Acorn User: China/Acorn User China CD-ROM (UK) (Disc A)/Acorn User China CD-ROM (UK) (Disc A).bin/DEMON/ACORN-STARTER/START.ARC/!TTFN_Docs_UserGuide

Text File | 1994-11-10 | 42.3 KB | 1,012 lines

                                    !TTFN

                       (The Thread Following Newsreader)


           This document was last updated for version 0.35 of !TTFN


Contents
--------

   1.0 Introduction
       1.1 Concepts    **** IMPORTANT **** READ THIS SECTION ****
           1.1.1 TTFN & NewsBase - How they interact
           1.1.2 Expiry vs. Manual Deletion - How it affects multi-user
                 operation.

   2.0 Running TTFN

       2.1 "Application needs xxxk to start up"
       2.2 "TTFN Requires RiscOS 3.10 or later"
       2.3 "Please open a directory containing !Scrap and try again"
       2.4 "<UserHome$Dir> not defined"
       2.5 "TTFN is already running"

   3.0 Configuring TTFN

       3.1 The setup Window
           3.1.1 "Edit..."
           3.1.2 "Organization"
           3.1.3 "Default User"
           3.1.4 "Time Zone"
           3.1.5 "Attribution"
           3.1.6 "Quote Character"
           3.1.7 "Quote Signatures"
           3.1.8 "Signature"
           3.1.9 "Signature Seperator"
          3.1.10 "Add Tagline"
          3.1.11 "Display Width"
          3.1.12 "Follow Threads"
          3.1.13 "Hide Headers"
          3.1.14 "Article Foreground Colour"
          3.1.15 "Article Background Colour"

       3.2 The Address Book

       3.3 Distribution Lists

   4.0 User Management

       4.1 Creating a New User
       4.2 Deleting an Existing User
       4.3 Maintaining User Details
           4.3.1 Editing the Real-Life Name
           4.3.2 Editing Signature files
           4.3.3 Group Subscription on a per-user basis

   5.0 Reading News/Mail

       5.1 Obtaining a list of active newsgroups.
       5.2 The NewsGroups window.
       5.3 The Article List window
       5.4 The Threads List window
       5.5 The Article Display window
           5.5.1 The buttons and their functions
           5.5.2 Keypress specific functions
           5.5.3 The article window menu
       5.6 Selecting multiple articles
       5.7 Catching up with a group

   6.0 Composing new News/Mail.

       6.1 Creating Email
           6.1.1 Creating a new email item
           6.1.2 Replying to an existing item/news article
           6.1.3 "No run action specified for this filetype"

       6.2 Creating Usenet News
           6.2.1 Creating a new news article
           6.2.2 Following-Up to an existing article
           6.2.3 Nettiquette

       6.3 Posting Composed News & Mail

       6.4 Including binary files in outgoing news/mail.

   7.0 Files within the Resources directory.

   8.0 Advanced Features

       8.1 Disabling User Management and Configuration Windows.
       8.2 Forcing startup with a particular user-id.

   9.0 Troubleshooting.

       9.1 "Aaaaaarrrrggghhh, the posting confirmation box didn't appear!"


----------------------------------------------------------------------------

1.0 Introduction
================

THis file was very written in a great hurry, therefore it's probably
quite inaccurate, has apalling spelling and no doubt the grammar leaves
a lot to be desired.  Hopefully you will find the information you require,
if not feel free to email me with questions.

This guide is not intended to be a beginners guide to email and news, it
is aimed at people who are already familiar with text messages on the
internet.  The documentation may improve with time, but don't count on
it!

This reader has been written with multiple users in mind, but without any
futile attempt at security.  Therefore each user has independant real life
names, signatures and article tracking but no passwords will be asked for
when changing user-id's.  This functionality may be added in later versions,
should there be any demand for it.

  1.1 Concepts
  ------------
    Before going any further it is probably a good idea to familiarise
    yourself with the concepts behind NewsBase and how they apply to TTFN.

    1.1.1 TTFN & NewsBase - How they interact.

      NewsBase is a news debatcher and server, to which client newsreaders
      communicate and present the information to the user in a format that
      allows easy browsing.  NewsBase performs *all* functions at the
      transport level and thus isolating clients from it completely.

      To this end TTFN gives little functionality unless NewsBase is loaded.
      The order of loading TTFN and NewsBase is irrelevent, but *both* must
      be loaded in order for TTFN to function as detailed within this
      document.

      If you haven't set up and loaded NewsBase I suggest you do that first,
      the documentation accompanying NewsBase has details of how to do this.

    1.1.2 Expiry vs. Manual Deletion - How it affects multi-user operation.

      Basically there are two schools of thought about how to deal with
      the deletion of news articles.  On the one side there is the
      "Delete as you read/decide you don't want to read" and the other
      is "Let the system 'expire' old news when it reaches a certain age".
      I am heavily on favour of the latter and would recommend that you
      do *not* enable the deletion of news. My reasons are as follows:

        i) Multi-user operation becomes kind of useless.
       ii) Doesn't allow threads to become long enough to follow.
      iii) It is far more sensible to simple "lock" the few articles you
           want to keep against expiry than delete everything but the
           ones you don't want to keep.

      TTFN 0.25 and later does support deletion from newsgroups (enabled by
      turning "Client Deletion" on in NewsBase).  I do not recommend
      this operation and the estimates of unread articles in the newsgroups
      window for users other than the user doing the deletion is highly
      likely to be *very* inaccurate.  *Don't* complain to me.


2.0 Running TTFN
================

Double click on the TTFN icon.  There are several possible reasons why
!TTFN could possibly not run.

  2.1 Not enough free memory, usually accomanied by a message saying
      something like "Application needs xxxK to start up".  Make sure the
      required amount of memory is available and retry.

  2.2 "TTFN requires Risc OS 3.10 or later".  You need to have Risc OS
      version 3.10 or later installed in your machine for this program to
      run, it will *not* work on Risc OS 2.00

  2.3 "Please open a directory containing !Scrap and try again".  During
      operation TTFN needs to generate working files and these are stored
      within the Acorn supplied application !Scrap, the filer needs to see
      it before TTFN will run.

  2.4 "UserHome$Dir not defined".  A system variable called "UserHome$Dir"
      needs to be defined.  This resides inside !NewsDir and therefore
      !NewsDir needs to have been seen by the filer before running TTFN
      (or newsbase for that matter!).

  2.5 "TTFN is already running".  A copy of TTFN is already executing on
      your machine.  You are not allowed to run multiple copies, some
      confusion could occur with respect to tracking read/unread articles
      if this were permitted.


When you get TTFN to load successfully you will see a new icon appear on
the icon bar, this is the TTFN icon.  The text beneath the icon is the name
of the currently selected user-id.


3.0 Configuring TTFN
====================

  3.1 The Setup Window
  --------------------

    To configure TTFN you must open the setup window, there are two methods
    of doing this.  Most of the default settings will be acceptable, but you
    may wish to changle some options.

    1. Click on the TTFN icon on the iconbar with ADJUST.

    2. Click MENU over the TTFN icon and choose "Setup..." from the
         resulting menu.

    All things being equal, the TTFN setup window should now appear.

    Once you have made the required changes to the options click on "OK" just
    to apply them for this session or on "SAVE" to save these settings to
    disk.  These will then be the settings that TTFN uses each time it is
    run.

    There follows a description of each configuration option, those marked
    with three asterisks (***) are the fields you *should* change.

    3.1.1 Edit...

      This is accompanied by two buttons labelled "Address Book" and
      "TagLines".  Clicking on one of them will bring up the appropriate
      file into an editor for you to edit.  See also sections: 3.2
      and 3.1.10.

      The icon marked "Dist. Lists" will open a directory viewer, on
      the directory that contains all your distribution lists.  Edit the
      files as you wish.

    3.1.2 Organization: ***

      Enter your organization description here, this is incorporated into
      every outgoing mail and news item that is sent from within TTFN.
      If you delete all text from this writable icon no "Organization:"
      line will be generated on outgoing news/mail.

    3.1.3 Default User: ***

      The user that will be selected when TTFN starts up.  Select your
      preferred user from those available, or if your desired username is
      not present see section 4, entitled "User Management".

    3.1.4 Time Zone: ***

      Select your current timezone, i.e. in UK will either be +0000 (GMT) or
      +0100 (BST).  Clicking on "Detect" will read the timezone information
      from your computer (as set with *configure timezone <num> or the
      !Alarm application) and setup TTFN to use that.

    3.1.5 Attribution Lines:

      This is the line that is put directly before a quoted article in a
      news followup or a mail reply.  Usually takes the form of:

           In article <msd-id>, <real-name> wrote:

           Where %m becomes the Message-ID.
                 %d becomes the Date: header line.
                 %u becomes the senders RL name (for followups) or
                            "you" for personal replies.
                 %r becomes the senders real life name irrestpecive of
                            being a followup or personal reply.
                 %e becomes the senders email address.
                 %n becomes a newline character.

      *NB* both %m and %u will insert "you" if no real life name was found
           on the From: line.

      So, to get output as the above example you would enter

             In article %m, %u wrote:

      Attribution lines for usenet news and private email replys may be
      configured independantly and two seperate writable icons are provided
      for this reason.

    3.1.6 Quote Character:

      This is the character that the quoted message is indented with.  The
      convention in usenet is to use a single greater than sign, followed by
      a single space ("> "), but there is space to input upto three
      characters should you deem them necessary.

    3.1.7 Quote Signatures:

      This controls the quoting of signatures when replying to an email item
      or following up to a news article.  When selected, all of the previous
      article will be quoted. When this is not ticked it attempts to stop
      quoting when it finds a line containing only the string in the
      "Signature Separator" field.

    3.1.8 Signature:

      Determines which set of signature files should be used, to edit
      signature files for a particular user, please read the section 4,
      entitled "User Management".  Setting this to "Normal" will be adequate
      for initial use.

    3.1.9 Signature Separator:

      This is used when generating outgoing articles and is placed just
      before any signature files and before a tagline is appended.  This can
      be used to allow intelligent newsreaders/composers to automatically
      cut signatures from quoted postings when replying to/folowing up to
      mail/news items.  The general UseNet convention is to use two minus
      signs followed by a single space ("-- ").

    3.1.10 Add Tagline:

      Taglines could be considered almost as a cult within the FidoNet
      world, and I like them so this option got implemented!  If this option
      is ticked TTFN will add a tagline to your outgoing messages *after*
      your signature and will be picked at random from the file
      <TTFN$Dir>.Resources.TagLines.

    3.1.11 Display Width:

      This is the maximum width of the article display window measured in
      characters.  80 is a general convention, but I would recommend setting
      this to the maximum width your favourite screen mode will allow.

    3.1.12 Follow Threads:

      Decides whether the reader (you) gets to use the thread following
      abilities on selected groups.  The thread following facilities within
      TTFN comprise of grouping articles together by subject line and when
      this option is turned on you can configure thread following for each
      individual group.  See also: section 5.2.

    3.1.13 Hide Headers:

      When turned on this will suppress the display of article headers
      within the article display window by simply auto scrolling the window
      down to a point where the headers are not visible.  This is useful for
      people who are not using a larger than standard screen mode.

    3.1.14 Article Foreground Colour:

      Choose the colour you desire for the text display in the article
      window.

    3.1.15 Article BackGround Colour:

      Choose the colour of the background in the article window.


  3.2 The Address Book
  --------------------

    TTFN has built into it the ability to specify and use a list of
    frequently posted to email addresses.  To access the file that defines
    this list open the !TTFN setup window and click on the icon lablelled
    "Edit... Address Book".

    This file should contain one line per address of the format:

       <Description>,<Email Address>

    <Description> is for your information only, it will be displayed on
    a menu from which you pick that entry.

    <Email Address> should be a valid email address _or_ a hash character
    (#) followed by the name of a valid distruibution list (see section 3.2).

    The two are separated by a comma followed by any number of spaces or tab
    characters.

    The end of the address book list is signified by one line containing:

      end,

    if it is not present then the behaviour of TTFN is, um, err
    _undefined_ ;-)

    When you are finished, save the file back out to the default path
    (i.e. press F3 then <enter>).

  3.3 Distribution Lists
  ----------------------

    Sometimes it is conventient to post to a "list" of people rather than to
    each one independatly.  TTFN now supports distribution list expansion.
    You create/edit your distribution lists by simply typing into an editor
    a list of email addresses, one per line and saving it into the directory
    viewer opened by pressing "Edit... Dist Lists" from the TTFN setup
    window.  There are a couple of examples already present.

    You use the filename of the distribution list as the name of the list,
    and putting a hash followed by the distribution list name in the
    To:, Cc: or Bcc: writable icons of the new mail/reply dialogue box,
    prefixed with a hash character (#).  This will cause it to be expanded
    to the list of email addresses within that distribution list.

    *NB* this will only work correctly if, when specifying a distribution
    list, there is *nothing* else specified within that line.  i.e.
    the following are acceptable.

       #Authors
       #test

    The following is not acceptable:

      [e-mail], #Authors

    The following will not be processed correctly:

      #Authors, [e-mail]

    Hopefully these shortcomings will be rectified soon.


4.0 User Management
===================

Without a doubt the standard distribution of TTFN will not have your
preferred username configured and you will want to add your own.

To open the user management window, click with MENU on the TTFN icon and
choose "Users..." from the resulting menu.

  4.1 Creating a new user

    In the section labelled "Create User", type in the new username and
    either press <return> or click on the button labelled "Create".  If
    no error message is produced you now have a new user-id.  The TTFN
    message window will appear informing you of the creation of your
    user-id if the addition was successful.  Click anywhere within the
    message window to close it.

  4.2 Deleteing an existing user

    In the section labelled "Delete User", select the unwanted user from
    the menu available and then click on delete.  You will not be allowed
    to delete users named "root" or "postmaster" and neither will you be
    allowed to delete the currently selected user.  The TTFN message
    window will appear informing you of the deletion of the unwanted
    user-id if deletion was successful.

  4.3 Maintaining User details

    In the section labelled "Edit User Details", select the user you
    wish to edit.

    4.3.1 Editing the Real Life Name

      Simply type in the replacement Real-Life name and press either
      <return> or click on "Set".

    4.3.2 Editing Signature Files

      Click on the button appropriate to the signature file you wish to
      edit.  Simply save the edited file back to it's original location
      when you are happy with it.  If you have taglines turned on you
      should have *TWO BLANK LINES* at the end of the signature file.

    4.3.3 Group Subscription on a per-user basis.

      Each user can 'subscribe' to a subset of the available groups (i.e.
      as listed by NewsBase).  You may, for example, have two people using
      the same dial-up account, but want to read entirely different
      newsgroups.  TTFN 0.30 and later allows you to decide exactly
      what groups each user sees in the Newsgroups window.

      Within the user management window, there is an option called
      "Group subscription", this will produce a menu of *all* the available
      groups for that particular user, and allow you to subscribe to/
      unsubscribe from each group independantly, a tick by the groupname
      indicates that you are subscribed to that group.

      As each user encounters new groups that have been created, TTFN will
      ask if you want to be subscribed to each group.  You can either
      click on "Yes" or "No" to decide on a per-new-group basis or click
      on "Yes to All" or "No to All" to indicate your preference on all
      new groups.  You will *not* be asked about any new Email.* groups,
      instead each user is automatically subscribed to their own
      Email.<username>* groups and automatically unsubscribed to
      everyone else's.  If you want to be ablt to view someone else's
      email groups you can still achieve this via the User Management
      window.


5.0 Reading News/Mail
=====================

For instructions on how to start a new debatch please see the documentation
accompanying NewsBase.  This section will assume you have successfully
configured both NewsBase *and* TTFN, and that you have managed to
successfully debatch a news download.

  5.1 Obtaining a list of active newsgroups
  -----------------------------------------

    Ensure that both NewsBase and TTFN are loaded.  Single click on the
    TTFN icon on the icon bar, and after a short delay you should be
    presented with a window containing a list of newsgroups to which you
    are subscribed.  This is the "NewsGroups" window.

  5.2 The NewsGroups window
  -------------------------

    This shows a list of currently existing newsgroups within your news
    database.  Initially this will consist of just two, namely Email.root
    and Email.postmaster.

    To the immediate left of each newsgroup name is a radio button, this
    determines whether TTFN will attempt to follow threads, each group
    can have it's radio button set independantly of the others.  To change
    the state of a radio button, single click on it with SELECT.  A radio
    button in the "on" position indicates thread following is active. See
    also: section 3.1.12.

    On the right hand side of the newsgroups window are two columns of
    numbers, representing (left to right) the number of unread articles
    and the total number of articles in each group.  These figures are
    estimates and may be incorrect occasionally, but will be corrected
    when you open a group for perusal.

    In order to open a group and be presented with either a list of
    articles or a list of threads, double click with SELECT on your
    chosen newsgroup name.  Depending on the status of the associated
    radio button (see above) you will now be presented with either
    the Article List window or the Thread List window.

    Double-clicking on a group with ADJUST will result in TTFN attempting
    to not list the majority of the articles that have already been
    read.

    Pressing the SPACE BAR while the newsgroups window has the input focus
    will result in the first group with unread articles being opened.

    The usual cursor/paging/home/end keys can be used to navigate this
    window when it has the input focus.  You can also press "Escape"
    to close it.

  5.3 The Article List window
  ---------------------------

    This contains a list of articles contained within your selected
    newsgroup.  Three items of information are listed for each group, from
    left to right these are:

      The article number (as allocated by !NewsBase)
      The "Subject:" line of the article
      The sender of the article.

    Initially all article subjects will be displayed in black on a grey
    background.  This indicates that the articles have not been read.
    Later, when you have read an article, the subject display will change
    to a dark grey colour to indicate that the article has been read.

    To view and article double click on it.  This will present you with
    a display of the article.  For an explanation of what does what in
    this window see section 5.5 "The Article Display window".

    The usual cursor/paging/home/end keys can be used to navigate this
    window when it has the input focus.  You can also press "Escape"
    to close it.  Pressing the space-bar will open the article display
    window on the first unread article.  If there are no unread articles
    to be read, the article list window is closed.

  5.4 The Thread List window
  --------------------------

    This contains a list of unique subject lines that exist within
    the current group.  Each subject is displayed along with two numbers,
    the leftmost being the number of unread articles within that "thread"
    and the other one being the total number of articles within that
    "thread".  Double clicking on a thread title will display an article
    from the thread, if there were unread articles it will display the
    first unread article.  If there are no unread articles in your
    chosen thread it will show the first article within the thread.
    Either way the Article display window will be opened (see next
    section).

    The usual cursor/paging/home/end keys can be used to navigate this
    window when it has the input focus.  You can also press "Escape"
    to close it.  Pressing the space-bar will open the article display
    window on the first unread article in the first thread with an
    unread article.  If there are no unread articles to be read, the
    thread list window will be closed.

  5.5 The Article Display window
  ------------------------------

    This displays the actual articles.  At the top you will see some
    information displayed about the current article, including the
    identification of the author and the subject line of the article/
    email item.  You will also see a row of buttons which perform various
    functions.

    5.5.1 The buttons and their funtions

    " < "      = Previous article (in group/thread)
                 Also operable by pressing the left cursor key or
                 "B" for "B"ack.

    "Del"      = Delete article (This may not be available in newsgroups,
                    see the newsbase option entitled "Allow Deletion").

    " > "      = Next article (in group/thread)
                 Also operable by pressing the right cursor key
                 or the "N" key.

    "Followup" = Start a followup article (newsgroups only)
                 Also operable by pressing "F".

    "Reply"    = Start a personal reply to sender of current article
                 Also operable by pressing "R".

    "Post"     = Create a new posting.
                 Also operable by pressing "P".

    "Mail"     = Create a new personal Email item
                 Also operable by pressing "M".

    Locking and unlocking the displayed article (respected by a NewsBase
    expiry operation) is performed by clickingon the PadLock icon in the
    top right hand corner of the window.

    5.5.2 Keypress specific functions

      Other keys which perform functions within this window are as follows.

      Space-Bar  : This is very much of a "Do-The-Right-Thing" button.
                   Will proceed to next article *if* the bottom of the
                   current article has been seen, otherwise performs a
                   Page-Down operation.

      Page-Down  : Pages the article display down by one screenful.

      Page-Up    : Pages the article display up by one screenful.

      Up-Cursor  : Scrolls the article display up by one line.

      Down-Cursor: Scrolls the article display down by one line.

      Home       : Scrolls the article display to the very top.

      End/Copy   : Scrolls the article display to the very bottom.

      D         : Starts a uudecoding operation on the current article.
                   (equivalent to choosing "UUdecode" from the article
                   window menu.

      L          : Toggle the lock status of the current article.

      U          : Marks the current article as being "unread"

      X          : Toggles the rot13 display.

      F3         : Opens a save dialgue box, allowing you to save the
                   current article out to a file.

      DELETE     : Will delete the current article from the news database
                   (newsbase settings permitting) and progress to the
                   next unread article.


      NB: "Next Article" when threading will take you to the next
          article in that thread.  When at the end of a thread it will
          take you to the next unread article in the next thread with
          unread articles (accompanied by a flashing of the subject
          line at the top of the article display window to signify change
          of thread), otherwise it will close the article display.

    5.5.3 The Article Window Menu

      Pressing "MENU" while the mouse pointer is over the main article
      display window will yield the following options:

      "Save"        : leads to a save dialogue box, allowing you to
                      save the current article to a text file.  You can
                      optionally strip the header lines from the saved
                      file.

      "Mark"        : leads to a submenu that allows you to mark the
                      current article as being unread or read by the
                      current user.

      "File Article": Allows filing of articles into user defined
                      folders.  The last option on this menu is
                      a writable icon, allowing you to create a new
                      folder by specifying a name.  The folder will
                      then be created and displayed in the NewsGroups
                      window as "Folder.<what-you-typed>".

      "Cancel"      : Cancellation of Usenet messages.  In the majority of
                      cases this will be greyed out and unavailable.  It
                      will only be available when viewing an article that
                      *you* have posted (i.e. <current-user>@<your-host>).
                      This option will generate a control message that will
                      be uploaded to the news server, which will in turn
                      pass it on to other servers in an effort to cancel
                      your posting.

      "UUdecode"    : Starts a uudecoding process on the current article.
                     This version of TTFN does not support multi-part
                     uuencodings (to be remedied soon) and will pop
                     up a save box when the uudecoding has completed.
                      Simply drag the icon to a filer window to save it.

  5.6 Selecting multiple articles
  -------------------------------

    Within both the Article list window and the Thread List window it
    is possible to "select" multiple articles and perform operations
    on them as a group.

    Selecting multiple articles is achieved by use of the "SELECT" and
    "ADJUST" buttons in conjunction with drag operations.  Try it out and
    see what can be done.  Selected articles are signified by being
    displayed in reverse video (i.e. white on black as opposed to the
    more usual black on white).  Alternatively you can press "MENU" over
    either window and use the "Select" submenu to to select either:

    "All"    - Will select all articles/threads.
    "Read"   - Will select all read articles/threads containing at least
               one read article.
    "Unread" - Will select all unread articles/threads contain only
               unread articles.

    Once you have your desired articles selected using the "Selection"
    submenu from the main menu you can:

    "Mark as"   : Mark selected articles as being read or unread.

    "File in"   : File selected articles in a folder of your choice
                  (NB for large numbers of articles this can take
                  some time!)

    "Lock"      : Lock selected articles against deletion.

    "Unlock"    : Unlock articles, allowing an expiry operation to
                  delete them.

    "Clear"     : Deselects all the selected articles.

    "Delete"    : Deletes the selected articles - only available in
                  "Email.*", "Folder.*" and "junk" groups.

  5.7 Catching up with a group
  ----------------------------

    This option is available from the first level menu on both the Article
    and Thread list windows, it is a quick way of marking all unread
    articles as being "read", thus "Catching Up" on the current group.


6.0 Composing new News/Mail
===========================

  6.1 Creating Email
  ------------------

    In general, an email item will either be a new "conversation" or a
    continuation of ean existing one.

    6.1.1 Creating a new email

      There are several possible ways to initiate this:

        1. From the NewsGroups window, press "MENU" and click on
           "Compose Mail"

        2. From either the Article List or Thread List window click on menu
           and choose "Mail" from the "Compose" submenu.

        3. Click on the "Mail" button in the main article display window

      To:, Cc: and Bcc:  enter a valid email address or multiple valid
             email addresses seperated by commas.  Alternatively click
             on the small icon just to the right of the writable icons
             to reveal the address book.  Using SELECT on the address
             book will insert the appropriate email address, using ADJUST
             will append the appropriate email address

             The Bcc: line is ignored by current versions of TTFN and
             NewsBase - anything entered there will be ignored.

       Subject: Enter a short description of the subject matter of your
             mail item.

       You can ask the remote system to return a receipt to you when
       the message has been received by the remote system (NB, this
       will not signify when the recipient actually read the mail,
       just when it arrived at the remote system).  To ask for
       a receipt use the option box marked "Return Receipt".  It is
       worth noting that not all systems honour this feature, and
       it cannot be relied upon.

    6.1.2 Replying to an existing mail item

      To reply to an existing mail item (or write a personal reply to the
      author of a news article), display the required message as described
      in previous sections and then click on the button marked "Reply".
      After a short a dialogue box will appear containing information about
      the followup, you may change some aspect of it if it is unacceptable.
      Clicking on OK will, after a short delay, bring up an editor window.
      You can now make you additions and then post the reply in the manner
      described in section 6.3

      Within the dialogue box mentioned above, clicking on "OK" with SELECT
      will result in the previous article being quoted, using ADJUST will
      generate a reply without quoting said article.

      A receipt can be requested upon delivery to the remote system by
      using the option box called "Return Receipt". See above section
      for a fuller description.

    6.1.3 No run action specified for this filetype.

      This error message is generated by the filer when a file is
      run and it cannot figure out which program to load in order to
      deal with it.  If you see while attempting to use TTFN then
      almost certainly your filer has not seen a text editor.  Open
      a filer window containing a text editor (!Edit will do) and
      then everything should proceed unhindered.

      Clicking on "Followup" with SELECT will result in the article being
      quoted, using ADJUST will generate a reply without quoting said
      article.

  6.2 Creating Usenet News
  ------------------------

    As with email you either create a new "thread" or "conversation" within
    a newsgroup group or you "follow-up" to an existing one.

    6.2.1 Creating a new news item

      This is created in very much the same manner as new email items, you
      can do any of the following three things to initiate a new email item.

        1. From the NewsGroups window, press "MENU" and click on
           "Compose News"

        2. From either the Article List or Thread List window click on menu
           and choose "News" from the "Compose" submenu.

        3. Click on the "Post" button in the main article display window

      All three of these actions will result in the displaying of a small
      dialogue box entitled "New Email".  The following fields are available
      for user input:

        Newsgroups/Followup-To:  Enter a list of valid newsgroups seperated
                    by commas. Clicking on the small icon to the right of
                    this writable icon will bring up a menu containing a
                    list of newsgroups that exist within your news database.
                    Choosing one results in it's name being inserted into
                    the writable icon.

        Subject   : Enter a one-line summary of the content of your new
                    article.

        Keywords  : An optional field, fill in something relevant if you
                    feel like it!

       Clicking on "OK" will then build a blank message, which will be
       loaded into your favourite editor for you to write your message.
       For "how to post my composed news" see section 6.3

    6.2.2 Following-Up to an existing news article.

      To followup to an existing news article display the required message
      as described in previous sections and then click on the button marked
      "Followup".  After a short a dialogue box will appear containing
      information about the followup, you may change some aspect of it if it
      is unacceptable.  Clicking on OK will, after a short delay, bring up
      an editor window.  You can now make you additions and then post the
      reply in the manner described in section 6.3

      Within the dialogue box mentioned above, clicking on "OK" with SELECT
      will result in the previous article being quoted, using ADJUST will
      generate a reply without quoting said article.

    6.2.3 Nettiquete

      This is basically a list of "don't do's" when posting usenet news,
      none of what follows is strictly enforced but if you don't follow
      it you'll end up rubbing other users up the wrong way, and probably
      get some nasty email too.

      1. Signatures should be kept to a minimum, 4 or 5 lines is acceptable
         anything more is considered "over the top" and a waste of
         bandwidth.

      2. Quoting.  Always try and keep quoting the previous article to
         a minimum.  Quote just enough so that your comments make sense
         to someone who as not seen the previous article, but most
         definately do not quote a 40+ line message and then add "I agree"
         at the bottom.

      3. No advertising of commercial products or services.  Thankfully
         usenet has been relatively free of this kind of mass junk
         mailing - lets keep it that way.

      4. Try and keep on-topic when in a particular newsgroup.

      5. It's a good idea to "lurk" in a newsgroup (read but not
         contribute) for a while - you get to know what annoys the
         regulars and what would be sensible postings.  i.e. don't
         just dive into the red dwarf group shouting "those ending
         lyrics, is it 'Goldfish Shouls' or 'Goldfishes' ".  You
         won't enjoy the responses.

      6. Don't ask "How do I create a new newsgroup".  The basic
         sentiment on this subject is that if you don't know, or don't
         know how to find out then you probably haven't considered the
         implications of creating a new group.  If you really want to
         know the answer, read alt.config for a while.

  6.3 Posting your composed News & Mail
  -------------------------------------

    OK, so you have your newly created masterpiece in !Edit (or whatever)
    and you can't figure out how to post it.  Press F3 to bring up the
    save file dialogue box and save the file.  Close the editor window
    and a small dialogue box will pop-up asking you to confirm the posting
    of your inane ramblings :-)  Click on "OK" to send it, or "Cancel" to
    not send it.

  6.4 Including binary fies in outgoing News/Mail
  -----------------------------------------------

    The most widely spread method of mailing/posting binary file is to
    uuencode the file first.  This basically turns an 8-bit binary file
    into 7 bit ASCII so it can be transmitted across non 8 bit clean
    transport systems (such as SMTP).  Dragging a non-Text file onto
    the TTFN icon on the icon bar will result in it being uuencoded
    and a save box will pop up.  From here you can drag it to either
    a filer window or to another application.

    To include a uuencoded file in a message you are composing, simply
    place the caret in your message at the point you wish to include
    the file, drag your archive (or whatever) to the TTFN icon and
    then drag the text-file icon from the resulting save box to your
    editor window, then post your message in the usual manner.  Simple!


7.0 Files within the "Resources" Directory
==========================================

  This is where several 'special' files are stored.  The names of these
  files are fixed and you should be very careful when editing them.

  DO NOT EDIT the files that are marked as such.

    AddrBook  - The TTFN address book, see section 3.2

    Taglines  - Should contain one-line quotes/funny statements, one of
                which will be tagged on the end of each post/mailing you
                make if the "Add Tagline" option within the "Signature"
                section of the setup window is selected.

   !Config    - Configuration of TTFN - Alteration other than fromm within
                the TTFN configuration window is not recommended.
                *** DO NOT EDIT ***

   Messages   - Various bits of information relating to TTFN.  Some
                variables that affect the way TTFN operates.
                *** DO NOT EDIT *** (unless you know what you're doing)

   Templates  - Window definitions.
                *** DO NOT EDIT *** (unless you know what you're doing)


8.0 Advanced Features
=====================

  8.1 Disabling User Management and Setup Windows
  -----------------------------------------------

    When operating TTFN in a multi-user environment, it is sometimes
    desirable to stop access to the User Management and Configuration
    windows.  To do this requires you to edit the !TTFN.Resources.Messages
    file.

    To disable the user management functions, look for the line starting
    "sec.users" and change the following "TRUE" to "FALSE".

    To disable the setup window, look for the line starting "sec.setup"
    and change the following "TRUE" to "FALSE".

  8.2 Forcing startup with a particular user-id
  ---------------------------------------------

    You can force TTFN to startup with *any* user-id, regardless of the
    default user setting by means of a command line parameter (say, from
    a SlipDial script).  To do this simply use the "-user <user-id>"
    parameters.  E.g. to load TTFN with user "root" active, use something
    like:

      WimpTask !TTFN -user root


9.0 Throubleshooting
====================

  9.1 "Aaaaaarrrrggghhh, the posting confirmation box didn't appear!"
  -------------------------------------------------------------------

  It's OK, you can stop panicing, your masterpiece is in tact.  Simply
  select "Rescue" from the TTFN iconbar icon, your editing session will
  be restored.  Close the editor window to post your mail/news.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
fin