Black Box 4/BlackBox.cdr/bbs_mail/ma_103.arj/MA.HLP

Text File | 1991-12-10 | 13KB | 326 lines

Message Alert v1.02

What is Message Alert?
----------------------
Message Alert (MA) is a message base utility program that
tells you when any messages containing key phrases are
received on your system.  MA alerts you to these messages
by creating its own message in your netmail message area.
The easiest way to explain MA is to present an example.

Let's say you are running FrontDoor in a private network
that exchanges 14 echo areas in addition to Netmail.  You
don't need to read all of the messages every day yet you do
have to at least scan every folder (message area) daily
looking for certain key messages of interest.  This is
where MA comes in.

You can set up MA to watch specific folders (or ALL
folders) for any incoming messages that contain key
phrases.  You further tell MA where in the messages to
search for each search phrase.  You could set up one search
phrase in NetMail to search for any message where the
sender's name contains the phrase "McDaniel." You could set
up a search with a phrase of "modems" and have MA search
only the subject lines of messages in the folder FD_DEV.

Simply put, MA alerts you to any incoming messages from a
person, to a person, about a subject, or containing a
phrase in the body of the text.

MA and FrontDoor
----------------
In order for MA to work, you must be using FrontDoor and
MUST have all of your message folders set up as Folders in
FDSETUP.

If you are running FrontDoor and a bulletin board system
using the Hudson style message format, you must still have
every message area set up as a folder in FOLDER.FD.

MA requires that you are running FrontDoor and that your
FD config file be in the 2.02 format.  In other words, your
FD configuration file must be named SETUP.FD.  Older
versions of FD called the cfg file FD.SYS and it is safe to
copy FD.SYS as SETUP.FD in the FD directory.  MA will NOT
run properly if you are not using FrontDoor or if the
SETUP.FD file is not found.

You do not have to run MA from the FD directory; however,
you must run MA from the directory where the MA.EXE file is
located.

MA and Message Bases Formats
----------------------------
MA currently works on two types of message bases:
      1) The Opus/FD style using .MSG files.
      2) The Hudson format used by QuickBBS and support by
         certain versions of TosScan/FD.
      -) There are plans to support the TPBoard message
         base as well.

The Opus format requires no additional setup when using MA.

The Hudson message format does require special instruction.
If you are using the Hudson format with TosScan (no
bulletin board), you must establish a User named "MA MA" in
FDSetup (without the quotes).  Users are edited under the
menu option GLOBAL.

If you are using the Hudson format with a bulletin board,
you must add a user to your USERS.BBS file.   The earlier
in your USERS file that you add "MA MA," the faster will be
MA's search for that record. This provides MA with access
to the LastRead record used by MA to record scanned
messages.

Setting up MA
-------------
MA requires very little configuration.  Run MA from the DOS
prompt and you will see a pull-down menu with the following
main-bar options:  Configs   Scan   Locks   Exit

Move the highlight bar to Configs and press [Enter].  You
now have two choices:  Searches and Options; select
Options.

The settings you see are the only settings required for MA
other than the message Search criteria records.  For full
help on what these settings do, move the highlight bar to
any setting and press [F1].   But briefly:

    Editor:  When you run a scan of messages from the
             pull-down menu, a file is created with a
             report of the results. To view this file, MA
             calls the editor you specify here.
    Color:   A Yes or No setting to turn color on/off in
             MA.
    Lock:    When messages are found that match a search
             record, you have the option of "locking" to
             prevent them from being deleted.  Make very
             sure that you aren't running any other
             utilities that will have problems with locked
             .MSG files.
    Style:   Which style of message base are you using.  If
             you select Hudson and don't have the necessary
             support files available, you won't be able to
             reenter MA without deleting the MA.CFG file.
    Users:   If you are running a Hudson format message
             base with a bulletin board, this sets the DOS
             path to your Users.bbs file.

To save these settings after editing, select the SAVE
option from the Exit menu.

Search records
--------------
These records specify the criteria for MA's scans through
the message base.  A search record consists of:

    -   a phrase to search for
    -   instructions on which part of the message to search
    -   the folder in which to search
    -   instructions on deleting matching records
    -   any special instructions according to the type of
        search

To edit/create search records, select SEARCH from the
Configs menu. The screen you will see appears something
like:

    Folder:  _____________
    Phrase:  _____________
    Search:  _____________
    Flags:   _____________
    Delete:  _____________

Initially, the Folder selected will be the first folder in
your FOLDER file.  If you have created any search records
for this folder, you will see the data for the first search
record for that folder.  If the phrase is blank (empty),
there are NO search records for this folder and you are
looking at a new search record which will only be saved
when or if completed.

Try pressing [ENTER] while the highlight bar is on FOLDER;
you will see a list of all the available folders.  By
selecting any of them, you will change to the list of
search records for the selected folder.   Once you select a
folder, all operations such as adding and deleting are for
THAT folder until you select a different folder.

SEARCH tells MA which part of the message you wish to scan.
The options are:

    1)  The text of the message
    2)  The subject line of the message
    3)  The names of the message (both FROM and TO)

If you want to watch for the same phrase in both the
subject and text of the message, you will need to create
two search records for that folder with each having the
same search phrase.

PHRASE is the phrase you wish to have MA watch for.  There
are several considerations depending on which SEARCH type
you select.  If you are searching in either the text of the
message or the subject line, the message will be considered
a "match" and you will be alerted to that message *IF* the
phrase you enter is present ANYWHERE within the subject (or
text) or the message.  The search is case insensitive.

When searching in the subject line or message text, you can
further specify TWO search phrases which MUST appear
together in the same message subject line (or together in
the message text) to be considered a matching message.  To
enter two search phrases in the same search record,
separate them with two forward slash letters.   Example:
colour//red as a text search would look for COLOUR and RED
together in a message.

If you are searching the NAME fields of a message, you have
three additional commands to use.

    1)  If you enter a phrase that begins with an
        exclamation point, MA will search for any names
        that BEGIN with the following text.   For example:
        !MI would consider matching any names beginning
        with MI.
    2)  If you enter a phrase that begins with an @ mark,
        MA will search for any names that contains the
        following text.   For example:   @MI would consider
        matching any names that contain MI
    3)  If you don't use any of the above two command, MA
        will expect an exact match.  If you enter "John
        Henry", MA will only consider a match the full name
        "John Henry".

FLAGS.  Currently, only the name SEARCH types support any
additional flags.  When searching the name fields, you must
tell MA which name field to search:  the FROM name, the TO
name, or BOTH names.

DELETE.  When searching the name fields, you have the
additional option of deleting any matching messages.  This
option only works in the OPUS style message base.  You
would use this option when you absolutely didn't  want any
messages entering your system from a particular source
(person).

Adding records
--------------
Search records are added by pressing [INS]. You will see a
new record appear with a blank phrase field. You can add as
many records as you wish; however, only complete records
are saved on exiting MA.

Deleting records
----------------
Search records are deleted by pressing [DEL].  If the
record phrase is blank and there are no records remaining
for the current folder, there is no harming is pressing the
[DEL] key.

SCANNING
--------
The process of having MA search through new messages is
called a "scan."  If you have added new search records and
want MA to look through messages it has already looked
through, that is called a "rescan."  Both of these are
options from the SCAN selection on the main menu bar.  You
can scan or rescan from the menu but MA was really intended
to run from a batch file following new incoming mail.  In
this way, MA performs the searching whenever mail arrives
without your instruction every time.

To run a scan without entering MA, type MA at the DOS
prompt followed by any mix of the following options:

    /?  = displays this help list
    /S  = instructions to perform a scan
    /M  = instructions to output a netmail message report
    /F  = forces a rescan of previously scanned messages
    /L  = turns off locking regardless of MA's settings
    /Q  = runs MA in quick mode

/S Scan
This option is required to initiate  a scan from the DOS
prompt. Without this option, MA will load in full screen
mode regardless of any other option (other than /?).

/M  MESSAGE
This tells MA to produce a .MSG file in your netmail area
with a report on the findings of this scan.  If you don't
use /M, you will have to check for the report file
MASCAN.OUT.

/F  FORCE RESCAN
Use with -- not to replace -- the /S option, this tells MA
to extend the scan to already scanned messages.  MA knows
which messages have been scanned by either the lastread
counters (in the Hudson format) or a flag set in the
message itself (OPUS style base).

/L  LOCK Override
Overrides the internal "lock" settings and disables message
locking.

/Q  Quickmode
Normally, MA scans by folder and takes the search records
in sequence. This means that for EACH search record, ALL
messages must be read in.  This is done to produce a report
like the following:

    SYS18
    -----

    COSTS   Text search
            Msg# 1   JAMES SMITH        ANTHONY LISA ET AL
            Msg# 10  JAMES SMITH        JOHN NELSON

    TEST    Text search
            Msg# 2   JAMES SMITH        NO ONE

    COLOUR//RED   Text search
            Msg# 1   John Brown         GRAPHICS

Note that all findings (see the COSTS text search) for a
particular search are grouped together.  To do this, the
same messages had to be read for scan for each of the
subsequent searches.

QUICK mode changes that to open each message once and then
for that message, run through all the searches:


    SYS18
    -----

    MSG# 1

      COSTS   Text search
              JAMES SMITH               ANTHONY LISA ET AL

    MSG# 10
      COSTS   Text search
              JAMES SMITH               JOHN NELSON

    MSG# 2
       TEST   Text search
              John Brown                Graphics

This saves a marginal amount of time because MA only opens
each message once.  The savings are about 20-25% but the
primary factor is the difference in the format of the
reports.  Do you want all matches for a message to be
grouped together?  Or would your prefer all findings for a
search to list the matched messages?

Locking/Unlocking
-----------------
Message locking and unlocking is only performed on the OPUS
.MSG style message base.  If you are running a bulletin
board that imports from the OPUS format, you should ensure
that you importer can import READ-ONLY message files before
enabling locking.