Thanks Steve!, its great to be connected again.  

Joe Knapp's system  at 130/803 is now my connection. The path is
interesting - his system 's entry does not include the zone and network
numbers.  Is that a problem and if so, is it on my side or on his?  Should
I do anything?

While I was undergoing the porcess of changing over, I have found a way to
take a little of the hassle out of reconfiguring the MacKennel (MK) fidonet
mailer when changing hubs. Normally, the MK user has to change the
distribution for each echo processed by MK by perfomring the following
actions:

1. Open the echo distribution menu from within MK. A list of all of the
echoes processed by MK appears.

2. Scroll to the dered echo.

3. Select an echo by double clicking its name from that list. Another
dialog box will appear that contains the exiting ditribution for the echo.

4. Select the existing feed's address with the mouse.

5. Press the DELETE button in the dialog. The feed's address will be erased.

6. Press the ADD button.  A menu showing the possible system's MK has been
configured to use as distrution systems will appear. 

7. Select the address of the new feed by double clicking it with the mouse.

8. Press the ADD button to add it to the list. 

9. Pres the CANCEL button one time to close the distribution list window 
and return to the list of echoes.

10. Repeat steps 2-9  to delete the existing feed and add the new feed for
each echo your system carries. Each time, the list of echoes is shown
starting at the first echo, rather than at the last echo you modified

If you intentionally or inadvertently (by pressing CANCEL TWICE instead of
once in step 9) close the window containing the list of echoes, the MK
program will rebuild the database FOR ALL echoes (it does so even if no
changes were made!!!). This will take more than a few minutes for systems
that have many echoes.  Again, each time, the user has to scroll through
his list from the top, to selct the echoes.

If you have hundreds of echoes, then this is VERY FRUSTRATING. If like me,
a MK user has the same distribution for each of his system's echoes, he can
cut this down significantly, but he'll need to have an editor with search
and replace capability and he'll need to know  how to write somekind of
executable script.  I  did mine in unix (MacOSX), so it wil need to be
modified for other envirnoments.

What I did was:

1. I found where MK stores info about the distribution.  It is the
"Echo Distribution" folder found within MK's "Packets"
folder.  This folder contains a pair of binary format files containg  the
information and ditribution for each echo. The names are the same as the
names of the echoes, with .Info and .Dist suffes appended. 

2. I listed the contents of the "Echo Distribution" folder to a
text file, but only selecting the names of the files matching the .DIST
suffix.

4. I used the original (LONG) method to change the .DIST file of one of the
echoes, and then quit the MK program (and the BBS progam too, so it would
not respond to calls)

5. I copied the .Dist file for that echo, to a new name, DIST_MASTER.Dist
and placed the copy within the same location.

6. I used the search and replace feature of my tex t editor to  replace the
beginning of each line of the list of distribution files with the text of a
command to copy my DIST_MASTER.Dist file over the existing file, replacing
it.  For me, this is the unix command "cp MASTER_DIST.Dist ".
making sure I put in the space. if Applescript of the finder is used, then
something else will need to be used in place of this text.

7. I reviewed the replacement and tweaked it a bit, because some echo names
have chars that the unix shell will interpret incorrectly.  I put quotes
around those names.

8. I made my text file a runnable script. For unix, this is placing
"chmod +x" in front of the script filename from a shell command
line.

9. I mounted the disk containing the "Echo distribution" folder
onto the unix computer.  This step worked just fine, and will only be
needed if the script is executed from another computer.

10. I navigated to the "Echo Distribution" folder and  placed the
script in it.

11. I ran the script. The .Dist files were replaced with new ones
containing the updated info.
   
12. I restarted the BBS and MK programs.

13. I checked the distribution of a few of the echoes from within MK, and
everything was jst as I wanted it.

I know this sounds like a long process, but it is much better than trying
to do it from within the MK program for large numbers of echoes.

  On 02/11/2004 11:20 AM, Steve_Quarrella wrote:

>
>Hello Daniel.
>
>11 Feb 04 02:04, you wrote to all:
>
> DL> I have changed hubs.  Is this message getting out? If so, then I will
> DL> have more news to post.
> DL> {at}PATH: 130/1015 803 106/1 123/500 3830/9
>
>Here's the path you took to get here.
>
>Steve
>
>--- GoldED+/W32 1.1.5-030104

---
Daniel O'Leary, Admin/WebMaster  KloneZone - A TeleFinder 5.7 BBS
Voice=> 817-367-2558  Dial-In=>  817-367-2517  Fidonet=> 1:130/1015
TFNet=> klonezone.tfnet.org  Internet=> kz.eaze.net  WWW=>
http://kz.eaze.net


--- MacKennel 2.6.Y2K