A complex WWW/LX setup example

Contents of this page:

• Introduction
• Basics of my setup
• My WWW/LX setup
• My Post/LX setup
• My *.cfg config files
• My batch and other involved files

• Mobile connectivity with HP LX palmtops
• The RS232 page (how to connect other devices to the serial port of HP LX palmtops)
• The IrDA page (Infrared communications with the HP LX palmtops)
• How to make a data cable for Siemens mobile phones
• Internet connection sharing techniques

Introduction:

It contains a TCP/IP stack with built-in IrDA and Ethernet support (in addition to the usual PPP and SLIP protocols which are needed for modem connections or direct serial connections to other computers) and the package contains several clients for almost every kind of purpose. An email client, a news reader client, ftp, telnet, finger and HV, a limited but useful WWW browser and get, which lets you get web pages automatically. Another very useful addition has been developed by Tony Hutchins using ROBOT/LX, an Internet robot program: ROBOWEB/LX. It combines get and ROBOT/LX so that you can get Internet pages or even whole sites onto your palmtop for offline reading. See this link for details.

It is relatively easy to set up WWW/LX and Post/LX for basic purposes. However, there are so much amazing sophisticated possibilities, which are not covered by the setup programs which come with WWW/LX and must be created manually.

Here are examples which should give you some ideas of what is really possible with WWW/LX. I have never seen another Internet software package which is so powerful and rich of features as WWW/LX. And in addition it is extremely user-customizable. See below. ;-) I won´t give you details here of how basic setups work, because you can read that in the WWW/LX documentation. I assume you are familiar with the basics already.

Basics of my setup:

• Modem connection over the serial port with several ISPs
• Modem connection via PCMCIA modem with several ISPs
• Mobile connection via IrDA-enabled GSM mobile phone
• Ethernet connection via PCMCIA Ethernet card
• direct serial connection to a PC which is connected to the Internet (internet connection sharing)
• IrDA connection to another PC which is connected to the Internet (internet connection sharing)

My main application, which acts as the "central", is Post/LX. WWW/LX is loaded resident and activated everytime I press F5 in Post/LX to establish a connection. If you don´t use email that much, but more often use ftp or HV, it may be better for you to start www.exe manually giving the setup to use as a parameter. It will then connect instantly and return to the DOS prompt, so you can do whatever you want once the connection is established. If that is the way you want to use WWW/LX, most parts of my setup are not useful for you.

In general, my www.cfg only contains five basic setups, independent from the ISP to use. So my www.cfg is kept small and thus doesn´t need so much memory. www.cfg is always loaded entirely into RAM, so it really makes a difference if you have for example 10 setups (one for each modem / ISP combination using two modems and 5 ISPs) or only two setups for the two modems and do the ISP choice externally using the little utility wwwset.

You could even work with just ONE "general" www setup and modify all relevant parameters externally. However, I have not choosen that way because I want still to be able to use www.exe as a stand-alone program without having to use the external wwwset utility.

My WWW/LX setup:

• Modem1 is for an external modem on COM1
• Modem2 is for a connection via PCMCIA modem (COM2)
• IrDA is for mobile phone connections over IrDA, for either Internet or SMS
• Ether is for a connection to my home PC via Ethernet card
• PPPD is for serial or IrDA connection to my home PC or laptop running Linux and the pppd (PPP deamon) and internet connection sharing (=IP forwarding and IP masquerading)
  
  
• TERM-K and TERM-IR is for a dumb terminal which enables you to send AT commands to a modem or mobile phone (IrDA) and connect manually (for debugging purposes). It requires you to have telnet.exe (also available on the dasoft ftp server) and you have to call it from the DOS prompt that way: www.exe -d TERM-[IR|K] "!telnet local"
  IR stands for IrDA, K for Cable.

My Post/LX setup:

I also use Post/LX for SMS sending and receiving via IrDA and my mobile phone. For this purpose, I have created a keyboard macro in post.cfg, which lets me send and receive all SMS just by placing the mobile phone near the palmtop´s IR port and fressing F8 in Post/LX. Note that if you are used to use F8 for pther purposes (for example for marking messages during you read them), you should NOT use that macro. I do never use F8 with the functionality Post/LX gives to it, and in the main screen of Post/LX F8 doesn´t have any functionality anyway. So I could choose F8 as my SMS macro activating key.

For more info on how to setup PDU for SMS processing please download PDU from Stefan Peichl´s homepage and read the documentation.

Here are some screenshots of my Post/LX main screen:

The main screen with some folders and mailboxes (SMS box on top so that the F8 macro works, see post.cfg below!):

Here I pressed Shift-F5: Only the one "Default" WWW/LX setup is shown. No need anymore to choose anything here!

This shows some of my "Externals" entries (Menu-X-X). Hotkey "S" chooses "SMS" (so that the F8 SMS macro works, see post.cfg below!)

My cfg config files:

Click here to see my www.cfg file (don´t use the file as is, because it contains html tags! Load it into your browser by clicking on the link and then mark, copy and paste! Passwords are replaced by dummy strings.)

Click here to see my post.cfg file (don´t use the file as is, because it contains html tags! Load it into your browser by clicking on the link and then mark, copy and paste! Passwords are replaced by dummy strings, most folder and mailbox data is removed because it is not relevant here)

My batch and other involved files:

First I provide the setcom.bat file which is invoked directly after pressing F5 in Post/LX (by the PreOnline parameter in the cfg).
Then follows the batch file choosisp.bat, which is invoked from within setcom.bat and which is responsible for the appropriate Dial and login paramteres, depending on the ISP which shallbe used. choosisp.bat is only invoked if setcom.bat recognizes a modem, either on COM1 or in the PCMCIA slot.
After that you will see postonl.bat, which handles the disconnecting after the online run (invoked by the PostOnline parameter in the cfg.
Thereafter at.scr (a robot script) is shown which setcom needs in order to distinguish if the device connected to IrDA or the serial port is a modem or another computer.

And finally, I will show you my postlx.bat, which I use after booting the palmtop to invoke Post/LX with WWW/LX loaded resident.

For all this you need the following programs:

• port1.exe or modem.com which looks if there is something connected to COM1
• wwwset.exe, which sets WWW setup parameters externally
• dis.com which is part of the WWW/LX package (terminates connection)
• Robot/LX (Robot/LX), which executes SCR scripts
• lxcic.com which detects, recognizes and enables PCMCIA cards
• PDU for SMS processing
• choice.com which is part of DOS, but not included in the palmtop ROM.
• LXETH, the Ethernet packet driver for the LX, if you use an Ethernet card
• maxdos, if you want to reserve as much DOS memory as possible for external programs like an editor or HV.

Click here to see my setcom.bat file (don´t use the file as is, because it contains html tags! Load it into your browser by clicking on the link and then mark, copy and paste!)

Click here to see my choosisp.bat file (don´t use the file as is, because it contains html tags! Load it into your browser by clicking on the link and then mark, copy and paste!)

Click here to see my postonl.bat file (don´t use the file as is, because it contains html tags! Load it into your browser by clicking on the link and then mark, copy and paste!)

Click here to see my at.scr file, created by Tony Hutchins (don´t use the file as is, because it contains html tags! Load it into your browser by clicking on the link and then mark, copy and paste!)

This is the line of setcom.bat which invokes Robot/LX with at.scr:

ROBOT.EXE -q AT.SCR >NUL

And here is my postlx.bat, which I use to start Post/LX with WWW/LX loaded resident:

@echo off
maxdos -l -e
C:\DFU\WWWLX\WWW.EXE -d !C:\DFU\WWWLX\POST.EXE
maxdos -r