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1997-09-21
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The FreeTerm Terminal Emulator
Freeware
(C) Tony Howat & Merlin Hughes 1995, 1996, 1997
0. Copyright
The FreeTerm application is (C) Tony Howat 1995->7, with the SICKTerm
terminal library (C) Merlin Hughes, but is released as freeware.
This means that you may copy and distribute it, subject to certain
conditions.
Specifically, as an individual, you may only charge to cover the cost
of distributing it, and you may not use it to make money directly or
indirectly (by using it as an incentive to buy something else for
example).
Any company which wishes to include the program on a magazine disc or
disc which will be sold *must* contact us to discuss arrangements.
It is also imperative that anyone considering including FreeTerm in a
internet suite of any sort (free or otherwise) contacts me (Tony Howat).
Contact Tony Howat if you are unsure of how these terms affect you.
FreeTerm should only be distributed with the whole contents of the
original archive, with all files unmodified.
SICKTerm makes use of ZapRedraw, (C) Dominic Symes 1994.
The project was started by Tom Hughes, author of FreeNet.
None of the authors accept any responsibility for any
loss/damage/whatever resulting from the use of FreeTerm. It is
supplied "as is".
1. Contents
0. ... Copyright
1. ... Contents
2. ... Introduction
3. ... Basic use of FreeTerm
3.1 ... Downloading and Uploading text
3.2 ... Disconnection
3.3 ... Using finger
3.4 ... The Host and Port Menus
3.5 ... The FreeScript language
3.5.1 ... Points to note
3.5.2 ... Adding Scripts to the Hotlist
3.6 ... CLI options
3.7 ... The AutoRun Directory
4. ... Miscellaneous notes
4.1 ... StrongARM Compatibility
4.2 ... Programmers' guff
4.3 ... Internationalisation
5. ... Contacting the authors
2. Introduction
The FreeTerm application is a terminal emulator for use with any
TCP/IP stack that supports the Acorn sockets interface. Currently
that means either the Acorn TCP/IP stack, FreeNet or any of the
commercial suites except Termite.
Currently the application provides support for straightforward
telnet and finger, and display sessions in a window which emulates
a VT102 or VT52 series terminal. However, according to the beta
testers it performs these basic functions rather well, and reliably,
which is what matters.
3. Using FreeTerm
Starting FreeTerm places an icon on the iconbar, and clicking on
this provides a dialogue box with two writeable icons. The first
of these takes the host name (or IP address), and the second
the port number (or service name). Leaving the port
number blank will cause it to default to the standard telnet
port. Both the host and port writable icons are accompanied by
pop up menus, and there is also a hot list on the icon bar
menu. See the section 4 of this manual for details on how to set
up these menus.
Selecting certain ports (in this current version this will only
occur with "finger") will cause the dialogue box to expand and
display and extra arguments field for extra parameters needed
to establish a certain kind of connection.
Clicking on the connect button causes FreeTerm to establish a
connection to the specified address, and then open a terminal
window for the connection. For connections to the default telnet
port, this window will default to character mode (where each
character you type is transmitted straight away) if that is
acceptable to the remote host, otherwise line mode is used.
3.1. Downloading and Uploading text.
To send a file down the telnet connection drag it to the window. To
save text from a telnet window highlight it, and drag it to a filer
window.
To download long chunks of text it is best to use the spooler, use
the "Spool>Open" save as dialogue to locate your spoolfile and
start recording. The spool may be paused, and selecting the
"Spool>Strip" option will filter control codes from the output.
When you have finished spooling click "Spool>Close"
NB : FreeTerm only handles text downloads and uploads, ZModem
transfers may be implemented in the future.
3.2. Disconnection
Closing a terminal window will result in the connection to the
remote host being dropped, whilst the remote host dropping an open
connection will result in a message in the terminal window.
3.3. Using finger
Finger is an internet service for finding out who is using a system,
or finding out about users on a system. FreeTerm includes a finger
client. To use it enter a hostname in the normal way and select
"Finger" as the port, the connect window will grow an extra
writeable icon, this is where you enter the finger string.
The finger string specifies what information you want from the
remote system. The most common types of finger strings are
listed below.
<Blank> - An empty finger string lists all the users on a system.
user - Entering a valid username returns information on a
specific user.
...you can use the @ character to finger via the system you are
connecting to. So :
@wibble.com - lists the users on wibble.com via the system you
actually connected to.
jack@wibble.com - gets information on the user 'jack' on wibble.com
via the system you actually connected to.
You can use as many @'s as you need, but at most you should only
need one if you ever need to finger through a firewall.
For more information on finger see RFC1288.
3.4. The host and port menus
The connection dialogue features two writeable icons for entering
the port name/number and the host you wish to connect to. Hostnames
are usually fairly long, and on a local network with only a few
hosts typing the same thing each time you wish to connect to a host
soon becomes tiresome. FreeTerm v0.12 and later solve this by way
of pop up menus, which are triggered by a button alongside each
writeable icon. The host menu lists entries in the format :
foo.bar.co.uk (Telnet)
moo.cow.com (Finger)
wibble.zonk.org
...
The port name in brackets is the default port, not all entries may
have a default port. Clicking on an entry in the menu fills in the
writable fields in the connection box with the hostname and portname
(if present), leaving you to press the "Connect" button.
The icon bar hot list is exactly the same as the host menu, except
that if you click on an entry with both a default port and host name
the connection starts immediately. If the entry has no default port
the connect dialogue box is displayed for you to enter a portname.
The port menu simply lists frequently used portnames, clicking on an
entry in the menu copies the portname to the writeable icon.
The contents of the host menu/hotlist and port menu are read from
configuration files in !FreeUser.Files.FreeTerm, namely HostList
and PortList. The format of these files is explained in their
comments.
In older versions of FreeTerm you hand edit these files, you still
can, but there is now a user interface in the configuration window
(accessable from the iconbar 'Configure' option).
3.5. The FreeScript language
The FreeScript language is basically designed to log you into
machines automatically. For this reason it's very basic, although
more commands and structures may be added in future.
FreeScript files are text files of type "FScript" (&133).
The best way to introduce their example, so here is a script I use
to log into my university account and fire up pine (a mail/news
reader) :
# log into loki and start pine
session telnet loki.brunel.ac.uk
waitfor "ogin:"
sendl "cs96arh"
waitfor "word:"
sendl "password"
waitfor "loki%"
sendl "pine"
sessionend
Saving that as a file of type &133 and double clicking it will start
FreeTerm and start the script. Obviously the password isn't correct.
More usefully, here's a script to connect to archie at the Imperial
college sunsite :
# log into archie.doc.ic.ac.uk archie server
session telnet archie.doc.ic.ac.uk
waitfor "ogin:"
sendl "archie"
sessionend
Ok, that should make things fairly obvious. We can start multiple
sessions in a script, so if I wanted to combine the scripts and log
into archie after logging into my uni account I could use :
session telnet loki.brunel.ac.uk
waitfor "ogin:"
..blah..
sendl "pine"
session telnet archie.doc.ic.ac.uk
waitfor "ogin:"
sendl "archie"
sessionend
sessionend
...or I could use the following if I just wanted to start connecting to
archie at the same time as loki :
session telnet loki.brunel.ac.uk
waitfor "ogin:"
..blah..
sendl "pine"
sessionend
session telnet archie.doc.ic.ac.uk
waitfor "ogin:"
sendl "archie"
sessionend
...you can also use finger in a similar way to telnet...
session finger mimac-03.brunel.ac.uk root
sessionend
A simple label jump mechanism is provided (allowing simple triggering)...
session telnet wibble.org
label loop
waitfor "hello"
sendl "hello to you too!"
jump loop
sessionend
...and finally there are a couple of commands I haven't mentioned :
send "whatever" is the same as sendl, but it does not do a linefeed
sequence after the string.
sendf "file" sends file - correct linefeed sequence is
inserted where needed.
task "command" runs command as a wimp task
waitforc waits until a connection is established
waitfordisconnect waits for a session to disconnect
title "text" sets the window title of the terminal to "text".
This causes an error if no window is open for that
session.
Like the rest of FreeTerm the script language is still in development,
and will gain more commands and programming constructs as the project
continues.
3.5.1. Points to note
1) Once started session..endsession blocks are independant of each
other.
2) When a script is running keyboard input is not ignored.
3.5.2. Adding Scripts to the Hotlist
To add a script to the hotlist simply copy it to the !FreeTerm.Scripts
directory. This will result in the filename appearing after normal
hotlist entries on the menu. You can change the name in the menu by
including an alternative on the first line of a script prefixed by #$.
eg. (one of the standard scripts)
#$Archie (HENSA)
#
# Log into Archie server at HENSA
# Tony Howat (xargle@eh.org)
#
session telnet archie.hensa.ac.uk
title "Archie at HENSA (login)"
waitfor "ogin:"
sendl "archie"
title "Archie at HENSA"
sessionend
# end
3.6. CLI options
-debug Traces flow negociation to terminals as per pre-release
-port <port>
-host <host> These two options can be used to auto start a session
as soon as !FreeTerm is loaded.
-args <...> Used to specify arguments if you have specified a port
which makes use of them (ie finger)
-nopop No pop-up resolving messages, all problems reported via
full errors.
-vtlie Force FreeTerm to report itself to the remote
machine as a VT100 rather than a VT102 terminal. You
shouldn't need this unless you're working with
broken systems.
-nofingerurl FreeTerm doesn't interpret some finger URLs correctly, and
generally doesn't show the output as nicely as some web
browsers, so it can be prevented from responding to ArcWeb
& ANT finger URL broadcasts by using the new -nofingerurl
command line switch.
3.7 The AutoRun Directory
Files placed in the !FreeTerm.Config.AutoRun directory (or equivalent)
will be run automatically on starting FreeTerm. I use this feature for
auto starting my login script.
4. Miscellaneous notes
If your FreeTerm session to a unix shell gets munged try 'reset'. The
session should clear, and after a few <CR>'s you should get a normal
prompt.
The auto close check box in the configuration window will make _telnet_
session windows close automatically if the remote end drops the
connection.
The window finder (off the icon bar menu) gives you a list of terminal
windows open - click on one to bring it to the top.
The VT100 keypad is useful on VMS systems etc. If you don't know what
it is or how to use it you probably don't need it.
If you use screens and have problems with extra newlines when a character
on the last position on a line you should add "termcap LP" to .screenrc
Read the screens man page for further info.
4.1. StrongARM Compatibility
FreeTerm will not run properly on RISC OS 3.7 until the OS 3.7 patch
has been installed. It can be downloaded from ART's web site.
FreeTerm also works on the Acorn NC, which is thrilling if you own one.
4.2. Programmers' guff
[note: you can launch sessions using ANTs URL protocol as of version 1.30
- probably much easier, but this method is slightly more flexible]
To trigger a session via a WIMP message send Message_FreeTermOp (&440A6).
The data section should look as follows :
length type description
4 bytes int action code == 2
8 bytes empty
64 bytes null terminated string port name/number
80 bytes null terminated string destination address
80 bytes null terminated string the arguments
--------
236 = total length
This message is acked if recieved by FreeTerm. OSLib example in C
follows :
#include "oslib:user.wimp.h"
#include "kernel.h"
#include <string.h>
#define Message_FreeTermOp 0x440a6
typedef struct {
int action; /* action code */
int spare1;
int spare2;
char port[64];
char dest[80];
char args[80];
} freeterm_openmsg;
int main(void)
{
int wimpver;
wimp_t mytaskhandle;
static wimp_block block;
wimp_message ms;
freeterm_openmsg *fom=(freeterm_openmsg *)&(ms.data);
mytaskhandle = wimp_initialise(310,"FreeTerm Test",(void *)-1,&wimpver);
ms.action=Message_FreeTermOp;
ms.my_ref=0;
ms.your_ref=1;
ms.sender=mytaskhandle;
strcpy(fom->port,"finger");
strcpy(fom->dest,"g7lzb.ampr.org");
strcpy(fom->args,"g7lzb");
fom->action=2;
ms.size=sizeof(freeterm_openmsg);
wimp_send_message(wimp_USER_MESSAGE,&ms,0);
xwimp_close_down(mytaskhandle);
return 0;
}
The Config.Fonts file is in the format:
Name (string - to appear in menus)
then
zap b.m. (literal string)
<TermFonts$Dir>.BitMaps.X.10x20 (string)
or (for those who are prepared to tweak parameters for a while)
zap a.a. (literal string)
corpus.medium (RISC-OS font name)
10 Point size
16 Width of font
12 Height of font
0 X offset (usually 0)
8 Y offset (usually >0)
or
zap b.m. dir
<TermFonts$Dir>.BitMaps.CX (Directory to find set of zap fonts)
4.3. Internationalisation
I would be extactic if people could provide me with resources for
different languages to be made available alongside the standard
FreeTerm distribution. e-mail them UUCoded to xargle@eh.org
4.4. Credits
Programming :
Tom Hughes (tom@compton.demon.co.uk) started the project.
Tony Howat (xargle@eh.org) continued it.
Merlin Hughes (hughesm@cs.unc.edu) wrote the terminal emulator.
Thanks to :
Dominic Symes (dominic.symes@armltd.co.uk) for ZapRedraw.
Stewart Brodie (s.n.brodie@ecs.soton.ac.uk) for help with ArcWeb.
Ben Summers for help with the ColourPicker, and those on
comp.sys.acorn.programmer for sorting me out on the occasions when
I saw fit to ask particularly dumb questions.
Graham Allen for his help in sadistic terminal emulator abuse.
Pineapple Software for allocating the FreeScript filetype so promptly.
Richard Atterer <atterer@augsburg.baynet.de> designed the curreny
default sprite set, and provided the German resources.
..and thanks to the beta testers for their helpful comments and
suggestions.
5. Contacting the author(s)
Any queries on the subject of FreeNet in general should be sent
to the original author of FreeTerm, Tom Hughes, who can be contacted by
email at freenet@compton.demon.co.uk, or by snail mail at:
Tom Hughes
5 Lampits
Hoddesdon
Hertfordshire
EN11 8EH
Those with basic configuration problems would be best served by the
comp.sys.acorn.networking newsgroup.
Development of FreeTerm is being undertaken by Tony Howat, so
suggestions for enhancements and bug reports should be sent to him
by email to xargle@eh.org, or by snail mail at:
Tony Howat
12 Dover Road
Birkdale
Southport
Merseyside
PR8 4SY
(mail will be forwarded to my university address during term time)
Only FreeTerm _specific_ queries should be sent to this address, I
can't help on a more general level. My setup is uniquely strange and
flakey :)
If you are so enamoured with FreeTerm that you feel that you may like
to buy the authors a pint or three money is welcome at the above
address, it will be split fairly. (We're both impoverished students,
and so couldn't miss the chance of a beer or two for our trouble!)
FreeTerm has a web page which should now available from the
20-20 Software home page. Point your browser at
http://www.xargle.demon.co.uk/2020