OS/2 Shareware BBS: 3 Comm/03-Comm.zip/robom131.zip/ROBOMAIL.DOC

Text File | 1995-10-23 | 222KB | 4,448 lines

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               The Ultimate QWK Mail Management System Version 1.31








                                User's Guide









                 Copyright (c) 1993-1995 - Parsons Consulting
                        All Rights Reserved, World Wide
























                            ----------------------
                            DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY
                            ----------------------

     THIS SOFTWARE PROGRAM AND DOCUMENTATION ("ROBOMAIL") IS BEING  OFFERED
     FOR  EVALUATION  PURPOSES  "AS  IS"  AND  WITHOUT  WARRANTIES  AS   TO
     PERFORMANCE OR MERCHANTABILITY.   BY USING ROBOMAIL, YOU ARE EXPRESSLY
     RELEASING DAN PARSONS  FROM ANY LIABILITY  RESULTING FROM  THE USE  OF
     THIS SOFTWARE AND DOCUMENTATION.  THE USER MUST ASSUME THE ENTIRE RISK
     OF USING ROBOMAIL.  BECAUSE OF THE  DIVERSITY OF CONDITIONS,  HARDWARE
     AND OPERATING  ENVIRONMENTS  UNDER  WHICH ROBOMAIL  MAY  BE  USED,  NO
     WARRANTY OF FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR  PURPOSE IS OFFERED. THE USER  IS
     ADVISED TO TEST AND SUPERVISE ROBOMAIL THOROUGHLY BEFORE RELYING ON IT


                               -----------------
                               LICENSE AGREEMENT
                               -----------------

     1)  RoboMail is being distributed as ShareWare.  This program is not
         free.  You are granted a limited license to evaluate RoboMail for a
         period not to exceed 21 days.  After 21 days, you must either
         pay for and register your copy of RoboMail, or immediately
         discontinue its use and remove it from your computer.

     2)  You may keep as many backup copies of RoboMail as you wish, but you
         may not run RoboMail simultaneously on more than one computer.
         Additionally, you are granted the right to share RoboMail with
         others, as long as you distribute the RoboMail archives exactly
         as you received them, with all associated files included.

                      REGISTERED USERS MAY NOT DISTRIBUTE
                      THE SEPARATE FILE ROBOMAIL.KEY FILE

     3)  Under no circumstances may you charge a fee or receive any other
         form of consideration for distributing the RoboMail files without
         express written consent from the copyright holder, Dan Parsons.





     RoboMail is a product of:

               Parsons Consulting             [phone]  Voice
               P.O. Box 1551                  [phone]  Fax
               Manhattan Beach, Ca 90267      [phone]  BBS 1
               U.S.A.                         [phone]  BBS 2









     ===============================
     ROBOMAIL 1.31 REGISTRATION FORM
     ===============================

     Remit to:  Parsons Consulting
                P.O. Box 1551
                Manhattan Beach, CA  90267
                U.S.A.

     ------------------------------------------------------------------
     | Item                          | Quantity |  Price |    Total   |
     |-------------------------------|----------|--------|------------|
     | RoboMail version 1.31         | ________ | $35.00 | __________ |
     |                               |          |        |            |
     | RoboMail/Robocomm package     | ________ | $65.00 | __________ |
     |                               |          |        |            |
     | Shipping (Outside U.S. only)  | ________ |  $5.00 | __________ |
     |---------------------------------------------------|------------|
     |                                                   |            |
     |   Total amount enclosed                           | __________ |
     ------------------------------------------------------------------

     Check desired high-density disk format:       ( ) 5.25"   ( ) 3.5"

     Would you like a Robocomm evaluation disk?    ( ) Yes     ( ) No

     Payment by:  ( ) Check or money order (U.S. funds only)
                  ( ) MasterCard
                  ( ) Visa
                  ( ) PO # ______________

     Card #: ____________________________________  Exp. Date: _________


 Signature of card holder: ____________________________________________


     Name:     ________________________________________________________

     Company:  ________________________________________________________

     Address:  ________________________________________________________

               ________________________________________________________

               ________________________________________________________

     Phone:    ________________________________________________________

  INSTANT GRATIFICATION REGISTRATION ONLINE AT GROUP ONE BBS!  Call Group
  One BBS, register with MasterCard or Visa and receive your personalized
  key file immediately!  Also, qualify for a $2 "Electronic Delivery"
  discount.       >>>> 310-374-7540 or 310-374-2367 <<<<




    INTERNATIONAL DISTRIBUTORS - RoboMail is now available directly
    from distributors in several countries.  If you are currently
    evaluating RoboMail and you live in one of the countries listed
    below, please contact your distributor to register your copy of
    RoboMail:


        Argentina
        ---------

            NEW AGE BBS    [phone]  (ZyXEL)
            -----------    [phone]    "
                           [phone]    "
                           [phone]  (USRobotics Dual Std)
                           [phone]  (Hayes Optima V.FC)

                    Voice: [phone]
                  Contact: Rodolfo Bordenave


        Australia and New Zealand
        -------------------------

            My Computer Company
            25 Albert Street (P.O. Box 99)
            Erskineville  NSW  2043
            AUSTRALIA

            Phone:  [phone]
            Fax:    [phone]
            BBS:    [phone]


        Eire, Great Britain & British Dependent Territories
        ---------------------------------------------------

            Contact Intershop on 0141-204 4310.
            VISA/MasterCard or EuroCard accepted gladly

            The Ilink RoboMail tech support conference is available
            on ALMAC BBS: [phone]

            Registration can be handled either by post, telephone
            or Internet

                     Interstop
                     Box 1000
                     London
                     SE17  2UA








        South Africa
        ------------

            ONline WElcome : Make Your Modem Smoke

            Contact John Bannister

            http://www.onwe.co.za
            ftp://ftp.onwe.co.za
            telnet://bbs.onwe.co.za
            bbs: [phone]


        Switzerland
        -----------

            McMeier & Son BBS
                Obfelden/Switzerland

            Data:      USR HST DS      14400   ++41 1 761 27 94
                       Zyxel           19200   ++41 1 761 27 37
                       ISDN- SoLIS     38400   ++41 1 776 10 09
                       ISDN- SLink     115200  ++41 1 776 10 08
            Voice:     ++41 1 776 10 01
            Contact:   Roland Hausin
































     TABLE OF CONTENTS
     ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀

     WHAT IS ROBOMAIL?................................................. 1
     ABOUT SHAREWARE................................................... 3
     TECHNICAL SUPPORT................................................. 4
     SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS............................................... 4
     QUICK START AND TIPS FOR EXPERIENCED USERS........................ 5
          Running Under DOS............................................ 5
          Running Under Windows........................................ 5
          Running Under DESQView....................................... 6
          Running Under OS/2........................................... 6
     INSTALLATION...................................................... 7
     GETTING STARTED................................................... 7
     KEY CONCEPTS...................................................... 8
          Archive Actions.............................................. 8
          Message Classes.............................................. 9
     ROBOMAIL USER INTERFACE BASICS................................... 10
          Getting Help................................................ 10
          Using the Keyboard.......................................... 10
          Pick Lists.................................................. 11
          Using a Mouse............................................... 11
     CUSTOMIZING YOUR ROBOMAIL INSTALLATION........................... 12
          Configuration............................................... 12
               Directories ........................................... 12
               Utilities ............................................. 12
               Message Settings ...................................... 13
               Internet Setup ........................................ 14
               Auto-Pilot ............................................ 14
               Mail Importing ........................................ 15
               System Settings ....................................... 15
          Mail System Settings........................................ 16
          Conference Settings......................................... 18
               Quick Conference Setup................................. 19
          Customizing Screen Colors................................... 19
     IMPORTING MESSAGE PACKETS........................................ 20
          Interactive Processing...................................... 20
          Command Line Processing..................................... 20
          Automatic Packet Archiving.................................. 21
          Filtering Incoming Mail..................................... 21
          The IMPORT.LOG File......................................... 22
     EXPORTING OUTBOX MESSAGES........................................ 22
          Interactive Processing...................................... 23
          Command Line Processing..................................... 23
          Recalling Exported Replies.................................. 23
     READING AND PROCESSING IMPORTED DATA............................. 24
          News, Welcome and Goodbye Screens........................... 24
          New File Listings........................................... 24
          Bulletins................................................... 25
          Recent Messages............................................. 25
               Finding the First Unread Recent Message................ 25
               Automatic Bookmarks.................................... 26
          Personal Messages........................................... 26
               Messages to ALL in Personal............................ 26
     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page i


          Snoop Mode.................................................. 26
          OutBox, Archive and Chron Messages.......................... 27
          Multi-Part Messages......................................... 27
          Wide Messages............................................... 27
          ANSI Art and Music.......................................... 27
          File Attachments............................................ 28
               Using the Attachment Manager........................... 29
          The Quit and Resume Bookmark................................ 29
          Message Processing.......................................... 29
     MESSAGE NAVIGATION............................................... 31
          Assisted Reading Mode....................................... 31
               Overriding Archive Assignment.......................... 32
          Using the Auto-Pilot........................................ 33
          Manual Navigation........................................... 33
               Moving Forward and Back................................ 33
               Finding Unread Messages................................ 34
               Thread Movement........................................ 34
               Moving Between Conferences............................. 35
               Processing Before Moving............................... 35
          Manual Archive Action Assignment............................ 35
          Looking Up Threads in Other Message Classes................. 36
          Viewing the Message Index................................... 36
          Sorting Conference or Folder Messages....................... 37
          Numeric Keypad Navigation Summary........................... 38
          Function Key Command Summary................................ 38
          Tagging Messages and Writing Text Files..................... 39
               Bulk Tagging and Untagging............................. 39
          Printing Messages........................................... 39
     CREATING OUTGOING MESSAGES....................................... 40
          Composing a Message......................................... 40
          Replying to a Message....................................... 40
               Automatic Quoting...................................... 41
               Replying to Newsgroup Postings......................... 41
               Replying to Mailing List Messages...................... 42
               Replying via Email in non-Internet Conferences......... 42
          Forwarding Messages......................................... 43
          Addressing Messages......................................... 43
               Accessing the Address Book............................. 45
               Cross-Posting.......................................... 45
               Sending Copies......................................... 45
          Re-Editing an Outgoing Message.............................. 46
               Re-Addressing an Outgoing Message...................... 46
          Re-Sending a Chron Message.................................. 46
          Placing Outgoing Messages on Hold........................... 47
          Discarding Outgoing Messages................................ 47
          Notes on Message Splitting.................................. 47
     USING ROBOMAIL'S EDITOR.......................................... 47
          Navigation Commands......................................... 48
          Text Editing Commands....................................... 48
          Block Management Commands................................... 48
          File Management Commands.................................... 48
          Other Commands.............................................. 49
          Indenting Paragraphs........................................ 49
     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page ii


          Tips on Quoting............................................. 49
          Using Quick-Merge Files..................................... 50
          Merge Macros................................................ 50
          Setting the Right Margin.................................... 51
          Control Characters in Messages.............................. 51
     USING ROBOMAIL'S SPELL CHECKER................................... 51
          Editing Your Personal Dictionary............................ 52
     USING MESSAGE FOLDERS............................................ 52
          Copying Messages to Folders................................. 52
          Deleting Folders............................................ 53
          Folder Message Management................................... 53
          Replying to Folder Messages................................. 53
     USING ROBOMAIL'S ADDRESS BOOK.................................... 53
          Specifying Routing and Email Address Information............ 54
          Grabbing Internet Email Addresses........................... 54
     SEARCHING YOUR MESSAGE DATABASE.................................. 55
          Global Searches............................................. 55
          Conference and Folder Searches.............................. 56
          Creating Search Expressions................................. 56
               Wildcard Searches...................................... 56
               Boolean Logic.......................................... 56
          Saving and Restoring Search Expressions..................... 57
     OFFLINE CONFERENCE MANAGEMENT.................................... 58
          Quick Conference Drop....................................... 59
          Setting Pointers............................................ 59
     ALL ABOUT TAGLINES............................................... 59
          Importing and Exporting Tagline Files....................... 59
          Sorting the Tagline File.................................... 60
          Querying the Tagline File................................... 60
          Using an External Tagline Manager........................... 60
          Selecting Taglines.......................................... 61
          Conference-Specific Tagline Files........................... 61
          Stealing Taglines........................................... 61
     MAINTAINING YOUR MESSAGE DATABASE................................ 61
          Bulk Marking................................................ 61
          Bulk Processing............................................. 62
          Discarding Aged Out Messages................................ 62
          Packing Your Data Files..................................... 63
          Viewing the Database Status Screen.......................... 64
          Message Management Tips..................................... 64
     RUNNING ROBOMAIL BY COMMAND LINE SWITCHES........................ 65
          Command Line Examples....................................... 66
     THE ROBOMAIL ENVIRONMENT VARIABLE................................ 67
     PERFORMANCE OPTIMIZATION TIPS.................................... 68
     KEEPING A GOOD BACKUP............................................ 69
     TROUBLE SHOOTING................................................. 70







     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page iii


     WHAT IS ROBOMAIL?
     ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀

     RoboMail is a complete system for managing your offline mail
     activities.  It allows you to read and reply to messages downloaded
     from any BBS using the QWK/REP packet format for mail transfer.  Rather
     than reading one packet at a time, RoboMail maintains a common database
     of messages from all the mail systems that you communicate with,
     offering a fresh, new perspective on your messages that will greatly
     enhance your offline mail productivity and enjoyment.

     With RoboMail managing your mail, you build your own customized
     knowledge base by controlling the way messages flow in and out of the
     system.  You can choose to Age, Keep or Discard messages individually,
     or based upon system wide or conference specific defaults.  RoboMail's
     database orientation provides significant benefits over standard mail
     reading systems.  Among these are:

         ■   An amazing new "Control Panel" view which gives you an instant
             overview and point-and-shoot access to all the data in your
             system.

         ■   A seamlessly integrated system of user-definable folders for
             grouping and holding messages of special interest.  You can
             define an unlimited number of folders and each can contain an
             unlimited number of messages.

         ■   You can quickly refer back to your "archives" of messages from
             previous packets and your own previously sent replies when
             reading through your newly imported mail.

         ■   You can easily cross-post your replies and forward messages to
             users on other mail systems.

         ■   You can keep or age copies of all the outgoing mail you create
             in a separate section called the "Chron File," and re-send any
             message with a single keystroke.

         ■   Once your mail for the day has been imported, which can be
             accomplished automatically via command line switches, there's
             no delay as you move between conferences on your various mail
             systems.  RoboMail's automatic bookmarks ensure that you can
             quit and resume your reading sessions at will without fear of
             loosing your place.

         ■   Conference listings which can show all conferences, or just
             those containing messages.

         ■   Selective archiving and naming of all bulletins and file lists
             received with your mail packets.

         ■   Many advanced Internet Email features including sophisticated
             address grabbing and reference number detection capabiltiies,
     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 1


             as well as options for replying to Newsgroup messages via Email.


     Other features of RoboMail include:

         ■   Unlimited capacity for storing messages.  RoboMail can handle
             an unlimited number of messages in up to 9,999 conferences on
             each of an unlimited number of mail systems.  The amount of
             message data RoboMail can manage is limited only by your
             available disk space.

         ■   Extremely fast and efficient database i/o routines.  RoboMail's
             database are highly self maintaining, tracking and recycling
             aged out messages and orphaned space in data files during new
             message importing.

         ■   Command line support for unattended data imports, exports and
             maintenance with full logging of activity.

         ■   A powerful internal editor, designed with message writing in
             mind.  Unique quoting capabilities are built into the message
             viewer and editor.

         ■   A sophisticated internal spelling checker with a customizable,
             unlimited capacity personal dictionary.  The speller can be
             used with both the internal or an external editor.

         ■   Internal tagline management, with conference specific tagline
             files, taglines up to sixty characters long, unlimited tagline
             capacity, sorting and a variety of automatic selection methods.

         ■   Sophisticated message addressing capabilities, with support for
             cross-posting, forwarding, re-usable distribution lists, a
             variety of carbon copy notations, PostLink and InterNet
             routing, receipt requests, high-ascii stripping.

         ■   Full support for external editors, tagline managers, file
             listers and archive viewers.

         ■   Integrated address book with a notepad for each entry.

         ■   Integrated unlimited-length ASCII file viewing for bulletins
             and informational screens.

         ■   Support for Wildcat style file attachments, with a unique
             attachment directory which provides an overview and file
             management functions for all file attachments in your system.

         ■   Extremely fast global or conference specific queries with
             support for multiple keywords, wildcards and boolean logic.

         ■   A sophisticated, fully mouseable user interface with support
             for VGA interface characters and VGA 50-line mode, or any video
     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 2


             mode supported by your hardware.  Fully customizable color
             schemes.

         ■   DESQview, OS/2 and Windows awareness, supporting RSIS i/o for
             lightning fast screen displays, as well as time-slice yielding
             when running in the background under multi-tasking operating
             systems.

         ■   Fully cross-referenced context-sensitive online help.

         ■   A tutorial system to assist new users in learning to use
             RoboMail.

         ■   A filter list for excluding messages from unwanted people.

         ■   Built-in ANSI art and music capabilities.  Options for
             automatic and/or non-stop display, high-intensity background
             colors and VGA 50 line mode are supported.

         ■   Conference specific settings for tagline files, alias names,
             default archiving behavior, PostLink and InterNet routing,
             auto-ansi display, messages to ALL in personal mail, and
             Fido-Mode.

         ■   Mail system specific settings for message archiving defaults,
             message-splitting length, mixed-case subjects, receipt requests
             and attachments, Fido-Mode as well as a unique mail door
             "driver" system that enables easy offline conference management
             for a wide variety of QWK compatible mail doors.


     ABOUT SHAREWARE
     ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀

     RoboMail is a fully-functional ShareWare program, available on many
     public-access bulletin board systems throughout the world.  Users are
     encouraged to try the program for up to 21 days to determine if it
     meets their needs.  Users who decide to continue using the program
     after the evaluation period must "register" their copy to receive a key
     file which removes the ShareWare reminder notices from the program.

     A tremendous amount of work has gone into the development of RoboMail,
     and we continue to improve and support the program every day.  Please
     do your part to ensure continued development of high quality ShareWare
     by registering your copy of RoboMail as soon as you decide to continue
     using it.  To register, print out and fill in the ORDER.FRM file that
     is distributed with the evaluation version or phone Group One BBS at
     the number shown below for quick, online registration.





     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 3


     TECHNICAL SUPPORT
     ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀

     Technical support is available via electronic mail on Group One BBS.
     Located in Los Angeles, CA U.S.A., this BBS is available 24
     hours a day with HST/v.32bis compatible modems.  The public access
     telephone numbers are:

                 [phone]         [phone]

     Technical support inquiries may also be sent via electronic
     mail to:

               CompuServe: 72167,3662

               Internet:   [e-mail]

     User-to-user and hosted support is also available in RoboMail and
     Robocomm conferences on the following national and international mail
     networks:

               * ILink         * RoboNet        * PlanoNet
               * Intelec       * Smartnet       * RIME
               * Global-Link   * U'NI Net       * WildNet



     SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
     ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀

         o   A hard disk with at least 1.5 megabytes of disk space free.

         o   A 80286 "AT" microprocessor (or better) and 320K bytes of
             available conventional memory and at least 1 megabyte of free
             "Extended" memory.  (Almost any available memory above the 1
             megabyte mark can be used.)

         o   Utility programs to handle compression and decompression
             of incoming an outgoing mail packets.  RoboMail supports ZIP,
             ARJ and LZH format mail packets.  By default RoboMail will look
             for PKZIP.EXE, PKUNZIP.EXE, ARJ.EXE and LHA.EXE to handle these
             files.  You don't need all of these programs to run RoboMail,
             just the ones that are needed for the mail packet formats you
             use.









     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 4


     QUICK START AND TIPS FOR EXPERIENCED USERS
     ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀

         If you're an experienced PC user, familiar with other off-line mail
         readers and anxious to dive right in to RoboMail, you can get
         started quickly by simply extracting all the files from the RoboMail
         distribution archives into a sub-directory (usually \ROBOMAIL) of
         your hard disk.

         Before starting RoboMail, make sure that you have FILES=30 (or
         more) in your CONFIG.SYS file and that the utilities necessary to
         extract your QWKS and compress your REPS are available in a
         directory on your PATH statement.

         When you start the program for the first time, RoboMail will make
         some necessary data files and ask you to take the new user
         tutorial.  It's a good idea, and should only take about half an
         hour to complete.

         Running Under DOS
         ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
             Just run ROBOMAIL.EXE from within the same directory as your
             RoboMail data files.  The program will examine your hardware and
             memory environment and verify that protected mode operations
             are possible. All available extended memory (up to 8 megabytes)
             will be used.

         Running Under Windows
         ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
             By default, RoboMail will request up to 8 megabytes of extended
             memory before resorting to a disk swap file.  This all happens
             automatically without you needing to do any special
             modifications of any settings.  In effect, RoboMail will be
             using Window's own swap file mechanism for its own virtual
             memory operations.  This is very efficient and fast.

             If you are running other applications simultaneously and want
             to stop RoboMail from using a full 8 megabytes of Windows
             virtual memory, you can add a MAXMEM:nnnn switch to your
             ROBOMAIL environment variable.  However, don't do this unless
             you feel RoboMail's appetite for memory is adversely affecting
             the performance of other programs running at the same time.  For
             example, to limit RoboMail to 4 megabytes of extended memory,
             you would use the environment variable:

                 SET ROBOMAIL=MAXMEM:4096

             If you need help setting up a program item for RoboMail on your
             Windows desktop, use the sample ROBOMAIL.PIF that has been
             supplied in this upgrade kit.



     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 5


         Running Under DESQView
         ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

             To run successfully under DesqView make sure that the minimum
             program size is set to at least 400 and that you specify at
             least 1024 in the PIF setting for Expanded memory usage.  A
             sample RM-PIF.DVP file has been supplied that contains the
             settings needed for normal operations.  If you have sufficient
             resources, you should increase the amount of Expanded memory to
             4096 for optimal performance.

             If you find that you are unable to open other windows while
             RoboMail is running, you may want to place an absolute limit on
             the amount of physical memory that will be requested by adding:

                 SET ROBOMAIL=MAXMEM:2048

             ...to your environment.


         Running Under OS/2
         ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

             You should edit your DOS settings to provide at least 4
             megabytes of DPMI memory (8 is better) and 640K XMS (for
             fastest swapping to external programs).  Because of a conflict
             between RoboMail, OS/2 2.1 and PKZIP's usage of DPMI memory, it
             is important that you do not remove the supplied PKZIP.CFG file
             from your RoboMail directory.  The file disables PKZIP's DPMI
             usage when shelled out from RoboMail.

             Under OS/2 2.1 GA, the TAME21 utility (available on Group One -
             The RoboMail support BBS) is required for correct timeslice
             yielding.

         If you will be running RoboMail in Windows, DESQview or OS/2, be
         aware that RoboMail will automatically yield idle time back to the
         operating system when running under these operating systems.  For
         this reason, you may want to set up RoboMail's session settings to
         allow background operation.  This will enable you to do other
         things during lengthy data management operations, without placing a
         drag on the CPU during normal interactive processing.  See the
         enclosed ROBOMAIL.PIF and RM-PIF.DVP files for suggested settings
         for Windows and DESQview.  Windows and OS/2 icons are provided in
         ROBOMAIL.ICO and RMOS2.ICO.








     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 6


     INSTALLATION
     ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀

         If you downloaded RoboMail from a BBS or other online service, you
         should follow the following instructions to install the program:

        ┌─╖  Verify that your system is set up to provide at least 40 file
        │1║  handles.  To do this, make sure that the FILES= line in the
        ╘═╝  CONFIG.SYS file in the root directory of your boot disk
             specifies a number of 40 or greater.  If you change the value,
             make sure to re-boot so that the new settings will be in effect.

        ┌─╖  Create a sub-directory to hold the RoboMail files.  Although it
        │2║  is not required, \ROBOMAIL is the suggested name and will be
        ╘═╝  used in the documentation and help file examples.  To create
             the sub-directory, type MD \ROBOMAIL at the DOS prompt.

        ┌─╖  Extract the RoboMail distribution files into the \ROBOMAIL
        │3║  directory.  For example, if the files you downloaded are in
        ╘═╝  the ZIP format and you have the PKUNZIP utility, you would
             type:

                 PKUNZIP ROBOM*.ZIP \ROBOMAIL

        ┌─╖  Start RoboMail by typing ROBOMAIL at the DOS prompt.  The first
        │4║  time it is run, RoboMail needs to create its data files and
        ╘═╝  some sub-directories to hold incoming and outgoing mail.  After
             this process is complete, you will receive a welcome message
             asking you to begin the tutorial for new users.


     GETTING STARTED
     ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀

         RoboMail contains three forms of user documentation.  The User's
         Guide, which you are reading now, is designed to give the user an
         overview of all aspects of the program's operation.  It does not,
         however, delve deeply into the specific operation of every screen
         in the program.  For that type of information, you should make
         liberal use of RoboMail's online, context sensitive help system,
         which is accessible at any time with a press of the [F1] key.

         New users should definitely begin with the tutorial, which consists
         of a brief text file and demonstration mail packet.  During
         installation, RoboMail will place the TUTORIAL.QWK packet in your
         incoming mail directory, where it will be ready for use during
         the guided tour contained in the TUTORIAL.DOC file.  If you haven't
         done so yet, please make a printout of the tutorial documentation
         and begin following along with it.




     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 7


     KEY CONCEPTS
     ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀

     Before beginning our discussion of the operational "nuts and bolts" of
     using RoboMail, we need to get a little RoboMail-specific vocabulary
     under our belts.  RoboMail is a sophisticated database system tailored
     exclusively to the needs of electronic mail users.  In the current
     version, the program only manages messages from BBS systems which
     exchange mail via the QWK packet "standard."  RoboMail's base
     architecture is not specific to any one mail standard, however, and the
     system will continue to develop RoboMail so that it can access other
     electronic mail providers and formats in the future.  In this way,
     RoboMail will become an integrating environment for many, if not all,
     of your electronic mail activities.

     Think of RoboMail as an interactive "filter" for the constant stream of
     messages moving back and forth between your computer and the BBS mail
     systems that you call.  Some messages that come through contain
     valuable information that you'll want to keep around for a period of
     time, or indefinitely, while others are of little or no value.  By
     setting up default message management parameters for each of the
     conferences on the mail systems you call, you teach RoboMail how to
     deal with the majority messages that pass through your system.  As you
     read and respond to the messages that come in, RoboMail works in the
     background, constantly maintaining a customized, rotating buffer of the
     information you've seen, ready for review at the touch of a key.

     Over time, your message database will provide you with an extremely
     valuable resource for reviewing past activity while facilitating your
     participation in your conferences.  To accomplish this, the RoboMail
     message management cycle follows four consecutive steps:

         1 - Mail (QWK Packet) Importing
         2 - Reading and Archive Action Assignment
         3 - Processing/Archiving
         4 - Reply (REP Packet) Exporting

     RoboMail's databases are highly efficient and self-maintaining.  By
     setting up the majority of your conferences on a rotating cycle where
     old "aged-out" messages are "recycled" during the Mail Importing
     process, your RoboMail data files will settle in at a certain size over
     time.  Routine maintenance of the files is only needed in special
     circumstances which we will discuss later.

     Because of its database orientation, RoboMail introduces some concepts
     which are unique among QWK mail readers.  The following two sections
     introduce a few of these new concepts.

     Archive Actions
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         To help you most effectively cope with the large amount of messages
         which may flow through your message database, RoboMail provides a
         specific framework for message management.  The central concept of
     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 8


         the message management philosophy is that you must let RoboMail
         know what you want to do with each message you receive.  Usually,
         this will be accomplished by assigning a default "archive action"
         to each message conference you participate in.  However, you are
         free to override the default and assign specific actions on a
         message-by-message basis.

         The assigned Archive Actions for each message are displayed on the
         upper right portion of the message viewing screen.  Three options
         are available:

             AGE         Messages with the "Age" archive action are kept in
                         the system until the message date plus number of
                         age days assigned to the message is earlier than
                         the current system date.  Once a message has "aged
                         out" it becomes a candidate for recycling during
                         the new mail importing process.  By default,
                         RoboMail will assign "Age 7 days" status to all
                         conferences.

             KEEP        Messages with the "Keep" archive action remain in
                         your RoboMail database indefinitely.  They will not
                         be removed unless you specifically tell RoboMail
                         that you want to get rid of them.

             DISCARD     Messages with the "Discard" message class are
                         permanently destroyed when the conference they are
                         in is processed.  The space they occupied in
                         RoboMail's databases is marked for recycling.


     Message Classes
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         RoboMail automatically organizes all the messages in its database
         into "Message Classes." The classes correspond to the columns in
         the system window of RoboMail's main screen, called the "Control
         Panel," which shows the number of messages in each class for each
         of your mail systems.

             RECENT      Messages that have not yet been read, or that have
                         been read, but not yet "processed" into other
                         message classes.  The is the first stop for
                         messages after being imported from an incoming mail
                         packet.  The messages in the "Personal" column of
                         the control panel are a sub-set of Recent messages.

             ARCHIVE     Messages that have been marked with "Keep" or "Age"
                         status and processed out of the Recent message
                         class.  Messages marked with the "Age" archive
                         action will display the number of days beyond the
                         message date that they are to be protected.  After
                         "aging out," a messages may be recycled by RoboMail
                         whenever a new message record is needed.
     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 9


             OUTBOX      Messages you have created which have not yet been
                         exported to the format needed for upload to the
                         BBS.

             CHRON       A "chronological" record of old outbox messages
                         that have previously been exported for upload to
                         the BBS.  Only outgoing messages which were saved
                         with the "Copy to Chron" option turned on will be
                         copied to the CHRON file during export.

             FOLDERS     Contain messages which you want to categorize and
                         keep for future reference.  Any message displayed
                         by RoboMail can be copied into one or more folders.


     ROBOMAIL USER INTERFACE BASICS
     ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀

     Getting Help
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~
         RoboMail offers context-sensitive online help throughout the
         program.  Simply press [F1] whenever you require further
         explanation about the available options or command keys and the
         online help system will provide details.  For help on using the
         help system, press [F1] again while a help screen is displayed.

         The help system also contains a full index of all available topics.
         To see this index, press [F1] while the main "control panel" screen
         is displayed and select "Help Index" from the related topics list
         on the right hand side of the screen.

         RoboMail also offers "Hint Lines" which appear at the bottom of the
         screen to remind you of the most common commands that are
         available.  When you are in the internal editor a large set of
         hints at the bottom of the screen can be toggled on and off with
         the [Alt-H] key.


     Using the Keyboard
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         RoboMail's keyboard interface is consistent throughout the many
         screens you will encounter while using the program.  When data
         entry screens are displayed, use any of the following keys:

             Key              Purpose
             ───────────────  ─────────────────────────────────
             F1               Context Sensitive Help
             [Down] / [Up]    Move to next / previous item
             SpaceBar         Push, Check, or Select item
             Tab / Sh-Tab     Next / previous data element
             <─┘              Go to next element or push button
             Ctrl <─┘         Accept/Save data and continue
             Esc              Abort data entry and back up
     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 10



             Keys
             For Text Fields  Purpose
             ───────────────  ─────────────────────────────────
             Ins              Toggle INSert status
             Del              Delete character on cursor
             BackSpace        Delete character to the left
             Ctrl-BackSpace   Delete word left
             Ctrl-Y           Delete to end of field
             Home / End       Beginning / End of field
             Ctrl <-/->       Previous / Next Word
             F10              Display pick-list (if available)

             ╔═════╗
             ║ TIP ╟───────────────────────────────────────────┐
             ╚═══╤═╝ Use [Ctrl <─┘] as a shortcut to save and  │
                 │   continue on all data entry screens.       │
                 └─────────────────────────────────────────────┘


     Pick Lists
     ~~~~~~~~~~
         Many data entry fields in RoboMail have pop-up pick lists
         available.  To see them, press [F10] while the cursor is positioned
         within the field.  For example, when you are addressing a message,
         you can press [F10] for a pick list at the BBS, CONFERENCE and
         TAGLINE prompts.  You can also get a pick list of appropriate files
         at any prompt that asks for a file name.  Just press [F10] for a
         pop-up directory.


     Using a Mouse
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         RoboMail has full support for your mouse.  Make sure that the
         appropriate MS-Mouse compatible driver is loaded before you start
         RoboMail and a mouse cursor will appear whenever there are options
         which can be selected by the mouse.  Use the left mouse button to
         make selections and the right mouse button to duplicate the
         function of the [ESCape] key, which will back up to preveious
         levels of the user interface.













     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 11


     CUSTOMIZING YOUR ROBOMAIL INSTALLATION
     ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀

     All of RoboMail's user-customizable configuration settings can be
     accessed via the [F2] key.  Simply press [F2] from the main "Control
     Panel" screen or while viewing or editing any message for a menu of
     available configuration options.


     Configuration
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         Select "RoboMail Settings" from the [F2] pop-up menu to access
         RoboMail's main configuration system.  All of the settings in this
         section are grouped on six different screens.  Use your mouse or
         the [PgUp], [PgDn] and arrow keys to position the cursor items you
         wish to change.  When you are satisfied with your changes, select
         the "Save" button or press the [Ctrl-Enter] shortcut key.

         The following is a summary of the options available on these
         screens.  See the online help (Press [F1] to access it) for
         detailed explanations of each item.

         Directories (1)
         ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
             On this screen, RoboMail allows you to specify the:

                 o   Location of incoming mail packets
                 o   Location of outgoing reply packets
                 o   Location for storing file attachments
                 o   Archive extraction work directory

         Utilities (2)
         ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
             ARCHIVE MANIPULATION -- The only third party utilities required
             by RoboMail are used for extracting and creating compressed
             archive files.  When processing incoming mail, RoboMail will
             automatically detect the archive method used by your mail
             systems and call the appropriate utility.  The currently
             supported archiving methods are ZIP, ARJ and LZH.  RoboMail's
             default settings for the most popular versions of these
             utilities will work without modification in the vast majority
             of cases.  The default utilities and configuration settings are:

                 Create ZIP:     PKZIP -+-)3 %T @%S
                 Extract ZIP:    PKUNZIP -+-)3 -o %S %T

                                 NOTE: If you are using a version of PKZIP
                                       or unzip earlier than version 2.x you
                                       should remove the "-+-)3" portion of
                                       these commands.



     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 12


                                 NOTE: If you are sending REPly packets to a
                                       system which is incompatible with
                                       PKZIP 2.x, you should change your
                                       Create ZIP command to:

                                             PKZIP -e0 -+-)3 %T @%S

                 Create ARJ:     ARJ a %T !%S
                 Extract ARJ:    ARJ e -y %S %T

                 Create LZH:     LHA a %T @%S
                 Extract LZH:    LHA x -m %S %T

             At runtime, RoboMail will translate "%T" to the name of the
             "T"arget file being created and "%S" to the name of the
             "S"ource file list of files to be included in the archive.
             Please note that RoboMail uses a target file list method when
             creating archives.  For this reason, the utilities you use must
             be able to select the files to include in the new archive via a
             file list.

             By default, RoboMail will free up 256K of memory for use by the
             archiving utilities.  If you need to modify this, use the
             "Archive Create/Extract RAM" setting on the Utilities
             configuration screen.

             FILE VIEWERS -- Use RoboMail's internal text file viewer, or
             specify an external utility (and the memory it requires). Also,
             specify the archive viewing utility to be used when examining
             attached files in the attachment manager.

             RIP GRAPHICS -- If you will be downloading any messages
             containing RIP graphics, then specify the name of your RIP
             graphics viewing utility in the space provided.  When a message
             containing RIP graphics codes is displayed, you can press the
             "V"iew message key and RoboMail will shell to DOS and call the
             configured utility to display the file.

         Message Settings (3)
         ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
             MESSAGE EDITOR -- Use RoboMail's internal editor or set up your
             own editor for creating and replying to messages.  This section
             also allows you to use RoboMail's internal spell checker when
             returning from your external editor.

             MESSAGE HEADER STYLE -- Select the order the "To" and "From"
             fields appear in message headers.

             QUOTING STYLE -- Determines the method RoboMail will use for
             formatting the text you are replying to in your outgoing
             message.  To use the initials of the person you are replying to
             as your quoting characters, specify "FL>" in the "Quoting
             Characters" option.
     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 13


             TAGLINES -- Specify the system default tagline file as well as
             the method RoboMail will use when selecting taglines for you.

             DEFAULT FORWARDS AS PRIVATE -- Whenever you use the ALT-F key
             to forward a message to another person, RoboMail will normally
             copy the message security from the message being forwarded.  If
             you would like RoboMail to always assign "Private" as the
             default message security when forwarding messages, then enable
             this option.

         Internet Setup (4)
         ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

             INTERNET EMAIL CONFERENCE -- If you have access to an Internet
             Email conference, use the "System ID" and "Conference" options
             to tell RoboMail where your primary Internet Email is.  Once
             you fill in this information, RoboMail will be able to offer
             much more intelligent handling of Internet messages.  You'll be
             given the opportunity to reply privately via Email to Newsgroup
             postings and Internet address grabbing will be automatically
             routed to this conference.

             INCLUDE MESSAGE ID REFERENCE -- Internet Newsgroup messages
             contain message identification numbers which some Unix programs
             use to perform message "threading."  To make sure that your
             message appears in the correct order on these systems, RoboMail
             can include the message id references in any Newsgroup replies
             it creates.  Select this option to enable this feature.  By
             default, it is enabled.

             FORCE HIGH ASCII STRIP IN INTERNET CONFERENCES -- Turn this
             option OFF if you need to be able to include ASCII characters
             above 128 in your outgoing Internet messages.  By default,
             RoboMail will automatically strip out any of these "High ASCII"
             characters.  However, some foreign language sets need high
             ascii characters, so you can disable this option to allow high
             ascii in your messages.  NOTE that when this option is disabled
             the individual conference settings screens will be used to
             control the ascii stripping behavior.

             INTERNET SIGNATURE FILE -- RoboMail has the ability to
             automatically append the contents of a text file to all of your
             outgoing Internet messages.  Many people like to include an
             "Address Block" at the end of their Email messages, so this
             option will do make the process automatic.  When you press F10
             at this prompt, RoboMail will display a pop-up directory of
             files ending in SIG, so you should make sure that you create
             your signature files using a .SIG filename extension.

         Auto-Pilot & Sounds (5)
         ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
             AUTO-PILOT -- RoboMail's Auto-Pilot provides a quick way for
             experienced users to read and process their recent mail.  These
     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 14


             settings allow you to specify the navigation and message
             archiving actions that will be executed whenever you press the
             [.] (period key) while reading messages.

             When using the [.] and [Enter] keys to read mail, you can tell
             RoboMail to automatically issue a Page Down command as you read
             through messages that are longer than one screen by selecting
             either or both of the "Automatic Page Down" check boxes.

             PERSONAL MESSAGE BEEP -- This option allows you to control the
             behavior of RoboMail's audible alarm when a message addressed
             to you is displayed.

             SOUNDS - Provides a quick way for you to limit all the sounds
             that are produced by RoboMail during normal operation.

         Mail Importing (6)
         ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
             NEW FILE LISTS -- This option controls the way RoboMail
             archives the available file lists received with your incoming
             mail packets.

             NUMBER OF PREVIOUSLY IMPORTED QWK FILES TO ARCHIVE -- Use this
             option to specify the number of mail packets that RoboMail will
             keep on your disk after they have been imported into your
             database.  Archived mail packets are kept in your configured
             incoming mail directory.  They are numbered up to the level you
             specify in this option and the first letter of their file
             extension is replaced with a "!" character.

             DEFAULT AGE DAYS FOR NEW SYSTEMS -- Use this option to specify
             the number of "Age Days" that will be assigned to a new system
             when it is first imported into RoboMail.  RoboMail will assign
             this default number to new mail system records as they are
             created.  You will have an opportunity to modify the value for
             the individual systems before the value is assigned to all the
             conference records for the new system.

             MAXIMUM ALLOWABLE BYTES AND LINES -- RoboMail supports messages
             up to 4,000 lines long and 60,000 bytes in length.  These
             maximums are also the default values.  Unless you have specific
             reasons to lower these values, they should not be changed fromt
             heir defaults.  (Note -- if you are using the special version
             of RoboMail which operates in "real" mode, these options should
             be set no higher than 32,000 and 1,000 respectively.)

         System Settings (7)
         ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
             SET VGA 50-LINE MODE AT START-UP -- Select this option if you
             have a VGA compatible video system and you want have RoboMail
             set the video mode to 50 lines when first displaying the
             control panel screen.  Note that you must exit and re-start
             RoboMail for changes to this setting to take effect.
     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 15


             USE VGA INTERFACE -- If you are running in 25-Line mode and
             you'd like RoboMail to modify the VGA character set to display
             fancy radio buttons and check boxes, select this option. Note
             that this option will be automatically disabled if you
             subsequently start RoboMail in OS/2, Windows or DesqView.

             ENABLE EXPLODING WINDOWS -- Res ipsa loquitur.

             DO DBV CLEAN-UP IN THE BACKGROUND --  To speed up operations in
             interactive reading mode, RoboMail has the ability to do some
             of its needed "house keeping" in the background.  This option
             is enabled by default.  De-select this option if you would like
             to disable this feature.  You can tell when RoboMail is doing
             its background processing by looking for a cute little happy
             face character in the upper right corner of the screen.

             ASK ABOUT OUTBOX EXPORT WHEN EXITING ROBOMAIL -- Select this
             check box if you want RoboMail to prompt you to export OutBox
             messages when you quit the program with active messages in your
             OutBox.

             MOUSE OPTIONS -- Are controlled with the mouse settings box.
             Leftys can use this option to swap their function of their
             mouse buttons.  You can also use this option to completely
             disable all mouse operations if you prefer.

             REQUIRE PASSWORD AT START-UP: If you would like RoboMail to
             require a password before entering the program, specify a
             password in the space provided and check the activation box.
             Note that RoboMail will still respond to command line switches
             without the password.  RoboMail will only request the password
             before going into interactive mode.

             PROGRAM SWAPPER -- This option controls the disk subdirectory
             that RoboMail will use when swapping itself out of memory to
             launch other programs.  RoboMail will only use a disk-based
             swap file when there is not enough physical memory to perform
             the swap.  If you have a large enough RAM disk, you can specify
             it here to make the swap process as fast as possible.


     Mail System Settings
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         Each mail system that you read mail from has its own settings
         screen in RoboMail.  To access the screen, highlight the system ID
         on the control panel screen and press [Enter], or select the
         "System Settings" options from the [F2] configuration pop-up menu.

         The mail door configuration settings control offline conference
         configuration requests.  If an imported mail packet contains a
         complete DOOR.ID file, RoboMail will be able to fill in many of
         the options on this screen automatically.  If not, you will need to
         fill them in or press the "Driver" button to pick the correct mail
     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 16


         door configuration driver for the system.

         The YOUR NAME, SYSOP NAME, LOCATION and PHONE NUMBER fields on this
         screen are extracted from the incoming mail packets and are not
         editable.

         The DOOR, VERSION, and SYSTEM fields are informational only and
         serve no functional use in RoboMail.  The CONTROL NAME field should
         be filled in with the name to which offline configuration messages
         should be addressed.  The ADD, DROP and RESET fields should be
         filled in with the correct keywords for selecting, abandoning and
         resetting conferences.

         The CONFIG SUBJECT field should only be filled in if the mail
         service supports multiple configuration requests in a single
         message.  The information you enter in this field will be used as
         the message subject when making a multi-part offline configuration
         request.

         Check the MIXED CASE SUBJECTS ALLOWED box if you want RoboMail to
         allow mixed case message subjects in outgoing messages to this BBS.

         Check the FORCE HIGH ASCII STRIP (FIDO MODE) box to set the default
         option for individual conferences on this mail system.  If this BBS
         requires that all messages contain low order ASCII characters only,
         you should activate this option.

         The SPLIT REPLIES AT XXX LINES options allow you to control the way
         RoboMail handles long outgoing messages to this mail system.  If
         you enable this ability, long OutBox messages will be split into
         multiple parts during the export process.  Many BBS systems limit
         the allowable length of posted messages, so you should make sure
         that this option matches the requirements of the mail system.

         The CONF DEFAULT radio buttons control the default archive option
         that will be assigned to all conferences on the mail system as they
         are scanned into RoboMail.  The default is to Age messages 7 days
         before recycling.  You should adjust the age days option to suit
         your needs.  Make sure you are certain if you decide to assign
         "Keep" status as the default.  You'll be surprised how quickly
         large databases of messages can accumulate.

         The CHRON ACTION radio buttons control the action that will be
         assigned to outgoing messages that have "Copy to Chron" status as
         they are added to your chron file.  The default is to Age your
         outgoing messages for 7 days in the chron before they are available
         for recycling.  Set the age option to the length of time you want
         to maintain your messages in the chron.

         The RECEIPTS radio button indicates the type of "Receipt Request"
         notifications that are available on the BBS.  RoboMail will
         automatically detect and allow receipt requests in conferences
         which are using the PostLink networking system.  If the mail system
     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 17


         also allows local receipt requests using the RRR prefix in the
         message subject, select the appropriate radio button to indicate
         this capability to RoboMail.

         If Wildcat/Tomcat style file attachments are allowed on the mail
         service, then select the TOMCAT STYLE radio button to inform
         RoboMail of this capability.


     Conference Settings
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         This setup screen allows you to set all options that are specific
         to the individual conferences on the mail systems you call.  You
         can access it in a variety of ways:

             ■   By pressing [F2] while reading messages and selecting the
                 "Conference Settings" menu item.

             ■   By highlighting a conference in any conference
                 listing and pressing [F2].

             ■   By highlighting a conference on the [F8] Conference
                 Management screen and pressing  [F2].

         Use the ALTERNATE TAGLINE FILE field to specify the name of a
         special tagline file that you want to use for taglines when
         creating mail in this conference.  This field is optional.

         If you use an alias name in the conference, enter the name in the
         YOUR ALIAS IN THIS CONFERENCE field.  If this field is filled in,
         RoboMail will default to the alias name whenever you Reply or
         Compose messages in this conference.  This field is optional.

         The AUTOMATIC ROUTING check box controls Robomail's behavior when
         sending private mail in PostLink managed echo mail conferences.
         With this option selected, RoboMail will automatically attempt to
         route any message sent with Private security.

         Selecting the INTERNET CONFERENCE check box will cause RoboMail to
         scan messages you reply to for the internet mail address of the
         sender.  When you address the message, the internet address of the
         sender will appear in the routing address field.  Note that this
         does not automatically force or set routing.  You must still select
         the "Route To" check box on the message addressing dialog box for
         Internet "To:" style routing.

         Selecting the MESSAGES TO ALL IN PERSONAL check box will add all
         conference messages addressed to ALL to the mail system's Personal
         column on the control panel.  Note that this occurs only during
         message importing, so checking this box will not retroactively
         assign personal status to messages which have already been
         imported.

     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 18


         The COPY REPLIES TO CHRON FILE check box controls the default
         status of the "Copy to Chron" option on the message addressing
         screen.  If you would like your outgoing messages copied into the
         Chron File during export, then you should make sure that this
         option is selected.  Note that you always have the option of
         controlling this behavior individually for each outgoing message.

         Select DISPLAY ANSI AUTOMATICALLY if you would like messages in
         this conference which start with the [ANSIART] or [ANSI50] markers
         to be displayed automatically.

         Select PLAY ANSI MUSIC if you would like any ANSI music contained
         in displayed ANSI messages to be played.  Please note that the
         sound settings on the "Pilot & Sound Setup" configuration screen
         must also be turned on for music to be played.

         The DEFAULT ACTION radio buttons control the default "Archive
         Action" that will be assigned to recent messages in this conference
         whenever you press one of the action assigning keys on the message
         view screen.  Select Age, Keep, or Discard to have a default action
         assigned or None if you want to explicitly set the archiving action
         for every recent message imported into this conference.

         Quick Conference Setup
         ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
             Whenever RoboMail is displaying a pop-up listing of
             conferences, you can make very quick adjustments to the various
             conferences' default archiving action and age days.  To do this,
             highlight the conference you would like to change and press any
             of the following keys:

                 [Alt-A]     Set default archive action to "Age"
                 [Alt-K]     Set default archive action to "Keep"
                 [Alt-D]     Set default archive action to "Discard"
                 [F9]        Decrease the conference's Age Days by 1 day
                 [F10]       Increase the conference's Age Days by 1 day


     Customizing Screen Colors
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         Press [F2] at the control panel screen and select "Screen Display
         Colors" to access the color definition screen.  You can use this
         screen to control the screen color scheme used by RoboMail.  To do
         this, use the [+] and [-] keys or mouse to select the color that
         you would like to change (indicated between the ">" and "<"
         characters on the screen) and use the arrow keys or mouse to move
         the small color selection box so that it surrounds the color that
         you would like to set.  When the desired color is selected, press
         [Enter] to confirm the color selection.

         On color systems, you can toggle between blinking foreground and
         high intensity backgrounds by pressing [Alt-B].

     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 19


         If you decide that you don't like the changes you have made, use
         [Alt-D] to set the colors back to RoboMail's defaults for your
         monitor type.

         Use [Alt-S] to save your color selections so they will be loaded
         each time you start RoboMail.  The color definitions are stored in
         a file named ROBOMAIL.CLR in the RoboMail home directory.

         If you made changes to the color scheme that you don't like, press
         [Esc] and the colors that were active before you entered the color
         definition screen will be restored.


     IMPORTING MESSAGE PACKETS
     ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀

     RoboMail stores all of your mail in its own format, so the mail packets
     you download from a BBS or other mail system are useful only as a
     convenient means to transport the mail files.  To make mail importing as
     simple as possible, you should configure your communications program to
     place downloaded mail packets into the directory you have specified in
     the "Location of Incoming Mail Packets"  configuration option on
     RoboMail "Directories" configuration screen.

     Interactive Processing
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         To import individual mail packets into RoboMail's message
         database system, highlight a mail packet in the "Incoming Mail"
         window on RoboMail's main control panel screen and press
         [Enter].  RoboMail will extract the compressed files from the
         packet and read them into its database.  If the mail packet you
         selected is from a mail system that RoboMail has not
         encountered before, you will be prompted to fill in the default
         values for the new mail system.  These system default values will
         be used when the individual conference records for the system are
         created.  See the online help system for specific information on
         the options available on this screen.

         To import multiple packets in one step, use the space bar to "tag"
         the mail packets you want to import, then highlight one of the
         tagged systems and press [Enter].


     Command Line Processing
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         To import all the mail packets in your incoming mail directory
         automatically, start RoboMail like this:

             ROBOMAIL /I

         Using this command, however, assumes that you will be on hand to
         monitor the mail importing process.  If this is not the case and
         you want to be sure that RoboMail will not stop for user input
     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 20


         under any circumstances, start RoboMail like this:

             ROBOMAIL /I /Q

         The "/Q" switch tells RoboMail that it should Quit to DOS after
         completing requested processing.

         If there are multiple packets in your incoming mail directory, and
         you only want to import one specific packet, place the name of the
         packet after the "/I" switch. for example, to import a specific
         mail packet from Grope One BBS in unattended mode, logging the
         results to a ROBOMAIL.LOG file, you would use the command:

             ROBOMAIL /iGROUPONE.QWK /q /l


     Automatic Packet Archiving
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         By default, RoboMail will automatically keep a copy of the most
         recently imported mail packet from a system in your incoming mail
         directory.  It does this by changing the "Q" in the packet name
         extension to a "!" character.  Since RoboMail's "Incoming Mail"
         window only displays files that have an extension beginning with
         "Q", these archived mail packets will not be shown in the window.
         If you decide that you need to re-import a mail packet that has
         been archived, simply change the name so that it starts with a "Q"
         and import it normally.

         The "." entry in the Incoming Mail window can be used to refresh
         the display of the current directory.  Use this option whenever
         displayed the Incoming Mail directory gets out of sync with the
         actual contents of the directory.  This can happen if you copy or
         remove files form the incoming directory while in a RoboMail DOS
         shell, or when another process running in a multi-tasking operating
         system updates the files in the directory.

         While the default is 1 packet, RoboMail will allow you to specify
         that up to 9 previously imported packets should be automatically
         archived.  Use the "Number of Previously Imported Packets" setting
         on the "Mail Importing" configuration screen to control this
         option.


     Filtering Incoming Mail
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         RoboMail allows you to set up a "Global Filter List"  (also known
         as a "twit list") that will be checked whenever it is importing
         mail packets.  Messages written by individuals listed in your
         filter list will not be imported into RoboMail's message database.
         You can edit this list by selecting the "Edit Import Filters"
         option from the control panel menu, or by pressing [F] while the
         control panel is displayed.

     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 21


     The IMPORT.LOG File
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         Whenever RoboMail imports a mail packet, it adds a summary line to
         the IMPORT.LOG file in its home directory.  You can use this
         information as you see fit.  For example. to monitor RoboMail's
         import performance or to analyze the source of your messages. The
         file is created with one record per line, in comma-delimited
         format.  it is suitable for import into any program which can
         accept comma-delimited data, such as spreadsheets and database
         managers.

         Here's a dissection of a sample log line:

             BCS,01/12/92,22:19:22,53,29.44,0,53,0,0,2644,1.80
             |      |        |     |   |    |  | | | |    |
             A      B        C     D   E    F  G H I J    K

             A - Mail System ID
             B - Import Date
             C - Import Time
             D - Total number of messages in the message packet
             E - Number of seconds required to import messages
             F - Number of new message records added
             G - Number of trash message records recycled
             H - Number of aged-out messages recycled
             I - Number of filtered messages not added
             J - Total messages in base
             K - Messages per second imported (D÷E)


     EXPORTING OUTBOX MESSAGES
     ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀

     All outgoing messages that you create with RoboMail are stored in the
     "OutBox" column of the control panel screen.  When you are ready to
     send your outgoing mail, you must export it to a "reply packet," which
     your communications program (Robocomm, right?) will then upload to the
     mail system.

     In addition to a number, two special letters may appear in your OutBox
     display.  An "R" indicates that RoboMail has detected a reply packet
     for this mail system in your outgoing mail directory, and a "C"
     indicates that there are pending configuration requests (such as
     conference add and drop commands) for the mail system which have not
     yet been included in your reply packet.

     You do not need to worry if there is already an outgoing reply packet
     when you are exporting mail.  If one already exists, RoboMail will
     simply open it up and add your newly exported mail to it.

     NOTE: It is your responsibility to DELETE the REPly packet after
     uploading it to a BBS.  RoboMail has no way of knowing if a REP packet
     has been sent, so it will continue adding new outgoing messages to any
     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 22


     pre-existing REPly packet as it exports.  To delete a REPly packet from
     within RoboMail, highlight an OutBox cell containing an "R" and press
     the [Del] key.

     Interactive Processing
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         To export OutBox items to a reply packet while in interactive mode,
         place the highlight bar on the mail system to export and press the
         [X] key.

         If you have the "Export Query on Exit" configuration option
         selected, RoboMail will also check your OutBoxes whenever you quit
         the program and will ask for permission to export all outgoing mail
         before returning to DOS.


     Command Line Processing
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         You can also export the OutBox messages for one or more systems
         with the "/E" command line switch.  To export all OutBox message in
         your system and immediately return to DOS with no user input, use
         the command:

             ROBOMAIL /e /q

         To export OutBox messages for one specific mail system, place the
         mail ID of the system after the "/e" switch.  For example to export
         Group One BBS mail only, you could use the command:

             ROBOMAIL /eGROUPONE /q


     Recalling Exported Replies
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         If you export mail in error or would like to re-edit or delete an
         exported message currently residing in an outgoing REPly packet,
         place the control panel highlight bar on the row for the desired
         mail system and press the [R] key.  RoboMail will prompt for
         permission before recalling the replies from the packet.

         To avoid possible duplication in your "Chron File" of previously
         exported messages, RoboMail will not set the "Copy to Chron" status
         of messages that are recalled from reply packets.  If you make
         changes to a recalled message and want those changes reflected in
         your Chron File, then make sure to set the "Copy to Chron" status
         of the message after editing it.







     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 23


     READING AND PROCESSING IMPORTED DATA
     ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀

     After RoboMail has imported your mail packets, the top half of the
     control panel screen will contain an overview of the contents of your
     RoboMail system.  The display contains one row for each mail system you
     have imported mail from, and a series of columns, which break out the
     type of information available.

     News, Welcome and Goodbye Screens
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         If the mail packets you import contain copies of the informational
         screens presented by the BBS, RoboMail will place a colored bullet
         point in the "N"ews, "W"elcome and "G"oodbye columns to indicate
         which screens are available for viewing.  To view the associated
         screen, simply place the control panel highlight bar over the
         desired bullet point and press [Enter].  Depending upon the
         contents of the screen, RoboMail will use your configured text file
         viewer or it's internal ANSI color routines to display the
         contents of the file.

         Under RoboMail's default color scheme (which you are free to
         customize) a green bullet point is used to indicate a screen you
         have not viewed since it was imported and a red bullet indicates a
         screen you have previously viewed.

         To delete a screen, highlight the desired bullet point and press
         the [DELete] key.


     New File Listings
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         If you have set up the BBS to send a listing of newly available
         files inside your mail packets, RoboMail will copy this listing into
         your RoboMail home directory using <BBSID>T for the file name.
         The "Mail Importing" configuration screen gives three options for
         how the file listing will be copied:

             ■  Insert New Data at Beginning of List
             ■  Append New Data to End of List
             ■  Replace Existing List

         Whenever new file information is available, RoboMail will display a
         green (by default) bullet point in the "F"iles column of the
         control panel.  Select the bullet point with the control panel
         highlight bar and press [Enter] to view the <BBSID> LST file.

         The configuration screen also has a "Do Not Store New File Lists"
         option which you can select if you do not want RoboMail to deal
         with the file lists at all.



     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 24


     Bulletins
     ~~~~~~~~~
         RoboMail maintains a database of all the bulletins sent to you by a
         mail system.  The counter in the "Bltn" column of the control panel
         displays the number of bulletins available for each of your mail
         systems.  By default, a green number indicates that there are some
         updated bulletins that you have not yet reviewed and a red number
         indicates that there are no unread bulletins on file.

         To display a pop-up menu of the available bulletins, highlight the
         desired number and press [Enter].  RoboMail will display a list.
         Any bulletins which are new or updated since the last time you read
         them will be marked with a "*" character.  Simply highlight the
         bulletin you want to read and press [Enter] to display it.

         Since the current "standard" for mail packets does not include the
         name of bulletins, RoboMail is unable to give you an intelligent
         title for the bulletins it keeps on file.  However, by highlighting
         one of the temporary descriptions that RoboMail assigns and
         pressing the [Alt-E] edit key, you can assign whatever title you
         like to the bulletin.  RoboMail will maintain this title through
         subsequent mail imports and you'll have something more
         comprehensible to look at when viewing the bulletin list.

         To delete an individual bulletin, bring up the pop-up list of
         bulletins, highlight the desired line and press the [DELete] key.
         After clearing the bulletin from its database, RoboMail will ask if
         you would like to block future importing of the bulletin.  If so,
         answer yes to the question and RoboMail will not import future
         revisions when they are sent by the mail system.


     Recent Messages
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         All newly imported mail shows up in the "Recent" column of the
         control panel.  This column is the starting point for mail as it
         travels through your RoboMail system.  The number of recent
         messages is displayed as a fraction, with the total number of
         recent messages in the denominator and the number of unread recent
         messages in the numerator.  For example, a recent message entry
         of "113/372" indicates that there are 372 recent messages for the
         mail system, of which 113 have not yet been read.

         To read recent messages, highlight the desired cell in the control
         panel's "Recent" column and press [Enter].  RoboMail will display a
         pop-up listing of the conferences that contain recent messages.
         Select a conference from the list and press [Enter] to begin
         viewing messages.  See the "MESSAGE NAVIGATION" section of this
         guide for further instructions on how to move among the messages in
         your RoboMail database.

         Finding the First Unread Recent Message
         ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 25


             To quickly find the first unread message for a mail system,
             place the control panel selection bar in the recent or personal
             column and press the auto-pilot (period [.]) key.  RoboMail
             will quickly search through all conferences with recent
             messages and display the first message it finds that you have
             not yet seen.

         Automatic Bookmarks
         ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
             RoboMail maintains an automatic bookmark for each conference
             with recent messages.  If you leave a conference containing
             recent messages that have not yet been processed, RoboMail will
             remember the message that you were on and automatically
             position you on the bookmarked message the next time you enter
             the conference.  This makes it easier to move between
             conferences on a mail system without fear of loosing your
             place.  These bookmarks are stored between sessions.  They are
             cleared whenever all recent messages in a conference have been
             processed out, or when you import new messages into the
             conference, or when you "pack" the RoboMail databases.


     Personal Messages
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         The "Personal" column on the control panel screen displays the
         number of recent messages on each mail system which are addressed
         to you.  This number represents a sub-set of the messages in the
         "Recent" message class.  In other words, all of your personal
         messages can also be viewed as part of your recent messages.  The
         personal message column simply provides you with a easy way to view
         only those recent messages which are addressed to you.

         Messages to ALL in Personal
         ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
             RoboMail also provides a simple way to force messages within
             specific conferences that are addressed to ALL into your
             personal messages.  To do this, select the "Messages to ALL in
             Personal" check box on the individual conference configuration
             screens.  The default for this option is always OFF.  Please
             note that because the personal status of a message is
             determined during the import process, setting this option ON
             doesn't move messages which are already in your database into
             the personal message column.


     Snoop Mode
     ~~~~~~~~~~
         For times when you want to look around through your recent messages
         without effecting the "read" status of the messages you view,
         toggle "Snoop Mode" ON by pressing [S] while viewing the control
         panel or [Alt-N] while viewing messages.  You can tell if snoop
         mode is active by looking at the status information on the bottom
         row of the message viewing screen.
     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 26



     OutBox, Archive and Chron Messages
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         To view messages indicated in the OutBox, Archive and Chron columns
         of the control panel, move the cursor to the row and column of the
         control panel that corresponds to the messages you would like to
         view and press [Enter].  RoboMail will display a pop-up listing of
         the active conferences for the selected system in your selected
         message class.  Highlight the conference that you would like
         to begin reading and press [Enter] to begin reading the messages.

     Multi-Part Messages
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         During import, RoboMail may split messages which exceed 32K in
         length into multiple parts.  When it does this, the right side of
         the subject of the message will contain a number indicating the
         message number within the split message sequence and the bottom of
         the message will say "Continued in the next message...".  To view
         the message in its entirety, simply go to the first message in the
         sequence and press the [V] key.  For convenience, the
         complete message will remain on your disk in a MESSAGE.TXT file
         after viewing.  You can shell to DOS with the [F7] key to access
         it.  This will be very helpful on very long UUENCODED messages, for
         example.

         NOTE: Several mail reading utilities are compatible with the
         message splitting system used by RoboMail.  You will be able to use
         the "V" key to reassemble multi-part messages from any person using
         one of these products.  You can tell when a message was split using
         this method because a small dot "·" will appear on a line by itself
         before the line indicating that the message continues.

     Wide Messages
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         Because RoboMail's main message viewing screen does not pan to the
         right, you need to press the [V] key to view any part of a message
         that extends beyond the right edge of the screen.When you press the
         [V] key, RoboMail copies the message to a MESSAGE.TXT file and
         calls the configured file viewer to read the message.  Once
         in the file viewer, you can use the right arrow key to pan the
         display to the right and view the previously hidden text.

     ANSI Art and Music
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         RoboMail fully supports ANSI art and ANSI music.  Because RoboMail
         does not play ANSI music in background mode, ANSI music paced
         animation is also fully supported.

         Messages which begin with "[ANSIART]" on the first line of the
         message will be displayed automatically if you have the "Display
         ANSI automatically" check box set on the conference or folder
         settings screen.  Messages which begin with "[ANSI50]" will be
         displayed in VGA 50-Line mode if you have a VGA compatible video
     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 27


         adapter installed in your computer

         Messages which contain "[NONSTOP]" will be displayed without a
         pause at the bottom of each screen of information.

         Messages which contain "[NOBLINK]" will display with high-intensity
         background colors.

         Note that the [ANSIART] and [ANSI50] character sequences must be
         the first characters contained in a message to cause their desired
         effect, but [NONSTOP] and [NOBLINK] may be contained anywhere
         within the message.  ANSI music will only be played if the "Play
         ANSI music" option is selected on conference or folder settings
         screen.  To view/hear an ANSI message which does not display
         automatically, press [V] while the message is displayed on your
         screen.


     File Attachments
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         RoboMail supports file attachments from BBS systems which use the
         file attachment system first introduced in Mustang Software's
         Tomcat mail door.  PCBoard 15 style file attachments are also
         supported.  When RoboMail imports mail packets containing file
         attachments, it moves the attached file into your configured file
         attachment subdirectory and indicates the attached file with the
         word ATTACHMENT in the on-screen message header.

         To examine the file attached to a message, press the file
         attachment hot key, [F6], while a message with the word ATTACHMENT
         in its header is being displayed.  When you do this, a small
         "Attchment Options" window showing the name of the attached file as
         well as some file manipulation commands will be displayed:

                             ┌────────────────────┐
                             │ File: ROBO-PR.TXT  │
                             ├────────────────────┤
                             │ Copy File          │
                             │ Move File          │
                             │ Delete File        │
                             │ Edit File          │
                             │ List File          │
                             │ View Archive       │
                             │ Attachment Manager │
                             └────────────────────┘

         ■   Select COPY FILE to copy the attachment to another location on
             your system while still maintaining the original file
             attachment in RoboMail.

         ■   Select MOVE FILE to remove the attachment from RoboMail and
             place it in another location on your system.

     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 28


         ■   Select DELETE FILE to permanently remove the file attachment
             from RoboMail.

         ■   Select EDIT FILE to load the file into your configured
             external editor for editing.

         ■   Select LIST FILE to display the file to the screen using your
             configured file viewing utility.

         ■   Select VIEW ARCHIVE to display the contents of a compressed
             file using your configured archive viewing utility.

         ■   Select ATTACHMENT MANAGER to look up the current attachment on
             the attachment manager screen.

         Using the Attachment Manager
         ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
             The attachment manager screen provides an overview of all files
             that are currently attached to the active messages in your
             RoboMail system.  To access it, press [F6] from the control
             panel screen, or select "Attachment Manager" from the [F6]
             attachment options pop-up screen.  All of the file viewing and
             manipulation commands described above are also available here.

             In addition, you can also make notes about individual file
             attachments by highlighting the attachment and pressing
             [Alt-N].  If a file's notes extend beyond the borders of the
             attachment manager window, use the [+] and [-] keys to scroll
             the data.


     The Quit and Resume Bookmark
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         Whenever you are reading any message in the system, you always have
         a quick escape hatch to quit to DOS.  Just press [Alt-X] and
         RoboMail will quit to DOS with an auto-resume bookmark.  The next
         time you start the program, RoboMail will ask if you would like to
         resume your previous reading session.  Answer yes if you would like
         to jump immediately to the message you were viewing when you
         pressed [Alt-X].


     Message Processing
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         Once you have read your mail and told RoboMail what you want to
         do with it, you are ready to finalize the message management cycle.
         "Processing" is the final step in the message reading process,
         during which RoboMail examines and acts upon the archive actions
         you assigned to messages while reading.

         There are a variety of ways to initiate message processing.  The
         Assisted Reading mode will automatically prompt you about processing
         when you reach the end of a conference, and the Auto-Pilot can be
     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 29


         set up to automatically process the messages in a conference before
         moving on.  In addition, you can always perform a manual process of
         the current conference by pressing the [F5] key while reading mail,
         or you can process larger sets of messages by pressing [F5] from
         the control panel screen.

         Depending upon the type and scope of messages you choose to
         process, either of the following actions may occur:

             o   Messages marked with "Discard" status are permanently
                 deleted, and the disk space they consumed is freed up for
                 new incoming messages. Such messages are in the "trash."

             o   Recent messages marked with "Keep" or "Age" archive actions
                 are moved into the Archive message class.

         The key concept to keep in mind here is that message management in
         RoboMail is a two step process.  Simply assigning archive action
         does not effect the message until you process it.  Only during
         processing does a message move between the Recent and Archive
         message classes.  For example, if you set the archive option on one
         or more messages in the Archive message class to Discard status,
         the message will not be removed until you process the archived
         messages with the [F5] key.

         For those of you who are so inclined, the following diagram shows
         the general flow of messages through RoboMail.  If this kind of
         thing gives you a headache, by all means, feel free to ignore it!

                                    ╔════════╗
         ┌───────────//─────────────╢ B.B.S. ║<─────────────────────────┐
         │                          ╚════════╝                          │
         │                                                              │
         │              ╔══<Recycling<═════════════<══════════════════╗ │
         │              ║                          ║                  ║ │
         │              ║             ╔═════════╗  ║      ╔═══════╗   ║ │
         │              ║  ┌─────────>║ ARCHIVE ╠>═╝      ║       ║   ║ │
         │              ║  │          ╚════╤════╝  ┌─────>║ TRASH ╠>══╣ │
         │              v  │ ┌─────────────│─────────────>║       ║   ║ │
         │  ╔═════╗   ╔════╧═╧═╗      ╔════╧════╗  │  ┌──>║       ║   ║ │
         └─>║ QWK ╟──>║ RECENT ╟──>──>║ OUTBOX  ╟─────┤   ╚═══════╝   ║ │
            ╚═════╝   ╚═╤══════╝  │   ╚════╤════╝  │  │   ╔═══════╗   ║ │
                        │  ╔══════╧══╗     │       │  └──>║ CHRON ╠>══╝ │
                        └─>║ FOLDERS ╟─────│───────┘      ╚═══════╝     │
                           ╚═════════╝     │           ╔═════╗          │
                                           └──────────>║ REP ╟──────//──┘
                                                       ╚═════╝






     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 30


     MESSAGE NAVIGATION
     ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀

     RoboMail's main message reading screen allows you a great deal of
     freedom to choose the way you want to read your mail.  A wide variety
     of commands are available for skipping through the messages, assigning
     archive actions, jumping to other message classes, sorting, querying,
     tagging, printing and filing.  In fact, there are functions attached to
     nearly every key on the keyboard.

     While this flexibility may seem daunting at first, RoboMail accommodates
     both experts and novices simultaneously by providing several methods
     for automating nearly all of the common reading functions.  In this
     section, we'll begin our discussion of mail reading with the Assisted
     and Auto-Pilot reading modes, then examine the other specialized
     functions in detail.

     Assisted Reading Mode
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         By far the easiest method for reading recent messages in RoboMail
         is the assisted reading mode, which is activated by pressing the
         [Enter] key.  Most people will find this the most convenient and
         efficient way to handle their day-to-day message reading.
         Here's how the assisted reading mode works:

         Whenever you are reading recently imported messages and call up the
         assistant by pressing [Enter], RoboMail will perform the following
         steps:

             1   The conference default archive action will be assigned to
                 the message if it does not already have an action assigned.

             2   RoboMail will attempt to move to the next message in the
                 current conference.  If one is found, it will be displayed.

             3   If you have reached the end of the current conference, a
                 menu will be displayed offering you a variety of options:

                 ■   Re-read this conference
                 ■   Move on to the next conference
                 ■   Process recent messages in this conference and move on
                 ■   Process recent messages in this conference and eXit
                 ■   Exit back to the control panel without processing
                 ■   Set an auto-resume bookmark and quit to DOS

                 If you have reached the last recent message for the current
                 mail system, RoboMail will display the following menu:

                 ■   Re-read recent messages from this system
                 ■   Move on to the next system with recent messages
                 ■   Process recent messages on <system> before moving on
                 ■   Process recent messages on <system> and eXit
                 ■   Exit back to the control panel without processing
     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 31


                 ■   Set an auto-resume bookmark and quit to DOS

                 If you have reached the last available recent message for
                 any system, RoboMail will display the following menu:

                 ■   Re-read recent messages
                 ■   Exit back to the control panel
                 ■   Process <system> messages and eXit to control panel
                 ■   Set an auto-resume bookmark and quit to DOS

         The assisted reading mode always remembers the option you choose
         for each of these menus and will use that option as the default
         each time the menu is displayed.  This allows you to further tailor
         RoboMail's behavior to suit your reading preferences.  Starting
         from the first available recent message on the first system on the
         control panel and using the default responses to each of the
         assistant menus will move you systematically though all of your
         recent messages.  When you finally return to the control panel
         after having read all of your mail, you will find that it has all
         been processed and moved into the trash or archive as appropriate.

             ╔═════╗
             ║ TIP ╟──────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
             ╚═══╤═╝ Use the [Enter] key on your numeric keypad to    │
                 │ activate assisted reading mode.  If you place the  │
                 │ middle finger of your right hand on the upper part │
                 │ of the enter key, your index finger will naturally │
                 │ fall over the [PgDn] key.  This will enable you to │
                 │ quickly page through messages and move to the next │
                 │ message without having to move your hand all over  │
                 │ the keyboard.                                      │
                 └────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

         Overriding Archive Assignment
         ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
             As discussed above, the assisted reading mode always assigns
             the conference default archiving method to messages as you read
             them.  However, there will frequently be times when you will
             want to override this.  For example, if you want to leave a
             message in the Recent message class so you can come back to it
             later.  In these cases, press [Ctrl+Enter] to activate the
             assisted reading mode without marking the currently displayed
             message with the conference default.

             If you want to assign a different archive action to the
             message, just press the [A] (Age), [K] (Keep) or [D] (Discard)
             key before pressing [Enter] to activate assisted reading mode.
             RoboMail will not fill in an archive action if one is already
             assigned.




     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 32


     Using the Auto-Pilot
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         RoboMail's auto-pilot, which is activated by pressing the period
         [.] key while reading messages. is similar to the assisted reading
         mode, but does not display any pop-up menus at the end of
         conferences.  In addition, the auto-pilot never moves to the next
         mail system automatically. The auto-pilot's behavior is
         configurable and is controlled on the "Auto-Pilot & Sounds"
         configuration screen, where you will find a section with the
         following options:

             (*) Move to next unread message
             ( ) Move to next message

             (*) Assign conference default archive option
             ( ) Do not assign an archiving option

             (*) Move to next conference automatically
             ( ) Stay in selected conference

             (*) Process conference message before leaving
             ( ) Do not process conference messages

         The default values for these options are indicated above.
         Experienced users may find the auto-pilot to be the most convenient
         way to quickly handle the recent messages for a specific system.
         Start by highlighting a cell in the Recent or Personal columns of
         the control panel and pressing the period key to find the first
         unread recent message.  From there, simply press the period key
         again whenever you are ready to move to the next message, and
         RoboMail will automatically handle all the navigation and
         housekeeping chores for you.

             ╔═════╗
             ║ TIP ╟──────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
             ╚═══╤═╝ Auto-pilot users should be aware that the [>]    │
                 │ key duplicates the functionality of the [PgDn]     │
                 │ key.  This enables you to rest your right index    │
                 │ finger on the [.] key and work the left shift key  │
                 │ if you want to see the next page of the currently  │
                 │ displayed message.                                 │
                 └────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

     Manual Navigation
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         For the times when neither the assisted reading or auto-pilot modes
         will serve your needs, RoboMail offers a variety of commands for
         moving among and assigning archive actions to your messages.

         Moving Forward and Back
         ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
             Use the left and right arrow keys when you want to move between
             messages without assigning an archiving action to the currently
     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 33


             displayed message.  If you do want to assign the conference
             default action to the currently displayed message before
             moving, use the [+] and [-] keys.  Note that the default action
             is only assigned to messages that had no action assigned
             previously.

             To jump to the first message in the current conference, use the
             [Ctrl Home] key.  To jump to the last message in the current
             conference, use the [Ctrl End] key.

         Finding Unread Messages
         ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
             To search for an unread message in the current conference,
             press the [U] key.  Make sure "snoop mode" is off if you want
             the message to be marked as read after you've read it.  To find
             the first unread message for a system, use the [.] key from the
             control panel screen.

         Thread Movement
         ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
             The term "message thread" is a bit of arcane terminology
             inherited from old fashioned online mail systems. It refers
             to an ongoing conversation on a specific topic among
             individuals in an electronic medium.  In RoboMail, all messages
             within a conference which share the same subject text
             (character case is not significant) are considered to be part
             of the same conversation, or thread.  Since the default sorting
             method within a conference is by message subject (the secondary
             key is message number), all messages which belong to the same
             thread are grouped together.  This makes it easy to follow a
             specific conversation within a conference.

             To move between threads within a conference, use the [Ctrl] key
             with the left and right arrows.  [Ctrl ->] will jump to the
             first message in the next thread and [Ctrl <-] will move to the
             first message in the previous thread.

             You can also assign the conference default archive action to
             all the unassigned members of a thread before moving on.  To do
             this, press [*] to assign the default action and move to the
             beginning of the next thread, or [/] to assign the default
             action and move to the beginning of the previous thread.

             RoboMail also provides a way to quickly skip the current thread
             and simultaneously mark it for Discarding.  To do this, press
             the [Del] key.  When you do, all messages in the current thread
             which do not have an action assigned will get "Discard" status
             and RoboMail will jump to the beginning of the next thread.
             This command is very useful when previously meaningful threads
             degenerate into idle chit-chat or when you are no longer
             interested in the topic.  Just one press of the [Del] key
             assures that the meaningless messages will not become a
             permanent part of your message database.
     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 34


         Moving Between Conferences
         ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
             RoboMail allows you to move between the various conferences on
             a system without returning to the control panel.  Use the [Tab]
             key whenever you want to immediately jump to the next
             conference and [Shift Tab] whenever you want to jump to the
             previous conference.  You can also select from a list of
             available conference by pressing the "conference directory"
             [F9] key while viewing messages.

         Processing Before Moving
         ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
             When you are reading Recent messages, you will usually want to
             "Process" the messages in the conference that have archive
             actions assigned to them before you move on to the next
             conference.  To do this, use the "process messages" key, [F5].
             Whenever you press this key, RoboMail will search the current
             conference for messages which have archive actions assigned and
             will move them into the trash or archive, as appropriate.
             After this process is completed, you will automatically be
             moved on to the next available conference.  If no more
             conferences are available, RoboMail will be return to the
             control panel.

             Note that if you are using the [Enter] (assisted reading) or
             [.] (auto-pilot) keys to read mail you do not need to use [F5]
             to process messages.  When using these keys, the archiving
             process will be done for you automatically before you move to
             the next conference.


     Manual Archive Action Assignment
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         In instances where you don't want to rely on a default archive
         action for a conference, you can select "None" as the default
         action for the conference. (Use the [F2] conference settings screen
         to do this) When you do this, RoboMail will not automatically
         assign an archive action when you use the [Enter], [.], [+], [-],
         [*], or [/] keys.

         To move through the Recent messages in such a conference, you will
         probably find it very useful to use the manual assignment [a], [k]
         and [d] keys.  These lowercase keys override whatever action may be
         currently assigned to a message with "A"ge, "K"eep or "D"iscard
         status, before moving to the next message in the conference.  To
         manually assign an archive action to the current message without
         moving to the next message, use the uppercase [A], [K] and [D]
         keys.  because of the dual purpose of these keys, you will probably
         want to keep your [Caps Lock] key toggled OFF while in RoboMail.




     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 35


     Looking Up Threads in Other Message Classes
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         During the normal course of your use of RoboMail, you will spend
         the vast majority of your time reading "recent" messages.  While
         you are doing this, all of the mail you have archived during
         previous reading sessions is available to you with just one
         keystroke.  Whenever you are reading recent mail and you want to
         know what was going on in the current thread in the past, you can
         press [Alt-A] to look up the current thread in your message
         archive.  If you have assigned Age or Keep status to previous
         messages in this thread, RoboMail will immediately jump to the
         first matching message.  If no messages matching the current thread
         are available, RoboMail will attempt to go to the first archive
         message in the same conference.  If the same conference is not
         available, RoboMail will look for any archive message from the same
         system.

         Once in the archive, you can browse through the messages there in
         whatever manner you like, without fear that you will "loose your
         place" in the recent messages.  When you are done examining the
         archive, pressing [Alt-R] will immediately return you to the Recent
         message you were on before you jumped into the archive.  This
         segregation of messages allows you to quickly refer back to
         previous portions of a thread without cluttering up your recently
         imported messages with archival data.

         Similar functionality is available for the OutBox and Chron message
         classes.  These two classes hold messages you have created with
         RoboMail.  The OutBox contains messages which have not yet been
         exported to a reply packet, and the Chron contains messages which
         have been previously exported.  To look up your replies or
         contributions to a thread in the OutBox, press [Alt-O].  To perform
         the lookup in the Chron, press [Alt-C].  When you are jumping to
         the OutBox or Chron, RoboMail will use the reference numbers in
         the message header to try and find the exact message referred to.
         When you are ready to return to your place in Recent messages,
         press [Alt-R].

         Although the previous discussion implies that you can look up
         threads in other classes only when reading Recent messages, that is
         not the case.  [Alt-A], [Alt-O], [Alt-C] and [Alt-R], can always be
         used to look up the currently displayed thread in the target
         message class.  For example, RoboMail will have no problem looking
         into the Chron message class from the Archive.


     Viewing the Message Index
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         To see an overview of all messages in the current conference, press
         the [Ins] key while reading messages. RoboMail will present a
         scrolling index displaying selected data from all the messages in
         the conference.  Use the arrow keys to move through the list.
         Additional columns of data are available off the right side of the
     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 36


         screen, so use the right arrow key to scroll over to them if you
         want to see them.

         The "Flags" column on the message index display can contain a
         variety of characters, depending upon the status and class of the
         messages being displayed.  The possible flag characters are:

             Symbol   Meaning
             -------  -------------------------------------------------
             A        The message archive option is Age
             K        The message archive option is Keep
             D        The message archive option is Discard
             ₧        The message is private
             r        You have replied to this message
             c        OutBox message will be copied to chron
             H        OutBox message has Hold status
             1..9     Message is included in a tag group
                     A bulk process marked the message as read
             ≡        The message has appeared on your viewing screen

         See the online help screen for a summary of the keystroke commands
         that are available while viewing the message index screen.


     Sorting Conference or Folder Messages
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         Whenever you enter a conference or folder, RoboMail always displays
         the messages in its default order, sorted by message subject and
         number.  If you would like to change the order that the messages
         are displayed in, simply press [S].  RoboMail will display a pop-up
         menu of available sort options.  Select the order you want and the
         messages within the conference will be quickly re-sorted to your
         newly specified order.  Note that this is a temporary sort, which
         remains in effect only as long as you stay in the conference.
         Performing a query or moving out of the conference or folder for
         any reason will cancel the special sort.

















     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 37


     Numeric Keypad Navigation Summary
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         RoboMail main navigation keys were chosen to make the majority of
         navigation and reading chores accessible from the numeric keypad.
         The summary diagram below should be helpful by giving you an
         overview of the general layout of the commands.  Make sure your
         [Num Lock] key is toggled OFF to access these commands:


                  Previous thread ─┐   ┌───────── Next thread
                  Mark with default│   │          Mark with default
                              ┌──╖┌┴─╖┌┴─╖┌──╖
                              │  ║│/ ║│* ║│- ║<── Previous message
                              ╘══╝╘══╝╘══╝╘══╝    Mark with default
                              ┌──╖┌──╖┌──╖┌──╖
                  +Ctrl ─────>│H ║│U ║│PU║│  ║
                  last msg    ╘══╝╘══╝╘══╝│+ ║<── Next message
                              ┌──╖┌──╖┌──╖│  ║    Mark with default
                  Previous ──>│<-║│  ║│->║╘══╝
                   message    ╘══╝╘══╝╘══╝<────── Next message
                              ┌──╖┌──╖┌──╖┌──╖
                  +Ctrl ─────>│E ║│D ║│PD║│E ║
                  1st message ╘══╝╘══╝╘══╝│nt║<── Assisted Reading Mode
                              ┌─────╖┌───╖│ e║    (+Ctrl for no mark)
                  Message ───>│ Ins ║│Del║│ r║
                    Index     ╘═════╝╘╤══╝╘══╝
                                      └────────── Next thread
                                                  Mark with discard

         Also, don't forget that RoboMail uses the numbers 1-9 for "tagging"
         messages and 0 for clearing tags, so you can access these functions
         from the numeric keypad as well by holding down the shift key.

     Function Key Command Summary
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         RoboMail's usage of function keys is consistent throughout the
         program.  The following table summarizes their functions:

         Key         Function            Where
         ──────────  ──────────────────  ───────────────────────────────────
         F1          Help                Everywhere - context sensitive
         F2          Configuration       Everywhere - context sensitive
         F3          Address Book        Control Panel, Messages, Addressing
         F4          Bulk Mark           Control Panel, Messages
         Shift-F4    Bulk Discard        Control Panel, Messages
         F5          Processing          Control Panel, Messages
         F6          Attachments         Control Panel, Messages
         F7          DOS Shell           Everywhere
         F8          Conference Mgmt.    Control Panel, Messages
         F9          Conference List     Control Panel, Messages
         F10         Pick List           Many data entry fields
                     Tagline Mgmt.       Control Panel, Messages

     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 38


     Tagging Messages and Writing Text Files
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         RoboMail allows you to write one or more messages out to text
         files.  To send only the currently displayed message to a text
         file, press the [T] key while viewing messages and select "Current
         Message Only" from the pop-up menu that is displayed.  RoboMail
         will prompt you for the file name that you want to append the
         current message's data to.

         To send multiple messages out to the same text file in one step,
         you need to "tag" the desired messages.  RoboMail provides a great
         deal of flexibility in the way it allows you to tag messages
         because it provides 9 separate "tag groups."  To assign a message
         to a tag group, display the message on screen and press any
         number between [1] and [9] on your keyboard.  The "Tag" indicator
         in the message's header will be filled in with the number you
         pressed, indicating the tag group that the message belongs to.

         Tag groups can contain messages from any message class, system or
         folder in your database. Tagged messages remain as a member of
         their tag group until their tag is cleared.  You can clear the tag
         from an individual message by displaying the message and pressing
         [0].

         Bulk Tagging and Untagging
         ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
             To tag all the messages in the current thread, conference or
             system, press [Ctrl-T] and select an option from the pop-up
             menu.  Note that only messages in the current message class
             (Recent, Archive, Chron, OutBox) are tagged.

             To remove all tags from messages that are of a specific message
             class, press [Ctrl-U] while viewing messages, followed by a
             number from 1 to 9, indicating the tag group that you want
             cleared.

         To write all members of a tag group out to a text file, press [T]
         while viewing messages.  RoboMail will display a menu of the
         currently defined tag groups and prompt you for the name of the file
         that you want to append to.  Press [F10] for a pop-up directory, or
         type a file name and press [Enter] to begin the writing process.
         RoboMail will ask if you want to clear the tags from messages as
         they are written to disk.


     Printing Messages
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         RoboMail allows you to send the currently displayed message out to
         your printer.  To begin the printing process, press the [P] key.




     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 39


     CREATING OUTGOING MESSAGES
     ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀

     This section describes the various ways that you can create outgoing
     messages in RoboMail.  As discussed previously, all outgoing messages
     are stored in RoboMail's OutBox message class.  For details on
     exporting the messages to a reply packet, see the section of the
     documentation entitled "Exporting OutBox Messages."

     Composing a Message
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         To compose a new outgoing message, press the [C] key.  If you are
         currently reading messages in a conference when you press [C],
         RoboMail will immediately go into your defined editor (internal or
         external) and allow you to compose the text of your outgoing
         message.

         To compose a new outgoing message from the control panel, place the
         highlight bar on the row of the target system and press the [C]
         key.  RoboMail will present a listing of all the conferences that
         are available on the system.  To find your desired conference, move
         the highlight bar to either the conference number or conference
         name column.  When you do, the listing will be instantly resorted
         by the contents of the current column.  If you have the listing
         sorted by conference number, type in the number of the desired
         conference number and press [Enter].  If the listing is sorted by
         conference name, begin typing the name you are looking for.
         RoboMail will begin narrowing the available choices to match what
         you have typed so far.  When the display is sufficiently narrowed,
         highlight the desired conference name and press [Enter].  Next,
         edit and save the outgoing message text.

         After saving your text, RoboMail will present the message
         addressing dialog box, with the current system and conference used
         as the defaults.  See the "Addressing Messages" section below for
         details on saving the completed message.


     Replying to a Message
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         You can reply to any message in RoboMail by pressing [R].  This
         includes messages which you have placed in a folder.  Regardless of
         where a message may be in the system, RoboMail always knows the
         origin system and conference of all the messages it stores.  When
         you press [R] to create a reply, RoboMail places the complete text
         of the message you are replying to in another window of your
         editor.  If you are using the internal editor, you can use the
         "Next" command [Alt-N] to view or edit the original message text.
         Traditionally, this original.txt message has been used to "quote"
         back part of the original message to its sender.  RoboMail also
         provides a much simpler method for quoting the original message
         with its [SpaceBar] tagging method.

     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 40


         To reply to the recipient of a message, rather than the sender, use
         [Alt-T] to start the reply process instead of [R].

         Automatic Quoting
         ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
             RoboMail can help take a lot of the drudgery out of creating
             quoted replies with it's unique [SpaceBar] tagging system.
             While you are reading messages in RoboMail, you will notice
             that there is a highlight bar available, which scrolls through
             the text of message you are currently reading.  (If it's not
             currently visible, toggle out of "browse mode" by pressing the
             [Scroll Lock] key.)  To use RoboMail's automatic quoting
             capability, simply use the [SpaceBar] key to tag all the lines
             that you would like to quote into the reply.  When you press
             [R] to create the reply, RoboMail will automatically quote the
             tagged original text into your outgoing reply.

             You can modify the style of the quoted reply text on the
             "Message Settings" configuration screen.

         Replying to Newsgroup Postings
         ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
             If you are reading a message in conference which has the
             "Internet Conference" option set but is not the conference
             defined as your primary Email conference, RoboMail assumes that
             you are reading an Internet "Newsgroup."  Whenever you reply to
             a message in a Newsgroup, RoboMail will ask how you would like
             to reply:

                         ┌────────── Newsgroup Reply ─────────┐
                     --> │ Create a public follow-up Article  │ <--
                         │ Reply privately via Internet Email │
                         └────────────────────────────────────┘

             If you want to post a public response to the entire newsgroup,
             then select the default "Create a public follow-up Article"
             option.  When you do this, RoboMail will change the recipient
             name to ALL (Newsgroups do not support sending a reply to a
             specific person) and the reply will be sent public to ALL in
             the current conference.

             If you would like to reply privately to the person who posted
             the article via Internet Email, select the "Reply privately"
             option.  When you do this, RoboMail will scan the message for
             an Internet address and route the reply privately to your
             defined Email conference.

             NOTE:   RoboMail will only present the "Newsgroup Reply" menu
                     if you have defined a primary Internet Email
                     conferences on RoboMail configuration screen #4 -
                     Internet Setup.


     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 41


         Replying to Mailing List Messages
         ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
             When you subscribe to an Internet mailing list, you will
             receive messages which contain a "Reply-To:" field in the
             Internet message header.  This is the address you should reply
             to if you want to send a posting out to everyone that is on the
             mailing list.  However, there may be times when you will want
             to respond privately to a person who posted to the Mailing
             List.  To do this, you would use the address indicated in the
             "From:" field of the Internet message header.

             RoboMail does its best to make the process easy for you.
             Whenever you respond to a message in your configured Internet
             Email conference, RoboMail will scan for both "Reply-To:" and
             "From:" addresses in the Internet message header.  If both are
             found and the indicated addresses are different, RoboMail will
             present a pop-up menu asking which of the addresses you would
             like to respond to.  Just select the one you want to begin the
             message creation process.

         Replying via Email in non-Internet Conferences
         ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
             As more and more people join the Internet it is becoming
             increasingly common to see someone post a question or message
             in a standard echoed (non-internet) BBS conference and ask for
             a reply via Internet Email.  At other times a person may simply
             include their Internet address in a message and you may decide
             that you want to respond to their message privately.  In either
             case, RoboMail makes it very easy to respond to any message
             containing an internet Email address via your configured Email
             conference.  To do this, make sure that the message
             highlighting bar is toggled on (Use the [Scroll Lock] key if it
             is not) and highlight the line containing the Email address.
             Now, when you press the [R] key to begin the reply process,
             RoboMail will ask if you want to respond to the highlighted
             address via your Email conference.  That's all there is to it!

















     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 42


     Forwarding Messages
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         To forward all of the message you are currently viewing to another
         user, press [Alt-F].  RoboMail will make a copy of the message and
         display the Message Addressing dialog box to allow you to input the
         desired address.

         While preparing the forwarded message text, RoboMail will look for
         the file FORWARD.FRM in its home directory.  If the file is found,
         RoboMail will merge the contents of the file at the top of the
         forwarded message.  The default forwarding header file looks like
         this:

             █▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀█  Original From: {FROM}
             █ FORWARDED █             To: {TO}
             █  MESSAGE  █    Date/Number: {DATE} - {NUMBER}
             █▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄█             On: {SYSTEM} - {CONF}
             --------------------------------------------------------

         Before inserting the header in the outgoing message, RoboMail will
         translate the fields shown above in curly braces with the
         appropriate information.  You may edit the FORWARD.FRM file to suit
         your requirements.  If you need to edit the forwarded text before
         sending it to the OutBox, you can press the "Re-Edit" button on the
         message addressing dialog box.


     Addressing Messages
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         Before saving an outgoing message to the OutBox, RoboMail always
         presents the message addressing dialog box, which allows you to
         modify the message's header information as well as several
         message-specific switches.

         Fill in the BBS and CONFERENCE fields with the appropriate
         destination for the outgoing message.  Both fields offer pop-up
         lists via the [F10] key.

         Fill in the TO field with the name of the person that you want to
         receive the message.  Press [F10] or [F3] to access your RoboMail
         address book if you want to pull in a name from there.

         The default value for the FROM field is your login name on the mail
         system.  If you have an alias name defined on the conference
         specific setup screen, then RoboMail will use that alias name for
         the default.  Use caution when modifying this field.  For security
         reasons, most mail system will not allow you to post messages using
         anything other than you real name or a Sysop-approved alias name.
         If the name you use in this field is not recognized as valid, the
         mail system will reject the message.

         The RE field should contain the subject for the message.  If the
         outgoing message is a reply, then RoboMail will copy the subject
     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 43


         from the message you are replying to.  If the "Mixed Case Subjects
         Allowed" check box on the Mail System Settings screen has been
         selected, then RoboMail will allow you to enter lower case letters
         as part of the subject.

         If you have automatic tagline selection enabled on the "Message
         Setup" configuration screen, RoboMail will have already selected a
         tagline file from your primary or conference specific alternate
         file for you.  To change it, place the cursor in the TAG field and
         edit the tagline or and press [F10] to select from the pop-up
         Tagline Manager screen.

         Choose PUBLIC or PRIVATE security for the message by selecting from
         one of the Security radio buttons.

         Select the COPY TO CHRON FILE check box if you want to have this
         outgoing message copied to your chron file during the reply
         exporting process.  The default for this option is controlled on
         the "Conference Settings" screen.

         Select the DISABLE HIGH ASCII (FIDO) option if you want to
         translate all characters above ASCII 127 in the outgoing message to
         an asterisk.  The default for this option is controlled on the
         "Conference Settings" screen.

         If the mail system you are sending the message to supports the
         capability, select the RECEIPT REQUESTED check box to request a
         receipt.  Depending on the conference, either a PostLink or RRR
         format receipt will be selected automatically.  If both receipt
         types are available, the PostLink format will take precedence.

         To send the outgoing message to specific mail systems, select the
         ROUTED field and fill in the appropriate routing information in the
         field.  If you are replying in a PostLink or Internet conference or
         are using an entry from the Address Book, RoboMail may have already
         supplied the appropriate routing address for you.

         If the destination mail system supports file attachments, you can
         specify an attachment in the ATTACHMENT field.  For a pop-up
         directory of files, press [F10].  When you save the message, the
         specified file will copied immediately into RoboMail's \HOLD
         directory.

         To save the outgoing message and any copies to your OutBox, select
         the SAVE button, or press the [Ctrl <─┘] "Save and Continue"
         hot key from anywhere on the message addressing screen.

         To edit the outgoing text again, select the RE-EDIT button.

         To abort the message creation/editing process and return to the
         previous screen, select the CANCEL button, or press the [Esc] key.


     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 44


         Accessing the Address Book
         ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
             Whenever the message addressing screen is displayed, you can
             always access your RoboMail Address Book by pressing the
             address book pop-up [F3] key.  When you select a name, RoboMail
             will return to the addressing screen and fill in the TO, BBS,
             CONF and ROUTING information from the address book entry.

         Cross-Posting
         ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
             When addressing messages, keep the fact that RoboMail places no
             limits on the destination of your reply in mind.  One of the
             major benefits of RoboMail's database orientation is that you
             can easily "Cross post" messages between mail systems and
             conferences.  Simply modify the BBS and CONF fields to match
             your desires and let RoboMail do the rest.

         Sending Copies
         ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
             To send copies of a message to other people, select the
             COPIES button on the Message Addressing screen.  When you do,
             RoboMail will display its Distribution List screen.

             Press [Ins] to add names to the list manually, or press [F3] to
             pick names from your address book. RoboMail will allow up to
             4095 names on a distribution list. Press [Del] to remove a name
             from the list and [Alt-E] to edit an existing entry on the
             list.

             The distribution list "notation" field controls the type of
             notations that will be made in the copied and original message
             to indicate the copies that were created.  RoboMail supports
             the following notation types for copied messages:

                 COPY - Press [C] to set this notation type.  The COPY.FRM
                 file will be merged and inserted at the top of the copied
                 message text and the recipient of the copy will be listed
                 in the "cc:" list at the bottom of the message.  The
                 default COPY.FRM header file looks like this:

                         █▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀█ Original       To: {TO}
                         █ CARBON █      was       By: {FROM}
                         █  COPY  █   posted:      On: {SYSTEM}
                         █▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄█              Conf: {CONF}
                         ------------------------------------------------

                 You may edit this file if you like.  The fields shown above
                 in curly braces are merged with the appropriate data as the
                 header is inserted into the copy.

                 BLIND - Press [B] to set this notation type.  This notation
                 type also merges the COPY.FRM file at the top of the copied
                 message, but the copy recipient will not be listed in the
     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 45


                 "cc:" list at the bottom of the message.

                 NONE - Press [N] to set this notation type.  When you do
                 this, the message will be copied verbatim to the copy
                 recipient and the copy recipient will not be listed in the
                 "cc:" list.  With this type of notation, the recipient of
                 the copied message will have no indication that the
                 original of the message was not addressed to him or her.

             To set the security on the copied message, press [P] to toggle
             the copy between "Public" and "Private" status.  If the copy is
             private, "Priv" will appear in the notation column of the
             distribution list.

             If you plan to use the distribution list again in the future,
             you can save it to a file by pressing [S].  Then, type in a
             file name and extension (".DL" is recommended) to save the
             file.  Once your distribution list is complete, press [Ctrl<─┘]
             to return to the message addressing screen.

             To restore a saved distribution list, enter the distribution
             list screen and press [L].  Then, type in the desired file name
             or press [F10] for a pop-up directory of *.DL.

             When adding names to a distribution list via the address book,
             you can tag entries with the [*] key.  When you press [Ctrl
             <─┘] to leave the address book screen, all tagged entries will
             be moved copied to your distribution list.


     Re-Editing an Outgoing Message
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         Once a message has been saved to RoboMail's OutBox message class,
         you can still revise it by displaying the message on the screen and
         pressing the [E] or [R] keys.  When you do this, RoboMail will
         place the outgoing text in the editor for modification.  In
         addition, if the outgoing message is a reply, RoboMail will look
         through its message database and attempt to set up the original
         message in the other edit buffer (which you can access with [Alt-N]
         in the internal editor.)

         Re-Addressing an Outgoing Message
         ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
             To edit just the address of an OutBox message, display the
             message on screen and press [Alt-E].

     Re-Sending a Chron Message
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         RoboMail allows you to quickly re-send any previously exported
         message that you have copied to your chron file.  To re-send a
         message from your chron file, display the desired message on screen
         and then press [O] to copy the message into your OutBox.

     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 46


     Placing Outgoing Messages on Hold
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         If you decide that an OutBox message should not be exported during
         your next message exporting process, you can place a hold on the
         message by displaying the message on screen and pressing [H].  When
         you do this, the "Hold" check box on the upper right portion of the
         message header display will be filled in, indicating that the
         message will not be exported.  Messages placed on hold will remain
         in your OutBox indefinitely, until you explicitly toggle off the
         hold by pressing [H] again, or by pressing [D] to discard the
         message.


     Discarding Outgoing Messages
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         To discard an OutBox message that you've decided should not be
         sent, display the message on screen and press the [D] key to assign
         discard status to the message.  When you do this, the "Discard"
         check box in the message header will be filled in.  this indicates
         that the message will be cleared from the outbox during the next
         message export process.  This gives you a chance to change your
         mind about a deletion.  Just press [D] again to toggle off discard
         status if you decide you really do want to send the message.


     Notes on Message Splitting
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         The Mail System Settings screen for each mail system contains a
         "Split replies at XX lines." configuration option.  the default
         is 90 lines.  If this option is selected, RoboMail will split
         outgoing messages which exceed the indicated length into separate
         messages during the export process.  Do not be concerned that long
         messages appear as one single message while they are in your
         outbox.  This is a convenience for you, so that you can re-edit
         or re-address the message as necessary.

         If you use RoboMail's internal editor, a "M:" indicator appears in
         the editor's status line to indicate the message number of the
         current cursor position.


     USING ROBOMAIL'S EDITOR
     ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀

     RoboMail's internal editor is a full featured and tailored specifically
     to the task of creating electronic messages.  In addition to editing
     the original and outgoing messages, you can also open, edit, close and
     save standard text files.

     When you first begin using the internal editor, a large box containing
     many of the editor common command keys is displayed using the bottom
     four lines of the editor screen.  When you no longer need this help, you
     can toggle the hint display off by pressing [Alt-H].  The following
     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 47


     tables describe the standard command keys that are available in
     RoboMail's internal editor:

         Navigation Commands
         ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
             Home            Move cursor to start of line
             End             Move cursor to end of line
             Up/Down         Move cursor up or down one row
             Left/Right      Move cursor left/right
             Ctrl-Right      Move cursor to next word
             Ctrl-Left       Move cursor to previous word
             Ctrl-PgUp       Move cursor to top of file
             Ctrl-PgDn       Move cursor to bottom of file
             Tab/Sh-Tab      Move to next/previous tab stop

         Text Editing Commands
         ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
             Del             Delete character at cursor
             Ctrl-Backspace  Delete word left
             Ins             Toggle Insert/Overwrite mode
             Alt-D           Delete current line
             Alt-T           Delete to end of line
             Alt-Z           Delete to end of file
             Ctrl-Enter      Re-format current paragraph

         Block Management Commands
         ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
             Alt-M           Toggle block marking mode on/off
             Alt-L           Toggle line marking mode on/off
             Alt-P           Mark to end of paragraph
             Alt-U           Turn off (Unmark) current block
             [+]             Copy marked block to buffer
             [-]             Cut marked block to buffer
             Del             Delete marked block
             Alt-Q           Quote marked block to outgoing
             Alt-I           Insert (paste) buffer contents

         File Management Commands
         ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
             Alt-E           Edit another file
             Alt-N           Move to next file/message
             Alt-F           Import a text file
             Alt-W           Write (save) file to disk
             Alt-X           Save outgoing message and exit
             Alt-C           Close the current file's editing window
             Esc             Exit without saving message







     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 48


         Other Commands
         ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
             F2              Editor Settings Menu
             Alt-S           Spell check current message
             Alt-G           Edit quick-merge assignments
             Alt-J           Toggle right justification
             Alt-A           Toggle automatic formatting
             Alt-H           Toggle hint display
             Shift F1-F10    Execute quick-merge


     Indenting Paragraphs
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         RoboMail's editor allows you to indent paragraphs by establishing a
         temporary right margin while you are editing the current document.
         To do this, place the cursor at the position in a paragraph that
         you want to indent and press [Alt-P].  Once the paragraph is
         marked, you can  use the left and right arrow keys, as well as the
         [Tab] and [Shift Tab] keys to set the temporary right margin.

         When you have the margin set the way you want, press [Alt-U] or
         [Ctrl Enter] to end the paragraph marking mode.

         After the right margin has been set, all newly entered text will
         be formatted within the margins.  To reformat text that was entered
         previously, use the [Ctrl Enter] reformatting key.  Note that your
         right margin setting is not saved between editing sessions.


     Tips on Quoting
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         The easiest way to quote portions of a message into your reply is
         to use the [SpaceBar] to tag the lines of a message that you want
         to quote while you are reading the message.  When you press the
         [R]eply key, all groups of consecutive lines that you tag will be
         bundled together as quotes in your new outgoing reply, formatted
         according to the "Quoting Style" option you specified on the
         "Message Setup" configuration screen.  (Note that the [Scroll Lock]
         key must be toggled OFF for the highlight bar to be visible)

         However, there will be some instances when the space bar tagging
         methods won't do the exact job you want.  For example, you might
         want to quote a single sentence in the middle of a long paragraph
         or you might want to retain the format (spacing) of the quoted
         material in your reply.

         To perform custom quoting using the internal editor, make sure that
         the cursor is positioned in the outgoing message at the position
         that you want the quoted text to be inserted, and then press
         [Alt-N] to switch to the message you are replying to.

         Next, position the cursor at the beginning of the text that you
         would like to quote and decide on the quoting style (formatted or
     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 49


         unformatted) that you need.  Press [Alt-M] to start marking text in
         word-processing mode if you want to reformat or [Alt-L] to start
         line marking mode if you want to maintain the current formatting.

         Once all of the text you want to quote has been marked, press
         [Alt-Q] and RoboMail will quote the marked text back into your
         outgoing message and position the cursor right under the newly
         quoted text.


     Using Quick-Merge Files
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         RoboMail's internal editor has the ability to quickly insert the
         contents of up to 10 text files with a single keystroke.  Select
         "Specify Quick-Marge Files" from the [F2] pop-up configuration menu
         to access the screen where you define these files.

         All of the quick-merge files must reside in the RoboMail home
         directory.  Simply fill in a file name (or press [F10] for a pop-up
         list) next to the function key which you wish to assign.

         When you are in the internal editor, simply hold down either
         [Shift] key and press the desired function key to instantly insert
         the contents of the defined file at the cursor location.  You can
         use these files for any text which you commonly insert into
         outgoing messages, such as signatures or network mail addresses.

     Merge Macros
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~

         When creating outgoing messages with either the internal or
         an external editor, you can imbed the following tokens into your
         text and RoboMail will substitute the appropriate information while
         it is reading the message text from disk:

                 Current Date:   {DATE}
                 Current Day:    {DAY}
                 Current Month:  {MONTH}
                 Current Year:   {YEAR}
                 Day of Week:    {DOW}
                 Current Time:   {TIME}
                 Conf #:         {CONFNUM}
                 Conf Name:      {CONFNAME}
                 BBS ID:         {BBSID}
                 BBS Name:       {BBSNAME}

                 Original to:    {TO}      \
                 Original from:  {FROM}     \
                 Original Date:  {MSGDATE}   -- Use only when creating
                 Original Time:  {MSGTIME}  /   a reply
                 Subject:        {SUBJECT} /


     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 50


     Setting the Right Margin
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         RoboMail's default right margin in 72, which provides a message
         width of 72 characters.  If you want to change this for future
         editing sessions, press [F2] while you are in the editor and select
         the "Editor Settings" option.


     Control Characters in Messages
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         RoboMail's internal editor does not support editing text files or
         messages which contain ASCII characters below 32.  These "control
         characters" are used internally by the editor to maintain its
         internal formatting information.  If you attempt to edit a file
         containing control characters, you may see strange results on your
         screen.  If you frequently need to edit messages containing control
         characters, you may want to configure RoboMail to use an external
         editor by default.  If you only need to do this occasionally, you
         might prefer to momentarily change your RoboMail configuration by
         hitting [F2] only when you need to edit messages with control
         characters.

         NOTE: RoboMail's tagline management system is separate from the
         internal editor.  Taglines may contain any ASCII character between
         1 and 255.

         NOTE: Many message networks do not support messages containing
         control characters.  Please make sure that your mail system
         supports this type of message before uploading packets containing
         messages with control characters.


     USING ROBOMAIL'S SPELL CHECKER
     ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀

     To check the spelling in an outgoing message, notepad or any other
     file, press [Alt-S] while editing the text.  When you do this, RoboMail
     will begin checking at the beginning of the current cursor line of the
     document, skipping over any lines which contain text quoted from
     another message.  Upon reaching the end of the file, RoboMail's spell
     checker will loop back to the beginning of the document and continue
     checking until reaching the original cursor position.

     If you are using an external editor and have checked the "Use Internal
     Speller After External Edit" on the "Message Settings" configuration
     screen, RoboMail will call its spell checker after returning from your
     editor and will begin checking the outgoing message from the
     beginning of the outgoing message, skipping over any lines containing
     quoted text.

     When a questioned word is found, RoboMail's speller will highlight the
     word and begin displaying suggested spellings in its lower window.  If
     you spot the correct spelling in this window, simply press the letter
     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 51


     next to the word you want to use and RoboMail will replace the
     questioned word with the correct spelling and continue on with the
     check.  You do not need to wait for RoboMail to fill up the window with
     suggestions before selecting the replacement word.  Usually, RoboMail
     will find the correct spelling on its first or second guess.

     If you don't want to use one of the displayed alternate spellings,
     select one of the following options:

         Press [1] to skip the word one time only.

         Press [2] to skip this word wherever it occurs in the message

         Press [3] to add this word to your personal dictionary.  Once
         added, it will be used in all future spelling checks.

         Press [4] to edit the word to correct the spelling manually.

         Press [Esc] to cancel the spelling check.  using this option
         does not "undo" any changes which have been made.


     Editing Your Personal Dictionary
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         Select "Edit Your Personal Dictionary" from the [F2] pop-up
         configuration menu for editor/speller setup to display a listing of
         all the words you have added to your personal dictionary.  To find
         the word you want to modify, simply begin typing it.  RoboMail will
         automatically narrow the displayed set of words so that the
         displayed list always matches what you have typed so far.  When the
         word you want is highlighted, press [Alt-E] to edit the word or
         [Del] to delete it.


     USING MESSAGE FOLDERS
     ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀

     RoboMail allows you to create and maintain an unlimited number of
     "folders," each of which can contain an unlimited number of messages.
     You can use these folders any time you want to group messages dealing
     with a specific topic or circumstances together in a common area.
     RoboMail displays a list of all the folders you have created in the
     lower left corner of its control panel display.  The list is sorted
     alphabetically and also shows the current number of messages contained
     within the folder.

     Copying Messages to Folders
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         To copy the currently displayed message to a folder, press [F].
         When you do this, RoboMail will pop-up a searchable listing of all
         the folders you have currently defined.  To search for a folder,
         simply begin typing the name of the desired folder.  To create a
         new folder, press [Ins] and enter the name of the new folder.  To
     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 52


         edit the name of an existing folder, highlight the desired folder
         and press [Alt-E].


     Deleting Folders
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         To permanently delete a folder and all messages within it,
         highlight the folder name on the control panel and press [Del].
         After confirmation, the folder will be removed.


     Folder Message Management
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         Message management inside of a RoboMail folder is similar to
         standard message management, except that RoboMail does not allow
         the "Age" archive action within a folder.  The process for deleting
         individual messages in folders is identical to deleting message
         from archives.  Simply set the archive action to "Discard" and the
         process the folder with [F5] to remove all messages marked for
         discarding.


     Replying to Folder Messages
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         You may still reply to a folder message just like any other message
         in your RoboMail database.  Even though the system id for the
         message has been changed to FOLDER__ and the conference number is
         now a unique number assigned to the folder, RoboMail always remembers
         the origin system ID and conference of a message.  When you address
         your reply, the correct information will be posted in the Message
         Addressing dialog box.


     USING ROBOMAIL'S ADDRESS BOOK
     ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀

     RoboMail's Address Book provides an easy means for accessing and
     keeping track of frequently used or important mail addresses.  To
     access the address book, press the address book hot key, [F3] while
     viewing the control panel, message or message address screens.  If you
     are currently viewing a message on screen when you press [F3], RoboMail
     will ask if you would like to add the sender or recipient of the
     current message to the address book.

     To search for a name, simply begin typing the name.  RoboMail will
     narrow the display to show only matching records as you type.

     To add names to the address book, press the [Ins] key and fill in the
     appropriate name, system, conference and routing information.  Pop-up
     lists are available for the system and conference fields by pressing
     [F10] while the cursor is in the field.

     To delete an entry, highlight it and press the [DELete] key.  To edit
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     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 53


     an existing entry, highlight it and press [Alt-E].

     To make notes about an address book entry, press [Alt-N].  If the notes
     you've created extend beyond the boundaries of the Address Book window,
     use the [+] and [-] keys to scroll the data.

     When adding names to a distribution list via the address book, you can
     tag entries with the [*] key.  When you press [Ctrl <─┘] to leave the
     screen, all tagged entries will be moved copied to your distribution
     list.


     Specifying Routing and Email Address Information
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

         RoboMail supports two styles of "routing," which is the process
         used to identify a specific Email address or mail system when
         creating a message.  In both cases, you fill in the routing
         information in the "Route to:" field of the address book and/or
         the message addressing screen.

         The most common use for routing information is to identify the
         Internet Email address for a person.  When you create an
         Internet address book entry for a person, you simply type in their
         Real Name in the "Name:" field and their Internet Email address in
         the "Route To:" field.  When RoboMail saves the messages it will
         place a "To: <address>" line on the first line of the message.
         Your mail system will use this information to make sure the message
         finds its way to your intended recipient.

         The other Routing style used by RoboMail is "RIME" or "Fido" style
         routing.  Whenever you specify information in the "Route to:" field
         for a person or message that is not going to an "Internet"
         conference, RoboMail will fall back to this style of routing.  With
         this style, RoboMail will include a "->" on the first line of the
         message, followed by whatever routing information you entered.

     Grabbing Internet Email Addresses
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

         Whenever you respond to a message in a conference that has the
         "Internet Conference" flag set, RoboMail will automatically scan
         the message for the appropriate return address information and
         include it in the "Route To:" field on the message addressing
         screen.  But how can you easily add this information to your
         address book for use in the future?  To do this, simply press the
         F3 (Address Book) hot key and RoboMail will pop-up a small menu:

                         █▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀█
                         █ Access Address Book           █
                     --> █ Add Sender to Address Book    █ <--
                         █ Add Recipient to Address Book █
                         █▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄█
     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 54


         Press "S" or select "Add sender to Address Book" and RoboMail will
         automatically scan the message for an internet address and include
         it in the "Route To" field in the address book.  In addition, if
         you have specified a primary Email conference on the "Internet
         Setup" configuration screen #4, RoboMail will automatically assign
         the appropriate system ID and conference to the message.

         Often you will see a person giving their internet ID in a
         regular BBS conference that is not your Internet Email or a
         Newsgroup conference.  You can still grab their Internet address
         and add it to your address book.  To do this, highlight the line
         containing the person's Internet Email address and press the F3
         key.  (If you do not have a moveable highlight bar displayed on
         screen, use the [Scroll Lock] key to enable it).  RoboMail will
         scan the current line for an Email address and if one is found, it
         will ask for permission to grab the address from the current line:

                 █▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ Question ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀█
                 █                                               █
                 █ Grab Internet address from the current line?  █
                 █                                               █
                 █          Yes   ▄            No    ▄         █
                 █         ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀         ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀         █
                 █▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄█



     SEARCHING YOUR MESSAGE DATABASE
     ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀

     One of RoboMail's most valuable features is its ability to perform very
     fast, multi-keyword searches across a single conference or your entire
     message database.  The search conditions you create can contain boolean
     logic, as well as wildcard characters.

     Global Searches
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         To perform a search across your entire message database press [Q]
         while the control panel screen is displayed.  RoboMail will present
         its "Quick Scan" data entry screen, which allows you to fill in a
         search expression for the message text as well as the message
         header.  A radio button between the two fields allows you to apply
         AND or OR logic to searches which include information in both
         fields.  You must enter a search string in one of the fields
         provided.  If you enter a string in both fields, make sure that you
         select the logic type that is appropriate for your query.

         For example, if you wanted to find all messages about RoboMail,
         regardless of whether RoboMail was mentioned in the message header
         or message text, you would enter ROBOMAIL in both fields and select
         OR logic.  On the other hand, if you wanted to find all messages
         about RoboMail to or from Joe Blow, you would enter ROBOMAIL in the
         message text field, select OR logic,  and enter ("ROBOMAIL" | "JOE
     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 55


         BLOW") in the Message Header field.  See the "Creating Search
         Expressions" section below for full details on the syntax of
         RoboMail's search expressions.


     Conference and Folder Searches
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         While you are reading messages, you can easily perform a search on
         just the messages contained in the current conference or folder.
         To do this, press [Q] while you are reading messages.  RoboMail
         will present a dialog box which allows you to input a search
         expression and define the areas of the message to search.  When you
         have the search defined as you want, press [Ctrl-Enter] or the
         "Start" button to begin the search.  When the search process is
         completed, RoboMail will display only those messages that match the
         search criteria.  In addition, any line of a message which
         satisfies your defined search expression will be highlighted.

         To cancel the query and return to viewing all messages in the
         conference, press [Q] again.


     Creating Search Expressions
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         The easiest way to input a search expression in RoboMail is to
         simply type the exact text you would like to search for in the
         fields provided and press [Enter].  When you do this, RoboMail will
         search for an exact match (including any imbedded spaces) in the
         target text.  For more complex searches, you can include
         wildcards and/or boolean logic in the search string.

         Wildcard Searches
         ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
             Wildcards in search strings work the same way that they do in DOS
             file names.  The question mark "?" character is used to represent
             any single ASCII character and the asterisk "*" character can be
             used to match any series of characters.

             The following examples demonstrate the use of wildcards in search
             expressions:

                 You Enter           RoboMail Would Match
                 ---------------     ---------------------------------------
                 ROBO?AIL            RoboMail, ROBOJAIL, robobail
                 ROBO*AIL            Can robots be taught to sail?

         Boolean Logic
         ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
             For even more searching power, RoboMail allows you to specify
             multiple search keys with a single string and control how they
             related to each other with boolean logic.  RoboMail supports
             the following boolean operators:

     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 56


                 Operator            Purpose
                 --------            ---------------------------------------
                    &                Specifies "and" logic (ampersand)
                    |                Specifies "or" logic  (pipe character)
                    !                Specifies "negation"
                   ( )               Used to specify logic precedence


             When using boolean logic, you must surround all of your
             search keywords with double quotes (the " character).

             For example, to search for messages which contain references to
             motorized vehicles which are not motor cycles, you could
             specify:

                 (("MOTOR" & "VEHICLE") | "CAR" ) & (! "CYCLE")

             Translating this search string to English yields:

                 "Find all messages containing the terms MOTOR and VEHICLE
                 or containing the term CAR but not containing the term
                 CYCLE."

             Here's an even more complex example which also shows that
             wildcards can be combined with boolean logic during searches:

             "ROBO*" & ("MEMORY" | "?MS " | "INSTALL") & ("OS/2" | "WINDOW")

             This expression would be useful for locating messages about
             configuring memory when setting up RoboMail or Robocomm under
             Windows or OS/2.

             RoboMail search strings are never case sensitive and can be up
             to 100 characters in length.  RoboMail will give an error
             message if you attempt to input an invalid search string.


     Saving and Restoring Search Expressions
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         Whenever RoboMail is prompting you for a query condition, you can
         press [F10] to access the Query Manager pop-up screen.  This screen
         allows you to maintain a list of search expressions that you will
         use frequently.  Simply press [Ins] to add a new expression,
         [Alt-E] to edit an expression and [Del] to delete an expression.
         to access a saved expression when you are performing a query, press
         [F10] at the search expression prompt, highlight the desired item
         from the pop-up list and press [Enter] to select it.






     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 57


     OFFLINE CONFERENCE MANAGEMENT
     ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀

     RoboMail's conference management screen offers a convenient interface
     for communicating with the mail service to specify the conferences to
     be included in your mail packet.  To access the screen, press [F8]
     while reading messages, or highlight a mail system in the System window
     of the control panel and press [F8] or select "Conference Management"
     from the [/] pop-up main menu.

     The conference management screen is divided up into four windows.  The
     large window on the left side of the screen contains a list of all
     available conferences on the BBS.  If RoboMail has seen mail in the
     conference before and you have not issued a drop request for the
     conference recently, then SEL will appear next to the conference name
     and the entire line will be displayed in a different color to let you
     know that the conference is already selected for scanning on the mail
     system.

     The right side of the screen is made up of three windows which hold the
     pending Add, Drop and Reset configuration requests which have not
     yet been exported to an outgoing mail REPly packet.  To move the cursor
     between windows, use the [Tab] and [Sh-Tab] keys.

         ■   To search for a conference name, place the cursor in the
             conference names window and begin typing the conference name to
             look for.

         ■   To join or add a new conference on the mail system, highlight
             the name of the conference to add and press [Alt-A].

         ■   To abandon or drop a selected conference, highlight the name of
             the conference to drop and press [Alt-D].

         ■   To reset the last message read in a conference, highlight the
             conference name and press [Alt-R] to reset the conference's
             last read pointer.

         ■   To delete a configuration request, highlight the configuration
             request to remove and press the Delete key.

     RoboMail will let you know whenever you have "pending" conference
     configuration requests which have not yet been exported to an outgoing
     package by placing a "C" in the system's OutBox on the Control Panel.

     NOTE: Some mail services only send information about the conferences
     that you currently have selected for reading, and others can be
     configured to do this.  Since RoboMail supports up to 9,999 conferences
     it can support, you should configure the mail service to include
     information about all available conferences in your mail packet if it
     is at all possible to do so.  This will enable you to take advantage of
     RoboMail's advanced conference management capabilities

     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 58


     Quick Conference Drop
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         RoboMail provides a shortcut key when you want to quickly drop the
         conference you are currently reading.  To do this, press [Alt-D]
         while reading messages and RoboMail will automatically create a
         conference drop request.


     Setting Pointers
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         Whenever you create a "Reset Conference" configuration request,
         RoboMail will open up a window to ask you to specify the new
         message pointer.  Depending upon the mail system you are dealing
         with, a variety of options are available.

         Some mail systems require that you do not enter anything into the
         reset request option.  Doing this will set your last message read
         pointer to the last available message in the conference.  Other
         systems will allow or require you to specify a specific message
         number to reset the pointer.  Still other systems will allow you to
         specify a negative number, which means "send me the last xxx
         messages in the conference."

         Check with your mail system operator to see which capabilities are
         available to you.


     ALL ABOUT TAGLINES
     ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀

     RoboMail provides a wide variety of features to feed the habits of
     the tagline addicted.  Taglines may be up to 60 characters in
     length and are maintained in standard DBF format files (although the
     file gets a RTF extension).  There is no practical limit to the number
     of taglines that RoboMail can manage.

     Specify the default tagline file on RoboMail's "Message Settings"
     configuration screen.  This is the file that will be used for tagline
     selection on all conferences which do not have a customized tagline
     file specified.  To access the "Tagline Manager" for general tagline
     file management, press [F10] from the control panel screen.  At the
     tagline file prompt, press [Enter] to access the default tagline file,
     or press [F10] again for a pop-up list of existing tagline files.  To
     create a new tagline file, enter a new name at the tagline file name
     prompt.

     Importing and Exporting Tagline Files
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         Once the Tagline Manager screen is displayed, press [Alt-I] to
         import the contents of a standard ASCII tagline file.  the file
         should be formatted with one tagline per line.  Any tagline longer
         than 60 characters will be truncated during the import.

     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 59


         To export the contents of a RoboMail RTF tagline file to a standard
         text file, press [Alt-X] while the tagline manager is displayed.
         Enter any valid file name at the prompt and the export will begin.


     Sorting the Tagline File
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         No problem!  Just press [Alt-S] any time the tagline manager screen
         is displayed.


     Querying the Tagline File
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         RoboMail can also quickly locate key words within a tagline file to
         help you make a better tagline selection.  To do this, go into the
         tagline manager pop-up screen and press the [Q] key to initiate a
         query.  You can use wildcards and boolean logic in your search
         expression.  See the section of this document entitled "Creating
         Search Expressions" for complete details.  You can also access the
         Query manager screen by pressing [F10] at the search string prompt.


     Using an External Tagline Manager
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         RoboMail provides support for external tagline managers which place
         their selected tagline in RoboMail's home directory in a file
         matching the pattern JH*.REP.

         Upon return from the external message editor, RoboMail will check
         its home directory for any file matching the JH*.REP pattern.  If
         the file is found, RoboMail will use the tagline found in the file
         when it presents the Message Addressing screen.

         You can also use an external tagline manager with the internal
         editor by creating a TAGLINE.BAT file in your RoboMail directory.
         before presenting the Message Addressing screen, RoboMail always
         checks its home directory for the TAGLINE.BAT file.  If it is
         found, RoboMail will execute the batch file, which should be
         written so that it ultimately places a tagline in a JH*.REP file in
         the RoboMail home directory.  When returning from TAGLINE.BAT,
         RoboMail will search for a tagline file and will use it instead of
         pulling a tagline from its internal database.

         RoboMail also checks for the TAGLINE.BAT file whenever you press
         [F10] in the "Tagline" field on the Message Addressing screen.  If
         it's found, it will be run and RoboMail will look for a JH*.REP
         file when it regains control.

         You can also replace RoboMail's "Tagline Manager" screen with your
         external tagline management utility by creating a TAGMAN.BAT file.
         Whenever you press [F10] from the message viewing or control panel
         screen, RoboMail checks for this batch file before going into its
         own tagline manager screen.
     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 60



     Selecting Taglines
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         RoboMail will automatically select taglines from the specified
         tagline file based upon the rule you specify in the "Taglines"
         section of the "Message Settings" configuration screen.  If you
         want to override its automatic selection, place the cursor in the
         "Tagline" field of the Message Addressing screen and press [F10].


     Conference-Specific Tagline Files
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         To specify a customized tagline file for a conference, input the
         tagline file name in the "Alternate Tagline File" field on the
         conference specific settings screen.  RoboMail will select taglines
         from this file whenever you compose a new message or reply in the
         conference.


     Stealing Taglines
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         RoboMail helps you to steal taglines from the messages you read by
         "Grabbing" them from the currently displayed message.  To do this,
         make sure the message text selection bar is toggled on (press
         [Scroll Lock] if it's not) and highlight the line of the message
         containing the tagline you want.  Press the [G] key and RoboMail
         will allow you to edit the line to remove any unwanted parts before
         saving it to your active tagline file.   Next, specify the target
         tagline file and press the "Save" button to copy your edited
         tagline into the file.


     MAINTAINING YOUR MESSAGE DATABASE
     ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀

     RoboMail also provides a suite of commands for bulk manipulation of
     assigned archive actions as well as global processing of marked
     messages.  This section details the processing commands which can be
     used in interactive and unattended (command line) mode.


     Bulk Marking
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~
         Press the bulk marking hot key, [F4], from the control panel to
         assign archive actions to large groups of messages from a single
         mail system.  The two sets of radio buttons on the bulk marking
         dialog box allow you to specify the class of messages (personal,
         recent, archive or chron) that you would like to modify, as well as
         the archive action to assign.

         By default, the bulk marking process will not touch any message
         which already has an archive action assigned.  To override this
         capability and assign the desired action to all the messages in the
     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 61


         specified message class, select the "Replace existing assignments"
         check box.

         If you have changed the number of aging days on one or more
         conference configuration screens and want to update the age days
         currently assigned to the specified messages, select the "Update
         age days with default" check box.

         To perform bulk updates of the archive actions assigned to messages
         in a single conference, press [F4] at the message view screen to
         access the "Bulk Action Assignment" dialog box.  Start by
         specifying the messages that you would like to update.  Select ALL
         to modify the action assignments of every message in the
         conference, or MARKED FOR... to specify messages which already have
         particular archive actions assigned.  Next, specify the new archive
         action (Age, Keep, Discard or None) to assign to the selected
         messages.  If you would also like to update the age days currently
         assigned to the selected messages, select the UPDATE AGE
         DAYS check box and fill in the new number of age days in the space
         provided.


     Bulk Processing
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         Although most message processing is done via the assisted
         reading mode or auto-pilot while reading mail, there may be times
         when you want to process a large number of messages all at once.
         To do this, go to the control panel screen and press the
         message processing hot key, [F5].  RoboMail will present a menu
         with the following options:

             ■   Recent <system> messages
             ■   All <system> messages
             ■   Recent messages from all systems
             ■   All messages from all systems

         Highlight the option you want to execute and press [Enter] to
         start the message processing.  To bulk process all messages in your
         RoboMail database in unattended mode, use the /r command line
         switch.


     Discarding Aged Out Messages
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         Archive messages which have "aged out" are not automatically
         deleted by RoboMail.  Instead, they remain in the archive as
         candidates for recycling during the message importing process.
         During importing, RoboMail always looks into the archives for aged
         out messages before making the decision to add a new record to the
         database.  If an aged out message record is found, it is used to
         hold the new incoming message.

         Under normal circumstances, this method provides a maximum visible
     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 62


         lifespan for your archived messages without requiring a great deal
         processing time maintaining the message archives.  However, there may
         be times when your message archives are abnormally large, and you
         may want to remove aged out messages from the archives immediately.
         If you decide you want to do this, place the control panel cursor
         on the row for the system you want to process and press [Alt-F4].
         When you do this, RoboMail will begin looking through the system's
         archive for messages that are aged out.  (Remember that a message
         is considered aged out when the message date plus the number of age
         days assigned to the message is earlier than the current date).

         If any aged out message are found, they will have "Discard"
         assigned as their archive action, and RoboMail will ask for
         permission to process the discarded messages out of the system's
         archive.  Use the /a /r command line switches if you would like to
         perform this process in unattended mode.


     Packing Your Data Files
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         "Packing" refers to the process of permanently removing all the
         disk space consumed by "deleted" data from a database.  RoboMail
         keeps a strict watch on all discarded data within your message
         database and will efficiently recycle it during the message
         importing process.  For this reason, packing RoboMail's data files
         is not normally necessary.

         For times when you are attempting to free up as much disk space as
         possible, or if you are making a conscious effort to permanently
         reduce the number of messages in your RoboMail database, RoboMail
         provides a set of routines for packing its data files.  Press [P]
         from the control panel screen to call up a menu of available
         packing options:

             PACK MESSAGE HEADERS ONLY (DBF) -- This option minimizes the
             disk space consumed by your the "message headers" in your
             database.  The effected files are MSGS.DBF and MSGS.CMX.  This
             option is relatively fast and may result in slightly improved
             performance if you have a very large number of "Discarded"
             messages in your database.  Use the /p switch to initiate this
             process from the command line.

             PACK VARIABLE LENGTH TEXT (DBV) -- This option removes
             recyclable space from the ROBOMAIL.DBV file.  This file
             contains the vast majority of data in your RoboMail database.
             All message text, BBS screens, bulletins and address book notes
             are contained in this file.  Since this file is the largest
             part of your RoboMail installation, packing it can yield the
             greatest reduction in disk space consumed.  You should pack
             this file only when you suspect that the total number of
             non-discarded messages in your database has been significantly
             reduced.  Packing this file requires free disk space matching
             the size of your ROBOMAIL.DBV file and, depending on the speed
     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 63


             of your computer and the size of your DBV file can take a
             significant amount of time.  use the /v switch if you want to
             initiate this process from the command line.

             PACK SUPPLEMENTAL DATA -- This option is almost never required
             and will result in only very modest space savings.  However, it
             is very fast!  "Supplemental" data includes items such as your
             attachment directory, address book and BBS system configuration
             data.  There is no command line switch for this option.  Since
             it is so fast, it will always be performed whenever you use the
             /p switch mentioned above.

             PACK EVERYTHING -- To absolutely remove all possible recyclable
             space from your RoboMail database, use the following command
             line switches:

                 RoboMail /a /r /p /v

             Add /q to the command line if you want RoboMail to return to
             DOS after processing.


     Viewing the Database Status Screen
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         Press [D] from the control panel screen for a concise summary of
         your RoboMail message data.  You can use this screen to help you
         determine the potential benefit of packing your database.  If the
         number of "recyclable" messages greatly exceeds your normal message
         flow, then you may want to consider packing your databases as
         indicated above.


     Message Management Tips
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

         ■   Set up conferences you don't care about keeping a record of to
             default to "Discard" or "Age 0 Days" status.  Assigning discard
             status to a message means that it will be permanently lost when
             you "process" the messages.  For this reason, some users prefer
             "Age 0 days" to discard status because this moves messages into
             the archive as a holding area for recycling, where they can
             still be viewed up until the time the message import process
             reclaims them.  The only downside to this approach is that
             message importing will be slightly less efficient and your
             ROBOMAIL.DBV file may grow larger than it would if you always
             assigned Discard status to messages you don't want to keep
             around.

         ■   Set up conferences you do care about to "Age xx Days" where xx
             is the number of days worth of messages (based on the message
             date, not the import date!) to keep.

         ■   Only use "Keep" as a default archive action on conferences that
     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 64


             you really, really want to keep.  If you do this, then be
             ruthless about overriding the default archive action while
             reading messages if a message doesn't look like something you
             will be caring about.

         ■   Think of the "Archive" message class as a self maintaining
             folder for each defined conference.  Avoid creating folders
             which match the name of a conference.  This duplicates data.


     RUNNING ROBOMAIL BY COMMAND LINE SWITCHES
     ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀

     RoboMail provides a variety of command line switches to help you move
     processing and maintenance events to times when you will not be using
     your computer for other tasks.  Type "ROBOMAIL /?" at the DOS prompt to
     display the following table of command line options:

          ╔═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗
          ║               ROBOMAIL COMMAND LINE SWITCHES                  ║
          ╠═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╣
          ║  /Q          Quit to DOS after processing  (unattended mode)  ║
          ╟───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╢
          ║  /I<file>    Import QWK packet <file>                         ║
          ║  /I          Import all QWK packets in incoming directory     ║
          ╟───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╢
          ║  /E<ID>      Export all OutBox messages for a system          ║
          ║  /E          Export OutBox messages for all systems           ║
          ╟───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╢
          ║  /A          Mark all aged-out messages for deletion          ║
          ║  /R          Process all marked messages                      ║
          ╟───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╢
          ║  /F          Pack just the message text (FPT) file            ║
          ║  /V          Pack just the auxiliary text (DBV) file          ║
          ║  /P          Pack all data files (except DBV)                 ║
          ╟───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╢
          ║  /O          Search and destroy all orphaned messages         ║
          ╟───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╢
          ║  /L<file>    Log command line results to <file>               ║
          ╟───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╢
          ║  /M          Force monochrome mode  (disable VGA font tricks) ║
          ║  /C          Force color mode                                 ║
          ╚═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝

     For example, if you use Robocomm to collect and send your mail packets
     and have an agenda called MAILRUN to do the work, the following batch
     file would handle exporting of your outgoing mail to a reply packet,
     executing the agenda for moving the mail, importing of received packets
     and would log the whole thing to your Robocomm.log file.




     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 65


     @ECHO OFF
     rem MAILRUN.BAT
     rem ───────────
     rem
     rem  Sample batch file to demonstrate how you can use Robocomm and RM
     rem  together to handle all of your mail exporting, gathering, sending
     rem  and importing automatically and unattended.
     rem
     rem  This batch file assumes:
     rem
     rem         Robocomm is installed in \ROBOCOMM
     rem         RoboMail is installed in \ROBOMAIL
     rem         Your Robocomm agenda used to move mail is called MAILRUN
     rem
     rem  A nice feature of this approach is that RoboMail will write notes
     rem  into your Robocomm log file indicating its progress with mail
     rem  processing
     rem

     rem export all outbox messages
     cd \robomail
     robomail /E /L\ROBOCOMM\ROBOCOMM.LOG /Q

     rem run robocomm to deliver/get the mail
     cd \robocomm
     robocomm /aMAILRUN /R

     rem import all received mail
     cd \robomail
     robomail /i /L\ROBOCOMM\ROBOCOMM.LOG /q

     rem If you're not going to be around, why not minimize RoboMail's
     rem data files?
     robomail /a /r /v /p /q /L\ROBOCOMM\ROBOCOMM.LOG
     rem all done!

     Command Line Examples
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

         RoboMail /i /q

             Import all mail, return to DOS

         RoboMail /e /q

             Export all mail, return to DOS

         RoboMail /a /r /v /p /q

             Make all RoboMail data files as small as possible and
             return to DOS.

         RoboMail /iGROUPONE /lGROUPONE.LOG
     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 66


             Import mail from GROUPONE BBS and log results to the
             GROUPONE.LOG file.

         RoboMail /e /p /q

             Export all OutBox messages, minimize the MSGS.DBF file and
             quit back to DOS.


     THE ROBOMAIL ENVIRONMENT VARIABLE
     ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀

     You can control certain aspects of RoboMail's memory management via its
     DOS environment variable, ROBOMAIL.  You should try running RoboMail
     without a ROBOMAIL environment variable at first until you are
     confident that everything is working properly.  Setting a ROBOMAIL
     environment variable is not required and should only be attempted by
     individuals who are familiar with memory management terminology, or who
     need to disable certain features for compatibility. The format of the
     ROBOMAIL environment variable is:

       ROBOMAIL=<command>;<command>

     The available commands are:

       MAXMEM:nnnn  Sets the maximum amount of physical memory to use before
                    swapping to disk.  The default is 8096K which is more
                    than sufficient for the vast of RoboMail installations.
                    In a task switching or multi-tasking environment you may
                    want to lower this value.  As an example, to change the
                    maximum amount of memory to use to 2048K (2MB) use
                    "MAXMEM:2048".

       MINMEM:nnnn  Sets the minimum amount of physical memory that must be
                    available to run the program.  If there is not enough
                    memory available an error message is generated and the
                    application quits back to DOS.  The default is 1024K which
                    is the recommended minimum.  As an example, to change the
                    minimum amount of memory to 1536K (1.5MB) use "MINMEM:1536".

       TRACE        Installs special monitoring code to assit in technical
                    support requests.  Do not use this option unless
                    instructed to do so by RoboMail support.

       DEBUG        Installs special monitoring code to assit in technical
                    support requests.  Do not use this option unless
                    instructed to do so by RoboMail support.






     _______________________________________________________________________
     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 67


     PERFORMANCE OPTIMIZATION TIPS
     ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀

     ROBOMAIL LOVES A NON-FRAGMENTED DISK!

         Depending on your mail reading habits, RoboMail's data files can
         grow very large.  Unfortunately, DOS does not do a very good job of
         managing the way large files are placed on the hard disk.  After
         repeated use under DOS, your RoboMail data files will become
         "fragmented" and your hard disk will have to do a lot of extra work
         to access the various parts of the files, as requested by RoboMail.
         Regular use of a disk defragmenting utility will provide a
         significant performance boost to applications, like RoboMail, which
         access large data files.

     INSTALL A DISK CACHE UTILITY

         A disk cache program will be very helpful.  RoboMail does a
         tremendous amount of disk i/o during the mail importing and
         database packing processes.  Delayed, lazy or staged writes will
         provide a very significant performance boost, but should only be
         used if you are sure your computing environment, including your
         RoboMail installation is "stable."

     DISK COMPRESSION CUTS PERFORMANCE DRAMATICALLY!

         Disk compression utilities such as Stacker or DoubleSpace in DOS
         6.x are excellent tools for some data processing needs.  However,
         they create a *very* large performance degradation of database
         systems which manage large quantities of data.  RoboMail is such a
         system.  During the message importing and database maintenance
         processes, RoboMail is updating many large files and the disk
         compression utility sits in between RoboMail and the disk
         subsystem creating a large drag on system resources.  In addition
         to this, most experts agree that delayed disk writes with
         compressed volumes is very dangerous, so many utility providers are
         disabling delayed writes (by default) when disk compression is in
         use.  This creates an even greater reduction in optimal performance
         levels.

         If you are using disk compression, you should know that RoboMail's
         performance will increase by nearly 300% on the average system when
         the program is running on a non-compressed volume!


     ROBOMAIL LOVES OS/2!

         IBM's OS/2 operating system provides an ideal environment for
         RoboMail use.  Here's a quick rundown of why:

             ■   OS/2's Preemptive multi-tasking means large mail imports
                 and database maintenance operations can be run in the
                 background.  Also, RoboMail is "OS/2 aware" and will yield
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     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 68


                 time slices to OS/2 while it is waiting for user input.
                 (NOTE that with OS/2 2.1 he TAME21 OS/2 fix is required
                 for proper time-slice yielding.  This file is available on
                 Group One BBS)

             ■   OS/2's Super-FAT and HPFS filing systems provide
                 significantly enhanced data access speeds and integrity.
                 HPFS significantly reduces fragmentation of RoboMail's data
                 files.

             ■   OS/2 can provide DOS sessions custom-tailored to RoboMail's
                 needs.  Large amounts of virtual DPMI memory provide an
                 ideal environment.


     ALL GOOD THINGS IN MODERATION

         Understand the limits of your machine.  RoboMail's database engine
         is very fast, but it's not magic.  Since there is virtually no
         limit to the number of messages that RoboMail can manage in its
         database, the only practical limit becomes the capacity of your
         machine.  If you become dissatisfied with RoboMail's performance,
         re-adjust your aging parameters to reduce the number of messages in
         your database.  Use the [Alt-F4] key at the control panel or the /A
         command line switch to immediately discard "aged-out" messages.

         Also, remember that RoboMail's databases are extremely
         self-maintaining.  There is very little need for regular "Packing"
         of the databases.  The only time you should really need to pack is
         when you have significantly reduced the total number of messages in
         your database.


     KEEPING A GOOD BACKUP
     ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀

     Although RoboMail has been thoroughly tested and was developed with
     data integrity as a top priority, you should always keep a good backup
     of your RoboMail data.  The message database you develop over time may
     become very valuable to you.  And, depending upon the amount of mail
     you read, the data files managed by RoboMail can become very large.
     It's very likely that the largest single files you find on your hard
     disk will be created and managed by RoboMail.  The size of these files
     will make them more likely to become damaged in the event of a minor
     hard disk or file system fault on your machine.  Please make a full
     backup of your RoboMail data a regular part of your regular PC
     maintenance routine!






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     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 69


     TROUBLE SHOOTING
     ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀

     If you ever experience an abnormal exit while using RoboMail, it is
     very important that you re-boot your machine, then run a disk
     verification utility before attempting to restart RoboMail.  If
     RoboMail does not quit via its standard shut down routines, it is
     likely that your mail data files will still be "open." Attempting to
     reuse the RoboMail files before rebooting and running a file system
     verification utility like DOS's CHKDSK or SCANDISK program can result
     in data integrity problems.

     If you are receiving messages such as "Insufficient physical memory"
     then it is possible that there is not enough free memory available to
     RoboMail.  If you receive this message every time you try to run the
     program and you have a machine with at least 2 megabytes of memory
     installed, then you will need to reduce the memory used by other parts
     of your system.  If you receive it only occasionally, then there may be
     some utility which is getting loaded in your system only when you
     perform certain tasks.  Disk cache utilities and RAM disks are the most
     common TSR utilties which can consume large auantities of RAM.  Consult
     the documentation for your TSR utilities to see how to limit the amount
     of memory they consume.

     Another possible source of difficulty results from disabling DOS's
     STACKS facility.  If you are experiencing difficulties running RoboMail
     and you have a STACKS=0,0 in your CONFIG.SYS file,please change the
     line to STACKS=9,256 and re-boot your machine before re-starting
     RoboMail.

     Under some circumstances, certain memory resident utilities
     (particularly "virus checker" utilities) have been found to interfere
     with RoboMail's operations.  RoboMail is a sophisticated program which
     fully exercises your computer's memory and disk subsystems.  Because of
     this, it is more sensitive to conflicts than many other programs.  If
     you encounter problems and have TSR (terminate and stay resident)
     programs loaded at the same time as RoboMail, please try running a
     "clean" session without any of your TSR utilities loaded.  After
     verifying that RoboMail runs properly without the utilities, add your
     TSRs back one at a time until you isolate the TSR utility that is
     causing the incompatibility.

     If you ever recieve a "RoboMail 1.3 Internal Error" message while the
     program is operating, a file called ERROR.LOG will be created in your
     RoboMail directory.   Be sure to send this file along with your request
     for technical support so we can better disagnose the error condition
     that you encountered.






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     RoboMail 1.31 User's Guide                                      Page 70