POW - Powerline Offline reader for Windows v1.10 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Minimum System Requirements ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ IBM AT 286 Compatible or better. (VBRUN300.DLL Dated 12-May-93 for 286) 3Mb Memory minimum, preferably 4Mb or more. Windows v3.1. Approx 400k HD space for program etc. not including VBRUN300.DLL or data. Terminal Font must be installed in Windows. BBS Settings ~~~~~~~~~~~~ The BBS must be set up to provide QWK files as follows:- Packet type - QWK Archiver - ZIP Index Files (.NDX) - ON CONTROL.DAT - ON Usually the default. POW will display the following, if turned on in the BBS mail door:- Bulletins News NewFiles Welcome Goodbye Session Text Late News ~~~~~~~~~ This is an update of POW, adding new features plus some minor bug fixes. Automatic installation of POW files and Program Manager Group/Icons is now provided. For more info see HISTORY.TXT. ___________________________________________________________________________ The internal editor will recognise SpelMate spelling checker if appropriate files are found in your WINDOWS directory (SPELMATE.DLL and dictionaries). Text in the edit box is spell checked except for quoted text which is left alone (etiquette suggests that text quoted from another msg should not be altered other than formatting). SpelMate requires about 1Mb extra memory. SPELMATE.DLL is supplied in POW110.ZIP, and the dictionaries are provided in either POWDUK.ZIP (British spelling) or POWDUS.ZIP (American spelling). If you are upgrading POW and have been using the Shareware program SpelMate by James Herron (Aciran Software), you will not need to download the POW dictionaries as POW will use your existing dictionaries. The Shareware Principle. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ POW is released under the Shareware principle. You may use the program for up to 60 days for evaluation. Please register POW if you find it useful. Registration will remove the opening and closing Shareware registration reminders, and provide funds to allow continued development of POW. Registered users will receive high priority for suggestions for improvements. When passing POW on to others or uploading please include all files in the ZIP without modification. Registered users:- Do NOT distribute the POW.INI file containing your registration details. For registration details please see POW.WRI or the on-line Help. Registration forms are provided in DOS and Windows format text. The Windows form may be accessed from within POW and completed/printed. Also, available from ProgMan Group if Automatic Installation used. Registration addresses for UK and USA are provided. A registration code is sent to you which removes the registration reminder screens. Also, the words "On trial" in the tagline of messages you write are replaced by your registered serial number. The following files should be found in POW.ZIP:- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ POW files:- POW.EXE The POW program. POW.HLP Help file in Windows Help format. POW.WRI Documentation in Windows Write format. POW.ICO Alternative icon for launching POW from Program Manager. ReadMe.TXT Last minute changes and other information. (This file) Register.ASC Registration form in DOS text format. Register.TXT Registration form in Windows text format. File_ID.DIZ Description of POW for BBS file lists. Taglines.POW Some sample Taglines. Put it in the Data directory. (PD) History.TXT Update history. POWUNZIP.PIF Windows PIF to use PKUNZIP in a window. POWZIP.PIF Windows PIF to use PKZIP in a window. Shared files required by POW:- SpelMate.DLL Spelling Checker library. GRID.VBX Visual Basic Grid library. Goes in Windows\System dir. CMDIALOG.VBX VB interface to Windows Common Dialogs. Auto Installation files:- SETUP.EXE Windows SETUP program for automatic installation. SETUP.LST List of files required by SETUP.EXE. POWSETUP.EXE POW specific installation. VER.DL_ Version checking for file installation. SETUPKIT.DLL SETUP library. OLECLI.DLL OLE Client library. Taglines playing on the initials of POW were kindly supplied by Bob Aldridge a Beta tester and one of the first to register POW. Thanks Bob. Other files/programs required:- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If you are not already using SpelMate and wish to check the spelling in your messages/replies, you will need to obtain either POWDUK.ZIP or POWDUS.ZIP which contain the dictionaries (see Late News above). After unzipping, copy or move the dictionaries to the Windows directory (not System dir). POW uses COMMDLG.DLL (Windows DLL for Common Dialogs) which is provided with Windows 3.1 and should be in your Windows\System directory. (Windows dir for shared Windows systems on networks). You will also need a copy of VBRUN300.DLL, the Visual Basic v3.0 runtime library plus PKZIP.EXE & PKUNZIP.EXE v2. These may be obtained from most Bulletin Boards. If using the supplied PIF files, edit these to include the appropriate paths for PKZIP/PKUNZIP otherwise make sure that the PK progs are in a directory on your DOS Path (as specified in AUTOEXEC.BAT). The VBRUN300.DLL file should be put in the Windows\System directory (or Windows directory on shared Windows setups on networks). The version dated 12-May-93 (or later) is required for a 286 computer (bug in earlier version). To use the built-in spelling checker in the editor you will need either POWDUK.ZIP (UK Spelling) or POWDUS.ZIP (US Spelling) main dictionary. After unzipping, the MAINUK.DIC or MAINUS.DIC and Private.DIC files should be put in your Windows directory. AUTOMATIC INSTALLATION. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If you already have VBRUN300.DLL and PKZIP.EXE & PKUNZIP.EXE on your system you may use SETUP.EXE provided in the POW zip to install the other files. (Do NOT use the SETUP.EXE in the Windows dir) Run SETUP.EXE from the directory in which you unzipped POW. You will be asked to specify a directory into which to install POW. If upgrading from an earlier version, you may specify the directory in which the earlier version was installed and the setup program will update the files for you. Your Folders data files and POW.INI will not be overwritten and will be used by the new version, retaining your preferred configuration. The automatic installation will check for the Windows version and cater for networks and Windows for Workgroups. POW SETUP will check the version of the DLL and VBX files used by POW and copy/update these where required. If installing POW for the first time, a collection of Taglines is provided in Taglines.POW. This is installed in the POW directory but if you wish to use these Taglines, it should be moved to the Data directory after running POW for the first time. See Installation in POW.WRI for information on setting up POW on first run. For those who prefer to install manually, the files may be copied/moved to the appropriate directories - see below and Installation section in POW.WRI. MANUAL INSTALLATION. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ GRID.VBX and CMDIALOG.VBX should be put in the Windows\System directory, making sure you do not replace a newer version. SPELMATE.DLL and the dictionaries should be put in the Windows directory. Other POW files should be in the directory containing POW.EXE with the exception of Taglines.POW which should be moved to the Data directory after running POW for the first time. For more information on manual installation see POW.WRI. Getting Started. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This version now includes PIF files to run PKZIP/PKUNZIP in a window. These may be edited to provide paths to directory/ies containing PKZIP/PKUNZIP if these are not on the DOS Path. In addition to the icon in POW.EXE, an alternative icon for use in Program Manager is provided (POW.ICO). Notes & Known Bugs:- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If a Font other than Terminal (the default) is selected for message display or in the editor, the formatting may be incorrect and ASCII chars above 128 may not display correctly. For correct display a fixed font with the ASCII(OEM) char set is required. Fixed pitch (monospaced) fonts such as FixedSys or Courier New (TrueType) using the ANSI char set may be satisfactory if high ASCII chars are not used. A fixed font is also recommended for printing messages to give the right formatting (eg. Terminal or a Printer Font). We are currently in the process of adding support for more mail doors in the Add/Drop Conference feature. QMail support has been added for this release. Hopefully all mail doors that use the "old style" control messages will now be fully supported and display the appropriate buttons. POW has been tested on Tomcat, Cam-mail, MarkMail, JCQWK and QMail doors. Mail doors that will only use the "new style" control messages (other than QMail which IS now supported) are not yet fully supported and only the list of conferences in the CONTROL.DAT will be displayed. However, if you have the info, you can create a message in the Editor, addressed to the name of the mail door, with a subject of CONFIG (or whatever), and put the control lines in the message body. Messages with a "To" that matches the mail door name will not have a tearline and tagline added. Internet EMail support has been improved to include Automatic "To:" line in reply and extracting originators first and last names for Quoting, defaulting to "->" if unsuccessful. A destination name/address stored in the "To" pick list (Address Book) will also produce a "To:" line in the message/reply if it's too long for the normal "To" field in the REP. Advanced Options have been provided by directly editing POW.INI outside POW. Includes Quoting style and QWK pkt management options - see POW.WRI or on- line help. Signatures in the Editor now use shifted Function keys. F3 provides Find Next. Disclaimer ~~~~~~~~~~ Whilst every effort is made to correct problems, no guarantee is given or implied that there are no further problems waiting to be found. Please report any problems to the author, Gina Davis (see doc/help). ________________________________________________________ POW - Powerline Offline reader for Windows - v1.10. Copyright (c) 1993/94 Gina Davis & Powerline Systems Ltd. All rights reserved.