Messages are a vital part of just about any bulletin board system. Messages are used to leave messages to the SysOp or to other users. Messages are the most common way of communicating with other users on the system.

Because reading messages is one of the most commonly used functions when on a bulletin board system, PCBoard has numerous commands and subcommands dealing with reading messages. You can use the subcommands to view only those messages that interest you. For example, if you only want to see messages from JIM SMITH, use the FROM subcommand.

Bulletin board systems are basically information banks. Because so much information is stored on a bulletin board system, you most likely want to view only new information that is placed online. Viewing any new messages on the system is very easy to do. From the conference command prompt you can type in the following:

R S A

This will Read mail Since the last time you were on in All conferences you have selected for scanning. If the bulletin board brings in a lot of mail each day, you may want to read only messages that are addressed to you. If so, you can type in the following command instead:

R Y S A

The only change is the addition of the Y to tell PCBoard to only read messages that are addressed to You. There are numerous other subcommands you can use with the R command. For a detailed list, see the R user command in the PCBoard Commands chapter of this manual.user command section.

If you are reading a message which has an attached file, you will notice that you have the ability to flag the attached file for download. At the End of Message Command prompt, you simply type in FLAG – the file will then be flagged for download. When you are done reading messages, you can use either the D or DB command to download the file.

One of the most popular methods of communicating on a bulletin board system is via the message system. In order to communicate with another user or group of users on the system via a message, you need to enter a message.
This section briefly talks about how to enter a message on the system. For more details about entering a message, you should refer to the E user command in the User Command section of this manual.

To begin entering a message, you need to use the E user command. This means you will type in E followed by pressing ENTER.

Once you press E and then ENTER you will see the following prompt:

To (Enter)='ALL'? (                        )

This prompt asks to whom the message should be addressed to. Press ENTER to address the message to ALL, enter any valid user name on the system, or you can user some of the special addressees that are discussed in the Entering a Message section of the PCBoard Commands chapter (e.g., @USER@, @LIST@, etc.).

Just as you would enter a subject on a memorandum or other correspondence, you are asked to enter a subject of the message you will be entering. You are given up to 53 characters to describe the content of your message. The subject of the message is displayed when the message is read, when using the Q user command, etc. If you do not enter a subject for the message, the message you are entering will be aborted.

Unless the current conference is defined to make all messages private, you will be asked what type of message security to use for the message you are about to enter. You may choose to make the message public so other users on the system may read it or you may make the message private so only certain persons can read the message. The most popular security options are N for a public message and R for a message which can be read only by the receiver of the message.

If you are entering a RECEIVER ONLY message, you may be asked if you wish to request a return-receipt. If you request a return receipt, a message will be sent to you when the recipient reads your message.

If you are leaving a message in a conference which has been configured to allow echo-mail, you may be asked if you wish to echo the message. If you choose to not echo the message, your message will remain on the local system only.

You can configure a conference to request routing information if a message will be echoed and it is a private message. The routing information that is entered allows the message to take a direct route to the recipient rather than being broadcast over the entire mail network. The routing information that is entered depends on the software you are using for echoing mail as each can require different types of routing information. Check with the echoing software to see if message routing is allowed, and if so, the format that must be used.

PCBoard gives you the option to ask if you wish to use the full-screen editor each time you enter a message. If you have enabled this feature, you will be asked this question before being allowed to enter your message. Of course, if you find you always use the full-screen editor or the line-editor, you may want to go use the W user command to change the Use Full Screen Editor? prompt to reflect the appropriate default response.

Once you have answered the questions about the message you want to enter, you will be placed in the message editor. In the editor, you simply type in your message as you want it to read. To perform various functions inside of the editor such as deleting lines, saving the message, etc. you need to access the editor commands. To access these commands in the full-screen editor, you can press ESC. In the line-editor, you can access these commands by pressing ENTER on a blank line. There are far too many commands to discuss in this section of the manual, however they are discussed in detail in the section of the manual which discusses the E user command. Once you have entered the text you want for your message, you are ready to save your message.

To save a message, simply access the editor command prompt by pressing either ESC or ENTER on a blank line depending on which editor you are using. Then press S and R. Your message is now saved to the message base on the bulletin board system.

Sometimes you need to distribute a file to a select group of users. What you can do is attach the file to a message. That way, only users which can read the message with the attached file can flag the file for download. To attach the file, select SA from the editor command prompt instead of S to save the message.

You will be asked for the filename you wish to upload or attach. You may attach only one file to each message. If you need to attach more than one file, use a compression program which compresses the files and combines them into a single file.

After you have entered the filename to attach, upload the file just as you would any other file to the system. If the transfer is successful, you will be notified that the message was saved. On the other hand, if the transfer is aborted, or if your file was tested and failed testing, you will be returned to the editor command prompt.

Not everyone is perfect the first time around. Sooner or later, you may need to edit a message you have saved. You may need to edit the actual text in the message body, or perhaps just change who the message is addressed to.
The following sections describe how to edit the header and body of a message.

If you entered a message to the wrong name, or you would like to change the subject of a message that you left, you may do so by typing E at the End of Message Command prompt. If you do not have SysOp security, you will only be able to edit the header information of messages which you have left. You may edit who the message is to, the subject of the message, the message security/protection, and the reference number of the message. If you have SysOp security, you will also be able to change who the message is from, and if it has been read or not.

You can use the EDIT command at the End of Message Command prompt to edit the body of the current message. You may edit the message if it was left by you or if you have SysOp security.

When you edit the message you are put back into the message editor. Make the changes you want to make and then re-save the message. The changes that you make will be saved to the message.

NOTE: If you make numerous changes, PCBoard may have to delete the original message and create a new message at the end of the message base. Therefore, if you see Message Killed when you save your message, you will know PCBoard had to kill the original message and create a new message at the end of the message base.

PCBoard provides extensive search capabilities. This section describes some very simple searches you can use to help you find messages.

If you want to display any messages which contain particular text, use the TS subcommand. For example, if you enter the following:

R;TS

You can perform a text search on any message. PCBoard will ask you for the text you want to search for. After you enter the text, you will be asked what message number you want to begin the search at.

You can stack all of this onto one line. For example:

R;TS;EDITOR;1+

This command will perform a text search, looking for any message in the current conference which contains the word EDITOR.

If you wish, you may also span the search across all conferences you have selected for scanning by using the following command:

R;TS;EDITOR;1+;A

Notice that only the A was added to the command. This tells PCBoard to search all conferences you have selected for reading. If you wish to search all conferences you can join, use ALL instead.

NOTE: Text searches within PCBoard are not case-sensitive. Therefore, you do not have to worry about matching the case of the text you will be searching for.

Sometimes you may only wish to read messages which are to or from a particular user. There is a USER subcommand you can use to read messages to or from a user. The following is an example:

R;USER

PCBoard will ask you for the user you wish to search for. You may also stack the user name on the command line as shown in the following example:

R;USER;JIM BROWN

The previous example will search for any messages in the current message base which are to or from JIM BROWN.

If you need to perform an even more specific search, you can combine the USER and TS commands. This will enable you to search for any message that is to or from a particular user and contains the text that you specify. The following is an example:

R;TS;USER

PCBoard will prompt you for the text you want to search for and the user you want to restrict the search to. As in the previous examples, you may stack the information on the command line:

R;TS;EDITOR;USER;JIM BROWN

In this example, it is important to place the text you want to search for after the TS and the user you want to search for after USER. Otherwise, PCBoard will not be able to properly discern the difference between the search text and the user. Look at the following example:

R;TS;USER;EDITOR;JIM BROWN

If you type in the previous example, PCBoard will think the user name was EDITOR;JIM BROWN and consequently prompt you for the text to search for.

The ability to capture a message to a printer or file can be important because it gives you a method to copy a message to a format which you can then share or use in another manner. You can capture messages to a file, or to the printer (if you are on locally).

If you are on locally, you can capture text that is displayed by PCBoard to the printer using ALT-P. Therefore, to capture a particular message, do the following:

• Read the message you want to capture.
• At the End of Message Command prompt, press ALT-P to turn on the printer.
• Now type / and press ENTER. This will re-display the message. Since you have printer capturing turned on, you will becapturing the message.
• Press ALT-P to turn off printer capturing and you are done.

You can easily capture a message to a file using the following steps:

• Read the message you want to capture.
• At the End of Message Command prompt, enter C to capture and download the message.
• Download this file like any other file on the system and you will have a hard-copy of the message in text file format in the location where you download the file.

The ability to capture messages to a printer or file can be important because it gives you a method to copy messages to a format which you can share or use in another manner. You can capture messages to a file, or to the printer (if you are on locally).

If you are on locally, you can capture text displayed by PCBoard to the printer using ALT-P. Therefore, to capture several messages, do the following:

• Press ALT-P to turn on printer capturing.
• Read the messages you want to capture.
• When done reading the messages, press ALT-P to turn off printer capturing.

The easiest way to capture messages to a file is to use the C subcommand of the R user command. Simply tack the C on to the end of your read command and those messages will be sent to a file instead of being displayed on the screen.
Example:

R;S;A;C

would read new messages in all conferences that you have selected and capture them to a file. Once the messages have been captured to the file, you will be directed to download the capture file to your system. Of course, once you download it, you have an ASCII text capture of those messages.

One of the most popular ways to read messages off-line is via an off-line mail reader which can handle QWK packets. PCBoard can capture messages into a QWK packet you can use with an off-line mail reader. If you want all of the new messages on the system, use the QWK command from the conference command prompt. If you want to capture a certain range of messages, or perhaps only messages that contain certain text, use the QWK subcommand that is available with the R user command.

To captures messages to a packet, simply tack on QWK to the end of your read command. For example, if you want the new messages in the current conference instead of all conferences you have selected, enter the following command:

R;S;QWK

Taking this idea one step further, you can capture all messages that contain the word INERTIA in the current message base. To do this, enter the following:

R;TS;INERTIA;1+;QWK