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.TOPIC:
Subsystems/Miscellaneous Functions
VBBS 6.12 Documentation -- 6-D-1
╔════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗
║ CHAPTER SIX ANNEX D SUBSYSTEMS/MISCELLANEOUS FUNCTIONS ║
╚════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝
See also: Bulletins/Textfiles System Info
Voting Booth Autoposts
Teleconference Hypertext Help
Quiz System Callback Verifier
This particular area of a BBS is usually one of the more
interesting areas, yet it's one of the most under-utilized. In
the subsystems area, users can read a list of all the users on
the BBS, vote on topics of current interest, read textfiles, and
do several other Neat Things (caps still intended).
Main Menu Commands and What They Do -- Subsystems
═════════════════════════════════════════════════
[T] File Transfers We just got through with this one.
[B] Bulletins/Textfiles Display menu of general textfiles
available for reading.
[S] System Info Provides a display of the BBS'
system statistics.
[V] Voting Booth Users are allowed to vote on pol-
ling questions posted by the
sysop.
[D] Defaults Allows user to set his or her de-
fault settings; one of the most
important features a new user
can access.
[O] Online Programs Displays menu for games and other
online programs configured in
VCONFIG.
[A] Autoposts Displays autoposts.
Main Menu Commands and What They Do -- Miscellaneous
════════════════════════════════════════════════════
[K] Today's Callers Displays a list of callers who
have logged on today.
[U] User Listing Displays a complete user listing;
sysops also get SL, max time,
and access flags.
[I] System Info Shows system usage statistics.
[C] Page Sysop If the console [ScrlLock] or [A]
is set to ON, this will activate
an audible page.
[W] Who's Online Shows status of console and each
modem port.
[Z] Multiuser Teleconference On multiuser systems, allows the
users to chat between nodes.
[X] Network Info Displays network BBSLIST(s).
[*] Sysop Menu Go to sysop function block (dis-
played to 255 SL only).
[G] Log Off Exit the BBS.
VBBS 6.12 Documentation -- 6-D-2
.TOPIC:
Bulletins/Textfiles
Bulletins/Textfiles
═══════════════════
The Bulletins section contains text files that users may
read at their leisure. The types of files that are placed here
are generally about the BBS' procedures and policies; other
possibilities include system news files, virus information, game
scoreboards and news files (a popular feature), or transcripts
of articles dealing with topics of particular interest (please
make sure to give proper credit to the author).
To install a textfile, place the file in the directory
you have indicated in VCONFIG, section E. Go into the textfile
area and select the [A]dd option; follow the prompts from there.
It's a good idea to keep your titles and descriptions
brief; lengthy titles and descriptions are truncated. By the
way, when a USER looks at the titles, he/she does NOT see the
filename -- only the title. The filename is displayed to the
sysop as a means of keeping track of filenames.
.TOPIC:
System Info
System Info
═══════════
This is the screen produced by the line "sysinfo" in the
default START.V. It shows today's statistics and the total cu-
mulative statistics for your system. This screen differs from
the WFC stats screen in that it also shows active/idle minutes
and a graphical representation of usage by time of day and modem
speed.
The one statistic most sysops are usually concerned about
is the "Duty Cycle" statistic; it's the ratio of active minutes
to total minutes online. Naturally, you want to keep this num-
ber as high as possible, since it's the quickest measure of how
active your system is. A figure of 50% means that your system
has been in use half the day -- not a bad total at all -- while
a figure of 70% or better is cause for rejoicing. If your duty
cycle is consistently less than 15-20%, you might want to re-
examine the way you "do business" -- you may be doing something
that discourages users from calling your board.
╔═╗ There is a VirtualNET sub in which sysops discuss ideas
╚═╝ for improving board usage: "BBS Success (Keeping Your
Board Going)".
.TOPIC:
Voting Booth
Voting Booth
════════════
Voting questions are an important way to keep your finger
on the pulse of your user base. In VCONFIG, you can set VBBS to
check whether there are new voting questions when a user logs on;
this is generally a good idea. Typical voting questions might
include:
VBBS 6.12 Documentation -- 6-D-3
■ How did you hear about this BBS?
■ What's the MAIN reason you call <BBS name here>?
■ If you could change ONE thing at <BBS name>, what would it be?
(Think this one through CAREFULLY -- don't suggest changes
you aren't willing to implement!)
■ Which of the following subs would you MOST like to see added?
Of course, you may tailor the questions to your specific needs.
It should be noted that this multiple-choice format is not par-
ticularly suited for "ranking"-type questions, as they allow
only one answer per question.
Another thing to consider when constructing voting ques-
tions is that you may ask your users' opinion on something; the
best format for "like/don't like" questions is
1 -- Really like it It's GREAT!
2 -- Like it I think it's okay.
3 -- Don't care Doesn't make any difference to me.
4 -- Don't like it I'm not real crazy about it.
5 -- Really don't like it I don't like it very much.
You may "disguise" these choices as shown above, but it has been
shown to be one of the most statistically reliable formats for
opinion-type questions.
Please see "The Voting Booth" for the "how-to" on setting
up voting questions.
Defaults
════════
This was addressed earlier in the section on VCONFIG, but
having users set their own defaults is quite an important matter,
and they are encouraged to do so automatically after they create
their account.
The most important default a new user can set is to enable
the full-screen editor (if he/she has ANSI capability); other
commonly-adjusted defaults include screen colors, user macros,
and mail forwarding (if desired).
.TOPIC:
Autoposts
Autoposts
═════════
Autoposts are like electronic Post-It Notes <tm> that
may appear in a user's initial login (depending on his/her de-
fault settings). Users who have the appropriate security level
may post a one-, two-, or three-line message for display; the
four most recent autoposts are displayed. These are useful for
announcing upcoming system changes/downtime or alerting users to
the existence of new/important files or posts.
In addition, there are several VSCRIPT-based autopost
programs (most notably GREMPOST.V) that allow networking of
VBBS 6.12 Documentation -- 6-D-4
autoposts over VirtualNET-networked BBSs; note that these ARE
NOT included with the original VBBS archive.
Sysop Paging and Chat Screens
═════════════════════════════
As stated earlier, either the [Scroll Lock] key or the
[A] key from WFC will toggle sysop availability, depending on
how you have things set up in VCONFIG.
There are two ways to answer a chat-call; one is with
the normal [F1] key. This allows you to converse with the on-
line user -- your words show up in one color, the user's in
another. To exit this chat method, press [F1] again.
The fancier way to answer is with the [Shift-F1] key.
This divides the screen into two halves, with your words at the
top and the user's at the bottom. To exit this chat mode, press
[Esc].
╔═╗ Chatting, if done properly, can be a great PR builder.
╚═╝ Some helpful hints on chatting:
1) Try to be available for chat at least SOME of the time.
It doesn't usually take TOO long.
2) Try NOT to "drop in" on a user when they're in the mid-
dle of something, unless they're looking totally lost.
Try not to startle your users.
3) As a way of indicating that you're through typing a
sentence, it's usually a good idea to hit [Enter] twice
to double space; that lets the user know you're through
typing, kind of like "over" in a radio conversation.
4) When you leave the console, make sure sysop avail-
ability is toggled where you want it. If you're tog-
gled as available when you're really not, users can
become frustrated.
As with other functions of VBBS, there are a number of
alternative chat and paging scripts available -- there is even
an "emergency chat" script that allows users who know a special
password to bypass the "sysop not available" message and page
you anyway. A fully external chat utility called ISYCHAT10
also allows for the above, global capture of the chat, is
configureable for multiple sysops, and is Soundblaster capable.
.TOPIC:
Teleconference
Multi-user Teleconference
═════════════════════════
The multi-user teleconference is an inter-node chat fea-
ture. From inside the teleconference, two or more users who are
online simultaneously can page each other to the teleconference,
send one-line messages to each other to whatever area the other
user is active in, and broadcast short messages to ALL users on-
line at the time. Also, if you send E-mail to a user who is on-
VBBS 6.12 Documentation -- 6-D-5
line, VBBS will notify that user that you have sent E-mail to
him/her.
Once inside of the teleconference, users can chat with
each other within teleconferencing "rooms". If there were four
users in the teleconference, for example, two users could decide
to change rooms in order to have an exclusive conversation with
each other. There are 99 such rooms within teleconference.
Users have the option in teleconference to change their
handles within the teleconference. The sysop may create a file
called BADNAMES.TXT and place it in the TXT subdirectory. This
file should contain, one per line, the handles that are not
allowed to be used in the teleconference. Users who do not
wish to be available for chatting may access the "hide" function
within the teleconference in order to be invisible to other users
while executing other BBS areas on a multi-line system.
THE SYSOP MENU
══════════════
The sysop menu, available only to users with a 255 SL, is
accessed by pressing the star [*] key at the Main Menu (although
with a function-block modification, you could make it accessible
at ANY menu (... you know where to look for info on this).
The functions available at the sysop menu are:
[M] Read All Mail Review all E-mail on the system.
Use this with extreme discre-
tion, if you use it at all.
[E] Edit Any File Pulls a file into the VBBS FSE for
editing; useful for colorizing
system taglines, among other
things.
[U] User Editor Go into the user editor to check
on/edit user information.
[S] Security Displays users with SLs greater
than 150 or who have one or more
access flags set.
[C] Force Cleanup Force a daily cleanup. Note that
this isn't a "hit-and-forget"
command; the screen will pause
when it reaches your default
page length.
[V] Validate Network Presents the posts scheduled to
go out over the network from
your system; you will be promp-
ted to [A]pprove or [D]isapprove
each one. Not easy if you have
a lot of active subs that re-
quire network validation. This
is also an easy thing to forget
to do on a daily basis.
[Q] Quit Return to main (or previous) menu.
VBBS 6.12 Documentation -- 6-D-6
QWK OFFLINE READERS
═══════════════════
VBBS features support for .QWK format offline readers.
Offline readers are special programs that allow a user to down-
load message packets from a BBS and read them at her leisure.
They also allow users to construct packets containing their
replies to messages and upload them in return.
Some of the more popular offline readers include SLMR,
JABBER, BlueWave, OFFLINE, and OLX; in addition, there are .QWK
readers available for Windows.
VBBS' auxiliary program, VQWK.EXE, prompts the user to up-
load a .REP file that tells VBBS which messages have been pre-
viously downloaded, as well as which message areas the user
would like to read. This is configured either by making use of
the [J]oin/Ignore Bases command in the Main Menu, or from within
the QWK menu:
[D]ownload new message packet (QWK)
[U]pload reply message packet (REP)
[A]lter maximum # of messages/packet
[C]hange default compression type
[P]ick # of days for new file scan
[S]elect message bases for QWKing
Show (W)ho's currently online
[R]eturn to the BBS (exiting QWK)
[G]oodbye/Log off from the BBS
See the respective Appendix for VQWK setup instructions.
.TOPIC:
Hypertext Help
THE VBBS HYPERTEXT HELP SYSTEM (Optional)
═════════════════════════════════════════
The VBBS help system is a fine hypertext help system.
It can be configured in unlimited ways to meet a variety of
needs. The calling sequence is
VBBS-AUX %1 HELP <help system number>
The <help system number> is used to form a filename of the
"lookup" file, which should be placed in your VBBS \DATA direc-
tory. For example, for help system number 1, the file name would
be LOOKUP.1 (not LOOKUP.001). Help systems from 1 to 999 are
available; system 0 is reserved for future internal use by VBBS.
Lookup files have the format -- one entry per line --
<help filename> <keyword or key phrase>
For example, you might have this as a lookup file:
VBBS 6.12 Documentation -- 6-D-7
HELP1 Main Screen
HELP2 Primary Topics
HELP3 Secondary Topics
HELP4 General Information
In the lookup file, do not put in an extension for the help
filename; .HLP is assumed. The first entry in your lookup file
is considered to be the starting point. The help filename speci-
fied is displayed, and the user is prompted; continuing or going
back to the main menu proceeds from there.
Within each help file, you reference topics in the lookup
file by bracketing them with [ and ].
Using the example LOOKUP file from above, help-file skele-
tons might look like this:
HELP1.HLP:
──────────
Welcome to the Main Help Screen.
[Primary Topics]
[Secondary Topics]
[General Information]
HELP2.HLP
─────────
Welcome to the Primary Topics Screen.
[Secondary Topics]
[General Information]
[Main Screen]
HELP3.HLP
─────────
Welcome to the Secondary Topics Screen.
[Primary Topics]
[General Information]
[Main Screen]
HELP4.HLP
─────────
Welcome to General Information.
[Primary Topics]
[Secondary Topics]
[Main Screen]
VBBS 6.12 Documentation -- 6-D-8
--> IMPORTANT NOTE: Several complete hypertext help files are
available from VBBS support boards for
easy installation in standard VBBS systems.
.TOPIC:
Quiz Section
THE VBBS QUIZ/TEST SYSTEM (Optional)
════════════════════════════════════
The VBBS quiz/test feature can be used to give users tests
and quizzes online -- trivia quizzes (a great source of competi-
tion among users), tests on the users' knowledge of the BBS, or
even (if you can find the time to set it up) an actual test file
for tests from the local high school, community college, or uni-
versity (an extremely ambitious project, but unique!). The cal-
ling sequence for the test feature is
VBBS-AUX %1 TEST <test filename>
Test files (and the score files generated) should reside in your
\DATA directory. Test files assume a .TST extension (be careful
typing that extension), and score files have a .SCO extension.
Score files are simple ASCII files; report generators can ana-
lyze the score file to produce statistical information. A report
generator specifically designed for VBBS (TREPORT.EXE) is avail-
able for download from the author's BBS.
Test files are simple ASCII files also. Each line of a
test file begins with one of the following prefixes:
b= e= a= q= p=
The "b=" prefix spcifies information displayed to the user
BEFORE they begin the test; you may have one or more of these at
the beginning of your test.
The "e=" prefix indicates information that is shown to the
user AFTER they have finished the test; you may have one or more
of these.
The "a=" prefix specifies the correct answer to the ques-
tion beginning on the next line; it also signals the test proces-
sor that a new question is beginning.
The "q=" prefix contains the actual question (known in
educational circles as the "stem"). There may be one or more
lines in a question stem.
The "p=" prefix specifies one of up to 20 possible answers
for the question (although 5 is generally a good number).
A sample one-question test under the name INTRO.TST might look
something like this:
b=Welcome to this sample test; it only has
b=one question.
a=3
q=Where is the Statue of Liberty located?
p=Washington, DC
p=Paris, France
p=New York City
p=Los Angeles
e=Thanks for taking this test!
VBBS 6.12 Documentation -- 6-D-9
You will have to experiment a little to get proper spacing and
such, but a well-constructed fun quiz is another way of getting
users online ...
.TOPIC:
Callback Verifier
THE VBBS CALLBACK VERIFIER (Optional)
═════════════════════════════════════
The call-back verifier is a means of checking to see whe-
ther a new user has left a valid phone humber in his/her logon
information. It is implemented in VCONFIG; if you choose "yes"
to the callback verifier, VBBS will look at the two ASCII .CBV
files you've created in your \DATA directory and establish whe-
ther the new user is calling from a telephone exchange (accor-
ding to the sysop's criteria) that will allow callback verifi-
cation. If the user is NOT within your defined callback area,
or leaves a number that you have included in your RESTRICT.CBV
file (such as 911), the board will not execute the dialout, and
new-user login will continue normally. The user is allowed to
complete callback validation successfully up to three times
before the connection is dropped.
--> IMPORTANT NOTE: Due to the callout nature of this feature,
its use and proper configuration is the
specific responsibility of the individual
sysop.
The callback verifier needs two files to work properly:
ALLOWED.CBV and RESTRICT.CBV; as mentioned earlier, VBBS will
look for these in the directory you have configured as your
\DATA directory in VONFIG. The two files are discussed below.
ALLOWED.CBV
───────────
ALLOWED.CBV specifies the list of ALLOWED area code/
prefix combinations. The format for the file is one entry per
line, as follows:
XXX-YYY Z
where XXX is the area code, YYY is the prefix, and Z is a
"specifier" that tells the callback verifier how to dial this
area code/prefix combination. Possible specifiers are given
below:
Specifier Type of Call How Dialed
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
+ Local YYY-????
- LD within area code 1-YYY-????
$ LD outside area code 1-XXX-YYY-????
/ Local outside area code XXX-YYY-????
It should be noted that the wildcard character "?" is allowed
when entering prefixes. For example, the line
VBBS 6.12 Documentation -- 6-D-10
205-34? +
in ALLOWED.CBV would enable the BBS to call back ANY phone num-
ber local to the BBS that began with the digits "34"; in the
example above, the callback verifier would call Tuscaloosa's
345, 348, and 349 exchanges as local. The surest way to han-
dle proper exchanges is to enter each one manually; while this
may necessitate a little more work on the sysop's part, it also
ensures that long-distance numbers that fit the prefix criteria
won't be called unnecessarily.
RESTRICT.CBV
────────────
RESTRICT.CBV specifies the list of restricted phone num-
bers that may not be dialed by the callback verifier, such as
local police and/or fire departments, 911, "prank numbers" like
000-000-0000, or those of previously-known "bad users".
Some final words on optional features: These are often
the "something extra" that will keep your users calling back, as
implementing these features reflects a strong measure of dedica-
tion on your part. Sysops are strongly encouraged to make use of
(and to encourage their users to use) the .QWK-format offline
readers available; this can significantly reduce the amount of
time users spend online reading messages, freeing them to explore
and use other areas of the BBS.