PocketCall 2.1IMPORTANT!: Before installing PocketCall on your MessagePad, backup all of your data to a PCMCIA memory card, or to your desktop computer using either the Apple Newton 2.0 Connection Kit (for Newton MessagePad 100, 110 and 120) or the Newton Backup Utility for Newton MessagePads with 2.0 of the Newton Operating System.Also, if you are upgrading to version 2.1 of PocketCall from version 1.0, it is very important that you run the Services application once before using PocketCall.  By doing this you will convert the 1.0 formatted services to 2.x format.  If you do not do this, your original scripts may not work.If you are upgrading from PocketCall 2.0, make sure to remove ALL the packages before installing PocketCall 2.1. This includes PocketCall, Services and the VT100 Terminal package, which will reside in the Extensions folder of your Extras drawer if you are using an OS 2.0 Newton.PocketCall 2.1 has separated the VT100 font out into a separate package for future compatibility and performance reasons. This means there is one extra package to install! Don't forget to install it!New Installation Notes!PocketCall 2.1 is now provided in two different ways: one for users of OS 1.x machines, and one for users of OS 2.0 machines. They are in separate folders on the installation disks. While the version for 1.x machines will work on 2.0 Newtons, it is highly recommended you install the 2.0-only version, since it is faster and smaller.As mentioned above, the VT100 font is now a separate package that must be installed.There is now a PocketCall Help book which displays the external keyboard shortcuts in case you can't remember them. This book only works on 2.0 Newtons, and you must install the separate PocketCall Help package to access it. On 1.x Newton, the default system help is opened.Installation into internal storage on an MP100 will be a very tight fit, perhaps impossible if you have anything else installed on your machine. It is highly recommended you use an external modem and put PocketCall on a card if you are using a MP100.Please read the Usage Notes that appear later in this document, some useful information that is not in the manual is presented.What's new in PocketCall 2.1A number of improvements have been made in PocketCall 2.1 over PocketCall 2.0. Here is a list of what is new or improved and any details that you need to know about using new features.Increased PerformancePocketCall 2.1 is significantly faster than PocketCall 2.0. You will notice this most on a Newton device with the Newton OS 2.0 installed. Users of Newton OS 1.x will also notice performance improvements, though PocketCall remains faster on an OS 2.0 machine.To get the best possible performance from PocketCall 2.1, reset your Newton before connecting (push the reset button in the battery compartment). This harms nothing, and guarantees the maximum amount of heap memory will be available to PocketCall. The more heap memory that is available, the faster PocketCall runs.Printing performance to a StyleWriter is much improved on OS 2.0 machines. Faxing is also faster.PocketCall in Landscape ModeIf you are using an OS 2.0 Newton, you can now rotate the screen and see a full 24 rows by 80 columns terminal window. This is achieved in PocketCall 2.1 with a small 7-point monospaced font. While small, the font is quite readable. What would normally be bold VT100 characters are indicated in this small font by a dotted underline. The font was too small to provide readable bold characters, we think the dotted underline was a good alternative.The use of the small font in landscape mode is an option, there is a new checkbox "Use small font in landscape mode" in PocketCall Prefs:General Settings where you can control which font to use in landscape mode. This checkbox is not visible to Newton OS 1.x users.External Keyboard SupportPocketCall 2.1 offers owners of Newton OS 2.0 devices with an external keyboard much more control. First, the return key on the external keyboard now properly acts as the Send button does, and send any text out the connection.PocketCall 2.1 provides the following keyboard equivalents if you are using the external keyboard:Apple-left and right arrow: Scroll the screen left and right.Apple-up and down arrow: Scroll one line up and down.Apple-Option-up and down arrow: Scroll one page up and down.Option-up, down, right or left arrow: VT100 cursor movement.Apple-Return: Send whatever text is in the input line without a return appended to it.Apple-~ (tilde, upper-left-hand corner) is the equivalent for the Escape key, since the Newton keyboard does not have one!With Newton OS 2.0, it is impossible to send certain control characters to the input line. Because of this, PocketCall 2.1 intercepts certain control characters and sends them directly out the connection, so they are acted upon immediately (generally, this is what you want anyway). The exceptions to this are: the backspace, tab, return and left and right arrow characters.Other New FeaturesThere are a couple more new features that appear in PocketCall Prefs:General Settings.Draw every incoming line (slower)Applies to Newton OS 2.0 units only, if this option is on then when the cursor moves to a different line in the terminal area (remember, this is only the last 24 lines of the terminal text) the line the cursor was on is redrawn. This is in contrast to drawing only when a new chunk of input appears, where you see a few lines drawn in a "chunk". Having this option on makes for a smoother display, but at the expense of slightly slower throughput.Input line fontYou can now choose the font and size of the text for the PocketCall Input line.Overview ButtonThe silk-screen overview button (belly-button between the up and down arrows) is the equivalent of the Setup Services command from the PocketCall Cmd menu.PocketCall Help BookOn OS 2.0 Newtons, you can install the PocketCall Help Book and access it from the PocketCall Help item from the Info Button. This book is very small right now, it just shows the external keyboard equivalents in case you can't remember them. On OS 1.x Newtons, the default system help book is opened.Other Miscellaneous Changes+ The Scripts menu in the Scripting area of the Services application can now scroll on Newton OS 2.0 machines. On 1.x machines, the menu still appears in smaller font to fit as many as possible on the screen, but it still doesn't scroll.+ Increased the size of the notepad note that can be created on 2.0 machines with the Copy to Notes command or Capture to Notes script sequence to just less than 8K (this limit remains 3K on 1.x machines).+ The VT100 font package has a nice name and icon in the Extras drawer on 2.0 units.+ The VT100 Terminal package now has its own nice icon and a better title (in the Extras drawer).+ Icons in the Action button in PocketCall application on 2.0 units.+ The print format no longer has a frame around it, this will make printing on a StyleWriter faster, since the print head doesn't have to do something on every line.+ The page number is now printed at the top of the page in the center, this should make printing of pages that are blank at the bottom faster on StyleWriters.+ If there is no text selected in the terminal area, Append to Input puts up an alert instead of appending the entire contents (well, up to the 500 character maximum) of the terminal text to the input line.+ On 2.0 machines, there is no longer an extra blank menu item at the bottom of the Cmd menu. This is necessary on 1.x machines (where it still appears) because repeated tapping of the Cmd menu will dismiss it (which you often do when online, since response is sometimes slow).+ Made the scrolling control smaller in order to fit with the smaller amount of height for the input line in landscape mode.+ You can now specify that no lines are saved in the scrollback buffer.+ A couple new strings added to the "wait for" and "type text" pickers in the scripting part of the Services app.+ Added a progress dialog to Services app when you Install Sample Services.+ You can now rotate the screen on 2.0 units without disconnecting.+ Made a change so that a simple one line script that starts a capture to notes will keep capture turned on when the script finishes (which is basically right away). Normally, capture to notes is automatically stopped when a script finishes executing in case the script writer forgets to put the stop capture step into the script (capturing uses up heap and slows things down somewhat). Now it is at least possible to write a simple start capture and stop capture script so you can capture text to the notepad if you know exactly what you want captured.Usage NotesSome useful information that may be important for some particular uses of PocketCall does not appear in the manual. If you use PocketCall with a host system that runs applications that require single-keypress menu selections (such as PINE or Lynx) you may need to turn off sending carriage returns whenever you tap the Send button. The right-hand portion of the Send button is a carriage return toggle, if it highlighted, any text in the input line is sent with a carriage return (and possibly line feed, if that option is turned on in your Terminal Settings). This may upset some applications that expect single-character responses to menu items. If you experience strange behaviour, try turning the carriage return toggle off. For external keyboard users (on OS 2.0 machines), be aware of the Apple-Return keyboard equivalent, which sends the text in the input line out the port without the carriage return. This can be very useful!Because of the way PocketCall redraws the screen when a certain amount of data comes in the serial port, or when the cursor moves from one line to another, it is possible that certain VT100 sequences will make it appear that text is not being written to the screen or is being "skipped". This is normal behaviour and an unfortunate necessity since the current crop of Newtons just can't process and draw every incoming character to the screen. Incoming text has to be processed then drawn in "chunks".The Copy to Notes and Copy Screen to Notes functions from the PocketCall Action button are also not adequately explained. Copy to Notes copies any selected terminal text or the entire terminal text if nothing is selected to a new note in the Notepad. Copy Screen to Notes copies the last 24 lines of the terminal text to a new note, it does not copy whatever text is scrolled into view as the name of the function might indicate. Screen in PocketCall terminology means the active terminal area, the portion of text below the dotted line separating the terminal text from the scrollback buffer.Bugs Fixed+ Fix bug extending the highlighting in the terminal window under OS 2.0.+ Fix bug deleting services in Servies app on 1.x machines.+ Fix strange dragging effect/behaviour for the PocketCall keyboard.+ Fixed problem where scripts might not work properly (Wait For steps) when connected 8 bit/no parity on 2.0 units. This problem still (and always has) exists on 1.x units. Best to connect at 7 bits even parity if running scripts.+ Fix display bug on 2.0 units when switching between the various types of script steps in the Script roll item of the Services app.+ Fix problem with sending text from scripts (including notepad items) where the text would not get wrapped when being sent. This made it very impractical to send notepad items or large amounts of text from scripts.+ Fix a bug in the Services app where you would run into -48210 errors (in PocketCall, when you tried to select from the picker in the Connect dialog) when trying to use services created by the Services app without PocketCall or the VT100 terminal package loaded. Generally, only MP100 users had this problem, as both packages can't be installed at the same time on that machine.+ Only show the "must disconnect before powering off" alert once, it was possible for it to appear multiple times if you were connected and the Newton wanted to go to sleep.+ Fix strange screen drawing problem with faxing on 2.0 units where the terminal text would get drawn while Newton was calculating the number of pages to fax.+ Fix off-by-one page number when faxing with a cover sheet on 2.0 Newtons.+ Fix cut-off right side of text while printing and faxing.+ The call options slip now shows the proper "Will dial" number under OS 2.0.+ Fix a problem that could happen on French 1.x units where a -48803 would get thrown trying to open the Connect slip.+ Change the font in the Service Scripting area under Wait for in the timeout picker and the "then" picker so that longer strings don't get chopped off (1200 seconds and skip next step).+ Fix bug opening the PocketCall keyboard or any of the VT100 keyboards if you have Graffiti installed.KNOWN PROBLEMSThere are some known problems with this version of PocketCall. They may be resolved in a future update.+ Printing just the selected terminal text isn't supported under OS 2.0 because of slight problems with the 1.x-compatible printing mode.+ The old communications code that PocketCall 2.1 is using (in order to be both 1.x and 2.0 compatible) doesn't seem to want to use the modem dialing preferences that you set in Prefs. This appears to be a bug in the Newton that is not going to get fixed.+ The Scripting area in the Services app is not laid out properly for landscape mode. For now you will just have to change orientation to portrait mode to write scripts.+ On OS 1.x Newtons, if you are connected at 8 bits/No Parity, it is possible that some of the "Wait for" steps in your scripts will not get acted on correctly. This is a bug in the Newton ROM communication code, we recommend connecting at 7 bits/Even Parity if possible. This is NOT a problem on 2.0 Newtons.+ Printing to a StyleWriter printer and faxing on OS 1.x Newtons can be very slow. This is due to the way that Newton images to these devices. These operations are much faster on OS 2.0 Newtons, as that OS allows important optimizations during printing and faxing. Note that is it quite possible that faxing will fail due to timeouts, especially on OS 1.x. This situation is much better under OS 2.0, but if there is not enough heap memory available faxing can still be slow enough to fail. Try using Fax Later, and close PocketCall before sending the fax. Closing the Out Box during sending also helps._________________________________________________________________PocketCall is copyright 1996 Ex Machina, Inc.Ex Machina, Inc.11 East 26th Street, 16th FloorNew York, NY 10010-1042USAPhone: (212) 843-0000Fax: (212) 843-0029AOL: NotifyCompuServe: 76004,3427Internet: techsupport@exmachina.com