Monster Media 1994 #1/monster.zip/monster/WILDCAT/DDMESS21.ZIP/DDMESS2.DOC

Text File | 1994-02-12 | 16KB | 365 lines

DDMESS2 version 1.11 Message Activity Bulletin Generator
--------------------------------------------------------

Copyright (C) 1994 by Dirk Daff. All rights reserved.
-----------------------------------------------------

Disclaimer
----------
This product is provided "as is" without warranty of any kind. All risks
are assumed by the user. Should this product prove defective in any way
any and all costs are assumed by the user including but not limited to
repair of hardware or data or any other required corrective action.

Dirk Daff, being the author of this product, will not accept
responsibility or liability for system damage loss of profit or any
other special incidental or consequential damages resulting from the use
or inability to use this product.

Freeware Licence
-----------------
Please note that Freeware is NOT the same as Public Domain. This
producted is NOT donated to the Public Domain and the author retains all
Copyright.

The Freeware version of DDMESS2 (version numbers 1.01 and 1.11 ONLY) can
be used free of charge for as long as you like provided that your
bulletin board service is not a commercial one. The original version
(1.01) was released as Shareware but having started my own board I've
realised that hobby board operators spend enough money on electricity
and telephone bills without burdening them further. The original version
is now also Freeware.

Limited Commercial Licence
--------------------------
If you do operate a COMMERCIAL board, you are hereby granted a Limited
Licence to use this product (this also applies to version 1.01) for a
period not exceeding thirty days for evaluation purposes only. After that
time you must either stop using it or obtain a registered version from the
author.

Due to the nature of this product it can only be evaluated properly on a
live Bulletin Board System (BBS). You are therefore granted a Limited Licence
to install this product on your BBS for the aforementioned time period.

For the purposes of the Limited Licence, a commercial board is one which
meets one or more of the following criteria :

        a) fees are charged for online time
        b) one or more of the phone lines are premium rate numbers
        c) fees are charged for advertising space
        d) fees are charged for downloading files or messages
        e) donations or subscriptions by users are used for profit
           rather than exclusively for offsetting the running expenses
           of the board
        f) subscription or donation is required before users have access
           to the local message facilities on the board
        g) subscription or donation is required before users have access
           to the file base

Commercial Registration
-----------------------
A registered version can be obtained from the author Dirk Daff in the
following ways:

        1. Send the completed order form (see DDMESS2.ORD)
           and the appropriate amount in UK Sterling to :

                Dirk Daff
                32 Spencer Road
                Wealdstone
                Harrow
                Middx. HA3 7AP
                UK

           You will be sent a copy of the registered and personalised
           version of DDMESS2.

        2. Call the Loose Cannon BBS on 081-863-7521 (8/N/1) and leave me a
           message. We'll sort something out...<grin>

        3. Alternatively, E-Mail me on the Internet using
           [e-mail]

The registered version will have FREEWARE in the header removed and
replaced by REGISTERED to show how you support the shareware concept.

Your version will have a personalised message of your own choice
displayed instead of the advert for my BBS (2 lines of 50 characters).

Your name will be highlighted on the message activity bulletins instead
of mine when you upload messages.

You will get technical support via the Loose Cannon BBS.

Prices
------
Single User licence..................................... £  5.00
10 User licence..........................................£ 40.00
Postage/packing (UK/Europe)..............................£  2.00
                (International)..........................£  4.00

VAT is charged at the prevailing rate for UK orders.

If you require a licence for more than 10 users order the required number
of 10-user licences. A user is defined as a single Bulletin Board operated
by an individual or organisation. This means you need only a Single User
licence whether you have only 1 node or 250 nodes as long as all nodes are
operated as one Bulletin Board. If for example nodes 1 to 50 are BBS no.1
and nodes 51 to 100 are BBS no.2 you need 2 user licences so you need to
order 2 Single User licences.

Postage and packing includes the registered version on disk and sending
by ordinary first class post. If you don't want to use snail-mail you
can pick up your registered copy from the BBS instead and thereby avoid
the postage and packing charges. You know it makes sense.

Trademarks
----------
Any trademarks mentioned belong to their respective owners. Fair enough ?

OK, that's all the legal and money stuff over and done with.

DDMESS2 files
-------------
You should find the following files in the archive:

        DDMESS2.EXE     - bulletin generator.
        DDMESS2.INI     - sample configuration file
        DDMESS2.DOC     - this documentation file
        DDMESS2.ORD     - order form for the registered version
        EXAMPLE.LOG     - sample Wildcat TD 2.6 log file
        EXAMPLE.BBS     - sample plain text bulletin
        EXAMPLE.SCR     - sample ANSI bulletin

DDMESS2 creates the following files in the current path when run :

        DDMESS2.ERR     - error report
        DDMESS2.BBS     - plain text bulletin
        DDMESS2.SCR     - ANSI bulletin
        DDMESS2.DAT     - message activity history

The following files must be in the current path when running DDMESS2 :

        DDMESS2.INI
        ACTIVITY.LOG

What do I need to run DDMESS2 ?
-------------------------------

You need the following :

        An IBM-compatible PC
        WildCat 2.6 TestDrive
        Tomcat 2.9F (optional)
        MSDOS 3.3 or higher

I don't see any reason why you can't use DDMESS2 with earlier WildCat
versions as long as the activity log records are written in the same way
as in 2.6TD. I will be writing a WildCat 3.xx version sooner or later.

How to use DDMESS2
------------------
If you want to test this product offline before you let it loose on your
precious live files, simply create a test directory with DDMESS2.EXE and
DDMESS2.INI in it, then copy your live ACTIVITY.LOG into the test
directory. DDMESS2 will run quite happily without the rest of WildCat.

For live installation, copy DDMESS2.EXE and DDMESS2.INI to your node home
directory or wherever your WildCat ACTIVITY.LOG file resides.

Personalise the DDMESS2.INI file using a plain text editor like Norton
Commander or QEdit (or even Edlin if you're a complete masochist) with
the following information:

Line 1 - text to be displayed on the top line of the bulletin up to a
         maximum of 70 characters. A carriage return here will mean a blank
         first line on the bulletin.

Line 2 - ditto line 1 except the text is of course displayed on the 2nd
         line of the bulletin.

Line 3 - include local logons in the bulletin. Enter "Y" or "N" here, in
         upper-case and without the quotes.

Line 4 - exclude this security level and higher from the bulletin. Enter
         a 4 digit security level number here with leading zeroes. E.g
         "0099" will exclude all callers with a security level of 99 or
         higher.

Line 5 - number of names to include in the list. Enter a 4 digit number
         here with leading zeroes. E.g. "0000" will only show 1 name,
         "0099" will show up to 100. The maximum number of names that
         will be shown is 100 in each list.

Run DDMESS2 from the command line or a batch file. There are no pesky
command line switches or parameters to specify. DDMESS2 identifies
itself and displays a few dots to let you know it's still running and
hasn't crashed <gasp>. It scans the activity log for logons since the last
time DDMESS2 was run, adds any new message activity into its history
file reporting any updates to the screen and then generates the bulletin
files DDMESS2.BBS and DDMESS2.SCR. I suggest you add the history file
(DDMESS2.DAT) to your backup routine.

Now you're asking yourself : all well and good, but how do I get it to
put the bulletins in the right directory with the proper names..?

Easy : you use the DOS COPY command. I'm afraid I just couldn't be
bothered to work out the CONFIGWC structure just to get the bulletin
directory path and use command line parameters for the bulletin file
name when a batch file command does it for you anyway. Also it means you
can copy the bulletin files anywhere you like, such as to a HELLO
bulletin file and to multiple filenames if you want the bulletin to
appear in more than one place on your board.

Example batch file :
        DDMESS2
        COPY DDMESS2.BBS BULL\BULL10.BBS
        COPY DDMESS2.SCR BULL\BULL10.SCR

DDMESS2 extracts the following information from the activity log :

User name          : This is the login name for each user on the list up
                     to a maximum of 25 characters.

Most messages sent : This is the number of messages uploaded via TomCat
                     and/or entered online for individual users since DDMESS2
                     has been in use. This is cumulative.

Most messages in
one session        : This is the number of messages uploaded via TomCat
                     and/or entered online for individual users in a
                     single online session since DDMESS2 has been in
                     use.

The user names are then collated into two lists showing the users with
the highest number of messages and the largest packet sizes. Each list
is sorted in order of descending number of messages, showing up to the
maximum number of entries specified in the .INI file or less if there
are not enough users with messages. If you specify 100 user names in
your list and you only have 10 users with messages only those 10 will
appear in the bulletin. You won't get 90 blank lines at the bottom.

Errors
------
DDMESS2 does some checking on files before it runs. Any detected errors
are reported to the screen, written to the error log file DDMESS2.ERR
along with the date and the errorlevel set. DDMESS2 doesn't write to any
WildCat files and the ACTIVITY.LOG is accessed in read-only mode. The
following errors are reported :

Error description               Errorlevel  Probable Reason
-----------------               ----------  ---------------
No error reported                   0       Errr... no error....?
Cannot find ACTIVITY.LOG            1       Running in wrong directory
Cannot find DDMESS2.INI             2       Missing parameter file
Error in DDMESS2.INI                3       Missing line in parameter
                                            file
Cannot open DDMESS2.ERR             4       Disk full
Cannot open DDMESS2.BBS             5       Disk Full
Cannot open DDMESS2.SCR             6       Disk full
Cannot open DDMESS2.DAT             7       Disk full

Don't worry if you see DDMESS2.ERR with a zero byte file length. DDMESS2
creates this file whether or not there were any errors. Whenever an
error is reported it is appended to the end of the file.

History file structure
----------------------
DDMESS2.DAT is a straight DOS text file and can be modified using a text
editor if necessary. You might want to do this if you want to include
message activity prior to what's contained in your current ACTIVITY.LOG
or if you want to remove a user from the list.

The file contains a control record with a timestamp for the last time
DDMESS2 was run followed by one line for each login name.

Control record:
YYYYMMDDHHMMSS where YYYY is the century/year, e.g. "1980", MM is the
               month number (01-12), DD is the day of the month (01-31),
               HH is the hour in 24hr format (00-23), MM is the minute
               (00-59) and SS is the second (00-59) of the last run.

Login name record:
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXMMMMMPPPPP
               where XXXX is the login name (with trailing spaces), MMMMM
               is the total number of messages posted for this login name
               (with leading zeroes), PPPPP is the number of messages in the
               largest packet posted for this login name (with leading zeroes).

The message number fields will only hold a maximum value of 65535. Once
a login name has reached this number it won't increase but will stay at
65535. It's up to you if you wish to reset his total or start the
history file from scratch to give somebody else a chance.

To restart the history file from scratch just delete it. DDMESS2 will
then add the users back in as they post messages. Remember that the
first time you run DDMESS2 after deleting the history file it will
include all postings currently recorded in your ACTIVITY.LOG.

Additional information
----------------------
The .BBS bulletin is written in plain text using only low ASCII
to a width of 75 characters. Even XT systems should be able to cope with
this. The only control character is a ^L (ASCII 12) to tell WildCat
to clear the screen before displaying the bulletin. It also prints
properly from DOS so you could even send it to the printer at the end of
the day as a permanent record for yourself.

The .SCR bulletin is exactly the same as the .BBS one except of course
use has been made of ANSI codes for colour. It displays properly in DOS,
WildCat local logon, remote logon and after downloading through TomCat.
The bulletin contains a screen clearing code at the start and a colour
reset to default code at the end.

Nearly all the 2.xx bulletin makers I've tested create ANSI bulletins which
are not displayed properly by TomCat 2.9F. This seems to be due to a
restriction on the line length that can be used. For this reason and the
fact that no message bulletins display all the information I wanted,
I wrote DDMESS2.

Lookout for the following utilities for WildCat 2.6TD :

DDCALL21.ZIP - caller online activity summary bulletin maker, shows
               logon and logoff times, user name, call duration, number
               of messages uploaded, number of files uploaded and downloaded,
               number of bulletins read, number of questionnaires
               answered, newsletter read, TomCat used, new caller and
               drop carrier. All of the above on 1 line per caller with a
               total for all callers at the bottom in both .BBS and .SCR
               format.

DDFILE21.ZIP - file activity bulletin maker, shows user name, number
               of files uploaded and downloaded to the board so far. Two
               tables are produced showing the most prolific users in the
               above categories sorted in descending order of the number of
               files. The maximum number of names in the tables is configurable
               up to a limit of 100.

Compatibility
-------------
DDMESS2 has been tested with the following hardware/software :

        Intel 286 processor
        Intel 486 processor
        MSDOS version 3.3
        MSDOS version 5.0
        WildCat! TestDrive version 2.6
        TomCat! version 2.9F

Version history
---------------
1.11 - 12.02.94 - Maintenance release

                  MSDOS 5.0 seems to cause WCTD to write dates to the
                  log in a different format than when running under
                  MSDOS 3.3. Hence checks are now made for the following
                  formats : MM-DD-YY
                            MM/DD/YY
                            MM.DD.YY

                  Also tidied up the code a bit to make it run faster.

1.01 - 14.01.94 - Original release