컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴 Aug'08 v4.9+ (c) Heimo Claasen REVOBILD 35 Rue du Marteau B-1000 BRUXELLES 컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴 This is a simple description of some functionalities of the ReRead file/mail reader. For the complete listing of command keys and their functions please see the file RER-KEYS.txt. This file gives just some practical hints on HOW TO -- install, including useful/needed helper programs and batches -- navigate with ReRead around in your whole system, -- create (or reply to) a mail, and use different "From:"-addresses, -- copy a mail item (or just any part of a displayed text) to somewhere else, -- use mail items copy (or copy of files), and indexing functions for household tasks and to keep order of things, -- search in files/folders, -- set up and use specific character remapping, -- change the hot/command key bindings, -- use ReRead together with the NETBAS mail scripts as a complete email setup; especially, -- use ReRead to sort out SPAM _before_ dowloading all of it from the mailbox server. Installing and running ReRead ----------------------------- Unpacking the compressed RREADxxx.ZIP file (with UNZIP or the like) will result in the following files located in the (sub)directory from where the unpacking was done: -- rereadXX.exe <== the executable program -- rer-conf.rer <== a (template) configuration file -- rer-keys.rer <== the file for hotkey bindings -- rrkeysXX.txt <== the complete description of functions and hotkeys -- rr-howto.txt <== this file here The first three have to be relocated to either the drive:\directory from where ReRead would be run, or better: to a directory in the system's PATH so that it can be invoked from just anywhere in the drive:\directory tree. ReRead works with the template configuration file as is but that one would best be adapted to specific needs and the organisation of drives and (sub)directories of the DOS-running unit. ReRead has two basic modes of working: -- DIRECTORY listing and navigation, and file handling; and, accessible from there, -- FILE listing (display) and working with a file's content; which includes, in case of a "mail folder" file, an -- INDEXING mode for handling mail items inside a mailfile ("folder"). Invoking ReRead from the DOS command line will open a listing of the directory from where it was started (or any other if put as argument in the command line); see the details on command line arguments and switches in the ReRead-KEYS description. In this DIRECTORY mode, you can navigate around, do file handling of all sorts, or choose a file to open. For FILE listing mode, there are four "modes" to chose, depending on the type of file: REM: ReRead ignores the definition of filename extensions; files to open in it are supposed to be "text" of any sort, not "binary" ones (like .exe or .com program files, or .gif or .wav or other not text-based content). Thus ReRead will try to display just any file, regardless of its extension though if it's a "binary" one this will not produce anything meaningful on screen (and probably a lot of beeps from the loudspeaker...) but it will hardly do any harm whatsoever. -- a MAIL (or NEWSgroup) "folder", i.e., one file containing one or more emails or newsgroup items: In this mode, the file's content will be searched through first for the typical starts and ends of Mail/News items, and these then are presented with a filtered few lines of the (often very long) "header" information (Date:, From:, To:, Subject:); if there is more than one item, an INDEX will be built, see below. REM: If the file selected is not of the mail/news folder type, it will be displayed just like ordinary text, from start to end - it just takes _slightly_ longer to read-in because in MAIL/NEWS state each line has to be checked for mail/news-specific separators etc. -- an ASCII/HTML file will just be read-in and displayed as such. The first lines of the file will searched through for eventual indications of HTML formatting; if found, this will present a choice to display it as undecoded source text, or to use an EXTERNAL decoder for presentation of HTML'ed content. -- a SERIES of files (in the current directory) to be read-in as a sequence of single mail-items. This is for those mail-retrieving gear which stores each item separately in an own mail (sub)directory. -- a forced SEPARATION of mail items in "digest" type mails containing number of mail items in one downloaded mail. This mode will separate the items according to the specific "separator" used in the respective "digest" package and present them in (an indexed) sequence. REM: As "separators" in these digests may be of any format/sequence, the specific separator line/string has to be defined in the ReRead configuration file; and only _one_ separator is useable at the time (thus for several different "digests" there have to be specific config. files for ReRead too; however, these can be switched "on the Fly".) The INDEX of a mail/news folder is accessible only from listing of that folder, with the [F6] function key; there is no index if a file does not contain more than one mail/news item, cf. "Indexing" below. HELPER files and programs: -------------------------- ReRead has no editor incorporated nor any of the mutitude of eventually needed decoders for specific file formats like BASE_64, HTML, Quote-Printable, etc. However, here are number of "hook-ins" for use of such external programs. Some of them are "hardwired" but with generic names which allow for both batch or specific executable files to be used, others offer just (numbered) hooks, please see the RRKEYSxx.txt manual for details. "Mandatory" is the designation of a text editor to use - a "clean"(!!!) one, _NO_ "void processor" which doesn't allow to see _all_ content of a file on screen and at the same time inserts formatting garbage not visible on screen. The basic mechanism for use of helper utilities is to "mark" a displayed text with [F1] for the start line and [F2] after the end of some passage selected, and then to invoke an appropriate external utility though one of the "hook-in" hotkeys. The selected part of the displayed file or mail item will be copied and the filename of this intermediary copy is fed as argument to the helper utility; the result of which is a new file created and which is accessible directly through the [F5], "edit" command key. (The intermediate copy will is deleted automatically.) Thus the original of a file or mail item is never changed. Besides of the EDITOR, external helper programs are needed for decoding of - Base_64, UU/XX (7-bit encoding, rarely but still used), HTML, Quoted-Printable - mail body contents or attachments. There are number of efficient and small programs available, you find some directly in the ReRead Revobild depository. A special "case" are M$-".doc" and Adobe-".PDF" attachments in mails. While there are some utilities to extract text content from ".doc"- files (and which work more or less, depending on the umpteen M$-Void versions), the situation with ".PDF" is hopeless: The early Adobe reader for DOS isn't available nowhere anymore and it wouldn't digest any of the ".PDF"-versions since 1994. Adobe offers a "free" service to decode their files to .txt, via www or email, but this works lousy, if at all; they've constantly changed respective e-dresses or URLs. In any case, these sorts of uncivilised attachments have to be copied out and treated separately. Navigating ---------- In DIRECTORY mode this should be self-evident, with using the up/down, left/right arrow keys to select a file. There are some ergonomic shortcuts: -- the [.] dot key pressed will lead to the next higher (sub)directory, -- a single drive letter, like [d] will move to display the root directory on that d:\ drive. In FILE display mode, the [up] and [down] arrow keys scroll the display, the [HOME] and [END] keys move the cursor up/down, etc. REM: Key bindings may be changed ad lib - see below - but the default settings will be changed in future for selecting and marking text not only linewise but even _on_ each line for start/end marking. In each mode, including INDEXING, pressing the [SP]acebar will toggle through the menues of available command keys and their indication on the bottom "status" line. Please see ReR-Keys.txt for all details. CREATE or reply to MAIL ----------------------- Besides of the general directory and file listing functions, ReRead is foremost a comfortable gear to read and reply to eMail. To do this, there are some preconditions for the whole setup of mail receiving and sending: -- Mail (and newsgroup) items have to be DOWNLOADED "as is", i.e. as they are sent off from the mailbox server; and stored either in one "folder" type file or as a series of single files per item in one directory. Thusly, ReRead can readily employ the pertinent header information to identify and display each mail item. -- Mails to SEND are prepared by ReRead in a form(at) directly useable by programs like Nettamer or Nestcape Mail; for Mail Transport Agents (MTA) like "Netmail for DOS" or others using the WATTCP setup - thus, all the more recent programs useable too with networked units linked via Ethernet to a local area network (LAN) or through a switch to an ADSL/Wireless router - this form(at) has to be adapted to that WATTCP setup through an intermediary and external program step. A small "preprocessor" prog for use with "Netmail 2.12" is availale at ReRead's website, www.revobild.net (M2NM or "Mail to Netmail".) To CREATE a Mail: just "mark" with [F1] any line displayed and which contains a mail address, and press [CTRL] + [F5]. This will select the _first_ string occuring on the line and containing the characteristic "@"-sign as the destination e-dress. -- If there are several e-dresses on this line, the whole line has to be copied (and the mail destinations to be edited then manually). -- If there's no useable e-dress string on that line, the address has to be edited/inserted manually in the newly created sendmail file. To REPLY TO a mail displayed: Just press [CTRL] + [F5]. This will create a new send-mail file with the "From:" eMail address - or "e-ddress" - as destination and the "Subject:" line, preceded by "Re: ", from the displayed mail item. -- Watch out with mailing lists: If the mail has to go to the list, and not to the individual poster (who is in the "From:" header line), the _list's_ e-dress (most probably in the "To:" header line) must be marked with [F1], before using the "create mail" command [CTRL] + [F5]. The format of a sendmail file is quite simple: -- a first line containing just the destination eMail address, -- a second line containing the "Subject" wording, -- an empty line to separate any following "data" content (the mail "body".) ReRead creates these first three lines, and the appropriaty named sendmail file, automatically by invoking the "create mail" function with [CTRL] + [F5]. Mark - with [F1] a starting line, with [F2] after an end line - any text to be "quoted" (and marked-up with "> " from the original mail to be copied into the mail body. The "quote" signing can be switched with [CTRL] + [F4], see the manual for details. Press [F5] to edit this file and to write into the mail-body directly. The created template filenames for sendmail are to be defined in the configuration RER-CONF.RER (if there's none defined, the name "mailfile.#" is a default, with the extension "#" upnumbered for more sendmail files; this is of use only if just _one_ own "From:" address serves for _all_ outgoing mail); the MTA - and, in that case, the intermediaty step for the WATTCP setup - has to be instructed to look for these mail filenames to send out. ReRead allows of any number of own "From:" e-ddresses to be used, the corresponding sendfile names have to be entered into the configuration file and can be toggled through after pressing the "create mail" hotkeys [CTRL] + [F5]. Formatting a "copy to" (/CC) and list of destination e-dresses: Almost all MTAs will accept the simple format (lines in the sendmail file numbered here): 1: mail@address.dom/CC 2: other@thisdomain.etc, <== comma here and with each following 3: third@another.dom, ... N: last@that.dom <== NO comma after last /CC e-dress N+1: abc def ... <== wording of subject line N+2: <== the mandatory empty line N+3: ghi jkl etc <== start mail body text Many MTAs accept a list of e-dresses like this: 1: @drive:\dir\filename.ext <== a file of comma-separated e-dresses 2: abc def ... <== wording of subject line 3: <== the mandatory empty line 4: ghi jkl etc <== start mail body text where "[drive:\dir\]filename.ext" is a DOS-valid file descriptor containing a list of comma-separated destinations. REM: Some ISP's sendmail servers are _very_ picky about the number of e-dresses in such /CC lists; one hundred seems to be a common limit with most of their SMTPs. Best to check before, if a longer list must be installed as a (to be paid for) mailing list-service. Houshold taks: Copy (items, files) and Indexing ----------------------------------------------- The "copy" function, invoked with [F4], is different depending on the DIRECTORY and FILE modes: -- in DIRECTORY mode, a selected file (the one under the cursor] is "DOS-copied": the file as such is copied entirely from the currently displayed directory listing to somewhere else and it may _overwrite_ a like named file existing at the target location (though there is a warning in this case); -- in FILE mode, the whole file, or some region of it if it's selected, is always _appended_ to the target file. In both modes, invoking "copy" by [F4] allows to input a target first, or with _another_ keypress of [F4] to select a target from a saved list in a pop-up window - from PATHLIST.RER in directory mode, from KEEPLIST.RER in file mode. These are text files which can be edited with a _clean_ editor. Yet another keypress of [F4] list the currently _accessed_ directory (i.e., not the directory from where ReRead is run) to select a target from. In mail/news INDEX mode, the same routine can be used, either with [F4] to append a single item somewhere else, or after selecting a number or all items to an existing (or a to create, new) folder. There is no "move" function; it's considered more "safe" to not use this, as after "copy" a simple "delete" command would do the rest very simply - but his leaves an opportunity to check if there was an unintended result before an original has been deleted definitively. REM: The tasks possible through INDEXing mode are somewhat more destructive - once items of a mail folder are deleted or "joined" else, reconstruction of the original folder is quite difficult. The built-in brake for confirmation should be respected seriously... All together, the copy/append functions allow to do household tasks with files and mails, and moreover with just any text passages in a more controlled and transparent way than trivial "thread" sorting: -- by ordering files and mails according to one's own archiving rules; -- by easily composing a "dossier" of quoted passages from all sorts of sources (and without the cumbersome deviation through the copy/paste to and from a "clipboard".) Searching --------- Present limits[*] to searching in ReRead are: -- they are case sensitive, i.e. only the _exact_ match is found. However, the search string may well contain spaces; -- they are limited to either the file, or the mail folder file accessed (searching a currently accessed directory will be one of the next improvements.) In FILE display mode, -- invoking Search with [F7] will check the presently accessed file or mail item for the string input. In INDEX mode, -- invoking "search" with [F7] will check the the mail item headers for the complete Date:, From:, To:, Subject: lines (and these are more complete than what is displayed in the restricted space of the index listing); -- while [CTRL] + [F7] will search through the whole contents of the folder of mail items,. [*] Until now, I felt no urgent need neither for more sophisticated (say, boolean syntax) nor for more generalised (like case insensitive) mechanisms; this may change with the (planned) expansion the search function to the DIRECTORY level in ReRead. Character Remapping ------------------- This function - invoked by [CTRL] + [F2] - works only for the FILE _display_ mode in that it remaps a selected list of characters from the original file read-in to the char.s defined in a specific char-set list, and only for their display on screen. There is a rudimentary default list of remapping for chracters and strings in the RER-CONFiguration file (see the commentary there) but all sorts of specific remapping lists can be loaded on the fly, if the filenames of these lists are entered into the configuration's listing (see place and comments there.) A remapping list consists of pairs of corresponding strings of bytes - and may be used in either direction, from left to right or vice versa - and it affects only the _display_ of the original file contents on screen (it does NOT change the original bytes in the file read-in.) However, if this display in ReRead is "marked", a copy of this marked region can be saved to a proper file, thus translating "garbeled" mails or files to a legible form of (8-bit-)character representation. The routine used in ReRead is sensible to two things: -- the number of characters (or char-strings) in the list: remapping is faster with less strings to recode, and less erroneous (see "sequence" next) with rather specific lists adapted to types of sources. These are indeed quite different, Mikey$uck "UTF8" is fairly different from very M$-Apple gear output, and both are not conformant to ISO and Linux mail/web gear - not to speak of if such abberations are then mangled again through "Quoted Printable" encoders (completely! broken in recent Apple mailgear) and pseudo-HTML-formatting (where M$ gear like "Frontpage" adds additional distortions to make the result quite imcompatible with legal standards). Thus, it's useful to establish specific lists for known sources; -- the sequence of remapping: ReRead remaps chars and strings through each line of the original text in sequence of that list. Thus, if some char/string is remapped first to "�", and then a later entry in the list defines "�" to be remapped to something else (a ["] quote mark would be the most frequent candidate), the result gets messy. Thus, some observation and fine tuning of a char-remap list is needed. Change key bindings ------------------- All "hot"-/command-keys in ReRead may redefined. The default bindings are listed in the RER-KEYS.RER file, and may be changed there with a _clean_ editor. If it resides in the DOS PATH, this file is read-in at the start of running ReRead. If you want to change key bindings please remember two basic aspects: -- the format of entries: though it is a pure "text" file, each entry is defined at its position on its line, _AND_ by its representation in cp437 ("IBM" or ISO-8851) defined signs; -- any one key binding changed must be checked against another definition used somewhere else in the key binding list. So to be on the safe side, (a.) copy/save the original/default list file to a safe place, (b.) check any new attribution against any defined such in the list - and change again that latter if necessary: which in turn may cause for a whole chain reaction,. There are more detailed instruction in the comment lines of the original RER-KEYS.RER file. eMailing setup -------------- ReRead works offline as a mail reading and writing utility. To receive and to send mail, two additional program "layers" are needed - the link to Net connectivity, either by phone and a serial connection for a modem or by Ethernet to (LAN) network interface (for cable or DSL for instance); and "mail transport agent(s)" which handle this interface and the protocols for receiving/sending mails. The "physical layer" - either by phone or Ethernet - needs the packet driver, with dial-in connection even the appropriate modem program. For dial-up connection, the LSppp packet driver has an integrated modem dialling utility; for Ethnet cards, almost all the manufactureres do indeed provide a DOS version of their packet driver, and there are "generic" ones which work with number of different NICs (network interface cards). REM: I had no problem finding the driver for the stone-old ISA netcard in this AT'286 PC - the problem was to identify the apparently nameless NIC; however, through the number of the main chip on the card, a search on the US-FCC registry revealed it as an "Edimax", and the driver could be retrieved from the producer's website. The most versatile arrangement then is to use the number of utilities working on basis of the WATTCP (Waterloo [univ] TCP/IP) stack. These work all with both the dial-up LSppp and the Ethernet packet drivers, and in addition to the MTAs, lots of other net gear - FTP, WEB browsers, Telnet etc. - can be used seamlessly. Marc Ressl's "Netmail for DOS" v2.12, for instance, works well for sending out mails (though it needs to either manually arrange the *.wrk and *.txt for each mail item; the little "preprocessor" prog. M2NM does this in a batch file automatically); for retrieving mails from a POP account however, it has some limits and one - serios - bug. A more versatile mail retrieve setup is available as a script for use with the NETBAS interpreter - see the www.revobild.net site for details. However, ReRead is a more flexible and versatile replacement for the rather cumbersome "Reader.exe" part in NETTAMER; it's sufficient to adapt file namings, like the *.DLU for mail folders, and PATHes (for sendmail etc.) to use it seamlessly in the Nettamer suite. Sort out SPAM at the server --------------------------- It wasn't until autumn'07 that one - and yet only one - Linux mailprog offered the possibility to look at mails stored at an ISP's POP mailbox account _without_ downloading all the trash and spam accumulated there. (and don't talk about those M$ Outhouse Exploders.) With the above setup of packet driver and WATTCP-based MTAs, ReRead did this since 2004, years before. Especially with dial-in connectivity, this has saved considerably on metered telco fees. The principle is quite simple. With a first connection to the mailbox server, the Netbas/Autopop MTA gets the headers and some few lines of stored mails only, and hangs up the modem. Offline, ReRead presents these mail fragments in the usual way, and the index allows to mark for deletion all unwanted items. ReRead establishes a list of these which is fed to MTA for a next connection to the ISP, with which only the wanted items are downloaded and the trash gets deleted at the very server. This setup needs some rather trivial DOS batch programming which is described in detail with the manual for Autopop. BTW, I experimented with the nifty "Sortmail" program from Martin Goebbel for a while to "mechanise" this selection; it works with the "raw" downloads of mails into one "folder" file, just like ReRead. For a while, the rather sterotype subject lines of spam mail were quite easy to sort out but the increasing varation and mutation of these eventually caused more work to fine tune the Sortmail filter than the simple manual delete marking in ReRead directly. But "Sortmail" remains a nice complementary utility for ReRead to sort stored mails, for instance to order large mailfolders by thread and/or date. Use the "/f" switch on the command line with invoking ReRead for listing the dowloaded headers-only folders: This will create the FLUSHIT.RER file needed for the Autopop setup automatically to select the items to delete at the server. (Using [F2] in INDEXING mode will do this "manually" too.) And seen the incredible increase of Spam masses a specific function task key has been added in INDEX mode, [CTRL] + [F10] to mark _all_ items to delete from the outset - it's quicker and easier to un-mark (again with the [DEL] key) the few valid mails from a list of several dozens of spams, instead of one for one [DEL]eting all those spams. INDEXing and household ---------------------- If a file is opened with ReRead in its MAIL/NEWS mode and it contains more than one mail or news item, an index (or list) of the items in this folder is created automatically, with the same root filename and an extension of ".X_?", which replaces the first two signs of the main folder's extension (e.g., the index file of "MAILFILE.NEW" will be named "MAILFILE.X_W".) Setting the appropriate switch in the configuration file makes ReRead displaying this index immediately; even if it's a new folder-file which had no index created before. Otherwise, ReRead will display the first mail or news item directly, and the INDEX listing can be accessed with [F6] from the file listing mode. In indexing mode, individual items can be selected to be deleted or to be copied singularly or to be bulk-extracted to another file. Note that selection just _marks_ the item appropriately: the very tasks are done with the separate, and specific function keys. A same pop-up window for the target path/filename selection as in the FILE display mode is accessible here to navigate through the whole drive/directory branching to _append_ selected items there. The individual "copy" as well as the "bulk"-tasks for deleting/extracting items allow for flexible management of mail folders; which is in effect more versatile than the traditional "threads"-ordering. REM: the SEARCH function can be used to select both in "From:"-addresses and in the (complete) "Subject:" lines. =====to be continued occasionally, .... -hc=============================