POW - Powerline Offline reader for Windows v1.20 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Minimum System Requirements ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ IBM AT 286 Compatible or better. (VBRUN300.DLL Dated 12-May-93 for 286) 3Mb Memory minimum, preferably 4Mb or more. (POW uses about 1Mb of Windows memory plus another 1Mb for Spell Checker) Windows v3.1. Approx 400k HD space for program etc. not including VBRUN300.DLL or data. Terminal and Arial Fonts must be installed in Windows. BBS Settings ~~~~~~~~~~~~ The BBS must be set up to provide QWK files as follows:- Packet type - QWK Archiver - ZIP Index Files (.NDX) - ON CONTROL.DAT - ON Usually the default. DOOR.ID - ON Gives info needed to send messages to BBS. POW will display the following, if turned on in the BBS mail door:- Bulletins News NewFiles Welcome Goodbye Session Text Attachments must be enabled for the File Request feature Late News ~~~~~~~~~ This is an update of POW, adding new features plus some minor bug fixes. Internet EMail support has been improved to cover changes in format in some mail doors and now includes both "To:" and "Subject" lines in the reply if too long for the normal QWK format. Replies to Internet Newsgroups are also supported. Support has been added for the new wcMail door including File Requests and extra-long messages. More Advanced Options have been provided by directly editing POW.INI outside POW, including an option to run PKZIP/PKUNZIP iconised. See POW.WRI or on-line help. A couple of extra features have been added in the registered version:- Auto tagline selection including Preset, Sticky, Sequential, Random. Multiple copies of messages may be sent to a list of recipients. A list of Error and Warning messages is now included in POW.WRI (p19) and the on-line help. For a list of changes see HISTORY.TXT. ___________________________________________________________________________ The internal editor will recognise SpelMate spelling checker if appropriate files are found in your WINDOWS directory (SPELMATE.DLL and dictionaries). Text in the edit box is spell checked except for quoted text which is left alone (etiquette suggests that text quoted from another msg should not be altered other than formatting). SpelMate requires about 1Mb extra memory. SPELMATE.DLL is supplied in POW120.ZIP, and the dictionaries are provided in either POWDUK.ZIP (British spelling) or POWDUS.ZIP (American spelling). If you are upgrading POW and have been using the Shareware program SpelMate by James Herron (Aciran Software), you will not need to download the POW dictionaries as POW will use your existing dictionaries. The Shareware Principle. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ POW is released under the Shareware principle. You may use the program for up to 60 days for evaluation. You must register POW if you continue to use it after the evaluation period. Registration will remove the opening and closing Shareware registration reminders, and provide funds to allow continued development of POW. Registered users will receive high priority for suggestions for improvements and extra help with any problems. Registered users also have access to the extra Tagline Options and Group Messages. When passing POW on to others or uploading please include all files in the ZIP without modification. Registered users:- Do NOT distribute the POW.INI file containing your registration details. For registration details please see POW.WRI or the on-line Help. Registration forms are provided in DOS and Windows format text. The Windows form may be accessed from within POW and completed/printed. Also, available from ProgMan Group if Automatic Installation used. Registration addresses for UK and USA are provided. A registration code is sent to you which removes the registration reminder screens. Also, the words "On trial" in the tagline of messages you write are replaced by your registered serial number and the extra Tagline Options enabled, providing Preset, Sticky, Sequential and Random tagline selection. In addition there is the facility to send copies of messages to multiple recipients using a simple list of names and conferences. Free updates. See POW.WRI (p21) for more details. The following files should be found in POW.ZIP:- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ POW files:- POW.EXE The POW program. POW.HLP Help file in Windows Help format. POW.WRI Documentation in Windows Write format. POW.ICO Alternative icon for launching POW from Program Manager. ReadMe.TXT Last minute changes and other information. (This file) Register.ASC Registration form in DOS text format. Register.TXT Registration form in Windows text format. File_ID.DIZ Description of POW for BBS file lists. Taglines.POW Some sample Taglines. Put it in the Data directory. (PD) Private.Dic Personal dictionary - a few extra words to get you going. History.TXT Update history. POWUNZIP.PIF Windows PIF to use PKUNZIP in a window. POWZIP.PIF Windows PIF to use PKZIP in a window. Shared files required by POW:- SpelMate.DLL Spelling Checker library. GRID.VBX Visual Basic Grid library. Goes in Windows\System dir. CMDIALOG.VBX VB interface to Windows Common Dialogs. Auto Installation files:- SETUP.EXE Windows SETUP program for automatic installation. SETUP.LST List of files required by SETUP.EXE. POWSETUP.EXE POW specific installation. VER.DL_ Version checking for file installation. SETUPKIT.DLL SETUP library. OLECLI.DLL OLE Client library. Taglines playing on the initials of POW were kindly supplied by Bob Aldridge a Beta tester and one of the first to register POW. Thanks Bob. Other files/programs required:- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If you are not already using SpelMate and wish to check the spelling in your messages/replies, you will need to obtain either POWDUK.ZIP or POWDUS.ZIP which contain the dictionaries (see Late News above). After unzipping, copy or move the dictionaries to the Windows directory (not System dir). POW uses COMMDLG.DLL (Windows DLL for Common Dialogs) which is provided with Windows 3.1 onwards and should be in your Windows\System directory. (Windows dir for shared Windows systems on networks). You will also need a copy of VBRUN300.DLL, the Visual Basic v3.0 runtime library plus PKZIP.EXE & PKUNZIP.EXE v2. These may be obtained from most Bulletin Boards. The VBRUN300.DLL file should be put in the Windows\System directory (or Windows directory on shared Windows setups on networks). The version dated 12-May-93 (or later) is required for a 286 computer (bug in earlier version). PKZIP.EXE & PKUNZIP.EXE should be either in a directory on your DOS Path (as specified in AUTOEXEC.BAT) or put in the directory containing POW.EXE. If you do not want to have the PK progs either on the path or in the POW directory then you will have to edit the POWZIP.PIF and POWUNZIP.PIF files (in POW dir) to include the appropriate paths for PKZIP.EXE & PKUNZIP.EXE. This may be done after installing POW. To use the built-in spelling checker in the editor you will need either POWDUK.ZIP (UK Spelling) or POWDUS.ZIP (US Spelling) main dictionary. After unzipping, the MAINUK.DIC or MAINUS.DIC and Private.DIC files should be put in your Windows directory. AUTOMATIC INSTALLATION. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If you already have VBRUN300.DLL and PKZIP.EXE & PKUNZIP.EXE on your system you may use SETUP.EXE provided in the POW zip to install the other files. (Do NOT use the SETUP.EXE in the Windows dir.) Alternatively, PKZIP.EXE & PKUNZIP.EXE may be put in the POW directory (or any dir on the DOS Path) after installation of POW. Run SETUP.EXE from the directory in which you unzipped POW. You will be asked to specify a directory into which to install POW. If upgrading from an earlier version, you may specify the directory in which the earlier version was installed and the setup program will update the files for you. Your Folders data files and POW.INI will not be overwritten and will be used by the new version, retaining your preferred configuration. The automatic installation will check for the Windows version and cater for networks and Windows for Workgroups. POW SETUP will check the version of the DLL and VBX files used by POW and copy/update these where required. If installing POW for the first time, a collection of Taglines is provided in Taglines.POW. This is installed in the POW directory but if you wish to use these Taglines, it should be moved to the Data directory after running POW for the first time. See Installation in POW.WRI for information on setting up POW on first run. For those who prefer to install manually, the files may be copied/moved to the appropriate directories - see below and Installation section in POW.WRI. MANUAL INSTALLATION. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ GRID.VBX and CMDIALOG.VBX should be put in the Windows\System directory, making sure you do not replace a newer version. SPELMATE.DLL and the dictionaries should be put in the Windows directory. Other POW files should be in the directory containing POW.EXE with the exception of Taglines.POW which should be moved to the Data directory after running POW for the first time. For more information on manual installation see POW.WRI. Getting Started. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From version 1.10 onwards the ZIP includes PIF files to run PKZIP/PKUNZIP in a window. These may be edited to provide paths to directory/ies containing PKZIP/PKUNZIP if these are not on the DOS Path or in the POW main directory. v1.20 includes an option to run PKZIP/PKUNZIP iconised. In addition to the icon in POW.EXE, an alternative icon for use in Program Manager is provided (POW.ICO). Notes & Known Bugs:- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If a Font other than Terminal (the default) is selected for message display or in the editor, the formatting may be incorrect and ASCII chars above 128 may not display correctly. For correct display a fixed font with the ASCII(OEM) char set is required. Fixed pitch (monospaced) fonts such as FixedSys or Courier New (TrueType) using the ANSI char set may be satisfactory if high ASCII chars are not used. A fixed font is also recommended for printing messages to give the right formatting (eg. Terminal or a Printer Font). v1.20 allows using the printers internal fonts directly via DOS or through Windows. A printer left margin is also provided with this version. We are currently in the process of adding support for more mail doors in the Add/Drop Conference feature. QMail support was added in v1.10. Mail doors that use the "old style" control messages are fully supported and display the appropriate buttons. POW has been tested on Tomcat, Cam-Mail, MarkMail, JCQWK and QMail doors, and now supports wcMail including File Requests and extra-long messages (>32k characters). For any mail door (or new feature provided by a mail door) which POW does not yet fully support, a manual method has been provided. Create a message in the Editor, addressed to the name of the mail door, with the appropriate Subject and nothing in the message text. For "new style" control messages the Subject is usually CONFIG with control lines put in the message body. To cater for these control functions, messages with a "To" that matches the mail door name will not have a tearline and tagline added. A list of Error and Warning messages is now included in POW.WRI (p19) and the on-line help. Disclaimer ~~~~~~~~~~ Whilst every effort is made to correct problems, no guarantee is given or implied that there are no further problems waiting to be found. Please report any problems to the author, Gina Davis (see doc/help). ________________________________________________________ POW - Powerline Offline reader for Windows - v1.20. Copyright (c) 1993/94 Gina Davis & Powerline Systems Ltd. All rights reserved.