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║ GT-HELP ║ BBS files - page breaks and miscellaneous codes
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┌─────────────┐
│ Page Breaks │
└─────────────┘

    GT will by default insert a MORE? prompt when the screen becomes full.
    But it is usually convenient to predefine sensible positions for the
    breaks :

    a)  put a  (CTRL-R) at the beginning of the file to disable generation
        of default MORE prompts for the remainder of the file.

    b)  put a  (CTRL-E) at the beginning of a line on its own to instruct
        GT to generate a MORE prompt at that point.

    If the MORE break is between paragraphs, it looks best to sandwich
    the  line between blanks, ie ...
    
      |choose something that *you* can remember but others would be unlikely
      |to guess.
      |
      |
      |
      |OK, the two password questions are coming up, but first a quick reminder:
      |etc
      

┌───────────────┐
│ Substitutions │
└───────────────┘

    A substitution line must begin with  (CTRL-U) in column 1.  Any
    "ordinary" text on that line must then be enclosed in quotes.

    For example :

        "Hello "F", welcome to Grapevine UK."

     is CTRL-U or ALT-21 and must be in column 1.

    The quotes go around the *text*, not around the substitution 
    characters (though it often looks the other way round if you read it 
    quickly).


Substitutions available
-----------------------

          D ... The current calendar date.
          T ... The current time of day.

          F ... The caller's first name.
          N ... The caller's full name.
          H ... The caller's home - city and state.
          C ... The caller's number (i.e. the 100th caller).

          A ... The DTE baud rate.
          B ... The DCE baud rate.

          M ... The current message base description.
          S ... The current file section description.

          L ... Time left for current session in minutes.
          R ... The caller's upload amount in kilobytes.
          RF .. The caller's upload amount in number of files.
          S ... The current file section description.
          X ... The caller's download amount in kilobytes.
          XF .. The caller's download amount in number of files.

    If you wish to control the length of a substituted field (eg if you
    want to align multiple columns) you can place a width instruction in 
    front of the substitution code.  
    
    For example, W20F will display the caller's first name in a 20 
    character field.  So you could enclose it in an ASCII box with :
    
            ┌──────────────────────┐
            │ Hello                │
            "│ "W20F" │"
            └──────────────────────┘

    Although the alignment "looks" wrong, when the field expands to 20 
    characters the sides of the box will be correctly aligned.

Hints
-----

    Substitutions other than D and T are unlikely to be useful in 
    GTWELCOM.BBS since the caller has not yet logged on and most of the 
    answers will be undefined.
    
    Use substitutions only when it serves a useful purpose, otherwise 
    callers will think you work for Readers Digest.


┌─────────┐ 
│ Nesting │
└─────────┘
  
    You can "call in" another file :

        common.inc
                
    will cause common.inc to be displayed at this point.   is CTRL-F and 
    must be in column 1.
        
    Nesting is useful where you want the same paragraph to be common to 2 or 
    more files, particularly if you update it regularly since you only have
    to update it in one place.  It is also a very useful way of "pasting in"
    the output of a report which is periodically generated by a program.
    
    You are not recommended to nest to files which perform further nesting. 
    But having returned from the nested file, the original file may call 
    further files in the same manner.


┌──────────────┐
│ ^K disabling │
└──────────────┘

    Normally callers can terminate display of a file by pressing CTRL-K.  
    If you particularly want them to read to the end of a file, you can 
    disable the ^K checking by including a line beginning with  (CTRL-T).
    
    Disabling ^K is very unpopular with callers - you should only do it 
    for matters of great importance, if at all.


┌─────────────────────────┐
│ About Displayable Files │
└─────────────────────────┘

    GT will usually begin displaying files on the immediate next line.
    This can make things difficult to read, and it looks particularly
    odd if the file contains several paragraphs with blank lines between
    them.  
    
    So, it is useful to begin displayable files with either:

    a)  One or more blank lines
    
    b)  A visible division such as --------- or ==========
    
    
    The IBM box drawing characters can also be used, so far as GT is 
    concerned.  But they do not make sense to callers that don't have
    PC's.  So if you have lots of non-PC callers it might be wise to 
    avoid using them in the .BBS versions of your files.



