07 Dec 14 23:51, you wrote to Michiel van der Vlist:
IA> IMHO: we DO need new and friendly GUI tools for newbies.
This has been true for as long as people have been using GUIs, but I'm not sure that at this point in FidoNet's life creating easier-to-use tools is really going to encourage many more people to use it. There's also the (maybe not very convincing) argument that if you make it too easy then you'll attract the wrong type of people.
Having said that, an idea that's long been kicking around in my head is a Windows installer consisting of BinkD, HPT and GoldED+ plus a small set of .cmd files that are just enough to scan, toss and poll a bossnode.
The only real issue is how to autogenerate a minimal set of config files for the software.
One option would be for the user to complete a web form, either pre- or post-install, and at the end of their registration process the web host provide thems with a zipfile of ready-made config files to use. I guess the alternative would be for the installer to perform that functionality, or chain to another program to do it, but I do like the web form idea because it would be cross-platform.
I mention GoldED+ only because it's what I'm familiar with, and it works well enough in an XTerm on FreeBSD, but it's a bit of a compromise under Windows.
Is there a Windows mail reader that runs as a GUI app these days?
I started working on a Windows GUI mail reader years ago, written in Borland C++ Builder. It could read Squish messagebases but that was as far as I took it. Instead I focused on getting the FidoNet Echomail Archive web site online, which initially was intended just for archival of old (pre-Year 2000) messagebases, which then morphed into archiving echomail on an ongoing basis. The obvious next step for the FEA site would be allowing people to post echomail from the site itself, but there are all sorts of authentication and Fidopolitic headaches with that, which is why I've left that idea alone. It's also why I've not made the backend code public for others to use - although to be honest, it's not that complicated.
I'm probably a bit old-fashioned thinking about Windows GUI apps when a lot of people (myself included) are increasingly using smartphone & tablet apps. A FidoNet point app that can be used offline may be useful to some people. BinkD and HPT should run OK on Android, so the hard part would be to develop a GUI mail reader, assuming nobody's done that yet.
