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The Blue Wave Offline Mail Door User Documentation, v3.10 Copyright (C) 1992-1996 by Cutting Edge Computing All Rights Reserved. Reference Manual for the Use and Operation of The Blue Wave Mail Doors Written by George Hatchew Cutting Edge Computing PO Box 90476 Burton, Michigan 48509-0476 USA TABLE OF CONTENTS ----------------- ABOUT THIS DOCUMENTATION 3 THE CONCEPT OF OFFLINE MAIL SYSTEMS 4 How it All Got Started 4 Why Bother to Read Mail? 5 What Will The Blue Wave Offline Mail System Do? 5 USING THE MAIL SYSTEM FOR THE FIRST TIME 6 CHOOSING MESSAGE AREAS FOR DOWNLOAD 7 THE CONFIGURATION MENU 9 Reset Lastread Pointers 10 Bundle Messages From You 10 Graphics (Color) On/Off 10 Hotkey Menu Selections 11 Extended Message Information 11 Xpert Menu Mode 11 Use Numeric Packet Extensions 12 New File Listings In Packets 13 Protocol 13 Archiver 13 Keyword Selection 14 Filter Selection 14 Macro Definitions 15 Limit D/L Packet Size 15 Set Password Options 16 Configuration Help 16 Quit to Main Menu 16 THE MAIN MENU 17 Download New Mail 17 Upload New Replies 17 Configuration Menu 17 Quit Back to BBS 17 Goodbye 17 Xpert Mode 17 DOWNLOADING THROUGH THE BLUE WAVE MAIL DOOR 18 Abort Download Session 21 Instant Logoff After Transfer 21 Countdown Logoff 22 Protocol Change 22 [ENTER] to Begin Normal Download 22 UPLOADING THROUGH THE MAIL DOOR 23 File Requests 24 THE BLUE WAVE BUNDLING COMMANDS 25 The 'B' Bundling Command 27 The 'L' Bundling Command 27 The '*' Modifier 28 The '!' Modifier 28 Bundling Command Considerations 28 IN CONCLUSION 30 --------------------------------------------------------- The Blue Wave Offline Mail Door User Documentation, v3.10 Page 2 ABOUT THIS DOCUMENTATION ------------------------ The documentation presented in this file is designed for end users and clients of The Blue Wave Offline Mail Door. For specific installation, maintenance, and execution instructions for The Blue Wave Offline Mail Door, please consult BWMAIL.DOC, which should have been enclosed with your copy of the door archive. If you are an end user or client of The Blue Wave Offline Mail Door, you will also need a copy of The Blue Wave Offline Mail Reader. The Blue Wave Offline Mail Reader should be available on the same BBS you received this file from. The file name as distributed is BWnn_DOS.ZIP, BWnn_386.ZIP, and BWnn_OS2.ZIP where 'nnn' is the current version number. The latest version as of this writing (07 Aug 95) is v2.20. Any version of the reader claiming to be "v3.00" are hacked copies of the reader and should be avoided. This documentation is formatted with Form Feeds for printing on all Personal Computer printers. This documentation file contains no IBM Extended ASCII characters, so it should print fine on all printer models - even non IBM ProPrinter compatibles. To print this documentation in hard copy, simply execute the following command from DOS: COPY BWDOOR.DOC PRN If you would like to print this documentation using the PRINT.COM spooler enclosed with most versions of DOS, simply execute this command at the DOS prompt: PRINT BWDOOR.DOC The documentation is formatted to 60 lines per page so that printing on laser printers should also work with no problems. The documentation was written by George Hatchew and is Copyright (C) 1992-1996 by Cutting Edge Computing. It may be distributed freely, so long as it is not modified. --------------------------------------------------------- The Blue Wave Offline Mail Door User Documentation, v3.10 Page 3 THE CONCEPT OF OFFLINE MAIL SYSTEMS ----------------------------------- Before we begin the details of The Blue Wave Offline Mail Door operations, let's take a moment to look at the history of offline mail systems. How it All Got Started ---------------------- Back in the early to mid 1980's, many people were beginning to get home computers and modems. People began communicating in several ways through Bulletin Board Systems (BBS's). BBS systems began offering message bases where people of similar interests could communicate with each other through electronic means. As the technology grew people started sharing message bases between different BBS system across the city, across the country, and eventually across the world. Mail conferencing was born, and nothing was going to stop it. As time went on, commercial online services began offering E-Mail which could be transmitted to the message recipient several thousands of miles away in a matter of hours, minutes, or even seconds. Eventually many people became hooked, many others DEPENDANT, on E- Mail. While the commercial companies were developing new and better ways to transmit e-mail across the world, so were the amateur BBS operators. Several amateur e-mail networks and technologies were formed. One of the largest amateur e-mail networks still popular today is FidoNet. (Don't let the term 'amateur' fool you. Many of the people that are responsible for keeping FidoNet up and running may be classified as amateurs, but several years of experience and knowledge, and usually thousands of dollars worth of equipment, have earned them a very respectable title). Today, FidoNet is over 15,000 nodes strong and still growing! As the networks and the number of home computer users has grown, the need for reading and replying to e-mail offline has become more and more essential. When BBSing was young, there was plenty of time to read and reply to messages on-line. Today, with more users than ever and more e-mail flowing than ever, there just is not enough time for every user to spend a half hour, an hour, or even two hours on-line to their local BBS. Long distance phone rates can also get to be outrageously expensive after just a few of these sessions per month. This is where offline mail reading comes into play. With today's innovations in offline mail processing, you can spend just a very few minutes per day on-line to your favorite BBS system and do all of your work offline, where there is no time limit to run up against, and where the phone company's meter is not running. --------------------------------------------------------- The Blue Wave Offline Mail Door User Documentation, v3.10 Page 4 Best of all, you can read your mail at any time you like. Today's communications software allows you to build script files, which in turn allows you to retrieve your mail automatically at even the oddest times of the day or night (especially when long distance phone rates are low). When you're ready to read your mail, all you need to do is fire up your favorite offline mail system, and you are on your way! Why Bother to Read Mail? ------------------------ At this point you may be asking yourself, "Why even bother with it all?". Some people unfamiliar with mail networks and e-mail sometimes cannot understand the enjoyment and knowledge that can come out of being an active participant on an e-mail network. Not only can you communicate with people from all corners of the world, but you can learn more about your favorite computer software, share recipes with others, learn how to repair your leaking roof, get advice from others on product quality ratings, or just join in a chat between long distance friends. As a matter of fact, FidoNet offers well over 300 e-mail topics ranging from Aardvarks to Zymurgy. What Will The Blue Wave Offline Mail System Do For Me? ------------------------------------------------------ The Blue Wave Offline Mail Reader will allow you to actively participate in this fun and fascinating hobby to any extent you like. You can retrieve mail from your favorite BBS system to your own computer, where you are free to take your time and enjoy yourself. You aren't forced against the BBS system's time limits or the long distance charges. You are also doing your part to allow more people on your favorite BBS system so there are less busy signals, and more productive on-line sessions. It is a complete mail manager, which allows you to reply to messages, save messages to disk in a text file, print messages to your printer, and help you search out only the messages that you are interested in through the use of keyword searching. But most of all, to enjoy yourself! In order to be the most productive with your offline mail sessions, it is essential that you have a thorough understanding of the use of The Blue Wave Offline Mail Door. The Blue Wave reader and door combination work together to provide you with the most efficient use of your time. This documentation file is dedicated to helping you understand how to use the ONLINE portion of the mail system; The Blue Wave Offline Mail Door. For instructions on using The Blue Wave Offline Mail Reader, please consult the documentation for the reader, titled BWAVE.DOC. --------------------------------------------------------- The Blue Wave Offline Mail Door User Documentation, v3.10 Page 5 USING THE MAIL SYSTEM FOR THE FIRST TIME ---------------------------------------- Before you begin using The Blue Wave Offline Mail System, you will need to download the latest version of The Blue Wave Offline Mail Reader (or a Blue Wave door-compatible reader such as Q-Blue or WaveRider). Please ask your sysop for the latest version, or scan the BBS file system for BW???xxx.ZIP, where '???' is the version number of the reader, and 'xxx' is one of 'DOS', '386', or 'OS2'. The first time you enter The Blue Wave Mail Door, you will be presented with a few "welcome" and help screens. The sysop or administrator of the online service you are using has the ability to set several system defaults for new users. You will be presented with the ARCHIVER (compression system), PROTOCOL (file transfer system), and possibly a few message areas that the sysop has selected as default settings. Most of the time the default settings the sysop has chosen are the best options to use. However, you can change these default settings once you reach the door's CONFIGURATION menu. After the mail door has shown you the default settings used by the particular host system you are using, you are immediately taken to the configuration menu of the door, where you can set several options. All of the options on the configuration menu of the door are described in the section titled "THE CONFIGURATION MENU", found later in this documentation. The first thing you must do is to select the message areas that you would like to download (receive) from the host system. You do this by selecting "C)hoose Message Areas to Download". The procedure for selecting message areas is detailed in the next section. --------------------------------------------------------- The Blue Wave Offline Mail Door User Documentation, v3.10 Page 6 CHOOSING MESSAGE AREAS FOR DOWNLOAD ----------------------------------- Selecting the message areas that you would like to receive or download from the host system is done by selecting "C)hoose Areas to Download" from the CONFIGURATION MENU. Immediately after selecting this option from the menu, you are presented with a listing of message areas that are available to you. In the left-most column you will find the AREA NUMBER (or on some systems, the "area number" could actually be a word of up to 9 characters), followed by the current STATUS of the message area. The right-most side of the screen contains the area's full name or description. The display on all Blue Wave Mail Doors that have a version number of 3.00 or higher looks similar to the following: +--------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Area # | Status | Area Description | +--------------------------------------------------------------------+ 1 All Local Message Base - User Chatter 2 Forced Comments to and from the Sysop 3 Role Playing Games 4 Persnl FidoNet Netmail Messages 5 P+All FidoNet FOR-SALE Echo The "Status" column tells you how the mail door is going to handle that message area when you instruct the mail door to download your messages. Areas with no status displayed are not active and will not be included in your downloaded mail bundles. There are 4 different types of "Status" displayed. All - Indicates that you have told the mail door to download ALL NEW messages in the area each time you perform a mail download. Persnl - Indicates that you have told the mail door to download ONLY "Personal" messages in that area each time you perform a mail download. Personal messages are those messages that someone has entered with your name in the TO: field. P+All - Indicates that you have instructed the mail door to download ONLY messages in this area that are addressed to you, or messages that have been addressed to "All". Forced - Indicates that the sysop has FORCED this message area on. You will not be able to turn this area off through the mail door. Sysops and administrators usually use FORCED message areas for important system announcements and bulletins. --------------------------------------------------------- The Blue Wave Offline Mail Door User Documentation, v3.10 Page 7 At the end of each screenful of message areas you are presented with a prompt: Area#(s) or More [Y,n]? If you would like to change the status of any message areas on the screen, you simply type in the area number (or name) listed in the "Area #" column of the display. HINT: You can type more than one area number or name at this prompt. Simply separate the areas with <Space> characters and the mail door will process all of the areas listed at one time. If you do not want to change the status of any of the areas on the screen, either enter "Y" to see more message areas, or "N" to stop the area listing. If you have chosen to change the status of any of the areas on the screen, the door will present you with the following prompt: Area 1: P)ersonal msgs only, +)Personal+"All", [ENTER]All Msgs: If you want the mail door to only bundle personal messages in the message area shown, enter a "P" here. If you want to receive your personal messages, and messages addressed to "ALL", enter a "+" here. The default action of pressing [ENTER] will download all new messages that have been received into the message base since your last successful mail download. Simply repeat this process until you have selected all of the message areas that you would like to receive in your mail packet downloads. You can turn message areas OFF in the same way that you activate them. Enter the number of the message area that you would like to turn off, and the door will present you with a prompt similar to the one shown above. The default action of pressing [ENTER] will then turn the message base off, and you will no longer receive them in your mail downloads. After all message areas have been listed, you are given an opportunity to QUIT the area selection system, to relist all of the available message areas, or to list ONLY those areas that you have activated. When you are done choosing your message areas, press ENTER at this prompt, or "!" and then the ENTER key. You will then be taken back to the door's CONFIGURATION menu where you can make other changes to your online configuration profile. A complete description of the other options available on the door's configuration menu follows in the next section. --------------------------------------------------------- The Blue Wave Offline Mail Door User Documentation, v3.10 Page 8 THE CONFIGURATION MENU ---------------------- When viewing the door's CONFIGURATION menu, it may seem a bit overwhelming to novice users. Please do not let the menu intimidate you, as most of the options available here are nothing more than preferences that you can turn ON and OFF. Here is what the CONFIGURATION menu in The Blue Wave Mail Doors looks like. Please note that a couple of the options are unique to mail doors with a version number of 3.00 or higher. (The version number of the mail door you are using is displayed above the door's MAIN menu.) +------- The Blue Wave Mail Door Configuration Menu -------+ | | | C)hoose Message Areas P)rotocol (Zmodem) | | for Download A)rchiver (ZIP) | | | | R)eset Lastread Pointers K)eyword Selection | | * B)undle Messages From You F)ilter Selection | | * G)raphics (Color) On/Off M)acro Definitions | | * H)otkey Menu Selections S)et Password Options | | E)xtended Msg Information L)imit D/L Packet Size | | X)pert Menu Mode | | * U)se Numeric Pkt Extensions ?)Configuration Help | | * N)ew File Listing in Packets Q)uit to Main Menu | | | | * Indicates Option is ON | +----------------------------------------------------------+ You will notice that next to the "P)rotocol" and "A)rchiver" menu items that there are words in parentheses. The door shows you which Protocol and which Archiver are active here. The left-hand column of menu items beginning with "B)undle Messages From You" are all switches... you can turn them either ON or OFF. If the option is on, you will see a symbol next to the item. If the option is off, no symbol is shown. We have already discussed the first item on the menu, "C)hoose Message Areas for Download", in the previous section. We will now go through the entire configuration menu and explain each item individually so that you have a good understanding of what each menu item does. --------------------------------------------------------- The Blue Wave Offline Mail Door User Documentation, v3.10 Page 9 Reset Lastread Pointers ----------------------- Selecting this menu item will allow you to alter the records that both the BBS and the mail door record to disk. These records are updated each time the mail door is used to perform a successful download. The "lastread" records store information which tells the software what message # was the LAST one that you have read in each message base. Once in a while it is possible for these records to be corrupted. Sometimes, after a successful mail download, you may accidentally delete the downloaded mail packet or the mail packet gets corrupted during transmission. In any case, if you ever have a need to change your message read pointers, this is where you should do it. Because each BBS system stores messages and lastread pointers in different ways, the procedure to use this option also varies from one door version to another. Explicit instructions are given on the screen when using this option, so it should be self explanatory. As long as you understand the concept of what this menu item does, you should be able to navigate the "Reset Lastread Pointers" prompts with little or no difficulty. Bundle Messages From You ------------------------ This menu item has two different states; it is either ON or OFF. When "Bundle Messages From You" is turned OFF, the mail door will not pack messages with your name in the FROM: field into your downloaded mail bundles. If you are a very active participant in the BBS message bases, it is very possible that turning this option off will substancially decrease the size of the mail packets that you download. When this option is turned ON, all messages that you have entered into the BBS's message base will be downloaded and placed into your mail bundles. When this option is on you will be able to read the messages you have entered through the reader. This could also serve as a "Confirmation" tool. If you receive your own messages on your next mail download, you are assured that you mail upload was successful. Graphics (Color) On/Off ----------------------- The Blue Wave Mail Door is capable of sending your terminal program ANSI and AVATAR escape sequences in order for you to view The Blue Wave Mail Door in full, living color. If your communications program does not support these escape sequences, you will want to turn this option OFF. When this option is turned off, only text will be sent to your terminal program, resulting in a "monochrome" display. --------------------------------------------------------- The Blue Wave Offline Mail Door User Documentation, v3.10 Page 10 Hotkey Menu Selections ---------------------- If "Hotkey Menu Selections" is turned on, the door will accept menu input from you without having to press [ENTER] after each command. When this is off, you must enter your command followed by the [ENTER] key. Even when hotkeys are turned on, there are some prompts in the mail door that will still require you to press enter. If the door needs more than one character of input at any prompt, you will need to press [ENTER] in order to get the door to process your input. Extended Message Information ---------------------------- NOTE: This menu option may or may not be available to you. The sysop or system administrator has the option of turning this menu item off. Under normal circumstances, you will probably NOT want to enable this option, even if it is available to you. Many of the e-mail networks (FidoNet especially) use certain "Control" information which is embedded into the message text. This control information is useless to most people (humans in general). Leaving this option off, even if it is available to you, will greatly reduce the size of the mail packets that are generated by the door, because all of this control information will be stripped from the message before it is bundled into your mail packet. If you are a sysop or system administrator, you are probably familiar with what are called "Control-A" or "Kludge" Lines in network messages. When this option is on, the mail door will not strip this control information (including SEEN-BY lines), and you can then view it when reading messages through the reader. If you are a general user of the mail door, and you are seeing lines that start with "Happy Face Characters" (ASCII 01), you probably have this option turned on unintentionally. Turning off extended message information will remove this unwanted text from your downloaded mail packets. Xpert Menu Mode --------------- The Blue Wave Mail Door has two menu modes: Full Help Menus and Xpert Mode Menus. When Xpert menus are enabled, you will receive a very short menu prompt listing the valid keys that may be pressed while the mail door is processing the MAIN or the CONFIGURATION menu. Unless you are very familiar with the operation of The Blue Wave Mail Door, it is suggested that you leave the Xpert menus turned off. --------------------------------------------------------- The Blue Wave Offline Mail Door User Documentation, v3.10 Page 11 Use Numeric Packet Extensions ----------------------------- When your sysop or system administrator installs The Blue Wave Mail Door, they have the ability to specify (up to) an eight character "Mail Packet Name". This mail packet name normally corresponds to the name of the BBS System. For example, the name of the Cutting Edge Computing support BBS is "Wild! Blue". Our mail door is configured to generate mail packets beginning with the root name "WILDBLUE". All mail packets downloaded through The Blue Wave Mail Door use this root name as a basis for generating file names for the mail packets that you download. Each time you download a mail packet, the root name will remain constant, but the file extension will vary. The default behaviour of the mail door is to generate a mail packet extension that begins with the first two letters of the day of the week (the day the mail packet was created). For example, "MO" is used for Monday, and "FR" is used for Friday. The third character of the file extension is the number of the mail packet downloaded that day. These numbers range from 1 to 9. If today was Thursday and you were downloading the second mail packet of the day from the Wild Blue BBS, your mail packet would be named WILDBLUE.TH2. When "Use Numeric Packet Extensions" is turned ON, the mail door will create a unique 3-digit extension for your mail packet. Each time you successfully download a mail packet, this number will be increased by 1. The first mail packet you download with this option turned on would be called WILDBLUE.001, the second mail packet (even if downloaded on a different day) would be named WILDBLUE.002. If you reach the point where you download a packet called WILDBLUE.999, the next mail packet created would be called WILDBLUE.001 again. Enabling this option has many advantages. The first is that you will never encounter a problem with duplicate file names being download (which causes many protocols to go into convulsions). Another advantage is that you will be able to look at a listing of mail packets and immediately know which was the first and the last one that you have downloaded. The sysop or admistrator of the host system has the ability to edit the current download extension number through the door's USER FILE editor. If, for some reason, you need to change the number that is currently stored in your user record, you may be able to ask the sysop (very nicely!) to alter the current extension number. Please note that some Blue Wave-compatible mail readers may not be able to digest the purely numerical packet extensions. If your mail reader will not load the file properly turn this option off. --------------------------------------------------------- The Blue Wave Offline Mail Door User Documentation, v3.10 Page 12 New File Listings In Packets ---------------------------- NOTE: The sysop or administrator of your host system has the ability to turn this menu item OFF. Therefore, this menu item may not be available on some systems. Additionally, this feature was added to mail doors with a version number of 3.00 and higher. If the mail door you are using is less than v3.00, this option will not be available. The "New File Listings in Packets" option has 3 possible settings: You can choose NOT to receive new file listing announcements in your mail packet, or you can have 2 different types of listings. The two possible types of listings are "COLOR" and "TEXT". Some mail readers may not be able to display color file listings properly (any version of The Blue Wave Offline Mail Reader above v2.10 will display them properly). When you choose to receive color file listings, ANSI escape sequences will be placed into the newfiles list, resulting in a nice color display on systems that have a proper viewer. If your mail reader cannot handle ANSI file listings, you can turn this item ON, but do not tell the door to create color lists. This option is very useful when combined with The Blue Wave Offline Mail System's "file request" capabilities. The Blue Wave Offline Mail Reader (v2.11 and higher) will allow you to simultaneously display the new file listing and enter file requests to the host BBS. You can use this powerful feature to keep updated on all of the latest utilities uploaded to the host BBS. Protocol -------- Selecting this menu item will allow you to change the transfer protocol used to send mail packets to your system and to receive uploaded mail packets from your system. You will be presented a list of available protocols on the system. Simply press the letter that corresponds to the transfer protocol you would like to use, and the door will use that protocol in all file transfers performed. Archiver -------- Selecting this menu item will allow you to change the compression system that is used to build your mail packets and to decompress the mail packets that you upload. You will be presented a listing of all available archivers on the system. Simply press the letter that corresponds to the compression system you would like to use. Please note that you must have a copy of this compression system on your system, and your reader must be properly configured to use this archiver. Consult your reader documentation for more information. --------------------------------------------------------- The Blue Wave Offline Mail Door User Documentation, v3.10 Page 13 Keyword Selection ----------------- The Blue Wave Mail Door allows you to specify up to 10 different Keyword definitions. These keywords will be used during the mail scanning process to inform you of mail in an area which contains any one of the keyword definitions. To get the full use out of keywords, you must use The Blue Wave Bundling Commands, described later in the documentation. The Blue Wave Mail Door does nothing with the keywords unless you issue a bundling command instructing it how to handle keywords in certain areas. The best way to describe the use of keywords is with an example. Let's suppose that you are looking for Apple computer equipment to buy in the National For-Sale FidoNet Echo. Sometimes the FOR-SALE echo generates more than 200 messages per day. Instead of downloading all 200 messages, of which (possibly) 199 of them are of no interest to you, you may define the keyword APPLE. You would then be informed during the SCANNING process of all mail containing the keyword APPLE. By using the Blue Wave Bundling Commands, it is possible to ONLY bundle messages with the Keyword APPLE in them. This, of course, saves on-line time, and time you would have to spend paging through the numerous (UNWANTED) messages offline when using the reader. Naturally, there are many other uses to the Keywords option. The idea behind keywords is to let The Blue Wave Mail Door do the work for you! Filter Selection ---------------- Like Keywords, The Blue Wave Mail Door allows you to specify up to 10 FILTERS. Filters essentially work just the opposite of Keywords. During the door's SCANNING process, you are informed of messages that contain any of the Filters that you have defined. After the mail scan is complete, you can use The Blue Wave Bundling Commands to FILTER the messages that you do not want to receive. Again, the best way to describe the usefulness of Filters is with an example. Let's suppose that Joe Blow in the FidoNet C Programming Echo is consistently entering messages which contain false information, is constantly flaming others, and is being an all around nuisance. Although you really enjoy reading the C_ECHO, you get tired of seeing messages entered either from Joe Blow or to Joe Blow. By defining the Filter of JOE BLOW, you will be flagged if there are any messages containing the Filter. By using The Blue Wave Bundling Commands, you can then instruct The Blue Wave Mail Door NOT to bundle messages containing the Filter JOE BLOW. Please see the section titled "THE BLUE WAVE BUNDLING COMMANDS" for information on how to use your keyword and filter definitions. --------------------------------------------------------- The Blue Wave Offline Mail Door User Documentation, v3.10 Page 14 Macro Definitions ----------------- The Blue Wave Mail Door allows you to define up to 3 macros that can be used in the place of manually entering your bundling commands during each mail download session. The Blue Wave Bundling commands are described later in the documentation. For each macro that you define, you can tell the door whether or not it should automatically be executed after a mail scan. If you do NOT set the macro to auto-execute, you must enter "M1", "M2", or "M3" at the bundling command prompt for the macro to execute. If the macro is set to auto-execute, the door will execute the macro for you at the end of a mail scan. If your macro contains the bundling command "!", it will force the door to not prompt you for any bundling commands, but rather to immediately start packaging your mail. If your sysop has set up the system to allow "automatic downloads", the auto-execute function is also very handy. During an automatic download, you are never prompted for input by the door. The door performs a mail scan, bundles your mail, executes the download protocol, and exits back to the BBS system. Because of this, you do not have a chance to enter any bundling commands, unless they are defined in a macro that is set to auto-execute. Limit D/L Packet Size --------------------- If you are running with limited drive space, this option is extremely useful. If you define a maximum packet size of 100K, the door will stop bundling messages once the requested maximum packet size has been reached. The maximum packet size is the size of the UNCOMPRESSED mail bundle that the door is building. If you enable this option, you can ensure that the downloaded mail packet will fit onto the disk space you have available after the mail packet has been decompressed. When this option is enabled, the door will perform all of its functions as usual, until it gets to the mail packing stage. As the door gathers the mail and places it into your download packet, it monitors the packet's size to be sure that it does not exceed your specified size limit. When (if) the packet limit size is reached, the mail door sends a message to the screen indicating this fact, and then compresses the partial mail bundle for you to download. You can then immediately download another mail packet to gather the messages that were not packed during the previous mail bundling session. --------------------------------------------------------- The Blue Wave Offline Mail Door User Documentation, v3.10 Page 15 Set Password Options -------------------- The password or Secure option is unique to The Blue Wave Mail System. Although some may question its usefulness, there are several situations where you may wish to enable this feature. There are 4 levels of security offered: * Password prompting in the DOOR only. * Password prompting in the READER only. * Password prompting in the READER and DOOR. * No password prompting (Default). In a situation where you download sensitive areas from the BBS, and use The Blue Wave Offline Mail Reader on a machine that is shared by several other users, you may wish to add the secure option to the READER only. Each mail packet will be encrypted with a password. If a user tries to read a packet encrypted with a password, they will be prompted to enter it. If the user does not get the correct password after three tries, the reader will NOT allow them to read the mail packet. Another situation may occur where Father downloads sensitive mail, and does not wish for Daughter, Son, or Wife to read it. It may be useful to set the secure option in both the READER and DOOR, since it is possible that the family knows Father's BBS password. By prompting for a password when entering the door (obviously one that is different from the BBS password), he has another layer of security. Configuration Help ------------------ Displays a help screen which contains very abbreviated portions of this documentation so that you have a quick reference to the mail door's functions while you are online with the BBS. Quit to Main Menu ----------------- Selecting this option will leave the door's CONFIGURATION menu, and return you to the door's MAIN menu. --------------------------------------------------------- The Blue Wave Offline Mail Door User Documentation, v3.10 Page 16 THE MAIN MENU ------------- Each time you enter The Blue Wave Offline Mail Door, the first menu you encounter will be the door's MAIN menu. From here you can navigate to every part of the online mail system. Download New Mail ----------------- Selecting this menu option will cause the door to enter "Download Mode", and immediately begin a new mail scan. Documentation for performing mail downloads can be found in the section titled "DOWNLOADING THROUGH THE BLUE WAVE MAIL DOOR". Upload New Replies ------------------ Selecting this menu option will cause the door to enter "Upload Mode", and immediately request that you begin uploading the message reply packet created by The Blue Wave Offline Mail Reader, or another Blue Wave-compatible mail reader. Configuration Menu ------------------ Takes you to the mail door's online configuration menu, which was described in detail in the previous section of the documentation. Quit Back to BBS ---------------- Selecting this menu item will cause you to leave The Blue Wave Mail Door and return you to the BBS. Goodbye ------- NOTE: This item may or may not be available to you. The sysop or administrator has the ability to disable this menu item. Selecting this menu item will cause the mail door to disconnect you from the host BBS. You will no longer be connected to the BBS, and you can begin reading the mail you downloaded with your offline mail reader. Xpert Mode ---------- Offers a quick way to change the help level you receive through the menu system of the door without entering the door CONFIGURATION menu. --------------------------------------------------------- The Blue Wave Offline Mail Door User Documentation, v3.10 Page 17 DOWNLOADING THROUGH THE BLUE WAVE MAIL DOOR ------------------------------------------- After you have configured the mail door to your liking and you have chosen the message areas that you would like to recieve, it is time to actually download the mail packet. Immediately after you select D)ownload New Mail from the door's MAIN menu, the door begins to gather information about the BBS's message base and presents the information in tabular form. Below is a sample screen: Logon Name: Joe Blow Keyword Scan: ON Alias Name: Little Joey Filters Scan: OFF ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Area Status Total New Keywords Filter Personal # DL'ing ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 GENERAL Pers 100 7 0 0 0 0 2 PRIVATE Pers 257 1 0 0 1 1 3 NETMAIL New 129 0 0 0 0 0 4 FLINT P+All 98 17 4 0 0 17 23 CFORSALE P+All 200 199 19 0 0 86 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Grand 784 224 23 0 1 104 Totals Total New Keywords Filter Personal # DL'ing ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Please enter your Blue Wave bundling commands, R to Relist Scan Table, Q to abort, ? Command List, D)etailed Help or [ENTER] for ALL NEW mail : As you can see from this example, there is quite a bit of information presented during the mail scan. In this example, we are downloading 5 message areas. The first 2 message areas are being downloaded for PERSONAL messages only (notice the "Pers" under the "Status" column). The NETMAIL message area is being scanned for ALL new messages, and the last 2 message areas are being scanned for personal messages + messages addressed to "All". The "Total" column in the scan table refers to the TOTAL number of messages that the host system has stored in those particular message areas. Since this is a total count of the number of messages, there are most likely messages here that you have already read (if you have performed a mail download before). More often than not, the TOTAL column will not contain the same number of messages as listed in the NEW column. If the TOTAL and the NEW column contain the same number, it means that you have not read any of the messages in that particular message area. --------------------------------------------------------- The Blue Wave Offline Mail Door User Documentation, v3.10 Page 18 The numbers in the KEYWORDS and FILTERS column inform you of the number of messages that contained your defined set of words in each category. Note that the number in the KEYWORDS or the FILTERS column will never exceed the number in the NEW column. The number in the KEYWORDS and FILTERS column is the number of messages that were found within the new messages on the system. The number in the PERSONAL column tells you how many messages in each message area were addressed directly to you. Again, this number represents the number of personal messages within the new messages on the system. And finally, the # DL'ING column tells you how many messages the door has "queued" for download in each message area. In our example, you can see that the CFORSALE area (#23) contained 200 new messages, but the door has only queued 86 of them for download. This is because when the user turned the CFORSALE area on through the configuration menu, they chose to only download messages in the area that contained the word "All" in the TO: field, and his personal messages. Since the number in the "Personal" column is 0, we can safely assume that all 86 messages queued for download have been addressed to "All". The number displayed in the "# DL'ing" column will change as you issue bundling commands to the door to change the number of messages that will be sent from that particular message area. While we are discussing the mail scan screen, it would probably be helpful to know all of the possible phrases that appear in the "STATUS" column, along with an explanation of each. STATUS DESCRIPTION ---------------------------------------------------------------------- New - Indicates that the door is going to send ALL NEW messages in the message area. Pers - Indicates that the door will send only PERSONAL messages in the message area. P+All - Indicates that the door will send PERSONAL and messages TO: "All" in the message area. Kwds - Indicates that you issued a K<area> bundling command for the message area, and that only KEYWORD messages will be sent. Filt - Indicates that you issued a F<area> bundling command for the message area, and the door will not send FILTERed messages. L 20 - Indicates that you issued an <area#>L<#msgs> command for the message area, and only the last 20 messages will be sent. B 100 - Indicates that you issued an <area#>B<#msgs> command for the message area, and only the first 100 new msgs will be sent. Force - The message area has been FORCED by the sysop and you cannot issue any bundling commands for this area. None - The message area has been deselected from downloading by the use of a -<area#> bundling command. No msgs will be sent. --------------------------------------------------------- The Blue Wave Offline Mail Door User Documentation, v3.10 Page 19 After the mail scan has completed, the door is stopped at a command prompt, waiting for you to give it further instructions. The door is waiting for either a bundling command to be issued, or for one of the following selections: R - Pressing "R[ENTER]" will cause the door to redisplay the scan table in the case that some information has scrolled off of your screen. Q - Pressing "Q[ENTER]" will abort the mail download. The door will prompt you with an "Are you sure" question. If you choose to abort the mail download, you will be taken back to the door's MAIN menu. ? - Pressing "?[ENTER]" will cause the door to display a list of all of the bundling commands available to you. This is a very short display with a one-line description of the bundling commands. D - Pressing "D[ENTER]" will force the door to display a help screen containing a list of all bundling commands, and an example of each. This help screen contains much more detail than the previous help screen, and is several pages long. [ENTER] - Simply pressing [ENTER] will cause the door to begin a mail packet. The number of messages displayed in the "# DL'ing" column will be packed for each message area. After you have issued any bundling commands or have instructed the door to begin bundling by simply pressing the [ENTER] key, the mail system will immediately start packing your mail for download. You will see a status bar appear on the screen, much like a bar graph, that indicates the mail door's progress in the packing. When the mail door has finished packing your mail bundle, it will then scan the host BBS's file base for new files since your last mail download (if your sysop allows it, and you have told the door to do so). After a few seconds you will see the message: Mashing your mail with <YOUR SELECTED ARCHIVER>. One moment... At this point in time, the host system is compressing your mail packet into a compressed mail file for faster transmission. On some slower host systems, this process could take anywhere from a few seconds to several minutes. On faster systems, this process will probably take less than a minute, even on large download packets. --------------------------------------------------------- The Blue Wave Offline Mail Door User Documentation, v3.10 Page 20 When the mail system is done compressing your mail packet, you will be presented with a screen similar to the following: Your mail packet is ready for download! File Name: WILDBLUE.001 File Size: 106080 bytes Est. Time: 1:20 mins A)bort Download Session I)nstant logoff after transfer C)ountdown before logoff P)rotocol Change (YOUR PROTOCOL) [ENTER] to begin normal download Select: As you can see, the information at the top of the screen tells you the name of the mail packet you will be downloading, the size of the mail packet that was created, and an estimated transfer time of the mail packet. The five menu selections will be described below. Abort Download Session ---------------------- Selecting this option will cause the door to give you an "Are you sure" prompt. If you answer NO to the question, you will be given the same screen/menu again, and you can make another selection. If you answer YES (you want to abort the download session), the door will ask you the question "Mark the scanned messages as READ?". If you answer YES to this question, the door will update your lastread pointers, indicating that you have already read all of the messages that were packed for download. If you were to immediately begin another download session, the door would find 0 new messages for you. Answering NO to this question will not update your message pointers, and will return you to the door's MAIN menu. Instant Logoff After Transfer ----------------------------- NOTE: This option may not be available on all systems. Sysops and administrators can disable this menu option if they wish. Selecting this menu option will cause the door to immediately begin sending you the mail packet with the protocol that you have configured. If the download was successful, the door will then update your lastread message pointers and then log you off of the system. This is good for unattended download sessions. --------------------------------------------------------- The Blue Wave Offline Mail Door User Documentation, v3.10 Page 21 Countdown Logoff ---------------- NOTE: This option may not be available on all systems. Sysops and administrators can disable this menu option if they wish. Selecting this menu option will cause the door to immediately begin sending you the mail packet with the protocol that you have configured. If the download was successful, the door will then update yoru lastread message pointes and then give you a "Countdown before Logoff" screen. The door will count down for 10 seconds - if you press a key, the countdown will be aborted and you will not be logged off. If you do not press a key within 10 seconds, the door will assume that you do not wish to stay connected to the BBS, and log you off of the system. Protocol Change --------------- If you decide at the last minute that you cannot or do not wish to use the protocol that is displayed in parentheses, you can select this menu item. You will be presented with a list of all available protocols on the system. Simply choose a new protocol, and you will be returned to the menu shown above so that you can make another selection. [ENTER] to Begin Normal Download -------------------------------- To begin the download of your mail packet, just press the [ENTER] key. After a successful mail download, your message lastread pointers will be updated and you will be returned to the door's MAIN menu. At this point in time, you have completed a mail download session. That's all there is to it! In the following session we will go through the steps to upload reply packets, offline configurations, and file requests to The Blue Wave Mail Door. --------------------------------------------------------- The Blue Wave Offline Mail Door User Documentation, v3.10 Page 22 UPLOADING THROUGH THE MAIL DOOR ------------------------------- Uploading reply packets through The Blue Wave Offline Mail Door is even easier than performing a mail download. Immediately after selecting "Upload New Replies" from the mail door's MAIN menu, you will be prompted to begin the upload of your reply packet (which has been created by The Blue Wave Offline Mail Reader, or another Blue Wave-compatible mail system). You will use the same file transfer protocol that you have configured for downloading mail packets. Simply start your communications (terminal) program to upload the packet created by the reader (the reply packet will have the BBS's ID as the root name, and a .NEW file extension). If your upload is unsuccessful, the mail door will report "Unsuccessful Upload. Please try again." You can then press U from the main menu again to retry your upload. If your upload was successful, the door will immediately begin unpacking the reply bundle. Each message that you have entered through the reader will be placed into the appropriate message area on the BBS. For each message that is found in your reply packet, a status display will be generated on the screen. The display will include the information found in the FROM: field, the TO: field, the SUBJECT: field, and the network address (if it is a netmail message). The door will tell you which message number the message was saved as, and move on to the next message. It is possible that some kind of error will occur while processing your uploaded replies. The most common "error" will be the report of a "Duplicate Message". If you upload the same message(s) more than one time, you will see this reported to the screen. This is nothing to worry about, as the door will not import the duplicated message into the BBS's message base. After all of the uploaded messages have been processed, the door will then look to see if you performed an OFFLINE CONFIGURATION while in the reader. If there is an offline configuration to be performed, the door will do it for you at this time. Finally, the door will look for any files that you may have requested through your offline mail reader. If you did not request any files, you will be returned to the door's MAIN menu, and you can then continue with your online BBS session. If you have performed a file request through your offline mail reader, the door will begin processing your request at this point. The next section will describe the file request function in the door. --------------------------------------------------------- The Blue Wave Offline Mail Door User Documentation, v3.10 Page 23 File Requests ------------- If the door has received a file request in your mail upload packet, it will attempt to process it immediately after processing the rest of your reply packet. For each file you requested, a display will be shown indicating the file name, the file size, and the estimated transfer time of the file. After all of the files have been listed, the door will generate a total number of files requested, the total size of all files requested, and an estimated transfer time for all of the files requested. You will then be presented with the following prompt: Do you want to perform the download NOW? Answering 'Y' will transfer the files now, Answering 'N' will transfer the files with your mail download, Answering 'Q' will abort this file request session. Select: Answering 'Y' or 'Q' at this prompt will perform the desired function. Answering 'N' at this prompt will "queue" the files for download during your mail download session. In order for this to be successful, you MUST perform a mail download during the same mail session. You cannot exit the door, return later, and still download the requested files. Once you leave the door, the files are no longer queued for you. --------------------------------------------------------- The Blue Wave Offline Mail Door User Documentation, v3.10 Page 24 THE BLUE WAVE BUNDLING COMMANDS ------------------------------- Probably the single-most powerful feature of The Blue Wave Mail Door is the ability to dynamically select messages for download using The Blue Wave Bundling Commands. New users to the mail door often get confused and do not understand the use or concept of using these commands. This is unfortunate, as this ability is very powerful, convenient, and can save you massive amounts of online time. And, after you understand the concept of the bundling commands (and how they can be used effectively), they really are very simple to use. With the exception of the "B" bundling command and the "L" bundling command, all of the bundling commands take the same form. The first part of the bundling command is the ACTION to take on a certain message area, and the second part of the command is the area in which to perform the desired action. Let's take it one step at a time and list each of the bundling command letters, and the action that they perform. SYMBOL ACTION ---------------------------------------------------------------------- - Deselects a message area from the scan list. When this command is used on an area, NO messages in the area will be packed for download. + Reselects a message area from the scan list. When this command is used on an area, ALL NEW messages in the area will be packed for download. A Tells the door that you only want to download PERSONAL msgs, and those messages that are addressed to "All". This action is the same as defining an area as P+ALL at the config menu. B Tells the door that you only want the BEGINNING 'n' number of messages to be downloaded from a particular message area. E Tells the door to "clean the slate" or ERASE all previous bundling commands for the area. The area is returned to its original state before any bundling commands were issued. F Tells the door that you want to FILTER the messages in a particular message area. Any message that contains one of your defined FILTERS will not be packed in your mail packet. K Forces the door to only send PERSONAL messages, and those messages containing any of your defined KEYWORDS. L Instructs the door to bundle only the last 'n' number of messages in a particular message area. M Instructs the door to execute Macro #'n'. You can define bundling command macros from the door's CONFIGURATION menu. P Tells the door that you only want to get PERSONAL messages in a particular message area. N Instructs the door to NOT update lastread pointers in a particular message area. U Forces an update of the lastreads in an area (DEFAULT). --------------------------------------------------------- The Blue Wave Offline Mail Door User Documentation, v3.10 Page 25 Each of the symbols described on the previous page requires the "second part" of the command to be used properly. The "second part" of the command, as described on the previous page, is simply the area number to perform the action on. For instance, let's take the example mail scan screen that we used earlier: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Area Status Total New Keywords Filter Personal # DL'ing ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 GENERAL Pers 100 7 0 0 0 0 2 PRIVATE Pers 257 1 0 0 1 1 3 NETMAIL New 129 0 0 0 0 0 4 FLINT P+All 98 17 4 0 0 17 23 CFORSALE P+All 200 199 19 0 0 86 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Grand 784 224 23 0 1 104 Totals Total New Keywords Filter Personal # DL'ing ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Let's suppose that we are looking for a particular item through the CFORSALE echo. Let's say we're looking for FAX machines or FAX modems. Therefore, we have gone to the configuration menu earlier and defined the keyword of "FAX". We will also assume this is the only keyword that we have defined. We can see from the above table that the CFORSALE echo contains 19 messages that have the word FAX in them. Since we are running short on time today, we only want to download those 19 messages that contain the word FAX in them in the CFORSALE echo, plus the 17 messages in FLINT and the 1 message in PRIVATE. Therefore, I could issue the door the following bundling command: K23 The "K" part looks familiar. It simply tells the door to perform keyword-only bundling on area #23. More than one bundling command can be issued at one time, too. Suppose we wanted the same KEYWORD messages in area #23, but we also wanted ALL NEW messages in area #4, instead of just Personal+All messages. We could enter the following bundling command: K23 +4 The + tells the door to remove the "P+All" status for the area, and instead download ALL NEW messages in the area. The K23 has the same effect as before. As you can see, you can enter as many bundling commands at the prompt as will fit. With the flexibility of the mail bundling commands, you can easily build custom mail packets. --------------------------------------------------------- The Blue Wave Offline Mail Door User Documentation, v3.10 Page 26 As mentioned before, all of the mail bundling commands take the same form except for the "L" and the "B" commands. These commands need an additional parameter given to them, since they tell the door explicitly HOW MANY messages you want to receive. The 'B' Bundling Command ------------------------ The 'B' bundling command takes the first 'n' number of messages in the message area AFTER your lastread pointer. Therefore, when you use this command, you will always receive the first 'n' messages in the area that you have not yet read. Let's examine the bundling command "23B100". This command instructs the door to bundle the BEGINNING 100 messages in area #23. Or, to rephrase it, "In area #23, I want the beginning 100 messages". As you can see, the 'B' bundling command takes the form <area#>B<#of msgs>. When the door updates your lastread pointers for an area that was issued a 'B' bundling command, it only marks the last message that was downloaded as being read. Any messages that you did not receive because of this command are left as "unread", and you can download them on a subsequent mail download. The 'L' Bundling Command ------------------------ The 'L' bundling command is very similar to the 'B' command described above. The 'L' command instructs the door to bundle the LAST 'n' number of messages in the message area. The bundling command "17L50" would take the LAST 50 messages in area #17 and pack them into your mail download. It tells the door, "In area #17, I want only the last 50 messages". The 'L' bundling command does not care what your lastread message pointer is in the area. If the door only displays to you that there are 50 NEW messages in area #77, but there are 500 TOTAL messages in area #77, a bundling command of "77L500" would take all of the messages in the area and place them into your packet for downloading. With the special modifier, the '*' symbol, you can download ALL messages in an area, regardless of lastread pointer. For example, "56L*" would download all messages in area #56. Using the command "*L*", you would be able to download ALL messages that have been scanned in EVERY message area. More information regarding the '*' modifier is given on the next page. Whenever the 'L' bundling command is used, the door updates your lastread pointer in the affected areas to the LAST message in the message base. --------------------------------------------------------- The Blue Wave Offline Mail Door User Documentation, v3.10 Page 27 The '*' Modifier ---------------- The '*' modifier tells the mail door to perform the desired action on ALL areas that are listed on the scan table. For instance, a bundling command of "F*" would filter messages in ALL areas. A command of "K*" would download only KEYWORDS in all message areas. The '*' modifier is supplied to make global changes to your scan list quickly and easily. But, what if you want to perform an action on all areas EXCEPT area #23? In area #23 you want to download ALL messages, but in all of the other areas you simply want only personal messages, and those messages addressed to "All". The bundling command you would issue is: A* +23 For all areas, the P+All status will be set, and then for area number 23, you want the default action of ALL NEW messages. If you keep and open mind and do not let the bundling commands confuse you, they can be a very powerful tool. The '!' Modifier ---------------- Normally, after you issue a bundling command, the door will process the command, compute a new download message total, and return you to the prompt for you to enter more bundling commands. The '!' command tells the door that you have finished entering your commands, and you are ready to begin downloading your mail. If you entered the following command at the prompt: A* +23 ! The door would not stop to ask you for more input. It understands that those are the only bundling commands you want to issue, and it begins packing the messages immediately. Bundling Command Considerations ------------------------------- There are a few things to keep in mind about how the bundling commands operate. Understanding certain things about the bundling commands will make them easier to work with. Bundling commands are evaluated from LEFT to RIGHT. If you entered the command "-23 A17 +23", you would find that the door saw the -23 command first, evaluated the A17, and then performed the +23 command. Therefore, you WOULD have received all new messages in area number 23. --------------------------------------------------------- The Blue Wave Offline Mail Door User Documentation, v3.10 Page 28 The next thing to keep in mind regarding the bundling commands is that you can only have one 'action' being performed on an area at any one time. Unfortunately, due to a limitation of The Blue Wave Mail Door, a command of "K* F*" would only FILTER messages in all areas. You cannot yet have KEYWORDS and FILTERS performed on the same message area. In a similar way, you cannot only download "P+All" messages, and still have them FILTERED. There are some commands that just do not make sense when used together. For example, it doesn't make sense to ask the door for KEYWORD and PERSONAL messages only in an area. (A P<area> and a K<area> command). Because the behaviour of the KEYWORD action includes bundling PERSONAL messages, this is not a real concern. WARNING: If you are already thoroughly confused, reading the next two paragraphs will do nothing to extend your life expectancy. If your head is already spinning, please skip reading the rest of this section. [Seriously.] We cannot be held responsible for medical bills resulting from exposure to the following material. Of course, to every rule there must be an exception. The "strange" bundling command 'N' will cause the door NOT to update message pointers for a particular message area. Offhand I can think of very few uses for this action, but there have been instances where creative people have used it. Since the sign on my desk reads "Creativeness stops here", I can't for the life of me think of why they needed this bundling command. Anyway, on to the exception to the rule. You can issue the bundling command "P23 N23" to get only PERSONAL messages in a message area, *and* to NOT UPDATE the message read pointers. The 'N' command can be used in combination with *any* of the bundling commands, except for the 'U' bundling command (which FORCES an update of the message pointers). [Can you say "Viscious Circle"?] If you've *really* mucked up your scan list with a bunch of bundling commands, you do not have to go to the extreme of quitting the mail scan and starting over. Simply issue an "E*" bundling command, which clears ALL previous modifications and lets you get a good night's sleep. Another way is to press the <Alt-H> key in your terminal program, lay back, turn on that soothing "Ocean Sounds" CD you've never been daring enough to open, and try again tomorrow. The Blue Wave Mail Door will recognize that fact that you have dropped carrier and exit back to the BBS so the next fool can try his or her fate. --------------------------------------------------------- The Blue Wave Offline Mail Door User Documentation, v3.10 Page 29 IN CONCLUSION ------------- If you have actually read this far into the documentation without falling asleep, not only do you deserve one heck of a long nap, but you are also eligible to receive "The Blue Wave Medal of Honour". You can receive your special award by sending $19.95 plus $29.95 shipping and handling to the address shown on your screen. You will be the envy of all your neighbors, friends, and colleagues. On a more serious note, it is hoped that this documentation will help you understand the full potential of The Blue Wave Offline Mail Door, and help you to use the mail door effectively. Cutting Edge Computing is always interested in hearing your suggestions for improvement. Most of the features of the mail system have come directly from user suggestions. We hope to hear your suggestions, too. --------------------------------------------------------- The Blue Wave Offline Mail Door User Documentation, v3.10 Page 30