GENERAL:

  The following two programs are user message logging utilities  written
in  VAX  C.  REPLY will log any messages sent to your terminal to a file
and issue a reply message to  the  sender.  The  reply  message  can  be
specified when  the  program  is  executed,  or a default message can be
used.  MESSAGE,  based on REPLY,  runs as a "background program"  (using
spawn/nowait),  and  simply  logs  all  received  messages to a log file
before printing them to  the  screen.  This  could  be  useful  if,  for
example,  you  receive a message just before the screen clears (as often
happens in a screen editor, graphics package, etc). 

  Unfortunatly, both programs must be run while you are logged  in  at a
terminal;  you  can  not  be  detached, disconnected, or logged out. The
reason for this is that (as far as I can tell),  VMS  will  not  send  a
message  to  any  user  unless  there is a physical terminal attached to
that user. If anyone finds (or knows) a way around this, let me know. 

  REPLY was written for basically two reasons:  1)  a co-worker wanted a
program to send reply messages like the GONE EXEC  and  it's  variations
under CMS,  and,  2) I was trying  to  learn  the  C  language  and  was
experimenting with the SMG library routines.  REPLY seemed a logical way
to learn about both of these.  I did not see it as being a  real  useful
program at the time, but apparently from the response I have had, it has
indeed turned out to be useful to many people.  My boss later  suggested
that I make the MESSAGE program so that he would not miss  any  messages
due to the screen clearing,  or perhaps so  that  he  could  maintain  a
hardcopy listing of any stupid arguments or death  threats  he  received
from students here at the university.

  Some of the code may look a bit stupid or redundent,  but is necessary
as I have mixed SMG I/O routines with C I/O routines, and sometimes they
confuse each other.  If any future modifications are made,  the first of
them will be to remove all SMG routines, rewriting the entire program in
C, using mailboxs and a spawned job to do the work.

REPLY:

   This  program  will  log to a log file any messages sent to you while
you are out.  It will then issue a reply message to the sender if it was
a user message. The program will correctly handle the following types of
messages: 

	SEND  messages from the current node	(log and reply)
	SEND  messages from another node	(log and reply)
	MAIL  messages 				(log, no reply)
	BATCH messages				(log, no reply)
	TRANS messages (prog by Brian Nelson)	(log, no reply)
	^T    messages (must be set for system) (log, no reply)

	NOTE: The source code must be changed in order for REPLY
              to handle ^T and TRANS messages correctly. This is
              simply a matter of replacing our node name in  the
              source with your node name.    See the source code 
	      for more information.
  
   There  are  two  ways  of running REPLY. The first method is with the
standard VMS RUN command. If run this way, REPLY will  use  the  default
reply message. The other way is to define a DCL symbol or command to run
REPLY. For example, if the executable file is in sys$system, then:

$ REPLY :== $ sys$system:reply.exe

  Then, to run the program with the default message, simply enter:

$ REPLY

  To run the program with a different message, type: 

$ REPLY "I am in a meeting - I will be back at 2:30 PM"

  When the program is run, it sets up a small menu.  This tells you  the
number of user messages received (messages sent via SEND), the number of
system messages received (all other messages, including ^T), the current
date and time,  and a command explaination and command prompt. 

 There  are  two commands in the program: Q (for quit) and E (for edit).
Q will simply exit the program. E will spawn the default editor to allow
you to edit the message logging file. 

  Note that  if  several  messages  are  sent  rapidly,  some may not be
logged, as the message trap must be disabled in order to spawn  a  reply
message. Using the EDIT option also disables the trap. 

  Note also that currently the user name and node name together must not
exceed 16  characters  or  the reply will fail!!!   This could be easily
changed but I have not got around to it yet... 

  All messages are stored in "SYS$LOGIN:MESSAGES.LOG."

MESSAGE:

  This program will log any messages sent to you in a disk file and then
display it on the screen, so that you will  have  a  disk  copy  of  any
messages  that  are sent your way. This is useful for reviewing messages
sent just before the  screen  clears  or  that  have  scrolled  off  the
screen,  or for obtaining a copy of death threats and what-have-you that
may be sent to you, etc. 

  The program is run by a command of the format:

SPAWN/NOWAIT RUN MESSAGE

  I would suggest that you set up a logical symbol for it, as in:

$ message :== "spawn/nowait run message"

  Messages are stored in "SYS$LOGIN:MSG.LOG."

  There are a few problems with  using  this  program.  If  you  try  to
execute  another command that must take over your terminal, you will get
a "divice is active" error. The most notable instance  of  this  is  the
DCL "SET HOST" command. 

  Because messages are logged to a file and then printed to the  screen,
incomming messages in DCL will not reprint the current input line  as  a
message  normally  would.  This  means  that if you are typing in a line
when a message comes in, you will have to type a ^R to have DCL  reprint
the line (assuming you like to be able to see what you are entering). 

COMPILATION:

   Each  program  is  completely  contained  in  one source file. Simply
compile and link as you would any normal VAX C program. For example: 

$ cc REPLY
$ assign sys$library:vaxcrtl.olb lnk$library
$ link REPLY
$ deassign lnk$library

FILES INCLUDED:

The following files are included:

REPLY.DOC		This file.
REPLY.C			The source for REPLY.
REPLY.EXE		The executable REPLY program.
MESSAGE.C		The source for MESSAGE.
MESSAGE.EXE		The executable MESSAGE program.

KNOW BUGS:

  REPLY has been known to bomb from time to time  after  returning  from
the some editors.  With the SED  (or TED)  editor by Brian Nelson,  this
happens very often.  I do not know why this happens or how to fix it, or 
if it exist under all versions of VMS.   It appears to be a problem with
the SMG data being overwritten in some way.

  MESSAGE has no known bugs.