Companion is designed to store messages and file listings obtained using Navigator. This version of Companion only works with navigator 2.1. Companion 1.1 is completed and works with Navigator 3.0. (its a little faster too!).
Orginally Companion only worked with a data file supplied by me. This made downloading a little long, so I changed this demo to allow you to download the structure file. However, because of that you may experience a few problems. These will be reduced if you do a couple of things first.
After starting Companion, select Preferences from the Compuserve menu. A new menu bar appears. Select Update Help from the Help menu. An open file dialog will be presented. This stuffit file includes a file called “Update 1.06 Help”. Select this file in the dialog, and Companion will import the information it needs for the small question mark icons that appear through it.
Second, since the data file is totally empty, the first thing that is best to do is get the forum, message section, and library information into the database. This can only be done while archiving a session file. The best way to do this is to run a Navigator 2.1 session that enters all of the forums you normally frequent, and updates section and library names. Review this session, then archive it with Companion. As you archive it, Companion will stop and ask you if you wish to add each forum as it comes across it.
Finally, another thing you will find useful is to add an “All” user to the user record. Choose add user, enter All as the name, and be sure the PPN is blank.
The file “instructions” is a rough draft that discussed menu functions with beta testers, Companion comes with a better manual.
The following paragraphs are extracted from the Companion manual and may be useful if you have older Navigator archive files.
Another import point to keep in mind is the way Companion sets messages and file listings to particular forums. Rather than store the forum and the section in every message and file listing, it stores only an numerical reference to them. To change the forum name of all messages and file listings of a particular forum, just change the name in the forum record. One problem exists in that there is not a uniform method for Navigator to obtain and store these names. The actual forum name and go code is contained within the Navigator program, or in the case of Navigator 3.0 within its “database” file. There are discrepancies between version 2.1 and 3.0 of Navigator, and individual users may have modified their own copies of Navigator and changed the forum names. For example, Navigator 2.1 may refer to a forum as the “Macintosh Communications Forum”, but Navigator 3.0 may call the same forum the “Mac Communications Forum”. To Companion, these are different forums and it will try to create a new forum record if has one version stored and it comes across the other during an import. Remember that whatever is in the Navigator program is what will appear in the text of the session and archive files. You may have to modify your forum records in Companion when changing from files obtained with Navigator 2.1 to files obtained with Navigator 3.0. It will probably be easiest to import all of your 2.1 files, then switch to Companion 1.1 or greater and change the forum names and go codes to match your Navigator 3.0 program.
Under multifinder,it is quite easy to confirm that the forums in Navigator and Companion are the same. Just run Navigator and Companion at the same time, bring up the forum tile in Navigator, and select that forums record in Companion. Enter the go code and forum name in Companion that match Navigator. Failure to make sure that Companion corresponds to Navigator may leave your messages and file listings unorganized, attached to the wrong forum, or not attached to any forum at all.
