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 10œ 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 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 + Moves you to the next area with messages. Previous area + Moves you to the previous area with messages. Jump to message + J With this you can jump to a particular message number in the current message area. Reply + 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 ++ R Reply to the message you are reading, but to another message area. This option works only in a registered version. Write message + W Write a message to the current area. Export message ++ E Exports the current message to a file. (plain ascii) Will ask whether to apppend or overwrite, if the same file exists. ... to clipboard + V Exports the current message to clipboard. List own + 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 + 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 + 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 ++ 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 ++ 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 ++ 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 ++ 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 ++ 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 ++ 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 10œ 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. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *