* BinkleyTerm 2.40

BinkleyTerm isn't the ideal mailer to go with RemoteAccess, but it can
work well if you try. RA's "Read Batch File" to determine the amount of
time until the next mailer event, speed, and port number, are designed
to go with FrontDoor - Binkley can, however, create a batch file in the
same format with a different filename, BBSBATCH. Converting this to the
DOBBS that RA is looking for is not so easy, as it is very difficult, if
not impossible to run a batch file from the "shell to mailer" mode. The
solution lies in patching Binkley to make the right file - this can be
done easily with the BT(RA).ZIP that can be found on dataMatrix! (+44
392 434477, 2:255/13). This will mean you can use the read batch file
option while sticking with BinkleyTerm.

If you are planning on using Binkley with RA, it is well worth using the
shell to mailer mode even if it does mean a little extra work, as it
will make things a lot quicker for your callers..

As the message base isn't in the format that OMMM expects (.MSG format),
you will need a few extra utilities to get it to work. To convert the RA
message base format's netmail messages to .MSG format, you will need to
use MBUtil or a similar program. This can be run after each mail call
with a command like:

MBUTIL Import

Not too difficult, huh?! I have the option defined in BINKLEY.CFG that
makes BinkleyTerm shell out to a batch file after each mail call, which
is where I put this.

For the echomail processing, I use QEcho v2.65 from The QuickBBS Group,
designed for QBBS but it (now) works just as well with RemoteAccess.
Earlier versions look for RA and won't work if they find it. The
documentation for that is in the QuickBBS manual, QDOC_265.???.

After installing the patch so Binkley creates a DOBBS.BAT rather than
BBSBATCH.BAT, I start up RemoteAccess in the following way:

IF EXIST DOBBS.BAT DEL DOBBS.BAT
RA -m\BT\BT.EXE*M -e20

This basically gets rid of any old DOBBS.BAT that may be lying around,
and loads up RA which in turn calls Binkley. This is run from the main
RemoteAccess directory, and Binkley is located in its own directory as
well. Make sure that the place where Binkley is located is specified in
the BINKLEY environment variable and also in the path, especially if you
use the overlayed version of BinkleyTerm.

I check for various errorlevels immediately after RemoteAccess has
finished:

000 - Takes the BBS offline
001 - Modem Problem with RA
002 - Problem generally encountered during Beta-Testing RA
003 - NetMail entered by the user
004 - EchoMail entered by the user
005 - NetMail and EchoMail entered by the user
010 - Takes the BBS offline
020 - User has logged off
250 - Problems with BinkleyTerm

Many of these are problems with the system and simply exit the batch
file to DOS after displaying a suitable message. A few are treated
differently:

Errorlevels 3, 4, and 5 mean that a user has entered mail that has to be
processed specially. If the errorlevel is 3 or 5, then MBUtil's Export
command is used, so that any netmail on the system is put into .MSG
format to be sent to the right BBS. If the errorlevel is 4 or 5, then
QEcho is started up and the echomail messages are packed up to be sent
to your echomail feed.

After those exits, and also errorlevel 20, the BBS is re-started in the
same way as before.

After every netmail call, the following batch file is started up:

QECHO -z -x -p -s1500 -t -u    : this imports any echomail lying around,
                               : unpacking packets and ARCmail, and
                               : aborting if there is less than 1.5mb left
                               : on the disk.

MBUTIL Import                  : this imports any netmail lying around into
                               : the RemoteAccess message base.

MBUTIL Link -Clean             : this links the messages in the RA message
                               : base, and removes any garbage like RE: and
                               : so on.

QECHO -z -x -p -s1500 -t -u -e : this exports any echomail waiting in
                               : your RemoteAccess message base.

I then run OMMM to pack up the .MSG files into the Binkley Outbound
format. Consult your OMMM docs for information on that, it varies a
great deal from one BBS to another. If you don't have OMMM, v1.52
(OMMM_152.ZIP) is available from dataMatrix!...

Every day at midnight I perform some general maintenance - this is where
you should put things in like the command to start up RAMsg or MBUtil to
pack up and sort your message base so it doesn't grow too big.

. (C) Stuart Henderson
. dataMatrix! 0392 434477, 2:255/13, 1200 to 14400 HST, V32, MNP 5                   .