Just What Is QWKE Anyway?
                                By Ralph Kosmiski

  If you are familiar with offline mail doors and readers, you are pretty much
  aware of the fact that QWK has serious limitations.  There are some software
  developers that have maneuvered their way around these limitations, however,
  they use a proprietary mail packet format that isn't usable by other readers
  and doors.  Sure,  these may be nice products, and their proprietary formats
  may have overcome these limitations, but what about the user who already has
  a registered mail reader that doesn't support this format, or simply doesn't
  have the free hard disk space to add another reader?.....The answer is QWKE!
  Try to load one of  these proprietary format mail packets  into a QWK reader
  and see what happens. You might as well not have even downloaded the packet.
  With QWKE, the packet is still readable by standard QWK mail readers and the
  limitations of QWK are gone forever!

         The main differences between QWKE and QWK mail packet formats:

                                                                   QWKE    QWK
                                                                   ----    ---
  Names and subject lines longer than 25 characters allowed?       YES     NO

  Tells the reader if an area is Echo, Net, Local, UUCP, UseNet?   YES     NO

  Tells the reader if Alias, Real, or both names are allowed?      YES     NO

  Tells the reader if Public, Private, or both messages allowed?   YES     NO

  Tells the reader if file attachments in an area are allowed?     YES     NO

  Descriptive names of mail packet bulletin screens?               YES     NO

  Tells the reader what the user's alias name is on that system?   YES     NO

  Remote KEYWORD, language FILTER, and user TWIT control?          YES     NO

  Tells the reader all user settings for a given message area?     YES     NO

  Tells the reader if an area is "Read Only"                       YES     NO

  This is only a small cross section of QWKE's capabilities. Depending on the
  door and reader, developers can take the possibilities even further yet and
  still retain total backward compatibility with QWK. Sure, developers of the
  proprietary mail packet formats can do the same, but bastardizing someone's
  reader or door program which they have already registered is far from being
  a kind business practice don't you think? Other functions such as last read
  pointer manipulation, file requests, file attachments, etc are all standard
  features amongst QWKE and QWK products, however - all programs handle these
  functions slightly different from one another.  Still, there is no need for
  a proprietary mail packet format to  provide functionality and features for
  your users.

  If you really want to do your users a favor, by providing functionality and
  and features without alienating anyone or the programs they own,  then QWKE
  is the answer! If you want to be inconsiderate of your users needs and what
  they can do online or remotely, then give them QWK or a proprietary format!