

                   Kivi QWK reader v1.21 (11.01.1995)
                   ---------------


            Contents:

    1  Offline readers
        What is offline reading?

    2  Kivi QWK reader
       2.1 The idea
       2.2 Shareware
       2.3 Installation
       2.4 A quick start tutorial

    3  Menus
       3.1 Kivi QWK
       3.2 File
       3.3 Activity
          Movement
          Commands
          Your messages
       3.4 Options
       3.5 Window
       3.6 Help

    4  Other features

       4.1 Signature
       4.2 Taglines



   1  Offline readers


    1.1  What is offline reading?

           The idea of offline-reading is to save online time. You
        don't have to spend so much time on the BBS and so you will
        save in phonebills. The system is simple, you just call a
        BBS and ask it to send your messages as a file. After you've
        downloaded the message-packet, you just start your offline-
        reader and load the messages into it. Then you can read them,
        and reply to the messages, if you want to and then send the
        reply packet back to the BBS.
           The most common offline reader-type is QWK. It is sup-
        ported by nearly every BBS nowadays. There's also a few other,
        not so commonly used offline-types: OMEN and MBBS.

        This is where Kivi QWK comes in.




   2  Kivi QWK


    2.1

           The Original idea behind Kivi QWK was to make a good
        MultiTOS compatible QWK-reader, since the existing QWK readers
        didn't work with MultiTOS.
           Kivi QWK is supposed to be an easy-to-use, MultiTOS and
        generally everything else compatible, very stable and well
        documented QWK-reader.



    2.2  Shareware

           Kivi QWK is shareware. This means that the program can be
        freely spread, copied and tested, but if you continue using
        this program, you have to register. You should register by
        sending 60 FIM, 10 GBP, 25DM, 80ff, 15USD or 10 and your name
        and address to the author, Arto Jalkanen. He will then send you
        the personal registration key file and possibly the latest
        version of Kivi. When you have the key file, Kivi QWK will not
        display the info dialog and therefore you don't have to look at
        that horrifying face every time you start Kivi QWK. (The author
        thinks that, that might be a good reason to register :) ) If you
        have access to Internet, please tell your e-mail address, because
        it would be safer to send the key via Internet. 
        You can always find the latest version of Kivi QWK in:
               Limited Infinity BBS
               +358 (9)73 311465     v.32bis

        Send the registration to:

                    Arto Jalkanen
                    Everstinkuja 6 C 45
                    02600 Espoo
                    Finland


        You can also transfer money direct to my bank account.
        Unfortunately, because of bank fees, you have to
        transfer 80 finnish marks (FIM), instead of normal 60 FIM.
        Transfer money to:
                    SWIFT PSPB FIHH
                    800027-11955186
                    Arto Jalkanen 6 C 45
                    02600 Espoo
                    Finland

    2.3  Installation

           Installing Kivi QWK is very easy, you just need to put
        the files, KIVI.PRG and KIVI.RSC, in the same directory.
        And KIVI.PRG doesn't have to have the same name, you can
        change it to .APP, .GTP or even to something else, like
        ABC.APP.
          Then you have to start the reader and configure it. Go to
        the 'Options' menu and select 'General'. If you're using a
        color monitor, activate the 'Use colors' switch. Then select
        the 'Packers' item, again from the 'Options' menu. Now double
        click on the 'Path' of a packer. You get a fileselector, and
        you should find the packer and select it. Of course put Lharc,
        Zip and Arc to their corresponding paths. You can also type
        the complete path and filename of the packer.
           Now select 'Editor' from the 'Options' menu. Click on the
        'Path'-item, and put your favourite text (ascii) editors path
        and filename in there.
           Now you are ready to load your QWK packet.
        Other options can be changed, but these are necessary for the
        reader to function properly. If you want to change other
        options, read the chapter 3.4 'Options menu'.


    2.4  A quick start to reading and replying

           First you have to download a QWK packet from a BBS, and
        how it's done, depands on the BBS software used. Read the
        help files of the BBS and if you still don't know how to
        download a packet, ask the SysOp for help.
           After you've downloaded the packet, start Kivi QWK (You
        did configure Kivi, didn't you? If not, read chapter 2.3).
        Now select the 'Load packet..." item in the File menu. You get
        a fileselector, and now you should select the QWK packet
        you've downloaded. Kivi QWK identifies the packer used in the
        packet and executes the right packer to depack the files.
        After the depacking Kivi reads the files and then opens a
        window containing the message area names and number of
        messages and unread messages in the areas. Now select an area
        by moving the cursor on an area, where there is messages and
        pressing enter, or by double clicking on a name with the
        mouse.
           Now you get a list of messages in the area you just
        selected. You can see there the sender, receiver and the
        subject of the message. Now select a message by moving the
        cursor on it with the cursor keys and pressing enter, or
        double click on a message with the mouse. You can get back to
        the list of the areas by pressing <ESC> or clicking on the
        close box of the window.
           Now let's try to reply to that message. Select the Reply
        item in the Activity menu, then you get a dialog box
        containing your name, the receivers name and the subject of
        the message. Just leave all those alone and press the OK
        button. Now the editor you've chosen is loaded and the message
        you're replying to is given with the quote characters in the
        beginning of every line. Now write your reply, and save the
        text and exit the editor. You can now see the messages in the
        'Own messages' window by selecting List own in th activity
        menu.



   3  Menus


    3.1  Kivi

     Info...

        Here is the (famous) info dialog of Kivi QWK.

       And then below are the possible accessories you've loaded, and
       possibly the programs of a multi tasking operating system.



    3.2  File

     Load packet            ^L

        With this you load a new QWK packet into the reader. This
        always destroys old messages. But if you have replies, that
        haven't been packed, Kivi will ask if you want to destroy
        them.


     Pack replies           ^P

        Packs the replies you have written, so you can upload them
        back to the BBS.


     Unpack replies         ^U

        This unpacks your reply packet, so you can view and edit the
        messages you have written.


    BBS files

     Bulletins              ^B

        If the BBS has put bulletins into your QWK packet, you can
        read them here.


     BBS news               ^N

        In here are the BBS news, that the BBS's QWK system can put
        into your QWK packet.


     New files              ^F

        Here you can look at the list of new files in the BBS since
        you called there the last time.


     Clean work-dirs

        With this you can clean the work directories, meaning that you
        have to load again the QWK packet to read it.


     Re scan work dirs

        This reads the contents of the work dirs again, so you get the
        messages in the original order, if you've sorted them.


     Quit                   ^Q

        Quit the reader, obviously.



    3.3  Activity

     Next area              <shift>+<arrow right>

        Moves you to the next area with messages.


     Previous area          <shift>+<arrow left>

        Moves you to the previous area with messages.


     Jump to message        <alternate>+ J

        With this you can jump to a particular message number in the
        current message area.


     Reply                  <alternate>+ R

        Reply to the message you are viewing. You get a dialog box
        containing your name, the receivers name and the subject of
        the message. There's also a 'Private message' button in there,
        which toggles the private status of the message. You can put
        your reply into another area by putting another number to
        the 'area:' place.


     Reply to               <shift>+<alternate>+ R

        Reply to the message you are reading, but to another message
        area. This option works only in a registered version.


     Write message          <alternate>+ W

        Write a message to the current area.


     Export message         <shift>+<alternate>+ E

        Exports the current message to a file. (plain ascii) Will ask
        whether to apppend or overwrite, if the same file exists.


     ... to clipboard       <alternate>+ V

        Exports the current message to clipboard.


     List own               <alternate>+ L

        Lists the messages you have written, and which are to the same
        BBS, from where the QWK-packet is and which are still unpacked
        in the 'reply' directory.


     Edit message           <alternate>+ E

        When viewing your written messages, you can still edit them
        with this. Brings up a dialog box, in which are the From:, To:
        and Subject: -fields. You can edit the To: -field, but the
        From: -field is your name, which is obtained from the BBS,
        when you get the QWK packet. Press the Edit -button in this
        dialog to edit the message.


     Kill message           <alternate>+ K

        When viewing your own messages, you can kill them, so they
        won't be sent to the BBS.



    3.4  Options menu

     Work paths             <shift>+<control>+ W

        In this dialog, there is three editable paths. By double-
        clicking on the path, you can select it with the fileselector.
        These default to the path where Kivi QWK was when it was started.

        Path for work and reply directories:
           In this directory Kivi QWK will create two directories,
           WORK and REPLY. WORK is for storing the contents of the QWK
           packet you read and in REPLY will be the messages you
           write.

        Default path for QWK-packet:
           From this path Kivi searches for QWK packets, and if a
           packet is found, it will be depacked and loaded into the
           reader. (This path might be your download path, so the
           packets get loaded straight away)

        Path for QWK reply packet:
           To this directory Kivi will create the .REP packet, which
           contains the messages you write and want to upload to the
           BBS. (This might be your upload path)


     General                <shift>+<control>+ G


        Use colors:
           If this is selected, Kivi will use colors. It can use a
           maximum of 16 colors.

        Inverted:
           If selected, displays white text on black background.
           Otherwise the default colors are used. (usually white
           background and black text)

        Clear workdir:
           If selected, clears the WORK directory after you have
           packed your replies. Otherwise it only cleans the REPLY
           directory.

        Use TOSRUN:
           Tries to run .TOS & .TTP programs in a window. Searches for
           the environment variable TOSRUN, and runs the specified
           program. Works with Miniwin and TOSwin. (With MultiTOS this
           works automatically)

        Use signature:
           If selected, tries to load a file called KIVI.SIG and add
           the contents of it to the end of each of your messages.
           Read more about signatures in chapter 4.1.

        Only areas /w messages:
           Shows only the areas in the main window, that have
           messages.

        Ask kill msg.:
           Confirms the killing of one of your own messages, do that
           you don't kill them accidently.

        Use small header:
           Use a smaller font no the header (the place, where the
           subject, sender, receiver etc. information is located)

        Format reply:
           Replies that you write, will be formatted by the reader, so
           that the text fits into 80 columns.


        Tab size:
           Every time a tab character is encountered in the message,
           it will be converted to n number of spaces. (0 <= n <= 99)

        Quote character:
           Defines the character, that is added to the beginning of
           every line into the message which you reply to, when you go
           to the editor. Default is '>'.

        Use taglines:
              Taglines work only in registered versions of Kivi QWK.
              So register your copy!
              Read more about taglines in chapter 4.2.

           Select - lets you to select a tagline, if a tag file is
                    present at the same directory as Kivi QWK.
           Random - Kivi QWK selects a random tagline from the tagline
                    file.
           No     - No taglines are used.


     Packers                <shift>+<control>+ P

        In this dialog is the definition of packers. The packer you
        can use, are: Lharc, Zip and Arc. There is three option lines
        for each of the packers and they are:

          Path:
           Full path and filename of the packer.
          Pack parameters:
           These parameters will be sent to the packer when packing
           replies. The default setting that is there should work OK,
           but if you want to change it, there is two macros you have
           to use and they are: %I will be replaced by the input
                                   file(s).
                                %O will be replaced by the output
                                   file(s).


     Editor                 <shift>+<control>+ E

        In here you give the path of the editor you want to use for
        editing the messages. Again by double clicking on the path
        you get the fileselector, so you don't have to type the path
        and the filename. In the parameters field you may put the
        parameters that are passed to the editor when it's started.
        And %i means the filename in it.


     Font                   <shift>+<control>+ F

        In this dialog you can set up the font that is used in the
        message text. If you have GDOS (SpeedoGDOS/NVDI) installed,
        you can select other fonts, otherwise you can only select the
        font size.


     Window

        In here you can set up the window gadgets, eg. the scrollbars,
        the full- and shrink boxes etc, that Kivi uses in it's
        windows.


     Save Options           <shift>+<control>+ S

        This saves the current option setup to disk.



    3.5  Window

     Cycle                  ^W

        You can cycle through Kivi QWK's currently open windows with
        this. (Note that most of the dialog boxes are in a window)

     Close                  ^C

        With this you can close the currently active window.

     Open                   ^O

        You can open the main window of Kivi QWK with this.



    3.6  Sort

     By From:

        Sorts the messages into an alphebetical order by the from:
        -field. (eg. by the senders's names )

     By To:

        Same as above, but sorts by the To: -field. (eg. by the
        receivers's names)

     By Subject:

        Again same as above, but sorts by the subject: -field.

     By Date:

        Sorts the messages by their dates. (Oldest to newest)


    3.7  Help              [HELP]

           In here are the keyboard shortcuts for reading the
        messages.  This is for all those those who don't read
        documentation.




   4  Other features

    4.1  Signature

           You can specify, if you want to use a signature, in the
        General -set up. A signature file is added to the end of
        your messages. If you want to use them, you have to create a
        textfile called kivi.sig containing the signature. Or if you
        want to use different signatures in different BBS's, you
        should create the file by the qwk-packet name of the BBS, for
        example Limited Infinity BBS's QWK packet is called LTD_8.QWK
        and so you'd create a signature file called LTD_8.SIG for that
        BBS.


    4.2  Taglines

           Taglines are short texts that can be added to the end of
        your messages, and they usually are on the line in which the
        QWK reader puts it's name, like Kivi QWK's line:
        "* Kivi 1.21 *". You can put some text in this line, and, as
        you see, it has to be quite short, so that it fits on the
        screen. Taglines can be funny, informative or just compete
        bullshit (most are the latter). Taglines in Kivi QWK are taken
        from a file called KIVI.TAG. Or if you want to use different
        taglines in different BBS's, you should create the file by the
        qwk-packet name of the BBS (see Signatures for example).
        All lines should have a carriage return at the end. And don't
        make too long taglines, because they won't be shown complitely
        on the screen.




   Kivi QWK is shareware!                        Kivi QWK is shareware!

        To get the registration key, send 60FIM or 10GBP or 25DM
        or 15USD or 80ff or 10 and your name and address (and if you
        have an e-mail address, that too) to:

                    Arto Jalkanen
                    Everstinkuja 6 C 45
                    02600 Espoo
                    Finland


         Internet address: artoj@mits.mdata.fi

         Or contact:
             Limited Infinity BBS          -the home of Kivi QWK
             +358 (9)73 311465   v.32bis   24H
         You can always find the latest version of Kivi QWK there,
         and also the author, Arto Jalkanen, can be reached there.





     * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
         Read this!    Read this!    Read this!    Read this!
      * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
     The author is not responsible in any way of any damage
     caused by this program. The responsibility is (as always)
     yours and yours alone.
     * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
