From: Jonathan Duddington
Subject: Application Files
Date: Thu, 06 Nov 1997 23:20:00
Source: docs

Contents of the Application Directory
=====================================

Articles
========

This directory contains the article files.  Articles are stored in 64 files named "articles0" to "articles31".  When new articles are loaded, they are added to the shortest article file.

Each article is stored as compressed text preceded by a header which contains information such as title, author, date, and size.

The "cards" file contains a copy of all the article headers and is used as an index to the articles.  The "cards" file is loaded into memory while the program is running, to allow fast access to this index information.

The "header" file contains information about the size and free space in each article file.

The "cards" and "header" files are written back to disc when the program terminates.  If they are missing, or if they are out of date because the program didn't terminate correctly, then they will be re-constituted from the "articles" files when the program is next run.


Backup
======

This directory is used to hold backup copies of the raw mail and raw news files after they have been debatched.

The number of backup copies can be set from Preferences->News.


Choices
=======

These data files hold information which the user sets up in the program.  They are used as follows:

Choices.Addresses
   The address book data.  This can be managed by using the "Address Book"
   option from Pluto's icon bar menu.  See [Address Book] for details.

Choices.Boxes
   Data defining the document boxes.  Each article belongs to one box.
   Click with Select on the icon bar icon to show the list of boxes.
   Adjust-double-click a box from the list to edit its data, delete it,
   or add another box.

Choices.Categories
   Information about Categories.  The category list is accessed from
   the "Categories" option from the icon bar menu.

Choices.Choices
   A file containing various user preferences settings and other data.

Choices.Display
   A file containing definitions of the various Sort criteria and their
   associated displays, for article lists.  These are set up from the
   Preferences->Sorting option from the icon bar menu.

Choices.Killfile
   This file contains filter conditions by which incoming mail and news
   messages can be sent to a specified Box, depending on their contents.
   It can be set up from the "Filter" option in Pluto's icon bar menu.

Choices.MailLists
   This directory contains distribution lists.
   These can be created by using a text editor, and contain a list
   of email addresses.  Using the filename of a distribution list in
   the To: field of a Write Mail window causes the email to be sent
   to all the addresses which are listed in the distribution list.
   See [Address Book] for details of the format of distribution lists.

Choices.NewsHead
   Additional lines to be added to the Internet Header of outgoing news
   messages.  This is only used if the "Extra Header Lines" option is
   enabled in the Preferences->News dialogue.

Choices.Sources
   Information about "Sources".  These include newsgroup names, maillist
   names, and any others you may want for various documents.  The list
   of sources is accessed from the "Sources" option from the icon bar menu.
   Newsgroup names are automatically added to the sources list when
   debatching news articles.

Choices.Tags
   A file containing taglines.  Tags are randomly chosen from this file
   if a "Tags" option is set in the User preferences (for emails) or
   in the Preferences->News dialogue for News postings.

Signature
=========

This directory contains the signature files for each of the users. 
The first 10 characters of the user_id is used for the filename of
default signature file that user.

The default signature files can be created and edited from the USER
LIST.

Additional signature files can be placed in this directory.  They
will appear in the signatures menu in the Write Mail and Write News
windows so that you can choose them, if required, when posting a
message.


Speakmod and Data
=================

The text to speech module, and its associated speech data files.


Resources
=========

Dict, DictSp1, DictSp2, DictSp3.  These are data files for the
spelling checker.  (They are the same as the files of the same name
which come with the !Speak application).







