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# Analog 5.22: Mailing lists

I welcome mail about analog, both praise and bug reports! I and others are also usually happy to help people who have trouble with analog: it helps me to find bugs, and know where the documentation is unclear.

There are four mailing lists for analog.

`analog-announce`
  Announcements about analog. I post to this when there are new versions, for example. Only gets a few messages a year.
`analog-help`
  Getting help with analog from experienced users. This is the place to go if you have trouble setting up or configuring the program. Usually you will get a swift reply. You have to subscribe to the list before you can send a message. There is also a searchable web archive of the list.
`analog-help-digest`
  This is the same as the `analog-help` list, except that you get one long message per day instead of lots of individual ones.
`analog-author`
  This just goes to me. Use for private comments, or other things that would not be suitable for the `analog-help` list. Don't use this address for user support questions: I'll just redirect you to `analog-help`. You may or may not get a swift reply, depending how busy I am with other things.

There is also an independent Japanese analog mailing list. And there are also companies offering support for analog on a commercial basis: you can find a list of them on the analog home page.

To subscribe to (or unsubscribe from) any of the mailing lists, fill in the appropriate form at http://lists.isite.net/. So that no-one else can subscribe you, you'll receive a mail which you have to reply to to confirm your subscription.

If you want to get help with analog, please check the following simple things first. (For articles on how to ask in such a way that you'll get a useful answer, I recommend Eric Raymond's How To Ask Questions The Smart Way and Simon Tatham's How to Report Bugs Effectively.)

1. Read the FAQ. Maybe I've answered your question already. If I have, I'll just direct you to the FAQ, not answer it again.
2. If analog produced some error messages when it ran, they probably indicate what went wrong. Read the section on Errors and warnings.
3. If your question is "Will this command have that effect?", why not try it and see!
4. If you think you've found a bug, read the list of known bugs at my site, to see if your bug is already known about.
5. Read the other relevant pages of the Readme, particularly the sections on Starting to use analog and Customising analog. You may also find the index useful. I don't appreciate people who are too lazy to read the documentation. (If the documentation is unclear, or the relevant paragraph is too well hidden, then that's a different matter. Of course I want to know about that.)
6. Have a look in the web archive of the mailing list to see if your question has already been answered there.
7. If analog isn't doing what you thought you asked it to, then run it with the `SETTINGS ON` configuration command, and see what options it thinks it's meant to be using.

I'm sorry to be so fussy, but a lot of the mail on the list really needn't have been sent at all, and just wastes the time of everybody on the list. As I say, I really do welcome genuine mail.

If you still need help, subscribe to the to the analog-help mailing list using the form at http://lists.isite.net/listgate/ANALOG-HELP/subscribe.html, and then send your mail to analog-help@lists.isite.net. Please do the following when you send mail to the list.

1. Describe exactly what you did, what you expected, and what the computer did. Include the exact text of any error messages, not a précis.
2. Mention which version of analog you are using, on which operating system.
3. Give your mail a subject line which indicates immediately what aspect of analog it is about. (This is useful for the archive).
4. Do not send long files or attachments unless you're asked to. We do not want to see your configuration file, your header file, your output file, or any logfile over 10 lines long. They are almost always useless to us. And anyway, excessively long messages will be rejected by the mailing list server.

If you want to send a private message to me, you can send it to me at analog-author@lists.isite.net. Please don't use this address for user support questions: I don't have time to answer them, and I'll just redirect you to the `analog-help` list.

Many thanks to ISite for providing these mailing lists for me, and to The Mail Archive for archiving the analog-help list.

Go to the analog home page.

Need help with analog? Use the analog-help mailing list.

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