DP Tool Club 8/CDASC08.ISO/VRAC/ATOFAQ.ZIP/ATOFAQ

Text File | 1993-08-21 | 18.0 KB | 366 lines

     This is a rough draft of this doc.  Please let me know of any
     suggestions for improvements and other questions which should be
     covered in here.  Jim McKeown 76702,1102

This file contains some information on Frequently Asked Question about AutoSIG
(ATO).  I will update the file from time to time, but this project had been
sitting around for a while so I figured it wasn't doing much good on my own PC
disk.

The file consists of a series of questions and fairly detailed answers to those
questions.  I have marked each question with three asterisks (***) so it should
be easy to search for the questions using your favorite browsing utility (like
Vern's LIST which is currently LIST77.EXE in lib 6 of IBMSYS), text editor, or
word processor.  Also at least for now, I'll list the questions right below
here so you'll be able to tell at a glance whether your question is addressed
in the file.  I'll be pleased to consider suggestions on questions which should
be added to this file.

Question list:

When I try to go the Mail to pick up my Mail or Send Mail, I get the message:
     Error 5 at line 5220.  What do I do?

When I try to use the Mark header function after the Quick scan, I am either
     sent right back to the forum menu or I see a message about maximum number
     of headers.  What do I do about this?

I started reading a thread in the middle and find it interesting.  How do I
     read the entire thread from the beginning?

What is the difference between Auto pass 1 and Auto pass 2?  Or, how do I
     specify the auto list for Auto pass 2?

What happens if I interrupt an Auto pass?

How do I send CompuServe Mail to Internet or other address too long to fit in
     Send box?

When I download a file, why doesn't it go to the directory specified in "File
     transfer d:\path" in my host setup?

How do I delete messages from my ATO save file?

I am running Autosig in an OS/2 DOS box, using default settings.  ATO is
     dropping a lot of characters. What can I do to fix it?

I understand that OS/2 has an 1100 interrupts/second limit for DOS boxes. Does
     this mean that I won't be able to get above 1100 cps when/if Compuserve
     implements 14,400 or 19,200 bps?


Question***:  When I try to go the Mail to pick up my Mail or Send Mail, I get
     the message:  Error 5 at line 5220.  What do I do?

This means you need to enter your own name in the CompuServe Mail addressbook.
The detailed instructions are on p. 27.  If your Mail forum is already set up
in ATO, you can do it by pressing G on the Mail forum menu.  This will take you
to Mail in terminal mode.  Then you enter the command "SET MODE MENU" (w/o the
quotes).  Then select menu option #5, "Address Book", then entry #5,
"Enter/Change your NAME" and enter your name as you want it to appear on Mail
you send.  That's it.


Question***:  When I try to use the Mark header function after the Quick scan,
     I am either sent right back to the forum menu or I see a message about
     maximum number of headers.  What do I do about this?

At the moment the limit on quick-scan (Q) headers in the Mark function is 520.
If you try to Mark a header file which has more than 520 headers, you will be
dumped unceremoniously back to the forum menu.  (Sorry 'bout that.  There was
supposed to be a message to inform you.)  If this happens to you, the first
thing to do is decide whether your ATO High Message Number is reasonable.
Sometimes line noise eats a digit from the HMN info when it comes from
CompuServe.  In that case, ATO grabs what arrives and uses it.  So if your ATO
HMN looks unreasonably low, press Alt-N at the forum menu.  This sets your ATO
HMN to N, which tells ATO to use the HMN that CIS has stored for you.

If your HMN looks OK and you haven't been to the forum in a while, so a lot of
headers seems likely, there are several approaches to solving the problem:

1.   If you don't need to scan all the headers, increase your HMN so that you
     don't get as many headers.  This is the easiest approach, but it obviously
     is not appropriate for all situations.

2.   You can use a text editor to remove headers you don't want from
     <forum>H.ATO (where <forum> is the ATO name for the forum).  This is a
     straight text file.  Just don't remove the top few lines.

3.   You can use the text editor to create a new file with the top few lines.
     Then transfer about half of the headers to the new file.  Mark from the
     resulting <forum>H.ATO file and Download the marked messages.  Then rename
     the new file you created (with the rest of the headers) to <forum>H.ATO
     and Mark from that and Download.

4.   Note your HMN at the bottom of the forum menu.  Go to terminal mode in the
     forum.  Use SS to choose a subset of your normal sections, like "SS 1-5".
     Then do the normal Q, M, D sequence.  Then reset your ATO HMN to the one
     you noted at the beginning of this process.  "SS 6-11" (or whatever) to
     select the rest of your desired sections.  Repeat the Q, M, D process.

In those situations where you choose to edit the header file, the first two
lines must look something like the following two lines:

MES;SCA QUI;236239
Forum messages: 228289 to 236242

Sorry for the limit, but the only other approach possible using the compiler
was to spool to disk, which would be slow.


Question***:  I started reading a thread in the middle and find it interesting.
     How do I read the entire thread from the beginning?

Here are the steps to do that.  (Items in double quotes are commands to be
typed in and followed with the <Enter> key.  Do not enter the quotes.)

1.   Go online in terminal mode:  G on the forum menu

2.   When you get to the Forum ! prompt, enter the command "OP;SM A;S" to have
     CIS wait for a command after you read the message in the next step.

3.   "READ NUM: <nnnnn>" where <nnnnn> is the number of a message in the thread
     you want to read.

4.   You should now see a prompt 'Read action !'.  "ROOT" to get to the root
     message.  The root message is the oldest message on the forum which is in
     the thread.  Some older messages may have scrolled off (been displaced to
     make room for newer messages) and be unavailable.

5.   Note the number (call it <rrrrr>) of the root message.

6.   "M" to get back to the 'Forum !' prompt.

7.   "OP;SM N;S" to tell CIS not to stop after each message.

8.   Assuming you want to capture the messages in the thread, press Alt-D and
     enter a filename to receive the messages.  If you want the messages to go
     into the regular message file for the forum, enter <forum>M.ATO (where
     <forum> is the ATO forum name) for the filename.  You may need to add a
     drive or path if you keep your message files in a different directory from
     where you run ATO.

9.   "READ THREAD NUM: <rrrrr>" (where <rrrrr> is the number of the root
     message as recorded in step 5 above) to read the entire thread still on
     the forum.

10.  Press Alt-D again to turn the capture off.

You should now have the entire thread in the file you entered as your log file.

Note that this operation will reset your CompuServe High Message Number for
that forum.  It will not affect your ATO HMN for the forum so you should not
miss any messages when you do your next scan.


Question***:  What is the difference between Auto pass 1 and Auto pass 2?  Or,
     how do I specify the auto list for Auto pass 2?

The first thing to understand about auto passes is that the actions you specify
in the auto list (accessed by pressing F7) are only performed during an Auto 1
pass.  There is no need for a separate list for Auto pass 2.

Auto pass 2 starts by scanning all forums with non-blank fields in the auto
list.  It is checking for pending D(ownload) or S(end) functions in those
forums.  When Auto 2 has completed the scan, it will then go back and perform
the pending D or S operations -- or it will tell you that it did not find
anything to do:

  No work for automatic pass!
  <CR> to continue:

Auto 2 will only visit forums which meet both of the following conditions.
First the forum must have a non-blank field in the auto list.  Second the forum
must have a pending D or S function.  Forums with non-blank entries in the auto
list but no D or S function pending will be skipped.  Forums with pending D or
S functions, but no entry in the auto list field will also be skipped.  (A
handy way to specify that a forum should be checked by Auto 2, but nothing is
specified to be done in Auto 1 is to simply stick an S in the auto list.)

Now that you understand what Auto 2 does, it is easy to figure out Auto 1.
Auto 1 is a superset of Auto 2.  Auto 1 does everything Auto 2 would do *plus*
Auto 1 performs the operations specified in the auto list.  This means that if,
for example, you have some pending outgoing messages waiting for an S function
and you want to do an Auto 1 pass, you can just do the Auto 1 pass.  You do not
need to perform a separate Auto 2 pass because the Auto 1 pass will do what you
told it to do in the auto list and will also take care of the pending S
function.


Question***:  What happens if I interrupt an Auto pass?

You can interrupt an Auto pass by pressing <Esc> twice.  (If you press <Esc>
just once during an Auto pass, the pass will complete, but you will stay
online.)  After you interrupt an Auto pass, you will be left in terminal mode
in whatever forum the Auto pass was last operating.  You can do whatever you
want in terminal mode.

When you have completed your manual operations, you can logoff if you want to
by pressing Ctrl-D and using the Z function on the forum menu.  However if you
want ATO to continue the Auto pass, you have to think a bit about how to do it.

If you interrupted an Auto 1, there is no way to get it to restart where it
stopped.  You either have to restart the Auto 1 pass (by pressing the "1" key
at a forum menu, for example) from the beginning.  Or you may choose to use
what I call semi-automatic mode.  This means you go to the appropriate forum
menus and press the function keys to do the ATO functions you want.  E.g., if
you had three forums left on your auto list, with the auto list showing a Q in
the first two and T in the last one, you could move the first forum's menu and
press Q, then go to the next forum's menu and press Q again, then go to the
last forum's menu and press T, then use Z to logoff.

Note that the semi-automatic approach only works if you have "Stay connected?"
marked as "Y" in all these forums.  (The auto pass operations always ignore the
Stay connected setting.  Auto passes will stay connected as they go from forum
to forum and log off after the last forum in your list -- regardless of you
Stay connected settings.  So set Stay connected for the way you want to work
when you are *not* using auto passes.)

If you have interrupted an Auto 2 pass, you can probably get it restarted.  The
reason it is easier to restart Auto 2 is that each file for the pending D or S
functions is deleted when that function is completed in the appropriate forum.
Thus the only function which could be done twice by restarting Auto 2 is the
one which you interrupted.  You will have to decide what to do about that.  If
it was a Download (or other type of message capture), it may not hurt to
restart it.  You'll just end up with extra copies of some messages.  (If you
started with an empty current message file, you can use K(ill), M(essage) to
wipe out the result of the partial pass, saving yourself the trouble of working
your way the duplicates.

If you interrupted an S function, you should probably use Preview to cancel any
messages sent before the interruption.  That will avoid sending duplicate
messages.


Question***:   How do I send CompuServe Mail to Internet or other address too
               long to fit in Send box?

1.  If there are a limited number of users you need to send messages to who
have that sort of address, you can go online in your Mail forum and set them up
in your addressbook.  (It's pretty straightforward, but I can give more details
if you need.)  Once you have established nicknames for those people, you just
enter *nickname (where nickname is the nickname you gave them in your CIS Mail
addressbook) in the To: area of the send box.  The asterisk tells ATO to just
use that address without worrying about an ID.

2.  If you have received a message from that address, just save it in your Mail
forum save file.  When you want to send a message to the person, View the file
and R to reply.  ATO will pick up the full address from the saved message.
(This is best if possible.)

3.  Edit the *L.ATO file for Mail.  This is fairly risky so we recommend
avoiding it if possible.

One of the popular requests is the ability to be able to handle Internet, etc.
addresses directly in the send box and PPN file.  I made a little progress in
6.9a as indicated in this section from WHATS.NEW (which you should grab from
lib 1 if you don't have it):

o    You can now specify long addresses (like for INTERNET) or multiple
     addresses in Mail messages.  This is done by placing an * in the To: field
     of the send box and leaving the Id: field blank.  Then insert your
     address(es) in the first line of the message body (inserted using the
     standard ATO message editor). E.g., you might send mail to me by having
     your first line be:

TO: >INTERNET:[e-mail]

     Then the rest of the message would be entered as usual.  You can use
     additional lines also starting with TO: as needed.  For more detail,
     please read HELP MULT in CompuServe Mail.  (Please only use the address
     above if you're having difficulty, etc.)


Question***:   When I download a file, why doesn't it go to the directory
               specified in "File transfer d:\path" in my host setup?

The "File transfer d:\path" in the host setup is only used if you initiate the
download in terminal mode by pressing PgDn at the Disposition ! prompt.  This
is described on p. 61 of the doc.

If you start the download by entering a download command yourself and supplying
the filename, the filename you enter will be used.  If there is no driver
directory information included in the name you enter, the file will end up in
the subdirectory which was current at the time you loaded ATO.


Question***:  How do I delete messages from my ATO save file?

At the moment, you can't directly delete a subset of the messages in the save
file.  Here are three basic approaches to taking care of it:

1.   Rename <forumnm>S.ATO to <forumnm>M.ATO.  Then use the Read function and
     Save the messages you still want to keep.  This is very useful when you
     want to pare down the messages in your save file.

2.   Use an external text editor on the <forumnm>S.ATO file.  The ATO message
     files are just text files so you can edit them and remove any messages you
     no longer want.  This is a reasonable approach if you just want to delete
     a few messages, but it gets tedious for a lot of deletions.

3.   Use a specific program to handle message files.  These programs generally
     do more than just delete messages, but handle threading or removing
     duplicates or other handy tasks.  There are several available in libraries
     1 and 2 of IBMCOM.  I made up a very simple one (BINS.ZIP in library 2)
     which allows moving the messages into a number of output files (presumably
     to correspond to their topic) as well as omitting certain messages.

All of these require a bit of work outside ATO with 2 and 3 being totally
outside ATO.


***
SPECIAL NOTE:  Thanks to Walter Dnes 73710,3066 for the information in the next
     two responses.

Question***: I am running Autosig in an OS/2 DOS box, using default settings.
     ATO is dropping a lot of characters. What can I do to fix it?

The DOS default settings do not work for DOS telecomm programs. You need to
make the following changes in the "Session:DOS settings" notebook page for your
ATO program object.

1.   COM_DIRECT_ACCESS must be turned OFF.

2.   IDLE_SENSITIVITY must be set to 100.

3.   IDLE_SECONDS should be set to 60.

     Since ATO does not use EMS, XMS, or DPMI memory, you can conserve system
resources by disabling/zero-ing these memory-related options.

4.   INT_DURING_IO can be set to ON. This setting should be used only if
     necessary. It boosts the priority of the specified DOS program, to the
     point that even disk I/O is interrupted to service interrupts for the
     specified program, such as the comm port. This setting does not magically
     increase the capacity of your computer. It allocates a larger percentage
     of system resources. Two or three DOS programs running simultaneously,
     with INT_DURING_IO enabled, can slow down the rest of the system to a
     crawl.


Question***: I understand that OS/2 has an 1100 interrupts/second limit for DOS
     boxes. Does this mean that I won't be able to get above 1100 cps when/if
     Compuserve implements 14,400 or 19,200 bps?

The default COM.SYS and VCOM.SYS drivers supplied with OS/2 (at least up to
v2.1) do have this limitation. They present a 16450 interface to DOS comm
programs *EVEN IF YOU HAVE A 16550AFN PRESENT*. Ray Gwinn's shareware SIO.SYS
drivers overcome the limitations in 2 ways...

1.   They are written in 100% assembler and are faster and capable of handling
more interrupts per second.

2.   They can emulate a 16550AFN FIFO interface, *EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE A
     16550 AFN*. This allows FIFO-aware programs like AutoSIG 7.x to read
     multiple characters per hardware interrupt.

     The SIO drivers are currently available in Library 2 in the IBMCOM forum.
To see the current version, type...

BROW SIO*.ZIP

at the LIB 2 ! prompt. Note that installing the SIO drivers changes the
options available in the "Session:DOS settings" notebook page. Follow the
instructions in SIO's documentation for the additional DOS settings.