NewDeal Hot Tip 1108

[Hot Tips for...] Telecommunications

NewComm Capture and Script Hints

When you activate the Capture To Text File command, NewComm will place all text presented on the screen in a text file that you can open later with Text File Editor or NewWrite. A child window will appear, with a Done button. Pressing the Done button closes the file. Once the child-window appears, it is active and highlighted since it was the most recent window to appear. You can highlight something else to work on.

Here are a few tricks:

  1. Although it appears that while NewComm is capturing text, you cannot interact with the other computer, that is not so. Just drag the header of the child-window and move it out of your way. Then interact with the other system as usual, while NewComm records your keystrokes and responses from the other system. Then you can use NewWrite to view the file, using a font like URW Mono.
  2. While you are capturing to a text file, you cannot download a file or highlight text to copy to a file directly. To do either of these tasks, you must click on DONE, thereby closing the file. NewComm will not let you append one capture text file to another capture text file. In the case where you have two or more capture sessions while using a BBS, you might number the capture files in sequence. That way, you can append the files later in NewWrite or Text File Editor.
  3. Script files: How to make them? Don't bother. Copy the two that you have for GEnie and CompuServe to new file names ending with .MAC, inspect them with Text File Editor and modify them. Simple. You get a guide to script files and it's relatively painless.
  4. NewComm can be used while you're working with other applications. For example, you can download a large file that takes 20 minutes or more to receive. While that is happening, you can open NewWrite and review the information you captured.

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Last Modified 2 Mar 1999