From: dholland@husc10.harvard.edu (David Holland)
Newsgroups: comp.bbs.misc
Subject: Re: Searchlight (Bidirectional Flame)
Date: 31 Jul 92 05:37:18 GMT
Article-I.D.: husc10.DHOLLAND.92Jul30223718
 <BryuL1.5A2@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu><1992Jul26.043116.9215@ncsu.edu> 
 <1992Jul26.195127.24773@klic.rain.com><1992Jul28.011055.16431@panix.com>
Organization: Harvard Arts and Sciences Computer Services, Cambridge, MA
In-reply-to: fnord@panix.com's message of 28 Jul 92 01:10:55 GMT


fnord@panix.com writes:

 > > What specific features are unique?  
 > 
 > The user interface.  Searchlight is remarkable because it is intuitively
 > simple to use, providing as much hand-holding as you need on-line while
 > still providing killer features for the power user.

Hitting single character commands at a top-level prompt is rather remarkably
like a Citadel. Citadels are criticized for having an impenetrable user 
interface. I guess it's because you get the additional ability, once you know
the system, to enter long incantations for specialized commands. Can you, in
Searchlight, retrieve all the messages in the system posted by some particular
user between, say, July 20 and July 23, and download them as a text file? If
you can do it, how many operations does it take, and how many menus do you 
have to wait for?

 > In the old days you would log onto a BBS system and it would ask you for
 > your name.  You would then have to wait for the system to do a SEQUENTIAL
 > search of the user database only to discover that you weren't a valid user.
 > 
 > Searchlight was the first to store the user database in a binary tree.
 > Perhaps not as much of a big deal nowadays with 386 workhorses and 19,200
 > baud modems, but when all there was were xt's at 1200 baud it made a

Ooh, a b-tree. Citadel has always used a hash table; any username takes one 
lookup. Period.

 > difference.  All the menus that searchlight sends can be aborted if you
 > don't want to see them again.  If you think twice about any time consuming

Citadel doesn't pump any menu at you at all unless you ask for it explicitly;
but you can always get one if you want it. Much faster.

 > command you can abort it with a ^C.  Even the most up to date versions of
 > PC Board and Wisebyte force you to wait for it's main menu to redraw after
 > every operation.  Unless you choose "expert mode"  where you get a prompt
 > like this:
 > 
 > Enter Command <a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h,i,j,k,l>: 

A citadel will let you hit 's' to stop any output, too. As will nearly all
BBS software. You shouldn't cite PC-Bored as an example; after all, it's the
only system that was so bad they had to write a door to handle messages and
files. :-)

 > What will it do?
 > 
 > It will do anything that the others do.  Network mail (not USENET yet,
 > sorry), Run Doors, Messages, Files, etc.

So? What serious system can't?

 > The Message Threading on Searchlight is superior to any product on the
 > market. When a message comes up, there is an indicator of the number of
 > replies to it.  You can read these replies without losing your place.  You
 > can jump up the thread, or across the thread very easily.

Any product on the market? I seem to recall a few programs called 'nn', 
'trn', 'GNUS' - never mind the fact that there exist several (other) BBS 
packages that will do all these things. 

From what you say, I gather that Searchlight is an adequate program that 
doesn't have too many glaring omissions. However, considering that it costs a 
fair amount while some of its competitors are free, and appears to lack a
certain amount of heavy-duty functionality, I don't see any reason to buy it.
Nor would I go out of my way to recommend it.

Btw, does it support multiple arbitrary terminal types, or is it limited to 
hard-wired ANSI codes?

--
   - David A. Holland			dholland@husc.harvard.edu

      Feel disillusioned? I've got some great new illusions...
Newsgroups: comp.bbs.misc