                BETA documentaion for PCBFido version 15.22

Thoughout the Beta cycle, you can address all your Fido related
questions to me, Stan Paulsen, in the appropriate conference. Please try to
included as many details as possible, and the appropriate data file if you
feel they are neccisary for me to duplicate the problem. I may ask you for
more information, or some data files if your original report dosn't include
them. At the time I am writing this document, I am not aware of any
standard report form that will be used for this cycle.

Here is a rundown of the new features, and other important details, for this
version.

*****
IMPORTANT
*****

Virtually EVERY fido related file has changed format. Namely PCBFIDO.CFG
and FIDOQUE.DAT. The first thing you need to do after installing your first
Beta, is to run a packing utility to pack out any duplicates from your
present copy pf PCBFIDO.CFG. This is in PACK.ZIP. Then run the conversion
utility (PCBoard Fido Utility or fidoutil.EXE) from a directory containg
PCBOARD.DAT. This will split your PCBFIDO.CFG file into several smaller files.
Here's a list of them...

PCBFIDO.CFG   Contains your directory info, EMSI profile, Archiver info
AREAS.DAT     Contains all areatag info
AKAS.DAT      Contains all your system address info
ORIGINS.DAT   Contains all your conference specific origin info
NODELIST.DAT  Contains all your nodelist info
NODEARC.DAT   Contains all node specific archiver info
PHONEX.DAT    Contains all phone translation info
MAGICNAM.DAT  Contains all magic name info
FREQPATH.DAT  Contains all file request path info
FREQDENY.DAT  Contains all file request deny addresses

Your FIDOQUE.DAT file will just change formats. No new files will be
created, and the queue will have unlimited record ability.


*****
NOTE
*****

If you have been running PCBFIDO already, it would be best to get it up
and running as it has been, before testing any of the new features. There
have been some sweeping changes and re-writting of existing fido code, so there
could have been some problems introduced to existing functionallity.

Here are some of the new features you will be testing.

- The queue file can contain an unlimited number of records.

- MSGID kludge is now added to messages

- EXCLUDE verb for Fido events. Anywhere a wildcard can be used, an Exclude
  verb on the same line can exclude addresses from the wildcard spec.
  Example:
  Route-To    *:*/*  1:311/40 Exclude 1:311/*

- Hold entries are truly HOLD. They will not be sent out unless it is an
  inbound call.

- The utility fidoutil.EXE can generate a FIDO log report. By typing
  fidoutil /REPORT or by following the menus in FIDOUTIL, it will scan all of your
  caller logs and compile a Fido log and place it in the same directory as your
  caller logs. It will be named FIDOLOG. You can then view all of your FIDO
  activity in chronological order. There are many other features in FIDOUTIL
  and as of writing this document, I have not added any help sreens. Many
  of the menus should be self explanatory. To get a list of command line
  options, type FIDOUTIL ? or FIDOUTIL /?

- Better support for multiple akas in a single network has been added. Before,
  PCBoard would only put one of them in your seen-by lines. It will now put all
  relavant akas in the seen-by lines unless you specify not to in PCBSETUP. Also
  you can specify which AKA you wish your netmail to be From: on a message by
  message basis. So if you are 1:311/1 and 1:311/21, and you wish to write
  netmail as 1:311/1, you can tell PCBoard to use that aka in the following
  way...
  To: Stan@1:311/10 +C +D [1:311/1]

- Predefined response messages for such things as areafix password failures
  FREQ information ,denial etc... These can be customized with any text
  editor. Take a look at the directory setting for these in PCBSETUP | FIDO
  CONFIGURATION | FILE AND DIRECTORY INFO. There should be some default
  message files in your BETA packet. Those files ending with MSG are complete
  messages. There may be a small amount of text added by PCBoard. Those with
  an extension of HDR will have a significant amount of text added by PCBoard.
  Following is a list of predefined response files...

  AFIXFAIL.MSG  Areafix failed. Added text: Why it failed. Eg password, no access
  AFIXLST.HDR   Areas Currently received by remote site
  AFIXAVL.HDR   Areas Availabel to remote site
| AFIXHELP.MSG  Arefix help file
  FREQINFO.MSG  File request information for your board.
| FRQPFAIL.MSG  FREQ failed. Added Text: Reason for failure.

- Areafix forwarding. To setup a hub to forward requests to, set the expert
  level in the hubs user record to 'Y'. This should soon change to reflect
  uplink status in the user record, instead of expert level during the test
  cycle. So if a node is an uplink and you want areafix requests in that net
  forwarded to that uplink, set their expert status to 'Y', otherwise set it
  to 'N'.

- Secure Netmail
  This option in PCBsetup tells PCBoard to import mail only from sites with
  a ~FIDO~ user record. All other netmail packets will be moved to a secure
  directory for later inspection.

- Autoadd areas as passthru areas. If you have areafix forwarding enabled
  and autoaddition of areas, pcboard will setup the passthru area and register
  the user who sent the areafix request. Otherwise, it will setup the passthru
  area instead of tossing messages to the bad area.

- There is also the auto removal of areas. PCBoard keeps track of
  activity in an area so you can tell it to remove the area after so much
  inactive time has passed. This is done in fidoutil. this will only remove
  the conference name from CNAMES as well as removing the areatag from
  AREAS.DAT. It will not remove the message file or unregister users from
  that conference.

- You can specify private messages and file attaches on a conference by
  conference basis. **NOTE Be 100% sure that these are acceptable in your
  private network. Introducing file attaches in a network that does not
  support them can have severe results.


- File Request Passwords. You can put a password on a directory or magicname.
  Look in PCBSETUP | FIDO CONFIGURATION | FREQ PATH LIST & FREQ MAGIC NAMES.

- A RESCAN command for areafix has been added. %rescan 4dos -2000 will lower
  that ~FIDO~ users lmr in the 4dos area down 2000 messages.


- SEND verb for fido events. You can now instruct PCBoard to send files in fido
  events. The syntax is "SEND filespec address". Wildcards can be used
  in the filename. This will create a tracking file in the same directory
  as PCBFIDO.CFG.

- Duplicate checking on import.
  This can be done in one of two ways.
  1- Checking the PATH of a message to see if your site is already in it.
     This will catch any messages that have passed through your system
     before. This is a very fast way of duplicate checking for those
     receiving mail from a satelite service for example.
  2- MSGID dupe checking. This will search backwards through the message base
     a specified number of messages. This number can be set in pcbsetup.
     This is much slower than path line dupe checking, but it can ensure
     that absolutly no duplicate messages are introduced to your system.
     Specifying a -1 as the number of message to track will cause PCBoard
     to search the entire message base. Very slow, but you will not have
     any dupes.


PASSTHRU's
----------
If you looked around the menu interface of FIDOUTIL, you probably saw the passthru
setup. You can setup passthru's one by one, or with an NA style file. You also
need to add a passthru directory to PCBSETUP | FIDO CONFIGURATION | FILE &
DIRECTORY INFORMATION. Go ahead and fill out the other new fields in the screen
while your at it.

When you setup your passthru areas, PCBoard will store the information in the
passthru directory in a file called PTARS.DAT. Then when PCBoard receives a
message for an area NOT in your regular conference setup, it will check this
file to see if it is setup as a passthru. If it is, PCBoard will write the
message to a passthru message file. On export, it checks the current user
being exported to to see if they are in a passthur area, If so, the message
is added to their packet.

Other Misc changes/new features
-------------------------------

- In the SYSOP MENU | view modify queue pressing 'P' for previous when viewing
  the first record will wrap around to the last record.

- The queue is packed after each record is deleted, so it won't be full of
  empty records.

- Pressing ESC while importing packets will abort the import after the current
  packet is finished.

- If POSTCALL.BAT existed, PCBoard would import netmail even if import after
  transfer was disabled. Now pcboard will only import mail, all mail, if
  import after transfer is enabled.

- If the file PREPROC.BAT exists, PCBoard will shell to this file *before*
  importing mail after a trasnfer. So you can now run two batch files after
  a transfer. One before and one after the import.

- The OS/2 version will search for .CMD before looking for .BAT. This applies
  to POSTCAL, PREPROC FIDOSEND and FIDORECV

- Some minor changes to entries in the log dealing with import/export.
  Namely the numbers are more accurate. The numbers displayed on the sceen
  reflect a total running count of messages imported from all packets.
  Other minor changes to screen output during import/export.

- You can disable any of the FIDO protocols by using the PCBFIDO environment
  variable.
  SET PCBFIDO=/NOEMSI will disable the EMSI protocol.
  SET PCBFIDO=/NOWAZOO will disable the FTS-0006 protocol
  SET PCBFIDO=/NOFTS1 will disable the FTS-0001 protocol.
  In most cases these need not be set.

- You can instruct PCBoard to re-address packet headers for routed mail.
  If a packet is routed, PCBoard will insert the address of the intermediate
  site in the packet header. PCBoard uses a routing method that allows
  packets to remain untouched by intermediate sites. Unfortunatly not all
  mailers support this method. If your routed netmail must have the
  intermediate site's address in the packet header, then this feature will
  be useful.

- You can instruct PCBoard to route echo mail packets. This only makes
  sense in certian situations, such as routing echo mail destined for a
  satelite service through a local hub.

- You can have PCBoard change any inbound echomail addressed to SYSOP to
  FIDO_SYSOP to avoid having the SYSOP mail waiting flags set in echo
  areas.

- Version 15.21 required that you enter a default aka and origin line for
  each echo area. Version 15.22 allows you to specify the aka or origin
  just once, then specify a range or ranges of conferences the data applies
  to. pcbsetup | fido configuration | system address has a Range field.
  Same with pcbsetup | fido configuration | origin conference range.
  These fields can contain multiple single conferenes and/or multiple
  conference ranges. For example, if you wanted the aka 1:311/40 to
  apply to confrence 1 5 9 20-50 and 100-600, you could put...

  1 5 9 20-50 100-60

  all on the same line in the range field. To make sure these are applied
  correctly, you must do a full save froom PCBSETUP by answering 'Y' to
  the "save configuration files" prompt when exiting PCBSETUP.

  That's it! Have fun with it and let me know of any problems. Unlike
  that last beta test, features are absolutely, 100% frozen during this beta
  test. Feel free to submit feature request, but please understand that
  they cannot be implemented in this version.



