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Searchlight Bulletin Board System (t)
HILITE Bulletin/Text/News Autodoor
Version 3.0
PRESIS
------
HILITE is a simple form of "News" door which allows the Sysop of an SLBBS to
display a (series of) bulletin or "news" files in either text or ansi form,
depending on the graphics setting of the caller. "--More--" prompts are
implemented which allow the user to continue or abort the display of long
news files. These more prompts correctly "reassemble" the display when the
user chooses to continue, resulting in a clean, uninterupted, uncorrupted
display of either ansi or text files. Additionally, a "passthrough"
technique has been implemented wherein a user will be automatically dropped
into the news file on his first log in. Thereafter, when the user
calls again, he will be asked if he wishes to view the "news" again.
The Sysop has control over what the "news" will be called in the prompt.
INTRODUCTION
------------
This utility is intended to help you, as an SLBBS Sysop, to further extend
your BBS and to bring you and your users a higher level of professionalism
and enjoyment. I wrote this utility for myself and my BBS, and have had
it running with good effect for over one year. I consider it to be
fully tested and debugged. I am, therefore, releasing it now for the use
and enjoyment of the SLBBS community. You will note that I have installed a
"credit line" in the program, but this should not be too much of a bother,
given the gratituity-free nature of this utility.
This utility is distributed FREE of any obligation on the part of
non-commercial users. Absolutely no warranties, either express or implied,
are made or given with respect to the fitness of this utilities for its
intended purpose, or for ANY purpose. Side-Bar BBS and Shane Anderson
hereby expressly disclaim any such warranties; further, by use of these
utilities, you agree to indemnify and hold Side-Bar BBS and Shane Anderson
harmless from damages, however constituted or plead, which might be
attributed to use of these utilities.
Commercial users may contact the Sysop of Side-Bar BBS for inforamtion
regarding the licensing of these utilities. The number appears below.
INSTALLATION
------------
Please note that the archive should include the following files:
HILITE.EXE - Program Executable
HILITE.DOC - This Document
EG.ANS - Example Ansi News File
EG.ASC - Example Text News File
EG.BAT - Batch to run demo
If you are concerned that you have not received a "clean" archive, you may
FREQ a source copy from my BBS at the address given at the end of this
document. The "Magic Name" for the file is "HILITE."
You are, of course, welcome to log in and download it from my "SLBBS"
file directory.
You may install Hilite in any directory you wish. I happen to have a sort
of "catch all" directory that holds all small door utilities that do not need
to be placed in the SLBBS main directory. Just make sure that, when you call
HILITE from a batch file or otherwise, you either switch to the appropriate
directory, have the directory in the path or specify the path when you call
the .EXE. As usual, I have tried to minimize the need for configs, etc.,
and have tried very hard to keep the application BBS independent so that
the levels of administration you need to deal with are lessened and so that
this utility will remain useful throughout your SLBBS upgrade path.
HILITE.EXE
----------
The syntax of HILITE is as follows:
HILITE [ansi] [ascii] [log] [u] [g] [color] [NEWS]
WHERE:
[ansi] the filespec of the ansi screen, including extension
[ascii] the filespec of the ascii_screen, including extension
[log] the filespec of the user log
[u] the SLBBS parameter for full name (%U)
[g] the SLBBS parameter for graphics (%G)
[color] the numeric color value for the opening "(Y/N)" prompt
[NEWS] a string supplied to describe the file viewed eg: "News that's fit"
This bears elaboration. Each of the first two parameters support full path
names. These are the news or "display" files to be displayed based upon the
user's graphics mode.
You must specify the full name of the ansi and text/ascii display file
names, and must also specify their paths if HILITE is called from a
directory other than that in which it resides, __OR__ if the display files
are in a directory other than the directory from which HILITE is called.
This is basic and fundamental to every DOS utility that you have ever used.
The log file also supports a full path. This is the file that the program
uses to determine if the user has already viewed the display files. The
technique is actually so simple as to be almost idiotic. When a user logs
in for the first time in a given day, his name is logged after he has viewed
the whole display file. Thereafter, if the user logs in again he will be
prompted as to whether he wishes to view the display files
again. (The prompt incorporates SLBBS look-alike sliding Yes/No prompts, and
the prompt itself can be somewhat modified by the Syop, as discussed
further, below.) This allows for a great deal of flexibility, actually.
Think about it... if you do not want the prompting to occur, simply delete
the log each time a user exits the BBS. This can easily be done by adding a
single statement to your log off autodoor. On the other hand, if you wish
to have the display file shown to users once per day, you can delete the log
in your nightly events. In this way, every day, the first time a user logs
in, he will be shown the display files. Finally, you might only delete the
log file whenever there is ___NEW___ news. This way, the user does not have
to bother with rereading to see if anything is new.
I actually gave a lot of thought to this, and thought that this
configuration would give the greatest flexibility and user "freindliness."
Hopefully, you will agree...
The passing of the %U and %G parameters is, I think, self explanatory.
Sysops using this utility on other than SLBBS systems, please note that the
graphics paprmeters passed must be C, M or N for Color, Mono or None,
respectively. Also note that the name paprameter must be the full name of
the user. Otherwise, BILL SMITH will get prompted on his first log in
becuse BILL JONES logged in before him.
As for the color parameter, the following should help:
Black - 0 Dark Gray - 8
Blue - 1 Light Blue - 9
Green - 2 Light Green - 10
Cyan - 3 Light Cyan - 11
Red - 4 Light Red - 12
Magenta - 5 Light Magenta - 13
Brown - 6 Yellow - 14
Light Gray - 7 White - 15
This is the color of the promt that a user will receive when he has already
viewed the display files.
FInally, the [NEWS] parameter is used to customize the prompt the user
receives when he has already viewed the display files. The prompt appears
in the following form:
You have already viewed the YOUR TEXT HERE!.
Would you like to re-read it? Yes No
The "YOUR TEXT HERE!" corresponds to the string given in the [NEWS]
parameter. Please note that if you were to use YOUR TEXT HERE! as the
string, you would need to enclose it in quotes to get it to in, eg.
HILITE my.ans my.asc my.log %U %G 14 "YOUR TEXT HERE!"
Well, that's it for how to run HILITE. The file, itself is self-documenting
and has a decent level of error handling. If you type HILITE at the DOS
prompt, it will show you a screen summarizing the parameters to use. Also,
if you specify a color that is out of range it will show you a "color
chart." Bad file names, etc. will result in appropriate error messages.
All of this should make it easier to install HILITE and test and debug your
setup.
One very simple caveat: If you use some sort of ANSI drawing program to
make news flashes, etc., make sure that you set up the line length to be 78
or 79 columns, and that the size of the drawing does not exceed that margin.
The reason is simple. If you draw an ANSI with a line length of 39 and the
drawing is full screen, the --More-- prompt will appear more than once per
page. This is becuase, even though you are seeing a line like this:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
it is really a line like this:
--------------------------------------
--------------------------------------
with a Line feed after the first part of the line, followed by an ansi code
that positions the cursor back up at the end of the first part. That line
feed will be counted by HILITE, and therefore, in this case, you will get a
--More-- prompt only half way down the page. There is nothing that I can do
about this save for adding a bunch more code to the program and then adding
more command line parameters, etc. It is better that you simply draw the
screens correctly to begin with.
MAKING IT ALL WORK FOR YOU
--------------------------
Be inventive. You can use the user's security level in your autodoors to
present different news items to different people at different levels. You
can vary when they will view the display files, and you can send only mono
output by hard coding the Graphics parameter. I have built this utility as
all others I write - to have the greatest degree of flexibility. A little
imagination and strong batch file technique can result in some very nice
extensions to SLBBS. Hopefully this will prove to be a part of your
arsenal...
If you like this utility, and plan to use it, be so kind as to give me a
little feedback. I am usually found lurking in the C_ECHO in Fido. I also
frequent SHAREWRE.
If you do send a message that way, please try again if you get no response.
I ALWAYS reply to any post to me, but sometimes I think that those echos are
the bottomless echos, and I have better things to do with my hardware than
import two thousand six hundred and eighty eight echo posts per night per
echo <grinning and ducking>.
You are always welcome to log in to my board, netmail me or crash me mail at
my Fido address. Thanks for your interest, support and comments...
Best wishes and enjoy.
Shane G. Anderson
Sysop, Side-Bar BBS
818/783-2069
FidoNet: 1:102/819
(Sherman Oaks, California)