Telix allows you to keep telephone numbers in files called dialing di-
rectories. A dialing directory is variable sized and can hold from 1
to 1000 entries. Besides the number, many other fields of information
are stored, such as the communications parameters needed to talk to
the service. All the fields are described below. The default dialing
directory file is called TELIX.FON, but you can have as many di-
rectories as you want and load them as needed.
To access the dialing directory press Alt-D while in terminal mode. A
small window will appear, asking you to enter the entries to dial or
to press Return to see the dialing directory. For the moment just
press Return. This first window is simply a very quick way to dial
your most commonly called numbers. Once you have pressed Return the
dialing directory will appear.
For each entry, many items are stored. All the fields can not be dis-
played at the same time; you may toggle which fields are shown on the
screen by selecting the Toggle command. Each entry contains informa-
tion under the following headers:
Name
The name of the remote service (i.e., Compuserve, Genie, Telix
Software Support BBS, etc.).
Number
The phone number which Telix should dial to reach the remote ser-
vice.
Line Format
The communication parameters (such as baud rate, parity, etc.)
needed to talk to this service.
Script
A script file may be linked to each entry in the dialing direc-
tory. When Telix connects to this service, that script file is
then run, and may for example automatically log-on, entering your
name and password as needed, for greater convenience and speed.
LastCall
The date of the last successful call you made to this remote ser-
vice.
Total
The total number of successful calls you've made to this number.
Terminal
The terminal Telix should start emulating when a connection has
been reached to this number.
P (Protocol)
The first letter of the protocol which should be set as the de-
fault if a connection is reached to this number.
E (Echo)
Whether local echo should be on or off when a connection is
reached with this number.
L (Add Line Feeds)
This controls whether the Add Line Feeds setting should be on or
off when a connection is reached with this number.
H (Strip High Bit)
Whether Telix will strip the high (most significant) bit of in-
coming characters in terminal mode.
BD (Backspace Destructive)
Whether a received backspace sequence is destructive (that is, if
the character backspaced over should also be erased).
BK (Backspace Key Value)
What value the Backspace key sends, either Backspace, or Del.
DP (Dialing Prefix Number)
This (advanced) setting is used to tell Telix what Dialing Prefix
to use when dialing this entry. One use for it is to turn on or
off MNP (error correcting) support in modems, to avoid delays
when the number called does not support it anyway.
Password
This field may hold a password for the remote service represented
by this entry. The password may be used by a script file to auto-
matically perform a log-on operation. Please note that this field
is not encrypted, so if security is a problem, do not store your
passwords in the dialing directory!
To edit the currently highlighted dialing directory entry select Edit
from the dialing directory menu. A window will appear with the old
contents of the entry. You may edit each field, starting with the
first (name). To leave the contents of a filed as-is, press Enter. You
may move up and down in the list of fields by using the Tab and Shift-
Tab keys. Pressing Esc one or more times will get you out of the edit
window without any changes being made.
Once all the fields have been edited, Telix will ask you if the Last
Call and Total Calls fields should be cleared. Answer Yes or No as
needed. Telix will then ask for confirmation before writing any
changes to disk.
To add a blank entry to the end of the dialing directory, select 'Add from the dialing directory menu. A dialing directory may hold up to 1000 entries.
To clear an entry or a range of entries select Clear from the dialing directory menu. Telix will ask you to select the range of entries to clear, by moving the highlight bar and pressing Enter. After confirm- ing your choice, Telix will clear the selected entries back to empty entries.
To search for a particular entry in the dialing directory select Find
from the dialing directory menu. You will be asked to give the string
to search for. If Telix finds the entry with that string in it, that
entry will be highlighted. If while searching for the string Telix
reaches the end of the directory, it will wrap around to the beginning
and continue the search. If the string still can not be found Telix
will say 'Sorry, string not found'. If you want to search for the same
string as last time, just press Return when asked for the search
string.
Telix allows you to dial a group of dialing directory entries repeat-
edly until a connection is established, or you abort the attempt. Se-
lecting the Dial function from the dialing directory menu will make
Telix commence dialing in sequence all the currently marked entries.
You may also dial a user-entered list of entries, by selecting the
List function from the dialing directory menu. Telix will ask you to
enter up to 10 entries to dial in sequence (to make List dialing even
more convenient, you may also select the List function by pressing a
numeric key while in the dialing directory menu; this number is then
carried over and entered as the first digit in the string you are
asked to enter). While you are entering the list of entries to dial
you may also scroll through the directory as described above. If you
specify more than one entry to dial, each should be separated by a
space.
Sometimes you may want to dial a number that is not in the dialing di-
rectory. To do this select the Manual option of the dialing directory
menu, which stands for 'manual dial'. You will be asked to enter a
number to be sent to the modem. Whatever you supply will be sent out
exactly as is, except for Long Distance codes (see below), which are
still valid.
A Long Distance code is an advanced dialing option which adds some
flexibility. There are four Long Distance code characters: !, @, $,
and +, which when encountered while dialing expand to user-defined
strings (see section below on revising Long distance codes).
If Telix is dialing a number from a dialing directory entry, and one
of the Long Distance code characters is encountered in the number,
Telix will instead send whatever string has been assigned to that
code. For example, a dialing directory entry could contain the phone
number '!967-1111'. If the string '9,,' was assigned to the ! LD code
character, Telix when dialing this entry would first send the 9 fol-
lowed by the commas, and then send the rest of the digits.
LD codes may also be used with the List dial function. When you place
one of them in front of or behind an entry number to dial, it will be
expanded to a string. For example you could have the exclamation sign
'!', be expanded to '9,', or any string you specify. You may place up
to 3 Long Distances codes in front and one Long Distance code after
each entry number. For example, specifying the entry '+21!' would send
the string for the '+' Long Distance code, followed by the number from
entry 21, followed by the string for Long Distance code '!'. The
string
10 +15 20!
entered at the prompt would dial entry 10, then entry 15 with a Long
Distance code in front of it, and finally entry number 20, with a Long
Distance code after it. These numbers are redialed repeatedly until a
connection is reached. To learn about the redial window see the Redial
function below.
Selecting Other from the dialing directory menu will present a menu of secondary functions, dealing with the deletion or insertion of entries in the dialing directory, with revising Long Distance Codes, and with the handling of dialing directories (Telix allows you to have as many dialing directories as needed and switch among them at will).
To insert blank entries in the dialing directory, select Insert from
the dialing directory Other menu. Entries will be inserted at the cur-
rent position of the highlight bar. Telix will ask how many entries to
insert and will ask for confirmation before proceeding.
To delete an entry or a range of entries in the dialing directory se-
lect the Delete option from the dialing directory Other menu. The
range to delete is selected by moving the highlight bar. After con-
firming your choice, the entries will be deleted and any following en-
tries will move up to where the deleted entries were.
To revise the Long Distance codes, select the option called Edit_LD
from the dialing directory Other menu. There are four Long Distance
code characters: ! @ - +. As described in the section on dialing, when
you place one of them in front of or behind a number to dial, it will
be expanded to a string. After selecting this option you will be shown
a menu of the available long distance codes. Selecting an LD Code will
let you modify the text currently assigned to it. After you have made
your changes, you must save them to disk with the Save Changes option,
if you want to use them every time you run Telix.
To create a blank dialing directory (which can later be modified), se-
lect the option called Create from the dialing directory screen's
Other menu. Telix will ask you for the name the new directory should
use. Any legal DOS filename is suitable, and there is no default ex-
tension. Telix will then create the blank directory on disk. The cur-
rent dialing directory is not be affected and will stay in memory.
To load another dialing directory select the Load option form the di-
aling directory screen's Other menu. Telix will ask for the name of
the new directory and then load it into memory. Telix assumes a de-
fault extension of .FON, so if the directory you want to load does not
have one, include a period at the end (e.g., TELIX.) The new
directory becomes the default directory for the rest of the session or
until you load another one.
Selecting the Print option from the dialing directory screen's Other
menu allows you to print out the current dialing directory, to the
printer, the serial port, or any device or disk file. Telix will ask
you for the device or file to print to. Enter the name or press Return
to use the PRN device (printer). Since these are DOS devices, Telix
has no way of knowing, for example, things such as whether or not your
printer is online. So if Telix seems to lock-up here, make sure your
printer is on and it is set to online.
When Telix has one or more numbers to dial, it redials repeatedly un- til a connection is made. To keep you informed of the status of the redial Telix displays a status window, and alerts you when a connec- tion is established. The status window is similar to the figure below.
| Redial | - |
|---|---|
| Redial started at 20:15:33 | Press: T to change dial time |
| Attempt #10 20:19:27 | D to delete from list |
| This attempt: | Dialing My Favorite BBS ... 22 |
| number: 967-1111 | - |
| Last Attempt: Busy | - |
| Press Space to cycle to next number | Esc to exit. |
If you are dialing all the marked entries with the dialing directory
Dial command, when a connection is reached, the mark is taken off the
entry connected to, so that when you later select the Dial function
again, only the remaining entries are dialed. If you are dialing a
list of entries selected with the List dialing directory command, when
a connection is established the entry connected to is taken out of the
list, so that when you later select the Redial command from the dial-
ing directory or the Alt-Q command from terminal mode, only the re-
maining entries will be shown.
While redialing, you have the option of changing the time that Telix
waits for a connection, and also the option of deleting a number from
the list to dial, by pressing 'T' and 'D' respectively.
Normally, when a connection has been reached, Telix sounds an alarm to
alert you of this. If a script file is linked to the entry however,
the alarm is skipped so that the script may immediately proceed. It is
thus the responsibility of the linked script to alert the user of the
fact that a connection has been reached.
Pressing Alt-Q while in the terminal mode or selecting 'Redial last'
from the dialing directory menu will allow you to redial one or more
numbers that you entered previously using the 'List' command, so that
you do not have to re-enter them. You will be shown the list and asked
to edit it until you are satisfied, and then to press Return.
You may have noticed that after you press Alt-D an inverse bar is dis-
played on the bottom of the screen, asking you to select the entries
to dial or press Return to see the Dialing directory. Up to now, you
have just pressed Return to go on to the Dialing Directory, but this
bar is a quick way to dial commonly called directory entries whose
numbers you have memorized. You may enter a list of entries to dial
just as if you had used the List command of the dialing directory
menu. This saves the dialing directory from having to be displayed on
the screen if you already know the entry or entries you want to dial.
The Quick Dial Bar can also be used to dial a number manually. To do
this just preface the number with an 'm'. For example, 'm967-1111'
would dial 967-1111, just as if you had used the Manual dial option of
the Dialing Directory. Either lowercase or uppercase 'm' is accepted.
The use of the Quick Dial Bar may be disabled via the Configuration
Menu.