Quick Link II Fax (250-3027B) DataComm Overview Faxback Doc. # 3234 Originating a data call (dialing out) There are two ways to dial out for a Data Comm connection: a quick dial, or accessing the Connect PHONE LIST. Quickly dialing a number The great majority of data communications sessions will begin with you dialing out to another modem, BBS, or online service. The quickest way to do this is by simply dialing the modem with the DIAL command from the CONNECT menu, which brings up the DIALER dialog box. From this box, the telephone number can be entered in to the Number to dial field and dialed. Clicking DIAL starts dialing, calling up a dialog box which displays the status of the dial. Using the Data Phone List Choosing DATA PHONE LIST from the CONNECT menu brings up the Data Phone List dialog box, allowing access to a datacom telephone book of all your frequently dialed data numbers - its quick key is ALT-P. You'll find that it is accessed almost exactly like the Fax Phone List. Choose it now, and you will find that there is already an entry in the list: American E-Mail. American E-Mail is Smith Micro Software's BBS; you are invited to use this system to test the data portion of Quick Link II Fax. There is no charge for using our system, other than the long distance charges from your telephone company for dialing the 714 area code (The 714 area code connects to Southern California). To dial any number as it appears in the Data Phone List, highlight the entry by clicking on it and click on the DIAL button. The ADD and REMOVE buttons allow you to respectively add and delete Data Phone List entries - SORT allows you to soft the list by number or alphabetically. To edit an entry in the Data Phone List, highlight the entry and click the EDIT button. Highlight the American E-Mail entry and click the EDIT button now. This brings up the PHONE LIST ENTRY dialog box, where every aspect of an entry can be changed. To change the NAME or NUMBER of an entry, just click in the appropriate text box and type in the new entry. Notice that parentheses, spaces and dashes are acceptable in the telephone number - a comma will create a 2 second pause in dialing. If you are calling from the 714 area code, be sure to delete the 1-714 from the Number field. The other fields deal with the more technical aspects of the connection, such as the BAUD rate, TERMINAL type, and line settings. While there is no set standard terminal type and line setting combination for every modem connection, there are some guidelines to follow which may be helpful. Set the Baud Rate to the highest your modem will support, or to 2400 if you are getting bad connections. When you dial the other modem, the two modems will establish the highest connection speed possible automatically so long as the Autobaud feature is turned on (The default setting for Autobaud is On). Otherwise, the baud rate is determined by the caller. Small systems (BBS's) tend to use the ANS1 terminal type with 8 data bits, no parity, and one stop bit (8-N-1 for short). Large installations (such as mainframes and online services like GEnie and CompuServe) tend to use the VT100 terminal type with 7 data bits, even parity, and 1 stop bit (summarized by 7-E-1). Two people connecting their PC's together via modem should try the TTY terminal type with 8-N-1. You may also need to turn on Local Echo and both CR/LF checkboxes in the Terminal Options dialog box, covered later in this Chapter. Other than the area code in the telephone number, all the settings for the American E-Mail entry are correct. Click OK to leave the edit dialog box and click DIAL to dial our BBS. Once connected to our American E-Mail system, follow the prompts to create a new user account. You will be prompted at every step and must create a password of your own choosing to enter the system for future online sessions. When connected to our system, you may upload and download public domain and utility files and programs, visit the Online Software Store, or get online technical support. All selections are menu driven; when in doubt enter a Question Mark (?) for help. To disconnect from our (or any ) system, pull down the CONNECT menu and choose HANGUP. File transfers Unlike faxing, file transfers do not happen automatically; there is a good deal of preparation to consider. Fortunately, Quick Link II Fax makes the procedure as intuitive as possible. The concept of file transfers Before getting into the specifics of file transfers, an outline of the concept of uploading and downloading should be very helpful to those users who have never transferred files before. The general process is something like this: 1. Connect with the other modem or system (covered in the previous sections). Make sure that you can both type to the screen so the other end can understand you and vice versa. 2. Tell the other side that you are interested in file transfers. 3. Tell the other side what file(s) you want or what file(s) they should expect from you. 4. Tell the other side what transfer protocol to use (for a discussion on the differences between the protocols, refer to the next section). 5. When the other side says they are ready, pull down the FILE menu and choose SEND FILE or RECEIVE FILE, and choose the protocol you told the other side to expect. 6. If sending, choose the file(s) you want to send and click OK; the transfer begins. If receiving using Xmodem (of any type) or ASCII protocols, type the name of the file you want to receive and Click OK; for all other protocols just click OK and the transfer begins. With this in mind, Quick Link II Fax file transfers will make a lot more sense. Selecting one file to upload The ASCII, Xmodem, Xmodem CRC, and Xmodem 1K protocols let you upload only one file per transmission. When you select sending by one of these protocols, the Send Single File dialog box appears with the selected protocol as the title. To send a file, enter the complete path of the file you want to upload. For example, to upload the file SALARY.DOC from the WP51 subdirectory on your computer's C drive, type: C:\WP51\SALARY.DOC and click Ok. OR Use the list box to scroll through the subdirectories on your PC's hard drive and select the file from the list box by double-clicking on it, clicking OK when selected. This starts the transfer and calls up the SEND FILE dialog box. Selecting multiple files to upload The Kermit/SuperKermit, Ymodem, and Ymodem-G protocols let you upload more than one file during the same transmission. In addition to sending a batch of files, one file may also be sent by itself. The main advantage of sending one file with one of these protocols is that the other end need not type in a file name, as the file name is included with the transfer using these protocols. If you select one of these protocols, the Send Multiple Files dialog box appears with the selected protocol as the title. This dialog box works similarly to the Send Fax dialog box. If you want to upload files from the current path, shown at the top of the list box, enter the file name in the File Name text box and click ADD. Otherwise, enter the complete path of the file you want to upload. For example, to upload the file SALARY.DOC from the WP51 subdirectory on your computer's C drive, type: C:\WP51\SALARY.DOC and click OK. OR Use the list box to scroll through the subdirectories on your PC's hard drive and select the files from the Files Available list box, clicking ADD to add the file to the FILES SELECTED list box. Repeat this for every file you want to add to the batch send. If you change your mind about sending one of the files, highlight it in the FILES SELECTED list box and click REMOVE. The selected file is removed from the list box and will not be sent. When the list of files selected is complete, click the OK button, which begins the transfer and calls up the SEND FILE dialog box. The Send File status box The SEND FILE dialog box keeps you informed of the status of the upload. It displays the following information: PROTOCOL displays which protocol is being used for the current transmission. FILE NAME displays the name of the current file being transferred. FILE SIZE displays the size of the current file being transferred. BYTES SENT displays the number of bytes sent. STATUS shows the current status of the upload. For example, SENDING DATA appears when data is being sent to the remote system. The whole transfer can be stopped by clicking the CANCEL button. When the transfer is finished, a dialog box will appear to alert you, and the computer will beep. Clicking OK removes the dialog box. Downloading files Receiving files works much like sending a file and actually involves less steps. The biggest issue is determining what protocol is being used and how many files are being sent to you. Receiving one file The ASCII, Xmodem, Xmodem CRC, and Xmodem 1K protocols let you download only one file per transmission. When you select receiving by one of these protocols, the receive single file dialog box appears with the selected protocol as the title. At this point, Quick Link II Fax needs a file name to save the file under. To receive the file, enter the complete path of the file you want to download. For example, to download the file PICTURE.BMP to the WINDOWS subdirectory on your computer's C drive, type: C:\WINDOWS\PICTURE.BMP and click OK. Use the list box to scroll through the subdirectories on your PC's hard drive and type in the file's name in the FILE NAME text box, clicking OK done. This starts the transfer and calls up the RECEIVE FILE dialog box. Receiving a batch of files The Kermit/SuperKermit, Ymodem, and Ymodem-G, protocols let you download more than one file during the same transmission. In addition to receiving a batch of files, one file may also be received by itself. The main advantage of receiving one file with one of these protocols is that the file name is included with the transfer using these protocols, so it is impossible for files to be named incorrectly. When you use one of these protocols, the path selection dialog box appears with the selected protocol as the title. This dialog box works similarly with the selected protocol as the title. This dialog box works similarly with the files selection dialog box, except that there is no need to type a file name, and is used to specify the directory where you want the files to be copied to. Another directory can be selected with the list box or typed in directly, and clicking OK initiates the transfer and calls up the RECEIVE FILE dialog box. The Receive File status box The Receive File dialog box keeps you informed of the status of the download. It displays the following information: PROTOCOL displays which protocols being used for the current transmission. FILE NAME displays the name of the current file being transferred. FILE SIZE displays the size of the current file being transferred. (Batch protocol only) BYTES RECEIVED displays the number of bytes sent STATUS shows the current status of the upload. For example, RECEIVING DATA appears when data is being received from the remote system. The whole transfer may be stopped by clicking the CANCEL button. When the transfer is finished, a dialog box will appear to alert you, and the computer will beep. Clicking OK removes the dialog box. Capture text If you know in advance that you want to capture the text that appears on screen, Quick Link II Fax can be set to make a copy of everything you see and save it into a text file on your computer's hard disk. To capture text, pull down the FILE menu and choose CAPTURE TEXT, which calls up the Capture Text dialog box. The Capture Text dialog box works just like the Receive Single File dialog box; type a name for the file to save the captured text in the FILE NAME field and click OK to begin capturing. You can select another directory with the list box. You can double-check that Quick Link II Fax is indeed capturing text by pulling down the FILE menu; when there is a checkmark next to CAPTURE TEXT, text is being captured. Choosing CAPTURE TEXT again will stop the capture and close the file, making the checkmark disappear. Capture Text has nothing to do with receiving faxes or faxing. Clearing the screen Choosing CLEAR SCREEN from the EDIT menu will clear the terminal window of its text. This command will not affect the connection to the remote system. Line Buffer The LINE BUFFER command from the EDIT menu is used to view data that has scrolled out of view on the Terminal Window. The line buffer will hold up to 200 lines of information which includes those lines presently in view. If you need to capture more than 200 lines of text, use the CAPTURE TEXT function on the FILE menu. Choosing LINE BUFFER will cause the menu bar to change, and the DIAMOND, FILE, and EDIT menus of the Quick Link II Fax Text Editor will appear. The menu bar will show that you are currently viewing the line buffer. Use the up and down arrow keys on your keyboard to scroll the Line Buffer. When you are finished looking at the Line Buffer, press the ESCAPE key or type ALT-R to exit the Line Buffer and return to the Quick Link II Fax main application. Toggle Printer The Toggle Printer function, located in the FILE menu, allows you to print information directly to your printer as it is received from your modem and displayed on the screen. You can verify that this option is turned on by pulling down the FILE menu again - a check mark next to the menu listing indicates the printer is currently toggled on. You should only use this option with a buffered printer. Printing directly to your printer may also degrade the speed of displaying information on your monitor. Choosing TOGGLE PRINTER a second time will turn the function off. Printing Text Files Choosing PRINT FILE from the FILE menu calls up a dialog box which permits you to print ASCII text files directly to your selected printer. This is useful to print files created within the Quick Link II Fax text editor or files created with the Capture Text option. This command will not print faxes - only text files. Answering a data call Answering a call is almost totally automatic and handled by RECFAX if loaded - if RECFAX isn't loaded, the call gets automatically answered on the number of rings set in the MODEM SETUP dialog box (Refer to later this Chapter). RECFAX's default settings will let it listen to the incoming call to determine what it is: either fax, data, or voice. If it is a modem/data call, RECFAX will seamlessly pass the call into the Quick Link II Fax telecommunications mode. You must always be with the Quick Link II main application to receive a datacom call. Typing ATA and then the ENTER key in the terminal window will also force the modem to pick up the line and answer the call. Strictly speaking, the S0 register can be set to the number of rings you want the modem to answer the phone, but this will conflict with RECFAX's operation and bypass the NUMBER OF RINGS TO ANSWER PHONE field in the MODEM SETUP dialog box. You are strongly urged not to change the S0 register in the Init string. If you do, be sure to change it back to S0=0 to receive faxes. (br/all-11/4/94)