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1995-03-28
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┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Copyright Notice and Program Disclaimer │
└───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
The program RIP_IT.EXE its support files, and this documentation file,
are Copyright 1995, G.A.C. Computer Services. Distribution & execution
of the original, unaltered version is permitted, and encouraged, as long
as all support files and documentation that accompany the program are
included without modification in any form.
DISCLAIMER:
I (Gregory Campbell) make no warranty of any kind, expressed or implied,
including without limitation any warranties of merchantability
and/or fitness for a particular purpose. I shall not be held liable
for any damages, whether direct, indirect, special or consequential
arising from the failure of this program to operate in the manner desired
by the user. I shall not be held liable for any damage to data or
property which may be caused directly or indirectly by the use of this
program.
In no event will I be held liable for any damages, including (but
not limited to) any lost profits, lost savings, or other incidental
or consequential damages arising out of the use -- or the inability
to use -- this program, or for any claim by any other party.
┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ List of included files in the RIP It! Archive │
└───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
RIP_IT.EXE - The Main executable
RIP_IT.DOC - This Documentation file
RIP_IT.CFG - The RIP It! Configuration file (one of many files
that allow you to customize RIP It!. Be sure to
at least look over the customizing section.)
FILE_ID.DIZ - A short description of RIP It!
REGISTER.DOC - A Registration form for G.A.C. Computer Services
Products.
FILENAME.CLR - Color config files for RIP It! menus
BACKGRND.RIP - A sample of the default RIP background (Not Used)
HEADER.ASC - An example of the default ASC header file (Not Used)
┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ What RIP It! does and how to use it! │
└───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
NOTE: THIS PROGRAM SHOULD ONLY BE USED WITH SYNCHRONET 2.0 AND UP!
RIP It! is a utility designed to make the "Optional Menu Files" in both
RIP and Synchronet Ctrl-A code format (.ASC) for the Synchronet BBS
system easily and most importantly quickly! RIP It! reads all
information for creating these menus directly from the Synchronet
configuration files (*.CNF) found in the control directory (usually
C:\SBBS\CTRL\). RIP It! then creates the following files in the
directory you specify in RIP_IT.CFG (usually C:\SBBS\TEXT\MENU\).
GRPS.RIP & GRPS.ASC - Message Group Listing
SUBSx.RIP & SUBSx.ASC - Message sub-board listing, x is the
sub-board number
NOTE: The following menus are only created in the registered version
LIBS.RIP & LIBS.ASC - File library listing
DIRSx.RIP & DIRSx.ASC - File directory listing, x is the library
number
XTRN_SEC.RIP & XTRN_SEC.ASC - External program sections
XTRNx.RIP & XTRNx.ASC - External program listing, x is section
number
TEXT_SEC.RIP & TEXT_SEC.ASC - Text file section listing
TEXTx.RIP & TEXTx.ASC - Text file listing, x is the section number
NOTE: These menu descriptions were taken from the Synchronet 2.00 g
SysOp Manual Page 228
As you can see from the list of created menus above, RIP It! does an
immense amount of work in minutes that would normally take a SysOp
literally hundreds of hours to accomplish (trust me, I tried to create
all of these menus manually for my BBS). The best part about RIP It!
is that you can re-create the menus in another few minutes and you do
not have to manually edit all of the menus every time you add or delete
an item in your Synchronet Configuration!
RIP It! has been designed to allow the SysOp a large degree of
customizing including custom colors for both the ASC and RIP menus,
the use of custom backgrounds (RIP) and headers (ASC) [Registered
version only], ability to configure menu titles and prefixes and the
ability to force minimum column output in RIP to allow more room at
the bottom of each menu for your custom backgrounds.
In all there are 25 different files that you may configure for
customizing, but only if you want to. The defaults look very
impressive.
RIP It! is limited in the number of items that can be fully displayed on
each menu due to the constraints of the RIP screen and fonts. Currently
RIP It! will produce a single column of menu items if there are 23 or
less items on that menu, and it will place up to 46 items on one menu
using two columns and a slightly smaller font.
If your system is configred with more than 46 items on each menu you can
still use RIP It!, but the menu item descriptions for those areas will be
truncated so that more items will fit. RIP It! supports up to four
columns of 23 items (or 92 items on a menu). If you have more than 92
items per menu, then you are extremely limited to what you can display
on the RIP screen and your users probably hate it anyway. 8-)
You may force RIP It! to create menus with a minimum number of columns
by replacing 1 in the RIP_IT.CFG with a number from 1 to 4, for one to
four columns respectively.
NOTE: Since the text file descriptions can be much longer than other
descriptions, RIP It! will start the text file descriptions on the far
left of all TEXTx.RIP screens. This way you can use the longer
descriptions that Synchronet allows.
The following chart shows the number of columns, items, and characters
displayed on the menu.
| COL | # Items | # Characters Displayed |
--------------------------------------------------------------
| 1 | 23 | all 40 for each item (71 for TEXTx.RIPs) |
| 2 | 46 | all 40 for each item (48 for TEXTx.RIPs) |
| 3 | 69 | First 30 of each item |
| 4 | 92 | First 20 of each item |
--------------------------------------------------------------
********************* VERY IMPORTANT NOTE **************************
There is one thing that needs to be made perfectly clear before you
continue. Synchronet does not allow you to specify multiple menus for
an area based on user security level, therefore RIP It! doesn't support
security levels and probably never will. Unless Synchronet will support
the option to display different menus to different security levels
internally (not through BAJA).
What this means is that RIP It! will place EVERY ITEM on the menu it
creates in the order they are found in SCFG! This means that you must
either allow all users to ACCESS ALL areas appearing on that menu, or you
must move the higher access levels to the BOTTOM in SCFG. This way
a user that doesn't have access to an area will still be able to access
the lower numbered areas correctly. This applies to all message, file,
external program and text areas.
This sounds like a real drawback, but it is easy to remedy. I personally
allow all users to ACCESS all areas of the BBS whether they are paying
members or not. Then I limit the non-paying users by placing
restrictions on READING and POSTING to a Message Base, EXECUTING External
programs, and DOWNLOADING and UPLOADING to file areas. This way EVERY
user sees the same menus, but only the paying members can do anything in
certain areas.
To avoid user confusion, I designated the paying areas by placing a
dollar sign, $, at the front of each area description limited to paying
members, and an asterick, *, at the front of each area limited to SysOps.
This has actually increased my paying members since they realize
immediately what contributing to the BBS gains them.
Of course it takes less time to reconfigure the access levels then it
does to create even a couple of RIP and ASC menus. Best of all, after
you configure the areas once, you are set to use RIP It! anytime you
add or delete areas of your BBS! And to top it all off, my users LOVE
the RIP menus that are created with RIP It! and are convinced that it
is worth every penny.
Now that you have been warned about access levels, the following will
explain how to get RIP It! running. It should only take you a few
minutes. NOTE: An ANSI driver is not required for RIP It! to operate
correctly, but you won't be able to see the colors while RIP It! is
running.
To set up RIP It! follow the instructions given below.
1. Create a directory for RIP It!
e.g. mkdir c:\sbbs\xtrn\rip_it <ENTER>
2. Copy ALL of the archive files to this directory.
e.g. copy *.* c:\sbbs\xtrn\rip_it <ENTER>
3. Edit the RIP_IT.CFG file to point to the correct directories,
enter your name and BBS name (these should be the same as
in SCFG), and alter the default titles.
NOTE: RIP It! expects the CTRL and DATA\TEXT directories to be
under the directory you specify for SBBS (e.g. C:\SBBS\).
4. You may also edit the colors for the menus in the MSGGRP.CLR
and SUBLIST.CLR files if you don't like the defaults.
NOTE: You may specify any directory where you want the menu files
created. RIP It! will OVERWRITE ALL ASC and RIP optional menus in
the directory you specify in RIP_IT.CFG. Therefore, if you have
already created some custom ASC and RIP menus be sure to back them
up or point to a directory other than C:\SBBS\TEXT\MENU\.
5. Now that you are ready, simply type RIP_IT from the RIP It!
directory and ALL of the "Optional Menus" will be created.
NOTE: Be sure to see the Customizing RIP It! and the
DEMO Restrictions sections below.
┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Customizing RIP It! │
└───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
OK, now that you have installed RIP It! and have your BBS configured
to work correctly with the RIP It! created menus you probably want
to know how you can customize the menus so they don't look like every
other Synchronet BBS that is running RIP It!
The easiest thing to do is change the colors in the various
FILENAME.CLR files. See below for custom file descriptions.
You can specify seperate colors for the ASC and RIP menus. The
configuration file contains all the details on color customizing.
You can also specify what you want the Titles to be in the RIP_IT.CFG
file. For example, the default is Program Sections for the
External Program Sections Title, but I prefer to use On-Line Game
Areas on my BBS. Just be sure to keep each prefix under 25 characters
or smaller if you have long descriptions and keep the titles under 60
characters.
You can also customize RIP It! by creating any or all of the following
files. RIP It! will check for each files existence and if RIP It! finds
any of the files in its directory they will be used in place of the
default RIP backgrounds and ASC headers.
NOTE: You may see what the default backgrounds and headers look like by
viewing the HEADER.ASC and BACKGRND.RIP files that came with
RIP It!. These files are hard coded into RIP It! for use as the
defaults.
MSGGRP.RIP - This is the background for the RIP Message Groups Listing
MSGGRP.ASC - This is the header for the ASC Message Groups Listing
MSGGRP.CLR - This is the color config for Message Groups Listing
SUBLIST.RIP - This is the background for the RIP Sub-Board Listings
SUBLIST.ASC - This is the header for the ASC Sub-Board Listings
SUBLIST.CLR - This is the color config for the Sub-Board Listings
LIBLIST.RIP - This is the background for the RIP File Libraries Listing
LIBLIST.ASC - This is the header for the ASC File Libraries Listing
LIBLIST.CLR - This is the color config for the File Libraries Listing
DIRLIST.RIP - This is the background for the RIP File Directory Listings
DIRLIST.ASC - This is the header for the ASC File Directory Listings
DIRLIST.CLR - This is the color config for the File Directory Listings
XTRNSECS.RIP - This is the background for the RIP External Sections List
XTRNSECS.ASC - This is the header for the ASC External Sections List
XTRNSECS.CLR - This is the color config for the External Sections List
XTRNLIST.RIP - This is the background for the RIP External Programs Lists
XTRNLIST.ASC - This is the header for the ASC External Programs Listings
XTRNLIST.CLR - This is the color config for the External Programs Listings
TEXTSECS.RIP - This is the background for the RIP Text Sections Listing
TEXTSECS.ASC - This is the header for the ASC Text Sections Listing
TEXTSECS.CLR - This is the color config for the Text Sections Listing
TEXTLIST.RIP - This is the background for the RIP Text File Listing
TEXTLIST.ASC - This is the header for the ASC Text File Listing
TEXTLIST.CLR - This is the color config for the Text File Listing
As you can see there are many files that you can create to cusomize
RIP It! if you choose to do so. The RIP backgrounds can be anything
that you wish to use. RIP It! will write the menu items and labels over
the background that you use, this is why I included the option to
force column output. This will allow the minimum amount of your
background to be covered by the menu items. The ASC header files are
not used as a background, but are displayed as a header before the
menuitems are listed. This allows you to customize the listings.
┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ DEMO Restrictions │
└───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
The Demo version of RIP It! is limited in a few ways. This is very
frankly done to encourage registration of this product. When you
consider how much time RIP It! can save you and how much nicer your
board will look, the registration cost is very reasonable.
The Demo version of RIP It! will ONLY create the menus for the Message
Groups (GRPS.RIP and GRPS.ASC) and all of the sub-boards (SUBSx.RIP
and SUBSx.ASC). You may customize all of the colors for these menus,
except an UNREGISTERED tagline will be added to the end of each menu
and you may not change the color of this tagline.
The Demo version will ignore ALL custom RIP background files and ASC
header files. The Default backgrounds and headers are hard coded into
the program, but I have included the files BACKGRND.RIP and HEADER.ASC
so you can see what is being used internally. Editing these files will
not allow you to customize your menus.
┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Registration and technical support │
└───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
Registration cost is $20.00 U.S. for RIP It!. The fee will be
used to help me develop larger and better Synchronet programs.
Print the file REGISTER.DOC, fill it out and send it along with a
check or money order for $20.00 U.S. to:
Gregory Campbell
G.A.C. Computer Services
2040 Spring Creek Parkway Suite 141238
Plano, TX 75023-4225
If you would like more information on how to use RIP It! or have
a problem with it, you may contact me in the following ways.
Call me voice: 214-517-3692 (10am-10pm CST)
Call my BBS: 214-527-6811
Send me NetMail: Gregory Campbell@1:124/8047
Send me Internet E-mail: Gregory.Campbell@f8047.n124.z1.fidonet.org
Send me QWK NetMail: The.Tramp@DOGHOUSE
Or Ask me a question in DOVE-Net, my Alias is The.Tramp
To obtain the newest public release versions of RIP It!
FREQ RIPIT! from 1:124/8047 or call my BBS and login as Guest
┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Known Anomolies │
└───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
- 4DOS Users should eliminate the white space in RIP_IT.CFG between
the option and the semi-colon. This is a problem with 4 DOS not
correctly implementing the ANSI C standard.
e.g. hb;Registration Information (ASC)
- RIP Paint (and most other paint programs) does not display the
registration information or title correctly. This is a problem with
RIP Paint not supporting the RIP Text command (|T<text>). The menus
will display correctly to remote users.