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TICKPACK.DOC
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1991-09-04
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TICKPACK Ver. 2.8
(c) 1991 K. Braun
0. What's new
TickPack now recognizes incomplete archives by storing the total size of
the archive in the header. Starting from version 2.5ß the format of the
archives has slightly changed, but TickPack will still recognize and
process archives generated by pre 2.5 versions. Suggested by Chris Lueders.
As more and more problems arised with sysops running Binkley, i included a
MailerType statement in the configuration file. Depending on this type,
TickPack will handle sent archives in a different way:
FrontDoor: TickPack adds a FLAGS: KFS line to the attachmessage
Binkley : TickPack directly creates .?LO files in the appropriate
outbound directory.
D'Bridge/
Generic : TickPack deletes archives when the attachmessage is
gone.
This was suggested by Guido Gybels.
For FrontDoor users only: TickPack will touch the semaphore files
FDRESCAN.NOW and FMRESCAN.NOW if you specify the path to these files in the
configuration file. Hopefully this will enable TickPack to run smoothly in
a multiline environment. Suggested by Justin Mann.
A little bug has been found: TickPack didn't set the filedate correctly
when unpacking archives. This has been fixed. Reported by Lars Eriksson.
1. What is TICKPACK
TICKPACK is the follow-up to my famous :-) TICKECHO program. I
created this program, because I hated the look of my netmail-folder
after TICK(tm) had created hundreds of fileattach-messages.
TICKPACK simply collects all files for one system and throws them
into one large file.
This has numerous advantages and one disadvantage:
- your netmail-folder looks much neater
- if you hatch your filelist regularly, HATCH will create a TIC-file
and attach this list. But if the receiver doesn't poll the list at
the same day, your nightly event will create a new filelist. From
this moment, the CRC in the TIC-file doesn't match anymore.
TICKPACK circumvents this problem by explicitly copying all files
into one archive, so every file will be sent exactly as it was when
you archived it.
- This approach will of course use more room on your harddisk than
the normal TICK-approach. Especially when you distribute files to
many systems, a TICKPACK archive for every receiver will be
created. If you receive 3 MB and distribute those files to 10
systems, you will need 30 MB room on your harddisk to store all
those archives. TICKPACK notices when you are out of diskspace and
leaves all TICK messages alone if it couldn't store them completely
in the archive.
2. Legal stuff
TICKPACK is distributed as GUILTWARE (in contrast to TICKECHO, which
was public domain). If you intend to use TICKPACK on a regular basis,
you should pay for it. TICKPACK isn't crippled in any way and if you
pay, it doesn't miraculously develop new features, but anyway, it was a
lot of work writing it, so you shouldn't mind paying for it :-)
To avoid any misunderstandings! You are NOT definitely required to
register TICKPACK. Especially systems who are forced to use TICKPACK
to unpack archives from their uplink shouldn't feel pressured to
register. If you do, I'll be glad, if you don't, what the heck...
BTW: YOU ARE REQUIRED TO SEND ME A NETMAIL IN WHICH YOU SHOULD STATE
HOW MUCH YOU LOVE USING TICKPACK :-))) honestly, send me a netmail so
that I know who is using this program, ok?
If you want to register TICKPACK, see the end of this document.
I DO NOT guarantee that TICKPACK will do anything! If it doesn't work
as you expect it to or if it crashes your harddisk, bad luck. You can't
hold me reliable for any damages my software does on your system. If
you can't agree with this, delete the software and get on with your
life...
3. Features
Aside all those beautiful things mentioned above, TICKPACK is fully
zone- and pointaware. Many people pestered me with this one, apparently
there is a lot of zone-crossing traffic going on :-)
Additionally TICKPACK will only pack message from TICK with totally
identical attributes, i.e. if you distribute two areas to system X, one
with HOLD attribute and the other one with CRASH attribute, TICKPACK
will create two archives, the first one containing all files marked as
HOLD, the second one containing all files marked as CRASH. The same
goes for the AKA you use for different areas. If you distribute some
files to system X from your main address and some other files from your
first AKA, TICKPACK will produce one archive for the first set of
files and another one for the second set.
Last but not least a special goody: if you tell TICKPACK so, it won't
create attach messages for new archives at once but only on a special
day of the week. I myself poll for many areas only once or twice a
week, but if I sent the sysop a crashmail during the day, I received
all archived files so far. Very clever during the most expensive time
of the day... with TICKPACK the sysop can leave the archive growing
without attaching it, until on the specified day the complete archive
will be attached to the receiver...
This weekday-feature will not be used for crash-archives, those files
will be attached immediately.
You can also tell TICKPACK to NEVER archive any attaches to a special
system. May be helpful if you receive TICKPACK archives from a system
but don't want to archive all TICK attaches to this system.
4. Starting TICKPACK
The full syntax for starting TICKPACK looks like this:
TICKPACK {-Ccfgfile} PACK|UNPACK [Ta|Fa]|DIR [Ta|Fa]
It's rather simple:
-Ccfgfile If you specify this, TICKPACK will use this file to
find it's configuration info, otherwise it will use
TICKPACK.CFG in the same directory as TICKPACK.EXE
PACK This options scans your netmail directory for mail
from TICK to one of the systems listed in your
configuration file. The attached files are
archived, attach messages for the archives are
generated.
UNPACK [Ta|Fa] If specified without arguments, unpacks all
archives from one of the systems listed in your
configuration file to you. If you specify
'Tzone:net/node[.point]' TICKPACK will unpack all
archives to this address. If you specify 'Fzone:
net/node[.point]' TICKPACK will unpack all archives
from this address.
DIR [Ta|Fa] If specified without arguments, shows some info on
all TICKPACK archives currently on your system. If
specified with 'Ta' or 'Fa' (format see UNPACK
above) shows detailed info on all selected
archives.
5. TICKPACK.CFG
5.1. ADDRESS
You have to specify at least one address of your system. This first
address will be interpreted as your main address and will be used to
determine when an INTL-kludge is necessary (such a kludge will only be
generated, when either the origin or the destination address has a
different zone than your main address).
The syntax is easy:
ADDRESS zone:net/node[.point]
If you don't specify .POINT, .0 will be assumed.
5.2. TO
There may be some weird sysops who refuse to use this wonderful program
:-) So TICKPACK doesn't pack all files TICK has attached, but only
files to a system specified with a TO line. The same holds for the
UNPACK function: TICKPACK will only unpack files addressed to one of
your addresses (see ADDRESS statement above) and from a system
specified with a TO line.
Syntax:
TO zone:net/node[.point] {MO|TU|WE|TH|FR|SA|SU | NEVER}
If you omit the pointnumber, .0 will be assumed. If don't specify any
weekdays, attaches will be created immediately, otherwise new archives
will only be attached on one of the specified days. If you only
specify NEVER instead of any weekdays, no archives to this system
will ever be generated but TICKPACK will still unpack archives from
this system.
5.3. TPPATH
The path where all TICKPACK archives will be created. This must be a
full path (drive:\path), but you can use a '?' as a drivedesignator,
this will be replaced with your current drive.
Syntax:
TPPATH path
5.4. MAILPATH
The path to your netmail folder. Must be the same format as TPPATH
above.
Syntax:
MAILPATH path
5.5. INBOUND
The path where all your inbound files are stored. Must be the same
format as TPPATH above.
Syntax:
INBOUND path
5.6. LOGFILE
If you want TICKPACK to log what it is doing, specify where to write the
log info.
Syntax:
LOGFILE complete_filename
5.7. MAILERTYPE
To specify what mechanism for file deletion should be used. If you are
using FrontDoor, you can configure TickPack to touch FDRESCAN.NOW and
FMRESCAN.NOW if any messages are created.
If you use Binkley, you MUST specify the path to your outbound-directories.
In order to cope with Binkleys multiple outbounds, you have to use a #N in
the path specifier. TICKPACK will replace this #N with the target
zonenumber for the attach message. The N specifies the number of digits to
use. I guess some examples will make this clear (the zonenumber in the
examples is 2):
C:\OUTBOUND.#3\ ---> C:\OUTBOUND.002\
C:\OUT#2\ ---> C:\OUT02\
BE CAREFUL: As TICKPACK can't check if the pathname pattern you supplied is
correct (it wouldn't be nice to require all directories C:\OUT00 up to
C:\OUT99 in the above example to exist...) it doesn't try to do so. If you
specify an illegal path, you won't be happy...
Syntax:
MAILERTYPE BINKLEY outbound-path
MAILERTYPE DBRIDGE
MAILERTYPE GENERIC
MAILERTYPE FRONTDOOR [path to semaphore files]
6. Registration
To register TICKPACK, you have to pay 20,- DM (or $15) in one of the
following ways:
a) Send cash (DM or dollar bills)
b) Send an eurocheque
c) Transfer the money to the following account:
Postgiroamt Koeln
Bankleitzahl: 370 100 50
Konto : 4402 27 507
Fill out the following form and send it (with cash if you want to pay
this way) to the following address:
Kalle Braun
In der Kumme 69
D-5300 Bonn 2
GERMANY
If you transfer the money to my bankaccount, you can also send the form
via netmail.
I will mail back your key as soon as I have received your money.
--------------------------- (cut here) --------------------------------
ORDER FORM
==========
Your name (max. 30 chars): ______________________________
Your address (if you want to receive the key by mail):
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
Your FIDO address: ______________________________________
How do you want to pay for TICKPACK:
[ ] enclosed cash
[ ] enclosed eurocheque
[ ] transfered money to above bank account
Where did you hear about TICKPACK:
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
--------------------------- (cut here) --------------------------------
7. Bugreports, constructive criticism etc.
Please send love letters, money, thank-you notes etc. to
Kalle Braun
In der Kumme 69
D-5300 Bonn 2
GERMANY
2:241/5302@fidonet
If you really need to, you can send bug-reports, criticism and
everything else to the same address...
8. History
Version 2.0: First release of TickPack. Made it version 2.0 to avoid
mixup with TickEcho
Version 2.1: Temporary release. TickPack didn't accept a CTRL-Z at the
end of the CFG-file, corrected. TickPack replaced
underscore characters in pathnames with blanks, corrected.
Version 2.2: Restructured program to use some new libraries I wrote.
TickPack created PID lines with wrong version numbers,
corrected.
Version 2.3: Implemented the NEVER option, allowed override of CFG file
from the command line.
Version 2.4: Implemented log file option. Clarified the paragraph on
registration in the doc file.
Version 2.5ß: TickPack now checks if the archive is complete by
storing the total size of the archive in the header. Added
the MailerType statement for all those Binkley and D'Bridge
users out there. TickPack didn't set the filedate when unpacking
archives. Fixed.
Version 2.6ß: Added support to touch the FrontDoor semaphore files if new
messages are created.
Version 2.7ß: As pre 1.70 versions of OMMM aren't capable of creating
kill-after-send attach messages, TICKPACK now creates .?LO-files on
its own.
Version 2.8: Finally a non-beta release :-) Binkley support now works.