A few explanations on working practices and other anomalies ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Sleep timer ~~~~~~~~~~~ The sleep timer is accurate to within 2 seconds for each of the three phases : Phase One : Two minutes of inactivity after which the user is prompted for some action. Phase Two : Thirty seconds of further inactivity prompts the user again. Phase Three : Following another thirty seconds of inactivity the system saves the users current profile and also lastread pointers and then returns them to the BBS, exiting with an error level of '3'. When the user is exited from the system in this manner the modem is not instructed to drop carrier - this is left to either the BBS or perhaps a third party program by utilising the error levels from HoloQWK. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- MaxPktSize ~~~~~~~~~~ The setting that the user wishes to set this pointer to is used when HoloQwk performs Batch mode, if an existing packet for the user is detected then it's size is compared with this value, and then only if this existing packet exceeds the defined limit is Batch mode disabled. Packet sizes are not compared during or after Batch mode and so it is quite possible for a user to select (for instance) a 5k limit and for the system to create a packet of 300k. By judicious use of not only this pointer, but also Lock Messages it is possible for a user to efficiently maintain a reasonable level of packet size, however, by not understanding completely what happens during Batch mode a user can quite soon be put off by extremely large packets - it is in your interest to help your users as much as possible during thier first dealings with QWK packers. Local Mode ~~~~~~~~~~ HQWKDOOR ~~~~~~~~ In order to keep this program as small and as quick as possible there are no fileselectors used in local mode - in order to test HoloQwk it is necessary to use the main system. HOLOQWK ~~~~~~~ When performing both uploads and downloads in local mode you are presented with a fileselector so that you may locate the source/destination of your packets. If you have enough free memory then the screen is redrawn to its previous contents after the fileselector, this is purely cosmetic. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Timings ~~~~~~~ Timing estimates calculated from previous archiving times are shown to the user prior to archiving online, the actual time taken is displayed after archiving. Estimates are only calculated when archiving in excess of 150 messages takes place and so it may be some while before estimates are displayed, although time taken is displayed in each case no matter how many messages were archived. Three separate estimates are kept, one for each archiver. System Files ~~~~~~~~~~~~ During normal operation a number of files are created by HoloQwk within its own folder : HOLOQWKC.BAK - This is a copy of the HOLOQWK.CTL file that has been backed up prior to rewriting with new timing estimates - it is not normally used for anything but is a security measure. HOLOQWK.DAX - This is a copy of the HOLOQWK.DAT file that has been backed up prior to rewriting after you have changed user details with EDITOR.PRG There are three optional files that you may or may not have present in the HoloQwk folder : HOLOQWK.TAG - This is an ASCII file containing tag lines used in the generation of AutoTags if that option is selected by the user. If this file is not present then although the AutoTags option is still shown to the user it cannot be selected. The .TAG file is held in memory during all normal HoloQwk operations and so if you are experiencing low memory problems try cutting this file down from 600k ! HOLOQWK.HLP - This is an ASCII file that can be displayed to the user from the main HoloQwk menu, if it is not present at startup then the option is not shown to the user. The file can be as long as you wish and is displayed to the user with prompts at the end of each page. HOLOQWK.GRP - This is the binary file written by the GROUPED program, if it is not present then conferences will be displayed in numerical order instead of groups. HOLOQWK.SYN - This is a binary file used internally. It must NOT be deleted. NEWFILES.PRG ~~~~~~~~~~~~ This program is used to generate a NEWFILES.DAT file that is written into the users QWK packets should they have it enabled. A new version is currently available that MUST be used - it uses the new QWKUSER.INF format file that is written into the QBBS folder from where you must obviously set NEWFILES.PRG to read it from. NEWFILES.PRG was written by Robert Darling and is available from his BBS 24Hours a day - Folkestone Qbbs +44-303-249306. Not using the new format NEWFILES.PRG will result in erroneous NEWFILES.DAT files. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Colour ~~~~~~ Colour is used to highlight certain lines during the operation of HoloQwk. ANSI, VTM and also VTC are used depending on the users profile within QBBS. For display to the console both the graphic mode selected on the BBS and also the resolution is used to decide wether to send colour or inverse blocks to the screen. The users name displayed at the top of the main HoloQwk menu is shown only to console, the users should know who they are ! Console override ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ All key presses from the console take preference over the users activity, this means you can 'walk' a user through the system should the need arise. This does not mean the user gets locked out, just that you have the ability to press the keys for them.