ChatterBox

ChatterBox V2.01 Copyright 1993, Greg Ratajik. September 5, 1993 Genie : G.RATAJIK CompuServe: 74555,542 Internet : G.RATAJIK@genie.geis.com or : 74555.542@compuserve.com Voice : (301)/916-0018 To register, send $20 check or money order, payable to Greg Ratajik, to: Greg Ratajik 1722 Forres Ave. St. Joseph, MI 49085 ------------------------------------------------------------------- ChatterBox is a Shareware program. If you find ChatterBox useful, please send $20 to the above address (And if you find it VERY useful, feel free to send what you think is a fair price.) Registering ChatterBox will remove the 12-31-93 end date, and will allow you to receive notification of changes and any updates up to version 4.0. If you intend to have more than 10 nodes on a site, please send a message to any of the contact address, to negotiate an on-site contract. I hope you find ChatterBox useful, but (DISCLAIMER) I am in no way responsible for any damages the use of ChatterBox may cause. If you have any questions, comments, ideas, etc, feel free to contact me. I'm always looking for ways to improve my software! Enhancements since Version 1.0 ------------ Version 1.05 o Fix of modeless dialogs (Chatter was creating a new instance of a dialog each time the user pressed a push-button. This eventually caused the Graphical push- button API to fail.) Version 2.00 - Shareware version level 0.01 (Not released) o Addition of GATEWAY (Multi-LAN and Domain) See information below on how to use. Version 2.01 - Shareware version level 0.02 (Released 9-5-93) o Fixed INI corruptions. o Auto-detect INI problems. o Added 5-message review scroll bar. o Enhanced Graphical push-button API's o Enhanced NET API Errors (If you installed DB2/2, but were not on a LAN, ChatterBox would not give errors, and would sometimes TRAP-D. ) ----------------------------------------------------------------- I. General ChatterBox allows you to enter a message that will be displayed on anyone's computer that is running ChatterBox, on your LAN. The original idea for ChatterBox was a program that displayed and changed cute little sayings on your screen, based on text in a file. This just carries the idea another step. I've found ChatterBox useful for sending non-critical messages, and those that not everyone MUST see, to other people that I work with. (i.e. If someone brings a cake in for everyone, you don't really need an actual electronic message sent out, you really don't want to annoy everyone with a Net Message, but something non-intrusive like ChatterBox is just right.) II. Operation of ChatterBox To send a message, Click on the ChatterMouth push-button. This will bring up the Send Pop-up. Type in whatever message you like, and click on the send push-button. If you are on an IBM-LAN, everyone on that LAN will see the message you type on their Chatter Screen. If you are just local, only you will see the message. To control the speed, Beeps, and Gateways of ChatterBox, click on the ChatterEye pushbutton. This will bring up the Control Pop-Up. From this pop-up, you can change the scroll speed by selecting a new number in the speed combo-box. (0 is stopped, 10 is the fastest, etc.) If you want to change what level of tone/beep you hear when a new message comes in, click on the ChatterSound pushbutton. For information on ChatterBox, click on the ChatterInfo pushbutton. To scroll the last five messages you have received, click on the scroll bar next to the ChatterMouth. GATEWAY Information - One of the problems in the original version of ChatterBox was that you could only send messages to those that were are your LAN/Domain. Version 2.0+ of ChatterBox allows you to set up something called a GateWay. These gateways allows you to designate a computer to send messages to whenever you receive them. This allow to send to any LAN or domain you have access to. Example: User 1 is on LAN A. User 2 is on LAN B. User 3 is on LAN B. If User 1 sets up User 2 as a GateWay, and User 3 sets up user 1 as a GateWay, this is what would happen: User 1 Sends a message. This message gets relayed to user 2. ChatterBox detects this is a message from a gateway, so sends the message to everyone on LAN B. User 3 is on LAN B, so he'll get the message. He will, in turn, send the message back to User 1 on LAN A, as user 1 was set up as a gateway. ChatterBox will detect this is a message from a GateWay, but that he's already processed that message, so will do nothing. If User 2 sends a message, it will go to User 3, who will in turn send that message to User 1, who will broadcast it to his LAN. Yes, this is somewhat complex. I've had a total of 6 LAN's, from all over the U.S. hooked up in the above manner. It does work, it seems to work well, but it's not very elegant. I hope the next version will either be CPI-C or NetBios, which could bypass this problem. I would suggest you be very careful in setting up these gateways. I could see where if a lot of people are using ChatterBox, and everyone has GateWays to everyone else, problems may arise. The BEST way to use ChatterBox on a large scale is to set it up on each Server, and have the GateWays point to each Server that you want to communicate to. This way, only one computer on a LAN would have gateways, and the gateways could be planned out a little better. (NOTE: The Machine name can be found in the IBMLAN.INI file or through Net Requester.) III. Technical information. ChatterBox was written and tested using: 486DX 33 Mhz Clone SuperVGA Monitor IBM OS/2 Lan requester 1.3 CSD 5050 OS/2 1.3 LAN Server for 1.3 This has also been run on machines and OS's other than the above configuration (Including under OS/2 2.1, OS/2 2.0, and several beta's between). If you're using something other than SuperVGA, some of the custom pushbuttons may be slightly off (but still usable.) ChatterBox uses something called a MailSlot. These Mailslots are available to anyone with a IBM LAN card on their machine. You don't have to be logged on to a LAN for ChatterBox to work (But you do have to have Net Requester installed, and a card on your machine.) Mailslot are the same thing that Net Massaging uses to send messages. As you may know, there is no way to guarantee that a broadcast message is received. While under normal conditions I have not had a problem with ChatterBox users not getting messages, it is possible for them to get lost en- route, or overwritten if there is a lot of local traffic to the same mailslot. This is, unfortunately, a limit of the technology being used. If you have a problem getting messages, you can increase the NUMDGRAMBUF parameter in your IBMLAN.INI file. This increases available Local Mailslot space, and may alleviate some local traffic problems. IV. Other IBM-LAN Based software on it's way.... o NetChat - This program allows many users to have Chat sessions over the LAN. It allows each user to set up Conference groups and security levels. Each Conference can have as many users as you want Chatting. This is similar to CompuServer's CB, or a BBS's multi-node chat area. (This will be released Sept. '93.) o NetMail - Improved net massaging (i.e. "Blue Boxes") This program gives you better control of system level LAN messages. You can enter message subjects, set priority levels, and type in longer messages. NetMail allows each user to set up their own message groups, along with global message groups. Each user can choose which groups to receive messages from, and what groups to send messages to. NetMail also let's you choose whether to get the message in the traditional VIO BlueBox (but better looking!), a PM Message Box, or to display no message but to retrieve it at a latter time. This program makes Net Massaging easier to use, and less annoying to the recipients. ADDITIONAL NOTE: I've had reports that the CHATTER.INI file is sometimes getting corrupted. I have not been able to reproduce this problem. (I'm only able to run in a local loop. My server got fried a couple of weeks ago.... Hopefully, if enough people register ChatterBox, I'll be able to buy a new server machine...) I would suggest that if you are using gateways that you back the Chatter.ini file up. ChatterBox will detect that the INI file has been corrupted, and will DELETE it (Which can really be a pain, if you don't back the INI file up and you don't remember the machine names of your GateWay's)