
                   Kivi QWK reader v1.16 (30.12.1994)
                   ---------------

            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 wan't 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 FMK, 25DM or 80ff 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 6C 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.
          Then you have to start the reader and configure it. Go to
        the 'Options' menu and select 'General'. If you're using a
        mono monitor, deactivate the 'Use colors' switch. Then select
        the 'Packers' item, again from the 'Options' menu. Now 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 
        have already configured Kivi? 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.
           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.


       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.


       Open window            ^O

        If you have closed Kivi QWK's main window, you can open it 
        with this.

      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.


       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 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,
        whit that you can toggle the private status of the message.
        You can put it into another area by putting another number to 
        the 'area:' place. Kivi QWK loads then the editor you've
        defined and will give the message you are replying to as text
        with the ">" or whatever you have chosen to be the quote
        charcter, at the start of each line.


       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)


       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 cliking on
        the path, you can select it with the fileselector. These
        default to the path where Kivi QWK was when it was executed.

        Path for work dirs:
           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
           packet gets 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

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

        Quote char:
           This is the character, which will be placed on every line
           you quote from the message you reply to. The default
           character is '>'.

        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.

        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 windows. Searches for
           the environment variable TOSRUN, and runs the specified
           program. Works with Miniwin and TOSwin.

        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.

        Tab size:
           The number of spaces, that tabulator characters are 
           converted to.

        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!

           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 shink boxes etc, that are used in Kivi QWK's
        windows.


       Save Options           <shift>+<control>+ S

        This saves the current setup to disk.



      3.5  Window            ^W

        With the only item at the moment in this menu, you can cycle
        through the Kivi QWK's windows.



      3.6  Sort

           With these you can sort the messages by the from:, to: or
        subject fields. They're sorted into an alphabetical order.



      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 siganture 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 1.16 *". 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. 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 60FMK or 25DM or 80ff and
        your name and address (and if you have an e-mail address,
        that too) to:

                    Arto Jalkanen
                    Everstinkuja 6C 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
         You can always find the latest version of Kivi QWK there,
         and also the author, Arto Jalkanen, can be reached there.

