:Info: Getting_to_Know_Your_Terminal: Getting to Know Your Terminal Your terminal has basically two parts, the screen and the keyboard. The screen looks much like a television. In Executive Mail, the terminal screen is divided into two parts. The upper portion contains the menus you work from. The lower portion displays explanations like this one, messages sent to you, lists of various kinds, and the messages that you write. On your screen you will see a light that moves around. As this explanation was being displayed, this light moved ahead of each character as it is displayed. This light is in the form of a box or a little line that moves under the lines of text. This light is called the "cursor," and it marks your current position on the screen. When it is in the menu portion of the screen, you can select one of the options. When it is in the lower portion of the screen, it marks the place where anything you type will be displayed. The keyboard is much like the keyboard on a typewriter, except that there are a few extra keys. The terminal keyboard, like standard electric typewriter keyboards, has a carriage return key. On some keyboards it is labelled RETURN, on others CARRIAGE RETURN or CR, and on yet other keyboards it is labelled ENTER. One of the extra keys is the BREAK (or BRK) key. It is often colored red because it is a kind of alarm key that you press to signal Multics to stop immediately and return the cursor to the menu. Most, but not all terminals have a series of extra keys called function keys. These are usually located along the top of the keyboard and are labeled F1, F2, etc. These keys work in Executive Mail only when the cursor is in the menu portion of the screen. They perform special functions in Executive Mail that you will learn about shortly. To use function keys, Executive Mail requires your terminal to have at least 7, 8 if you want to execute Multics commands while in the Executive Mail system. If your keyboard does not have function keys, or enough of them, you can perform the function key operations by using the key marked "ESC" in combination with other keys (e.g., "ESC q"). Anytime you want to operate the ESC key, press and immediately release it, then type the key to be used in combination with it. A personalize mail option is available if you prefer to always use the escape sequences, regardless of the capabilities of your terminal. The last extra key you must learn is the one labelled "CTL". Like the ESC key, it is used in combination with other keys. Unlike the ESC key, the CTL key must be held down while typing the key to be used in combination with it. :Info: How_to_Get_Help: How to Get Help The menu now displayed at the top of your screen provides the first stage of help with Executive Mail. It is the first menu available when entering Executive Mail for the first time, although after this session, the first menu seen upon reentering is the one titled "Executive Mail." One of the options in that menu enables you to get the Getting Started menu, the one now being used, if you wish to go through any part of it again. When you are not working with the Getting Started menu, you can get help in four ways. The first is to use function key F1 (or "ESC ?" if you are using escape sequences). The F1 key can be used whenever the cursor is in the menu portion of the screen. After pressing it, you are asked what specifically you want help with. If you want to know what one of the options in the menu does, type its number or letter, but do NOT press RETURN, and the explanation is displayed below the menu. To get an explanation of one of the function keys, press that function key, (again, do not follow it with RETURN). For example, if you want help with function key F2, press F1, and at the prompt, press F2. If you inadvertently press RETURN when it is not called for, the system responds with a beep to notify you that an unexpected action occurred. Furthermore, if you inadvertently press RETURN while the system is displaying, or getting ready to display a message, and the message requires more than one screen to display, then you may find that some data is lost (scrolled off the top of the screen). In this case, you would have to request the information a second time. If your terminal does not have function keys, or enough of them, type the two character escape sequence ("ESC" followed by another character) that is used in place of the particular function key you want. In the above example, press and release the "ESC" key followed by a question mark (?), and at the prompt, type "ESC f". A personalize mail option is available if you prefer to always use the escape sequences, regardless of the capabilities of your terminal. Finally, if you want to know about something other than a menu option or a function key, how to correct mistakes for example, you respond to the request for the specific help desired by typing two question marks (??). This provides a menu of general information items from which the specific explanation wanted can be chosen. The second way of getting help is used when the cursor is not in the menu portion of the screen. Whenever you are asked to supply information for a selected operation within a menu, you can type a single question mark (?) followed by RETURN to get an explanation of exactly what it is you are being asked for. You may also get help with the mail editor commands while editing mail by entering the two character sequence, "ESC ?". When using this sequence, a summary of valid commands are displayed or you are prompted to either enter the key sequence you want help with, for example "ESC k", or enter a question mark (?) to get a summary of the valid commands. The help information stays on the screen to allow time for reading. Use the two character sequence "CTL g" to return to editing. Whenever you are asked to supply a forgotten name or number of some item from a list previously created, you can display the complete list by typing two question marks (??) followed by RETURN. Now you can select an item from that list by typing the number or letter assigned to it, just as you select an option from a menu. :Info: How_to_Get_Out: How to Get Out When you are ready to stop working in Executive Mail, press function key F4 (or "ESC q", if you are using escape sequences). Before you execute this, be sure the cursor is in the menu portion of the screen. Otherwise, pressing F4 ("ESC q") has no effect. If the cursor is in the lower portion of the screen, you must move it back to the menu before you can get out of Executive Mail. You can move the cursor back in two ways. If you want to send or save a message just typed, press the "ESC" key followed by the letter "q" or the letter "t". That sends the message or defers it and returns the cursor to the menu portion of the screen. If you are not typing a message or do not care to send what has already been typed, press the BREAK (or BRK) key to get back to the menu. :Info: Getting_Around: Getting Around There are seven menus in the Executive Mail system in addition to the Getting Started menu displayed above. When you enter the system, the first menu displayed is "Executive Mail" (except the very first time you use the system, in which case the Getting Started menu is displayed first). That menu lets you select all the other menus in the system, including the Getting Started menu. The other menus also contain options that let you choose to move to another menu, though none of them contain options for all of the other menus the way the Executive Mail menu does. If you need to get back to Executive Mail menu, you can do so by pressing function key F2 (or "ESC f" if you are using escape sequences) while the cursor is in the menu portion of the screen. You can also move to the menu that was displayed just prior to the one you are currently working in. To do this, press function key F3 (or "ESC p") while the cursor is in the menu portion of the screen. :Info: How_to_Correct_Typos: How to Correct Typos Typing mistakes are inevitable, so the Executive Mail system provides a number of ways for you to change what was typed. Whenever you are either typing a response to a prompt or entering messages, you can move the cursor to different points in the text and erase, change, or add to what was typed. This is done with keystrokes that use either the "ESC" or "CTL" key. When using the CTL key, hold it down while you type the associated character key. When using the ESC key, press and release it before typing the associated character key. Listed below are the keystrokes that can be used, both in changing a response to a prompt and when working in the mail editor. To get a list of all the keystrokes that operate in the mail editor, ask for general help after pressing the F1 key (or "ESC ?" if you are using escape sequences). Now you can select information about the mail editor. CTL f moves the cursor right one character. ESC f moves the cursor right one word. CTL e moves the cursor to the end of the line. CTL a moves the cursor to the beginning of the line. CTL b moves the cursor left one character. ESC b moves the cursor left one word. CTL d deletes the one character the cursor is under or covering. ESC d deletes one word to the right of the cursor. BACKSPACE deletes one character to the left of the cursor (the DEL key also does this). ESC BACKSPACE deletes one word to the left of the cursor (ESC DEL also does this). CTL k erases all text between the cursor and the end of the line. @ erases all text between the cursor and the beginning of the line. CTL Y retrieves any piece of erased text, longer than one character, and inserts it at the current cursor position. :Info: Personalizing_Executive_Mail: Personalizing Executive Mail This option lets you set many aspects of Executive Mail to work the way you want them to. After you choose this option, a new menu of choices is presented to help you select and set each of the personalization options. You can set these options, or leave them at their default settings, and have them work each time you use Executive Mail. You can get to the Personalize Executive Mail menu from the Executive Mail menu. ----------------------------------------------------------- Historical Background This edition of the Multics software materials and documentation is provided and donated to Massachusetts Institute of Technology by Group BULL including BULL HN Information Systems Inc. as a contribution to computer science knowledge. This donation is made also to give evidence of the common contributions of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Bell Laboratories, General Electric, Honeywell Information Systems Inc., Honeywell BULL Inc., Groupe BULL and BULL HN Information Systems Inc. to the development of this operating system. Multics development was initiated by Massachusetts Institute of Technology Project MAC (1963-1970), renamed the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence in the mid 1970s, under the leadership of Professor Fernando Jose Corbato. Users consider that Multics provided the best software architecture for managing computer hardware properly and for executing programs. Many subsequent operating systems incorporated Multics principles. Multics was distributed in 1975 to 2000 by Group Bull in Europe , and in the U.S. by Bull HN Information Systems Inc., as successor in interest by change in name only to Honeywell Bull Inc. and Honeywell Information Systems Inc. . ----------------------------------------------------------- Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute these programs and their documentation for any purpose and without fee is hereby granted,provided that the below copyright notice and historical background appear in all copies and that both the copyright notice and historical background and this permission notice appear in supporting documentation, and that the names of MIT, HIS, BULL or BULL HN not be used in advertising or publicity pertaining to distribution of the programs without specific prior written permission. Copyright 1972 by Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Honeywell Information Systems Inc. Copyright 2006 by BULL HN Information Systems Inc. Copyright 2006 by Bull SAS All Rights Reserved