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Text File | 1996-11-14 | 19KB | 466 lines

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────░░───────────────┐ │ Sicknews v3.6 (C) Beau Barker, Flax Software 15th November 1996 │ └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ · Sicknews allows the Sysop of a BBS to create a customised News file. · This is an Evaluation copy, so you are limited to only 2 bulletins. When you buy the full version, there is no limit to how many bulletins Sicknews will process. To purchase the full version, print out and mail in ORDER.FRM. (It's a plain ASCII text file). ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────░░────────────────┐ │ Table of Contents │ └────────────░░────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ 1 · Disclaimer 2 · Installing Sicknews. 3 · Format of SICKNEWS.TXT. 4 · The External Headers. 5 · External Header Sets (EHS). 6 · Color Codes. 7 · Kewl Colors. 8 · Sicknews' Limitations. 9 · Trouble Shooting. 10 · Contacting the Author. 11 · Purchasing the full version. 12 · Credits. ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ Disclaimer ░░ │ └────────────────░░────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ In no event will Flax Software be held liable for any damages, including any loss of profits, or other incidental or consequential damages arising out of the use of this program. ┌──────░░──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ Instructions │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────░░───┘ 1. Unzip the archive into a directory. 2. Run NEWSCFG.EXE to install and configure Sicknews. 3. Edit SICKNEWS.TXT to enter your bulletins. See "Format of SICKNEWS.TXT" for details. 4. Run SICKNEWS.EXE. This will generate the output news file(s). 5. The next step is to display the News file on your bulletin board. The most common place to do this is in the logon sequence. Refer to your system's documentation on how to display external text files. 6. Order the full version of Sicknews. It's cheap, fast and so easy! ┌──────░░──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ Format of SICKNEWS.TXT ░░ │ └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ · There is a sample SICKNEWS.TXT file included in this archive. · The SICKNEWS.TXT is a text file where you enter in all your bulletins. You can edit this file with any text editor of your choice. · Sicknews ignores lines beginning with ";". Eg. "; This line would not be in the output files" ----- Format of SICKNEWS.TXT ----- · DATE -- Date of the Bulletin. · TITLE -- Title of the Bulletin. · NEWS TEXT -- Your news text. This can be an unlimited amount of lines. · *** -- Finish each entry with "***". ----- Example of SICKNEWS.TXT ----- ░ 01/08/96 ░ Metal Rage Online Door Game Installed! ░ Manage your Rock 'n' Roll band to become the most popular in the world!! ░ Play at venues, take drugs, fight other bands, then release a single and ░ watch it climb the charts! To join in, go to the Games menu and hit (S)! ░ *** ┌───────────────────░░─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ External Headers │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────░░───────┘ · The External Headers are files which you can edit to help Sicknews fit in more comfortably with your system. You can create and edit these files using your favorite Ansi or Text editor. · There are five external headers: S-HDR : News Header, displayed at the top of the news file. S-BUL : Bulletin Header, displayed before each bulletin. S-BULFTR : Bulletin Footer, displayed after each bulletin. S-FTR : News Footer, displayed at the end of the news file. S-LINE : Displayed if there is no ~N code in the S-BUL file. It is usually one line in length, and is repeated for each line of News Text. Note: Sicknews does not require ALL of the external headers to exist to run properly. If one or more of the external headers don't exist, they simply are not included in the output files. For example, a small external header set may consist of only the S-HDR and S-BUL headers, or even just the S-BUL header. · Inside the external headers you can insert "codes" which are replaced with certain information from your news file. --- Format of External Header Codes --- Code Format: ~ + <Insert String> Possible Insert Strings ----------------------- D : Date T : Title ! : Current Bulletin Number # : Total Amount of Bulletins. N : Current "News Text" Line Examples -------- Code : ~D Becomes : 01/10/96 Code : ~T Becomes : New online door game installed! Code : Bulletin ~! of ~#. Becomes : Bulletin 169 of 2000. Code : ~N Becomes : To join in, go to the Games menu and hit (S)! + You can enter justification after your code. Possible Justification Codes ---------------------------- \ : Left Justification / : Right Justification | : Centered Examples -------- Code : ~T\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ ~D\\\\\\ Becomes : New online door game installed! 01/10/96 Code : ~T///////////////////////////////////////////// Becomes : New online door game installed! Code : ~T||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||. Becomes : New online door game installed! . ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────░░─────────┐ │ ░░ External Header Sets (EHS) │ └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ · An EHS is a set of External Headers located in the HEADERS\ subdirectory. It includes an EXTERNAL.CFG file which contains information about the EHS. A quick explanation of the EXTERNAL.CFG file: · Sicknews uses TWO configuration files. The first, SICKNEWS.CFG, contains the following personal information: Name of Sysop Name of BBS Registration Code Maximum Amount of bulletins to process Pathname to Ansi output Pathname to Ascii output Create Ansi output file? ( y | n ) Create Ascii output file? · The second, EXTERNAL.CFG, located in your HEADERS\ subdirectory, contains the following information about your External Header Set: # of "empty lines" between bulletins Add First S-BUL? ( y | n ) Add Last S-BULFTR? Clear the screen at the top of the output file? Clear the screen before each bulletin? Use "Kewl Color"? Color of News Text Color of Upper Case Color of Lower Case Color of Punctuation Color of Hi-bit Ascii Color of Numbers · The purpose of this is so that you can distribute your header set and include the EXTERNAL.CFG file, and other people can easily configure their copy of Sicknews to work with your header set. · You do NOT need to include SICKNEWS.CFG in your EHS. Only the headers and the EXTERNAL.CFG file need to be included. · Many EHS's are available at our web site (http://www.jeack.com.au/~flax). To add your EHS to those available at the web site, simply e-mail, just e-mail attach your zipped EHS to flax@axis.jeack.com.au. ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────░░────────────────────┐ │ Sicknews Color Codes │ └──────░░──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ · Sicknews Color Codes are used to change color within text. You can insert them into the Date, Title, News Text or any option in the "Strings" menu of Newscfg. They are very useful so I recommend you print out this section for future reference. --- Examples of Color Codes --- Sicknews Color Code = "|" + <Background Color> + <Foreground Color> -- Foreground Code -- ┌────────┬───────────────────────────┬────────┬───────────────────────────┐ │ Code │ Result │ Code │ Result │ ├────────┼───────────────────────────┼────────┼───────────────────────────┤ │ 0 │ Black Foreground │ A │ Light Green Foreground │ │ 1 │ Dark Blue FG │ B │ Light Blue FG │ │ 2 │ Dark Green FG │ C │ Light Red FG │ │ 3 │ Cyan FG │ D │ Light Magenta FG │ │ 4 │ Red FG │ E │ Yellow FG │ │ 5 │ Deep Purple FG │ F │ Bright White FG │ │ 6 │ Brown FG │ X │ No Change. │ │ 7 │ Light Grey FG │ ! │ Default Foreground Color │ │ 8 │ Dark Grey FG │ + │ Turn Brightness ON │ │ 9 │ Blue FG │ - │ Turn Brightness OFF │ └────────┴───────────────────────────┴────────┴───────────────────────────┘ -- Background Codes -- ┌────────┬───────────────────────────┬────────┬───────────────────────────┐ │ Code │ Result │ Code │ Result │ ├────────┼───────────────────────────┼────────┼───────────────────────────┤ │ 0 │ Black Background │ A │ Green BG + Flashing FG │ │ 1 │ Blue BG │ B │ Blue BG + Flashing FG │ │ 2 │ Green BG │ C │ Red BG + Flashing FG │ │ 3 │ Cyan BG │ D │ Purple BG + Flashing FG │ │ 4 │ Red BG │ E │ Brown BG + Flashing FG │ │ 5 │ Purple BG │ F │ Grey BG + Flashing FG │ │ 6 │ Brown BG │ X │ No Change. │ │ 7 │ Grey BG │ ! │ Default Background Color │ │ 8 │ Black BG + Flashing FG │ + │ Turn Flashing ON │ │ 9 │ Blue BG + Flashing FG │ - │ Turn Flashing OFF │ └────────┴───────────────────────────┴────────┴───────────────────────────┘ -- Example -- Line : |0DSicknews |93News |!!Generator. Becomes : Sicknews News Generator. └┬──────┘└┬──┘└───┬────┘ │ │ └─> Default BG, Default FG. │ └─────────> Blue BG, Cyan FG (Flashing). └──────────────────> Black BG, Magenta FG. Color codes are IGNORED in the following three situations: ---------------------------------------------------------- a. When writing to the Ascii file, (Ascii has no color). b. When you have enabled the "Kewl Color" feature, which uses a different method of coloring text (see "Kewl Colors"). c. When replacing a header code which has color changes in it. In this situation, the text takes the color of the header code. Eg. If this header code was in your S-BUL file: ~T\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ └────────┬────────┘└────────┬────────┘└────────┬────────┘ White Light Blue Blue .. then the color codes in this title: "|XFWelcome to |XAThe Psychotic BBS|XF!!!" .. would be ignored and the colors of the header code would be used. ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ Kewl Colors ░░ │ └─────░░───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ · This option applies to the ANSI output file. · You have the option of disregarding all Color Codes and displaying the news text in your output files in "Kewl Color", ie. the color of Uppercase letters can be different to the color of Lowercase letters, etc. · To enable this feature, set "NewsCfg > Toggles > KewlColor" to "YES". ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────░░────────────────────┐ │ Sicknews' Limitations │ └──────░░──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ · Although Sicknews is very flexible, it has some limitations: ┌──────────────────░░───────────────────────────┬────────────────────────┐ │ Item │ Limitation │ ├───────────────────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────┤ │ │ │ │ Length of News Text in one bulletin │ 99 lines │ │ │ │ │ External Headers : S-HDR, S-BUL, S-FTR │ 20,000 bytes │ │ │ │ │ External Header : S-BULFTR │ 5,000 bytes │ │ ░░ │ │ │ External Header : S-LINE │ 1,000 bytes │ │ │ │ └───────────────────────────────────────────────┴────────────────────────┘ · If you want these limitations increased then please say so. ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────░░────────────────────┐ │ Trouble Shooting │ └──────░░──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ · Q : I insert Color Codes into SICKNEWS.TXT but they seem to do nothing in the output file. · A : There are 3 situations where Color codes are ignored. They are listed in the "Sicknews Color Codes" section of this document. --+-- · Q : The news file seems to be constantly clearing the screen after each bulletin. What's wrong?? · A : You have switched "NewsCfg > Toggles > Clear After Each" to YES. Either switch it back to NO, or edit the S-BULFTR header, (which is displayed after each bulletin), to include the pause code that your BBS uses. In PCB it's @PAUSE@, your BBS might be different. This way your news file will wait for a keypress before clearing the screen and displaying the next bulletin. --+-- · Q : WTF?? It only ever processes 2 bulletins. · A : You need to buy the full version of Sicknews to process more than 2. See "The Full Version" or ORDER.DOC. --+-- · Q : What is that message I keep getting when I run SICKNEWS.EXE, about my SICKNEWS.TXT containing too many bulletins?? · A : The message is telling you that you have not purchased the full version of Sicknews, so you are limited to processing only two bulletins. The full version of Sicknews is limited only by your Operating System. --+-- · Q : You still haven't answered my question. How can I contact you? · A : Cue "Contacting the Author" section: ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────░░────────────────────┐ │ Contacting the Author │ └──────░░──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ · Questions or comments can be forwarded any of the following ways: · E-mail : flax@axis.jeack.com.au · Sick Homepage : http://www.jeack.com.au/~flax · Telephone : +613-9571-7456 · Postal Address : Flax Software P.O. Box 123 Caulfield East Australia 3145 ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────░░────────────────────┐ │ The Full Version │ └──────░░──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Sicknews costs $10. The Full version has no bulletin limit, so you can have as many bulletins in your news file as you like. Once you have bought Sicknews, all future versions are free. Fill out ORDER.FRM to purchase the full version. ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────░░────────────────────┐ │ Credits │ └──────░░──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Coding, Docs and Artwork by Beau Barker, Flax Software 1996. · DOS testing by : The Black Assassin [TK] and Wizard [TK] · OS2 testing by : Wolverine [AV] Enjoy!