Documentation

The application privacy policy is located here: http://hotdoged.propush.ru/docs/policy

Requirments:
- Android 2.3+.
- Fidonet point or NNTP-server access.

Installation:
1. Download and install the feed providers you need:
fido: http://vp.propush.ru/download/HotdogEdFIDO.apk or in Google Play
nntp: available in Google Play.
Nothing will appear on your desktop right now.

2. Download and install HotdogEd editor:
http://vp.propush.ru/download/HotdogEd.apk or in Google Play.

3. Run HotdogEd. After a while you'll see categories of the feed providers you've just installed. Press "Add new..." to add a new account. You can add/ categories later, but don't forget to restart HotdogEd in order to activate them.

How to setup the HotdogEd to work with fidonet?
I tried to create a self-explaining user interface, but if there are some difficulties, here are some advices that could help you start.
If you have an existing point address, use this manual (in Russian) to fill the requested fields.
If you don't yet have a point, but want to get one, install the Fidonet provider, editor and then after the program starts click "Add new..." under Fidonet section and then "Request point". Then just choose the node you want to link to. Good luck and have fun :)
The documentation creation is in progress...

Taking a participation in point requests
Since 2.11 any sysop can announce his node to accept new point requests via HotdogEd in the program's interface.
Point request can be sent from HotdogEd in 2 ways:
1. Via http POST-request to some server. The request must include 4 mandatory POST variables:

_name - point's first name and second name
_email - point's e-mail
_password - password for everything (session, pkt, etc)
_about - some info about the new point so that the sysop can make up his mind whether to approve or decline the request.

All fields are mandatory in HotdogEd, so the user can not just skip it and go on.
The server should respond with 2 lines of text: first line is OK or ERROR (if the point request was approved or declined respectively ) and the second line is the new 4D-address assigned to the new point (i.e. 2:234/567.89) or the reason of the decline (i.e. Sorry, you are lame).

In case of OK response, HotdogEd makes all the necessary setup automatically and the user can enjoy fido starting from this moment, if there is an automatic approve algorythm on the node side. I myself prefer 2-way algorythm, the user sends me a request and I approve it later. The user receives several e-mails after both stages. But it's up to you to decide. I know one of my friends approves all requests automatocally.

2. Via e-mail request. HotdogEd just composes a letter to sysop and sends it by e-mail after user enters all the data about himself mentioned above. Of course the sysop should receive this email and manually setup his node to accept the new point. And he should also notify the point of his new point address. With this method, hotdoged makes all the setup for the point, except point address, because at the moment of the request no one actually knows it. So HotdogEd makes setup for .999 (i.e. 2:234/567.999). The user should edit the address manually after receiving a response from the sysop.

As you can see the first method requires some effort from sysop to implement it. But actually not very much. I think one of the sysops in Russia is already working on some scripts for HPT and binkd for this and soon they may become available. And Ivan Agarkov (2:5020/848) already implemented the full auto-approve algorythm in his latest commit to jNode repository - his beautiful and much loved tosser and mailer all-in-one written in pure Java. BTW it's very powerfull and full of features. And production ready! You can check it here: https://github.com/kreon/jnode

The second method does not require any work extra efforts except listing your node as point-request available. You just receive e-mails, reply to them and make configuration s manually. As you probably did before.

How to make HotdogEd aware of your node accepting point requests? Very easy. Me and several other guys are maintaining a simple XML-file on github, take a look at it:
https://github.com/propush/hdpntreqlist/blob/master/nodes.xml
HotdogEd parses it and that's how it's aware of the nodes that accept point requests. The file is self-explaining and here is the easiest node description:

    
        Russia
        Moscow
        Damage BBS
        Alexander Lobachev
        ss_di(dog)mail.ru
        binkp
        binkp.nauchi.ru

This section tells hotdoged that node 2:5020/1906 in Moscow, Russia accepts point requests by e-mail specified. Hotdoged automatically makes setup for this node for binkp protocol (the only one supported at the moment) and the ip-address binkp.nauchi.ru. Please fill the and tags carefully - HotdogEd asks the user to choose his location and it sorts the node list so that the nearest nodes to him are on top positions. It also awares the user that despite the fact that fidonet is a world-wide network, some region-specific echo areas exist.

Here is an example of the node (my node btw) with http-request feature:

    
        Russia
        Moscow
        Pushkin's BBS
        Sergey Poziturin
        Welcome, friends. A lot of echoes. No fileechoes. Добро пожаловать. Много эх. Файлэх нет.
        offspr@pochta.ru
        binkp
        vp.propush.ru:24555
        http://vp.propush.ru/pntreq/request.php
        http://vp.propush.ru/pntreq/areasfull

Note the tag here :) This is just a note that will be displayed on the user's phone if he selects 2:5020/2141 before he submits his point request.

And the tag is the second feature I'd like you to know about and to get ready for it. It's optional but if you specify it, it should be the URL the full echo list of your node can be downloaded. Everytime the user goes to subscription management in HotdogEd, he will be able to use the list of areas available from your node. He will see area name, description, message count and the latest message time for every echo. You can download the file example and see it yourself:
http://vp.propush.ru/pntreq/areasfull
On my node it is generated every hour automatically.

The file consists of lines of text, one line for single echo. 4 comma-separated fields:
area name, unixtime of the last message, message count, description.
Example:

hotdoged,1433136356,35,Autocreated echoarea

(note: unixtime is the number of seconds since epoch).

First field (echo name) is mandatory. The rest are optional and can be omitted for some reason. Examples:

hotdoged,,35,The best android fidonet client on earth
linux,,,The best operation system for geeks

If someone is using jNode, I can give you an SQL-script that produces this beautiful listing for tag .

There is also an native tag . It's the URL pointing to a simple echo list: one area per line, just area name, no other info. Example:

n5020.sysop
ru.linux
hotdoged

I have a unix shell command for HPT that generates a list of areas for tag. If you need it let me know (or ask Alexey Vissarionov, 2:5020/545, he is the author).

In the list of nodes, the user makes a choice which of the nodes to prefer, nodes implementing http-requests are higher than those preferring requests by e-mail. Nodes providing echo list are higher than the others. Nodes located in the user's country and the city are the highest ones.

Developing for HotdogEd

If you are willing to take part in developing for Hotdoged, please consider reading this.

Using scoring, virtual groups and filters

Sinse 2.13 it's possible to use scoring and virtul groups.

Scoring is the way of assigning a rating to the article. Rating affects the way articles are sorted. If rating is 0 (this is the default value), the sorting is done as usual accorodng to preferred sorting order. But once the rating (score) is increased, the article goes higher in article list. Lower scores make article go lower.
Also articles with positive scores are marked green in article list. Negative score colors them in red. If score is not equals to zero, the rating is displayed in square brackets on the left of the subject in article list:

Assigned score can be relative or absolute. Relative score is the one that is added or substracted from the previous score of the article, if there are several of them. Absolute article is assigned as is.
If a score gets below -100, the article is banned (not shown). When exiting a group, HotdogEd asks you of you'd like to mark all articles with negative score as read. It can be tweaked in general settings.
Filters are used to assign scores (see below).

Virtual groups give you a way to organize you messages or search some information. Virtual group is a group that includes articles from other groups (except virtual ones, of course).

Both virtual groups and scores are ruled by filters. Each filter is a set of conditions (i.e. to name equals to "Sergey Pushkin" or subject contains "android") combined by AND or OR filter group. AND/OR groups can include other groups so the filters can be very complex. There is also a NOT filter group that negates the filter included.

When a scoring filter matches an article, it's rating is set according to scoring rules. When a virtual group filter matches an article it's included in a virtual group and will be shown if you enter this group.
Consider not using a lot of filters with searching by "Article" field, because full text search is not something your phone wants to do every time article list is refreshed :) It's not a database server. Nevertheless filters (both for scoring and virtual groups) are rather lightweight and don't consume too much resourses. Good examples of virtual groups are "Starred" and "To me" groups. Now they can be configured as you like and even d.

Limitations: some phones may ignore case insensitive search flag with national text patterns (containing non-latin letters). It depends on the compiled-in sqlite implementation. Thanks google for that mess.

There is also an article search mechanism available. It is actually just a convinient way to create and enter a virtual group with specified search filter, but it can be saved as a virtual group that can be visited later:

Hardware keyboard navigation

Here is a list of keyboard shortcuts available when reading articles:
- 'E' - Create new article.
- 'Q' - Reply to auhtor.
- 'N' - Reply to auhtor in another group.
- 'C' - Edit article (to be used in Outgoing group).
- 'F' - Forward article.
- 'W' - Export article.
- 'Z', space - page down or next article.
- 'A' - page up or previous article.
- Left/right - Previous/next message.

Development

Developing for HotdogEd

HotdogEd is pluggable software. It hosts an sqlite3 database and provides methods of accessing it under Android via the content-provider mechanism.

If you would like to create a plugin (i.e. you want a 3-rd party FTN-mailer and tosser), you can access the content by the following URIs:

content://com.pushkin.hotdoged.provider/notifications - get a list of notifications
content://com.pushkin.hotdoged.provider/templates/# - access the message template by _id
content://com.pushkin.hotdoged.provider/filters - get a list of filters
content://com.pushkin.hotdoged.provider/filters/# - access the filter by _id
content://com.pushkin.hotdoged.provider/scores - get a list of scores
content://com.pushkin.hotdoged.provider/scores/# - access the score by _id
content://com.pushkin.hotdoged.provider/addresses - get a list of addresses
content://com.pushkin.hotdoged.provider/addresses/# - access the address by _id
content://com.pushkin.hotdoged.provider/Categories - get a list of categories
content://com.pushkin.hotdoged.provider/Categories/# - access the category by _id
content://com.pushkin.hotdoged.provider/Categories/* - access the category by name
content://com.pushkin.hotdoged.provider/servers, - get a list of servers
content://com.pushkin.hotdoged.provider/*/servers, - get a list of servers for category (by category name)
content://com.pushkin.hotdoged.provider/servers/# - access the server by _id
content://com.pushkin.hotdoged.provider/*/servers/# - access the server by _id (for the category)
content://com.pushkin.hotdoged.provider/*/servers/#/groups - get a list of groups (for category name and server _id)
content://com.pushkin.hotdoged.provider/groups/# - access the group by _id
content://com.pushkin.hotdoged.provider/*/servers/#/groups/# - access the group by _id (for category name and server _id)
content://com.pushkin.hotdoged.provider/*/servers/#/groups#/items - get a list of messages (for category name, server _id and group _id)
content://com.pushkin.hotdoged.provider/*/servers/#/groups#/items/# - access the message by _id (for category name, server _id and group _id)
content://com.pushkin.hotdoged.provider/*/items - get a list of messages (for category name)
content://com.pushkin.hotdoged.provider/*/items/# - access the message by _id (for category name)
content://com.pushkin.hotdoged.provider/*/servers/#/groups#/filters - get a list of filters (for category name, server _id and group _id)
content://com.pushkin.hotdoged.provider/*/servers/#/groups#/filters/# - access the filter by _id (for category name, server _id and group _id)

There are some more URIs that are intended for internal purposes.

Here is a database scheme actual for 2.13.x:

CREATE TABLE grouptypes
  (
     _id    INTEGER PRIMARY KEY
     , code TEXT
  );

CREATE TABLE templates
  (
     _id           INTEGER PRIMARY KEY
     , template    TEXT
     , template_r  TEXT
     , template_f  TEXT
     , template_aa TEXT
  );

CREATE TABLE servers
  (
     _id                         INTEGER PRIMARY KEY
     , category_id               INTEGER
     , template_id               INTEGER
     , server_active             INTEGER
     , server_name               TEXT
     , server_ip                 TEXT
     , server_description        TEXT
     , server_codepage           TEXT
     , server_auth_enable        INTEGER
     , keep_msg_amount_per_group INTEGER
     , keep_msg_days_per_group   INTEGER
     , user_name                 TEXT
     , user_address              TEXT
     , server_quoting            TEXT
     , signature                 TEXT
     , custom_headers            TEXT
     , outputheadersformat       INTEGER
     , origin                    TEXT
     , schedule_time             INT
     , last_sync                 INT
     , add_int_01                INT
     , add_int_02                INT
     , add_info_01               TEXT
     , areasurl                  TEXT
     , domain                    TEXT,
     FOREIGN KEY(category_id) REFERENCES categories(_id) ON  CASCADE
  );

CREATE TABLE groups
  (
     _id                         INTEGER PRIMARY KEY
     , server_id                 INTEGER
     , grouptype_id              INTEGER
     , template_id               INTEGER
     , invisible                 INTEGER
     , NAME                      TEXT
     , description               TEXT
     , filter_id                 INTEGER
     , server_codepage           TEXT
     , keep_msg_amount_per_group INTEGER
     , keep_msg_days_per_group   INTEGER
     , user_name                 TEXT
     , user_address              TEXT
     , server_quoting            TEXT
     , new_msgs                  INTEGER
     , last_read                 INTEGER
     , last_downloaded           INTEGER
     , purge_read                INTEGER
     , signature                 TEXT
     , custom_headers            TEXT
     , purged                    INTEGER
     , notify                    INT
     , include_special           INT
     , last_notified             INT,
     FOREIGN KEY(server_id) REFERENCES servers(_id) ON  CASCADE,
     FOREIGN KEY(template_id) REFERENCES templates(_id),
     FOREIGN KEY(grouptype_id) REFERENCES grouptypes(_id)
  );

CREATE TABLE items_nntp
  (
     _id           INTEGER PRIMARY KEY
     , group_id    INTEGER
     , article_id  INTEGER
     , from_name   TEXT
     , to_name     TEXT
     , subject     TEXT
     , date        INTEGER
     , message_id  TEXT
     , in_reply_to TEXT
     , ref         TEXT
     , article     TEXT
     , READ        INTEGER
     , starred     INTEGER
     , add_info_01 TEXT
     , tree        INTEGER,
     FOREIGN KEY(group_id) REFERENCES groups(_id) ON  CASCADE
  );

CREATE TABLE items_ftn
  (
     _id           INTEGER PRIMARY KEY
     , group_id    INTEGER
     , from_name   TEXT
     , from_addr   TEXT
     , to_name     TEXT
     , to_addr     TEXT
     , subject     TEXT
     , date        INTEGER
     , message_id  TEXT
     , reply_to    TEXT
     , article     TEXT
     , READ        INTEGER
     , starred     INTEGER
     , add_info_01 TEXT
     , tree        INTEGER,
     FOREIGN KEY(group_id) REFERENCES groups(_id) ON  CASCADE
  );

CREATE TABLE filters
  (
     _id                INTEGER PRIMARY KEY
     , group_id         INTEGER
     , NAME             TEXT
     , description      TEXT
     , filter_type      INTEGER
     , parent_filter    INTEGER
     , field            INTEGER
     , filter_relation  INTEGER
     , field_value      TEXT
     , field_value_type INTEGER,
     FOREIGN KEY(group_id) REFERENCES groups(_id) ON  CASCADE,
     FOREIGN KEY(parent_filter) REFERENCES filters(_id) ON  CASCADE
  );

CREATE TABLE scores
  (
     _id         INTEGER PRIMARY KEY
     , NAME      TEXT
     , filter_id INTEGER
     , rate      INTEGER
     , rate_type INTEGER,
     FOREIGN KEY(filter_id) REFERENCES filters(_id) ON  CASCADE
  );

CREATE TABLE address_book
  (
     _id           INTEGER PRIMARY KEY
     , category_id INTEGER
     , address     TEXT
     , NAME        TEXT
     , add_info_01 TEXT,
     FOREIGN KEY(category_id) REFERENCES categories(_id) ON  CASCADE
  );

You are free to use this data as you like :) If you have any questions or would like to develop some other provider (and extend category list), please feel free to contact me.