CHAPTER 2 GETTING YOUR BIX BEARINGS This chapter explains how to find out what conferences are available on BIX and what is in them. 11 BIX User Manual Help 13 Show 13 Show Groups 13 Show Group Group Name 14 Show Conference Name 14 Show All 15 Show New 15 12 BIX User Manual Help BIX has several ways to give you help. A list of the commands, with an explanation of each, follows: help Displays general help at any time ? Displays general help at any time help "command" Provides help on that specific command "command"? Provides a list of valid arguments or subcommands for that command help hfiles Provides a list of the commands for which help isavailable Show The show command helps you find your way around BIX. It provides information on conferences, topics, and members. For example, when you type: show by itself, BIX displays the conferences that you have joined along with the number of unread messages and total messages in each topic, as shown in the following example: conference: amiga news 0/7 tech.talk 0/6 conference: apple hardware 2/16 tips 0/23 conference: chips digest 0/21 rams 3/17 misc 0/3 Show Groups All BIX conferences belong to a group. A group is a category. Like the sections of a library, you can browse through a group to see what's avail- able under a particular heading. You cannot join a group, but you can see what is in one. 13 BIX User Manual To see the BIX group list, enter the command: show groups BIX conferences are divided into such areas as computers, graphics, and applications. Show Group Group Name Type show group followed by the group name to see a list of the conferences that make up a group. For example, show group computers displays this list: apple The Apple II family a.t.and.t. AT&T computers atari.st The Atari ST computer conference commodore Commodore computers and so on. Show Conference Name Type show followed by a conference name for details about the conference, such as the moderator's name and a topic list. For example, to see more about the `os.9' conference, you would type: show os.9 BIX might respond: Moderator(s) pdibble, gkendall. Created: Wed Mar 27 01:46:20 1985 ----------------------------------------- digest Summary of the conference rules Rules of the game atari.os9 OS.9 for the Atari ST series? 14 BIX User Manual languages Discussions of OS.9 languages applications Discussions on OS.9 applications resource A list of resources for OS.9 . . cbix A place for OS.2 members to chat listings Special listings area for OS.2 Show All To see a list of all conferences on BIX, type: show all Remember, you can type quit at the .More.. prompt if you don't want to see this rather long list. Show New When you sign on, BIX gives you a report of new activity in your conferences since the last time you signed on. You can see this list at any time by typing: show new Show new produces a list that looks like this: Conf/Topic New Messages apple/hardware 2 chips/rams 3 graphics/misc 2 Show new followed by a conference name produces a list of topics with unread messages in that conference. For example, show new macintosh might produce this display: 15 BIX User Manual Conf/Topic New Messages macintosh/digest 2 macintosh/news 19 macintosh/prod.discussn 4 macintosh/soapbox 14 macintosh/softw.devlpmt 12 macintosh/tech.talk 1 Show new followed by the conference name and a topic name displays the unread message count in a single topic. For example, show new international access could produce this screen: Conf/Topic New Messages international/access 12 Show new followed by a portion of a conference name will produce the unread message count for all conferences in your list that match the portion you enter. For example, show new ibm will display the unread message reports for the `ibm.at,' `ibm.pc,` and `ibm.ps' conferences. NOTES: 16 BIX User Manual