A L I A S    C O N V E R T E R

                                    V 1.5a

                 A message header converter for the DLG BB/OS

                           Written in GFABasic V3.01D

                           (c) Phillip Eastham 1992

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Why?
~~~~
	Alias Converter came about because I joined a NET which allowed alias's
in the messages. This was great, until I discovered that DLGMail didn't convert
the 'From: ' and 'To: ' fields in the headers of alias area messages.

	Alias Converter will open every message in the given areas and convert
both the 'From: ' and 'To: ' fields to the users alias. If the entries in
either of these fields do not have an account on your BBS, then that field
isn't changed.


Status:
~~~~~~~
	This program is freeware. Use it as you wish. All I ask is you send me
some NETMail and tell me your using it.

	If you do send me NETMail saying your using it (and I get it!) I will
make every effort to get any upgrades to your doorstep as soon as possible.


How?
~~~~
	Alias Converter can take several parameters. All paramteres are
optional, but you MUST use the -c parameter at least once.

	AC [-C][[-D -L -L"Logfile" -O][-R][-E1][-E0 -B -F]]


Parameters:
~~~~~~~~~~~
	Alias Converter will take several paramters:

      *  -C  - Run in config mode

	 -L  - Run in log mode. This will create a log of what happens during
		the session. You can specify a different log file by enclosing
		the whole path/file in quotes, eg -l"LOGS:AC.log" will use the
		file AC.log in LOGS:. If you only specify the -l option with no
		path, the default MAIL:AC.log will be used. The only limitation
		placed on the alternative filename other than usual AmigaDOS
		restrictions is that it can not include any switches in it. For
		example, passing '-l"LOGS:A-C.log"' would cause AC to
		immediately go into configuration mode.

	 -D  - Delete log file before running. If you just want a log of
		this session only, use this to delete any log file which exists

	 -O  - Run in output mode. Normally Alias Converter will run with no
		output at all. Specifying this switch will open a window on
		the WorkBench screen and keep you informed of what is
		happening.

	 -R  - Run in recover mode. This mode requires that you have previously
		run AC in backup mode. AC will read your low and high message
		numbers from 'Pointers.msg' and then go through the messages
		deleting the current .msg file and renaming the .bak file.

	 -E0 - Used to convert the header information as normal, but also
		creates a data file for each area. This data file can then be
		used to restore the original header information. This is so you
		can export your messages with the converted alias's, and then
		restore the original names for use by DLG.

      *  -E1 - Used after exporting your mail to replace the alias's with the
		original header data. This means DLG can still do whatever it
		does with messages as the real names are still there.

	 -B  - Run with backup option. This will duplicate each message
	        processed and append '.bak' to it. This was mainly used during
		debugging, but was left in just in case you want to use it.
		This mode will slow down execution noticeably, especially if
		your using floppy disk. If, for any reason you have a problem,
		you can recover from these backups using the -r option.

	 -F  - Run in forced mode. This mode will process all the messages in
		the areas set in the config. It does this by reading in the low
		message number from 'Pointers.msg' and working upwards.

	Parameters can be in any order, and are NOT case sensitive. Parameters
are processed in the order listed above. Those parameters with an '*' beside
them will automatically branch to a separate processing routine. Thus if you
have a '-c' anywhere in your parameter list, no other paramters will be
processed.

	Examples:
			AC -c
			AC -o -l"LOGS:AC.cfg" -e0
			AC -o -b -l
			AC -r -o -l
			AC -o -l -e1


The config:
~~~~~~~~~~~
	When run in configuration mode (see above) you are presented with a
screen of options to choose from. The options are:

		Add to/Create    - Make a new config or add to an existing
				    one.
		Remove config    - Delete the current config file.
		Delete areas     - Delete selected areas from the config.
		List areas       - List the areas included in the config.
		Quit             - Quit.

	While adding areas, you are told if an area is added, if the area
already exists in your config, or if you don't have an area of that number.  To
determine if you have an area of that number, AC simply checks for the
existance of a directory in MSG:.  You are also told how many areas you have
included.

	The config file will store the areas you wish to convert, and the last
message which it converted.  This means that messages will only be converted
once unless you use the -f command option.  The format of the config file is
simple.  Each record has 2 fields of 5 bytes each.  The first field is the area
number and the second field is the last message converted.


Anything else?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
	YES!  GFABasic produces CPU hogging executables.  Even running at a
priority of -1, PM tells me that my CPU usage is 99%.  However, at this
priority, most other tasks take preference, so you shouldn't see any noticeable
decrease in system performance.  In my experience, this won't degrade AC's
performance, but AC won't hog the CPU either.

	Obviously you have to first run AC with the -c option before trying to
run it to convert areas.


Bugs:
~~~~~
	If you find any bugs in Alias Converter, please report them to:

     FidoNET: Phillip Eastham at 3:622/406
     Internet: C8803330@wombat.newcastle.edu