BeTips.net

If you’d like to run a BeOS-based mail server, install Enamel or CommuniGate Pro. If you’ve just installed CommuniGate and are having trouble getting it configured, that’s because it places some of its important configuration files in non- intuitive locations (that happens sometimes with ports from other platforms). However, Stalker Software has posted some useful BeOS- specific instructions here:
http:/ /www.stalker.com/CommuniGatePro/Install.html#BeOS
This should get you up and running quickly. Rember to tell your ISP you want to handle your own mail services!

If your non-U.S. keyboard has 83, 84 or 85 keys, you may never get a response out of it from BeOS, since BeOS tries to set up the keyboard in so called „mode 3“, where all keys send a single byte with scan-code. In „nomal mode“, which is „mode 2,“ the keyboard sends 1,2,3 or even 6 byte scan-codes (6 for Pause key). Be. probably chose „mode 3“ in order to speed up keyboard detection. You’ll need to replace your keyboard with a model with at least 101 keys.

BeOS seems to have trouble mounting the PC partition on hybrid CD-ROMs which contain both Macintosh and Windows sessions. Tracker can’t and DriveSetup can’t, but Terminal can mount these ISO 9660 sessions. [Editors‘ note: ISO sessions on standard, non-hybrid CDs mount just fine].

1. Open a Terminal window.
2. Type „mountvolume -dd“ to find the device name of your CD-ROM drive (i.e /dev/disk/ide/atapi/1/master/0/raw for the CD-ROM drive connected as master to the second IDE channel).
3. Create in the root directory of the filesystem a new directory by typing, for example „mkdir /wincd„.
4. Mount the CD-ROM using the „mount“ command and the option „-t iso9660“, i.e:

   mount -t iso9660 /dev/disk/ide/atapi/1/master/0/raw /wincd

If you’re using ICBM for ICQ connectivity, note that you can modify each user’s settings by navigating to ~/home/config/settings/BeCQ-YOURUIN/contacts. Inside this directory, each user is listed by their ICQ UIN.
To modify the properties of any user just right-click their file and choose Open With | DiskProbe. Under the Attributes menu you should see [BOOL] ‚BECQ:authorised‘. Change this value to 1 and the user will be on your list without them needing to authorize you.

If you have an ISA AdLib I/O card in your system to extend the number of available serial/parallel ports but have difficulties getting its ports recognized in BeOS, try removing /system/add-ons/kernel/busses/ide/ pcmcia. On a desktop system, I’d wager you won’t have PCMCIA anyway. After this, you can use the Devices preferences panel to add the ports.
Note that it has only been since R5 that the conflict between /system/add-ons/kernel/busses/ide/pcmcia and the card arose, and it is still present in 5.0.3.

There is a bug in personalStudio 1.5 (which will hopefully be cleared up in a future release) that causes audio levels to double whenever two clips are played simultaneously. Also, when laying a video clip with muted audio over a background audio file, you may lose your right stereo channel for the duration of the muted clip.
Here’s a workaround: Create a blank title and place it on a layer higher than your video (e.g. layer 6). Stretch the blank title to the length of the entire
project. This will completely eliminate volume changes during transitions and regain your lost stereo channel during muted video clips.
Another bug to watch for: If you place the blank title layer below the video layer (e.g. layer 4), pS will ignore your muting of the video clip and the sound will be present.

As noted in the Be Developer’s Guide, The BeOS Bible, and elsewhere, accessing application pull-down menus in BeOS is a bit different from Windows. To activate the menus, hit Alt+Esc. You can navigate across and down through the menus by using the trigger keys (underlined letters).

Sometimes you’ll want your scripts to pause until some other thread or process has been launched, so it has the services it needs to continue. For example, if you try to launch certain network apps from UserBootscript, the net_server may not be ready before they’re launched. To rectify this, use the waitfor command followed by the name of a thread to wait for. For example:

waitfor net_server
/path/to/BeAIM &

Note that waitfor needs the actual name of the thread (i.e. StyledEdit or CDPlayer), and not some obscure thread number.

I am staring to learn Blender, and I really like it! Finally, a cool, professional 3D app on my favorite OS. One thing that I don’t like about it is that it runs full-screen and obscures the Desbar. To take back control of your screen, try launching Blender with the -p flag, like this:

blender -p sx sy w h

where sx and sy are the upper left cordinates and w and h are the width and height. I use:

/boot/apps/blender/blender -p 2 2 1020 739

Get this dialed in, then put it in a shell script or make an alias to launch the program with.

The „Terminal“ application has many built-in command line options. Help unfortunately, is not one of them. A few of the options are the same as those used by „xterm“, but these options are, for the most part, undocumented.

For example, say I wanted to launch „Terminal“ with a blue background, white foreground, a title of „hostxyz“ and automatically telnet to hostxyz, I would use the following syntax: –

Terminal -bg blue -fg white -t "hostxyz" /bin/telnet hostxyz

Have a look at the contents of /etc/rgb.txt for available colours. Once you’re happy with the colour combinations, you can save these from the „Settings/Save as Settings File“ menu option. You will then be able to launch „Terminal“ the next time with the -p option specifying this file.

You could of course place the command line in a shell script and create a (symbolic) link to the script on the Desktop. You could create separate scripts to automatically launch with different colours etc for different hosts you may need to log into.