6.3.2 List of Available Switches

The following switches are available:

ArealistExactMatch

When the area list is displayed, you can search a message area by entering the first few characters of this name. This is the default. If you turn off the ArealistExactMatch switch, any substring is matched in an area search; you don't have to type an area name from the beginning. Default: On.

ChopQuote

When set to on, and you are quoting a message for reply, this switch will cause all quoted lines at the end of the message to be removed (chopped) when the message is saved. This works only when using the internal editor. If you are using an external editor, ChopQuote has no effect. When set to off, all quoted lines are saved, regardless of their location in the message. Note that you can also manually chop quotes by pressing Alt-L. Default: Off.

BS127

Most UNIX consoles (xterm, syscons, and many others) return the ASCII code 8 (Ctrl+H) if you press the backspace key, and ASCII code 127 or an extended escape sequence if you press the Del key. However, there are some exceptions, notably the Linux system console. The Linux console returns ASCII code 127 if you press the backspace key. The result is that the backspace key behaves like Del in MsgEd TE, i.E. it deletes the character under the cursor instead of the character on the left. As this is probably not what you want, you can change this behaviour by switching the BS127 switch on. You will probably want to enclose the Switch BS127 On statement in a Conditional that tests if the TERM environment variable is set to Linux. See section 6.4 Conditional Statements in the Configuration File, for more information. Default: Off:

Colors

This switch is only relevant for the Unix versions of MsgEd TE. If it is disabled, MsgEd TE will not send any ANSI color codes to the terminal, but will restrict itself to the most basic monochrome text styles "normal", "bright" and "inverted". This allows you to use MsgEd TE on terminals like the standard xterm, hardware VT100 terminals, and others that do not understand color codes. Note that you'd better not use the Color configuration keyword, nor include any color scheme file, as long as this switch is disabled. See section 2.3.5 Colors in the Unix version, for more information. Default: Off for Unix, On for all other versions.

Confirm

By disabling this switch, you will put MsgEd TE into the "You asked for it, you got it!"-mode, that is, you will disable any kind of confirmation dialog boxes on critical actions like deleting messages, aborting message entry, and the like. Default: On. (That is, by default, MsgEd TE will display confirmation requests).

DateArvd

If this switch is set to on, the date/time when a message arrived on your system will be displayed on the right side of the header information block below the date written information. You might want to turn this off if your tosser should not fill in this date field correctly. Default: On.

DMore

When set to on, this will display the message number of the message currently being read on the top line of the header after the area description in the form: `(currentmsg# of maxmsg#)'. Default: Off.

DomainOrigin

If turned on, MsgEd TE will generate five dimensional origin lines (i.E., it will append the domain string to the address in the origin line). It is suggested that you turn this switch off, but is is turned on by default. Default: On.

EchoFlags

When this switch is set to on, MsgEd TE will append a FLAGS control line to messages entered in echomail areas whenever there are message attributes. For example, entering a private message into an echomail area will cause Msged to add a `FLAGS PVT' control line to the beginning of the message text. Do not change this switch unless you know what you are doing. Default: On.

EditCROnly

If turned on, the internal message editor will mark hard carriage returns with an ampersand sign. Default: Off.

EditTearLines

EditOriginLines

When these switches are turned off, the tearline and the origin line will be appended to an echomail message after you have entered and saved it. When they are turned on, tearline and/or origin line will be appended to the message before you start to edit it, so that you have for example the chance to modify the origin text or similar. Default: Both On.

ExtFormat

Indicates if text created in an external editor should be reformatted by MsgEd TE. It is a good idea to leave this on when using an external editor. Default: On.

HardQuote

When switched on, this option causes the column formatting to be preserved when quoting, i.e. it doesn't reformat quotes. Default: On.

ImportFN

When using the built-in editor to import a text file into a message, this text file will be bracketet by some horizontal dashes and the name of the file like this one: `"------ test.txt begins -----"' before and `"----- test.txt ends -----"' after the file. You can disable these two lines by turning the ImportFN switch off. Default: On.

LowerCase

If you turn the LowerCase switch on, MsgEd TE will convert all file names that it reads from the configuration file or from any areafile to lower case before it attempts to read to, write from, or create any file. This might be helpful if you are using case-sensitive file systems like Linux ext2fs or BSD ufs.

MSGIDs

MSGIDs are used to uniquely identify a message coming from your system. Unfortunately no two message editors use the same MSGID-generating algorithm, so you cannot guarantee that you conform to the MSGID specs unless you have used a specific message editor (only) for a particular address in a 3-year period. Most people just ignore this potential problem and use them anyway. Leaving MSGIDs ON will help mail tossers in duplicate message checking and/or reply linking. Default: On.

NetmailVia

If this switch is turned on, MsgEd TE will append a Via control line to each netmail entered. You should turn this switch on, if your tosser does not append Via lines to netmail that originates from your system (like Squish does), but you should switch it off if your tosser does append via lines to netmail even if the mail originates from your own system (like Fastecho does).

OpusDate

The old MsgEd documentation states differently, but judging from the source code, turning this flag on would stop MsgEd TE from reading the Opus date_written and date_arrived date fields of Fido *.MSG messages. MsgEd TE will, however, always fill in those fields (in the worst case with the current timestamp). Probably you should leave this flag as is. Default: Off.

Origins

This switch controls if echomail messages will be appended with an origin line. You absolutely must leave this switch turned on, because origin lines are technically necessary for a smooth operation of the network. Default: On.

QQuotes

This switch controls how MsgEd TE will modify the quote string when quoting text that already is quoted. When turned on, MsgEd TE will try to add another `>' character to the existing quote strings. If turned off, MsgEd TE will not modify existing quote strings and thus behave much like Maximus 2.0 or TimEd do. Default: On.

RawCC

This switch is only of relevance if the SaveCC switch is turned on. Then, if RawCC is on, the raw cc: msg is saved (along with the cc: header that you typed in, so that if you re-edit the message, also all carbon copies will be re-generated). Otherwise, the first formatted cc: will NOT be marked kill/sent and will therefore remain as a future reference, but the original raw message will not be saved. Default: On.

RealMsgN

If this switch is turned on, the message list screen (Alt-L) will display the actual message number of each message instead of displaying the messages in sequential order, starting with 1. Default: Off.

RightNextUnreadArea

When in message reading mode, and this switch is set to on, and there are no more unread messages in the current message area, pressing the right arrow key will go to the next area with unread messages. Default: Off.

SaveCC

When generating carbon copies, and if this switch is turned on, a duplicate of the original message is saved with no kill/sent flag set for future reference, and possible re-editing and/or resending (along with the normal copied messages that are sent out and flagged kill/sent). Default: On.

Seen-Bys

This switch is a synonym for the ShowSeenBys switch. See below.

Shadows

If this switch is enabled, MsgEd TE will draw nice shadows round dialog boxes and other popup windows. You might want to disable this switch if you use the Unix version of MsgEd TE, because on a VT100 compatible terminal, drawing those borders can slow down the program considerably. Default: On.

ShowAddr

If this switch is enabled, the FTN address that you are currently using for the current area will be displayed on the left-hand side of the line that separates the message header from the message text. Default: On.

ShowCR

If turned on, MsgEd TE will mark the location of hard carriage returns with ASCII code 20, as known from common word processors. This might not work on a VT100 terminal. Default: Off.

ShowEOL

If turned on, MsgEd TE will mark the location of each end-of-line character with ASCII code 29. This will only work if the ShowCR switch is also turned on. Default: Off.

ShowNotes

If turned on, MsgEd TE will display kludge line information in message reading mode. You can also toggle this switch during program execution by pressing Alt-V. Unlike in older MsgEd versions, this switch does not pertain to origin and/or tear lines. Default: Off.

ShowOrigins

This switch toggles the display of origin lines in message reading mode. Default: On.

ShowSystem

This enables the lookup and display of a system name in your compiled version 7 nodelists. If set to on, the nodelisted system name will appear in the header, after the sender's name and address, in netmail and echomail message areas. If switched off, the lookup will not be performed. Default: On.

ShowTearlines

This switch toggles the display of tearlines in message reading mode. Default: On.

ShowSeenBys

If this switch is turned on, MsgEd TE will display SEEN-BY lines in message reading mode. This is probably only useful for echomail routing debugging purposes. Default: Off.

ShowTime

Shows the current time. This isn't a real time clock; it simply shows what the current date and time were when the screen was last refreshed with a new message, or when other keyboard hits were detected. Default: Off.

SOTEOT

If this is set to on, MsgEd TE will add SOT and EOT (Start Of Text/End Of Text) kludge lines to bracket the text in the message body. Please note that Paul Edwards' SOT/EOT specification does not permit domains in echomail origin lines. If both the DomainOrigin and SOTEOT configuration switches are enabled, MsgEd TE will exit and suggest to disable one or the other. Default: Off.

SquishLock

If the SquishLock switch is turned on, MsgEd TE will lock every message area that is entered (and of course unlock it when it is left), thus effectively denying access to this area to any other program. This will result in a considerable speed increase when browsing message areas, but it has the drawback that the tosser will not be able to toss to an message area as long as it is open in MsgEd TE. Also, some other problems have been observed with this switch in network environments. So you'd best leave this switch off unless you are running your Fido system on a non-networked, single tasking DOS machine. Note that this switch has nothing to do with data integrity concerns. MsgEd will of course lock the Squish Message Base when writing a message in order to insure data integrity even if the SquishLock switch is turned off. The default value of the SquishLock switch is Off (in contrast to the mainstream MsgEd 4.30, where it is turned on by default).

StatBar

Shows a status bar along the bottom of the screen. Default: On.

Tearlines

This switch controls if echomail messages will be appended with a tear line (three consecutive dashes) or not. You should leave this switch on. Default: On.

UseLastr

You should leave this switch turned on. It instructs MsgEd TE to use the lastread pointer for Fido *.MSG style areas. On the other hand, turning this switch off probably does not disable all lastread pointer handling code in MsgEd TE ... Older MsgEd TE versions had this switch turned off by default and it was undocumented. Hence a lot of problems with lastread pointers in those versions ... Default: On.

UseMouse

Some features of MsgEd TE can be controlled through the use of a mouse. This switch tells Msged whether or not you're using one. Note that the Windows NT and the Unix versions of MsgEd TE presently do not support a mouse at all. - Default: On.

UsePID

If this switch is turned on, MsgEd TE will put its version information in a @PID kludge line, and leave the tearline blank. If turned off, MsgEd TE will not generate a @PID kludge, but put its version information in the tera line. Default: Off.

Go to the first, previous, next, last section, table of contents.