When running a program the connect command and the ap command will no longer put the moduel in to an exclusive mode. You can run both commands and the device will be connected to the network and act as an access point.
The WiFioff command can be called in order to disable all networking and the ap or connect command if run after WiFioff will activate that particular WiFi mode. You can turn them both back on at any point with each of there commands.
Hope this clarifies this a bit.
http://esp8266basic.com
A BASIC interpreter for your ESP
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