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1992-02-12
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┬─┬─────┐
│ │ │
│ ├───┬─┘ ┌┬──┐ ┬┬─┐ ┌┬──┐ ┌┬──┐ ┌┬──┐ ┌┬─┬─┐ ┌┬─┬─┐ (tm)
│ │ │ ││ │ │├─┴┐ ││ │ ││ ││ │ ││ │ │ ││ │ │
┴─┴ ┴── └┴──┘ ┴┴──┘ └┴──┘ └┴──┘ └┴──┘ ┴┴ ┴ ┴ ┴┴ ┴ ┴
The ultimate tool for unattended ┬ ┌┐ ┌─┬┐
BBS communications. └──┤│ │ ││
└┘o└─┴┘
----------------------------------------------------------------
This document is designed to assist experienced Robocomm
users in coming up to speed with the new version quickly.
The following is a list of changes and enhancements
implemented since Robocomm version 3.1
----------------------------------------------------------------
o Full Support for Wildcat! BBS systems added. When you add a new
new system, Robocomm will ask you to specify the BBS type.
Choose "Wildcat 3.0 or 3.1" or "Wildcat 3.02 (or later)" to set
up a system compatible with Wildcat BBS and the TomCat mail door.
o Implemented the Robocomm script language. When you select
the new "E"xecute script agenda item, a pop-up box may appear
asking you to fill in "Parameters" for the script run. Simply
use the arrow keys to select the option to change, press enter
to edit and save it. Then, press [Esc] to return when all
parameters are set up the way you like. For an example of this,
try the PCB_SET.RS script file supplied with Robocomm.
┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ See SCRIPT.DOC for details on developing your own scripts. │
└────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
After script parameters have been entered, you may edit them at
any time by hilighting the agenda item and pressing Alt-P.
o Added support for login script type BBS systems. If you set the
BBS type to "Login script only" then the 3rd phone number slot
on the BBS screen will change to "Login Script 3:" If you fill
in the name of a valid Robocomm script, that script will be
executed immediately after connecting with the system. If the
login script rertuns an errorlevel, Robocomm will hang up and
remove the BBS from the dialing queue. You may add as many
"Execute script" agenda items for this BBS as you like and they
will be run 1 after another. Don't forget that the script
should handle logging off the system.
o Implemented all-new quasi-hypertext online help system.
Press F1 twice for help on help.
o Implemented super-fast keyword searches in both file listings.
The "F"ind command now pops up a larger box, into which you may
type a series of search keywords, separated by spaces. Complex
multi-keyword searches on thousands of files usually complete in
a couple of seconds, instantly showing you a subset of your file
list with just matching records shown.
o Added mouse support throughout the program.
On any scrolling picklist, you can now:
┌─ Select ────┐ ───── Click on top line to scroll up.
│ ........... │
│ ........... │
│ .....──────┼─────── Click on any individual item to select it
│ ........... │
│ ........... │
└─────────────┘ ───── Click on bottom line to scroll down
If a scroll bar is displayed, you can click on the arrows at the
top and bottom as well to scroll
The main pull doen menu is now fully mouseable.
┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Clicking the right mouse button is equivalent to pressing │
│ ESCape. This will back you out of most displays, saving your │
│ changes. │
└───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
If a field has a pop-up box available by pressing F10, you can
pop-up the list by clicking on the field with the left mouse
button.
o Revised terminal mode with the following changes:
o DOORWAY mode added to the internal terminal. Toggle this
mode on and off with Alt-= (Alt Equal). NOTE: while doorway
mode is active, the bottom status bar is removed and the
only keystroke which is not sent out the port is Alt-=,
which will toggle you back into standard terminal mode.
o Added demon-dialing routines. Alt-D will now pop-up a
window of all non-PC Pursuit systems in your BBS-Directory
and allow you to tag the ones you want it to dial. Dialing
commences when you press ENTER. NOTE: the "Maxium dial
attempts per system" config option is not honored by these
dialing routines. It just dials forever.
o The contents of terminal screen are not disturbed when
switching between agenda and interactive modes.
o Added the ability to append terminal text to a specified
capture file. Use Alt-C to toggle the capture file on and
off.
NOTES:
o Capture files are always appended to.
o Capture files are automatically closed when exiting the
terminal.
o You cannot capture to a file that is already open in
Robocomm. i.e. Robocomm.log if you jumped to the
terminal mode.
o Send a BREAK to the modem with Alt-R
o Added the ability to log terminal contents to the printer.
use Alt-L to toggle this function on and off.
o Alt-P will send the configured password for the current BBS.
o Added the ability to limit agenda item execution to certain days
of the week. On the agenda editing screen you will now see a
display on the right side of each agenda item row that shows the
days the item is scheduled to execute.
Examples:
(SMTWTFS) <--- Execute every day.
(·M···F·) <--- Execute Monday and Friday only.
(·······) <--- Never execute this item.
The letters represent, from left to right the days of the week,
starting with Sunday and ending with Saturday. New agenda items
default to being executed every day. Three new keyboard command
have been added to the agenda screen to control this process:
Alt-D - Pop up display to set the "D"ay(s) the agenda item
should execute on. The bottom line of the screen
displays the available options while in this box.
Alt-N - "N"ever execute it the agenda item. Agenda items
cleared in this way will not execute until at least
one day is assigned to them.
Alt-E - Execute the agenda item "E"very day.
NOTE: Robocomm uses the day that is in effect when the agenda
starts for date comparisons while the agenda is in
progress. This means that if it's 23:59 on Tuesday and
you start an agenda with items to execute on Tuesday, they
will execute, even if it's not until some time early
Wednesday when their turn comes up. Similarly, items
scheduled for Wednesday will never execute if the agenda
is started on Tuesday.
NOTE: "Temporary" agenda items do not disappear until they have
been successfully executed. So, you can now schedule
agenda items up to a week in advance.
o Added a text file log of file uploads and downloads completed
during agendas. The file is created in the Robocomm directory
and is called TRANSFER.LOG -- Each "record" is contained on a
single line of the file. The file is "Comma-Delimited" and
should be able to be imported by just about any database
management system. From left to right, the fields are:
1) A single character: "U" for Uploads or "D" for downloads
2) The BBS ID, max of 8 characters
3) The date of the transfer, in MM/DD/YY format.
4) The time of the transfer in HH:MM:SS format.
5) The file transferred. The path is not included.
6) Total size of the file in bytes.
7) Transfer time in HH:MM:SS format.
8) Transfer throughput in characters-per-second (CPS).
9) Number of errors encountered during the transfer.
10) Name of the protocol used, up to 8 characters.
o Implemented a new editor routine with automatic reformatting and
more intelligent cursor operation.
o Added support for the new Bonus Utility REXCLUDE. Rexclude can
be used by Registered users to build a quick index file of files
that are already on their system. When Robocomm is importing
file lists, it will read this index and bypass any files that
lalready exist on your system.
SYSOPS: Add Rexclude to your nightly event and you'll never see
another file in Robocomm's Available Files directory that's also
on your BBS.
o Added F5 hot key from the BBS Directory and File Directory
screens. Pressing this key will cause Robocomm to shell to DOS
and run the batch file ANALYZE.BAT -- NOTE, Robo does not check
to see if the file exists before shelling out. This allows the
batch file and analysis tool to be in another directory.
Robocomm will call this batch file with 1 parameter, either the
currently highlighted file, or the currently highlighted BBS ID,
depending on the screen.
o Added NOEMSSWAP and NOXMSSWAP keywords to the ROBO environment
variable. NOEMSSWAP disables the use of EMS for swapping when
running outside programs. NOXMSSWAP does the same for HIMEM.SYS
XMS memory.
o Added detection of two batch files, PREAGEN.BAT and POSTAGEN.BAT
which will be called before and after agendas if detected.
This would be a good place to disable your disk cache's DELAYED
WRITES if necessary. Or, you might want to run some sort of
download/robocomm log analyzer or Wildcat file list importer.
o Added an OUTPUT command to the prompt screen that wiill output
the current prompt definition to a text file.
o Added configuration option allow the specification of a Wildcat!
format file list to be updated after all file downloads. The
file format is:
filename.ext xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx<cr><lf>
o Fixed /I import from command line switch to allow importation of
Wildcat and PCBoard format files into the downloads database.
The new syntax is:
/IP<file> to import PCBoard format files.
/IW<file> to import Wildcat format files.
o Added a tagged file summary to the file lists. Use Alt-T to
pop-up the summary display.
o Added the ability to Re-Set an agenda from the agenda editing
screen via the Alt-R key conbination. After a confirmation,
this routine will change all items marked as Done or Error to
To-Do status.
o Robocomm is now supplied with a special VGA font which is
automatically loaded at start-up if the "Load Robocomm's VGA
Font" option is set to YES on the general configuration menu.
This font contains several re-defined characters which are used
in various places in the user interface. For example, on VGA
systems with the font loaded, the and ■ characters on the
agenda editing screen are replaced by square markers with a
little "P" (for permanent) or "T" (for temporary).
o Created the EXITFONT utility, which will grab whatever font is
currently installed in a VGA monitor and save it to a file
called EXITFONT.VGA. If you have a special font loaded and
don't want Robocomm to kill it when it quits or shells out to
external programs, then copy EXITFONT.EXE into your Robocomm
directory and run it one time to save the font file to disk.
o Added the ability to RENAME agendas and BBS systems.
o Added the ability to control the number of dial attempts Robo
will make per system via a command line switch. Use /Lnnn where
nnn will set the number of dial attempts per system. This
setting is effective for the current run only, it does not
change your default setting.
o Moved color definition routines to the Configure menu. RCOLOR
is now obsolete and may be removed from your system. Old
COLOR.DEF files are not compatible with the new routines. If
you had a customized color set previously, it will be removed
automatically.
o Tamed the behavior of the "Agenda was not completed the last
time it was run" question. It will only pop-up if an agenda has
been run since its last editing session and was not completed
during the run.
o Added an "Agenda item timeout" configuration option to the
communications configuration menu that controls the maximum
amount of time (in minutes) that Robocomm will spend attempting
to execute an agenda item. The default is 60 minutes. This
option is designed to control the potential ill effects of a
bizarre prompt change (on the BBS or Robocomm end) or rogue
script file that sends Robocomm into a loop. It is extremely
unlikely that Robocomm will ever get into an endless loop on its
own accord, but this option is provided as an extra measure of
safety. The maximum value is 999 and the minimum value is 5.
NOTE: The "clock" which tracks the amount of time spent in a
specific agenda item is suspended during file transfers.
Jumping to terminal mode also re-sets the timer.
o Agenda items aborted due to an unexpected loss of carrier or the
F3 (Abort Agenda) key are now marked with an exclamation point,
rather than with a "To Do" status indicator.
o Added a "Renumbering style" option to the "Data and Logs"
configuration menu. Pressing Enter on the option will toggle
between:
#???????.??? Robocomm 3.1 and lower style. EZ-Reader 1.3x
users _must_ select this option.
????????.??# Optional method preferred by many users. Select
this option if it appeals to you. This method
has been selected for Robocomm's default.
The pound sign indicates the location of the archive file number
in the renamed files. NOTE: This configuration option applies
to both Qmail downloads and the RENUMBER command in the script
language.
o Added an option to control the number of REP packet archives
that will be kept. This option is also on the "Data and Logs"
configuration menu. REP Packets will no longer be renamed with
an .OLD extension. The default value for this option is 1,
meaning that only te most recently sent REP will be maintained
as <bbsid>.RE1 or 1<bbsid>.REP
o Added the ability to tag multiple BBS systems when creating
"Jump to Terminal" agenda items.
o Added an alternative downward scrolling technique in the file
directories, which is active when ALT-Down Arrow is used. With
this method, the cursor bar will be moved back to the top row of
the display after an attempt is made to scroll off the bottom of
the window. YOU MUST HAVE DOS 5 FOR THIS TO WORK
o Added code to flush data buffers to disk before and after
agendas, and before shelling to DOS to run utility programs.
o Added the ability to edit the filters and preference lists from
within the file directories. Alt-P to edit preferences, Alt-F
to edit filters.
o SSS - "Spiffy Sliding Screens" added. They can be shut off
(but who'd want to?) via the "Exploding Windows" option.
o File lengths in PCBoard format listings are now output right
justified and all trailing blanks on description lines have been
removed, to enhance compatibility with PCBFiler and other
PCBoard DIR utilities.
o Added a fourth parameter to all external batch download requests
which is the target directory for downloaded files. For example,
the recommended download batch file for the new hs-link protocol
is:
HSLINK -P%1 -B%2 -U%4
o Added HS/Link Auto-Download support to terminal mode. If the
file HS-AUTO.BAT is located in your Robocomm directory and the
HS/Link header is seen, Robocomm will go into auto-download
mode.
o Changed the name of the file ROBOAUTO.BAT to Z-AUTO.BAT to
maintain uniformity with the HS protocol batch file name. If
you have a ROBOAUTO.BAT, the upgrade procedures will now rename
it to Z-AUTO.BAT. (This file is used to call DSZ instead of
Robocomm's internal Zmodem when in terminal mode.)
o Added a configuration option to the communications configuration
screen to control the number of seconds that the program will
spend "Clearing" the receive buffers after a response from the
modem.
o Implemented support for front end prompts on PCBoard systems.
Robo will now send two ESCapes when the defined "Front End
Prompt" is seen during logon.
o Totally replaced the dialing prefix and suffix concepts with
"Dialing Macros." You may now place the letters A-J anywhere
within a phone number and Robocomm will replace the character
with the corresponding string that you set up on the dialing
macro table before dialing. The dialing macro table can be
viewed/edited by pressing F10 while editing any phone number.
For instance to disable call waiting, you might define dialing
macro "C" as "*70" and input your phone numbers as:
C1-312-752-1258
CUSTOMIZED DIALING COMMANDS are made possible by prefixing any
defined macro letter with a ` (backwards tick mark). Doing so
causes the contents of the macro letter to be used to dial the
number instead of the configured default dialing command. This
enables you to send customized commands to the modem on a BBS by
BBS basis. For example, to turn on the modem speaker ON when
dialing Group One BBS, you could input this as the phone number:
`A1-312-752-1258
Then you would set up the "A" dialing macro as:
ATM1DT
The most common use for this feature will probably be to turn of
MNP negotiation if you are calling a system with a non-MNP modem
from a MNP-capable modem. Doing this keeps the first prompt
sent by the BBS from being eaten by your modems attempts to
negotiate an MNP connect. To do this, you might set up a dialing
macro letter as:
AT&M0DT
and then include the macro letter, along with a preceding `
character in the phone number (technically, it could be anywhere
in the number, but it's probably simplest to put it at the
front).
GIVE ME A BREAK: By defining a dialing macro as BREAK, you can
cause a 1 second break to be generated before the dial attempt.
o Added an option to the Communications configuration screen to
toggle whether or not a BREAK signal is sent before attempting to
initialize the modem.
o Added an "Average Download CPS" configuration option to the
General configuration screen. The number you enter here will be
used to estimate the download times shown on the Available files
screen.
o Robocomm now does all FIXFILE.BAT processing _after_
disconnecting from the BBS. How Robo behaves depends on the
existence of 2 files, FIXFILE.BAT and COMMENT.FRM:
- If FIXFILE.BAT exists in the Robocomm start-up directory,
then Robo will process all files downloaded via "Download"
agenda items after logging off. If it doesn't exist, then
all ZIP file processing is disabled.
- If COMMENT.FRM exists, then Robocomm will merge the
appropriate values, as before, and shell out 1 time for each
file downloaded. This is fast if you have EMS/XMS free and
pretty slow if we are swapping out to disk. All available
memory is freed up for each swap.
- If COMMENT.FRM does not exist, then Robocomm will create a
temporary batch file called FIX_ALL.BAT and then swap out
to run the file. This approach is faster because it
requires only 1 shell/swap for all files downloaded. As an
example, FIX_ALL.BAT might look like this if you downloaded
4 files during the entire session with the BBS:
REM FIX_ALL.BAT
REM -----------
CALL FIXFILE.BAT ROBO40-A.ZIP ZIP
CALL FIXFILE.BAT ROBO40-B.ZIP ZIP
CALL FIXFILE.BAT SLMR201A.ZIP ZIP
Note that in either case FIXFILE.BAT will receive the file's
name as the %1 parameter and the file's extension as the %2
parameter. FIX_ALL.BAT is deleted immediately after it is
run.
o When creating download agenda items from tagged files, Robocomm
will now use the configured "File U/D" conference if no
conference number/name is associated with the file.
o Added a configuration option to the "General" configuration
screen that allows you to specify how the "Date" sort type will
be done on the available files list. The two options are "Date
of Scan" and "Date on BBS."
o Added the ability to resume an aborted download using internal
Zmodem. Zmodem-resume only works from within the terminal.
Remember: the BBS must be set up to allow resumed downloads.
Frequently, this requires the use of a different protocol
letter. Usually, it's "R." So, typing:
D;R;<file name>
from Robocomm's terminal when connected with a PCBoard system
will frequently allow you to resume the aborted transfer.
o The "O"ffline routines no longer modify the file's time stamp.
o Added a "D"irectory import command to the "Downloaded Files"
directory. This command will ask for a directory and filespec.
All matching files will be added to the downloads list. If a
file description matching the file can be found in the newfiles
list, it will be brought over to the downloads directory. This
command makes it easy to bring files downloaded with other comm
programs into Robocomm's databases.
o Revised filter and preference word interface and made them
open-ended. You may now add as many as you desire.
o Added "File Search Directory" configuration list. Robocomm will
now search all the directories you list here when creating
upload agenda items, and when viewing, testing or deleting files
from the downloads list.
Sysops: add all your file directories to this list, import
your allfiles list and upload any file from your BBS system
easily!
o After a download, when looking for a suitable file description,
Robocomm will now scan the available files directory for a file
with the same name from a different BBS if a listing is not
found for the current BBS.
o Improved keystroke handling during the dialing process.
Pressing DEL, SPACE or ESC during dialing, pausing or clearing
should no meet with much speedier response.
o Added "Already Downloaded" message in the log when processing
new file lists.
o Added the ability to toggle the "Remaining Online" status with
F10 during file transfers.
o Added the ability to cancel the extraction of NEWFILES.DAT from
downloaded QWK packets by specifying NONE as the ZIP extraction
utility.
o Added support for Wildcat! 3.0 systems. To set up a Wildcat!
BBS, select "Wildcat! 3.x" at the system type prompt on the
Directory-BBS screen. All non-PCBoard specific agenda items
should work similarly to the way they did in the past.
o Conference numbers are now stored with all entries in the
downloads directory.
If you would like conference numbers/names
to appear in file listings you "I"mport into the available files
directory, you need to edit the files to include the following
marker:
CONF
│
└──── ASCII 16
For example, to edit a file listing to show that all
subsequently listed files can be found in the ROBOBETA
conference, you would include the following label in the text
file, starting in column 1
CONFROBOBETA
A directory listing may include any number of these markers.
All files found subsequent to a marker will have the indicated
conference included in their conference field, which is
automatically supplied when the file is selected for
downloading. The conference name may be up to 13 characters in
length.
o This version is compiled using Clipper 5.0, and has
significantly enhanced memory management capabilities and
performance characteristics. If you were using a ROBO
environment variable with version 3.1, make sure you remove it
for use with this version! New ROBO environment variable
switches have been implemented in this version.
It may be set up as follows:
/OOnnn Overlay pool size in KB Minimum=30K
Default=40K
/OU0 Disable use of XMS UMBs for overlays
/OU1 Enable use of XMS UMBs for overlays *Default*
/OP0 Disable EMS pageframe for overlays *Default*
/OP1 Enable EMS pageframe for overlays
Example:
SET ROBOOVL=/OO50 /OU0
This example tells Robocomm to reserve a fixed 50K of memory
(conventional, EMS pageframe or UMB as defined by the other
parameters) for its overlays and disables the UMB option.
NOTE: A contiguous UMB block at least as large as the configured
overlay area must be available for this option to be used. Use
of the EMS pageframe for overlays should only be used by
knowledgeable users who are sure that they will not be running
any program which uses the EMS pageframe area simultaneously
with Robocomm. (This includes any utilities called from within
Robocomm)
By default, Robocomm will attempt to eat all the EMS it can find
(up to 16 megs) for index buffering and virtual memory space.
You _may_ use the ROBO=Ennnn environment variable to specify the
amount of EMS (in KB) that it is allowed to use.
Robocomm will make a VMS swap file in your current directory if
it runs out of EMS and needs more VMS space (either physically,
or by reaching the limit you set with the E environment
variable). You can add the following parameters to your ROBO
environment variable to control this process:
SWAPPATH:"<path>"
Example:
SET ROBO=E2048;SWAPPATH:"C:\ROBOCOMM\SWAP"
This environment setting will tell Robocomm that it may use
up to 2 Megabytes of EMS (3.2 or above) and that it must swap to
the C:\ROBOCOMM\SWAP directory if it needs to create a swap
file. (Note that it is highly unlikely that it would with this
much EMS available. Also, the specified SWAPPATH directory must
exist or you will get a fatal error).
o New INTERNAL file viewer. Viewing a log in with the internal
viewer results in Robocomm log entries showing in a different
text color from captured VERBOSE text.
o Added a .GIF file viewer configuration option. If a file in the
downloads list has a .GIF extension, pressing "V" while the file
is highlighted will result in the configured program being
called with the full file and path name passed as the %1
parameter.
# # #