The FirstClass Client and FirstClass Personal

Introduction: This page covers our experiences and hints on how to get the best out of the OU implementations of FirstClass. We have continued to use FirstClass 5.5 which we have found to be extremely reliable but most of the below should apply to latter versions - some of the bug fixes may not be needed. It concentrates on FirstClass Personal which enables one to work offline. Our general experiences of FirstClass are favourable and the problems we and others experienced have been with the connections rather than FirstClass itself. It has a few idiosyncracies and for Email is less sophisticated than the best Email clients however it also contains a very comprehensive conferencing system which plays a pivotal role in courses such as M206.

FirstClass is optimised for intranet and online operation and that is the way the OU recommend one to use the system initially - expect big bills even at local call rates. FirstClass Personal allows offline operation where one dials in, downloads all new mail and selected conferences, uploads mail and conference contributions and then disconnects. We use FC Personal most of the time and even with a mobile telephone link the bills are contained.

Installing FirstClass: The instructions the OU provides are very detailed and there is no need to repeat most of it. The OU has several servers and if you need to access both, as we do, it is recommended that you should have two copies of the software installed into two Directories to allow First Class Personal to be run for both servers. They must both be directly below C: . The directories we used are C:\Oufc98 for Server 1 and C:\Oufc98-3 for Server 3. Each initially occupied 5 Mbytes of space which can grow to 25 Mbytes with mail and conference items. There are some ways round this duplication for experienced users of FirstClass and to enable you to exploit them in the future it is best to make your password the same on all servers before you instal Personal.

FirstClass Personal: Again the instructions should be followed carefully, in particular how you start the first time and when you enter the password (not on the entry screen the first time). Before using Personal you should be confident in online (remote) use of FirstClass and in configuring and customising it. We suggest that at the minimum you should be able to:

Change your Password
Make Aliases of Conferences on your desktop.
Change the Icons for Conferences and Mail messages (hint use Get Info)
Create a New Folder on the Desktop
Toggle Read Flags on and off
Change your Preferences (in particular set Reply Preference to Reply Sender)
Customise the Toolbar and add Buttons for:
- Get Info,
- Make Alias,
- New Folder,
- Toggle Read Flag
- and Replicate

How does Personal Work: When you use FirstClass in the normal online mode all the Mail and Conference items are on the Server (the machine at Milton Keynes) and so is all the information on your desktop layout etc. If you log in from a different computer nothing should change. When you use Personal selected Mail and Conference information is copied to your machine when you Replicate. Replication means your computer goes online and copies the information onto your disk (and then disconnects). The items which is copied is however largely determined by the online setup. All unread items in your mailbox are copied and they are marked as read. When it come to conferences you have to select the conferences otherwise you could get hours of unwanted transfers of material you do not want to read. The only conference that is transferred by default is the one on use of FirstClass Personal.

Selecting up Conferences to Download: First you must choose the conferences - for test purposes keep to say three and include OU Service News - you can add the rest latter. Now go online and create a Folder called Offline Conferences using the Service -> Offline Conferences. Drag it to somewhere you can easily get at it. Now make an Alias of one of the conferences you have selected. It will turn up somewhere on your desktop (it always seems random where!) and drag it into the Offline Conferences folder. Repeat with another Conference. Note that however deep the Conference is that you make an Alias of it turns up on the desktop. You may well want to make two aliases so there is one left to easily look at online if it was nested within another conference. It is worth double clicking on the Offline Conferences folder to make sure it contains your two or three selected conferences before you disconnect. You should also make sure that the mail and conferences contain some unread items - if not use the Toggle Unread Flag button you added to the toolbar to change a few.

First Replications: Follow all the setup instructions and then choose Replicate Now from the Services Menu or the toolbar if you have added it as suggested. Assuming all the setup has been OK the computer will go online and download all the unread items. This can take a while the first time. After the phone has been disconnected you should find a Mailbox and an Offline Conferences Folder on your Personal desktop containing the items which have been Replicated. You are now in business and can add extra conferences online as required.

Next Steps: The Offline Conferences folder on your desktop will contain the replicated conferences but you will notice that the Icons have disappeared. Put them back using Get Info - you can choose different Icons if you want. Once the Icons are replaced you can make Aliases and position them neatly on your desktop. You can now see why we suggest that you become confident in certain actions and add them to the toolbar! At this point you may wish to choose how long to keep your local copies and set the default by Settings -> Offline Configuration where you can also set the maximum size of message to Replicate. You will not find messages with big attachments unless you go online occasionally and look for the red unread flags in your mailbox and conferences. You also need to look for new and interesting conferences online. Note that sub-conferences all have to be individually selected.

In Practice: We find it works very well if one checks online once a week and Replicates daily. The daily time to replicate mail and 16 tutor conferences averages about a minute per server and at evening rates very rarely exceeds the time for the minimum charge of 5 pence.

TIPS:

Make sure that the OU or ISP number is on you Family and Friends list (maybe your best friend)
Leave the TCP/IP connection open after Replication and use the remaining time to Browse the Web - at weekend the time for the 5p minimum charge is 6 mins with Family and Friends etc.
Increase the default times the mailbox and conferences last to match at least the course length, we have 180 and 270 days - you will again never suffer an important message or posting expiring as one does online.
Copy anything you do online to yourself if you want to archive it - FirstClass tries to be too clever and does not Replicate your own postings.

Backup of First Class Personal Files: We had to look through a number of conferences and the notes on First Class Personal to see if there was any way of transferring the mailbox and downloaded conferences between the Main machine and our portable Libretto and backing up. Eventually found that the directory structure c:\oufc98\ppo\... contains all the Personal server files and ppo stands for Personal Post Office. Copying this is enough to transfer the local desktop, mailbox and downloaded conferences.

TIP For Tutors:

Extend the time the mailbox and conferences last to 500+ days and keep a copy of the PPO at the end of the year - you can create an extra copy of FC if you need to find old information (and you can look very efficient by making lots of useful postings at the start of next year!)

Hints and bug fixes for FirstClass Version 5.5

NOTE: We are still using FirstClass 5.5 - some of these problems may have been fixed in the latest versions.

Replication Problem and Solution

We had only one serious problem in FirstClass in that we could not get it version 5.5 to replicate using the Replicate Now button - I initially had to go into the Configure Offline screen and use Connect Now. I finally got the Replicate Now button to work by setting a scheduled connection on the Configure Offline screen. It is quite happy with it being every 180 days which should not be a big inconvenience. The OU now sets up the versions in this way when issued.

Exit

One should also note that you should exit using Exit on the File drop down menu or the red X on the toolbar. Using the usual X at top right leaves programs running in the tooltray and you can lock the program if you open up too many copies of personal. A right click on the FC Icon in the tooltray will give a menu with an exit. If you have locked the program inadvertently close other programs (if possible) and then try Cnt-Alt-Del and End Task or Shut Down the FirstClass task which will be marked "not responding" before resorting to rebooting.

Trash Collection in FC5.5 Personal

FC 5.5 was the first version to have the very useful facility of undeleting via the "Show Deleted Items" on the View Menu. Items are not permanently deleted and can be undeleted until the next trash collection by Right Click -> Undelete or set yourself up a button on the toolbar. If one is running FC 5.5 Personal there are however some caveats on trash collection:

The trash collection on exit in FC5.5 does not collect deleted messages or folders.
There is an automatic trash collection at 0300 (assuming you are working late!) which does collect deleted files folders and time expired messages as per the main server.
A trash collection can be initiated by a right click on the Personal Icon in the Tooltray or left clicking and using the drop down menu.
Open or selected folders do not have their contents trash collected.
The Desktop is always open so folders are not trash collected.
The Mailbox is also special and messages are not trashed.

My solutions are:

Drag folders on the desktop into any other folder to delete.
Drag mail messages into another folder for deletion. This can be a sub folder of the mailbox called "Bin".

TIP:

Create a folder used for deletions on the desktop called Bin (or "Recycle Bin" as per W95) into which any messages etc can be dragged without the tedium of answering dialog boxes for every deletion and then "select all" and delete en mass.

Trash collection is not something which has to be done frequently. Deleted files and expired files disappear from sight unless you choose to look at them. The only real reason to trash collect is when the files take up so much space they fill your disk or slow FC down. It is then only a few seconds work to initiate trash collection manually as it on the Personal Icon's right click menu in FC5.5 or a drop down menu in FC5.1. It may however take while to complete if you have several months of clearout!

The views here are entirely our own and are not endorsed in any way by the Open University. What is written on these pages is our own experiences and is not intended to replace in any way the documentation supplied with any of the Open University software.

Copyright © Peter and Pauline Curtis
Most recent significant revision: 17^th April, 1999
Content on SoftArc "hidden" on 12 ^th April, 2002 (Look at the Source if you need it!)