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1994-02-13
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The Ultimate QWK Mail Management System Version 1.3
Tutorial for New Users
Copyright (c) 1993, 1994 -- Parsons Consulting
All Rights Reserved, World Wide
NOTE: This tutorial requires the TUTORIAL.QWK file which should
have been included with your distribution files. If you
did not receive a TUTORIAL.QWK packet, it is possible that
the BBS you downloaded RoboMail from renamed the file to
TUTORIAL.ZIP. If you have a TUTORIAL.ZIP file in your
RoboMail directorym then this is what happened. Simply
issue the command: REN TUTORIAL.ZIP TUTORIAL.QWK at the DOS
prompt in your RoboMail directory and the file will be
renamed appropriately.
_______________________________________________________________________
RoboMail 1.3 -- Tutorial for New Users Page 1
A TUTORIAL FOR NEW USERS
▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀
Imagine for a moment how great it would be if every time you started
using a new software program you could have the program's author sitting
right by your side, ready to help keep you pointed in the right
direction. Well, here I am! Thanks to the miracle of perfect digital
duplication, I've decided to stop by and personally show you RoboMail's
stuff. Please print me out and put me down right next to your keyboard.
I'm Dan Parsons, the author of RoboMail, and I want to do what I can to
make sure that you learn to use the program quickly, while also becoming
familiar with some of its unique features and philosophical fine points.
RoboMail certainly isn't a "complex" program by today's standards, but
it does have more depth than some mail readers you may have used in the
past. If you'll give me some time now to help get you started on the
right foot, I'm sure you will end up getting more out of the program
much more quickly. I realize that tutorials of this type are usually
painfully dull, and I also realize that you may well be a hotshot
computer jock who normally dives right into new programs with no
problems at all. But please humor me. I think we'll both have some
fun!
───N────> If you've used the configuration screens to change your
───O───> configured directory for incoming mail, please take a moment
───T──> to copy the TUTORIAL.QWK packet out of your ROBOMAIL\IN
───E─> directory and into your configured incoming mail directory.
Lesson 1 -- Getting Help
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
RoboMail has extensive context sensitive online
┌────────────╖ help and documentation which covers many functions,
│ ████ ███ ║ options and commands not discussed in this document.
│ ██ ██ ║ You can call up the help system at any time while
│ ████ ██ ║ the program is waiting for keyboard input by
│ ██ ██ ║ pressing the F1 key. Whenever you arrive at a
│ ██ ████ ║ screen you haven't seen before, please take a few
╘════════════╝ moments to explore all the options available to
you. You'll be glad you did!
Lesson 2 -- Checking Some Configuration Items
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The ZIP file archive manipulation utilities are the only
configuration items which are essential to the success of our
tutorial, so let's check to make sure the default values will work
for you.
Press F2 at control panel and select "RoboMail Settings." Press
[PgDn] one time to access the "Utilities" configuration screen. By
_______________________________________________________________________
RoboMail 1.3 -- Tutorial for New Users Page 2
default, RoboMail is configured to use the shareware programs PKZIP
and PKUNZIP from PKWARE, Inc. for access to ZIP format mail
packets. To continue our tutorial, we need to make sure that PKZIP
and PKUNZIP are available to RoboMail. To do this, press
RoboMail's DOS Shell hot key, [F7], to access the DOS prompt in your
RoboMail home directory. Next, type PKUNZIP and press Enter. You
should see the PKUNZIP help screen and ShareWare notice. Repeat
the procedure for PKZIP. If both utilities were found, we are
ready to continue. If not, you will need to do one of the following
to remedy the situation.
■ If you know that you have PKZIP.EXE and PKUNZIP.EXE on your
system, copy the files into your RoboMail directory or into
any directory specified in the PATH statement of your
AUTOEXEC.BAT file.
■ Specify alternate zip and unzip utilities in the spaces
provided on RoboMail's "Utilities" configuration screen.
Check the help screen for detailed information on how to do
this.
■ If you plan on using either of the other archive methods
supported by RoboMail, LZH or ARJ, convert the tutorial.qwk
packet to your desired format, place the converted packet
in the configured incoming mail directory ("IN" by default)
and verify that the archive utilities shown on the
configuration screen can be accessed by RoboMail.
When you're ready to continue, type EXIT and press [<─┘] to return
to the "Control Panel" screen.
Lesson 3 -- Importing a Mail Packet
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Whenever you run RoboMail in interactive mode, you will start from
the "Control Panel" screen, which gives you a quick overview and
one-click access to all the message data in your system. Right now
the screen probably looks a little barren, so let's jump right into
things and "import" a mail packet. The importing process extracts
message and other data from the incoming mail packet and translates
it into RoboMail's internal (and much more useful) format.
Take a look at the words with highlighted letters on the title bars
of the control panel screen. To jump to any of the columns
on the screen, Hold down the [Alt] key any press the indicated
letter.
Press [Alt-I] now to make sure the cursor is position in the
Incoming Mail window.
Use the cursor keys to highlight the TUTORIAL.QWK mail packet and
press the [<─┘] (Enter) key to start the import process. Here's
_______________________________________________________________________
RoboMail 1.3 -- Tutorial for New Users Page 3
what happens while the import progresses:
■ RoboMail shells to DOS and calls the appropriate
unarchiving utility to extract the files in the mail
packet.
■ After returning from the shell, RoboMail will begin
scanning the control information in the packet. If the
packet is from a mail system that RoboMail has never seen
before (which in the case of our tutorial.qwk should be
true), RoboMail will stop to display the "Mail System
Settings" screen for the new system.
This screen is a "dialog box." In addition to standard mouse
clicks, you can use the following keys on this and all other
data