Agofr V1.0.0 (2nd public release, PR2 compatible)

Tip of the day:

Introduction

Agofr is a Fido-net compatible Mail program. The letters stand for: A Good Old Fido Reader (and writer). It's ment to be used by so called 'points'. It's possibilities are rather basic at the moment. My primairy goal was making Fidonet available under the BeOS. Well, I succeeded. Now, depending on the responses from you out there, I will continue developing and improving the program.

It can now import messages (with automatic unpacking lha packed mail. You better place lha in your path, for this feature. I've included a version of lha, based on the 'quick port' of Seth Morabito (sethm@loomcom.com) get the full package from the Be web-site for (c) and source. I've used lha because I poll from an Amgia BBS. It will probably be configrable in the future.) and export messages (without packing). You can read messages by clicking on a message in the message list window or by dragging a message from the Tracker onto Agofr (or one of it's windows) or by double clicking on a message in the Tracker. You can reply to a message, write a new message or edit a previously written but not yet exported message. A special feature is included to be able to use the most used UUCP gate-way from fido (that is, witing to a UUCP gate-way and adding the original 'to' field in the first line of the message) and to redirect mailing-lists to a separate area.

The first thing I need, is a full blown compiler. The MW compiler package will cost me $399. I think that's a bit too much for a hobby developer like me (OK, you can say: 'But you did buy a BeBox, which is a lot more expensive. Your right. But it's the 'feel' of a BeBox against that of software). Although BeamUp and Agofr are not restricted now, they both will get / be share-ware with a fee of around $25 (together). If you think the programs are usefull to you, please, support my devolopment. You can register now and will then be able to fully use any future versions of the programs.

Installing and Configuring Agofr

Installing is easy. Just unpack the archive and put all files in a single directory. Then set up Agofr and BeamUp to match these directories and up you go!

Before you are able to use Agofr, you have to configure it. Unfortunately, there's no nice installing tool. But there is a setup program which will help you to setup things. There are five things that need to be set before Agofr can be used. You have to use Setup to set these settings:

• Area directory. This is where the areas will be created. It defaults to {installed directory}/areas. Note that you will have to create this directory yourself. I advise you to place all programs and files in /boot/home/mail. Areas are created as directories. The area settings are added as attributes to the directories. Areas are automaticly created during import. You can also drag & drop a directory on this view.
• Inbound directory. This is where the program looks when you ask it to import. This should be the same directory that you gave BeamUp as inbound. It defaults to {installed directory}/inbound. You can also drag & drop a directory on this view.
• Outbound directory. This is where the program will place the packages when you ask it to export the mail. This should be the same directory that you gave BeamUp as outbound. It defaults to {installed directory}/outbound. You can also drag & drop a directory on this view.
• Origin. This is the origin line of your system. It will be aded to messages when they're exported.
• The setup program will create indexes on the volume where the Area directory is placed. These indexes are needed for exporting messages. (this will also kind if initialising the file-type's extended attributes. Only the name stays a problem... any body?).

Area settings

Every area has to be set with the right attributes for writing, importing and exporting. Most of them will speak from themself. All fido-adresses are given in n:zzz/nnn.pp format.
You can copy all settings from one item to all selected items, by selecting the source item first, then multi-selecting the other items (Ctrl-{click}) and then selecting 'All the same'.
The 'UUCP Gateway's Fido' is the fido-net address of your boss' gateway to the internet. Ask him.
The 'Mailing list address' is used to keep mailinglist messages out of your net-mailing. To create a mailing list, create a directory in your areas directory with the name you want the mailing list to have. I advise to start the name with NET_. This will trigger the net-mail code while exporting the mail. After creating the area, open the settings window and coppy the settings from your e-mail NET_ area. Then, type in (better: copy / paste) the value of the 'To' field of the messages from the mail-list server. All messages with this name (no mather where) will be forwarded to the created area during import. Because you named and configured it as a netmail area, you can normally write messages in this area.

That's it. The area settings can be set by opening the AreaSettings window in Agofr. Do this after your first import. In that case, the areas are already created for you. You can select more areas at once and gave them the settings you type in or the ones from the first area you selected.

I'm no document writer at all, so I'll quit here. Just play around with the program, and let me know how you think about it.

Some other features

• Use 'Quit' to close Agofr, instead of closing all windows. The current situation will be restored after Agofr restarts.
• You can use multiple Message Window / Message List Window windows simultaniously (on different screens) to browse through the messages. The program will try to 'remember' which list belongs to which message-view. You can partly control the list-window from within it's message-window, using Cmd-> , Cmd-< , Alt-Cmd-> and Alt-Cmd-<. Use Cmd-J to 'walk' through all windows.
• Mails with the flags 'new', 'unreplied', 'keep', or 'export' aren't deleted with the maintanaince option. Use Cmd-A on the list-window to mark all messages in the list as 'read', so they will be removed.
• You can now use file-attachments. Unfortunately, you can only attach one file per message and you can't undo a file-attach.

Known bugs

• You can exit the program during import / export. Please, don't!!
• The Text-Styles don't work yet, and the messages are shown in the systems fixed font.

Priority planned features

• Multy-threaded import (those led's can go higher... :-) )
• Better management of mail.

The author and (c)

Well, that's me. I'm Patrick van Beem. I was born on the 29th of april 1971. I'me currently working as system-analist / programmer for a sofware company (on AS400 systems and PC's, soon in the Technical Automation (TA)). In my spare time, I'm programming on the Amiga and the BeOS (Lately more on BeOS than Amiga).

You can reach me at:

K.P. van Beem
Parlevinker 5
2152 LC Nieuw-Vennep
The Netherlands


e-mail: Patrick.vanBeem@nl.origin-it.com (prefered) or Patrick@aobh.xs4all.nl

phone: +31 - (0)252 - 67 34 61

Please, let me know if you have any questions, suggestions, bug-reports or waht so ever.

This programm is Share-Ware. There are no limitations or registrations. If you keep using the program, send 50 Dutch Guilders (or $ 25) to the address above, or transfer it to my bank account (Postbank: 6047762). Your money will be used to buy newer equipment and tools to develop this and other products further on the BeOS. If you register, you register both Agofr and BeamUp at once.

Greetings,

Patrick van Beem.