JB> I have a little bit of a logistical quandary here.

 JB> I have a few corespondents, who I've worked up a voluminous
 JB> exchange with. When I get my mail, I pound out the quick replies.
 JB> If the big posts aren't answered in the same package, they can get
 JB> lost in an old QWK file, under many number of other QWK files, and
 JB> are too often missed because I didn't have the time to compose a
 JB> reply to them that day.

gack... don't ya hate it when that happens?

 JB> I used to use BW in place of GoldEd, where the fluidity to read

is golded for offline use only or does it also access local message base
formats like HMB, JAM and MSG??

 JB> markers, rather than finality of closed mail bundles was nice. Is
 JB> there a way, to (I don't know...) compose a reply to a scratchpad -
 JB> other than save them as a text file, and import them back to the
 JB> echo whence they came? If IRR, I had a "scratch" echo on my board
 JB> years ago, where I could work on these epic messages, without
 JB> sending a half composed, not proofread message back to the
 JB> corespondent. 

with a set of local message bases, you keep the messages for as long as you
want and the lastread pointers are all right there with you... messages to
you can be marked as unread as well as being locked in some formats so that
nightly maint doesn't kill them off... i've locked messages so as to return
to them later, forgotten about them and then stumbled over them a year or
more later O:)

 JB> Do I remember right, that there was a system, that would toss, and
 JB> squish messages from OLM files, as if we were a point? Just some
 JB> way, to keep these half composed messages in an active packet, yet
 JB> not queued for uploading... 

i'm not sure about what you are describing but i would seriously look into
getting something much more FTN-point like and have some real message bases
locally... for one thing, they make a great archive that can go back years
and years if you started them that long ago and have kept them without
maint all this time... i've at least one area that has some 20000 messages
in it ;)

 JB> ... James

 JB> ___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.20

looks like you are still using BW a bit contrary to your opening statement ;)

 JB> ___ Maximus 3.01
 JB>  - Origin: -=-= Calgary Organization CDN (403) 242-3221 (1:134/77) 

)\/(ark