SPOT-E-MAIL - Read internet email and usenet news with Spot. Version 2.0. Compiled by Adrian Maggs. With thanks to Brian Jacobsen (Amigate) and Nico Francois (Spot). This package is supplied on the basis of email-ware. You are free to use it as much as you want, but please send me an email if you do. Amigate is copyrighted to Brian Jacobsen, and is subject to other restrictions. Please see the Amigate Guide file for full details. NO charge must be made for this collection. Permission is given for inclusion on CD compilations. 1. Introduction. ================ For several years now, Spot has been considered to be the best fidonet mail program on the Amiga (and arguable on ANY platform). It's clear displays, easy of use, and powerful features have made it a firm favourite with fidonet users. However, internet news and mail readers for the Amiga have not fared so well. Although there are plenty, most are "functional" at best, with poor user interfaces, a lack of features, and difficult to configure correctly. So, why not use Spot for reading your internet news and emails? The advantages are clear: Only one program to learn, ALL your mail from both fidonet and internet is kept in one message base, crosspointing of articles is made very easy, the list go on..... Just one problem - your emails and news from the internet comes in a different format that Spot can import. So, what do you do? Simple - use a gating program (in this case Amigate) to "gate" the mail from one format to another, and back again if necessary. 2. System requirements. ====================== Any Amiga running Workbench 2.04 or above. Any users still using 1.3 SHOULD upgrade, at least to 2.04 - it really is worth it. Spot (registered is preferable, as you can then use the included rexx scripts, but it's not absolutely necessary). An internet connection, running AmiTCP. These scripts have been setup for use with "Demon Internet Services", but should work with any service provider, with a bit of tweaking. 3. Installation. ================ Sorry - no fancy installer here, you'll need to get your hands dirty :) A little tip - a directory utility, such as DOpus, makes this job SO much easier. A. Copy the files from the BIN directory into your AMITCP:BIN/ dir. If you have existing files of the same name, remove them, as the new ones ARE needed to do the job properly. B. Copy the files from the REXX dir to the drawer where you keep your Spot rexx scripts (if you can use rexx scripts). This scripts are not essential, but do make life a bit easier, as they will import/export and gate any email/news you have automatically. C. Copy the files from UULIB to UULIB: These files may already be in place, depending on your installation of AmiTCP. I have had reports from several people that they were missing on their installations. If you do need them, edit the L.sys to suit your setup. D. Copy the AMIGATE dir to AMITCP: E. Edit the amigate.config, amigate.users and amigate.areas files, to suit your setup. For full details on how to do this, see the Amigate Guide, including in the docs drawer. F. Now load up Spot. Create a new netmail area (F7), address 2:999/99.x (where x is the point number you want). Make sure that its area is set to export to 2:999/99.0, pack netmails is ticked, no archiver details are entered, or any poll commands are entered. G. Create, if required, any new signatures you want for your new internet address. H. Remove any reference to "Rnews" from your link/nntptransfer scripts, as it is no longer required. I. Add the following lines to your user-startup sequence: Assign C: Amitcp:bin add Assign C: Amitcp:amigate add That should be it! 4. Usage. ========== In reality, the gating process is fairly transparent, especially if you have a registered Spot, as rexx does the work. You continue to download your emails and news from your internet supplier as normal. When you want to read them, however, just load up spot and hit the import button. As long as you've got rexx running, and the scripts are in the correct drawer, any news and emails will be gated over, and imported. Any areas not in use will be created by Spot automatically. If you aren't/won't use the rexx scripts, then just open a shell and type 'rx rexx:spot/gatemail.rexx' to gate over emails and gatenews to gate the news. Then import into spot as normal. When you want to reverse the process, export out your replies, and open a shell and type amigate. 5. Bugs. ======== None known at this time. It is, however a good idea to make a backup of any news/emails before you gate them over, for the first few times, just in case you've got any error somewhere in your scripts. Personally, I've been using this setup for 6 months now, without any problems, once I'd edited the scripts correctly. 6. What about other mail readers? ================================= Obviously, Spot isn't the only mail reader out there. April and Point Manager have been available for some time, and Mail Manager has just been released. There is no reason why this setup shouldn't work with other mail readers. The pkt's that amigate processes are "standard" fido type ones, which could be imported into any mail reader. Personally, I haven't tried the process with any other software, as I'm happy with my present setup. I would be happy to hear from other users though, and their experiences. See contact details for my address. 7. To do. ========= I don't think the process can be improved too much. Any improvements you would like to see however, let me know, and we'll work on them. 8. Contact details. =================== I am available via either fidonet or email: Fidonet: 2:2500/179.8 Email: adrian@uacomm.demon.co.uk Please send me your bug reports, suggestions, or requests for help to one of the above (email preferred). 9. Thanks to. ============= Brian Jacobsen - for allowing me to include Amigate in this package. Nico Francois - for Spot, probably the best point package around. Jay Miner - for designing the best computer in the world. 10. Warranty. ============= THIS SOFTWARE IS SUPPLIED IN AN "AS-IS" FORM. NO LIABILITY WILL BE ACCEPTED FOR DAMAGE OR LOSS OF DATA DUE TO THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE. 11. Version history. ==================== v1.0 25/4/95 - First public release. v2.0 12/6/95 - Included much newer version of Amigate (1.4a), Re-did arexx scripts, using new features of Amigate, making importing much quicker.