Monster Media 1994 #2

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Text File | 1994-06-18 | 19KB | 459 lines

PCBMSG. Copyright (c) 1993 Data Foundations. WHAT IS PCBMSG? --------------- It's simply a program that allows you to BROWSE the PCboard format external message bases allowed by QSO while ONLINE! It gives you unlimited message capabilities. You can read, write, search, and reply to messages in your external PCboard format message bases. This program gives you all the benefits of TMM (The Message Manager) AND MORE since you have an automatic offline reader (because it's QSO compatible). ORDERING INFORMATION -------------------- PCBmsg costs $169.95 and may be ordered from Data Foundations: Data Foundations P.O. Box 3081 Kent, OH 44240 Ask for Craig (me!) Phone orders: 1-800-743-5361 (Visa/Mc accepted, or COD) Technical support line: 1-216-678-5365 BBS (Akron info & Party): 1-216-677-9808 1-216-677-0452 2-216-678-8336 Feel free to call the tech support line if you have ideas for new products or questions on any of the above items! QUICK START ----------- Make a text file with all your QSO external conference names. On each line, give the pathname and echoname (this will be sort of like an AREAS.BBS file - example is AREAS.PCB). Use the LOADAREA program to load up the database. Then set up the SDL lines to run PCBMAIN.TPG. No parameters needed. You're SET! If you HAVEN'T yet used QSO external conferences, more info at the bottom of this documentation. Example AREAS.PCB file: c:\pcb\AD&D AD&D c:\pcb\ADAM ADAM c:\pcb\ADHD ADHD c:\pcb\ADLIB ADLIB c:\pcb\ADOPTEES ADOPTEES (Then run LOADAREA) Example run of the .tpg program: Menu: 0000 Entry: Priv=0 KEY=^@ TYPE=200 OPT DATA=C:\TBBS2\pcbmsg\pcbmain /Q WARNING - 486 OR MATH CO-PROCESSOR REQUIRED! -------------------------------------------- Certain TDBS commands require a math coprocessor or 486 with internal math coprocessor. If you don't have a 486, use a special command line option NO486. This goes after 2 ampersands after the /q, like this: Entry: Priv=0 KEY=F TYPE=200 OPT DATA=C:\tbbs\pcbmsg\pcbmain /Q && NO486 SAMPLE PCBOARD MESSAGE FILES ---------------------------- I threw in a few really SMALL sample PCBoard format message files just in case you don't have some yet. You can use these to see how the programs work: GRAPHICS MIDRANGE ROBOTIX EVEN QUICKER START ------------------ For an even quicker start, the ECHOES database is pre-loaded with the GRAPHICS, MIDRANGE, and ROBOTIX conferences mentioned above. To see the program, you can just make the SDL statement shown above, skip the LOADAREA program, and browse those 3 echoes. PRE-ALPHA TEST VERSION ---------------------- This is just a pre-alpha test version to show what I've got so far. It is buggy and all the features don't work. This "demo" (it's not really a demo at this point since it's all I've got) doesn't allow WRITING of messages, only reading. The full version with message write capability should be done by Nov 28 1993 (probably done by the time you read this). More improvements will be made gradually. If you buy right away, the price will be $89.95. After it is robust and all bugs are worked out, the price will be $129.95. So buy now at $89.95! The $89.95 offer may be cancelled AT ANY TIME, and once it's over, it's over, so call right away. ADVANTAGES OF PCBMSG -------------------- The beauty of the external QSO PCboard format message bases is that EACH MESSAGE BASE IS A SEPARATE FILE (and index file). So you can run 10 message bases or 10,000 message bases and it makes no difference! (QSO itself does have some sort of limit). - No limit to the number of message bases you can run - All your eggs are NOT IN ONE BASKET. IE, if you are running all your fido echos in the normal TBBS message base, and that one stray byte from hell hits, you lose EVERYTHING: private messages, all your echoes, file attaches, local message bases, EVERYTHING! On the other hand, running PCBMSG, if that one stray byte from hell happens to hit, say, your Star Trek echo, hey, big deal, reset it and start over! Hardly anyone will notice. Your other 250 echoes, private messages, and so on will not be hurt. RUNNING A STAND-ALONE ECHO -------------------------- If you run PCBMSG normally, it uses the ECHOES.DBF database to show the user a list of echoes (or newsgroups, or conferences, or whatever) to choose from. However, you may want to stick a particular echo all by itself on a menu somewhere. To do this, you pass the name of the echo to the program like this: Entry: Priv=0 KEY=F TYPE=200 OPT DATA=C:\tbbs\pcbmsg\pcbmain /Q &&FOR_SALE The above example will bring the user directly to the for sale menu. Capital letters are not required. Note: if using the NO486 option, it must be FIRST, like this: Entry: Priv=0 KEY=F TYPE=200 OPT DATA=C:\tbbs\pcbmsg\pcbmain /Q && NO486 FOR_SALE RUNNING THE FULL PROGRAM ------------------------- To run the full program, use the same SDL statements as above, but leave off the &&FOR_SALE part, IE: Entry: Priv=0 KEY=F TYPE=200 OPT DATA=C:\tbbs\pcbmsg\pcbmain /Q This will bring up a screen with all the possible echoes. The user will choose his desired echo and then will be able to read messages. LOADAREA PROGRAM ---------------- LOADAREA.EXE is a program to load up the ECHOES database from an external text file. The file will be in the following format: PATHNAME ECHO_NAME [description] For example: c:\pcb\for_sale for_sale For Sale Echo The description is not required. You can modify your AREAS.BBS file to use as input to this program, and quickly load all the echos into PCBMSG. Or, you can always use the sysop utility program to manually add in any echoes you wish. When you run the LOADAREA program, it will ask you "Wipe out your echoes first, or append to end (W/A)?". If you want to delete any existing echoes, answer W, if you want to add to what you already have, answer A. A file called AREAS.PCB is supplied with the program. This is a list of most of the Fido echoes I am currently carrying. You could modify the path of the filenames with this and come up with a pretty complete list, load it in with LOADAREA, and then use the manual add/modify/delete program to take out any you are not using or add in ones that I didn't have. MECHO.EXE and MECHO.TPG ----------------------- This program allows you to add, modify, and delete echoes, to edit the config file, and do other modifcations to the system. You will need to use this to add echoes, unless you use the AUTO-ADD function of the .BAG file tosser and .PKT file tosser. SHOWSTAT.TPG ------------- PCBmsg keeps track of month-to-date, quarter-to-date, and total number of message base accesses and message base posts. This information is useful for deciding where to put message bases in your network (on a network drive or a local drive, for example). This information can be used to selectively toss message bases. Lastly, it's just fun for the users to be able to see which message areas are getting a lot of use. Example: Entry: Priv=0 KEY=F TYPE=200 OPT DATA=C:\tbbs\pcbmsg\showstat /q HOW TO TOSS .BAG FILES ---------------------- 1. Edit the job TOSSBAGS.BAT to reflect your system (paths). - It uses a special little program called UNZIPNXT.EXE, which, given a path, will UNZIP one file at a time in a batch loop. - It uses the TOSSBAG.EXE program to actually toss the bag files into PCB format Note: create a base directory for all newsgroups, IE NEWS. This must exist before running TOSSBAGS. 2. After tossbags runs, edit LU.BAT to reflect your system. This job will run LOADUSEN.EXE. That program reads all subdirectories under your NEWS directory, and create a file with all PCB message bases any number of levels deep in there. This file is then read by ECHOIN.EXE to load up your ECHOES.DBF file, so that users can access the new groups. Note: you MUST run this in the drive where your NEWS directory exists. IE, the parameter can be LOADUSEN \news, but it CAN'T be LOADUSEN h:\news. REINDEX UTILITY - REINDEX.EXE ----------------------------- The reindex utility is a stand-alone executable program that can be run offline to reindex all databases (rebuild each index file). This can be used in case corruption of the indexes is experienced. OTHER UTILITIES INCLUDED WITH PCBMSG! ------------------------------------- ADDNOTFN.EXE ------------ Each time you toss messages, you get a file called NOTFOUND.LOG. This lists any echoes or newsgroups that you don't have in your database. You can automatically add them using the ADDNOTFN utility. Give it a command line parameter of F or U to tell it that you are dealing with Fidonet echoes or Usenet newsgroups. ECHOEXP.EXE ----------- This program takes your ECHOES.DBF database and exports it into a text file that TOSSBAG, TOSSPKT, SCANBAG, and SCANPKT can use. This happens automagically each time you update your echoes database, but this utility is there just in case. ECHOIN.EXE ---------- This program reads a file ECHOIN.TXT, created by either LOADUSEN, TOSSBAG, or TOSSPKT, having all echoes that are NOT currently in your echoes database. It then adds any echoes that are not already there. You can optionally delete the entire database and start over (not recommended). NEWPCB.EXE ---------- This is a handy dandy utility that creates a brand new, empty PC Board format message file and index file. You give it the filename (without extension), and optionally the number of blocks. Default for number of index blocks is 4. (By the way: the index file uses 4 bytes per message, and each block has 1024 messages, so each block is 4096 bytes in size. The default of 4 blocks gives you the often-seen .NDX file of 16,384 bytes, which allows for 4096 messages at most in that message file). So, to create a new message file called 12STEPS, you do this: NEWPCB 12STEPS This creates a file NEWPCB and NEWPCB.NDX that is an empty message file with a default index block size of 4. WIPEALL.EXE ----------- Another handy dandy utility that deletes all files in all subdirectories under a given subdirectory. Say you had a directory called \NEWS\ALT and under ALT you had hundreds of subdirectories many levels deep. Say you decided to take ALT off your system. DO a WIPEFILE \NEWS\ALT, that'll handle it. Note: WIPEFILE defaults to RDing the directories as well. If you DON'T want it to do that, use the extra command line parameter to tell it not to delete directories: WIPFILE \NEWS\ALT N So, if you end up with hundreds of files and subdirectories under an area you don't want, it makes it easy to start fresh. This program, of course, can have other generic uses on your system. However, BE CAREFUL. UNZIPNXT.EXE ------------ Yet another awesomely cool utility. You do something like this: UNZIPNXT E:\SKYDATA\NEWSGRP\*.* F:\PKTS2 That will unzip ONE file from the source directory and put it in the destination directory. After it UNZIPS it, it DELETES it. This is a great way to have a looping batch job do one zip file at a time, like this: :loop unzipnxt e:\skydata\newsgrp\*.* f:\pkts2 if errorlevel 1 goto endloop tossbag f:\pkts2 \news y goto loop :endloop So, if you are processing, say, 50 megs of NEWSGRP files, it doesn't unzip three zillion files into your temp directory. By unzipping one zip at a time, you have a smaller number of files in a single directory, which is more efficient for DOS. It makes the whole mail processing thing much easier. Note: once UNZIPNXT is out of files, it sets the errorlevel to 1 to let the batch job know to quit looping. DELBAD.EXE ---------- This program will automatically FIND and optionally DELETE any bad (corrupt) PCB format message bases. Give it the directory and a delete flag, like this: delbad \pcb y The above will find any message bases in the directories \pcb and below, and will delete any that are bad. It determines if the file is bad by dividing the file size by 128. If the file size in bytes is not evenly divisible by 128, you know the file is corrupt. It's usually better to just delete any bad files and start over. ************************************************* *** GENERAL INFORMATION ON PCB MESSAGE FILES *** ************************************************* NOTE: The information below is about shareware utilities to import/export to/from PCboard format message bases. These programs work OK for me, however, I am informed that the best way to work with PCboard external message bases is to buy a copy of PCboard and use it's built-in utility programs. NOTE: Absolutely NONE of the stuff below is required to use PCBmsg! If you already have the ability to TOSS/SCAN into/out of the PCboard message bases, you don't need the stuff below. All PCBmsg does is let your users READ and WRITE messages in the PCboard message bases while ONLINE! The information below is for people that haven't yet figured out how to do that, or that just want some info on the shareware utilities that are out there. SHAREWARE UTILITES ------------------ I have uploaded the following shareware utilities to the netmail area on the eSoft board (area 12), and they are available on my board. Here is the list: GE100.ZIP Gecho 1.0 Mail tosser/scanner/packer IP28.ZIP InterPCB import/export to/from PCB message bases PROPCK28.ZIP ProPack PCboard format message base packer Some of these were HARD to find but I finally dug them up! FIRST STEP - QSO README.DOC --------------------------- The first step is to print out your README.DOC file from your QSO disk. The information on external PCboard format files is in here. It tells you how to set up the QSOEXTRN.CTL file you will need to make the PCboard message bases work with QSO. Here is a part of my QSOEXTERN.CTL as an example: AD&D 4 N f:\pcb\AD&D ADAM 4 N f:\pcb\ADAM ADHD 4 N f:\pcb\ADHD ADLIB 4 N f:\pcb\ADLIB ADOPTEES 4 N f:\pcb\ADOPTEES Also, in your QSO.CTL file you need the X parameter to define that is is an external PCboard format conference. Here's my example: MSGAREA 16X AD&D "AD&D" MSGAREA 17X ADAM "ADAM" MSGAREA 18X ADHD "ADHD" MSGAREA 19X ADLIB "ADLIB" MSGAREA 20X ADOPTEES "ADOPTEES" NEXT STEP - HOW DO I TOSS INCOMING MAIL INTO PCBOARD FORMAT? ------------------------------------------------------------ Here's the trick. You usually start out by unzipping or unarcing your incoming mail. Then you have .PKT files. 1. Use GECHO (or something else) to toss your mail into .MSG files. Make a separate directory for each conference for your .MSG files (keep all your pcb message bases in just ONE directory - say, C:\PCB, but keep your .MSG files each in their own directory). 2. Use IP to IMPORT your .MSG files into the PCboard format files! (I will upload the IP, PROPACK, and GECHO shareware utilities into the eSoft support board's TIMS/Netmail Related Files - area 12). Heres and example job. (You must do your setups in GECHO to point to the correct areas, set up your node number, etc). gecho toss ip /i /f:c:\msgs\adoptees /p:c:\pcb\adoptees /max:200 del c:\msgs\adoptees\*.msg Note: above, c:\msgs\adoptees is a DIRECTORY, but c:\pcb\adoptees is the ACTUAL PCB FILE! (Along with ADOPTEES.NDX). That's it! My job, and probably yours, will be much more complex but that is the jist of it. OK, HOW DO I SCAN MAIL OUT OF THE PCB FORMAT FILES AND MAIL IT OUT? ------------------------------------------------------------------- Piece of cake! First use IP to EXPORT out of your pcboard files back into those same directories you have set up to temporarily hold the .MSG files. Then finagle those .MSG files into your INCOMING directory of TBBS ip /e /pvt /o /f:c:\localprc /p:j:\pcb\adoptees Note: the c:\localprc above is the directory defined in your TIMS.CTL file as your MAIL directory (ie: MAIL c:\localprc). When you drop to DOS, and then run the BBS again, it automatically PACKS all the mail in that directory and sends it on it's way. To do this, you have to bring your BBS down daily. I didn't want to do that, I have a busy 24-line system and I have people on LATE at night and early risers are on at 6 in the morning! Often, when I get up, there will be 4 or 5 people signed on at 6:30 AM! ANYWAY, to accomplish 24 hour service, I have another little TBBS directory and TIMS.CTL on another server. It just runs TBBS to pack the mail then drops back out. Then I copy the mail to the OUTBOUND directory over on the real BBS machine. I know this might seem incredibly stupid, and I'm sure there's an easier way to do it by using a mail packer, but it works so I'm happy. ONE MORE THING! MY PCBOARD MESSAGE BASES ARE GETTING HUGE! HELP! ------------------------------------------------------------------ One last utility: PROPACK. This lets you pack your TBBS message bases, and it is awesome! Uses expanded memory, all kinds of stuff. Heres an example: propack AD&D 900 /D /E /K propack ADAM 900 /D /E /K propack ADHD 900 /D /E /K propack ADLIB 900 /D /E /K propack ADOPTEES 900 /D /E /K Again, all these shareware utilities are available on eSoft or on my BBS. (I made sure and uploaded them). Check in file area 12, TIMS/ netmail utilities. I tried to get the word PCB in there so you can do a search on PCB to find them all. ORDERING INFORMATION (AGAIN) ---------------------------- PCBmsg may be ordered from Data Foundations: Data Foundations P.O. Box 3081 Kent, OH 44240 Phone orders: 1-800-743-5361 (Visa/Mc accepted, or COD) Technical support line: 1-216-678-5365 BBS (Akron info & Party): 1-216-677-9808 1-216-677-0452 2-216-678-8336 Feel free to call the tech support line if you have ideas for new products or questions on any of the above items!