Agent Watch

Agent Watch is for those of you who would like to automatically control your dial-up connection to the internet, and/or one or more instances of Forte Agent at the same time, with just one instance of Agent Watch, so that you never need to worry about your downloads, from the news server, timing out or not finishing, due to you being disconnected from the internet or having problems with your internet and/or news service provider. Agent Watch can also be used to control Forte Agent, in order to perform periodic tasks. For example, automatically updating the headers in your favourite news groups every five minutes. Hence, with possibly a few minor changes to your Forte Agent settings, as described below, you can sit back and relax, knowing that the tedious job of monitoring your downloads, or keeping your favourite news groups upto date, is left safely to your PC.

Anyway, you should find that Agent Watch looks something like the screenshots below...

As you can see, there are quite a few different options to choose from when using Agent Watch, but it should be fairly straight forward to use, once you have had a quick look at them, and read the more detailed explanations given below. However, what is not visible in the screenshots, is that Agent Watch lives in the system tray, which is the part of the screen near your PC's clock, and that if you right click on its icon in the system tray, you can select one of the following options from the pop-up menu:

• Selecting 'Show...' from the menu will restore the current Agent Watch window.

• Selecting 'Options...' from the menu will open the options window.

• Selecting 'Auto-Load' from the menu will automatically load Agent Watch on Windows start-up.

• Selecting 'Enabled' from the menu will enable/disable the monitoring.

• Selecting 'Close' from the menu will close Agent Watch.

If for some reason you decide that you no longer want to use this program, please make sure that the 'Auto-Load' option, found on the system tray menu, is not selected, before you delete the program from your PC, to avoid any error messages.

The main window, which is the screenshot shown (on the left) above, has three main buttons at the bottom of the screen, which perform the following functions: the 'OK' button minimises Agent Watch to the system tray and applies any changes, the 'Close' button closes Agent Watch and ignores any changes that have not been applied, and the 'Apply' button ensures that the current settings are the ones being used. The main window is also split into three different sections, each of which are explained below:

• 'Statistics' - This section shows: the number of checks, which is how many times Agent Watch has checked the status of Forte Agent and/or your dial-up connection; the number of online errors, which is how many times Forte Agent has timed out; and the number of reconnections, which is how many times your dial-up connection has been re-established. This section also contains a 'Reset' button, which when pressed will reset all of the statistics in this section to their initial value; i.e. zero.

• 'Time Interval' - This section allows you to choose how often Agent Watch will check the status of Forte Agent and/or your dial-up connection. To do this, you select either hours, minutes or seconds, depending on how regularly you want the checking to be performed, and then enter the exact number of hours, minutes or seconds, into the box on the left.

• 'Task Schedule' - This section allows you to choose which tasks Agent Watch will automatically re-queue, every time Forte Agent times out, and/or your dial-up connection is re-established, or every time a check is performed, depending on the options described below. To do this, you must select the tasks using the pull down list boxes. It is possible to select upto five different tasks, from the various tasks available, however, each task can only be selected once. This section also contains a 'Clear Task Schedule' button, which resets the task schedule to the default value, i.e. no scheduled tasks, as well as a 'Queue Task Schedule' button, which allows the scheduled tasks to be queued on-demand, as and when you desire.

The options window, which is the screenshot shown (on the right) above, allows you to choose how Agent Watch will respond in certain circumstances. It also has three buttons at the bottom, the 'OK' button, which closes the options window and applies any changes, the 'Cancel' button, which closes the options window and ignores any changes that have not been applied, and the 'Apply' button, which ensures that the current settings are the ones being used. The options available are explained below:

• 'Always Queue The Scheduled Tasks' ensures that each time a check is performed the scheduled tasks are queued.

• 'Disconnect RAS Connection When Idle' disconnects your dial-up connection when Forte Agent is idle.

• 'Limit Reconnections To X Attempt(s)' limits the number of reconnection attempts for your dial-up connection.

• 'Maintain The Activity Monitoring Log File' maintains a log file of any actions taken or errors encountered.

• 'Only Reconnect When Tasks Remaining' ensures that your dial-up connection will only be reconnected when necessary.

• 'Press Reconnect When Disconnected' reconnects your dial-up connection, when you are disconnected by your provider.

• 'Require An Active RAS Connection' ensures that your dial-up connection is online, before queuing any scheduled tasks.

• 'Shut Down Windows When Idle (Forced)' forces your PC to shut down when Forte Agent is idle.

The 'Shut Down Windows When Idle (Forced)' and 'Disconnect RAS Connection When Idle' options, when selected, will give you the opportunity to cancel the relevant action, by pressing the 'Abort' button on the window that appears ten seconds prior to the action being performed. The abort window will always be on top, to ensure that it can be seen clearly. If the 'Abort' button is pressed, Agent Watch will automatically disable the monitoring, hence stopping the 'Abort' screen from reappearing regularly.

Some of the features mentioned above will only work if certain options have been selected in Forte Agent. The following shows which options, and how each of them must be set, i.e. enabled and disabled, in order for Agent Watch to function correctly:

For Forte Agent versions upto and including Forte Agent v2.0:

• 'Close Dial-up connection after going offline' must be disabled. (Required for dial-up networking features)

• 'Continue processing after an online error occurs' must be disabled. (Required for general operation)

• 'Go offline automatically after X seconds of no activity' must be enabled. (Required for dial-up networking features)

Note: Prior to Forte Agent v2.0, all of the options required for Agent Watch to function correctly were on either the 'Online' or 'Dial-Up' tab, under the 'User and System Profile' item on the 'Options' menu. However, in Forte Agent v2.0, the options were significantly re-organised, and as such the same options can now be found in either the 'General Settings' or 'Dial-Up Networking' sub-section of the 'Online Operation' section, under the 'General Preferences' item on the 'Options' menu.

For Forte Agent versions after Forte Agent v2.0:

• 'Close Dial-up connection after finishing online tasks' must be disabled. (Required for dial-up networking features)

• 'Disconnect from server after X seconds of inactivity' must be enabled. (Required for dial-up networking features)

• 'Display a pop-up window describing the error for fatal errors' must be enabled. (Required for general operation)

• 'Display a pop-up window describing the error for non-fatal errors' must be enabled. (Required for general operation)

• 'Retry the task' must be disabled. (Required for general operation)

Note: All of the options required for Agent Watch to function correctly, with the exception of the second, are on the 'Task Settings' or 'Dial-Up Networking' sub-section of the 'Online Operation' section, under the 'Options' item on the 'Tools' menu. The second option required for Agent Watch to function correctly is available for each news server specified in the 'News Servers' section, under the 'Servers and Accounts' item on the 'Tools' menu.

There are many different options in Forte Agent and as such there are even more different combinations possible, so this could mean that I have neglected to mention one particular combination, which could result in Agent Watch not performing correctly. If you think you have found such a combination, then please feel free to contact me, using the form provided in the contact section, and I will update this web page accordingly.