Hi,

I thought some might be interested in my latest batch file to manage ePrompter configurations. I think my old file was the inspiration for the nicely done ePbatch files.

I've only tested under Win98se so the considerations and documentation with ePbatch mostly apply. Although my batch file, ePrompter.bat, works fine as is, hopefully, it will be developed into the well-documented type of utility that ePbatch has become. My file contains some minimal documentation at the end of it.

This one cycles through 26 configurations, allowing the management of 416 email accounts. That should satisfy almost all needs! (I'm about to cross the 48 account mark, myself). It makes no changes to the contents of the ini files as set up by ePrompter. Alternate configurations are maintained in backup files renamed by single alphabet letter extensions from the original ini files.

See the appended "ePrompter.bat" file. I see in the preview for this post that my comment formatting at the end of the file has been damaged. If you have trouble reconstructing something readable, let me know.

Bill H.

[This post edited by Ximinez to remove appended lines of file code, since the actual file has been attached in the following reply.]

This post has been edited by Ximinez: Nov 14 2004, 12:34 PM

Bill,

Thanks for writing the program!!! I've got numerous emails, so this is a real help.

Do you have a help file or read me text? I'm using XP.

Thanks!
Alex.

> Do you have a help file or read me text? I'm using XP.

Hi Alex!

The brief readme is in the REM remark statements at the end of the batch file. The nice documentation done for ePbatch mostly applies, as well, with the naming changes indicated in the remarks at the end of my contributed batch file.

The basic procedure is this. Use ePrompter to set up a few email accounts, 16 or less, that you want to manage together. After your setup is done and tested look for where the ePrompter.ini file was stored on your system drive under XP. Making sure you have completely exited ePrompter, you now rename ePrompter.ini to ePrompter.A and your first email group is setup and ready to go.

Next start ePrompter and create the next email group you want to manage. Get completely out of ePrompter and rename that ePrompter.ini file to ePrompter.B so that you have 2 configurations at this juncture, stored in ePrompter.A and ePrompter.B.

Keep doing this for as many configurations as you like and completely exit ePrompter. Now, pick the configuration you want to begin using, e.g., ePrompter.C, and rename it to ePrompter.ini. Whatever single configuration is renamed to ePrompter.ini is the one that will be active when you start ePrompter. So go ahead and start ePrompter and enjoy using this configuration.

When you want to change to the next configuration, completely exit ePrompter, and run ePrompter.BAT to setup the next configuration in the cycle of alphabet names. Put the BAT file in the same directory as the INI file. In this example, if the "C" configuration is the one you were most recently using, the BAT file will set up the "D" file, if you had one, or if "C" was your last configuration, the BAT file would cycle the next configuration to the "A" set. Everytime you run the BAT file with ePrompter not running, the next configuration in the cycle you defined will become the active configuration.

What I do in Win9se to make this more convenient is to place shortcuts to both the BAT file and ePrompter on the top of the Start button menu. In XP you do this by "pinning" shortcuts to the BAT file and ePrompter. See the right click menu when you right click on an executable file or shortcut.

Now that I have so many configurations easily managed and available in ePrompter.BAT, I'm finding I'm thinking of each configuration differently than before. Previously, I packed each configuration with 16 accounts and each email account appeared in only one configuration. Now I'm thinking of an email configuration as a "working group" of accounts. For example, I have one configuration that is my web group management configuration. It contains the 8 email accounts, including my "personal/family" account, that I use for managing discussion groups on the web. My personal email account also appears in most of my other configurations for convenience, 2 of the other accounts in the web group management set appear in other configurations.

Also, my A,B, and C configurations are my "high frequency" configurations that I spend the most time in. The remaining configurations (currently D thru H) hold email accounts that are low priority/frequency or just being held for future uses. I usually cycle through these very quickly once a week just to see what's going on there. Cycling quickly is possible because both ePrompter and the BAT file are convenient on the start menu.

Good luck! Let me know how things work out for you.

Bill H.