Powerful search tools for Synth-DIY archives

[Ingo Debus]

Hi,

while porting Martin Czech's archive search program to Atari I thought
there could be lots and lots of features added. But then I thought: why
invent the wheel a second time? There are many "archive search programs"
available, for almost any platform, most of them shareware or even
freeware.

In Germany, Austria and Switzerland, there's a non-commercial mailbox
net called Mausnet. Usually, the users upload a file containing their
mails, called INFILE and download another file containing the mails and
news from other users, called OUTFILE. The OUTFILE is read by a frontend
program, sort of a offline newsreader.

So I wrote a little program that converts Martin's archive files into
OUTFILE format. Using CAT, an Atari frontend program (actually on a Mac,
with MagiCMac, an Atari emulator), I can:
- build up my own message base, deleting the mails I do not want to keep
(like those "sorry, only testing" mails).
- Sort all mails by date, author or subject.
- Search for strings (may contain blanks, of course)  in mails, subjects
or authors, search criteria can be ANDed or ORed.
- Set flags for each mail (for instance "Interesting").
- Search for flagged mails.
- The search isn't restricted to a certain archive file, so you don't
have to search several files when you don't remember the year.
- Searching is fast: it takes about 15 seconds on my system to search
*all* 18000+ mails for a string! Ok, my Mac is much faster than an
original Atari, but nevertheless...

The other frontend programs have similar features, I think.

Here are some of those programs:
Atari  :   CAT
DOS    :   MINNIE, CrossPoint
OS/2   :   Jerry PM, Emis/PM
Windows:   Micky, Einstein
Amiga  :   UMS, Matiga
Mac    :   Mausefalle, Mäusekeller
QL     :   QLFED
UNIX   :   Okami

CAT is freeware, even the sources (Modula2 and C versions) are
available.

Drawbacks are:
- Frontend programs are often in german.
- They cannot display pictures in mails.

Anyone interested? I compiled my little conversion program for Atari, if
anyone wants to compile it for another platform I could send the source
(it's written in C).

I think the only other Mausnet user on this list is Florian Anwander.
Florian, would you like to test it with another frontend than CAT?

Ingo