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Text File | 1993-08-22 | 21KB | 462 lines

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ │ │ ███ ███ ▄█████▄ ██████ ███ ███ █████▄ ▀███▀ ▄█████▄ ██████ │ │ ███ ███ ███ ███ ████ ▀ ███ ██▀ ████ █ ███ ▀██▄▄ ▀ ████ █ │ │ ███████ ███████ ████ ▄ █████ ████ █ ███ ▄ ▀▀██▄ ████ █ │ │ ███ ███ ███ ███ ██████ ███ ██▄ ██████ ▄███▄ ▀█████▀ ████▀▀ │ │ version 1.4 copyright 1992, 1993 James L. Powers │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ The screen conversion utility of choice for LAUGHING DOG Wildcat! 3.x PCBoard ANSI display files! brought to you by: The Dead LEEEEEEECH! Society BBS & Mortuary (614) 899-7839 2400-14400 baud 8N1 ================================================================================ This program was written after laboriously hand-converting an ANSI file that should have been a piece of cake for a well known free utility widely available for WC! 3.x sysops. From it's humble beginnings as a down and dirty 50 line utility, HACKDISP has ballooned to some 1500+ lines of code and boasts an extensive command line set. HACKDISP is lazy. It works by letting DOS handle the ANSI conversion. Your file is output to your color display and HACKDISP lifts the characters and color attributes directly out of screen memory. ANSI.SYS or an equivalent ANSI driver must be loaded. There is *NO* support for ANSI animation (other than that which your ANSI driver supports) or WC! v2.x or PCBoard system codes. HACKDISP will also convert from or to Laughing Dog v1.0-v1.14 (copyright 1992, Jeff Sloan) format if the file extension .DOG is found in the command line. HACKDISP is THE ONLY alternative to LDOGRAB.EXE, a terminate and stay resident screen capture program bundled with Laughing Dog Screen Maker. No other Laughing Dog conversion utility is known to exist. Converting your present ANSI or @-coded screens to DOG format is quick and easy with HACKDISP! HACKDISP creates compressed Laughing Dog screens in some cases tighter than Laughing Dog itself and can also create them in the uncompressed form. HACKDISP will also convert and view PCBoard @X-coded files. Finally, HACKDISP will take your Wildcat, PCBoard, or Laughing Dog file and hack it back to ANSI. This is a "last ditch" feature and HACKDISP does NOT produce the tightest possible ANSI files. But if you lost your ANSI originals, HACKDISP can and will get them back for you. Use a file extension of .ANS or the /A switch on the command line to force ANSI output. In addition to converting files, HACKDISP will also allow you to view the converted files or your ANSI originals in color or black and white. A great deal of effort has been put into making HACKDISP produce the smallest possible WC! v3.x or PCBoard equivalent of your ANSI or Laughing Dog files. Although this will probably not help you save hard drive space in the long run, it will help enhance Wildcat's or PCBoard's performance when displaying @-coded screens, since HACKDISP's mission is to create a display file with as few attribute changes as possible. It is assumed WC! 3.x sysops will know where and when to system codes necessary to pause or clear the display and will edit the output of HACKDISP as required. However, with the additional support for file prefixes and suffixes in HACKDISP v1.3, many modifications can now be made "on the fly". HACKDISP will only handle one screen (25, 43, or 50 lines) at a time. You can specify the number of lines (1-50 depending on the current video mode) to convert on the command line or convert the entire screen. Please note that not all ANSI drivers can support 43 and 50 line mode! If you convert a screen while in 43 or 50 line mode but view it in 25 line mode, HACKDISP will scroll the display. HACKDISP will refuse to run on monitors with less than 80 columns or versions of DOS less than 3.0! HACKDISP will neither convert nor display files larger than 65,535 bytes. That's the breaks. Got one? I'd like to see it! HACKDISP writes directly to screen memory during conversion and display and may cause "snow" on some CGA systems. HACKDISP has been tested under DESQview and LANtastic and works well under either environment. HACKDISP supports SHARE.EXE but opens and closes most files so quickly that it's hardly worth the bother. HACKDISP is free for personal and non-business use. ================================================================================ ================================================================================ Usage: To convert ANSI files to WC! 3.x @COLOR@ codes: HACKDISP [d:\path\] INPUT_FILE.EXT [d:\path\] OUTPUT_FILE.EXT To convert Laughing Dog v1.0 files to WC! 3.x @COLOR@ codes: HACKDISP [d:\path\] INPUT_FILE.DOG [d:\path\] OUTPUT_FILE.EXT ^^^ To convert ANSI or WC! 3.x files to Laughing Dog v1.0 format: HACKDISP [d:\path\] INPUT_FILE.EXT [d:\path\] OUTPUT_FILE.DOG ^^^ To convert nn lines of the present screen to WC! 3.x @COLOR@ codes: HACKDISP SCREEN [d:\path\] OUTPUTFILE.EXT /L=nn The value of nn is in the range 1-50 and will default to the maximum number of screen lines if omitted. nn is disregarded if you are converting to Laughing Dog format. To view converted files in COLOR: HACKDISP [d:\path\] FILENAME.EXT To view converted files in B&W: HACKDISP [d:\path\] FILENAME.EXT /B Please note HACKDISP does NOT recognize wildcards in filenames! ================================================================================ ======================================================================= -=≡COMMAND LINE SWITCHES IN DEPTH≡=- /N Ignore all spaces from bottom of screen to last character of last non-blank line. /F Fast conversion. No default 2 second delay. Ignored when files are displayed. When converting to Laughing Dog format, forces UNCOMPRESSED format. /P=text Define file prefix. For instance, you might want to convert an ANSI score file from a game to a WC 3.x bulletin: HD SCORE.ANS C:\WC30\BULL\BULL1.BBS /F/N/P=@07@@CLS@^M This will prepend @07@@CLS@ and a CR/LF pair to BULL1.BBS, do it fast, and end the file at the last character of the last non-blank line. You can use as many ^M's as the command line will allow. Some ANSI drivers may take ^M (caret-M, NOT Ctrl-M) literally and ignore everything after it. In this case, use ~M to force a CR/LF pair. /S=text Define file suffix. As above: HD SCORE.ANS C:\WC30\BULL\BULL1.BBS /F/N/P=@CLS@/S=~M@PAUSE@ This will prepend @CLS@ to BULL1.BBS and append a CR/LF pair and @PAUSE@ to the end of the bulletin. /CLS This switch will prepend @CLS@@NOPAUSE@ to your converted file. Good choice for making bulletins on the fly when combined with /S=^M@PAUSE@. When output is ANSI, the escape code "^[2J" is prepended to the file. No effect whatsoever when output is PCBoard (use a file prefix). /PC Force PCBoard output. /A Force ANSI output. /TDF Fix Wildcat @-coded files produced by utilities or drawing programs that do not reset the background attribute to black at the end of a line. Used during conversion only. /I Ignore WC! @-codes in a primarily ANSI file. Effectively shuts off auto-detect of @-coded display files and forces ANSI input. Strips @-codes from the beginning and end of a file. For displaying or converting. Used, for instance, when you want to display or convert an ANSI screen that begins with a @CLS@ and ends with a @PAUSE@, and you are too lazy to edit out the @-codes. Rarely used. HACKDISP will not allow you to use this switch with the /O (overwrite) switch. Very likely to cause strange results with PCBoard files. /D=xxx Delay for xxx seconds after converting or viewing a file. Ignored during conversion if /F is specified on the command line. /L=xx Convert only xx lines of display. If xx is greater than the maximum lines available, HACKDISP will harass you and hurt your feelings. /R When enabled, HACKDISP will attempt to read or write to locked files once a second for ten seconds if the initial attempt fails. HACKDISP will emit a clicking sound while retrying the file. No retries will be made if this parameter is left out and HACKDISP will notify you of the error at program exit. Can be used during conversion or while viewing. HACKDISP will yell at you if you use this switch and SHARE.EXE is not installed! /@ Force HACKDISP to recognize a poorly made @-coded file. HACKDISP recognizes a Wildcat or PCBoard @-coded file IF AND ONLY IF the first character in the file is the "@" symbol. In my opinion, any file that purports to be @-coded MUST start with either an attribute (@xx@), @CLS@, @NOPAUSE@, or whatever. Files that do NOT are considered poorly made. /B Viewing only. Views files in black and white. /? View HACKDISP help screen. Invalid command line switches are ignored. Switches may be separated by spaces or run together to save command line space. However, the slash character ("/") MUST be used. The underscore character ("_") in file prefixes or suffixes will be translated into a space. File prefixes and suffixes are not applicable when converting to LAUGHING DOG format. All command line parameters (including suffixes and prefixes) are forced to UPPER CASE by HACKDISP. HACKDISP terminates with ERRORLEVEL 0 upon success, non-zero otherwise. ================================================================================ HACKDISP DOES WHAT TOMCAT CAN'T! ================================================================================ Tomcat has an internal ANSI translation buffer that is just TOO SMALL for some @-coded screens! If a line on your "problem screen" has a lot of attribute changes and Tomcat overflows this buffer, the rest of that line is just plain GONE. ZAP! Adios! Siyonara! The result is an UGLY CHOPPED UP ANSI SCREEN in your users' QWK packets which makes YOU, the sysop, look like an idiot. I think this bug could be easily fixed by analyzing the worst case scenario: every character in a line could have a completely different attribute from the preceding character, requiring a twelve-byte ANSI escape sequence to change the attribute of each character. This would make the buffer (13*80)+1 bytes long. Indeed, a 1K buffer would suffice for 99.99% of ALL @-coded screens. HACKDISP's support for ANSI actually grew out of MSI's seeming unwillingness to solve this SIMPLE problem. If you have an @-coded screen that Tomcat can't handle, try this in your MAIL.BAT file: CD DISP HD HELLO1.BBS HELLO1.SCR /A/F/CLS/N/S=^M@PAUSE@ CD\WC30 TOMCAT CD DISP DEL HELLO1.SCR Sysops of multi-line BBS's may also want to use the /R switch to avoid SHARE conflicts. This should fool Tomcat into thinking the *.SCR file is the REAL color screen and your users shouldn't have any weird truncated screens in their QWK packets. But remember, if you have any cursor-positioning ANSI escape sequences embedded in an @-coded screen, HACKDISP will treat them as valid characters and totally destroy your screen. Of course, this practice of changing @-coded screens back to ANSI screens with a third-party utility is absolutely ridiculous. It shouldn't be necessary. If you have too many screens that require this, the best advice is to forget @-codes completely and use separate .SCR and .BBS display files. After all, if your MSI software doesn't totally support @-codes, why should you? Are they listening? ================================================================================ ================================================================================ -=≡POST CRYPT≡=- If you experience any difficulty converting any ANSI, PCBoard, or LDOG file, viewing any converted file, or if you are experiencing strange results when a converted file is displayed by Wildcat, please feel free to upload the original ANSI or LDOG file and the file created by HACKDISP to the "Sysop ONLY" file section of The Dead LEEEEEEEECH! Society BBS & Mortuary at (614)899-7839 and the problem will be investigated. Please leave a message indicating which Wildcat version you are using! I also "hang around" in the MSI Support Net conferences, so drop me a message there. If you get what appear to be weird results when displaying a file created by another utility, note that HACKDISP displays your files in "worst case mode"! That bulletin or menu you're so fond of my look fine while you sit in front of Wildcat's local display, but do you REALLY know what your caller is seeing? HACKDISP knows. Remember that if your ANSI or LDOG screen uses all 80 columns, the local Wildcat display may insert blank lines. Remote viewing will look fine. It's best to use a maximum of 79 columns if you want things to look pretty on both ends. Also, HACKDISP will display characters that Wildcat, some modems, and many communications programs may not like. However, since most ANSI drawing programs don't offer 90% of these characters, it shouldn't be a problem. @-coded files that use ANSI escape sequences for cursor positioning will also not display properly and TABs are NOT expanded by HACKDISP. Beware of ASCII 127! It is the "tiny house" or "delta" character () in the IBM graphics character set, but it is hardwired in several telecommunications packages as a backspace. Too bad. Nice little character. At least all MSI products will display it intelligently. Since HACKDISP uses your computer's ANSI driver, a full screen (25 line) ANSI file will scroll up and you WILL lose the topmost line. The best workaround for this so far is to pop into 43 or 50 line mode and specify /N on the command line. Of course, if you only have a CGA monitor, you are out of luck. An internal ANSI driver for HACKDISP is currently in the works. When it's finished HACKDISP will also be able to convert more than the current 50 line maximum. MODE CON LINES=xx may NOT work with drivers other than ANSI.SYS! Displaying a single "@" character is still a hassle. HACKDISP will always display one correctly, but Wildcat gets horribly confused whenever it encounters one. Avoid them like the plague and complain about it to MSI. It's not my problem. I hereby propose that "@@@" or "@@" should be the @-code for the "@" character. THANKS FOR DOWNLOADING HACKDISP! ================================================================================ ================================================================================ -=≡STANDARD DISCLAIMER≡=- Not responsible for direct, indirect, incidental or consequential damages resulting from any defect, error, or failure to perform. No other warranty expressed or implied. Some of the trademarks mentioned in this product appear for identification purposes only. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental. Void where prohibited. Some assembly required. List each check separately by bank number. Batteries not included. Contents may settle during shipment. Use only as directed. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Postage will be paid by addressee. Apply only to affected area. May be too intense for some viewers. Do not stamp. Use other side for additional listings. For recreational use only. Do not disturb. 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