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- .TOPIC:
- E-Mail Functions
- VBBS 6.12 Documentation -- 6-B-1
-
- ╔════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗
- ║ CHAPTER SIX ANNEX B E-MAIL FUNCTIONS ║
- ╚════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝
-
- See also: File Attachments E-Mail Forwarding
- Carbon Copies Multi-Mail
- DIRECTmail FREQing
-
- E-mail is the "private" version of messaging, and many of
- the functions within E-mail are very similar to their messaging
- counterparts.
- The VBBS mail functions are quite powerful. When a user
- logs onto your system, VBBS will do a mailbox scan. If the user
- has new mail waiting, he or she will be informed of the new mail
- and prompted to access the mailbox at that time. The VBBS E-mail
- prompt offers choices to present a queue of new and unread mail,
- ALL mail, or to search for mail from a specific user by name or
- partial name. Users may also access mail that has been sent and
- not yet read by a local addressee, or not yet bundled into an
- outgoing network packet for a network addressee.
- VBBS also offers the sysop a means for dealing with users
- who abuse E-mail privileges; all it requires is dropping the
- guilty user's SL below the minimum required to be able to send
- E-mail.
-
- Main Menu Commands and What They Do -- E-Mail
- ═════════════════════════════════════════════
-
- [M] Mailbox Scan Manually check mailbox for mail -- new,
- ALL, or by author search
- [Y] Mail You've Sent Check mail you've sent BEFORE you log off;
- once you log off, network mail is bundled
- into the outgoing net packet. If the re-
- cipient is local and has not read it, you
- may still access it.
- [E] Write E-Mail Write an E-mail to another user, network
- or local.
- [F] Feedback to Automatically directs mail to the sysop.
- Sysop
- [G] Multi-Mail Users with an appropriate SL may store up
- to 9 separate "mailing lists" which may
- include a number of local, FidoNet,
- VirtualNET, and/or WWIVNet/WWIVLink ad-
- dresses. It is important that respon-
- sible network usage of this feature is
- maintained.
- Addressing E-mail
- ═════════════════
- VBBS has several methods of addressing E-mail; even if
- you're not sure of the recipient's name, handle, or user number,
- there's usually a way to get E-mail to him/her.
-
- 1) If you're E-mailing a local user, you may send the mail to
- the user's handle, or user number. If you're not sure of any
- of this, you can type in a partial name; VBBS will prompt you
-
- VBBS 6.12 Documentation -- 6-B-2
-
-
- for additional information. If, for example, you were logged
- onto VirtualNET node @6160 and wanted to E-mail "John Some-
- thing-or-other", you could type in JOHN as the addressee; VBBS
- would prompt back
-
- John Bok (John Bok) User #1? (Yes/No/Enter=Yes)
-
- If the name rang a bell, you could simply press [Enter] and
- the E-mail process would be underway. If not, and there were
- any other users with the handle "John ______", you'd be
- prompted for each one until you either got the right one or
- ran out of users.
-
- Note that it DOES make a difference if the board you're on
- allows handles; if you type in a user's real name and that
- user uses an alias, you WON'T be prompted for the correct
- name.
-
- 2) If you're E-mailing over VirtualNET, you may address your
- E-mail to any user on any VirtualNET system, either by name
- or by user number. If, for example, you were E-mailing
- "The Mighty Quinn" at VirtualNET node @2057, but weren't sure
- of his user number on that system, you could address the
- mail to "The Mighty Quinn @2057", and it would get there.
- You could also mail "1 @2057" with equal success.
-
- Note that if the addressee doesn't have an account on the
- system you sent the mail to, it's lost; there's no way for
- you as a user to re-route the mail to its proper recipient.
- There IS a provision for mail forwarding -- that will be
- discussed shortly.
-
-
- Oneliners
- ═════════
-
- Whenever an E-mail is received by the addressee (local or
- network), the user that sent the mail receives a one-line "return
- receipt" that informs the sender that his/her E-mail was read and
- when it was read. Oneliners are also sent to inform a user who
- has uploaded a file that the file has been downloaded by another
- user (local and network).
- On multi-user installations, if a user has written E-mail
- to another user who is on the system at the same time, that user
- will receive a real-time oneliner informing him/her that E-mail
- has just been sent to his/her mailbox. If the user sending the
- E-mail was unaware that the other user was online, VBBS will in-
- form him/her that the addressee was online and a oneliner has
- been sent.
-
-
- Prepared Text Uploading
- ═══════════════════════
-
- As in the messaging functions, the VBBS full-screen edi-
-
-
- VBBS 6.12 Documentation -- 6-B-3
-
- tor [VFSE] will allow the insertion of prepared text through up-
- loading. To upload text remotely, press "/U" or "[Esc][Esc] U"
- after positioning the cursor at the desired insertion point with-
- in the E-mail or post.
- Local uploads are simply pathed to the directory and file
- you would like to include.
-
- .TOPIC:
- File Attachments
- Attached Files to E-Mail
- ════════════════════════
-
- VBBS features the ability to attach a file to an
- E-mail. The sysop may choose to make this feature available to
- users by defining its minimum security level in VCONFIG. If a
- user has been given an appropriate security level, VBBS will ask
- whether he/she would like to attach a file to the current mail
- before saving. If the user selects "yes", then the upload prompt
- appears and the user may attach a file of any size.
-
- ╔═╗ This feature works across VirtualNET, as well; currently,
- ╚═╝ the generally accepted size limit for network attached
- files is around 30K. Anything larger than that definitely
- nitely raises a few eyebrows on the systems through which
- the E-mail must pass, and may even be stopped in transit.
-
- When an attached file is "received" by a user in E-mail,
- the existence of the file is shown at the bottom of the message
- header giving the name of the file and file size; the user is
- prompted to press [T] to transfer (download) the file from the
- BBS.
- The local sysop may attach a file from anywhere on the
- system by simply providing the path and filename at the prompt
- after choosing "yes". The default path is the main VBBS directory
- if a full path is not supplied.
- .TOPIC:
- E-Mail Forwarding
- E-Mail Forwarding
- ═════════════════
-
- According to security level, a user may forward a piece
- of mail he or she has either sent or received to another user.
- Mail forwarding may be done both locally and through any net-
- work in which the BBS participates. If a piece of mail is mis-
- directed to the correct system but the wrong user, the sysop
- (or the user himself, if allowed) may forward the mail to the
- correct user, if the correct address is known.
-
- .TOPIC:
- Carbon Copies
- Carbon Copies
- ═════════════
- According to SL, a user may send carbon copies (CC:s) of
- an unsaved E-mail to other users, both locally and across the
- network. When that E-mail is received by each CC:d user, it
- shows each network address that received a carbon-copy.
- If the sysop allows users carbon copies but not multi-
-
- VBBS 6.12 Documentation -- 6-B-4
-
- mail functions (see below), this feature may be used as a "poor
- man's multi-mail"; the primary difference is that the mailing
- list for carbon copies is not saveable.
-
- .TOPIC:
- Multi-Mail
- Multi-Mail and Mailing Lists
- ════════════════════════════
-
- According to SL (and generally restricted to higher se-
- curity levels), a user can maintain up to 9 separate "mailing
- lists", which can include an unlimited number of entries, both
- local and on any networks in which the BBS participates.
- This feature can be quite useful if you're involved in
- a project involving many users, such as an online role-playing
- game, political activity, or writers' roundtable; once again,
- the importance of responsible use of this feature CANNOT be
- overstated. Using multi-mail for networked "junk mail" will
- be brought to the Network Coordinator's attention; he will take
- whatever action he deems appropriate.
-
-
- Account Forwarding
- ══════════════════
-
- If you have a network address that you write to regularly,
- you might decide to create a local account for that user and then
- configure that user's mailbox (in [D]efaults) to forward mail
- sent to it to the proper network address. That way, you can use
- "Mike" or "24" (or whatever the local ID is) in place of entering
- the whole network address each time you initiate E-mail.
-
-
- Automatic New-User E-Mail
- ═════════════════════════
-
- Each time a new user logs onto your system, VBBS sends him
- a "welcome" E-mail that automatically appears in his mailbox.
- The name of this file is NEWUMAIL.TXT, and it should be placed
- in your \TXT directory. You may edit this file according to your
- needs.
-
-
- Form Letters
- ════════════
-
- Form letters can be used anywhere you are sending mail --
- from feedback, from regular E-mail, from replying to E-mail,
- and also from multi-mail.
- When prompted for the title, the sysop enters "\" (a back-
- slash, without the quotes), followed by a number from 1 to 99.
- An example would be
-
- \31
-
- In the above example, VBBS would then look for a file named
-
- VBBS 6.12 Documentation -- 6-B-5
-
- FORM.31 in your \TXT directory. The real message title is pul-
- led from the first line of the file; the rest of the file becomes
- the message text. It should be noted that the filename should
- NOT have any leading zeroes in the extension (e.g., FORM.4 is
- okay, but FORM.004 is not); this is similar to the filename ex-
- tension rule for taglines (see "System Taglines" for details).
- When you've given the form letter a filename, follow the
- prompts for attached file and CC:s, and it is saved. Quick,
- clean, and a minimum of keystrokes.
-
- .TOPIC:
- DIRECTmail
- VBBS DIRECTmail Interface
- ═════════════════════════
-
- Using the VBBS DIRECTmail interface, any VBBS sysop may
- send E-mail, with or without attached file, to another VBBS
- sysop. When you want to use this feature, select [D]IRECTmail
- at the E-mail prompt; then enter the full data phone number of
- the system you wish to send mail to. You will get an "Unknown
- System" message back; ignore it and go on with the process.
- Multiple DIRECTmail to different destinations may be sent during
- the same session.
-
- Once you've written the DIRECTmail, drop to WFC and use
- the [N] command to force a callout to that system by selecting
- option 0. If the line is busy, VBBS will retry as many times
- as you have specified in VCONFIG.
-
- The beauty of this system is that when the other system
- answers, your computer sends the DIRECTmail and hangs up imme-
- diately. Again, it's quick and clean.
-
- --> IMPORTANT NOTE: To use DIRECTmail, BOTH sysops must have
- this feature enabled in VCONFIG.
-
- Directmail functions are handled by the VDM.EXE executeable.
- VDM.EXE is automatically called as needed by VBBS/VME. VDM
- has the following command line switches:
-
- VDM <ch> /DIRECTIN Handle Incoming Call in Progress
- VDM <ch> /DIRECTOUT:x Call System x=Mail Slot #
-
- Up to 99 direct mail slots are available, and slots are auto-
- matically assigned as needed. If DIRECTmail is pending to be
- sent to a node, for example, any subsequent DIRECTmail to that
- same node are automatically processed together.
-
-
- VBBS 6.12 Documentation -- 6-B-6
-
- .TOPIC:
- FREQing
- File Requesting - FREQing
- ═════════════════════════
-
- VBBS also has the ability to request files in conjunction
- with the DIRECTmail function. To request files, simply enter the
- appropriate information on the title line of e-mail sent by
- DIRECTmail using the following format:
-
- Title: FREQ <filename.ext> <filename.ext> <filename.ext>
-
- FREQ must be the first word entered on the line, followed
- by one space, and then the complete name of the file requested,
- including the extension. Multiple files may be requested as long
- as there is one space between each of the filenames. For FREQing
- to be successful, the board you call must have its file databases
- flagged as FREQable and DIRECTmail must be turned on in VConfig.
-
-
-
- VBBS 6.12 Documentation --6-B-7
-
- E-Mail Sub-Menu
- ═══════════════
-
- Below is the hard-coded E-mail sub-menu; again, altering
- this menu requires a source-code modification.
-
- [Enter] Next E-Mail Advances to next E-mail.
- [R] Reply to E-Mail Reply to the E-mail you're cur-
- rently reading.
- [A] Re-Read E-Mail Redisplays the current E-mail.
- [D] Delete E-Mail Delete the current E-mail. It's
- a good idea to encourage users
- to delete their E-mail once
- they've read and/or replied to
- it, because old E-mail DOES
- take up hard-drive space.
- [Q] Quit Reading E-mail Quits to communications menu.
- [T] Download Attached If a file is attached, this will
- File allow the remote user to down-
- load the attached file.
-
-
-
- [###] Read Mail Number ### Jump to E-mail number entered.
-
- ──────── Sysop ─────────
-
- [X] Extract Text Allows sysop to save message as a
- text file. Again, it's a good
- idea to NOT use the .TXT exten-
- sion on E-mail.
- [F] Forward Forward E-mail to another user,
- either locally or across any
- networks in which the BBS par-
- ticipates.
- [V] Validate User Jumps to the author's account in-
- ormation in the user editor.
- Useful when reading new-user
- feedback.
-
-
- Just a few parting words about E-mail -- sysops should
- encourage their users to take advantage of this feature of VBBS
- (or any networked BBS system, for that matter), especially if
- the BBS does not charge for its services. The communications
- potential here is enormous but, sadly, is one of the most under-
- utilized features of BBS software.
-
- VBBS 6.12 Documentation --6-B-8
-
-
-
-
- ╔═╗ Another important use of E-mail that is seldom addressed
- ╚═╝ in reference manuals (until now) is in resolving "flame
- wars". On occasion, discussions in local and networked
- message bases will deteriorate into name-calling and
- "bashing"; on such occasions, the issue is best resolved
- in E-mail, rather than on public message bases. Please
- encourage your users to not engage in flaming, and if
- they happen to become involved in a flame war, please
- instruct them to take it into E-mail, rather than con-
- tinuing to spew vitriolic garbage across the network,
- where it can have detrimental effects on the message subs
- (these are strong words, but having seen the effects of
- flaming on more than one message base, I wanted to get
- your attention).
-