RGFN User's Guide

Shortcuts with System Commands

You can take some shortcuts to get where you're going in Rio Grande Free-Net. There are special commands that can be typed at the Your Choice ==> prompt instead of a menu number or letter. For example, by typing go post you are immediately taken to the Post Office menu. This is the fastest way to get from one menu to another. If you want to open your mailbox, just type mail at the prompt. See a complete list of go commands in this guide. You can navigate through RGFN by using the menus, some system commands, go commands or by using a combination of each.

System Commands

At Your Choice ==> prompt, use any of the following:

quit: Quits (or exits) the system. Use this to log off the system.
x: Exits the system, same as quit.
main or m: Back to the Main Menu.
redraw: If, for some reason, the menu is no longer visible on the screen (it has scrolled off the screen or line noise has interfered with the display) typing redraw will redisplay the current menu.
help: Displays the help document.
previous or p: Takes you back to the last menu you picked. Note: There is a limit to how many levels deep you can go. If you ever get the error message: Maximum menu depth exceeded, type p or previous to back up or type m or main to start all over.
who or w: Displays a list of all the people currently on the system.
whoami: Prints your User ID.
page: Tells the system to display one screenful of text at a time. This is the default when you log into the system. It allows you to read the text before it scrolls off the screen.
nopage: Turns off paging. This tells the system that you want the text to be displayed without stopping. This is useful when uploading/downloading text to your PC or printer.
pause: While displaying messages or files, the reader on the system will pause after every message is displayed. You are asked to: Press Return to Continue. Doing so will print out a brief list of commands that you may choose from.
nopause: While displaying messages or files, the system will not show the list of commands after each message.
confirm: When exiting the Mail reader, the Bulletin Board reader, or exiting the system it will ask you if you really want to exit. This is to prevent accidental disconnections when you press the wrong button. By default it is turned on.
noconfirm: This disables the confirmation of exit questions.
cbreak: When reading mail or news, cbreak will set your terminal into cbreak (read each character as it is typed) mode. You can then use the n, s, t, etc. commands without a RETURN afterwards.
nocbreak: Disables cbreak mode.
showmenu: Display menus at all times. After each command is run the menu from which you selected that command is displayed. This is the default behavior.
noshowmenu: Only display a menu when you first enter (or reenter) the area. You may run multiple commands from this menu without it being redisplayed. To get the menu redrawn just press ENTER at the Your Choice ==> prompt.
printenv: Lists the current environment variables and their settings.
lookup: Lookup information about a user (by User ID).
find: Lookup User ID's from full names (or partial names).
default: Set all environment variables to their default settings.
system: Print basic information about the system. The information includes: system name, current time, how long the system has been up (in days, hours, and minutes - 5 days, 7:20 - for 5 days 7 hours and 20 minutes), the number of users on this system, and the load average. The load average consists of 3 numbers representing the load over the last 1 minute, 5 minutes, and 15 minutes respectively. The load is a measure of CPU usage only. If the network gets real busy the system can slow down even with a low load.
reset: Sets the terminal settings back to their original values. This is sometimes necessary when a program exits abnormally leaving the terminal in an unusual state. (i.e., it won't echo characters).
save: Saves the current "environment" settings. The system keeps information about the type of terminal you have, which editor you like to use, and how big the screen is. By default these are set to "dumb", none, and 24x80 chars. You may change these settings (type go term) but you must save them if you want the system to remember them the next time you log in.
time or t: Displays the current time and date as well as the amount of time remaining in your session.
mail: A quick way to read your mail. Also see The Mail System section in this guide.
send or s: A quick way to send mail to someone.
from: List who your new mail is from.
term: A quick way to set your terminal type. You are asked to enter the new terminal type,ie., vt100, ansi,etc.
lines: A quick way to change the number of lines that the system thinks you have on your display.
cols: A quick way to change the number of columns that the system thinks you have on your display.

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