Crawly Crypt Collection 1/crawlyvol1.bin/telecomm/imhov107/doc/imho_doc.txt

Text File | 1994-05-22 | 8KB | 205 lines

                               IMHO
                               ====


--------------------------- Dedication -------------------------------


This OLR is dedicated to my wife, Rhoda, who has been neglected for
far too many hours during the creation of this wee beastie.


-------------------------- Introduction ------------------------------


This document assumes that you already know about sending messages
on a BBS, and probably know a bit about OLR's (Off Line Readers)
in general. You need to know how to download a message packet
in QWK format from a BBS and how to upload reply packets.
If this sounds like gibberish to you, then you've probably downloaded
the wrong file! ;-)


Disclaimer:
No warranties, either express or implied, are made by the author with
respect to the software or its fitness for a particular purpose. The
author accepts no responsibility for any loss that may result from the
use or inability to use this software.


Requirements
------------

IMHO runs in either high or medium resolution. It was designed for
use on a mono monitor - hence the lack of colour in medium resolution!

IMHO, as it's name implies, used to be rather memory hungry.
It has now been changed to a variable appetite (!) You can feed
it with as much or as little memory as you have available.

For details about the memory requirements see the MEMORY.TXT file.


------------------------ Packet processing ---------------------------


This describes the general way in which the OLR works with respect
to the mail packets, and the way in which I use it.

There is one directory (folder) for message packets and another
for reply packets.

I rename my message packets from <bbs>.QWK to <bbs>.nnn,
where <bbs> is the name of the file, as generated by the BBS,
and nnn is a 3 digit number, which I increase by 1 for each new
packet downloaded from the BBS.

You don't have to do it like this. You can call the packets whatever
you like - it will still work ok.

In this way multiple packets from multiple BBS's can be kept in the
same directory, without confusion.

The replies, however, are always generated as <bss>.nnn or <bbs>.REP
in the reply directory.
<bbs> is the BBS 'id' as found within the opened message packet
control file CONTROL.DAT (should be the same as the downloaded
QWK packet file name).
REP is used for the last reply packet created. The previous ones
will be nnn (3 digit numeric). When another new packet is created
the current REP is renamed to the next nnn in sequence for <bbs>,
i.e. the highest number found plus one, or 001 if none exist yet.

If you have created a reply packet previously, and the work directory
has not been cleared out, the next time you create a reply packet
you will be asked if you want to add to the previous packet or
create a new one. N.B. This is for a .REP packet in the work directory,
not in the replies directory. There is an option to copy the last REP
packet from the replies directory into the work directory if you want
to add to a previous packet.

The way reply packets are created is flexible - you can make several
reply packets for each message packet, or one reply packet for several
message packets, or whatever mixture of these that you like. Just be
careful not to generate a single reply packet for different BBS's
message packets as they'll end up in the wrong areas!

Old reply packets can be loaded in and decompressed at any time during
message processing. The replies from the packet will be added to any that
are currently outstanding, and can be changed or deleted as
required. This option is different to the one that copies in the .REP
packet to the work directory, as replies cannot be edited in that case.

Before bundling into a reply packet individual replies are stored
as 2 files for each reply in a directory called REPLIES\ within the
work directory. One file is called HEADER.nnn and the other REPLY.nnn,
where nnn is a 3 digit number, unique for each reply. The HEADER
file contains the QWK format reply header (with information such
as To: and Subject:). The REPLY file is a standard ASCII file
which contains the text of the reply. This means that it is easy
to get hold of the replies if you have any problems - you don't
have to go rumaging through QWK packets to sort things out.


------------------------------ Limits --------------------------------


The highest area (conference) number in a packet must be less than 1000.

The "find" function will only find the first 100 messages containing
the string searched for.

Only the first 500 message packets will be displayed in the List Message
Packets option.

Only the first 200 messages to you will be displayed via the Read Pers
Messages option.

Only the first 200 messages per area will be displayed when selecting
an area via the right mouse button within Read Messages.

You can only have 1000 replies outstanding at one time before needing
to build a reply packet.

You might get some strange effects on the screen displays if there
are more than 999 messages in a single area.

The largest message in a packet must have less than 16,384 lines.

The signature file, IMHO.SIG, must be less than 32K in size.

There must be less than 32,768 users in the IMHO.USR file.

There must be less than 1,073,741,824 taglines in the IMHO.TAG file.
(Has anyone got this many yet!?)


-------------------------- Bits at the end ---------------------------


Conditions of use
-----------------
This program may be freely distributed as long as it is
accompanied by the full documentation and is not used for
commercial gain.


Be nice to the Author
---------------------

If you find this program useful, you could show your appreciation
by sending me 5UKP, or, if you're not in the UK, something interesting?
It might encourage me to write some more programs.

If you think a fiver is a bit much to ask, or you're a bit strapped
for cash, then how about sending me a postcard instead? I'd like at
least to know if people out there are using this program.

My address is :-

Ian Print
288A Farnborough Road
Clifton
Nottingham
NG11 8LJ
England


Suggestions, bugs etc.
----------------------

If you'd like to see improvements or enhancements to this program
let me know by writing to the above address, or sending Netmail
to the Fido address :-

   Ian Print    at    2:2503/203

This has also been set up in the IMHO.USR file in this
archive - use the abbreviation '*imho' in your Netmail area.

I can't promise anything, but if it sounds like a good idea and/or
lots of other people would like the same thing, I may well try
putting it into a new release.
Sugestions by people who have sent a fiver will carry much greater
weight, of course!

If you find a bug, feel free to let me know, but bear in mind that
I've only got a 1040 STF (with 2.5 Mb) to play with. I can't do
any testing on STE's, Mega's, TT's, (Falcon's!) etc.

If you report a bug please give full details of how to reproduce
it, otherwise I won't be able to figure out how to fix it.

Please bear in mind that this OLR is NOT idiot proof - it doesn't
have checks in absolutely every place it could have. If you follow
the instructions it should work quite happily, but if you start
putting 500 character lines into the configuration file it'll make a
mess of something somewhere!

Some of the error messages produced by this program when things go
wrong may not be too helpful, and the way which they are written
out isn't very pretty, but hopefully you'll never get to see one! ;-)