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The TeleShare DOS Phone Manual Page 1 This Product is Shareware, if you continue to use it Please Legalise your usage through Registration. _______ ____|__ | (R) --| | |------------------- | ____|__ | Association of | | |_| Shareware |__| o | Professionals -----| | |--------------------- |___|___| Member Table of Contents page # 1 Introduction 2 2 The initial TSPHONE menu 3 3 The SELECT section 3 Call a known number 4 Event manager startup Launch a scheduled event Make a new script file Review/list Select a number to call 4 The EDITING section 5 Name/address 6 Phone numbers Event setup 7 Modem setup Your editor General setup Tssetup 5 The MENUS 8 Local menu Session menu 6 QUIT 9 7 HELP General help The on-disk Manuals 8 Command line Usage 9 Support and the ASP 10 Support ASP introduction 11 Errors, quirks, and bugs 10 Acknowledgements and References 12 11 Warranty 12 The TeleShare DOS Phone Manual Page 2 1. Introduction TeleShare enables you to operate one computer from another over the telephone. Using the TeleShare tools, you can dial up your home computer from work, or vice versa, and either work on the remote computer or transfer a file to your local computer to work on it. Or you can help somebody else, provide formal training, show how a spreadsheet or word processor macro works, or make another call and have the phone call charged to the remote phone number. You can use it to sell services, software, or whatever. TeleShare continues the DOS tradition of providing various ways to customise your machine, and your remote machine(s), to the way that you want and need to get things done. When you use the TeleShare tools, you get a modular toolkit, or grab bag if you prefer, of utilities suitable for a range of purposes. Examples: remote chat, file encryption and obliteration, a screen grabber, file finder/backup, dialing, equipment discovery, communications port testing and management, and file transfers. It is designed so you can choose to only use the most basic parts or modules, such as the Remote and Host programs, or use most or all of the system. It is very much designed to be used in association WITH other similar software, such as Telix, Procomm, and DSZ, and with the expectation that you may prefer to substitute other more familiar tools for those in its standard distribution. Most of the tools have their own individual manuals, or command line usage available as in "TSDIAL -H". This means that the overall TeleShare documentation is split up into the various manual.DOC files instead of one larger manual with chapters. It also means that TeleShare is NOT as well integrated as some other remote support packages. It is designed to be fast, flexible, and to work with very memory hungry applications (small), but it may not be as simple to use until you tailor it to your way of doing things. The whole TeleShare package is shareware. If you are not familiar with shareware please read the SHR_WARE.DOC and the REGISTER.DOC that are distributed with TeleShare. The basic theme of teleShare is that registration licenses you for one full copy of TeleShare with the right to support, train, or whatever, an unlimited number of remote people/machines. If someone else provides similar support, or you use it on more than one machine, please register the additional copy. In the support context, you can be the support person/machine at the center of a circle of supported people/machines. If you add more center support people/machines, please register the additional copies. This also implies that the center support person provides primary support for his/her user base. If you are part of the outer circle and are asking P.C. Softsmith for support, please consider registering your use of the product, so we can get payment for services rendered. TeleShare Phone, or TsPhone, is a support program for the The TeleShare DOS Phone Manual Page 3 other tools in the TeleShare distribution. The TsPhone program's job is to provide all kinds of assistance while you use the other programs, plus some other stuff. For example, it contains two DOS menu programs, one simple and one script driven, databases for scheduled events and matching notes, modems, name/address, phone numbers, and a help database. TsPhone enables you to find and browse through any, or all, of the various on disk manuals. You can add to, alter, review, and generally manage all of the databases to meet your needs. The script driven, or Session, menu provides very flexible menu driven access to the other tools in the system, and allows you to add other tools. For example, you can add any number of external file tranfer protocols in addition to the included hydra, zmodem, jmodem, ymodem, xmodem, and sealink protocols. TsPhone scripts are primarily designed for use on a computer, not between computers. You can run a script remotely, possibly at a scheduled future time, and you can use scripts for file transfers, but there are better script tools for BBS type uses (try Telix). This script capability lets you build very flexible custom remote control setups to match your, or your group's, unique needs. The following material describes TsPhone in more detail, but please note that it also has considerable on-line help using the F1 function key, and that you can gain a good idea how it works by simply test driving it. 2 The initial TSPHONE menu Select Editing Menus Quit Help These five choices provide the basic top level access to the phone program. Select allows you to choose among previously created selections of various kinds. Editing provides various forms of editing, including configuration. Menus provides a choice of two menus; one simple and one sophisticated script driven menu. Quit exits back to DOS. Help provides introductory help and access to the various .DOC manuals on disk. General rules are that ESCape/F3 provide escape back a step or screen, and eventually out to DOS. F1 provides context sensitive, user changeable help. The menu choices are described individually below: 3 The SELECT section Select provides a group of selections/reports: Call a known number Event manager startup Launch a scheduled event The TeleShare DOS Phone Manual Page 4 Make a new script file Review/list Select a number to call Call a known number lets you type in a number, dial it, and talk to somebody. Event manager startup creates a new script file and runs the event manager program (currently RUNT.EXE) thus enabling events to be run at scheduled times. If there are no entries in the database for the current date and time, no file will be created. The events manager program that you specifed in the events general setup will then be run based on the script file's instructions. If you left the program name blank then the phone program assumes that you want to quit back to another program so it quits to DOS. Launch a scheduled event lets you select a particular event to be run, and immediately run it. Make a new script file automatically generates a new text script file for the events manager, and lets you edit the file. A sample short form script file: The short form events script file for review: # Events script file created 07/13/93 09:29:55 1 9945 2 2 9911 5 3 9910 4 4 9951 12 5 9929 9 6 9901 10 # You can add LOGFILE, QUIT, or RELOAD entries. Would you like to edit the script file? [YN]Y The script file above shows 6 numbered entries. Entry #1 is 9945 2, which means run every hour (99) at 45 minutes past the hour (45). The 2 indicates to run record number 2 in the events database. You can replace the numbers with actual program names, such as CHKDSK, using your text editor. If you put a "QUIT" at a specific time, the program will quit then. Placing "LOGFILE some_name" at the beginning of the script file will tell the events program to use the "some_name" file as a log file. You can "RELOAD" at any specific time to update the list of pending events. "#" symbols are used for comments. Review/list provides menu access to reports on scheduled and The TeleShare DOS Phone Manual Page 5 completed events with some access methods as shown below. The Review/list sub-menu selection: Everything in the system All calls/events made Scheduled calls/events Identity/phone number Date - for one day This month's calls/events Select a number to call is the same as 'Call a known number' except that you are provided with a scrolling list of available numbers. 4 The EDITING section Editing provides edit or change access to the various phone system databases, and configuration. If you select "E" for edit, a sub-menu will appear like the following 'Editing' menu. Editing Name/address Phone numbers Event setup Modem setup Your editor General setup Tssetup Most of the individual edit screens are full screen with a common appearance and command set like the partial screen shown below. The Name/address sub-menu <Select> Find Top Previous Next Bottom Add Edit Delete ... Identity ....... Organization ........ City ........... . Apple Blossom i Abc ltd Seattle . . Tarzan's Pansie Wheaton Ford LA . . Vic Williams P.C. Softsmith Burnaby . . ... . ... F1 Help F3 and ESCape exit Select an entry checking for a phone number to call. 2 The Name and address are given as Identity and Organization to The TeleShare DOS Phone Manual Page 6 include organizations and departments as well as individuals. If you select SELECT you are choosing the currently highlighted selection. For Name/address this will allow you to select a matching telephone number. You can have any number of phone numbers matching a given Name/address, using a normal database relational link. Find helps you look for a specific identity. Top, Previous, Next, Bottom help you navigate the database. Add allows you to add a new entry. Edit provides new editing screen with the rest of the normal address information. It will also change to the phone number database area when appropriate. Delete deletes the currently selected entry. The F1 Help F3 and ESCape exit area shows the bottom of the Name/address screen, with the current entry #2 shown last. These choices are common to most of the edit screens, as shown for the phone sub-menu below. The Phone number sub-menu Select Find Top Previous Next Bottom Add Edit Delete ... Identity ........... Desc ....... Phone ............... . Apple Blossom ind Voice 234-4567 . . Apple Blossom ind voice 234-2344 . . Tucson Earth Movi FAX 567-0909 . The phone number edit area matches phone numbers to identities. Desc allows you to specific choices like: Voice, Fax, BBS, Remote in order to match the various kinds of phone line. Once again the actual edit screen provides more information, and has its own context sensitive help. The events sub-menu The events sub-menu provides the same menu commands for a list as shown below. .. Identity ...... Phone ....... Go day Time . Done D/R . . 1993 Test 433-5189 05/09/93 09:18 .T. . . Dos_menu no number 05/14/93 16:11 .T. D . . ... . ... F1 Help F4 edit script F5 reset Done F6 Today F3/ESCape exit Select an entry to edit. 13 Go day is the day or date that the event is scheduled to run. You can also use DAILY, DAY 15 (15th day of the month), MON (monday), and the like. The program provides quite a bit of help on-line. The TeleShare DOS Phone Manual Page 7 MM/DD/YY the actual date to run as in 09/15/93 DAILY something to run every day SUN MON TUE WED THU FRI SAT for the days of the week DAY 1-31 day of month, months come in various lengths Time is the time the event is to run. If you provide 99 for the hour, the event will be run hourly. Done shows whether the event has been run. D/R is designed to show whether the event is simply Dialing or something to be Run (like a script). The actual EDIT screen shows more information, and the script editing area allows you to escape to the simple menu for related DOS related activities. You can add notes in the notes. The modem sub-menu The modem sub-menu shows up like the following ... Identity ............. Initialization string ...... . AT compatible 2400 or ~?T&FE0Q0V0S7=70&C1&D2 . . ATI generic AT&F2&C1&D2S0=1&K4S7=70&W0&Y0 . . ATI 2400 AT&FE0Q0X4S7=70V0W0F1&C1&K3&Q5& . . ... Its EDIT screen provides more choices with more information for the modem database. The Your editor sub-menu This provides access to your editor, so you can edit script files or whatever you like. The General setup sub-menu This swaps the phone program to disk and switches you to the general setup program genmgr.exe with the special phone setup option. Genmgr has its own on-line help. The Tssetup sub-menu This swaps you to the TeleShare Remote and Host setup program called tssetup.exe. TsSetup specifically configures the communications related programs, including XM the closely linked xmodem program. TeleShare Dial, or TSDIAL also uses the same program and the resulting configuration file tsconfig.cfg. Most of these programs have their own manuals in appropriately named files, such as tsdial.doc for tsdial. 5 MENUS The Menus option provides you with a choice of two menus. The TeleShare DOS Phone Manual Page 8 First, the simple menu clears the screen except for the last two lines, as shown below, to allow most DOS output to be directed to the upper portion of the screen. Run Any Dir Shell Browse Cls Exit Quit Help Run a DOS program in the local directory The simple menu provides basic DOS management features with an immediate Shell or escape to DOS, without a lot of setup time or hassle. It lets you directly 'grab hold of DOS and shake it when you need to'. Second, the session menu is shown full screen below. It has the standard phone system menu structure, with some added function key short cuts. It is a conventional DOS menu program with extensive script capability. See the SCRIPT.DOC to learn more about the script language. Select Find Top Previous Next Bottom Add Edit Delete Session Menu .. Description ........ Filter ...... . Word Perfect Word . . Dos_menu Tools . . Equipment Test DOS . . Jmodem Receive Receive . . Reflector Security . . Run Arago & BCC demo . . Send Hydra Send . . Send Zmodem SEND . . Setup Setup SETUPMACRO . . Teleshare Host . ............. 29 entries ............ F1 Help F4 Script F5 Filters F6 Macros F7 no burn Select an entry to edit. 13 F4 Script provides short cut access to editing the matching menu script. You can also simply choose EDIT to change to the edit screen and to edit the various portions of the database. It is designed to be run both as an events database, and for daily use, so you will see features matching both purposes. F5 Filter allows you to select F5 and setup/select a subset or group of the selections in the database. For example, you can have a number of "SEND" entries, for sending to various numbers, or using different protocols, and can filter to display only these "SEND" entries in the menu. You can combine up to five kinds of entry, as in "SEND RECEIVE TOOLS REMOTE NOTES" to form a working set or group. This powerful feature can enormously help your work. Further, there are two major filter setup options. Using the general setup program, The TeleShare DOS Phone Manual Page 9 you can specify a preselected group or set to be filtered every time that you start the tsphone program. You override the preselected value when you make any changes during the day, but the 'preselected' value is immediately available as a filter menu option. Macros allow you to specify something at the beginning of an entry and have its value substituted through the rest of the entry. TeleShare Phone also has global macros based on the SETUP entry. A macro such as SEND_FILES = august.wks address.dbf events.dbf could be setup early in a entry for substitution DIR $(SEND_FILES) # DIR to look at the files DSZ -sz $(SEND_FILES) # Use Omen's Zmodem to send them Macros are part of the script language, and are described in the SCRIPT.DOC manual. 6 QUIT simply quits to DOS. 7 HELP provides general introductory help, and browse access to the various manuals (.DOC files). Returning to the top level menu. Some function keys show up on the bottom of the screen. The normal F1 Help and F3/ESCape keys are supplemented by three others. F4 equipment pops up a brief display of the equipment on board the current computer. This is the same display as that produced by the TSEQUIP.EXE program. F7 noburn provides a simple immediate screen saver. F9 Notes on the initial screen takes you to the editor area so you can add some notes. This version will always go to the same SETUP entry (unless there is no events SETUP entry). If you need to create a new set of notes, either simply erase the previous set or send them to a disk file (use control-KW) them erase them, before adding the new notes. You can also use it as a simple chat. 8 Command line Usage Usage: TSPHONE [-L name -N### -R MODEMS] -L filename Load a file into a new script entry and run it. The text file may include any normal script commands. -N ## The events entry Number to run. You may specify more The TeleShare DOS Phone Manual Page 10 than one number to run, consecutively. If you use "-N DAY" it will immediately start to run all the events scheduled for the current day up to the current hour. "-N DAY" is designed as an override and a 'catch up' run for the the day. Some of the script commands are automatically disabled when this option run with the assumption that the program is being run by another program, not by a human. For example, a human will BROWSE a file, but other software probably will not. You can use -A- on the command line to prevent automatically disabling these commands. -R Renew or reload the events script file. Using this you can run a series of events then load a new series to run. If you reload in the last few minutes in the day, such as 23:59, the program will automatically wait until the next day to reload that days events. -TRACE To trace, follow, or watch script activity. It helps you find problems with scripts, and helps learn how they work. -H This Help. You may also use ? and /h. MODEMS To import a list of modems. The current format is a name line, then a matching init string line. To run entry number 3 use 'PHONE -N3' There are screen output command line switches as follows: -DOS to redirect screen output through DOS. -BIOS to redirect screen output through the BIOS. -MONO to force output to monochrome. You probably will not use the screen output commands very often. However, an example use is to redirect output as in "TSPHONE -n23 -DOS > logfile" which will run entry number 23 and place all the screen output in the 'logfile'. Note that you will also get 'junk' from the TSPHONE's own messages in the output file. 9 Support and the ASP Support: Please consider reporting the circumstances, preferably in written form, to technical support when you discover problems with the software. For technical support, either call (604) 433-5189, or write to Suite 606 - 6455 Willingdon Avenue, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada, V5H 4E4. Both registered and soon to be registered users currently get the same support without any arbitrary The TeleShare DOS Phone Manual Page 11 time limit. You may also try leaving a Compuserve message at 75020, 2664, but be aware that messages rapidly 'scroll off' Compuserve. The best electronic message area (also available from Compuserve) is via the internet at: INTERNET:vic_williams@mindlink.bc.ca. P. C. Softsmith Suite 606 6455 Willingdon Ave Burnaby, B. C., Canada V5H 4E4 ASP Introduction: Please also carefully read the accompanying SHR_WARE.DOC document. "This program is produced by a member of the Association of Shareware Professionals (ASP). ASP wants to make sure that the shareware principle works for you. If you are unable to resolve a shareware-related problem with an ASP member by contacting the member directly, ASP may be able to help. The ASP Ombudsman can help you resolve a dispute or problem with an ASP member, but does not provide technical support for members' products. Please write to the ASP Ombudsman at 545 Grover Road, Muskegon, MI 49442 or send a CompuServe message via CompuServe Mail to ASP Ombudsman 70007,3536." This document and associated TeleShare documents and software are Copyright (C)1993 P. C. Softsmith All Rights Reserved. Errors, quirks, and bugs We guarantee that the TeleShare system, and more specifically the TSPHONE portion of TeleShare does contain 'bugs', or features that you personally consider to be bugs. We continue to test and refine the product line, but both previously hidden and new bugs continue to crop up. Other problems arise when the various databases used in the system become corrupted. When corrupted setup information is read into the system from a database, it might pass the built-in checks and cause the software to literally 'go nuts'. The databases used are normal Xbase or dBASE databases and can be maintained using industry standard software. You may also find various 'tuning' tools included with the distribution. Examples are evtune.exe for tuning the events.dbf, and helptune.exe for tuning the help .dbfs. Both of these tools have other purposes that have the side effect of helping with minor database problems. Enter the name of the program followed by "-H" on the same line, as in "EVTUNE -H" to receive operating instructions. The TeleShare DOS Phone Manual Page 12 10 Acknowledgements and References A great deal of information for this product was gleaned from a wide variety of Compuserve and local BBS sources. Modem settings that arrived by voice telephone were found to be easily distorted and were checked against another source wherever possible. Thank you for your help people, the errors are mine. Quite a few of the files accompanying this distribution came from various bulletin board systems. The file MODEMV11.DOC is a plain text file version of a portion of Patrick Chen's book called "The Joy of Telecomputing". It was downloaded from Compuserve with the Compuserve Information Manager using the Compuserve B protocol. Check it out for the information in it and as a partial book review. You might visit your local library or bookstore to peruse the following books: Dvorak's Guide to PC Telecommunications is quite useful with a wide range of information. The setup instructions will be particularly useful if that is a problem area for you. It also includes a special copy of Telix, some other tools, and some discount coupons. Serial Communications: A C++ Developer's Guide by Mark Nelson is quite useful. 11 Warranty THE DOCUMENTATION AND ASSOCIATED SOFTWARE ARE DISTRIBUTED AND SOLD WITH NO WARRANTIES, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, REGARDING ITS MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENTATION IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE AND DOES NOT REPRESENT A COMMITTMENT ON THE PART OF THE VENDOR. OTHER PRODUCT AND BRAND NAMES MENTIONED ARE TRADEMARKS OR REGISTERED TRADEMARKS OF THEIR RESPECTIVE HOLDERS. SPECIFICALLY XBASE IS THE GENERIC DATABASE INDUSTRY REPLACEMENT FOR THE REGISTERED TERM 'DBASE' OWNED BY BORLAND INTERNATIONAL.