Subj : Re: MultiMail
To   : Jasen Betts
From : William McBrine
Date : Tue May 08 2001 03:48 am

-=> Jasen Betts wrote to BRUCE L WILSON <=-

 BLW> One thing I've become curious about is Xpress' flagging of
 BLW> messages that've been read by the recipient.  Is that a feature
 BLW> of the OPX file format, or something that could be implemented
 BLW> with QWK too?

 JB> such a flag is not part of the QWK format.

On the contrary, it is. It's just not widely implemented.

It doesn't help that the descriptions of the status flag in different
documents are slightly contradictory. QWKLAY says:

                ' ' = public, unread
                '-' = public, read
                '*' = private, read by someone but not by intended
                recipient
                '+' = private, read by official recipient
                '~' = comment to Sysop, unread
                '`' = comment to Sysop, read
                '%' = sender password protected, unread
                '^' = sender password protected, read
                '!' = group password protected, unread
                '#' = group password protected, read
                '$' = group password protected to all

(which is confusing in itself -- "read by someone but not by intended
recipient"?). A slighty better description (one of the few points where
it's better than QWKLAY) is found in the "official" specs:

PUBLIC message (message that anyone can read):
     ( ) - A message that has not been read
     (-) - A message to a specific person which has been read

PRIVATE message (message that only the sender or receiver can read):
     (*) - A message that has not been read
     (+) - A message which has been read by the addressee

COMMENT to the sysop:
     (~) - A comment to the sysop which has not been read
     (`) - A comment to the sysop which has been read

SENDER PASSWORD (message that require a password to delete them):
     (%) - A message which has not been read
     (^) - A message which has been read by the addressee

GROUP PASSWORD (message that require a password to read them):
     (!) - A message which has not been read
     (#) - A message which has been read by the addressee
     ($) - A message which was addressed to ALL

In practice, usually only ' ' and '*' are used, but I've seen an occasional
'+'. (I may have run into '-', but I haven't bothered to check for that --
all I do is set the internal private flag if the QWK flag is '*' or '+',
and leave it public otherwise.) Of course, many doors couldn't generate the 
full range of flags if they wanted to, because the info's not stored in the 
message base. But I assume that PCBoard does use similar flags.

.... So easy, a child could do it. Child sold separately.
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