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Text File | 1991-12-09 | 25.9 KB | 535 lines

PCBOARD UPDATE INFORMATION FOR THIRD PARTY DEVELOPERS ----------------------------------------------------- Copyright (C) 1990 by Clark Development Company, Inc This information is provide for the sole purpose of providing Third Party Authors with information to aid in the development of PCBoard v14.5 add-on products. All other uses are strictly forbidden. GOAL: One major goal in designing PCBoard v14.5 has been to make it compatible with the prior releases of the version 14.x software - namely, v14.0, v14.1 and v14.2. This goal includes the ability of v14.5 to read and write the same file formats as used by all of the v14.x series of software. It also means that by using the same file formats many third party packages should be able to be run UN-MODIFIED with the release of v14.5. There are, however, a few file changes which are required for version 14.5 and they will be detailed below. As you will see - for the most part the goal has been achieved in that v14.x will operate EVEN WITH most of the file changes specified below and third party software should continue to operate unmodified as well. PCBTEXT File ------------ This file is the one exception to the rule and the goal expressed above. You will need to keep a separate PCBTEXT file for v14.5 because it will not be entirely useable by v14.x software. Just as in past releases of PCBoard - when new capabilities are added to the software it becomes necessary to add additional text strings to the end of the PCBTEXT file. That is fine because each release knows the limit of the text records that it must access and so the additional entries are of no consequence to prior releases of PCBoard. HOWEVER, the change that brings incompatibility to the v14.5 version of PCBTEXT is the ability of v14.5 to utilize an @-variable called @OPTEXT@ which means "operational text" to PCBoard. For instance, previous releases of PCBoard may have included a line such as this in the PCBTEXT file: View executed on file () Previous releases of PCBoard would then "piece together" the appropriate text by substituting the "()" characters with the name of the file so that when it was displayed to the caller he saw "View executed on file (TEST.ZIP)" or something like that. Version 14.5's MKPCBTXT replaces the above line in your PCBTEXT file with a line that looks like this: View executed on file (@OPTEXT@) The above approach means that the '@OPTEXT@' variable may be placed anywhere on the line (increasing your flexibility in customizing the PCBTEXT file). However, that one change means that v14.2 and prior releases will no longer display the PCBTEXT entries properly. Therefore, you should keep a copy of your v14.x PCBTEXT files separate from your converted PCBTEXT files for v14.5's usage on the off chance that you may need or want to go back to a prior release of PCBoard. There is an additional new capability added to PCBTEXT which you can take advantage of in v14.5 that is not available in prior releases. And that is the ability to have a PCBTEXT entry actually display a complete FILE to the caller rather than being limited to the one line entry in PCBTEXT. You do this by using a Percent Sign in the followed by a filename. Here is an example: The v14.2 PCBTEXT file has a line that says something like this: "Your time has been adjusted for an upcoming event" While it gets the job done - that of informing the caller that their time has been adjusted - it doesn't give them very much information and being only one line long is often ignored by the caller. With v14.5 you can change the above line to read like this: "%C:\PCB\GEN\EVENT.WRN" The percent sign tells v14.5 to display the FILE that immediately follows it to the caller instead of displaying the text in PCBTEXT. You could then create a file on your system called EVENT.WRN with the following text: @FIRST@, your time has been adjusted to @TIMELEFT@ minutes due to an event which is scheduled for @EVENT@. If you call back after the event has finished you'll receive the remainder of your daily time limit. This brings up another usage for the @OPTEXT@ variable - it means that you can place the @OPTEXT@ variable inside of your file and have PCBoard perform the text substitution at the time the file is being displayed to the caller. Here is another example: Version 14.2 has a line in PCBTEXT that says something like this: "Uploads Not Accepted on File Format ()" It then fills in the parenthesis with something like *.ARC if you have set up your UPSEC file to not allow ARC files to be uploaded to your system. With v14.5 you could replace the above line with this line and file: "%C:\PCB\GEN\BADUPLOAD.TXT" Sorry, @FIRST@, but this system will not accept files of the format @OPTEXT@. We prefer to keep all of our files in the ZIP format which we feel is more compact than other compression methods. In the above example the file BADUPLOAD.TXT will be displayed to the caller and the variable @OPTEXT@ will be substituted with the "*.ARC" that previous releases of PCBoard would have placed within the parenthesis of the old text. Sometimes a PCBTEXT entry will be written to the callers log and other times the entry is actually a question that gets displayed to the caller. You can still utilitize the "%" operator above by adhering to the following rules: 1) If a %filespec is followed by a space and then more text then the additional text after the filespec will be displayed to the caller. Example (replacing "leave comment for sysop"): %C:\PCB\GEN\COMMENT Do you want to leave a comment The file C:\PCB\GEN\COMMENT might explain to the caller that you'd prefer that messages be addressed to ALL and after the file is displayed it will then ask him "Do you want to leave a comment?". 2) If the %filespec is followed by a PLUS sign and then more text then the additional text will be written to the callers log but it will NOT be displayed to the caller. Example (replacing "file not found"); %C:\PCB\GEN\NOTFOUND @OPTEXT@ In this example the file C:\PCB\GEN\NOTFOUND will be displayed to the caller and then %C:\PCB\GEN\NOTFOUND filename will be written to the callers log where "filename" is the name of the file not found. PCBOARD.DAT File ---------------- This file is created by PCBSETUP and hopefully by no other software out there (meaning: third party authors should *not* be writing to this file). There are new entries at the END of the file which are used by PCBoard v14.5 in place of the environment variables used by previous releases of PCBoard. The first time you run PCBSETUP on an old v14.0 formatted file it will warn you that it is about to convert the environment variables and create a new PCBOARD.DAT file which will actually not be written to disk until you tell PCBSetup to save the file. These new entries are: Line 151: Security Level needed for USERS command Line 152: Security Level needed for WHO command Line 153: Security Level needed for BATCH file transfers Line 154: Name of color definition file (usually PCBFILER.DEF) Line 155: Lowest allowed baud rate for callers (was /BAUD:xxxx) Line 156: Modem delay during recycle (was /DELAY:xx) Line 157: Number of Rings before answering the phone Line 158: IRQ number of comm port if not COM1 or COM2 Line 159: BASE address of comm port if not COM1 or COM2 Line 160: Leave DTR up at drop to DOS (some modems hangup if DTR is down) Line 161: Maximum lines in scrollback buffer (was /MAX:xxx) Line 162: Pre-load PCBTEXT file for faster access (uses more memory) Line 163: Pre-load CNAMES file for faster access (uses more memory) Line 164: Security Level required for a caller to use @-variables Line 165: Include "Uploaded By" line in uploaded file descriptions Line 166: Show user settings during login (was /INFO) Line 167: Allow local F5 shells to DOS Line 168: Use Slave Card updating (v14.2 did, v14.5 is faster without) Line 169: Default subscription length for new users Line 170: Maximum messages in a capture file Line 171: Maximum messages per conference in a capture file Line 172: Minutes prior to an event to stop uploads Line 173: Security Level needed to EDIT any message Line 174: Security Level needed to EDIT your own message Line 175: Share IRQ's on microchannel buses (for comm ports) Line 176: Default to scan ALL conferences at login Line 177: Level Needed to Use the 'Read Only' Command Line 178: Use NEWASK questionnaire plus standard new user questions Line 179: Location for temporary files Line 180: Name and location of USERS.INF file Line 181: Default to 'Quick Scan' method on personal message scan Line 182: Number of DAYS for warning prior to subscription expiration Line 183: Allow ONE-name users to log onto the system Line 184: Default 'Expired' Security Level Line 185: Security Level to use the TEST command Line 186: Name of the message CAPTURE file (or blank=caller number) Line 187: Perform file verification on uploads Line 188: Stop the clock during Message Capture download Line 189: Start time for sysop pages Line 190: Stop time for sysop pages Line 191: Write Caller Number to callers log Line 192: Write Connect String to callers log Line 193: Write Caller's Security Level to callers log Line 194: Read PWRD file upon joining a conference Line 195: Confirm caller name at logon time Line 196: Allow password failure comment Line 197: Warning before logoff Line 198: Maximum number of lines in upload description As you can see - all but the /NMT parameter from your SET PCB= environment settings has been moved into the PCBOARD.DAT file. Once you have run PCBSetup you may now remove all of those settings from SET PCB= and thus reduce your environment size requirements. Of course, some third party packages may be reading your environment switches so you may want to keep the SET PCB= settings "as is" until you have determined that none of your software requires the settings. Line #87 which holds the value for "Display News Only When Changed" now has three possible values: -1, 0 (for yes or no) and 1 (for Always). If set to ALWAYS then the caller will be shown the NEWS file each and every time he joins the conference. MSGS File --------- The Message Files remain unchanged for this release - so all existing software (third party or otherwise) should be able to read and write PCBoard v14.5 message file formats if they were able to do so with v14.0 thru v14.2 releases of the software. One change to the HANDLING of the message base has been made in the area of handling message base updating: In the past PCBoard locked the first 128 bytes of the file which made up the entire HEADER region of the file. This 'lock' was placed on the file so that other nodes on the network could not update the file at the same time. Version 14.5 will now lock ONLY the 6 bytes starting at offset 16 (16 bytes from the start of the file which is byte #17 if you start counting at 1). These 6 bytes have always been defined as the "LOCKED" bytes since v14.0 and in effect were always locked anyway since a lock on the first 128 bytes included those 6 bytes. Therefore programs that were originally designed to work with v14.0 should continue to work properly unmodified! The advantage to locking only the 6 bytes at offset 16 is that the first 16 bytes are still READABLE and that any node or process wishing to read the first 16 bytes is now allowed to do so. For instance, a (R)ead command or a (Y)our Mail command will now be allowed to proceed WHILE the message base is being updated. Previously those functions would be required to wait until the lock was removed before they could proceed with reading the header bytes (which defined the 'High Message Number', the 'Low Message Number', the 'Number of Active Messages' and the 'Number of System Callers'). It is recommended that Third Party Authors use the same technique now for updating the message base EVEN THOUGH the old method of locking all 128 bytes will continue to work fine. The reason for the change was to enhance the performance of systems where a large number of people could be reading mail while a large number of messages are being written into the message base. PCBPROT.DAT File ---------------- This file controls the protocols (both internal and external) that are available on the system. You'll note that PCBoard v14.5 includes two new additional INTERNAL protocols and they are: Ymodem and Ymodem/G - both of which are the "batch protocol" equivalents of 1K-Xmodem and 1K-Xmodem/G. The new text entries for these two protocols look like this: Y,I,1024,Ymodem (Batch U/L and D/L),N,N,N G,I,1024,Ymodem/G (Batch U/L and D/L),Y,N,N Note that there are three new fields on the end of each line. They are as follows: - Requires MNP (answer YES if it needs an error corrected session) - Port Open (answer YES if the port should be left open during the shell) - Lock Lines (answer YES if the status lines should be frozen at the top) NOTE that PCBoard v14.0 thru v14.2 will *ignore* the new fields on the end, however, they will show up in the protocol description field. Thus the new fields won't break v14.0 code but they will look funny if you add them in. PWRD File --------- This file controls the caller's access to the system. Two new fields have been added to the file. They are: "Base Baud Rate" and "Batch Limit". Because the entries are on the end of the line previous versions of PCBoard will not have any trouble reading the file with the new fields in place - in other words, version 14.0 thru 14.2 will ignore the new fields. Example usage: Base Batch Password Sec Time K Bytes Baud Rate Limit ══════════════ ═════ ═════ ═══════ ═════════ ═════ 10 60 100 1200 10 The two new entries above indicate the following: Base Baud Rate: The "1200" indicates that the 100K byte limit is based on a baud rate of 1200 bps. Therefore if a caller connects at 2400 baud he would have a limit of 200K. A caller at 19200 would have a limit of 1600K bytes. NOTE: the default value for Base Baud Rate is 0. With a base baud rate of "0" the K-Byte limit becomes an absolute value - i.e. the value does not change according to the connection speed of the caller. Batch Limit: The default here is 0 which means that the /BLIM:xx variable (if it exists) should be queried for the batch limit. If one is not found then the PCBoard v14.2 default of 30 files is provided. Both of the above changes provide for the fact that if the sysop does NOTHING to the file then system will behave like a v14.2 system. If, however, the sysop chooses to modify the file he can do so to gain control over his v14.5 system - however, v14.2 will ignore the changes made to the file. In addition - v14.5 has been enhanced such that a K-Bytes value of "32767" is considered to be a special value meaning "unlimited download bytes". If you use "32767" then PCBoard will display the text "Unlimited" to the caller when they view the download limit - and file transfers will ignore the number of bytes being downloaded in byte limit calculations. Additionally, the new "Base Baud Rate" field will have no effect on a value of "32767". DOORS.LST File -------------- This is the list of DOORS that are available to the caller. There have been four new fields added to the end of each line and they are: 1) Make a USERS.SYS file, 2) Make a DOORS.SYS file, 3) Path to the DOOR batch file and 4) Auto Login Door Example usage: Filename Password Sec Login USER.SYS DOOR.SYS Path to Batch Files ══════════ ════════════ ═══ ═════ ════════ ════════ ═══════════════════ 1) TESTDOOR 10 N Y N C:\PCB\ The four new entries above indicate the following: 1) (LOGIN = YES) Users with the security level specified should be automatically sent to the door during the login process. 2) (USERS.SYS = YES) A USERS.SYS file should be created. 3) (DOOR.SYS = YES) A DOOR.SYS file should not be created. 4) The file TESTDOOR can be found in C:\PCB\ The YES/NO values are stored as -1 for YES and 0 for NO so the above line would look like this in your DOORS.LST file: TESTDOOR,,10,-1,0,C:\PCB\,0 They are stored in the file in the following order: users.sys, door.sys, path to files, auto login door. The defaults for the four new fields are NO, NO, blank and NO. This means that a version 14.2 formatted DOORS.LST file will function the same whether used under PCBoard v14.2 or under v14.5. !!!WARNING!!! As of the time this feature was added it was found that some !!!WARNING!!! door programs (such as ProDoor) would not properly read the !!!WARNING!!! DOORS.LST file. Such programs should be modified so that they !!!WARNING!!! do not read the rest of the line - otherwise you'll simply !!!WARNING!!! have to forgo using this feature until they are updated. USERS File ---------- The byte at position 100 in the Users File was marked as "reserved" in the PCBoard Users Manual for version 14.0 thru 14.2. With the release of version 14.5 this byte now takes on a meaning. It is a set of "Packed Flags" (8 of them all together). Currently only two of the 8 flags are in use and they are in bits 0 and 1 of the byte. Their meanings are as follows: Bit 0 = Dirty Flag Indicates that another node on the network has updated the user record and that PCBoard should re-read the record prior to writing new data to the record. Bit 1 = Clear Screen Before Message Stores the user's preference for clearing or not clearing the screen prior to displaying a message on the screen. Bit 2 = Has Mail Flag When a a message is left the code will modify the ADDRESSEE's user record by setting the Has Mail flag on. This flag remains on until the caller has read at least one message addressed to him in each of the conferences for which the Mail Waiting flag is turned on in his USERS.INF record. Bit 3 = Don't Ask to Use Full Screen Editor When this bit is set the caller will not be asked if he wants to use the Full Screen Editor - instead it will default to the setting in Bit 4. When not set it will ask the question with the default set to YES if the caller is in EXPERT MODE and ANSI has been detected. Otherwise it will default to NO. Bit 4 = Use Full Screen Editor If Bit 3 is set then this bit is checked. When set it will default to using the Full Screen Editor and when not set it will default to the Line Editor. Four bytes at positions 385, 386, 387 and 388 are used as a long integer pointer into the USERS.INF record. And two bytes at positions 398 and 399 are used as an unsigned integer which holds the number of the conference the user was last in. If the conference number is above 255 then the "Last In" byte at position 192 is stored as a 255 and the value at positions 398 and 399 are used instead. CONFERENCE REGISTRATIONS IN USERS FILE -------------------------------------- A note on the usage of the Registered and Expired Registration flags: PCBoard will turn the REGISTERED flag off while leaving the EXPIRED registration flag turned on to indicate that the caller is locked out. Examples: Registered Expired PCBoard Shows Explanation ---------- ------- = ------------- ----------- Off Off "" Caller is not registered but may join if the conference is public and his security level permits access. On Off "R" Caller is registered in this conference. If he expires then he can no longer access it unless it is public and his security level permits access. On On = "RX" Caller is always registered. Off On = "L" Caller is locked out and cannot join the conference regardless of whether it is public or not. PCBOARD.SYS ----------- Because PCBoard can now adjust the "Maximum Download Bytes" according to the connect speed of the caller - it will now write the updated Max K-Bytes to the PCBOARD.SYS file so that no change should be required in DOORS that read the PCBOARD.SYS file to determine the limit. That is the only difference in the way existing PCBOARD.SYS fields are handled. There are some new fields at the end of the file which are NON-critical. Meaning, they don't need to be there but PCBoard will put them there and use them if found when reloading PCBoard. They are as follows (Offset 128 means the 129th byte in the file): Offset Variable Meaning ------ -------- ------- 128 bool UseAnsi TRUE if caller is ansi-capable 129 char LastEventDate[8] Date of last event (MM-DD-YY) 137 unsigned LastEventMinute Minute of last event (12:00am = 0) 139 bool RemoteDOS TRUE if caller has dropped to DOS 140 bool EventUpComing TRUE if event is within User's Time Limit 141 bool StopUploads TRUE if event is within Upload Guard Time 142 unsigned Conference Number of Conference the caller was in .. bitmap ConfJoined Bit Map fields for High Conferences bitmap ConfScanned Bit Map fields for High Conferences The final two fields, ConfJoined and ConfScanned are dynamically sized and are ONLY present if there are more than 40 total areas (counting Main Board) in the system. Note that the two bytes at offset 142 indicate the conference number that the caller was in - this information is a duplicate of that which is at offset 65 (position 66) in the file. However, the data at that location is only 1 byte in size which creates a limit of only 256 conference (0 thru 255). If the caller is in a conference number beyond 255 then the byte at offset 65 will contain 255 and the number in the unsigned integer at offset 142 should be used instead. DIR Files --------- Virtually no change here - except that because v14.5 is able to keep the "secondary lines" logically attached to their "primary lines" there is now a limit on the maximum number of secondary lines you can have. That limit is 59 lines. In other words, each file description can consist of one primary line and up to 59 secondary lines. It should be noted, however, that GRAPHICS versions of the DIR files are no longer supported. This is because v14.5 now supports on-the-fly colorizing of the DIR files among other reason. ANSI Files ---------- Text files with ANSI codes in them have a limit of 2046 characters before a carriage return/line feed sequence must be found. Previous versions had a hard time working with anything over 256 bytes so this should not be a problem for anyone - but you do need to be aware of the fact that there IS a limit on the maximum line length. CALLER Logs ----------- In most cases entries are written to the callers log EXACTLY as they appear in the PCBTEXT file. In other words, if PCBTEXT has a line that says: Graphics mode is now on @FIRST@ ... Then that is exactly what is written to the callers log - i.e. the @FIRST@ variable does NOT get substituted prior to writing it to the callers log. This is to aid the developers of callers log analyzers and allow the sysop to customize his PCBTEXT file without causing problems for such analyzers. Basically, all that the analyzer need do is read in the text (such as record number 287 for the above example) from the PCBTEXT file and then scan the callers log for exact matches on these records. DOOR batch files ---------------- All of your door batch files should continue to work under v14.5 unmodified. However, there are a couple of items of interest: 1) The DOORS.LST file (as mentioned above) allows you to specify the location of the DOOR batch file so that you could, in effect, have a single batch file for all of the various nodes on your system. For large systems this can cut down not only on the complexity of the \PCB subdirectory but save quite a bit of disk space as well. 2) Version 14.5 can pass command line parameters to the DOOR program. It does this by adding a line at the top of your DOOR batch file that sets the PCBDOOR environment variable equal to the command line parameters that the caller used when opening the door. Example: OPEN MYDOOR PARAM1 PARAM2 PARAM3 At the top of your DOOR batch file you would see a line that looks like this: SET PCBDOOR=PARAM1 PARAM2 PARAM3 Note that the caller can type either spaces or semicolons between each parameter (the same way PCBoard accepts each command with space or semicolon delimiters). However, the PCBDOOR variable will use only spaces in between each parameter.