Wire Capture Summary

The wire service capture program, WinDispatch, allows a network workstation to monitor a modem or serial port for a wire-service feed or copy from remote writers or bureaus. Input is stripped, sorted into directories, purges expired stories, and saved in Rich Text Format, Microsoft Word, HTML or ANSI format files. 

 

WinDispatch operations are specified by creating and editing text channel-definition files. The files tells the program which ports or modems to watch, how to format incoming information and how to sort it. You may run multiple copies of WinDispatch to capture multiple wires; just create a different channel-definition file for each wire channel and start a copy of WinDispatch for each one.

 

  

 

Operation

Once WinDispatch is executed, use the File/Open menu command to associate a channel definition file with the running copy of the program. If you press the Start button before opening a channel-definition file, the program will ask you to open one. Use the File/New command to create and edit a new channel-definition file. Use the filename extension “.stw” if possible. Once you’ve opened a channel-definition file, you may edit its text by using the Edit/Edit Definition File menu choice. Any changes you make will not take effect until you save the file and start or restart reception. Use the Start button to enable reception. The channel-definition file will be read or re-read and the program will test the sorting paths it specifies to make sure they exist. Then it will open the data source and begin receiving and sorting stories. The Terminate button halts wire capture. Capture may be restarted or you may close the program.

 

Automated Operation

WinDispatch will automatically open and start a channel if a channel definition file is specified as a startup parameter.

 

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