The World of Computer Software/World_Of_Computer_Software-02-385-Vol-1of3.iso/e/em200.zip/EVENTMAN.DOC

Text File | 1992-04-29 | 18KB | 408 lines

EVENTMAN and this documentation are Copyright (C) 1992 by Don Branson.

The programs and documentation may altered only for private use, and may
not be distributed in any way.

The programs (except for TSRPROC.EXE) and documentation may be distributed.
No fee may be charged except for media and distribution costs.
TSRPROC.EXE may not be distributed except by Simian Id Software.


Introduction to EVENTMAN
------------------------

    Many people have expressed a need to be able to have their computers
run certain processes at a certain time, whether someone was available
to initiate the process or not. The computer should be able to determine
when to run the process, instead of requiring human intervention. A
typical example is people who need to back up PC networks. The backup
process needs to run every night, after everyone is done working. Until
now, this has required that either the users are taught to do backups,
or that the network manager stay until everyone is done working for the
night. By using EVENTMAN, a backup process can be started late at night,
without the need for personnel to start it.

    Another example is signing on to electronic bulletin board systems
(BBS's). With a heavily-used BBS, it may be nearly impossible to get on
except during late night or very early morning hours. With EVENTMAN and
a progammable terminal program such as Kermit, it is possible to have
your system sign on to the board early, for example, 2:00 in the morning,
retrieve messages or files, and sign off again. The messages are then on
your PC and you can read them with an editor.

    A simple example is Daylight Savings time changes. Using EVENTMAN,
you can have a process execute which sets your PC clock ahead in the
spring, and back in the fall.

    As you use EVENTMAN, you may find that there are many daily routines
which you perform that can be taken over by EVENTMAN. As you find new
uses for EVENTMAN, please write and tell us how you are using it. This
information can be included in future documentation, and will help other
people as they use EVENTMAN.


Concepts
--------

    EVENTMAN works following to basic concepts, the EVENT and the
PROCESS. An event is a task which performs one or a couple tasks. There
is no time information associated with an event. Examples of events
would be backing up a hard drive, signing-on to a BBS, and printing a
daily report. An event describes the task to be done, but not when it
should be done. This allows us to describe one task, and execute it
upon demand.

    A process ties together information about tasks (events) to be run
with time information. A process describes what events to run at what
times. A process will frequently list a number of events to be run at
each time specified by the process. A process may occur once, daily,
weekly, monthly, yearly, or a some interval which you specify, such
as hourly, or every 3-1/2 hours, for example.

    There are three main programs in the EVENTMAN package. The first
is EVENTMAN. This program is used to create and maintain events and
processes. PROCESS is a program which runs the processes you have
created. When PROCESS runs, it runs in the foreground, which means
that you cannot use other applications while it is running. TSRPROC
solves this problem, and lets you use your computer while TSRPROC runs
in the background. TSRPROC is available only to users who register at
the advanced level.



The Event/Process Creation Cycle
--------------------------------

    The first step in using EVENTMAN is to set up some events. In the
samples given with EVENTMAN are some useful events which can be included
in your processes. Some examples are DISPTIME, which displays the current
system time. This can be used to print the start and end times of
your processes. Another is LINE, which is useful for drawing a separator
line between each event or process.

    The second step is to use EVENTMAN to set up processes to run at
preset times.

    Once the events and processes are set up, use either PROCESS or
TSRPROC to run the processes. The processes will execute at the times
you specify, and will invoke the events in the order that you list them.


EVENTMAN
--------

Keyboard

    The function keys available are always listed at the bottom of the
screen. In addition, the keys HOME, END, Page Up, Page Down, Insert,
Delete, Backspace, Tab, Shift-Tab, and the arrow keys are functional in
the Event Menu, the Process Menu, and data entry fields.

Events

    When you run EVENTMAN, you should always be in a directory which
contains EVENTMAN and all the associated event and process files. Enter
EVENTMAN by typing EVENTMAN at the DOS prompt and pressing Enter. The
screen will show a scrollable list of events. The number of events you
see will depend on whether you are using a 25, 43, or 50 line display.
The available functions keys are displayed at the bottom of the screen.
The F1 key offers context-sensitive help screens. Each line in the event
list is an event with a name of up to 8 characters, and a description of
up to 60 characters. Each event also includes a file of DOS commands. To
edit the file of DOS commands for an existing event, press F2.

    EVENTMAN is set up to use whatever editor you want it to. By default,
it first tries to use the editor supplied to registered users. If that
is not available, it will try to use the DOS 5.00 editor. If that is not
available, it will use EDLIN. You can over-ride this process by telling
EVENTMAN to use your favorite editor. For example, assume you want to
use the QEDIT editor. This is executed by typing "Q" at the DOS prompt,
so you can tell EVENTMAN to execute this editor by typing the following
command before entering EVENTMAN:

        SET EDITOR=Q

    This will work if Q is in a directory on your PATH. If it is not,
supply the full path name:

        SET EDITOR=C:\QEDIT\Q

    To create a new event, press the F3 key. EVENTMAN will ask you for
an event name and a description. Press ESC to cancel or Enter to create
the new event. If you create a new event, you will automatically be taken
into the editor to enter the DOS commands for the event.


    To delete an existing event, use the F4 key. You will be requested
to enter the word 'delete' to confirm that you want to delete the event.
Typically, it is not necessary to delete events, since they only are
invoked if they are included in processes.

    To return from the EVENTMAN Event Menu to the DOS prompt, press F6.

    To continue from the EVENTMAN Event Menu to the Process Menu,
press F5.


Processes

    Each process contains information about the date and time that the
process should be run. The Process Menu lists each process, the process
type, and the next execution date and time. To edit a process, press F2.
You will be shown the process name, and you may change any of the other
parameters. To move from parameter to parameter, use the Tab and Shift-
Tab keys.

    The first parameter is the process type. The type indicates how often
the process is repeated. Valid values here are:

      D - Daily      The process is repeated every day  at the same time.
      W - Weekly     The process is repeated every week on the same
                     weekday at the same time.
      M - Monthly    The process is repeated every month on the same day
                     of the month, at the same time.
      Y - Yearly     The process is repeated every year, in the same
                     month, on the same day of the month, at the same
                     time.
      S - Single     The process is not repeated. It is run once, then
                     deleted from the process list.
      O - Other      The process is repeated at the interval you specify.
                     The interval is given in minutes, and you will be
                     asked for the interval only for type 'O' processes.

    The next field of entry is the date field. This indicates the next
date when the process will be executed. You can enter any date here.
You might even enter, for example, a daily process which first starts a
month from now, by entering the first date of execution at that future
date. Note that the date must be entered year first, then month, then
day. The date is converted to a text format and displayed next to your
entry. The year must be four digits. (We're getting close to the year
2000!)

    The next field is the time field. The time field is entered in a 24-
hour clock format. EVENTMAN will display the time in text format next to
your entry, for confirmation.

    If you entered a process type of 'O', the next field will be the
interval between executions. This interval is from start to start, so
the length of time your process takes will not affect the starting time
of the next process. The interval is indicated in minutes. A process to
run every other day then, would have an interval of 2880 minutes.

    The final field to enter is the list of events invoked each time the
process executes. The events must be valid event names, listed in order
of execution, separated by commas.

    From the process menu, processes can be added with F3, or deleted
with F4. When adding a process, you will be asked for the same


information as when you are editing an existing process. When you delete
a process, you will be asked to enter 'delete' to confirm. Use F6 to
return from entering a process to the Process Menu. F6 will also return
from the Process Menu to the Event Menu.


PROCESS
-------

    PROCESS is a program which runs in the foreground. It maintains the
list of processes in order by date and time. The list of processes is
displayed on the screen. The next process to execute is displayed first
on the list. When it is time to run the first process in the list,
PROCESS invokes that process. When the process is complete, PROCESS
updates the process and re-orders the list.

Command line options

    PROCESS has one command-line option which allows processes to be
tested in a short period of time which would normally run over days or
weeks. To do this, use the -txxxx option for PROCESS, where 'xxxx'
indicates a number of seconds. This will make PROCESS add 5 minutes
to your system every xxxx seconds, and speed up testing. When you exit
PROCESS, it will correct the date and time. You should always verify that
the date and time were re-set correctly after using this option.

PROCESS startup

    When PROCESS starts up, it will update the date and time on any
process which has not executed, until the date and time are after the
current system date and time. Processes which are invoked every few
minutes may take some to update in this manner, especially if they are
months or years old. Therefore, it is recommended that you use EVENTMAN
to update these old processes manually before running PROCESS.

TSRPROC
-------

    TSRPROC is the TSR (Terminate-and-Stay-Resident) version of the
PROCESS program. TSRPROC will run in the background, waiting for a
process to become current, and ready to execute. While TSRPROC is
running in the background, you can use your system for other tasks, such
as editing files, doing spreadsheets, whatever you need to work on. When
the date and time on a process matches the system date and time, it
"becomes current," which means that it is time to invoke that process.
If you are working in some other application when a process becomes
current, TSRPROC will not try to run it. You have the option of
indicating if TSRPROC should try again when you are done. TSRPROC will
only try to run a process if you are at the DOS command prompt.

    To use TSRPROC, execute it once at the command line, specifying any
command-line options you want. TSRPROC stays in memory, and will invoke
processes as they become current, but only if you are at a DOS prompt,
never interrupting your current task.

When TSRPROC is resident, you can use Alt-LeftShift to display the list of
waiting processes.

Command-line options
--------------------

    These are the command-line options available with TSRPROC. They may be
selected using either a dash (as in "-h") or a slash (as in "/h"):

        -h     Display Help. This shows each command-line option and gives
               a brief description. TSRPROC does not stay in memory after
               displaying help, and does not do any processing.

        -u     Unload the resident TSRPROC. By invoking TSRPROC with this
               option, no processing takes place, and the TSRPROC that was
               already loaded is unloaded from memory.

        -p     Past processes. When you select this flag, TSRPROC will run
               processes that have a date and time stamp prior to the
               current time before beginning normal processing.

        -cxx   Check-wait. TSRPROC checks the system time every 5 seconds,
               by default, to see if any processes are current. This ensures
               that any process will be executed within 5 seconds after it
               becomes current. Use this option to change the frequency with
               which TSRPROC checks the system time. Making the time too
               short may degrade system perform. Making the time longer than
               60 seconds will mean that your processes may start a minute
               or two late. The number of seconds 'xx' is the length of
               time TSRPROC waits between attempts.

        -r     Retry. If TSRPROC checks to see if a process can be run, and
               you are in an application, the process will not be run. By
               using this option, you tell TSRPROC to try again, until the
               process can execute.

        -d     Debug. If you have problems with TSRPROC, try to reproduce
               the problem. When you run TSRPROC to reproduce the problem,
               specify this option, and also re-direct the output of TSRPROC
               to the printer, if you have one. Don't try to re-direct
               output to a file, as this can cause problems. This is how to
               enter the TSRPROC command with this option:

                   TSRPROC -d >prn

        -t     Test mode. This displays processes only and does not try to
               invoke them.


Utility programs
----------------

DOW

    This is the Day-Of-Week program. This small program's purpose is to
return the day of the week in the DOS error code. This error code can then
be used in batch files for determining the day of the week. The codes
returned are 0-6 for Sunday through Saturday. The file CDAYBACK.BAT (included
with EVENTMAN) is an example of how to use DOW. It shows a single process
that is to be run every day but one day of the week.

Listing of CDAYBACK.BAT:

     : CBACKUP.COM is a program that I use for backing-up to tape. CBACKUP.BAT
     : is included instead of the .COM file, for the purpose of the
     : demonstration.

     echo off
     dow
     if errorlevel 6 goto saturday
     if errorlevel 5 goto friday
     if errorlevel 4 goto thursday
     if errorlevel 3 goto wednesday
     if errorlevel 2 goto tuesday
     if errorlevel 1 goto monday
     if errorlevel 0 goto sunday
     goto exit
     :sunday
     echo Today is Sunday - Don't do a backup
     goto exit
     :monday
     echo Today is Monday - Do a backup
     cbackup
     goto exit
     :tuesday
     echo Today is Tuesday - Do a backup
     cbackup
     goto exit
     :wednesday
     echo Today is Wednesday - Do a backup
     cbackup
     goto exit
     :thursday
     echo Today is Thursday - Do a backup
     cbackup
     goto exit
     :friday
     echo Today is Friday - Do a backup
     cbackup
     goto exit
     :saturday
     echo Today is Saturday - Do a backup
     cbackup
     goto exit
     :exit
     exit
     echo Procedure cbackup complete.



    CBACKUP.COM, executed by CDAYBACK.BAT, is a program that was created with
the tape backup software that is supplied with the Identity Tape Drive.
CBACKUP.BAT is supplied in lieu of the .COM file in the EVENTMAN package, so
that you can see how it would work. You will create your own backup program,
since this is dependent on the hardware and software that you own.

DTIME

    This is the Display TIME program. It displays the current date and time
in a readable format. It is used in an event to display the current date and
time. (See the sample event DISPTIME.) Processes can then invoke this event
at the beginning and end of a process, to indicate processing time
information.

EVENTMAN Examples
-----------------


Unattended Hard Drive Backup

    See the example event BACKUP. It executes a batch file (CDAYBACK.BAT)
which invokes a backup program that comes with the particular tape backup
that I use. You will need to change it to use whatever software you have
available with your drive.


Signing on to a BBS using Kermit

    In order to automatically sign on to a BBS and retrieve messsages or
files, you will need Kermit or some other programmable terminal program. A
sample is included with EVENTMAN that signs on to a local BBS and retrieves
un-read messages from a certain section of the BBS. You will need to have
KERMIT in order to use this event in a process. Also, since all BBS's have
different signon procedures, you will need to tailor AUTOLOG.KRM to work on
your favorite BBS. AUTOLOG.KRM is the Kermit script which dials and logs on to
the BBS. AUTOLOG.KRM is designed to work with a Hayes-compatible modem. Start
with the event KERMIT, and follow the code from there, to see how the process
works.


Handling Daylight Savings time

    See the event SPRG_AHD. It is used to set the date ahead on a specific date.