Gigarom 4/Mac Giga-ROM 4.0 - 1993.toast/FILES/BBS/TABBY:FIDO/Quoter DA 1.0.cpt/About Quoter DA…

Text File | 1990-07-10 | 13.8 KB | 330 lines | [TEXT/QED1]

                         About Quoter DA…

Quoter DA is a Desk Accessory whose main purpose is to convert text on
the Clipboard into quotes in the form generally used by FidoNet boards.
For instance, this block of text might be turned into the following:

PJ> Quoter DA is a Desk Accessory whose main purpose is to convert text
PJ> on the Clipboard into quotes in the form generally used by FidoNet
PJ> boards. For instance, this block of text might be turned into the
PJ> following:

To achieve this transformation, all you have to do is select the text
you want to quote, copy it, open the Quoter DA, enter the quoter’s
initials and hit the “OK” button (or Return or Enter), then paste.

Quoter has some extra features. It can reformat text without adding
initials, it can postmark replies with the original message date, time,
sender name and recipient name and it has a “decoder ring” function.

The postmark function extracts information from a message header such as
the following:

Msg #119 in *Private Messages-Local* Created on 05/28/90 at 01:19:11
To: PETE JOHNSON [Private] [Recvd], From: ODIN THE GREAT
Subject: (Reply To #113) Early bird!

and turns it into a line or two of text like so:

In a message to Pete Johnson dated 05/28/90 at 01:19:11, Odin The Great
writes:

The decoder ring feature encodes and decodes messages. This is mostly
for fun, but has some security advantages for exchanging private
messages on public bulletin boards and information services. As veteran
BBS users know, the “private” message section of a public BBS is only
relatively private -- the sysop and sometimes others can read its
messages. With Quoter, you can instantly encode messages with a keyword.

This is not CIA-class encryption, but it’s tough to crack -- it uses
rotating keys. Anyone who has the keyword can read the message in
seconds by copying it to the Clipboard, using Quoter’s decoder ring and
pasting the processed text into a window.

Here is what the previous paragraph looks like, encrypted with a keyword
of “Quoter DA” (no quotes, one space between words):

061F1B0B4A11546C2434F45BC23AC01D363F05FAF7AA19E45A2C251DE6E4FCEBBF6205
100220FF755B726B04010A6E6C2AE365741A05E9716633283E7DEBF4B16E65797D1114
E4FDFB50764B700504F1EB7B03086F4E57176C6531415958095FE078296E575F605925
F3637D512C632A5A27B36F7E4D356C262C37214B414629343C287B6341204D063D0B38
006018543E4C04022F14752F58701C04561C19053E203C5E3A13180F4C3C3010E3AEA8
0FFB5E323D4BC1FEFEF7F432B01054FDF1F9E3FE2C1C4C0F6E6C6FB5693C1378F67178
656A7F3CA00AE77C346A7E7507ECF4EB477903614615E6B06F4552433E4D5677F06150
40420938

Those of you familiar with hex numbers will recognize that the encoded
message is displayed in hex. This allows maximum encoding within the ASCII
character set required by most BBSs, though it does require twice as much
space to carry a message, since each character requires two hex characters
to represent it.

Your friendly local sysop may not want you to encrypt messages -- check
before you do. Many sysops have a legitimate concern about who’s doing
what on their boards -- the FBI has been known to shut down boards and
confiscate equipment when they suspected illegal activity. Don’t
jeopardize your relation with your sysop -- and perhaps his or her
ability to run a BBS -- by misusing this feature.

To use Quoter…

• Install it into your System with Apple’s Font/DA Mover.

 - or -

• Install it with Suitcase or Font/DA Juggler.

 - or -

• Install it into Copernicus, Second Sight or any other application in
  which you want to use it with the Font/DA Mover. To open an
  application with the Font/DA Mover, hold down the Option key, then
  click on the Open button.

The Quoter DA window has only two active items: a text field in which
you enter the initials or name of the person you’re quoting and an “OK”
button. If you enter no name, then the block of text would appear like
so:

> The Quoter DA window has only two active items: a text field in which
> you enter the initials or name of the person you’re quoting and a “Do
> It” button. If you enter no name, then the block of text would appear
> like so:

The “OK” button responds to a mouse click or the following keys: Return,
Enter and Command-O (for “OK”).

                             The Quoter Menu

When Quoter DA is active, its Quoter menu appears with the following
items:

• About… produces a dialog box with program credits. You can get it with
  a Command-? (or Command-/).

[ One of the next two items is checked, indicating that it is selected ]

• Format tells Quoter DA to reformat text with initials/name to fit
  within the line length setting. Command-F from the keyboard.

• Let Be tells Quoter to add the intials/name in front of each line of
  text, but otherwise to leave all text lines intact -- no reformatting.
  Command-L from the keyboard.

• Encode… tells Quoter to immediately encrypt the text on the Clipboard
  with a keyword. Quoter asks you to enter a keyword, then encrypts the
  text in a moderately sophisticated fashion. You can Encode from the
  keyboard with a Command-E. Quoter remembers the encryption key for
  subsequent sessions -- this somewhat detracts from its security
  (someone else could use Quoter and copy your key) but is a good
  feature for those of us who can’t always remember our own phone
  numbers.

• Decode… tells Quoter to immediately decipher the text on the Clipboard
  with a keyword. Again, you are prompted to enter a keyword, then
  Quoter deciphers the message. You can Decode from the keyboard with a
  Command-D. Quoter remembers the decryption key for subsequent
  sessions.

• Postmark tells Quoter to extract information from the Clipboard to
  create a brief message introduction identifying the sender, the
  recipient and the time the message was sent. The default settings for
  Postmark work with messages on Second Sight, Mansion and Copernicus --
  and perhaps other BBS environments. You can change them from the
  Prompts part of the Setup dialog if you need to. Postmark is available
  as Command-P from the keyboard.

• Setup… (Command-S from the keyboard) produces a dialog box in which
  you choose Line Length, Quote Mark, ASCII Filter settings and Postmark
  prompts. Line Length is 72 by default; Quote Mark is “> ” (no quotes)
  by default; ASCII Filter is on by default. ASCII Filter translates
  characters with ASCII values greater than 127 to characters in the
  range of 0 to 127. These are characters it changes:

    From   To
    ----   --
    “,”    "   Curled quotes to straight quotes
    ‘,’    '   Curled single quotes to straight single quotes
    …,—    -   Ellipses, em dash to hyphen
    ™      t   Trademark to t
    ®      r   Registration to r
    ©      c   Copyright to c
    •      *   Bullet to asterisk

    All other high-bit characters are changed to question marks.

  If you are using Quoter for telecommunications, you should enable
  ASCII Filter since few BBSs and information services can understand
  and print Macintosh extensions to the ASCII character set.

  The section of the Settings dialog marked Postmark Settings allows you
  to customize values for the Postmark function. Postmark needs to know
  four things:

  * To: is the identifier which marks the recipient of the message.
    Postmark is not case sensitive, to To: and TO: are equivalent.
    Default value for this is "To:" (no quotes). This works on Second
    Sight, Mansion, Copernicus, CompuServe and elsewhere.

  * From: is the identifier which marks the sender. Default value is
    "From:" (no quotes). This works on Second Sight, Mansion and
    Copernicus. Change it to "Fm:" for CompuServe, or just use "m:" if you
    want to be compatible with almost everyone.

  * Date Sep is the character used to separate date elements -- the "/"
    in 06/02/90. "/" is the default. It works with Second Sight, Mansion
    and Copernicus. Change it to "-" for CompuServe. If a BBS program or
    commercial information utility uses free-form dates, as in January
    2, 1990, Postmark won’t recognize them as dates

  * Time Sep is the character used to separate date elements -- the ":"
    in 15:32:49. ":" is the default. It works with Second Sight, Mansion
    Copernicus and CompuServe.

• Quit has an obvious function. Command-Q also quits.

                                 Notes

To use the Postmark function, copy the first six or so lines of a
message -- the part containing the date and names of sender and
recipient -- to the Clipboard, then activate Quoter, hit Command-P,
activate your text entry window and paste. It will turn something such
as the following:

FROM: Bruce Gerson
  TO: Alan Heflich
SUBJ: RE: Coper vrs. TMM4
DATE: 06/02/90     TIME: 07:47:14
AREA: RRH

into a nice compact message introduction such as:

In a message to Alan Heflich dated 06/02/90 at 07:47:14, Bruce Gerson
writes:

or, using the same settings, turn

Msg #405 in *Good Food* Created on 05/22/90 at 16:01:04
To: HUBERT MOORE, From: ROBERT BAKER
Subject: GREAT RIBS!!!!

into

In a message to Hubert Moore dated 05/22/90 at 16:01:04, Robert Baker
writes:


With two quick Settings changes (From prompt to "Fm:", Date Sep to "-"),
Quoter can just as easily turn

#: 41923 S7/THINK Pascal
    28-May-90  13:34:17
Sb: #41904-#ThP 3.0.1 TCL Bug?
Fm: Greg Howe 76474,2465
To: Phillip Harding 72426,3401 (X)

into

In a message to Phillip Harding dated 28-May-90 at 13:34:17, Greg Howe
writes:

The Postmark function is pretty smart: it adapts well to a number of
different formats. If you find a format with which Postmark cannot cope,
send me a sample header and I'll try to adapt Postmark to it. Postmark
analyzes only the first 8 lines of text. The major requirements for
Postmark are identifiable prefixes for the To: and From: names and a
non-blank delimiter for date and time fields. To clean things up, Postmark
trims the characters and any text following '[', '^', '{', '(', ',', and
the numbers '0' through '9' from the ends of names. Postmark also insists
that the last character of date and time fields must be a number and that
the fields must be between 5 and 9 characters in length. If Postmark can’t
make sense of the date and time fields, it gracefully shortens its
preamble to:

In a message to Phillip Harding, Greg Howe writes:

In typical use, you will copy a header, activate Quoter, hit Command-P,
paste the text to your message window, copy the text to be quoted,
activate Quoter, enter proper initials, hit return, then paste the text
to your message window after the Postmark text. It’s a bit roundabout,
but it’s easier than writing an introductory line yourself.

Quoter DA can handle a maximum of about 16,000 characters input on the
Clipboard -- that’s about 220 lines at 72 characters per line. Its output
capacity is about 32,000 characters, since the text will expand with
quotation characters. If you want to quote a longer selection, do it in
pieces.

If you’re using Quoter to encode and decode text, select smaller chunks --
encoded text is twice the size of plain text. If you choose a 12K block of
text, it will swell to 24K encoded. When the recipient tries to decode it,
Quoter will process only the first 16K. To avoid this problem, keep
selections below about 8K in size (110 lines averaging 72 characters per
line).

If you hold down the Option key when you click the “OK” button, Quoter
reformats the text on the Clipboard, but does not add initials or the
quote prompt -- handy for quickly reformatting text for other purposes.
Here’s a quick demo:

If you are trying to read a message on a BBS which has bad line breaks
because of the strange reformatting
that some BBS software does -- if, for instance, you see a paragraph that
looks
like this -- and you're using
a terminal program that supports copy and paste, just copy the message,
activate Quoter, click “OK" while
holding down the Option key, then paste the message back onto your screen
to see it display like this:

If you are trying to read a message on a BBS which has bad line breaks
because of the strange reformatting that some BBS software does -- if,
for instance, you see a paragraph that looks like this -- and you're
using a terminal program that supports copy and paste, just copy the
message, activate Quoter, click "OK" while holding down the Option key,
then paste the message back onto your screen to see it display like this:

If Quoter DA beeps at you, it’s probably because the Clipboard is empty,
or it has too much text.

If you hold down the Command key when you click the “OK” button, Quoter
reformats the text on the Clipboard with leading spaces instead of the
initials and quote prompt -- instant indented text.

There are some other interesting key-and-click features -- don’t be
afraid to experiment!

In formatting text, Quoter adds a carriage return before lines which
begin with spaces, tabs or the characters '.', ':', ';' (such as
indented address blocks or program lines) presuming that they’re meant
to be separate lines. It makes sure that these lines are within your
line length setting and wraps them into additional lines if necessary.
If a line consists completely of blank characters, it is left to stand
alone -- subsequent text is not wrapped into it.

Quoter DA remembers all its settings, including window position.

Quoter DA is based on DASkeleton by Michael J. Conrad. Thanks Michael!

Quoter DA is free, though it is ©1990 by me. It was first released as a
bonus for registered users of Archie, mehitabel, AreaTrix and ff, four
BBS utilities which I sell. After July 1, it can be distributed freely
to anyone. It cannot distributed in “for sale” packages without my
specific permission.

If you like Quoter DA, send mail to PETERJ on GEnie or via FidoNet to Pete
Johnson at 102/863, or drop me a postcard. If I get good mail, I will
continue to maintain Quoter DA and to release free software. Otherwise I
might not.

And for a good time, call the Glassell Park BBS at [phone].

-- Pete Johnson
   Glassell Park BBS
   Post Office Box 65074
   Los Angeles, CA 90065

   July 9, 1990

KrazyKaps™ 1990