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Text File | 1992-05-29 | 30KB | 642 lines

MAILCFG - Configuration program for Mail Manager Copyright (C) 1991-92 Morrow & Wilson - All rights reserved Version 1.34 - May 29, 1992 Mail Manager's configuration file (MAILMGR.CFG) is binary in nature (for FAST loading), and must therefore be manipulated by the supplied program, MAILCFG.EXE. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- HINTS --------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you're reading this file BEFORE installing Mail Manager, WE APPLAUD YOU! Since you went to all this trouble, here are some important pointers for you to consider: 1 - Your MAIN message base must ALWAYS be configured as conference #1 in MailCFG. This is very important, and Mail Manager simply will not function properly if your MAIN area is not #1. 2 - Once MailCFG creates your configuration file, and your users start using the door, you cannot easily re-sort your conferences. 3 - If you have several different TYPES of conferences (such as local, RBBS-NET, FIDO-NET, etc.), you'll want to consider how to group the conferences together for the user's purposes. 4 - Will you be adding more conferences at some point? Will you want those conference names to be inserted in the middle of your list of conference numbers, or will it be ok to just tack them onto the end? 5 - After Mail Manager's been running for a while, and you decide to delete a conference, delete it, but RESERVE THE SPACE FOR THAT CONFERENCE NUMBER!!! If you don't, your conferences will be re-numbered (with the axed conference being deleted), and the unsuspecting users might inadvertantly upload a reply to the wrong conference number. If all this is too much to think about for the moment, consider this relatively simple example... Say you have a total of 3 conferences: 1 MAIN message base 1 RBBS-NET area 1 FIDO-NET area. Now, if you think at some point that you might add two more conferences to your list of RBBS-NET conferences, and maybe five more local areas, here's how you might want the conference numbers to look from Mail Manager's standpoint: 1 - MAIN 2 - --- 3 - --- 4 - --- 5 - --- 6 - --- 7 - RBBSNET 8 - --- 9 - --- 10 - FIDONET Now, when you do add an extra local conference, you can insert it in position #2, 3, 4, 5, or 6. Otherwise, your conferences will be ordered as: 1 - MAIN 2 - RBBSNET 3 - FIDONET ... and you would have to tack that new local conference on at position #4. Starting to make sense now? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- CONFMAIL.DEF ------------------------------------------------------------------------- OK... with that in mind, if you have a CONFMAIL.DEF file (RBBS-PC's list of conferences), copy it to your Mail Manager directory, and take a look at it. If you don't, go ahead and skip this section. Are your conference types grouped together? Do you want to leave spaces between any of them? Now's the time to sort it however you see fit, making sure that your MAIN area is the very first one listed, at the top of the file. If you want to add empty conference numbers between any of them, add the following line: {EMPTY}U.DEF, MailCFG will reserve that spot for future use. Using a real quick example, say you have two conferences, and your current CONFMAIL.DEF looks like this: C:\RBBS\MAINU.DEF,C:\RBBS\MAINM.DEF C:\RBBS\BBSADSU.DEF,C:\RBBS\BBSADSM.DEF If you wanted to reserve a space between these two, you would edit CONFMAIL.DEF (the one that you copied to Mail Manager's directory, obviously) to look like this: C:\RBBS\MAINU.DEF,C:\RBBS\MAINM.DEF {EMPTY}U.DEF, C:\RBBS\BBSADSU.DEF,C:\RBBS\BBSADSM.DEF Mail Manager will see conference #2 as empty, and you'll be able to go back into MailCFG to add it in later. Last thing to note here is that Mail Manager always displays conferences to the users in columns of 10, like so: 1 11 21 2 12 22 3 13 etc.. 4 14 5 15 6 16 7 17 8 18 9 19 10 20 If you have a large number of conferences, you may want to take that into consideration as well. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- FIRING UP MAILCFG FOR THE FIRST TIME -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The first time you fire up MAILCFG, it isn't going to find the configuration file, MAILMGR.CFG. MAILCFG will report to you as such, and ask you if this is a first-time setup. (Just answer "Y" at this point). Just for the record, if you tell it "N", (this is not a first-time setup), MAILCFG will figure that you started it from the wrong directory, and will ask you for the correct path/name to MAILMGR.CFG. After you press "Y", MAILCFG will prompt you whether to A)uto-config, or M)anually configure your conferences. A)uto - If you're not familiar with CONFMAIL.DEF, ignore this option, and choose M)anual instead. This option will let you choose the path\filename of your CONFMAIL.DEF, and then ask you for default values to auto- create for EVERY conference. This can save LOTS of time if you have many conferences to configure into Mail Manager. SUGGESTION: At this point, you should key in the path/name to THE EDITED COPY of CONFMAIL.DEF that you created after reading the last section of this document. MailCFG will then step through your CONFMAIL.DEF and set things up for Mail Manager's use. The ONE REQUIREMENT for using CONFMAIL.DEF is that your MAIN message base absolutely *MUST* be the first conference listed! M)anual - Will create a default configuration file, and require you to manually add all of your conference information. There are four main screens. Use the cursor keys to move around in each one. [Esc] always takes you back to the previous level. Now, we'll take each one individually: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ SCREEN 1 - GENERAL CONFIGURATION (Screen #1 of 2): ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Unless you're configuring Mail Manager for the first time, this is the screen that pops up when you load MAILCFG. It looks someting like this: Name of your BBS................ : RBBS-PC Remote Sysop Name............... : SECRET LOGONNAME Sysop First Name................ : SYSTEM Sysop Last Name................. : OPERATOR Security to read ALL messages... : 10 Security to use in local mode... : 10 Use ANSI graphics in local mode? : Y Tagline : Your friendly neighborhood RBBS-PC - (123) 555-1212 Network type (local mode only).. : DOS Filename to use for extracts.... : RBBS-PC Default file compression........ : ZIP Path/Name of your NEWS file .... : C:\RBBS\MAIN.NWS Path/Name of your FMS directory. : C:\RBBS\MASTER.DIR Handshake method (F, R, X, N)... : XON/XOFF Next Screen Edit Conference selections Exit ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Now to take these one at a time: - Name of your BBS................ : This should be the name of your board as set in RBBS CONFIG. You can stick anything in here, however. This name will be shown to the user several times, and will be shown in the offline mail reader as the board name. - Remote Sysop Name............... : This *MUST* be the full name that you use to log on remotely. Mail Manager will not operate properly if it cannot find you (the sysop) in the various users files. - Sysop First Name................ : Your first name as you are known to your users. - Sysop Last Name................. : Your last name as you are known to your users. - Security to read ALL messages... : This should be set to either SYSOP or CO-SYSOP level only! Anyone with this security level or higher can read any message addressed to any user, regardless of whether or not it's private! Mail Manager also uses this security level for many of it's Sysop-only functions, such as the ability to use the I)nfo option from Mail Manager's main menu. - Security to use in local mode... : Should be set to SYSOP level. Whenever Mail Manager is brought up locally, it will use this security level, and the Sysop name(s) as listed above. - Use ANSI graphics in local mode? : Either "Y" or "N", and pretty self-explanitory, I think. - Tagline : If this is left blank (or "NONE"), Mail Manager will not append a tagline to the bottom of each message that the user downloads. This can be anything that you'd like to stick on the bottom of all messages. (Usually a very brief BBS advertisement). Please note that taglines can be different in each conference. This is simply what you use as a default. - Network type (local mode only).. : This setting affects local operation only. Valid settings are: D = DOS - No file/record locking in place. Q = DESQview - Use DESQview resource locking. N = NetBIOS - Use NetBIOS file/record locking, and implement file sharing. Unless you're running in a Novell network, this option requires that DOS SHARE be installed. Type of network is fully explained in MAILMGR.DOC. - Filename to use for extracts.... : Specify up to 8 characters here. All downloaded files will begin with this filename. You might want to abbrieviate your board name here to make it clearer to the users once they've downloaded their file(s). Mine's "NC", for instance. Using this example, QWK downloads would be named NC.QWK, and text extracts would be named NC.ZIP, ARJ, or LZH. Also, all uploaded replies will be expected to have this filename, with the extension ".REP". Any uploads that don't have an exact match on filename are ignored. - Default file compression........ : Must be three characters, and one of the following: ARC - Use Katz's PKARC. ARJ - Use Jung's ARJ. LZH - Use Yoshi's LHARC. ZIP - Use Katz's PKZIP/PKUNZIP. Unless you use Mail Manager's list of archivers, all downloads will be compressed using this format, and all uploads will be expected to be in this format. The archiver of your choice absolutely *MUST* be in a DOS path if you are not using the list of archivers! Just sticking it in the Mail Manager directory won't do. If you are using the list of archivers, Mail Manager will use the archiver list to determine how to call the archiver. - Path/Name of your NEWS file.... : Type in the full path to your RBBS-PC news file (usually MAIN.NWS in your RBBS-PC bulletin directory). If this file is newer than the user's last logon, it will be included in their QWK packets. Otherwise it will be skipped when their QWK packet is created. - Path/Name of your FMS directory : If you are using an RBBS-standard FMS directory, and would like to make a list of new files available to your users (since their last trip into the Mail Manager door), key in the full path/filename of your FMS directory here. If you do not want to use this option, leave this blank, or key in the word "NONE" (with no quotes). - Handshake method (F, R, X, N)... : Allows you to specify the type of flow control that you'd like Mail Manager to use. The four possible settings are as follows: F = FOSSIL (Always try to use a FOSSIL) If Mail Manager is unable (for whatever reason) to initialize your FOSSIL driver, it will default to XON/XOFF. R = RTS/CTS (Use request to send/clear to send) X = XON/XOFF (Use XON/XOFF) N = NONE (No handshaking) If set to R, X, or N: The FOSSIL argument is passed to Mail Manager from RBBS-PC in the DORINFOx.DEF file. If Mail Manager finds that a FOSSIL is active in RBBS-PC, it will automatically attempt to utilize the FOSSIL, regardless of this setting. Mail Manager will default back to this setting if it is unable to use your FOSSIL driver. Use of a FOSSIL with Mail Manager is further explained in MAILMGR.DOC. - Next Screen Position the cursor over this option, press [ENTER], and you will be taken to the second general configuration screen. - Edit Conference selections Position the cursor over this option, press [ENTER], and you will be taken to the conference selection screen. - Exit Position the cursor over this option and press [ENTER] (or press [Esc] from anywhere on this screen), and you'll be asked to save your configuration before MAILCFG exits to DOS. Thus endeth screen #1. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ SCREEN 2 - GENERAL CONFIGURATION (Screen #2 of 2): ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This screen should look someting like this: Path/Name of your bulletin list. : C:\MAILMGR\MAILMGR.BUL Path/Name of protocol definitions: C:\MAILMGR\MAILMGR.PRO Path/Name of list of archivers...: C:\MAILMGR\MAILMGR.ARL Environment variable to check....: DSZLOG Modify uploaded msgs date/time? .: No Location of your BBS.............: Anytown, USA BBS Phone number (xxx-xxx-xxxx)..: 123-456-7890 Previous Screen Edit Conference selections Exit ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Now to take these one at a time: - Path/Name of your bulletin list : Type in the full path to your list of bulletins that you would like to include to your users in their QWK packets. This is a text file, and simply lists the paths and names of your commonly updated bulletins. The default is MAILMGR.BUL in a directory named C:\MAILMGR. This file should look something like this: C:\RBBS\BULLET1 C:\RBBS\BULLET2 C:\RBBS\BULLET3 **C:\RBBS\ALWAYS.BUL ... etc. The date stamp on these files will be checked against the last logon date of the user, and if they are determined to be the same as (or newer than) the user's last logon date, they will be included in his/her QWK packet. Bulletins preceded with a double-asterisk "**" are deemed as "mandatory for inclusion", and will be included in the user's mail packets regardless of whether or not the user has turned "off" the ability to receive new bulletins. Bulletins without the leading double-asterisk are deemed as "optional", and will not be sent to the user if they have turned "off" the ability to receive new bulletins. - Path/Name of protocol definitions : Type in the full path to the RBBS-PC PROTO.DEF that you wish to use with Mail Manager. The supplied file MAILMGR.PRO allows X, Y, and Zmodem via DSZ. The very last protocol letter listed in this file MUST be "N", for none. - Path/Name of list of archivers...: Type in the full path to Mail Manager's list of archivers (default is MAILMGR.ARL in the C:\MAILMGR directory). If you do not want to give your users the option of which compression format to use, leave this line blank, or enter "NONE" (no quotes), and Mail Manager will use only your default type of file compression. See MAILMGR.DOC for further details regarding the format of MAILMGR.ARL. - Environment variable to check....: Key in the name of the environment variable that Mail Manager is to check to determine where to look for "XFER-x.DEF". Most of us seem to be using Forsberg's DSZ for transfers, so in this case you would key in the default name of "DSZLOG". When you're finished configuring Mail Manager, check your environment variable to insure that it points to XFER-x.DEF. Without XFER-x.DEF, Mail Manager will assume that all file transfers have failed. - Modify uploaded msgs date/time? .: Either "Y" or "N". Setting to "Y" tells Mail Manager to use your computer's current system date and time for all uploaded replies. Setting to "N" tells Mail Manager to use the date and time stamp as it was received in the uploaded reply packet. Advantage: Having Mail Manager modify this field assures that all uploaded messages will have the correct date and time stamp applied before inserting into your message base(s). Disadvantage: If a user uploads several replies in the same mail packet (many do), some mail networks (like FIDO-NET) will have trouble with several messages containing the exact same date & time stamp, and will likely refuse everything but the first msg of the "offending" group. If you're a member of one of these networks, you'll probably want to take the date/time stamp as-received from the user. - Location of your BBS The city, state that your system is located in. This is added to the CONTROL.DAT file that is included in all QWK packets, is part of the QWK standard, and is not used anywhere else by Mail Manager. - BBS Phone number (xxx-xxx-xxxx) The phone number to your system. This is also added to the CONTROL.DAT file that is included in all QWK packets, is part of the QWK standard, and is not used anywhere else by Mail Manager. - Previous Screen Position the cursor over this option, press [ENTER], and you will be taken to the first general configuration screen. - Edit Conference selections Position the cursor over this option, press [ENTER], and you will be taken to the conference selection screen. - Exit Position the cursor over this option and press [ENTER] (or press [Esc] from anywhere on this screen), and you'll be asked to save your configuration before MAILCFG exits to DOS. Thus endeth screen #2. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ SCREEN #3 - CONFERENCE SELECTION ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This screen should look something like this: ╓─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╖║ MAILCFG v1.34 - Copyright (C) 1991-92 Morrow & Wilson - All rights reserved.║╟─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╢║ 1 MAIN 11 21 31 41 ║║ 2 12 22 32 42 ║║ 3 13 23 33 43 ║║ 4 14 24 34 44 ║║ 5 15 25 35 45 ║║ 6 16 26 36 46 ║║ 7 17 27 37 47 ║║ 8 18 28 38 48 ║║ 9 19 29 39 49 ║║ 10 20 30 40 50 ║╟─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╢║ ║║ CONFERENCE SELECTION SCREEN ║║ ║║ Use cursor keys to select a conference to edit. ║║ ║║ [ENTER] = Edit this conference. ║║ [PgUp] = Move to previous screen. ║║ [PgDn] = Move to next screen. ║║ [Esc] = Finished editing. ║║ ║╙─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╜ You can use the cursor keys, [PgUp], and [PgDn] to switch between all of the different conferences possible. You can configure as many as 250 conferences. Position the cursor over the conference that you wish to edit, press [ENTER], and you will be taken to the conference edit screen. ************************************************************************* * It is VERY IMPORTANT to have your MAIN message area as the first * * conference listed, and that ALL MAIL MANAGER USERS have sufficient * * security to at least READ in this area! Mail Manager uses this * * internally for some of it's functions (such as W)ho's online). * ************************************************************************* Press [Esc] when you're finished editing your conferences, and you'll be taken back to the general configuration screen. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ SCREEN #4 - CONFERENCE EDIT ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Once you've pressed [ENTER] at the conference selection screen, up will pop something that looks like this: ╓────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╖ ║ ║ ║ Editing Conference #1 ║ ║ ║ ║ Conference Name .............................: MAIN ║ ║ Path/Name of conference USERS file: ║ ║ C:\RBBS\MAINU.DEF ║ ║ Path/Name of conference MESSAGES file: ║ ║ C:\RBBS\MAINM.DEF ║ ║ Allow ANSI graphics in uploaded messages? ...: Y ║ ║ Allow high & low ASCII in uploaded messages? : Y ║ ║ Security level to READ this conference ......: 5 ║ ║ Security level to POST in this conference ...: 5 ║ ║ Tagline for this conference: ║ ║ NONE ║ ║ Use Fido-style tearlines? ...................: N ║ ║ Is this a FIXED-LENGTH message base? ........: N ║ ╙────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╜ - Conference Name Up to 7 characters that you will use to describe this conference to the users. Normally set as the first 7 characters of the name of the MESSAGES and USERS file, although you can put anything in here. The important thing is to describe the conference as fully as possible (for the users) in the 7 characters that you have available. If the conference name is left blank, or it is set to "{EMPTY}", pressing [F10] will cause MAILCFG to ask you whether or not to reserve a space for this conference number. If you do NOT reserve the space, this conference number will be skipped when you save your settings. - Path/Name of conference USERS file Full path to your users file for this conference. A quick note here: You really should have a unique USERS file for each conference/subboard. RBBS-PC does not absolutely require this, but it is necessary to keep the last message read in each conference updated, and for Mail Manager to know exactly which messages to extract and prepare to download for the users. - Path/Name of conference MESSAGES file Full path to your messages file for this conference. - Allow ANSI graphics in uploaded messages? "Y" or "N". If set to "N", Mail Manager will strip all escape characters out of uploaded messages, effectively disabling ANSI. - Allow high & low ASCII in uploaded messages? "Y" or "N". If set to "N", Mail Manager will strip all high and low ascii characters out of uploaded messages, replacing them by either blank spaces, or an equivalent "normal" character. The most common reason for disabling both ANSI and ASCII is to conform to FIDO-NET rules & regs, although there are several reasons why you might want to disable ANSI. - Security level to READ this conference Minimum security level required to see this conference listed in Mail Manager's configuration menu. If the user does not have sufficient security to READ this conference, the conference name will be replaced by " --- " in Mail Manager's menu, and the user will not be allowed to download messages in this conference. - Security level to POST in this conference Minimum security level required to leave a message in this conference. If the user's security level is lower than this, yet the same as (or higher than) the security required to READ, any messages that he/she uploads to this conference will result in the following: ■ A Mail Manager security violation notice being passed back to the user in the MAIN area, as a private message. This message will be shown as being from "MAIL MANAGER". ■ The uploaded message itself being ignored. Nothing will be posted in the conference. - Tagline for this conference The tagline that you want to use for this particular conference. If set to "NONE", Mail Manager will use the default tagline. If the default tagline is also "NONE", no tagline will be appended to the end of the message. - Use FIDO-style tearlines? During our development of Mail Manager, there was much discussion to and fro in the various echo conferences regarding the allowability of mail reader tearlines "---". At this writing, it is not clear as to whether or not these additional tearlines on echo messages will be permissable. In any case, we gave you an out. Set this to "Y", and any mail reader tearlines will be replaced by three blank spaces. Set to "N", and they will be passed into the message untouched. - Is this a FIXED-LENGTH message base? Very important, and either "Y" or "N". RBBS-PC and Mail Manager handle fixed-length conferences differently from those that are configured to "grow" as messages are added. Press [Esc] or [F10] when finished with the conference.