home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
Crawly Crypt Collection 1
/
crawlyvol1.bin
/
bbs
/
hqwk52dm
/
hqwk52
/
docs
/
holoqtec.asc
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1994-05-21
|
7KB
|
200 lines
A few explanations on working practices and other anomalies
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sleep timer
~~~~~~~~~~~
The sleep timer is accurate to within 2 seconds for each
of the three phases :
Phase One : Two minutes of inactivity after which the
user is prompted for some action.
Phase Two : Thirty seconds of further inactivity prompts
the user again.
Phase Three : Following another thirty seconds of
inactivity the system saves the users
current profile and also lastread pointers
and then returns them to the BBS, exiting
with an error level of '3'.
When the user is exited from the system in this manner the modem
is not instructed to drop carrier - this is left to either the
BBS or perhaps a third party program by utilising the error
levels from HoloQWK.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
MaxPktSize
~~~~~~~~~~
The setting that the user wishes to set this pointer to is
used when HoloQwk performs Batch mode, if an existing packet
for the user is detected then it's size is compared with
this value, and then only if this existing packet exceeds
the defined limit is Batch mode disabled.
Packet sizes are not compared during or after Batch mode and
so it is quite possible for a user to select (for instance)
a 5k limit and for the system to create a packet of 300k.
By judicious use of not only this pointer, but also Lock
Messages it is possible for a user to efficiently maintain a
reasonable level of packet size, however, by not
understanding completely what happens during Batch mode a
user can quite soon be put off by extremely large packets -
it is in your interest to help your users as much as
possible during thier first dealings with QWK packers.
Local Mode
~~~~~~~~~~
HQWKDOOR
~~~~~~~~
In order to keep this program as small and as quick as
possible there are no fileselectors used in local mode
- in order to test HoloQwk it is necessary to use the
main system.
HOLOQWK
~~~~~~~
When performing both uploads and downloads in local
mode you are presented with a fileselector so that you
may locate the source/destination of your packets.
If you have enough free memory then the screen is
redrawn to its previous contents after the
fileselector, this is purely cosmetic.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Timings
~~~~~~~
Timing estimates calculated from previous archiving times
are shown to the user prior to archiving online, the actual
time taken is displayed after archiving.
Estimates are only calculated when archiving in excess of
150 messages takes place and so it may be some while before
estimates are displayed, although time taken is displayed in
each case no matter how many messages were archived.
Three separate estimates are kept, one for each archiver.
System Files
~~~~~~~~~~~~
During normal operation a number of files are created by
HoloQwk within its own folder :
HOLOQWKC.BAK - This is a copy of the HOLOQWK.CTL file that
has been backed up prior to rewriting with
new timing estimates - it is not normally
used for anything but is a security measure.
HOLOQWK.DAX - This is a copy of the HOLOQWK.DAT file that
has been backed up prior to rewriting after
you have changed user details with EDITOR.PRG
There are three optional files that you may or may not have
present in the HoloQwk folder :
HOLOQWK.TAG - This is an ASCII file containing tag lines
used in the generation of AutoTags if that
option is selected by the user.
If this file is not present then although the
AutoTags option is still shown to the user it
cannot be selected.
The .TAG file is held in memory during all
normal HoloQwk operations and so if you are
experiencing low memory problems try cutting
this file down from 600k !
HOLOQWK.HLP - This is an ASCII file that can be displayed
to the user from the main HoloQwk menu, if it
is not present at startup then the option is
not shown to the user.
The file can be as long as you wish and is
displayed to the user with prompts at the end
of each page.
HOLOQWK.GRP - This is the binary file written by the
GROUPED program, if it is not present then
conferences will be displayed in numerical
order instead of groups.
HOLOQWK.SYN - This is a binary file used internally.
It must NOT be deleted.
NEWFILES.PRG
~~~~~~~~~~~~
This program is used to generate a NEWFILES.DAT file that is
written into the users QWK packets should they have it
enabled. A new version is currently available that MUST be
used - it uses the new QWKUSER.INF format file that is
written into the QBBS folder from where you must obviously
set NEWFILES.PRG to read it from.
NEWFILES.PRG was written by Robert Darling and is available
from his BBS 24Hours a day - Folkestone Qbbs +44-303-249306.
Not using the new format NEWFILES.PRG will result in
erroneous NEWFILES.DAT files.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Colour
~~~~~~
Colour is used to highlight certain lines during the
operation of HoloQwk. ANSI, VTM and also VTC are used
depending on the users profile within QBBS.
For display to the console both the graphic mode selected on
the BBS and also the resolution is used to decide wether to
send colour or inverse blocks to the screen.
The users name displayed at the top of the main HoloQwk menu
is shown only to console, the users should know who they are !
Console override
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
All key presses from the console take preference over the
users activity, this means you can 'walk' a user through the
system should the need arise.
This does not mean the user gets locked out, just that you
have the ability to press the keys for them.