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Monster Media 1996 #15
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Monster Media Number 15 (Monster Media)(July 1996).ISO
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DCTVOTE.TXT
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1996-06-16
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DCT Voting Door v0.20, ßeta Release
By Dan Traczynski
June 16, 1996.
Copyright (C) 1996 Dan Traczynski. All rights reserved.
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DCT-Vote is a deluxe voting door for any BBS software which supports the
DORINFO1.DEF or DOOR.SYS drop file. Setup is amazingly fast and easy, and
the voting door will be FreeWare until v1.0, after which I'll decide whether
it should continue as freeware or make it shareware.
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──═══════════════════──
Table of Contents
──═══════════════════──
Features ................................... o1
Installation ............................... o2
SysOp Hotkeys .............................. o3
Distribution & Disclaimer .................. o4
Credits/Acknowledgments .................... o5
Things to look for in upcoming releases .... o6
History - Notes from the Past .............. o7
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o1
──═════════════════════════════════──
Features of the DCT Voting Door
──═════════════════════════════════──
■ Supports both DORINFOx.DEF and DOOR.SYS allowing it to be run on virtually
any bulletin board system.
■ User time-out after a configurable amount of time.
■ Auto-Deletion of old booths.
■ Lightbar selector for you eLiTe d00ds.
■ Problem users can be locked out.
■ Language support (not all of us speak English ;).
■ External ANSI file support.
■ Optional user censor (allowing you to filter out swearing).
■ Bar graphs/percentages when displaying results.
■ Users may leave their comments on each booth.
■ Colour configuration.
■ Internal SysOp-User full-screen chat mode.
■ DCT-Vote can be set to have users vote for all new booths when they login.
■ Multi-tasker capability.
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o2
──════════════════════──
Installation Guide
──════════════════════──
Installation is extremely simple; all you must do is create a directory
for DCT-Vote, then run CONFIG.EXE to configure DCT-Vote to your system. You
may also wish to edit DCTVOTE.FLT if you will be using the censor, as no
words have been pre-defined to filter out. DCT-Vote does not have to be run
from the directory it resides in, since it automatically looks for all of its
files in the its home directory. Have your BBS call DCT-Vote via a
command-line similar to "C:\BBS\DOORS\DCTVOTE\DCTVOTE.EXE /PC:\BBS". The
"/P" parameter specifies the path for DCT-Vote to read the drop file from and
is only required if the drop file will not be in the current directory. If
your BBS supports memory swapping, please activate this option.
If you would like to have your users presented with any new voting booths
when they login, have DCT-Vote executed at login with the "/A" parameter for
a command-line similar to "C:\BBS\DOORS\DCTVOTE\DCTVOTE.EXE /PC:\BBS /A".
DCT-Vote will have users vote for all new booths that they have not yet voted
for, then return to the BBS automatically. If no new booths exist, DCT-Vote
will terminate without even letting the user know that it has been run. You
may also specify "/A2" instead of "/A", and that would simply tell the user
how many questions he has not yet voted on, then ask him if he would like to
vote for them. This way people would realise that the booths are there, but
they are not forced into them. You may also specify "/A3" which acts the same
as "/A" but does not let users abort the voting (they can't hit ESC).
Command-Line Parameters
─────────────────────────
/A[1|2|3] ·∙· Invoke Auto-Vote (1=Vote for all new booths,
2=Prompt then vote,
3=Force users to vote on new booths).
If no number is specified, it defaults to "1".
/Bxxx ·∙· Specify locked baud rate (i.e. /B38400).
/L ·∙· Local mode (logs in with the SysOp's name).
/Nx ·∙· Specify node number (not really needed unless you want it to
read DORINFO2.DEF for node 2 etc).
/Pxxx ·∙· Specify path to drop file (i.e. /PC:\BBS).
/V ·∙· Turn local video off.
/W ·∙· A DOS only network is present.
International Support
───────────────────────
New in v0.20, support has been added so that all strings can be modified
which allows the door to be translated into a different language altogether.
All of the internal strings can be modified from within CONFIG.EXE, but some
parts of the program allow more customisation by allowing you to design your
own ANSI screens. The following files, if they exist, will replace the
internal displays. Note that these files are not required in order for the
door to function properly.
LOGO.ANS This replaces the default "DCT-Vote" logo that is displayed
in the main menu.
LOCKOUT.ANS This is shown if the user is locked out.
NOANSI.ASC If the user's terminal does not support ANSI, this file is
displayed instead of the hard-coded message.
INUSE.ANS Message telling the user that someone else is using the door
on a separate node and that he cannot enter the door at this
time.
MAINHELP.ANS Replaces the help box that is shown when a user hits "?" in
the main menu.
The following imbedded codes may be used in the language prompts.
%U User's name.
%B Title of the current booth being voted on. On language prompts that
would appear in places such as the main menu, this code is "undefined".
%H Number of booths user hasn't voted for yet.
%A Number of active booths.
%S Board name.
%T A temporary string that varies with each language prompt.
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o3
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SysOp Hotkeys
──═══════════════──
SysOp hotkeys allow you to do a number of things while the user is in the
door. Hotkeys supported in this release are as follows.
F1 ·∙· Shows the SysOp hotkeys on the status bar.
Alt∙C ·∙· Invokes the internal chat mode.
Alt∙T ·∙· Twits User. Returns user back to the BBS.
PgUp ·∙· Adds 5 minutes to the user's alloted time in the door.
PgDn ·∙· Removes 5 minutes of the user's time in the door.
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o4
──═══════════════════════════──
Distribution & Disclaimer
──═══════════════════════════──
DCT-Vote is copyright (C) 1996 by Dan Traczynski. All Rights Reserved. I
encourage you to distribute it, but DO NOT by any means alter any of the
files within the original archive. The archive should be named DCTVD020.ZIP,
preferably kept in its ZIP format.
The author, Daniel Traczynski, will take no responsibility to anything
that this program may or may not do to your system. Although the program has
been tested thoroughly by the support team, no guarantee can be given that it
will do what it was made to do. Nevertheless, if anything should happen, the
user is totally responsible and the author will be under no obligations what-
soever. By using this program you agree to this disclaimer.
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o5
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Credits and Acknowlegments
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I'd like to thank the following people in my making of this program.
-Alan Ianson of Al's Place BBS (604)251-1817 for his support of my programs
and for allowing users to FREQ all DCT Productions from his BBS.
-Francois Massonneau for his idea of adding language support and a few other
miscellaneous options. My gratitude goes out to him for writing the French
language file.
-Philip Wright for his useful suggestions and bug reports.
-Justin Bourne for testing DCT-Vote remotely for me and finding some of the
bugs in the first ßeta.
-Steve Lorenz for DDPlus.
-Ryan Walsh on Rogue's Inn BBS for ßeta testing the program for me. Too bad
his board went down.
-Neural Meltdown BBS (604-255-5198) for being my new ßeta tester.
-Mark Mcleod for bugging me for a new release and being there when I didn't
want him there. :)
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o6
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Things to look forward to :)
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DCT-Vote is very new and is still in its developmental stages, so some
features you may wish to see in a voting door may not be implemented yet.
Most of the features that I add to this door are requests made by SysOps, so
if you would like to see a new feature added to this door, by all means send
me e-mail and I will try to add in your request. I can be reached at
dan.traczynski@als.dudd.uniserve.com. If you do not have internet e-mail
access, I can also be contacted via the FidoNet RA_Util echo.
Although the booth editor is not yet completed, it will allow you to edit
the basic attributes of each booth. In the following version, I plan to have
it so that you may delete/add answers as well as booths. I will also add in
a comment file editor, and as well I *may* add more external ANSI file
support into the door so that SysOps can design their own screens.
Multiple language files are possible at this time, although DCT-Vote can
only allow the SysOp to select one. In the next version, the user may select
his language from whichever language files are available.
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o7
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Release Notes
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The DCT-Vote project began on December 27, 1995. The first public beta
release was on April 17, 1996.
+ Added a new feature/Something was improved.
- Removed something.
* General comment.
> Bug fix.
Version 0.20ß -=- June 16, 1996.
> If a user was at the spinning stick prompt and the SysOp hit a function
key or other SysOp hotkey, the stick would stop spinning. Fixed.
> If a user "Voted for all booths" and hit ESC to stop voting on them
after voting on the first one, the "press any key" prompt would not be
displayed right. Fixed.
> If a user was in auto-vote mode and answered "No" to the "Vote for next
booth?" prompt, the "would you like to create your own booth?" string
would not be displayed. Fixed.
+ Added language support.
+ Added the external ANSI file support.
> If censoring mode was enabled, it would not filter anything entered on
the second line of the question in each booth. Fixed.
+ DCT-Vote can now optionally prompt the user to confirm his voting
selection.
+ If the drop file says that the user doesn't have ANSI turned on, DCT-Vote
checks to make sure and lets him in if the user's terminal program
supports ANSI.
+ The string input strings now allow cursor editing keys as well as support
word wrap.
+ Added an INUSE.FLG file so there shouldn't be any more runtime errors on
multi-node systems.
+ Added the internal SysOp-User full-screen chat mode (the screen doesn't
always redraw after exiting chat though as I haven't completed this
feature yet).
+ Users may now add more than one answer per booth if the SysOp allows it.
+ Added "/A2" and "/A3" parameters.
* I changed the structures of the data files.
+ If the censor is enabled, any text is now filtered out as the user enters
it rather than after he hits [Enter] on the string.
+ Users with SysOp access may now view the results of a booth before voting
for it, however the unvoted booths are still dimmed out so as to show him
which booths he hasn't voted for yet and which ones he did.
+ Added word wrap to the log file so the lines in the log should never go
past the end of the screen any more.
> Fixed a bug where DCT-Vote would return the locked baud rather than the
caller's baud rate when DOOR.SYS was selected as the drop file.
+ Users may now add comments using aliases they have selected. The
structure to the comment file has also changed to accomodate this new
feature.
+ The voting results screen is now displayed line by line rather than first
the left column, then the answer box (it just looks better this way :).
* Removed the date-check routine that many of you will soon be noticing in
v0.11. =)
+ Added the booth editor.
+ You may now force users to vote for a booth (they can't hit ESC). This
is, of course, a SysOp-only feature (and can only be turned on in the
booth editor :).
+ The spinning stick may now be configured. This little feature really
makes the door look different. One interesting possibility is to make
the string "█▓░▒▓" which gives a pulsing effect and does away with the
stick completely.
+ Improved the colour configuration menu.
+ Made a slight change to the DCT-Vote logo in the main menu.
Version 0.11ß -=- April 17, 1996.
* This version is mainly just a bug fix from v0.10 and also contains a few
new things that I forgot to add in the previous version or never got
around to adding.
> Aaarrgh! The day it's released and already I find a bug! The user
time-out wouldn't activate if a user was at one of those spinning stick
prompts; the stick would just spin endlessly until he hit a key. :( Well
it's fixed now.
* If no booths exist (ie. a new copy was just installed), DCT-Vote now
creates a default booth. I just felt like doing this. :)
> Fixed a bug in the voting results screen where the title would sometimes
not be displayed properly. This bug's been around since the first ßeta,
I just found it out now.
+ DCT-Vote now shows the user which answer he voted for when displaying the
voting results.
+ DCT-Vote now shows the user when the booth was created in the voting
results.
> If the SysOp had the Auto-Vote feature in use and a user whose terminal
didn't support ANSI entered, DCT-Vote would display to them the message
telling them they didn't have ANSI. It now simply exits without
bothering the user about it every time s/he logs in.
+ DCT-Vote will now allow users to create a new voting booth when they
login using the auto-vote feature.
> Fixed a bug in the string entry prompts.
> If the user left a comment on a booth whose question was two lines, the
"Press any key to continue" prompt would be displayed on the bottom
border line and mess up the display. Fixed.
+ Users can't just hit [Enter] on the first answer in auto-vote any more
(it forces them to think about which answer to choose now >;).
* It takes less time to save the voting results now (the program used to be
re-writing the whole vote file before - now it just saves the booth voted
on).
+ Added colour configuration.
> Fixed a bug where DCT-Vote would sometimes crash if you tried deleting a
booth and comments had been written on it.
> Booths being deleted during maintenance were destroying the data files,
making the whole voting door have to be reset. This has thankfully been
fixed. :)
+ Added an error handler. If a runtime error occurs, it will be logged in
the log file.
> If a user left a comment that was 5 lines long, DCT-Vote would not save
the last line. Fixed.
Version 0.10ß -=- February 17, 1996.
* Well there have been MANY changes in this version from the previous
one, though many of them won't even be seen by the users. Setup and
installation for the SysOp should be much easier now.
> If a booth was deleted and the comment file was empty, the program would
terminate with a runtime error. Fixed.
+ If there are booths which the user hasn't voted for yet, DCT-Vote now
tells them that in the main menu.
+ Added the user time-out. If the user doesn't press anything for 120
seconds, s/he is returned to the BBS.
+ Added the auto-vote feature.
+ The docs look a *LOT* better now. :)
> Oooh. Bad bug. On one BBS, when you hit a cursor key on the remote end,
DCT-Vote would act as if the user hit [ESC] because it didn't wait long
enough to see if more characters had been sent. (When the user hits a
cursor key, the terminal program sends ASCII character #27 followed by
"[A" or whatever the code is, and DCT-Vote didn't wait long enough for
the "[A" part.)
> Fixed a bug where if you hit backspace when selecting a booth, it
wouldn't write the "·" character remotely like it should have.
+ You may now hit the first letter of the option in the sysop menu as well
as the number. I did this to the main menu a few versions back but
somehow missed doing it in the SysOp menu.
+ Finally! I made a configuration program, so you won't have to worry
about the messy text configuration file any more. Not all of the
features within it have been implemented yet.
+ Users may now post booths anonymously if the SysOp allows it. Please
keep in mind that if you have SysOp access, DCT-Vote will show you who
created the booth when voting, but to regular users it simply says
"Posted By: Anonymous".
* I made a little change to the voting results screen regarding the
percentage bar.
+ Fixed up the string entry prompts a bit.
+ Made a few subtle changes to the Yes/No prompt.
+ Improved the program info screen.
Version 0.06ß -=- January 25, 1996.
* After releasing v.05 to be ßeta tested, I found a few bugs. This version
has all of the bug fixes.
> OOPPS!! There was a little bug where DCT-Vote wouldn't let users move
the lightbar onto the "create new booth" if they didn't have sysop
access. They could still create booths by hitting "3" though.
> If you had the status bar turned off and hit F1 to display the help, it
would go back on. Fixed.
> If the user's name was only one word, DCT-Vote would add a trailing space
character to it. Fixed.
Version 0.05ß -=- January 23, 1996.
* This version has some nice new features, and a few bug fixes as well. I
still have to add file-locking though, and eventually when I get around
to it, I'll rearrange the file structure so that DCT-Vote can support an
unlimited amount of booths and answers per booth.
> Fixed the spinning stick in the "Press any key" prompts. It worked fine
locally, but remotely it screwed up with some terminal programs.
+ Added the "user comments".
+ Added the "@" random filter character macro.
+ Added a minimum security level to create a booth.
+ You may now hit the first letter of the option in the main menu as well
as the number.
+ If the user enters an invalid booth number, it now informs him of that
instead of returning to the main menu.
> If a user whose terminal program doesn't support ANSI enters the door, it
will now display a message to him informing him that he must have ANSI.
Version 0.01ß -=- January 7, 1996.
* My initial creation of DCT-Vote. I'll be playing around with the data
file formats in the next few versions until I find something that I like
and that is easy to work with.
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{EOF}