A FEW POINTERS FOR BBS USERS --------------------------------------------- Entering an ANSI message on a BBS --------------------------------- 1. Create your ANSI file in advance. 2. Make the line length of your ANSI file no longer than 65 characters. Line lengths longer than this may not be compatible with some BBS's. 3. Enter your music strings where desired while still retaining a line length of 65. Carraige returns within the music string will be ignored by ANSIPLAY when playing the music. 4. For public messages, you may want to make the music strings invisible so that user's who don't have an ANSI file viewer can use DOS's TYPE command without the music strings messing up the display. (See MANUALS.DOC for information on how to do this.) 5. Before sending your ANSI message, in some cases you may want to add a note saying something like "For ANSIPLAY viewer". The reason being...some ANSI viewing programs do not support music strings. Some do support music strings, but only as a one-liner string at the end of the message, not if the music is interweaved into the message. Additionally, ANSIPLAY is the originator of SOUND codes. To my knowledge, there is not other ANSI viewer that support SOUND codes. 6. There are two ways of transferring the file while you're on-line: a) You can select "Enter a message" from the Menu -or- b) If your BBS has a door which creates mail packets, you can enter the message with your off-line mail reader in advance, then upload it via the door while you're on-line. TO ENTER A MESSAGE FROM THE BBS MENU ------------------------------------ Two things must be in order before you can "upload" a message into the message base. a) Your communications software must be set so that ASCII uploads do NOT strip the high bit. Stripping will make a mess of your ANSI message. b) The BBS you are uploading to must also have the same setting. If you are unsure, you might try sending an ANSI message to yourself (Receiver-Only) to test it. * Page 1 * To upload the message, select "Enter a message" from the menu. Enter all the information TO:, SUBJECT:, etc. At this point some BBS's will ask you if you want to "submit prepared text?". If so, answer yes. Otherwise, at the prompt where you would normally begin typing in a message, use your file transfer ASCII protocol (usually Page Up invokes this) and the file will be uploaded into the message area. Be sure to "Save" the message before logging off. TO ENTER A MESSAGE USING AN OFF-LINE MAIL READER ------------------------------------------------ For those of you who don't know what an off-line mail reader is, here's a brief description... Instead of reading your messages while you're on-line with the BBS, some BBS's have a Mail door which allows you to create a what is called a mail packet. A mail packet is simply a file that you can download which contains all the messages you select. You would first set up a configuration which tells the door which conferences you want messages from, etc. Then you download the mail packet. The mail packet is then read by using an off-line mail reader. The mail reader will decompress your messages, allow you to save your replies, and several other features. Then you can call the BBS back and upload your replies file to the door. The door will then post the replies to the message base. This is the most convenient way to do it. You also don't need to worry about the 8th bit getting stripped. And can use unlimited time to read your packet and prepare your replies. The mail reader to use would depend on the mail door you are using. If the mail door creates .QWK files, I recommend a very good mail Shareware reader-program called "SLMR" (Silly Little Mail Reader) by Greg Hewgill. Whichever mail reader program you decide on, read the documentation on how to import a file (ANSI) into your reply. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Reading an ANSI message from your off-line mail reader ------------------------------------------------------ Some off-line mail readers (Like SLMR) have an option to animate ANSI escape sequences. For mail readers that do not have this option or do not support music/sound codes, ANSIPLAY can be used with the /D option. The procedure might be as follows... Using your off-line mail reader, "Save" the message to a temporary file. Look at the message to be sure the ESC characters have not been stripped or replaced with an alternate character. Also that any music strings are suffixed with the music note character CHR$(14). * Page 2 * If necessary, use a hot-key on your mail reader to load the temporary file into your text editor. If your program has a search/replace feature, this will be the fastest way to replace the alternate characters with ESC characters CHR$(27). Be sure to save any changes. Then return to the mail reader. Now use a hot-key to ANSIPLAY the file. The hot-key might be setup to say something like: ANSIPLAY C:\DOWN\TEMP.TXT /D After the file is done displaying/playing, the /D option will tell ANSIPLAY to ask you if you'de like to delete the temporary file. If you decide to keep it, you will be given a chance to change the filename. (Note: if the ESCape key is hit during display, the options to delete/rename will be bypassed). [For messages that are 2 or more message screens, do the same exact procedure. Most off-line mail readers will allow you to append the saved message to your "save-filename" rather than overwritting it. You may want to edit the file before ANSIPLAYing it to remove the message headers/taglines from the 2nd, 3rd, etc. messages.] Again the procedure is: 1. Save message to temporary file 2. If necessary, edit the file 3. ANSIPLAY the file with /D option SHORTCUT FOR SLMR USERS ----------------------- If you have the SLMR mail reader, a shortcut can be used which eliminates having to first save the message to a temporary file. Your hotkey can use the command: ANSIPLAY CURRENT.MSG /D. This will load the message you are currently displaying into ANSIPLAY, then display/play it. Though remember, if the music string has the 'music note' character stripped, it will not play correctly unless you edit the file to re-add CHR$(14). * Page 3 *