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Office Talk Electronic Mail for Netware Introduction About Office Talk Office Talk is an easy to use electronic mail package for use with Novell Netware 2.x. Office Talk works directly with Novell's user names and groups. Office Talk stores mail in existing Novell Mailboxes. No elaborate setup or installation is required. Simply copy the executable program(s) into a public utility directory. Office Talk features a full screen editor and allows you to send message to multiple users and/or groups. When you receive mail you can automatically reply to the message, optionally copying in the text from the original message for reference. You can save mail to disk, keep it for later reading, or save mail in an "old mail" mailbox. Requirements Office Talk requires the following hardware and software to run IBM PC/XT/AT/386 DOS 2.1, 256K RAM Novell Netware 2.x Disk Manifest - OTMAIL.EXE The Main Electronic Mail Program OTCHECK.EXE Mailbox Check program OTPHONE.EXE Phone message program OTPHONE.LST List of messages used by OTPHONE OTLOAD.EXE TSR loader, loads OTMAIL from within other applications. OTALK.DOC Documentation for installing and using Office Talk OTREAD.ME Additional information about Office Talk. OTALK.REG Software registration / order form. Software License Office Talk and its related programs and documentation are copyright (c) 1989 by Ron Chibnik, PC X-Pert. You are granted a limited license to use the Office Talk software on a single server in a network environment. You may make backup copies of Office Talk for archival purposes only. You may not distribute Office Talk software or documentation in any form, electronic or otherwise. Office Talk is distributed under the Shareware concept. You are free to try and evaluate Office Talk software for a period of 30 days. If you continue to use Office Talk, you must register it by sending $95 per server. Registered users will receive the registered version of Office Talk, as well as a printed user manual. The registered version of Office Talk includes several enhancements detailed on the Registration form in the file OTALK.REG, on the distribution disk. We feel that Office Talk is a useful alternative that fills many simple electronic mail requirements. The shareware distribution is a full working version of Office Talk. We ask that if you use Office Talk, you should register it. By doing so you enable us to continue to support and enhance the product. Thank you for your support. Office Talk is a trademark of PC X-Pert. Warrantee Disclaimer PC X-Pert makes no warranties or claims that Office Talk is fit for any particular purpose. In no way shall PC X-Pert be liable for any damages, incurred directly or indirectly, through use of Office Talk software, including, but not limited to, damage to computer hardware, software, loss of business. Installing Office Talk This section is meant for Supervisors who are installing Office Talk. It assumes a working knowledge of MS-DOS and Novell Netware at the supervisor level. Office Talk requires that the SUPERVISOR copy the Office Talk programs to a directory that all users are search mapped to. You may copy the OT*.EXE files to SYS:PUBLIC but we suggest that you create another sub-directory called, for instance, SYS:UTILS, with the same rights as SYS:PUBLIC. Then include MAP S16:=SYS:UTILS in the system login script. Check mail at login OTCHECK checks your mailbox to see if mail is waiting, and sets the dos ERRORLEVEL variable to 1 if there is. To check mail at login, place the following lines in the system login script: #OTCHECK IF %ERROR_LEVEL == "1" THEN BEGIN WRITE "Loading Office Talk E-Mail. One Moment." #OTMAIL END You may include other commands, such as fire phasers 4 times WRITE "You have Mail, %LOGIN_NAME" fire phasers 4 times PAUSE between the BEGIN and END. OTLOAD Office Talk TSR loader OTLOAD is a terminate and stay resident (TSR) program that loads OTMAIL.EXE from within any application. OTLOAD swaps the current application out of memory, loads OTMAIL.EXE, and then reloads the application after OTMAIL exits. OTLOAD will swap the current application to EMS, RAM Disk, network disk or hard disk, depending on how OTLOAD is loaded. The format is: OTLOAD <<drive-letter>> <<drive-letter>> should be drive letter followed by a :, blank for EMS or the default directory. A RAM Disk is best choice, The users Home Directory or local hard disk are also acceptable. This command should be placed in the users AUTOEXEC.BAT file, after he has logged into the network. For instance: OTLOAD D: will use drive D: to create the temporary files. If you use a network drive, it is important that the user have Read, write, create, modify and delete rights to the directory mapped to the drive you specify. IMPORTANT NOTE: DO NOT load OTLOAD.EXE from the system or user login script. Loading any TSR program from the login script wastes a tremendous amount of memory. Using Office Talk Office Talk is easy to use and prompts you every step of the way. The Office Talk screen is divided into three windows. At the top is the status window which displays status information. In the center of the screen is the work window, where you browse and enter messages. At the bottom is the dialogue window which contains directions and help information. Sending Mail To Send mail, Press F2 from the browse mail screen. Select an addressee, enter a title for the message and the message body. Selecting an addressee You select an addressee for your message by simply typing the user or group name. To select the addressee from a list, or to send to multiple addressees, press F3. Office talk opens two windows on the screen, one containing a list of users, the other a list of groups. To tag a user as a mail recipient, highlight the name by moving the cursor, then press the space bar. Notice that a checkmark appears to the left of the name. The checkmark acts as a toggle. To untag a user, highlight the user and press space again. To send mail to an entire group, press the Tab key while viewing the user list. The cursor will jump to the group list. Highlight the desired group(s) and press the space bar to tag the group. If you tag both group and a user who is part of that group, the user will only receive one copy of the message. Note that if you choose to select addressees by tagging them from the menu, you must also tag the user in the TO: field. Office Talk ignores the TO: field when multiple copies are being sent. Entering the title The message title is a single line of up to 47 characters. Try to make the title reflect the subject of the message. The title will be displayed when the addressee starts OTMAIL to read his or her mail. Entering message text Office Talk provides a simple text editor for entering messages. Commands are single key wordstar compatible. A list of editor commands follows : Movement Functions Format & Edit functions END- End of line CTRL-B Paragraph HOME- Beginning of reformat line SHIFT-F4 Row join PGUP,CTRL-R Page up CTRL-Y delete entire PGDN,CTRL-C Page down line CTRL-PGUP Beginning of CTRL-K delete to end text of row CTRL-PGDN End of text CTRL-T delete to end <<-,CTRL-S- Cursor left of word ->>,CTRL-D- Cursor right CTRL-N Insert a row CTRL<<-, ENTER Split line CTRL-A Previous word INS,CTRL-V Toggle insert CTRL->>, mode CTRL-F Next word F10 Exit/Save UP,CTRL-E- Up one row Message DN,CTRL-X Down one row ESC Abort Message DEL,CTRL-G- Delete character BACK Backspace SHIFT-TAB- Edit Subject Reading Mail When first invoked, Office Talk displays a list of new mail in the work window. Each line includes the date and time the message was sent, the sender's name and the subject. To read a message simply highlight the message using the cursor keys and press Enter. The message will be displayed in the center window. If there is more than one page of text, use the PgUp and PgDn keys to scroll through the text of the message. After you have read the message, press Esc to dispose of the message. Disposing of mail After reading mail, and pressing Esc, Office Talk presents a small menu in the dialogue window. The menu options are: Delete Delete this message, return to Browse Mail screen Reply Compose a reply to sender. See replying to mail below. Save Save message in Old Mailbox and return to Browse Mail screen. See New and Old Mail below. Write Write message to a text file. If the file exists, the message will be appended. Exit Leave message in New Mail box, for re-reading and later disposing. Replying to mail By selecting Reply from the disposition menu, you can easily return a message. The F2 key will copy the text of the original message so that you can reply to the original message in context. Text from the original message will be preceded with a ">>" character to distinguish which is the original text and which is the reply. Like sending a message, you can tag other users to receive copies of the reply. Note that you will also have to tag the person you are replying to, as Office Talk ignores the TO: field when multiple copies of a message are being sent. New and Old mail Office Talk maintains two mailboxes - a new mailbox and an old mailbox. When mail is sent to you it is automatically placed in your new mailbox. You can save messages for future reference without cluttering up your new mailbox by using the Save command on the disposition menu. You can view messages in the old mailbox by pressing F3 at the Browse Mail screen. Note that if you wish to reply to a message, you should reply before saving it. This saves you the trouble of having to switch to the old mailbox and re-read the message to reply. Office Talk Phone Messages Office Talk Phone mail (OTPHONE) is a convenient template for taking telephone messages for fast delivery via Office Talk. OTPHONE prompts for all of the information typically found on the telephone "Pink Slip" . The Office Talk Phone Mail is organized like a typical telephone message slip. Addressee: The login name of the network user to receive the message. Press F2 to choose from a list. To: The name of the person who the message is ultimately for, in the event that the message is directed to someone besides the addressee (ie., a secretary.) Date/Time: The date and time of the call. Defaults to the system clock. From: The name of the person calling Company: The caller's company name Phone/Ext: The caller's phone number and extension Message: A one line message. Press F2 to choose from a list of messages. Messages are contained in a text file called OTPHONE.LST and can be modified with a text editor Memo: This field can contain a short (1-10 line) memo. Support You may direct comments, suggestions or support questions to the following sources: Email Wise Byte BBS 212-962-1920 12/2400 bps, N-8-1 212-962-1946 9600bps HST/MNP Leave mail for Sysop Compuserve Eplex 73657,1727 US Mail PC X-Pert P.O. 664, Church Street Station New York, NY 10008-0664 Planned Enhancements The following enhancements are being considered for future versions of Office Talk. We welcome your suggestions and comments. True CC & Blind CC Name a single addressee and include cc individuals. Include CC names at bottom of letter. Blind CC without notification.) Message Encryption Prompt for password, encrypt message using CRC or bit masking. MHS Support Support for multiple servers on LAN or WAN. Private Mailing lists Users can create their own mailing lists, maintained on user or netware group level. Mail Archives Store old mail messages in an archive, readable by OTMAIL. OTPBOOK On-Line Rolodex for managing a list of contacts on an user and group level. The rolodex will interface directly with the OTPHONE software, making the telephone message taker's job even easier. User Directory Extended user Database to include telephone #, title, groups belonged to and user BIO. Users will be able to update their BIO and view other user's bio.