Grex Intro Conference

View Responses

Grex Intro Item 2: Guide to PicoSpan [frozen]
Entered by introfw on Tue Apr 16 15:30:45 UTC 1996:

                             PICOSPAN GUIDE
                                    
This guide will help you become familiar with our conferencing
software. Be sure to look at the "Helpful Concepts" if you are new to
PicoSpan.


                          SOME HELPFUL CONCEPTS
                                    
A conference is a group of people discussing multiple related topics
of mutual interest over time.

GREX has many interesting conferences, and you can participate in as
many of them as you like.

An item is a specific discussion started by a GREX user about an idea
related to the conference's main subject.

A conference contains many items. After you read an item, you can make
your own response to it if you choose. Items become a permanent part
of the conference, and can be read at any time by any interested GREX
user.

A response is a comment added to the end of an item. Over time, an
item may collect many responses.

You can easily scan what's new in the discussions; review things you
read earlier; and filter out areas of discussion that you don't find
interesting.



                            READING NEW ITEMS
                                    
To read new items and responses type:

  read
  
GREX will display the text of any new items, and new responses to old
items.

You can modify your read request. For instance to specify only items
and responses entered since some date, e.g., June 3, type the date:

  scan since 6/3
  
To look at item 22 in particular, type:

  read 22
  


                        ADDING YOUR OWN RESPONSE
                                    
You can add your response to items that interest you by typing:

  respond
  
at the Respond or Pass? prompt.

Start entering your text. When you are finished typing, exit the
editor. (Use ^x for pico, the default editor.)



                           ENTERING A NEW ITEM
                                    
If you have a new topic to introduce for discussion,-- that is,
something that isn't already under discussion within the current set
of items--at the Ok: prompt type:

  enter
  


                            SEEING WHAT'S NEW
                                    
To see the "headers" of all the items in your current conference, at
the Ok: prompt type:

  browse
  
GREX lists the header of every item in the conference.

To get the headers for items changed since some date, e.g., June 3,
use a date:

  browse since 6/3
  
To get the headers of only new items and those with changes, type:

  browse new
  


                         FINDING SPECIFIC IDEAS
                                    
To find all the items and responses in a conference that mention a
particular idea, e.g., mentions of "communication", at the Ok: prompt,
type:

  find "communication" all
  


                        FINDING OTHER CONFERENCES
                                    
GREX has dozens of conferences. To find the ones that interest you, at
the Ok: prompt, type:

  help conferences
  
Once you find a conference you'd like to explore, you can join it. For
instance, to join the co-op conference: At the Ok: prompt, type:

  join coop
  


                          QUITTING CONFERENCING
                                    
When you're finished conferencing for the time being, at the Ok:
prompt type:

  quit
  


                        SCREENING OUT DISCUSSIONS
                                    
To screen out an item concerning an uninteresting topic, at the
Respond or Pass? prompt, type:

  forget
  
The item will then be "forgotten" and you won't see any future
activity.



                        GETTING MORE INFORMATION
                                    
For information about GREX commands, at any prompt type:

  help
  
To get help with a specific command or modifier, at the Ok: prompt
type:

  help command
  
i.e.: help read.


Ok: help read
To read new items in a conference.
You may first want to enter:
 browse all
to get a list of items of interest
to you.  Then if you want to look at
item 22 from your list you can
enter:
 read 22
After each item, you will be
prompted to "Respond or pass?" Type:
 r
to respond, or just press [RETURN]
to pass.

NOTE: To save you time, the information provided on your first request
for help is limited. Watch for references to related commands you'll
want to know more about.



                          SOME USEFUL COMMANDS
                                    
 For handling items:
 read       browse     join       find
 print      respond    thaw       freeze
 check      remember   next       enter
 retire     unretire   postpone   header

 For handling responses:
 text       pseudonym  again      current
 pass       new        expunge    since
 first      last       kill       only

 For dealing with other things:
 help       write      resign
 display    echo       mail       change
 system     leave      bye
 define     undefine   quit       source




_________________________________________________________________

This guide to PicoSpan was prepared from the Grex Guide "Take Me to
Your Modem" by Misti Anslin.
_________________________________________________________________

1 responses total.

#1 of 1 by introfw on Tue Apr 16 15:35:11 1996:

One helpful bit of advice that wasn't mentioned here:  For
most of you the screen will pause after displaying one screen
of text.  There will be a little message at the bottom of
the screen saying one of the following:

        Press Spacebar for more, q to quit
        --More--

When that happens, you can either hit the space bar to read
more of the item and responses, or you can hit "q", which
will stop the item from being displayed and take you right
to the "Respond or pass?" prompt.  If you find yourself in
the middle of a long item that you don't want to read any
more, hitting "q" is the fastest way to get out.

Response not possible - You must register and login before posting.