The Blue Wave Offline Mail Reader
Version 2.12 OS/2

Copyright (C) 1994 by Cutting Edge Computing
All Rights Reserved


PRE-INSTALLATION DOCUMENTATION AND
COMMON INSTALLATION "GOTCHA'S"


*** Please continue reading the documentation after you read the
pre-installation instructions that pertain to you. There is
information contained here that will help optimize performance
and answer questions about installation/operation that are bound to
cause many people some trouble!


First Time Installations
------------------------
If you are installing The Blue Wave Offline Mail Reader for the first
time (either the DOS or the OS/2 version), please see BWAVE2.DOC for
complete installation instructions. If you are one who refuses to read
documentation first, here's a small hint: you must run INSTALL.CMD to
create the BWAVE2.EXE executable.


Converting or Upgrading from DOS version to OS/2 version
--------------------------------------------------------
If you have already installed the OS/2 version or DOS version of the
reader, installation is simple. All support files (TAGLINES.BW,
TAGFILES.BW, KEYWORDS.BW, NAMES.BW, etc) are compatible between both
versions of the reader. You may install the OS/2 reader into the same
directory as your DOS reader.

In order to make changing between the DOS and the OS/2 version easy, the
default configuration file name for the OS/2 version is "BWAVEOS2.CFG",
instead of the default file name of "BWAVE200.CFG" for the DOS version.
This will allow different configurations between the two operating
environments.

To install the OS/2 version in the same directory as the DOS version,
simply copy these files to your current reader directory:

BWAVE2.INS
BWAVE2.EA
INSTALL.CMD

After copying these files, run the INSTALL.CMD file (from an OS/2 command
prompt!). INSTALL.CMD will create BWAVE2.EXE and delete the .INS and .EA
files for you. You can then load the reader by typing "BWAVE2" from the
OS/2 command prompt.

If you are a REGISTERED user of the DOS version, you will find that you
will need an upgraded registration number in order to run the OS/2 reader
in registered mode. Cutting Edge Computing is offering several discounts
for upgrading your registration number. If you registered the DOS reader
after July 1, 1993, you are eligible for a FREE upgrade. But you must
hurry, because this offer expires on April 1, 1994! If you registered
your DOS version before July 1, 1993, you are still eligible for a
discounted upgrade fee through April 1, 1994.

For full information on upgrade costs and procedures, please see either
REGISTER.BW (US, Canada, elsewhere), REGISTER.EUR (Europe), or
REGISTER.AUS (Australia).



COMMON PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS
-----------------------------
* The Blue Wave Offline Mail Reader for OS/2 needs to execute several
external programs in order to function properly. In order to unpack and
repack mail packets, you will need an external archiver/unarchiver.

Due to the current "lack" of OS/2 specific compression programs, there is
not a whole lot of options for you to choose from. While the reader will
load ANY archiver program (OS/2, DOS, and/or WIN), best performance is
obtained through the use of an OS/2 hosted application.

The InfoZIP Project's ZIP.EXE and UNZIP.EXE applications have been found
to be the best for use with the reader. (We recommend against the use of
PKZIP/UNZIP v1.02 for OS/2 due to the fact that you will not have ZIP
v2.x compatibility!).

If ZIP.EXE and UNZIP.EXE are found in the OS/2 PATH (defined in
CONFIG.SYS), they will automatically be installed by the reader the first
time you load it. UNZIP.EXE, in particular, will cause many people
problems when trying to install it into the reader (especially if they
are used to the way the DOS reader uses PKZIP and PKUNZIP).

UNZIP.EXE does not accept a command line parameter telling it WHERE to
place the files that it unarchives. UNZIP will *always* place the
unpacked files in the current directory. For this reason, the OS/2
reader will always CHANGE DIRECTORIES to the directory defined in the
SETUP menu as your "WORK" directory, call the OS/2 archiver, and then
restore the reader's "home" directory.

Because the reader changes to the WORK directory before calling an
archiver, it will NOT be enough to place your archiver executables in the
reader directory (unless the reader directory is on your PATH). You will
need to either place the archiver executables somewhere in your OS/2
PATH, or give the full drive:\directory\exename.exe when setting up the
reader.

Below are the command lines that need to be used for ZIP.EXE and
UNZIP.EXE:

Compression Command Line : C:\PATH\TO\ZIP.EXE -jk @F @I
Decompression Command Line : C:\PATH\TO\UNZIP.EXE @F

Please note that the DECOMPRESSION command line for UNZIP does *not* have
the '@I' parameter. Adding the '@I' parameter to the command line will
cause UNZIP.EXE to fail!

Please also note that the COMPRESSION command line for ZIP requires the
use of the -j command line parameter. If you do not include this command
line parameter, your archives will contain full path names, which will
(many times) cause the reader to fail when you decompress it.


* The reader will (by default) load all external programs in such a way
that any type of executable format that OS/2 supports (DOS, OS/2, WIN)
will run properly from within the reader. For example, you *could* use
PKZIP/PKUNZIP v2.04g for DOS as the ZIP program defined in the reader.
When using non-native OS/2 applications, the secondary program will be
spawned in another session by the command processor (CMD.EXE, 4OS2.EXE,
etc). This process will take a bit more time than simply executing an
OS/2 executable, but it allows for greater compatibility and selection of
programs.


* Here's a hint to save a few seconds of load time when the reader calls
an external program:

Suppose we have our editor defined as "C:\OS2UTIL\OS2EDIT.EXE @F", which
is an OS/2 executable. The default behavior is to call the command
processor, which in turn loads OS2EDIT.EXE. Since OS2EDIT.EXE is an OS/2
application, you can force the reader to execute OS2EDIT.EXE directly
(skipping the command processor) by placing an exclamation point (!) as
the first character in the command line:

!C:\OS2UTIL\OS2EDIT.EXE

This will shave a few seconds off of the load time of the editor,
especially with slower processors. Note that this technique works on ALL
command lines configurable within the reader.


* The reader cannot properly detect (and guard against) a user pressing
Control-Break. If you press Control-Break while using the reader, the
program will come to a screeching halt. This is due to [what we believe
to be] a bug in OS/2 itself. We will continue to work on the problem and
guard against the Control-Break sequence aborting the reader in the
future.

However, at this time, the only way around the problem is to not press
Control-Break when the reader has the keyboard focus!