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UBUZLIST.DOC
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1996-04-11
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Ubuz Lister 1.01
Copyright (c) 1995-1996 T-Ras Multimedia
Written by Iftach Silberman
Ubuz Lister is a program I wrote because I needed it. I moved to RA's
internal file base structures, and I really needed a program that can
display files in a reasonable manner. Thus came Ubuz Lister to life.
Installing Ubuz Lister is simple. The program does not need any
configuration files and it gets all the information it needs from RA's
exit files. All you must do is set your RA environment variable to use
Ubuz Lister, unless RA's configuration files (*.RA) can be read from
the current directory.
Setting up
----------
Set up Ubuz Lister as a menu option the way:
Action Execute sub-program (Type 7)
OptData C:\RA\UBUZLIST\UBUZLIST.EXE *X *M
The *X is required to allow file tagging. The *M is not required, but
recommended.
Command line options
--------------------
/T - Allow tagging. Without this parameter the users will not be able
to use the tagging option of Ubuz Lister.
/N - New files search since last logon or from a specified number of
days back. New files will be scanned according to the file date
and upload date.
/S - File name search.
/K - Keyword search.
/FG - Restrict all searches to current group of files.
/FG=xxx - Restrict all searches to group number xxx.
/FA=xxx - Use this parameter to make Ubuz Lister view an area
different then the current chosen area.
/NL - No kb and file ratios limit checking. When this switch is set
on, Ubuz Lister will allow tagging of any number of files.
/NS - No Status line. With this parameter you can disable the SysOp
status line by defualt.
/FIC - Force the file searches to the current file area.
/FIG - Force the file searches to the defined group.
/FIA - Force the file searches to all the file areas. If the search
was limited to a group, the search will be limited to that
group as well. In that case it will be identical to /FIG.
Ubuz Lister must be run from the directory RA exits to, because it
reads EXITINFO.BBS, DOOR.SYS and TAGLIST.RA, and these files are found
there. If you wish to run Ubuz Lister in a batch file, you can define
the directory in which RA stores these drop files by adding /D:<path>
to the command line.
The file UBUZLIST.BBS contains all the help screens, and must be
present in the directory in which UBUZLIST.CFG is. If you do not use
UBUZLIST.CFG, make sure the file is at on of the followin places:
A. Current directory. B. The directory from which Ubuz Lister is
executed. C. The directory defined by the environment variable
UBUZLIST.
Using Ubuz Lister
-----------------
When your users run Ubuz Lister, they see a simple menu and status
line. All the commands appear on that line, and the user can use a
help screen. You, as a SysOp, will get a status line informing you who
is the user, what is his speed and port and how much time he has left.
Ubuz Lister uses as much info as it can from RA's configuration so you
have less to worry about. The archive viewer definition is read from
CONFIG.RA, the user information is read from EXITINFO.BBS and the file
areas information is read from FILES.RA.
You can configure Ubuz Lister's advanced options as described in the
sample UBUZLIST.CFG file in this package. The options are pretty
simple and straightforward. Ubuz Lister will look for UBUZLIST.CFG in
the current directory. If it cannot find it there, it will look for it
in the path specified by the environment variable UBUZLIST. If it
cannot find it there or if the variable is not defined, Ubuz Lister
will try and find the file in the directory from which is was run. If
this fails too, Ubuz Lister will use its defaults.
SysOp keys
----------
These keys are available for the SysOp only.
F1 - turn the SysOp status line on / off.
Alt-X - Exit the program.
Alt-H - Hang up the user.
Alt-J - Shell to DOS.
Alt-C - Chat with the user. You can use the chatter defined in RA's
configuration or you can force Ubuz Lister to use an internal
chatter.
Alt-Fx - These keys will be used according to the function keys
defininations in RACONFIG. Ubuz Lister supports the following
command line macros:
*B User's BPS connection speed.
*C Full path and name to COMMAND.COM.
*F User's first name.
*G The user's current ANSI graphics setting.
*L User's last name.
*M Activate the MemorySwap feature.
*N The current node number.
*P Communications port being used (1 - 8).
*T Time remaining (in minutes) for the current call.
*0 The full path to the currently selected file template area.
*1 The number of the currently selected template message area.
*! Suspend time.
The rest of the macros will be ignored. In this version Ubuz
Lister swaps automatically, so the *M macro doesn't actually
matter. If you want an option not to swap, please notify me.
Time suspension will be effective if you use Ubuz Lister as
type 15 menu option - exit with error level. I'm not sure if
RA reads EXITINFO.BBS when returning from a shell. Ubuz
Lister will suspend the time, but RA might ignore this and
throw away the user after Ubuz Lister finished.
Known problems
--------------
1. RA does not read its tag file the same way it writes it. This is a
bug no one noticed so far, since there weren't many programs that use
this feature. The problem is that when RA reads the tag file, it gives
all the free files a size of 0 bytes. This can be problematic since RA
cannot calculate the correct download time. Another problem occurs
when someone untags free files and gets a negative kb value. This bug
was fixed with RA 2.50.
2. DISP tag file - The DISP format supports only the file name, with
no referance to its directory/file area. This can cause problems if
you tagged two files with the same name in different directory.
Currently Ubuz Lister will work both with RA's tag list and with DISP
tag list, and if you want a reliable update of which files were
downloaded you must work with both. Basically, Ubuz Lister works with
RA's tag file but if it finds a DISP tag file it will remove all the
files that do not appear in the DISP tag file from RA's tag file.
3. The SysOp status line can confuse the SysOp when tagging or
viewing. The problem is that on the local screen the line may cause
the display to scroll, and hence the position of the file names will
be wrong. On the remote terminal things will appear just fine, but not
on the local screen. Two solutions are possible: A. Disable the status
line. B. If you use Ubuz Lister locally allot, make sure your screen
definition in RA is one line shorter than your screen size.
4. File locks. Some programs, like RAMGR, think they own the computer.
When such a program is run in one session, others cannot acces the
opened files, namely FILES.RA and FGROUPS.RA. In UBUZLIST.CFG you can
define file name that Ubuz Lister will read instead of FILES.RA and
FGROUPS.RA. These files will simply be a copy of the originals, and it
will be your responsibility to copy the originals over the new files
whenever you update a file area or group information. This is a very
simple procedure, but it is a must and you must do it if you want Ubuz
Lister to work properly. You will not have to update these two file
every time a new file is added to the system or moved between two
areas, but only if you change the file areas and groups themselves.
RA 2.50
-------
Ubuz Lister works fully with RA 2.50g1. Version 1.0 did not go through
thorough testing under 2.50, hence came 1.01. All the 2.50 related
problems were fixed in 1.01.
Legal stuff
-----------
Ubuz Lister is a shareware. This means copying the program does not
require any fee and the program can be copied to anyone as long as you
copy the original archive. The only fees allowed are shipping and
handling fees.
The author is not responsible for any damage that may occur by the use
or misuse of this program. This program is not guranteed to do
anything besides occupying disk space. Backup frequently! Trust no
one! The truth is definetly out there, but you'll never find it by
watching X-Files.
Shareware
---------
Yes, Ubuz Lister is shareware. Registering Ubuz Lister doesn't give
you anything, except for the knowledge you helped supporting this
program. Registration is $20 for systems with up to 4 lines, and for
systems with more than 4 lines registration is $5 a node. As mentioned
before, registration will not give you any added features since Ubuz
Lister is not crippled or slowed down in any way in its original form.
The only exception is customizable help and credit screens. If you
want me to change the colors or contents, register. :)
If you feel $20 is too much for you, send me a postcard, explaining
how guilty you feel not being able to pay those $20. What is $20? The
beer would have cost you more!
My postage address is:
Iftach Silberman
Kibbutz Kfar Szold 12230
Israel
You can also get me in Fido netmail at 2:406/113 or preferably at the
email address iftach@netvision.net.il.
Credits
-------
Ubuz Lister was written using:
- ExecSwap Version 1.3, Copyright (c) 1988 TurboPower Software
- JSDoor v1.30a Gamma for Turbo Pascal v7.0 & v6.0
Copyright 1994, All rights reserved.
By John Stephenson.
- Borland Pascal Version 7.0 Copyright (c) 1983,92 Borland
International.
Ubuz Lister was tested on the following systems:
Israel: Holland:
------- --------
Northern Exposure sl1210 BBS [Ch:ilm]
Big Brother [Ram-on Agmon] Yiehaaa [Phonc(ie)]
The TombStone BBS [Dotan Peltz] Overdrive [Mad Max]
Discordia [Assaf Amit] The Legend [WishBone]
The Twilight Desert [Guy Rosen]
Byte Quest [Avi Shatz]
Many thanks to the faithful users who suffered through all of its
bugs.
Many thanks also go to Ram-on Agmon who pushed me into fixing the bugs
and adding features, and to Danny Ruff, Dotan Peltz, Guy Rosen and
Joost Baaij for their suggestions. I like to thanks Assaf Amit for
writing the DIZ description - I couldn't have done it better myself.
Last but not least, Amir Ubuz, without whom the program would have
probably had a different name.