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- PCElm 3.0 - Installation and User Manual
-
-
- 0) Files
- 1) About PCElm and where and how to get it
- 2) History and Version Numbers
- 3) Installation
- 3.1 Configuration File
- 3.2 Environment Variables
- 3.3 Other Files
- 3.4 Starting PCElm
- 4) Using PCElm
- 5) Troubleshooting
- 6) Notes for interfacing with UUCP
- 7) Languages
- 8) Credits
- 9) The Future
-
-
- 0) Files
- This package contains the following files:
-
- Name Description
- ----------------------------------------------------------------
- ALIAS Example alias file
- MARVIN SIG Example signature file
- PCELM RC PCElm configuration file
- PCELM DEU PCElm message file, german language
- PCELM ENG PCElm message file, english language
- PCELM MAN PCElm installation and user manual
- PCELM EXE PCElm executable
-
-
- 1) About PCElm and where and how to get it
- PCElm is a mail user agent (UA) with a user interface closely
- modeled after the USENET ELM. To avoid confusion, we would like to
- mention that PCElm and USENET ELM are *not* related.
-
- PCElm is intended to be used as a drop-in replacement for BM when
- using the KA9Q NOS package or as a replacement for mail.exe when
- using UUPC. It can also be used for other mailsystems, as all relevant
- things for compatibility with MTA's (Message Transfer Agents) are
- configurable.
-
- Hilights:
- PCElm has a nice user interface, with easy to learn and easy to use
- commands. UN*X users will already be familiar with the more important
- commands. It can be made to work with just about every mail system
- there is for PC's, as PCElm makes no assumptions at all about the
- underlying network software. Finally, PCElm is multilingual; you can
- make all messages appear in your favorite language. Message files
- for English and German currently exist.
-
- PCElm in hamradio mode creates text- and workfiles directly usable
- by NET or NOS for distribution with SMTP. In UUCP mode, PCElm
- execs a uucp mailer (usually rmail.exe) to feed mail to your
- uucp program. Since there are many uucp programs for PCs out there,
- it is up to you to find the right way to exec the mailer (See the
- discussion on the uucpcall parameter below). As our knowledge
- of UUPC, WAFFLE etc. is limited, we can't help there.
-
- PCElm is Copyright (C) 1988,89,90,91 by Wolfgang Siebeck and
- Martin Freiss.
-
- The executable pcelm.exe may be freely copied and distributed, provided
- that all files in this package are distributed with it and provided that
- the copyright notices are retained. No money may be charged for copying
- PCElm. A license is given to use PCElm for an unlimited time in
- non-commercial environments.
-
- No warranty, expressed or implied, is given that PCElm does what you
- think it does. The usual disclaimers apply: It works for us.
-
- Should you want or need support in setting up PCElm beyond the scope
- of this manual, want us to include special features in PCElm, want
- to include PCElm with your product or otherwise use PCElm in a
- commercial environment (i.e. make money out of people using PCElm),
- contact us.
-
- If you need support from us, we would request that you register PCElm
- with us for a fee of 10$ or the equivalent amount in your favorite
- currency (20 DM or 6 british pounds at current rates). No checks or MO's
- please; exchange fees for foreign currency checks are more than 10$
- over here. A (rather nice) printed manual is available from Wolfgang
- Siebeck for registered users for an additional fee of $7.
-
- If you don't need support, we wouldn't complain about a donation
- either :-)
-
- If you would like the source code (C, with Turbo C 2.0((C) Borland) or
- later versions, Borland C++ recommended), the fee is 30$.
- The rationale behind this is that support costs us both time and money
- (as you might know, Germany has the highest postal and telephone charges
- in the world). 2 Emails of 5 KB length to overseas already eat up the
- 10$.
-
- We can be reached at
-
- Wolfgang Siebeck -or- Martin Freiss
- Rosstr. 38-40 Muehlenfloessstr. 60
- D-W 5100 Aachen D-W 4792 Bad Lippspringe
- Germany Germany
-
- Email:
- siebeck@infoac.rmi.de freiss.pad@sni.de
-
- Email is preferred.
-
- Bug reports are welcome if they are complete, i.e. please specify
- all configuration parameters, your hardware, version of NOS or uucp
- software, and send an excerpt of the mailbox you are having trouble
- with if necessary. We can't fix bugs we can't reproduce.
- Suggestions for enhancements to PCElm are of course also welcome.
-
- 2) History and Version Numbers
-
- PCElm was originally based on BM, Bdales Mailer, by Barksdale Garbee II,
- N3EUA, version 3.0, reworked by Gerard van der Grinten, PA0GRI,
- Phil Karn, KA9Q, and Dave Trulli, NN2Z. BM at that time was a UNIX mail
- lookalike with a restricted set of commands.
-
- Someday in early 1988, Martin added a reply-include-old-message command
- to BM, and later that year, with the advent of Turbo C 1.5, Wolfgang
- Siebeck devised the user interface modeled after Dave Taylor's ELM.
- Creeping featurism then set in, and more and more capabilities were
- added, until all resemblances to BM ceased to exist. This mailer
- was then renamed to PCElm.
-
- The version number went to 1.9 in middle 1989 and stopped there.
- We had no real use for PCElm any more then, as we both had bigger
- computers than PCs to play around with at that time :-).
- PCElm at this time had never been officially distributed, we just gave
- some copies to friends in Germany and the Netherlands.
-
- Imagine our surprise, when, in 1990, mail began to trickle in from
- PCElm users in Britain and the US and it developed that there was a
- large user community.
- In late 1990 Kelvin Hill, G1EMM, took over development of PCElm, as
- we did not have time to develop PCElm further.
-
- Sadly, Kelvin dropped development in early 1991 due to work
- pressure. At that time, he had developed versions 2.0 to 2.2 and
- distributed them. Unluckily enough, we don't know what's in these
- versions. Rumour has it that Kelvin intended to incorporate a news
- reader for use with KA9Q NOS's NNTP capabilities, but to our
- knowledge this did not happen.
-
- PCElm 3.0 was then written in August 1991, again by Wolfgang Siebeck
- and Martin Freiss. PCElm 3.0 is the 'official' son of PCElm 1.9a.
- We hope that this will end the version number confusion regarding
- PCElm.
-
- 3) Installation
-
- First, set the environment variable HOME to point to the directory
- where PCElm's configuration file and alias file reside.
- This environment variable is mandatory! PCElm will not start up
- without it (see also 3.2, environment variables).
- Example:
- set HOME=d:\usr\marvin
-
- 'CD' to your home directory, if you are not already there.
- Then, select the language you want to use by copying or renaming the
- appropriate message file to 'pcelm.msg'. The message files 'pcelm.eng'
- (English) and 'pcelm.deu' (German) are included in this distribution.
- Example:
- cd \usr\marvin
- copy pcelm.eng pcelm.msg
-
- For this manual, we assume that you are using the English language.
- If you want to use another language, read chapter 7 first, which
- discusses setups for foreign languages in more detail.
-
- 3.1 Configuration File
- ----------------------
- PCElm needs to know a lot of things about your MTA and your computer
- to function properly.
-
- You need to configure PCElm's configuration file, pcelm.rc, before
- starting PCElm for the first time. DO NOT USE THE EXAMPLE pcelm.rc
- DISTRIBUTED IN THIS PACKAGE AS-IS. Edit it first with an ASCII-Editor
- of your choice.
-
- pcelm.rc is a pure ASCII-file. Lines that start with a hash '#' or
- empty lines are regarded as comments.
-
- Other lines are of the form <keyword><blank><information>. The
- keywords that PCElm knows about are explained in detail below.
- Note that ASCII space is used as a delimiter; if you need to include
- a space in the information field, you can put double quotes '"'
- around it. If (for whatever reason) you need to insert control
- characters into a line, write them as escaped decimals (i.e.
- \001 would be Ctrl-A). Some more escapes PCElm knows about are
- \n, newline, \r, carriage return, \\ backslash, and \t, tab.
- Note that PCElm likes slashes in pathnames, not backslashes, i.e.
- you must write a path like "c:\spool\mail" as "c:/spool/mail".
- Example:
- SOH-UUCP "From "
- Keywords are case insensitive.
- Keyword is one of:
-
- HOST
- ----
- This is the hostname to be used for the hamradio mode. It usually
- is your callsign followed by .ampr.org, as in "dg5kx.ampr.org"
- Example:
- host dg5kx.ampr.org
-
- UUCPHOST
- --------
- This is the hostname to be used for uucp mode. Note: traditional
- uucp hostnames need to be unique, so know what you are doing here.
- This is usually either your hostname followed by .uucp as in
- "dg5kx.uucp" or a fully qualified domain name (FQDN) as in
- "dg5kx.rmi.de".
- Example:
- uucphost dg5kx.uucp
-
- USER
- ----
- This is the name of your mailbox. It usually is your username (login)
- at this system. (Note that this puts an 8 character length restriction
- on your username, as MessDOS can't handle more characters).
- If this entry is commented out, the value of the environment variable
- 'mailbox' is used.
- Example:
- user marvin
-
- FULLNAME
- --------
- Your real life name belongs here. This is so that other people can see
- who you really are, even if your username is 'gandalf' or 'blackadder'.
- (No disrespect meant if you are really called Gandalf).
- If this entry is commented out, the value of the environment variable
- 'name' is used.
- Example:
- fullname "Martin W Freiss"
-
- REPLY
- -----
- Use this if you want replies to your messages to go to another machine
- or if you are on a network where headers are mangled so badly people
- can't reply to you otherwise. If you aren't sure, set it to your
- own email address.
- Example:
- reply freiss.pad@sni.de
-
- ZONE
- ----
- The timezone you are living in. Should be 3 characters, not more, not less.
- There is an ISO standard for time zone names if memory serves me correctly,
- but the ISO number escapes me.
- Example:
- zone MET
-
- MAXLET
- ------
- The maximum number of messages that may be in a mailbox at once.
- Decrease this number if you are short on memory. PCElm startup will slow
- down considerably if have a huge mailbox; on the other hand I doubt
- anybody can find his way around 300 messages in a single mailbox.
- Example:
- maxlet 300
-
- EDIT
- ----
- The filename of your favorite editor goes here, This should be a small
- editor capable of producing true ASCII files (if possible with no
- Control-Z at the end, though PCElm tries to zap Ctrl-Z's if it sees them).
- What I'm trying to convey here is that Word for Windows ((C) Microsoft)
- is not the sort of thing you want to put here.
- If this entry is commented out, the value of the environment variable
- 'editor' is used.
- If you don't have an editor handy (edlin doesn't count :-)), try
- builtin+
- as editor. This is a small full screen editor that is hardcoded into
- PCElm. Nothing fancy, and it still has some raw edges, but it works.
- See end of chapter 4 for a brief discussion of the commands the
- editor understands.
- Example:
- edit dte
-
- SMTP
- ----
- This is where you put the directory where your mailboxes reside. All
- mailboxes, i.e. both the hamradio and uucp mailboxes should be in one
- directory.
- If this entry is commented out, the value of the environment variable
- 'maildir' is used.
- (Don't worry about the curious name SMTP. It's called that way for
- historical reasons and compatibility with BM).
- Example:
- smtp c:/spool/mail
-
- QUEUEDIR
- --------
- This is where you put the directory where outgoing mail gets queued up.
- Typically, this is called /spool/mqueue or something like that. This is
- for hamradio mode only; in UUCP mode, the exterior mailer determines
- where it queues mail.
- Example:
- queuedir c:/spool/mqueue
-
- VIDEO
- -----
- Put a 1 here if you want direct writes into video ram, which is fast
- but tends to confuse CGAs and not-so-very-compatible PCs. A 0 will
- do all video updates through the BIOS, which is painfully slow.
- Example:
- video 1
-
- SOH-UUCP
- --------
- This is a sequence of words that tell PCElm that a new message begins.
- Uh.. message delimiter is the word I was looking for. Usually "From ",
- but may be anything at all if you are using weird mailers.
- If you have MMDF-style mailboxes (like in UUPC/extended), use the special
- keyword mmdf; otherwise, "From " (note the blank) or "Received "
- usually work.
- Example:
- SOH-UUCP "From "
- ( or, if you are using UUPC/extended,
- SOH-UUCP mmdf )
-
- SOH-HAM
- -------
- See above, but for ham radio.
- Example:
- SOH-ham "From "
-
- HAM-EXT
- -------
- Extension for amateur radio
- The file extension your mailbox file has goes here. A mailbox is
- constructed from your username with the extension defined here appended to
- it. Note that even if your mailbox has no extension, you still need
- to define the dot "." as extension ! The dot is mandatory.
- Example:
- ham-ext ".txt"
-
- UUCP-EXT
- --------
- Extension for UUCP
- See above, but for uucp.
- UUPC usually has no extension, so we just define the dot as extension.
- Example:
- uucp-ext "."
-
- START
- -----
- Startmode for PCElm. If Startmode is "uucp", PCElm will start in
- uucp mode; anything else will cause PCElm to start in hamradio mode.
- Example:
- START hamradio
-
- COLORS
- ------
- Define various colours for display:
- The numbers below are hexadecimal numbers defining a foreground and
- background colour for various scenarios. The routine determining the
- colours is quite simpleminded, so please don't use spaces here.
-
- If you are confused as to what to enter here, either leave it alone
- or consult an IBM PC programming manual as to how these numbers are
- arrived at.
-
- The color codes are as follows:
-
- Background | Foreground
- ---------------------------------
- 0 0 0 1 | 1 1 1 1 ---> 0x1f ---> Bright white on blue
- ---------------------------------
- B R G B | I R G B
- L E R L | N E R L
- I D E U | T D E U
- N E E | E E E
- K N | N N
-
- This will definitely get more comfortable to configure in a later version
- of PCElm.
-
- Values are: normal screen, bold, more prompt, default at exit,
- selection bar.
-
- Example:
- COLORS 1f,4f,2f,07,6f
-
- UUCPCALL
- --------
- Format of uupc command
- Supported macros are:
- $ filename containing message header and body
- % name of recipient
- & subject of message (you shouldn't need this)
-
- PCElm constructs the workfiles and messagefiles that KA9Q NET and NOS
- needs by itself, but execs an exterior mailer in uucp mode so that
- headers peculiar to your particular implementation of uucp (or whatever)
- can be written. The exterior mailer is usually called rmail.exe or
- mail.exe. The macros $, & and % are expanded _once_, they may not occur
- multiple times in this line.
- For my version of UUPC (quite old), the following line works.
- Example:
- uucpcall "rmail % < $"
-
- or, try
-
- uucpcall "rmail -f $ %"
-
- for UUPC/extended newer versions. This works with UUPC/extended 1.11k
- and foregoes the need for a temporary file (should be a little bit
- faster).
-
- SEQUENCE
- --------
- Name of sequence file.
- This is the file where the numbers for message id's are stored.
- It is located in the mail spool directory.
- Example:
- sequence sequence.seq
-
- PRINT
- -----
- Name of print device.
- Put the device name of your line printer here, e.g. LPT1, LPT2 or
- LPT3. If you want to connect a serial printer, use 'mode' (the DOS
- command) to tie a serial port to a LPT device.
- Example:
- print lpt1
-
- WEEDOUT
- -------
- Headerlines to hide.
- A weedout list is a list of headerlines that you don't want to see
- when mail is displayed. It is annoying to get mail with 2 lines of text
- and 60 lines of header; using weedout you can shrink the displayed
- headers to just a few lines or nothing at all.
- Put the beginning of the headerline(s) after the weedout directive,
- and remember you need to quote the weedout list if there are spaces
- in it!
- Example:
- weedout "Reply-To: Message-Id: From: To: Subject: Received: From\32"
-
- With this example, you just get to see the Date: line, Status: line
- and X- headerlines if present.
-
-
- 3.2 Environment Variables
- -------------------------
- The environment variable HOME is mandatory. It must be set to the
- directory where the configuration file pcelm.rc resides. The alias
- file for mail aliases is also expected in the HOME directory.
- At the DOS prompt, type "set home=<your_home_directory>" or include
- that line in your autoexec.bat.
- Example:
- set home=d:\usr\marvin
-
- As you may have noticed in 3.1, PCElm can also take some configuration
- parameters from environment variables. This is for backwards compatibility
- with older versions of PCElm. If a configuration parameter is specified
- both in an environment variable and in pcelm.rc, pcelm.rc wins.
-
- 3.3 Other Files
- ---------------
- PCElm currently knows about three other files:
-
- ALIAS
- -----
- You can define aliases for often-used mail addresses, so that you need
- not type the complete email address all the time. This is especially
- convenient for mailings to a group of recipients.
-
- The alias file is called 'alias' and resides in your HOME directory.
-
- Lines in the alias file beginning with a hash '#' are taken to be comments.
- All other lines have the format
- <alias> <1st recipient> <2nd recipient> ...
-
- Example:
- # This is my alias file
- hikaru dg2kk@dg2kk.ampr.org
- marvin marvin@dg5kx.ampr.org
- martin freiss.pad@sni.de
- andrew andrew@omega.uucp
- #
- broadcast dg2kk@dg2kk.ampr.org siebeck@infoac.rmi.de rmohr@infoac.rmi.de
-
- Note that aliases may not extend over more than one line. Maximum line
- length is 127 characters. Aliases are not resolved recursively, i.e.
- the recipient may not be yet another alias.
-
- SIGNATURE
- ---------
- A signature is automatically appended to your mails, if a signature
- file is present. The signature file must be in your HOME directory
- and has the name <username>.sig; i.e. if your username (see USER
- in pcelm.rc) is marvin, the signature file is called marvin.sig .
- There is no length restriction on signatures; however signatures
- longer than 4 lines are generally frowned upon.
-
- The signature, if present, should contain your name and email address.
-
- PCELM.MSG
- ---------
- This is the message file. If you are installing a language other than
- English, be sure to read chapter 7.
- The message file must be in the HOME directory. Note that this makes
- it possible for each user to use PCElm in his native language.
-
-
- 3.4 Starting PCElm
- ------------------
- Now you are ready to start PCElm. Run it on a copy of your mailbox
- first, so that you won't lose your mail if something goes wrong.
- Just type pcelm to start, no commandline arguments are necessary.
-
-
- 4) Using PCElm
-
- When PCElm starts up, it displays a status line at the top. Below that,
- up to 10 messages are displayed in the index, giving from left to right
- the message state (Read or Unread, Tagged, Deleted), the message number,
- the sender of the mail, the date the mail was sent, the length of the
- mail in Bytes and the subject line of the mail.
- The subject line is truncated to fit on the screen.
-
- In the lower half of the screen, 4 lines list some of the more often
- used commands. You type commands by pressing the highlighted letter
- at the Command: prompt.
-
- Error messages (hopefully there aren't any) are displayed on the
- bottom line.
-
- * Note that the 'Q' and 'X' keys have exchanged their meanings
- * from previouses releases.
-
- A short overview of the commands available:
-
- Up Arrow, Down Arrow, Page Up, Page Down, Home, End
- These keys move the 'select'-bar one message up, down, one page
- (= 10 messages) up, one page down, to the first message, to
- the last message in your mailbox.
-
- Return
- Displays the message you have currently selected. More on
- display commands below.
-
- + Tag. Mark a mail for saving, deleting or forwarding.
-
- - Untag. Delete a previous tag.
-
- F1 Function Key F1 displays a help page which lists all commands
- and a short explanation of what they do.
-
- F2 Function Key F2 toggles the video display mode
- (VRAM or BIOS writes to update the screen).
-
- DEL Delete the selected mail or all tagged mails.
-
- INS Undelete the selected mail.
-
- a About PCElm. A page of text giving the version and the authors'
- names. Just an ego-fix for us :-)
-
- c Change mailbox. This allows you to change your user id without
- leaving PCElm. For example, ham radio operators often have
- their first name as username and their call sign as another
- username. This is probably less useful in uucp.
- You will be prompted for a new fullname to match your new user
- id and you are prompted for a new hostname.
-
- C Colour. Toggles from the user selected colours to default colours
- to default monochrome display.
-
- d Delete the selected mail or all tagged mails.
-
- F Freshen the mailbox. Mails marked for deletion will be deleted,
- new mail that has arrived in the meantime is processed and your
- mailbox is displayed anew.
-
- f Forward the selected (or all tagged) mails to another user.
- You will be prompted for the recipient of the forwarded mail
- and for the subject line; the subject line defaults to the
- original subject with (fwd) appended to it.
-
- l List unsent mails. Shows what files there are in the mail queue
- directory and who sent them to whom. It also gives you a chance
- to kill them (last chance to zap a mail if you mistakenly sent
- it). This currently works only in hamradio mode (will work in uucp
- mode in the next version).
-
- m Send mail. You will be prompted for the recipient of the mail
- and the subject, after which you are dropped into the editor.
- More on editor commands below.
-
- n Next unread. Moves the select-bar to the next unread mail.
-
- p Paint. Redraw the screen if it got corrupted.
-
- P Print. Prints all tagged mails or the hilighted mail on a line
- printer. If 'print.com' of DOS is loaded, PCElm will queue the
- print job to 'print', so you can go on reading mail while your
- tagged mails are printed in the background.
- If 'print' is not loaded, PCElm will print the mails on the device
- specified in the configuration file (parameter 'print').
-
- Q Quit. Quits from PCElm, saving all changes to your mailbox.
-
- r Reply to a mail. You are dropped into the editor to compose your
- reply; after you are finished, mail is sent to the originator of
- the mail with a subject line of "Re: <original subject>".
-
- R Reply to a mail. Same as above, but the original mail is included
- in your reply. This helps the recipient to understand what your
- reply is all about.
-
- s Save the selected mail (or all tagged mails) to a file. You will
- be prompted for a filename, in which the message complete with
- header will be saved.
-
- S change Start Of Header (SOH). This changes the 'magic word' PCElm
- looks for to determine the beginning of a mail. All sort of strange
- things may happen if you set a wrong SOH; be warned that you may
- destroy your mailbox if you fool around with this and then use
- a command that saves your mailbox to disk. 'S' is for experimenting
- and for use with mailboxes from foreign MTA's; for everyday use,
- you should set the SOH from the pcelm.rc file using the SOH-HAM
- and SOH-UUCP parameters.
- You must do a 'c'hange mailbox for the new SOH to take effect.
-
- t Transmit from file. You will be prompted for the recipient of
- the mail, the subject, and the filename to transmit.
- Note that usually MTAs can only send pure ASCII files, binary files
- have to be encoded first.
-
- T Toggle mailsystem. PCElm can handle 2 mailsystems, UUCP (Unix to
- Unix CoPy) and hamradio (for use with KA9Q NOS).
- When you want to switch mailsystems, hitting 'T' will prompt you
- for a new username, new fullname and a new hostname, since
- hostnames in the hamradio community (Example: dg5kx.ampr.org)
- and UUCP community (Example: atreju.rmi.de) sometimes differ.
-
- u Undelete the selected mail.
-
- w Write the selected mail (or all tagged mails) to a file. You will
- be prompted for a filename, in which the message will be saved
- without the header.
-
- X Exit. Exits from PCElm immediately, without updating your mailbox.
-
-
- When you are prompted for new values for (for example) your fullname,
- PCElm pops up a window to do this. You can then either hit return,
- thus accepting the default value displayed or enter a new value.
- When the new value begins with a dollar sign, it is taken to
- be an environment variable (e.g. if you have an environment variable
- MYNAME=beeblebrox, entering $MYNAME here causes beeblebrox to be taken
- as the new value).
-
-
- Editor Commands
- ---------------
- When writing mail, PCElm drops you into a very simplistic line editor
- of its own. This editor is useful for writing short notes, but
- for longer mails you should use another editor of your choice.
- This editor must be able to take the name of a file to edit
- as its one and only commandline argument (something like
- "edit mail.txt" must work), and it must be able to create
- pure ASCII files. If at all possible, use an editor that does
- not terminate files with Control-Z.
-
- Commands understood by the line editor:
- Commands begin with a dot '.' in the first column of a line. A dot
- elsewhere in the text has no special meaning.
-
- .? Help. Shows available commands.
- .e Start the editor defined in pcelm.rc.
- .p Print the message you have typed so far.
- .q Quit. Aborts the mail.
- .r file Reads the file "file" into the message buffer. If "file"
- contains wildcards (i.e. '*' or '?'), you will be shown
- a list of files matching your command.
- .m num Inserts the mail number "num" into the message buffer.
- .. Put a dot in the first column of a line.
- . End message.
-
-
- PCElm also sports a builtin full screen editor, which is selected
- if either no editor was defined in pcelm.rc and the environment
- variable EDITOR is not set or if you selected 'builtin+' as editor
- in pcelm.rc.
- This editor is included as 'editor of last resort'. It is definitely
- not perfect yet, but we liked it so much we included it.
-
- Commands understood by the fullscreen editor:
- Arrow keys, Pg Up, Pg Dn, Home, End
- those work as you would expect and move you around in the text.
- Alt-T set tab size.
- Alt-N insert line.
- Alt-W toggle word wrapping.
- Alt-Q quit, saving text.
- Alt-X quit _without_ saving text.
- Alt-D delete line
- Bsp (backspace) delete character left from cursor.
- Del delete character under cursor.
- F1 help screen
-
- Quirks:
- Maximum linelength is 160 characters.
- The bottom line on the screen is sometimes duplicated if you are scrolling;
- this affects only the screen though, the text is ok.
-
- If you are using the builtin full screen editor and are annoyed at its
- lack of functionality or bugs, tough :-). The simple fix is to use another
- editor.
-
- Display Commands
- ----------------
- When reading a mail, PCElm normally displays the mail one page at a
- time.
-
- The following keys have special meanings:
-
- Return one line forward
-
- q quit to menu
-
- / Search. You are prompted for a string to search for. The
- searching routine remembers the last item you searched for,
- so you can just press Return on subsequent invocations of '/'.
-
- 5) Troubleshooting
- Some of the things that can (and will, Murphy being what he is)
- go wrong and proposed solutions:
-
- Problem:
- PCElm says 'New mail has arrived' and beeps, though there is no
- new mail.
-
- Solution:
- You probably edited your mailbox with an editor once, and now there
- is a Control-Z at the end of it. This means that the mailbox file
- is now one character longer than all the single mails added up, so
- PCElm concludes that a new mail must have arrived in the meantime.
- Using a proper editor, zap the Control-Z.
-
- Problem:
- PCElm stubbornly says 'No Mail!', although you have verified there
- _is_ mail.
-
- Solution:
- 1) The mail directory is configured wrong (check parameter SMTP in
- pcelm.rc)
- 2) Your username is not what you think it is (check NAME in pcelm.rc)
- 3) The extension for your mailbox file is incorrect (check HAM-EXT
- and UUCP-EXT in pcelm.rc)
- 4) The Start-Of-Header (SOH) is wrong, and PCElm therefore can't
- parse mail headers correctly (check SOH-HAM and SOH-UUCP).
-
- Problem:
- Mails have parts of their header missing or have parts of the header
- at the _end_ of the mailbody or generally look strange.
-
- Solution:
- The Start-Of-Header (SOH) is wrong, and PCElm therefore can't
- parse mail headers correctly (check SOH-HAM and SOH-UUCP).
-
- Problem:
- Reading mail is ok, but I can't send UUCP mail.
-
- Solution:
- 1) Check the uucpcall parameter in pcelm.rc. Verify that this commandline
- works by typing it in at the DOS prompt, expanding the ! and % macros
- by hand. For example, send a mail to yourself this way. If this
- doesn't work, check if the uucp mailer (mail.exe or rmail.exe) is
- in the path, and if the commandline is correct for your mailer
- (consult your uucp documentation for this).
- 2) There may not be enough memory left to execute the mailer under
- PCElm. Get rid of some TSR programs or decrease the MAXLET
- parameter in pcelm.rc and try again.
-
- Problem:
- When writing mail, my favorite editor does not start up when using
- the .e comand.
-
- Solution:
- The editor is either not in the path or there is not enough memory left
- to start the editor. Check the path and/or get rid of some TSR programs
- or decrease the MAXLET parameter in pcelm.rc and try again.
-
- Problem:
- When writing mail, the original mail is not included when using an
- exterior editor when using the 'R' command and/or everything typed
- in the editor is lost.
-
- Solution:
- PCElm needs an editor that can take a filename to edit as a commandline
- argument. Check if this works by typing "<your_editor> filename" at
- the DOS prompt.
- Check if your editor is a pure ASCII editor. If you use a text
- processing system, maybe it starts up in document mode and thus uses
- a non-ASCII document representation.
-
- 6) Notes for interfacing PCElm with UUCP programs
- Since this seems to be the most difficult thing to set up, some notes
- on how PCElm feeds mail to UUCP.
-
- PCElm is basically a User Agent. It needs another program to actually
- _do_ something with the mail generated by PCElm; in uucp mode, PCElm
- executes a uucp mailer to do the hard work. This mailer is usually
- called 'rmail.exe'; note the 'usually', your mailer might have a
- different name.
-
- PCElm requires that the mailer be in the path; that the mailer
- accepts as argument the uucp address of the recipient and that
- there is some way to get the mail into the mailer, either by
- specifying the file containing the mailbody on the command line
- or by feeding it to the mailer via input redirection.
-
- The mailer must be able to paste the header lines and the mailbody
- created by PCElm to the headers it generates itself _without_
- mangling them and without inserting an empty line between its own header
- lines and the header supplied by PCElm.
- PCElm generates the From:, To:, Subject: and Message-Id: lines itself
- and feeds mail to the mailer in standard UUCP format.
-
- Why execute an exterior mailer at all?
- The rationale behind this is that (due to the many different types
- and versions of uucp software out there) it is nigh impossible to
- use all the features of the MTA directly from PCElm. Only your
- uucp mailer knows if you can do path aliasing and what headers are
- necessary for your particular network.
- On the other hand, we still want to have at least the mandatory header
- lines even if the mailer is real stupid and can't generate them itself.
-
-
- Reading mail:
- It seems that new versions of UUPC use MMDF style mailboxes, i.e.
- mails are separated by Control-A's. Whether or not this is a cool
- thing to do is a matter of opinion. Anyway, PCElm can handle this;
- use the special keyword mmdf in the SOH-UUCP parameter line
- in pcelm.rc to switch PCElm into MMDF mode.
- (i.e., the line in pcelm.rc should read
- SOH-UUCP mmdf
- ).
-
- 7) Languages
- PCElm can be configured to speak other languages than English. This
- is possible because all messages displayed on the screen are contained
- in a seperate message file, 'pcelm.msg'. Currently, message files
- in English ('pcelm.eng') and German ('pcelm.deu') exist - if you
- create your own message file in another language, be sure to send
- it to us, so that we can include it (with proper credit) in the next
- distribution.
- The appropriate message file must be copied (or renamed) to 'pcelm.msg'
- before using PCElm.
-
- The message file has the following format:
- Empty lines and lines starting with a hash '#' are ignored.
- Other lines have the form
- <number>:<text>, for example
- 150:"This is a line"
-
- Never change the message number - PCElm uses this number to be able
- to display the right message at the right time.
- You can change the text in quotes to your liking, but be warned that
- PCElm displays all and every message just as it appears in the message
- file. If you do something wrong, you will end up with a fancy-looking
- display. Keep a copy of the original message file for safety's sake.
-
- You can use escaped decimals in the message file (e.g. \\32 is ' ') as
- described in chapter 3.1.
-
- You can also change the keys that are used as command keys in the main
- menu - message 83 holds all keys (except function keys) that work.
- This is a good thing if you want to keep the commands intuitive;
- 'c' for 'change mailbox' is good to remember in English, but (for example)
- a German user would want 'W' for 'Wechsele Postfach' as a hotkey.
-
- If you create a message file in a new language, we would like to have
- it and to include it (with proper credit given) in a future release
- of PCElm.
-
- This manual is for the English version of PCElm. Foreign language versions
- use different hotkeys for most of the commands. At the time of this
- writing, this manual exists only in English, but you should be able
- to figure out which keys do what from the help screen (press F1 to
- see the help screen, regardless of what language you have configured).
- Initial setup is the same for all versions of PCElm however.
-
-
- 8) Credits
- We would like to thank Dave Taylor for programming the original ELM
- and for the idea for the user interface used both in ELM and PCElm.
- Thanks to Syd Weinstein, coordinator of the USENET ELM, for his
- good work.
- Thanks to Barksdale Garbee II, N3EUA, Gerard van der Grinten, PA0GRI,
- Phil Karn, KA9Q, and Dave Trulli, NN2Z, for creating BM.
-
- Thanks to Andrew Hardie, ash@omega.uucp, who suffered through the
- early beta versions and wins grand prize in bug-finding :-).
-
- We would also like to point out that PCElm is (apart from the idea
- for the user interface) not in any way derived from or connected
- with ELM. If you are using USENET news, the group comp.mail.elm
- is NOT the place to ask questions about PCElm.
-
- 9) The Future
- Just some things that _might_ be incorporated in PCElm in a future
- release and some that won't be:
-
- - News reading. PCElm already can be used with notes, as notes uses
- a mailbox-like structure to store news articles. A news mode
- for PCElm could be implemented, and it would be nice for use
- with NNTP in NOS. A lot of work though. (If you are not familiar
- with notes, notes is a news system that predates bnews and cnews
- and is now practically extinct. News uses another (more efficient)
- way of storing articles and thus has another interface to the
- user agent than notes).
-
- - a Windows 3.0 aware PCElm. Ask Wolfgang Siebeck (siebeck@infoac.rmi.de)
- for details. A beta version exists.
-
- - a version of PCElm for OS/2. PCElm _might_ run under OS/2 in the
- DOS window; I have no way of finding out.
-
-