Contents for SlipKnot Help Getting started Terminal Setup Terminal Features SlipKnot WEB Setup WEB Features SlipKnot WEB limitations Registration Information Troubles Upgrading Distributing SlipKnot Terminal Setup The Terminal Setup is probably the trickiest operation in working with SlipKnot. Luckily, it need be done only once. The following steps should guide you through this initialization process (keep this help screen up while you are changing the Terminal settings for the first time, or print these topics on your printer): 1. Check the settings in the Setup/Communications screen. Setup/Communications 2. Set or change the Terminal font and colors. Terminal font and colors 3. Set up your Host characteristics. Host 4. Try logging in to your host (Connect). Connecting 5. Test file transfer File transfer 6. Activating SlipKnot's WEB browser The WEB browser SlipKnot WEB First of all, for SlipKnot features, display the "Features and Hints" document -- there is a link to it built into the SlipKnot Local Home Page. Configuration Options for SlipKnot Web: (using the menu item: Configure) WEB Configuration SlipKnot WEB buttons: WEB buttons What can you do with documents? (pressing the "File" menu item on a document window):Doing things to documents Terminal Features 1. VT-100 emulator allowing you to have full access to screen-intensive UNIX programs. 2. File upload/download capabilities (press the menu item: Communications). 3. Changeable fonts allow you to size the Terminal to fit your screen and eyes. WEB Features There is a list of SlipKnot WEB features in the document: "Features and Hints". To display it, retrieve the SlipKnot Local Home Page (press the button with the shareware-looking house), and inside, you will find a link to the "Features and Hints" page. Saving documents Setup communications This screen sets up serial communications with your modem. Note: Check any other communications program that you are successfully using to help set these options. Port: choose the COM port that your modem is connected to. Tone/Pulse: choose Tone if you have Touch-Tone service. Otherwise, choose Pulse if all of your telephones are rotary dial type. Modem Initialization: These are the characters that are sent to your modem to insure that it is working properly. Check with your other communications programs for this setting. The default SlipKnot settings are: AT &F E1 V1 L1 S0=0 The meanings for these special modem "incantations" are: AT means "attention". All Hayes-compatible modems start with this command &F means reset all modem options to default factory settings. E1 means "echo commands". Your modem will send back any commands your computer sends, so that they may appear on the screen and be seen by SlipKnot. V1 means "verbose". Your modem will respond with words instead of numbers when an event occurs. L1 means "set speaker to middle volume". S0=0 means "set auto-answer off". Your modem will not pick up the phone when it rings. Modem Hangup: These are the characters sent to your modem to request it to hangup the phone. Connect string: This is what your modem responds with when it connects with your host's modem. Disconnect string: This is what your modem responds with when the host's modem decides to disconnect. Next step: Terminal font and colors Terminal font and colors Terminal Font Choose the Terminal font type (typeface) and size according to the resultant size of the terminal window. If you choose too large a size, the terminal window will not fit on your screen. If you choose too small a size, you will not be able to read the characters easily. Experiment. Each time you choose a font and size, the terminal window will adjust in size. Note: Choose a typeface that is "monospaced". These are typefaces where all characters have identical width (the "i" is the same size as the "m"). If you will be using any programs on your UNIX host that do a lot of screen manipulation, those programs will expect same-sized letters on your screen, and will show strange effects if your typeface is not monospaced. Typical monospaced typefaces are: Courier, Courier New, FixedSys and Terminal. Terminal colors Our only advice here is to make sure you do not pick the same color for both text and background. Next step: set up Host characteristics Host What is a host? Writing login and logout scripts Note: First step: check to see if your host is already configured: look at the drop-down list of Host names. Is there already one there that looks like the name of your UNIX service provider? If so, most of your work is already done! Note: If your host's name is SAMPLE (the default host provided by SlipKnot), please make a copy of this host (press the "Make Copy" button) before you do anything else. Do not change the characteristics of the SAMPLE host -- it is meant to serve as an example only. Creating a new host Press the "Make Copy" button. Assign a new name to the host (up to 8 characters, no punctuation!). Comment... ...as a short description of the host. Phone number Remember to use the "1-" prefix if you are calling outside your own area code. Note: Users with the "Call Waiting" feature: in some areas you can dial a short number (like "*70") to disable call-waiting for the duration of an outgoing call. If you want to do this, type the prefix, then add a comma, then the host phone number. Terminal Emulation Choose the type of terminal emulation expected by your host. Choose VT-100 if in doubt. Speed, data bits, stop bits, parity Choose the maximum speed that your modem is capable of and your host accepts. If in doubt about data bits: choose "8"; about stop bits: choose "1"; about parity: choose "None". Send/Get Protocol You have 4 choices: Xmodem and Xmodem-CRC, which are slow; and Xmodem-1K and YModem-Batch, which are much faster. Use Xmodem-1K or Ymodem-Batch if your host supports either of them. Why not Zmodem? After all, Zmodem is the fastest... In a word, because SlipKnot needs to communicate with your host in the background -- this is one of its most important features. Zmodem is a "streaming" protocol. This means that the sender will send data even if the receiver does not reply. If file transfers are performed in the foreground (while you watch and wait), your computer will be able to keep up with the incoming data. However, SlipKnot allows you to do other work while it is retrieving the WEB documents you requested, and many machines cannot keep up with the incoming data in the background when this happens. Even on fast machines, this can be a problem and the incoming documents will be garbled if any characters are lost. The Xmodem and Ymodem protocols in SlipKnot will guarantee that the host will stop (after each packet) leaving SlipKnot to catch its breath. By the way, Ymodem- Batch and Xmodem-1K are only 10% to 25% slower than Zmodem on a normally loaded UNIX system. Get file from UNIX This is the command to request a file from your UNIX system. After you have chosen a protocol, if you don't know what this UNIX command is, check online using "man xmodem" or "man ymodem", or ask other users or your system administrator. If in doubt, use the default choice provided by SlipKnot. Note: If you are not using the SlipKnot-provided default, be sure to include the "{filename}" string in the correct place inside your command. Otherwise, SlipKnot will not understand how to compose the actual command when communicating with UNIX. Note: Do not confuse Ymodem-Batch with the Ymodem-G protocol. If you are using Ymodem-Batch, and decide to change the default Get File From UNIX command, be careful that the command does NOT activate the Ymodem-G protocol (which is a streaming protocol -- see explanation under "Why not Zmodem?" above for why SlipKnot cannot support streaming protocols). Send file to UNIX The same suggestions apply here as in the "Get file" above. If you are using any variant of the Xmodem protocol, you must include the "{filename}" string somewhere in this command. UNIX Interrupt This is the key to press on your UNIX system to interrupt an executing command. The two most common ones (Control-C and DEL) are available in the drop-down list. You may choose another by typing it in. File Timeout When SlipKnot retrieves a file from your UNIX host, it will count this many seconds to wait for incoming communications traffic. If the host doesn't respond in this amount of time, SlipKnot will conclude that something is wrong and start the transfer again. This should be set to at least 30 seconds (50 seconds or more is better, especially if your UNIX host tends to get loaded down and slow). Tickle host every minute Some hosts will hang up if you do not made a request periodically. If you check this box, SlipKnot will ask the host for a new prompt -- by automatically sending a carriage-return or an interrupt -- every minute (while you are in the SlipKnot WEB renderer) to prevent the host from hanging up due to inactivity. This activity places almost no demands on the host, but succeeds in informing it that you are still alive. While you are using the SlipKnot Terminal, however, you are on your own in preventing your host from hanging up on you. World Wide Web program on UNIX Your UNIX system must have either the "lynx" or "www" programs available for your use. Choose "lynx" if both are available. To find out which you have available, log on to your UNIX system, and try either the lynx or www commands from the prompt. Manual vs. Script-based Login You can get SlipKnot Terminal to negotiate the entire login process for you -- sending all the right characters, including your login ID and password, to get you to your UNIX host's prompt, ready to go. To do this you will have to write a login (and logout) script in SlipKnot's script language. There is plenty of help to do this inside the sample script (see Help under "scripts"). On the other hand, you can tell SlipKnot that you'd like to login manually, thank you very much. In this case, SlipKnot will simply dial for you, and then make sure that the modem on the other side responds. And then you can type whatever else is necessary to complete the login process. You might choose this (manual login) option because: 1) it's simpler than trying to create a login script for the first time; or 2) your UNIX system displays different things each time you log in (for instance, it might display a Message-Of-The-Day that is longer than the screen and you need to type a Carriage-Return when this happens, but not when the Message is shorter -- and therefore your responses each day may be different, which is difficult to do in a login script). It is probably best to start with the Manual Login option checked. And then when things are running smoothly, create your own login and logout scripts to automate the process. Login ID This is your UNIX service provider login ID -- not necessary if you are using Manual Login. Set Password (Not necessary if you are using Manual Login). SlipKnot will ask for your UNIX password twice to make sure you have typed correctly. It will keep this password in encrypted (secret) form on disk, so other people with access to your disk files will be unable to read it. UNIX Prompt This allows SlipKnot to recognize your UNIX prompt. For instance, Bourne shell users will probably use "$"; while C-shell users may choose "%". Note: Use only the constant part of your UNIX prompt. For instance, if you are using the C-Shell, part of the prompt may change each time you log in, or each time you execute a UNIX command. In this case, use only the part of the prompt, like "%" that doesn't change. If this is not set correctly, SlipKnot will be unable to execute commands on your UNIX system because it will not recognize the prompt. Next step: (unless you've chosen Manual Login) writing login and logout Scripts Connecting Having gone through the exercise of setting up all of the communications, terminal and host characteristics, we now come to trying to connect to your host. Press the "Connect" button, and you should see the commands that SlipKnot is feeding your modem. Eventually, your modem should dial the correct number and your host should answer. Then the login script should take over (watch the status box on the bottom of the terminal window). Note: You will have succeeded in fully connecting to your UNIX host when the login script finishes and the status box on the bottom of your Terminal window flashes for a moment. Problems: Note: if you have any problems connecting, press the "Disconnect" button and you should be able to disconnect almost immediately. I don't see any commands in the Terminal window. Possible causes: wrong COM port specified; your modem's init string does not ask your modem to echo commands (E1 and V1); your modem is not on. I see garbage on the screen when the modems connect. Possible causes: the modems are connecting at the wrong speed or there is line noise: trying disconnecting and connecting again. Everything connects fine, but SlipKnot doesn't flash the status box when I finally get a prompt. SlipKnot is not recognizing your UNIX system's prompt: make sure that your have entered it correctly (in the Setup/Host menu). Next step: Test file transfer What is a host? The host is the name of your UNIX service provider. The host setup screen records the characteristics of your host service. Login and Logout Scripts These are the commands that SlipKnot will follow to dial your UNIX system and log in, or log out once your session is finished. To create a new script, press the "Edit Login script" button. For the list of possible commands (the SlipKnot scripting language), look at the sample script in the SAMPLE host: select SAMPLE as your host and press the "Edit Login script" button. Note: Make sure your Logout script completely logs off from your UNIX system, by going through all of the commands to shut down your session. File overwrite problem -- Special Note: Many UNIX C-Shell accounts, as well as BASH and TCSH and KSH, are configured to disallow overwriting of files without confirmation. This feature prevents you from inadvertently deleting the information in a file when you wish to create another file by the same name. Unfortunately, SlipKnot needs to do this (overwrite its own files) frequently, and will be stymied if this option is in effect. This is called the "noclobber" option, and leads to complete failure on the part of SlipKnot in transferring files (which is essential). See: Shell's 'noclobber' option Test file transfer Note: when SlipKnot is retrieving WEB documents, your default directory on UNIX MUST be writable. Normally, when most people log into their UNIX accounts, they are automatically connected to their home directories, into which they can write to their heart's content. But if you travel around amongst directories, make sure you end up in one that is writable before activating any type of file transfer or retrieving WEB documents. The most important operation that SlipKnot performs is downloading (retrieving) files from the Internet (via your host). To test this operation, you should use a small file that is in your directory on the host machine and whose contents you know. To create a small test file, if you don't already have one, you can use UNIX's date command. This displays the current date, but we can save that information in a file called "sliptest.tmp". To do this, execute the following command at your UNIX prompt: date >sliptest.tmp To check the file, execute: cat sliptest.tmp Now download your test file by activating the "Communications/Get file from host" menu item. If that fails, one reason may be that the "noclobber" option is set. See the discussion under Login and Logout Scripts The WEB Browser When you press the "World Wide Web" button for the first time, SlipKnot will attempt to check that your host has a couple of small script files that it requires. If your host does not, then SlipKnot will attempt to upload these files to your host. This operation may take several seconds, but once it succeeds, SlipKnot will not need to initialize your host again. If you want to re-initialize your host because you have made some changes to the host settings, choose the "Setup/Re-initialize host" menu item. Note: If this operation does not succeed, try it again. There are many reasons (including the possibility that your UNIX directory is not writable) for failure, but once it has succeeded, SlipKnot will not need to go through this process again unless you change a Host setting. Registration The Why and How of registration: Why register? 1. Because with shareware it's the right thing to do. 2. Your support will fund our efforts to improve the product. 3. To get rid of those (*#?@!) annoying registration reminders. 4. One registration fee covers all versions between 1.0 and 1.99. 5. The knowledge that 10% of SlipKnot registration fees are donated to Refugee Relief organizations 6. Additional features open to registered users will include: ability to install your own home page access to periodically updated "Starting Points on the Web for registered SlipKnot users" other features yet to be determined which will be available only to registered users. How to register: If sending the Registration form by mail or FAX: 1. In SlipKnot Terminal, click on Register/Fill-out-registration-form 2. Fill out the form on the screen (be sure to use a personal name -- we do not register to company names). 3. Print it or save it to a file 4. Send the form, with your check, money order, International Postal Order or credit card information to MicroMind (to the address or FAX number on the form). 5. Within a few days, we will send you a registration name and number by email 6. When you have received it, click on Registration/Install- Registration-name-and-number and enter the name and number we have sent you. Here is the address and FAX information: MicroMind, Inc. 417 W. 120 St., Suite 6B New York, N.Y. 10027 U.S.A. FAX: (212) 864-0436 If paying by credit card and sending the Registration form by email: First of all, please retrieve and read the SlipKnot What's New Page (you will find links to it when viewing the SlipKnot local Home Page) -- for important credit card registration information. The What's New Page will indicate which credit cards we accept at this time. 1. In SlipKnot Terminal, click on Register/Fill-out-Registration-form 2. Fill out the form on the screen (be sure to use a personal name -- we do not register to company names). 3. If you are concerned about sending your credit card information over the Internet in readable form, press the "Encryption" button -- this will convert your form into unreadable text (but readable by us at MicroMind when we receive it). 4. Save the form to a file. 5. Upload the file to your UNIX system (you can use the Communications/Send- file-to-Host menu item). 6. Email it to: slpstaff@pipeline.com (on most UNIX systems, this is easily accomplished from the shell prompt using the command: "mail slpstaff@pipeline.com " , then use only the char ">". 2. If you are using the C-shell, or Bash or Tcsh or Ksh and have the "noclobber" option set (or if it is automatically set without your knowledge), then SlipKnot will not be able to transfer files. See: Shell's 'noclobber' option 3. If you have changed to a UNIX directory other than your home directory, it may not be writeable. Change back to your UNIX home directory. Lynx version is old. SlipKnot checks the version of lynx that you are using because versions prior to 2.2 had difficulties with binary file retrieval from the Internet (hence SlipKnot would have difficulties in retrieving pictures). To find out the version of lynx on your UNIX system, execute the UNIX command: "lynx -version". If your UNIX system has an older version than 2.2, then please ask your system administrator to upgrade lynx to a more recent version. Alternatively, you may check to see if the other program called "www" is available on your UNIX system (simply execute the UNIX command: "www" -- if it's not available, then you will get an error message). If it is available, then in SlipKnot Terminal's Setup/Host screen, specify "www" instead of "lynx" and your World-Wide-Web UNIX program. File transfer failed. Possible causes: 1. See the possibilities above. 2. The UNIX transfer commands in the Setup/Host screen (in the fields: "Get file from UNIX" or "Send file to UNIX") refer to programs not available on your UNIX system. Ask your system administrator for the appropriate commands to activate Xmodem or Ymodem-Batch file transfers, and then install one of them in the Setup/Host screen. 3. Your UNIX system is not responding quickly enough (SlipKnot allows several seconds for data to start flowing). "Exclusive in foreground is checked": This is a Windows setting which allows or prevents background processing in Windows. Since SlipKnot transfers files in the background, it is necessary for SlipKnot that Windows allow background processing. In the Program Manager, look for the Main windows group, and find and activate the Control Panel program. Click on "386 Enhanced". There, you should find a checkbox called "Exclusive in Foreground". This box MUST NOT be checked. If it is, uncheck it. Then save the settings and close the Control Panel. Then, as a check, go back to see if the setting has remained unchecked (on some systems, for some reason, Windows will re-check the box). If you cannot seem to change this setting in Windows, you may have to use an ASCII editor to edit the file: \WINDOWS\SYSTEM.INI. Inside this file you will see a section with the heading: "[386Enh]" and somewhere below a line that reads: "WinExclusive=something". If necessary, change this line to read: "WinExclusive=0". If all else fails... The Shell's 'noclobber' option What is the effect on SlipKnot? SlipKnot will be unable to receive files from your UNIX system, and will print an error message each time you attempt to do this. How can you tell if the "noclobber" option is set? Try to overwrite a file. Here is an example: suppose you have a file called "mytest" in your UNIX home directory. If you execute the command: "cat mytest2", you should succeed in creating the new file "mytest2". Now try the same command again (attempting to overwrite "mytest2"). If it fails the second time, then "noclobber" is set, and you need to unset it. You should also be able to see this option "noclobber" when you execute the UNIX "set" command by itself. Unsetting noclobber temporarily: If you are using the C-Shell, execute the command "unset noclobber". Then try overwriting a file (should succeed). If you are using Bash, or Ksh, then try executing the command: "set +o noclobber". Also, try downloading a file using SlipKnot menu item: Communications/Get File from Host. Hopefully, this should now succeed. Unsetting noclobber permanently: There are a number of ways to do this. If you have already figured out (and tested) a way to remove the noclobber option termporaily (see above), then you can put that command into the file that is executed whenever you log into you UNIX system. For the C-shell it is the file: ".cshrc". For the other shells (Bash or Ksh or Tcsh) it is another file, possibly: ".profile", or ".bash_profile or ".bashrc" or ".kshrc". Another way (if you are using script-based login) is to change your SlipKnot login script to unset noclobber each time you log in: at the end of your login script (after the 'waitfor prompt'), put the command: 'send "unset noclobber^M"' or 'send "set +o noclobber^M"'. In other words, send the command that you tested above to your UNIX system as the last action in your login script. WEB Configuration 1. Colors: You can set the background color (we find gray, yellow and white to be best on our monitors), as well as the "link" color, which is the color of the characters that you can click on to retrieve another document. 2. Screen and printer fonts: The documents you retrieve are written in a language called HTML (HyperText Markup Language) which assigns to the text of a document one of several "tags". These tags control the appearance of the text. Tag types include: Title, Header1, Header2, List-Item, Monospaced, etc. You can change the way SlipKnot paints the text on your screen by changing the screen fonts and colors for these tags. Easiest way to experiment: display the "Test Screen and Printer Fonts" document (there is a link to it in the SlipKnot Local Home Page). Then: 1) remove the document (you cannot change fonts while there is a document displayed); 2) change one or more screen fonts and colors; 3) use the History button (the one with the circular arrow) to redisplay the Test page and see the results. You can do the same sort of experimentation with printer fonts (printing the page each time). 3. "Viewers" -- these are external helper programs that allow you to "view" documents that are not in HTML format. If you ask SlipKnot to retrieve a document with a suffix (say, ".GIF"), when the document comes in, SlipKnot will search for a "viewer" for such a document. SlipKnot already provides you with two viewers. The first is LVIEW31, which is an excellent graphics viewer and manipulator from Leonardo Loureiro (see the reference to him in the SlipKnot-People page). LVIEW31 will handle graphics files in numerous formats, including .GIF and .JPG as well as many others. The second is WPLANY, which is a sound player (only useful if you have a Windows sound driver installed). To install a new viewer (or replace an existing one): go through the viewer installation dialog, but MAKE SURE that you include the string "{filename}" along with the program name (see how the pre-installed viewers are set up). 4. Retrieve embedded graphics? Pictures are nice but they take time to download. By turning this option off, you are telling SlipKnot not to get the pictures included in documents, and retrieving documents will be much faster. 5. Black background? This makes the busy SlipKnot WEB screen look manageable, but you can no longer click on other Windows programs. Turn this on or off as you prefer. 6. Paint Home page on startup? If you get tired of seeing the SlipKnot Local Home Page each time you enter SlipKnot WEB, turn this off. But make sure that you periodically retrieve the SlipKnot What's New Page from the Internet (there's a link in the Home Page), because it will inform you of: new versions and how to upgrade, SlipKnot news, access to SlipKnot's "Starting Points on the Web" Page, etc. WEB buttons At the top of the screen, there are 5 shortcut buttons: 1. The "House" button will display SlipKnot's Local Home Page. The most important link inside is the one to retrieve SlipKnot's What's New Page -- the key to obtaining upgrades and news and access to interesting starting points for world-wide exploration. 2. The "circular arrow" button displays a list of all of the documents from this session and past sessions (unless you periodically delete this history). Each time you launch SlipKnot WEB, you will be asked whether you wish to delete these documents. 3. The "folder" button opens access to your folders, wherein you can save documents. 4. The "right-arrow" button brings to the foreground each of the document windows in succession. This is very useful if there are documents hidden behind others (you are limited to 5 document windows in SlipKnot WEB). 5. The "web with arrow" button is a shortcut to retrieving documents whose location (URL) you know. This will also allow you to search for a document in your folders. Doing things to documents Saving documents to folders: You can save any displayed document inside one of your folders. Folders are like directories with long names (in fact, they are simply directories). If you are curious where these folders are located, bring up the folder list, highlight one of the folder names, and press "Show directory". To create a new folder: press the "folder" button or the Documents/Folders menu item, and press "New" in the dialog box. To view a list of the documents in your folders: press the "folder" button, and double-click on one of them. Saving documents as bookmarks: Bookmarks are a fast way of saving just the location of a document that you will retrieve later. Saving documents as HTML: If you want to take a look at how this document is actually written in the HTML language, use this option to create an HTML file from the displayed document. There is no better way of learning HTML than to see how other people use it. Copy URL to Clipboard: If you want the save the URL of a displayed document, copy it to the Clipboard, and then go to another Windows program (for instance, a word- processor) and paste it there. This option is included because URLs can be long and obscure and must be correctly spelled (including capitalization). Print: You can print a displayed document, though you cannot currently print the pictures. Retrieve again! This option is very useful in two different circumstances: 1. Suppose you are normally surfing the WEB with the option "Retrieve embedded graphics" turned off (for fast document retrieval), and you've retrieved a document (with no pictures, of course). If you want to see the same document, but with the pictures included, turn the "Retrieve embedded graphics" option back on, and press "Retrieve Again!". 2. If you are developing your own document (on a PC, it should have the suffix: ".HTM") in another Windows program (a text editor or special HTML document editor), then use SlipKnot to see your progress with the document. Display the document, find the errors visually, switch back to your editor to correct them and save the document, switch back to SlipKnot and press "Retrieve Again!". SlipKnot WEB limitations In decreasing order of importance: 1. SlipKnot does not currently support "fill-in forms". These are documents that have fill-in areas where you can give answers to questions, and send these answers back to the server that sent you the document. (We are working on this.) SlipKnot will display a message in the place of a form inside any document that contains them. 2. SlipKnot will not yet retrieve or display gopher menus. However, since you can always run the gopher command from SlipKnot Terminal, this may not be an extreme limitation. (We are also working on this.) 3. SlipKnot will not yet support HTML 2.0 or HTML 3.0 constructs within documents. 4. SlipKnot will not support WAIS or Mailto links. These, too, can be activated on your UNIX system in the Terminal window. 5. SlipKnot allows only 5 document windows to be displayed at once. 6. SlipKnot will not resize document windows. This is due to its painting algorithm. With up to 5 windows (almost full-screen size) displayed, it's arguable whether resizing would help much. 7. SlipKnot does not automatically display your own home page, if you have created one. (coming soon) SlipKnot Web troubles If SlipKnot Web crashes: We hope this never happens, but no program is perfect. If it does, then SlipKnot Terminal should still be alive (it is a different and independent program). To bring up SlipKnot Terminal, press on Ctrl-Esc and choose "SNTERM". Then simply go back to SlipKnot Web in the usual way. The documents you displayed in this session should still be there, waiting for you (in the History window). "Unable to retrieve: -----": Either the Internet is busy or SlipKnot Terminal is not responding. Try the retrieval again. "Lynx unable to retrieve start file: ": A couple of possible causes: 1. The document name is incorrect (refers to a computer or location which does not exist). This can happen even if the document location came from a built-in document link, because document links can contain errors (we are all human as document authors). If you typed in the URL , make extra sure that the spelling AND capitalization are exactly correct. 2. Your UNIX system cannot reach the one that the document is located on. This occurs frequently during busy periods of the day, when Internet traffic is heavy. In this case, try again some time later. "Could not analyze incoming HTML document": Something is wrong with the document and SlipKnot cannot decipher it. Remove the document from the History session list (press the circular arrow button, highlight the document and delete it), and try to retrieve again. "Cannot copy file..." Perhaps your disk is full? "No viewer for this type of file" The file you retrieved has a suffix that is not recognized by any of the viewers installed in SlipKnot. For instance, if you retrieve a file with a suffix of ".abc", SlipKnot will not know how to display that file unless you have a viewer for ".abc" type files. To see what installed viewers will recognize, go to menu item: Configure/"viewers". "Viewer program is not correctly set up": each viewer that you install must have a string on the execution line that reads: "{filename}". See how the pre-installed viewers are set up. "Cannot access SlipKnot Terminal" This may occur when the Terminal is busy downloading files, or some other background operation. Try the operation again. If all else fails, try exiting SlipKnot Web. "Error has occurred in routine: ...." This is a nasty error. Please report it to us, along with the circumstances that caused it (particularly if it is reproducible). Thank you. If all else fails... URL: Universal Resource Locator: these are document "addresses" which contain 4 parts: (example: http://ftp.netcom.com/pub/pbrooks/slipknot/whatsnew.html) 1. how to get the document (in this case: use the http protocol) 2. the computer name: (in this case: ftp.netcom.com) 3. the directory: (in this case: /pub/pbrooks/slipknot) 4. the filename: (in this case: whatsnew.html) If all else fails... If things are just not working, and the error explanations in the Troubles section don't shed light on the matter... 1. Try to contact another SlipKnot user on your own UNIX system. There's a good chance that they might already have come across the same problem and solved it. And users on your own UNIX system know its particular characteristics better than we do. 2. We have chosen the Internet newsgroup: comp.infosystems.www.users as the location we watch for SlipKnot discussions. Try posting a message there. Nevertheless, If you need to contact us please give us several days to answer. If you need to contact us If you are having trouble transferring files, please send us your debugging log file: SLIPKNOT.DEB You can contact MicroMind's technical support email address at: slpstaff@pipeline.com. We will be happy to try to help. SLIPKNOT.DEB Built into SlipKnot Terminal is a debug option that will track every command that SlipKnot sends to your UNIX host, and the host's responses. If you are having trouble communicating with your host, or trouble with file transfers, then the best way to debug this problem is to turn on this logging feature. SlipKnot Terminal has a menu item: Debug. Turn on the "Log communications and debug info to SLIPKNOT.DEB" option. Then try to transfer a file. After the operation fails, turn off logging the same way you turned it on. Now you have created a file called SLIPKNOT.DEB inside your \SLIPKNOT directory. You can try to look at that file with an ASCII editor or by using the menu item: Debug/Show SLIPKNOT.DEB. We admit that it is somewhat cryptic, but contains the relevant information for debugging. Before sending us the file, make sure that it does not contain any information you might consider sensitive (like login ID and password). Refugee Relief organizations 10% of the SlipKnot registration fees that MicroMind receives are donated to the following two organizations: International Rescue Committee 122 E. 42nd St. New York, N.Y. 10168 U.S.A. Tel: (212) 551-3000 email: irc@irc.com Founded in 1933 by Albert Einstein, IRC is one of the largest, most effective and most prominent refugee organizations in the world. The Center for Victims of Torture 717 East River Road Minneapolis, MN 55455 U.S.A. cvt@maroon.tc.umn.edu CVT is one of the largest centers in the world dedicated providing comprehensive psychological and medical care to survivors of politically motivated torture. The folks here at MicroMind (one of whom is a refugee survivor) wish to thank you not only for helping to support us, but also for helping to diminish in a small way the pains of the world. Upgrading This SlipKnot version is not perfect (do we need to convince you?). We are working on improving SlipKnot and every so often will release a new version. One of SlipKnot major features is the One-Touch Upgrade. It is meant to make upgrading practically painless. Use this Automatic procedure if SlipKnot WEB is successfully retrieving and displaying documents from the Internet (otherwise use the Manual Upgrade procedure below): Automatic Upgrade: 1. Display the SlipKnot Local Home Page (if not already visible when you enter SlipKnot WEB, then press on the "house" button). 2. You will find one or more links to the SlipKnot What's New Page. Retrieve that document from the Internet. 3. In the What's New Page, you will find out the number of the latest version. Compare it to the version number you are running (Press on the menu item: Help/About). 4. If you want to upgrade, there are links in the What's New Page to retrieve the Upgrade file. 5. When the Upgrade file has been downloaded, exit SlipKnot completely (log off and terminate the program). 6. In the SlipKnot Windows group, you will find the NEW icon. Clicking on it will start the automatic upgrade process. Presto. Changeo. You should now have upgraded. Use the Manual procedure below instead if SlipKnot Terminal or SlipKnot WEB are encountering severe problems: Manual Upgrade: 1. Using FTP, or a similar program, obtain a directory listing of the files at the following site: machine name: "interport.net" in the directory: "/pub/pbrooks/slipknot" 2. Look for upgrade files with the name: "snupxxx.zip" where xxx is the version number (for instance, Version 1.01 would correspond to the file: "snup101.zip") and find the lastest upgrade file. 3. Check the version of SlipKnot that you are running (use the menu item: Help/About). 4. If you are already running the latest version of SlipKnot (comparing your version to the file number), then there is no further upgrade available. Check back in a few days. 5. If you have found an appropriate upgrade file, download that file into your \SLIPKNOT\UPGRADE directory. 6. Terminate SlipKnot completely, if it was running. 7. In the SlipKnot Windows group, you will find the NEW icon. Clicking on it will start the automatic upgrade process. If all goes well, you should now have upgraded SlipKnot to the latest version. Important Note: If you choose not to use the upgrade mechanism above, but decide to install another version of SlipKnot from scratch, then we have some warnings. There may be problems if you try to install a complete new version of SlipKnot into the same directory as the old SlipKnot version. On the other hand, if you choose a different directory for the new version, you may lose access to your old folders and their saved documents. In general, try to use the upgrade mechanism above to avoid problems. Distributing SlipKnot The best was to distribute SlipKnot is to pass on the .ZIP file which contains the entire setup. Making it easy for others: Having figured out the Host characteristics (the settings in the Setup/Host screen), you can easily pass on this information to others using the same UNIX system. Here's how: Let's say you have create a host called "myUNIX". You will find a file in your SLIPKNOT directory called: "MYUNIX.HST" which contains all the host settings, including the entire login and logout scripts. However, for safety, it DOES NOT contain your login ID or your password (you can check, it is an ASCII readable file). Simply give this file to your friends (or post it) and tell them to put this file into their SLIPKNOT directories. It will then become one of the hosts that your friends can select, and therefore not have to go through the same testing process. Saving documents There are a couple of ways to save a visible Web document: either as a "document" or simply as an "HTML" file. Saving as a document will package up the visible information, both text and pictures, and save all of the information into one of your folders. And at the time you save, you can create a comment to make it easier to select and redisplay this document in the future. In actuality, the visible document is saved as a collection of files: one for the text, and one each for the pictures, as well as an additional file (called a "Master file") which ties all of the other files together. The Master file is given the suffix ".MAS". Each of the files is given a file number that uniquely identifies it as belonging to the collection defining a single document. While this is somewhat complicated, SlipKnot will take care of all the details when redisplaying the document. Saving as an HTML file will save only the text portion (no pictures) of the document into a file with the extension ".HTM". HTML is the form in which the document actually arrived to the PC from the Internet. You might wish to do this if you are curious how these documents are written in the HTML language, in order to compose documents of your own. If you save in "HTML" format, you can still ask SlipKnot to display the document (although it now contains no pictures) by using SlipKnot's "Navigate/Display-local-HTML-file" option. Documents in HTML format are readable (and modifiable) using an ASCII editor. You do not actually need to save your documents explicitly, since SlipKnot keeps them in its History folder until you decide to get rid of all of the documents inside the History folder. Each time you enter SlipKnot Web, you will be asked this question. On the other hand, all documents in the History folder are removed at once if you that is what you desire. And you should let SlipKnot clean out your History folder to free up disk space, because much information can accumulate there. HTML = HyperText Markup Language This is the language used by Web documents, and the language you need to master to write ones of your own. It consists of the text that you see on the screen, as well as directives to paint the text in various "typefaces". It also contains directions for retrieving the pictures and where to place them. The pictures are not actually contained within the HTML document itself. The document simply tells the browser (SlipKnot) where on the Internet to find them in case they are desired. Getting started Welcome to SlipKnot. SlipKnot is a communications program with the Internet through your UNIX host system. To get started, you will need to set up several characteristics (communications parameters) in the SlipKnot Terminal screens. So, prior to dialing up and connecting to your host UNIX system, you must click on the Setup menu item, and go through the various setup screens.... starting with: Terminal Setup