QuoteMagic for BBS Programs Text Manual Please read Sections 1.0 and 2.0 for the disclaimer and copyright information. ================================= CONTENTS =================================== 1.0 Usage Disclaimer 2.0 Copyright Notice 2.1 Distribution Information 3.0 Installing QuoteMagic 3.1 Minimum Program Requirements 4.0 Running QuoteMagic 4.1 QM-BBS.EXE 4.2 SETQ.EXE 4.3 CHECKQ.EXE 5.0 Limitations of QuoteMagic 6.0 The Quote List File (QM-QUOTE.LST) 7.0 Miscellaneous Information ========================= 1.0 - USAGE DISCLAIMER ============================= THE AUTHOR OF THIS PROGRAM ACCEPTS NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR DAMAGES RESULTING FROM THE USE OF THIS PRODUCT AND MAKES NO WARRANTY OR REPRESENTATION, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO, ANY IMPLIED WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", AND YOU, ITS USER, ASSUME ALL RISKS WHEN USING IT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGES RESULTING FROM THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO, DAMAGES FOR LOSS OF BUSINESS PROFITS, BUSINESS INTERRUPTION, LOSS OF DATA OR BUSINESS INFORMATION, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, OR OTHER FINANCIAL LOSS ARISING OUT OF THE USE OF OR INABILITY TO USE THIS PROGRAM, EVEN IF THE AUTHOR HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. ========================= 2.0 - COPYRIGHT NOTICE ============================= QuoteMagic for BBS Programs is Copyright (c) 1996 by Timothy R. White. All Rights Reserved. All product names referenced herein are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders. 2.1 - Distribution Information ------------------------------ You are granted the right to use and to make an unlimited number of copies of this software. You may not disassemble, decompose, reverse engineer, or alter this file or any of the other files in this package. This includes, but is not limited to, modifying the QM-DOS.EXE file, the CHECKQ.EXE file, the SETQ.EXE file, or any of the displays associated with these executables. This software is provided as FREEWARE and cannot be sold. This restriction does not apply to connect time charges, or flat rate connection/download fees for electronic bulletin board services. The author encourages you to use these methods to distribute the QuoteMagic package. This software can not be bundled with any commercial package without express written permission from the author. 2.2 - Registration Information ------------------------------ Since QuoteMagic is freeware, no registration fee is required and it is already fully functional. If you are interested in obtaining the C++ source code for QuoteMagic, it is available for a nominal fee. Contact the author at the E-mail address listed in Section 7.0 of this manual for further information. QM-DOS and QM-BBS are written with Turbo C++ 3.0 for DOS under Windows 95. QM-WIN16 and QM-WIN32 are written with Borland C++ 5.0 under Windows 95. ====================== 3.0 - INSTALLING QUOTEMAGIC =========================== Installing QuoteMagic for BBS Programs is very simple. First, create a directory for the files on your hard drive (it can be called anything, and placed wherever you please). Copy all the files from the QM-BBS.ZIP archive into this directory (or, better yet, unzip it into the new directory). QuoteMagic includes a default QM-BBS.DAT file which should work fine on most systems. The default date in this file is 01/01. If you are installing it on January 1st (doesn't matter which year), use SETQ.EXE to set a different date (see Section 4.2). The hardest part about setting up QuoteMagic is getting the files it generates (QUOTE.ANS and QUOTE.TXT) copied/moved into the files you need to display to your users. This has only been tested on an RBBS bulletin board system, so I can't really give you many directions as to what to do. Take a look at the QM-QUOTE.BAT file for an example of what the sysop does on my local RBBS board. Basically, he uses the files QuoteMagic generates as a "welcome" message for the users. I wrote up a simple "Page Break" text file which he appends onto the WELCOME and WELCOMEC files as they are having the QUOTE.ANS and QUOTE.TXT files copied into them. Works great for RBBS (and with the Page Break, the quote won't just fly by--the user actually has to press to continue past it). 3.1 Minimum Program Requirements --------------------------------- QuoteMagic for BBS Programs will occupy roughly 200K on your hard drive (this can vary based on the size of the QM-QUOTE.LST file). It requires approximately 250K of free DOS conventional memory to run. You will also need DOS 3.3 or higher, but if you don't have that, QuoteMagic isn't going to be your only problem... The BBS version of QuoteMagic has been designed for generating quote files for use by any BBS. However, this is not its only possibility. There could be many other uses for the QUOTE.ANS and QUOTE.TXT files. I'll leave it up to you to adapt for your own purposes. ======================= 4.0 - RUNNING QUOTEMAGIC ============================= QuoteMagic for BBS Programs is a rather simple program that generates a new quote from a predefined list either daily or each time it is run. The new quote is written to two different files: QUOTE.ANS, a full color ANSI text file with high-order ASCII characters; and QUOTE.TXT, a one-color text file with NO high-order ASCII characters. QuoteMagic pulls its quotes from the QM-QUOTE.LST file. This file is in simple ASCII format and can be edited with any text editor. You can have up to 9,999 different quotes in this file. QuoteMagic stores the your current quote information (Quote ID Number, Day, Month, and Execution Option) in the QM-BBS.DAT file. This file is in binary format and can not be changed except with the provided editors (see below). 4.1 - QM-BBS.EXE ---------------- This is the main program executable. You *MUST* specify the directory that QuoteMagic has been installed to on the command line. For example: C:\>C:\QM\QM-BBS C:\QM If you do not specify the directory on the command line, QuoteMagic will generate a DOS ErrorLevel 1 and give you a message indicating the format you must use. If QuoteMagic has an error during execution, it will pass a message along to you stating what's wrong, and generate a DOS ErrorLevel value. The possible ErrorLevels are: 1 - No directory specified on the command line. 2 - Could not write the QUOTE.TXT file to the directory specified on the command line. 3 - Could not write the QUOTE.ANS file to the directory specified on the command line. 4 - Could not open the QM-QUOTE.LST file in the directory specified on the command line. 5 - Could not write the updated QM-BBS.DAT file to the directory specified on the command line. Once run, you will find the QUOTE.ANS and the QUOTE.TXT files in your QuoteMagic directory (whatever you specified on the command line). You can then move/copy these files wherever you need them. 4.2 - SETQ.EXE -------------- This simple program can be used to manually change the options in the QM-BBS.DAT file. It allows you to change the current Quote ID Number, the current Quote Date, the current Quote Month, and the Program Execution option. The program is self-explanatory. Run it and it will prompt you for what it needs. NOTE: MAKE SURE YOU RUN SETQ.EXE FROM THE MAIN QUOTEMAGIC DIRECTORY. IT *WILL NOT* FUNCTION CORRECTLY OTHERWISE. 4.3 - CHECKQ.EXE ---------------- Check Quote is similar to Set Quote. Its a very simple program which will let you check the current Quote options, including Quote ID Number, Day, Month, and Program Exection option. It is also self-explanatory upon execution. NOTE: MAKE SURE YOU RUN CHECKQ.EXE FROM THE MAIN QUOTEMAGIC DIRECTORY. IT *WILL NOT* FUNCTION CORRECTLY OTHERWISE. ===================== 5.0 - LIMITATIONS OF QUOTEMAGIC ======================== Future plans include adding a configurable color/line drawing output to the quote box. I rather like the way things look now, but I originally designed QuoteMagic for my personal use only. I am sure there are those that must hate my choice of colors... On the local RBBS board, there is an option for a third output file to be displayed to the users. It can contain high-order ASCII characters, but no colors (basically, files that end with a "G" on them for RBBS). If there is a demand for this, I will add output of this file (QUOTE.ASC?). Also, I know RIPscrip is becoming very popular. But I don't have much experience with it. If you wish to see RIPscrip support added to QuoteMagic, let me know. Any information you could supply on RIPscrip would help as well. I also plan on writing a custom utility to edit the QM-QUOTE.LST file. But this will have to wait, as I am busy trying to figure out the semantics for the Windows versions of QuoteMagic. ================ 6.0 - THE QUOTE LIST FILE (QM-QUOTE.LST) ==================== The QM-QUOTE.LST file is the heart of all of the QuoteMagic programs. It is a simple ASCII text file which contains the quotes displayed by QM-BBS.EXE. This file MUST exist in the QuoteMagic directory that you specify on the command line when you run QM-BBS.EXE. You can edit this file with any standard text editor and make whatever changes you please to it. Add/remove/change quotes, whatever. I have a standard QM-QUOTE.LST file I distribute, but other versions may become available in the future. If you have quotes you would like to see added (or ones you feel should be removed), please E-mail me at the address listed in Section 7.0. Changing the QM-QUOTE.LST file is simple. Load it into a text editor and chop away. Heed the header warnings at the top of the file and you won't go wrong. I will quote (couldn't resist) the information for you here: "This is the quote list file that is used by the QuoteMagic program. All quotes are copyrighted by their respective holders (as indicated after the quote). They are used WITHOUT permission. This file is in simple ASCII format and can be edited with any standard text editor. You can have up to 9,999 quotes in this file, numbered from 0001 to 9999. Each quote must start with an "@" sign and a four-digit number, and end with a tilde (~). The quotes can be ANY number of lines long and can contain multiple blank lines. However, you can only have up to 65 characters on each line." ===================== 7.0 - MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION ======================== If you are interested in a version history of QuoteMagic for BBS use, see the file REVISION.LST included with this archive. Even though QuoteMagic is freeware and I require no registration, I would appreciate an E-mail from you with any comments and suggestions you may have for the program. My Internet E-mail address is: twhite@patriot.net The latest versions of each of the QuoteMagic programs are available on the World Wide Web at: http://adams.patriot.net/~twhite I would like to thank Ted Reuss for providing most of the default quotes included in the QM-QUOTE.LST file. If you would like the un-edited version of this file (with the profanity and some rather vulgar jokes included), E-mail me. Ted (a.k.a. Lone Wolf) runs the Cyberdine BBS, which is the home distribution site for all versions of QuoteMagic. Please call: Cyberdine BBS 300-14,400 BPS (703) 978-0477 Running RBBS 17.5 Beta Totally *FREE* Access from the FIRST call! I would also like to thank Chris Haddad, the senior programmer at Rock Creek Technologies (my employer), for his help and suggestions on the QuoteMagic code. Thank you for using QuoteMagic! ==============================================================================