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XPREAD.HLP
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1990-06-29
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329 lines
[ EDITOR ]
To reply to or enter new messages, provide the name of a text
oriented editor. Previous versions of Xpress included a
built-in editor which is now available as a separate program
called XPEDT.EXE. You may choose to use this editor or fill
in this field with the name of your favorite editor.
Important! This editor must be either:
1) in a directory declared on your path, or
2) named with its FULL path name.
The XPEDT.EXE editor is powerful but lacks word wrap. An
excellent alternate editor is "Qedit" by Samuel Mitchell.
You can save some memory by directly calling the EDITOR by
prefixing the command with ! character. ie., !c:\utils\q.exe.
[ QUOTE ]
When you are reading messages you can reply to the message
and include parts of it in your reply. It's desirable to set
off the quoted part of the message with the author's initials
or just arrows.
Be considerate: never quote large original messages.
Your choices include:
"Never" use quoting
"Always" use quoting
"Prompt" for quoting
[ QUOTESTR ]
When quoting is enabled with either Always or Prompt, the
reader takes the current message you are reading and inserts
the quote character at the beginning of each line. QUOTESTR
determines the quoting character(s). The default is the
author's initials.
For example, John Smith ==> " JS>"
The most common quote is " >".
[ QWIDTH ]
When you quote messages, you may want a different width for
reformatting the original message.
Recommended QWIDTH is 72 characters. If you have VERY LOW
quote widths, the quoter will behave erratically.
[ SIGNATURE ]
Signatures are those fancy sayings or quotes you find at the
bottom of messages. This option allows you to enter your
favorite saying of the day for your messages. This works
only for registered users of the Silver Xpress Reader.
NOTE: Your BBS sysop can disable this option. If you have a
signature which appears to have been ignored, probably the
BBS sysop decided not to allow messages with signatures
originating from his bulletin board.
A new feature in 2.24 are "list files". You can have xpress
pop-up a menu of signatures when you save a messages. To do
this provide the name of the list file prefixed with a @
character. ie., @signature.lis
[ MESSAGE WIDTH ]
MESSAGE WIDTH defines the width of the messages during the
read session. Some systems create messages with lines which
are infinitely long; this option prevents this.
[ MESSAGE LINE LIMIT ]
MESSAGE LINE LIMIT defines the length of the message during
the read session. Default is 150 lines which equals 12000
bytes (101*150). If you increase this number, make sure you
have enough memory.
The maximum limit is 648 lines. Thats equals 64K worth of
data.
Recommended message line limit is 150 lines.
[ WRAP WIDTH ]
This is not available in Silver Xpress.
[ SEEN BY ]
The SEEN BY option allows you to eliminate all the network
traffic numbers found at the bottom of messages. The SEEN BY
information is useless for typical users; sysops use it to
trace messages.
[ EXPANSION ]
Provide the name of the decompression (expansion) archival
program you have chosen to use such as PKXARC.EXE, PKUNZIP.EXE,
ARCE.COM, or LHARC.EXE. Note: you must already have one of
these programs; they are not provided with Xpress.
You must have %1 included in the command. Examples:
pkxarc.exe /r %1
pkunzip.exe -o %1
arce.com %1 /r
lharc.exe e /m %1
If you leave this LINE blank, Xpress will use the archive
expansion command defined in the file 'ARCHIVE.CFG'. Xpress
will automatically figure out the archive format and grab the
proper command. See the file ARCHIVE.CFG. It must reside in
the same directory as XPREAD.EXE.
[ COMPRESSION ]
Provide the name of the compression archival program you have
chosen to use such as PKARC.EXE, PKZIP.EXE, LHARC.EXE, or
ARCA.COM. Note: you must already have one of these programs;
they are not provided with Xpress.
You must have %1 included in the command. Examples:
pkarc.exe /m %1
pkzip.exe -mea4 %1 (version 0.92)
pkzip.exe -mex %1 (version 1.01 or above)
lharc.exe m /m %1
arca.com %1 /m
If you leave this LINE blank, Xpress will use the archive
compression command defined in the file 'ARCHIVE.CFG'. Xpress
will automatically figure out the archive format and grab the
proper command. See the file ARCHIVE.CFG. It must reside in
the same directory as XPREAD.EXE.
[ WORK PATH ]
WORK PATH specifies where Silver Xpress does temporary work.
Silver ALWAYS creates the directory $WORK$.DIR here. If this
WORK PATH is not defined, Silver creates the $WORK$.DIR in
the current directory.
Examples:
Ram Disk (Make sure you have enough memory.)
D:\
Floppy Disk Drive
B:\
B:\TEMP (The B:\TEMP directory must EXIST!)
You can also define the WORK PATH by using the -W switch.
ie., Xpread -WB:\TEMP
[ PRINTER ]
With Silver Xpress, you can send messages to any PRINTER
connected to a serial or parallel port.
PRN, LPT1, LPT2, LPT3, LPT4, etc.
COM1, COM2, COM4, etc.
[ FORMFEED ]
FORMFEED affects message printing. Depending on your printer
type, such as a one sheet at a time laser printer, it may be
better to send a formfeed or page eject AFTER the message is
printed. There are three options:
NEVER - never send a form feed.
AFTER - send form feed after the text is printed.
BEFORE - send form feed before the text is printed.
[ MAIL BOX ]
The MAIL BOX directory is the location of your incoming mail
file(s) (.OPX), and if you don't define a REPLY BOX, the MAIL
BOX is also where the outgoing REPLY file(s) (.REP) is
stored.
Some communication programs like TELIX allow you to define
where all your downloaded files should go. By defining the
MAIL BOX location, you can run XPREAD from anywhere on your
system. If you leave it empty, XPREAD expects to find some
Xpress mail files in the current directory.
You may also define this location by using the -M switch
on the command line. Ie. -M<mailbox_location>
[ REPLY BOX ]
The REPLY BOX directory is the location of your REPLY (.REP)
files. By defining the REPLY BOX location, you can have
XPREAD create the REPLY file in this location making it
easier to either upload the file or just for filing purposes.
You may also define this path by using the -R switch on the
command line. Ie. -R<replybox_location>
[ SORTING ]
With Silver Xpress, you can have your mail SORTED by area
first, subject next, and date last. The output is a list of
messages which keeps threads or topics in order.
[ REPLY TAG ]
The Xpress reader will mark the message that you either
read or replied to. In order for Xpress to do this, it must
save this tagging information somewhere. It does so right in
the mail file. On slow or floppy systems, this maybe a slow
task. So this option will allow you to disable the REPLY
TAG recording on disk.
Xpress will always do this at the message level. With REPLY
TAG off, it will not save the information permanently.
[ VIDEO CONFIGURATION ]
This section will allow you to configure the colors, sound
the special zooming windows effect. The color section will
allow you to interactive design your favorite colors.
[ SAVE CONFIGURATION ]
This option permanently saves your configuration choices.
[ FKEY1 ]
Reader Session Available Keys
lt arrow, - : Previous message
rt arrow, + : Next Message
<cr>, up/dn arrow, pgup pgdn - Scroll the message.
<cr> will also take you to the next message.
R : Reply to this current message. If a reply exist,
Xpread will prompt you if you wish to delete the
current reply first. If you say no, this puts you
into edit mode.
S : Save or file the current message. Xpread will prompt
you for a file name. After the first time, it will
allow you to append to this file.
P : Print the current message. Formfeeds are applied
according to your configuration setup.
E : Enter a new message into the current message area.
[ FKEY2 ]
Special Function Key Reader Info Display
Use this special help facility to define your own help or
reminder system within Silver Xpress.
Function Keys F2 to F10 are available. Just follow the
following guidelines:
o Define a help pointer with the brackets just as it was done
for FKEY2. ie., [ FKEY9 ]. The help pointers must begin
on column one.
o Keep all help screens within 20 lines. No scrolling is provided.
[ FKEY3 ]
Silver Xpress 2.24 will now allow you to configure your setting
on the BBS. To do this you have to send a message to the Xpress
program on the BBS. Here are the steps:
1: Enter a Message in ANY area. It doesn't matter because
during upload, Xpress will purge the message will it is
done with it.
2: For the TO: field, enter XPRESS CONFIG
3: For the SUBJECT: field, enter XPRESS CONFIG
4: In the message content, the following commands are allowed:
AREA <+/-><area #s>
ADDK <keyword>
DELK <keyword>
MACRO type ahead buffer starting from main menu.
See Documentation for more detail (Press F4 for examples)
[ FKEY4 ]
The Xpress Configuration commands:
AREA <+/-><area #s>
ie. AREA 10 -12 +14 <-- toggle 10, turn off 12, turn on 14.
ADDK <keyword> or DELK <keyword>
ie. ADDK XPRESS <-- add XPRESS to your keyword list
DELK PROCOMM <-- Delete XPRESS to your keyword list
MACRO <keystrokes starting from main menu>
The macro command has alot of power. With it you can automate
or control you entire xpress session after an upload. In fact, the
AREA, ADDK, and DELK commands are subsets of the MACRO command.
ie. MACRO CS 10 -12 +14|| <-- Same as AREA example above.
MACRO CTZ|DGO||G| <-- after upload, select Zmodem,
start download and quit.
[ FKEY10 ]
F1 - Generail Reader Section help
F2 - Help On Creating Help
F3 - How to Send to Xpress Configuration Manager at the BBS.
F4 - More Help for F3.
F5 - unused.
F6 - unused.
F7 - unused.
F8 - unused.
F9 - unused.
F10 - This Screen.