting the "Conference Settings" menu item. ■ By highlighting a conference in any conference listing and pressing [F2]. ■ By highlighting a conference on the [F8] Conference Management screen and pressing [F2]. Use the ALTERNATE TAGLINE FILE field to specify the name of a special tagline file that you want to use for taglines when creating mail in this conference. This field is optional. If you use an alias name in the conference, enter the name in the _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 15 YOUR ALIAS IN THIS CONFERENCE field. If this field is filled in, RoboMail will default to the alias name whenever you Reply or Compose messages in this conference. This field is optional. The AUTOMATIC ROUTING check box controls Robomail's behavior when sending private mail in PostLink managed echo mail conferences. With this option selected, RoboMail will automatically attempt to route any message sent with Private security. Selecting the INTERNET CONFERENCE check box will cause RoboMail to scan messages you reply to for the internet mail address of the sender. When you address the message, the internet address of the sender will appear in the routing address field. Note that this does not automatically force or set routing. You must still select the "Route To" check box on the message addressing dialog box for Internet "To:" style routing. Selecting the MESSAGES TO ALL IN PERSONAL check box will add all conference messages addressed to ALL to the mail system's Personal column on the control panel. Note that this occurs only during message importing, so checking this box will not retroactively assign personal status to messages which have already been imported. The COPY REPLIES TO CHRON FILE check box controls the default status of the "Copy to Chron" option on the message addressing screen. If you would like your outgoing messages copied into the Chron File during export, then you should make sure that this option is selected. Note that you always have the option of controlling this behavior individually for each outgoing message. Select DISPLAY ANSI AUTOMATICALLY if you would like messages in this conference which start with the [ANSIART] or [ANSI50] markers to be displayed automatically. Select PLAY ANSI MUSIC if you would like any ANSI music contained in displayed ANSI messages to be played. Please note that the sound settings on the "Pilot & Sound Setup" configuration screen must also be turned on for music to be played. The DEFAULT ACTION radio buttons control the default "Archive Action" that will be assigned to recent messages in this conference whenever you press one of the action assigning keys on the message view screen. Select Age, Keep, or Discard to have a default action assigned or None if you want to explicitly set the archiving action for every recent message imported into this conference. Quick Conference Setup ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Whenever RoboMail is displaying a pop-up listing of conferences, you can make very quick adjustments to the various conferences' default archiving action and age days. To do this, highlight the conference you would like to change and press any _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 16 of the following keys: [Alt-A] Set default archive action to "Age" [Alt-K] Set default archive action to "Keep" [Alt-D] Set default archive action to "Discard" [F9] Decrease the conference's Age Days by 1 day [F10] Increase the conference's Age Days by 1 day Customizing Screen Colors ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Press [F2] at the control panel screen and select "Screen Display Colors" to access the color definition screen. You can use this screen to control the screen color scheme used by RoboMail. To do this, use the [+] and [-] keys or mouse to select the color that you would like to change (indicated between the ">" and "<" characters on the screen) and use the arrow keys or mouse to move the small color selection box so that it surrounds the color that you would like to set. When the desired color is selected, press [Enter] to confirm the color selection. On color systems, you can toggle between blinking foreground and high intensity backgrounds by pressing [Alt-B]. If you decide that you don't like the changes you have made, use [Alt-D] to set the colors back to RoboMail's defaults for your monitor type. Use [Alt-S] to save your color selections so they will be loaded each time you start RoboMail. The color definitions are stored in a file named ROBOMAIL.CLR in the RoboMail home directory. If you made changes to the color scheme that you don't like, press [Esc] and the colors that were active before you entered the color definition screen will be restored. IMPORTING MESSAGE PACKETS ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ RoboMail stores all of your mail in its own format, so the mail packets you download from a BBS or other mail system are useful only as a convenient means to transport the mail files. To make mail importing as simple as possible, you should configure your communications program to place downloaded mail packets into the directory you have specified in the "Location of Incoming Mail Packets" configuration option on RoboMail "Directories" configuration screen. Interactive Processing ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To import individual mail packets into RoboMail's message database system, highlight a mail packet in the "Incoming Mail" window on RoboMail's main control panel screen and press _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 17 [Enter]. RoboMail will extract the compressed files from the packet and read them into its database. If the mail packet you selected is from a mail system that RoboMail has not encountered before, you will be prompted to fill in the default values for the new mail system. These system default values will be used when the individual conference records for the system are created. See the online help system for specific information on the options available on this screen. To import multiple packets in one step, use the space bar to "tag" the mail packets you want to import, then highlight one of the tagged systems and press [Enter]. Command Line Processing ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To import all the mail packets in your incoming mail directory automatically, start RoboMail like this: ROBOMAIL /I Using this command, however, assumes that you will be on hand to monitor the mail importing process. If this is not the case and you want to be sure that RoboMail will not stop for user input under any circumstances, start RoboMail like this: ROBOMAIL /I /Q The "/Q" switch tells RoboMail that it should Quit to DOS after completing requested processing. If there are multiple packets in your incoming mail directory, and you only want to import one specific packet, place the name of the packet after the "/I" switch. for example, to import a specific mail packet from Grope One BBS in unattended mode, logging the results to a ROBOMAIL.LOG file, you would use the command: ROBOMAIL /iGROUPONE.QWK /q /l Automatic Packet Archiving ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ By default, RoboMail will automatically keep a copy of the most recently imported mail packet from a system in your incoming mail directory. It does this by changing the "Q" in the packet name extension to a "!" character. Since RoboMail's "Incoming Mail" window only displays files that have an extension beginning with "Q", these archived mail packets will not be shown in the window. If you decide that you need to re-import a mail packet that has been archived, simply change the name so that it starts with a "Q" and import it normally. The "." entry in the Incoming Mail window can be used to refresh _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 18 the display of the current directory. Use this option whenever displayed the Incoming Mail directory gets out of sync with the actual contents of the directory. This can happen if you copy or remove files form the incoming directory while in a RoboMail DOS shell, or when another process running in a multi-tasking operating system updates the files in the directory. While the default is 1 packet, RoboMail will allow you to specify that up to 9 previously imported packets should be automatically archived. Use the "Number of Previously Imported Packets" setting on the "Mail Importing" configuration screen to control this option. Filtering Incoming Mail ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ RoboMail allows you to set up a "Global Filter List" (also known as a "twit list") that will be checked whenever it is importing mail packets. Messages written by individuals listed in your filter list will not be imported into RoboMail's message database. You can edit this list by selecting the "Edit Import Filters" option from the control panel menu, or by pressing [F] while the control panel is displayed. The IMPORT.LOG File ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Whenever RoboMail imports a mail packet, it adds a summary line to the IMPORT.LOG file in its home directory. You can use this information as you see fit. For example. to monitor RoboMail's import performance or to analyze the source of your messages. The file is created with one record per line, in comma-delimited format. it is suitable for import into any program which can accept comma-delimited data, such as spreadsheets and database managers. Here's a dissection of a sample log line: BCS,01/12/92,22:19:22,53,29.44,0,53,0,0,2644,1.80 | | | | | | | | | | | A B C D E F G H I J K A - Mail System ID B - Import Date C - Import Time D - Total number of messages in the message packet E - Number of seconds required to import messages F - Number of new message records added G - Number of trash message records recycled H - Number of aged-out messages recycled I - Number of filtered messages not added J - Total messages in base K - Messages per second imported (D÷E) _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 19 EXPORTING OUTBOX MESSAGES ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ All outgoing messages that you create with RoboMail are stored in the "OutBox" column of the control panel screen. When you are ready to send your outgoing mail, you must export it to a "reply packet," which your communications program (Robocomm, right?) will then upload to the mail system. In addition to a number, two special letters may appear in your OutBox display. An "R" indicates that RoboMail has detected a reply packet for this mail system in your outgoing mail directory, and a "C" indicates that there are pending configuration requests (such as conference add and drop commands) for the mail system which have not yet been included in your reply packet. You do not need to worry if there is already an outgoing reply packet when you are exporting mail. If one already exists, RoboMail will simply open it up and add your newly exported mail to it. NOTE: It is your responsibility to DELETE the REPly packet after uploading it to a BBS. RoboMail has no way of knowing if a REP packet has been sent, so it will continue adding new outgoing messages to any pre-existing REPly packet as it exports. To delete a REPly packet from within RoboMail, highlight an OutBox cell containing an "R" and press the [Del] key. Interactive Processing ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To export OutBox items to a reply packet while in interactive mode, place the highlight bar on the mail system to export and press the [X] key. If you have the "Export Query on Exit" configuration option selected, RoboMail will also check your OutBoxes whenever you quit the program and will ask for permission to export all outgoing mail before returning to DOS. Command Line Processing ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ You can also export the OutBox messages for one or more systems with the "/E" command line switch. To export all OutBox message in your system and immediately return to DOS with no user input, use the command: ROBOMAIL /e /q To export OutBox messages for one specific mail system, place the mail ID of the system after the "/e" switch. For example to export Group One BBS mail only, you could use the command: _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 20 ROBOMAIL /eGROUPONE /q Recalling Exported Replies ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If you export mail in error or would like to re-edit or delete an exported message currently residing in an outgoing REPly packet, place the control panel highlight bar on the row for the desired mail system and press the [R] key. RoboMail will prompt for permission before recalling the replies from the packet. To avoid possible duplication in your "Chron File" of previously exported messages, RoboMail will not set the "Copy to Chron" status of messages that are recalled from reply packets. If you make changes to a recalled message and want those changes reflected in your Chron File, then make sure to set the "Copy to Chron" status of the message after editing it. READING AND PROCESSING IMPORTED DATA ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ After RoboMail has imported your mail packets, the top half of the control panel screen will contain an overview of the contents of your RoboMail system. The display contains one row for each mail system you have imported mail from, and a series of columns, which break out the type of information available. News, Welcome and Goodbye Screens ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If the mail packets you import contain copies of the informational screens presented by the BBS, RoboMail will place a colored bullet point in the "N"ews, "W"elcome and "G"oodbye columns to indicate which screens are available for viewing. To view the associated screen, simply place the control panel highlight bar over the desired bullet point and press [Enter]. Depending upon the contents of the screen, RoboMail will use your configured text file viewer or it's internal ANSI color routines to display the contents of the file. Under RoboMail's default color scheme (which you are free to customize) a green bullet point is used to indicate a screen you have not viewed since it was imported and a red bullet indicates a screen you have previously viewed. To delete a screen, highlight the desired bullet point and press the [DELete] key. New File Listings ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If you have set up the BBS to send a listing of newly available files inside your mail packets, RoboMail will copy this listing into _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 21 your RoboMail home directory using <BBSID>T for the file name. The "Mail Importing" configuration screen gives three options for how the file listing will be copied: ■ Insert New Data at Beginning of List ■ Append New Data to End of List ■ Replace Existing List Whenever new file information is available, RoboMail will display a green (by default) bullet point in the "F"iles column of the control panel. Select the bullet point with the control panel highlight bar and press [Enter] to view the <BBSID> LST file. The configuration screen also has a "Do Not Store New File Lists" option which you can select if you do not want RoboMail to deal with the file lists at all. Bulletins ~~~~~~~~~ RoboMail maintains a database of all the bulletins sent to you by a mail system. The counter in the "Bltn" column of the control panel displays the number of bulletins available for each of your mail systems. By default, a green number indicates that there are some updated bulletins that you have not yet reviewed and a red number indicates that there are no unread bulletins on file. To display a pop-up menu of the available bulletins, highlight the desired number and press [Enter]. RoboMail will display a list. Any bulletins which are new or updated since the last time you read them will be marked with a "*" character. Simply highlight the bulletin you want to read and press [Enter] to display it. Since the current "standard" for mail packets does not include the name of bulletins, RoboMail is unable to give you an intelligent title for the bulletins it keeps on file. However, by highlighting one of the temporary descriptions that RoboMail assigns and pressing the [Alt-E] edit key, you can assign whatever title you like to the bulletin. RoboMail will maintain this title through subsequent mail imports and you'll have something more comprehensible to look at when viewing the bulletin list. To delete an individual bulletin, bring up the pop-up list of bulletins, highlight the desired line and press the [DELete] key. After clearing the bulletin from its database, RoboMail will ask if you would like to block future importing of the bulletin. If so, answer yes to the question and RoboMail will not import future revisions when they are sent by the mail system. Recent Messages ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ All newly imported mail shows up in the "Recent" column of the _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 22 control panel. This column is the starting point for mail as it travels through your RoboMail system. The number of recent messages is displayed as a fraction, with the total number of recent messages in the denominator and the number of unread recent messages in the numerator. For example, a recent message entry of "113/372" indicates that there are 372 recent messages for the mail system, of which 113 have not yet been read. To read recent messages, highlight the desired cell in the control panel's "Recent" column and press [Enter]. RoboMail will display a pop-up listing of the conferences that contain recent messages. Select a conference from the list and press [Enter] to begin viewing messages. See the "MESSAGE NAVIGATION" section of this guide for further instructions on how to move among the messages in your RoboMail database. Finding the First Unread Recent Message ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To quickly find the first unread message for a mail system, place the control panel selection bar in the recent or personal column and press the auto-pilot (period [.]) key. RoboMail will quickly search through all conferences with recent messages and display the first message it finds that you have not yet seen. Automatic Bookmarks ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ RoboMail maintains an automatic bookmark for each conference with recent messages. If you leave a conference containing recent messages that have not yet been processed, RoboMail will remember the message that you were on and automatically position you on the bookmarked message the next time you enter the conference. This makes it easier to move between conferences on a mail system without fear of loosing your place. These bookmarks are stored between sessions. They are cleared whenever all recent messages in a conference have been processed out, or when you import new messages into the conference, or when you "pack" the RoboMail databases. Personal Messages ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The "Personal" column on the control panel screen displays the number of recent messages on each mail system which are addressed to you. This number represents a sub-set of the messages in the "Recent" message class. In other words, all of your personal messages can also be viewed as part of your recent messages. The personal message column simply provides you with a easy way to view only those recent messages which are addressed to you. Messages to ALL in Personal ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ RoboMail also provides a simple way to force messages within _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 23 specific conferences that are addressed to ALL into your personal messages. To do this, select the "Messages to ALL in Personal" check box on the individual conference configuration screens. The default for this option is always OFF. Please note that because the personal status of a message is determined during the import process, setting this option ON doesn't move messages which are already in your database into the personal message column. Snoop Mode ~~~~~~~~~~ For times when you want to look around through your recent messages without effecting the "read" status of the messages you view, toggle "Snoop Mode" ON by pressing [S] while viewing the control panel or [Alt-N] while viewing messages. You can tell if snoop mode is active by looking at the status information on the bottom row of the message viewing screen. OutBox, Archive and Chron Messages ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To view messages indicated in the OutBox, Archive and Chron columns of the control panel, move the cursor to the row and column of the control panel that corresponds to the messages you would like to view and press [Enter]. RoboMail will display a pop-up listing of the active conferences for the selected system in your selected message class. Highlight the conference that you would like to begin reading and press [Enter] to begin reading the messages. Multi-Part Messages ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ During import, RoboMail may split messages which exceed 32K in length into multiple parts. When it does this, the right side of the subject of the message will contain a number indicating the message number within the split message sequence and the bottom of the message will say "Continued in the next message...". To view the message in its entirety, simply go to the first message in the sequence and press the [V] key. For convenience, the complete message will remain on your disk in a MESSAGE.TXT file after viewing. You can shell to DOS with the [F7] key to access it. This will be very helpful on very long UUENCODED messages, for example. NOTE: Several mail reading utilities are compatible with the message splitting system used by RoboMail. You will be able to use the "V" key to reassemble multi-part messages from any person using one of these products. You can tell when a message was split using this method because a small dot "·" will appear on a line by itself before the line indicating that the message continues. Wide Messages ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 24 Because RoboMail's main message viewing screen does not pan to the right, you need to press the [V] key to view any part of a message that extends beyond the right edge of the screen.When you press the [V] key, RoboMail copies the message to a MESSAGE.TXT file and calls the configured file viewer to read the message. Once in the file viewer, you can use the right arrow key to pan the display to the right and view the previously hidden text. ANSI Art and Music ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ RoboMail fully supports ANSI art and ANSI music. Because RoboMail does not play ANSI music in background mode, ANSI music paced animation is also fully supported. Messages which begin with "[ANSIART]" on the first line of the message will be displayed automatically if you have the "Display ANSI automatically" check box set on the conference or folder settings screen. Messages which begin with "[ANSI50]" will be displayed in VGA 50-Line mode if you have a VGA compatible video adapter installed in your computer Messages which contain "[NONSTOP]" will be displayed without a pause at the bottom of each screen of information. Messages which contain "[NOBLINK]" will display with high-intensity background colors. Note that the [ANSIART] and [ANSI50] character sequences must be the first characters contained in a message to cause their desired effect, but [NONSTOP] and [NOBLINK] may be contained anywhere within the message. ANSI music will only be played if the "Play ANSI music" option is selected on conference or folder settings screen. To view/hear an ANSI message which does not display automatically, press [V] while the message is displayed on your screen. File Attachments ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ RoboMail supports file attachments from BBS systems which use the file attachment system first introduced in Mustang Software's Tomcat mail door. PCBoard 15 style file attachments are also supported. When RoboMail imports mail packets containing file attachments, it moves the attached file into your configured file attachment subdirectory and indicates the attached file with the word ATTACHMENT in the on-screen message header. To examine the file attached to a message, press the file attachment hot key, [F6], while a message with the word ATTACHMENT in its header is being displayed. When you do this, a small "Attchment Options" window showing the name of the attached file as well as some file manipulation commands will be displayed: _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 25 ┌────────────────────┐ │ File: ROBO-PR.TXT │ ├────────────────────┤ │ Copy File │ │ Move File │ │ Delete File │ │ Edit File │ │ List File │ │ View Archive │ │ Attachment Manager │ └────────────────────┘ ■ Select COPY FILE to copy the attachment to another location on your system while still maintaining the original file attachment in RoboMail. ■ Select MOVE FILE to remove the attachment from RoboMail and place it in another location on your system. ■ Select DELETE FILE to permanently remove the file attachment from RoboMail. ■ Select EDIT FILE to load the file into your configured external editor for editing. ■ Select LIST FILE to display the file to the screen using your configured file viewing utility. ■ Select VIEW ARCHIVE to display the contents of a compressed file using your configured archive viewing utility. ■ Select ATTACHMENT MANAGER to look up the current attachment on the attachment manager screen. Using the Attachment Manager ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The attachment manager screen provides an overview of all files that are currently attached to the active messages in your RoboMail system. To access it, press [F6] from the control panel screen, or select "Attachment Manager" from the [F6] attachment options pop-up screen. All of the file viewing and manipulation commands described above are also available here. In addition, you can also make notes about individual file attachments by highlighting the attachment and pressing [Alt-N]. If a file's notes extend beyond the borders of the attachment manager window, use the [+] and [-] keys to scroll the data. The Quit and Resume Bookmark ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Whenever you are reading any message in the system, you always have _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 26 a quick escape hatch to quit to DOS. Just press [Alt-X] and RoboMail will quit to DOS with an auto-resume bookmark. The next time you start the program, RoboMail will ask if you would like to resume your previous reading session. Answer yes if you would like to jump immediately to the message you were viewing when you pressed [Alt-X]. Message Processing ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Once you have read your mail and told RoboMail what you want to do with it, you are ready to finalize the message management cycle. "Processing" is the final step in the message reading process, during which RoboMail examines and acts upon the archive actions you assigned to messages while reading. There are a variety of ways to initiate message processing. The Assisted Reading mode will automatically prompt you about processing when you reach the end of a conference, and the Auto-Pilot can be set up to automatically process the messages in a conference before moving on. In addition, you can always perform a manual process of the current conference by pressing the [F5] key while reading mail, or you can process larger sets of messages by pressing [F5] from the control panel screen. Depending upon the type and scope of messages you choose to process, either of the following actions may occur: o Messages marked with "Discard" status are permanently deleted, and the disk space they consumed is freed up for new incoming messages. Such messages are in the "trash." o Recent messages marked with "Keep" or "Age" archive actions are moved into the Archive message class. The key concept to keep in mind here is that message management in RoboMail is a two step process. Simply assigning archive action does not effect the message until you process it. Only during processing does a message move between the Recent and Archive message classes. For example, if you set the archive option on one or more messages in the Archive message class to Discard status, the message will not be removed until you process the archived messages with the [F5] key. For those of you who are so inclined, the following diagram shows the general flow of messages through RoboMail. If this kind of thing gives you a headache, by all means, feel free to ignore it! _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 27 ╔════════╗ ┌───────────//─────────────╢ B.B.S. ║<─────────────────────────┐ │ ╚════════╝ │ │ │ │ ╔══<Recycling<═════════════<══════════════════╗ │ │ ║ ║ ║ │ │ ║ ╔═════════╗ ║ ╔═══════╗ ║ │ │ ║ ┌─────────>║ ARCHIVE ╠>═╝ ║ ║ ║ │ │ ║ │ ╚════╤════╝ ┌─────>║ TRASH ╠>══╣ │ │ v │ ┌─────────────│─────────────>║ ║ ║ │ │ ╔═════╗ ╔════╧═╧═╗ ╔════╧════╗ │ ┌──>║ ║ ║ │ └─>║ QWK ╟──>║ RECENT ╟──>──>║ OUTBOX ╟─────┤ ╚═══════╝ ║ │ ╚═════╝ ╚═╤══════╝ │ ╚════╤════╝ │ │ ╔═══════╗ ║ │ │ ╔══════╧══╗ │ │ └──>║ CHRON ╠>══╝ │ └─>║ FOLDERS ╟─────│───────┘ ╚═══════╝ │ ╚═════════╝ │ ╔═════╗ │ └──────────>║ REP ╟──────//──┘ ╚═════╝ MESSAGE NAVIGATION ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ RoboMail's main message reading screen allows you a great deal of freedom to choose the way you want to read your mail. A wide variety of commands are available for skipping through the messages, assigning archive actions, jumping to other message classes, sorting, querying, tagging, printing and filing. In fact, there are functions attached to nearly every key on the keyboard. While this flexibility may seem daunting at first, RoboMail accommodates both experts and novices simultaneously by providing several methods for automating nearly all of the common reading functions. In this section, we'll begin our discussion of mail reading with the Assisted and Auto-Pilot reading modes, then examine the other specialized functions in detail. Assisted Reading Mode ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ By far the easiest method for reading recent messages in RoboMail is the assisted reading mode, which is activated by pressing the [Enter] key. Most people will find this the most convenient and efficient way to handle their day-to-day message reading. Here's how the assisted reading mode works: Whenever you are reading recently imported messages and call up the assistant by pressing [Enter], RoboMail will perform the following steps: 1 The conference default archive action will be assigned to the message if it does not already have an action assigned. 2 RoboMail will attempt to move to the next message in the _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 28 current conference. If one is found, it will be displayed. 3 If you have reached the end of the current conference, a menu will be displayed offering you a variety of options: ■ Re-read this conference ■ Move on to the next conference ■ Process recent messages in this conference and move on ■ Process recent messages in this conference and eXit ■ Exit back to the control panel without processing ■ Set an auto-resume bookmark and quit to DOS If you have reached the last recent message for the current mail system, RoboMail will display the following menu: ■ Re-read recent messages from this system ■ Move on to the next system with recent messages ■ Process recent messages on <system> before moving on ■ Process recent messages on <system> and eXit ■ Exit back to the control panel without processing ■ Set an auto-resume bookmark and quit to DOS If you have reached the last available recent message for any system, RoboMail will display the following menu: ■ Re-read recent messages ■ Exit back to the control panel ■ Process <system> messages and eXit to control panel ■ Set an auto-resume bookmark and quit to DOS The assisted reading mode always remembers the option you choose for each of these menus and will use that option as the default each time the menu is displayed. This allows you to further tailor RoboMail's behavior to suit your reading preferences. Starting from the first available recent message on the first system on the control panel and using the default responses to each of the assistant menus will move you systematically though all of your recent messages. When you finally return to the control panel after having read all of your mail, you will find that it has all been processed and moved into the trash or archive as appropriate. _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 29 ╔═════╗ ║ TIP ╟──────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ ╚═══╤═╝ Use the [Enter] key on your numeric keypad to │ │ activate assisted reading mode. If you place the │ │ middle finger of your right hand on the upper part │ │ of the enter key, your index finger will naturally │ │ fall over the [PgDn] key. This will enable you to │ │ quickly page through messages and move to the next │ │ message without having to move your hand all over │ │ the keyboard. │ └────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Overriding Archive Assignment ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ As discussed above, the assisted reading mode always assigns the conference default archiving method to messages as you read them. However, there will frequently be times when you will want to override this. For example, if you want to leave a message in the Recent message class so you can come back to it later. In these cases, press [Ctrl+Enter] to activate the assisted reading mode without marking the currently displayed message with the conference default. If you want to assign a different archive action to the message, just press the [A] (Age), [K] (Keep) or [D] (Discard) key before pressing [Enter] to activate assisted reading mode. RoboMail will not fill in an archive action if one is already assigned. Using the Auto-Pilot ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ RoboMail's auto-pilot, which is activated by pressing the period [.] key while reading messages. is similar to the assisted reading mode, but does not display any pop-up menus at the end of conferences. In addition, the auto-pilot never moves to the next mail system automatically. The auto-pilot's behavior is configurable and is controlled on the "Auto-Pilot & Sounds" configuration screen, where you will find a section with the following options: (*) Move to next unread message ( ) Move to next message (*) Assign conference default archive option ( ) Do not assign an archiving option (*) Move to next conference automatically ( ) Stay in selected conference (*) Process conference message before leaving ( ) Do not process conference messages _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 30 The default values for these options are indicated above. Experienced users may find the auto-pilot to be the most convenient way to quickly handle the recent messages for a specific system. Start by highlighting a cell in the Recent or Personal columns of the control panel and pressing the period key to find the first unread recent message. From there, simply press the period key again whenever you are ready to move to the next message, and RoboMail will automatically handle all the navigation and housekeeping chores for you. ╔═════╗ ║ TIP ╟──────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ ╚═══╤═╝ Auto-pilot users should be aware that the [>] │ │ key duplicates the functionality of the [PgDn] │ │ key. This enables you to rest your right index │ │ finger on the [.] key and work the left shift key │ │ if you want to see the next page of the currently │ │ displayed message. │ └────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Manual Navigation ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ For the times when neither the assisted reading or auto-pilot modes will serve your needs, RoboMail offers a variety of commands for moving among and assigning archive actions to your messages. Moving Forward and Back ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Use the left and right arrow keys when you want to move between messages without assigning an archiving action to the currently displayed message. If you do want to assign the conference default action to the currently displayed message before moving, use the [+] and [-] keys. Note that the default action is only assigned to messages that had no action assigned previously. To jump to the first message in the current conference, use the [Ctrl Home] key. To jump to the last message in the current conference, use the [Ctrl End] key. Finding Unread Messages ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To search for an unread message in the current conference, press the [U] key. Make sure "snoop mode" is off if you want the message to be marked as read after you've read it. To find the first unread message for a system, use the [.] key from the control panel screen. Thread Movement ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The term "message thread" is a bit of arcane terminology inherited from old fashioned online mail systems. It refers to an ongoing conversation on a specific topic among _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 31 individuals in an electronic medium. In RoboMail, all messages within a conference which share the same subject text (character case is not significant) are considered to be part of the same conversation, or thread. Since the default sorting method within a conference is by message subject (the secondary key is message number), all messages which belong to the same thread are grouped together. This makes it easy to follow a specific conversation within a conference. To move between threads within a conference, use the [Ctrl] key with the left and right arrows. [Ctrl ->] will jump to the first message in the next thread and [Ctrl <-] will move to the first message in the previous thread. You can also assign the conference default archive action to all the unassigned members of a thread before moving on. To do this, press [*] to assign the default action and move to the beginning of the next thread, or [/] to assign the default action and move to the beginning of the previous thread. RoboMail also provides a way to quickly skip the current thread and simultaneously mark it for Discarding. To do this, press the [Del] key. When you do, all messages in the current thread which do not have an action assigned will get "Discard" status and RoboMail will jump to the beginning of the next thread. This command is very useful when previously meaningful threads degenerate into idle chit-chat or when you are no longer interested in the topic. Just one press of the [Del] key assures that the meaningless messages will not become a permanent part of your message database. Moving Between Conferences ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ RoboMail allows you to move between the various conferences on a system without returning to the control panel. Use the [Tab] key whenever you want to immediately jump to the next conference and [Shift Tab] whenever you want to jump to the previous conference. You can also select from a list of available conference by pressing the "conference directory" [F9] key while viewing messages. Processing Before Moving ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ When you are reading Recent messages, you will usually want to "Process" the messages in the conference that have archive actions assigned to them before you move on to the next conference. To do this, use the "process messages" key, [F5]. Whenever you press this key, RoboMail will search the current conference for messages which have archive actions assigned and will move them into the trash or archive, as appropriate. After this process is completed, you will automatically be moved on to the next available conference. If no more conferences are available, RoboMail will be return to the _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 32 control panel. Note that if you are using the [Enter] (assisted reading) or [.] (auto-pilot) keys to read mail you do not need to use [F5] to process messages. When using these keys, the archiving process will be done for you automatically before you move to the next conference. Manual Archive Action Assignment ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In instances where you don't want to rely on a default archive action for a conference, you can select "None" as the default action for the conference. (Use the [F2] conference settings screen to do this) When you do this, RoboMail will not automatically assign an archive action when you use the [Enter], [.], [+], [-], [*], or [/] keys. To move through the Recent messages in such a conference, you will probably find it very useful to use the manual assignment [a], [k] and [d] keys. These lowercase keys override whatever action may be currently assigned to a message with "A"ge, "K"eep or "D"iscard status, before moving to the next message in the conference. To manually assign an archive action to the current message without moving to the next message, use the uppercase [A], [K] and [D] keys. because of the dual purpose of these keys, you will probably want to keep your [Caps Lock] key toggled OFF while in RoboMail. Looking Up Threads in Other Message Classes ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ During the normal course of your use of RoboMail, you will spend the vast majority of your time reading "recent" messages. While you are doing this, all of the mail you have archived during previous reading sessions is available to you with just one keystroke. Whenever you are reading recent mail and you want to know what was going on in the current thread in the past, you can press [Alt-A] to look up the current thread in your message archive. If you have assigned Age or Keep status to previous messages in this thread, RoboMail will immediately jump to the first matching message. If no messages matching the current thread are available, RoboMail will attempt to go to the first archive message in the same conference. If the same conference is not available, RoboMail will look for any archive message from the same system. Once in the archive, you can browse through the messages there in whatever manner you like, without fear that you will "loose your place" in the recent messages. When you are done examining the archive, pressing [Alt-R] will immediately return you to the Recent message you were on before you jumped into the archive. This segregation of messages allows you to quickly refer back to previous portions of a thread without cluttering up your recently _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 33 imported messages with archival data. Similar functionality is available for the OutBox and Chron message classes. These two classes hold messages you have created with RoboMail. The OutBox contains messages which have not yet been exported to a reply packet, and the Chron contains messages which have been previously exported. To look up your replies or contributions to a thread in the OutBox, press [Alt-O]. To perform the lookup in the Chron, press [Alt-C]. When you are jumping to the OutBox or Chron, RoboMail will use the reference numbers in the message header to try and find the exact message referred to. When you are ready to return to your place in Recent messages, press [Alt-R]. Although the previous discussion implies that you can look up threads in other classes only when reading Recent messages, that is not the case. [Alt-A], [Alt-O], [Alt-C] and [Alt-R], can always be used to look up the currently displayed thread in the target message class. For example, RoboMail will have no problem looking into the Chron message class from the Archive. Viewing the Message Index ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To see an overview of all messages in the current conference, press the [Ins] key while reading messages. RoboMail will present a scrolling index displaying selected data from all the messages in the conference. Use the arrow keys to move through the list. Additional columns of data are available off the right side of the screen, so use the right arrow key to scroll over to them if you want to see them. The "Flags" column on the message index display can contain a variety of characters, depending upon the status and class of the messages being displayed. The possible flag characters are: Symbol Meaning ------- ------------------------------------------------- A The message archive option is Age K The message archive option is Keep D The message archive option is Discard ₧ The message is private r You have replied to this message c OutBox message will be copied to chron H OutBox message has Hold status 1..9 Message is included in a tag group A bulk process marked the message as read ≡ The message has appeared on your viewing screen See the online help screen for a summary of the keystroke commands that are available while viewing the message index screen. _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 34 Sorting Conference or Folder Messages ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Whenever you enter a conference or folder, RoboMail always displays the messages in its default order, sorted by message subject and number. If you would like to change the order that the messages are displayed in, simply press [S]. RoboMail will display a pop-up menu of available sort options. Select the order you want and the messages within the conference will be quickly re-sorted to your newly specified order. Note that this is a temporary sort, which remains in effect only as long as you stay in the conference. Performing a query or moving out of the conference or folder for any reason will cancel the special sort. Numeric Keypad Navigation Summary ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ RoboMail main navigation keys were chosen to make the majority of navigation and reading chores accessible from the numeric keypad. The summary diagram below should be helpful by giving you an overview of the general layout of the commands. Make sure your [Num Lock] key is toggled OFF to access these commands: Previous thread ─┐ ┌───────── Next thread Mark with default│ │ Mark with default ┌──╖┌┴─╖┌┴─╖┌──╖ │ ║│/ ║│* ║│- ║<── Previous message ╘══╝╘══╝╘══╝╘══╝ Mark with default ┌──╖┌──╖┌──╖┌──╖ +Ctrl ─────>│H ║│U ║│PU║│ ║ last msg ╘══╝╘══╝╘══╝│+ ║<── Next message ┌──╖┌──╖┌──╖│ ║ Mark with default Previous ──>│<-║│ ║│->║╘══╝ message ╘══╝╘══╝╘══╝<────── Next message ┌──╖┌──╖┌──╖┌──╖ +Ctrl ─────>│E ║│D ║│PD║│E ║ 1st message ╘══╝╘══╝╘══╝│nt║<── Assisted Reading Mode ┌─────╖┌───╖│ e║ (+Ctrl for no mark) Message ───>│ Ins ║│Del║│ r║ Index ╘═════╝╘╤══╝╘══╝ └────────── Next thread Mark with discard Also, don't forget that RoboMail uses the numbers 1-9 for "tagging" messages and 0 for clearing tags, so you can access these functions from the numeric keypad as well by holding down the shift key. _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 35 Function Key Command Summary ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ RoboMail's usage of function keys is consistent throughout the program. The following table summarizes their functions: Key Function Where ────────── ────────────────── ─────────────────────────────────── F1 Help Everywhere - context sensitive F2 Configuration Everywhere - context sensitive F3 Address Book Control Panel, Messages, Addressing F4 Bulk Mark Control Panel, Messages Shift-F4 Bulk Discard Control Panel, Messages F5 Processing Control Panel, Messages F6 Attachments Control Panel, Messages F7 DOS Shell Everywhere F8 Conference Mgmt. Control Panel, Messages F9 Conference List Control Panel, Messages F10 Pick List Many data entry fields Tagline Mgmt. Control Panel, Messages Tagging Messages and Writing Text Files ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ RoboMail allows you to write one or more messages out to text files. To send only the currently displayed message to a text file, press the [T] key while viewing messages and select "Current Message Only" from the pop-up menu that is displayed. RoboMail will prompt you for the file name that you want to append the current message's data to. To send multiple messages out to the same text file in one step, you need to "tag" the desired messages. RoboMail provides a great deal of flexibility in the way it allows you to tag messages because it provides 9 separate "tag groups." To assign a message to a tag group, display the message on screen and press any number between [1] and [9] on your keyboard. The "Tag" indicator in the message's header will be filled in with the number you pressed, indicating the tag group that the message belongs to. Tag groups can contain messages from any message class, system or folder in your database. Tagged messages remain as a member of their tag group until their tag is cleared. You can clear the tag from an individual message by displaying the message and pressing [0]. Bulk Tagging and Untagging ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To tag all the messages in the current thread, conference or system, press [Ctrl-T] and select an option from the pop-up menu. Note that only messages in the current message class (Recent, Archive, Chron, OutBox) are tagged. To remove all tags from messages that are of a specific message _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 36 class, press [Ctrl-U] while viewing messages, followed by a number from 1 to 9, indicating the tag group that you want cleared. To write all members of a tag group out to a text file, press [T] while viewing messages. RoboMail will display a menu of the currently defined tag groups and prompt you for the name of the file that you want to append to. Press [F10] for a pop-up directory, or type a file name and press [Enter] to begin the writing process. RoboMail will ask if you want to clear the tags from messages as they are written to disk. Printing Messages ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ RoboMail allows you to send the currently displayed message out to your printer. To begin the printing process, press the [P] key. CREATING OUTGOING MESSAGES ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ This section describes the various ways that you can create outgoing messages in RoboMail. As discussed previously, all outgoing messages are stored in RoboMail's OutBox message class. For details on exporting the messages to a reply packet, see the section of the documentation entitled "Exporting OutBox Messages." Composing a Message ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To compose a new outgoing message, press the [C] key. If you are currently reading messages in a conference when you press [C], RoboMail will immediately go into your defined editor (internal or external) and allow you to compose the text of your outgoing message. To compose a new outgoing message from the control panel, place the highlight bar on the row of the target system and press the [C] key. RoboMail will present a listing of all the conferences that are available on the system. To find your desired conference, move the highlight bar to either the conference number or conference name column. When you do, the listing will be instantly resorted by the contents of the current column. If you have the listing sorted by conference number, type in the number of the desired conference number and press [Enter]. If the listing is sorted by conference name, begin typing the name you are looking for. RoboMail will begin narrowing the available choices to match what you have typed so far. When the display is sufficiently narrowed, highlight the desired conference name and press [Enter]. Next, edit and save the outgoing message text. After saving your text, RoboMail will present the message addressing dialog box, with the current system and conference used _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 37 as the defaults. See the "Addressing Messages" section below for details on saving the completed message. Replying to a Message ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ You can reply to any message in RoboMail by pressing [R]. This includes messages which you have placed in a folder. Regardless of where a message may be in the system, RoboMail always knows the origin system and conference of all the messages it stores. When you press [R] to create a reply, RoboMail places the complete text of the message you are replying to in another window of your editor. If you are using the internal editor, you can use the "Next" command [Alt-N] to view or edit the original message text. Traditionally, this original.txt message has been used to "quote" back part of the original message to its sender. RoboMail also provides a much simpler method for quoting the original message with its [SpaceBar] tagging method. To reply to the recipient of a message, rather than the sender, use [Alt-T] to start the reply process instead of [R]. Automatic Quoting ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ RoboMail can help take a lot of the drudgery out of creating quoted replies with it's unique [SpaceBar] tagging system. While you are reading messages in RoboMail, you will notice that there is a highlight bar available, which scrolls through the text of message you are currently reading. (If it's not currently visible, toggle out of "browse mode" by pressing the [Scroll Lock] key.) To use RoboMail's automatic quoting capability, simply use the [SpaceBar] key to tag all the lines that you would like to quote into the reply. When you press [R] to create the reply, RoboMail will automatically quote the tagged original text into your outgoing reply. You can modify the style of the quoted reply text on the "Message Settings" configuration screen. _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 38 Forwarding Messages ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To forward all of the message you are currently viewing to another user, press [Alt-F]. RoboMail will make a copy of the message and display the Message Addressing dialog box to allow you to input the desired address. While preparing the forwarded message text, RoboMail will look for the file FORWARD.FRM in its home directory. If the file is found, RoboMail will merge the contents of the file at the top of the forwarded message. The default forwarding header file looks like this: █▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀█ Original From: {FROM} █ FORWARDED █ To: {TO} █ MESSAGE █ Date/Number: {DATE} - {NUMBER} █▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄█ On: {SYSTEM} - {CONF} -------------------------------------------------------- Before inserting the header in the outgoing message, RoboMail will translate the fields shown above in curly braces with the appropriate information. You may edit the FORWARD.FRM file to suit your requirements. If you need to edit the forwarded text before sending it to the OutBox, you can press the "Re-Edit" button on the message addressing dialog box. Addressing Messages ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Before saving an outgoing message to the OutBox, RoboMail always presents the message addressing dialog box, which allows you to modify the message's header information as well as several message-specific switches. Fill in the BBS and CONFERENCE fields with the appropriate destination for the outgoing message. Both fields offer pop-up lists via the [F10] key. Fill in the TO field with the name of the person that you want to receive the message. Press [F10] or [F3] to access your RoboMail address book if you want to pull in a name from there. The default value for the FROM field is your login name on the mail system. If you have an alias name defined on the conference specific setup screen, then RoboMail will use that alias name for the default. Use caution when modifying this field. For security reasons, most mail system will not allow you to post messages using anything other than you real name or a Sysop-approved alias name. If the name you use in this field is not recognized as valid, the mail system will reject the message. The RE field should contain the subject for the message. If the outgoing message is a reply, then RoboMail will copy the subject _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 39 from the message you are replying to. If the "Mixed Case Subjects Allowed" check box on the Mail System Settings screen has been selected, then RoboMail will allow you to enter lower case letters as part of the subject. If you have automatic tagline selection enabled on the "Message Setup" configuration screen, RoboMail will have already selected a tagline file from your primary or conference specific alternate file for you. To change it, place the cursor in the TAG field and edit the tagline or and press [F10] to select from the pop-up Tagline Manager screen. Choose PUBLIC or PRIVATE security for the message by selecting from one of the Security radio buttons. Select the COPY TO CHRON FILE check box if you want to have this outgoing message copied to your chron file during the reply exporting process. The default for this option is controlled on the "Conference Settings" screen. Select the DISABLE HIGH ASCII (FIDO) option if you want to translate all characters above ASCII 127 in the outgoing message to an asterisk. The default for this option is controlled on the "Conference Settings" screen. If the mail system you are sending the message to supports the capability, select the RECEIPT REQUESTED check box to request a receipt. Depending on the conference, either a PostLink or RRR format receipt will be selected automatically. If both receipt types are available, the PostLink format will take precedence. To send the outgoing message to specific mail systems, select the ROUTED field and fill in the appropriate routing information in the field. If you are replying in a PostLink or Internet conference or are using an entry from the Address Book, RoboMail may have already supplied the appropriate routing address for you. If the destination mail system supports file attachments, you can specify an attachment in the ATTACHMENT field. For a pop-up directory of files, press [F10]. When you save the message, the specified file will copied immediately into RoboMail's \HOLD directory. To save the outgoing message and any copies to your OutBox, select the SAVE button, or press the [Ctrl <─┘] "Save and Continue" hot key from anywhere on the message addressing screen. To edit the outgoing text again, select the RE-EDIT button. To abort the message creation/editing process and return to the previous screen, select the CANCEL button, or press the [Esc] key. _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 40 Accessing the Address Book ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Whenever the message addressing screen is displayed, you can always access your RoboMail Address Book by pressing the address book pop-up [F3] key. When you select a name, RoboMail will return to the addressing screen and fill in the TO, BBS, CONF and ROUTING information from the address book entry. Cross-Posting ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ When addressing messages, keep the fact that RoboMail places no limits on the destination of your reply in mind. One of the major benefits of RoboMail's database orientation is that you can easily "Cross post" messages between mail systems and conferences. Simply modify the BBS and CONF fields to match your desires and let RoboMail do the rest. Sending Copies ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To send copies of a message to other people, select the COPIES button on the Message Addressing screen. When you do, RoboMail will display its Distribution List screen. Press [Ins] to add names to the list manually, or press [F3] to pick names from your address book. RoboMail will allow up to 4095 names on a distribution list. Press [Del] to remove a name from the list and [Alt-E] to edit an existing entry on the list. The distribution list "notation" field controls the type of notations that will be made in the copied and original message to indicate the copies that were created. RoboMail supports the following notation types for copied messages: COPY - Press [C] to set this notation type. The COPY.FRM file will be merged and inserted at the top of the copied message text and the recipient of the copy will be listed in the "cc:" list at the bottom of the message. The default COPY.FRM header file looks like this: █▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀█ Original To: {TO} █ CARBON █ was By: {FROM} █ COPY █ posted: On: {SYSTEM} █▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄█ Conf: {CONF} ------------------------------------------------ You may edit this file if you like. The fields shown above in curly braces are merged with the appropriate data as the header is inserted into the copy. BLIND - Press [B] to set this notation type. This notation type also merges the COPY.FRM file at the top of the copied message, but the copy recipient will not be listed in the _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 41 "cc:" list at the bottom of the message. NONE - Press [N] to set this notation type. When you do this, the message will be copied verbatim to the copy recipient and the copy recipient will not be listed in the "cc:" list. With this type of notation, the recipient of the copied message will have no indication that the original of the message was not addressed to him or her. To set the security on the copied message, press [P] to toggle the copy between "Public" and "Private" status. If the copy is private, "Priv" will appear in the notation column of the distribution list. If you plan to use the distribution list again in the future, you can save it to a file by pressing [S]. Then, type in a file name and extension (".DL" is recommended) to save the file. Once your distribution list is complete, press [Ctrl<─┘] to return to the message addressing screen. To restore a saved distribution list, enter the distribution list screen and press [L]. Then, type in the desired file name or press [F10] for a pop-up directory of *.DL. When adding names to a distribution list via the address book, you can tag entries with the [*] key. When you press [Ctrl <─┘] to leave the address book screen, all tagged entries will be moved copied to your distribution list. Re-Editing an Outgoing Message ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Once a message has been saved to RoboMail's OutBox message class, you can still revise it by displaying the message on the screen and pressing the [E] or [R] keys. When you do this, RoboMail will place the outgoing text in the editor for modification. In addition, if the outgoing message is a reply, RoboMail will look through its message database and attempt to set up the original message in the other edit buffer (which you can access with [Alt-N] in the internal editor.) Re-Addressing an Outgoing Message ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To edit just the address of an OutBox message, display the message on screen and press [Alt-E]. Re-Sending a Chron Message ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ RoboMail allows you to quickly re-send any previously exported message that you have copied to your chron file. To re-send a message from your chron file, display the desired message on screen and then press [O] to copy the message into your OutBox. _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 42 Placing Outgoing Messages on Hold ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If you decide that an OutBox message should not be exported during your next message exporting process, you can place a hold on the message by displaying the message on screen and pressing [H]. When you do this, the "Hold" check box on the upper right portion of the message header display will be filled in, indicating that the message will not be exported. Messages placed on hold will remain in your OutBox indefinitely, until you explicitly toggle off the hold by pressing [H] again, or by pressing [D] to discard the message. Discarding Outgoing Messages ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To discard an OutBox message that you've decided should not be sent, display the message on screen and press the [D] key to assign discard status to the message. When you do this, the "Discard" check box in the message header will be filled in. this indicates that the message will be cleared from the outbox during the next message export process. This gives you a chance to change your mind about a deletion. Just press [D] again to toggle off discard status if you decide you really do want to send the message. Notes on Message Splitting ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Mail System Settings screen for each mail system contains a "Split replies at XX lines." configuration option. the default is 90 lines. If this option is selected, RoboMail will split outgoing messages which exceed the indicated length into separate messages during the export process. Do not be concerned that long messages appear as one single message while they are in your outbox. This is a convenience for you, so that you can re-edit or re-address the message as necessary. If you use RoboMail's internal editor, a "M:" indicator appears in the editor's status line to indicate the message number of the current cursor position. USING ROBOMAIL'S EDITOR ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ RoboMail's internal editor is a full featured and tailored specifically to the task of creating electronic messages. In addition to editing the original and outgoing messages, you can also open, edit, close and save standard text files. When you first begin using the internal editor, a large box containing many of the editor common command keys is displayed using the bottom four lines of the editor screen. When you no longer need this help, you can toggle the hint display off by pressing [Alt-H]. The following _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 43 tables describe the standard command keys that are available in RoboMail's internal editor: Navigation Commands ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Home Move cursor to start of line End Move cursor to end of line Up/Down Move cursor up or down one row Left/Right Move cursor left/right Ctrl-Right Move cursor to next word Ctrl-Left Move cursor to previous word Ctrl-PgUp Move cursor to top of file Ctrl-PgDn Move cursor to bottom of file Tab/Sh-Tab Move to next/previous tab stop Text Editing Commands ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Del Delete character at cursor Ctrl-Backspace Delete word left Ins Toggle Insert/Overwrite mode Alt-D Delete current line Alt-T Delete to end of line Alt-Z Delete to end of file Ctrl-Enter Re-format current paragraph Block Management Commands ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Alt-M Toggle block marking mode on/off Alt-L Toggle line marking mode on/off Alt-P Mark to end of paragraph Alt-U Turn off (Unmark) current block [+] Copy marked block to buffer [-] Cut marked block to buffer Del Delete marked block Alt-Q Quote marked block to outgoing Alt-I Insert (paste) buffer contents File Management Commands ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Alt-E Edit another file Alt-N Move to next file/message Alt-F Import a text file Alt-W Write (save) file to disk Alt-X Save outgoing message and exit Alt-C Close the current file's editing window Esc Exit without saving message _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 44 Other Commands ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ F2 Editor Settings Menu Alt-S Spell check current message Alt-G Edit quick-merge assignments Alt-J Toggle right justification Alt-A Toggle automatic formatting Alt-H Toggle hint display Shift F1-F10 Execute quick-merge Indenting Paragraphs ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ RoboMail's editor allows you to indent paragraphs by establishing a temporary right margin while you are editing the current document. To do this, place the cursor at the position in a paragraph that you want to indent and press [Alt-P]. Once the paragraph is marked, you can use the left and right arrow keys, as well as the [Tab] and [Shift Tab] keys to set the temporary right margin. When you have the margin set the way you want, press [Alt-U] or [Ctrl Enter] to end the paragraph marking mode. After the right margin has been set, all newly entered text will be formatted within the margins. To reformat text that was entered previously, use the [Ctrl Enter] reformatting key. Note that your right margin setting is not saved between editing sessions. Tips on Quoting ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The easiest way to quote portions of a message into your reply is to use the [SpaceBar] to tag the lines of a message that you want to quote while you are reading the message. When you press the [R]eply key, all groups of consecutive lines that you tag will be bundled together as quotes in your new outgoing reply, formatted according to the "Quoting Style" option you specified on the "Message Setup" configuration screen. (Note that the [Scroll Lock] key must be toggled OFF for the highlight bar to be visible) However, there will be some instances when the space bar tagging methods won't do the exact job you want. For example, you might want to quote a single sentence in the middle of a long paragraph or you might want to retain the format (spacing) of the quoted material in your reply. To perform custom quoting using the internal editor, make sure that the cursor is positioned in the outgoing message at the position that you want the quoted text to be inserted, and then press [Alt-N] to switch to the message you are replying to. Next, position the cursor at the beginning of the text that you would like to quote and decide on the quoting style (formatted or _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 45 unformatted) that you need. Press [Alt-M] to start marking text in word-processing mode if you want to reformat or [Alt-L] to start line marking mode if you want to maintain the current formatting. Once all of the text you want to quote has been marked, press [Alt-Q] and RoboMail will quote the marked text back into your outgoing message and position the cursor right under the newly quoted text. Using Quick-Merge Files ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ RoboMail's internal editor has the ability to quickly insert the contents of up to 10 text files with a single keystroke. Select "Specify Quick-Marge Files" from the [F2] pop-up configuration menu to access the screen where you define these files. All of the quick-merge files must reside in the RoboMail home directory. Simply fill in a file name (or press [F10] for a pop-up list) next to the function key which you wish to assign. When you are in the internal editor, simply hold down either [Shift] key and press the desired function key to instantly insert the contents of the defined file at the cursor location. You can use these files for any text which you commonly insert into outgoing messages, such as signatures or network mail addresses. Merge Macros ~~~~~~~~~~~~ When creating outgoing messages with either the internal or an external editor, you can imbed the following tokens into your text and RoboMail will substitute the appropriate information while it is reading the message text from disk: Current Date: {DATE} Current Time: {TIME} Day of Week: {DOW} Conf #: {CONFNUM} Conf Name: {CONFNAME} BBS ID: {BBSID} BBS Name: {BBSNAME} Original to: {TO} \ Original from: {FROM} \ Original Date: {MSGDATE} -- Use only when creating Original Time: {MSGTIME} / a reply Subject: {SUBJECT} / Setting the Right Margin ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ RoboMail's default right margin in 72, which provides a message _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 46 width of 72 characters. If you want to change this for future editing sessions, press [F2] while you are in the editor and select the "Editor Settings" option. Control Characters in Messages ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ RoboMail's internal editor does not support editing text files or messages which contain ASCII characters below 32. These "control characters" are used internally by the editor to maintain its internal formatting information. If you attempt to edit a file containing control characters, you may see strange results on your screen. If you frequently need to edit messages containing control characters, you may want to configure RoboMail to use an external editor by default. If you only need to do this occasionally, you might prefer to momentarily change your RoboMail configuration by hitting [F2] only when you need to edit messages with control characters. NOTE: RoboMail's tagline management system is separate from the internal editor. Taglines may contain any ASCII character between 1 and 255. NOTE: Many message networks do not support messages containing control characters. Please make sure that your mail system supports this type of message before uploading packets containing messages with control characters. USING ROBOMAIL'S SPELL CHECKER ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ To check the spelling in an outgoing message, notepad or any other file, press [Alt-S] while editing the text. When you do this, RoboMail will begin checking at the beginning of the current cursor line of the document, skipping over any lines which contain text quoted from another message. Upon reaching the end of the file, RoboMail's spell checker will loop back to the beginning of the document and continue checking until reaching the original cursor position. If you are using an external editor and have checked the "Use Internal Speller After External Edit" on the "Message Settings" configuration screen, RoboMail will call its spell checker after returning from your editor and will begin checking the outgoing message from the beginning of the outgoing message, skipping over any lines containing quoted text. When a questioned word is found, RoboMail's speller will highlight the word and begin displaying suggested spellings in its lower window. If you spot the correct spelling in this window, simply press the letter next to the word you want to use and RoboMail will replace the questioned word with the correct spelling and continue on with the check. You do not need to wait for RoboMail to fill up the window with _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 47 suggestions before selecting the replacement word. Usually, RoboMail will find the correct spelling on its first or second guess. If you don't want to use one of the displayed alternate spellings, select one of the following options: Press [1] to skip the word one time only. Press [2] to skip this word wherever it occurs in the message Press [3] to add this word to your personal dictionary. Once added, it will be used in all future spelling checks. Press [4] to edit the word to correct the spelling manually. Press [Esc] to cancel the spelling check. using this option does not "undo" any changes which have been made. Editing Your Personal Dictionary ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Select "Edit Your Personal Dictionary" from the [F2] pop-up configuration menu for editor/speller setup to display a listing of all the words you have added to your personal dictionary. To find the word you want to modify, simply begin typing it. RoboMail will automatically narrow the displayed set of words so that the displayed list always matches what you have typed so far. When the word you want is highlighted, press [Alt-E] to edit the word or [Del] to delete it. USING MESSAGE FOLDERS ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ RoboMail allows you to create and maintain an unlimited number of "folders," each of which can contain an unlimited number of messages. You can use these folders any time you want to group messages dealing with a specific topic or circumstances together in a common area. RoboMail displays a list of all the folders you have created in the lower left corner of its control panel display. The list is sorted alphabetically and also shows the current number of messages contained within the folder. Copying Messages to Folders ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To copy the currently displayed message to a folder, press [F]. When you do this, RoboMail will pop-up a searchable listing of all the folders you have currently defined. To search for a folder, simply begin typing the name of the desired folder. To create a new folder, press [Ins] and enter the name of the new folder. To edit the name of an existing folder, highlight the desired folder and press [Alt-E]. _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 48 Deleting Folders ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To permanently delete a folder and all messages within it, highlight the folder name on the control panel and press [Del]. After confirmation, the folder will be removed. Folder Message Management ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Message management inside of a RoboMail folder is similar to standard message management, except that RoboMail does not allow the "Age" archive action within a folder. The process for deleting individual messages in folders is identical to deleting message from archives. Simply set the archive action to "Discard" and the process the folder with [F5] to remove all messages marked for discarding. Replying to Folder Messages ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ You may still reply to a folder message just like any other message in your RoboMail database. Even though the system id for the message has been changed to FOLDER__ and the conference number is now a unique number assigned to the folder, RoboMail always remembers the origin system ID and conference of a message. When you address your reply, the correct information will be posted in the Message Addressing dialog box. USING ROBOMAIL'S ADDRESS BOOK ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ RoboMail's Address Book provides an easy means for accessing and keeping track of frequently used or important mail addresses. To access the address book, press the address book hot key, [F3] while viewing the control panel, message or message address screens. If you are currently viewing a message on screen when you press [F3], RoboMail will ask if you would like to add the sender or recipient of the current message to the address book. To search for a name, simply begin typing the name. RoboMail will narrow the display to show only matching records as you type. To add names to the address book, press the [Ins] key and fill in the appropriate name, system, conference and routing information. Pop-up lists are available for the system and conference fields by pressing [F10] while the cursor is in the field. To delete an entry, highlight it and press the [DELete] key. To edit an existing entry, highlight it and press [Alt-E]. To make notes about an address book entry, press [Alt-N]. If the notes you've created extend beyond the boundaries of the Address Book window, _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 49 use the [+] and [-] keys to scroll the data. When adding names to a distribution list via the address book, you can tag entries with the [*] key. When you press [Ctrl <─┘] to leave the screen, all tagged entries will be moved copied to your distribution list. SEARCHING YOUR MESSAGE DATABASE ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ One of RoboMail's most valuable features is its ability to perform very fast, multi-keyword searches across a single conference or your entire message database. The search conditions you create can contain boolean logic, as well as wildcard characters. Global Searches ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To perform a search across your entire message database press [Q] while the control panel screen is displayed. RoboMail will present its "Quick Scan" data entry screen, which allows you to fill in a search expression for the message text as well as the message header. A radio button between the two fields allows you to apply AND or OR logic to searches which include information in both fields. You must enter a search string in one of the fields provided. If you enter a string in both fields, make sure that you select the logic type that is appropriate for your query. For example, if you wanted to find all messages about RoboMail, regardless of whether RoboMail was mentioned in the message header or message text, you would enter ROBOMAIL in both fields and select OR logic. On the other hand, if you wanted to find all messages about RoboMail to or from Joe Blow, you would enter ROBOMAIL in the message text field, select OR logic, and enter ("ROBOMAIL" | "JOE BLOW") in the Message Header field. See the "Creating Search Expressions" section below for full details on the syntax of RoboMail's search expressions. Conference and Folder Searches ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ While you are reading messages, you can easily perform a search on just the messages contained in the current conference or folder. To do this, press [Q] while you are reading messages. RoboMail will present a dialog box which allows you to input a search expression and define the areas of the message to search. When you have the search defined as you want, press [Ctrl-Enter] or the "Start" button to begin the search. When the search process is completed, RoboMail will display only those messages that match the search criteria. In addition, any line of a message which satisfies your defined search expression will be highlighted. To cancel the query and return to viewing all messages in the _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 50 conference, press [Q] again. Creating Search Expressions ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The easiest way to input a search expression in RoboMail is to simply type the exact text you would like to search for in the fields provided and press [Enter]. When you do this, RoboMail will search for an exact match (including any imbedded spaces) in the target text. For more complex searches, you can include wildcards and/or boolean logic in the search string. Wildcard Searches ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Wildcards in search strings work the same way that they do in DOS file names. The question mark "?" character is used to represent any single ASCII character and the asterisk "*" character can be used to match any series of characters. The following examples demonstrate the use of wildcards in search expressions: You Enter RoboMail Would Match --------------- --------------------------------------- ROBO?AIL RoboMail, ROBOJAIL, robobail ROBO*AIL Can robots be taught to sail? Boolean Logic ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ For even more searching power, RoboMail allows you to specify multiple search keys with a single string and control how they related to each other with boolean logic. RoboMail supports the following boolean operators: Operator Purpose -------- --------------------------------------- & Specifies "and" logic (ampersand) | Specifies "or" logic (pipe character) ! Specifies "negation" ( ) Used to specify logic precedence When using boolean logic, you must surround all of your search keywords with double quotes (the " character). For example, to search for messages which contain references to motorized vehicles which are not motor cycles, you could specify: (("MOTOR" & "VEHICLE") | "CAR" ) & (! "CYCLE") Translating this search string to English yields: _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 51 "Find all messages containing the terms MOTOR and VEHICLE or containing the term CAR but not containing the term CYCLE." Here's an even more complex example which also shows that wildcards can be combined with boolean logic during searches: "ROBO*" & ("MEMORY" | "?MS " | "INSTALL") & ("OS/2" | "WINDOW") This expression would be useful for locating messages about configuring memory when setting up RoboMail or Robocomm under Windows or OS/2. RoboMail search strings are never case sensitive and can be up to 100 characters in length. RoboMail will give an error message if you attempt to input an invalid search string. Saving and Restoring Search Expressions ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Whenever RoboMail is prompting you for a query condition, you can press [F10] to access the Query Manager pop-up screen. This screen allows you to maintain a list of search expressions that you will use frequently. Simply press [Ins] to add a new expression, [Alt-E] to edit an expression and [Del] to delete an expression. to access a saved expression when you are performing a query, press [F10] at the search expression prompt, highlight the desired item from the pop-up list and press [Enter] to select it. OFFLINE CONFERENCE MANAGEMENT ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ RoboMail's conference management screen offers a convenient interface for communicating with the mail service to specify the conferences to be included in your mail packet. To access the screen, press [F8] while reading messages, or highlight a mail system in the System window of the control panel and press [F8] or select "Conference Management" from the [/] pop-up main menu. The conference management screen is divided up into four windows. The large window on the left side of the screen contains a list of all available conferences on the BBS. If RoboMail has seen mail in the conference before and you have not issued a drop request for the conference recently, then SEL will appear next to the conference name and the entire line will be displayed in a different color to let you know that the conference is already selected for scanning on the mail system. The right side of the screen is made up of three windows which hold the pending Add, Drop and Reset configuration requests which have not yet been exported to an outgoing mail REPly packet. To move the cursor between windows, use the [Tab] and [Sh-Tab] keys. _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 52 ■ To search for a conference name, place the cursor in the conference names window and begin typing the conference name to look for. ■ To join or add a new conference on the mail system, highlight the name of the conference to add and press [Alt-A]. ■ To abandon or drop a selected conference, highlight the name of the conference to drop and press [Alt-D]. ■ To reset the last message read in a conference, highlight the conference name and press [Alt-R] to reset the conference's last read pointer. ■ To delete a configuration request, highlight the configuration request to remove and press the Delete key. RoboMail will let you know whenever you have "pending" conference configuration requests which have not yet been exported to an outgoing package by placing a "C" in the system's OutBox on the Control Panel. NOTE: Some mail services only send information about the conferences that you currently have selected for reading, and others can be configured to do this. Since RoboMail supports up to 9,999 conferences it can support, you should configure the mail service to include information about all available conferences in your mail packet if it is at all possible to do so. This will enable you to take advantage of RoboMail's advanced conference management capabilities Quick Conference Drop ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ RoboMail provides a shortcut key when you want to quickly drop the conference you are currently reading. To do this, press [Alt-D] while reading messages and RoboMail will automatically create a conference drop request. Setting Pointers ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Whenever you create a "Reset Conference" configuration request, RoboMail will open up a window to ask you to specify the new message pointer. Depending upon the mail system you are dealing with, a variety of options are available. Some mail systems require that you do not enter anything into the reset request option. Doing this will set your last message read pointer to the last available message in the conference. Other systems will allow or require you to specify a specific message number to reset the pointer. Still other systems will allow you to specify a negative number, which means "send me the last xxx messages in the conference." _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 53 Check with your mail system operator to see which capabilities are available to you. ALL ABOUT TAGLINES ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ RoboMail provides a wide variety of features to feed the habits of the tagline addicted. Taglines may be up to 60 characters in length and are maintained in standard DBF format files (although the file gets a RTF extension). There is no practical limit to the number of taglines that RoboMail can manage. Specify the default tagline file on RoboMail's "Message Settings" configuration screen. This is the file that will be used for tagline selection on all conferences which do not have a customized tagline file specified. To access the "Tagline Manager" for general tagline file management, press [F10] from the control panel screen. At the tagline file prompt, press [Enter] to access the default tagline file, or press [F10] again for a pop-up list of existing tagline files. To create a new tagline file, enter a new name at the tagline file name prompt. Importing and Exporting Tagline Files ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Once the Tagline Manager screen is displayed, press [Alt-I] to import the contents of a standard ASCII tagline file. the file should be formatted with one tagline per line. Any tagline longer than 60 characters will be truncated during the import. To export the contents of a RoboMail RTF tagline file to a standard text file, press [Alt-X] while the tagline manager is displayed. Enter any valid file name at the prompt and the export will begin. Sorting the Tagline File ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ No problem! Just press [Alt-S] any time the tagline manager screen is displayed. Querying the Tagline File ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ RoboMail can also quickly locate key words within a tagline file to help you make a better tagline selection. To do this, go into the tagline manager pop-up screen and press the [Q] key to initiate a query. You can use wildcards and boolean logic in your search expression. See the section of this document entitled "Creating Search Expressions" for complete details. You can also access the Query manager screen by pressing [F10] at the search string prompt. _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 54 Using an External Tagline Manager ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ RoboMail provides support for external tagline managers which place their selected tagline in RoboMail's home directory in a file matching the pattern JH*.REP. Upon return from the external message editor, RoboMail will check its home directory for any file matching the JH*.REP pattern. If the file is found, RoboMail will use the tagline found in the file when it presents the Message Addressing screen. You can also use an external tagline manager with the internal editor by creating a TAGLINE.BAT file in your RoboMail directory. before presenting the Message Addressing screen, RoboMail always checks its home directory for the TAGLINE.BAT file. If it is found, RoboMail will execute the batch file, which should be written so that it ultimately places a tagline in a JH*.REP file in the RoboMail home directory. When returning from TAGLINE.BAT, RoboMail will search for a tagline file and will use it instead of pulling a tagline from its internal database. RoboMail also checks for the TAGLINE.BAT file whenever you press [F10] in the "Tagline" field on the Message Addressing screen. If it's found, it will be run and RoboMail will look for a JH*.REP file when it regains control. You can also replace RoboMail's "Tagline Manager" screen with your external tagline management utility by creating a TAGMAN.BAT file. Whenever you press [F10] from the message viewing or control panel screen, RoboMail checks for this batch file before going into its own tagline manager screen. Selecting Taglines ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ RoboMail will automatically select taglines from the specified tagline file based upon the rule you specify in the "Taglines" section of the "Message Settings" configuration screen. If you want to override its automatic selection, place the cursor in the "Tagline" field of the Message Addressing screen and press [F10]. Conference-Specific Tagline Files ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To specify a customized tagline file for a conference, input the tagline file name in the "Alternate Tagline File" field on the conference specific settings screen. RoboMail will select taglines from this file whenever you compose a new message or reply in the conference. _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 55 Stealing Taglines ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ RoboMail helps you to steal taglines from the messages you read by "Grabbing" them from the currently displayed message. To do this, make sure the message text selection bar is toggled on (press [Scroll Lock] if it's not) and highlight the line of the message containing the tagline you want. Press the [G] key and RoboMail will allow you to edit the line to remove any unwanted parts before saving it to your active tagline file. Next, specify the target tagline file and press the "Save" button to copy your edited tagline into the file. MAINTAINING YOUR MESSAGE DATABASE ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ RoboMail also provides a suite of commands for bulk manipulation of assigned archive actions as well as global processing of marked messages. This section details the processing commands which can be used in interactive and unattended (command line) mode. Bulk Marking ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Press the bulk marking hot key, [F4], from the control panel to assign archive actions to large groups of messages from a single mail system. The two sets of radio buttons on the bulk marking dialog box allow you to specify the class of messages (personal, recent, archive or chron) that you would like to modify, as well as the archive action to assign. By default, the bulk marking process will not touch any message which already has an archive action assigned. To override this capability and assign the desired action to all the messages in the specified message class, select the "Replace existing assignments" check box. If you have changed the number of aging days on one or more conference configuration screens and want to update the age days currently assigned to the specified messages, select the "Update age days with default" check box. To perform bulk updates of the archive actions assigned to messages in a single conference, press [F4] at the message view screen to access the "Bulk Action Assignment" dialog box. Start by specifying the messages that you would like to update. Select ALL to modify the action assignments of every message in the conference, or MARKED FOR... to specify messages which already have particular archive actions assigned. Next, specify the new archive action (Age, Keep, Discard or None) to assign to the selected messages. If you would also like to update the age days currently assigned to the selected messages, select the UPDATE AGE DAYS check box and fill in the new number of age days in the space _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 56 provided. Bulk Processing ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Although most message processing is done via the assisted reading mode or auto-pilot while reading mail, there may be times when you want to process a large number of messages all at once. To do this, go to the control panel screen and press the message processing hot key, [F5]. RoboMail will present a menu with the following options: ■ Recent <system> messages ■ All <system> messages ■ Recent messages from all systems ■ All messages from all systems Highlight the option you want to execute and press [Enter] to start the message processing. To bulk process all messages in your RoboMail database in unattended mode, use the /r command line switch. Discarding Aged Out Messages ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Archive messages which have "aged out" are not automatically deleted by RoboMail. Instead, they remain in the archive as candidates for recycling during the message importing process. During importing, RoboMail always looks into the archives for aged out messages before making the decision to add a new record to the database. If an aged out message record is found, it is used to hold the new incoming message. Under normal circumstances, this method provides a maximum visible lifespan for your archived messages without requiring a great deal processing time maintaining the message archives. However, there may be times when your message archives are abnormally large, and you may want to remove aged out messages from the archives immediately. If you decide you want to do this, place the control panel cursor on the row for the system you want to process and press [Alt-F4]. When you do this, RoboMail will begin looking through the system's archive for messages that are aged out. (Remember that a message is considered aged out when the message date plus the number of age days assigned to the message is earlier than the current date). If any aged out message are found, they will have "Discard" assigned as their archive action, and RoboMail will ask for permission to process the discarded messages out of the system's archive. Use the /a /r command line switches if you would like to perform this process in unattended mode. _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 57 Packing Your Data Files ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Packing" refers to the process of permanently removing all the disk space consumed by "deleted" data from a database. RoboMail keeps a strict watch on all discarded data within your message database and will efficiently recycle it during the message importing process. For this reason, packing RoboMail's data files is not normally necessary. For times when you are attempting to free up as much disk space as possible, or if you are making a conscious effort to permanently reduce the number of messages in your RoboMail database, RoboMail provides a set of routines for packing its data files. Press [P] from the control panel screen to call up a menu of available packing options: PACK MESSAGE HEADERS ONLY (DBF) -- This option minimizes the disk space consumed by your the "message headers" in your database. The effected files are MSGS.DBF and MSGS.CMX. This option is relatively fast and may result in slightly improved performance if you have a very large number of "Discarded" messages in your database. Use the /p switch to initiate this process from the command line. PACK VARIABLE LENGTH TEXT (DBV) -- This option removes recyclable space from the ROBOMAIL.DBV file. This file contains the vast majority of data in your RoboMail database. All message text, BBS screens, bulletins and address book notes are contained in this file. Since this file is the largest part of your RoboMail installation, packing it can yield the greatest reduction in disk space consumed. You should pack this file only when you suspect that the total number of non-discarded messages in your database has been significantly reduced. Packing this file requires free disk space matching the size of your ROBOMAIL.DBV file and, depending on the speed of your computer and the size of your DBV file can take a significant amount of time. use the /v switch if you want to initiate this process from the command line. PACK SUPPLEMENTAL DATA -- This option is almost never required and will result in only very modest space savings. However, it is very fast! "Supplemental" data includes items such as your attachment directory, address book and BBS system configuration data. There is no command line switch for this option. Since it is so fast, it will always be performed whenever you use the /p switch mentioned above. PACK EVERYTHING -- To absolutely remove all possible recyclable space from your RoboMail database, use the following command line switches: RoboMail /a /r /p /v _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 58 Add /q to the command line if you want RoboMail to return to DOS after processing. Viewing the Database Status Screen ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Press [D] from the control panel screen for a concise summary of your RoboMail message data. You can use this screen to help you determine the potential benefit of packing your database. If the number of "recyclable" messages greatly exceeds your normal message flow, then you may want to consider packing your databases as indicated above. Message Management Tips ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ■ Set up conferences you don't care about keeping a record of to default to "Discard" or "Age 0 Days" status. Assigning discard status to a message means that it will be permanently lost when you "process" the messages. For this reason, some users prefer "Age 0 days" to discard status because this moves messages into the archive as a holding area for recycling, where they can still be viewed up until the time the message import process reclaims them. The only downside to this approach is that message importing will be slightly less efficient and your ROBOMAIL.DBV file may grow larger than it would if you always assigned Discard status to messages you don't want to keep around. ■ Set up conferences you do care about to "Age xx Days" where xx is the number of days worth of messages (based on the message date, not the import date!) to keep. ■ Only use "Keep" as a default archive action on conferences that you really, really want to keep. If you do this, then be ruthless about overriding the default archive action while reading messages if a message doesn't look like something you will be caring about. ■ Think of the "Archive" message class as a self maintaining folder for each defined conference. Avoid creating folders which match the name of a conference. This duplicates data. _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 59 RUNNING ROBOMAIL BY COMMAND LINE SWITCHES ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ RoboMail provides a variety of command line switches to help you move processing and maintenance events to times when you will not be using your computer for other tasks. Type "ROBOMAIL /?" at the DOS prompt to display the following table of command line options: ╔═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗ ║ ROBOMAIL COMMAND LINE SWITCHES ║ ╠═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╣ ║ /Q Quit to DOS after processing (unattended mode) ║ ╟───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╢ ║ /I<file> Import QWK packet <file> ║ ║ /I Import all QWK packets in incoming directory ║ ╟───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╢ ║ /E<ID> Export all OutBox messages for a system ║ ║ /E Export OutBox messages for all systems ║ ╟───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╢ ║ /A Mark all aged-out messages for deletion ║ ║ /R Process all marked messages ║ ╟───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╢ ║ /F Pack just the message text (FPT) file ║ ║ /V Pack just the auxiliary text (DBV) file ║ ║ /P Pack all data files (except DBV) ║ ╟───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╢ ║ /O Search and destroy all orphaned messages ║ ╟───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╢ ║ /L<file> Log command line results to <file> ║ ╟───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╢ ║ /M Force monochrome mode (disable VGA font tricks) ║ ║ /C Force color mode ║ ╚═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝ For example, if you use Robocomm to collect and send your mail packets and have an agenda called MAILRUN to do the work, the following batch file would handle exporting of your outgoing mail to a reply packet, executing the agenda for moving the mail, importing of received packets and would log the whole thing to your Robocomm.log file. @ECHO OFF rem MAILRUN.BAT rem ─────────── rem rem Sample batch file to demonstrate how you can use Robocomm and RoboMail rem together to handle all of your mail exporting, gathering, sending and rem importing automatically and unattended. :) rem rem This batch file assumes: rem rem Robocomm is installed in \ROBOCOMM rem RoboMail is installed in \ROBOMAIL rem Your Robocomm agenda used to move mail is called MAILRUN _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 60 rem rem A nice feature of this approach is that RoboMail will write notations rem into your Robocomm log file indicating its progress with mail processing rem rem rem export all outbox messages cd \robomail robomail /E /L\ROBOCOMM\ROBOCOMM.LOG /Q rem run robocomm to deliver/get the mail cd \robocomm robocomm /aMAILRUN /R rem import all received mail cd \robomail robomail /i /L\ROBOCOMM\ROBOCOMM.LOG /q rem If you're not going to be around, why not minimize RoboMail's data files? robomail /a /r /v /p /q /L\ROBOCOMM\ROBOCOMM.LOG rem all done! Command Line Examples ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ RoboMail /i /q Import all mail, return to DOS RoboMail /e /q Export all mail, return to DOS RoboMail /a /r /v /p /q Make all RoboMail data files as small as possible and return to DOS. RoboMail /iGROUPONE /lGROUPONE.LOG Import mail from GROUPONE BBS and log results to the GROUPONE.LOG file. RoboMail /e /p /q Export all OutBox messages, minimize the MSGS.DBF file and quit back to DOS. _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 61 THE ROBOMAIL ENVIRONMENT VARIABLE ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ You can control certain aspects of RoboMail's memory management via its DOS environment variable, ROBOMAIL. You should try running RoboMail without a ROBOMAIL environment variable at first until you are confident that everything is working properly. Setting a ROBOMAIL environment variable is not required and should only be attempted by individuals who are familiar with memory management terminology, or who need to disable ertain features for compatibility. The format of the ROBOMAIL environment variable is: ROBOMAIL=<command>;<command>;<command>... The available commands are: E:nnn Specifies the amount of expanded (EMS) memory (in kilobytes) used by RoboMail for virtual memory and index buffering operations. The default is 1024 (1 megabyte) and the maximum allowable value is 32 megabytes. /OP0 Disable the use of the EMS pageframe for overlay management. By default, RoboMail will use your EMS pageframe for its overlay transfer and management area. This frees 50K of memory for use by the program. If you encounter problems while RoboMail is running and you suspect an incompatibility with RoboMail's usage of the EMS pageframe, please specify this option. /OU1 Use a UMB for overlay management. This command will also free up 50K of conventional memory, but can only be used on compatible systems with an unused UMB at least 50K in size (rare indeed). /CX100% Speeds up operations slightly by setting up an overlay cache in XMS memory. Make sure to specify the "%" twice if you are setting this variable in a batch file. USE WITH CAUTION -- remove this switch if you encounter any problems. /CE100% Speeds up operations slightly by setting up an overlay cache in EMS memory. Make sure to specify the "%" twice if you are setting this variable in a batch file. USE WITH CAUTION -- remove this switch if you encounter any problems. DEBUG Provides enhanced error and memory status reporting services. _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 62 Environment Variable Examples ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SET ROBOMAIL=E:512;/OP0 Use 512K of EMS for virtual memory and disable the usage of the EMS page frame for overlay data. QEMM users with "stealth" active or network workstations using the EMSNETX drivers may require this setting. SET ROBOMAIL=E:2048;CX100%% Use 2 megabytes of EMS for virtual memory and buffer the ROBOMAIL.OVL file using XMS memory. USE WITH CAUTION -- remove the /CX switch if you encounter any problems. SET ROBOMAIL=/OU1;DEBUG Attempt to free up 50K of conventional memory by moving the overlay management buffer to a upper memory block (UMB). Also, display memory statistics on the control panel screen and report all correctable DBV file errors. PERFORMANCE OPTIMIZATION TIPS ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ ROBOMAIL LOVES EXPANDED MEMORY! If you can make some expanded memory (EMS) available to RoboMail, you should definitely do so! Generally, the more EMS available the better. RoboMail can use up to 32 megabytes of EMS for virtual memory storage. The default amount that it will use it 1 megabyte. See the "ROBOMAIL=E" environment variable above for more specific details. If you are running a 386 or better machine with DOS's EMM386 for memory management, check the EMM386 line of your CONFIG.SYS file for the NOEMS switch. If you have this switch specified, you might want to try running RoboMail with the NOEMS switch removed. This will tell EMM386 to provide EMS memory, which RoboMail can use for it's virtual memory operations. PROGRAM SWAPPER PERFORMANCE Any EMS memory used by RoboMail for virtual memory is unavailable to the program swapper routines that are run whenever RoboMail needs to execute an outside program. Running an external editor and importing messages are examples of these times. If you give all of your available EMS memory to RoboMail via the ROBOMAIL=E parameter (1 megabyte is used by default), then the program swapper will need to use the disk for swapping, which can be slow. Ideally, you should try to set your ROBOMAIL environment variable so that at _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 63 least 256K of EMS or XMS remain available after the program has started. This will give the swapper some memory to use when shelling to outside programs. ROBOMAIL LOVES CONVENTIONAL MEMORY! Although RoboMail will run fine in as little as 520K of conventional memory, doing so will create a need for a great deal of "virtual memory" activity. If no EMS is available, this involves using the hard disk for a data buffer and this can be a significant drag on performance. the general rule is that you should give RoboMail as much "conventional" memory as possible. ROBOMAIL LOVES A NON-FRAGMENTED DISK! Depending on your mail reading habits, RoboMail's data files can grow very large. Unfortunately, DOS does not do a very good job of managing the way large files are placed on the hard disk. After repeated use under DOS, your RoboMail data files will become "fragmented" and your hard disk will have to do a lot of extra work to access the various parts of the files, as requested by RoboMail. Regular use of a disk defragmenting utility will provide a significant performance boost to applications, like RoboMail, which access large data files. INSTALL A DISK CACHE UTILITY A disk cache program will be very helpful. RoboMail does a tremendous amount of disk i/o during the mail importing and database packing processes. Delayed, lazy or staged writes will provide a very significant performance boost, but should only be used if you are sure your computing environment, including your RoboMail installation is "stable." ROBOMAIL LOVES OS/2! IBM's OS/2 operating system provides an ideal environment for RoboMail use. Here's a quick rundown of why: ■ OS/2's Preemptive multi-tasking means large mail imports and database maintenance operations can be run in the background. Also, RoboMail is "OS/2 aware" and will yield time slices to OS/2 while it is waiting for user input. ■ OS/2's Super-FAT and HPFS filing systems provide significantly enhanced data access speeds and integrity. HPFS significantly reduces fragmentation of RoboMail's data files. ■ OS/2 can provide DOS sessions custom-tailored to RoboMail's _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 64 needs. Large amounts of conventional memory coupled with EMS for VM activity and XMS for session swapping provide an ideal memory environment. ALL GOOD THINGS IN MODERATION Understand the limits of your machine. RoboMail's database engine is very fast, but it's not magic. Since there is virtually no limit to the number of messages that RoboMail can manage in its database, the only practical limit becomes the capacity of your machine. If you become dissatisfied with RoboMail's performance, re-adjust your aging parameters to reduce the number of messages in your database. Use the [Alt-F4] key at the control panel or the /A command line switch to immediately discard "aged-out" messages. Also, remember that RoboMail's databases are extremely self-maintaining. There is very little need for regular "Packing" of the databases. The only time you should really need to pack is when you have significantly reduced the total number of messages in your database. KEEPING A GOOD BACKUP ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ Although RoboMail has been thoroughly tested and was developed with data integrity as a top priority, you should always keep a good backup of your RoboMail data. The message database you develop over time may become very valuable to you. And, depending upon the amount of mail you read, the data files managed by RoboMail can become very large. It's very likely that the largest single files you find on your hard disk will be created by RoboMail. The size of these files will make them more likely to become damaged in the event of a minor hard disk or file system fault on your machine. Please make a full backup of your RoboMail data a regular part of your regular PC maintenance routine. TROUBLE SHOOTING ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ If you ever experience an abnormal exit while using RoboMail, it is very important that you re-boot your machine, then run a disk verification utility before attempting to restart RoboMail. If RoboMail does not quit via its standard shut down routines, it is likely that your mail data files will still be "open." Attempting to reuse the RoboMail files before rebooting and running a file system verification utility like DOS's CHKDSK program can result in data integrity problems. If RoboMail has been "Hanging" or you are experiencing other difficulties which are causing the program to exit abnormally, it's possible that there may be an incompatibility between RoboMail's usage _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 65 of expanded (EMS) memory and your memory manager or other TSR programs. If you suspect that this may be the problem, please disable RoboMail's usage of the EMS pageframe be adding ";/OP0" to the end of your ROBOMAIL environment variable. If you do not have a ROBOMAIL environment variable in use at the moment, please add the following line to the end of your AUTOEXEC.BAT file: SET ROBOMAIL=/OP0 If you change your AUTOEXEC.BAT file, please make sure to re-boot before starting RoboMail again so the variable will be in place. If difficulties persist, try the following environment variable: SET ROBOMAIL=E:0;/OP0 If you are encountering difficulties when RoboMail shells to DOS or when RoboMail attempts to run an outside utility, try disabling one or both of the "Allow Program swap to XMS" and "Allow Program swap to EMS" options onthe system settings configuration screen. Depending on the TSRs installed on your machine, you may also need to set the ROBOMAIL=/OP0 environment variable. If you have added the /OU1, /CX or /CE parameters to your ROBOMAIL environment variable and you begin experiencing problems, please remove the parameters before re-starting RoboMail. Another possible source of difficulty results from disabling DOS's STACKS facility. If you are experiencing difficulties running RoboMail and you have a STACKS=0,0 in your CONFIG.SYS file,please change the line to STACKS=9,256 and re-boot your machine before re-starting RoboMail. Under some circumstances, certain memory resident utilities (particularly "virus checker" utilities) have been found to interfere with RoboMail's operations. RoboMail is a sophisticated program which fully exercises your computer's memory and disk subsystems. Because of this, it is more sensitive to conflicts than many other programs. If you encounter problems and have TSR (terminate and stay resident) programs loaded at the same time as RoboMail, please try running a "clean" session without any of your TSR utilities loaded. After verifying that RoboMail runs properly without the utilities, add your TSRs back one at a time until you isolate the TSR utility that is causing the incompatibility. _______________________________________________________________________ RoboMail 1.2 User's Guide Page 66