CHAPTER 7 ENVIRONMENT OPTIONS This chapter describes how to tailor your BIX environment to your needs. 97 BIX User Manual Part 1: Introduction 99 What are Options? 99 How to See Your Present Options 99 How to Enter the Options Area 100 How to Leave the Options Area 100 How to Make an Option Permanent 100 Part 2: Explanation of BIX Options 101 Terse/Vbose: Terse and Verbose Prompts 101 Terminal Settings: Width, Length 101 Ctrl Filter: Yes or No 102 NAPLPS PDIs: Yes or No 102 File-Transfer Protocols 102 Editor: Quiet or Verbose 103 Recent: Maximum, Minimum, and Days 103 Mail Call: Yes or No 104 Part 3: Miscellaneous BIX Options 106 Blink 106 Cookie 106 Newline 106 Nonewline 106 Synonym 107 Term ANSI 107 Term TTY 107 Term VT52 108 Term VT100 108 Time 108 98 BIX User Manual Part 1: Introduction What Are Options? BIX options let you arrange your operating environment so BIX is more com- fortable for you. For example, it lets you choose from two editors and two styles of system prompts, and lets you change command names to something easier for you to remember. Changes made to BIX options last until you sign off. To make option changes permanent, you can easily add them to your user profile. The pro- file tells BIX what options to provide you when you sign on. For more on your profile, see Chapter 8, "Personal BIX," on page 109. How to See Your Present Options To see your present BIX Options settings, enter: show opt from the main ( : ), Read:, or Mail: prompts. BIX will respond with something that looks like this: Terse/Vbose: TERSE Terminal settings: Width: 80 Length: 20 Ctrl Filter: YES NAPLPS PDIs: YES Upload: xmodem Download: xmodem Editor: quiet_ed Recent max: 50 Recent min: 25 Recent days: 30 Mail Call: YES 99 BIX User Manual How to Enter the Options Area To enter the Options area, type: option You can enter this command from the main ( : ), Read:, or Mail: prompts. This is what the prompt for the Option area looks like: Opt: Once you have entered the Options area, you may select any of the options described in this chapter. How to Leave the Options Area To leave the Options area, enter: quit How to Make an Option Permanent Chapter 8, "Personal BIX," explains how you can make any option a permanent part of your BIX operating environment. NOTES: 100 BIX User Manual Part 2: Explanation of BIX Options Terse/Vbose: Terse and Verbose Prompts The commands verbose and terse set the level of help and the length of the prompts produced by BIX. The default setting is verbose. Terse abbreviates prompts to a few letters and reduces the length of mes- sage headers. If you want shorter prompts, such as R: instead of Read:, type at the Opt: prompt: terse To return to the longer prompts, at the Opt: prompt, enter: verbose Terminal Settings: Width, Length The terminal width command lets you control the width of messages displayed by BIX. Type: terminal width followed by the number of characters your screen supports. For example, if your display is 40 characters wide, type: terminal width 40 at the Opt: prompt. The terminal pagelength command lets you control the number of lines dis- played before the .More.. prompt. For example, to set BIX to display 16 lines of text before pausing, enter: terminal pagelength 16 101 BIX User Manual If you use a hard-copy terminal or one that does its own paging (for example, an IBM 3270), type: terminal pagelength 0 This will eliminate the .More.. prompts, and the message will scroll by until it reaches the end. Ctrl Filter: Yes or No The filter command controls whether or not BIX filters control characters in messages before displaying them. Normally, it does, displaying Control- X, for example, as ^X, or escape as ^L. Typing: filter no will make BIX pass control characters through unchanged. NAPLPS PDIs: Yes or No Use the naplps option if you find that a message is terminating prematurely. To engage it, enter: naplps yes from the Opt: prompt. NAPLPS is an acronym for North American Presentation Level Protocols. PDI stands for Picture Description Instructions. NAPLPS facilitates the inter- change of text and graphical information. BIX does not offer graphical screens at this time. File-Transfer Protocols You can set the file-transfer protocol for use within the Conference area with the upload and download commands. (For full details on these commands, see Chapter 10, "Advanced BIX Techniques," on page 141.) To set a protocol, at the Opt: prompt enter: upload 102 BIX User Manual or download followed by the protocol name. BIX supports Kermit, XMODEM, and YMODEM protocols for uploads. The download protocols are Kermit, XMODEM, YMODEM and ZMODEM. To make BIX use XMODEM or YMODEM with CRC, attach .c to the word. For example, xmodem.c. Editor: Quiet or Verbose BIX has two text editors for you to use when creating or modifying text. See Chapter 5, "Editing Messages," on page 59. The Verbose editor is the default setting. To switch to the Quiet editor, at the Opt: prompt enter: edit set BIX will respond: Set editor to verbose or quiet (v/q)? Type q for Quiet and press Return. Recent: Maximum, Minimum, and Days The recent command sets the default number of unread messages that BIX shows you when you join a conference for the first time. The recent command has three separate parameters: maximum, minimum, and days. The default settings are: maximum 50 minimum 25 days 30 When you first join a topic, BIX uses recent to set your message pointers to show you only those messages that are newer than the current date minus the days setting. If that results in more than maximum setting, 103 BIX User Manual your pointers are set so that there are only the maximum number of unread messages. To start a new conference with fewer messages or nearer to the present date, adjust the maximum parameter to a smaller number. For example, recent maximum 25 or recent days 10 To start a new conference with more messages, set maximum to a larger number. For example, recent maximum 150 or recent days 40 If there are fewer messages than the minimum, your pointers are set so that there are the minimum number of unread messages regardless of the days setting. NOTE: The recent option limits the number of messages displayed only when you initially join a conference. This option does not limit the number of messages displayed when you enter a conference you are already joined to. Mailcall: Yes or No The mailcall option notifies you when a mail message arrives in your inbasket while you are on-line. The default setting is "Yes." If you are on-line when mail arrives, BIX beeps when you come to the main ( : ) prompt or to a Read: or Mail: prompt. This message is displayed: `*New mail from: ...*' To turn off this feature, enter: 104 BIX User Manual mailcall no at the Opt: prompt. The mailcall command also offers a verbose notification message. The ver- bose message includes the subject line as well as the name of the sender. To engage this feature, enter: mailcall verbose from the Opt: prompt. NOTES: 105 BIX User Manual Part 3: Miscellaneous BIX Options Blink The blink option is designed for overseas BIXen logging in via an X.25 packet-switching network. When blink is set to yes, it tells the show scratchpad command to send full packets whenever possible. To turn it on, type: blink yes NOTE: Blink has no effect on XMODEM, Kermit, or any other download protocol. It only functions with ASCII file transfers initiated with the show scratchpad command. Cookie The cookie command will display an epigram, homily, or pithy saying. Enter it from the main system prompt, which is the colon ( : ). Newline If your text is writing over your lines and you have been unable to adjust your communications software, enter newline from the main system prompt ( : ). It should take care of your problem. You can add it to your profile to make it a permanent feature. See Chapter 8, "Personal BIX," for details on how to make this a permanent feature. Nonewline If you receive double line spaces whenever you press Return and you have been unable to adjust your communications software, enter nonewline from the main system prompt ( : ). It should take care of your problem. You can add it to your profile to make it a permanent feature. See Chapter 8, "Personal BIX," for details on how to make this a permanent feature. 106 BIX User Manual Synonym Use the command synonym to tailor BIX's command language to your liking. This command's format calls for you to place the synonym before the command to be changed. For example, to make "log-off" a synonym for "bye," you would enter: synonym logoff bye at the Opt: prompt. Enter quit to exit the Options subsystem. NOTE: The meaning of an existing BIX command cannot be altered. For example, you cannot make quit a synonym for bye because quit already has a meaning in BIX. Also, you cannot create synonyms for a chain of commands. Term ANSI The command term ansi sets your terminal type to ANSI emulation. This is used for the McGraw-Hill News Service and to determine how to clear your screen in the Listings menu mode. It serves no other function at this time. CBix supports ANSI terminal emulation. The /terminal command in CBix is used to set this. See Chapter 9 for details. For more on the McGraw-Hill News Service, see "Introduction," on page XI. Term TTY The command term tty sets your terminal type to TTY emulation (that is, no emulation). This is used for the McGraw-Hill News Service and to determine how to clear your screen in the Listings menu mode. It serves no other function at this time. CBix supports TTY terminal emulation. The /terminal command in CBix is used to set this. See Chapter 9 for details. For more on the McGraw-Hill News Service, see "Introduction," on page XI. 107 BIX User Manual Term VT52 The command term vt52 sets your terminal type to VT52 emulation. This is used for the McGraw-Hill News Service and to determine how to clear your screen in the Listings menu mode. It serves no other function at this time. CBix supports VT52 terminal emulation. The /terminal command in CBix is used to set this. See Chapter 9 for details. For more on the McGraw-Hill News Service, see "Introduction," on page XI. Term VT100 The command term vt100 sets your terminal type to VT100 emulation. This is used for the McGrawHill News Service and to determine how to clear your screen in the Listings menu mode. It serves no other function at this time. CBix supports VT100 terminal emulation. The /terminal command in CBix is used to set this. See Chapter 9 for details. For more on the McGraw-Hill News Service, see "Introduction," on page XI. Time The command time will display the time of day based on east coast standard time (U.S.A.). Time can be added to your profile so that it appears whenever you sign in. See Chapter 8, "Personal BIX," for details on how to do this. NOTES: 108 BIX User Manual