QWK Support

QWK and QWK-Net Style Networks

As like all other networks such as FidoNet-Style (FTN) networks, ENiGMA½ considers QWK external to the system but can import and export the format.

Supported Standards

QWK must be considered a semi-standard as there are many implementations. What follows is a short & incomplete list of such standards ENiGMA½ supports:

• The basic QWK packet format.
• QWKE extensions.
• Synchronet BBS style extensions such as HEADERS.DAT, @ kludges, and UTF-8 handling.

Configuration

QWK configuration occurs in the messageNetworks.qwk config block of config.hjson. As QWK wants to deal with conference numbers and ENiGMA½ uses area tags (conferences and conference tags are only used for logical grouping), a mapping can be made.

Note

During a regular, non QWK-Net exports, conference numbers can be auto-generated. Note that for QWK-Net style networks, you will need to create mappings however.

Example:

{
    messageNetworks: {
        qwk: {
            areas: {
                general: {          // local ENiGMA½ area tag
                    conference: 1   // conference number to map to
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

Uploading Replies

A caller who reads a QWK packet offline uploads the *.REP their reader wrote, with U from the message base menu (message_base_offline_import). Nothing asks them what format it is: a reply packet names itself from the inside, so a QWK one — a lone *.MSG file and no CONTROL.DAT — is read as QWK, and a Blue Wave one as Blue Wave.

Each reply names a conference number, which is matched against the same numbering the export used. An area with no conference configured is numbered automatically from 1000, so a conference you care about is worth pinning: an automatic number moves when you add or remove an area, and a reply written against the old numbering would then name a different one.

The guards are the same for any format — write access on the target area, a real user for personal mail, and the From name replaced with the caller’s own. See Blue Wave Support for the full list.

oputil

The oputil.js utility can export packet files, dump the messages of a packet to stdout, etc. See the oputil documentation for more information.

Offline Readers

A few of the offline readers that have been tested with QWK packet files produced by ENiGMA½:

Software	Status	Notes
MultiMail/Win v0.52	Supported	Private mail seems to break even with bundles from other systems
SkyReader/W32 v1.00	Supported	Works well. No QWKE or HEADERS.DAT support. Gets confused with low conference numbers.

There are also many other readers for various systems.