[[!meta title="Traditional Zephyr (archaic)"]]

For information on using BarnOwl, see [[Using Zephyr|doc/zephyr]].

When you log into Athena, you may occasionally see a white box pop up
with text on it.  This is Zephyr in its traditional form.

## Terminology

**windowgrams** are the small windows that appear on your screen with
a message from another person.

**Zephyrgrams** are the messages that you send and receive when you
are using Zephyr. They can appear as windowgrams or in other forms,
depending on which client you are using.

**zwgc** is the basic, traditional Zephyr client.

## Basic Commands

**zlocate** _**friend**_ is the command used to find out if user
"friend" is logged in and subscribing to zephyrgrams. If they are
logged in and subscribing to messages you will receive information
about where they are logged in. If they are not logged in you will
receive the message "Hidden or not logged-in." This means they either
do not want to be found or are not logged in.

**zwrite** _**friend**_ is used to send a message to `friend`. Just
follow the instructions given. If you get an error saying the person
is hidden or not logged in then your message has not been sent and the
person you are trying to reach is not logged in or is not subscribing
to messages and you should try sending e-mail instead.

**zctl hide** can be used to "hide" yourself. When hidden you are not
`zlocatable`, but if someone tries to zwrite you anyway they will
succeed.

**zctl wg_shutdown** should be used if you want to stop receiving
zephyrgrams for this session.

**zctl set zwrite-signature "foo"** (quotes are mandatory) will change
your Zephyr signature, or zsig, to foo. By default your zsig is your
name as it exists in your finger information. It shows up in a
zephyrgram before your username. You can change it to almost anything
you like, although you should avoid very long zsigs since they tend to
annoy people.

**zaway** is used to let people know you are away from the terminal
and not deliberately ignoring their messages. It sends a message to
whoever sends you a personal zephyrgram that lets them know that you
are away (and will probably respond later).

**zwgc -ttymode** will start up a Zephyr client when you are logged in
remotely. Zephyrs appear as plain text on your screen.

**znol** will let you know which people on a list are logged in. Your
`~/.anyone` file should contain the list of usernames you want to know
about (it should have one name per line and no spaces). You will also
be sent login and logout notices in the form of a zephyrgram whenever
one of the users in your list logs in or out (if they are announced,
see below) after you have run `znol` during a session.

**zctl set exposure exposurelevel** will set your exposure (how other
people know when you are logged in). An exposure level of
`net-announced` causes login and logout notices to be sent to people
who have you in their `.anyone` file, and you will be
zlocatable. `net-visible` is the same except login and logout notices
are not sent. The `realm-announced` and `realm-visible` settings
require authentication before your information is divulged, but behave
in most situations in the same way as `net-announced` and
`net-visible`, respectively. The `opstaff` setting makes you unable to
be zlocated and does not send login and logout notices. Finally the
`none` setting provides no information about you and **you will not be
able to receive zephyrgrams'''.

__zctl sub message foo *__ will subscribe you to a Zephyr "instance"
named foo. Zephyr instances (and classes) allow groups of people to
have conversations via Zephyr. The above `zctl` command will subscribe
you to the instance `foo` for your current login only; to make it more
permanent replace `sub` with `add`. To unsubscribe for this login only
change `sub` to `unsub`, and to unsubscribe permanently use `delete`
instead.

**zwrite -i foo** will send a message to the Zephyr instance `foo`.

__zctl sub foo * *__ subscribes you to the Zephyr class `foo`. Zephyr
classes are slightly more private than instances as you must know the
name of the class to subscribe to it. `unsub`, `add` and `delete` work
the same way for classes as for instances.

**zwrite -c foo** sends a zephyr(gram) to class `foo`.