MacFormat UK 61/MF_UK_61_1.iso/mac/Shareware Plus/Communications/Offline Reader/Offline ReadMe

Internet Message Format | 1997-10-27 | 7.2 KB | [TEXT/Redr]

To:       You, the User
From:     Michael Odawa <[e-mail]>
Subject:  The Offline Reader
Date:     October 26, 1997


                              The Offline Reader

Purpose
-------
Offline is a reading program for downloaded Usenet news, email and
other text.  Internet subscribers who connect over dial-up lines
(particularly with ISPs who charge by connect time) often find
it more useful to download news with a program such as Newswatcher,
and then read it offline after they have completed their connection
session.  This small-footprint program provides a comfortable
interface for indexing and browsing through these downloaded files.

Offline is called a smart reader because it understands a lot about
text, and it adjusts its own appearance and presentation based upon
what you are reading.  If the file you have opened is Usenet news or
email, Offline will read through the file and construct an index of
articles, authors, subjects, dates, etc., through which you can page
to find the information you want.  If the file is just plain text,
Offline formats it for display as plain text.

Offline is also called a smart reader because it remembers a lot of
information about your viewing habits.  It knows about your favorite
font, and other attributes you like to set for your reading.  And it
remembers where you were in any file, and scrolls to that point when
you open it.  If you open Offline without any documents (that is, if
you double-click on the application from the finder), if will find
all the documents you were reading when you last used the program,
open them all, and scroll them to the last place you were reading.

This latter feature is useful, because it means you can quit the
program quickly (for instance, when you need to recall memory to
run Microsoft programs), then resume right where you left off at
your leisure and convenience.


Shareware
---------
Offline is shareware.  That means if you use it regularly, you must
register the program and pay for it.

Paying for Offline is fairly simple.  Open the Register program that
accompanies Offline.  Enter your name, your email address, and the
number of single user licenses you desire for each program you wish
to purchase (or Site or Word-Wide licenses).  Save or Copy or Print
the data from the Register program and send the data and payment to
Kagi.  Kagi handles my payment processing.

If paying with Credit Card or First Virtual, you can email or fax
the data to Kagi.  Their email address is [e-mail] and their
fax number is [phone].  You can either Copy the data from
Register and paste into the body of an email message or you can Save
the data to a file and you can attach that file to an email message.
There is no need to compress the data file, it's already pretty small.
If you have a fax modem, just Print the data to the Kagi fax number.

Payments sent via email are processed within 3 to 4 days.  You will
receive an email acknowledgement when it is processed.  Payments sent
via fax take up to 10 days and if you provide a correct internet
email address you will receive an email acknowledgement.

If you are paying with Cash or USD Check you should print the data
using the Register application and send it to the address shown on
the form, which is:

Kagi
1442-A Walnut Street #392-3RR
Berkeley, California 94709-1405
USA


You can pay with a wide variety of cash from different countries
but at present if you pay via check, it must be a check drawn in
US Dollars.  Kagi cannot accept checks in other currencies, the
conversion rate for non-USD checks is around USD 15 per check and
that is just not practical.  If you have a purchasing department,
you can enter all the data into the Register program and then
select Invoice as your payment method.  Print three copies of the
form and send it to your accounts payable people.  You might want
to highlight the line that mentions that they must include a copy
of the form with their payment.  Kagi can not invoice your company;
you need to act on my behalf and generate the invoice and handle
all the paperwork on your end.

Please do not fax or email payment forms that indicate Cash, Check
or Invoice as the payment method.  As far as we know, there is
still no technology to transfer physical objects via fax or email
and without the payment, the form cannot be processed.

Payments sent via postal mail take time to reach Kagi and then up
to 10 days for processing.  Again, if you include a correct email
address, you will hear from Kagi when the form is processed.


Instructions for Use
------------ --- ---
Offline is pretty straightforward in its operations.  The application
is a fat binary, so it can run on both PowerPC and 68000 Macintoshes.
Just copy it to your hard disk and run it.

Remember, Offline is a non-destructive reader, so you can’t edit
the text, just read it.  Therefore, most of the keyboard keys have
no effect.  PageUp and PageDown scroll page-wise through each
message, and also take you to the next message when you are
positioned at the end.  The space bar, return and delete (backspace)
keys do the same.  Enter always takes you to the next message.
Up and down arrows make the text scroll line-by-line, while left
and right arrows move you to the previous and next threads.

"Deleting" message does not really remove it from the file; the
action just marks the message as deleted and hides it from view.
If you want to reveal the item or bring it back from deletion, just
select "Show Deleted Items" from the Message menu.

Play around with some of the other menus to see what they do.


Warranty
-------
This program is a work in progress, so the usual restrictions apply.
We haven't seen any big problems with this version of Offline, but we
haven't had enough experience that we can confidently say this
program will work exactly the way it is supposed to.  Be careful,
and keep your data backed up.  Since this is real cheap software,
you get what you pay for.  In any event, our liability must be limited
to the amount you paid for the program.

But the good side of using beta software is that the development
process is not finished, and you get to participate.  If there are
any features you would like to see added to Offline, or if there are
any aspects of the program that particularly bother you, drop me
an email, and I'll see if I can fix the problem for a future release.


Other Languages
----- ---------
Yeah, I know the program is all in English.  If you want it
localized for another language, drop me an email, and let's see what
we can do about it.


Limitations
-----------
When you reply to an email, or post a followup to a news article,
the Offline Reader doesn't actually send the reply or post.  Instead,
your writing is moved into a file called "Outgoing Mail", located in
the same folder as the Offline Reader program.  You can copy it from
there into your email program.

This is a beta restriction, imposed so that we don't screw up your
email files.  We'll let you mail directly, once we get more experience
with people using the program.

Please send any suggestions or bugs reports directly to me, at
[e-mail].

I hope you enjoy Offline,

Michael Odawa
[e-mail]