Windows Notice
Groupware for NetWare Networks and Windows
Version 1.4
User Manual
John Calcote & PCRx
Disclaimer Disclaimer
Windows Notice is distributed as is. Windows Notice was written
and tested on a Novell NetWare 3.11 file server internetwork. As
far as the author is able to ascertain, it is not harmful in any
way to any version of NetWare from 2.0a through 3.11. The author
will not be liable for any damage to the network caused by the
use or misuse of this product.
Windows Notice is protected by the copyright laws of the United
States of America.
WNotice Version 1.4 for NetWare GroupWare by John Calcote & PCRx
Documentation Date 9/15/92 Page 2
Use Use
From the main dialog box, you as the user may choose to display a
message, check the location of another user, or clear a
persistent message. The User Maintenance button is disabled
unless you are Supervisor or Supervisor equivalent.
The Display Message Dialog Box The Display Message Dialog Box
Display Message allows one to either display a message on
the screen and store it in his or her bindery object's user
status property for others to read. Or just store the
message in the bindery object property and return. The
latter method is called a persistent message, meaning that
the message is active even though it is not being displayed
on the workstation.
The Display Message dialog box has many options, most of
which are self explanatory. Among these are: Speed, which
may be set to Fast, Medium or Slow; Typeface, which may be
set to Roman (Serifed font) or Swiss (San Serifed font).
Any time this dialog box is displayed, favorite display
strings may be added to the favorites list box. When
favorites are added in this manner, they are included in the
WNOTICE.INI file in the windows sub directory and thus are
made permanent.
Finally, the No Display and Persistent Message check boxes
allow a user to activate a bindery message without
displaying it. The state of these two check boxes are tied
to one another, because the use of the No Display check box
implies Persistent Message as well, as it makes no sense to
set No Display then and not set Persistent Message -- you
would be telling it to do nothing. However, you might set
Persistent Message without setting No Display. This would
mean you with the message to remain active when the display
is cancelled.
The WhereIs Dialog Box The WhereIs Dialog Box
WhereIs is the complement of Display Message. WhereIs
allows a user to display a message activated by another
user. The WhereIs dialog box contains a list box with a
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Documentation Date 9/15/92 Page 3
list of Windows Notice users. Scroll to the desired user
and that user's message will appear in the message box, and
the date and time the message was entered will appear in
their proper fields as well.
The Camp option at the bottom of the WhereIs screen borrows
a term from some telephone systems -- to Camp on an
extension in these systems is to ask the phone system to
call you back when the desired party has hung up from his or
her current call. Windows Notice uses a similar technique
to these phone systems. It allows a user to poll the status
field of another user's bindery message. When the polled
party's status changes (either from active to inactive or
vice-versa) then a short alarm is sounded and the WhereIs
window is restored from it's iconic state. The poll time is
limited currently to about 64 seconds, however, if it is set
to a higher value, it will, modulate around 64 seconds (it
will become the remainder of a division by 64).
The Clear Persistent Message Button The Clear Persistent Message Button
This button is used to clear a persistent message previously
set without entering the Display String dialog box. It does
no harm to clear a persistent message if a message was never
set.
Leaving a message Leaving a message
While you are gone and have left an active message displayed
on your console, Windows Notice allows others to leave you
messages. When a key is pressed (except for escape) a
dialog box is popped up and the passerby is allowed to type
a short message which will be stored for you and displayed
when you return. Windows Notice also captures Network
broadcasts to you in this same message queue. This means
that another user may user the NetWare SEND command to
"Send" Windows Notice a message just as if he or she had
typed it in at your console while you were away.
When you return and enter your password at the password
dialog box, you will be shown these messages in the form of
a display message dialog box. You may scroll back and forth
through these messages until you are satisfied and then
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press exit to leave Windows Notice.
Exiting the Display Window Exiting the Display Window
To exit the Display Window when you return, simply press
escape and enter your NetWare password. The message window
will disappear and you will be left in Windows as it was
before you started the display.
If others left messages for you, you will have the
opportunity to look through them before Windows Notice
exits.
Configuration Configuration
The only configuration necessary is to set the Server = <server
name> option in WNOTICE.INI (under the [StartUp] section of the
file and located in the Windows sub directory), OR to set the
NOTEWARE = <server name> or NOTICE_SERVER = <server name> DOS
environment variables. These variables allow Windows Notice to
access the server which contains bindery objects with the
USER_STATUS property, in an internetwork environment. One of
these variables MUST be set or Windows Notice will fail to
initialize.
The WNOTICE.INI file The WNOTICE.INI file
You may create a file in your Windows subdirectory called
WNOTICE.INI which takes the following format:
[StartUp]
Server=runninute ; notice server
[Defaults]
Speed=2 ; scroll speed 1 = slow, 3 =
fast
TypeFace=1 ; 1 = roman and 2 = swiss
[Favorites]
Str00=Out to lunch - back at 12:30 ; favorite display string
list
Str01=In training, back by 2:00 ; up to 99 are accepted
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The [StartUp] section contains information necessary to
initialize WNOTICE properly.
The [Defaults] section contains other display preference
information. The list under [Favorites] is created by WNOTICE if
you add strings to the favorites list box in the display dialog
box, or you may add them manually to the .INI file.
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