AutoPost - Automating News Posting
Version 1.01

Primary Distribution & Information from:
http://wopr.cs.utas.edu.au/autopost or
http://super.zippo.com/~eucalypt/autopost


Introduction

AutoPost is a PC program capable of doing bulk uploads of files to news servers. It runs on PCs and can be used to automate the process of uploading large numbers of files that require UUENCODING, for example, image files, data files, programs, zip files etc.  The Registered version will also allow you to bulk upload plain text (unencoded files).


Minimum Requirements

AutoPost requires a minimum of a 486-SX processor. 

A 16-bit version exists for Windows 3.1 users and a 32-bit version is available for Win32S, Windows95 and Windows NT. 

The 32-bit version of AutoPost performs far better than the 16-bit version, so if you have a choice, the 32-bit version is recommended. 

A hard disk with a minimum of 10 Mb of free disk space at all times is also required.


Installation

Select either the 16 or 32 bit version of AutoPost to install.  Only the 16-bit version is recommended for Windows 3.1 or Windows for Workgroups.

Create a directory (you can call it what you want) where you would like to run AutoPost from.  Make sure it is on a drive with a reasonable amount of free disk space (say 10Mb free, minimum) that can be used as temporary space while AutoPost runs.

Unzip your copy of AutoPost into that directory.  You may create a shortcut to it on your desktop, add it to your 'Start' menu, or just run it by double clicking on the program in explorer.it  doesn't matter.


Before Configuration

If you have a working version of Free Agent, you will understand these instructions a little easier, as it is referred to in some locations.

WARNING: AutoPost will upload every file in the directory that you specify in the settings window.  Keep this in mind when you use AutoPost.  Caveat (it will not upload any file called FILES.BBS)

Start AutoPost.  The main window which displays information during uploading is displayed with
three buttons along the bottom.  The main features of this window are:

State - What AutoPost is currently doing.

Time/Rate - Times & rates for posting the current article.

Estimates - Estimated time remaining to finish posting all articles.

Outbound Information - NNTP commands, etc, being sent to the news server.

Inbound Information - NNTP responses from the news server, or other AutoPost information related to the behaviour of the news server.

Outbound Files - List of files sent to the news server, whether they were sent successfully and how much time was spent sending them to the server.

Post - Press this button and AutoPost will begin to upload files to the news server, as specified in the Settings window.

Settings - Press this button to get to the Settings windows where AutoPost is configured.

Quit/Stop - Exits out of AutoPost when it is Idle.  If AutoPost is currently uploading to the news server, pressing this button with stop it.


Configuration

Press the Settings button in the main window to pull up the settings window where all of AutoPost's configuration is done.  You will need to supply details for each of these fields, unless otherwise specified.

Host - The address of your news server, something like nntp.yourprovider.com.  This is the same as from Agent:  'Options', 'User and System Profile', 'System' tab, 'News Server' field.  Mine is snews.zippo.com - you should enter your server's details here.  

Please note that for some reason, AutoPost is sometimes unable to resolve host names to numbers, in which case you should supply your news servers IP address.  The IP address of my server is 207.95.157.34.  If you need to find out your server's IP address, you can ping it from the Win95 or Windows NT DOS prompt, eg PING snews.zippo.com

Username - used only if your news server requires a login.  (Most do not.)  This is the same as Agent: 'Options', 'User and System Profile', 'User' tab, at the bottom where it has 'New Server Authorisation'.  If that section is blank on Agent, leave it blank here.  If there is a username and password there, copy them to here, and the next field, Password, respectively.

Password - Same as above for Username, but your password instead, if required.

From - This field will display as the 'Author' field in newsreaders.  There must be something in this field.  It can be whatever you want, as long as it is in valid internet address format.  (ie:  'you@yourprovider.com (I. Am You)' and 'VolShan@polka.bikini' will both work.  'I. Am You' and 'VolShan' both will not work, because they aren't in valid internet address format.)

Reply To - This field will show as the "Respond To" field if someone switches on the ability to see all headers in their news reader.  The rules are the same as for the 'From' field.  This field can be blank.

Organisation - Whatever you want to list as an organisation.  This field can also be blank.

Subject Prefix - Whatever you enter here will be the subject for all of the files you post in each session, or will be the subject prefix if you Use FILES.BBS also..  The program will automatically add '- filename [y/z] xxxxxxxx bytes'  after what you put here.  So for a 'Top 10 All Time TV Stars' post you might want the subject to be something like 'The Top 10 All Time TV Stars scanned by I. Am You' and the program will add each filename to the end so, for Heather Locklear for example, it will come out looking like this:

'The Top 10 All Time TV Stars scanned by I. Am You' - HLOCK01.JPG [1/1] 205172 bytes'

If you are using FILES.BBS also, the subject will be something like

'The Top 10 All Time TV Stars scanned by I. Am You' -  FILES.BBS ENTRY  - HLOCK01.JPG [1/1] 205172 bytes'
ie.

'The Top 10 All Time TV Stars scanned by I. Am You' -  Heather Locklear - HLOCK01.JPG [1/1] 205172 bytes'

Files From Dir - the full path of the directory which contains the files you want to post.  This might be something like C:\TEMP\UPLOAD

Any files in this directory will be UUENCODED and posted to your news server.  There are two exceptions to this:

1) 	Any file called FILES.BBS will not be posted, under any circumstances; and

2) 	Any files with a .TXT, .BAT or .INI extension will be posted as plain text (ie, not encoded) if you are using the registered version of AutoPost.

Newsgroups - This is where you'll get bit in the butt, if you're not careful.  Since I've been mentioning this in my posts, I've had several e-mails from folks, and all of the errors (except one - an invalid address in the 'From' field)  occurred here.  This field should contain the newsgroups you wish to post the files to, separated only by commas, no spaces!   If you get this field wrong, in any way, there is no error message, and you have no way of knowing for sure, your posts just never show up.  I created a text file into which I copied from agent and pasted all the newsgroups I regularly post to.  Each time I post, I use that file, and copy and paste newsgroup names onto a line, add a comma, and paste the next newsgroup.  When that line has all the groups for this post, separated only by commas, no spaces, I copy it, and paste it into AutoPost.  Please note that newsgroup names are case sensitive.

Max Bytes/Part (registered version only) - You'll probably want to set this to 0 (zero).  That will post each file in one part.  If your server has a limit on the number of bytes in a post, then enter a slightly smaller value here.  For example, my server will not accept posts over 1 Meg, so I have this field set to 900,000.   

If you have a server limit and are using the unregistered version of AutoPost you simply can not post articles that are larger than your server limit.  Remember, UUENCODING adds 33% to the size of a file, so a server with a 1,000,000 byte limit will only accept files which are  of 1,000,000 / 4 * 3 - 512 = 749488 bytes or smaller on your hard disk.

Text Message (registered version only) - Any text message that you type here will be inserted into the article body before the encoded file.  For example the text "This is my screen saver based on Fred Flintstone." would show up in the article like this:

From: Me@My.Org
Subject: My Post - Fred.Zip
	
This is my screen saver based on Fred Flintstone.
	
BEGIN --- CUT HERE --- Cut Here --- cut here --- Fred.Zip
begin 644 Fred.Zip
  ..
  Encoded data here
  ..
End
END --- CUT HERE --- Cut Here --- cut here ---

Append File Size To Subject (registered version only) - Appending the File Size to the Subject Line of each post is fixed to ON in the unregistered version.  The registered version allows you to remove this information from the Subject Line.

Show Article Count Header (registered version only) - A header is added into each article you post that shows how many files you have posted with AutoPost.  In the registered version you can turn this header off.

Use FILES.BBS - FILES.BBS comes from (typically) CD-ROMs that are in "BBS Ready" format.  These CDs contain a file called FILES.BBS which lists filenames and descriptions of those files in a text form.  AutoPost can read files that are formatted in a similar fashion and insert the description of each file into the Subject header as they are posted.  If you plan to use a FILES.BBS file to tailor the subject lines with FILES.BBS ENTRIES (see Subject Prefix above) there are a few things to note.

The descriptions must be in a file called FILES.BBS and this file must be in the same directory as the files you plan to upload.

The file format is simple:

1) 	Any line beginning with whitespace (space or tab or blank lines) is completely ignored.

2) 	Each line of the FILES.BBS file which should be used to describe a file should be in the format:

     	FILENAME.TXT <whitespace> File Description

Examples:

	FRED.ZIP  		Fred Flintstone screen saver.
	QUAKESW.ZIP		Shareware version of Quake.
             BARBBUSH.JPG	Picture of Barbara Bush.


Once all of these settings are set, click on 'OK'.  That will return you to the main window.  Then click 'Post'.  There should be some activity in the windows as the posting goes on.  The time remaining is fairly accurate, except that posts always seem to take two or three minutes longer than it says they will (total, not each file)  You'll know that it's done when the top line of the main screen returns to 'Idle', and you'll be able to see in the bottom box each file as it's posting it, so when it says 'OK' to the last one, the top line should say 'idle', and it should be done.  The top box shows what the actual subject will be for each file as it's posting it.


Command Line Parameters

The following command line parameters can be used when starting AutoPost:

/autopost - This parameter will start sending articles to the news server immediately, without requiring the user to press the post button.

/autoquit - This parameter will exit out of AutoPost when posting is complete, without the user being required to press the quit button.

X:\PATH\FILENAME.INI - A path and filename to and of the file containing configuration information that should be used during this session of posting.  The filename must contain the extension .INI.


AutoPost is Shareware

AutoPost is shareware. If you intend to use it regularly, I would appreciate it if you would register, to help support my ongoing programming efforts.  Please see the Registering section at the end of this document for more information.


Testing Information

AutoPost has been developed and tested on the following system configurations in an effort to ensure compatibilities between different systems/winsocks.  Between version 0.9b and 1.01 several changes were made to the Winsock communication, thanks primarily to Trumpet Winsock behaving in ways not quite expected.

Intel 486SX33, Win 3.1, Trumpet Winsock 2.0 Rev B, Fixed Link (Naomi)
Intel 486DX-50, WFWG-3.11 with WIN-32s, Trumpet Winsock, 14.4 Modem, PPP (Shadow)
Intel P100, Win95, Microsoft Winsock for 95, Fixed Link (Algiebra)
Intel P100, Win95, Microsoft Winsock for 95, 28.8 Modem, PPP (Snypa)
Intel P90,  NT4.0, Microsoft 16-bit Winsock for NT, Fixed Link (Wopr)
Intel P90,  NT4.0, Microsoft 32-bit Winsock for NT, Fixed Link (Wopr)
AutoPost has also been run under WABI on Solaris and supposed runs without problems.

Beta testers for new versions always welcome, especially if you use a Winsock product other than those listed above.


Testing Information

If you are experiencing problems with AutoPost, I would like to hear about them.  To help me
diagnose and rectify your problem, please send my a copy of your AUTOPOST.INI file, along with the file LOGGIT.TXT which is generated by AutoPost if you set the variable Logging=TRUE in AUTOPOST.INI.  In summary, if you are experiencing problems :

Edit AUTOPOST.INI and include the line Logging=TRUE in the [SETTINGS] section.
Run AutoPost again until you experience your problem.
Locate the file LOGGIT.TXT that was just generated by AutoPost and ZIP it up.
Send this zip file, along with your AUTOPOST.INI and the REPORTnn.TXT file to me along with a description of your problem.
Remove the line Logging=TRUE from the AUTOPOST.INI file as it has the potential to generate massive amounts of logging information.


Registering

Benefits of registering: The registered version of AutoPost has additional features, as described in the documentation above including multi-part support, comments in each article, disable article counts, disable byte size appending to subjects, etc.

You will receive notification of updates and will receive these updates free of charge. Extra technical support via e-mail is provided.

The registration fee is either AU$10 (Australian) for those people within Australia, either cash, money order or cheque. Outside Australia, I will accept US$10 in cash, or the equivalent in notes only of your local currency.

When you send your registration request, please include an e-mail address where you can be contacted. 

Send registrations to: 

Ryk Field
GPO Box 252-87
University of Tasmania
Hobart TASMANIA 7001
AUSTRALIA


Appreciation goes to

'The Shadow Knows...' for extensive Beta testing.  
Thanks also to 'VolShan' for sitting down and doing the original documentation.  Without it, using AutoPost would have been so much harder.  This version of the AutoPost documentation is a mix and mash of VolShan and my efforts.

Ryk.
Eucalypt@Super.Zippo.Com