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_______ ____|__ | (TM) --| | |------------------- | ____|__ | Association of | | |_| Shareware |__| o | Professionals -----| | |--------------------- |___|___| MEMBER BACK SOON! VERSION 2.x Copyright 1991-1993 by Chuck Steenburgh & Tay-Jee Software Page 1 I. Introduction Thank you for purchasing BACK SOON! Version 2.x. We here at Tay-Jee Software are sure that this program will meet all of your home or office message-taking needs. BACK SOON! Version 2.x provides the following features: * "Blanks" text screens to prevent phosphor "burn-in" * Saves the contents of your text screen * Displays a customizable scrolling message on your monitor * Allows visitors to leave text messages on your computer * Permits you to save your messages for later retrieval * Attracts attention with optional music and animation BACK SOON! Version 2.x has the following equipment requirements for installation: * IBM PC/XT/AT or compatible * MS-DOS or PC-DOS 3.0 or higher * At least 135k of free memory (512k for graphics) * Hard disk drive with 200k free (500k for graphics) * VGA/MCGA monitor & adapter for optional graphics II. Installation Insert your program disk in drive A: (or any other floppy drive), and type a: (or b:, etc.) install You will have the option of installing to any hard disk on your system. Follow the prompts from the installation program. When installation is complete, you will be told whether or not installation was successful. If you are unsuccessful, try installing to another disk or call Tay-Jee Software tech support. III. Getting Started To begin using BACK SOON!, type: bs at the DOS prompt, then press {Enter}. The first time you use BACK SOON!, a dialog box will be displayed. Enter your name or Page 2 other message retrieval code in the space provided. This name or code is what you will type when you want to retrieve your messages. Normally you would want to use your name, but if you have a fairly common first name you might want to enter your last name as well or some other word you can easily remember. You can think of your message retrieval code as a password of sorts, but BACK SOON! is not intended to provide message secur- ity and anyone with access to your hard disk can discover your message retrieval code without a great deal of effort by examin- ing the BACKSOON.CFG file. After entering your message retriev- al code, you will see BACK SOON!'s opening screen. After leaving the opening screen, you will then be shown a list of message files on your disk. At a minimum, the four included message files (LUNCH.MSG, XEROX.MSG, OFFICE.MSG, and COFFEE.MSG) should be displayed. See Figure 2. Up to six saved message files at a time are displayed in the list; by using the and cursor keys, you can scroll the list backwards and forwards to look at additional message files that you have created. Position the highlight bar over the name of the message file you would like to use. For example, let's use the general purpose message OFFICE.MSG. Position the highlight bar over OFFICE.MSG and press {Enter}. The screen will clear and begin scrolling the message contained in OFFICE.MSG on the screen. The message will continue to scroll down the screen until a key is pressed. At this point, a dialog box will appear. Assume now that you've left the office and a visitor wants to leave you a message. Enter the name of a fictitious visitor, "Bill Byte" for example. Type "Bill Byte" (without the quotes) and then press {Enter}. A message entry display will appear on screen. Your visitor will then be able to type in up to nine lines of text in his or her message. Try the following example message: This is a really neat program you've got here! {Enter} I'd like to find out how I can get a copy. {Enter} I need to discuss the fall reports with you. {Enter} Call me at 555-1234 when you return. {Enter} After entering the ninth line or pressing {Enter} on a blank line, you'll be asked if you'd like to go back and edit the message by pressing "E". If not, press any other key and your message will be saved. Let's try entering one more message for practice. Let's say that Page 3 Susie Shareware has stopped by to speak with you. Press any key, then type "Susie S.'' (again without the quotes) when prompted for a name. Enter a fictitious message as we did above for Bill Byte, then press a final {Enter} to resume scrolling your message. You've now returned to the office and would like to see if any- one left you any messages. Press a key to stop the scrolling display, and then enter your message retrieval code. You will see the user menu. At the bottom of the display is a line telling you how many total messages are waiting for you (in this case, 2). The user menu features several different program options. For now, select the first menu item - Retrieve messages. The first message from Bill Byte should be displayed. To go to the next message, press any key other than B or P. The message from Susie Shareware should now be displayed. Now let's say you just realized Bill's message contained something very important and you want to get a printed copy. No problem. Simply press B to go back (following the instructions at the bottom of the screen) and Bill's message (Message #1) will reappear. With Bill's message displayed, press "P" to print a copy to your printer. If the printer is not ready, the program will inform you of the nature of the error and give you the chance to try again after fixing the problem or aborting. Once you have printed Bill's message, you can go on to Susie's mes- sage by pressing any key (other than B or P). When you are at the last message, pressing any key other than B or P will exit the program. So simple! To use some of BACK SOON!'s more advanced features, read the following sections. IV. Initial Configuration The first time you start BACK SOON!, you will be asked to enter a message retrieval code (usually your name). If you would like to change this code, start BACK SOON! with the "/c" switch as shown below: bs /c {Enter} After displaying the opening screen, you will be asked to enter your name (message retrieval code). Page 4 V. Creating New Messages There are two ways to create new screen messages to tell visi- tors where you have gone and/or when you will be back. The first way is to use the "/m'' switch as shown below: bs /m {Enter} After the opening screen, you will be shown the message entry display and be asked to enter a message of up to 8 lines. After typing all eight lines OR pressing the {Enter} key on a blank line, the message you just entered will begin scrolling down the screen and BACK SOON! will await the next visitor. The other method is to press the y key instead of selecting a message from the message file display. You will then be asked if you want to enter a new message. If you answer yes (by press- ing the "y" key), you will see the message entry display; enter your message as described above. If you answer anything but "y," no message will be displayed except for the standard line "Press any key to leave a message." With either method, once you have retrieved any messages left for you, you will be given the opportunity to save your new screen message for future use. If you answer "y," you will be asked to enter a message name of up to eight characters. Try to use only letters and numerals in your name, and do not use any spaces. Once you have entered a message name, the next time you start BACK SOON! the name of your message file will be included in the display at start up and you may select it again. VI. Saving Messages Left for You If you would like to be able to save your messages to disk, start BACK SOON! with the "/s" switch as shown below: bs /s {Enter} After you have retrieved all of your messages and are ready to exit BACK SOON!, you will be shown a dialog box. Answer yes (by pressing the "y" key) if you would like to save the messages that were left for you in a separate ASCII text file that you can later view with BACK SOON!'s /r option (see below), or with a text editor or word processor. After answering the prompt, you will be asked to enter a file name. Type any valid DOS filename of up to 8 characters, and the messages left for you Page 5 will be transferred to that file. The current date is used as the default file name. VII. Reviewing Previous Messages You may view any messages left for you previously by BACK SOON! by entering the command: bs /r[:filename] {Enter} You will immediately be taken to the message display, and can view or print your messages as if you had just retrieved them. The default is to display the contents of the BACKSOON.MSG file created the LAST time you ran the program. If you follow the /r switch with the optional colon and file name, you will be shown a set of saved messages corresponding to the file name you typed on the command line (see Figure 9 and Section VI, above). VIII. Music Start BACK SOON! in musical mode by using the /u switch: bs /u {Enter} In musical mode, BACK SOON! will alternate between displaying your screen message and playing random melodies. Data for individual songs is contained in files with a .CM1 extension located in the directory in which BACK SOON! was installed. The program operates normally while songs are playing. Pressing any key will stop the music and bring up the name dialog box. Music can be toggled ON or OFF via the user menu. IX. Quick Start If you already know the name of the message file you wish to have displayed, simply add its name on the command line when you start BACK SOON!. For example, if you wanted to display the included message file XEROX.MSG, simply type: bs xerox [options] {Enter} The XEROX.MSG file will be displayed on the screen while the Page 6 program is awaiting visitor messages. You can also enter any additional options (described elsewhere in the manual). X. Help To obtain a brief explanation of command line syntax for BACK SOON!, enter the help switch (/h or /?) as shown below: bs /h {Enter} or bs /? {Enter} XI. No-message Mode If you would prefer not to let visitors leave messages, but to just record their names and the times of their visits, start BACK SOON! in no-message mode using the /n switch as shown below: bs /n {Enter} XII. Graphics BACK SOON! v2.x is capable of displaying animated graphics on computers with a VGA or MCGA monitor and card attached. Graphics can be selected via the user menu, or from the command line by typing: bs /g {Enter} Each time your scrolling message reaches the bottom of the screen, BACK SOON! will randomly display one of the animation or graphics sequences included with the software. After the display is complete (each lasts several seconds), the program will scroll your message down the screen again. The process will be repeated continuously. See the Appendix for infor- mation on including additional graphics. XIII. Event Scheduler You can use BACK SOON! to perform unattended tasks such as tape backups, Email transfers, etc. with the event scheduler. Page 7 At the time specified, BACK SOON! will temporarily suspend operation and execute a batch file containing your commands (see the Appendix for more details). Activate the event scheduler either from the user menu or via the command line: bs /e[hh:mm] {Enter} where hh:mm is the time at which your event is to occur (24- hour format). XIV. Multilingual Support BACK SOON! provides prompts and menus in multiple languages. Currently, support is provided for German and Spanish as well as English. To access the language of your choice, use the following syntax: bs /ln {Enter} where n is replaced by the numeric code for the language desired (German=1, Spanish=2). XV. User Menu It is possible to perform a number of tasks or activate/ deactivate program features from within the program itself rather than from the command line. When the message retrieval code is entered at the user name prompt, the user menu appears on the screen. This menu pre- sents a number of options for controlling the program. Each menu item features a brief explanation on the bottom line of the screen. The first menu item, Retrieve messages, recalls the messages you have been left, which you can read, print, or save to disk as described elsewhere in this manual. After reading your last message, the program terminates and you are returned to the DOS command line. The next menu item, Check messages, allows you to read, print, and save your messages, but instead of exiting the program you are returned to the user menu. The change Message menu item allows you to switch your scrolling message or create a new one. Page 8 DOS shell permits you to temporarily exit the program and access the DOS command line. BACK SOON! stays in memory occupying approximately 135k of memory. You can return to the program by typing exit on the command line. Toggle music switches the music feature from on to off or vice versa. The toggle Graphics menu option switches the graphics feature from on to off or vice versa. Event scheduler allows you to change the scheduled event time, or activate the feature. Quit exits the user menu and returns to your scrolling message. XVI. Security As already mentioned, BACK SOON! is not designed to provide security for your system while you are out of the office. However, there are some security features built into the program and there are some additional steps that you can take as well. BACK SOON! turns off Control-Break (or Control-C) checking while the program is set to record messages or visitors. In other words, the only way to exit the program once your message begins scrolling on the screen is to enter the message retriev- al code or turn the PC off. It is also a fairly good idea to change your message retrieval code every so often. Even though it is not designed to be secret, changing the code to a fairly unusual word or phrase will also help prevent users with your same name from inadver- tently exiting the program (and possibly losing your messages). XVII. Screen Saving When first run, BACK SOON! will automatically save the contents of your video display in memory. When you exit BACK SOON!, the screen contents will be restored and the DOS cursor will be lo- cated at the bottom of the screen. XVIII. Use from within other programs Page 9 With a little ingenuity, it is very easy to invoke BACK SOON! from within another application such as a word processor or spreadsheet. Several examples of how to do this from within several popular programs are shown below. WordPerfect 5.0/5.1: Nothing could be simpler. Just copy the file BS.WPM to your WordPerfect directory. This macro will execute WordPerfect's Shell command, then pause for you to enter any command line options to use with BACK SOON! After entering your options and pressing {Enter}, BACK SOON! will run, returning you to WordPerfect upon exit. WordStar 5.x-7.0: The file BACKSOON.WSM contains a WordStar 7.0 macro to execute BACK SOON! Copy this file to your MACROS directory. A simple shorthand macro can be created to automa- tically invoke BACK SOON! from WordStar Versions 5.x-6.0. Use the following keystroke sequence: Ctrl-KFBS. Lotus 1-2-3: Execute the /SYSTEM command to go to DOS, then execute BACK SOON! normally. Type EXIT to return to Lotus when you are done with BACK SOON! Quattro Pro: The worksheet BACKSOON.WQ1 on your program disk contains a macro that will swap out your current spreadsheet workspace and run BACK SOON!. Paste the macro into your worksheets or a macro library. XIX. Use with Microsoft Windows 3.1 BACK SOON! v2.x can be run as a DOS application from within Windows 3.1. Follow these steps to manually create an icon for BACK SOON!: * From the Program Manager, select the "New" menu item from the "File" pull-down menu * Select "Program Item" from the "New Program Object" dialog box * In the "Program Item Properties" dialog box, fill in the "Description" field * In the "Command line" field, type "BS.EXE ?" The "Working directory" and "Shortcut key" fields are optional. After filling in all of the blanks, press the {Ok} button. An MS-DOS icon for BACK SOON! will appear in the current program group. Page 10 Double-click the new icon to run BACK SOON! You will first see a dialog box prompting you for input; type any command line arguments or switches for BACK SOON! (such as the name of a message file, /s switch, etc.) and then press {Enter}. Advanced Windows users may want to use the BACKSOON.PIF file instead. XX. Customer Service As a registered user of BACK SOON! Version 2.x, you are entitled to free technical support for as long as you own the software. You may obtain technical support from the following sources: Mail: Tay-Jee Software Post Office Box 835 Lexington, Virginia 24450-0835 Phone: (703)261-7023 (8 AM-10 PM EST, messages only 8 AM - 6 PM) Electronic Mail: CompuServe Address: 72330,1776 INTERNET: 72330.1776@compuserve.com XXI. Association of Shareware Professionals BACK SOON! is produced by a member of the Association of Shareware Professionals (ASP). The ASP wants to make sure that the shareware principle works for you. If you are unable to resolve a shareware-related problem with an ASP member by contacting the member directly, the ASP may be able to help. The ASP Ombudsman can help you resolve a dispute or problem with an ASP member, but does not provide technical support for mem- bers' products. Please write to the ASP Ombudsman at 545 Grover Road, Muskegon, MI 49442 or send a CompuServe message via CompuServe Mail to ASP Ombudsman, 70007,3536. Page 11