ftp.wwiv.com/ftp.wwiv.com.zip/ftp.wwiv.com/pub/BBS/BBS2DRAG.ZIP/ROBOC430.ZIP/READ.ME

Text File | 1995-02-10 | 18KB | 390 lines

ROBOCOMM 4.3 - READ.ME                                         01/21/95
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    Hello, and welcome to Robocomm 4.3, "The ultimate tool for BBS
    communications."

    If you are upgrading from Robocomm version 4.2, follow the
    instructions below to update your installation to the 4.3 version.

    If you are a new user, please ignore the contents of this file and
    follow the installation instructions in the ROBOCOMM.DOC file.

    Parsons Consulting has moved since the previous release of
    Robocomm.  Our new contact information is:

                BBS:        310-374-7540 or 310-374-2367
                FAX:        [phone]
                Voice:      310-372-5846
                Internet:   [e-mail]
                CompuServe: 72167,3662

                Parsons Consulting
                P.O. Box 1551
                Manhattan Beach, CA  90267


Version 4.3 Upgrade Instructions
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    1   MAKE A BACK UP OF YOUR EXISTING ROBOCOMM INSTALLATION!  In the
        unlikely event that the data conversion process does not
        complete normally, you will need to restore from your backup
        before you try to install again.

    2   Unzip the contents of this zip into your Robocomm directory.
        Over-writing all files when prompted.

    3   Run ROBOCOMM.EXE.  A conversion process will start-up and
        automatically change your data files to the new 4.3 format.

    4   If you have a ROBO environment variable, change it to ROBOCOMM.
        This change is being made to avoid confusion with RoboMail. If
        you had to set E:0 for reliable operations with the 4.2
        version, that will not be necessary any more.  You should
        remove the E:0 or E0 item from your new ROBOCOMM environment
        variable.

    5   The upgrade process assigns the new default prompt definitions
        to all your PCBoard systems.  The new prompts are set up for
        QMAIL 4 and PCBoard's internal QWK/REP routines by default.
        You will need to use the "Import" option to pull in prompt sets
        for other mail doors on the systems where you do not use Qmail
        4.   Note that Robocomm 4.3 has excellent support (with repeat
        download, etc.) for PCBoard's internal QWK command so you may
        not need to use doors at all any more unless you want the extra
        features.  New prompt sets have been provided for QMAIL4
        (DEFAULT.PPF), Cam-Mail, MarkMail and RoseMail.

    6   If you are using scripts on PCBoard systems they may need to be
        modified.  Robocomm 4.3 uses a new method of communicating with
        PCBoard systems called "Terse Mode."  You may need to add
        the new TERSE OFF and TERSE ON commands to your scripts to
        integrate them.

    7   Robocomm no longer supports systems using PCBoard versions
        lower than 14.5a, ProDoor or ProLogon.  During the upgrade any
        PCBoard 14.2 systems you may have had defined will have been
        converted to Login Script only.

        WARNING: If you have a DSZLOG file that contains any data you
                 want to keep, then make a copy of it now because
                 Robocomm is going to start using that file and
                 clearing it out before every file transfer.

    8   If you are using RXECLUDE, then you will also need to upgrade
        it.  The file name is: REXCLD12.ZIP.


Version 4.3 Changes and New Features
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    o   Added support for PCBoard 15.x systems. The upgrade process
        will have automatically set the prompt files as needed for
        PCBoard 14.5a through 15.2 support.

        In an effort to maintain automation in an age of increasing BBS
        customization, Robocomm now uses "terse mode" prompts when
        communicating with PCBoard systems.  These will appear as
        numbers and little happy faces while Robocomm is online
        with PCBoard systems.  If you "jump to terminal" you will
        probably have nothing but a bunch of odd numbers on the screen
        where you used to see prompts.  Robocomm's terminal mode now
        contains two keys to control "Terse Mode" prompts.  F6 can be
        used to restore normal "text" prompts and F5 can be used to
        switch back to the numerical "Terse" mode prompts.  Robocomm
        will attempt to automatically switch you in and out of Terse
        mode when you enter the ANSI terminal mode, but there may be
        some instances where it will not succeed.  Remember to use F5
        and F6 to toggle in and out of terse mode when you are in the
        terminal mode.

    o   Added support for Wildcat 4.0 and 4.01 systems.  To set up
        these boards, go to your directory-BBS screen and highlight the
        BBS ID to change.  Then, select "Prompts" from the top menu and
        then select "Default" to set the prompt definitions for the
        BBS to the new Wildcat 4.x compatible defaults.

    o   Added Login Scripts for any bbs type.  The Directory-BBS screen
        now displays the "Login Script" field for all BBS types.  This
        should allow us to get on to Wildcat and PCB systems which have
        odd front ends.  To accommodate this change, the third phone
        number field has been removed.  Don't forget, however, that you
        can still specify up to 9 phone numbers in an extended phone
        number list if you want.  See the help screens for the phone
        number fields for details.

    o   Added a full-color scroll-back buffer in terminal mode. Use
        ALT-W to activate the buffer, and the arrow keys to scroll up
        and down.  Press ESC while the buffer is active to return to
        the terminal session.

    o   Added internal support for PCBoard 15.x QWK routines.  To use
        this support specify the mail door as INTERNAL on the
        directory-bbs screen.  The INTERNAL routines will automatically
        download multiple packets if you have more mail than could be
        collected in one pass.  The maximum number of packets to
        download is controlled by the QWK packets to archive
        configuration option.

    o   Added support for INT 14 fossil drivers.  Set the new "Use
        Fossil Driver" option on the communications configuration
        screen to YES and fill in the logical unit number (usually 0
        for COM1 or 1 for COM2) that you want to address in the "Unit:"
        field.

        OS/2 users who are using the SIO/VSIO drivers should now load
        the VX00.SYS device driver in their Robocomm session and then
        set the new fossil option on.  This will result in a significantly
        smaller performance hit when doing file transfers in a
        background session.

    o   Added support for 115,200 bps and IRQ lines greater than 9.

    o   Robocomm will now use XMS for virtual memory if it is
        available.  The F2 pop-up status window will indicate the
        type of memory in use for VM, as well as the *total* amount of
        that type of memory that was available at program start-up.

        This means that Robocomm no longer needs EMS at all.  If you
        currently have EMS enabled, you will be better off removing
        EMS from your system and using the freed up 64K of high
        memory for loading TSRs up high.

        If both EMS and XMS are available, EMS will be used.  Note that
        if you previously had E0 or E:0 in your ROBO environment
        variable, do not add it back into your new ROBOCOMM environment
        variable.  The previous version's incompatibilities with DOS
        6.x have been resolved and the added usage of XMS will
        significantly improve Robocomm's performance on your system.

    o   Added two new commands to the ROBOCOMM environment variable:

            NOEMS       Prohibits use of EMS for Virtual Memory
            NOXMS       Prohibits use of XMS for Virtual Memory

            Example:

                SET ROBOCOMM=E:2048;NOEMS;NOEMSSWAP
                    (Use 2 megs XMS for VM and XMS for swapping)

    o   Removed all support for PC Pursuit.  The service has been
        discontinued.

    o   Added code to terminal dial window to automatically tag the
        current system if there are no tagged systems when you press
        ENTER.

    o   Added a new internal editor.  It uses all the usual editing
        keys, plus:

            ALT-D       = Delete line
            ALT-F       = Toggle formatting codes (Carriage return and eof)
            CTRL-ENTER  = Save
            Esc         = Abandon Changes

    o   Robocomm will now hang up during verification of uploaded files on a
        PCB 15 system if the upload was the last item on the agenda.

    o   All consecutive file download agenda items are now done in
        batch mode on PCBoard systems.  If you will are using an
        external protocol, it must be able to write a DSZ compatible
        log file in the file pointed to by the DSZLOG environment
        variable.  Robocomm sets the DSZLOG variable automatically, so
        there is no need for you to do so.

    o   Robocomm no longer re-formats descriptions when importing file
        lists or sending descriptions.

    o   Robocomm is now Desqview, Windows and OS/2 aware and will yield
        back processor time slices in all of those environments.

    o   Added a check for the word RESET in the ROBOCOMM environment
        variable.  If it's found, Robocomm will default the agenda
        editing, "Reset" "Continue" "Cancel" prompt with "Reset".  The
        new default for this question is CONTINUE.

    o   Replaced the NTX index drivers with the newer CDX format.
        These drivers are significantly faster, and their CDX index
        files will consume about 50% less space than the corresponding
        NTX index files did.

    o   Revised the PACK routines to remove redundant index processing.
        This combined with the new data drivers should provide a
        significant performance boost.  If you have the memory, packing
        speed can be increased by adding DBVBUFFER=20 to your DOS
        environment.

    o   Changed the Filter Word and Preference word routines so you can
        now use full boolean logic and wildcards.  The filter and
        preference conditions apply to both the file name and the file
        description.  Example:

            Filter Condition Examples:

                "*.GIF" & ("GIRL" | "SWIM" | "MODEL")

                "WINDOWS" & "NT"

            Preference Condition Example:

                "OS/2" & (!("GNU") | "C++"))

    o   Removed the FTS quick-search indexing system.  The file list
        searching now functions similarly to RoboMail.  You can use the
        same rules for "Search Strings" as in RoboMail.  full
        boolean logic and wildcards are supported.  For those of you
        not using RoboMail, (harummph!) here is a brief discussion on
        how to construct search strings:

        The easiest way to input a search string in Robocomm is to
        simply type the exact text you would like to search for in the
        fields provided and press Enter.  When you do this, Robocomm
        will search for an exact match (including any imbedded spaces)
        in the file descriptions.  For more complex searches, you can
        include wildcards and/or boolean logic in the search string.

        Wildcards in search strings work the same way that they do in
        DOS file names.  The question mark "?" character is used to
        represent any single ascii character and the asterisk "*"
        character can be used to match any series of characters.

        For example, a search string of "Robo?ail" would match both
        "RoboMail" and "RoboJail."  Entering "Robo*ail" for a search
        string would match both of the above as well as: "RoboMail
        needs 512K of memory or it may fail."

        For even more searching power, Robocomm allows you to specify
        multiple search keys with a single string and control how they
        related to each other with boolean logic.  Robocomm supports
        the following boolean operators:

                Use | to signify OR.
                Use & to signify AND.
                Use ! to signify NEGATION.

                Use ( and ) to specify precedence.

                Use double quotes " to surround all search text.

        For example, to search for files which contain references to
        motorized vehicles which are not motor cycles, you could
        specify:

                (("MOTOR" & "VEHICLE") | "CAR" ) & (! "CYCLE")

        Translating this search string to English yields:

                "Find all file descriptions containing the terms MOTOR
                and VEHICLE or containing the term CAR but not
                containing the term CYCLE."

        Robocomm does not consider the case (upper or lower) of
        alphabet characters when performing searches of any kind.

        Since the Available and Uploadable file directory search
        routines are performed on the file name, BBS ID and file
        description, you can search for specific files or systems
        by including the file name (with or without wildcards) and/or
        BBS ID in the search string.

        For example...

            ("ROBO" & "GROUPONE") & (! ("ROBOTICS" | "GIF"))

        ...would probably be a good string to use to try and isolate
        Robocomm and RoboMail related files on the support BBS.
        The English translation of this boolean logic is:

            Find all files on GROUPONE BBS that have ROBO in the name
            or description and do not contain ROBOTICS or GIF in the
            description.


    o   Added a /s<BBSID> command line switch to call up a new
        quick-configuration screen for the BBS ID specified by <bbsid>.
        For example, to specify a quick config for Group One BBS, your
        would start Robocomm as follows:

                ROBOCOMM /sGROUPONE

    o   Extended the amount of time that RC will wait for a modem
        response when dialing to 120 seconds.  This is only used when
        the "Seconds Between Dial Attempts" configuration option is set
        to ZERO (which tells RC to wait for a modem response and then
        redial immediately).

        NOTE: Your modem's S7 register sets the amount of time that
              it will wait to establish a connection before returning
              a NO CARRIER response to Robocomm.  You must make sure
              that the S7 register is set to the maximum number of
              seconds that it will take for the modem to reliably
              connect before the benefit of the new 120 second
              dialing timeout in RC can be realized.

    o   Improved the reliability of the incoming call warning file
        display routines.  Added status long messages and screen
        display.

    o   Cleaned up screen display on PREAGEN.BAT execution.

    o   Added compatibility with REXCLUDE version 1.2.


Script Language Changes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    o   You can now create your own user-defined script macros and
        store them in the Notes for the BBS system.  (Select the Notes
        menu item from the Directory-BBS entry for a system to see/edit
        the notes).  To do this, simply add lines to the system's notes
        using the following form:

            <MACRO>=<value>

        These type of macros can be very useful for creating "generic"
        login scripts for PCB and Wildcat systems.  For and example of
        this, see the TELNET.RS example script  supplied with Robocomm.
        This script can be used to connect to any BBS reachable
        via the Internet by loggining into an internet provider's shell
        account (Netcom, in this example) and executing TELNET to
        access the BBS.  The TELNET.RS script makes use of three user
        defined macros: LOGIN, PASSWORD and IPADDRESS.  Once you have
        specified the script as the login script on Robocomm's
        Directory-BBS screen, go to the notes and edit them to contain
        the macro names and values.  For example, you might include
        lines such as:

            LOGIN=jsmith
            PASSWORD=g7y-fft
            IPADDRESS=199.67.41.2

        Once the notes have been saved, whenever Robocomm is running
        any script on the BBS, and it encounters the %IPADDRESS%,
        %LOGIN% or %PASSWORD% user macros, it will look up the
        appropriate value in the BBS's notes and make the substitution
        accordingly.

    o   Added TERSE <ON|OFF> command to script language.  If you have a
        script that was written to look for standard english PCboard
        prompts, you may need to add TERSE ON to the start of your
        script.  (Note - you must be at a PCBoard prompt in order for
        this command to work properly)  Also, make sure to use TERSE
        OFF before returning control to Robocomm or Robo will have no
        idea where it is.

    o   Added DEBUG <ON|OFF> command to script language.  Writes each
        line to the ROBOCOMM.LOG as it is executed.  You can also press
        ALT-S at any time while a WAITFOR is active to dump the current
        search buffer and watch list to the Robocomm log file.

    o   Fixed problem which could cause a crash in the script language
        when referring to a non-existent parameter in a script file.

    o   Scripts which end without an explicit EXIT command will now
        default to EXIT 0 (Success).  If you have written any scripts
        which relied on this behavior, you will need to edit them and
        add an EXIT 1 to the end of the main code section.

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