response 1 of 49:

May 29 16:09 UTC 1995

Chapter 2, section 3, suggested addition: Menu shell
CHapter 3, section 5, do .login and .profile belong in this chapter?
Chapter 4, suggest the need for an etiquette section for email
Chapter 6, section 2, emacs
 (you might relegate both emacs and vi to a 'unix experts' subsection)
Other things that you might want -
 editing your .plan file
 changing your full name/password
 terminal emulation

response 3 of 49:

May 30 00:05 UTC 1995

The Joy of Grex

(er, well, maybe that needs more thought...)

I'll critique the outline when I've got more time.  Just breezing
through at the moment/

response 5 of 49:

May 30 07:35 UTC 1995

directory "roadmap"; .cflist; .cfidir; terminal emulations; 
shelling;...(just a few more topics, in no particular order).

response 7 of 49:

May 31 12:18 UTC 1995

I think it's going to be printed, James, not necessarily on-line.


More suggestions for the outline:
Chapter 3: include the "postpone" and "new" commands.  Why cover bbsed
(and only bbsed) here?  Most newbies are configured to use pico these days.

Chapter 5: maybe include a figlet section?  and maybe mathom?  party?

Chapter 6: maybe include joe along with the other text editors?  It's
easy to use and more powerful than pico.  Include the "man" command here,
so users know where to get more information?

Chapter 8: maybe include some stuff from the internet conference, eg.
netfind, archie, veronica; pointers to the text files in the
/usr/loccal/inet directory (those are lists of ftp sites, etc).

This is going to be really cool, Dan.  Thanks for doing this!

response 9 of 49:

Jun 1 01:58 UTC 1995

Yes. I'll download these suggestions and come up with a revised outline.

response 11 of 49:

Jun 2 15:12 UTC 1995

OK, here's a new version of the outline. Thanks for all the
suggestions.

Here are also some comments about your comments.

- It may just be me, but I think vi is more widely used than
  emacs and deserves some coverage in the manual.  emacs is truly
  for experts and way too complicated to cover except to mention
  that it exists and then quickly point those interested to other
  sources.

- How many people actually want or need to use mh?

- That's interesting that most new users are now using pico.
  When I first started work on this outline we didn't even have
  pico on Grex.

- The Internet chapter is going to be one of the hardest to
  decide what to include and what to leave out.  This isn't an
  Internet manual after all.

- I've added a chapter titled, "Getting Help"  Suggestions for
  what to include here would be appreciated.


Snappy Title (still missing)

1. What is Grex?
    1. A Short History
    2. The Grex Charter
    3. Becoming a Member
2. Getting Started
    1. What equipment do you need?
    2. What's Terminal Emulation?
    3. Getting to Grex
        1. dial-in
        2. Internet
    4. Becoming a User: Running the newuser program
        1. bbs shell
        2. menu shell
        3. lynx shell
        4. Unix shells
3. Conferencing
    1. Basic Introduction to PicoSpan
    2. Using PicoSpan
        1. Conference/item/response hierarchy
        2. Basic commands: read, respond, forget, postpone, 
           new, enter, scan, browse, join, stop, display, exit, 
           help
        3. Advanced commands: find, remember, expurgate, 
           scribble, pseudo, source
        4. Editors
        5. Pagers
    3. Conferencing Etiquette
    4. Introduction to other features
    5. Customizing Picospan
        1. .cflist, .cfonce, .cfdir
        2. rseps, iseps
        3. other stuff??
    6. Fairwitnessing
4. Sending and Receiving E-Mail
    1. mail
    2. elm
    3. pine
    4. E-mail Etiquette
5. Other Fun Stuff
    1. write
    2. party
    3. talk/ntalk/ytalk
    4. mathom
    5. figlets
    6. games
6. Getting Help
    1. write help
    2. send mail to ????
    3. call ???
7. UNIX for Grexers
    1. Basic file handling (ls, rm, cat, chmod, ln, mv, cd, 
       pathnames?)
    2. Editor Basics
        1. bbsed
        2. pico
        3. joe??
        4. vi
    3. Miscellaneous: last, ps, etc.
    4. Pointers to better reference books
8. Usenet News
9. Internet Services
    1. telnet
    2. ftp
    3. WWW
        1. lynx
        2. making your home page
10. Appendix:  Cyberspace Communications Bylaws

response 13 of 49:

Jun 2 15:49 UTC 1995

Oh, also, I think "figlet" is singular, not plural.

BTW -- the outline looks *really* good!!

response 15 of 49:

Jun 2 17:05 UTC 1995

I would argue that Emacs is actually easier to use than vi, due to the
fact that it is modeless, and that most newusers have probably not
encountered an editor with multiple modes before.  Emacs *is* a lot
more complex than vi, but most of the complexity can be ignored for
the new user.  There are really only a few Emacs commands you have to
know in order to use it -- cursor up/down/left/right, backspace, and
exit.  Then there are a few more that make Emacs a lot easier to use
-- beginning/end of line, delete character at cursor (C-d), delete to
end of line (C-k), yank last deletion (C-y), and forward/backward
screenful (C-v/M-v).  You could also include some stuff on regions
(set mark, kill region, etc.).  And, of course, you should include how
to access the on-line help (C-h).  You might want to look at the Emacs
tutorial for more (start Emacs, then press C-h followed by t).

response 17 of 49:

Jun 3 00:22 UTC 1995

Emacs is a system hog.  Even though it is a very intelligent editor, on
a system like grex, where it takes at least one full second to see
what you are typing (read load is extremely high), I think that it
would be criminal (I like that word!) to advocate the use of emacs by
the masses...

(Forgive me if I just started a religious war...)

'Sides mju, not everyone has root to "nice" their editor to a
reasonable level.  Not saying that you would do that of course...
<grin>

response 19 of 49:

Jun 3 03:47 UTC 1995

The manual would have to be revised occasionally, as many technical
publications do.  Revisions are much easier than getting the thing 
done in the first place.  And if I decide not to update it,  Cyberspace
will own the copyright and can do it themselves.

response 21 of 49:

Jun 4 10:18 UTC 1995

[  Re#18:  Agreed, inet link is the bottle neck, but for religious  ]
[  reasons, I can't agree about the emacs statement.    <grin>      ]

response 23 of 49:

Jun 5 22:10 UTC 1995

Yes.