The MegaMail Door Copyright 1989 by Kip Compton ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Table of Contents License Agreement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 The MegaMail System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Installing the MegaMail Door . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Step One : Copying the Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Step Two : Installing your UTI Driver . . . . . . . . . 8 Step Three : The MegaMail Door Configuration File(s) . 9 Step Four : Creating the Batch Files . . . . . . . . . . 11 Step Five : The MegaMail Door . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Local Use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 General Maintenance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Registering your MegaMail Door . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 3 License Agreement The MegaMail Door ("The Software") is COPYRIGHT 1989 by Kip Compton, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. You may not engage in, nor permit third parties to engage not in, any of the following : A) Making alterations of any kind in the software. any kind B) ATTEMPTING TO DISASSEMBLE, DECOMPILE, OR REVERSE ATTEMPTING TO DISASSEMBLE, DECOMPILE, OR REVERSE ENGINEER THE SOFTWARE OR THE FILES IT GENERATES IN ENGINEER THE SOFTWARE OR THE FILES IT GENERATES IN ANY WAY. ANY WAY. C) Granting sub-licenses, lease or other rights in the software to others. The author of the software grants you a license to use this software as long as you meet the above conditions. Any violation of the above conditions will result in the termination of your license to use this software. Upon termination of this license for any reason, you must stop using the software and destroy all copies of it in your possession immediately. In addition, the author reserves the right to cancel your license to use this software at any time for any reason that he sees fit. The author of this software is not liable for damages suffered as a result of the improper use, proper use, or inability to use this software. This type of disclaimer is prohibited by law in some states, and is therefore void in those states. 4 The MegaMail System 5 The MegaMail System allows your users to download and upload mail to and from your BBS. The MegaMail Door works with the MegaMail Reader to form a complete and powerful mail manipulation system. First, your users download their mail from your BBS using the MegaMail Door. They can then use the MegaMail Reader to read and reply to the mail that they have downloaded. Then, they can upload their replies to your BBS using the MegaMail door. Why would anyone go to the trouble of using the MegaMail System? The biggest advantage of the system is the time users save on- line. Instead of logging on to your BBS and spending an hour reading mail, your users can download their mail and upload their replies in just a few minutes. This convenience is especially desirable when the user is calling long distance -- imagine how much a user could save in just a few weeks of MegaMail use! In addition, MegaMail can be a blessing for those users who like to play on-line games -- with MegaMail , they'll have time to participate in the message bases as well! While these time savings certainly help the user, they also help the SysOp. Imagine how many more users could use your system if each of your users only used a few minutes a day. You could have two, three, even five times the number of users calling your BBS on a regular basis -- without adding any expensive new modems or phone lines! Another advantage that only the MegaMail System offers is a consistent user interface. Since the MegaMail Door uses our exclusive UTI technology, it is compatible with a wide variety of BBS software. This allows users to use the MegaMail Reader with virtually any BBS they call. The users can use the same commands to read and reply to their mail on all the BBS's they call, thus saving them hours of learning time, and encouraging them to try out different BBS's instead of calling only to those running a particular BBS software. While it is marvelous to have a consistent interface, the MegaMail Reader is also powerful, incorporating searching algorithms usually reserved only for advanced databases. These sophisticated techniques allow your users to view their mail the way they want to view it. If they wish, they can read their mail ____ conference by conference, or all together. They can read messages addressed to themselves first and then go back and read the rest of the mail. They can even read all of the mail from or to a particular user no matter which BBS or conference the message was left in! The MegaMail user interface is also very user friendly. Instead of complex, remote BBS menus and cryptic commands, the user 6 selects functions from easy to use bar menus. When entering messages, users get a full featured screen-oriented text editor instead of the usual BBS's cryptic line-oriented editor. The MegaMail Reader even has built-in mouse support for those who prefer to use a mouse! In summary, the MegaMail System saves both the user and the SysOp time and money, while enhancing the BBS electronic mail experience with a superior and consistent user interface. 7 Installing the MegaMail Door 8 Installing the MegaMail Door consists of five distinct steps. The first step is to create a directory on your hard disk and copy the files that came with the MegaMail Door into the directory. The second step is to install your UTI driver if you have not already done so for another UTI driver application. This process varies from UTI driver to UTI driver. Your UTI driver should come with specific instructions that tell you how to do this. The third step is to create the configuration files that the MegaMail Door will use to operate. There is a program, MAKECFG.EXE, that will help you do this. The fourth step is to create the batch file(s) that will actually run the MegaMail Door. The fifth step is to tell your BBS software that the MegaMail Door is available. Step One : Copying the Files You should make a directory on your disk and copy all the files that came with the MegaMail Door into it. This directory can be anywhere you wish, but if you are running on a LAN, it should be accessible to all of the "nodes" that will be using the MegaMail Door. (This is not a necessity; you can set up separate directories for each node if you wish, but it will waste disk space.) Step Two : Installing your UTI Driver To use the MegaMail Door, you need a UTI driver for the bulletin board system that you are using. A UTI driver consists of several programs (for example, UTIHIGH, UTIEXPRT, UTIIMPRT, UTIVER, etc) that allow the MegaMail Door to access your BBS files. Without a proper UTI, the MegaMail Door will not work. Each UTI should come with its own instructions for installation. The only restrictions that the MegaMail Door places on the installation of the UTI driver is that all of the UTI driver programs must be accessible via the "path." ____ You can, of course, change your path so any directory on your hard disk is accessible, so this is not a major restriction. To test whether or not your UTI driver is accessible through the path, go into the directory that you copied the MegaMail Door files into in step one and type UTIVER. If you get a "Bad Command or Filename," then the driver is not accessible through the path. (Note that it's 9 O.K. for nothing to happen when you type UTIVER, as long as you don't get a "Bad Command or Filename" message.) _____ Step Three : The MegaMail Door Configuration File(s) The MegaMail Door uses a configuration file to get some basic information that it needs to operate. Information in the configuration file includes such items as the communications port to use, the name of the sysop, the "id code" of the BBS, and the command line parameters for sending and receiving files. Fortunately, a program is provided to help you set up these files. The program MAKECFG.EXE can save you a lot of time in installing the MegaMail Door if you know the answers to its questions ahead of time. The first item that MAKECFG will ask you for is the "id" of your BBS. Your ID is a 1-8 character string which you select. Ids are used inside the MegaMail Reader to allow your users to refer to specific BBSs, so it is a good idea to make your id remind users of the name of your BBS. For example, the name of my BBS is The CONNECT 19.2 BBS, and I selected an id of CONNECT. You should also try to make your id as unique as possible, as users can't use the reader with more than one bbs with a given id. The second item that MAKECFG will ask you for is the name that the SysOp uses to log-on. This name is used to determine who will be given sysop message-reading privileges. Just type in your name as you would type in if you were logging on to your BBS. Be sure to type both your first and last names if you use both to log on. The third item that MAKECFG will ask you for is the name that appears in the "from" field on messages that the sysop leaves. Simply type the name that would appear on a message if you left it via normal means on your BBS. On many systems, this is SYSOP. The next item MAKECFG will ask you for is the node number. The node number is used only in naming and referring to the files. The node number(s) specified in the MAKECFG program do not necessarily have to correspond to the node numbers (if any) in your BBS software, but it can make it less confusing if they do. Then, MAKECFG will ask you for the communications port that this particular node will be using. Valid numbers for the communications port are from 0 (local) to 4. This information is used by the MegaMail Door when it sends messages to the user and when it sends or receives files 10 from the user. You will then be asked if you want to set up another node. You should say "yes" if you want to set up another instance of the door. For example, if you plan to use the door locally, you should say "yes." If you have more nodes on your BBS that you want to be able to access the MegaMail Door, you should say "yes." A note on local use: If you plan to use the MegaMail Door locally, you should set up a "node" for your use, even if you don't plan to use the door at the same time that the door is in use. We suggest that you use node number 0 for local access to the door. For each node that you configure, you will be asked which communications port and node number you are installing. The rest of the options are global for all nodes and do not need to be asked again. If you need to add more nodes at a later date, you can run the MAKECFG program and only add the new nodes. There is no need to go back and add nodes that are already installed. The format of the MegaMail Door Configuration File The Configuration file tells the MegaMail Door the general information that it needs to function. Casual SysOps will probably never need to know the format of this file, but for those of us who like to tinker, the format is provided below. Line #1: Maximum Total Number of Messages to Download in One Session. MAKECFG defaults this value to 2000. Line #2: Maximum Number of Messages to Download per Conference per Session. MAKECFG defaults this value to 250. Line #3: DSZ Send command line. The filename of the file to send will simply be appended to the command line here. You can use this to implement different protocols, adjust buffers, etc. Line #4: DSZ Receive command line. The filename of the file to receive will simply be appended to the command line here. You can use this to implement different protocols, adjust buffers, etc. Line #5: Full path to log to. This is the full path (including filename) to which the MegaMail Door will log its activities. MAKECFG defaults this to LOGX where X is the node 11 number. Line #6: Event Padding. This is the amount of time, in minutes, that will be subtracted from the user's time left in the MegaMail Door. This can be used to make sure there is no way that a user can overstay his or her time in the door. MAKECFG defaults this value to 10. Line #7: Work Directory. This is the directory that will be used to generate all temporary files. Each copy of the MegaMail Door running at the same time must have a different work ____ directory. MAKECFG defaults this to WORKX where X is the node number. Changing this value to an appropriately sized ram disk can dramatically increase performance. Line #8: The "id" of this BBS. See above for information on ids. Line #9: The logon name of the SysOp. This is used to determine what user has sysop mail-reading privileges. Line #10: SysOp "goes by." This is the name used on all messages uploaded by the SysOp. Step Four : Creating the Batch Files Now it is time to create the batch files that will actually run the MegaMail Door. These batch files must change from the BBS directory to the MegaMail Door directory, execute the door with the proper command line parameters, and then re-invoke the BBS software. The first thing that your batch file should do is to run the UTIDOOR.EXE program included with your UTI Driver. See your UTI driver documentation for any required command line parameters for UTIDOOR. The second step is an easy one; a simple cd command should get us to the proper directory. Then, it is time to run MEGADOOR.EXE. The command line arguments for MEGADOOR.EXE specify the name of the configuration file to use and the path to the UTIDOOR.TXT file. (The command line parameters vary slightly for local mode; see below.) The first command line parameter passed to MEGADOOR.EXE is always the name of the configuration file ______ to use. If the door is to be run in normal (remote) mode, the second command line parameter is the full path (including name) of the UTIDOOR.TXT file to use. For example, if we wanted to use the MEGACFG.1 configuration 12 file and our UTIDOOR.TXT file was located in the C:\BBS directory, our batch file would have the following line in it: MEGADOOR MEGACFG.1 C:\BBS\UTIDOOR.TXT A complete sample batch file for remote operation has been included with the MegaMail Door package. It is called MEGA1.BAT, and should be useful with only a few changes. If we are going to be using the door in local mode, the command line parameters are slightly different. The first command line parameter remains the same, but the second command line parameter must be /LOCAL for local operation. ____ The /LOCAL parameter should be followed by the full name of the person "logging on" locally. (ie, the name of the person to whom the mail is going, usually the SysOp in local operation.) For example, if you were going to log on locally using the name KIP COMPTON and the configuration file MEGACFG.0, you would have the following line in your batch file. MEGADOOR MEGACFG.0 /LOCAL KIP COMPTON A complete sample batch file has been included with the MegaMail Door. It is called LOCAL.BAT, and should be useful with little modification. 13 Step Five : The MegaMail Door and Your BBS The procedure for this step varies from BBS software to BBS software. You should add the MegaMail Door to your BBS software just as you would add any other door. Note that to test your door completely, you will need someone to call and open it remotely. The only way to use the MegaMail Door locally is to use the local batch file that you created earlier. Local Use When using the MegaMail Door locally, you must copy your .UL file from your MegaMail Reader into the work directory that you specified. You will then need to copy the .DL file generated by the MegaMail Door into the directory that you specified as your download directory in the MegaMail Reader. If you will only be using your MegaMail Reader locally, you can simply specify the work directory in the configuration file that you are using locally as both your upload and download directory in your MegaMail Reader. To invoke the door locally, you should use the batch file that you created. (See above for details.) General Maintenance To keep the MegaMail Door's conference information up to date, you must delete the file LISTING.UTI from the MegaMail Door's directory any time you change your conference configuration. (Ie., add a conference) Other than that, the MegaMail Door is complete self-maintaining. Registering your MegaMail Door The MegaMail Door is provided free of charge to all SysOps. If you register your door with us, we will put you on a list of systems using MegaMail , and, to thank you for using the MegaMail System, we will upload to you a registration file for your MegaMail Reader free of charge. To register your door, simply fill out the form provided in the file DOOR.REG, included in this package. If you have any questions, or your form is missing, you can call us voice at (703) 643-5513, or data at (703) 690-7361.