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RRR RRRRRR RRRRRRRRRRRRR RRRRRR RRRR tm RRRR RRRR RRRR RRRR RRRR RRRR RRRR RRRR RRRR RRRR RRRR RRRR RRRRRRRRRRRRR eeeeee ccccc oooooo nn nnnn RRRRRRRRRRR eeeeeeee ccccccc oooooooo nnnnnnnnnn RRRR RRRR eee eee ccc ccc ooo ooo nnnn nnn RRRR RRRR eeeeeeeeeee ccc ooo ooo nnn nnn RRRR RRRR eee ccc ooo ooo nnn nnn RRRR RRRR eee ccc ooo ooo nnn nnn RRRR RRRR eeeeeee cccccc ooooooo nnn nnn RRRR RRRR eeee ccc oooo nnn nnn Recon (tm) version 2.50 September 1994 release, Shareware Copyright 1989-1994, Amdox Corporation ┌─────────┐ ┌─────┴───┐ │ (R) ──│ │o │────────────────── │ ┌─────┴╨──┐ │ Association of │ │ │─┘ Shareware └───│ o │ Professionals ──────│ ║ │──────────────────── └────╨────┘ MEMBER Copyright (C) 1989-1994, Amdox Corporation. All rights reserved. Other brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders. ***************** WARRANTY DISCLAIMER **************** Recon (tm) v2.50 PLEASE READ THIS INFORMATION CAREFULLY ====================================== Users of Recon must accept the following disclaimer of warranty: TRIAL USE (SHAREWARE EVALUATION VERSION) WARRANTY DISCLAIMER ------------------------------------------------------------ THIS COPYRIGHTED SOFTWARE AND ITS DOCUMENTATION IS PROVIDED ON AN "AS IS" BASIS. AMDOX CORPORATION MAKES NO WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION, ANY WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND/OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE USER ASSUMES ALL RISKS OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE. THE AUTHOR ASSUMES NO LIABILITY FOR DAMAGES, DIRECT OR CONSEQUENTIAL, WHICH MAY RESULT FROM THE USE OR MISUSE OF RECON. As it cannot be guaranteed that loss of data will not occur, Recon should be tested with non-critical data. As always, judicious backups are a wise and necessary continuing precaution. ***************** WARRANTY DISCLAIMER **************** Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page i ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Table of Contents ================= Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1.1 Why Recon instead of BRAND X. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 1.2 Example CompuServe sweep. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 1.3 Summary of features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 1.4 What's new in 2.50? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 1.5 What is Shareware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 1.6 Registration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 1.7 Site Licenses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 1.8 Distribution Policies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 1.9 Association of Shareware Professionals Ombudsman. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 2.1 Documentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 2.2 Software. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 2.3 Starting it up. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 2.4 Help! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 2.5 Where to from here? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 2.6 Support & Thanks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Tutorial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 3.1 Pulldown menus. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 3.2 Entering a filespec . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 3.3 Dialog Boxes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 3.4 Loading a File. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 3.5 Browsing a File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page ii ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.6 Mouse HOT ZONES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 3.7 Searching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 3.8 Other Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 3.8.1 Jumping and Tagging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 3.8.2 Editing message headers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 3.8.3 Printing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 3.8.4 Full Screen Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 3.8.5 Resorting the file. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 3.9 Fancy stuff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 3.9.1 MARKing messages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 3.9.2 Splitting off messages, "archiving" . . . . . . . . 36 3.9.3 DELETE messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 3.9.4 MOVE messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 3.9.5 All those shortcuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 3.9.6 Invert it . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 3.9.7 MARK by AGE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 3.10 Filespec pick list . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 3.11 The Recon REPLY EDITOR and related options . . . . . . . . 42 3.12 INTERACTIVE mode AGE/Save&Exit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 3.13 Primer on "BATCH" mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 3.14 Customizable Settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 3.15 the MENU Shell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 3.16 alternate PARAMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 3.17 That's All . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 Startup Options. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 4.1 Message files to process: /F:<filespec> . . . . . . . . . . 50 4.2 PARAMS.CIS location: /P . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 4.3 Tappet deselect mark: /DESLCT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 4.4 Quiet operation: /Q . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 4.5 Use EMS for overlays: /EMSOVR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 4.6 Disable File Backup: /NOBAK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 4.7 Monochrome displays: /MONO. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 4.8 horizontal Navigate Panel: /NPH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page iii ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4.9 Default quoting style: /QUOTE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 4.10 Adjusting OUTBOX times: /TZADJ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 4.11 Ignoring Expanded memory: /NOEMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 4.12 settings main color: /COLOR. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 4.13 Removing file noise: /CLEAN. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 4.14 Turning off automatic reply flags: /NOreplyF . . . . . . . 55 4.15 specify startup PARAMS file: /EXT. . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 4.16 Message redirection from forums to mail: /SFMU. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 4.17 Defaults for import/export: /MES . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 4.18 Reply editor width: /WIDTH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 4.19 CompuServe Latin-1 support: /LATIN1. . . . . . . . . . . . 57 4.20 PreScan settings: /SCAN. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 4.21 Turning off automatic unread flags: /NOunreadF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 4.22 Retaining a sticky Print Menu: /SPM. . . . . . . . . . . . 59 4.23 Clearing the last UNread message: /ExitClear . . . . . . . 59 4.24 Setting screen size: /ExtVideo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 4.25 Temporary directory: /RTEMP. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 4.26 Configuration file specification: /@:<filename>. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 4.27 Reducing required resources: /MaxMSGS. . . . . . . . . . . 60 4.28 Hiding already read messages: /SuppressRead. . . . . . . . 61 4.29 Specifying your navigator: /NAVIGATOR. . . . . . . . . . . 61 4.30 Checking printer status: /CheckPrinter . . . . . . . . . . 61 4.31 VArray Temporary directory: /VARRAY. . . . . . . . . . . . 62 4.32 Disabling RMB for local menu: /NOMLM . . . . . . . . . . . 62 4.33 BATCH mode command line parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page iv ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4.34 DOS environment variables. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 4.34.1 TAPPATH DOS Environment variable . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 4.34.2 TMKPATH DOS Environment variable . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 4.34.3 RTEMP DOS Environment variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 4.34.4 NOMOUSE DOS Environment variable . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 INTERACTIVE mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 5.1 File panel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 5.1.1 Load. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 5.1.2 Pick. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 5.1.3 Save&Exit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 5.1.4 AGE/Save&Exit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 5.1.5 Exit. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 5.1.6 Status. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 5.1.7 Edit Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 5.1.7.1 global: General . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 5.1.7.2 global/forum: View/Send . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 5.1.7.3 global/forum: Sort. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 5.1.8 Save Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 5.1.9 PARAMS file. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 5.1.10 shell MENU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 5.1.11 Text Editor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 5.1.12 Clip/Export. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 5.1.13 Quit Recon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 5.2 Navigate panel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 5.2.1 scroll UP, scroll DOWN. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 5.2.2 msg UP {flt}, msg DOWN {flt}. . . . . . . . . . . . 82 5.2.2.1 Barring UserID's, the Twit Filter . . . . . . . . 83 5.2.3 message UP, message DOWN. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 5.2.4 prev THREAD/CORRES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 5.2.5 STARTofTHD, FINISHofTHD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 5.2.6 neXt THREAD/CORRES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 5.2.7 BEGofFILE, ENDofFILE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 5.3 Action panel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 5.3.1 MARK. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 5.3.2 UnMARK. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 5.3.3 Mark by AGE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 5.3.4 Invert. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 5.3.5 Copy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 5.3.6 Delete. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 5.3.7 Move. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 5.3.8 HOLD. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 5.3.9 Message Alarms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 5.4 View panel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page v ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5.4.1 Searching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 5.4.1.1 Search. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 5.4.1.2 Next HIT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 5.4.1.3 Previous HIT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 5.4.1.4 Searching: header and/or message text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 5.4.1.5 Searching: case sensitivity. . . . . . . . . . . 90 5.4.2 Filters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 5.4.2.1 Filters: MARKed. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 5.4.2.2 Filters: NEW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 5.4.2.3 Filters: UserID group. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 5.4.2.4 Filters: Branch. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 5.4.2.5 Filters: DELETED . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 5.4.2.6 Filters: clear UNREAD flag . . . . . . . . . . . 93 5.4.2.7 View: clear NEEDS REPLY flag. . . . . . . . . . . 94 5.4.2.8 find NEEDS REPLY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94 5.5.1 send MESSAGE/FILE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 5.5.1.1 send FILE/CMail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 5.5.2 send REPLY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 5.5.3 Recon editor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 5.5.3.1 Cut&Paste . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 5.5.3.2 Text import/export. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 5.5.3.3 Auto-Signature Paragraph. . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 5.5.3.4 Reply cleanup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 5.5.3.5 Latin-1 support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 5.5.3.6 Sending it. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 5.5.4 shell to external editor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 5.5.5 DOWnload from LIB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 5.5.6 Scripts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 5.5.6.1 DELETE message on CIS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 5.5.6.2 REAd thread from ROOT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 5.5.6.3 REAd message NUMber. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 5.5.6.4 REAd THRead from NUMber . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 5.5.6.5 REAd SUBject . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 5.5.7 DEselect. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 5.5.7.1 Advanced thread marks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 5.5.8 UserID list . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 5.5.8.1 LOOKUP UserID. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 5.6 Other panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 5.6.1 Jump. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 5.6.2 Jump PARENT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 5.6.3 Tag message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 5.6.4 Goto Subject. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 5.6.5 Edit. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 5.6.5.1 Edit: THREAD/message/MARKed subject(s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 5.6.5.2 Edit: message number . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 5.6.5.3 Edit: message in reply to number . . . . . . . . 109 5.6.6 Print . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 5.6.6.1 Print: printer setup. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 5.6.7 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page vi ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5.6.8 Sort file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 5.6.8.1 Sort: CIS Thread sort/date time sort . . . . . . 113 5.6.8.2 Sort: MAIL correspondent sort ON/OFF 114 5.6.8.3 Sort: threads by DATE/SUBJECT. . . . . . . . . . 114 5.6.8.4 Sort: GROUP/IGNORE sections. . . . . . . . . . . 114 5.6.9 Jump Section. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 BATCH mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116 6.1 BATCH mode: /F:<filespec> and /B . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116 6.2 BATCH mode AGEing: /AGE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 6.3 BATCH mode filesize AGEing: /SAGE. . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 6.4 BATCH mode THREAD AGEing: /TAGE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118 6.5 BATCH mode message AGEing: /MAGE . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118 6.6 BATCH mode: the /DEL parameter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119 6.7 BATCH mode: the /A parameter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119 6.8 BATCH mode: the /ALLFOR parameter. . . . . . . . . . . . . 120 6.9 .MSG file annotation, the /ANN parameter. . . . . . . . . . 120 Appendices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 7.1 Memory considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 7.2 Updating from older versions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 7.2.1 Notes since version 2.20. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 7.2.2 Notes between version 2.01 and 2.20 . . . . . . . . 126 7.2.3 Notes between version 1.80 and 2.01 . . . . . . . . 127 7.3 Example Recon2.SET file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128 7.4 Moving Recon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 7.5 DOS/Windows and EMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 7.6 OS/2 2.1. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131 7.7 DESQview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132 7.8 Hardware requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132 7.9 Program notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132 7.10 Sysop functions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133 7.10.1 Forward on Board . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133 Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page vii ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7.10.2 Forward by MAIL. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134 7.10.3 Change Section/Subject . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134 7.10.4 Hold functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134 7.10.5 Sysop Delete . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 7.10.6 Find Unanswered messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 7.11 .MSG file annotation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 Document Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 1 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 Introduction =============== Today's CompuServe navigators are very efficient at capturing and downloading messages. But once you have all those messages, through multiple sessions and they start piling up, you quickly acquire a significant handling problem. What Recon does is spread out all your messages out on a silver platter, and then does the dishes too! In a nutshell, it keeps track of what you've read, what you haven't, what you haven't replied to, and lets you view/reply/process the messages that you need to. It then keeps sorting in new online passes of messages as well as intelligent aging out of older messages. While viewing there are a multitude of message filters that you can use, and abilities to print and copy/move groups of messages as well. It also lets you organize your hodge-podge of add-on utilities with an intelligent shell. Recon will let you review downloaded messages from within message files that are kept trim and sorted into context. It gets control of your files, but without tossing valuable information. Recon will sort and rethread both forum and mail message files, removing dead text and duplicates in the process. It even works with INTERNET/CMail messages, and can optionally clean up the INTERNET routing information. Recon provides a summary at a glance of the status of all of your active files, using its new, unique Message File PreScan feature. Recon provides an enhanced, powerful file viewer/navigator, which lets you compose your replies, generate download scripts, and other online activities. Recon also provides Sysop functions, not just the usual CompuServe forum commands, but also slick offline file management abilities. You also have the added benefit of your offline message file being maintained to reflect any online CHAnge type commands immediately! Recon can keep your files under control by surgically pruning out older messages, according to your fine-tuning instructions. Recon also can act as a general CompuServe format message file manager allowing you to sort, browse, prune, and organize & archive CompuServe message files, much like a directory file manager lets you work with files within directories. Recon can also help organize your navigator and the variety of add- Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 2 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- on programs with its use of an intelligent memory swapping MENU Shell. Recon 2.50 is now completely compatible with Golden Commpass, an OS/2 Compuserve Navigator. Recon 2.50 also is compatible with Ozcis version 2.x, but for forum files only. Recon 2.50 is a very significant upgrade in features and power, but still remains within the comfortable Recon 2.x framework. Many of the most asked for enhancement requests have now been added. See What's New in 2.50? (section 1.4) for some of the details. You will soon find Recon 2.50 indispensable. 1.1 Why Recon instead of BRAND X ---- Well, there really isn't a Brand X! There is nothing that matches Recon's abilities as an interactive pulldown menu driven message file manager, while at the same time providing a batch mode. While viewing messages in INTERACTIVE mode you can generate message replies with Recon, create file download scripts, and other ONLINE activities for your navigator to carry out. No other message file utility provides this ability. Recon has both INTERACTIVE and BATCH mode, date and file size driven, extraction & deletion/archiving facilities. This makes it easy to keep your message files trimmed, sorted and more manageable. You can even place an alarm on a message, and have Recon hold that message and remind you of it later! Although largely an archaic feature now, when batch processing a message file Recon can still embed navigation text for you to direct and enhance your ability to view such a file with a general file viewer. No other message file viewer utility provides this feature. TAPCIS' OUTBOX messages are incomplete in terms of CompuServe message numbers, TO/FROM lines, and most importantly the message number thread links. Recon has the unique ability to first reconstruct these, then sort into proper thread order and eliminate duplicates, even when these OUTBOX messages are mixed with messages downloaded from CompuServe. (Recon lets you put the OUTBOX copies in your .MSG files) No other message file utility is able to do this. Recon handles both INTERNET and CompuServe MAIL message sorting transparently, in a special CMail sort. It even cleans up the long and Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 3 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- wordy INTERNET header for you. Recon can handle any CompuServe format message file - in fact you will likely use Recon to reorganize your .SAV/.MSG files into ones that perhaps contain messages keyed to specific topics, or threads, or grouped by given correspondents, or by the age of the messages. Hopefully Recon will meet your needs. If it does not tell us why! Recon continues to evolve, and its current form has been very much driven by user suggestions. 1.2 Example CompuServe sweep ---- If you are new to CompuServe (or even if you are not) you may find the following information useful. Sequence A is a typical sequence for sweeps of the forums on CompuServe, this outlines how Recon fits in. You can generate such a sequence by just running things at the command line, by using a batch file, or by creating these entries in the Recon shell MENU (section 5.1.10). SEQUENCE A: 1) Run your navigator, and download all the new headers. This is often called pass 1. If you instead capture all new messages, then skip steps 2 & 3. 2) Now select the threads that you would like to download, with your navigator's thread marking function. Sometimes this function is provided by an add-on program like Tappet. 3) With the threads of interest now selected, go ahead and download these with your navigator. Be sure that you are appending the downloaded information to the message file. Some programs have their default set to overwrite the old downloaded messages with the new. 4) Run Recon in INTERACTIVE mode, view new messages sorted into context, generate any replies or other ONLINE activity, (section 5.5, 5.5) then age & resave (section 5.1.3) each changed file. Messages you wish to keep indefinitely you might save to .SAV files, or for example .THD files, or other files. So the .MSG files contain all recent messages, the .SAV files contain miscellaneous interesting messages, and the .THD files contain messages you wish to keep that all relate to a specific subject. The Recon generated .OLD files contain AGEd messages, Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 4 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- these you may eventually discard, or perhaps copy to diskettes for archiving. 5) Finally, run your navigator to carry out all the pending online activity created by Recon. 6) Of course you can also run Recon interactively to look up older messages/threads, and to periodically clean house. If you would initially prefer to still use your navigator both for viewing messages, and for generating replies, but wish to make use of Recon BATCH mode sorting and .MSG file annotation use: SEQUENCE B: 1) as above 2) as above 3) as above 4) Run Recon in batch, for example use RECON *.MSG /B /AGE (section 6) to trim, age and annotate all of the changed/active forum .MSG files. 5) run your navigator, to view the trimmed and annotated .MSG files, reply, and so on, then go ONLINE. 6) as above Using Recon you can carry out either of the above SEQUENCES. Most users of the current version of Recon would gravitate to Sequence A in order to make use of Recon's rich array of navigation and other thread management features. They can then also use Recon to generate all their new messages, replies, download requests and sysop thread management commands. 1.3 Summary of features ---- Recon can be run in BATCH mode driven completely by command line parameters, or INTERACTIVE. As a summary, Recon: o loads specified message files o removes end of message blank lines and other dead text o cleans up line noise, and CR/LF mismatches o reconstructs message numbers of OUTBOX messages o reconstructs message number thread links o sorts messages into user specified order, including CompuServe Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 5 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- thread order o handles CMail and INTERNET messages transparently o cleans up wordy INTERNET message headers o marks duplicates for deletion o has optional date or file size, driven extraction/archiving o can embed navigation information for the general viewer o saves the cleaned/sorted file to disk, backing up the original o analyzes your setup, uses what you have to maximize resources o handles up to 3200 messages/file and 1000 lines/message When used interactively the user interface includes: o context sensitive hypertext HELP o user definable SHELL to co-ordinate other programs/add-ons o pulldown menus, with mouse support o sysop thread management commands o filespec pick list/directory boxes to choose files o graceful stepping around files that are in use by other programs o a PreScan summary of all your files, information at a glance o global/forum specific settings, can be set interactively o ability to sort by thread, chronologically, alphabetically, by section o full screen message viewing with a local index o full Latin-1 support for viewing and replying o support for extended long and wide video displays o a filtered or unfiltered full screen scrolling index o extensive and very flexible navigation commands o message alarms, Recon will hold and show these to you later o a "bar" filter, can block view of selected users for you o noting of unread messages automatically o reminding you where a reply is needed o a full featured message reply editor, with - block commands - cut and paste - import and export - configurable auto-signatures - easy to use carbon copy option o program wide clipboard capability o appending of OUTBOX copies to your .MSG files o BINARY/ASCII file forwarding by CMail o a search facility, displays messages containing a phrase o New, MARKed, Branch, & UserID message display filters o Sticky NEEDS REPLY and UNREAD status flags o message MARKing: single, branch or thread, or section o date driven message MARKing o automatic AGEing o MARKed message/thread/branch/section copy, delete and move o editing of: message number, in reply to number, subject o message printing and full printer setup/specification Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 6 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1.4 What's new in 2.50? ---- o PreScan of Message Files This powerful, unique feature gives you a summary view of all of your message files as to the number of messages they contain, the number of new messages, the number that need replies, and the number unread, without actually loading any files! This greatly eases your organizational worries when scanning and monitoring multiple forums. o Load even bigger files Recon now has the ability to use virtual disk space (eg. XMS cached disk, or a RAMDISK), in addition to EMS. You can now load up to 3200 messages with EMS, about 3000 with NO EMS at all. In addition, the amount of available free conventional memory is now much less important. o Say more and See more Latin-1 support is now available, just add one line in the configuration file to activate it. Recon now also includes support for large screen sizes, larger than the standard 80x25 - even non-standard UV-type screens. o New Sysop/support features Now you can easily locate messages unreplied to for a given number of days! You can modify the search to look for only solitary messages, or to ignore end-of-thread messages. Also, you can now quickview your boiler plate answers and modify or delete them. o Program-wide clipboard capability You can now snip text from the screen, files, or replies and use it in other replies or elsewhere where text input is required. Together with the newly always available quick UserID lookup/import (even in the reply editor) and the new internal general purpose text editor, you can create and maintain many special purpose text and script files effortlessly. Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 7 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- o Send to multiple recipients Recon now makes it easy to send to a short mailing list, or to maintain external mailing list files. You can even automatically import the distribution list often appended to the end of a CMail message, so you can send a message back to the entire list! o Message Alarms You can now set an alarm on a given message. The message will be held in the file, and when the set date rolls around, the message will be popped back up into view! o Printer Control You can now define the printer port that you wish Recon to use - even change it on the fly. Add setup and exit printer commands as well. The printer subsystem is completely rewritten, and should now eliminate the occasional problems seen in certain LANs and operating settings. o And much more o popup local menu for rescan and selective file list view o memory resource analysis, and new tuning features o provision for a configuration file for startup parameters o long subjects CMail handled/preserved now o trim those wordy INTERNET headers, automatically o collapsible INDEX view, view only filtered in messages o search for next/previous message with N/reply status o optionally reset UNread flag for current message on Save&Exit o batch aging uses improved code o those pesky 7 byte files are now DELETED o Up to 24 Lib/Sections o Improved multitasking situation handling These are some of the highlights, but there are more than two hundred individual changes & enhancements! o Upgrading from 2.01? If you are upgrading from Recon 2.01, you have a huge array of new features to enjoy. Here is a short summary of some of the features that were added in Recon 2.20. Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 8 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- o sticky message status flags: UNread & Needs Reply o Reply Editor enhancements: export/import, quoting o Reply auto-signatures o Reply meta-variables: add time/date automatically o faster file loading o more robust and flexible file aging 1.5 What is Shareware ---- Shareware distribution gives users a chance to try software before buying it. If you try a Shareware program and continue to use it, you are expected to register. Copyright laws apply to both Shareware and commercial software, and the copyright holder retains all rights. Shareware authors are accomplished programmers, just like commercial authors, and the programs are of comparable quality - in both cases, there are good programs and bad ones! The main difference between the two is in the method of distribution. So Shareware is a distribution method, not a type of software. You should find software that suits your needs and pocketbook, whether it's commercial or Shareware. The Shareware system makes fitting your needs easier, because you can try before you buy. And because the overhead is low, prices are also low. Shareware has the ultimate money-back guarantee - if you don't use the product, you don't pay for it. 1.6 Registration ---- Recon is copyrighted Shareware, it is not public domain, and it is not free. If you find Recon of value and continue to use it after a twenty-one day evaluation period you must register your copy of Recon. When you register Recon version 2.50 you receive: o a serial number and license for one copy of Recon 2.50 o any technical updates of Recon 2.50 available at that time o a printed, perfect bound, manual o free bonus standalone utilities (as available) Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 9 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- And whether you newly register or are upgrading you get: o a greater voice in suggesting future enhancements o the satisfaction of supporting the shareware concept If you have not previously registered, or if you last registered a version of Recon prior to version 2.01, and after an evaluation of Recon you wish to register, or if you would just like a pre-registered copy to be shipped out to you, the cost is: In USA & Canada: $38.00 7.00 shipping & handling total of $45.00 US ($59.00 Cdn) Outside USA & Canada: 5.00 additional shipping total of $50.00 US ($65.00 Cdn) If you are registered for version 2.20, you can request an upgrade to version 2.50 by forwarding: In USA & Canada: $19.00 7.00 shipping & handling total of $26.00 US ($34.00 Cdn) Outside USA & Canada: 5.00 additional shipping total of $31.00 US ($40.00 Cdn) If you are registered for version 2.01, you can request an upgrade to version 2.50 by forwarding: In USA & Canada: $29.00 7.00 shipping & handling total of $36.00 US ($47.00 Cdn) Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 10 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Outside USA & Canada: 5.00 additional shipping total of $41.00 US ($53.00 Cdn) You have four options for registering or upgrading: 1) By regular mail: forward your name, CompuServe UserID, (and serial number if upgrading) and check or money order made payable to Amdox Corporation to: Amdox Corporation 217 Terrace Hill Street Brantford, ON N3R 1G8 Canada If you have the evaluation copy of Recon then you can use the registration procedure, or Help|Register/Upgrade, to generate and print a complete registration form - that way you won't forget anything. Then all you need is an envelope, stamp and a check. US postage to Canada is a little more than US domestic. Don't forget that we need your CompuServe UserID, and your serial number if upgrading! 2) By FAX: Visa, MasterCard, American Express: FAX: +1 519 753-7867 (Amdox Corp., 24Hr fax) Forward your credit card number and expiry date, as well as name, CompuServe UserID, and serial number if upgrading. You can use the opening registration procedure or Help|Register/Upgrade to print a complete registration form for you to FAX. 3) By telephone: Visa, MasterCard, American Express: call +1 519 752-5453 (Amdox Corporation) Orders only! Support is not available at that number. Don't forget to have YOUR CompuServe UserID (and serial number if upgrading) handy! Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 11 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) By Compuserve MAIL: This is by Visa, MasterCard or American Express card, you can forward the information directly to us by CMail at 76672,1273. Alternatively, select Help|Register or Help|Upgrade from the menu options, or if you have an evaluation copy of Recon 2.50, just answer YES when Recon asks if you would like to register/upgrade. Recon will then ask for credit card and mailing information, and then automatically direct your navigator to send a CompuServe MAIL message direct to us at 76672,1273. Your credit card will be charged in Canadian funds. You will receive a confirmation by CMail when your order is processed. The registration fee licenses one copy of Recon for use on any one computer at any one time. You must treat this software just like a book. An example is that this software may be used by any number of people and may be freely moved from one computer location to another, as long as there is no possibility of it being used at one location while it's being used at another. Consider it like a book, a book cannot be read by two different people at the same time. 1.7 Site Licenses ---- For commercial users of Recon, site-license or multiple license discount arrangements may be made by contacting us by CMail, fax or mail: Amdox Corporation 217 Terrace Hill Street Brantford, ON N3R 1G8 Canada voice +1 519 752-5453 fax +1 519 753-7867 Cmail 76672,1273 1.8 Distribution Policies ---- Recon(tm) and its documentation is copyrighted and is not public Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 12 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- domain. Anyone distributing Recon for any kind of direct fee must first contact us at the address above for authorization. Although authorization will generally be automatically granted to distributors recognized by ASP as adhering to its guidelines for shareware distributors, notification is still required. The above restriction does not apply to the case of normal and usual connect charges on a BBS, where no other specific charge is made for obtaining a copy of Recon. Individual users are encouraged to pass a copy of Recon along to their friends for evaluation. When secondarily distributed, Recon must be in its original compressed form and accompanied by its full on-disk documentation and other information files. The distributed software and documentation may not have been modified in any way. No secondary distributor is authorized to register a copy of Recon. Registration fees may only be sent directly to the author as outlined in the section above (section 1.6). Note that the registration fee is exclusive of, and over and above any fees that may be charged by a secondary distributor. 1.9 Association of Shareware Professionals Ombudsman ---- The author is a member of the Association of Shareware Professionals (ASP). 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, 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 members' products. Please write to: ASP Ombudsman 545 Grover Road Muskegon, MI 49442-9427 U.S.A. or send a Compuserve message via CompuServe MAIL to: ASP Ombudsman 70007,3536. or send a FAX to: ASP FAX +1 616 788-2765 Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 13 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- In communications with the Ombudsman please include a telephone number and/or FAX if available. Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 14 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2 Installation =============== Recon consists of at least the following files: PACKING.TXT a list of all the files in package WARRANTY.TXT important WARRANTY information !README!.TXT quick start and last minute information RECON.EXE RECON.OVR the actual software RECON25.HLP DCTABLE.DAT RECON250.TXT a dos text version of the manual 2.1 Documentation ---- RECON250.TXT is this dos text version of the manual. This file contains all of the information contained in the printed copy of the manual. If you wish to print or view the on-disk copy, it contains no special formatting commands, can be viewed with any DOS text file viewer or editor, and it should be printable on most any printer. The maximum line width in the document is 76 characters and it requires no more than 60 lines per page to print. Though not strictly necessary, setting your printer to 12 cpi with a 1.0 inch left margin (on 8.5 inch width paper) should result in a nicely centered printout. If you load this document into a word processor, be careful to allow at least 60 lines/page. Be sure that you have enough paper - the document is long. For a formfeed paper printer insert the paper and set your printer to start printing towards the top of the page, ready to print on approximately the fourth line. Note that most page printers (laser, inkjet, or impact with a cut sheet feeder) will by default begin printing on line 4. Then type at the DOS command line: COPY RECON250.TXT PRN The documentation file may include some box drawings, these use Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 15 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- certain characters which may not be available on some printers. Generally such printers replace these special characters with italicised letters. If you are able to, choose the IBM mode on such a printer. 2.2 Software ---- If you ordered a registered copy of Recon on disk, then the included on-disk RINSTALL utility, after asking a few questions, will automatically install Recon for you. Just insert the Recon diskette into either of your floppy drives, change to that drive, and type RINSTALL. For example if you insert the diskette into drive A, type at the DOS prompt: A: [Enter] RINSTALL [Enter] If you downloaded Recon from CompuServe, a BBS, or just got an evaluation copy from a friend, installing the software is still quite straightforward. Just copy RECON.EXE, RECON.OVR and RECON25.HLP (also DCTABLE.DAT for Latin-1 support) into the same directory that contains your navigator files and you are ready to go. You do not need to, and should not erase any information files (Recon*.DAT, Recon*.SET and Recon*.PCK) that a previous version may have created. These contain file time stamp data, your previous pick lists, and other information useful to Recon. RECON.OVR contains Recon's overlay files, this reduces the amount of working memory that Recon requires. The overlays can take advantage of EMS memory if you have it available (section 4.5). Even without the RINSTALL utility, you may also optionally install Recon in any subdirectory, the procedure is described in the reference section. (sections 4.2, 4.34.1) To run the program just type RECON at the DOS command line. Just like any other program that you run, you must be in the same directory that RECON.EXE and RECON.OVR were copied into, or that directory must be on the DOS PATH, or you must use the file's path in the command line you specify. 2.3 Starting it up ---- Recon should already be installed as outlined above. Change (using CD) into the same directory as you copied Recon into (RECON.EXE, RECON.OVR and RECON25.HLP) and then type RECON at the DOS command line. Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 16 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The possible error conditions include: 1) Bad command or file name This message is from DOS indicating that RECON.EXE is not found in the current directory nor on the DOS PATH, see the above paragraph. 2) runtime UNCATEGORIZED ERROR (402) Overlay Error This message is from Recon, it means that Recon cannot find the RECON.OVR overlay file, see the above paragraph. 3) PARAMS.CIS not found This message is from Recon, it would suggest that either you have not copied RECON.EXE and RECON.OVR into the same subdirectory as the PARAMS.CIS file, or that it has been previously erased, moved or never created. Either create a PARAMS.CIS file with your navigator, or use the /NAVIGATOR (section 4.29) option to have Recon create a PARAMS.CIS file itself. 4) A complete hard lockup occurs Some expanded memory managers, with certain command line combinations, (in particular DOS's EMM386) will give the appearance of expanded memory being available when an application queries the system, but then when an attempt is made by the application to actually access the phantom expanded memory a system crash almost always will occur. If Recon seems to hang right after you start it, this is almost always the cause. Recon's /NOEMS parameter (section 4.11) will work around this problem, and Recon will instead safely use disk swapping instead of EMS. Unless you are a registered user, when Recon first executes you will be shown a screen which reminds you of the Shareware nature of Recon. There is a twenty-one day free evaluation period. At the bottom of that screen you will see the following: OK, I'd like to see, and maybe use, the Registration form. Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 17 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- A cursor will be blinking, the message is self-explanatory, if you wish to fill out and mail, fax or CMail send a registration just press Y or [Enter], otherwise press any other key and you will continue. At other times you may see a cursor blinking under a double sided arrow, ( ) it indicates that the program has paused, generally for the purpose of letting you read the screen, or see the results of a multiple stage action. Sometimes Recon will timeout, and automatically continue after a set period of time. At other times the program will wait indefinitely until [SPACE] is pushed. Alternatively you can press the [Esc] key in place of [SPACE]. For mouse users you can also click and release the right button, Recon considers this equivalent to pressing [Esc]. Next comes the main opening screen. Along the top you will see the pulldown menu bar, with the File panel pulled down and the light bar sitting on the Pick option. 2.4 Help! ---- Context sensitive Help is accessible throughout the program by accessing the Help option. You can access Help by using the local hot key H while in the top line of menu choices, the global hot key of Alt-H or [F1]. Mouse users can click and release both buttons, to access Help. While in Help if you press [F1] again, or click both mouse buttons, a Help Index of topics will be displayed. You can then pick a topic from that index. 2.5 Where to from here? ---- If you have never used Recon before - I would suggest that you either read through the tutorial section, or if you do not like a walk-through approach to learning a program, then study the reference sections. Section 3 is the walk-through tutorial. Section 4 explains optional command line and DOS environment variable options, you can probably save this section for Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 18 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- later. Section 5 is the reference section for INTERACTIVE mode Recon, this is how you will likely be using Recon most of time. Section 6 is the reference section for BATCH mode. Batch is useful for sorting and cleaning up message files that you don't need to view. Section 7 contains appendices with useful ancillary information on Recon. Though not suggested, if you must go off exploring on your own, then as long as you do not save or write out a file, run Recon in BATCH mode, or compose a reply you will not cause any changes to any of the message files that Recon looks at. There is context sensitive help available throughout, and this should assist you in getting to know the program. However you will not get the full value out the Recon unless you at some time read through the documentation. If you are an experienced user - of version 2.20 you should have little trouble intuitively adjusting to most of the new features. However, before you start, please quickly glance at: Appendix 7.2 Updating from older versions. This contains some quick and important notes. You should also at least skim through the reference sections and in particular read the sections referenced in What's NEW in 2.50? (section 1.4) in order to formally review and understand any changes. 2.6 Support & Thanks ---- Questions, comments, thanks, or jeers are all welcome. This software is supported on CompuServe, address messages to: Recon Support 76672,1273 through CompuServe MAIL or leave a message in the TAPCIS, Golden Commpass or Ozcis forums (preferably in the Scripts and Tools section). Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 19 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you address your message to just plain: Recon the UserID lookup will find the full correct address for you! My sincere thanks go out to all of those who have helped me to improve Recon by offering up their wish lists, suggestions and criticisms. Also a very special thanks to all the brave and tireless beta/gamma testers. Enjoy! Orest Skrypuch Principal Author Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 20 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3 Tutorial =========== This section is intended for those who learn best by a program walk-through. Although some of the more entry level information may not be duplicated elsewhere, all of the important Recon specific feature information contained in this section is also found in the reference sections. On the other hand, if you find that you learn best by just running it, and exploring, then at least quickly review the reference sections. Recon's context sensitive hypertext will help a great deal as it largely duplicates the complete reference section. None of the actions in this tutorial will need to result in permanent changes to any of your message files. Of course once you understand Recon's operation you will be altering message files all the time. That's what Recon is all about. We will create a small new file, which you may erase after the exercise if you wish. To start the tutorial you should have Recon already installed, (section 2.2) ready to run (section 2.3) and with its opening screen displayed. 3.1 Pulldown menus ---- Before we go any further I would like to explain Pulldown Menus a bit. A menu panel is pulled down by either selecting it with the [Enter] key, or by typing the bolded letter. (eg. F for File) Once pulled down the [DArr] and [UArr] keys can be used to choose among the options. Options on the File panel are Load, Pick, Save&Exit, AGE/Save&Exit, Exit, Status, Edit Settings, Save Settings, PARAMS file, shell MENU, Text Editor, Clip/Export and Quit Recon. Valid options are displayed in bold, inactive options are dim (color only). When you first run Recon, Load, Pick, Status, Edit Settings, Save Settings, shell MENU, Text Editor, Clip\Export and Quit Recon will be the valid options in this panel. You can choose the desired option by highlighting (selecting) it with the light bar, then pressing [Enter] (choosing it). Alternatively, when available in the panel, you can type the highlighted letter (here L for Load or P for Pick) to choose the desired option. These are local shortcuts or hot keys. Note that at the end of the File|Save&Exit line there is an [F10], for File|Exit there is an [F7], and so on. This is a reminder of the global hot keys for choosing these options. In other words, most of the Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 21 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- time (including while you are in the panel) pressing [F10] (the function key, along the left or top of your keyboard) will execute the File|Save&Exit function. Of course it must be a valid option at that time. Similarly [F7] will execute File|Exit, and Ctl-[F3] (push and hold down the Ctrl key, then press the [F3] function key) will execute File|Edit Settings and so on. All of the menu options have either a local, or a global hot key shortcut. Using the [RArr] and [LArr] keys at this point will move you to the next active pulldown menu panel (on the same level) to the right or left respectively of the one currently displayed. If there is not such a panel, then you will be moved one level higher. Pressing [Esc] will remove the currently displayed panel and move you one level up, here this would be to the top group of choices. (File, Navigate, Action, View, Connect, Other and Help) On this top tier of choices use [RArr] and [LArr] to move the light bar. When you first run Recon, File, Connect and Help will be the only valid top level options. Alternatively, while along the top level options just type the highlighted letter (F for File, N for Navigate, A for Action, V for View, C for Connect, O for Other and H for Help) to choose the desired option, these are the local hot keys. In addition all of the top level options have global hot keys corresponding to the Alt-letter combination of the highlighted letters in that option. (Alt-F for File, Alt-N for Navigate, etc.) These will access the options from anywhere in the menu system. If a mouse is detected, a block-sized reverse video mouse cursor will be displayed in the top left corner. You can choose any visible option by moving the mouse cursor to the desired option and clicking the left mouse button. (a click means to push and release the mouse button) This will move the light bar to that option (select it) if it is currently valid. To then execute this option, (choose it) click the left mouse button again. The right mouse button is equivalent to the [Esc] key, it will also remove the currently displayed panel and move one level up. 3.2 Entering a filespec ---- Ok, lets go ahead and load a file. Move the light bar to the Load choice in the File panel, and choose the File|Load option. The first time you use this option Recon provides as the default a filespec that would include your regular .MSG files. For the purposes of our discussion a filespec may include a drive, a directory, the filename root and the file extension. The path can Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 22 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- include the drive and the directory, here the path is D:\WORK. Of course Recon will instead provide your own personal message file directory. Anywhere a message file filespec is requested, if you do not specify a path then Recon will assume that you mean the message file storage directory - it saves some typing. In other words the storage directory is considered the default directory. 3.3 Dialog Boxes ---- Before I go any further I would like to point out some of the basics involved in entering requested text. As required, a box will appear requesting input, usually with a default entry displayed, and with a blinking text cursor. INSERT mode is indicated by a thin underline cursor, OVERWRITE mode by a block cursor. The following editor keys are active in dialog boxes: [LArr] : moves the cursor one space left [RArr] : moves the cursor one space right [Home] : moves to the beginning of the line [End] : moves to the end of the line [Del] : erases the character at the cursor [Bksp] : erase the character before the cursor [Ins] : toggles INSERT and OVERWRITE mode Ctl-[End] : erase from cursor to the end of the line Ctl-[LArr] : moves one word left Ctl-[RArr] : moves one word right [F10] : insert the default text phrase, if any Ctl-[F10] or Ctl-R : restore the originally displayed text [Enter] or [LEFTmouseBUTTON] : dialog complete [Esc] or [RIGHTmouseBUTTON] : try to abort dialog If you press a non-editor key (A to Z, a to z, 0 to 9, or punctuation marks) as the first key, the initially displayed entry will disappear, the assumption is that you wish to enter a completely different phrase. If you press an editor key (see the list above) as the first key then you can edit/add to the entry. Pressing [Enter] (or clicking the left mouse button) will choose the displayed text, pressing [Esc] or clicking the right mouse button) will return to the next higher menu. Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 23 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- In a dialog box [F10] offers an alternate default entry, when there is one. In some dialog boxes, [F10] will provide for a list of possible choices that you can point and shoot pick. If you are not sure what that means, try it. In the context of use it will make sense. 3.4 Loading a File ---- Ok lets go ahead and load a file. If you have tried out the editor keys on the default entry then press Ctl-[F10] or Ctl-R, it will restore the originally displayed entry. With the entry restored choose it, that is, press the [Enter] key, or click the LEFT mouse button. Though probably most of your viewing/replying and so on will be in Recon, when you later have Recon resave the file, the file remains in a bland ASCII text format and is completely compatible with the TAPCIS', Golden Commpass' and other file viewers. In fact you can optionally annotate .MSG files which actually augments your abilities within, and use of the TAPCIS viewer, should you ever need it (section 6.9). Once you choose a filespec, a directory box will appear with any matching files. The files are listed chronologically, with the more recently changed files at the top. Note: the Filespec that generated this picklist is displayed along the top of the box. What you will actually see listed is of course dependent on what forums you have messages SAVed in. The box is called a pick list, and it lists possible files to load. Pick lists are also used to display lists of recent filespecs, message subjects, and the full screen scrolling index is a special kind of pick list. The general comments below apply to all pick lists. There are several ways to select a file (move the highlight bar): [UArr] & [DArr], [PgUp] & [PgDn], and [Home] & [End] keys Start typing the name of a file, the letters will appear along the bottom LEFT of the box and the highlight bar will move as the number of letters typed more uniquely identifies a file. For mouse users: [LEFTmouseBUTTON] click on a file's line selects it [LEFTmouseBUTTON] click on arrow in the TOP right corner of the box moves the highlight bar UP one entry [LEFTmouseBUTTON] click on arrow in the BOTTOM right corner of the box moves the highlight bar DOWN one entry Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 24 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- [LEFTmouseBUTTON] click anywhere along the right BORDER of the box moves the highlight bar to the proportionate relative position in the entire list. (Note that this may require scrolling of the contents of the box.) To choose a file: Pressing [Enter] chooses the highlighted file. If a mouse is active: A second [LEFTmouseBUTTON] click on a file's line chooses it. The File|Load pick list has a number of columns, with a list of files, and information about them to the right of the filename, I will discuss these from left to right. The Change Flags' first character can be either a C which indicates that the file has changed since Recon last processed that file, or an s indicating that the file has remained the same. This information is only provided for regular .SAV and .MSG files, for other files a "." is displayed. The Change Flags' second character reflects the status of the DOS archive file attribute. The archive attribute is set by DOS when a file is changed. Most backup programs will reset this flag. Though not as useful as the Recon C/s flag, the DOS archive file attribute may be useful in deciding which files have changed and which have not. The File Size column shows the rounded size of the file in "k", which stands for just over one thousand bytes, actually 1024. A file of size of 0 (zero) will still be listed as 1 kbytes long. The last two columns contain the date and time that the file was last changed. This is the same date and time that you will see listed beside the file in a DOS DIR command listing. As already noted, the files are listed chronologically with the more recently changed files listed first. But what about all those numbers at the end? Well that is the meat of the information that you see. Once you become familiar with these columns, you will rely on them extensively. In addition, these columns will contain much more useful information once Recon becomes familiar with the files, once you've loaded and resaved the files at least once. The first column simply lists the number of messages in the file, and the second the number of messages that are new to Recon, that is messages that Recon hasn't seen before. If you are a first time user, then this number will likely equal the number of messages in the file. Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 25 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The next two columns indicate the number of messages that you have not viewed from within Recon, and the number of messages that probably need a reply. If there are brand new messages in the file, then the number of messages that need a reply may not be determined with exact certainty, and if this is so then a ? is shown. There is more detailed information on these columns in the reference section. (section 5.1.1). So after all that, let's actually load a file. With the light bar select a small FORUM file (not MAIL.MSG) of say 50k to 100k, although any one you pick will probably do fine for our purposes. Choose it by pressing [Enter] or clicking [LEFTmouseBUTTON]. 3.5 Browsing a File ---- Each time Recon loads a file it will, as necessary, reconstruct each individual message header, prune non-message dead text lines, clean up line noise and rematch CR/LF's, sort the messages as directed, then reconstruct message numbers and the in reply to message number links. After the sorting and fixups, if a message is judged to have duplicates, then all but one of the message copies will be automatically marked for deletion. It is always the more recent message of a duplicate pair (or triple etc.) that is retained. For example let's say that you uploaded a reply to a message on the TAPCIS forum, your OUTBOX reply copy is also saved to your TAPCIS .MSG file, and marked with the current time, for example 10:30:23. When you go online and actually upload this message, CompuServe assigns a message time, it would have to be a later time than the SAVed copy in your SAV file for example 10:43:12. Eventually you download the entire thread containing your message reply. When you load the .MSG file in Recon again the 10:30:23 message, that is the OUTBOX copy of your message, is the one marked for deletion. A problem may occur if you access CompuServe through a data packet service, and the point at which you enter the CompuServe network is not in the same time zone as yourself. See section 4.10 for a discussion of and a fix for this. Once the file is loaded, then in the top right corner of the screen appears a local index of the messages. The middle entry of the five lines is highlighted and represents Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 26 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- the current message, that message is displayed in full on the screen. The local index also details the two immediately preceding and following messages, if any. The first column contains the message subject. The second and third columns show the contents of the Fm: and To: lines. Each line is truncated to fit into the columns. Note that your name/UserID is recognized and <self> is substituted for it. The hatched boxes along the column lines indicate that these messages are currently MARKed. More on marking in a moment. If filters are active, then messages that are included by the filter conditions will be bolded in the mini-index box, more on that later as well. If you don't want to see this mini-index box, then you can toggle it off (and then back on) with Alt-I. If the file you chose is sourced as a CompuServe MAIL file, the local index will appear a little differently. The last two columns will be replaced by a single one showing who your correspondent was, and whether the message was from them to you (fm:), or to them from you (t:). Obviously in CompuServe MAIL you will always be one of the correspondents. Along the bottom line you'll find a status line showing general information about the current message. The forum name is listed first, for example PCVENB. The Greek upper case letter delta after the forum name indicates that the file has changed and needs saving. If you try to exit without saving, you will be reminded of this. The sequence number and the total number of new messages is next on the line. If all filters are off, the sequence number and total will refer to all of the messages in the file. If a number in parentheses is shown, then this is the number of messages currently slated for deletion. If one of the NEW, MARKed, UserID or Branch filters is active, then the corresponding fN, fM, fU or fB will be displayed. If the currently displayed message is a MARKed message MRK is displayed. Similarly if this is a NEW message (to Recon) then NEW will be displayed. If this is a message that was originally saved as an OUTBOX message, BOX is displayed. If this message is an announcement then ANN is displayed. If the current message is held, then HLD will be displayed, and lastly if this message needs a reply, then NRp is shown. If the HIDE: DELETED filter is turned OFF, and the current message is judged to be a duplicate then ?DUP will be displayed. If the message has already been marked for deletion then DEL is present. If the HIDE: DELETED filter if turned ON (the default) then deleted messages Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 27 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- will be hidden from view. If Recon encounters a message in your MAIL.MSG file indicating that you have received a BINARY or ASCII file by CMail, it will ask if you would like to rename the received file. If a filename is included in the message subject, then Recon will offer it as the default filename to use. This avoids the non-specific MAIL1.BIN type filenames in your download directory. Now that we have the file loaded let's look around. If you have not skipped around the menu since the file loaded then the light bar will be on the File option along the top row, instead move to and choose the Navigate option to pulldown the Navigate panel of choices. If this were a CompuServe MAIL sourced file then the prev THREAD and next THREAD options would be replaced by prev CORRES(pondent) and next CORRES(pondent). By default all CompuServe MAIL sourced files are sorted into message groups by correspondent (section 5.6.8.1) in addition to thread, it makes more sense to skip through the file in that way. All the simple direct ways of moving around the file are in this panel. For instance to move to the last message in the file move the light bar to ENDofFILE and choose it. Notice that each of these options has a hot key (shortcut) method for executing it. For example, most anywhere in the program, assuming that it is a valid option at the time, you can skip to the last message in the file by pressing Ctl-[PgDn]. Note that if the displayed message is longer than one screen in length you can move through it using the [-] and [+] keys, you will be prompted on the bottom line of the message text display with - continued - when the message is longer than one screen. The MSG scroll UP and MSG scroll DOWN functions can be set to scroll the message one line at a time, (default) by full screens, or by full screens with one line of overlap (section 5.1.7.1). For the convenience of notebook users, you can also use the unshifted minus key (ie. the equals key) just to the left of the number row, as an equivalent to the minus key. The [SPACE] can be used as an alternative no thinking necessary key. (Isn't that peaceful?) If the displayed message is only one screen long, then [SPACE] acts as the [DArr] key, if the displayed message is longer than one screen, then [SPACE] acts as the [+] key until it gets to the end of the message, then it does the equivalent of [DArr]. But wait a minute. The [UArr] and [Darr] keys move the highlight bar. That's correct, but if there is no menu panel pulled down, then they will act to page through the messages. The pair of [PgUp] & [UArr] and [PgDn] & [DArr] keys act the same, Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 28 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- unless filters are enabled. If any filters are active, then to get to the next message that respects the filter use [UArr] or [DArr]. To temporarily ignore the filters use the [PgUp] or [PgDn] keys. The above is useful when you load a file and want to skip through only the new messages, (you set the NEW filter) but then occasionally you need to look at other old messages in the same thread for context. For the first you would use the Arrow keys, for the second the Page keys. What about these needs reply and unread status marks? Well, Recon will in most instances handle these for you automatically. If it finds a message that needs a reply, it will indicate this both in the bottom status bar, and at the top of the message next to the message header information. The unread message status is noted to the right of the message header as well. The needs reply status mark is cleared once you reply to the message using Recon, and the unread status will be automatically cleared when you scroll past the message with either [Space] or [DArr]. The Branch and UserID filters are special in their behaviour. They will temporarily override any other set filters, so that you will only see that given filter active. In addition, if the Branch filter is active and you execute an Other|JUMP root command (Alt-J), then the Branch filter is extended backwards to include the new root message - and all of its replies too (sections 5.4.2.3, 5.4.2.4). Go ahead and get the feel of this group of options now. 3.6 Mouse HOT ZONES ---- Mouse users should note that if there are no menu panels pulled down, then there are a number of clickable mouse hot zones. You use a single [LEFTmouseBUTTON]. The lines in the local index box are clickable for navigation, clicking the current message mini-index line will bring up the full screen index. Mouse users can click on the top half of the message text to scroll UP, and the bottom half to scroll DOWN. Clicking on the - continued - line, or on the bottom rule (second line from the bottom) simulates the [SPACE] key. Clicking on the first header line of the message, (contains #:) executes a GOTO to the last displayed message, equivalent to [TAB] or Alt-J,[Enter]. Clicking on the subject line jumps to the root of the current message, if there is one. Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 29 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- You can toggle the settings of the four filters by clicking on the fN, fM, fU or fB along the status line. You can also toggle the MARKed, HoLD, NReply and the DELeted status of the message by clicking on the MRK, HLD, NRp and DEL marks respectively on the status line. 3.7 Searching ---- You can quickly find any messages in the file containing specific text by using the search facility. Let's move to that now. Although there are many ways to get to it, if you still have the Navigate panel pulled down then press the [RArr] twice. Choose the Search option, you will then see a dialog box asking for a target phrase. Pick some text that is bound to be in the file, for example, the word "the" or your first name. By default, the search treats upper case and lower case letters as equivalent and searches both the header and the message text. You can change this by using the case insensitive/Case SENSITIVE option, (section 5.4.1.5) and you can restrict the search to the header only by using the Header+Text/Header ONLY option (section 5.4.1.4). Once you have entered the target text press [Enter]. A quickly changing number will appear to the right of the text you entered indicating that Recon is looking. You can abort the search by pressing [Esc]. If any filters are active (none should be at present) then the search will only look at messages that are included by the current settings of the filters. The View|Search option always starts the search at the first message in the file. In the event that a message with the target text is not found, Recon will leave the current message displayed. If a message is found, then it is displayed with the target text highlighted. The target text may not be on the first display page of the message and hence may not be visible unless you press the [+] key one or more times. Executing Previous HIT or Next HIT will start a search for a preceding or succeeding message which contains the target text. The search starts at the current message, and searches in either of the respective directions. Both of these options use the same target phrase already specified in the View|Search option and the search is subject to the same restrictions (or lack of them) for case, text location and filters. Notice the hot key (shortcut) methods for each of the do a search commands, [F2] will execute the View|Search command. The < and > keys will execute View|Previous HIT and View|Next HIT. As a convenience the Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 30 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- unshifted < key (the comma) and the unshifted > key (the period) are considered equivalent to their shifted states as to executing a search. We will get back to the View panel and the filter commands later in the tutorial. 3.8 Other Options ---- This panel contains the more powerful navigation options, the message header editing facility, the printing options, and the sorting options. Try these options out as we go through them. 3.8.1 Jumping and Tagging ---- Use this to move to a specific message, as referenced by its Recon sequence number (the message number displayed on the bottom information line). The global hot key is J. When asked, enter the Recon sequence number of the message you wish to move to in the provided dialog box. Notice that the sequence number of the message you had immediately previously displayed is the default, making it easy to jump quickly back to the last message. A search or a simple message DOWN, or message UP movement does not change the last message you were at setting, the other navigation commands do reset this setting. The [TAB] key will do an immediate Other|JUMP to the last message you were at, this allows you to quickly compare two messages - toggling them back and forth by pressing [TAB]. Mouse users can click on the first line of the message header (line containing #:) as an equivalent of the [TAB] key, if there are no menu panels pulled down. If this message is a reply to another message as witnessed by for example #74232- in reply to number at the beginning of the displayed Sb: line then you can quickly jump to that message by choosing the Other|Jump ROOT option in this panel (global hot key is Alt-J). Once at the ROOT message you can then jump back by using the Other|Jump command, the previous message number will be the default to jump to. To do the latter in a single keystroke, just press the [TAB] key. Mouse users can click on the subject line (third line) of the message header as an equivalent of the Other|Jump ROOT command if there are no menu panels pulled down. Don't confuse the numbers that CompuServe assigns to messages Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 31 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- (usually big) with the sequence number that Recon associates with each message. (usually smaller) The Other|Jump command needs the (smaller) Recon sequence numbers. The Other|Jump ROOT command automatically looks for the message with the CompuServe message number as indicated by the in reply to number of the current message. However you can go to a specific Compuserve message number by doing a search for that number using the Search command. This will execute very quickly if you also restrict the search to Header ONLY. One other note, if the NEW filter is on then the sequence number on the bottom status line will refer to NEW messages, not the sequence within the complete file. However, the Other|Jump command always refers to the base Recon sequence number and not the NEW message sequence number. This brings us to TAGging. When navigating through a message file you may wish to go back to the start of a thread, or perhaps to another distant thread. Rather than having to remember what message you were at, just TAG the message. Choosing Other|Tag message (global hot key Alt-T) does exactly that. Think of it as a bookmark. To return to the tagged message, use the Other|Go Tagged option (hot key Alt-G). Now, to the subject of Other|Goto Subject. This is a very handy navigation command allowing you to jump to the start of a thread with a specific subject. Try it now by using either the global hot key G or choosing it with the light bar. This will bring up a pick list of all the thread subjects in this file. If this is a large file, it may take a few moments to sort them. After you choose a subject to jump to, Recon will immediately jump to the first message in that thread. If you press [Esc], you will abort the process. 3.8.2 Editing message headers ---- Occasionally you will need to clean house and consolidate old threads into a single one - by giving them a common subject title. Or perhaps you need to change the message number or an in reply to number to rearrange thread ordering. This is what these options are for. You should be advised that doing this type of editing is better left until the threads themselves are no longer actively scrolling (on CompuServe) and being added to, otherwise you may compromise Recon's ability to properly sort out any new messages that you are still adding to the same thread. Choosing the Other|Edit option brings up a submenu. Choose THREAD subject. Go ahead and do it, as long as you don't resave the file you won't actually change it on disk. This will bring up a pick list of all current file thread subjects for you to pick. You could pick one that is similar, you can still edit it. If you press Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 32 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- [Esc] to ignore the pick list altogether, this will give you the current thread subject in the dialog box, ready to be edited. As in any dialog box, remember that if you press an editor key first you can edit the entry. Typing a letter first will erase the entry, the assumption being that you want to enter a totally different phrase. At this point if you press the [Esc] key again you will abort the process and you will be back at the Other|Edit submenu. If you press [Enter] then you will be asked to confirm the change in the subject name, and then if so directed the change will be made. Other|Edit|THREAD subject will change the subject of each of the messages in the thread. Other|Edit|message subject will change only the subject of the current message. Other|Edit|all MARKED is useful for grouping together related messages within a file. This option in particular should only be used after the thread is no longer scrolling and being added to. (More on marking shortly, note that this option is disabled unless there are messages marked.) Otherwise, the Other|Edit subchoices have the same syntax and procedure as for Other|Edit|THREAD subject. The last two options allow you to edit the message number and the in reply to message number; the latter (if present) is on the Sb: line. Recon will not allow you to edit message numbers of non-OUTBOX messages. However you can edit the in reply to number of any message. To make the in reply to number disappear change it to 0 (zero). If you edit a message, then the file will likely require a resort. Other|Sort sorting will be mentioned in a moment. 3.8.3 Printing ---- Choosing Other|Print gives a submenu. The first three suboptions are self-explanatory. You can try printing the current message if you have paper inserted and ready. If Recon suspects that the printer is not ready, then it may give you a reminder to double check the printer (section 4.30). If you go ahead anyway without having the printer online and paper loaded, Recon should handle the DOS critical error, and after a thirty second timeout allow you to retry. Unless you have gone ahead and marked some messages, (to be covered below) then the all MARKed option will be disabled. Its use will soon be obvious. Both the ONLY NEW and all MARKed suboptions give you the option of Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 33 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- inserting a form feed at the end of each thread to separate them out as the messages are printed. The file INDEX option will print the index for the current file. This is essentially the complete full screen scrolling index (next section). What's all this Printer Setup stuff? Do I need to worry about this? Probably not, but it is there if you need to send a specific setup string to your printer or if you wish to print to the non-default printer, that is LPT2 or LPT3. You can also use this option to have Recon force printing to a file. See section 5.6.6.1 in the reference section for more details. 3.8.4 Full Screen Index ---- To find out what the full screen index looks like, just press I as the global hot key command and have a look. If you have a mouse active then you can also call up the index by clicking on the line in the mini-index that corresponds to the current message (usually the center one). If this is a regular forum file then a screenful of lines within a box will appear. The first number is the Recon message sequence number. A nine space column field follows showing the flags for that message (N for New, X for outboX, A for Announcement, P for private, U for unread, N for needs reply, ? for a possible duplicate, D for marked for Deletion, and the final column may be H for HOLD, or L for alarmed). Just like in the small five line local index, hash marks on the column borders would indicate that the message is currently marked. The next two columns show the CompuServe assigned number and the forum section number (outbox messages may not be assigned a section and may only be shown as section ".."). The last four columns show the message date, the message subject, and the message "Fm:" and the message "To:" fields. The last three are cut to fit, and UserID's are stripped leaving only names. Note that your UserID is recognized and your name is replaced with <self>. If this is a CompuServe MAIL sourced file then the lines will appear a little differently. The same Recon sequence number and the flags are present, as well Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 34 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- as the date and time of the CompuServe MAIL message. Then there is the message subject and the last column indicates whether this message is from you to someone, or vice versa. The full screen index is like a pick list, you scroll through the list by using similar keys or mouse actions as already described above in section 3.4 However, there are a number of other commands available when the full screen index is displayed. To see a HELP screen which lists all of them, press [F1] (or click both mouse buttons again). These are a subset of the Navigate, Action and Other panels. Finally, to jump to a message of interest, just highlight and choose that specific message; you will return to the regular viewing screen. To return to the same message you started out with (before the index display) press [Esc]. 3.8.5 Resorting the file ---- Recon provides a number of sort options. You'll find details on these in reference section 5.6.8. However, they are largely self-explanatory and if you wish you can try them out now. Review the file with the full screen index to get an idea of the changes made by resorting. 3.9 Fancy stuff ---- So far what we have been doing is browsing a fully reconstructed and thread sorted .MSG file. Now on to bigger and better things. Now is the time for Action! You should still have the same file loaded in memory. 3.9.1 MARKing messages ---- Navigate through the loaded file until you come across a thread of approximately three to ten messages, you can use the Other|Index option to help you. Now with one of these messages displayed, pulldown the Action panel. Notice that Action|UnMark is not active - since there are no messages marked yet. Now choose the Action|MARK option. You will be shown a submenu. Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 35 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- From this submenu highlight and choose THREAD, ENTIRE. You will see the local index display the hash marks on the lines corresponding to the messages you just MARKed. This also occurs on the full screen index. You should also notice that the MRK indicator on the bottom information line has come on, indicating that the current message is now MARKed. Also, the previously inactive option in the Mark panel is now in bold and indicated as active. This has all occurred because now there is at least one MARKed message. Notice that you can also MARK the first part of the thread, a thread branch, the current section, just the NEW messages or ALL the messages in this file. For more on threads and thread sorts see section 5.6.8.1. Just to do it a little differently, now call up the full screen Index with the hot key I. Find another THREAD with at least a few messages in it, and then while still in the full screen Index, MARK the THREAD. You'll need to use the global hot key Ctl-[F4]. Make sure the light bar is still on one of the now marked messages, and then press [Enter]. Then slip over to the View panel again by using the [RArr] once, and select and choose the {MARKed off} option. The {MARKed off} option will change to SHOW MARKed. Not much else seems to happen except that fM is now displayed in bold along the bottom information line. But wait! Remove the View panel by pressing [Esc] once, and access the Index with the hot key I. What's this? Nearly all the messages in the file seem to have disappeared. Well, of course they haven't disappeared, they are just hidden. The Index will reflect the fact that you have the MARKed filter set, and will hide the unmarked messages from view. If you wish to see all the messages again, even with the marked filter on, then just press I again. Now, press [Esc] and return back to the normal message view and try moving through the file using the [UArr] and [DArr] commands. You will notice that in similar fashion, because of the filter, Recon will let you get to and display only messages that are MARKed. Be sure you notice the shortcuts for setting and removing the filters, namely Alt-M, Alt-W, Alt-U and Alt-B. You will surely be using the global hot keys most of the time for these options. Mouse users should note that if there are no menu panels pulled down, you can use a single [LEFTmouseBUTTON] click on the fM, fN, fU or fB indicators on the bottom line to toggle the filters. When the filters are OFF, a ghost of the text is shown on color monitors. Now once again try searching for a common word, your first name or Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 36 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- the word "the" for example. Use the [F2] global hot key and specify the desired target phrase in the dialog box. Then use the shortcut > for Next HIT and < for Previous HIT a few times. You will notice that the search, just like the [UArr] and [DArr] movement, is restricted by the filter only to messages that are currently marked. All other file navigation commands are unrestricted by filters, but if they result in a message that does not meet the criteria of the filter, a blank screen may result. But there are exceptions to this as well, the [PgUp], [PgDn], [Home], [End], X, Alt-X, J, Alt-J and [TAB] commands will force the display of what would otherwise be a filtered out message. To let you know that the current message is actually filtered out, the #### of #### on the bottom status line will blink. The local index and menu is of course constantly displayed. Try moving to a message that does not meet the filter condition of being currently MARKed. For instance move to say the first message in the file with Ctl-[PgUp] or to the last message with Ctl-[PgDn]. You will get a blank screen if it is not MARKed and hence excluded by the filter that you set. Also note that when a filter is on, the local index box will show filtered out messages in regular display, and messages included by the filter in bold display (color display only). Now turn the MARKed filter OFF by pressing Alt-M. Immediately the previously filtered out message reappears. Notice the difference between setting a filter and MARKing a message. 3.9.2 Splitting off messages, "archiving" ---- You should still have the same file loaded with perhaps a dozen messages MARKed. Let's say that you would like to split these off and save them to another file. Don't worry, we won't actually delete any messages in this file. Choose Action|Copy. Notice the shortcuts centered on the [F5] key, these will likely be used often. On choosing the Copy all MARKed option a dialog box will appear requesting a filespec to save to. The default offered filename will always be the last filename you entered (initially it will be forum_name.SAV). If you press [F10] in answer to a filename query then you will get a pick list of possible choices, including the last filespec (with DOS wild cards) and the last specific filename you specified. You can select and choose one of these listed filespec, as you can still edit them further. If you choose a filespec which includes any DOS wildcard (? or *) you are shown a directory of existing filenames that match the filespec. Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 37 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- You can then select and choose one of the displayed filenames - you will still have the option of editing the name you choose. If you pick one of the directories in the box (identified by <dir> next to the entry), then you will be shown another directory box that lists the files that match the filespec you entered, but in that new directory. Go ahead and look at the directory box feature, to have a look try the filespec *.SAV. Notice that Recon assumes a default directory of the message file storage directory. Once you have had a look at all that, press [Esc] and exit the directory box, then just type in ASSORTED in answer to the filename request and press [Enter]. You will then be shown that the marked messages are about to be saved to the file ASSORTED.THD, in the message file storage directory. THD is the default extension, and if not otherwise specified, then your split off messages will always be placed in the storage directory. In the unlikely event that you already have a file by that name you would be warned of this, and given the option of appending the MARKed messages to the file. This option will never overwrite a file. Answer N to the confirmation if the file write would result in an append to an already existing file, then choose the same Action|Copy|Copy all MARKed option but this time give it a different unique name. Still use "THD" as the file extension (eg. DIFNAME.THD). Answer Y to the confirmation reply, if the file write will result in a new file. The file will then be quickly written out. If you wish to get a hard copy of the messages that you have just archived use the shortcut to the printing submenu Shf-[F7]. Then choose the now active submenu option Other|Print|all MARKed. Follow it with a FORM FEED (top print option) if you wish. Now slip back to the Action panel by pressing [Esc] twice, and then the letter A. The this message .SAV command mirrors the TAPCIS SAVe message S command, it saves the current message to the .SAV file for this FORUM. Of course you can also do the same thing by using Action|Copy|Copy this message and specifying the .SAV file at the filespec question, and so on, but this provides a quick one keystroke for doing something you may need to do often. If the currently loaded file is a .SAV file then this option is disabled. 3.9.3 DELETE messages ---- Don't do the following now, but at this point you might normally mark for deletion all the messages that you have just saved to ASSORTED.THD by choosing Action|Delete|Delete MARKed. This would mark for deletion the messages in the current file that you just wrote to the Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 38 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ASSORTED.THD file. The net effect would be a move of those messages from the current file to your ASSORTED.THD file. Then you could Action|UnMARK|ALL messages and find some more messages to move around or process. Of course removing the MARKs doesn't remove the DELETED status of messages that you may have already set using those MARKs. Notice that in the Action|Delete panel there is an option to remove all of the DELETED marks in the current file. Choosing this option will let you start afresh. 3.9.4 MOVE messages ---- Now wouldn't it be easier to be able to copy and delete groups of messages all in one move? Well it sure would be, and that is what the Action|Move command is for. This lets you do a combined copy+delete operation on any of the groups of messages displayed in this panel - the same groups that Action|Copy and Action|Delete operate on. The global hot keys for these are all centered on [F8]. 3.9.5 All those shortcuts ---- It might be helpful to make a mental note of the following chart of the Action panel shortcut keys: [F4] Mark [F5] Copy [F6] Delete [F8] Move unshifted message message message message Ctl- THREAD THREAD THREAD THREAD Shf- Section Section Section Section Alt- Branch all MARKed all MARKED all MARKed That should make it a lot easier to remember! 3.9.6 Invert it ---- Invert allows for very flexible marking/deleting. It will let you toggle either the MARK marks, or the DELETED marks. You can act on the Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 39 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- entire file, or just on the current message, the submenu is shown here. The invert ALL MARKS and invert ALL DELETIONS toggle the MARKed, or DELeted status of every message in the file. The invert MESSAGE MARK, MESSAGE DELETE, UNREAD and NEEDS REPLY options work only on the current message. Note the global hot keys for these options. Unlike the commands you have used above, these options toggle the setting back and forth, from MARKed to UnMARKed and back. Go ahead and get the feeling of these commands now. 3.9.7 MARK by AGE ---- Most of your AGEing will be done automatically by either specifying AGE/Save&Exit (sections 3.12, 5.1.4) in interactive Recon, or by running a BATCH mode sort and age, (sections 3.13, 6.2) This option would seldom be used for ongoing AGEing. Also, you don't necessarily have to move/delete the messages that you are MARKing by AGE. You could after MARKing them, print them all out by using Other|Print|all MARKed. As such Action|MARK by AGE can be a very handy option. You can also isolate the newer messages with MARKs by first using Action|MARK by AGE, and then Action|InverT|ALL marks. This of course presumes that you are starting with no MARKed messages in the file. If you do AGE using this command, consider this a manual equivalent of the message age and thread age portion of automatic aging. It does allow for some more fine tuning. Let's for the moment assume that you are using this option to move some older messages from your file. Choose the Action|MARK by AGE option. You will see a submenu where you have the choice of MARKing THREADS or messages by AGE. What's the difference? Well let's say that there was a "mega" thread with some 300 messages, over a period of four weeks with the most recent message of the thread from today. Now you will be more interested in the activity at the more recent end of the thread, especially if you have already read the first ROOT messages. But when you mark threads by age (potentially for deletion) this means to mark threads that have their most recent message older than a given date. If you specify one week as the cutoff for threads, then you will obviously keep the entire long thread. Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 40 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- That is why there is an additional option to mark single messages by age. An example setting may be a week for threads, and two weeks for messages. That means any thread that has had no activity for a week will be MARKed. In addition, even within threads that are not MARKed as a whole, messages older than two weeks will be MARKed. As I have already mentioned, realize that when you MARK by AGE in interactive mode all that you are doing is just MARKing messages. Among the things you can then do is extract/copy them, delete them or print them. In INTERACTIVE AGE/Save&Exit, and BATCH mode AGEing, deletion of the messages and saving them to the .OLD file is done automatically and summarily for you. Go ahead and try either MARK by AGE option now. Remember you are only MARKing messages, hence you will not affect the message file unless you do something to the MARKed messages, and then resave the file. When you choose either of these options you will be asked for the number of days of THREADs/messages you wish to keep. Once you have specified an interval, you will be asked to confirm that you wish to do this. The confirmation restates the age interval by using an explicit date. Once confirmed, the messages are marked. Now you will need to do something with these marked messages - extract them, delete them, and so on. You can quickly review what messages have been marked by using the full screen index: Other|Index. 3.10 Filespec pick list ---- Now go back to the File panel, and carefully choose the File|Exit option. Do not choose the File|Save&Exit or File|AGE/Save&Exit options. You could also press [F7] to accomplish the same task. At this point you will probably be warned about messages being MARKed and the file being NOT saved, and you will be asked if you really want to Quit & LOSE any changes. Indeed you do. Type Y. Answering YES to Quit & LOSE any changes will prevent you from changing the original .MSG file that you loaded for this tutorial. That will get you back to the same directory box that you were in to pick the original .MSG file to load. At this point press [Esc] to get to the next higher level. That will get you to the File panel. Choose File|Load. We will now have a look at the short file you just created. To replace the default load filespec just type *.THD. The whole of the default entry will be erased as soon as you type the "*". You could also Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 41 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- have edited that default entry instead by pressing an editor key first (for example [RArr]). This would prevent the offered entry from being erased. After typing *.THD press [Enter]. If you have followed the tutorial all the way through then you should see the small file you created previously now listed in the directory box. It may be the only file listed. Choose that file for loading. A dialog box will appear requesting the FORUM of origin for this file. Don't worry - you don't have to remember what it was. Recon invisibly imbeds this information in any files it creates. You will notice that the correct forum is in fact already filled in. Just press [Enter] and the file will be loaded. You can have a quick peek at it, but all we need to do is exit! Choose the File|Exit option from the File panel, or press [F7] as the global hot key. You will be back to the same directory box you used to specify this file for loading. Press [Esc] to go to the next higher level. Now you are back to the File panel again. Let's say that you now wanted to have another look at the original .MSG file that occupied most of the rest of this exercise. Choose that mysterious File|Pick option. There will probably be no pathnames listed - if pathnames are not specified then like elsewhere in the program for message files the pathname is assumed to be the message file storage directory. You should have the *.THD, *.MSG and *.SAV filespecs listed. The light bar will be on the second entry in this list. The second entry will always represent the second to the last filespec you had specified for loading. When you type in filespecs with the Load option, all new and unique filespecs will be added to the PICK LIST, the most recent filespecs that you specify will always be at the top. If you get any filespecs into this box that you do not wish to keep (a typographical error for example) then press [Del] while highlighting that filespec and you will be given the option of deleting it. The bottom line is < FILE LOAD >, this is just a shortcut way to get to the File|Load dialog box. (in other words, just press [End] then [Enter]) So now choose that highlighted *.MSG filespec, you will get the original *.MSG filespec directory box. Then go ahead and choose and load the same file that you loaded previously. You'll need a file loaded to do the next section in any case. Alternatively, at this point you can choose File|Quit Recon with Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 42 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alt-Q to end the session. 3.11 The Recon REPLY EDITOR and related options ---- OK, that was all very interesting, but getting down to basics, how do I reply to the message I'm reading? It would not seem practical to have to go back to my online navigator, find the message, reply and then return to Recon. Also I would like to add the sender's UserID to my UserID file. Also, I see mentioned an interesting file in this message. I would like to download it. Or perhaps the current thread doesn't seem very interesting, and you use a utility to track the threads you download. It would be nice to deselect this thread, and ensure it doesn't get downloaded again. Then sometimes a message is private. Once I read it I would like to delete it on CompuServe in order to help "reduce the scroll rate". Well, Recon will let you do all these things, and more! Recon of course relies on your navigator to actually do all the scut work, but you can quickly instruct it to do all these things when it goes ONLINE from within Recon. You need to have a file loaded to try the following exercise. Make sure that you have a .MSG file loaded before you continue. Navigate to any non-announcement message, then choose the Connect panel. You can generate a reply to any message from any file, not just from .MSG and .SAV files. You can also start a new message with no file loaded. Once you have a message you wish to reply to, choose the Connect|send REPLY option, and then if asked, the Recon editor option. Do that now. An editing screen will open up in the bottom half of the screen; the parent message that you are replying to will be displayed at the top. There is a full range of editing commands. You can also scroll the parent message. A help screen is accessed by pressing [F1]. This lists all the available commands. You can pause the reply composing and review the currently loaded file by pressing [Esc]. Once you are finished the "pause" just choose Connect|continue REPLY. To actually send the reply press [F7]. You will be taken through the possible options, including the possibility of discarding the reply. Now, to get rid of your reply (if you tried out entering one) press [F7], then choose Discard in the send ACTION menu that appears. Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 43 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Recon also allows you to use your own text editor to compose messages. For further details on message replying see the reference sections. (starting with section 5.5.3) The other options in this panel nicely complement the message reply editing facilities. (starting with section 5.5.5) 3.12 INTERACTIVE mode AGE/Save&Exit ---- Although you would normally exit from viewing your .MSG files with this option, don't choose this option now. This option is identical to File|Save&Exit (section 5.1.3), but it will first AGE the file. What does that mean? Well, your .MSG files collect an ever increasing number of messages. Most of your interest lies with the more recent messages, but you need the older messages to keep the new ones in context. "AGEing" keeps your .MSG file trim by selectively removing old messages and threads, and saving them to the appropriate .OLD file. As mentioned above, this is the quick automatic INTERACTIVE mode AGEing facility. Also note that any file can be AGEd, not just .MSG files. The file that aged messages are appended to always takes the form of forum_name.OLD, where forum_name is the name of the forum of origin of that message. The .OLD files are placed in the TAPCIS storage directory. You control which messages to age by specifying the thread age, message age, and file size age parameters, on either a global or forum basis (section 5.1.7.2). However, with automatic AGEing, under no circumstances will a NEW message or a HELD or ALARMed one be aged. See also reference section 5.1.4 for a more extensive discussion of aging and the options that control it. To exit from Recon now, you can choose File|Exit then File|Quit Recon. 3.13 Primer on "BATCH" mode ---- So what is this BATCH mode all about? The parameters used are completely described in the reference section, (section 6) but here are some uses for BATCH mode. Think of BATCH mode as an unattended INTERACTIVE session. Use it when Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 44 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- you wish to sort and trim files that you don't need to view as well. There is no reason to ever BATCH process a file before you load it with INTERACTIVE Recon. There is no harm done, but you will be duplicating Recon's work. All of the normal sorting, fixing up, etc. is done whether a file is loaded in BATCH or in INTERACTIVE. In BATCH mode you can have Recon operate on any group of files, for example all your .SAV files, or the .MSG files, or your .OLD files. Recon will load, sort, remove duplicates, reconstruct messages, then optionally AGE the file, (that is remove older messages) then resave the new sorted and trimmed file. As an example the simple following line would resort and clean up all of your changed .SAV files: RECON *.SAV /B /ALLFOR You could include it in a batch file you use to put your computer to bed, or perhaps have the computer do this unattended while you are otherwise occupied. Note that Recon will not BATCH AGE any messages unless you explicitly include the /AGE parameter. Another use for BATCH mode is the processing of .MSG files after you have completed a READ pass, as preparatory to looking at these messages with the TAPCIS viewer. It is anticipated that most users of Recon (since version 2.01) are using Recon's viewer almost exclusively, hence this use of BATCH mode might be considered archaic. When used in this fashion, you should include the /ANN:NEW or /ANN:ALL command line parameters (/ANN:OFF is the default) in order to annotate each message with navigation information. TAPCIS then passively displays this. This will somewhat enhance the TAPCIS viewer facility by allowing you to go to the root message, or the next new message by searching for certain text strings. Appendix section 7.11 outlines this further. 3.14 Customizable Settings ---- Recon will let you save a number of configurable settings so that you do not have to reset them every time you run Recon. It keeps these settings in an editable text file. You can specify both GLOBAL settings, and FORUM specific settings. If you make changes to any of these, the changes will apply only to the current session. To have the changes remembered for future sessions then you need to save the settings to the .SET file. To do this use File|Save Settings Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 45 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- (global hot key Alt-[F3]). After a confirmation, all the settings will be saved as either the GLOBAL or FORUM defaults. They will then be reloaded and "remembered" each time Recon runs and when a file is loaded. The Recon2.SET file is stored in the message file directory along with the other Recon information files. See appendix 7.3 for an example .SET file. See the reference section 5.1.7 for details on each of the settings. You can view and change the current settings while in INTERACTIVE mode by using File|Edit Settings (global hot key Ctl-[F3]). The contents of the Recon2.SET file is straight ASCII text. You may find on occasion that this is more convenient than saving the settings with the File|Save Settings. If you make any syntax errors, Recon brings these to your attention when it starts up. They are then flagged as such within the file and are ignored. The information in Recon2.PCK and Recon2.DAT is not text, and if you try to edit either of these files you will almost certainly corrupt them. 3.15 the MENU Shell ---- There are many ways of handling TAPCIS and its many add-ons. I hope that you will find Recon's shell MENU a convenient way to tie all of these together. When Recon 2.50 first executes it looks for TAPCIS, and a few major add-ons. If it finds any add-ons on the DOS PATH, then it will insert these (as well as TAPCIS) into the Recon shell MENU. Go ahead and try it now, select File|shell MENU. (hot key Ctl-[F1]). Any add-ons that Recon looks for, will be inserted into the menu as well. The beauty of File|shell MENU is that it will swap Recon out to EMS (or disk) and leave almost a full DOS memory space to run another program. Go ahead and shell to one of the listed programs right now. Quick eh? Even better the shell menu options can also be accessed by use of the Alt-# keystrokes for the first four options (option 0, 1, 2 & 3), even from the text editor. This provides a very slick way to spell check your replies, by having a batch mode spell checker (not included with Recon) set up to spell check the temporary REPLY$.$$$ file which is stored in the same directory as your PARAMS files, as you compose your reply. Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 46 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The shell MENU is completely configurable by editing the Recon2.SHL file with the File|Text Editor command, see the details in the reference section 5.1.10. 3.16 alternate PARAMS files ---- TAPCIS and Golden Commpass allow you to maintain separate PARAMS files for the purpose of either including more that twenty different forum setups, or perhaps maintaining separate UserID/identity setups. Recon allows you to interactively switch between different PARAMS files with the File|PARAMS file command. (section 5.1.9) As well, the /EXT: xxx command line parameter lets you specify a given PARAMS file to be active at startup. (section 4.15) Further, Recon will pass the name of the current PARAMS file to TAPCIS or to an add-on in its shell MENU, allowing for seamless PARAMS file use. (section 5.1.10) 3.17 That's All ---- That is the end of the tutorial. Hope it was fun! If you followed the instructions carefully, you will not have changed any of your message files. You created a single small file named ASSORTED.THD in your message file storage directory, and you can now delete it with the DOS ERASE command if you wish. The sections that follow are reference sections that explain every option and command line parameter in a more rigorous fashion. The reference sections can help you get the most out of Recon. Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 47 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4 Startup Options ================== This section first discusses the command line parameters that you can use to customize Recon's behaviour. Following this there are notes on the DOS environment variables that Recon will recognize. You will usually start Recon by simply executing a plain: RECON at the command line or from a shell, or in a batch file. Executing: RECON ? will give you access to the hypertext help system, and jump to the command line options section. Recon itself will not actually start, allowing you to explore an error condition that might be preventing you from starting Recon. Your default startup command line parameters can also be placed in a configuration file, and you can use multiple configuration files and select each on a session by session basis as appropriate. For added control, startup parameters specified on the command line will override configuration file specified parameters. Whether on the command line, or in the configuration file, the parameters are not case sensitive, you can use mixed upper/lower case to clarify their meaning if you wish. If found in the Recon.EXE directory, the Recon.CFG file will be used as the default configuration file. Think of this file as just a collection of startup command line parameters that might otherwise have to be included on the command line. The format of this file is: ; My Recon configuration file /switch1 /switch2 /switch3 ... and so on You can have more than one parameter per line, and a starting ; would disable that entire line, or allow for a REMark. If you specify on the command line: RECON /@:filename then filename will be looked for and used instead of Recon.CFG, if not specified the default extension is CFG. You may optionally include a filepath as well. Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 48 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you specify: RECON /@ then no .CFG file will be looked for, or used, not even the default Recon.CFG file, if it exists. As mentioned, any parameters on the command line override any that might be included in the session's active .CFG file. Your configuration files can be easily edited with the File|Text Editor command, select Recon CONFIG files. The following table is a list of all of the command line parameters that can be used to modify Recon's behaviour. A detailed discussion of each follows. Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 49 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Basic /F:<filespec> . . eg. *.MSG - will force a load/directory in interactive /P:<path> . . . . path to PARAMS file location /DESLCT:x . . . . specifies deselect mark for deselection in Tappet /Q. . . . . . . . force quiet mode /EMSOVR . . . . . force overlays into EMS /NOBAK. . . . . . disable .$RK file backup generation /MONO . . . . . . force monochrome mode /NPH. . . . . . . force a horizontal Navigate Panel /QUOTE:n. . . . . set default quote marks for editor import /TZADJ:n. . . . . set time zone adjust for outbox copies /NOEMS. . . . . . disable use of EMS, even if present /COLOR:nnn. . . . set fore/background color of main message text display /CLEAN. . . . . . strip all non-text characters in received messages /NOreplyF . . . . suppresses automatic N/reply flag setting /EXT: xxx . . . . sets the active PARAMS file /SFMU:<forum> . . auto-forwarding of MAIL messages with forum software New or changed for 2.50 /MES:<path><file> default location/filespec for import/export files /WIDTH:nn . . . . sets width for reply editor /LATIN1:n . . . . enable Latin-1 operation /SCAN:xxx . . . . defines PreScan settings /NOunreadF. . . . suppresses automatic UNread flag setting /SPM. . . . . . . retain sticky Print Panel /ExitClear. . . . clears UNread flag of last UNread message on exiting /EXTvideo:xxx . . set screen mode to 80x25 or 80x50 /RTEMP:<path> . . equiv. to SET RTEMP=<path>, place for VArrays/swapfile /@:<filename> . . suppresses/directs Recon to non-default .CFG file /MaxMSGS:nnnn . . use to reduce the memory/disk overhead /SuppressRead . . hide messages already read, but downloaded again /Navigator:xxx. . defines your navigator, not much used yet /CheckPrinter . . enables checking of printer status before printing /VArray:<path>. . path to store Varray files, overrides RTEMP /NOMLM. . . . . . disables RMB for local menu, allows Shf-F10 only /TrimInternet . . remove Internet headers from new messages Batch mode /B. . . . . . . . enable batch mode /AGE. . . . . . . enable batch mode aging (NEW) /SAGE:nnn . . . . set thread age override (NEW) /TAGE:nnn . . . . set thread age override /MAGE:nnn . . . . set message age override /DEL. . . . . . . disable write out to .OLD file, delete aged messages /ALLFOR . . . . . process all, even if forums not active in PARAMS file /A. . . . . . . . process files, even if not changed /ANN. . . . . . . add plain text annotations, helps dumb file viewers Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 50 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4.1 Message files to process: /F:<filespec> ---- The optional <filespec> parameter is valid in INTERACTIVE and BATCH mode, it specifies the file(s) Recon is to load/process. You can specify only one filespec at a time, but wildcards in the filespec are supported. If you specify a filespec in INTERACTIVE mode, then on startup Recon will immediately show you a picklist defined by that filespec. If the filespec you specify defines only one file, that file will be immediately loaded on startup. For example the following will result in Recon starting up in INTERACTIVE mode and immediately displaying a picklist of your .MSG files: RECON /F:*.MSG Specifying a filespec when starting up in INTERACTIVE would be well suited to launching Recon as a viewer from some kind of shell program, or perhaps in a special purpose batch file. If the filespec is listed first on the line, then the /F: does not have to be included, for example: RECON *.MSG This may make it easier to define Recon as a viewer in a shell, or for dragging and dropping a message file on a Recon program object under OS/2. If you do not specify a filespec in INTERACTIVE mode, then you will start up at File|Pick, ready to choose a picklist, or to specify a filename with the File|Load option. In BATCH mode, if no filespec is specified then Recon will process the .SAV files stored in your message file storage directory. 4.2 PARAMS.CIS location: /P ---- Recon normally looks for a PARAMS.CIS file when it starts up. It accesses the information in that file as an aid for quick setup. The PARAMS.CIS file is a special information file used by TAPCIS and Golden Commpass, and is usually installed in the same directory. If you are not using either of these two navigators, then see the /NAVIGATOR option (section 4.29) in order to run without the need for a PARAMS file. You may specify the PARAMS location to Recon in one of three ways. Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 51 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The first method is to indicate the path to PARAMS.CIS with the TAPPATH DOS environment variable, see section 4.34.1 for a discussion of this. If you specify the /P parameter on the command line that starts up Recon, this will override a TAPPATH specified path. If your PARAMS.CIS file is in the C:\TAP directory you can use the following command line to run Recon: RECON /P:c:\tap If you do neither of the above, then as a third option you must locate Recon in the same directory that the PARAMS file resides, in order for Recon to find it. 4.3 Tappet deselect mark: /DESLCT ---- Tappet, a thread marking utility, allows you to mark a thread as selected or as not selected for downloading by marking it with a " " (blank). If you would prefer to use another character to mark a thread as not to be downloaded, such as the alternate "X", then use the following switch: RECON /DESLCT:X 4.4 Quiet operation: /Q ---- To alert the user, Recon uses a variety of auditory prompts for critical or error situations. The default setting of whether to do so is saved in the Recon2.SET file. If you wish to override the default for the current session only then use the /Q parameter, this will eliminate all auditory prompts for the current session only. Example use is: RECON /Q You may also override sounds in INTERACTIVE mode by accessing the File|Edit Settings menu. 4.5 Use EMS for overlays: /EMSOVR ---- You can gain a slight execution speed advantage by allowing Recon to use EMS for its overlays. Example use: RECON /EMSOVR However, this does not improve or change your message file load capacity. Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 52 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you have at least 256k of EMS available, then you may wish to consider using it. See also memory considerations in Appendix section 7.1. 4.6 Disable File Backup: /NOBAK ---- When Recon rewrites a file, it will automatically backup the old file in the same directory using an .$RK extension. If you are operating on floppies, or are particularly cramped for disk space, then you may wish to use this option to suppress backup file generation. The default setting of whether to do so is saved in the Recon2.SET file. If you wish to override the default for the current session only then use the /NOBAK parameter, this will eliminate all backup files for the current session only. Example use: RECON /NOBAK You may also override this in INTERACTIVE mode by accessing the File|Edit Settings menu. Use this option with caution. 4.7 Monochrome displays: /MONO ---- Recon checks through system calls for the identity of the display card to determine whether to run in color or monochrome mode, hence Recon will be misdirected if you are driving a monochrome monitor with a color capable card. If you know that this is the case (true of non-color notebook computers, or a monochrome VGA setup) use this parameter. In general if a single color (monochrome) Recon display looks odd, the mouse cursor seems to disappear, or some menu options are not visible, then you probably need this parameter. Example use: RECON /MONO 4.8 horizontal Navigate Panel: /NPH ---- Like other menu panels the Navigate panel offers a vertically orientated list of options. These options partially cover the message screen and hence may not be convenient for clicking on when navigating with a mouse. Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 53 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Using this parameter instead specifies that a special horizontal Navigate strip is to be used. This doesn't cover any of the message text, and allows clicking on the Navigate panel options and navigation while still being able to view all of the information on the screen. Example use: RECON /NPH However, note that having this menu strip continuously displayed will disable all other mouse hot zones, just like pulling down a regular vertical menu panel. 4.9 Default quoting style: /QUOTE ---- There are nine quoting styles available in the internal reply editor's cut&paste, see section 5.5.3.1 for more details about cut&paste. When quoting text, a menu appears allowing you to choose a style. If you prefer to change the default specified style, use the /QUOTE switch. For example to choose the second quoting style use: RECON /QUOTE:2 If you are sure that you would always only choose one style, then you can eliminate the menu selection step for the quote style altogether by adding a leading $ character. To force the second quote style, use: RECON /QUOTE:$2 4.10 Adjusting OUTBOX times: /TZADJ ---- Most users do not need to use this parameter, as usually CompuServe is able to adjust message date/times to your local time. Generally, you only need to use this parameter if you do not use a direct CompuServe node that is in your own time zone, and your local time is not North American Eastern time. This parameter will adjust the message date/time of the OUTBOX messages that Recon writes to your .MSG (or .SAV) file so that they can match the apparent CompuServe local time. To use the parameter set it to: (your local time)-(apparent CIS network time) Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 54 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Recon & CompuServe will do the rest. The effect will be to correct your OUTBOX message date/times to correspond to the CompuServe current date/time of where you enter the CIS network. This will allow for better sorting and duplicate message management. This will likely be of primary use for some European, Asian rim, Australian and other users outside North America that have to use a distant communication network to reach Compuserve. The following examples all assume that CompuServe displays your message date/times as North American Eastern time zone (UTC-5). As an example to correct Recon's OUTBOX messages created with German local time (UTC+1), if your messages on CompuServe are shown with a North American Eastern time (UTC-5), then specify (UTC+1)-(UTC-5) = 6: RECON /TZADJ:+6 To correct for Hong Kong local time (UTC+8) then specify: RECON /TZADJ:+13 And for Tahiti local time (UTC-10) specify: RECON /TZADJ:-5 4.11 Ignoring Expanded memory: /NOEMS ---- A /NOEMS parameter is available, this will direct Recon to ignore EMS (expanded memory), even if it is installed. This was included to aid those with unusual non-standard hardware setups. It is also an easy way to force Recon to use virtual disk storage instead of EMS. Example use: RECON /NOEMS With certain command line combinations, some expanded memory managers (in particular DOS's EMM386) will give the appearance of expanded memory being available when an application queries the system, but then when an attempt is made by the application to actually access the phantom expanded memory, a system crash almost always will occur. If Recon seems to hang as soon as you try starting it, this is almost always the cause. Recon's /NOEMS parameter will work around this problem, and Recon will instead safely use disk swapping instead of EMS. Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 55 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4.12 settings main color: /COLOR ---- If not specified, Recon will use the base color set in the active PARAMS file at startup as the color for the message text display. If you specify /COLOR and a value, Recon will use the color that this corresponds to instead. The color numbering is the same as the TAPCIS color numbering scheme, and valid values are from 0 to 127. For an example, to set the message text color to light gray on blue use: RECON /COLOR:23 4.13 Removing file noise: /CLEAN ---- There is an important aspect to the default behaviour of Recon's file character cleanup when it loads a message file. Previously with Recon v2.01, unexpected non-text characters were stripped out of files. However if there is substantial noise in the file, this adds a significant amount of storage overhead when a file is loaded. If you don't mind seeing these relatively harmless abominations in the view of messages, then you may prefer this for the extra load space and slightly faster load speed. In some specific instances it could double your effective load capacity, but you are still constrained by the maximum capacity of 3200 messages. You should probably run with the default, without /CLEAN. If you would prefer to have Recon act as 2.01 and before, if you have very noisy files due to bad telephone connections, for example, and were never troubled by running out of load capacity, then use the following switch: RECON /CLEAN on startup to maintain Recon 2.01 cleanup behaviour. 4.14 Turning off automatic reply flags: /NOreplyF ---- Recon automatically senses and sets a NEEDS REPLY status flag for new messages. If you tend to use other means for replying to messages, this might include sysops that reply online for instance, then you can disable the NEEDS REPLY flag logic with the /NOREPLYF startup command, for example: Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 56 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- RECON /NOREPLYF This will entirely disable Recon's automatic setting of this status flag. It may still be set manually with Action|Invert|Needs Reply. See section 5.4.2.7 for more details. 4.15 specify startup PARAMS file: /EXT ---- The /EXT:xxx command line parameter lets you specify a given PARAMS file as active at startup. For example if you wish to have Recon consider the PARAMS.NOW file as the active PARAMS file, then use the following startup: RECON /EXT:NOW Recon also allows you to interactively switch between different PARAMS files with the File|PARAMS file command (section 5.1.9). 4.16 Message redirection from forums to mail: /SFMU ---- This command specifies that all responses directed to MAIL are to be instead (optionally and automatically) forwarded through a specific forum's software rather than by CompuServe MAIL. The obvious use for this is for individuals that have a free flag on a given forum. This option will not only forward the message appropriately, but will also place the OUTBOX copy of the message in the MAIL.MSG file (default behaviour), as Recon would normally do for CMail messages. This is implemented with a command line parameter, the following would cause a Forward Mail from MYFORUM forum to be included in the final Send Message discussion: RECON /SFMU:MYFORUM If you wish to consider this to be the default method of forwarding all messages headed for CMail, then specify: RECON /SFMU:$MYFORUM Be careful of the length of the message, this option cannot ensure that the message length is short enough for the forum software to forward. With the current longer forum message format (about 10000 characters) this will seldom be a problem, but you may wish to restrict any such messages to approximately 20% or less of the maximum CMail length. Watch Recon's message length indicator as you compose. Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 57 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4.17 Defaults for import/export: /MES ---- A default directory and filespec for the import/export dialog can be specified with the /MES command line parameter, for example: RECON /MES:D:\COM\MYMES\*.TXT This might be a directory where you keep message text fragments needed for simple quick replies to repetitive questions - of critical value for support reps and sysops. If the /MES command is not specified, the default directory becomes the message file storage directory. The default for the filespec is *.MES. See section 5.5.3.1 for details about reply editor cut&paste and import/export. 4.18 Reply editor width: /WIDTH ---- Use this parameter to specify the line width for the reply editor, especially useful where you use international data packet services that count data by the line. For example to set the reply editor width to 60 columns use: RECON /WIDTH:60 If not specified, the default width is 77 columns. 4.19 CompuServe Latin-1 support: /LATIN1 ---- This will enable Latin-1 support and allow you to use the extra high order defined characters on CompuServe. For this you must have the included DCTABLE.DAT file present in the Recon.EXE directory. If you will be using Recon with TAPCIS you need "Level 1" support, use the following command line: RECON /LATIN1:1 When Latin-1 is enabled, Level 1 support is the default. With the Recon/TAPCIS combo you have the choice of code pages 437 (regular), 850 (extended), 865 (Norse) and 863 (Cdn French). You must have that code page loaded and enabled BOTH when you use TAPCIS, and Recon. Everything else is handled automatically, just type away and read. Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 58 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you will be using Recon with Golden Commpass you need "Level 2" support, use the following command line: RECON /LATIN1:2 With Recon/GCP you can only use code page 850. You must have Latin1 enabled in GCP, and for the forum that you need it in, and in the OS/2 DOS session that you run Recon you must set code page 850. 4.20 PreScan settings: /SCAN ---- Recon can now PreScan files, and display the summary statistics as regards the number of messages, and the number of new, unread and needs reply messages. This provides in a very unique way, a complete summary of any file group you choose to display with File|Pick. This is further controlled by the /SCAN parameter. If the /SCAN parameter is not specified, the default is /SCAN:ALL. With that default of ALL, the PreScan will occur for regular .MSG and .SAV files as a PreScan. To limit the picklist to include only more recent files, then choose either TODAY or RECENT. These will restrict the picklist (and PreScan) to only files that have been active either today or within the past fourteen days, respectively. For example, to show all the files that have changed in the last two weeks, use: RECON /SCAN:RECENT To suppress all prescanning, use: RECON /SCAN:NONE 4.21 Turning off automatic unread flags: /NOunreadF ---- Recon automatically senses, and sets an UNread status flag for new messages. If you tend to use other means for reading messages, this might include sysops that reply online for instance, then you can disable the UNread flag logic with the /NOUNREADF startup command, for example: RECON /NOUNREADF This will entirely disable Recon's automatic setting of this status flag. It may still be set manually with Action|Invert|UNread. See section 5.4.2.6 for more details. Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 59 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4.22 Retaining a sticky Print Menu: /SPM ---- Normally once you select a command from the print panel, then the panel will snapoff. To force the print menu to remain until you escape out of it use this parameter, for example: RECON /SPM 4.23 Clearing the last UNread message: /ExitClear ---- You can now optionally have Recon turn off the UNread flag status for the currently viewed message if it is the last such message in the file and if you select File|Save&Exit or File|AGE/Save&Exit while viewing it. Use: RECON /EXITCLEAR to enable this. The default for this action is OFF. In other words the same as in prior versions. 4.24 Setting screen size: /ExtVideo ---- Note that Recon will support any size of screen that it encounters, even non-standard UltraVision type screens. This parameter allows you to specify if, and when, Recon should force an 80x50 sized (80x43 in EGA) extended screen. It has three settings: START, SHELL and BOTH. The default is START. ExtVideo:START will force an 80x50 screen on Recon startup, reset it back to 80x25 for shelling, and also reset it back to 80x25 when exiting. ExtVideo:SHELL will force an 80x50 screen only when shelling, resetting it back to 80x25 on return from the shell. ExtVideo:BOTH will force an 80x50 screen on Recon startup, leave it extended for shelling, and then reset it back too 80x25 on exiting. Example use: RECON /EXTVIDEO:SHELL 4.25 Temporary directory: /RTEMP ---- If you wish Recon to use a specific drive (say a fast RAMDRIVE), Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 60 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- for its temporary and swap files, then use the /RTEMP startup parameter. For example to direct it to a ramdrive named "G" use: RECON /RTEMP:G:\ The RTEMP startup parameter will override the DOS environment variable of the same name. You need a fair amount of free disk space if you will be working with no EMS, about 1.5Mb as a working minimum, and ideally about 2Mb. See Memory Considerations in the appendix for further discussion (section 7.1). If unspecified, then Recon will use the Recon.EXE directory for its swap/temporary files. Note that this does not include the ROOT$.$$$ and REPLY$.$$$ files. See also /VARRAY (section 4.31). 4.26 Configuration file specification: /@:<filename> ---- If you specify: RECON /@:<filename> then <filename> will be looked for/used instead of Recon.CFG as the configuration file. If the extension is not specified then the default is CFG, if the directory is not specified then it is the Recon.EXE directory. This is very useful for defining multiple setups for special purposes, and then just selecting each with one command line parameter. If you specify: RECON /@ then no .CFG file will be looked for/used. 4.27 Reducing required resources: /MaxMSGS ---- The default setting is 3200 messages. Settings of 1000 to 3200 messages are allowed. If you know that you will never load files of more than a given size, then you can dramatically reduce the amount of disk space or EMS memory that Recon needs to preallocate on startup. This is very helpful in minimal or tight configuration setups. For example, to direct Recon to using less disk swap space, or EMS resources, by limiting Recon to a maximum of 1800 messages, use: Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 61 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- RECON /MAXMSGS:1800 4.28 Hiding already read messages: /SuppressRead ---- There are many occasions where you might end up being presented with a second downloaded copy of an already read message. Recon can recognize such situations, but will by default still allow you to see these messages once again. If you prefer to not view subsequently downloaded copies of messages that you have already read, then include this parameter. Example use: RECON /SUPPRESSREAD 4.29 Specifying your navigator: /NAVIGATOR ---- Not much functional at present, but will be increasingly important in future as navigator support widens, and navigators diverge, or even for supporting more than one version of a single navigator. Where possible (eg. Golden Commpass extended PARAMS files) this support will be automatic. Currently NONE, TAPCIS, GCP and OZCIS are defined settings. In a first-time setup, with no navigator found, Recon can be run by setting /NAVIGATOR:NONE. Similarly where no PARAMS files exist, Recon will create its own pseudo PARAMS file, if you have /NAVIGATOR:OZCIS set. Example use: RECON /NAVIGATOR:TAPCIS For now just set it in your .CFG file (if using one), and forget it. 4.30 Checking printer status: /CheckPrinter ---- Normally Recon will assume that a printer is ready, and go ahead and print without checking. If a printer in fact is not ready and available, then a DOS critical error will be detected and Recon will pause until you correct the error (enable the printer) and then continue. If DOS critical error generation is problematic, or otherwise unsatisfactory, then you can enable specific printer status checking each time Recon starts to print with: Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 62 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- RECON /CHECKPRINTER If a printer does not appear connected, online and available, then Recon will give a warning and allow you to correct the situation. Checking printer status is not entirely reliable in some setups, and elsewhere can cause problems with some networks, hence it is not the default. 4.31 VArray Temporary directory: /VARRAY ---- If you wish Recon to use a specific drive (say a fast RAMDRIVE), for its virtual array swap files, then use the /VARRAY startup parameter. For example to direct it to a ramdrive named "G" use: RECON /VARRAY:G:\ This will override the RTEMP startup parameter for the VArray files only, other temporary files will be written where /RTEMP directs. You need a fair amount of space if you will be working with no EMS, about 1.5Mb should be sufficient for the virtual array swap files. See the Memory Considerations section in the appendix for further discussion. (section 7.1) See also /RTEMP (section 4.25). 4.32 Disabling RMB for local menu: /NOMLM ---- Most everywhere in Recon single clicking the right mouse button (RMB) will simulate the [Esc] keystroke, with one exception. With the File|Load picklist displayed, single clicking the right mouse button will bring up a local menu of options, these options let you modify what is displayed in the file list. If you prefer to have the [Esc] key simulated even here, then specify this parameter like so: RECON /NOMLM You can still select the local menu in this pick list by using the alternative of Shf-[F10]. Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 63 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4.33 BATCH mode command line parameters ---- BATCH mode is activated by the inclusion of the /B parameter. The batch mode parameters are /AGE, /SAGE:###, /TAGE:###, /MAGE:###, /DEL, /ALLFOR, /A and /ANN:xxx. For a discussion of these, and BATCH mode in general see section 6. 4.34 DOS environment variables ---- 4.34.1 TAPPATH DOS Environment variable ---- Recon normally looks for a PARAMS.CIS file when it starts up. It accesses the information in that file as an aid for quick setup. The PARAMS.CIS file is a special information file used by TAPCIS and Golden Commpass, and is usually installed in the same directory. You may specify its location to Recon in one of two ways: The first method is to indicate the path to PARAMS.CIS with the TAPPATH DOS environment variable. For example if your PARAMS.CIS file is in the C:\TAP directory, type at the DOS prompt the following DOS SET command before running Recon: SET TAPPATH=c:\tap You may also include the above statement in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. Some other TAPCIS tools/utility programs already use this DOS environment variable for the same purpose, this will not interfere with Recon or vice versa. Alternatively you may use the /P parameter. If specified on the command line, this will override a TAPPATH specified path. (section 4.2) 4.34.2 TMKPATH DOS Environment variable ---- By default, thread marking utilities and their add-ons, put their reference files (.TMK or .QMR) in the message file storage directory. You can optionally place these files in any directory by setting the TMKPATH DOS Environment variable. See your thread marking utility's Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 64 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- manual for further information. Recon also recognizes this environment variable. Recon uses it to locate .TMK/.QMR files, when they are not in the message file storage directory, when you ask Recon to DEselect threads (section 5.5.7). 4.34.3 RTEMP DOS Environment variable ---- You can direct Recon to use a specific location for swap space, ie. a RAMDISK or a given hard disk directory, this is especially useful if you use floppies. This will indicate to Recon what disk space to use as swap space or for temporary files when it shells. To set RTEMP, type at the DOS prompt a DOS SET command before running Recon, the following would indicate to Recon to use the G: drive for swap space, presumably this might be a RAM DISK or other fast disk. SET RTEMP=G:\ You may also include the above statement in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. 4.34.4 NOMOUSE DOS Environment variable ---- If set, Recon will entirely ignore the mouse, even if you have a driver installed and enabled. It won't even display a mouse cursor. Activate this by setting it equal to ON before starting Recon by typing at the DOS command line, or by including it in your autoexec.bat file: SET NOMOUSE=ON Useful for those who never use a mouse with Recon, however still have a mouse installed and do not wish to see a roving mouse cursor. Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 65 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5 INTERACTIVE mode =================== This is the usual way that you would run Recon. Whenever you load a file interactively, Recon does all of the sorting, duplicate detection, OUTBOX fixing, optional AGEing and so on. You only need to use BATCH mode to process files that you don't need to view as well. So consider INTERACTIVE mode a file fixups plus viewing mode, and BATCH mode as fixups only with no viewing. You never need to run both BATCH and then INTERACTIVE mode on a given file sequentially, no great harm will come of it, but you are duplicating Recon's work. To run Recon in INTERACTIVE mode, you need to change to the directory that you have Recon.EXE and Recon.OVR stored in, and then execute Recon at the command line. Of course you can also define these entries in a DOS shell program that you might be using, or in a Windows Program Reference icon, or an OS/2 Program object. You can include startup parameters on the command line, or you can place all the startup options in a configuration file, for example Recon.CFG. The defaults should be appropriate for general use. Where there is a conflict in the specification between command line options and those contained in a configuration file, that specified on the command line overrides. The configuration command line options are discussed elsewhere (see section 4), and are also viewable from Help|Command line, but two are mentioned here briefly because of their importance. If Recon cannot find your PARAMS file, then you need to point Recon to it with the /P parameter, for example: RECON /P:C:\COMM\TAPCIS If you are not using TAPCIS or Golden Commpass, then you do not have a PARAMS file, and should indicate this to Recon by using the /NAVIGATOR parameter: RECON /NAVIGATOR:NONE or: RECON /NAVIGATOR:OZCIS The /NAVIGATOR parameter currently supports the following arguments: Tapcis, GCP, Ozcis and None. Once Recon executes you are presented with a pulldown menu Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 66 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- interface, the details on each of the command options in these panels follows. 5.1 File panel ---- 5.1.1 Load ---- When you choose Load, you will be asked for a filespec for the file(s) you wish to Load. DOS filespec wildcards (eg. *.MSG) are accepted and usual. In fact, in order to maintain the greatest flexibility you should only rarely if ever use an exact filename here. (eg. IBMHW.MSG) The default is either the last filespec specified or if none, then the regular .MSG files in the message file storage directory. Once you choose a filespec, a directory window will appear with a list of any matching files sorted chronologically, the more recently changed files are listed first. You may also filter down the number of files displayed by use of a local menu (press Shf-[F10], or right mouse click), and specifying Today's or Recent files. Choose All matching to clear this filter. You can also force a rescan of all the files, if you are actively adding to or changing files in the meantime with another program. This will cause Recon to rescan the directory and update the list. You may choose a file by use of the cursor keys or an alphabetic search. If a mouse is active you may choose a file directly with a left mouse button double click, or by use of the scroll bar along the right hand border of the box. In the file pick list that appears, there are a number of columns of information, I'll discuss these from left to right. The first column immediately to the left of the filename consists of one or two characters. The first character can be either a C which indicates that the file has changed since Recon last processed that file, an s indicating that the file has remained unchanged, or a "." if Recon doesn't know. This information is known only for regular .SAV and .MSG files. The second character is either an A which indicates that the DOS archive file attribute is set, or a "-" which indicates that it is Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 67 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- reset. Though not as useful as the Recon C/s flag, the DOS archive file attribute may be of some use in deciding which files have changed, and which have not. The next column contains the size of the file in Kbytes. The next two columns contain the DOS file date and time. As already noted, the files are listed chronologically with the more recently changed files listed first. The last four columns contain a powerful and unique summary of the files themselves, including the tally of the total number of messages, the number of new messages, the number of unread messages, and the number that need a reply. This information is obtained in a PreScan of the files, and this occurs by default for .MSG and .SAV files. It can be forced for any picklist of files by using the local menu Force Rescan, as noted above. The PreScan behaviour can be further controlled by the use of the command line option /SCAN (section 4.2╨). You can abort during the PreScan with an [Esc]. Files that have not been fully prescanned, or if the information has changed since the PreScan, will be shown with an unknown status mark "≡" in these columns. Note that the number of unread messages in the PreScan list does not include announcements or outbox copies in the tally. Doing so would largely render this statistic useless. However, when the file is loaded, the number of unread indicated in File|Status and on the bottom status line if there are no NEW messages, does include announcements & outboxes. Secondly, the number of needs reply messages for newly added messages cannot be determined in the PreScan, only when the file is actually loaded. So this number might appear different in the PreScan compared to the actual when the file is loaded. To declare this ambiguity, when there are new messages in the file, a ? is shown in this column. If there are some messages among the older, already loaded messages, that have a needs reply status, then their count is shown with a + beside it. This signifies that there may be more than that number of messages that need a reply in the file. Once you select a file to load, if the file is not a .SAV or .MSG file then a dialog box will appear requesting the FORUM of origin of the messages in the file chosen for processing/viewing. When you wish to process message files other than your regular .SAV or .MSG files, which have not been created by Recon, then Recon may not be able to correctly determine the FORUM of origin of the messages. This dialog box is provided so that you can supply this information. If Recon has generated these files then the forum of origin is imbedded invisibly in the file and will always be available to Recon. Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 68 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- However the dialog box is still shown, with that FORUM name listed, to allow for your final approval. If Recon has already processed these messages at least once, then it is not mandatory that the FORUM the messages originated in be explicitly known to Recon. In fact, once the messages have been processed, you can mix messages from different forums together, although this is not recommended as the thread structure may be confused. Each time Recon loads a file it will (as necessary) reconstruct each individual message header, prune non-message lines, remove line noise and fix up CR/LF pairs, sort the messages into threads, then reconstruct message numbers and the in reply to message number links. Announcements are always sorted to the beginning of the file. The so called OUTBOX messages (retained copies of sent messages sent) are transparently converted to standard CompuServe format. After the sorting and fixups, if a message is judged to have duplicates, then one of the message pair will be automatically marked for deletion. It is always the more recent copy of a duplicate pair that is retained. After the file is loaded, in the top right corner of the screen appears a local index of the messages, the columns contain the message subject, and the sender and the recipient, respectively. Each is truncated to fit. The middle line (usually) corresponds to the currently displayed message. The local index also details the two immediately preceding and following messages. Hatched boxes appear on lines corresponding to messages that are currently MARKed. Lines that correspond to messages that match any currently set filters are in bold. The local index box can be toggled on and off with Alt-I. Along the bottom is a status line indicating the forum of origin, the current message sequence number, the total number of loaded messages, (or the sequence and number of NEW messages, if the NEW filter is on, or the number of unread messages, if there are no new ones) and in parentheses the number of messages currently slated for deletion. If a bold uppercase Greek delta is present beside the forum name, then the file has changed and probably requires a resave. If this is a new message NEW is displayed, if it needs a reply, then NRp appears. Similarly if this is a MARKed message then MRK will be displayed, and if this message is held then HLD will be shown. The status of the display filters is noted (fM, fN, fU, fB). If this is a message that was originally saved as an OUTBOX message, BOX is displayed. If this message is an announcement then ANN is displayed. With the HIDE: DELETED filter ON, deleted messages are not displayed. With this filter OFF, if the current message has been judged by Recon to be a duplicate then ?DUP? will be displayed. If the message has been marked for deletion then DEL is present. Mouse users should note that if no menu panels are pulled down, then the lines in the local index box are clickable for navigation. If Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 69 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- you click the current message's mini-index line then you will get a full screen index. Also clicking on the MRK or DEL indicators on the bottom line will toggle the message's MARKed or for DELetion status. Clicking on the filter status indicators (fM, fN, fU, fB) will toggle the status of the filter. When the filters are off a ghost of the text is shown on color monitors. The first header line of the message, (goes to the last message displayed) the subject line, (goes to the parent message if any) and areas of the message text itself (for scrolling the message) can also be clicked on for navigation. These are covered in the appropriate sections below. 5.1.2 Pick ---- To get the maximum benefit from the pick list you should always specify filespecs at the Load option dialog box using DOS wildcards (eg. *.MSG) rather than an exact filename (eg. IBMHW.MSG). When you choose File|Pick a pick list of recent filespecs appears. If no path is listed, then the message file storage path is assumed. By default, the select bar is placed on the second entry in this list. This second entry will always represent the second to the last filespec you specified for loading, assuming that there are at least two entries. If you wish to load a file with the very last filespec used, then you could simply choose File|Load instead. When you specify unique filespecs (whether containing wildcards or otherwise) in the Load option, these will be added to the pick list, the most recent filespecs that you specified will always be listed first. If you are a typical user, you will probably need no more than five or six filespecs to specify all the various groups of files that you may wish to load into Recon. After these are entered you will never have to type them in again. The last entry < FILE LOAD > is a shortcut to the File|Load dialog box. If you have an unwanted filespec, then highlight it and press the [Del] key, this will allow you to delete that entry after a confirmation. 5.1.3 Save&Exit ---- This option is active only if a message file is currently loaded. It will force a save of the currently loaded file whether there have been any changes or not. If there was not enough memory to load the entire file, this option is disabled as otherwise it would result in corruption of the file. Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 70 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This also normally results in the original file being backed'up to a file with an extension of $RK, in the same directory. For example, if the processed file was PCVENB.MSG, then this file is backed'up to PCVENB.$RK, the Recon processed file is saved and forms the new PCVENB.MSG file. If you load a file with an $RK extension then backup file generation is suppressed. Backup file generation can be disabled, see section 4.6. When saved, the file remains in normal CompuServe format and is completely compatible with the TAPCIS, Golden Commpass & Ozcis viewers. If you are using CONFIRMmode (the default), then after the save, you will be presented with the option of not exiting and returning to viewing/editing the same, currently loaded file. 5.1.4 AGE/Save&Exit ---- This option extends on the File|Save&Exit command, by also AGEing the file before it resaves it. When Recon ages a file, it moves generally older messages to another file for archiving, called an ".OLD" file. You have complete control as to what exactly is aged, and when. Recon 2.20/2.50 improve on the aging functions in a number of ways, making Recon's aging even more flexible as well as somewhat more predictable. In particular there are now new safeguards to protect against unexpected large age-outs of a file, that occasionally occurred with Recon 2.01 when files contained very long threads. In addition, sysops are now provided with an easier, and more direct way to maintain their offline message file as nearly identical as is possible to the actual, current online message database. See the threadAGEdays=-1 discussion below. AGEing consists of first deleting threads and messages from the current file, based on the AGEing criteria you specify, and then optionally appending these to an .OLD file. Appending them is disabled if you are AGEing an .OLD file. Messages that are new to Recon, or are noted with an unread, needs reply, held or alarmed status, will never be aged, regardless of the criteria that you set. This is true for interactive and batch mode aging. The initial default age for AGEing threads is 30 days, 60 days for messages, and 3200 messages for the size of the file. These are not intended to be effective defaults, and in fact will block just about any aging from occurring. These are set to this initially so you don't inadvertently age out messages before you fully understand the process. Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 71 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- You can quickly change the default settings by using the Edit|Settings command (section 5.1.7), or by editing the Recon2.SET file directly with File|Text Editor, or with your own favorite text editor. These parameters can be set differently for different forums, and are probably the most likely parameters to be set on a forum specific basis. It is probably easiest to ignore the thread and message AGEing settings altogether, that is just leave them at their defaults and only use file size AGEing. Then, Recon to a large extent will auto-adjust its AGEing to the activity of the forum for you! For example use settings as below: threadAGEdays=30 (default) messageAGEdays=60 (default) fileAGEsize=1000 In other words, the usual goal of AGEing is to keep your file sizes trim and workable. Forum specific settings for AGEing threads and messages will do that with some tinkering, but Recon's unique use of file size AGEing will let Recon do all the tinkering for you. Most users will probably opt for this easier, more automatic aging method. It takes all the guess work out of judging how busy forums are, and allows for much more consistent message file sizes. If you prefer to age strictly by dates, then set the thread and message date parameters, and set the file size aging parameter to -1 in order to turn size aging off: threadAGEdays=8 messageAGEdays=15 fileAGEsize=-1 You must turn file size aging off by setting it to -1, else the high default target for file size (3200 messages) will tend to protect the file messages, and in effect override any aging altogether. This is subtly different from Recon 2.01 behaviour, where the fileAGEsize parameter was treated as a maximum, rather than a target file size. Thread AGEing will age (move to an archive file) threads that have their most recent message earlier than a given date. Message AGEing further trims the file, by AGEing just individual older messages within threads that will themselves not be AGEd and removed. Note, that it is not meaningful to set the message age to less Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 72 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- than the thread age. If messageAGEdays is not set to greater than the threadAGEdays setting, then it is ignored. After a first cut of AGEing by thread & message age, the file is then file size AGEd. This operates by further trimming a message file down towards a target file size. If thread and message AGEing already resulted in a file less than this target, then no file size AGEing takes place. The corollary is that if you set the thread and message AGEing parameters to large values (eg. their defaults or higher) then the file will be aged principally by the file size AGEing setting alone. It is entirely your choice, you may wish to steer an intermediate course and use a mix of both methods. An example will help to clarify all this. Let's say you had an age setting of threadage=8 & messageage=15, and further let's say that would result in a message file of 1236 messages after threadage and messageage AGEing. If you set fileAGEsize=1000 then Recon would further reduce the size of the file by dynamically and sequentially reducing the threadage & messageage settings for that AGEing session, until the file is trimmed to close to the 1000 message target, usually within twenty messages or so. So the file size AGEing process in this instance would remove approximately another 236 messages. As the default setting for fileAGEsize is 3200 messages, this will prevent just about all aging, you must either turn file size aging off (set it to -1) or adjust the setting downwards for any aging to occur. Sysops will find that the combination of turning the file size aging and thread aging to off (fileAGEsize=-1, threadage=-1), and then setting the messageage parameter to the scroll rate on their forum, will automatically keep their offline message file a very near representation of their online message database! For example, if your forum's scroll rate was approximately ten days, you would set your parameters to: threadAGEdays=-1 messageAGEdays=10 fileAGEsize=-1 Also note that ANY file can be AGEd, not just .MSG files. The file that aged messages are appended to always takes the form of forum_name.OLD, where forum_name is the name of the forum of origin of that message. The .OLD files are placed in the message file storage directory. Announcements within .MSG files are treated a little differently. All of the not NEW (old) announcements are deleted if AGEing is specified, regardless of their age. If you wish to keep a given Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 73 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- announcement, then place a HOLD on it with Action|Hold|Toggle (section 5.3.8). Under no circumstances will a new, unread, held or alarmed, or a message that needs a reply, be aged with this command. Pseudo announcement messages as captured by a FRONTEND script and stored in the MAIL.MSG file are aged as normal messages, not as announcements. 5.1.5 Exit ---- This option is active only if a message file is currently loaded. It will exit from editing/viewing the current file without saving it. It there have been changes to the file, then you will be warned that this would result in their loss. If you then decide to not EXIT then you will be returned to editing/viewing the currently loaded file. You will still have the option of eventually saving the file. 5.1.6 Status ---- This option will display information about the current Recon environment. The status panel shows the current EMS or virtual memory usage, and lists the maximum number of messages possible for the given memory configuration. In most circumstances, Recon will be able to select the best possible options for using your memory and disk resources. However, you may wish to review Appendix section 7.1 for a discussion of this process, and how to fine tune it. It also lists the currently loaded file, if any, and information about it, and information about the user, and the serial number or unregistered status. The global hot key is [F3], pressing [F3] again will remove the Status box. Pressing any other key will also remove the box, but that key will also be passed on to, and acted upon by Recon. 5.1.7 Edit Settings ---- You can view and change all of the current GLOBAL, and FORUM (local) settings while in INTERACTIVE mode by using the File|Edit Settings option. (Ctl-[F3]). The discussion below covers each parameter in detail. Each Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 74 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- parameter is shown with its default setting if it is not blank. For the settings that accept text (such as ReconEDIT1) choose that option and a dialog box will appear. For the settings that toggle, to change each setting just choose it, it will toggle to the next valid setting. All of the valid setting options are listed in brackets following these settings. To make the settings permanent use the File|Save Settings option. If you prefer, you can also edit these directly in your Recon2.SET file with File|Text Editor and selecting Recon "SET" file, or with your favorite text editor. For an example Recon2.SET file, see Appendix section 7.3. o 5.1.7.1 global: General This group includes the following global settings, all are in identical syntax to the content of the Recon2.SET file, and are shown with their initial defaults. PrintDevice=PRN (PRN, LPT1, LPT2, LPT3, or file/device) Pre-Print= (printer initialization control string) On-Exit= (printer control string, when Recon exits) Although appearing in the Recon2.SET file, these cannot be accessed from this panel, instead they are available for editing from Other|Print|Printer Setup (section 5.6.6.1). CatScanPATH= (takes a <path>) Directs Recon where to find the CatScan.LOG file so that it may append to it when creating download scripts. If you do not use CatScan, then leave this blank. ReconEDIT1= (takes a <path>/<file>/parameters) ReconEDIT2= (takes a <path>/<file>/parameters) These are the dos commands that will be issued when you choose either of External Editor 1, or External Editor 2 in the Connect|Send Menu panel. Recon 2.50 will still recognize the RECONEDIT DOS environment variable which served this purpose in previous versions. scroll=LINE (LINE, OVERLAP, PAGE) When single line scrolling is active any multi-display page message is scrolled only one line at a time when either the MSG scroll UP or Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 75 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- MSG scroll DOWN commands are issued. With page scrolling the displayed message is scrolled by a full display page, with overlap there is one line of overlap in the page scrolls. SNAPOFF=ON (ON or OFF) With SNAPOFF panels, most menu panels disappear when an action is carried out. For example, if you execute Action|MARK|Section then after the current section is marked the panels all disappear. This will clear the display to let you see the entire message. Which mode you choose will be guided by simple personal preference. Some options (eg. in the Edit Settings panel) will always work as STICKY regardless of the current setting. You can also optionally force the Other|Print panel to remain sticky, even with SNAPOFF=ON, with /SPM (section 4.22). DCHECK=ON (ON or OFF) When Recon saves a file it requires free disk space of at least as much as the file itself. With DCHECK=ON, Recon checks for this available space before saving. If you have oodles of free space, or if you have a really slow hard disk (the check may take a few moments) then you may wish to disable this check, but do so with caution. QUIET=OFF (ON or OFF) To alert the user, Recon uses a variety of auditory prompts for critical or error situations. You can disable all of these by setting QUIET to ON. BACKUP=ON (ON or OFF) When Recon rewrites a file it will automatically backup the old file in the same directory using an "$RK" extension. If you are operating on floppies, or are particularly cramped for disk space, then you may wish to disable this by setting BACKUP=OFF. CONFIRMmode=ON (EXPERTmode=ON) Once you are familiar with the operation of Recon you will likely wish to remove most of the precautionary confirmations and warnings that Recon uses. If so, then set this option to EXPERTmode=ON. Note that this does not change the way that Recon runs. All the normal DOS and file related safety features are still there! All this does is remove confirmations for most commands that you indicate you wish to carry out. However, even in EXPERTmode you will still be asked Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 76 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- to confirm AGEing and an EXIT (without a save) from a file that has been changed and presumably needs resaving, and a few other critical situations. If you are new to Recon, use EXPERTmode=ON with caution. NEWfilter=OFF (ON or OFF) This sets the initial default for the NEW filter. Every time a new file is loaded, the status of the NEW filter is set according to this value. You can toggle the NEW filter with commands from the View panel. o 5.1.7.2 global/forum: View/Send This group includes the following settings, the settings noted with * are also available as FORUM settings. All are in identical syntax to the content in the Recon2.SET file, and are shown with their initial defaults. CMailReceipt=OFF (ON or OFF) By default, no CompuServe receipt of message is requested when you send a CMail message. You can change this by toggling this parameter. You can still override this either way on a message by message basis. allowREformatting=OFF (ON or OFF) When you send a message on a FORUM, allowREformatting=ON will allow CompuServe to reformat your message. This may help fit someone else's viewing needs better, and is especially important for international users who use expensive packet services. However, the CompuServe reformatter can also scramble carefully set up text in tables or columns. You can always override this on a message by message basis. Also, Recon will check your message to see whether it might benefit from having CompuServe reformatting disabled, and warn you if so. * HIDEBOX=OFF (ON or OFF) This will hide all OUTBOX messages in a file, you can still see them by moving to them with the [PgUp] and [PgDn] keys of course. This setting is most useful if you send many messages yourself, and don't really wish to explicitly see these as a NEW message the next time you load the .MSG file. Particularly useful for sysops, and typically used as a FORUM setting. * cleanANN=NONE (NONE, SHORT or ALL) Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 77 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- When set to all, removes all but the latest, newest forum announcement that is captured when you enter a forum. When set to short, all short, typically trivial announcements will be removed. Otherwise announcements will accumulate in the file until you age it. In any case, AGEing a file will delete all old and read announcements, regardless of the announcements' ages. Recon 2.01's cleanANN=OFF is translated to NONE, and cleanANN=ON becomes ALL. * deleteAGED=OFF (ON or OFF) When you age a file, Recon will by default save all of the old, aged messages to the .OLD file. This file will have the root name of the forum, and will reside in the message file storage directory. If you are limited in disk space, or just don't wish to accumulate .OLD files, then you can toggle this setting to ON. Typically this would be used as a FORUM setting. * OUTBOX=MSGfile (OFF, MSGfile or SAVfile) Directs where you would like your OUTBOX messages placed, TAPCIS 5.x places these in your .SAV file. By default Recon adds OUTBOX copies of messages to the .MSG file, rather than the .SAV file. This is a much handier place to have them, as you keep your thread filled out in your .MSG file until you actually download the CompuServe copy of your reply. This is the only way of keeping track of your MAIL file replies. You should almost certainly use the default setting. * threadAGEdays=30 * messageAGEdays=60 * fileAGEsize=3200 Use these to set your file AGEing parameters. AGEing is not actually done, unless you exit a file with File|AGE/Save&Exit (section 5.1.4), or if you use /AGE in BATCH mode (section 6.2). These parameters are the most likely to be set on a FORUM specific basis. o 5.1.7.3 global/forum: Sort This group includes the following settings, the settings noted with * are also available as FORUM settings. All are in identical syntax to the content in the Recon2.SET file, and are shown with their initial Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 78 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- defaults. * THREADsort=ON (ON or OFF) MCsort=ON (ON or OFF) * THREADSbyDATE=ON (THREADSbySUBJ=ON) * GROUPsect=ON (ON or OFF) These are the basic sort parameters. See Other|Sort (section 5.6.8) for a description of each setting. * STRICTsectSORT=OFF (ON or OFF) This is of main concern to sysops. After reading this if you are not sure what it all means, then you don't need this feature, and just go with the Recon default, ie. OFF. TAPCIS style, or older version Recon style OUTBOX messages, will result in some instances of confused sorts because in these types of OUTBOX messages the actual section can only be inferred by Recon. This resulted in some messages and threads being sorted into sections other than where they actually reside on CompuServe. Recon puts the correct message section number into its own outbox messages. As you will likely be using Recon for most messaging, then the old style TAPCIS outboxes will disappear and no longer be a problem. If Recon 2.50 detects a TAPCIS style outbox, it will sort the file the way that it did in previous versions for compatibility. However if there are no TAPCIS outboxes then you will now get a true, strict, section sort. But even if Recon detects a TAPCIS outbox message (without a proper section number) you can still FORCE this new strict section sort by setting this to ON. However note that, any old format outboxes cannot be sorted in properly, and will be instead be put into a group at the very beginning of the file. 5.1.8 Save Settings ---- This allows for saving of the current set of settings as the GLOBAL or the current FORUM local settings. These will be written out to the Recon2.SET file. Each time Recon starts up it looks for the Recon2.SET file and loads in the specified defaults. If a Recon2.SET file does not exist then Recon will create it with its initial default settings. Note that if you specify command line parameters that conflict with the Recon.SET settings, they will override the Recon2.SET settings for that session. Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 79 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- If Recon finds a syntax error in the Recon2.SET file, it will mark it as in the example below, and ignore it: syntax ERROR "GROUsect=ON" Executing File|Save Settings will save all the current Settings that are set in the File|Edit Settings section to the Recon2.SET file. This will result in a rewrite of the Recon2.SET file, and your choice of the previous contents of the GLOBAL, or that FORUM's section will be overwritten. You do not need to save the settings to activate them, they are in place as soon as you change them with File|Edit Settings, saving them just makes the settings remembered for future sessions. Alternately you can directly edit the Recon2.SET file, by using Recon's File|Text Editor command. In addition to saving the current settings with the File|Save Settings option you can freely edit the Recon2.SET file with a text editor. Do not try to edit the Recon2.PCK and Recon2.DAT files. They are not text files, and you will almost certainly corrupt them. See the Appendix section 7.3 for an example Recon2.SET file. 5.1.9 PARAMS file ---- This section only applies if you are using TAPCIS or Golden Commpass. Recon loads and acts on any Params file that you specify, after starting up you can change to another Params file if you wish, using this option. Recon also refreshes its Params file read when returning from its own MENU Shell. Note that you can have Recon start up with any PARAMS file active by using the /EXT parameter (section 4.15). 5.1.10 shell MENU ---- This provides an almost instant ability to access another DOS program such as TAPCIS or a TAPCIS add-on, or the DOS command line, while Recon is running. This option is compatible with the WordPerfect Shell program. The File|shell MENU command will save your precious conventional memory by freeing up all but about 10k of memory by swapping Recon's Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 80 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- code and data to either EMS, or to disk. (You will need some 550k bytes available.) You can optionally specify the disk/directory to use for swapping with the DOS environment variable RTEMP (section 4.34.3). This facility should greatly streamline CompuServe use especially for those who don't have access to a multitasking or task switching environment. You should also note, that if you use this SHELL facility to get to TAPCIS and back, you are guaranteed that TAPCIS' "!" marks will be set/reset correctly. If a Recon2.SHL file does not yet exist (on startup for example) Recon will look for some add-ons and navigators on the DOS Path and insert them in the menu. Recon2.SHL holds all the menu options, and is stored in the message file storage directory. The first thirty characters of each line are displayed in the menu panel, the command line that executes that option is the last fifty characters. The file is a simple text file and freely editable, you may of course need to insert command line parameters to customize it. Here is a example Recon2.SHL file: │<- menu option name ->││<- path/filename/parameters ... TAPCIS (get headers) C:\TAP\TAPCIS.EXE ($REXT$) NX TappeT C:\TAPUTIL\TAPPET.EXE ($REXT$) TAPCIS (get/send messages) C:\TAP\TAPCIS.EXE ($REXT$) OX CatScan C:\TAPUTIL\CATSCAN.EXE The above Recon2.SHL file would display as: │▒shell▒MENU▒▒▒▒▒▒Ctl[F1]▒│ │ ╒═════════════════════════════════╕ ╘═│0 DOS Shell │ │1▒▒TAPCIS▒(get headers)▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒│ │2 TappeT │ │3 TAPCIS (get/send messages) │ │4 CatScan │ ╘═════════════════════════════════╛ $REXT$ is a special variable, that Recon will substitute the current PARAMS file extension for, just before Recon's shell executes the command. For example, if PARAMS.NOW was the currently selected PARAMS file, and the following Recon2.SHL line was about to be executed: C:\TAP\TAPCIS ($REXT$) Then the actual command line executed would be: Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 81 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- C:\TAP\TAPCIS (NOW) Recon also does an automatic select disk & ChDir before running the command. Batch files are allowed as well, just end them with EXIT so that the shell will close. While shelled, be careful not to alter any message files that Recon may have loaded, and not to alter any files with a .$$$ extension. These may be Recon temporary files. If you do then you may not only corrupt your message files, but even crash Recon and your system. 5.1.11 Text Editor ---- This option accesses Recon's internal text editor, which allows you to edit most any text file. When this option is selected, in addition to being able to specify any file to create or edit (first sub-option), for your convenience you are given a list of text files that you might wish to edit from Recon. The file you wish to edit must be less than about 64000 characters, and there must be sufficient free memory available. The global hot key is Ctl-[F9]. 5.1.12 Clip/Export ---- This option provides access to Recon's new internal program-wide cut&paste functions. When you select this option, an inverse color rectangular cursor will appear. Using the cursor arrow keys, move it to the top left hand side of the block you wish to clip, and press [Enter], then move the cursor to the bottom right hand side of the block, and press [Enter] again. That block will be marked and copied. You will then be asked if you wish to add this block to Recon's clipboard, or write it out to a file. Elsewhere in Recon, where you are entering text either in the editor, the reply editor, or some menu commands, you will be given the option of pasting the clipboard copied text. This gives you very powerful and easy ways to clip and paste text back and forth between replies and text files. The global hot key is [F9]. Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 82 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5.1.13 Quit Recon ---- Use this to exit Recon. The global hot key is Alt-Q. 5.2 Navigate panel ---- 5.2.1 scroll UP, scroll DOWN ---- You can page through a long message (longer than one screen) using the [-] and [+] keys, you will be prompted in the Navigate panel (or Navigate strip) as well as in the bottom right hand corner of the message text display when these keys are active options. For the convenience of notebook users who may not have dedicated grey [-] and [+] keys, you can also use the [-] and [=] (unshifted [+]) adjacent to the number row. The scrolling will be one line at a time, scrolling can also be set to proceed one display screen at a time, or with one line of overlap. This setting is saved in the Recon2.SET file, and can be accessed and changed using File|Edit Settings (section 5.1.7). Mouse users can click on the top half of the message text to scroll UP, and the bottom half to scroll DOWN. (Mouse hot zones are active only when there are no menu panels pulled down) New since Recon 2.01, you can scroll by line if you have page scrolling set as default, or scroll by page if you have line scrolling as the default, by using the combination of the Alt key and either the [-] and [=] (unshifted [+]) adjacent to the number row. Note, that the Alt key in combination with the dedicated grey [-] and [+] keys, will not work. 5.2.2 msg UP {flt}, msg DOWN {flt} ---- These options will page to the preceding message, or to the next message. If filters are active, then messages which do not satisfy the current filter criteria will be skipped. The [PgUp] and [PgDn] (section 5.2.3) and some major scrolling options override the filter settings. The shortcut keys are the [UArr] and [DArr] keys on the Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 83 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- cursor/number keypad. These keys as short cuts are not accessible if a menu panel is pulled down, as then the arrow keys move the select bar among the choices in the pulled down menu panel. Note that if the displayed message is longer that one screen in length this option will not page within the message, it will always move by whole messages. The [SPACE] can be used as an alternative no thinking necessary key. If the displayed message is only one screen long, then the [SPACE] acts as the [DArr] key, if the displayed message is longer than one screen, then the [SPACE] acts as the [+] key until it gets to the end of the message, then it does a [PgDn]. Mouse users can click on the - continued - line, or on the bottom rule (second line from the bottom) to simulate the [SPACE] key. (mouse hot zones are active only when there are no menu panels pulled down) If you have BARred certain UserID's (see next section), then Recon will pull a curtain over the message text of messages to or from such UserID's, in order to keep your blood pressure down. This only occurs if you navigate to the given message using one of these two commands. o 5.2.2.1 Barring UserID's, the Twit Filter A BAR filter is available, this will cause Recon to quickly cover with a curtain the text of any messages either from or to, any of up to ten UserID's. On Recon startup, a file with the name of Recon2.BAR is looked for in the message file storage directory, and the first ten lines containing valid CompuServe UserID's are accepted as barred UserID's. You can create or edit your Recon2.BAR file with Recon's File|Text Editor option, selecting Recon "BAR" list. For example, if the Recon2.BAR file contained the below two lines: Loud Mouth Harry 77777,222 Whining Alice 77666,1111 Then Recon would bar messages from or to both 77777,222 and 77666,1111 from your view. 5.2.3 message UP, message DOWN ---- These options will page to the preceding message, or to the next message, similar to the msg UP {flt}, msg DOWN {flt} options, however all filters will be ignored. Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 84 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The global hot keys are [PgUp] and [PgDn] on the cursor/number keypad. Note that if the displayed message is longer than one screen in length this option will not page within the message, it will always move by whole messages. Mouse users can click on the local index box lines, to navigate up or down one or two messages. (Mouse hot zones are active only when there are no menu panels pulled down.) 5.2.4 prev THREAD/CORRES ---- This option will move the display to the first message of the PREVious thread. If a message that does not match the current filter settings is moved to, a display of the message will be forced regardless, and the #### of #### on the status line blinks. The global hot key is Alt-X. If this is a CompuServe MAIL sourced file sorted with a Mail Correspondent Sort, (MCS is the default, see section 5.6.8.1) then this option will move to the previous correspondent group rather than the previous thread as would be determined by the message subject. 5.2.5 STARTofTHD, FINISHofTHD ---- STARTofTHD and FINISHofTHD will display the first or last message of a thread, note that they override the filter settings. If a message that does not match the current filter settings is moved to, a display of the message will be forced regardless, and the #### of #### on the status line blinks. The global hot keys are [Home] for STARTofTHD, and [End] for FINISHofTHD. 5.2.6 neXt THREAD/CORRES ---- This option will move the display to the first message of the NEXT thread, note the difference between this and FINISHofTHD. If a message that does not match the current filter settings is moved to, a display of the message will be forced regardless, and the #### of #### on the status line blinks. The hot key is X. If this is a CompuServe MAIL sourced file sorted with a Mail Correspondent Sort (MCS is the default, see section 5.6.8.1), then this option will move to the next correspondent group rather than the next thread as would be determined by the message subject. Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 85 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5.2.7 BEGofFILE, ENDofFILE ---- BEGofFILE and ENDofFILE will display the first or last message, note that they override the filter settings. If you move to a message that does not match the current filter settings, a blank message text screen will result. The global hot key is Ctl[PgUp] for BEGofFILE, and Ctl[PgDn] for ENDofFILE. 5.3 Action panel ---- 5.3.1 MARK ---- This option will MARK the group of messages that you specify in its submenu. Note that this is not a toggle for each individual message. Messages that may already be marked will remain marked. To toggle a single or all message marks see the Action|Invert command (section 5.3.4). The groups as outlined in the submenu are largely self-explanatory. THREAD, START to here would mark all the messages from the beginning of this thread up to and including this message. Section marking seems simple enough, but this may be complicated if there are OUTBOX messages. If section sorting is enabled (section 5.6.8.4) and an OUTBOX message cannot be sorted into a thread, and hence cannot be assigned a section by inference, then it is placed at the beginning of the file. If you select Action|MARK|Section when viewing such section unassigned messages then you will mark ONLY that current message. If sorting is set to IGNORE sections then this option is disabled. THREAD, {Branch} refers to CompuServe thread structure. The current message would be considered the parent message, and it as well as any replies to itself (children) or other replies would all be MARKed. See also section 5.6.8.1. ONLY NEW messages, marks the messages currently noted as NEW in the file, and of course All messages would MARK all the messages in the currently loaded file. Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 86 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5.3.2 UnMARK ---- This option will UnMARK the group of messages that you specify in its submenu. Note that this is not a toggle for each individual message. Messages that may already be unmarked will remain unmarked. You select from the same submenu as with the MARK option (section 5.3.1). 5.3.3 Mark by AGE ---- This option has a submenu allowing you to mark THREADs or messages older than a certain date. The THREAD age is determined by its most recent message. Message age is simply determined from that message's date. You specify the number of days old that a THREAD or a message must be in order to be MARKed, then the marking will be done after a confirmation. The default number of days for AGEing this forum will be taken as the default. This is a very powerful MARKing option. Note that this option only MARKS messages, it will not age them, copy them, delete them and so on, unless you then request such actions on the marked messages. Used with the Action|Invert|Invert ALL MARKS you can quickly change the marks to delimit the new messages instead. This command is not what is typically used to age a file. See instead the INTERACTIVE mode automatic AGEing (section 5.1.4), as well as BATCH mode AGEing (sections 6.2). 5.3.4 Invert ---- This option will invert (toggle or flip) either the MARK status or the DELETED status of the specified group of message(s). It will also manually toggle the state of either of the newer Recon 2.20/2.50 UNREAD and NEEDS REPLY status flags. For the commands that turn all of the UNREAD or NEEDS REPLY status flags, and for more information on these special status commands, see sections 5.4.2.6 and 5.4.2.7 on the View panel. Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 87 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ALL MARKS and MESSAGE MARK toggle the MARK status of all messages, or only the currently displayed message, respectively. If a message is MARKed, it will become unMARKed, and vice versa. The MRK indicator along the bottom status line as well as the mark indicator(s) in the local index display will light or disappear. The [*] is the shortcut key for the latter option. ALL DELETIONS and MESSAGE DELETE toggle the DELETED status of all messages, or only the currently displayed message, respectively. The DEL indicator along the bottom status line will light or disappear as appropriate. The number of messages to be deleted is displayed on the bottom line in parentheses. Note that none of the messages are actually deleted until a SAVE is done. The [Del] key is the shortcut for the latter option. Note the difference between this command and the Action|Delete|message command (section 5.3.6). 5.3.5 Copy ---- The last command this message .SAV mirrors the TAPCIS SAVe message (TAPCIS hot key: S) command, it saves the current message to the .SAV file for this FORUM. Of course you can also do the same thing by specifying the .SAV file at the filespec question when copying a message (see below), but this provides a quick one keystroke method for doing something you may need to do often. If the current file is a .SAV file then this option is disabled. Otherwise this option will copy the group of messages that you then go on to select in its submenu. The groups as outlined in the submenu are self-explanatory. Once you choose the group of messages you wish to copy you will be asked for a destination filespec in a dialog box. If you do not specify a path, then the message file storage directory will be used. If you do not specify an extension, then .THD will be assigned. For example if you specify DISKS when asked for the filename, and if the message file storage directory is C:\TAP\STOR then the MARKed messages will be saved/appended to the file C:\TAP\STOR\DISKS.THD. If you include a DOS filespec wildcard (eg. *.THD, IBM???.*) you will instead be shown a directory box which includes all the possible files to append to. If you select a directory from the directory box (identified with <dir>) then you will be shown a new directory box of the same filespec, but as applied to that new directory. If you press [F10] instead of typing a filespec you get a pick list Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 88 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- of possible filespecs that you can choose and then further edit. If the chosen filename does not already exist, you will be asked if you wish to create it. If the specified file already exists you will be warned of this, and asked if you wish to append to it. Note that this option will never overwrite a file. With the exception of the TAPCIS-like SAVe to .SAV file command, the shortcut keys are all centered on the [F5] key, these options will likely be chosen most of time with their global hot keys. 5.3.6 Delete ---- With the exception of the last option (UNdelete ALL messages), this option will delete the group of messages that you then go on to select in its submenu. You select from a similar submenu as with Action|Copy. Note that this is not a toggle for each individual message. Messages that may already be marked DELeted will remain marked DELeted. You will be asked to confirm the action. To toggle DELeted marks see the Action|Invert command (section 5.3.4). The global hot keys are all centered on the [F6] key, these options will likely be chosen most of time with these keys. 5.3.7 Move ---- A Move command is a combination of copy and delete command. You select from a similar submenu as with the Action|Copy or Action|Delete options (sections 5.3.5, 5.3.6). The shortcut keys are all centered on the [F8] key, these options will likely be chosen most of time with these keys. 5.3.8 HOLD ---- This command tells Recon to place a HOLD on a message, or a group of messages within the current file (for sysop hold, see section 7.10.4). A HELD message will not be AGEd, even if it would normally match the criteria. In general, this is useful for keeping messages around Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 89 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- indefinitely. In addition when you have the NEW filter ON, a HELD message will shine through. Previous to Recon 2.20, putting a hold on the rest of the new messages with Action|HOLD|NEW to FINISH might have been used for the situation where you have checked half of the new messages, but want to complete reading/replying later. You still can do this, but don't need to, as Recon 2.20/2.50 provides automatic READ/UNREAD status flags for each message. See section 5.4.2.6 for more information on these status flags. Note that for DELetion status will override, even a hold mark. 5.3.9 Message Alarms ---- Think of this as an Alarm Clock, set on a message. A message with an alarm set will remain held in a message file, but unlike a simply HELD message, it will not be included when the NEW filter is active - before the date alarm arrives. When the date that you've set the alarm for arrives, the next time that you scroll to the alarmed message, it pops back up into view with a reminder that you had set an alarm on it. To set an alarm for a message, just select Set Alarm, and specify the date, you can scroll the date by days with [-]/[+] and by months with [PgDn]/[PgUp]. To clear an alarm, instead use the Clear Alarm option. The global hot key for this panel is Ctl-L. 5.4 View panel ---- The View panel contains two complementary groups of commands: those that allow you to search for text in messages; and those that set filters to only display certain messages. Note, that any search that you specify will only look within messages that would normally be displayed by the currently set filters. 5.4.1 Searching ---- By default, a search looks at the entire message text, the message number, the message date/time and the text of the Subject, To and From Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 90 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- fields for a matching pattern. By default the search is also case insensitive (ie. Recon = RECON). Note that the "section name" on the top line of the message header is ignored. When a message containing the target text is found it will be displayed, with the contained target phrases highlighted. Note that you may have to page to the second or following display pages, (using the [+] key) in a message that occupies more than one display page to see the target phrases. o 5.4.1.1 Search When executed, this command will ask for a target phrase to search for. The last target phrase (if any) is the default. Note that this command always begins searching at the first message. The global hot key is [F2]. o 5.4.1.2 Next HIT When executed, this command will search for the next occurrence of the last specified target phrase, starting with the message following the current one. The global hot key for this command is the > key, you can also use the unshifted > key (the period key). o 5.4.1.3 Previous HIT When executed, this command will search for the previous occurrence of the last specified target phrase, starting with the message preceding the current one. The global hot key for this command is the < key, you can also use the unshifted < key (the comma key). o 5.4.1.4 Searching: header and/or message text By default the search looks at both the header information and the message text. You can restrict the search to only the header text by using the Header+text/Header ONLY toggle. If such a search will meet your needs then the advantage is that it will be an order of magnitude faster because the header information is always more quickly accessible. o 5.4.1.5 Searching: case sensitivity By default, the search is case insensitive. That is "Recon" and "RECON" are considered equivalent. This can be toggled with the Case SENSITIVE/case insensitive command in this panel. Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 91 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5.4.2 Filters ---- Filters allow messages to be displayed only if they meet specified criteria. If there is more than one criteria, they are grouped together as a logical and. For example, if both the NEW and MARKed filters are set, then for inclusion a message must meet both of the criteria. The NEW filter is special in that when set, not only will it filter in messages that are physically new to the file, but will also filter in messages that are HELD or ALARMED and messages that have an UNREAD or NEEDS REPLY status. The UNREAD and NEEDS REPLY status flags are discussed below. The NEW, MARKed, HOLD/ALARM, UNREAD and NEEDS REPLY status of individual messages are all preserved across file save/load cycles. The DELETED filter hides rather than displays messages. The Navigate|msg UP {flt} and Navigate|msg DOWN {flt} commands as well as the search facility respect any active filters. Note that when you first set a filter condition, you may get a blank screen and may need to do one msg UP {flt} or msg DOWN {flt} to get to a message that meets the filter criteria. o 5.4.2.1 Filters: MARKed When set this filter only allows display of messages that are currently MARKed. If this filter is already set, then this command will turn the filter off. The global hot key is Alt-M. Mouse users can click on the status line fM to toggle the filter. (Mouse hot zones are active only when there are no menu panels pulled down.) o 5.4.2.2 Filters: NEW When set this filter allows display of messages that are physically new to the file, and to Recon, or that have one or more of the following status: HOLD, ALARM past due, UNREAD, NEEDS REPLY. If this filter is already set, then this command will turn the filter off. The global hot key is Alt-W. Mouse users can click on the status line fN to toggle the filter. (Mouse hot zones are active only when there are no menu panels pulled Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 92 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- down.) o 5.4.2.3 Filters: UserID group When set, this filter directs Recon to use various UserIDs as the filter criteria. You can specify the UserIDs with reference to the To/Fm for the current message, your own UserID, or lookup/search and specify any UserID. Note that you can use File|Clip to copy a UserID on screen to the Recon clipboard, and then paste it into the other/search option. It will then let you peruse all the messages that contain the specified UserIDs. This is very handy for following a two respondent conversation within a large thread, looking up all your own messages, and so on. The filter is not limited to a specific thread. The UserID filter will temporarily override any other filters set, hence it will always show you all of the messages in the file that meet this single criteria. To remind you of this, any other filter indicators set will flash. You are of course free to move around the file. When you click the UserID filter off, the [Tab] key will take you back to where you started just before you clicked the UserID filter on. The global hot key is Alt-U. Mouse users can click on the status line fU to toggle the filter. Mouse hot zones are active only when there are no menu panels pulled down. o 5.4.2.4 Filters: Branch When executed, this filter lets you view the current message (the parent) and all the messages that are replies to the current message, (children) and then their replies, and so on. As such this shows you one branch of a CompuServe thread tree (see also section 5.6.8.1). Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 93 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Branch filter will temporarily override any other filters set, hence it will always show you the complete branch with the current message as the parent. To remind you of this, any other filter indicators set will flash. Sysops in particular will find this very helpful for thread management. Further, if you have the BRANCH filter on, and you execute the Other|Jump PARENT command, (Alt-J) then the BRANCH filter will expand backwards to include the newly jumped to message as the parent, and all its replies. This sounds a bit confusing, but the effect will be Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 94 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- immediately obvious if you try this with the full screen index (Other|display Index) displayed. You are of course free to move around the file. When you click the Branch filter off, the [Tab] key will take you back to where you started just before you clicked the Branch filter on. The global hot key is Alt-B. Mouse users can click on the status line fM to toggle the filter. (Mouse hot zones are active only when there are no menu panels pulled down.) o 5.4.2.5 Filters: DELETED This filter is a little different from the other filters. It should normally be left in the default ON setting. When this filter in ON (HIDE: DELETED) then it excludes messages, rather than including messages as the NEW, MARKed, UserID and Branch filters do. The global hot key is Alt-D. o 5.4.2.6 Filters: clear UNREAD flag View|clear UNREAD will do exactly that, it will remove the UNREAD status from all of the messages in the current file, causing them to be noted as already read. This function will only need to be used in unusual instances. You will normally be able to rely on Recon's automatic removal of the UNREAD status of a message as you scroll. An UNREAD status is different from the NEW flag. Note that a message can be UNREAD, but may not have just been newly added to a file. The UNREAD flag is automatically turned on for appropriate messages when a file is loaded. It is automatically turned off when you scroll past the message using the Navigate|MsgDn{flt} command. (hot keys [DArr] or [SPACE]) It can also be toggled with the Action|Invert|UNREAD command (section 5.3.4) for individual messages. This easily lets you view for example, half the new messages in a file, then File|Save&Exit, download some more messages, and still have Recon point out all the UNREAD messages for you. Rarely you may wish to disable this function. See section 4.21 for details about the /NOUNREADF parameter. A message set as UNREAD will not be aged by either interactive (File|AGE) or batch mode aging. This sticky UNREAD status flag is a very powerful tool. Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 95 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- o 5.4.2.7 View: clear NEEDS REPLY flag The View|clear NEEDS REPLY command will remove the NEEDS REPLY status from all of the messages in the current file. This function will only need to be used in unusual instances, you will normally be able to rely on Recon's automatic removal of the NEEDS REPLY status of a message, which occurs when you in fact reply to the message. For this purpose, a reply is taken in the literal CompuServe meaning: a message written to the sender, in the same forum and section, and with the same subject. A message set as NEEDS REPLY will not be aged by either interactive (File|AGE) or batch mode aging. The automatic NEEDS REPLY status of a message is set intelligently by Recon on messages that it feels qualify during a message file load. If you write replies extensively outside of Recon, for example, you post replies interactively while online on CompuServe, then you may wish to disable this function. See section 4.14 for details about the /NOREPLYF parameter. This is sticky across files saves/loads, and can be toggled with the Action|Invert|NEEDS REPLY command (section 5.3.4). o 5.4.2.8 find NEEDS REPLY messages The last two options in this panel allow you to quickly navigate to either the previous or next message that needs a reply. This is very handy for reviewing all the messages that are new and directed to yourself, for example. The hot keys for these two functions are { and }. 5.5 Connect panel ---- No, this panel does not really Connect Recon to anything. It does let you make connections to CompuServe by writing messages and replies, sending files and generating download scripts for files and messages, and lets you connect with thread marker utilities to deselect marked threads. The Sysop commands are also accessed from this panel, see Appendix section 7.10 for more information on these. Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 96 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5.5.1 send MESSAGE/FILE ---- The global hot key is W. A submenu will appear giving you a number of choices. In order to compose a new message choose one of the first three options for a text editor. Details on writing a message are in the Reply editor section (section 5.5.3). You can write a new message to anyone, anywhere, whether a file is loaded or not. You will be asked to specify the section, subject, and recipient when you choose this option. When asked for the recipient you can search your UserID file, or any file, by specifying a partial UserId (section 5.5.8.1). Then, if this is a CMail message, you will be given the option of forwarding copies of the message to others. You can add individual addresses with the usual pick list for addresses. You can also quickly append the distribution list from that message (excluding yourself) as the carbon copy list. Finally, once a list is composed, you can save the currently specified list of UserID's to a mailing list file. An alternate way of sending a message to more than one individual is to specify a mailing list file as the address you wish to send the message to. If the mailing list file was MYLIST.ML, then you can use the following format in the To: field to do this: =MYLIST.ML You can also FORWARD a message. This option takes the currently viewed message and inserts it into your prospective reply as indented and delimited text. Then you complete writing the message, and send the message in the same manner. FORWARDing is only available with the Recon internal editor. o 5.5.1.1 send FILE/CMail This facility allows you to forward a file by BINARY CMail or ASCII CMail. Except in the instance where your intended receiver does not have the ability to accept BINARY CMail, (eg. INTERNET) you should use BINARY CMail. With BINARY CMail there is a greater assurance that the file is received intact and uncorrupted by line noise. Also CompuServe allows for much larger file sizes for BINARY CMail. Do not use these options for sending ordinary messages. Use the message composing options instead. Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 97 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- When you choose either of these options you will be queried as to the recipient, the subject, and then the filename of the file you wish to send. If you include a valid DOS filename as the subject (eg. MYFILE.ZIP) and the recipient is also a Recon user, then Recon will automatically rename the received file to the filename you supply when it happens in the MAIL.MSG file on the notice of a file being received. This is most convenient for the receiver. If you include a wildcard in the filespec when asked for the path/name of the file to be uploaded then Recon will let you use a live file directory picklist. If you select a directory then you will be shown that directory with the wildcard filespec applied to it. The filename that you supply must be valid, and the file must already exist. After a confirmation, Recon writes a script for your navigator to act on. 5.5.2 send REPLY ---- A reply is different from a new message, only in that the recipient, location for the message and subject name are already determined, by the message that you are viewing at the time. To start writing a reply you need to be viewing any non-announcement message in any message file (the parent message). Then choose write REPLY (global hot key R). If you have external editors defined, then a submenu will open up giving you the choice of using the internal Recon editor, or shelling to one of two text editors of your choice. See the Reply editor sections on how to write a message (section 5.5.3). 5.5.3 Recon editor ---- Recon's internal editor was greatly enhanced for version 2.20, and now further so for Recon 2.50. It now includes cut & paste from the parent message with nine quoting styles, import/export of files, as well as line orientated block editing commands. You also have access to a program-wide clipboard facility, so you can paste just about anything into your replies. By using the clipboard and the new Text Editor (File|Text Editor) option as a viewer, you can extend this even further. If you elect to use Recon's own internal editor, a text editor window will open up allowing you to enter text. The top third of the screen will be occupied by the parent message - the message that you are Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 98 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- replying to. Note that you can scroll this parent message with [F5]/[F6]. There is a status line at the bottom giving the current cursor position, the percentage of the maximum allowed length your message is, the current typing mode (insert is default), and whether word wrap and autoindent is ON or OFF. If active, word wrap will occur at position 77 by default, the word wrap position can be set with the /WIDTH command line parameter (section 4.18). When the message is 90% (about 9000 characters on a forum, and 45000 characters in CompuServe Mail) of maximum possible length, the percentage on the status line will blink in yellow (bold in mono). You will not be permitted to enter more text when the message is 100% length. The maximum length possible may on occasion be affected by the amount of available memory. With the new long messages allowed on CompuServe, it would seem seldom necessary any more, but you can split a message if it is too long. Just include: /split on the last line of the first part of the message, (part 1) and send it. Then immediately compose and send another message to the same individual. This second message will form part 2 of the split message. A help screen listing all the possible commands is accessed by [F1] or by clicking both mouse buttons. In the internal editor most of the keyboard cursor keys work as expected, also WordStar editor keys are accepted. Six SPECIAL KEYS: [F5]/[F6] scroll the ROOT message up and down one line, [F3] reformats the current paragraph, [F4] reformats the entire message, [F8] activates cut&paste from the parent message, and [F9] starts the import/export dialog. The first four items in the File|menu SHELL list can be accessed with Alt-0 to Alt-3. o 5.5.3.1 Cut&Paste In order to quote from the parent message, if any, you start the dialog with [F8]. A highlight bar appears in the parent message, which you can move with the cursor arrow keys, this will in turn scroll the message if necessary. Once you've found the correct starting point, you press [Enter] to anchor it. You can then extend the highlight block down to find the ending anchor point, and once again press [Enter]. This marks and snips the text, and then you are given a choice of nine import styles, choose one, and then the text will appear in the reply that you are composing. You can set the default quoting style with the /QUOTE parameter, see section 4.9. Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 99 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- o 5.5.3.2 Text import/export The import/export dialog is started by pressing the [F9] key. You then have the choice of importing text from or exporting the currently blocked text to either a disk file or to the Recon clipboard. The clipboard text is preserved not only between message composing sessions, but also between Recon sessions. When you need to find/select a file, if you specify a filespec with a wildcard included, Recon will open up a directory/filename dialog that you can navigate in order to pick a file. With a file selected, you can quickview it by pressing [Home], and you can delete that file with [Del]. The default directory for this command is the message file storage directory, and the default for the filespec is *.MES. You can change the default directory and filespec with the /MES startup parameter (section 4.17). o 5.5.3.3 Auto-Signature Paragraphs Recon includes an automatic signature paragraph facility. This will automatically append a closing to each of your messages. You should note that some forums have specific guidelines forbidding the addition of such text, particularly if it is extensive. In general, good CompuServe online decorum suggests you should restrict use of this to just a single line or two - this is in marked distinction to practices on some other online services. You must first create this file to enable this function. It is not set up by itself when Recon first starts up. The text of the paragraph may be up to 255 characters long. The easiest way to create it is to use File|Text Editor, and then select Recon signature paragraphs. The text of the main default global signature paragraph should be stored in RECON2.SGN. This file must be located in your message file storage directory - where your .MSG files are - together with the other Recon data files (Recon2.*). The Text editor will always correctly place this file for you. If you write and save a <forumname>.SGN file, this will be used instead of the global RECON2.SGN auto-signature paragraph, for messages sent to their respective forums. Where you have set up a signature paragraph file, to suppress it on an occasional basis, place alone on the last line of your message the following metavariable: $$ Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 100 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- There are four metavariables which allow you to embed the date, time, and day of the week. These will take the date and time that the message is actually written at, not when it is posted. If the time that you finished composing a message was 5:12 P.M. on the 23rd of May 1994, then: $DATE$ will be expanded to: 23-MAY-1994 $24TIME$ will be expanded to: 17:12 $TIME$ will be expanded to: 5:12p $DOW$ will be expanded to: Fri A fifth metavariable expands to the Recon version: $VER$ will be expanded to: 2.50 You can suppress metavariable expansion by prefacing the metavariable statement with an apostrophe. For example: '$TIME$ will not be expanded. The main purpose of this is to allow discussion of these metavariables in online messages, without having the metavariables being interpreted and lost in the reply to their normal expansion. Although you can use all or any of the metavariables on a given line, only the first occurrence of each individual metavariable on a single line will be expanded. The following is an example of what you might place in your RECON2.SGN file: Joe Schmoe [$TIME$ $DOW$ $DATE$] in Recon $VER$! Be careful that you leave sufficient room for the expanded date/time variables on each line, and that you don't have more than 255 characters in the expanded signature paragraph, text of more than 255 characters will be truncated. No signature paragraph will be added, unless Recon finds a non-empty RECON2.SGN or <forum_name>.SGN file in the message file storage directory. The signature paragraph is added to the message after all other processing. You will not actually see this in the message composing screen, but it will be reflected in the upload script, and the Recon outbox message copy, that is generated. Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 1xx ------------------------------------------------------------------------- One other special type of metavariable $@<file>$ will cause an import of any .SGN file, in any position in the file, for example the following: $@mytext$ (must be placed starting in the first column) would import a MYTEXT.SGN file into that location, in the message reply. Regular $<variable>$ (eg. DATE, TIME, DOW, VER) will also be expanded anywhere in the message text, not just in the auto-signature files. Unlike the $@<file>$ metavariables, these do not need to be placed at the beginning of the line. All metavariable processing is done only after a reply is complete, and handed off to Recon with [F7]. o 5.5.3.4 Reply cleanup The reply text is scanned for various types of illegal text such as high order characters, leading slashes, beginning "#:" text. These are fixed up for you after metavariable processing. The box/line characters are converted for you to +, - and | marks so boxes will somewhat retain their appearance. (Not available if level 2 Latin-1 support is enabled.) Other high order characters are converted to ^ characters. Leading "#:" is converted to "%:", and leading slashes are preceded with a "." at the beginning of the line. Also, if Recon thinks that the CompuServe reformatter might garble your message, it lets you know and offers you the choice of sending the message so as to preserve the format. o 5.5.3.5 Latin-1 support Latin-1 characters are now available everywhere on CompuServe, Recon supports the use of Latin-1 for replies and viewing, when used with either TAPCIS or Golden Commpass. To use Latin-1, you must first have your DOS environment properly set to a supported code page. At the DOS command line, CHCP will indicate what the DOS code page is. Recon will also indicate what the current code page is (File|Status), if you enable Latin-1 support. Then you must have your navigator properly setup to use Latin-1, see your navigator's documentation. Finally, the included DCTABLE.DAT file must be in the same Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 101 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- directory as RECON.EXE. If you are using Recon with TAPCIS you need Level 1 support, when Latin-1 is enabled (with /Latin1), this is the default but you can use the following explicit command line to specify Level 1: RECON /LATIN1:1 With the Recon/TAPCIS combo you have the choice of code pages 437 (regular), 850 (extended), 865 (Norse) and 863 (Cdn French). You must have that code page loaded and enabled both when you use TAPCIS, and Recon. Everything else is handled automatically. Just type away and/or read. With Level 1 support, the translation does not take place until the message is placed online, so you are free to edit your .SND file as you wish as well. If you will be using Recon with GCP, then you need Level 2 support, use the following command line: RECON /LATIN1:2 With Recon/GCP you can only use code page 850. You must have Latin- 1 enabled in GCP, and for the forum that you need it in, and in the DOS VDM session that you run Recon you must use the CHCP 850 command to enable code page 850. In OS/2 there is no other preparation necessary as regards the code pages. With Level 2 support, after the message is composed, Recon will translate the characters to the ISO character set that Compuserve has implemented. Note that you can't easily edit the .SND file because of this, as the translation has already taken place. You can enter the high order Latin1 characters in the Recon editor the same that you would normally - hold Alt and use the keypad numbers, or with a special external keyboard driver. o 5.5.3.6 Sending it You can pause the reply by pressing the [Esc] key, you will then be temporarily exited back into the Recon viewer, and you can review other messages or whatever - however you cannot exit from or resort the currently loaded file during a pause. As applicable, use Connect|continueREPLY or Connect|continueMESSAGE to continue composing. Once the reply is ready to send, or if you have decided to discard it, press [F7]. You will then be given a number of choices. Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 102 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- You have already decided whether this is to be a reply, or a new message, only one of the pair of REPLY to or send NEW options will be available. Sending a reply or new message as usual prepares the message using the default settings. Otherwise you will be asked about routing, formatting, and if applicable, a CompuServe Mail receipt. After a final confirmation the message is placed into the appropriate .SND file with instructions to send it on the next ONLINE session. An outbox copy will also be stored in the .MSG file, (default) the .SAV file, or not at all depending on your Settings (section 5.1.7.2). You can still edit your message text before it is actually sent by using Recon's File|Text editor (section 5.1.11), selecting Online ".SND" scripts, and then selecting the respective .SND file. If you are not sure of the format of these special script files, you should be cautious in editing them. 5.5.4 shell to external editor ---- If you wish to use your own text editor you'll choose one of the shell to external editor options. Recon will swap itself out to EMS or disk, freeing up all but about 10k of memory, and then start up the external editor program you defined. To do so, you need to define a ReconEDIT1 (or ReconEDIT2) setting with File|Edit Settings|global: General. This parameter gives the filename and path of the text editor and any required startup command line parameters, or the name of the batch file you use to invoke the text editor. For example, lets say you are using a program called EDITOR.COM, and that you can specify EDITOR.COM startup macros using an /editormacro parameter: ReconEDIT1=C:\UTILS\EDITOR.COM /editormacro=LOADFILES Note that the parameters here are your text editor program's parameters, they have nothing to do with Recon. As it shells, Recon will create two files in the PARAMS directory. ROOT$.$$$ is a copy of the message you are replying to, and REPLY$.$$$ is a blank file that you need to edit in only the reply text. You will be responsible for loading these into your text editor, setting up any desired windows, and so on, and then eventually resaving the REPLY$.$$$ file to disk on completion. The arbitrary LOADFILES macro above could be a startup macro for our imaginary EDITOR.COM to do this. Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 103 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- On exiting your external text editor and returning to Recon from its shell, Recon will ask for further instructions on what to do with the reply in identical fashion to when using the Recon internal editor (section 5.5.3). Note that you cannot use the pause feature with an external editor, pause is a feature of the internal Recon reply editor only. 5.5.5 DOWnload from LIB ---- This option directs Recon to compose a script that will download the specified file or file descriptions during your next ONLINE session. (It inserts commands into the .DOW file.) Recon will ask for the forum, library number, and file name. It will make a guess as to what these might be, based on the current message header. If there are a number of possible filenames to download in the message, you can have Recon search for all of these by using [Tab], or in the reverse direction with Shf-[Tab]. To limit the search you can specify a maximum file age. You can specify that the search occur either in a single LIBrary, or ALL LIBraries of the specified forum. On you next online sweep, if the file is found the description, file, or both (as specified) will be downloaded. All downloads are recorded to a CatScan.LOG file. If the CatScanPATH Recon2.set file parameter is not blank (section 5.1.7.1), then Recon appends directly to your regular CatScan.LOG file. (CatScan is a .CAT file utility) Otherwise a CatScan.LOG file is written out to the default download directory. BROWSE for KEYWORD will download all file descriptions that contain the text you specify in their keyword list. 5.5.6 Scripts ---- o 5.5.6.1 DELETE message on CIS This Recon command directs your navigator to delete the online copy of the current message on CompuServe during the next ONLINE session. Recon will allow this only from a .SAV or .MSG file, and of course this is also subject to CompuServe restrictions. Be selective about deleting messages, as this may break threads. Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 104 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- However you should delete any messages that are sent to you as private to reduce forum congestion. Recon will prompt you to do this on private messages. o 5.5.6.2 REAd thread from ROOT This command creates a script that will capture all of the messages in the current CompuServe thread. Of course you can only download those messages that have not already scrolled. See section 5.6.8.1 for more information on threads. o 5.5.6.3 REAd message NUMber Recon will create a simple script to read a single message, corresponding to the message number that you specify. o 5.5.6.4 REAd THRead from NUMber This command creates a script that will have TAPCIS capture the thread starting at a message number you specify. Of course you can only download those messages that have not already scrolled. o 5.5.6.5 REAd SUBject Recon will create a script to read all the messages that contain the specified text in their subjects. You do not have to specify the entire subject for a message to be downloaded. Useful for capturing all messages/threads on a given subject. This can also be used for capturing all of the messages from a thread that has been fragmented. See section 5.6.8.1 for more information on threads. 5.5.7 DEselect ---- This option only serves a purpose if you are using an add-on thread marking program that enhances the TAPCIS Mark Headers command, two such programs are Tappet and TapMark, or if you are using Golden Commpass or Ozcis 2.x. Recon supports both .TMK and .QMR thread mark files, as well as respecting the TMKPATH DOS environment variable. Recon also supports Tappet's advanced thread marks. See your thread marker program's documentation for details. Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 105 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The DEselect ONLY command will deselect the current thread in the appropriate .TMK/.QMR file, and place that thread into the bypassed group. You will be warned if the thread cannot be found in the thread mark file, or the thread mark file itself cannot be found. You can specify the character to be used to mark a thread as unselected with the /DESLCT command line parameter (section 4.3). By choosing the reSELECT option you can reverse that to reselect the thread again. If you wish to deselect the thread, and as well delete the thread in your message file, then choose DEselect & Delete Thread, this is the default. o 5.5.7.1 Advanced thread marks Tappet, an enhanced thread marking program, also provides a number of advanced marks, that let you further tailor your download sessions. In order to mark a thread with these marks choose this option, and then type in the special mark in the dialog box that appears. See your Tappet documentation for further information. 5.5.8 UserID list ---- This will add the current To: or Fm: user name and UserID, or one that you type in, (Other) into the USERID.CIS file. You can follow the UserID with an optional text comment. o 5.5.8.1 LOOKUP UserID You can, on the spot, look up a UserID in your regular UserID.CIS file, or in any file, including any message file. Also in various parts of the program where you may be asked to fill in a UserID you can use this command. This command is also available in the Reply editor so that you can quickly fill in a UserID that you wish to forward to someone else, and the UserID lookup is available in most dialogs that need a UserID. The hot key is Alt-K. When you are asked for a UserID and supply one complete with a valid UserID number, or Compuserve gateway: Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 106 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred Jackson 77777,666 or Fred Jackson >FAX: 1 800 555-1212 then Recon will accept it. If Recon does not find a valid address, then it will do a search of the Userid.CIS file, using what you specify as a search target, for example you may specify: Fred This will locate lines in the file that contain Fred, the search is case insensitive, and will look for a maximum of thirty occurrences. You can then choose the Name/UserId you wish to use from the scrolling picklist. This is not intended to be a text viewer for the UserID.CIS file, it is a search engine for finding a specific user. If you wish to just view or edit the UserID.CIS file, then use the File|Text Editor command instead (section 5.1.11). If you specify a file name prefaced by an @ and then a search string like so: @foobar.msg Fred then Recon will search the specified file for lines containing the text Fred, the default directory is the message file storage directory, but you can specify any directory you wish. If there is no filename following the @, just one or more spaces, then the currently loaded message file is assumed as the file to be searched: @ Fred The UserID Lookup routine is error protected. It will give an indication of whether it didn't find the phrase fragment, or didn't find the file (including the default USERID.CIS). It handles INTERNET, FAX, SYSOP and ALL type recipients cleanly. 5.6 Other panel ---- Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 107 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5.6.1 Jump ---- This command will jump to a requested message sequence number. The default message to jump to is the message that was just previously displayed. The message UP, message DOWN and search facility do not affect what the just previously displayed message is considered to be. If a message that does not match the current filter settings is moved to, a display of the message will be forced regardless, and the #### of #### on the status line blinks. The global hot key for this command is the J key. The [Tab] key is an alternate global hot key that will do a JUMP, using the default last message number, useful for comparing two messages quickly. In other words [Tab] is equivalent to J + [Enter] Mouse users can click on the first line of the message header (eg. #: 33523 S2/Scripts and Tools) to execute the equivalent of a [TAB] command. (Mouse hot zones are active only when there are no menu panels pulled down.) 5.6.2 Jump PARENT ---- The parent of a message is the message that the current one is in answer to. The parent message number, if present, is displayed at the beginning of the Sb: line. This number is assigned by CompuServe, not Recon. Choosing this option will let you immediately jump to the PARENT of the current message, the global hot key is AltJ. If the parent message has not been downloaded, then Recon will try to match you to an outbox copy message that might apply. If a message that does not match the current filter settings is moved to, a display of the message will be forced regardless, and the #### of #### on the status line blinks. Mouse users can click on the third line of the message header (eg. Sb: #33523-Recon is Hot) to execute the equivalent of Jump PARENT, if there are no menu panels pulled down). Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 108 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5.6.3 Tag message ---- A message Tag is a temporary bookmark in the file. You can Tag a message with Other|Tag message, the global hot key is Alt-T. You can then quickly jump back to such a Tagged message by using the Other|GO Tagged option, the global hot key is Alt-G. 5.6.4 Goto Subject ---- Choosing this option will generate an alphabetically sorted popup pick list of all of this message file's subjects. You can then jump to the beginning of any thread by choosing its message subject. The global hot key is G. 5.6.5 Edit ---- This option with a global hot key of E has a submenu allowing you to edit the current THREAD's or current message's subject, all of the MARKed messages' subjects, the current message's number (if it is an OUTBOX message), or the current message's in reply to number. If your editing causes enough change to the file that a resort is potentially required, you should eventually resort (section 5.6.8). If you try to resave the file before resorting it, then in CONFIRMmode you will be warned that a resort is probably required. o 5.6.5.1 Edit: THREAD/message/MARKed subject(s) The procedure for editing a THREAD subject, an individual message subject, or ALL MARKED message subjects is similar, except of course for its effect. The option for editing the subject allows you to pick a subject already present in the file, to further edit such a subject or the current subject, or to enter a completely new subject. You are first presented with a popup pick list of all of the message file subjects. You may choose one of these as the starting point, or for THREAD/message subject editing just press [Esc], this will get you the current THREAD/message subject. You are then given a chance to further edit this tentative new subject. If you then press [Esc] the whole procedure will be aborted; if Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 109 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- you press [Enter] then after a confirmation the change will be implemented. o 5.6.5.2 Edit: message number Choosing this option will pop up a dialog box giving you the current message number, and allowing you to edit in a new message number. Pressing [Esc] will abort the procedure, [Enter] will implement the change after a confirmation. Only OUTBOX message numbers can be edited. o 5.6.5.3 Edit: message in reply to number Choosing this option will pop up a dialog box giving you the current in reply to number, and allowing you to edit it. You can remove the in reply to number by changing it to 0 (zero). Pressing [Esc] will abort the procedure, [Enter] will implement the change after a confirmation. 5.6.6 Print ---- This command has a submenu allowing you to print the current message, the current THREAD, ONLY NEW messages, ALL MARKed messages, or the file INDEX. In addition you can generate a form feed. Recon will assume that the printer is ready. If you in error go ahead when the printer is not ready, Recon should handle the DOS critical error that will occur, and allow you to retry. If you would prefer to be warned of a printer not ready status, then you can activate this check within Recon by using the /CHECKPRINTER setting (section 4.30). This remains an option as in some hardware settings the check may not work correctly. With printer checking enabled, if Recon suspects that the printer is not ready then it will first give you a reminder to double check the printer before accessing it. You may abort during a long printout by pressing [Esc], Recon will finish printing the current message, and then stop. A header line is printed at the top of the printout indicating the FORUM and the file that the message group originated in. The global hot key for this command is Shf-[F7]. With the ONLY NEW and ALL MARKED choices you may also specify an optional form feed to separate threads. Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 110 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- You can send a form feed to the printer at any time with the FORM FEED menu selection here, or with the global hot key of Ctl-F. Normally, the printer initialization string is sent just before the first time, and only the first time, that you print something with Recon. If required, you can also manually send the printer initialization string (Pre-Print string) again to the printer at any time with the send Pre-Print command, the global hot key is Ctl-R. o 5.6.6.1 Print: printer setup The purpose of the printer setup panel is two-fold. First you indicate to where you would like to print, a printer port or a file. Secondly you can define two optional printer setup strings to send to the printer, just before you print the first time, and if you have printed during the session when Recon exits. The printer setup panel is accessible from both the initial screen, and with a message file loaded. Settings are saved to the Recon2.SET file with File|SaveSettings|Global. You may also directly edit the strings in the Recon2.SET file with the File|Text Editor command. You specify these in a dialog that appears when you select this command. The print destination is forced to a valid printer port, or a text file. The file destination is checked to ensure that it is valid. The pre-print and on exit settings allow you to define the printer initialization strings. There are two methods of defining the strings. With the first you specify the code for the individual characters, useful for a short setup string and gives you maximum clarity for entering the individual characters. With the second method you use a continuous string of characters, delimited by single or double quotes - a little more tedious, but you can define a much longer string. In the first method, the strings take the format of multiple one to three contiguous alphanumeric characters (which we will call words) separated by one or more spaces. If the word is a single character, then it is taken to be the ASCII value of that character. For example having the following string: H j 5 would send the following three codes to the printer: $48 (dec 72), $6A (dec 106) and $35 (dec 53) Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 111 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- If the word is two or three characters long, then it is taken to indicate the ASCII numeric value itself. It can be specified in either decimal or Hex, a Hex value must be preceded by $. For example the following lines of words would all send the same sequence of characters to the printer as the one above: $48 $6A $35 072 106 53 072 $6A 53 Leading zeros are optional with decimal values, unless the decimal value is less than 10, then a leading zero must be included to make the word two characters long - else it will be taken to be a character in the range $30 to $39. The second method of defining a setup string is with a single long stream of characters, that must be delimited by single or double quotes. For example, the following would transmit the identical string as the ones above: 'Hj5' The quotes would not be transmitted, they just define the contained string as literal. Note that there are no spaces in the string. If included, spaces would be transmitted as a setup character. With the second method, non-typeable high order ASCII characters must be input using Alt keypad combinations. A special character sequence is set aside for ASCII(027): Ec. This is case sensitive. If found in a string, for example: 'EcE' an escape character will be transmitted, here an escape/E sequence would be sent, that happens to be a common sequence for resetting a page printer. 5.6.7 Index ---- The global hot key for this option is I. Mouse users can click on the middle line of the local index box, the one that corresponds to the current message, as a special mouse shortcut. If a filter is active, then by default the index view is "collapsed" to include only the currently filtered in messages. This will be indicated in the status line at the bottom. Pressing I a second Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 112 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- time will toggle the index view to an non-collapsed view. To collapse the view with a second press of I you must have the select bar on a "filtered-in" message. In the resulting display, the first number is the Recon message sequence number. The nine space column field shows the flags for that message. In order, left to right, they are N for New, X for outboX, A for Announcement, P for Private, U for Unread, a second N for Needs Reply, ? for a possible duplicate, D for marked for Deletion and the last position has either H or L for either a message Hold or aLarm. Just like in the small five line local index, hash marks are used to indicate that a message is currently marked. The full screen index reflects the filter settings, the filter included message lines will be in bold when the index view is not collapsed into the default filtered in messages only. You can toggle the FILTERs ON and OFF while viewing the full screen index. This is especially useful when using the BRANCH filter - that will also give you a good idea of what the BRANCH filter actually does. For regular forum files, the next two columns show the CompuServe assigned message number and the forum section number (OUTBOX messages may not be assigned a section). The rest of the columns show the message date, the message subject, and the message Fm: and the message To: fields. UserID's are stripped, leaving only names. Note that your UserID is recognized and your name is replaced with <self>. A number of the Navigate and Action panel options are available in the full screen index, press the [F1] key for a help screen. Mouse users can navigate through these messages, much like any other picklist. To jump to a message of interest just select and choose that specific message, you will then return to the regular viewing screen. To return to the same message you started out with (before the index display) press [Esc]. Any marking or deleting you have done will not be removed by using the [Esc] key. 5.6.8 Sort file ---- You may wish to resort the loaded file into an order different from the current default order. Also when you edit the message file headers (section 5.6.5) then a resort may become necessary to fully sort out the message file again. Choosing this option brings up the submenu. Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 113 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- After a confirmation do it executes a resort of the current file with the specified parameters. These parameters can be toggled in this menu panel by selecting them. The default values are all stored in the Recon Settings file Recon2.SET, and the session sorting defaults can be changed interactively in this panel, or with File|Edit Settings (section 5.1.7). Use File|Save Settings to make the settings permanent (section 5.1.8). o 5.6.8.1 Sort: CIS Thread sort/date time sort CompuServe keeps messages in thread order, it should be stressed that this is not a simple chronological sort. CompuServe thread order is a rather complex order, that sorts all replies (children) to a given message (the parent) together, only if they don't have replies themselves, otherwise these replies are listed first, and so on for each level and branch of replies. This will result in a simple chronological sort only under a minority of circumstances - unless there are only two participants in the thread. As an example consider the following group of six messages. Message #1 was the start of this thread, (the root) then message #2 was a reply to #1, and then #3 was reply to #1, #4 a reply to #3, and #5 and #6 were replies to #2. This makes messages 1, 2 and 3 parents, and all messages other than message 1, children. msg#1 (root) │ ├── msg#2 ── msg#5 │ │ │ └─-msg#6 │ └── msg#3 ── msg#4 thread sort gives: 1 2 5 6 3 4 date/time sort gives: 1 2 3 4 5 6 This well demonstrates that a simple date/time sort fails to really give you an idea as to who is responding to whom, as a result it wouldn't give you the context of the message interchange. The initial default for Recon is to sort into an order (CompuServe thread order) which mirrors the order that CompuServe keeps messages within a thread. Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 114 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- You can instead have Recon sort into simple date/time order by toggling this option. However you probably should not leave this as the default (date/time sort) as this will disable some of Recon's ability to fix up OUTBOX messages, as part of this ability keys on finding messages in true CompuServe thread order. o 5.6.8.2 Sort: MAIL correspondent sort ON/OFF Your CompuServe MAIL files will always contain only messages from you or to you, unlike in Forums there cannot be any messages between other users. Recon's initial default is to sort the messages in CompuServe MAIL sourced files by the correspondent rather than by subject. Within each correspondent group, that is all messages to or from a given UserID, the messages are sorted chronologically. You can disable this special (CompuServe MAIL correspondent) sort by toggling to MCS OFF. This will result in your CompuServe MAIL sourced files being sorted in the same manner as general forum messages. This setting is ignored when the file is not a CompuServe MAIL sourced file. o 5.6.8.3 Sort: threads by DATE/SUBJECT This setting affects the order that a group of messages sharing the same subject (a thread) is sorted into with respect to other groups of messages having their own subjects (other threads). This has no effect on how individual messages are sorted within a thread. Selecting threads by DATE (the initial default) will sort the thread groups into oldest first, newest last, by the date and time of the newest message in each thread. Toggling to threads by SUBJECT will sort the thread groups into alphabetical order by each thread subject. o 5.6.8.4 Sort: GROUP/IGNORE sections This setting determines whether groups of threads sharing the same section are sorted together. This has no effect on how individual messages are sorted within a thread, nor on the order that threads (in the same section) are sorted with respect to each other. Selecting GROUP sections (the initial default) will sort threads with a common section together. Toggling to IGNORE sections disables this grouping, and sections are totally ignored as a sort criteria. Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 115 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5.6.9 Jump Section ---- By selecting this option, you can jump directly to any forum section in the file. A pick list of the forum sections will appear, the list is determined by the forum .SEC file, and hence is not just a list of the forum sections that may have messages in the current file. If you select a section that has no messages in the file, then the command is ignored. Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 116 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6 BATCH mode ============= A potential major use of Recon is to periodically (daily or weekly) and summarily sort, prune and age your message files. For this common use, one might use BATCH mode. After the command line is typed, no further user interaction is required. However you should also note that when Recon loads files in INTERACTIVE mode it does essentially the same processing. As such you may wish to reserve Recon BATCH for cleaning up files that you seldom load with Recon in INTERACTIVE mode. To run Recon in BATCH mode use the following command line: RECON [/F:<filespec>] /B [/AGE] [/SAGE:###] [/TAGE:###] [/MAGE:###] [/DEL] [/A] [/ALLFOR] [/ANN:x] Any of the other non-BATCH specific command line parameters (section 4) can also be used in BATCH mode to modify Recon's actions. A description of the BATCH mode specific parameters follows. 6.1 BATCH mode: /F:<filespec> and /B ---- By default Recon runs in INTERACTIVE mode. To run it in BATCH mode include the parameter /B in the command line. Example use: RECON /B If you wish to BATCH process, a group of messages that have been split off and archived to a different file, then you will need to use the filespec parameter. For example, if you have some old messages from the IBMHW forum stored in a file named IBMDISK.THD, and IBMDISK.THD is in your regular message file storage directory, use the following command line: RECON /F:ibmdisk.thd /B DOS wildcard filespec characters are supported, if you have a number of such files, all with a .THD extension in the message file storage directory, you could use the following command line: RECON /F:*.thd /B If the files are not in the message file storage directory then you must use the full pathname with the filename, for example if you have renamed your old .SAV files to .VLD, and they have been moved to the C:\CIS\ARCH directory, use the following command line: RECON /F:C:\CIS\ARCH\*.vld /B Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 117 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- In Recon BATCH the default filename extension is .SAV hence the following command line: RECON /F:c:\tap\arch\ibmhw /B is equivalent to: RECON /F:c:\tap\arch\ibmhw.sav /B 6.2 BATCH mode AGEing: /AGE ---- There is an INTERACTIVE mode equivalent to BATCH AGEing. See sections 3.12 and 5.1.4 for more detailed information on aging. INTERACTIVE and BATCH mode aging result in the same effects on a file. Including this parameter in the command line in BATCH mode directs Recon to age files while batch processing them. If you do not include this parameter, then no AGEing will take place at all. The /AGE parameter is invalid if used in the absence of the /B parameter, ie. in INTERACTIVE mode. There is no argument for the parameter. Unless otherwise specified by the /SAGE, /TAGE, or /MAGE parameters, then the default global or forum specific settings (as applicable) for aging will apply. The file that aged messages are appended to always takes the form of forum_name.OLD, where forum_name is the name of the FORUM of origin of that message. The .OLD files are placed in the message file storage directory. Announcements within .MSG files are treated a little differently. All of the not NEW (old) announcements are aged if AGEing is specified, regardless of their age. Under no circumstances will a NEW, UNread, Needs reply or Held/Alarmed message or announcement be aged. Pseudo announcement messages as captured and generated by a FRONTEND script and stored in the MAIL.MSG file are aged as a normal message, not as an announcement. 6.3 BATCH mode filesize AGEing: /SAGE ---- Including this parameter in the command line in BATCH mode modifies the filesize aging value that Recon would otherwise use to age files. This does not activate filesize AGEing, it just modifies this value. The /SAGE parameter is invalid if used in the absence of the /B and /AGE parameters. Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 118 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The argument for the parameter must be numeric. If not specified then for all files the default FORUM value for that file is taken if specified. Otherwise the GLOBAL value is used. See sections 5.1.7 and 5.1.8 for editing and setting Recon Settings. The initial default value for thread aging is 3200 messages, a typical value might be 1000 messages. To use the default set value use the parameters: RECON /B /AGE To override the default setting for only this session use the following line: RECON /B /AGE /SAGE:1000 6.4 BATCH mode THREAD AGEing: /TAGE ---- Including this parameter in the command line in BATCH mode modifies the thread aging value that Recon would otherwise use to age threads. This does not activate thread AGEing, it just modifies this value. The /TAGE parameter is invalid if used in the absence of the /B and /AGE parameters. The argument for the parameter must be numeric. If not specified then for all files the default FORUM value for that file is taken if specified. Otherwise the GLOBAL value is used. See sections 5.1.7 and 5.1.8 for editing and setting Recon Settings. The initial default value for thread aging is 30 days, a typical value might be 8 days. To use the default set value use the parameters: RECON /B /AGE To override the default setting for only this session use the following line: RECON /B /AGE /TAGE:8 The age of a thread is determined from the date of its most recent message. AGEing consists of first deleting threads from the current file that are older than the number of days chosen, then optionally appending these to an .OLD file. Appending them is the default (see also section 6.6). 6.5 BATCH mode message AGEing: /MAGE ---- Including this parameter on the command line in BATCH mode modifies Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 119 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- the message aging value that Recon would otherwise use to age messages. This does not activate message AGEing, it just modifies this value. The /MAGE parameter is invalid if used in the absence of the /B and /AGE parameter. The argument for the parameter must be numeric. If not specified then for all files the default FORUM value for that file is taken if specified, otherwise the GLOBAL value is used. See sections 5.1.7 and 5.1.8 for editing and setting Recon Settings. The initial default value for message aging is 60 days, a typical value might be 16 days. To use the default set value use the parameters: RECON /B /AGE To override the default setting for only this session use the following line: RECON /B /AGE /MAGE:16 The age of a message is simply determined by its date. AGEing consists of deleting messages from the current file that are older than the number of days chosen, then optionally appending these to an .OLD file. Appending them is the default (see also section 6.6). 6.6 BATCH mode: the /DEL parameter ---- The /DEL parameter directs Recon not to append aged messages and/or threads to the corresponding .OLD file. Hence under such circumstances all aged messages will be completely removed and DELeted. The /DEL parameter is invalid if used in the absence of the /B and /AGE parameters, ie in INTERACTIVE mode. Example use: RECON /F:*.JNK /B /AGE /DEL Be cautious with the use of this parameter. 6.7 BATCH mode: the /A parameter ---- In the unusual instance where you need to force reprocessing of all of a group of your message files, even if they have not apparently changed since the last Recon processing, include the /A parameter: RECON /F:*.SAV /B /A Such a circumstance might arise if you have had trouble with your DOS clock setting or perhaps when first running a new version of Recon, although this is not required for versions so far. The /A parameter is Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 120 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- invalid if used in the absence of the /B parameter, ie in INTERACTIVE mode. 6.8 BATCH mode: the /ALLFOR parameter ---- When you direct Recon to process your .MSG files by including an appropriate filespec parameter then Recon will limit its processing to only those .MSG files that correspond to previously selected (active) forums in the current PARAMS file. You can indicate to Recon to ignore this restriction, by including the /ALLFOR parameter in the command line. For example: RECON /F:*.MSG /B /ALLFOR 6.9 .MSG file annotation, the /ANN parameter ---- This parameter is needed only for the SEQUENCE B type procedure for processing message files (section 1.2), that is if you BATCH process/age your message files with Recon and then choose to view the file with the TAPCIS or other general file viewer. This would represent a small minority of Recon 2.50 users, but this feature is still included for upward compatibility. The /ANN parameter has three arguments: OFF, NEW, and ALL. This determines whether your .MSG files will be annotated. If you use NEW then only messages new to Recon will be annotated, if you use ALL then all messages in the .MSG file will annotated. The default is /ANN:OFF. .MSG file annotation somewhat augments your abilities within, and use of the TAPCIS viewer. See Appendix section 7.11 for more details. This annotation is only for the benefit of the individual using the TAPCIS .MSG file viewer. As this "annotation" information would be redundant it is not shown in the Recon display. If you are using Recon for all your message file needs, and hence not using the message file viewer facility in TAPCIS, there is a slight gain in file save time and file space by using the default /ANN:OFF parameter setting. For more information on file annotation, see Appendix section 7.11 Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 121 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7 Appendices ============= 7.1 Memory considerations ---- Recon 2.50 is very flexible, and can usually optimally decide what resources it should use all on its own. If you would like some insight into this process, or wish to fine tune things, then read on. Recon will examine your setup, and use whatever EMS memory you have available first. Recon uses EMS 3.2 calls only, hence any EMS memory or board that you have will likely be just fine for Recon. Note that this is expanded memory, not extended memory, or XMS memory. However, Recon will run just about as well with no EMS available at all, in which case it will use disk swap space, which on most machines would be disk cached into XMS memory. With certain command line combinations, some expanded memory managers (in particular DOS's EMM386) will give the appearance of expanded memory being available when an application queries the system, but then when an attempt is made by the application to actually access the phantom expanded memory a system crash almost always will occur. If Recon seems to hang right after you start it, this is almost always the cause. Recon's /NOEMS parameter (section 4.11) will work around this problem, and Recon will instead safely use disk swapping instead of EMS. This disk swap space is handled as Virtual disk arrays (Varray) and their use will be triggered if you don't have enough EMS, or if you prefer to completely remove EMS from your setup. As already mentioned, you will likely not need to do anything to tune. Recon should be able to decide on optimization based on what it finds itself placing the blocks in either EMS, on disk in Varrays, or mixing and matching and using both. Recon can also default back to 2.20 usage with no EMS and use conventional memory as a last resort if for example you are on a subnotebook with no EMS and very little hard disk space available. In addition, the use of conventional memory is now more sparing, and at the same time there have been some acrobatics done to keep the sort routines still up to speed. However, when you get close to the maximum number of messages that you can load, you may notice the sort speed dropping as Recon has to resort to less efficient resources. This will be indicated by a Using EMS or Using Varray message in the Reconstructing box. But this is not too bad, as the only other option would be aborting the load. Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 122 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ╒═ Memory ═════════════════════╕ │ free conventional: optimal │█ │ │█ │ EMS 4.0 installed: 2944 Kb │█ │ available: 2464 Kb │█ │ used for overlays: 256 Kb │█ │ used for data: 1328 Kb │█ │ │█ │ virtual storage on: D: │█ │ used for data: 0 Kb │█ │ │█ │ load model: 7:0 │█ │ maximum messages: 3200 │█ │ nominal maximum: 3200 │█ ╘══════════════════════════════╛█ ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ ╒═ Memory ═════════════════════╕ │ free conventional: optimal │█ │ │█ │ - EMS not found - │█ │ │█ │ used for overlays: --- │█ │ used for data: --- │█ │ │█ │ virtual storage on: D: │█ │ used for data: 1255 Kb │█ │ │█ │ load model: 0:7 │█ │ maximum messages: 3200 │█ │ nominal maximum: 3200 │█ ╘══════════════════════════════╛█ ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ Examples of the memory status panels in File|Status are shown above. In the first example Recon was able to place all its resources in EMS, and in the second the converse, where Recon finds no EMS available. Conventional memory may be noted as marginal (less than 490Kb), low (490Kb to 530Kb), average (530Kb to 580Kb) or optimal (more than 580Kb). Recon requires a minimum of about 426Kb of conventional memory to run. All the memory amounts noted are approximate, and may vary slightly depending on your system setup. If Recon notes that you have average or better conventional memory available, then you will find your load capacity to be at or almost at its optimum. But even with a marginal amount of conventional memory Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 123 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- available, you should still be able to load in the range of 1200 to 1600 messages, as long as you have ample resources for Varray space or EMS memory blocks! The concept of a load model indicator has been introduced. Recon needs three blocks of memory or Varray space. Recon can put these in either EMS or Varray space. Depending on where these blocks go, it assigns a load model spec consisting of n1:n2 where n1,n2=0..7, and n1+n2<=7. The first digit represents usage of EMS blocks, the second Varray blocks. Model 0:0 is equivalent to 2.20 usage with no EMS. This is largely intended for support purposes, to quickly assess what is going on with an enduser. In addition, the new companion /XSET:n and /VSET:n (n=0..7) parameters allow forcing Recon to use a specific resource, for a particular block. These are left largely undocumented, as they normally won't be needed, and an enduser should never use these except by direction from Technical Support. If you wish Recon to use a specific drive (say a fast RAMDRIVE), then use the /RTEMP (or /VARRAY) startup parameter. For example to direct it to a ramdrive named G: RECON /RTEMP:G:\ The RTEMP startup parameter will override the DOS environment variable of the same name. You can use either. For example the following placed in your Autoexec.bat file is equivalent to the above specification: SET RTEMP=G:\ Recon will place all its temporary files in this directory. If you wish to segregate the Varray disk files from the rest of the temporary files, then use the /VARRAY parameter. Specifying this parameter will direct Recon to place the Varray files in a different location from the rest of the temporary files. If neither /RTEMP or /VARRAY is specified, then Recon will use the Recon.EXE directory for it's swap/temporary files. Note that this does not include the ROOT$.$$$ and REPLY$.$$$ files, these are always placed in the PARAMS file directory, which may be different from the above. How much space do you need? The maximum EMS and Varray sizes are listed below: Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 124 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Block 1 is 9 EMS pages (144k) or 124,925 bytes disk space Block 2 is 57 EMS pages (912k) or 900,421 bytes disk space Block 3 is 17 EMS pages (272k) or 260,361 bytes disk space Total 83 EMS pages (1328k) or 1,285,707 bytes disk space So, if you wish to use the Varray model (no EMS) and a RAM disk, then have about 1.3Mb available, say 1.5Mb to be sure. Much the same with EMS. But, if you don't have the full amount, Recon will use whatever it can find, and can mix and match EMS and Varray for a best fit. To further tune this, you can use the /MaxMSGS parameter (section 4.27). If you know that you will never load files of more than a given size, then you can dramatically reduce the amount of disk space or EMS memory that Recon needs to preallocate on startup with this parameter. This is very helpful in minimum configuration setups. For /MaxMSGS the default setting is 3200. Settings of 1000 to 3200 are allowed. Program overlays can use a further 16 EMS pages (256K). As before these can only be placed in EMS, /EMSOVR (section 4.5) will force their being placed in EMS instead of being read off disk. The gain for placing the overlays in EMS is minimal for faster machines, and should not be done if it adversely affects the load capacity. This is easy to determine: just examine the File|Settings memory status panel before and after specifying /EMSOVR. If you have more than enough EMS available, Recon will automatically place its overlays into EMS. The other temporary file is the swap file created when you use Recon's shell feature, either directly from the menu (File|shell MENU), or to use an external editor. This file/memory block will generally be less than 700K, and in order of preference will be placed in EMS, the /RTEMP directory, or the RECON.EXE directory. As a summary then, Recon's maximal EMS usage is: For overlays 256k (first, if /EMSOVR specified) For EMS load space 1328k (second) For DOS Shelling 640k (third) Total 2224k (approx.) At the other extreme, Recon may use no EMS, instead: For overlays 256k accessed from file RECON.OVR For load space 1255k uses Varray swap space For DOS Shelling 640k swaps to RECONSWP.$$$ Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 125 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7.2 Updating from older versions ---- For the most part, your update should be smooth and effortless. The interface for 2.50 is similar, and the context sensitive help should provide enough hints for you to get up to speed quickly. You can install Recon 2.50 directly on top of older versions of Recon, or if you prefer, you can install it to a new directory. Be very careful not to mix up or mismatch the Recon.EXE & Recon.OVR files. When Recon 2.50 starts up, it will look for older version 2 format data files. If it finds these then it will load all your previous settings data, modify them as necessary, and create new version 2 data files. Here are a few notes and some warnings to alert you to important ways in which 2.50 differs. The first section contains changes between the last version (2.20) and the present version (2.50). The following section outlines the changes between version 2.01 and 2.20, and so on. If you are moving up from the very old version 1.80, then you need to read each of these sections, if from version 2.20, then only the first section. The list is not intended to be a complete listing of new features, but rather highlights only those points that you might otherwise find confusing or surprising. 7.2.1 Notes since version 2.20 ---- o The right mouse button pops up a local menu in the File|Load pick list. To disable this use the /NOMLM command line parameter (section 4.32). o Recon can now use fast disk swap space, as well EMS. It will analyze the resources you have available and use the best mix and match it can put together (section 7.1). o All startup parameters can now be placed in a configuration file, and any number of configuration files can be defined (section 4). o In a file pick list the [Home] key will quickview the currently selected file, instead of selecting the first file Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 126 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- in the list. o Batch aging now uses the identical code as interactive aging, and the parameters to activate batch mode aging are significantly different. Ensure that you review this before attempting batch aging with Recon 2.50 (section 6.2). o If a file would end up empty of messages, then it will be completely erased when resaved. o The index view is now collapsed into a filtered view of the file, and that is what you will see first when selecting this option. To change to a view that includes all messages, just press I again. 7.2.2 Notes between version 2.01 and 2.20 ---- o Some command line parameters have been eliminated, or changed. You will be directed by Recon as to which are no longer supported on startup, you may need to slightly change your batch files or menuing setups. o A few of the Recon2.SET file parameters' syntax has changed. These should be converted uneventfully when Recon 2.20 first starts up. However, if you have occasion to start up a previous version of Recon using the same changed Recon2.SET file, these new syntax forms may end up being flagged and marked as syntax errors. o Recon 2.20 uses a different way of saving individual message's status information. When Recon 2.20 loads files processed by previous versions, it will convert the status marks uneventfully, you will not notice any problems. However if you then have occasion to load such a 2.20 processed file, then all the messages will appear as apparently new to an older version of Recon. This scenario is unlikely, but might come as a surprise, it is otherwise harmless. The new way of saving the information is required because Recon 2.20 introduces a number of new, sticky, message status flags (eg. UNREAD and NEEDS REPLY). o Recon's interactive aging behaviour is different, in particular the file size age parameter now specifies a target file size rather than a maximum file size. If left to the high default value of 2000 (3200 in Recon 2.50) messages it WILL SUPPRESS all aging. See section 5.1.4 before you age a file, to ensure you don't get a surprise. Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 127 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- o Two new status flags have been added, namely UNREAD and NEEDS REPLY. These are set and reset automatically for you, and can be toggled manually as well. The NEW filter will filter in messages that are unread (as distinct from being just physically new to the file) or that need a reply. o Starting with Recon v2.01, unexpected non-text characters were stripped out of files. However this function adds a significant amount of overhead when a file is loaded, as such the default for 2.20 (and 2.50) is to not strip out these characters. See the discussion in section 4.13. 7.2.3 Notes between version 1.80 and 2.01 ---- o Most INTERACTIVE mode related command line parameters have been eliminated. The control of these settings is now in the Recon2.SET file. You will be directed by Recon as to which are no longer supported on startup. o A number of the Recon2.SET file (previously Recon.SET) parameters' syntax have changed. These should be converted uneventfully when Recon 2.50 first starts up. Do not try to just substitute your Recon.SET file for Recon2.SET by renaming the file. o Recon will create new .SET/.PCK/.DAT files. These will all be named RECON2.*, your old files will not be disturbed. So if you need to edit a setting in the .SET file, be sure to edit the RECON2.SET file, else you will not effect a change in Recon 2.50. Because Recon 2.50 uses completely new data files, and does not disturb Recon 1.80 data files, you can run both versions concurrently - this may make it a little easier during switch over. o Throughout Recon, wherever a Y [Enter] or a N [Enter] was required, just the Y or N now suffices. Be careful that you don't insert an unneeded [Enter] and go somewhere you had not intended. o The [Esc] key is now equivalent to N in all dialogue boxes. o A mouse hot zone has been created for accepting YES and NO Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 128 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- replies as well. o The hot keys for Copy/Move/Delete/Mark have been slightly altered, so as to accommodate Section operations. Be very careful if you are used to using the hot keys, review the slight changes first, else you might get unexpected results. o The Mark & UnMARK THREAD to FINISH command (global hot key Shf-[F4]) has been changed, to THREAD {Branch}. See Action|MARK section 5.3.1 and Action|UnMARK section 5.3.2. o The global hot key for the NEW filter toggle is changed to Alt-W. o The filters in Recon 2.50 are now combined as and filters, the filters in 1.80 were or-ed together. o By default Recon 2.50 adds OUTBOX copies of messages to the .MSG file, rather than the .SAV file. This is a much handier place to have them, as you keep your thread filled out in your .MSG file until you actually download the CompuServe copy of your reply. This is the only way of keeping track of your MAIL file replies. o Recon is no longer troubled by imbedded ^Z's or other line noise, it will clean these up and substitute a space. You don't need the Filther.EXE program any more, and should not use it, as it will on occasion strip new version 2 markings in the files. If you never used FILTHER don't worry about this. 7.3 Example Recon2.SET file ---- ; Recon v2.5 SETTINGS file ; This is a straight text file that you can ; freely edit to change the settings' defaults ; Blank lines and lines beginning with a ";" are ignored, ; leading/trailing spaces and case are not significant $forum=GLOBAL PrintDevice=PRN Pre-Print= On-Exit= CatScanPATH= ReconEDIT1= ReconEDIT2= scroll=LINE SNAPOFF=ON Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 129 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- DCHECK=ON QUIET=OFF BACKUP=ON CONFIRMmode=ON NEWfilter=OFF CMailReceipt=OFF allowREformatting=OFF HIDEBOX=OFF cleanANN=NONE deleteAGED=OFF OUTBOX=MSGfile threadAGEdays=50 messageAGEdays=60 fileAGEsize=3200 THREADsort=ON MCsort=ON THREADSbyDATE=ON GROUPsect=ON STRICTsectSORT=OFF ; Forum-specific settings should be listed below, start each ; section with a $forum=FORUMNAME parameter. Most View/Send ; and Sort parameters are supported for forum specific use. $forum=IBMHW HIDEBOX=ON cleanANN=ON deleteAGED=ON OUTBOX=MSGfile threadAGEdays=4 messageAGEdays=9 fileAGEsize=500 THREADsort=ON THREADSbyDATE=ON GROUPsect=ON STRICTsectSORT=OFF $forum=MAIL OUTBOX=MSGfile threadAGEdays=30 messageAGEdays=40 fileAGEsize=1000 Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 130 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- deleteaged=OFF 7.4 Moving Recon ---- There are many relative drive and directory references in Recon's setup. Here is a six step, bulletproof method to move Recon. The order of the steps is important: 1) Look in the Recon.EXE directory, and erase a small TAPCIS.LOC file, if it exists. 2) Look in the message file storage directory, and erase the Recon2.PCK file. 3) OK, do it - move the contents of the Recon.EXE, TAPCIS.EXE and message file storage directories, or just rename the directories, depending on what you wish to do. 4) Now, go into the TAPCIS parameter screen, and change the paths to reflect the new download and storage locations. 5) Then, start up Recon again with an appropriate /P:<path> command, or change the TAPPATH= parameter if you are using it. If Recon is in the same directory as TAPCIS, don't worry about this. 6) You may need to change the CatScanPATH in the File|Edit|general and any Recon2.SHL file menu shell entries that contain paths that have changed. 7.5 DOS/Windows and EMS ---- Recon is not a Windows application but will run full screen or windowed under Win3.1 enhanced or standard or Win3.0 real mode as a DOS application. Recon can maximally use up to 2224K of EMS (exPANded memory), but requires no EMS at all, as it can alternately use disk swap space. See the extensive discussion of this in Memory Considerations (section 7.1). If you wish to use EMS, then after you set the amount of EMS (outlined below) check Recon's File|Status panels, and be sure that the amount of available EMS is sufficient. This will typically be different from the amount of EMS you actually set due to overhead. Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 131 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- For a 386/486 machine running DOS/Windows: o Enhanced mode Recon can directly use the simulated EMS that Win Enhanced can provide. Set the XMS/EMS parameter to about 2500. This is your first and best choice. o Standard/Real(3.0) mode You need to install the Win EMS driver, EMM386.SYS in your config.sys file, and indicate how much EMS memory you wish to create. Use a line like so in your config.sys file: C:\windows\EMM386.SYS 2500 Use this as your second choice, or if you have to run in standard mode. If you are using the EMM386.EXE driver, whether Window's or DOS's, be sure that you DO NOT have NOEMS on that line as a command switch. For a 286 machine running DOS/Windows: o Standard/Real(3.0) mode Here you rely on the driver that would have come with your memory card that provides your EMS. Extended memory boards do not provide memory that Recon can use, as a contrast to a 386/486 where XMS and EMS can easily be converted by EMS driver software. 7.6 OS/2 2.1 ---- Recon 2.50 runs flawlessly under OS/2, as most other DOS and Windows programs. You can run with the installation default OS/2 settings for a DOS simulated session (VDM). Be sure that you haven't reduced the amount of EMS available for DOS programs, Recon can use about 2224K of EMS. If you are having trouble loading any especially large files, then increase the amount of low conventional memory available to Recon in its OS/2 simulated DOS session from the default of 628K, to 720K by restricting the video mode in Recon's session. This would be only very rarely necessary. Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 132 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7.7 DESQview ---- Recon is DESQview aware, it will handshake with DESQview and should run perfectly behaved in a nonvirtualized window on a 8088, 286 or 386/486 machine. In other words you can usually set writes directly to screen=NO. 7.8 Hardware requirements ---- You must have at least 426k of free memory available in order to run Recon. If you try to run Recon with insufficient memory, it will exit with a error message. Recon will run under DOS 2.0 or later, or OS/2 2.0 or later. With an MDA (IBM monochrome), Hercules or CGA display card it will run in monochrome, with an EGA or VGA/superVGA it will run in color. Recon has been specifically tested and is compatible with DOS 5.0/6.x (with or without Windows) and OS/2 2.1. If you are running a color display card with a monochrome monitor, for example most notebook computers or a monochrome VGA setup, then you will likely need the /MONO parameter (section 4.7). 7.9 Program notes ---- Maximum number of messages in a file: 3200 Maximum number of lines in a message: 1000 Maximum number of forums (current & old): 100 Maximum length of paths (characters): 80 Recon adds a four character status flag to the top line of a message header to keep track of message specific status. Although Recon will not redundantly display these characters, other message file viewers likely will. However, these should not interfere in any other processing of the file. As necessary, Recon imbeds FORUM of origin information in new files that it creates. This information is otherwise ignored and is not displayed by either Recon or TAPCIS. Other message file utilities that do not strictly follow TAPCIS message file structure may end up harmlessly displaying this embedded text as part of the message text of the first message in the file. Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 133 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Recon creates four small information files, Recon2.DAT, Recon2.PCK, Recon2.SET, and Recon2.SHL in your message file storage directory. These should not occupy much more space than about 4096 bytes each. Recon2.SHL and Recon2.SET are ASCII text files, and may be freely edited, see section 5.1.11 Recon2.PCK and Recon2.DAT are NOT text files, and if you try to view/edit them you will likely corrupt them. If these files are corrupted, Recon should recreate new ones when it starts up - however you may lose some setup information. Recon may also create a temporary swap file, RECONSWP.$$$. You will never see this file unless you crash your computer while you are in Recon's shell, even so this file will be erased the next time you shell. 7.10 Sysop functions ---- Every copy of Recon has SYSOP features. Usually Recon will be able to recognize individuals as sysops and automatically enable the sysop command panel. In the unusual instance where this doesn't work, then the Sysop commands can be activated with a software key, these features are hidden mainly because if you are not a Sysop and try to use the Sysop features, especially accidentally, you'll hang your navigator while it is online. So, in the unusual instance where the auto-enabling of Sysop features does not work, and you need the manual software key, please send a CMail note to Recon Support at 76672,1273 with a request for the Sysop KEY. Please identify the Forum or Forums that you sysop, and please also supply the name/userid of the "Wizop" in your forum. You do not need to be registered to use the sysop features, nor to receive the sysop key. When unlocked, the Sysop commands are included in the Connect panel, the global hot key to access the panel is Ctl-S. Three of the Sysop panel commands are also available for use by non-sysops, namely those that search for unanswered messages. 7.10.1 Forward on Board ---- This is a CompuServe sysop command used to forward an existing message to another recipient within the same forum. Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 134 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- You have the option of leaving the message in the same slot, or placing it into a new message slot with an optional deletion of the old message, and you may also send the new message as private. The dialogue box for these prompts hops onto the mini-index to allow you to view most of the message. 7.10.2 Forward by MAIL ---- A CompuServe sysop command used to forward an existing message to another recipient through CompuServe MAIL. You have the option of deleting the old board message. The dialogue box for these prompts hops onto the mini-index to allow you to view most of the message. 7.10.3 Change Section/Subject ---- A CompuServe sysop command used to move a message, together with any following message replies, to another section within the same forum, and/or to optionally change the message subject. As a very helpful feature, Recon will also immediately implement that change within your current message file. You choose the new message subject and section from a popup picklist. 7.10.4 Hold functions ---- A CompuServe sysop command used to HOLD messages from scrolling. When applied to a given message, it also applies to all following replies. You can set a HOLD for a message or a thread to ON, or to OFF. As a very helpful feature, Recon will also immediately implement that change within your current message file. You can also request a script to be generated to download all of the currently HELD messages on the forum, using Read HELD. Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 135 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7.10.5 Sysop Delete ---- This is a special delete message script available only to sysops, its hot key is Ctl-D. You will always be asked for a confirmation of this command, even with EXPERTmode=ON. 7.10.6 Find Unanswered messages ---- Depending on how you run your forum, this might come in very handy for you. It can be quite handy for non-sysop enabled support individuals as well. Its goal is to help you ensure that every question placed on your forum, or in your section, is answered promptly. These commands will locate the first, and subsequent messages in a file that have not been replied to for a specified number of days. Just like the general search command, this will only look at "filtered in" messages. In other words if you have the NEW filter ON this sysop search will only look in the NEW messages in the file. If you want to search the entire file, then turn all display filters OFF (View panel). To start the search you will be asked to specify the number of days interval to be used. The default is four days. You may also optionally specify a fractional number of days, for example 0.6 days or 5.5 days. Recon will then ask if you would like to restrict the search to only solitary unanswered messages (no other messages in the thread), to in-thread messages (exclude end of thread messages), or to look for every unanswered message. Recon will then conduct the search, starting at the first message in the file. After you've found at least one such message, you can ask to see either the next or previous unanswered message, that meets the criteria you specified. On forums where it is important to ensure that all support questions get a prompt reply, this will be a very powerful tool for support folks. 7.11 .MSG file annotation ---- The INTERACTIVE Reply Editor and related features largely make this facility unnecessary. Because you will likely be able to generate all of your online activities completely from Recon, you won't need to use the TAPCIS viewer/reply editor. See section 1.2 for an outline of how Recon Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 136 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- INTERACTIVE and Recon BATCH fit in with TAPCIS. Although for most users this feature will be considered archaic, it is included for upwards compatibility. Recon's default is to not annotate message files. Recon is directed to annotate messages in message files that it processes in BATCH mode by the /ANN parameter, for example: RECON forum_name.MSG /B /A /ALLFOR /ANN:ALL The default for /ANN is off, the other two settings are new and all, which will annotate the new messages and all messages, respectively. Annotation adds extra text in the top right hand corner along the format of the three examples below. Note that only the NEW messages have the second line of the annotation. example 1 | LNew= .. SThd=92 Root=94 | | * >>| {{N}} 9 of 20 example 2 | LNew=100 SThd=105 Root= .. | | >>>> {{N}} 32 of 140 example 3 | LNew=PgUp SThd=CUR Root= .. | | >>|| {{N}} 11 of 11 LNew: Last New Message, followed by: number: use the TAPCIS Jump ### command to get to LNew PgUp: Last NEW Message is the immediately preceding one "..": There are no previous NEW messages, SThd: Start of this Thread within this file, followed by: number: use the TAPCIS Jump ### command to get to SThd PgUp: SThd Message is the immediately preceding one CUR: CURrent message is the start of the thread, at least within this message file (Note that this may not be a NEW message) Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 137 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Root: message (if any) that the current message replies to: number: use the TAPCIS Jump ### command to get to ROOT PgUp: the ROOT is the immediately preceding message "..": There is no ROOT to this message (Note that this may not be a NEW message) Symbols at Bottom Left * Current message is the oldest NEW message in this thread. >>| Current message is the most recent (and last) new message in this thread, the next new message is in a different thread. >>>> Still NEW messages left in this thread ("the thread continues") >>|| Current message is the last message in this thread AND it is the last NEW message in this file. {{N}} A search target for the TAPCIS viewer to find new messages ( 9 of 20 ) is the current position and count of NEW messages within this file. The LNew refers to the Last New message. If a number follows, then use the TAPCIS Jump command to get to that message, when the last new message is the immediately preceding one, then PgUp will be present. When there are no previous new messages then ".." will be shown. The SThd points you to the Start of this Thread, within the message file. Note that this may not be a NEW message. When CUR is listed, it means that the CURrent message is the start of the thread, at least within this message file. Root indicates what message (if any) is the one that the current message is in answer to, it also may not be a NEW message. This brings us to the symbols at the bottom left of each of the three examples. An asterisk indicates that the current message is the oldest NEW message in this thread. A double right angle followed by a single vertical line means that the current message is the most recent (and last) new message in this thread, the next new message is in a different thread. Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 138 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- A quadruple right angle, means that there are still NEW messages left in this thread to look at. Think of it as "the thread continues". A double vertical line means that the current message is the last message in this thread and it is the last NEW message in this file. The {{N}} gives you something to search for within TAPCIS. In other words, to find the next new message when you are viewing a MSG file, just search for the next occurrence of {{N}}. The counter (9 of 20) just indicates the count of NEW messages within this file. Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 139 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 8 Document Index ================= .$$$ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .81 .$RK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .52, 70, 75 .OLD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .77 .QMR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63, 104 .TMK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63, 104 !. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .80 $@<file>$. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 $REXT$ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .80 /@:<filename>. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .60 /A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119 /AGE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 /ALLFOR. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120 /ANN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120 /B . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116 /CheckPrinter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .61 /CLEAN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .55 /COLOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .55 /DEL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119 /DESLCT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .51 /EMSOVR. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51, 124 /ExitClear . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .59 /EXT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .56 /ExtVideo. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .59 /F:<filespec>. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50, 116 /LATIN1. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .57 /MAGE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118 /MaxMSGS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60, 124 /MES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .57 /MONO. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .52 /NAVIGATOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .61 /NOBAK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .52 /NOEMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16, 54 /NOMLM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .62 /NOREPLYF. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .55 /NOunreadF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .58 /NPH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .52 /P . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .50 /Q . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .51 /QUOTE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .53 /RTEMP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59, 123 /SAGE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 /SCAN. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .58 /SFMU. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .56 /SPM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .59 /SuppressRead. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .61 /TAGE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118 /TZADJ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .53 /VARRAY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62, 123 /VSET. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 /WIDTH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .57 Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 140 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- /XSET. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 ^Z . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128 <self> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .85 Add-ons. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .45, 79 AGEing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39, 43, 70, 117 file size. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .72 Message. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .71 Thread . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .71 allowREformatting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .76 Annotation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .120, 135 Announcements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77, 117 Archiving. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .36 ASP. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12 Association of Shareware Professionals . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12 BACKUP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .75 BATCH mode primer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .43 BATCH Recon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116 BINARY CMail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27 Browsing a file. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25 CatScan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74, 80, 103 CatScan.LOG. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74, 103 CatScanPATH. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .74 cleanANN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .76 Clip/Export. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .81 Clipboard. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 CMail ASCII. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .95 BINARY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .95 CMailReceipt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .76 CompuServe sweep example. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 SEQUENCE A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 SEQUENCE B . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Configuration file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47, 125 specifying . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .60 CONFIRMmode. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .75 Conventional memory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122 Copy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .87 Correspondent. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27 DCHECK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .75 DCTABLE.DAT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15, 100 Delete message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .37, 88 DeleteAGED . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .77 DESQview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132 Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22, 32 Directory box. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23 Disk space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .75 Distribution policies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11 Documentation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14 DOWnload . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 141 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Duplicates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25 Edit message header. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31, 108 Editor external . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43, 96, 102 Editor, internal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .96 auto-signature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .98 cut&paste. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .97 import/export. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .57, 98 line width . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .57 metavariables. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .99 quoting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .53 EMS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51, 73, 121 ignoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .54 Windows. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 Error Bad command or file name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16 lockup when starting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16 Overlay Error. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16 PARAMS.CIS not found . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16 eXPANded memory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 EXPERTmode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .75 eXTENded memory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 File AGE/Save&Exit. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .70 exit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .73 load . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .66 pick . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .69 Save&Exit. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .69 Status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .73 Status - memory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122 File attribute . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .66 File Backup. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .52 FileAGEsize. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .77 Filespec entering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21 Filters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .91 branch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .28, 92 DELETED. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .93 MARKed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .91 NEW. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26, 91 unread - clear . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .93 UserID . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .28 UserID group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .92 Filther.EXE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128 FORUM of origin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41, 67, 132 FRONTEND script. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73, 117 Golden Commpass. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2, 61 Goto Subject . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 GROUPsect. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .78 Help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17 hypertext. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .47 HIDEBOX. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .76 Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 142 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- HOLD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .88 Hot keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20 global . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20 Index full screen. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33, 111 local. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25, 68 Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14 INTERACTIVE Recon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .65 INTERNET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2, 106 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Invert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .38, 86 Jump . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30, 107 Jump PARENT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 Latin-1. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6, 57, 100 Load model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 Loading a file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23 Mail correspondent sort. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84, 114 Mailing list . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 MARK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .85 Mark by Age. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .39, 86 Marking. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .34 MCsort . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .78 Memory considerations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 Menu panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20 Message alarms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .89 forward. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .95 PAUSE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 reply. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .96 send . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 split. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .97 Tag. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30, 108 write. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .95 MessageAGEdays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .77 metavariable $$ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .98 $24TIME$ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .99 $DATE$ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .99 $DOW$. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .99 $TIME$ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .99 $VER$. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .99 import file. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 suppressing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .99 Monochrome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .52 Mouse hot zones. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .28, 53, 68 scroll bar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .66 turn off . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .64 Move . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .38, 88 Moving Recon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 Navigate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .82 filters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .82 Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 143 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- scroll . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .82 Needs reply. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .28 clear. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .94 NEWfilter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .76 NOMOUSE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .64 Notebook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27, 52, 82 On-Exit. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .74 OS/2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50, 131 outbox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2, 68, 76-78, 114, 128 Overlays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .51 Ozcis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2, 61 PARAMS file. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .46, 50, 56, 63, 79 PARAMS.NOW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .56, 80 Pick list. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23, 40, 66 Pre-Print. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .74 PreScan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1, 6, 67 settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .58 Print. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32, 109 printer setup. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33, 110 PrintDevice. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .74 Printer check status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .61 Pulldown menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20 Quiet. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .51, 75 Quit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .82 RAM disk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .64 Recon.CFG. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .47 RECON.EXE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15 RECON.OVR. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15 Recon.SET. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 Recon2.BAR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .83 Recon2.DAT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45, 133 Recon2.PCK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45, 133 Recon2.SET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45, 78, 79, 133 example. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128 Recon2.SHL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46, 80, 133 ReconEDIT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .74 ReconEDIT1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 ReconEDIT2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 RECONSWP.$$$ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133 Reformat message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .76 Registration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8, 16 Compuserve MAIL. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11 FAX. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10 regular mail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10 telephone. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10 Reply Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .42 REPLY$.$$$ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45, 102 RINSTALL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15 ROOT$.$$$. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 RTEMP. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .64 Screen extended . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .59 Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 144 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Scripts DELETE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 DEselect thread. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 read message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 read subject . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 read thread. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 Scroll . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .74 Search . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29, 89 case sensitivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .90 header/text. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .90 needs reply. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .94 Section Jump to. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 Sequence number. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26, 31 Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .44 edit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .73 Save . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .78 Shareware. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8, 16 shell MENU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .45, 79 Site licenses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11 SNAPOFF. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .75 Sort . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 date/time. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 sections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114 thread . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 Spell check. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .45 Starting Recon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15 error conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16 Startup options. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .47 table. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49 Status line. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26, 68 STICKY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .75 STRICTsectSORT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .78 Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Support. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18 Swap space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80, 124 Syntax error . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .79 Sysop. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1, 76, 78, 92, 133 CHA. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134 delete . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 FMA. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134 FMB. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133 Hold . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134 mirror online database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .72 new features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 repetitive replies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .57 search unanswered. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 suppress needs reply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .55 suppress unread. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .58 TAPCIS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .61 TAPPATH. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .63 Recon (tm) v2.50 (C) 1989-1994 Amdox Corporation page 145 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- TappeT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80, 104 advanced marks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 deselect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .51 Text Editor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .81 Thread marking utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .63 Thread order . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 ThreadAGEdays. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .77 THREADSbyDATE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .78 THREADsort . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .78 Time zone. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .53 TMKPATH. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63, 104 Tutorial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20 Twit filter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .83 UnMARK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .86 Unread . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .28 clear. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .93 Updating from a previous version . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 Upgrading. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 UserID add. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 bar. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .83 lookup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 UTC. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .54 View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .89 What's new . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Windows. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 WordStar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .97 XMS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17