ArcTel - Getting Started

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Launching ArcTel

To launch the ArcTel application, assuming you kept the Program Group as ArcTel during installation:- 

  1. Click on the Windows  button from the bottom-left hand corner of the desktop.
  2. Click on the  menu that pops up.
  3. Click on the  menu that appears to the right of the Programs menu (or whatever you called the program group during installation).
  4. Click on the  program icon to launch the ArcTel application.


Screen Layout

The ArcTel screen is split into five main sections:- 

  1.  At the top, there is the Title Bar which shows whether the software is Unregistered, and the name of the script currently loaded into memory. In the top-right hand corner are the standard windows minimize, maximize, and close buttons.

  2. Just below this, is the menu, from which various options are available.

  3. The large black section in the middle is the terminal window, showing the details of the conversation between you and the telnet session. As you can see, this can sometimes include colour text, but not pictures.

  4. The blue section of text underneath this shows the currently open script – this is a list of commands to execute in order to perform a predefined task – e.g. set up the Telnet session and login. Note that there is a divider bar between the terminal and script windows which can be used to adjust the amount of either window showing – drag the bar to resize the windows accordingly.

  5. The grey bar at the bottom shows the status – in particular, whether the telnet session is connected to the telnet server, and which line in the script is currently being processed.

Connecting to a Server

In order to connect to the server, you will need to provide some information about the server. The main information is the name (or IP address) of the server, and possibly the port on which the telnet server can be found.

Session Settings

To set the session details up, click on the Connection menu, and choose the General Settings menu option. Alternatively, if you are clicked in the Script window, you can hold down the Ctrl and Alt keys and press the S key to view the General Settings window.

If you are logged onto the Internet, one of the popular recreational uses of telnet is the playing of Multi-User Dungeon (MUD) games. These are text-based interactive adventures, where you play a mythical style character, and interact with other players and fictional characters through a complex scenario in order to gain status in the fantasy-style scenario. For a list of MUD games, visit http://www.excite.com/computers_and_internet/
internet/communicating_online/virtual_worlds/
muds_by_genre/dungeons_and_dragons/

The sample shown here is a MUD called Valhalla. It can be found at the following telnet address: valhalla.com with a port number of: 4242.

Sometimes, the Host name is in the form of an IP address – e.g. 123.123.12.1 – this is fine to use too.

For the port, you can normally just type telnet and the standard telnet port will be used.

The following settings can be tinkered with until your session performs as you expect:-

·         Lheight gives the height of each line in pixels. If you increase the font size, you may need to adjust this setting

·         Rows gives the number of rows shown in the terminal window. This is normally 25 for most terminals.

·         Cols gives the number of character columns across the screen shown in the terminal window. This is normally 80 for most terminals.

·         Line Zoom gives the percentage spacing between each line on the terminal. If the text is looking squashed vertically, you may like to increase this value. Normal value is 100 for 100%

·         Char Zoom gives the percentage increase in spacing between each character on the terminal. It is normally 1.0 which equates to normal spacing. 0.5 would be 50% (twice) smaller, 2.0 would be 100% (twice) bigger

·         AutoCR causes a carriage return character to be added automatically after each line of text sent on the terminal. Turn this off if you seem to be getting double-spaced rows of text.

·         Auto LF causes a line-feed character to be added automatically after each line of text sent on the terminal. Turn this off if you seem to be getting double-spaced rows of text.

·         Local Echo should be turned on if you find that when you type at the keyboard, nothing is displayed in the terminal window. This means that the terminal is not sending back what you are typing in, so it needs to be shown locally.

·         Monochrome will cause the text to be shown only in black-and-white for telnet sites that allow for colour text (Valhalla is an example of this)

·         OEM Charset can be used if the terminal requires you to make use of a specific character set loaded on your computer to show particular characters. You may like to try this setting if certain characters seem to be displaying incorrectly.

·         Graphic Draw can be used to show boxes around items on the screen as special characters. Use this if you expect to see boxes, and you instead see a jumble of strange characters.

·         Upper Case can be used if the terminal expects data to be entered in CAPS only

·         Function Keys – how function keys (non-standard keys) and some terminal commands are interpreted – choose a terminal type that seems to work best for your session – usually VT100 gives the best all-round emulation, and is the base standard for the telnet protocol.

·         Click on the Font button to change the font size / type used in the terminal window. Note that unless Monochrome is switched off, the font colour will be ignored.

·         The A11, Labo, RDV, and USUS button set up the session for some standard types of terminals. Again, you may like to try each of these if you are having problems getting the settings right, as a starting point if nothing else.

Normally, you will not have to change any of these settings, other than the Host name, and perhaps the Port number.

Click on the OK button when you have finished your settings. Note that unless overwritten by running a Script that changes the settings, these will remain in place, even after the application is terminated, as they are stored in the windows profile.

Saving and recalling Connection details using scripts

You may wish to connect to a number of different telnet servers, or to the same server in a number of ways. In this case, it would be worthwhile saving the settings in order to recall them again.

To do this, you save the settings as a Script File. These are files containing a list of instructions to tell ArcTel how to do something, such as how to prepare to connect to a particular server.

ArcTel Script files end with .asf (stands for Arctan Script File).

Save connection details

  To save the current connection settings into a script file, follow this procedure:-

  1. Click on the Script menu

  2. Click on the Clear option. This will clear any existing script from the script window.

  3. Click on the Script menu

  4. Click on Insert then Settings then All.

  5. The relevant commands required to connect to the currently described telnet session will be inserted into the script window. You can scroll up to see the list of commands.

  6. Click on the Script menu

  7. Click on the Save As… option.

  8. Choose a location/filename to save the script under.

  9. Click on the Save button.

Recall connection details

To recall connection settings previously saved into a script file, follow this procedure:-

  1. Click on the Script menu

  2. Click on the Open menu (or Open No Run if you want to load the script and look at it before running it to change the settings)

  3. Choose the location/filename that the script was saved under

  4. Click on the Open button.

  5. The script will be loaded and automatically executed, so that the settings are changed to the commands saved into the script file, and a connection will be attempted to the telnet session.

  6. If you chose the Open No Run command, you could then execute the script by clicking on the Script menu followed by the Run option.

  Note that once you are a little more confident with the commands held in the script file, you can alter these to customize how you log into and interact with telnet servers.

Alternatively, to open (without running) a script you have recently opened or saved, look at the bottom of the Script menu - there will be a list of the five last opened script files. Click on the filename of the script you wish to open. This list can be cleared if you find it distracting.

Default Script File

Once you have saved or opened a script file, you can make it open automatically as default by clicking on the Script menu, and clicking on the Default Script File option. Note that this is then ticked.

The next time you open ArcTel, this script will be run automatically. To stop this automatic loading, repeat the procedure to take the tick off the option again. 

In order to stop the script from executing automatically, but rather to load it into memory ready for running when you request it to do so, insert the command NORUN as the first line in the script file.

Using Logs

Anything that is typed into ArcTel or received from the telnet server, or to/from an FTP server, can be automatically logged into a file. As default, the details are logged into a list that is held in memory, and when ArcTel is closed, the log is lost.

A log file is a useful way of keeping a record of what has happened during a session. It can also be used by scripts to check that certain events have occurred – an example is given later in relation to checking that a file has been transferred from a server correctly using ArcTel’s inbuilt FTP facility.

Viewing the log

  To look at the contents of the log, click on the Log menu and then click on the View option. Each line executed in the script shows as a line prefixed by <COMMAND>, the line number, and the interpreted command executed on that line. Other lines will denote input or output during the terminal session.

  If the log file is long, not all of it will be able to be displayed in one go. In this case, enter a new start line to see the portion of the log that you are interested in, and click on the Refresh button. The display will tell you how many lines out of the total possible lines are being displayed. If you have the Log window open whilst the telnet session or a script is processing, you can also use the Refresh button to update the display in the log to see what is happening.

  You can copy portions of the log to the clipboard by highlighting the portion to copy, right-clicking over the highlighted portion, and choosing the Copy option from the pop-up menu. You can also select everything currently displayed by selecting the Select All option from the same pop-up menu.

  Click on the Done button when you wish to stop viewing the log.

Clearing the log

  If the log gets too full, or you have finished with the details recorded so far, you can clear the log by clicking on the Log menu and choosing the Clear option. You will be asked to confirm that this is what you wish to do via a dialog box. Click OK to confirm the clear, or Cancel to abandon the clear.

  Note that this only clears the log in memory. The updated log only gets saved to disk, if this is appropriate, when you explicitly save it using the Log | Save option, or when the ArcTel application is closed. This is not relevant if the log has not yet been saved to disk.

Storing the log

  You can store the log in memory to disk by clicking on the Log menu, clicking on the Save As option, and choosing a location / filename to save the log to.

  Log files in ArcTel are appended with .alf which stands for ArcTel Log File.

  Once you have saved the log file once, you can save it again by using the Log | Save option so that you do not have to restate the filename again.

Recalling the log file

  To recall the log file from disk again, click on the Log menu and click on the Open option, and choose the location/filename that the log was saved to previously.

  Once loaded into memory, you can save any updates to the file using the Log | Save option.

Note, an alternative method of opening log files that you have recently opened or saved is to look at the bottom of the Log menu - there will be a list of the five last opened log files. Click on the filename of the log you wish to open. This list can be cleared if you find it distracting.

Default Log File

  You can make the currently selected log file the default log file that gets loaded each time the ArcTel application is first started, by clicking on the Log menu, choosing the Log Settings menu, and clicking on the Default Log File option. This puts a tick next to the option. You can turn this off again so that nothing is loaded as default by clicking back on the option again to take the tick out.

  Note that you must also tick the Log | Log Settings | Append To Log File option in order for the file to be loaded. This means that the file is loaded, any changes are added to the log, and saved back in addition to the existing log data when the application closes. If you leave this option unticked, then the log will not be loaded, so that the log starts from scratch each time the application is started, and then saved to disk when the application closes. This means that log is only available between sessions, which may be fine when running jobs where the log needs to be checked by an external program straight afterwards, but does not need to be kept permanently.

Types of logging

  Logging can be switched on and off during a session by clicking on Log | Log Settings | Logging Enabled. This affects logging globally.

  You can also specify what type of information you would like to be logged by clicking on Log and Log Settings and choosing any combination of the following options:-

Help

  You can obtain on-line application help by clicking on the Help menu and selecting the Contents menu. A HTML version of this document, with hyperlinks from contents, will be displayed.

Alternatively, you can press the F1 key to bring up this HTML document.

You can also see details about the latest version of the application by clicking on the Help menu and choosing the About option. Click on the OK button when you have finished reading the details, which include application name, author, program version, and contact URL (Web Site) and E:Mail address.

 

(c) Copyright 2001-2 Arctan Computer Ventures Ltd.   All Rights Reserved.
If you have any issues regarding this on-line help, please contact the author by clicking here.
Alternatively, you can leave a voice message on 00 44 (0)7050-618-297 or fax on 00 44 (0)7050-618-298
This Page was last updated: 15 January 2004 15:01