ec - README

EC Installation

CAUTIONS

As of Version 1.16, ec stores its library modules in the site_perl library directory. If you try to run an earlier version, you'll likely receive, "module not found," errors, at least, due to version incompatibilities. The safest course, after installing the new version, is to remove the library modules of the old version with the commands:

     $ rm -rf ~/.ec/EC
     $ rm -rf ~/.ec/Tk

2. Remember to make backups of the .ecconfig and .servers files before

upgrading.

CONTENTS

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

INSTALLING AND CONFIGURING

X Fonts

PRINTING THE DOCUMENTATION

TROUBLESHOOTING

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

Perl, at least version 5.004. If the version of Perl that is installed on the system is earlier than 5.004, you probably can't run much of anything else, either.
Perl/Tk version 800.022 or later. You can download Perl/Tk from http://www.cpan.org/. There are also Perl/Tk binary packages for many different systems.
MIME::Base64, if you want to send and receive MIME mail attachments. If you have Perl 5.8, it should already be installed. Otherwise, you can download MIME::Base64 from http://www.cpan.org/.
An Internet connection to a POP3 and SMTP server, or a local Mail Transfer Agent - either sendmail, exim, or qmail.

INSTALLING AND CONFIGURING

Unpack the tar archive, preferably in your home directory (which you've already done it you're reading this).

tar zxvf ec-<version>.tar.gz

2. Install the program, library, and documentation files. You can

build the files while logged in as a normal user. The actual installation requires system administrator privileges.

      $ cd ec-<version>
      $ perl Makefile.PL
      $ make

Then log in as the system administrator and install:

# make install

3. Install the configuration files for each user. They reside in

a subdirectory of each user's $HOME directory. The default configuration files are located in the configs/ subdirectory: configs/dot-ecconfig and configs/dot-servers.

While logged in as a normal user, install the configuration files with the following commands:

      # mkdir ~/.ec
      # cp configs/dot-ecconfig ~/.ec/.ecconfig
      # cp configs/dot-servers ~/.ec/.servers
      # chmod 0600 ~/.ec/.servers

If you are upgrading you may not need to re-install the configuration files, although you should check carefully that the upgrade is compatible with the old configuration files.

By default, the program looks for the configuration files as $HOME/.ec/.ecconfig and $HOME/.ec/.servers. The subdirectory and files are hidden. Use the -a command line option to ls to view them:

# ls -la ~/.ec

For security, the .servers file has limited permissions, so that only the files owner can view them. The program prints an error message if the permissions are not correct.

4. Edit the .ec/.ecconfig file with the program options of

your choice. You can read and edit the file with a text editor or from the Help -> Sample .ecconfig File... menu option. The comments in the .ecconfig file explain the function of each option and the possible values for them. The help file, the Help -> Help menu option, provides additional information.

5. On Solaris systems, make sure that the value of, "mailspooldir,"

in the ~/.ec/.ecconfig file is set to the system's mail spool directory, normally /var/mail.

You may also need to change the value of $SOCK_STREAM line 102 of the ec program to '2' to communicate directly with SMTP and POP3 servers.

6. EC requires, at the very least, a top-level mail subdirectory,

and two sub-sub-directories, one for incoming mail and another for deleted messages. Create the directories defined in the configuration file with the following commands:

      $ mkdir ~/Mail
      $ mkdir ~/Mail/incoming
      $ mkdir ~/Mail/trash

These are the path names used in the standard configuration. If you change them. make sure also to edit the options in ec and $HOME/.ec/.ecconfig.

X Fonts

Ec can use fonts specified in ~/.Xresources, ~/.Xdefaults, ~/Ec, or ~/.ec/.ecconfig. Ec uses resources of the, "Ec," class. Here are some sample font resource entries.

      !! Default font
      Ec*font: -helvetica-medium-r---12-
      !! Fonts for widget classes
      EcDialogfont: -helvetica-medium-r---12-
      EcTextUndofont: -courier-medium-r---12-
      EcListboxfont: -courier-medium-r---12-
      EcMenufont: -helvetica-medium-r---12-
      EcButtonfont: -helvetica-medium-r---12-

Fonts specified in .ecconfig override the X resource settings. Refer to the comments in the .ecconfig file.

PRINTING THE DOCUMENTATION

Perl's POD formatting utilities can generate documentation in various formats.

pod2html <ec >doc.html
pod2latex <ec >doc.tex
pod2man <ec >doc.man
pod2text <ec >doc.txt
pod2usage <ec >doc.msg

Refer to your system's manual pages for these utilities.

TROUBLESHOOTING

The installation should copy the executable programs to the same directory as the perl interpreter. If the ec program is in your $HOME directory, typing simply, "ec," should produce a response like this:

bash: ec: command not found

Standard practice on Unix systems is not to include the current directory in the search path for programs, as a security measure. So, you need to specify the directory explicitly. Here are two ways to do it:

     # The dot is a synonym for the current directory.
     $ ./ec   
     # A tilde is a synonym for your home directory.  
     $ ~/ec

Refer to the documentation for the shell (man bash, man csh, man ksh, etc.), or almost any book about Unix.

2. Finding the Perl Interpreter

Solaris 8

The standard configuration of Solaris 8 uses Version 5.005 of Perl and installs the interpreter in /usr/perl5/bin. The installation also makes a symlink, /usr/bin/perl. However, ec still gets installed in /usr/perl5/bin, which is not listed in the default $PATH. If you get an error message like this:

bash: ec: command not found

You must:

Make a symlink to ec in /usr/bin (you must have administrator privileges to do this):
# ln -s /usr/perl5/bin/ec /usr/bin/ec
Or, add /usr/perl5/bin to your $PATH variable. How to do that depends on the shell and the desktop environment. The command for the Bourne shell sh is:
$ PATH="/usr/perl5/bin:"$PATH ; export $PATH
If neither of the above are possible, type the full pathname of ec:
$ /usr/perl5/bin/ec

Other Operating Systems

On other systems, if you try to run ec and get an error message like

this

bash: ec: No such file or directory

Then you need to edit the first line of the ec program file to the path to the system's perl interpreter. Usually this is /usr/bin/perl (the default in the distributed program), or /usr/local/bin/perl. If neither of these work, try using the output of the command: "which perl."

3. Diagnosing Server Problems

The -v command line option prints a transcript of the dialog with the mail servers:

$ ec -v &

If the output scrolls off the screen, you can also redirect the transcript to a file:

$ ec -v >ec.transcript &

The transcript should provide enough information to help pinpoint configuration or authentication errors.

If the program doesn't work for some reason that isn't covered in the TROUBLESHOOTING section, please let the author know. Send bug reports, suggestions, and other feedback to rkies@cpan.org.

Ec is licensed under the same terms as Perl. Please refer to the file, "Artistic."

$Id: README,v 1.4 2004/03/03 00:48:19 kiesling Exp $