No longer do you have to wait 30 to 50 minutes to backup your message base, with the message backup utility provided with host.Mantissa will work her miracle in seconds. Mantissa backups on average 2.5 megs per 60 seconds. (This could be a little less or a little more depending on your specific system hardware, level of fragmentation, and the amount of archiving you are doing within your MSGHDR and MSGTXT files.) Mantissa is fast! But, she also offers extreme flexibility when deleting old messages. You can now delete old messages by day limit, section limit or both. Plus you can set limits and archive old deleted messages in each section independently.
Mantissa Features
• Each Msg. section can have unique:
• Day limits (0-999)
• Section Limits (0-999)
• Archive Limits (0-999k)
• Archive Locations (any valid path)
• Unique/Same archive paths
• Auto delete nonSection messages
• Global Limit Set Option
• Global Day Limit Set Option
• Global Archive Limit Set Option
• Global Archive Location Set Option
• Control Buttons to set Pathnames
• Three ways to move to sections
• List Manager Scroll Feature
• Popup Menus
• Control Button Forward/Reverse
• On Line Help
• Delete by Age Only
• Delete by Limit Only
• Delete by both Age/Limit
• Master Archive On/Off switch
• Renumber Messages
• Forward from message #1
• Reverse from high Message No.
• Userlog, high message last read
• Use STR's/Text file to saving settings.
• Network and Remote Maintenance
• Turn Mantissa Log On/Off
• Select Location/Name of Mantissa Log
• Epistle Generator
• On/Off Epistle Generator
• Max. Message Level Show Clearance
• Select location/name of Epistle log
• Keep .Bak's or discard them
• Security marker for Clearance sections
• Major speed boost over 1.0
• Tabby Compatible or Standalone
To Configure Mantissa:
Launch it (Double Click on application) and hold down the mouse key while it loads. Give it a second or two, to load the necessary STR's or Text file. This will bring up the Configure Menu:
This is Window one of two. This window is the key window; most of the editing and changing, over time will be done at this window.
There is a lot of information contained in this window and a number of ways to navigate it.
First lets review how to move from one message section to another. There are three ways to do this, which way you choose is up to you.
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Use the mouse and click on the section you wish to edit. If it is not visible then use the scroll bar on the right to move up or down until the section you are interested in, is in view. Select it by clicking one time on it.
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The second method of navigation is to use the popup menu feature. Position the mouse over the message section box in the middle, right of the window. Click and hold down the mouse key. This will popup a menu bar with all your messages sections list. Move the mouse up or down (while holding the button in) until the section you are interested in is highlighted. At that point release the mouse key. This section now becomes the active area.
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The third method is to click on the '+ plus' or '- minus' buttons located to the right of the Popup menu bar. Clicking on the '+ plus' button will advance you forward one message section. Clicking on the '- minus' button will move you one message section in the reverse direction.
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The forth method is to use the Menu Options, Forward and Reverse, located under the Edit Menu.
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The fifth method is to use the command keys 'Command F' for forward and 'Command R' for feverse. These coorespond with the menu options mentioned above.
Use one of the three methods mentioned above to select the message section you wish to edit. Once the section is selected you will move your attention to the 4 edit fields located in the bottom right of the window.
Position the mouse pointer over the field you wish to edit and click or use the tab or return keys to move from field to field.
• Day Limit:
This is the maximum number of days that a message can remain active. For example: if you would select '30' the all messages in that sections older than 30 days will be deleted. Each section can have a unique day limit. Valid Ranges are from 0 to 999. If you select 0 (zero) then all messages in that section will be deleted. If you set this option to -1 (negative one) then no messages in that section will will be day deleted - it turns the day delete for that section off.
• Section Limit:
This is the maximum number of messages that this individual section can contain. For example: if you would select '200' then all messages in that section that exceed the 200 limit are deleted. Each section can have a unique section limit. NOTE: Valid Ranges are from 0 to 999. If you select 0 (zero) then all messages in that section will be deleted. If you set this option to -1 (negative one) then no messages in that section will will be limit deleted - it turns the limit delete for that section off.
• Archive Limit:
This is the maximum number of Kilobytes that this archive (text file) section can contain. For example: if you would select '50' then all messages in that archive file that exceed the 50 Kilobyte limit are deleted. Each section can have a unique archive limit. Valid ranges are from 0 to 999. If you select 0 then the archive feature for that section is turned off and no archiving will take place. To select a location for the archived file, see next option.
• Archive Location:
This is the location of the text file where old deleted messages from the selected section are archived too. You may use the control check button to auto-select the location and name. Note: if you end the pathname with a colon: dd80:bbs:arc: then mantissa will append the appropriate message section name to the text file. If you type in the word OFF then mantissa will turn off any archiving for this message section. Message sections may share the same archive text file or each section can have a unique location and file name. Archive limit (above) for this section must also be greater than 0 (zero) for archiving to take place.
• Setting Global Limits:
If all your sections will have more or less the same values for Day, Section, Archive or Archive Locations then you may select limits globally. To do this click on one of the top four buttons in right side of the window. Click the button for the limit style you wish to set.
• Section Limit:
• Day Limit:
• Archive Limit
These buttons deal with setting global section limits. When you click on this button a window will appear asking you to enter the value you wish to set this section to.
Type in the maximum value you wish to use in this section. Click on the 'Save' Button, to set all sections to this new section limit. Clicking on the 'Cancel' button will make no changes at all. Note: setting this value to 0 will mark that section as a delete everything area.
• Archive Location:
This button deals with setting global archive locations. When you click on this button a window will appear asking you to enter a pathname where you wish the archive file to be placed.
Type in the pathname or pathname and filename where you want all archived files to be located. Click on the 'Save' Button, to set all sections to this new file location. Clicking on the 'Cancel' button will make no changes at all. Note: If you end the pathname with a colon ':' then mantissa will append it's own section names for the areas to be archived. If you supply a filename at the end of the path then all messages will be archived to that one file only.
• More ..
Clicking on the button will advance you to the second configure window of mantissa.
... WINDOW #2
This window contains mantissa system information. In most cases you will set this once and never have to mess with it again.
There is a lot of information in this window divided in Edit Fields, Radio and control buttons. We will step you through what each feature does.
• Age Delete:
This is an on/off button. If there is a dark bullet in the center of the radio button then it is on. The purpose of this option is to allow you to turn on or off the delete by age option. No matter what the individual sections are set at if this option is off the deletion by day limit will not take place. Default is On.
• Limit Delete:
This is an on/off button. The purpose of this option is to allow you to turn on or off the delete by limit option. No matter what the individual sections are set at, if this option is off the deletion by section limit will not take place. Default is On.
• Archive:
This is an on/off button. The purpose of this option is to allow you to turn on or off the Archive option. No matter what the individual sections are set at, if this option is off then no archiving will not take place. Default is On.
Renumber:
A new powerful feature of mantissa is the ability to renumber messages on the run. If you hate to have messages strangling from 2345 to 83844 then renumber is for you. What renumber does is cleans up the message numbers. It does this in one of two ways; Forward from #1 or Reverse from High Message number.
• Renumber On/Off:
This is an on/off button. The purpose of this option is to allow you to turn on or off the renumber option. Note: Renumber also patches Message Replies as well, so SS message threading is retained. Default is On.
• Reverse/Forward:
This is an Either/Or button. If there is a dark bullet in the center of the radio button then the options listed first on active otherwise the option listed second is active. The purpose of this option is to allow you to choose the method of renumber. Default is Reverse.
Reverse will take the current high message number and renumber backwards from that point. Forward will start at message #1 and renumber from that point forward.
• Userlog On/Off:
This is an on/off button. The purpose of this option is to allow you to turn on or off the renumber of user's last message number read option. Note: this will patch each users last high message number read, so if they do a B)egin from last message read. they will start where they left off, since all messages have been renumbered. Default is OFF.
• BBS Name:
This edit field should contain the name of your BBS application. You may use the control button at the end of the edit field to auto select your bbs name. Click on the button and then double click on your bbs application. This will also automatically determine your BBS folder location as well.
• BBS Folder:
This edit field contains the location of your BBS application. This must be a partial pathname and must end with a Colon ':'.
• Settings:
This option used used if you plan to save setting information in a text file in place of STR's. Reasons for doing this would be if you wish to do remote maintenance or DA maintenance. If this option is turned on then section data will be stored in the text file specified by the settings pathname and file name. You may use the control button to select the name and location of where you wish to place this settings text file. Note: If off is entered into the edit field then all data will be stored as STR's regardless of the On/Off indicator. Default is OFF.
• Mantissa Log:
This options allows you to determine if you want to use the mantissa log. It also allows you to select the location of this log. You may use the control button to select the name and location of where you wish to place this Log text file.
•• .Zodiac:
For use only if you are using Zodiac...
•• Full/Temp
The Full/Temp radio button is active. This is an either/OR button. Full - means that all .bak files will be saved and used as a backup. Temp - means that after mantissa runs all .bak files are deleted. The Temp feature is VERY DANGEROUS and should not be used unless you know what you are doing!
• Epistle Log:
This option is the location of where you wish the Epistle log to be written. It also enables you to turn this feature on or off. You may use the control button to select the name and location of where you wish to place this Epistle text file.
• High Msg #:
This is the highest message last processed by Epistle. If you are renumbering from #1 the turn off the Epistle Option (the epistle log, will contain invalid data). You may use the control button to auto-select the high message on your system. Normally, you only have to do this once, the system will take over from this point.
• Clearance:
This is the clearance level needed to include message sections in the epistle log. Any message section with a clearance level greater than this number will not be included in the Epistle log.
• Append On/Off
If this option 1s turned on then the epistle log will keep appending on itself. If it is turned off then a new epistle log is created ever time mantissa is run.
Mantissa plays it safe. Your original HDR, TXT, and MESSAGES files are never modified. (except to rename at the very end).
A Temp file is created of the MsgHdr file for archiving and renumbering.
On the Backup Scan, Mantissa again looks at the Tmp and TXT files (read only) and creates a HDR.$$$, TXT.$$$ and MESSAGES.$$$.
Mantissa will abort if it goes to read one of the original files and it is corrupted (bad disk sector, invalid pointer or if the file was left open by some other message editor - can't rename if it is in use by some other program).
After the $$$ files are created your original files are renamed .BAK and the $$$ are renamed to the original names.
Lininger Technology, or anyone else involved with Mantissa, makes no warranty or representation of any kind implied or expressed with regards to Mantissa. Mantissa is provided "AS IS". You assume the entire risk as to the performance and reliability of the product, including both software and documentation.
