IC Dennis: Rainman is an acronym for Remote Automated Information Manager.
Because its usually braindead or just plain an idiot, the rainman name stuck. Why is it stupid? Well, like all computers, if you don't have the
correct information in a file, it will just plain not work. Then it will tell you that it was your error and give
you a very criptic message of where you goofed.
Tonight, we'll break the thing apart so that you all know the essential commands to make the durn thing work for you. First off - ONLY supervisors can actually submit the rainman documents. They are the only ones who have the access due to the limitations on the number of people who can have access to a given area. Its not because the rest of the staff are no good rotten, spoiled folks at all. Now that we have that rumor put aside, lets go to work :)
For any article to work with rainman, there are several mandatory lines of commands
that MUST be placed at the beginning of a document. These commands tell the
system where an area is located, where the article is to be posted and under what
subcategory the article can reside in. These are broken down as follows:
GROUP - this is the general area online (section) where the article can be accepted.
ID - this is a unique identifier given to EACH article, so that the system can keep track
of itself. (Yes, rainman is so stupid that it can't keep track of its ownself) :)
MAP - this is the specific area (collection) in which the article should be placed. There
can be several MAP(s) (collections) in an area. That's why we've come up with a scheme
to quickly cross-check the article ID with the MAP to make sure its going to the right place and we'll cover that part a bit later.
First off - to tell rainman that these words are actually commands and NOT part of the text article, we have the command delimiter. In all of the
situations you will be dealing with, your command delimiter is a tilde '~' (little squiggly line). So, each command MUST have the tilde infront of it. example:
IC Dennis: ~group bobaloo
Notice now that I've switched to lowercase on the command and the area name? Because rainman can, at times, be case sensitive, please ALWAYS use lower case on your command information.
Now, for a bit more of the nomenclature thing. These first three lines; group, id, and map are collectively called the document header. If someone refers to the header information, these three command lines are what they are talking about. Questions?
ICS Eugene: not so far :)
ICS MikeE: :)
IC Dennis: Okay, now comes the fun part. Let's use a monthly report as an example so you can see the cross-check I was talking about. Let's take the company Acer cause its pretty simple to see the header info:
~group bobaloo
~id cbhwacer
~map reports1
~group bobaloo - this is the general area that we have set up for placing information text that we, the ICS, need for our job. Monthly reports, and the information for the Reference guide all use this group name.
>> IC Dennis got bumped out of the room here <<
IC Dennis: ouch! that bump hurt!
ICS BobT: wlecome back Dennis!
IC Dennis: Okay, the next line also tells us something about where the article is going. Here's the breakdown:
cb = collection bobaloo
hw = this is a hardware company
acer = the first four letters, or an acronym of the company name.
see how that came together as cbhwacer??
ICS MikeE: I do I do :)
IC Dennis: The next line ~map reports1 indicates that this article should be placed in the first section of our monthly reports. We have broken down this part into four report areas, depending on the company name.
A - F = reports1
G - L = reports2
M - R = reports3
and S - Z = reports4
Pretty straight forward so far. Any confusion? BTW - don't bequiet if you don't understand this. It does take time to learn and ALL questions are good ones.
ICS Eugene: The mistery unfolds!
ICS BobT: crystal clear!
ICS Greg: How about companies that begin with numbers, i.e. 123 Enterprises?
IC Dennis: There is no company online with that name Greg. But good question because we do have 3DO coming online soon. Rainman does sorts by number/letter. So, any company name beginning with a number would be in reports1. (Greg doesn't know that I have an online database of all our companies online) :)
ICS Greg: I'm learning!
IC Dennis:
Okay, moving on and still using the monthly report as the example, we have a special command we put in the header information to indicate WHEN the report was sent in. This command is called the DATELINE command. Its has two ways it can be used.
~dateline date - this will attach the current date to the end of the article title.
~dateline none - makes sure that the date will NOT be appended to the title.
If you look in FatDome, Rainman Areas, Monthly Reports, you'll see what I mean by appending the date to the title.
IC Dennis: Wait a minute, how the heck do I do up a title??
IC Dennis: Good question!
ICS Lois: LOL
IC Dennis:
The next command line tells rainman to put text in the window title. Just as we have the title "The RACK" as the title of this chat room, so too can we put text in ANY of the text windows. The command for doing that can take two forms:
~headline or
~htext
Personally, I now prefer to use the ~headline method. You can use either, depending on the preference of your supervisor.
Here's an example of both variations, still using Acer:
~headline Acer America
~htext Acer America
See? No difference. These commands do no more than put text in the title bar of the window.
ICS Greg: Is there a character limitation?
IC Dennis: Excellent question! Yes, there is a limitation. INCLUDING and date that is appended, the title can be no longer than 32 characters. Any more and the title gets truncated.
Now, I fibbed just a tad in that there actually is a difference between using headline and htext. IF you use htext, the title information will also be repeated in the body of the text article, on the first line. While its not a biggy, sometimes, this repeat of the text can make the article look not-so-good. Headline on the other hand puts the title information ONLY in the title bar. BUT, being stupid, rainman then needs another command to tell it where the actual text article begins. This command is the:
~text command. This tells rainman that EVERYTHING following, until another command is found, should be put in the body of the text article. You can begin that article text right after the command, or on the next line below. Here's two examples:
~text Acer announces a new and improved milkshake machine ........
-or-
~text
Acer announces a new and improvfed milkshake machine........
Either method will work fine.
ICS BobT: I want the "improfed" verstion!
IC Dennis: Good point Bob, There is a typo on that article. I'll show you all how to fix that in just a few minutes :)
Let's put all the header information together into what goes at the top of a document that would be Acer's montly report:
~group bobaloo
~id cbhwacer
~map reports1
~dateline date (because this IS a monthly report)
~headline Acer America
~text Acer announces a new and improved milkshake......
Note: ALL monthly reports should use the "dateline date" command line.
IC Dennis: How we doing so far??
ICS Eugene: ok
ICS Greg: okay
ICS MikeE: fantastic...
ICS Lois: OK
ICS Eugene: ok mike whats your secret
ICS MikeE: I idolize Dennis :)
IC Dennis: Hokay, let's address that typo. Rainman is neat in that if you do make a mistake,
you can fix it by simply using the SAME id# and header information and resubmitting
the article. Rainman will automatically replace the old text with the new.
ICS Lois: Acts as a replace?
IC Dennis: (little light bulbs go on!) That means, each month, when you submit a new report on a company, your new information will replace the old!
ICS Danny: correct the typo first? eh
IC Dennis: :) Yea Danny, it would be good to correct the typo first :)
IC Dennis: Okay, we've tackled the monthly reports. On to the infamous "About" files :)
Here again, we have set aside a general and a specific area to handle these documents. Because its also public information, we've changed the id# slightly just to remind ourselves that these documents WILL be accessable to all online. Here's the About file header information for Acer:
~group csprofiles
~id rihwacer
~map profilesa
Pretty simple huh? The group now has been changed to indicate that the article is indeed destined for the profiles section. By using "ri" as the first two letters in the id#, we can quickly see that this document is Rainman Information and is available to the public. The cross-check is the profilesa, broken down similar to the monthly reports where profilesa is for companies with names beginning with A thru F etc etc etc.
Now, a couple of warnings:
(1) NEVER use the dateline command on "About" files unless you have specific permission from a supervisor, Pam, Bob, or me. I'll tell you now, you better be able to jusify why. :)
(2) NEVER use the word "About" in the headline. I'll cover that in a minute as to why.
ICS Greg: profilesg is for companies G thru L?
ICS Danny: Greg, that would be too simple
IC Dennis: No Greg, G thru L would be profilesb. The breakdown is:
profilesa = A - F
profilesb = G - L
profilesc = M - R
profilesd = S - Z (see the a, b, c, d ??)
ICS Danny: hooked on phonetics?
ICS Greg: Learned it in Kindygarten
IC Dennis: works for me :)
IC Dennis: Okay, now why no "About" in the headline. Rainman, as I said before, sorts on number/letter. The "About" files, if you look in the Industry Connection (keyword IC) are listed for ALL the companies online. If you put a headline like:
~headline About Zedcor
in a document, that article will appear at the very top of the listing containing the S - Z company articles. Not good and just may tick off someone like Symantec :)
The about file is also the place where I DO NOT recommend using the command line: ~htext. If you do, you'll have text window with the company in the title bar AND as the first line of the text. Really poor form. So, the correct header information for an About file for the Acer
company would be:
~group csprofiles
~id rihwacer
~map profilesa
~headline Acer America
~text Our company was founded on the advise of counsel etc etc etc.
ICS Danny: I understand the ri in the commnand for an About file, where does the next two letters "hw" come from?
ICS MikeE: Hardware?
IC Dennis: hw - indicates this is a hardware company. Most, if not all of your companies Danny will be the two letters "tc". Example: ritccard
ICS Greg: hardware
IC Dennis: Wow! there are people awake out there!! :)
IC Dennis: Please, at any time you are not sure of the correct header information on ANY article, feel free to ask me. I do maintain a database of all articles online and it only takes me a second to look them up.
ICS Greg: What other 2 letter codes are there?
IC Dennis: Greg and BobT, your case is a bit different as you will be dealing with other areas. We'll cover that in a separate session. BUT, for the rest of the gang, there are some other two letter codes for companies that have their News/Product/Questions folders converted to rainman.
ICS BobT: we are special Greg!!! :)
ICS Greg: aint we
IC Dennis: And that question leads us right into the next segment of rainman training :) If you all would, please take a moment to check out the Rainman Areas, Company Text section of FatDome. You'll see how the sections have been broken down into general categories.
ICS Eugene: now ?:)
IC Dennis: Yep, go for it.
ICS Greg: how?
ICS BobT: Dennis, it is beautiful, a work of art.
IC Dennis: Bob, show Greg how to get there.
ICS BobT: Greg use the keyword FATDOME
OnlineHost: ICS Lois has entered the room.
ICS BobT: sorry Dennis I will move over to IM's with Greg
IC Dennis: we bak yet??
OnlineHost: ICS Sandy has entered the room.
ICS Lois: yes, back
ICS MikeE: Yes sir :)
ICS Eugene: I'm back...Staff Bio's are outdated :)
IC Dennis: role call. :)
ICS BobT: here!
ICS Sandy: Here
IC Pam: Here!
ICS Danny: here
ICS Suzy: Here
ICS Miz: Here!
ICS MikeE: here/yo
IC Dennis: yea Monte :) We'll get them eventually :)
ICS Greg: Here!!
IC Dennis: Otay. You all got to see what we have stuffed in there. Each one of those categories has its own general area, and then, depending on the company, its own specific collection. In most cases, the company specific stuff has been divided into three collections: News, Product Information, and Questions. For the purposes of this training, we'll be working in the category Graphics. If you are using windows or Mac software, you can open that up and look at it while we cover it. If you are on with PCAOL, you may be out of luck :) Here's how it all works: because we're in the public side of things, the general areas
ALL begin with the two letters "cs" (yep, like csprofiles did). Graphics has the group name of, you guessed it, csgraphics. Each category also has its own two letters in the id# to indicate where the articles will be going. I didn't get to have input into these two letters so they basically have nothing at all to do with the category. In this case, the id# for articles destined for the graphics area all MUST begin with "rx"
Now, lets take a look at the Island Graphics specific portions of the area csgraphics. Each mapword (its in parentheses) has the last letter indicating which specific collection it controls. For the News collection, the mapword ends with the letter "n". Products is a "p", and Questions is a "q".
Here's an example headeer of the first news article to be posted in the Island Graphics area:
~group csgraphics
~id rxngfx01
~map islgrafn
The key to this cross check is in the mapword AND the id#. Here's the id# breakdown:
rx = articles for the category csgraphics
n = double check that this is a News article
gfx = three letter designator ONLY used by Island Graphics
01 = this is the first article. This two digit number is incremented as each new article is put in the collection, the rest of the id# stays the same. If this article was destined for the Products collection, the header would have been:
~group csgraphics
~id rxpgfx01
~map islgrafp
Now, I must STRESS that this is just for the very FIRST article in the collection. If you or someone else has posted articles in the collection before, then you would need to first, count the articles in the collection, add one and use that number as part of your id#.
IC Dennis: So Bob, if you had 6 articles already in the Questions collection here, what would be the full header for the next article??
ICS BobT: I looking for that damn tilde!
~group csgraphics
~id rxpgfx07
~map islgrafp
IC Dennis: {S buzz}
IC Dennis: caught you :) I said the Question collection. :)
IC Dennis: Anyone tell me what's wrong with this header??
ICS Danny: p should be q
ICS BobT: Dennis, shame on you for such an underhanded question!
ICS Greg: trick question
ICS MikeE: ~id rxqgfx07 ?
IC Dennis: bingo! AND the mapword would be islgrafq
ICS BobT: Danny you show off and teachers pet!!! :)
IC Dennis: See how the cross-check works??
IC Dennis: By quickly looking at the third letter of the id# and the last letter of the mapword, you can always double-check (BEFORE) sending in the article to make sure its headed for the right place. Why?? Remember when I said rainman was an idiot?? Well, it really CAN'T tell the difference between News, Products, and Questions. Rainman will accept the article and place it where you tell it, even if you mess up! Just as long as the first two letters of the id# are correct for the section (group) and the mapword exists somewhere in the group. The ONLY checks rainman does is to make sure that the article, in this case, begins with "rx" and that the mapword has been pre-defined. Shoot, if you don't use this quick cross-check, you could have a News release go into the Questions collection real easy :) Or, worse case scenario, you could accidently put an Island Graphics Product info article in to the Artist Graphics area. REALLY ticking off the company rep. (believe me I know. I have had them ticked off at me) :) That's why I came up with the cross-check scheme.
ICS Greg: Why doesn't someone develop a program with "fill in the blanks" or "check the boxes"?
IC Dennis: Because there are a LOT more commands than we are covering here. Coming very soon, we'll be able to actually change the way the entire AREA looks via rainman.
IC Dennis: Now, for mapwords and id#'s for your companies, please ask me or your supervisor. Again, I have a database full of them and can snag the info quickly. In the case of a company with a lot of articles, each of your supervisors can submit a short command file that will give you a listing off all the articles for any given company. Provided of course, they are Rainman. That about does it for rainman. The rest is really on-the-job training and experience. As you work more with this system, you'll see how really easy it is. Its just that first dip of the toe in the water that makes it seem so cold :)
ICS Greg: Bob, I'm gonna be pickin your brain BIG TIME!!
ICS BobT: actually I'm pretty much an idiot Greg. Dennis keeps me on for some sort of credit for hiring the handicapped!
ICS Miz: Any plans to convert the Text companies over to Rainman?
IC Dennis: Here's a project for you all. Gene mentioned that the biographies need updating. Well, here's your chance :) Using the following scheme, create and send to me your very own biography. Keep in mind that this will eventually be available to company reps online. Here's the initial header information:
~group bobaloo
~id cbxxxxxx
~map csbio
~headline ICS XXXXXXXXX
Oh yea, I did manage to forget something :) On id#'s. They MUST have 8 characters in them. No more, no less. So, here's what we do for the id# for the biographies: Use the first six letters of your name. If your ICS name is less than six characters, fill in the
rest with zeros. Pam's for instance would be: cbpam000.
IC Dennis: Miz - sorry bout that. In answre to your question - I'm working on it! ;)
ICS Miz: Glad to hear it. :)
IC Pam: <--- glad he's using mine for the example... :)
ICS Miz: Sokay, Dennis :)
ICS Eugene: me and my BIG MOUTH :0
ICS Miz: Shucks, Pam -- I was hoping you & I would be triple x's. ;>
IC Pam: ROFL!!!! Heck, I was hoping for ***. :)
ICS Miz: LOL!
IC Dennis: I would allow it but I still have to manage the durn thing :)
ICS Monte: Did I miss much?? :)
ICS MikeE: when do I turn in my assignment - Mr. Dennis :)
IC Dennis: Any time Mike
ICS BobT: what do you want in the bio dennis?
ICS MikeE: :)
IC Pam: Your life story, Bob.
IC Dennis: I believe we're just putting down some general information. Check mine out for an example.
ICS MikeE: it's only about 10 years old LOL
IC Dennis: hah! Less than a year. Pam and I have changed names three times so far.
ICS MikeE: oppppss!!!
ICS Lois: 94 was Pam's year for name changing! ;)
IC Pam: Maybe we'll get it right one day, Dennis... :)
ICS Greg: Homework!! How fun! When's it due?
IC Pam: Actually... I had a LOT of changes!
IC Dennis: Okay Mike and Greg. Deadline of let's say next Saturday. Week from tomarrow.
ICS MikeE: tomarrow? :)
IC Dennis: WEEK from tomarrow. Mike, take off your shoes and count slowly up to 8. That's how many days, including tonight that you have.
ICS Danny: how does one go about getting TEXT tool based files turned into Rainmain files?
IC Dennis: :) Miz asked the same thing. If you have a company that you feel deserves the conversion - i.e.; does text changes on a frequent basis, let me know and I'll take a look at them. I submit those requests to in-house and I have to be able to justify them spending the time creating the new areas.
ICS BobT: jeez dennis, you bio reads like a novel!
ICS Danny: when is rainman plus coming online? and will the companies ever have access to rainman plus?
IC Dennis: I have no idea. Shoot, only the folks that created the durn thing know how to work it so far.
IC Dennis: I seriously doubt they'll have full access Danny. That is one POWERFUL tool.
ICS Miz: <-- is *really* glad to hear that! :D
ICS Danny: Dennis, does the ~KILL command have to have both the group and map as well as the id to take effect?
IC Dennis: No, the kill command will work using only the group name and id#
ICS Danny: those must be very large databases on the Stratus
IC Dennis: Not really. There are a LOT of groups (sections) online.
IC Dennis: Last note on rainman - one that you are going to run into constantly with your companies: Rainman HATES special characters like Tabs, copyright symbols and all that stuff. Only straight ASCII text is allowed. Y'all take a look at the docs, its on page 4 ;)
ICS BobT: OK, I will wait for your last note Dennis!
ICS BobT: Boy you always know how to get me to hang around.
