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Text File | 1994-12-27 | 26.5 KB | 771 lines

RSI - random-siteinfo-system - page 1 ╓─────────┐ ║ ┌───╖ │ ║ │ ╙──┘ ╓───┐ ╓─────┐ ╓─────┐ ╓───┐ ╓────┐╓─┐ ╓─────┐ ╓─────┐ ║ └──────┐ ╙╖ ┌┘ ╙─╖ ┌─┘ ║ ┌───┘ ╙╖ ┌┘ ║ ┌╖ │║ │ ║ ┌───┘ ║ ┌─╖ │ ╙──────╖ │ ║ │ ║ │ ║ └─┐ ║ │ ║ │║ │║ │ ║ └─┐ ║ │ ║ │ ╓──┐ ║ │ ║ │ ║ │ ║ ┌─┘ ║ │ ║ │║ │║ │ ║ ┌─┘ ║ │ ║ │ ║ └───╜ │ ╓╜ └┐ ║ │ ║ └───┐ ╓╜ └┐ ║ │║ └╜ │ ║ │ ║ └─╜ │ ╙─────────┘ ╙───┘ ╙─┘ ╙─────┘ ╙───┘ ╙─┘╙────┘ ╙─┘ ╙─────┘ The multi-mailer-random-siteinfo-system! Release version 2.45 ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── This program and documentation is copyrighted material. It is (c) by Peter Hampf, Graf von Galen Strasse 27 49377 Vechta Germany Fidonet 2:241/1090 /1091 /1092 PBNET: 246:6101/0 /1090 /1091 /1092 Virnet: 9:491/6010 Gernet: 21:490/2105 ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ ▓▓▓▓▓▒▒▒▒▒░░░░░ 1.) What it is ... ░░░░░▒▒▒▒▒▓▓▓▓▓ │ └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Every mailer sends a so called site-information to the connected system. This site-information consists of two parts, the name and the location. The default settings for FrontDoor <tm> are: "noname" and "somewhere". :-) SITEINFO startet as a random-siteinfo-changer for FrontDoor<tm> in November 1991 after having some beer at one of the legendary DP-CONs ;-). The idea behind siteinfo was to change this information after every connect, so the next caller will get a different information. And exactly that is what SITEINFO is doing! But SITEINFO is not only a silly changer. You can exactly define a time and date range for every entry in your database (SITEINFO has it's on database). Only within this date- (or time-) window this entry can be selected. Further you are able do define that a specific entry should only be selectable e.g. during the first 10 days of a month (or of specific months) -- and so on -- have a look at the program itself and try it out. If you have a copy of O/T-Track (my netmailtracker) installed, SITEINFO is able to read the setup (O/T-version 2.41 neccessary, won't work with elder version of O/T!). If O/T's setup tells siteinfo, that the sysop (you) is not at home, SITEINFO will only select those entries, which have the HOLIDAY-flag set. (If any! If there is NOT ONE entry with HOLIDAY-flag, SITEINFO will ignore O/T's settings) How to do this? Simple: just press "O" and define the path to O/T. Then RSI - random-siteinfo-system - page 2 press "H" on those entries which shall only be selectable, if you are on tour! All this works starting with version 2.40 of SITEINFO. Last but not least you can set a 'main-time' for SITEINFO. If you define this time, only during this hours SITEINFO will change your informations. Every SITEINFO-database can contain 200 different site- informations. One of them will be choosen randomly (if you invoke the proper SITEINFO-function with -c). I think, this should be enough ... . ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ ▓▓▓▓▓▒▒▒▒▒░░░░░ 2.) Who may use it ... ░░░░░▒▒▒▒▒▓▓▓▓▓ │ └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ The answer is short: everybody may use it for a reasonable time; after that you must register SITEINFO with me. All version below 2.40 were CARDWARE. Starting with 2.40, SITEINFO is real SHAREWARE and you have to pay a little amount of money. Not much, but a little. Why I have changed the state? The first reason is, that SITEINFO consumes much development time. There are many additional features in it which are worse a few dollar, I think. The second is, that the keysystem of my CARDWARE- version had been hacked! :-(((( Silly, but true! Note: in the unregistered version there is only one feature disabled. =You may not specify the "importance" of an entry (see later). The unregistered shareware-version will also display the "[unregistered]" message on the mainscreen, and will insert a short delay at the end (can be broken by a keystroke). This delay is only 3 seconds in BATCHMODE. For registration-procedures and prices see REGISTER.TXT and SUPPORT.TXT. To all of YOU who have registered SITEINFO in the past: NOTE: every POSTCARD-REGISTERED USER of SITEINFO may use this version FOR FREE! SITEINFO should recognise whether you are a postcard-registered user or not. If it is not possible (for example another registration-name than your sysop-name in the mailer's setup), please contact me for a free key-file! Every person listed in REG_USER.DAT should get the message "Regsitered to <your name> (POSTCARD)", all other new REGISTERED users will get a keyfile which will force SITEINFO to display "Registered to <your name>". If you (postcard- registered user) want to have a normal keyfile, you can buy one for the half price! This is not really necessary, but if you want to ... just gimme a call. RSI - random-siteinfo-system - page 3 ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ ▓▓▓▓▓▒▒▒▒▒░░░░░ 3.) Using it....... ░░░░░▒▒▒▒▒▓▓▓▓▓ │ └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ SITEINFO in it's version >=2.45 is supporting the following mailer: Mailer │ tested with version │ recommended │ │ environment-variable ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── - FrontDoor 2.02, 2.10, 2.20a-c FD - Intermail 2.27 IM - D'Bridge 1.36 DBRIDGE - BinkleyTerm 2.56/2.50EE BINKLEY - Portal of Power 0.50Γ/0.56ß/0.60Γ/ POPCMDLINE 0.61Γ - McMail 1.00Γ MCMAIL If you have not set the corresponding environment-variable, you may call SITEINFO with one of the following parameters: SITEINFO -FD FrontDoor SITEINFO -IM Intermail SITEINFO -DB DBridge SITEINFO -BK BinkleyTerm SITEINFO -POP Portal of Power SITEINFO -MM McMail Optionaly you can give the path (and filename) to your mailer's configfile, like this: SITEINFO -BK=D:\BINKLEY\MYCONV.CFG SITEINFO -MM=D:\MCMAIL\MCMAIL2.CFG The mailerconfig defaults to: (%XX% means the environment- variable of your mailer) FrontDoor %FD%SETUP.FD Intermail %IM%FD.SYS D'Bridge %DBRIDGE%DBRIDGE.PRM BinkleyTerm %BINKLEY%BINKLEY.CFG McMail %MCMAIL%MCMAIL1.CFG *OR* %MAILER%MCMAIL1.CFG Portal of Power PORTAL%PORTALTASK%.CFG RSI - random-siteinfo-system - page 4 SITEINFO will look exactly in this order. If the environment- variable is not found, the current path will be used. You can overrule this scheme by using the shown parameters. Note: the MCMAIL environment variable is introduced by my own, because I was unable to find any environment-variable support in the McMail - short gamma doc! One exeption is valid for Portal of Power: Portals CFG-file will only be searched in the current directory. If you have a POPCMDLINE-environment-variable, the TASK-number will be taken from there! e.g.: POPCMDLINE=-T01 results in PORTAL01.CFG as Portal's config-file. If you want SITEINFO to use a Portal- file in a different directory, you MUST give the name on the command-line, like this: "Siteinfo -POP=c:\pop\PortalMe.CFG" Furthermore, Portal of Power does NOT support changing the system-location! Therefore this feature will be disabled in POP-mode! The FrontDoor and Intermail config-files are binary and double-CRC-secured. Binkley and D'Bridge are using plain ascii files, POP an unsecured binary-file. If the format of one of this configuration-files will ever change, please let me know ASAP. Currently SITEINFO will look up the config-files like this: D'Bridge: systemname -> line 16 location -> line 38 BinkleyTerm: systemname -> tag SYSTEM location -> tag MYLOCATION McMail: systemname -> tag SITE location -> tag LOCATION You can overrule the line-numbers for D'Bridge, using two additional commandline-parameters: (only valid in DB-mode!) -DB -NAME=<x> -LOC=<y> In this case SITEINFO assumes to find the system-name in line number <x> and the location in line-number <y>. If your DBRIDGE.PRM differs from that format SITEINFO knows, the 'additional-informations' on your screen may be invalid. But if you use the -name and -loc parameters, everything will work fine! ▓▓▓▓▓▒▒▒▒▒░░░░░ Other commandline-parameters: -?: Show a summary of commandline-options. -s: Skip the time check. Even if you've specified a maintime for SITEINFO, it'll work at every time. (Still ignore the maintime :-) -f: Force every entry to be processed. Ignore it's individual time. RSI - random-siteinfo-system - page 5 -i: ONLY VALID FOR INTERACTIVE MODE (without -c): usualy SITEINFO will add an manually entered entry (this is an entry you have not defined within SITEINFO but directly in your mailer's configuration) in it's database. If you don't want this, simply add "-i". -incl: ONLY VALID IN RANDOM-BATCHMODE (-c): in batchmode SITEINFO will NOT add any new entries (if there is one in your mailer's setup). If you want it to check for new entries and append them into your database, use this parameter. -y: Normally SITEINFO will exit automatically after a given time (hardcoded). You can make it 'sit and wait' using -y. -m: force monochrome-mode. If you dislike the colors ;-) -nod: do NOT use direct-screen-writes in batchmode! (useful e.g. for DesqView) -nofade: use this, if the fadeout/fadein (while exiting the program) causes any trouble on your machine. At least you can give an optinal SITEINFO-RSI-FILE-NAME on the commandline. By default siteinfo will use SITEINFO.RSI in it's homedirectory. (All RSI-database-files are stored there!) ▓▓▓▓▓▒▒▒▒▒░░░░░ And now: THE MOST IMPORTANT COMMANDLINE-SWITCH: -c: This switch envokes the proper RANDOM-SITEINFO- FUNCTION! Only if present, SITEINFO will search for a new entry, insert it in your mailer's config and exit immediatly. You *MUST* call SITEINFO like this in your mailer-batch: :LOOP CD F:\FD SITEINFO -c -fd=f:\fd\ FD.EXE [...] GOTO LOOP ▓▓▓▓▓▒▒▒▒▒░░░░░ TOKEN in both, the name and location field: Starting with version 2.40 you may use the following token in your siteinfos! They will be replaced on runtime with their then actual values! Read on ....: %D - the current day %M - the current month %Y - the current year %d - the current day, numeric value (day of the week) RSI - random-siteinfo-system - page 6 %h - the current hour %m - the current minute %s - the current second %c - the current sec/100 part of the time %N - the name of the day, abbreviated, german %n - the name of the day, abbreviated, english %X - the name of the month, abbreviated, german %x - the name of the month, abbreviated, english %T - the value of the SET TASK=<x> environment-variable %S - the contents of the SET MYSINFO= env.-variable %R - a 3-digit random number %< - a random line from the ascii-file SITEINFO.TAG. SITEINFO.TAG has to reside in Siteinfo's homedir!! %2 - an addition to %<. This special macro does only have a value AFTER you have used %<. %< reads a random line out of a textfile. If this line is too long (exactly: longer than 30 minus the position of %< itself), it will be truncated and the rest of it will be inserted at the position of %2. Use the combination of %< and %2, if you have a tagfile with long taglines in it ... Usage-example: Name: "Quote: %<" Loc.: "%2" The following token are only of interest, if you are using O/T-Track: %O - On tour where? This is a string defined in OTSETUP. I would suggest to refer O/T's documentation for that. %OD - the day of O/T's switchdate #2 (be back again:-) %OM - the month of O/T's switchdate #2 %OY - the year of O/T's switchdate #2 How the heck can I use token when SITEINFO will check and read back manually entered entries? Don't worry about that, SITEINFO will take care about this situation with an intelligent search/compare allgorithm, which works similar to a regular expression-search! Furthermore entries WITH token will be treated in a bit different way than 'normal' entries (without token). Let's assume that for the current day and time there is ONLY one RSI - random-siteinfo-system - page 7 entry possible. If this entry is the actual one (means: it is already in your mailer's setup), SITEINFO will not update the mailer-config. But *IF* this entry contains a token, SITEINFO will check, whether the entry looks different now from that one found in your mailer's configuration. If so, and *ONLY* if, it will be replaced! This is useful, if you are using for example token for the seconds or random-numbers! But anyhow, even if this entry has NOT to be replaced, it's counter will be updated! And this is the moment to explain the "IMPORTANCE"-field: You may insert values between 0 and 10. The higher the value the higher the importance of this entry. Assuming you have 10 entries in your database, 9 with a value of 0 (ZERO, the default) and one with 7, then the value-7-entry will be taken about 7 times more often than all the others. If there are in addition two level-4 entries, SITEINFO will switch between 7- 4-4 much more often than between the level-0-entries. If one of your entry-counters raeches 65535, *ALL* counter will be resetted to ZERO and the show starts from the beginning! :-) Note: if there is, like in this example, only one level-10- entry, and this entry has NO token, SITEINFO will switch with all others, but take this entry much more often. Level-10 in this case does NOT mean: leave it until it reaches the factor 10! Ah... just try it out. I'm not in the mood to explain this stuff further ... :-) Starting with version 2.45 there is a support for envi- ronment-variables in your mailer's siteinfo. This variables will be written UNINTERPRETED to your mailer's setup, so ensure, that the mailer itself handles this correctly! Example: Connected to $[myname] SITEINFO will read the environment-variable MYNAME and expand the term $[myname], so you can verify it on the screen in interactive mode. The mailer-config will be updated with "Connected to $[myname]" !! Let me repeat: it's up to your mailer to interpret the variable correctly! ▓▓▓▓▓▒▒▒▒▒░░░░░ Keyboard reference and meanings: This key does ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── F1 open Helpwindow with keyboard-reference F2 sort all entries by name F3 store this entry immediatly into your mailer's configuration. RSI - random-siteinfo-system - page 8 F4 this sets an AUTODELETE-date for this entry. If the defined date is reached, Siteinfo will automatically delete the corresponding entry from the database! RETURN EDIT this entry. If the actual entry is the active one, you will be asked wether to edit it, because SITEINFO would add the old one the next time you start it (without "-i"). Save your work by pressing CTRL/RETURN or just RETURN in the last field! F5 set all entry-counters to zero. If there are e.g. 4 entries in SI's queue, the one with the lowest count has the greatest chance! Set the counters to zero to 'giv'em a chance' ;-) F6 set the starting and ending time of ALL entries to 00:00. F7 treat this entry as privileged! If there is only one privileged entry for a specific time, only this one can be selected! F7 will toggle this behaviour. If activated, you will be asked for a date. Siteinfo will treat this entry as privilieged until this date (including itself). If you want an entry to be priviledged for ever, press DEL on the date-screen (usefull for entries to be priviledged only in special months or at special days). Whenever you start Siteinfo with parameter -c and it finds an expired privileged entry, this flag will be cleared, but not the date itself. This way you may have a look on it at a later time. Just play with it and watch it out ... :-) F8/CTLR-RETURN get an overview-screen of all entries. To jump directly to one entry, just press it's first letter. F9 set THIS entry-counter to zero! F10 set THIS entry to inactive -> it will never be selected until you press F10 on this entry again or until the defined date has passed (if one is defined). Inactive entries are shown in a different color in the overview screen. S set a starting time for ALL entries. E set an ending time for ALL entries. P Maintime for SITEINFO. Only within this time- window site-informations will be changed. L define a 'program-delay'. If you set this to any other value than 0 or 1, SITEINFO will RSI - random-siteinfo-system - page 9 change your siteinfos only every "x"-times, the program is started. 0 or 1 =change every time! Obviously this option only takes effect together with the -c parameter ;-) D invoke a DOS-SHELL. SITEINFO will swap to XMS, EMS or DISK. Type EXIT to return. If there is no XMS or EMS available, a temporary file will be created (name: SITEINFO.$$$ in the path pointed to by the environment-variable TMP or TEMP). F search for an entry. Try it... Some searchpattern have special meanings. RSI will show them on screen. G search again (previously selected with F) O define path to O/T-Track H define an entry as HOLIDAY-ONLY, at-home- only, or always selectable. (Only possible, if O/T is installed.) INS Insert a new entry. DEL Delete this entry. CTRL-P writes the contents of the file in use to a plain ASCII-file <name>.PBS Cursorkeys what can they do? :-)) ESC POP UP a menu. Most of the above options are available now in this menu! ▓▓▓▓▓▒▒▒▒▒░░░░░ Logging: The logging is a little bit different in dependance of your mailer: if you are using FrontDoor, Intermail or Portal of Power, their log-file will be used. For Binkley and D'Bridge SITEINFO will create an own logfile in it's directory called RSI.LOG. If you don't want loggind, just set an environment- variable called NOLOG and fill it with any value, e.g. SET NOLOG=bla RSI - random-siteinfo-system - page 10 ▓▓▓▓▓▒▒▒▒▒░░░░░ Password: Only if you are using FrontDoor or Intermail, you have to enter the same password as for your mailer's setup!!! ▓▓▓▓▓▒▒▒▒▒░░░░░ Opening files: SITEINFO will open the config-files in "readonly/denynone"- mode for reading and "writemode/denywrite" for writing. If there are any troubles or sharing problems, please let me know. ▓▓▓▓▓▒▒▒▒▒░░░░░ Length of your SITE-informations! Please take in mind, that the maximal length of the *used* (NOT allowed!) site-information depends on the type of your mailer. SITEINFO will show a ruler on it's screen which is valid for FrontDoor. The system-line will be stripped on FrontDoor's screen at character 29, the location-line at character 30. (Both may be longer!) Another short ruler (1---5----0----5----0---!5) is shown just for your orientation. (Character 24 is extra-marked because someone told me, that one mailer - I think it was Binkley - is going to strip the information at this position.) Though Portal of Power supports a 60 character long name- information, Siteinfo will use only the first 50 characters. I think this should fit all needs. Anyway, all other mailer are stripping this information! ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ ▓▓▓▓▓▒▒▒▒▒░░░░░ 4.) Some last words... ░░░░░▒▒▒▒▒▓▓▓▓▓ │ └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ I know of sure that I have forgotten something. But I hope you can work to your satisfaction with this program! My greatest thanks goes to my early betatesters: Eckhart von dem Berge, Fidonet 2:241/1069, who had spend much time and expanded his telefone-bill for testing SITEINFO in the past. Thank you, Ecki! Hans Siemons, Fidonet 2:512/149, who gave the suggestion to make SINTEINFO Intermail-compatible. (And who made the world famoust chatter - P-CHAT! Have a look on it!) Many thanks to Peter Rohde, Fidonet 2:241/1000. He gave me the structures of the D'Bridge- and BinkleyTerm-configuration- files and testet the new behaviour. Great, Peter! RSI - random-siteinfo-system - page 11 Andreas Klein, he gave me all neccessary information about Portal of Power's permanently changing structures. Thank you, Andreas! Constantin Spiess, he tested version 2.40 and gave me some nice ideas which are implemented in this version! This consumed some units on his telephone-bill ... :-) Thanks, STAN! And now: go on and every time a good 'site-infoing' :-) Regards, Peter Vechta, 27. Dezember 1994