SPECIAL NOTE TO THOSE WHO DOWNLOADED MY EARLIER PROCEDURES:
The special setup file created by my earlier procedures will not work
with this one. This setup file contains additional information, not available
in the first file. As a result, to run this procedure, you will have to go
through the setup again. I'm very sorry for the inconvenience. (Incidentally,
the setup file name is different for this procedure so, if you decide to use
this procedure [as I hope you will], you can delete the original setup file:
"~WK VAR.)
WHAT THIS PROCEDURE WILL DO:
This procedure is will do one of two things: either just log you onto
GEnie and move you to the Mac RT or: log you on, move to the Mac Bulletin
Board, read all of the messages for you, write them as a text file to your hard
drive (in a folder that you have designated), log you off GEnie, and sound your
"alert sound" to let you know it's finished.
THE SETUP PART OF THE PROCEDURE:
When you first run this procedure, you will be asked to do a one time
setup. To do the setup, you will need to have your local GEnie access number,
your account number, and your password, handy; you will also need to know if
your phone is Touchtone and, if your modem is 2400 baud, or better. Finally, it
will ask you to designate a destination folder for your messages. The setup
part of the procedure will ask you to type: first your GEnie access number,
then your account number, and then your password. Make sure that each of the
items you type in is correct before you click the "OK" button or, you'll have
to trash the ~WK VAR file (mentioned below) and start all over again. You also
need to be sure that you answer the questions about the type of phone and modem
you have, correctly. (If you answer yes to the "Do you have a Touchtone phone?"
question and you have a pulse type phone, the procedure will fail miserably. By
the same token, if you answer yes to the "Modem: 2400 Baud (or better)"
question and you have a 1200 baud modem, you won't like the results.)
When you've filled in all of your GEnie information and, answered the
questions about your phone and modem, you will get first, a dialog box
reminding you that you need to select the destination folder for your messages
then, after you click on the "OK" button, the dialog box that allows you to
select that folder. The dialog box that allows you to select your destination
folder, looks very much like a standard "Save" dialog box and you can navigate,
through files and folders, the same way as you do with a "Save" dialog. Once you've selected a destination folder, you should not move, rename, or delete it. (This isn't the end of the world but, you will have to do another setup if the destination folder is changed. See "NOTE" directly below.)
[NOTE: This procedure puts a special file called "~Test" inside your destination folder. This file contains no data and, is simply put there so that the procedure can check to make sure that you haven't changed your destination folder. (You may delete this file if you wish since, it's re-created each time the message reading part of this procedure is run.) If you move, rename, or delete, the destination folder; or, if you rename your hard drive; the next time you run the message reading part of this procedure: you'll get a dialog box telling you that White Knight can't find the destination folder, and asking you if you want to do a setup immediately. If you opt not to do a setup right then, the procedure will quit since, the message reading part of this procedure won't run without a recognized destination folder. If you decide to do a setup right then, you will go immediately to the setup part of the procedure.]
After the seven dialog boxes listed above have been dealt with, you
will get one more dialog box that asks you if you want to log on now. If you
click on the "Yes" button, you will see another dialog box (see notes on that,
below). If you click the "No" button, the procedure will end; but, it will have
created a special file called: "~WK VARI" in the White Knight folder on your
hard drive. If you want to keep the setup a one time process, it's important
that you don't move, rename, or delete the "~WK VARI" file. [On the other hand,
anytime you want to change any of the data that you've put into the file
(including the destination folder), just trash it and run the procedure; it
will prompt you again for the information.]
LOGGING ON OR, ARCHIVING MESSAGES:
After you've run the set up part of the procedure, each time you run
the procedure, you will get a dialog box that asks: "DO YOU JUST WANT TO LOG
ON?". If you click on the "Yes" button (or hit the carriage return), the
procedure will just log you onto GEnie and move you to the Mac RT; if you click
on the "No" button, the procedure will not only log on, but also, go to the Mac
bulletin board, read any new messages, write them to a new file on your hard
disk, and log off GEnie.
ARCHIVE FILES CREATED BY THE PROCEDURE:
All of the files that this procedure creates, when archiving messages,
will be located in the folder that you selected as your destination folder
during the setup and, have a unique name. The first part of the name will
always be "MacBB...", but, the rest of the name will be a date/time stamp.
Since this date/time stamp is created anew each time you run the procedure,
there will be a new and uniquely named file created, each time you decide to
run the message reading part of this procedure. [By the way, you can change the
name of these files, or delete them, or move them, or whatever, after the
procedure has run. It's only the "~WK VARI" file and, the destination folder,
that you need to leave as is.] All of these files are "text" files and, you
should be able to read them with any word processor. (Of course, if you have a
text processor, such as Vantage or Qued M, so much the better.)
SPECIAL NOTES:
For those of you with call waiting, I would warmly recommend that you
check with your local phone company and see if the *70 disabling feature is
available. If it is, I would advise putting "*70," at the beginning of your
GEnie access number. (Don't forget the comma, that makes White Knight pause for
two seconds before dialing the rest of the number. The whole thing would look
something like this: *70,5551212).
To those of you who aren't already in the habit of archiving your
messages to your hard drive, and reading them off line: you might want to
consider making up a special folder for your messages before you run this
procedure. That way, all of the bulletin board messages won't get mixed up with
a lot of other files.
I have included the source code for this procedure (in the "Source
Code" folder) so that you can modify it if you wish or, use part of it to write
your own White Knight procedure. The source code is pretty heavily annotated
so, hopefully, you can see what a particular command is doing.
If you run into any problems, drop me an E-mail and I'll see if I can't
help you out. My GEnie address is STEW.STEWART.
CREDIT WHERE CREDIT'S DUE:
Mark Elpers supplied me with a lot of good ideas, many of which, are
incorporated into this procedure and, did a lot of bug testing for me.
Don Peaslee, after Mark and I had tested this thing as throughly as we
could, found a bug in the original version that, prompted me to make it
possible for you to select a destination folder for your messages. (To be fair,
Mark had suggested this earlier but, I was too lazy to implement it.)
Bob Daniel's, technical expertise, made the setup and destination
