home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- Account Reconfiguration
- -----------------------
- You can reconfigure your account for a number of parameters using the
- dot commands. In this there lies an unfortunate paradox -- if you are
- a true novice, you probably don't know what a "dot" command is, because
- it's an advanced topic. However, fear not
- and press on, for "advanced" is merely a relative term.
-
- We'll address the issue of reconfiguration in three sections: terminal
- configuration, system usage configuration, and miscellaneous.
-
- Generally speaking, to change or set any of the following options, the
- generic format of the command you'll use is
-
- <.E>nter <C>onfiguration <OPTION>
-
- (If you are not familiar with "dot" commands, the above means you type
- the period ["."], followed by an 'E', a 'C', and then the letter of the
- option you wish to play with.)
-
- TERMINAL CONFIGURATION:
- ^nodetitle needs to know two (2) things about you and your terminal in
- order to make system usage as pleasurable as possible. You told us about
- them when you logged in (presumably, or perhaps the sysop did when
- s/he created your account), but you may want to change the settings
- anyways.
-
- Additionally, you can set three (3) more values related to your terminal
- to tune your usage of ^variantname. These three, explained below, are
- Half-Duplex mode, Nulls, and character Delay.
-
- Here are the options:
-
- <W>idth of screen. This is the width of your screen in columns (not inches!).
- When you request this option the system will prompt for a screen width. If you
- find after using this option that you are occasionally getting anomalous blank
- lines, and the last character of the line above the blank line seems to be in
- the 80th column, you are using flawed terminal software which does not
- understand when line wrap is supposed to occur (don't feel bad, this is a very
- common problem). If this is happening, try setting the Width to one less than
- the width of your screen. For instance, .ECW 79 is a very common setting.
-
- <L>inefeeds. This is a simple toggle which alternately turns on and off your
- need for ^variantname to transmit a Linefeed after it sends a Carriage Return
- (the standard End Of Line indicator in the BBS world). If you find that either
- each line writes over the one before it, or EVERY line is followed by one
- or more blank lines, then use this, .ECL, option.
-
- <D>elay. With the advent of cheap, fast modems, it's become very common for
- even the most destitute of users to have very fast modems. While this is very
- useful for downloading files and messages, you may want to slow the output
- while you're reading messages online. To this end ^variantname provides the
- <D>elay parameter. It tells ^variantname how long to pause after each
- character is spat out to the modem when you're reading messages or text files
- in ASCII
- mode (this option has no effect when you're downloading messages or files using
- XMODEM or any other protocol). The units of delay are milliseconds. Feel free
- to experiment with this value to get it to a value you feel comfortable reading
- at.
-
- <N>ulls. These are used on very old terminals which, when given a carriage
- return, actually need some time to move the cursor (or print head) down a
- line and all the way to the left. A "Null" is a byte who's value is binary
- 0 (not ASCII "0"), and its common meaning is "no information"; it acts as a
- time waster while your terminal moves the cursor to the left and down a line.
- You only need to use this if you seem to lose several characters from the
- beginning of each line.
-
- <H>alf-duplex mode. This is useful for the rare user who's terminal generates
- its own echo when the user types. Nearly no one uses this option (so don't
- worry if you don't understand), but sometimes PCPursuit people find it very
- useful as a way to get away from the inherent jerkiness of the service.
-
- System Usage Configuration:
- These options control how you use the system and what you see.
-
- <E>xpert. This controls how many hints and prompts you'll see. It's just
- a toggle, so when you're tired of being a novice (if you still are), just
- type .ECE.
-
- <F>loor mode. This tells the system if you want the additional structure of
- floors added onto the basic structure of rooms. There's a help file that
- already covers this (.Help FLOORS, or find it in the Help System), so please
- consult that file for more information.
-
- <O>ld message on New toggle. This tells the system if you want to see
- the last Old message in a given room first when you request <N>ew messages.
- This is useful as a "memory jogger" of what was happening in the room last
- time you were here.
-
- <T>ime of messages. Do you want to see the time each message was generated,
- or are you content with just the date? .ECT lets you change back and forth.
-
- <M>ail Forwarding. You may forward mail sent to this account to another
- account on ^nodetitle (to forward your mail to another system see below)
- using this command.
- This includes mail received from another system for this account. The one
- exception is mail sent by the Sysop to Citadel, in which case all accounts
- will receive the mail and forwarding is not necessary.
-
- <P>rompt. This controls whether the room name is printed before the words
- 'entry cmd: ' (the message entry prompt) as a hint where you are entering
- a message. This prompt will remind you where you are in case you've accidentally
- changed rooms when entering a message (this happens occasionally).
-
- Miscellaneous options:
- These options are just don't fit anywhere else.
-
- <A>ddress. See .Help FORWARD for detailed information; essentially, you
- can tell ^nodetitle to Forward your local Mail> to another system if you don't
- plan to be on this system very often, but expect to receive Mail from local
- users.
-
- <B>iography. See .Help BIO. Basically, this lets you enter a short biography
- of yourself for other folk to read. Biographies are accessed using <M>eet
- User.
-
- <C>omplete reconfigure. This lets you completely reconfigure your account.
-
- Also, .Enter Configuration ? and .Enter Configuration <CR> will print a
- menu and a summary of your current configuration.
-
- <Z>Old-style Read Extended. This option lets you control the behavior of
- .Read Extended-Directory in directory rooms. Give it a try, just hit .ECZ
- and then do a .RE in a directory room. Hit .ECZ again and another .RE will
- let you see the difference.
-
- PASSWORD
- Use the .Enter Password command to change your password. If you try to
- change your password more than once during a login session, you will be forced
- to wait for half a minute as an anti-password-hacking measure.
-
-
- %FORWARD More information on C86Net Mail, especially for .ECA.
- %BIO User biographies on ^variantname.
- %COMMANDS Back to the commands help menu.
- %HELPOPT Get a list of all help files in the system.
- %MAINHELP First level of help system.
-
-