FBHF] THelpTopic QwkMan Help Index About Dialog Add Setup BBS Setup Dialog BBS Setup Selection Dialog Conference Dialog Conference Dialog Delete Setup Destination filename Getting Started QwkMan Help How Merge Dialog Merge Options Dialog Paths Dialog Pruning messages QWK packets QwkMan Source Filespec Source Temp files Utilities Dialog THelpTopic Welcome to QwkMan! QwkMan is a QWK packet manager which allows you to easily keep track of email from many different BBS's. Since you are a new user, QwkMan will make a quick run through the configuration options you need to complete in order to get up and running with QwkMan. This is called "autosetup". Press F1 at any time while using QwkMan to bring up a help box like this one, which will provide you with context-sensitive help. Ready to go? Press to clear this help box. THelpTopic Ok. The first thing you will do is tell QwkMan the paths where your QWK packets live, and where you want to put the merged packets. These should both be different directories. QwkMan will make the directories for you if you don't already have them. Oh yea. You also have to tell QwkMan where he can pack and unpack QWK packets. This is called the "Temp files path", and you want to MAKE SURE that you don't ever put anything in that directory, since QwkMan regularly deletes anything left in there when he's done. ( by the way, you can scroll these help windows to see text that doesn't fit in the window--just use the arrow keys. ) You might want to make this a RAM disk, although I wouldn't recommend anything smaller than 2 to 4 megabytes. Remember that your dest QWK packets can get pretty big if you're saving alot of messages. Press to clear this box and continue. THelpTopic Now you will tell QwkMan the command line to use to invoke your file compression programs. NOTE: If these programs are not in your PATH, you need to include the path in the entries coming up. For instance: Pack command: C:\UTILITY\PKZIP -A Unpack command: C:\UTILITY\PKUNZIP -O Press to clear this box and continue. THelpTopic Now you can add some "BBS Setups". You do this by pressing the "Add" button in the upcoming dialog box, and then picking a QWK packet from your source QWK path. QwkMan analyzes the packet and figures out what conferences it contains, and then adds it to your list of BBS's which can be merged. You only have to do this once. QwkMan remembers each BBS you add, and will automatically find QWK packets to be merged for each BBS. Neat, huh? The BBS Setups Dialog ( coming up next ) may seem kind of complex, so if you need help while in it, just press F1. Press to clear this box and continue. THelpTopic If everything has gone smoothly, and you've added some BBS Setups to QwkMan, you should now be ready to merge some packets. Autosetup is now complete. After clearing this help window, you can press Alt-M to begin merging QWK packets. Happy BBSing! Press to clear this box and continue. THelpTopic QwkMan Welcome to QwkMan, the intelligent QWK packet manager. Remember that you can ALWAYS get context-sensitive help anywhere in QwkMan by pressing F1. Double click on one of the topics below to get more help. Getting Started QwkMan Help Index Help QwkMan Index THelpTopic Welcome to Online Help You can learn about QwkMan through the online Help system. What you're reading right now is a "Help screen." Most Help screens have some highlighted items ("Help keywords") on them that lead to another Help screen. You can use the Tab and Shift-Tab keys Arrow to move the cursor from one Help keyword to another, then press Enter to go to a Help screen describing that item. With the mouse, you can double-click a Mouse Help keyword to go to the Help screen about that item. Try it now; choose one of these Help keywords to get started: Getting Started QwkMan QwkMan Index THelpTopic Getting Started 1. Setup your packer command line from the Utilities Dialog by choosing Setup|Utilities... NOTE: Make sure your packer (like PKZIP and PKUNZIP) resides in your DOS PATH. See the Utilities Dialog help screen for more. 2. Setup your paths by choosing Setup|Paths... from the menu bar. See Paths Dialog for more. 3. Add a BBS Setup from the BBS Setup Dialog by choosing Setup|BBS Setup from the menu bar. 4. Tell QwkMan how you would like your messages pruned by editing each conference. 5. Go for it! Choose Merge|Execute... and QwkMan will bring up a list of all the QWK packets in your source QWK directory (QwkMan will only display packets from the BBS setups you created in step 3.) Press "Merge All" and sit back. QwkMan does the rest. 6. From now on, this is all you will have to do. You can press Alt-M to get right to the merge dialog, then press "Merge All" to let QwkMan merge all your QWK packets automatically. Easy, huh? Related Topics: Paths Dialog Utilities Dialog BBS Setup Dialog Pruning messages Source QwkMan Index THelpTopic How to Use Help To read all of this screen, scroll down. You can use the online Help system from the Help menu or via hot keys. Wherever you are in QwkMan, you can press F1 to see a Help screen about the currently active menu command or dialog-box item. This is called context-sensitive Help. Navigating through a Help window: You can Tab or Shift-Tab between the Help keywords, then press Enter. If you're using a mouse, double-click the Help keyword you're interested in. Related Topics: Getting Started QwkMan Help QwkMan Index THelpTopic Paths Dialog This is where you tell QwkMan where you keep your QWK packets, where you would like to put the merged packets, and where QwkMan can work. You need to specify valid paths for the following: Source path - packets to be merged Dest path - the result of the merge Temp files path - QwkMan's working directory Related Topics: Getting Started QwkMan QwkMan Index THelpTopic Source QWK Path Set this to the directory where your newly downloaded QWK files live. QwkMan will search this directory, using all the file masks you have specified in your source QWK filespec. Related Topics: Source filespec Paths Dialog Dest Temp files Getting Started QwkMan QwkMan Index THelpTopic Dest QWK Path Set this to the directory where you would like QwkMan to place the merged QWK packets. It's best not to make this the same as the Source path, so you don't end up trying to merge QWK packets into themselves (kinda wierd, I know.) Related Topics: Paths Dialog Source Temp files Getting Started QwkMan QwkMan Index THelpTopic Temp files path Set this to a directory where it's ok for QwkMan to store temporary files. This is where your QWK packets get unzipped in the merge process. IMPORTANT: QwkMan deletes all the files in this directory, so do NOT try to store your own files in this directory. Related Topics: Paths Dialog Source Dest Getting Started QwkMan QwkMan Index THelpTopic BBS Setup Selection Dialog You should only get this dialog if QwkMan finds more than one BBS setup with a source QWK filespec which matches this QWK packet. What that mouthful means is that you need to choose which BBS setup you want QwkMan to use to merge this packet. You can also change the option checkboxes for this packet. Related Topics: Source Options QwkMan Index THelpTopic Merge Dialog Here QwkMan lists all the QWK packets found in your source QWK directory. You can either merge them one at a time, or click "Merge All" to merge them all. Related Topics: Source QwkMan Index THelpTopic Utilities Dialog Here's where you tell QwkMan how to compress and decompress QWK packets. Important Note: You need to have your packer in your DOS PATH. Otherwise, you'll need to specify the path here, for example: Unpack command c:\packer\pkunzip -o Pack command c:\packer\pkzip -a Related Topics: Getting Started QwkMan QwkMan Index THelpTopic BBS Setup Dialog This dialog lists all the BBS setups you have. If you don't have any listed, you need to first setup. Here you can select a BBS setup to edit. Simply select a BBS setup and then choose one of the following functions: Conferences - tell QwkMan how to prune your messages Options - set merge options Add - add a new BBS setup Delete - delete the selected BBS setup Press the "Finished" button, or press when you are done editing your BBS setups. Related Topics: Getting Started QwkMan QwkMan Index THelpTopic Conference List Dialog Here QwkMan shows you a list of all the conferences for the BBS you selected. From here you can choose a conference and tell QwkMan how to prune your messages. Related Topics Pruning messages Conference dialog Getting Started QwkMan QwkMan Index THelpTopic Conference Dialog Here you can edit how QwkMan prunes the messages for each conference. Specify the number of days of back messages you want to keep, as well as the number of messages to keep. Related Topics Pruning messages Conference Dialog Getting Started QwkMan QwkMan Index THelpTopic Pruning Messages QwkMan keeps house for you by automatically deleting outdated messages. You have three choices: ( ) Keep all messages ( ) Discard all messages ( ) Prune outdated messages If you choose the prune option (the default), QwkMan pops up a couple of input lines where you can specify the maximum number of messages and the maximum number of days worth of messages to keep. Note that when you first run QwkMan, if the destination QWK packet does not exist, QwkMan simply copies the first source QWK packet to that filename, and does not prune messages. QwkMan will begin pruning messages when you merge a second QWK packet. No big deal, but I thought I should mention it. Related Topics Conference dialog Conference BBS setup dialog QwkMan Index THelpTopic Merge Options Dialog This dialog allows you to give specific information about how QwkMan should merge your QWK packets. For beginners, you can usually just leave these settings at the default values set when you initially added the BBS setup. You should at least replace the description, which defaults to "Untitled". Make this any string which adequately describes the BBS setup. Usually you can just put in the BBS name, like "ETAP User's BBS" or so on. The most important two entries in this dialog are the Source QWK and Dest QWK filespecs. The Source QWK tells QwkMan where to look for newly downloaded QWK packets, while the Dest QWK specifies the exact filename of the packet which is the result of the merge. The checkboxes at the bottom allow you to fine-tune the merge process. I suggest you leave the defaults (make backups, and delete source packets.) Make backups just means that QwkMan will create a file with a .BAK extension and save your old QWK packet (the destination QWK) there. Delete source packets tells QwkMan to delete the source packets from your disk automatically after merging them. This makes sure you don't try to merge the same packet two times. Related Topics Paths Dialog BBS setup dialog Getting Started QwkMan QwkMan Index THelpTopic Adding a BBS Setup Here's where you need to begin, by giving QwkMan an example QWK packet from a BBS you want QwkMan to know about. Make sure you've specified your source QWK path from the Paths Dialog, or QwkMan won't know where to look for new QWK packets to add. After you've brought up the BBS Setup Dialog and pressed the "Add" button, you are presented with a list of QWK packets which QwkMan found in your source QWK path. If there are no QWK packets listed, then you will need to download one from a BBS. Select the QWK packet from the BBS you want to setup. QwkMan instantly goes to work unpacking the QWK packet, and after a bit of processing, presents you with the Merge Options Dialog where you give QwkMan explicit instructions on how to merge messages when using this BBS setup. Here you should go ahead and give a descriptive name for the BBS setup you just added. This name defaults to "Untitled", and you can change it to the name of the BBS or some other name that makes sense to you. Advanced users might be interested to know that QwkMan allows you to have as many BBS setups as you like for one BBS. Just add the same BBS again and again, using a different description for each BBS setup. You can use different prune options with each BBS setup if you like. Related Topics: QWK packets BBS Setup Dialog Merge Options Dialog Source Destination filename Pruning messages Getting Started QwkMan QwkMan Index THelpTopic Deleting a BBS Setup This function tells QwkMan to forget about the BBS setup you've selected to delete. This is permanent, so be careful with this option. Related Topics: QwkMan Index THelpTopic QWK Packets QWK packets are simply compressed files with a .QWK extension which contain the messages you read with your offline reader. QwkMan is designed to merge these packets together to allow you to keep a complete message base for each BBS you get email from. Related Topics: Getting Started QwkMan QwkMan Index THelpTopic About Dialog This dialog displays the version and build information for QwkMan. This is important information to have if you need technical support, so remember that this is where to find it. Related Topics: QwkMan Index THelpTopic Source QWK Filespec When you tell QwkMan the name of a QWK packet for a given BBS, you should use DOS wildcards. For instance, if the name of the QWK packet that your BBS normally sends is called MYBBS.QWK, then you should enter MYBBS*.Q*. The reason for this is that many communications programs automatically "increment" the filename if you've already got a MYBBS.QWK in your download directory. While some of them will increment the extension, many increment the filename, so MYBBS*.Q* will cover both cases. QwkMan automatically does this for you by default when you add a new BBS, but if you use a file like MYBBS0.QWK (an incremented filename), QwkMan will end up using MYBBS0*.Q*, which is incorrect. What you really want is MYBBS*.Q* so QwkMan will be able to find any QWK packet for this BBS. Related Topics: Source Paths Dialog Getting Started QwkMan QwkMan Index THelpTopic Dest QWK Filename This is the actual filename where you want QwkMan to put your messages after they have been merged. Combined with the Dest QWK path you choose, it should make up a complete, valid DOS path. You DO need to specify an extension here. I recommend you stick with the .QWK extension since your mail reader probably depends on this, but you can use any extension you want. Related Topics: Dest Paths Dialog Getting Started QwkMan QwkMan Index THelpIndex