APDL Public Domain 1/APDL_PD1A.iso/am_radio/comlink350/Manual/TermInstr

Text File | 1991-12-15 | 18.1 KB | 408 lines

ComLink Terminal Mode - Instructions
------------------------------------

Introduction
============

The ComLink program has a built in terminal mode which has been designed
specifically for packet radio, it allows the user to directly communicate
with the TNC. ComLink can also run special script programs, a seperate
manual describes this feature, you will find this is the "Script_Man"
directory.

Terminal mode
=============

The terminal mode operates under RISCOS within the desktop environment and
is fully multitasking.

Facilities incorporated include:-

     * RISCOS compatible and fully mutitasking.
     * A split terminal window with separate tx and rx sections.
     * 100 line scrollback on incoming text.
     * 1 to 7 lines (user defined) for outgoing text (tx lines).
     * Full cursor editing of all tx lines.
     * Edit and resend of tx lines.
     * Auto-wrap option to automatically insert "Return" on tx.
     * "Tx + rx" in view or "rx only" on pressing the mouse "Adjust" button.
     * Auto adjustment Tx line count on pressing the mouse "Adjust" button.
     * Programmable function keys with save/load/clear options.
     * Function key definitions fully editable within a window.
     * Automatic control code insertion when editing function keys.
     * System variables, such as sys$time, allowed in function keys.
     * Simultaneous file upload, download and rx buffer save.
     * Optional appending of a fn key definition to end of upload files.
     * Control code "filter" option on download files.
     * Save buffer option to save all rx text in the terminal window.
     * Suspend download option.
     * Abort upload option.
     * Append option, allows download data to be appended to existing files.
     * Mouse/icon based upload/download with simple "file dragging".
     * File dragging to/from other RISCOS applications, eg !Edit.
     * Data transfer statistics display showing:-
                                                  Download file size.
                                                  Upload file size.
                                                  Percent sent.
     * Connect alert via serial "Ring Indicator" line.
     * "Turbo" option to increase processing speed.
     * User definable colours for the terminal window.


Getting up and running
======================

ComLink is installed on the icon bar by the usual method of double clicking
on the ComLink icon in the filer window, this will cause the ComLink icon
to appear on the icon bar at the bottom of the screen.

Note that before you can use this terminal program you may need to change
the serial control parameters, these can be viewed and changed with the
"Config" option in the menu, this is described below.

Pressing the mouse menu (middle) button with the pointer over the ComLink
icon on the icon bar will pop up a menu with the following options:-

Info     =>
Terminal
Fn Keys
Status
Run
Stop
Config
Quit

Info
----

Following the Info arrow will pop up the usual "About this program" window.
The only useful information here is the version number!

Terminal
--------

Selecting this option pops up the ComLink terminal window, this window
consists of two areas, recieved text is displayed in the upper light grey
(rx) area. The terminal window will also pop up if you click the mouse
select button over the icon. Text to be transmitted can be typed into the
lower, white (tx) area, the maximum number of lines in this area can be
chosen using the "Config" option described later.

To receive text you must have the correct serial control parameters setup,
these can be changed and saved via the "Config" menu option.

Clicking the select (left) mouse button in the grey area of the window will
cause the window to gain the input focus, the caret will be automatically
placed on the lowest available line in the white (tx) area.

Clicking select in the tx area will place the caret on the line pointed to by
the mouse. This allows lines to be edited in the normal way. You can move up
down and along the lines using the cursor keys. The caret (cursor) will
always be placed at the end of the line when the up/down keys are used.

When lines are typed in, the text is not sent until you press "Return",
the exception to this is the control codes which are immediately sent. This
allows Ctrl+C etc to be typed.

Pressing the mouse menu button with the pointer over the terminal window
causes the Spool Control Panel to appear, this is described later.

Files for upload may be dragged to the window or the ComLink icon and will
be sent to the tnc, then a status window will pop up automatically to allow
the file to be sent/aborted and progress to be monitored . To start upload
you must click on the "Send" icon.

The scroll bars may be used in the normal way to position the "viewing area".
You can scroll back and see the last 100 lines.

The mouse adjust (right) button performs a number of functions when the
pointer is over the terminal window:-

- It scrolls the screen to alternately show tx+rx sections of the window
  or only the rx section, at each click.
- It automatically resizes the tx area according to the height of the window.
  (If you don't like this feature, then just use the scroll bars!)

This feature is particularly useful when the window has been resized, since
you can quickly click adjust to see the tx area again, or if you only want
to "Monitor" then you can easily display the rx area only.

Scrolling in the terminal window can be stopped by pressing and holding
the Ctrl+Shift keys together.

Pressing Ctrl+Esc sends a break signal to the TNC but only if the terminal
window has the input focus, this will get the TNC out of transparent mode.

Fn Keys
-------

This option pops up 3 stacked windows to allow the editing of the red
function key definitions. Use the mouse to position the cursor in the window
to edit the chosen key. The defualt key set is saved in the file Fkey within
the ComLink application, you may edit this by dragging to !Edit or by saving
the new definitions by selecting "Save" in any of the function key windows
and dragging the file:

Note the format of the file if you are going to use !Edit:-
NFx: means normal fn key x
SFx: means shift + fn key x
CFx: means control + fn key x

Not all the definitions need to be included in the file, in this case only
the ones included will be set up.

The function key definitions can contain system variables in {} brackets, eg
{sys$time}, {sys$date}, {sys$year} etc. Control codes are automatically
inserted as decimal numbers in [] brackets, when you press the appropriate
keys, eg [13] is the code for "Return" and if you press Ctrl+C then [3] will
be inserted. Make sure you get the name of the system variable right,
otherwise an "Operand error" will be generated!

When a function key is pressed the system variable will be converted to the
appropriate text string. Control codes will show in the tx window in
brackets but will be sent correectly to the TNC as the code.

!ComLink function key definitions have a special filetype &56D, double
clicking these files will automatically load them into ComLink, the key
definitions are then available for immediate use.

Status
------

This option pops up a stutus window as part of the script facility. This is
described in "Script_Man" the script programming manual.

Run
---

This option runs the default script called "SCRIPT" saved within the !ComLink
application. This is described in "Script_Man" the script programming manual.
The one provided performs a "Break", sends "D<Return> and sets the TNC clock.

Stop
----

Selecting this option, aborts any script that is currently being run. This is
described in "Script_Man", the script programming manual.

Config
------

Select this option to setup and save the program configuration, the serial
parameters must be setup to suit your system. The remaining ones can be set
to your own preferences. Changes to these parameters have an immediate
effect, excepting the default spool pathname.

The default spool pathname sets the file path and name that appears in the
control panel for spooling. The path you enter here only has an effect when
saved and then only when ComLink is next run, thus the only effect is to
change the "Config" file in the ComlLink applications directory. This file
is always examined by ComLink when it is first run.

The program/terminal functions switch on/off 3 options and allows the number
of lines in the tx area to be set.

Line wrap when "ON" will cause the automatic insertion of "Return"s when
a line is typed in the tx area that is longer than 76 characters. The line
will be broken at the last space in the line. If there are no spaces in the
line then it will be cropped at the 77th character. The characters that are
cut off the end are automatically put on the next line. This feature is
particularly useful for live QSOs and for short messages to PMSs etc. If
you don't want to use this feature the switch the option off. When "OFF" the
program will run slightly faster, but you probably won't notice this.

The "Connect monitor" when on will cause a message window to pop up when a
connection is made at your TNC. This function will only work if you have the
"Ring Indicator" line at the Archimedes wired to your TNC. If you don't have
this connection made then leave this option "OFF".

The "Turbo" option selects 8MHz access to the ROM in the Arc., this has the
effect of speeding up the computer by approximately 20%. This is not
guaranteed to work on all machines, but I havent found one that doesn't!

The "Colours" option pops up a palette window and allows the colours used in
the terminal window to be defined. Select "Tx fg" etc icon then the chosen
colour. Tx and Rx stands for the tx and rx areas respectively, fg and bg
stands for foreground and background respectively. When changing the colours,
the terminal widow will pop up if not already on the screen, this allows
the effect of colour changes to be seen immediately. The caret colour is
controlled by the wimp software, a red caret can only be obtained on a white
background.

Tx lines sets the number of lines in the tx area of the window. The value
can be 1 to 7. Changing the value will only have an effect if you click
the mouse "adjust" button once or twice in the terminal window.

Upload append, selects which (if any) function key definition you want
appended to the end of upload files. This can be set to "None" or F1 to F11.
I normally set it to F11, and make this Fn key into a signoff line, eg.

[13]73's de Alan. -- Sent on {sys$date} {sys$year} at {sys$time} --[13]/ex

A return will automatically be added to the end of the fn key when uploading.

Select "Save" to automatically update the Config file in the Comlink
directory. Next time you load ComLink, these parameters will be used.


Spool Control Panel
===================

This window is popped up by pressing the mouse menu button over the terminal
window. The definition of spooling here is the saving of all received text.

Click OK to start spooling (download) or drag the file icon to a filer
window. You can of course edit the file name/path if you want. As usual
if you drag the file icon to a window then the file path will be updated.
 You also have the following options to select, "Filter on", "Save buffer",
"Suspend" and "Append". The file name/path that appears as the default can
be changed using the menu "Config" option. As supplied the default is
"RAM:$.Spool", of course the RAM drive must be active to use it.

When the "Filter on" option is selected, the usual text file type icon is
shown and control codes are removed from the incoming data. All carraige
return codes are converted to linefeeds to be compatible with !Edit. Any
line feeds received are left in. With the filter option "OFF" the file
icon in the window changes to a data type. Now all characters received will
be spooled to the file, none are changed or removed. Thus if you are
transferring data such as non-coded programs, leave this option "OFF".

If the filter option is changed while a spool is in progress, the icon in
the window will change type, but the actual file that is being spooled to
will not have it's icon type changed. The filter option will however affect
the data saved.

The "Save buffer" option can only be selected before a spool starts and will
cause all text in the rx area to be saved to the spool file first, then all
subsequently received data. This option is handy when reading messages and
you suddenly decide you'd like to keep the text, but some of it has already
been printed on screen. When a spooling operation is stopped, ie the file
is closed, then this option will automatically be turned off.

The "Suspend" option can be used to temporarily stop the received text/data
from being spooled to a file, the file remains open though. This option will
automatically be switched off when the spool file is closed.

The "Append" option allows the received text/data to be appended to the end
of an existing file. Unless this option is switched "ON" ComLink will not
let you spool to an existing file. If the "append" option is "ON" and the
file does not exist then an empty file will be created.

The size of the spool file is shown in the control window, this is updated
by ComLink as the file grows. If the append option is "ON" the size of the
whole file will be shown and not just the received charecter count. If the
"Save buffer" option was "ON" then the file size includes the buffer.

To start a spool operation, make sure the filepath/name is as desired, then
either drag the icon to a directory window or click on "OK", the OK will
then change to "Close". Dragging the file to a filer window will cause the
file path to be updated appropriately.

While spooling to a text file, the file is kept open by ComLink and will
appear as a "text" type icon but with a red pen, it cannot be loaded into a
text editor until the spool file is closed. If you are spooling this means
that to examine the file with !Edit you have to "Close" the file first.
One way of preventing any text received from being missed from the file, yet
still enable to see the text spooled so far, is to hold down Shift+Control
and while keeping these keys down, performing the following :-

Click on "Close" hence closing the file
Drag the appropriate file to !Edit
Enabling spooling again by clicking "OK".

This works because while Shift+Ctrl are held down, no charecters will be
fetched from the serial port, hence none will be missed out in the spool
file.

To end spooling, click on "Close".


Uploading files
===============

To send a text or data file, all you need to do is drag the file to the
terminal window or to the ComLink icon on the bar. This will cause a small
window to be popped up showing the filename (but not the path), the size of
the file and the percentage sent. The upload can be aborted or started by
clicking on "Abort" or "Send" as appropriate. The percent sent will be
updated as the upload progresses. If a function key upload append has been
set in the "Config" file when Comlink was started, or it has been set in
the Config control window (see above) then at the end of the upload, the
chosen function key definition will be sent. This is handy when sending
files to a BBS/PMS as you can put some sign off text in one of the function
keys.

You can drag files directly from other applications such as !Edit, but a
maximum of 10Kbytes can be transferred in this way. If the file is longer,
only the first 10Kbytes will be sent.

Files dragged from filing systems, RAM disc, floppy disc etc can be of any
length.

Note that if you have accidentally dragged the wrong file for upload, you
don't have abort it, just drag the correct one over and the file details
will be updated.

Note that when you have dragged the file, you must click on "Send" to start
the upload. A file upload can be aborted at any time. If a file upload is
started and aborted before it has been completely sent, the function key
definition will still be sent.

General hints and tips.
=======================

The use of {} and [] brackets
-----------------------------

The {} and [] brackets have a special meaning to ComLink when typed in or
used in function key definitions. This provides a very flexible way of
handling system variables and control codes in typed text and function keys,
yet otherwise hardly limits their normal use as ordinary charecters (This
was not true for versions of ComLink prior to 3.01.).

The {} brackets can be used to contain contain system variables and ComLink
will expand them for you, if the variable does not exist then an "Unknown
operand error at line xxxxx" error message will be generated. However you
can use the brackets IF THEY DO NOT INCLUDE A $ SIGN, without an error being
generated, in this case the text will be sent as typed. Examples:-

{sys$time} - this is a standard system variable so will be converted to the
             time eg "12:18:02"

{abc$xyz} -  this is very likely to cause an error!

{hello there} - this will be sent as typed, eg "{hello there}"


The [] brackets are used to send control codes or charecters in the
range 0 to 255. ComLink tries to act intelligently, so if the contents of
the [] brackets is longer than 3 charecters it will NOT try to convert it
into a control code! This means that the standard IDs can be typed which
identify TNC types eg [YFB-3.42-BHR$] etc.

Furthermore {}/[] brackets MUST occur in pairs to be expanded from the
system variable/converted to a control code, as soon as an "odd" bracket
is found ComLink will stop trying to interpret the rest of the line. All this
means is that you can use the brackets normally in most cases without getting
odd effects.

General tips.
------------

A useful control code to remember is Ctrl V, which can be used to set
multiple line parameters on the TNC. To insert it in a line you must type
it as [22].

Pressing Ctrl+Shift together will halt the scrolling in the terminal
window.

Don't forget that full cursor editing can be performed in the tx area, this
is very handy if you want to send the last line typed again, just tap the
"up" cursor control arrow (or is it a caret control arrow on the Arc.!) and
then hit "Return". Ctrl+U clears a line.

ComLink incorporates an advanced script language making it relatively easy to
write routines to perform tasks like automatic logon and download of mail
and messages from a BBS or PMS. For more information read the manual called
"Script_Man"