Collection of Hack-Phreak Scene Programs/cleanhpvac.zip/cleanhpvac/TDHELP.ZIP/22

Text File | 1989-12-07 | 4KB | 65 lines

There's two ways to put an ANSI screen into a message:

You can start a message (just as if you were going to type something),
then do an ASCII upload of the file.  But before you do the upload, type
a CTRL-E and press [ENTER] first.  That will cause the "More?" prompt to
appear when the message is displayed.  This allows people to see who left
the message and to see the title.  After the ASCII upload is finished, put
another CTRL-E on the last line to put the "More?" prompt in to provide
people with a pause after the screen is finished displaying.

The other way to send an ANSI screen is to upload it to your local board
and ask your SysOp to place it into a message for you.  In this scenario,
you'd just upload it via a protocol like Xmodem or Zmodem just like you'd
upload any program.  But it is best to insert the CTRL-E's before and
after the screen BEFORE you send it...that way it saves the SysOp a little
bit of trouble.  Do not try to insert CTRL-E's via TheDraw, as TheDraw wil
count them as "drawing" characters and incorporate them into the picture.
Use a text editor like Qedit to insert the CTRL-E's.  (Load the ANSI
image into Qedit.  It will look like a lot of garbage, but just ignore
that.  Go to the top of the file and press [ENTER] to insert a line.  Next,
type CTRL-P and then type CTRL-E.  Qedit will insert a CTRL-E [a club from
a deck of cards] onto the first line.  Next, type CTRL-PgDn to go to the
end of the file, press [ENTER] to just to the last line, then type another
CTRL-P CTRL-E.  You will then have a CTRL-E at the start and finish of the
ANSI screen.  Type ALT-X and press [ENTER] to exit.)

It is VERY important that you save your screen with a width of 72
characters per line.  TheDraw will ask you the width when you select the
Save option (ALT-S).  The GT messages only accept a maximum of like 72
characters on each line, and things will got nuts if you exceed that
limit.  Also, keep in mind the maximum number of lines that your local
ANSI echo carrying BBS permits.  After TheDraw is finished saving your
screen to disk, it will tell you how many lines at the width you selected
that the file is.  If that number exceeds the maximum allowed in a message,
then you will have to upload the screen to the SysOp in order to display
it.  For instance, The Gavel allows a maximum of 72 lines to be entered
manually into a message (like I'm doing now).  If I were to create a
screen that is less than or equal to 72 lines, then I could upload it via
ASCII upload...otherwise I'd have to upload it and leave a message to
Ernest.

Another thing...  I understand that Telix is kinda difficult to upload
things in via ASCII...not that it can't be done, but apparently the
defaults in Telix do not allow it to upload things properly into messages.
I'm sure that there's someone out there that can help you on this, though.
I personally recommend GT (any version) for uploading screens.  All you
have to do is type ALT-A and enter the filename to upload...  GT will
display as it uploads, then make a lot of noise to let you know when its
done.

ONE MORE THING...then I'll stop (I promise).  When you upload via ASCII
and your comm program allows you to see what you're uploading, your ANSI
screen may appear distorted.  Everything's probably OK, its just that the
BBS software is reseting colors when it displays the message line numbers
(like the yellow numbers in the GT message entry).  It is best to select
"None" as your message security.  After you have completed an upload and
inserted the final CTRL-E, save your message, then try and view it like
you would any message (by typing "R <message number>"...GT will tell you
the number of your message).  If the screen is distorted, then select to
Kill it (K from the message line), and try uploading it to your SysOp.
Don't forget to tell your SysOp to put it in a message!

Hope this is helpful!