BBS Toolkit/BBS Toolkit.iso/remote/ma_103.zip/MA.DOC

Text File | 1991-12-10 | 13KB | 336 lines

Message Alert v1.02    03 Nov 91

Plain Jayne Software, home of TPBoard v7

Distributed by:

   Online Communications Inc
   22 State Street
   Bangor, Maine, U.S.A. 04401
   Voice [phone]
   Fidonet 1:132/300


What is Message Alert?
----------------------
Message Alert (MA) is a message base utility program that tells
you when any messages containing key phrases are received on your
system.  MA alerts you to these messages by creating its own
message in your netmail message area.  The easiest way to explain
MA is to present an example.

Let's say you are running FrontDoor in a private network that
exchanges 14 echo areas in addition to Netmail.  You don't need
to read all of the messages every day yet you do have to at least
scan every folder (message area) daily looking for certain key
messages of interest.  This is where MA comes in.

You can set up MA to watch specific folders (or ALL folders) for
any incoming messages that contain key phrases.  You further tell
MA where in the messages to search for each search phrase.  You
could set up one search phrase in NetMail to search for any
message where the sender's name contains the phrase "McDaniel."
You could set up a search with a phrase of "modems" and have MA
search only the subject lines of messages in the folder FD_DEV.

Simply put, MA alerts you to any incoming messages from a person,
to a person, about a subject, or containing a phrase in the body
of the text.

MA and FrontDoor
----------------
In order for MA to work, you must be using FrontDoor and MUST
have all of your message folders set up as Folders in FDSETUP.
If you are running FrontDoor and a bulletin board system using
the Hudson style message format, you must still have every
message area set up as a folder in FOLDER.FD.

MA requires that you are running FrontDoor and that your
FD config file be in the 2.02 format.  In other words, your FD
configuration file must be named SETUP.FD.  Older versions of
FD called the cfg file FD.SYS and it is safe to copy FD.SYS
as SETUP.FD in the FD directory.  MA will NOT run properly if
you are not using FrontDoor or if the SETUP.FD file is not
found.

You do not have to run MA from the FD directory; however, you
must run MA from the directory where the MA.EXE file is located.

MA and Message Bases Formats
----------------------------
MA currently works on two types of message bases:

   1) The Opus/FD style using .MSG files.
   2) The Hudson format used by QuickBBS and support by certain
      versions of TosScan/FD.
   -) There are plans to support the TPBoard message base
      as well.

The Opus format requires no additional setup when using MA.

The Hudson message format does require special instruction.
If you are using the Hudson format with TosScan (no bulletin
board), you must establish a User named "MA MA" in FDSetup
(without the quotes).  Users are edited under the menu
option GLOBAL.

If you are using the Hudson format with a bulletin board, you
must add a user to your USERS.BBS file.   The earlier in your
USERS file that you add "MA MA," the faster will be MA's search
for that record.   This provides MA with access to the LastRead
record used by MA to record scanned messages.

Setting up MA
-------------
MA requires very little configuration.  Run MA from the DOS
prompt and you will see a pull-down menu with the following
main-bar options:

   Configs   Scan   Locks   Exit

Move the highlight bar to Configs and press [Enter].  You now
have two choices:  Searches and Options; select Options.

The settings you see are the only settings required for MA
other than the message Search criteria records.  For full
help on what these settings do, move the highlight bar to
any setting and press [F1].   But briefly:

   Editor:  When you run a scan of messages from the pull-down
            menu, a file is created with a report of the results.
            To view this file, MA calls the editor you specify
            here.
   Color:   A Yes or No setting to turn color on/off in MA.
   Lock:    When messages are found that match a search record,
            you have the option of "locking" to prevent them from
            being deleted.  Make very sure that you aren't running
            any other utilities that will have problems with locked
            .MSG files.
   Style:   Which style of message base are you using.  If you
            select Hudson and don't have the necerray support files
            available, you won't be able to reenter MA without
            deleting the MA.CFG file.
   Users:   If you are running a Hudson format message base with
            a bulletin board, this sets the DOS path to your
            Users.bbs file.

To save these settings after editing, select the SAVE option from
the Exit menu.

Search records
--------------
These records specify the criteria for MA's scans through the
message base.  A search record consists of:

   -   a phrase to search for
   -   instructions on which part of the message to search
   -   the folder in which to search
   -   instructions on deleting matching records
   -   any special instructions according to the type of search

To edit/create search records, select SEARCH from the Configs
menu.   The screen you will see appears something like:

   Folder:  _____________
   Phrase:  _____________
   Search:  _____________
   Flags:   _____________
   Delete:  _____________

Initially, the Folder selected will be the first folder in your
FOLDER file.  If you have created any search records for this
folder, you will see the data for the first search record for
that folder.  If the phrase is blank (empty), there are NO
search records for this folder and you are looking at a new
search record which will only be saved when or if completed.

Try pressing [ENTER] while the highlight bar is on FOLDER;
you will see a list of all the available folders.  By selecting
any of them, you will change to the list of search records for
the selected folder.   Once you select a folder, all operations
such as adding and deleting are for THAT folder until you select
a different folder.

We'll skip Phrase for a moment...

SEARCH tells MA which part of the message you wish to scan.
The options are:

   1)  The text of the message
   2)  The subject line of the message
   3)  The names of the message (both FROM and TO)

If you want to watch for the same phrase in both the subject and
text of the message, you will need to create two search records
for that folder with each having the same search phrase.

PHRASE is the phrase you wish to have MA watch for.  There
are several considerations depending on which SEARCH type
you select.  If you are searching in either the text of the
message or the subject line, the message will be considered
a "match" and you will be alerted to that message *IF* the
phrase you enter is present ANYWHERE within the subject (or
text) or the message.  The search is case insensitive.

When searching in the subject line or message text, you can
further specify TWO search phrases which MUST appear together
in the same message subject line (or together in the message
text) to be considered a matching message.  To enter two
search phrases in the same search record, separate them with
two forward slash letters.   Example:   quayle//bozo  as a
text search would look for QUAYLE and BOZO together in a
message.

If you are searching the NAME fields of a message, you have
three additional commands to use.

   1)  If you enter a phrase that begins with an exclamation
       point, MA will search for any names that BEGIN with the
       following text.   For example:   !MI would consider
       matching any names beginning with MI.

   2)  If you enter a phrase that begins with an @ mark,
       MA will search for any names that contains the
       following text.   For example:   @MI would consider
       matching any names that contain MI.

   3)  If you don't use any of the above two command, MA will
       expect an exact match.  If you enter "John Henry", MA
       will only consider a match the full name "John Henry".

FLAGS.  Currently, only the name SEARCH types support any
additional flags.  When searching the name fields, you must tell
MA which name field to search:  the FROM name, the TO name, or
BOTH names.

DELETE.  When searching the name fields, you have the
additional option of deleting any matching messages.  This option
only works in the OPUS style message base.  You would use this
option when you absolutely didn't  want any messages entering
your system from a particular source (person).

Adding records
--------------
Search records are added by pressing [INS].  You will see a
new record appear with a blank phrase field.   You can add as
many records as you wish; however, only complete records are
saved on exiting MA.

Deleting records
----------------
Search records are deleted by pressing [DEL].  If the record
phrase is blank and there are no records remaining for the
current folder, there is no harming is pressing the [DEL]
key.

SCANNING
--------
The process of having MA search through new messages is called
a "scan."  If you have added new search records and want MA to
look through messages it has already looked through, that is
called a "rescan."  Both of these are options from the SCAN
selection on the main menu bar.  You can scan or rescan from
the menu but MA was really intended to run from a batch file
following new incoming mail.  In this way, MA performs the
searching whenever mail arrives without your instruction every
time.

To run a scan without entering MA, type MA at the DOS prompt
followed by any mix of the following options:

   /?  = displays this help list
   /S  = instructions to perform a scan
   /M  = instructions to output a netmail message report
   /F  = forces a rescan of previoulsy scanned messages
   /L  = turns off locking regardless of MA's settings
   /Q  = runs MA in quick mode

/S Scan
This option is required to initiate  a scan from the DOS prompt.
Without this option, MA will load in full screen mode regardless
of any other option (other than /?).

/M  MESSAGE
This tells MA to produce a .MSG file in your netmail area with
a report on the findings of this scan.  If you don't use /M, you
will have to check for the report file MASCAN.OUT.

/F  FORCE RESCAN
Use with -- not to replace -- the /S option, this tells MA to
extend the scan to already scanned messages.  MA knows which
messages have been scanned by either the lastread counters (in
the Hudson format) or a flag set in the message itself (OPUS
style base).

/L  LOCK Override
Overrides the internal "lock" settings and disables message
locking.

/Q  Quickmode
Normally, MA scans by folder and takes the search records in
sequence.   This means that for EACH search record, ALL
messages must be read in.  This is done to produce a report
like the following:

   SYS18
   -----
   COSTS   Text search
      Msg# 1   JAMES SMITH                  ANTHONY LISA ET AL
      Msg# 10  JAMES SMITH                  JOHN NELSON

   TEST   Text search
      Msg# 2  JAMES SMITH                   NO ONE

   QUALYE//MORON   Text search
      Msg# 1  MANIAC                        SECRET SERVICE

Note that all findings (see the COSTS text search) for a particular
search are grouped together.  To do this, the same messages had to
be read for scan for each of the subsequent searches.

QUICK mode changes that to open each message once and then for
that message, run through all the searches:

   SYS18
   -----
   MSG# 1
     COSTS   Text search
        JAMES SMITH                  ANTHONY LISA ET AL
        MANIAC                       SECRET SERVICE

   MSG# 10
      COSTS   Text search
        JAMES SMITH                  JOHN NELSON

   MSG# 2
      TEST   Text search
         QUALYE//MORON   Text search

This saves a marginal amount of time because MA only opens each
message once.  The savings are about 20-25% but the primary
factor is the difference in the format of the reports.  Do you
want all matches for a message to be grouped together?  Or would
your prefer all findings for a search to list the matched
messages?

Locking/Unlocking
-----------------
Message locking and unlocking is only performed on the OPUS
.MSG style message base.  If you are running a bulletin
board that imports from the OPUS format, you should ensure
that you importer can import READ-ONLY message files before
enabling locking.

How do I register MA?
---------------------
MA is only available in registered versions.   For registration
information, contact:

   Online Communications Inc
   22 State Street
   Bangor, Maine, U.S.A. 04401
   Voice [phone]
   Fidonet 1:132/300