You will get to know this dialog very well - it appears upon each launch of Alice. The dialog gives You information about the copyright, shareware and which box-types are registered. Choose "Keys" from the "Subject" popup menu, to see a list with all registered and non-registered box types.
You'll receive a key if you pay your shareware fee. To enter the key just click on the "Key"-Button. A field appears in which you can type your key.
 
Make sure you typed the spaces and the right low/high cases! Choose "Save", if You typed something wrong an alert will inform You.
Finally open a box (a type which You registered of course :-) to active the key...
Opening a Mailbox Automatically
If you always want to open or start a box after you've launched Alice, Alice can do this automatically for you!
Select a mailbox in the window "BBS Systems" and choose "Start Object" from the menu "BBS Systems", then select the desired action.
 
Canceling a Launch
When you launch an application through an Alice mailbox, Alice waits until the application terminates. If the application crashes, you can "cancel the launch". Select the mailobox in the window "BBS Systems" and choose "Cancel Launch" from the "BBS Systems" menu.
 
The three buttons work like this:
Is Running: the application is still running, Alice wil continue to wait for it.
Is Finished: Alice will consider the application to have quit normally.
Error: Alice will consider the the application to have terminated with an error - this will terminate further processing for the mailbox.
Global Parameters
The "global parameters" let you set preferences for all BBSs. The various choices are explained below.
 
Extended message header: the extended message header shows, among other things, the address of the message’s author. Since Alice may have to search the entire message text to find the address, users of slower machines (Plus, SE, Classic) may wish to turn off the extended header display in order to speed up the display.
Message forward/backward buttons: if you turn off this option, Alice doesn’t display the buttons for the next and previous messages. This gives you an extra line of text in the message window, which can be useful on the toaster screens.
Area Window: in case of "Message" or "Answer"-window is top, an additional window containing the area names is shown. If deactivated, you could choose the area within a popup-menu.
"New Message" makes an empty message header: after choosing "New Message" from "Message" menu no headers are filled out. Deactivate this option, if the message header should be filled in for you.
Press the "option"-key while choosing "New Message" to toggle the current setting!
Show "Faces": show the face icons of the author and addressee of the messages in the Message window, see below.
"Faces" in file: click on this button to select a file of face icons. If you don’t select a file, Alice will usually display an "unknown" face. The file should contain 'ICON' and/or 'cicn' resources whose resource names are the same (exact spelling) as the network name of the person they represent. This means that Alice is compatible with the face files used with the point program "Copernicus" – such files are available on many BBSs.
 
Go to first unread message on open: if you select this option, Alice will go straight to the first unread message when you open a BBS. This is useful if you read a mail packet in several sessions – you can resume right where you left off. If this option is not selected, or if there are no unread messages in the mailbag, Alice will go to the first message in the mailbag.
Change area sound: this is a popup-menu that lists all sounds installed in your System (or opened with Suitcase, etc.) If you select a sound, it will be played every time you change areas by going to the next or previous message. If your Mac has problems playing sounds (maybe you have a Mac clone? ;-) then select "No Sound".
Message for me sound: this sound is played when you reach a message that is addressed to you.
Creator of text files: Alice can save a message as plain text. Every word processor can display the saved text using it´s "Open" command. If you want to use your favorite editor instead of TeachText, when you doubleclick the saved text in the Finder, tell Alice about your editor.
You will see a file dialog which only lists applications, chose your favorite text editor from that list.
Quote Rules
When you respond to a message in Alice, Alice "quotes" the original message for you. You should usually quote pertinent bits of a message you respond to, or else the other chap may be left with no idea of what you’re talking about. Don’t overdo it, though, because lots of people pay long-distance charges to transmit or receive your messages, and they don’t appreciate a lot of superfluous quoting.
To set your quoting preferences, choose the command "Quote Rules" from the menu "BBS Systems" with your BBS selected in the window "BBS Systems".
In Fidonet, it is customary to preface quoted lines with the initals of the original author, followed by ">". Alice also lets you use an alternative form that omits the initials. You can set the maximum number of characters per line for quoted text, but the default 78 characters are appropriate under most circumstances. More than 78 characters may cause problems for some users on other systems.
 
Put "Re: " before the subject automatically: this option automatically prepends "Re: " to the subject of the original message. "Re:ing" is currently somehwat out of fashion.
For Experts: the re:ing algorithm attempts to avoid duplicate "Re:"s. STR# ID=1011 contains a list of strings recognized by the algorithm as equivalent to a "Re:". You can edit the list if you like to improve results – note that Alice uses the first element in the list to mark its replies.
Quote as floating text: to get all quoted text to (nearly) the same linewidth, following lines will be concatenated and then quoted together. To quote something the should not be broken up, such as source code, deactivate this option.
Holding down the "shift" key toggles the current setting on the fly!
Area Names
In the menu "Areas" you can select whether you would like the "Areas" window to show all known areas or just those with messages in them, and whether you would like to see the area names as defined by your sysop or the "official" Fidonet area names (only in fidonet systems).
 
Addressbook
You can use the Addressbook to store and find E-Mail addresses of persons you often write to. The addressbook stores all addresses, regardless of which box type they be use. You can also add comments..
Once an address is stored, it can be very easily inserted into the "Answer" window.
Open
 
To open or bring the addressbook in front, choose "Addressbook" from the "Windows" menu (always possible). If You are writing a message, you can also click on the "To:" button.
 
First-, Surname, Note: click on the text to change the sorting order. The current order is underlined.
Use: click on this button (or doubleclick an entry) to insert the selected record into the "To:" and "Address:" field of a "Answer" window.
Delete: use to delete the selected record. WARNING! You can't Undo this!
New, Change: make a new record or change one. A dialog will appear:
 
Name, Address: typed like in "Answer" window. Alice couldn't check your entries!
Note: whatever you want (e.g. phone# or "real"-address). Only the first 255 characters will be stored.
To take a new address from the "Message" window into the addressbook, first select the name/address by clicking on it. Open the addressbook and choose "New", the name and address will be given. If you've already pasted an name/adress into the clipboard this will be the default.
"SUMMARY*.XRS", "New Files"
Your XRS and QWK packets contain a file, which lists all new files available for download. Before Alice 2.2 You could only view this file with a word processor - Alice 2.2 can display this list in a window, and you can specify the font/size and CharSet (see chapter "CharSet").
There is still one limit: only the first 32000 characters could be displayed. If there are more you will be notified.
