Connecting to the Internet

Connection to The Internet

You can choose your preferred method of connecting to the Internet in the "Network and Administration" dialog box on the "Network" tab.

The Bat! supports two ways of connecting to the Internet

Using Local Area Network or manual connection

If this method is chosen, The Bat! uses an existing connection to the internet that has been established either through your LAN or by manually dialling your Internet Service Provider. In other words, The Bat! relies on the connection to the Internet already being open and the program itself does not need to do anything extra. Some non-LAN systems may be configured so that an ISP is dialled automatically whenever an Internet program tries to connect to an Internet destination. This can be used with The Bat! However, in some cases The Bat! needs to instate two TCP/IP sessions simultaneously and this could cause problems such as trying to establish two dial-up connections at the same time.

Dial-Up Networking Connection

You need to specify this type of connection if your LAN is not connected to the Internet itself and you are using a Dial-up connection provided by your ISP. Whenever The Bat! needs to open a TCP/IP connection, it checks whether or not a specified 'phone book entry is active (i.e. the established TCP/IP connection, if there is any, has been made using this 'phone book entry). If the entry is active, the TCP/IP sessions start. Otherwise, The Bat! automatically dials the 'phone book entry to establish a TCP/IP connection. In this case, multiple requests such as checking mail for all accounts and combined delivery (which requires two TCP/IP connections to be open at once: one for mail retrieval and another one for sending mail) will be handled correctly.

Auto-disconnect after mail transmission - Use this option if you do not want to remain on-line when The Bat! has finished dealing with mail transfer. This feature is quite useful in combination with periodic mail retrieval (especially when you have to pay for calls to your ISP).

Pause between dials - This value determines the shortest interval between two consecutive dial out sessions. Use of this feature is essential in a multi-user environment with a single dial-out machine - it prevents the dial-out machine from dialling the ISP too often. Note that manual requests for mail retrieval by the dial-out machine will initiate dialling even during the pause time This setting also affects how redials are performed when a dial up attempt fails.