[<<Previous Entry]
[^^Up^^]
[Next Entry>>]
[Menu]
[About The Guide]
######### ### ### ######### ######### ########### ######### #########
# ##### ## # ## # ## #### ##### # ##### ## # ### ### ## # ######## # ########
# ##### ## # ## # ## ### ##### # ##### ## # ### ### ## # ######## # ########
# ##### ## # ## # ## # ## # ## # ## # ### ### ## # ####### # ## ###
# ##### ## # ## # ## # ## # ## # ## # ### ### ## ####### ## # ## # ##
# ##### ## # ## # ## # ## # ## # ## # ### ### ## ###### ## # ## # ##
# ## # ## # ##### ## # ## # ##### ## # ### ### ## ####### ## # ##### ##
#### #### ########## #### ########## ############ ########## ##########
### ### ######### ### ######### ### ### ### ######### #########
.---- An Automatic Message Generator for RemoteAccess BBS! ----.
What AutoMsg Does, And Why It Exists
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
AutoMsg does exactly the same as a lot of other utilities - namely,
sending a message to your new users and uploaders. However, there are
several things that the other utilities don't do.
The other utilities are designed to work with a variety of BBS systems -
but AutoMsg is the *FIRST* that will run properly with RemoteAccess BBS.
Also, the other utilities will force you to use something like
"Thanks for uploading the following file (or files)". No longer will
you have to have a ridiculously long line, for AutoMsg will let you
use "Thanks for uploading the following file" for single file uploads,
or "Thanks for uploading the following files" if there is more than
one. Neat, huh? AM also lets you know when your users page you and you
don't answer.
You can also be made "Information Messages" telling you what's happened
on the system, and you can post messages based on the number of times a
user has called your system, and you can post messages to the message
base from text files. Neat eh?
AutoMsg will first read your RA.LOG file starting from the last date
it checked for (note that if you have previously used an old version of
AutoMsg, you must delete AUTOMSG.CTL, the file that the date is stored
in), and will then send the messages to users.
The messages are taken from the files "THANKYOU.AUM" for the uploaders
message, and "WELCOME.AUM" for the new users message. Both files should
be in plain ASCII, and should contain not much more than about 65
characters per line. You can use the following "keywords" to personalise
your messages.
%FNAME is replaced with the user's first name,
%LNAME is replaced with the user's last name,
%FILE is replaced with the list of uploaded files,
%S is replaced with a "s" if more than one file is uploaded, or
left blank if there is just one file.
Naturally, the file-related commands (%FILE and %S) can't be used in the
messages to new users.
These can be used in any of the messages including the messages posted
from text files, so if a text file you post includes "%FNAME" then it
will be replaced with the recipient's first name.
The .AUM files you supply must start with the subject line as the first
line in the file, and the following part of the file is the message text
to use. Keywords are accepted in the subject line as well.
How do you run AutoMsg?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
By typing in one simple command (or putting it in a batch file) -
AUTOMSG. Not too difficult eh? If you want to enable the special
messages after certain numbers of calls, you must also run AMUTIL after
each call. You can also post text files as messages - same format as AUM
files is required. Type AUTOMSG followed by the filename then the user's
name in quote marks. (ie AUTOMSG POST_ME.TXT "stuart henderson").
An alternative way of listing user names is by using a "response file" -
specify @FILENAME.EXT instead of the user name (ie:
AUTOMSG POST_ME.TXT @SEC15.LST
where "SEC15.LST" is a straight text file containing names of the users,
who you want to send text to. If your favourite user utility can create
a list of all users with a certain security level, you can send a note
to all of them - If you want a utility made to do this, netmail James!).
However, you will also need to create AUTOMSG.CFG which will be looked
for in the current directory and if it can't be found there, the one
pointed to by the SEMAJ environment variable will be checked.
For details of what to put in this file, please see the sample enclosed,
which is heavily commented.
AutoMsg will create a file, called AUTOMSG.CTL, so it knows where in the
log file to start searching from. Delete this file if you want to scan
from the start of the log-file. Do NOT delete this file if you don't.
This page created by ng2html v1.05, the Norton guide to HTML conversion utility.
Written by Dave Pearson