They got a name for the winners in the world...I want a name when I lose. Hi Daniel, Here's the last one. Hatching files is not something that every one is going to be doing. Mostly this is for FDN members that are programmers and want any files that they put into a certain area hatched into the distribution network. I'm not a programer (who'd a guessed?!) so I don't have any great need to be able to hatch files into a FDN. However, there are a few things that I use it for, like distributing a newsletter to our local SysOPs ( Don't laugh, it's how Jack Rickard got started) or, here's one that you might be interested in, sending the PCBLIST to my downlinks when it comes in. This is what I'll use to illustrate file Hatching. Open ASETUP | Fileecho System | hatch manager and you'll see a screen like this: Υ Adding new entry 1/1 ΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝ Hatch manager Έ ³ ³ ³ Area ³ ³ Spec ³ ³ Desc ³ ³ Days SMTWTFS ³ ³ Repl ³ ³ Mgic ³ ³ FDB No ³ ³ ³ ΤΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΎ Edit it to look something like this: Υ 1/1 ΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝ Hatch manager Έ ³ ³ ³ Area PCB ³ ³ Spec C:\PCB\FIDO\IN\PCBLIST.* ³ ³ Desc PCBNet Nodelist for day %10%11%12 ³ ³ Days SMTWTFS ³ ³ Repl PCBLIST.* ³ ³ Mgic PCBLIST ³ ³ FDB Yes ³ ³ ³ ΤΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΝΎ What this section is basically doing is looking in a certain place for a certain file (indicated in the Spec line) and when it finds it it uses this information to build a TIC file. It will then address netmail to each of the systems that are linked to the PCB area and attach the file and the TIC to it. When the downlink receives these files it's TIC processor will know what to do with the file based on this tic. When you press on the Area field you get a picklist of areas that you have configured. If you haven't set up an area for this in ASETUP | fileecho manager you'll need to do this first. Spec is the file that allfix will look for. When I get the PCBLIST from Bobby and Alecia my mailer puts it in this directory. This tells AllFix the name and location of the file. You can use wildcards. Desc is what ALLFIX will write in the TIC files desc line. If there is no FILE_ID.DIZ file in the archive then this is the line that the downlinks tic processor will add to that systems file directories. The %10%11%12 part is a macro to add the day number to the description line. What it actually does is this. Say I get the file PCBLIST.225 from the Darrins. Allfix will read this filename and use the 10th, 11th and 12th characters of the filename in the description so that the description line now reads "PCBNet nodelist for day 225. Cool, huh? Days is the days that you want ALLFIX to hatch this file into the FDN if it is found. I set it for everyday because there is no telling when I'll get a new PCBlist. I could set it for one or two days and no matter when the file came in, AllFix would wait until those days to hatch it. Repl This is another field that the tic file needs. This is especially handy when dealing with nodelists. The name that you put here is the name that your downlinks system will look for when it gets the file and it's TIC. If it finds it, the downlink system will replace the file named in this line with the new file if they have this option enabled. Mgic A lot of files have standardized FREQ names. On just about any system in the world that is hooked to FIDONet you can FREQ the magic name NODELIST and get a copy of the current FidoNet nodelist. If the file you are hatching is one of those types of files then put the magic name here and it will add it to the downlink's system's magic names, if they have that option enabled FDB If you are setting this up with PCB then this needs to be set to yes. Ok, so here's what's going to happen when I get the PCBLIST from the Darrins. When ALLFIX runs it will see the file PCBLIST.xxx in my inbound directory. It will hatch this file into a FDN with the tag PCB. It will then create a TIC file with the information from this screen, attach it and the PCBList.xxx to a netmail addressed to my downlink(s). AND (this is cool) it will toss the file into my nodelist directory where it will replace any previous versions of PCBList.xxx. Then ALLFIX will scan for magic names ( not the one used for freq. This time it is looking for the magic name that tells it what to do with the file when it gets it) and based on what I've set up in this file's magic configuration it will make a copy of it in C:\PCB\DL03 and put the description in my FDB (File Data Base) so that it is available for download. It will also make sure that the Magic(FREQ) name is in my Board's configuration so that it can be FREQed. Hope that doesn't confuse you as much as it did me! Took me a long time to figure that one out. Those magic names are really confusing. Well, that's pretty much it. There are a lot of things that I didn't really cover all that well, I'm sure, so if you have any questions, fire away. More importantly if you have any ideas on how things could be set up better or easier, let me know. Enjoyed it! Keep in touch Later, Mark They call Alabama the Crimson Tide....Call me Deacon Blue.