Hello Jonathan.

04 Oct 98 17:02, Jonathan de Boyne Pollard wrote to Donnie Benners:


 DB>> I want to make sure I'm connected to the internet when my program
 DB>> runs. If not, I want to callup the dialer and connect.

 JP> I'm convinced that many programmers don't read the "user"
echoes and
 JP> newsgroups.  If they did, they wouldn't ask questions such as the one
 JP> that you are asking, because they'd have seen the number of complaints
 JP> from users who are having problems trying to *stop* their applications
 JP> from "automatically" invoking diallers, or from being
"clever" and
 JP> "detecting" whether the Internet is accessible or not.

 JP> Don't do this.  It makes users' lives hell.  There's absolutely *no*
 JP> need for it in any case, since there is a perfectly good mechanism for
 JP> doing this -- that the users can configure *for themselves* in any way
 JP> that they like, no less! -- already present in OS/2 Warp: LINKUP.EXE.
 JP> Do what the rest of the TCP/IP applications in OS/2 do.  Assume in
 JP> your application that SLIP/PPP is running, and have two sets of
 JP> desktop objects to invoke the application.  The first object is for
 JP> "LAN" users, and just invokes the application directly.  The second
 JP> object is for SLIP/PPP users and invokes the application indirectly
 JP> via LINKUP, which will handle invoking the dialler if necessary before
 JP> starting your application.

The app I'm working on is an automated FTP prpgram for getting Fidonet
mail. I haae it running now on my BBS, but I want to make it so I don't
have to run scripts to dial the ISP before it starts, and have another
script running to make sure I didn't loose the conection while it's
running.

I know what you mean about the auto stuff. I have Win95 at work, and
everytime I try to connect to the AS/400 on the WAN, it pulls up the dialer
and wants to dial my ISP. At least I can abort it, but it's still a pain.

I plan to have the dial ISP capability configurable. If you are already on
a lan that has internet access, then it wouldn't run.

Donnie

--- GoldED/2 3.00.Beta3a+