Roy Witt wrote to Robert Bashe on Sunday April 08 2012 at 07:29:   
      
   RW>>> I use FE as GoldEd's messagebase.   
      
   RB>> FE is a tosser and has no messagebase. It just works with quite a   
   RB>> number of them.   
      
   RW> Oh? What does the MSGBASE sub-folder under FE have in it?   
      
   That tells me you're using a Hudson messagebase (or simply have the Hudson   
   structure, as described below).   
      
   Although I have no MSGBASE subfolder, only "HUDSON" and "SQUISH". I use the   
   squish subfolder to assemble the echo list for FE after tossing. The Hudson   
   structure exists, but is not used as a messagebase.   
      
   RW> Why, it's a message base! How odd.   
      
   Hudson. There is no "native" FE messagebase. It merely uses/supports them. In   
   the doc there's the statement: "* Very fast and fully featured  TOSSER/SCANNER   
   for Hudson- (aka  QBBS), JAM-, Squish-, and Fido/*.MSG-Messagebase."   
      
   One peculiarity is this:   
      
   "You MUST here define the complete path and directory where you want the   
   Hudson Message Base  structure to  reside. If  the HMB  (or  QBBS) messagebase   
   structure doesn't already  exist, it will be  automatically created directly   
   by FESetup.  Well,  you  can  choose  to  work  with messagebases such as JAM   
   or SQUISH  or *.MSG only or the same  combined of course but, in any cases you   
   MUST have at least the HMB structure in your choosen directory even if unused.   
   (Don't worry, the HMB structures takes only an handful of bytes)"   
      
   I've never throught to ask why the Hudson structure must be present even if   
   you don't use that messagebase.   
      
   RB>> Thanks for the flowers.   
      
   RW> You don't get flowers for making an easy job harder to do, as in   
   RW> having to edit a text based config file.   
      
   Depends on the program. I generally have no problems with text configurations,   
   and in some cases it's easier to find something with them (here I'm thinking   
   of the GoldED configuration, which would be a mess if someone tried to squeeze   
   it into a GUI. As it is, I just have to search the text for what I want to   
   see/change.   
      
   RB>> I'll pass that on to the author, who lives some 5 miles away from me   
   RB>> and now has his own IT company ;-)   
      
   RW> Tell him that he'd have better luck if he provided a GUI system..   
      
   Tell him yourself: Tobias Burchchardt, 2:2448/401. That's his binkd address,   
   and he speaks good English. But if you want to suggest improvements, save   
   yourself the trouble. He doesn't do much developing for fido nowadays, and you   
   can get a free FE key if you ask him politely.   
      
   RW>>> Plus it has another option to export a 'squish' text file if one   
   RW>>> wants such a thing.   
      
   RB>> Never seen the option, and I suspect it would be for individual   
   RB>> echos, not for everything at once.   
      
   RW> Example.   
      
   Ah, OK - I thought you meant the squishbase. Got confused there.   
      
   RW>>> One  could probably export it to a squish messagebase and have it   
   RW>>> running in minutes instead of hours.   
      
   Possibly. But if you're running Hudson, you'd probably have to have some kind   
   of conversion program. Maybe not... I've never worked with such things and   
   have little experience in converting the various messagebases.   
      
   RB>>>> No experience with anything else.   
      
   RW>>> Too bad.   
      
   Never had any problems, and like they say "Don't rouch a running system". I   
   occasionally have to clean up the squishbase, for which there's a special   
   program. Otherwise all I can say is that I've been using squishbase since 1993   
   without difficulties.   
      
   RB>> You never know until you try - and anyway, you know that what you're   
   RB>> using yourself is "the best" ;-)   
      
   RW> I think so. And so does a major NAB hub who has just recently switched   
   RW> to FE.   
      
   As a matter of curiosity, what was he using before?   
      
   Cheers, Bob   
      
   --- GoldED+/W32 1.1.5-0613   
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