BEARSoft Auto Responder Companion for Pegasus Mail
(c) BEARSoft 1998-99

INTRODUCTION
Have you ever needed to reply to e-mails automatically while you are on
vacation or away from the office? Do you wish you could provide the ftp
facility which your Internet account does not support? Are you
struggling to manage on-line document distribution? Would you like to
respond to web form output? BEARSARC provides an affordable solution to
all these problems and more. 

BEARSARC is the first fully featured shareware e-mail auto responder
for Windows(R).

For less than $50 (plus post and packing) BEARSARC provides Pegasus(R)
Mail, the famous high quality shareware e-mail client, with a
sophisticated auto-responder capability. 

BEARSARC is activated by a Pegasus(R) e-mail filtering rule, and manages
responses using a simple but powerful scripting language. 

BEARSARC is very simple to install and configure, and should run under
all current versions of Windows(R). 


BEARSARC 1.1 Shareware
You have downloaded BEARSARC Version 1.1
BEARSARC Version 1.1 Shareware is supplied free of charge and may be
freely re-distributed. BEARSARC Version 1.1 is a fully functional e-mail
auto responder and is not time limited. It includes a brief
advertisement at the end of each response sent. Technical support is
limited to installation problems. 

BEARSARC Version 1.1 Shareware is capable of:
	including text files in the body of a response
	attaching any kind of file to a response

Each of these actions can be performed by a string match in the TO,
FROM, or SUBJECT fields of the incoming message, or by a string match in
the body of the incoming message. Any action can also be performed
unconditionally. 

Version 1.1 Shareware supports scripts of up to four rules, each of
which may contain two tests and one action. This permits up to four
files to included in or attached to a response, in any combination of
attachments or inclusions. The maximum parsed length of an incoming
message is forty lines including the e-mail header. This approximates to
twenty lines of message body. Test strings can have a maximum length of
twenty characters and are case-sensitive. 


BEARSARC 2.0 Licensed
BEARSARC 2.0 is a fully licensed version of BEARSARC with much greater
power and more facilities than the shareware version. Version 2.0 adds:
	cgi/web form handling
	increased number of rules
	increased number of tests and actions per rule
	longer and more complex test strings
	response formatting capabilities
	handling of much longer incoming messages
	delivery of a copy response to another address
to the capabilities of Version 1.1

BEARSARC Version 2.0 Licensed attracts advanced technical support
including scripting guidance, and will be upgraded to meet customer
demand. It is exclusively available from BEARSoft on mail order. Each
issued copy is customized with the preferred identity of the licensed
user, and includes a discreet authentication statement at the end of
each response. 


Installing BEARSARC
BEARSARC uses the Windows(R) DDE client/server mechanism provided by
DDEML.DLL, which should be present in any complete installation of
Windows(R). For this reason, BEARSARC consists of two executables: a
very small client BSARC.EXE, and a server BSARCSRV.EXE, which is larger.
Except for testing, you will never run the server directly. It is
launched by the client, which is in turn launched by Pegasus(R). 

Before attempting to install BEARSARC, you should use explorer/file
manager to establish the drive and path to your Pegasus(R) mailbox
directory. Record this carefully, as you will need it during the install
process. 

If your copy of BEARSARC is downloaded as a zip compressed file, this
should be unzipped into a temporary directory on your hard disk. If you
unzip it using PKZIP(R), you should see the BEARSoft authentication
which assures it is genuine and complete. Note that if you download from
an ftp site, you may not see the BEARSoft authentication, as some sites
repackage the files submitted to them. 

To install BEARSARC, just run BSARCINS.EXE, which will be found on the
floppy disk or in the temporary directory you unzipped into, along with
the other BEARSARC installation files. You can either use the RUN
command to start BSARCINS.EXE or just double click on the executable
name, as there are no command line parameters. 

You will be presented with a dialogue requesting the drive on which to
install BEARSARC, and the full drive-and-path to your Pegasus(R) mailbox
directory. Both use drop-down lists, and the mailbox path allows a full
drive and directory search to be made. 

The rest of the install process is completely automatic. The following
directories are created:
  DRV:\BSARC    contains the executables
	DRV:\BSARC\LOG          contains the BEARSARC log file
	DRV:\BSARC\BODY contains text files to be included in e-mails
	DRV:\BSARC\ATTACH       contains any files to be attached to e-mails

where DRV: is the drive letter you chose at install time.

All the BEARSARC installable files are copied to DRV:\BSARC, and a new
BSARCSRV.INI file is generated in the same directory. The first time
BSARCSRV.EXE is run, BSARCSRV.LOG is created in the directory pointed to
by the LOG= parameter in BSARCSRV.INI (default: DRV:\BSARC\LOG). 

You should test your installation by running the server BSARCSRV.EXE
from the DRV:\BSARC directory in explorer/file manager. The server
should start and display a version-dependent dialogue which you should
dismiss by clicking the ABORT button, which is normally used to
voluntarily terminate an auto response session. After you have
dismissed the dialogue, BSARCSRV.LOG in the DRV:\BSARC\LOG directory
should contain the single line: 

Server started- DATE: dd/mm/yy, TIME: hh:mm:ss

indicating that the server is operational.

Next, run the client BSARC.EXE from the DRV:\BSARC directory. The server
should start, and will need to be aborted as before, after which
BSARCSRV.LOG should contain the additional message: 

Server started- DATE: dd/mm/yy, TIME: hh:mm:ss
No parms: client terminated

If this is the case and no error message boxes opened, the installation
is good and you can proceed to set up Pegasus(R) to communicate with
BEARSARC. The only time you should ever need to run BSARCSRV.EXE again
is to check your license number if you want to contact BEARSoft about
your copy of version 2.0. 

If you want an icon for the BEARSARC server on your desktop (although
this is not essential), you should create one manually for BSARCSRV.EXE,
using create shortcut or new program item, depending which version of
Windows(R) you are running. The BEARSARC client has no icon. 

Uninstalling BEARSARC, should you ever wish to, is simplicity itself.
Because BEARSARC puts all the files it needs in its own directory
structure, just deleting DRV:\BSARC and all its subdirectories will
uninstall it completely. 

Although BEARSARC can be run from anywhere, and an alternative directory
structure can be specified in BSARCSRV.INI, it is strongly recommended
that you let the installer set up the directory structure shown above.
The reason is that Pegasus(R) must quote the full path to BEARSARC in
its activation call, and the Pegasus(R) rule command line is quite
limited in length. If you choose to edit the BSARCSRV.INI file yourself,
you must conform to the convention: TAG=parm, where TAG is always upper
case, and parm is always lower case. Never modify the section headings
in [SQUARE BRACES]. 


Setting up Pegasus(R) for BEARSARC
Pegasus(R) is the only executable you ever have to run when responding
to e-mail. You set up a mail filtering rule in Pegasus(R), which
launches a BEARSARC client for each message you wish to respond to. 

From the Pegasus(R) menu bar, select:

	Tools,
		Mail filtering rules,
			Edit new mail filtering rules,
				Rules applied when folder is opened,
					Add rule

select Run a program from the combo box at the bottom of the dialogue.
Enter the full drive, path and name of the BEARSARC client, e.g. 

e:\bsarc\bsarc.exe

followed by at least one space,  then the command

s=SCRIPT

where SCRIPT is the name of the script file you wish to execute. No path
is given for the script file, as the script path in BSARCSRV.INI is
always used. The script file name must include any extension. 

Thus the full command line might look like

e:\bsarc\bsarc.exe  s=standard.bss

It is a good idea to use 8.3 (MS-DOS) format file and directory names,
as the Pegasus(R) command line is short, and in no case should you use a
file or directory name which includes spaces, as this will thwart
BEARSARC command line parsing. 

A single level of message filtering is available in the Pegasus(R) rule
dialogue. One text string may be searched for in various parts of the
message, and BEARSARC will only be launched if that text is found. If
you want all incoming messages to be handled by a single script, you
should make the Pegasus(R) test something truly universal, such as 

"In these headers",  "to" and @MYHOST,   where MYHOST is your e-mail host name.

This setup will allow BEARSARC to respond to all your e-mails in the
background while you interactively handle your e-mail. Every response
generated is logged in BSARCSRV.LOG with the time and date of the
session. The number of messages posted to BEARSARC in the session and
any errors are also logged. 

If you wish to respond selectively to your e-mail, you can create a more
complex Pegasus(R) rule set which launches alternative instances of the
BEARSARC with different parameters in response to different types of
e-mail message. If you have an e-mail account which offers a virtual
domain (e.g. something@yourchoice.isp.com) you can usually substitute
any name you like for something, allowing you multiple e-mail aliases.
These can be used as a convenient method of filtering at the Pegasus(R)
rule level. 

Whichever approach you use, each time you download e-mail, BEARSARC will
prepare responses, and queue them for transmission the next time you
send your e-mail. To make this process truly transparent, you should
always use the "check and send in one operation" button in the
Pegasus(R) toolbar.

A full manual including scripting guidelines is provided in RTF format.

The authors can be contacted, and installation support obtained, by
e-mail on bearsoft@bjarni.demon.co.uk

