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MTRAFFIC.DOC
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1992-10-29
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Version 1.00, October 30, 1992
DO NOT DISTRIBUTE
M M TTTTT RRRR A FFFFF FFFFF II CCC
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RICH VERAA'S LITTLE *.MSG MESSAGEBASE TRAFFIC REPORT
A BIRDSOFT PROGRAM
(C) Copyright 1991, 1992 by Richard P. Veraa. All rights reserved.
Veraa-Birdsoft Computer Products. North Miami, Florida, USA
MTRAFFIC.EXE is a simple messagebase traffic volume report
generator for use with bulletin board systems using the popular
*.MSG (Opus-type) messagebase. MTRAFFIC generates an individual
report for each conference area listed in AREAS.BBS, (or a restricted
list that you prepare) and tabulates each poster to that echo during
the report period in order of activity, with the number of messages
posted, the average size of messages by that author, and his/her net
origin number of origin, as well as a total number of messages and
posters for each area. You may compile reports of all traffic in an
area, or of messages entered from your board only.
MTRAFFIC.EXE also generates a summary report listing number of
messages in all areas.
FILES IN THIS ARCHIVE
README.RPT - Last minute details.
MTRAFFIC.DOC - This document.
AREANAME.RPT - Sample area report produced by MTRAFFIC.
SUMMARY.RPT - Sample summary report produced by MTRAFFIC.
MTRAFFIC.EXE - MTRAFFIC executable file.
MTSETUP.EXE - MTRAFFIC Configuration program.
SETPLACE.EXE - Utility to reset the MTRAFFIC lastread pointers.
REGISTER.RPT - Registration information.
GUARANTEE
There is no guarantee, express or implied. This program works well on
my system and the systems on which it's been tested... Your mileage,
as the saying goes, may vary.
USER DEVELOPED SOFTWARE
This program is Shareware. It is NOT free, and it is NOT public
domain. You may try it out for the period of one month. If you decide
to continue to use it after that month, you should register your
copy. I'm not a professional programmer, I just program for fun. All
of what you see is done in my spare time, and the bills are paid out
of my own pocket. MTRAFFIC will not stop working after one month, or
do anything nasty, nor does the registered version have more features
than the non-registered version. (except for nicely identifying you
on the reports it generates). However, if you don't register
MTRAFFIC, I will not be able to continue to work on it and implement
new user requested features. So support shareware!
REGISTRATION
For information on how to register, see the file REGISTER.RPT that's in
the MTRAFFIC distribution file. When I've received your registration
form and registration fee, i will send you a registration key via
netmail or snailmail (post). MTRAFFIC will list your name and BBS
name on the reports it generates to indicate that you're using a
registered version of MTRAFFIC.
INTRODUCTION
MTRAFFIC.EXE works by reading the area tag names from the AREAS.BBS
file. (or a limited selection of these in a file called AREAS.RPT
that you create). It then searches the messagebase for messages in
that area, and looks up each poster's net address in the origin lines
of his/her messages.
INSTRUCTIONS
Installation
1. *.MSG (Opus/Fido) Messagebase
You must be using a BBS program like Opus, Maximus, or PCBoard
that utilizes a *.MSG messagebase .... that is, you must have
directories for each area containing each message as a FTS-0001
standard *.MSG file, and you must have an AREAS.BBS control file.
2. AREAS.BBS
You also need a file called AREAS.BBS listing the message areas on
your BBS. If your setup does not use AREAS.BBS, see Appendix A of
this document for instructions on constructing one.
If you do not want MTRAFFIC to report on ALL the message areas on
your system, you may prepare a file called AREAS.RPT. MTRAFFIC looks
for AREAS.RPT first; if it isn't there, it reads AREAS.BBS. The
easiest way to construct AREAS.RPT is to simply copy AREAS.BBS to
AREAS.RPT and then use an editor to delete the lines for the areas
you do NOT want reports on. Note that MTRAFFIC will start reading at
the THIRD line of this file.
3. MTRAFFIC.EXE, SETPLACE.EXE and MTSETUP.EXE
Place the above executable files in the same directory as whatever
messagebase management utilities you run nightly. This may be the
same directory as your mailer or your BBS, depending on how your
system is set up. If (as I sincerely hope) you are registered,
place your key, MTRAFFIC.KEY in this directory as well.
4. Configure MTRAFFIC by running MTSETUP.
Run MTSETUP from the command line and simply fill in the blanks on
the screen. You may use the up and down arrows to change fields until
all blanks are correct. Then press <F-10> to accept the displayed
information.
Enter your name as it appears on your registration form
Enter your BBS or point name -- or your own name. This is the name
that will appear on the reports MTRAFFIC generates. (if you are a
registered user).
Enter your net node or point address (enclosed in parentheses).
Enter the date of the beginning of your first report. This
defaults to today's date, but you may want to reset it from time
to time. When you run MTRAFFIC with the "/n" switch (new data
period), this date will reset to the current date at the end of
your run, remove current data, and reset the data files. It's
recommended that you use this option weekly, or at regular
intervals, creating reports (with the "/r" switch) that cover
traffic through your system during a uniform period.
Enter the full path designations for the files MTRAFFIC needs to
find:
AREAS.BBS The arealist.
or
AREAS.RPT abbreviated arealist.
MTRAFFIC will ordinarily prepare reports for all areas listed in
AREAS.BBS. If you do not want to count all the areas listed, you
may make an abbreviated file of just the areas you wish to look at
-- just make a copy of AREAS.BBS named AREAS.RPT. Delete the
lines from AREAS.RPT that you do not with reported on. If
MTRAFFIC finds AREAS.RPT in the directory listed in the
configuration file, it will read it, otherwise, it will look at
AREAS.BBS.
Enter the path designations for the directories where you wish
MTRAFFIC to place its reports and data files. The defaults place
the individual area reports and summary reports in a subdirectory
of the mailer, but you may have them placed in any valid directory
on your system.
If MTSETUP can not find a directory you specify (or does not find
the files it needs), it will warn you via a notice on the screen.
CAUTION -- it will, however, accept the data you key in. It's your
responsibility to create the appropriate directories and assure
the proper files are available in them.
5. Operation
Running MTRAFFIC.EXE.
Every time MTRAFFIC is run, it retrieves its own data and scans the
message base for new messages in all areas.
MTRAFFIC will also generate a summary file called SUMMARY.RPT, listing
all the areas listed in AREAS.BBS, with the total number of messages
posted in each.
6. Command line switches
MTRAFFIC may be followed by any combination of three command line
switches (plus "/h" for a help screen):
/r REPORT on individual areas
MTRAFFIC will generate a separate text file for each area, named
<tagname>.RPT (tagname truncated at eight characters), listing the
posters to that area in order of the number of messages posted, along
with the number of messages posted, and the writer's net address, if
MTRAFFIC can find it on an origin line in the poster's message.
/n NEW data.
Ordinarily MTRAFFIC continues to accumulate data so that (assuming
it's run daily) each days' reports show the current day's mail added
to the previous day's report. When the /n switch is used, MTRAFFIC
will write it's reports and then discard its old data to start a
fresh reporting period. It will also reset its beginning date for
future report periods. I run the /n option every two weeks.
/t No Transit mode
The /t switch tells MTRAFFIC to ignore messages with the InTransit
bit set. Use this if your mail processing software sets this bit to
indicate old messages such as in the case of using InterPCB to convert
your *.msg into PCBoard's MSGS file.
6. SETPLACE.EXE
Every time MTRAFFIC runs, it creates a two-byte file called
MTRAFF.NUM, in each message area directory, which keeps track of the
last message number accounted for. However, if your messagebase
cleanup utilities renumber the messagebase, this number will change.
Accordingly, the little utility SETPLACE.EXE is used to reset
MTRAFF.NUM to the same number the last message is changed to. To make
sure no messages go unreported, it's a good idea to run MTRAFFIC
immediately before cleanup and SETPLACE immediately after, as
described in the next section.
7. Running MTRAFFIC from a batch file.
The best way to run MTRAFFIC is to call it every night from the batch
file that runs during your cleanup event. Call MTRAFFIC just before
cleanup and SETPLACE just after, so that your batch file should look
something like the following:
CLEAN.BAT
MTRAFFIC /r
mbutil purge
mbutil pack
mbutil link
SETPLACE
You'll note that I use the /r (report) option every night.. that way
I've always got a current report of each echo area in a directory I
call \FD\STAT\. Every two weeks, I run MTRAFFIC /n /r from the
command line to make final "official" reports for that period, that
I can archive for my records.
8. That's all there is to it!
You may register this program for US$ 10.00 and I will send you a key
that will work on subsequent regular versions.
Contact me for further information, help, bug reports, comments, or
Christmas greetings at:
FidoNet 1:135/907
Internet rveraa@newssun.med.miami.edu
or by SnailMail at:
Richard Veraa
Room 211
Villa Maria Nursing Center
1050 N.E. 125 Street
North Miami, FL 33161
Thanks to .\\ichele Stewart for alpha testing this program, and for
not giving up on it through the search for some puzzling insects.
Thanks a lot,
Cheers,
Rich Veraa
RELATED PROGRAMS:
HTRAFFIC.EXE -- a program similar to MTRAFFIC designed for use
with the popular Hudson messagebase used with RA, QuickBBS and
other boards. Archived as HTRAFnnn.ARJ.
APPENDIX A.
AREAS.BBS
AREAS.BBS is a plain ASCII text file listing the message areas of
your BBS in the following format:
Line 1: Your BBS Name
Line 2: A semicolon (;)
Remaining lines: The area number and tag name of each message area
you carry in the following format. Note that the example below lists
net addresses for uplinks, which some software requires. MTRAFFIC,
however, does not use these numbers and they are unnecessary for its
operation. In any case though, a column at least 31 characters wide
must be available for the path and 20 for the tag name.
If you do not wish to generate traffic reports for all the echos
carried by your system, make a file in the same form as AREAS.BBS,
but call it AREAS.RPT, and list only the message areas you wish
MTRAFFIC to scan, as described in the installation instructions.
Birdsoft Online! Rich Veraa
;
D:\FD\MSG\PASCAL\ PASCAL 135/142
D:\FD\MSG\EREQ\ ECHO_REQ 135/142
D:\FD\MSG\NETSYSOP\ NETSYSOP 135/142
D:\FD\MSG\POST\ SYSOP_JUNGLE 135/142
D:\FD\MSG\MEDIEVAL\ MEDIEVAL 129:131/46