***** REVISED *****
WELCOME TO
XYWRITE
AN UNOFFICIAL AND INFORMAL DISCUSSION LIST
FOR THE XYWRITE WORD PROCESSOR FOR DOS AND WINDOWS
from
Nathan Sivin (nsivin@xxxxxxxx)
1997.7.4
INTRODUCTION
============
Please save this message for future reference, especially if you are not
familiar with the CCAT list server. This might look like a waste of disk
space now, but in 6 months you will be glad you saved this information when
you realize that you cannot remember how to unsubscribe, leave the list to
avoid filling up your mailbox while you are on vacations, or download
utilities and other files.
The XyWrite Discussion Group operates from the list server at the Center
for the Computer Analysis of Texts at the University of Pennsylvania. It
was founded and is administered by Nathan Sivin of the Department of
History and Sociology of Science at the University (with technical help
from CCAT). The Group exists to facilitate the exchange of information,
ideas, XPL programs, solutions to problems, etc. You can post a question
for colleagues to answer, propose a topic for discussion, reply to an
earlier query, trade information, and so on.
The List is open to you if you are able to send e-mail messages to and
receive them from Internet addresses, regardless of whether you have a
connection to an Internet account. When you subscribe, your e-mail address
is added to the distribution list for all messages. You then receive by
e-mail every message that others address to the list
(XYWRITE@xxxxxxxx). Every message you send, including every
direct reply to a message, is forwarded to every other subscriber. You can
suspend or end your subscription at any time. There is no charge for any
List activity.
In addition to forwarding messages, the List maintains programs and files
contributed by you and other members that subscribers can choose and
download individually, as well as archives of the messages sent to the
list, prepared every month and kept for two years. Such files are
maintained by our list server. Available files are described, and detailed
instructions for downloading binary files via Anonymous FTP, are given in
the text file CATALOG.DOC. For submitting files to be kept and
distributed, see below.
GETTING INVOLVED IN THE GROUP
=============================
There are two different ways to follow and contribute to the List's ongoing
discussions.
It is not essential to subscribe in order to take part in the List. You
can always send individual messages, which, if they are addressed to the
List, will be automatically forwarded to all subscribers. Those who
receive the message can then reply to you privately. If this is what you
prefer, specify in your message that you are not a subscriber and should be
contacted privately.
Most people who want to follow the discussions find it convenient to sign
up with our "list server", a computer which will automatically deliver
copies of all the List's correspondence to your Internet, Bitnet, online
service, or other e-mail address, and redistribute messages from you.
PLEASE NOTE that everything concerned with subscribing is transacted not
with the List itself (xywrite@xxxxxxxx) but with the list server
(LISTPROC@xxxxxxxx). Its sole function is to automatically
maintain mailing lists for various groups, redistribute messages, and
provide basic information about the lists when requested. Because the
process is automatic, your requests must be in a set form. Any
subscription requests sent to the List address cannot be acted upon, just
as messages for the List will be lost if they go to the list server.
Any of the commands summarized below may be abbreviated by their first
three letters, e.g., SUB for subscribe, UNS for unsubscribe. The server
ignores subject lines, so it is best to avoid providing your message with a
subject. If your email program automatically appends anything (e.g., a
"signature" or return address) after the message, please erase it. If you
use EUDORA, just click on "no signature."
These are the forms for requests:
SUBSCRIBING
===========
Start your subscription by mailing to LISTPROC@xxxxxxxx the
following message in a single line:
subscribe xywrite name,
with your name in up to 4 words.
The list server will arrange (without human intervention) for your
subscription to go to the address from which you sent the message. If your
own account does not use a ListProc server, or if you want it to go to a
different address, say jones@xxxxxxxx, your message would specify
the address and the subscriber, as well as your own name in parentheses.
If you aren't sure, keep life simple by sending the command this way:
subscribe xywrite jones@xxxxxxxx (Tom Jones)
As soon as your subscription is processed you will receive an up-to-date
copy of this welcoming message with complete instructions. Whenever you
want to end your subscription, send the following one-line message, with
the additions above if necessary:
unsubscribe xywrite
OTHER BUSINESS WITH THE LIST SERVER
===================================
The list server can respond automatically and quickly (by separate e-mail
replies) to a few other useful commands, all of which should be sent as
single-line messages to LISTPROC:
To have an index of the files stored in the EAAN directory of
CCAT.SAS.UPENN.EDU sent to your e-mail address:
index xywrite
To have a file stored in xywrite@xxxxxxxx sent to your e-mail
address, send the full file specification as determined from the index:
get xywrite FILESPEC
for instance get xywrite CATALOG.DOC which will get you a list describing
all downloadable files.
To find out who is on the xywrite list:
who xywrite
To have general introductory information for xywrite (that is, the current
version of this file) sent to you:
review xywrite
If you want a list of subscribers, the "review" command will include it as
well as the descriptive information. If you want only the list:
review xywrite sub
For information about all the lists served by the list server:
lists
These are just a few of the commands available to you. You can also set
various options, search for keywords and other patterns, etc. For detailed
information visit the Corporation for Research and Educational Networking's
(CREN) web site, http://www.cren.net. You can also order the User Manual
by anonymous ftp from info.cren.net, /listproc/userman. That brings you
the plain text version unless you append ".rtf" for Microsoft Rich Text or
".ps" for PostScript.
TAKING PART IN THE LIST
========================
When you want to send a message to all subscribers, just send it as
ordinary e-mail to the Internet address xywrite@xxxxxxxx. A copy
will automatically be forwarded to all of the List's subscribers. By the
same logic, if you use the e-mail "Reply" function to respond to incoming
mail from a member of the List, it will automatically be addressed back *to
the entire group* (i.e. to xywrite@xxxxxxxx, and thence to all
subscribers!). If what you have to say is not of general interest, then
please take the trouble to send it only to the sender, whose private
address you can find in the header of his or her message.
Everyone, decidedly including myself, occasionally fires off a private
reply to a new message to every one of the hundreds of subscribers of the
list from which it was forwarded. To avoid the resulting embarrassment,
make a habit of checking the "from" line of the message you want to answer,
and of checking the "to" line of your own reply.
We also ask that, when you are replying and your e-mail program asks you
whether you want to quote the message to which you are replying, that you
limit your quotation. Use it only if the point will not be clear, or if
you are replying to an old message that other subscribers will have
forgotten about. If you do quote it, edit the quotation so that you just
keep the essential part, or better yet summarize. Taking this trouble will
keep your message from being needlessly large, which inconveniences everyone.
You are welcome to contact the List about any topic connected with xywrite
and its uses. All messages are automatically accepted and forwarded. The
List provides a place to post messages, try out ideas, ask questions, etc.
Please keep in mind, however, that
1. E-mail is never a private or secure facility. If you are concerned
about who reads your messages, think twice about sending them via e-mail.
In addition, anyone may subscribe to this list. Any message sent to the
list goes to all subscribers.
2. Most people do not read their e-mail every day, and not many post a
message when they are away from their universities, even for an extended
period. It is a good idea not to trust e-mail for urgent matters.
3. Please be kind to other subscribers by not sending irrelevant
materials, or materials meant only for one subscriber (unless you are
confident that they will interest a number of subscribers). Remember that
you can get the private e-mail addresses of subscribers from the list
server (and from many other directories, using the WHOIS and FINGER
commands in UNIX) and send individual messages.
Junk Internet messages are an occasional, unavoidable annoyance. We can
usually stop transmissions from a given source after the first, but not the
first. You will minimize the distraction by not broadcasting complaints.
We are alert to the problem, and deal with it to the extent we can. If it
get worse, we may block the list so only subscribers can send messages.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS, VACATIONS, ETC.
=================================
Normally, when you send a message to the list, as a subscriber you will
also get a copy. If you don't want this to happen, send:
set xywrite mail noack
and, if you change your mind:
set xywrite mail ack
If you are away for long enough to let your mailbox fill up, further
messages are automatically bounced or queued, generating a very large
number of error messages, which an informally run list like this cannot
cope with. For that reason, it is virtually certain that your subscription
will be terminated. There is an easy way to avoid this by setting mail
options:
set xywrite mail postpone
When you are ready to receive messages again, send:
set xywrite mail noack OR ack, as the case may be.
If you change or drop an email address, or know that your account will be
closed, PLEASE unsubscribe. Then you can subscribe again from the new
address. I am often inundated in error messages from university servers
that refuse messages after they close down accounts of graduating students,
etc.
PREPARING MESSAGES AND OTHER FILES
==================================
All messages must be in ASCII text form. If you are using a DOS
communications program, it is usually easier to create them in your word
processor, edit and proofread them, and upload them than to use the
primitive editor in your e-mail package. Some programs (PC-WRITE, XYWRITE,
NOTA BENE, the EDIT program included in DOS 6+) normally produce ASCII
files; all others provide a way of saving files in ASCII form. Messages
are transmitted via many different computers. Some do not use the full IBM
ASCII set; others use an entirely different standard. It is a good idea to
avoid ASCII characters below no. 32 and above no. 128, such as letters with
diacritics. If your computer uses tab characters to indent paragraphs (as
WordPerfect 5.1 does), please avoid them, or delete them before saving the
ASCII file.
The best layout to use is plain block form, in which *paragraphs are not
indented and a blank line separates paragraphs.* This document is an
example. This form can be read on virtually every computer. If your
computer uses tab characters to indent paragraphs (as WordPerfect 5.1
does), please avoid them, or delete them before saving the ASCII file.
If you use a Windows comm program, you can always paste text (SHIFT-INS)
into the message composition window by copying it (CTRL-INS) from an open
Windows word processor and shifting windows (ALT-TAB or CTRL-ESC).
If you compose your message with XyWrite, please remove all deltas and
insert hard returns at the end of each line before sending. AVOID LINES
MORE THAN 65 CHARACTERS LONG, AND GET RID OF THE ^Z (EOF) at the end of the
file (which must be done from outside XyWrite). There are various XPL
programs for this cleaning up, one of was posted for anonymous ftp download
in XYLNS.ZIP. If you want to keep it simple, you can load STRIP.PRN
(command: ldprn strip.prn), then print to a file (command: printf
,filename), and finally, if necessary, call the output file and clean it up.
Please check the file before sending it. The simplest way to check a file
is to use the DOS "TYPE" command, followed by a vertical bar and the "MORE"
filter command (i.e., at the DOS prompt:
type filespec | more
but the vertical bar before "more" above may not be intact by the time this
message reaches you). That command will show you a screenful of text at a
time. Any non-standard characters will be readily visible.
UPLOADING FILES
===============
When you send e-mail messages to the list, they are simply redistributed.
If you have a program or other file that you would like to have stored so
that people can download and use it, special arrangements must be made to
upload and store it. Programs must be sent in binary form, zipped if they
are long. If you are unable to send binary files, the alternative is to
use XX-encoding, preferably with the utility shareware program UUXFER. It
is less likely to be corrupted by cross-platform transmission than
UU-encoding. MIME often works, but not always. Contact me for information.
Before deciding whether and what to upload, I suggest you try ordering one
or more of the few files already posted on the list. Note their form
before deciding how to format your own files.
IDENTIFYING AND ORDERING FILES
==============================
You can use an "index" message, as explained above, to get a list of
available files, and a "get" message to order them.
For instance, "index" will let you know that among the files available
(beginning in mid-April 1994) are
CATALOG.DOC (a description of each available file)
The first file to order is CATALOG.DOC, to help you choose others. To
order any file, note that you must use a period between filename and
filetype. Thus to order that one you use the command:
get xywrite catalog.doc
You can also use anonymous ftp or a web browser to examine the directory
interactively and individual files and download them yourself. CATALOG.DOC
has the details.
The monthly archives of discussions, which will let you catch up with
earlier activities, are compiled automatically into text files. They may
be ordered or downloaded in the same way as other text files.
Good luck, and have fun. If you wish to contact me directly, do so at my
private Internet address,
NSIVIN@xxxxxxxx
My postal address is appended at the end of every message from me. Please
note that it is not possible for me to answer or even read messages every
day.
END
-------
N. Sivin
History and Sociology of Science
University of Pennsylvania
nsivin@xxxxxxxx