There are times when the alpine server that one needs for using Walnut is unavailable, perhaps for several days. BlackCherry provides an interim way for users to read their mail, with a user interface very much like Walnut's; as a benefit for the grapevine servers, the mail is removed from grapevine and stored in a local file. The user can delete and undelete messages. When Walnut is again usable, only the undeleted messages will be transfered to the Walnut log and database. Thus, an additional potential use for BlackCherry is to perform an initial sort of a large body of mail, say after a vacation. BlackCherry is much faster than Walnut, and can be used as one's only mail reading program. There is a provision for "expunging" the log used by BlackCherry. When messages are transferred to Walnut, a new log is started, leaving the previous one available. It is the user's responsibility to back up the BlackCherry log (the typescript says where the log is); only a local log is supported.

The normal behavior of BlackCherry is to read an existing log (or create a new one), read mail from grapevine and/or xns and then create a "msgSet" displayer. If one invokes BlackCherry with the -n switch, no new mail is retrieved. A BC-Mail button in the message window turns black when there is new mail; there is no autoNewMail capability.

One can have multiple BlackCherry's running, each looking a different log file, by typing BlackCherry (-n) filename, for various file names. The -n says not to try for new mail initially. At the moment there is no provision for moving messages from one log to another.

BlackCherry now has a readOnly option. By typing BlackCherry -r {fileName}, one gets a BlackCherry msgSet displayer that does not have the buttons Delete or NewMail, and the Ops menu will not have NewLogFile or Expunge options. In addition, if BlackCherry has trouble parsing a log, it prints a message giving better information about the problem with the log and then opens the log with the readOnly menus. One must fix the problem with the log before being able to change it using BlackCherry.

The internal format of BlackCherry log files has been changed to use relative instead of absolute pointers. This means that one can concatenate two BlackCherry log files and the result is a valid log file. To get a log file in the new format, one has to be running a BlackCherryPackage dated 9 November 1990 or later. Select a log file (call it ToBeAppended.mailLog) that you want to append to some other log file (call it Base.mailLog); do an expunge on ToBeAppended.mailLog (for the expunge to actually do anything at least one message must have been deleted - this rewrites the log in the relative format). Then issue the following command (your names will vary):

This should work in any combination of -ux and -vux directories. IF IT DOESN'T SEEM TO WORK THE FIRST TIME, DO NOT try it again until consulting an expert.