QWK off-line message reader for Amiga?
Jens Christian Mikkelsen
read message packets in the .QWK format?
/Jens
Ken Rastin
I would recomend Q-Blue for .QWK formatted files. I have been using it for
about a week now and it is easy to set up and has a nice interface.
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da...@dogbox.acme.gen.nz
> Does anyone know of a good off-line message reader for the Amiga, that will
> read message packets in the .QWK format?
Well, I have two:
AQuick - by A.Westcott (sp)
Q-Blue
Both are good .QWK mailreader (I prefer Q-Blue), with Q-Blue also
handling BlueWave mail packets as well. AQuick seems to handle the files
a bit better (even if they are slightly corrupt), but it has it's
limitations, in that it is a bit slow, and kludgy :)
--
David Dustin | "I've never seen so many damn Indians."
Da...@Dogbox.acme.gen.nz | - G.A. Custer
Jeffrey Grimmett 9999
>Does anyone know of a good off-line message reader for the Amiga, that will
>read message packets in the .QWK format?
Names to look for:
Q-Blue: .QWK and BlueWave
MessageView: .QWK and .XRS
Don't have exact file names, but these are two of the best I've seen. MV
especially is inexpensive at 15 US, I don't remember the QBlue registration
price. Both offer read and reply.
--
*******************************************************************************
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NCR -- Torrey Pines Development Center | Jeffrey....@TorreyPinesCA.ncr.com
========== "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain." =============
*******************************************************************************
James A Grizzard
>In article <1992Oct5.1...@daimi.aau.dk> j...@daimi.aau.dk (Jens Christian Mikkelsen) writes:
>>Does anyone know of a good off-line message reader for the Amiga, that will
>>read message packets in the .QWK format?
>>
>> /Jens
>
>I would recomend Q-Blue for .QWK formatted files. I have been using it for
>about a week now and it is easy to set up and has a nice interface.
It's also crippled, and I go out of my way to not register/use crippleware. I
personally use AQuick. It's pretty good right now, but version 3 is due out soon
that'll kick Q-Blue's butt....
that and the fact that Q-Blue doesn't even support taglines... :(
Paul Kienitz
> that will read message packets in the .QWK format?
be biased.
Q-Blue 0.7 can be ftp'd from ftp.uni-kl.de (IP 131.246.9.95) in
directory /pub/amiga/ianet/comm, or amiga.physik.unizh.ch (IP number
130.60.80.80) in /amiga/comm, so I'm told. Or on Fidonet you can
freq Q-BLUE07.LZH from 1:2240/176 in Michigan or 1:125/28 in
California, among other places.
Staffan Vilcans
> I would recomend Q-Blue for .QWK formatted files. I have been using it for
> about a week now and it is easy to set up and has a nice interface.
But isn't Q-Blue crippled?
_# **MMp g#00 `N##0" _agN#0P0N# _#L
g## jN## j##F J## _dN0" " g##L
_#]## _0 ##L jN##F ### g#0" _03##L
gE_j## # 0## jF ##F j##F j## ______ gE_j##L
_0"""N## d" J##L0 ##F 0## 0## "9##F" _0"""5##L
_gF ]## jF ##0 ##F ##F `##k d## _gF j##L
_g#_ _j##L__g#__ ]N _j##L_ _d##L_ `#Nh___g#N' _g#_ _j##L_
`"""" """""'""""' " """""" """""" """"""" `"""" """"""
Paul Kienitz
> that'll kick Q-Blue's butt....
AQuick is not at all popular in my part of the world. I can name at
least three quite lame old QWK readers that I have seen in wider use
than AQuick. Can you explain why that is if AQuick is so good? (I
have not yet seen a copy of it anywhere myself.)
> that and the fact that Q-Blue doesn't even support taglines... :(
per line. :)
Paul Kienitz
>
> Q-Blue: .QWK and BlueWave
> MessageView: .QWK and .XRS
>
> Don't have exact file names, but these are two of the best I've
> seen.
solidest of the older programs. Currently in semi-limbo because the
author is doing a ground-up rewrite (the fact that it needed one
kinda tells you how perfect it is) which is going to be a long time
coming.
The most common filenames are Q-BLUE07.LZH and MV113EVL.LZH.
> MV especially is inexpensive at 15 US, I don't remember the QBlue
> registration price.
Paul Kienitz
> handling BlueWave mail packets as well. AQuick seems to handle the
> files a bit better (even if they are slightly corrupt)
files, and QWKs with huge numbers of message areas ... all such
problems have been fixed for the forthcoming 0.8 release, which is
done now except for some of the fancier parts of the new string
search function.
James A Grizzard
>kpra...@napier.uwaterloo.ca (Ken Rastin) writes:
>
>> I would recomend Q-Blue for .QWK formatted files. I have been using it for
>> about a week now and it is easy to set up and has a nice interface.
>
>But isn't Q-Blue crippled?
yup. extremely badly, too. I'd suggest something else from a different author.
I use AQuick 2.1. it requires you be in PAL mode, but other than that it works very
well, and the new version is beta testing as we speak...
I just had a conversation with the author of QBlue. He doesn't see anything wrong with
crippling software so that's it's not usable. I do, which is one of the reasons that
I don't use it.
If you know that you'll never going to need to send more than 5 replies, use it... :>
James A Grizzard
>> AQuick. It's pretty good right now, but version 3 is due out soon
>> that'll kick Q-Blue's butt....
>
>Oh yeah sure, it's gonna be awesome Real Soon Now.
hey, v3 is in beta test now. It makes up for EVERY deficiency currently present..
>AQuick is not at all popular in my part of the world. I can name at
>least three quite lame old QWK readers that I have seen in wider use
>than AQuick. Can you explain why that is if AQuick is so good? (I
>have not yet seen a copy of it anywhere myself.)
Theres a few around here that like it. I'm not really bragging about it now, I'm
more bragging about what it will be...
AQuick didn't get into wide circulation because the author didn't know how to submit
to Fred Fish, and isn't on internet... it went around the world by BBS alone!
>> that and the fact that Q-Blue doesn't even support taglines... :(
>
>Anybody who wants to use taglines should be forced to pay 25 cents
>per line. :)
what's wrong with taglines?? if the mail reader is gonna insert it's name at the
bottom of a message, may as well have something to go beside it...
*I* like it, and I suggest it to others. if it works for me, that's all I care about.
that and the fact that Q-Blue is crippled beyond usability. I never even consider
software like that...
Brian J Cerveny
>I just had a conversation with the author of QBlue. He doesn't see anything wrong with
>crippling software so that's it's not usable. I do, which is one of the reasons that
>I don't use it.
>If you know that you'll never going to need to send more than 5 replies, use it... :>
Or you can pay the regisration fee.
--
// Brian J. Cerveny (bri...@iastate.edu)
\X/ Disclaimer: The views expressed above are my own. So there.
Staffan Vilcans
> I just had a conversation with the author of QBlue. He doesn't see anything
> crippling software so that's it's not usable. I do, which is one of the reas
> I don't use it.
Considering that even the BlueWave-format is not free it might not be
so strange after all... :-(
I think I'll go and write my own *free* format, or perhaps join in the
development of NiKoms OffDown-format...
Paul Kienitz
> anything wrong with crippling software so that's it's not usable.
Q-Blue unregistered IS usable for many people. If you're not one of
them, that doesn't mean it's unusable for everyone else.
Just to let you folks know where this guy is coming from, I'll
mention something he said to me ... that he as a very low regard for
anyone who tries to make money off of shareware, and "Matt Dillon
comes to mind" (paraphrased).
He's talking about someone who may well have provided more valuable
free software to Amiga users than anyone else alive, and who has
provided a commercial-quality C compiler far cheaper than anything
else that can compete with it, and this guy wants to dump on him for
not giving it away for nothing.
Grow up.
Paul Kienitz
> know how to submit to Fred Fish, and isn't on internet... it went
> around the world by BBS alone!
quite a bit more widely than AQuick has.
> what's wrong with taglines??
to many of them get used over and over and over and over and over and
over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over
and over and over and over and over and over until you want to go back
to doing your mail with a quill pen.
I will put taglines in Q-Blue 0.9, because it is by far the most
frequently requested new feature, but I did give serious thought for
a while to charging $5 extra for this feature ...
Jeffrey Grimmett 9999
>I registered MessageView before starting on Q-Blue. It's the
>solidest of the older programs. Currently in semi-limbo because the
>author is doing a ground-up rewrite (the fact that it needed one
>kinda tells you how perfect it is) which is going to be a long time
>coming.
Um, MV or Q-Blue is in limbo/rewrite? I assume you mean MV. I know of a
few things that needed fixed on MV back when I registered it (not to brag,
but ahem serial # R00001 :), such as a problem handling the WB 2.0x method
of using system fonts not of the standard size. Other than an initial
problem with XRS packets, I was pretty satisfied with it.
>The most common filenames are Q-BLUE07.LZH and MV113EVL.LZH.
Hm, I think version 115 is out there, too. MV that is.
>> MV especially is inexpensive at 15 US, I don't remember the QBlue
>> registration price.
>
>$20.
Danka.
Rockerboy
So, still no taglines? Why not? They are part of the QWK specification,
right?
And will those of us who can only get packets from areas with control.dat
files over 10K finally get a chance to play with it this time? ;)
Paul Kienitz
> I know of a few things that needed fixed on MV back when I
> registered it (not to brag, but ahem serial # R00001 :)
> Hm, I think version 115 is out there, too. MV that is.
Paul Kienitz
with chains yet demanding taglines, at the time the last features for
0.8 were decided.
> They are part of the QWK specification, right?
compatible. It says so in Appendix G of the QWK standards document.
> And will those of us who can only get packets from areas with
> control.dat files over 10K finally get a chance to play with it
> this time? ;)
Mattias Back`n
>[...]
>Considering that even the BlueWave-format is not free it might not be
>so strange after all... :-(
>I think I'll go and write my own *free* format, or perhaps join in the
>development of NiKoms OffDown-format...
BlueWave, OffDown, QWK.. there seems to be quite a few standards. Would
it be possible to get a list of the most common ones and where a
specification can be found? I've found two (different) specifications of
the QWK format after searching several BBSes. I didn't find anything on
InterNet as I expected..
------------------------------------
Mattias Backen ma...@Lysator.LiU.SE
------------------------------------
Paul Kienitz
Staffan Vilcans
> The BlueWave format is going to become public this year.
Really? Do you mean "year" as in 12 month period, or "year" as in a
calender year?
In any case I'm interested!
Paul Kienitz
> Really? Do you mean "year" as in 12 month period, or "year" as in a
> calender year?
synchronizing their watches now.
Scott D Nolan
of compressed messages from a BBS and then read the messages
on my own machine as if I was reading them on the BBS with
things like "Next Message" and "Follow Thread Backwards" ?
Just curious...
Scott
Dennis Duffner
Try Amiga REader. It's up to V2. If you can't find it anywhere,
I'll try to UUENCODE a copy.
Dennis Duffner dd...@infopls.chi.il.us
Member, AAAF-American Association of Amiga Fanatics
Jim R Dawson
>
>> Does anyone know of a good off-line message reader for the Amiga, that will
>> read message packets in the .QWK format?
>>
>I'll try to UUENCODE a copy.
>
You can also try AmiQWK (Try to find version 1.2.1, it is the latest
version) which I am rather partial to (mostly because I wrote it ;-)
Darcy S McConnell
AQuick 2.1 seems to have a problem when sending packets to RAMail 3.15.
Anyone know if this will be corrected soon?
It
is driving my users nuts....
Darcy.
Paul Kienitz
compressed form, read them using the offline-reader software, and
then call back to upload your replies.
Paul Kienitz
> 3.15. Anyone know if this will be corrected soon?
>
> It is driving my users nuts....
want to hear them. Just to make sure my competing reader doesn't
fall into a similar trap.
Ross Delaforce
> read message packets in the .QWK format?
>
> /Jens
DD> Try Amiga REader. It's up to V2. If you can't find it anywhere,
DD> I'll try to UUENCODE a copy.
Also believe there is a BlueWave QWK mail reader out for the Amiga as
well...
Regards,
Ross Delaforce
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Rockerboy
I liked Amiga-Reader a lot, thought it did have some nasty bugs. I had
still almost decided to register it, but them I upped to os2 and
suddenly ar goes nuts. It is not os2 compatable from what I could tell.
Ah, well...
Oliver Knorr
>Does anyone know of a good off-line message reader for the Amiga, that will
>read message packets in the .QWK format?
I've written such a beast and I hope it's good.
It's Shareware (US-$ 20) and requires Amiga Release 2.
The program is called 'quip', the current version is 1.02.
I always put the newest version on the AMINET (amiga.physik.
unizh.ch and its mirrors) for anonymous ftp, but I think
1.02 has already been deleted there. The next version will
probably appear in one or two months.
If you don't want to wait so long, you can get it by
FIDO-Filerequest at 2:2400/83 (DataDriver BBS in Germany) or
by sending me a disk together with a self-addressed prepaid
envelope (look in sig for smail-address).
Of course I can also send you the uuencoded LHA-Archive
by Internet-EMail. Just send me a small note for this.
The archive is about 100 KB.
There's also a mailing-list for everybody who wants to get
information about new versions.
> /Jens
---
/// Amiga Release 2 - They made it. Better than ever.
///
\\\ /// Oliver Knorr, St. Johann 6, W-8520 Erlangen, Tel. ++49 (0)9131 46363
\\X// INTERNET: ork...@cip.informatik.uni-erlangen.de / FIDO: 2:2400/83
---
/// Amiga Release 2 - They made it. Better than ever.
///
\\\ /// Oliver Knorr, St. Johann 6, W-8520 Erlangen, Tel. ++49 (0)9131 46363
\\X// INTERNET: ork...@cip.informatik.uni-erlangen.de / FIDO: 2:2400/83
Paul Kienitz
It declared them all to have corrupt control.dat files. Which was a
shame because it looked like it would be nicer to use than some of
the butt-ugly QWK readers that preceded it, like AME and Amiga-Reader.
Though not as nice as MY reader, of course. :)
Dale Poole
Oliver Knorr
>> The program is called 'quip', the current version is 1.02.
>
>I tried it, and I couldn't get it to read a single QWK file I had!
Strange enough, I can't read only ONE SINGLE QWK file out of the many
I have. It was sent to me together with a bug report about that.
>It declared them all to have corrupt control.dat files.
This is because quip does perform several integrity checks before
accepting a QWK packet. The packet I can't read obviously does have
some strange things in it like leading spaces before numbers.
>Which was a
>shame because it looked like it would be nicer to use than some of
>the butt-ugly QWK readers that preceded it, like AME and Amiga-Reader.
Not exactly. I tried reading that very mail packet with several other
mail readers, too. The results were not very funny. Most of them accepted
the packet, but strange things happened, from conferences declared in the
mail packet not showing up in the mail reader over enforcer hits to
dead-end guru alerts with cold reboots leaving my harddrive validating.
Then I considered my solution the better one.
>Though not as nice as MY reader, of course. :)
To be honest, your reader is quite good, too.
Nearly as good as mine. :)
I hope to be even more ahead with the next releases. :)
Paul Kienitz
/amiga/comm with filename probably q-blue07.lzh, or from
ftp.uni-kl.de in /pub/amiga/ianet/comm. Or in Fidonet you can freq
it from 1:2240/176 or 1:125/28.
Paul Kienitz
> accepting a QWK packet. The packet I can't read obviously does have
> some strange things in it like leading spaces before numbers.
really conforms fully to the official specs. Always allow leeway in
interpreting QWK packets. Some of them put the message areas out of
order. Some have spaces where there shouldn't be any. Some use only
eight bits of the 16 bit area number field. Etc. There are at least
two that don't accept uploaded private messages as private unless you
also mark them as already having been read (use "*" instead of "+").
These are the sort of gotchas that no QWK reader handles right in its
first version.
> To be honest, your reader is quite good, too.
> Nearly as good as mine. :)
think of AQuick? I still have yet to see a copy since the current
version doesn't work with NTSC screens so in the USA it's not used
much.
James A Grizzard
>think of AQuick? I still have yet to see a copy since the current
>version doesn't work with NTSC screens so in the USA it's not used
>much.
hope 'ya dont mind if I jump in.... :)
I use AQuick on a regular basis... yes, I have to boot in PAL mode, but I get that
much more text on my screen....
AQuick 3.0 is going to be out soon... keep an eye out for it... :)
Oliver Knorr
>> This is because quip does perform several integrity checks before
>> accepting a QWK packet. The packet I can't read obviously does have
>> some strange things in it like leading spaces before numbers.
>
>Big mistake! :) One should never assume that any given QWK door
>really conforms fully to the official specs.
I guess the real problem is there is no 'official specs' for QWK.
Up to now, I have collected three different descriptions of the
QWK message packet format, but none of them is really 'official'
in the sense of coming from the original developer of the packet
format (Mark Herring).
>Always allow leeway in interpreting QWK packets.
The question is how far you should go here. The one thing I hated
most about many QWK readers is the constant crashing. For this reason
I tried to make my reader extremely stable. This also meant a lot
of strictness with the packet format.
Just one small example: the packet I have with the leading spaces.
To get this packet running I wrote a small routine to strip any
extra spaces before and after numbers. Fine. I compiled my reader,
loaded this packet and waited. Waited more. Even more. And...
my machine froze, so I had to reboot.
After I recognized that another QWK reader badly crashed while
reading this packet, I left it alone.
To me, it doesn't make much sense to compromise secure operation
just to be able to read one buggy packet more.
Perhaps I will someday find out what's wrong with that mail door,
but in general that should be the business of others.
>Some of them put the message areas out of
>order. Some have spaces where there shouldn't be any. Some use only
>eight bits of the 16 bit area number field.
At lease the last thing was in one of my specifications :-) so
I took care of it.
>Etc. There are at least
>two that don't accept uploaded private messages as private unless you
>also mark them as already having been read (use "*" instead of "+").
I will take a look at that... thank you for the tip :-)
BTW, my specifications contradict each other in that point (if "*" is
read or "+"), but I think I figured the right one out now.
>These are the sort of gotchas that no QWK reader handles right in its
>first version.
I'm still not sure that 'hacking around some mail doors bugs' means
'handle right'. Of course, one should take care of small problems,
but if I think of that packet with the spaces...
>> To be honest, your reader is quite good, too.
>> Nearly as good as mine. :)
>
>Since you're so objective in your judgements (ha ha),
I'm just convinced of my work. I should be, otherwise
I would have stopped the project.
>what do you
>think of AQuick? I still have yet to see a copy since the current
>version doesn't work with NTSC screens so in the USA it's not used
>much.
How about 'TagScreens' or a similar patch to get it running?
Well, about AQuick... I don't rember exactly what I though of it,
but I think it has some enforcer hits and I really *H*A*T*E* any
MS-W*ND*WS button-gadgets. I thought quite nice is the addressee
databank.
Marc Tooley
Try AmiQwk.. Excellent program. Should be able to be found on most Archie
databases.
Marc