Chapter 3 3

The user interface refers to what you get on your computer screen and how, when you call an online service. It includes menus and help screens, and various options to tailor the service to your personal preferences.

Navigating by menus is simpler --------------- Most online services have menus to make them easier for novices to use. A typical menu looks like this:

R)ead messages

Q)uick search available messages

W)rite messages

C)omments to Sysop

D)ownload programs

?) for help

G)oodbye. This is enough!

Enter a letter (or ?) to select a function. Enter R to read

messages. There is hardly any need to read the documentation to

use this service.

CompuServe greets European users with this menu:

CompuServe Europe EUROPE

COMPUSERVE EUROPE MAIN MENU

1 About CompuServe 2 What's New 3 Member Assistance 4 Electronic Mail 5 Personal Computer Support 6 Company Information 7 Logon Instructions (Europe) 8 CompuServe Information Service (U.S.)

Enter '8' to get another menu:

CompuServe TOP

1 Member Assistance (FREE)

2 Find a Topic (FREE)

3 Communications/Bulletin Bds.

4 News/Weather/Sports

5 Travel

6 The Electronic MALL/Shopping

7 Money Matters/Markets

8 Entertainment/Games

9 Hobbies/Lifestyles/Education

10 Reference

11 Computers/Technology

12 Business/Other Interests

You can "go" to Associated Press' newswires or the section for home-schooling in the Education Forum by entering numbers listed in menus. The service is like a tree with menus by every set of branches. A code in the upper right-hand corner of each screen tells you exactly where you are. The last menu has the code 'TOP' meaning that this menu is at the 'top of the tree'. By each CompuServe system prompt, the command GO followed by a destination code will take you directly to a desired location. Enter GO IBMHW to go directly to the IBM Hardware Forum. The GO command will save you time and money. Similar codes and commands are used on several other online services. On many systems, the first menu encountered when logging on is a list of announcements and new offerings. The following is from GEnie, General Electric's Consumer Information Service (U.S.A.):

GEnie Announcements (FREE)

1. July 1991 GEnie Billing Completed. To review yours, type:....*BILL

2. Hot Summer Nights continues to SIZZLE.........................*HSN

3. NEW...Quality Product and Amazing Value in....................SOFTCLUB

4. LAST CHANCE--Blue GEnie Sweatshirts..........................*ORDER

5. Color hypermedia in Apple II world. HyperStudio RTC in........A2

6. Meet the Product Manager, FREE RTC............................SFRT

7. "Future of Online Gaming" RTC with GEnie Game Designers in....MPGRT

8. A Revolutionary Credit Service - TRW CREDENTIALS..............TRWCREDIT

9. 900 Numbers: Ripoff or Good Business Sense - RTC 8/11 9PM.....RADIO

10. Air Warrior Convention set for Sept.26-29. in Washington......AIR

11. SEARS Fall/Winter Catalog On-line NOW.........................SEARS

12. How to Sell your CRAFTS for Profit............................HOSB

13. Stellar Warrior Campaign starts with a FREE weekend...........WARRIOR

14. Followup Investment RTC with Mickey Friedman in...............REAL ESTATE

15. Federation II, the adult space fantasy........................FED

Enter #, elp, or to continue?

At the 'Enter #' prompt, enter '7' to go directly to the "Future of Online Gaming" conference (RTC=Round Table Conference). Enter H for Help, or press Return to get to the systems' main menu. You can "go" to selected services by entering a videotext page number code or a number (selected from the menu). Type 'mail' to get to your mailbox, 'backgammon' to play, or 'SEARS' to visit the online version of this North American shoppers' paradise. 'Mail' has page number 200. Enter 'm 200' to go there directly. To go to NewsBytes' technical news reports by subject, select "5" from menu page number 316. GEnie even has a faster way. Like some other services, it let you stack commands. Instead of issuing one command, and then wait for the system to respond before issuing the next command, stacking allows you to put all commands on one line. The command "m 316;5" will take you directly to choice 5 from the menu on page 316 without displaying intermediate menus. Many online services use the same template. They have commands like GO SERVICE-NAME, JOIN SERVICE-NAME (or just J), DELTA SERVICE- NAME, or just the code or name of the offering as in 'mail' and 'sears' above. Entering H or ? (for help) usually give you assistance. Few services are fussy about whether you use lower or capital letters in commands. On some services, and especially if a selection requires just a letter or a number, you don't even have to press return to make it happen. This method is used on many bulletin boards. Some codes are standard. This is particularly the case with "?", H, or Help for more information.

Test drive ----- Several commercial systems let you try the service for free or at lower rates. You can check what's out there without paying for the exploratory connect time, and get some free training in how to use the service. CompuServe's Practice Forum (GO PRACTICE) does not carry any connect charges, but applicable communication surcharges are still in effect. They also have a free 'Guided Tour'. Free trials are particularly useful before a search in an expensive database. Use DialIndex on Dialog. Orbit has DBIN (The database Index), and Data-Star has CROS. They are master indexes to the databases on the system. First, select a general subject area, then enter your search terms. The systems will respond with lists of databases and hit counts. Note: You must go to the 'real' databases for results. You cannot retrieve actual information during a test drive.

Selecting an expert level ------------- Most services regard all new users as novices. The software designers assume that users don't want (or are unable) to read lengthy explanations. They think that most users prefer navigation by going from menu to menu. Commercial services may support this view for financial reasons, and especially when charging for access by the minute. (Some of them let you read their help screens for free, though.) Menus are important when browsing new offerings, or accessing services that we seldom use. Frequent users of a service, however, quickly learn how to do things. Menus may soon begin to annoy rather than please. Reading them costs money, and it slows our communications down. We do not need menus when accessing online services in fully automated mode. Your communications program remembers exactly what to do, and does all the typing for you. There is no point in paying extra for having menus. You'll not read them anyway. The objective is to access the service at maximum speed and the lowest possible cost. Most online services can be tailored to your personal needs and preferences. Many let you choose between:

* Full menus

* Short menus

* A prompt line with a list of the most often used

commands,

* a prompt character or word (see "prompt" in appendix 4

for examples). Prompts can be used by automatic

communication script files to trigger the next action.

If concerned about costs, note that you can use expert mode without being a true expert. Just print the menus, and keep them by your keyboard while moving around. Some users draw 'road maps' of the services to navigate more quickly. Others automate the process using automatic communications scripts.

Tailoring your services ------------ The need to tailor the online service's prompts and menus differs considerably from user to user, as they use all kinds of computers for communication. Some screens are large. Other screens can only display a few lines of text at a time. One user of my BBS even used a Hewlett Packard pocket calculator with a tiny, tiny screen. Many online services allow you to tailor the way information is sent to you. If you are satisfied with how things are, skip the next couple of pages and read from "Connecting the first time." If curious of your options, read on for a somewhat brief and technical overview. Besides a selection of various types of menus, you can usually also set the following preferences:

* What menu is to be the first, when you access the service?

* The first menu is to be a tailored menu containing your

favorite offerings, and nothing else.

* Colors, graphics, or no colors/graphics.

* Preferred file transfer protocol (to avoid a question each

time you want to transfer a file).

* Desired terminal emulator, like TTY, VT-100 or VT-52.

* CAPITAL LETTERS or Mixed Case.

* What ASCII character code to use for the DELETE function.

* How many spaces to insert when expanding TABs in your mail.

* Number of lines per screen (for example, 24 on an IBM PC, or

eight on a TRS-80 Model 100. Whether scrolling is to pause

after each screenful or not.)

* Number of characters per line (for example, 80 lines on a PC,

or 40 on a TRS-80 Model 100.

* If the linefeed character is to be sent or not.

* If blank lines are to be sent.

* Whether the service is to check when you log on to see if

you're using special software (as in 'Inquire for VIDTEX' on

CompuServe).

* The use of 'echo'. Is the service to return the characters

that you enter on your keyboard?

* Use of delay when sending linefeeds. (Useful if capturing

text to a dumb printing terminal. If text scrolls too fast

for the printer, you risk losing some of it.)

* Choice of prompt character, or prompt text string. This is

useful when communicating by script files. On CompuServe, I

have asked the system to add the BackSpace character (ASCII

character number 8) to the end of all forum prompts. Since

this character is rarely found in messages or other texts,

I can safely let scripts depend on this prompt character for

unattended communication.

Displaying information on the screen ------------------ An 'A' is not an 'A' no matter what service you use. If you call Tocolo BBS in Japan (Tel.: +81-3-205-9315. 1200 bps, 8,N,1.) with a non-Japanese MS-DOS computer, chances are that the welcome text will look like this:

*-------------------------------* * D0:[ BBS (<^/9] 7.8) * * 62>] =3 --> 3 (@^2K.3 03-205-9315) * * 3]V3 <^6] --> 24 <^6] 6D^3 C=D A-3 * * (Wed 9:00-17:00 J R]C I @R 5T=P C^=) * *-------------------------------*

You'll need a Japanese ROM (Read-Only Memory) in your computer, a special graphics program, or a Japanese language operating system to have the Kanji characters displayed properly on your screen. The characters that you see on your computer's screen are based on a code. The computer finds the characters to display from a table built into your system's hardware or software. Most personal computers can be preset to use various tables depending on your needs. When communicating in English, you may want it to show Latin characters. When writing in Japanese, you may want it to display Kanji characters. Those writing in Norwegian, often want to use the special Scandinavian characters . If the first two of these Nordic characters read like the symbols for Yen and Cent, you're not set up for Scandinavian characters. If your system is set up correctly, they should look like an 'o' and an 'O' overwritten by a '/'. The code telling your computer what to display, may also contain information about where to put characters and what colors to use. Thus, an online service may order your computer to display a given character in column 10 on line 2, and to print it in blinking red color. If you're not set up correctly, these codes may show as garbage on your screen rather than as a colorful character in a given position. If you call a service set to display text in VT-52 format, and your communications program is set accordingly, then you should be OK. VT-52 is a setup that makes a program or a service 'behave' like a DEC VT-52 terminal. Being able to view VT-52 coded text on your screen, does not guarantee that you can capture this 'picture' to a file on your disk. Your communications program may need special features to do that. If these features are missing, you are in for a surprise. The text in your capture file may look like in this example (it came on a single, long line on my computer):

---------------------------------- *H*J*Y"4 Innhold*Y%> *Y&4Emneoversikt 1 Brukerprofil 6*Y)4Stikkord A-] 2 Bruker- *Y*4 veiledning 7*Y,4Informasjons- *Y- 4leverand|rer A-] 3 Teledatanytt*Y.W 8*Y04Personlig indeks 4*Y2H *Y34Meldingstjenesten 5 Avslutte 9*Y64 ]pningsside *00# *Y 4TELEDATA 880823-1538*Y74 NTA01-00a*Y74 *Y74*Y74

----------------------------------

The character '*' in this example refers to the ESCape character (ASCII number 27). ESC is used to tell your computer that what follows is a VT-52 display command. The codes following the ESC say where text is to be printed on your screen (from line number x and column number y). If your communications program cannot save VT-52 coded text in a readable way, you'll need auxiliary programs to remove or convert the codes. Some communication programs let you take snapshots of the screen, and store the result in a file. This usually gives good results, but it may be a cumbersome approach. Prestel (British Telecom, England) belongs to a group of online services called videotex (or viewdata). Minitel (in France and the U.S.), Alex (Canada), and Prodigy (U.S.A.) are also in this group. They believe that beautiful color graphics, large characters, and menus give them a competitive advantage. CompuServe is often called a videotex service because of its emphasis on menus. However, most call it 'ASCII videotex' as it is not depending on special display formats. Their philosophy is that 'plain text' is required to attract many users across hardware platforms. The viewdata services use graphical display standards with names like Prestel, CEPT, Captain (Character and Pattern Telephone Access Information Network System, in Japan), Telidon (Canada), Minitel, Teletel (France), GIF (the Graphics Interchange Format), Viewdata, and NAPLPS (The North American Presentation Level Protocol Syntax). You often need special terminal machines to use some viewdata services. On other services, you must use special software plus an emulator card in your computer. Users of the communications program Procomm Plus can buy a Viewdata module for conversion of Prestel videotex text to plain ASCII, i.e., plain text without imbedded special codes. Many MS-DOS based bulletin boards let you set access defaults to colors and graphics. Most of them use ANSI graphics in welcome texts and menus. Users of Procomm must set their program to ANSI BBS to take advantage. Capture these welcome texts and menus to a file on your hard disk, and view them with an editor. They are filled with ANSI escape codes, and thus hard to read (and search). The good news is that conference and forum mail only rarely contains such codes. Many users routinely keep captured online information on their hard disks for later reference. If this is your intention, make sure that text is sent to you in plain ASCII, or TTY mode.

TTY sends one line at a time, and only uses the codes TAB,

BackSpace, Carriage Return and LineFeed during the transfer.

The rest is 'plain text'.

Most online services offer TTY format. You can use the setting almost everywhere. Even the videotex service Prestel offers an option called 'TTY Teletype'. If 'TTY' or 'ASCII' is not on your online services' list of options, try 'Others' or 'Other computers'. These settings usually identify your computer as unable to handle 'standard' colors, sound and graphics. Viewdata pages may provide "selling pictures," but the screens often have a low contents of information compared with TTY-based services. They are therefore not my favorite services for news in full-text. In other applications, like games, colorful graphics are a definite advantage.

Connecting the first time ------------- If you have unlimited financial resources, go ahead and call up services all over the world. Learning by doing is exciting. If resources are limited, start by reading user information manual. Or, go online to capture key menus and help texts. Print them out on paper for further study before going online again for a 'real' visit. I always hurry slowly during my first visits to a new online service. I call up, capture information about how to use it, and disconnect. It may take me days to study the material. My objective is to find what the service has to offer in order to plan how to use it most efficiently. The first important command to look up is the logoff command. There is nothing more frustrating than entering "bye" only to get an error message. If lost, try "quit", "exit", "logoff", "off" and "G", in the hope of finding the correct command. These are the most usual variations. You should also try HELP or "?". If you really can't figure out how to get off a system, just hang up on it. Be careful, though. Some systems will continue to charge for a period, even after you have disconnected by hanging up. One of the first things that I do, is set my options to expert status, though I am obviously an amateur at this stage. Often, I also start automating the process during my first visits. I write script files for automatic access and quick navigation to key offerings. Another good strategy is to look for automated offline readers or systems (see Chapter 16 for details). Others prefer paper and pencil. They write a list of required commands on a piece of paper, like this:

Call 0165

At CONNECT: ENTER @SP ENTER

At the NUI prompt: Nxxxxxppppp-a170041

At Enter 'dix' and : dix

At - More -: ENTER

At Your name: Odd de Presno

At Password: hemmelig

At What do you want to do:

- when no unread mail goodbye

- when mail to read ENTER

Put the list by your keyboard before calling the service. Follow it carefully. After a while you may remember the procedure, and can throw away your notes.

Good luck!