Msg2Txt
                           (pd) 1992 by Doug McLean

What It Does
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Msg2Txt simply created a text file from a fido type message (I bet you
guessed that from the name, right?). I wrote it mainly because I wanted to
have a button on my message menu that would allow me to save a message for
later reference. This is good for things like saving game hints, messages
relating to modem settings, etc, any sort of message you might want to refer
to after it cycles off your BBS.

The output file is opened in append mode, so you could have one file for
all saved messages on your BBS, or one file for each message area, or even
one file per message. It's up to you.

I don't know what utilities like this are already around, but I looked
through a couple of file lists 


The Legal Stuff And Disclaimer
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This program is PD. You can do whatever you want with it. I accept no
responsibility for the performance or lack thereof of Msg2Txt. Use it
entirely at your own risk. If it work for you and you like it, great!
If not, that is your problem, not mine!

If you do use it, I would appreciate a routed netmail message to me letting
me know that it is of use to you.


Using Msg2Txt
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
USAGE: msg2txt InputFile OutputFile -W Width -C Comment -K -F

The input file must be a fido type message (REQUIRED).
The output file is opened in append mode (REQUIRED).

The input file and output file must be in the positions shown above on the
command line, the options below may appear in any order:

-W Width is the maximum width you want the resulting file to be. Default 78.
   (OPTIONAL)
-C Comment is a comment printed along with the to/from/title/etc. This is a
   good place to put the area name that the message is in (OPTIONAL).
-K If this is present the kludge lines will be shown.
-F If this is present then the message flags will be shown.

EXAMPLE:

msg2txt mail:100/323.msg text:saved.messages -C "AmigaGames" -W 79


DLG Specific Usage
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I run Msg2Txt on my BBS with a menuscript. The reason for this is because
you are limited to the number of characters you may put on the command line
for an executable menu entry. This doesn't seem to be a problem when the
command is executed from a menu script (at least it works ok here).

A menuscript for DLG is included, it reads (but all one one line):

EXE msg2txt mail:%Msg_AreaNumber/%Msg_MsgNumber.msg
dial:text/Saved.%Msg_AreaNumber -C "%Msg_AreaName"

This will take the current message and append it as text to a file in
dial:text (this is a directory I keep for misc text files that the BBS
does not actually use).

I have mail: assigned to msg:, and dial: assigned to my root BBS directory
(which has a text directory) you will have to change this to match the
assignments on your system.

If I was reading message number 350 in area 100 (called "Fido: Trapdoor"),
the above line would get executed as:

msg2txt mail:100/350.msg dial:text/saved.100 -C "Fido: Trapdoor"

You could change the menuscript to keep one saved messages file for the
whole BBS or to generate a new text file for each message (based on the
message number), it is up to you.

Oh yes, my menu settings (on my MSG_MAIN menu):

[1]  Letter               Y
[2]  Menu script          dlgconfig:batch/msg2txt.menuscript
[4]  Msg2Txt
[5]  Type                 Menu Script
[7]  Lower Level          255
[8]  Upper Level          255
[10] Load Type            Overlay
[11] Ask user if sure     Yes
[12] Pend Messages        No
[13] CLI Mode             No

Those are the main settings, the others probably don't matter too much.

Bugs Etc
~~~~~~~~
Please send suggestions, comments, bug reports, etc to Doug McLean at
Fido 1:255/9 or AmigaNet 40:540/1.

Changes
~~~~~~~
Fixed annoying bug that put a U at the start of some lines.