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Text File | 1992-07-09 | 14.4 KB | 358 lines

* CD ROM LOCAL/REMOTE DOOR * (C) Jim Snowden, 1991. All rights reserved. Helix Software Foundation * What it is * This program allows the user to search, unpack specified groups of files, typically on a CD-ROM. It handles global and group searching for keywords. ANSI and ASCII modes are supported. Both remote and local use is supported. Remote use is intended for BBS sysops who want to let users access a CD-ROM they own. Local use is great for everyone! ANSI/ASCII Support The door is told whether a user wants ANSI via the command line switch -A<n>. If <n> is 1, all system text files that are displayed (help files, intro, etc) a .ANS extension will be searched for first. If a .ANS file is not found then the door will look for a .ASC file and display it. If the user does not have ANSI, .ASC files will always be displayed. If the -A switch is not on the command line, the program will then use the ANSI_DEFAULT item in the config file. Transfering Files The main impetus for writing this door was due to the fact that I did not want to add umpteen-million groups of files to my BBS but still wanted to use the BBS download capabilities, download ratio checking, security, etc. The solution was to have the user choose what files he/she wants off of the CD-ROM, and have them transferred into ONE or more CD-ROM Transfer areas in the BBS for later downloading. This adds one step for the user to get CD-ROM files, but the users on my board seem to like the doors... though nothing is ever perfect, and I am always looking for ways to improve the door. Flexibility This program allows for people to use pre-created modules to access CD-ROMS and create their own. Creating a new module is as simple as creating a few text files... no programming involved. It also allows one to access and search multiple CD-ROM's... It is simple as creating combined lists for files and organizing them... see Installation below for more details. Local/Remote Use The program acts a little differently for local and remote use. For local use, there is an added option, unpack cd file to a specified path. The transfer option is also slightly different for local use, a path is entered where remote users have no choice, it is specified in the config file instead for BBS security. It also watches remote users time, gives a warning at five minutes and bumps him/her back into the BBS a two minutes. Viewing Text Files ROMDOOR also lets local/remote users view text files that are contained on the CD-ROM. One nice thing about the package is when you specify a file to look at, unpack or transfer, all you have to do is give it the filename without having to know what subdirectory it is on. And some CD's have quite a few directories. Local/Remote archive file manipulation ROMDOOR also lets local/remote users view archive files by executing the archive shell specified in the configuration file (see config section below). * Installation * There is one big factor that will determine how this thing is installed. ROMDOOR was developed to allow people to create a "front end" to search thru and extract files on a shareware type CD-ROM. The factor is whether you are creating a new CD door... or you are using one someone else has already created. I call each set of these CD-ROM specific data files a "module". If you have a module for the CD you want to access, there should be virtually no installation or messing with the config files unless you want to change how it was done. - Make sure ansi.sys or equivalent is in the config.sys file, for local use. Quick Install for those using a precreated module o Make a directory for the door o Uncompress the files of the module into that directory o Uncompress the files of romdoor into that directory Creating a new module o Make a subdirectory for the door o Create description file for each area (should be supplied with CD) o Create database file list for romcopy (see romcopy.doc) o Create catalog file o Create config file o Create/Modify other ansi/ascii support files o Create the batch file that BBS will invoke to start the door (see Things NOT covered by the Door below) o Create a batch file for you (and possibly others) to run locally Please, if you create a decent module, upload it to my BBS so I can make it availible FREQable for all... Catalog File The catalog file is simply a list of the different file areas availible. Give it any format you like, as long as the areas are labeled 1-whatever and are in the same order as the config file AREA commands (see AREA below). The system supports ANSI/ASCII versions of the file, and the filename is specified in the config file by the CATALOG statement. * TEXT Support Files * HELP.ANS/ASC This file is displayed when the user asks for help from the main menu. FILESAVE.ANS/ASC Displayed when user has transferred a file to the BBS for later download in the current door session. * Configuration File (Default of ANSIDOOR.CFG) * The configuration file contains setup info which differs from one BBS to the next. The following items are need to be in the config file (Check ANSIDOOR.CFG for NEW additions) : XFER_DEST D:\RA\CARRS XFER_DESC D:\RA\CARRS\FILES.BBS BBS_NAME "The Data Dungeon!" AREA 001.cat Communications AREA 002.cat Games DECOMP_COMMAND "pkunzip -d " CATALOG catalog INTRO1 carrs INTRO2 carrs1 INTRO3 carrs2 DEF_EXT .zip CDROM_NAME "CARRS Bonanza" ALL_FILES_LIST filelist.dat An explanation of each follows: XFER_DEST: For Remote mode, this is the directory where users will transfer files from the CD to. XFER_DESC: This is the file description list for the transfer directory. Many BBS packages support ASCII lists for the files in each different area (ex files.bbs). ROMDOOR will add an entry for each file transfered from the CD. AREA: This creates another area for the CD. The first parameter is the path to the files description list for that area, and the rest of the line is the name of the area. There should be one of these statements for every file area you want to have. Since you can give a path to the file description, you can use the one on the CD, or move it to your hard drive. Moving it to your hard drive dramatically improves access time. *** TIP: You don't have to use the file "areas" that are on the CD. If you don't like how things are arranged on the CD, split up the description files how you would like to see it done. For example, if there are a bunch of BASIC game descriptions in the Games directory of your cd rom, you could make a new area called BASIC games, and split the games file description into two description files on your hard drive. DECOMP_COMMAND: The command to decompress a file. The example given is pkzip, but you will want to use whatever is appropriate for that CD. Only one type supported for now. With the next release I would like to make it based on extension. CATALOG: The name of the catalog file. If no extension is given, the door will look for <name>.ans if the person has ANSI, and then <name>.asc. This is displayed when the user needs/wants to change file areas. INTRO1: The name of the intro files. If no extension is given, the door will look for <name>.ans if the person has ANSI, and then <name>.asc. This file is displayed when the door is first called. DEF_EXT: This tells ROMDOOR what extension to default to when the user enters no extension on a transfer or unpack. DEF_TEXT_EXT: This tells ROMDOOR what extension to default to when the user enters no extension on a view text file. CDROM_NAME: Yep, you guessed it. Surround the name in quotes. BBS_NAME: Yep, you guessed it. Surround the name in quotes. ALL_FILES_LIST: This is the name and path to the database file containing a list of all the files for the CD rom and where they are. This is created with the MAKEDIR.EXE utility. TEMP_FILE: Temporary file created for various operations. Make this point to a VDISK if you have one setup. Ex. E:\TEMP.$$$ Note that this is the FULL filename, not just the path. LOCAL_COMP_UTL: Local compression utility. This will get called when running in local mode and the user asks to view contents of a compressed file. The filename will be passed to the utility. REMOTE_COMP_UTL: Remote compression utility. Same as above... but the utility should work redirection. REMOTE_MENU: Name of the file that contains the remote main menu. LOCAL_MENU: Name of the file that contains the local main menu. CLOSE: The closing screen, this is showed before exit. Comment lines are allowed in the config file and are identified with a semicolon in the first column. * Command Line Switches * -A<n> where <n> is 0 for ASCII mode and 1 for ANSI mode -N<n> where <n> is the users first name -T<n> where <n> is the amount of time left on system -R<n> where <n> is 0 for LOCAL (default) mode and 1 for REMOTE mode -C<n> where <n> is the name of the config file to use, if none is specified, ANSIDOOR.CFG is used as a default. -D debug mode. If you are calling this program from a Remote Access, you can do something like (see RA docs for complete descriptions on command line expansion macros): romdoor -A*G -T*T -N*N * Things NOT covered by the Door * CD Watchdogging... Most want their system to recover from a user hanging up, and this simply reboots the BBS if the carrier detect signal from the modem desists. I did not write it in to the door due to the fact that today's FOSSIL's usally have it built in. I am trying BNU at the moment, and it has worked flawlessly. I/O Redirection... Video output and keyboard input is done through the standard channels. This works nicely for running it locally, but when you want to allow a remote user to run it, all input/output needs to be routed though the com port... there are two ways to do this. The first way is to use the CTTY COM1 directive before the execution of the door, and the CTTY CON after the door executes. I use a device driver called GATEWAY that allows for simultaneous input/output locally AND through the COM port. Therefore, my batch file that starts the door looks like this: @echo off break off bnu /W=0+ ; Turn Watchdogging ON ctty gate1 ; Redirect input/output d: cd \ra\rbbsbox ; Switch to the doors directory romdoor -C %1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 ; Start the DOOR ctty con ; Redirect input/output back bnu /W=0- ; Turn Watchdogging OFF cd \ra ; Switch back to the BBS dir * Future Enhancements * There are a TON of things I would like to add to this thing, but like all projects, if I can't get the funding through my users, I can't justify putting much into the project, so please register! Enhancements I would like to see in this thing include: o Chat facility (remote mode) o Viewers called based on file extensions o Direct downloading from within door o Transfer times for files If you think of something, let me know, and please Register! Its the only way I can spend more time on the door. * Registering * Single site registration... You can use this door to drive a 1000 CD's, as long as it is on one machine. Please register one copy per machine @ 15$ a copy. Please let me know where you got the program, and what disk size you would like (5 1/4" or 3 1/2"). Registering provides me with a good reason to work on the project, and provides you with the following: o The latest version of ROMDOOR o Modules for ROMDOOR o Online support on the HSF BBS (see ad below) o No pause at the beginning of each run, text changed to registered with your name/company name Send registration to: James Snowden Helix Software Foundation 13639 Electric Street, Box G-11 Beaverton, OR 97005 CD ROM Producers... Please contact me! I am ALWAYS willing to make a deal with people creating the latest in CD technologies. ┌┬──┬───────────────────────────┬──┬┐ │├──┘ The Data Dungeon BBS! └──┤│ ││ Down until 8-1-92 ││ 24 Hours, ││ Over 2 Gigabytes of Files! ││ 7 Days a Week, ││ 6 Disk CD-ROM Player ││ 365 Days a Year! ││ 14400 HST/V32 8-N-1 ││ │├──┐ FidoNet ┌──┤│ └┴──┴───────────────────────────┴──┴┘ * Disclaimer * There is no warranty, written or implied. Helix Software Foundataion is not responsible for any damage in the use or misuse of this software and is distributed in an AS-IS state. This does NOT mean that I am uninterested in the enhancements you would like to see, please send them to me via FidoNet or via US Mail... Special thanks... All the users on my system for their patience, Bob Hall and all of other beta testers!