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1992-07-26
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Top Door Bulletin Generation Program
Copyright (c) 1992 By Mark G. Spivey
BBSPlus Software Utilities
All Rights Reserved
PREAMBLE and CREDITS
I would first of all like to thank Rachel, my fiancee, who
put up with me hanging around in here at all hours of the
night without complaining! I love you!
Second, I would like to thank all of the users who inspired
me to update this program after I had decided to drop out of
FIDO net and give up, your letters got me going again.
Third, I would like to thank Karen Maynor of The Dart Board
for her help in getting this thing off the ground and my
programming started up. I would also like to thank her for
use of her board in letting me release my programs through
it.
Fourth I would like to thank my Beta Team: Norman Cox, Karen
Maynor, Ken Givens, Steve Proctor, Jim Thompson, Robert
Garbutt.
There will be several other program names mentioned in my
documentation or other areas that are the respective programs
of their authors and are no way related to mine.
LICENSING INFORMATION
"TOPDOOR" refers to the executable program(s) and
documentation contained in the TOPDOOR archive released by
BBSPlus Software (Shareware Version).
1. TOPDOOR is the copywritten material of BBSPlus Software.
It may only be used in accordance with the conditions set out
in this license agreement.
2. You may use TOPDOOR for a period of three weeks on a trial
basis in order to determine it's suitability for your
particular application. After this period you MUST register
each copy of TOPDOOR that you run simultaneously. Multi-line
installations that share a common message and file base AND
have the same name need only register one copy.
3. Registration entitles you to use TOPDOOR and any future
versions of TOPDOOR for as long as you wish, subject to any
special licensing conditions attached to future versions. For
details on the registration procedure, refer to the section
in this document "HOW TO REGISTER".
4. BBSPlus Software is in no way obligated to provide future
versions of, or support for, TOPDOOR.
5. Site and Group registrations are available, and are dealt
with on a case by case basis.
6. You may not modify or otherwise reverse-engineer TOPDOOR.
7. You are encouraged to distribute TOPDOOR provided that no
fee is charged for its distribution, and that the
distribution archive is not modified in any way. Pay Bulletin
Board Systems may however charge their normal fee provided
that no additional charged for TOPDOOR is levied.
8. TOPDOOR may be included as part of ANY software library
which is distributed on a commercial basis (commercial = "for
money").
9. TOPDOOR may not be used in any illegal or unlawful manner.
10. BBSPlus Software's liability resulting from your use or
inability to use TOPDOOR is limited to the amount that the
affected party has paid for it, or in the event that TOPDOOR
was registered with a third party for payment to BBSPlus
Software, liability is limited to the amount that was
received by BBSPlus Software from that third party.
HOW TO REGISTER
Shareware version:
Systems that qualify for this category must be physically run
from a noncommercial OR commercial site.
Print or reproduce the registration form at the end of this
section and send it with your registration payment to the
following address:
Mark Spivey Cost: $5.00
Registration/TOPDOOR
2900 Colerain Rd. #938
St. Mary's, GA 31558
USA
* You MUST fill out the registration form correctly in order
for your registration to be processed.
* Check and money orders should be made payable to the person
listed above.
* Please include your FIDONET address or a self addressed
stamped envelope so that receipt of your payment may be
acknowledged.
*** TOPDOOR REGISTRATION FORM ***
Your Name ________________________________________________
Your BBS Name ____________________________________________
Network Address (net name too) ___________________________
Primary BBS # and Baud ___________________________________
Voice Telephone # ________________________________________
Hours of Operation _______________________________________
Postal Address :
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
Version Registering __________.
Registration Amount enclosed _____, for ____ copy(s).
What do you like about TOPDOOR? ___________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
What suggestions would you have for TOPDOOR? ______________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
What BBS program do you use? ______________________________
What Mailer do you use? ___________________________________
PRODUCT SUPPORT
You can always get the latest version of TOPDOOR from my BBS,
Online Information Systems, 912-882-8667. I will support
anyone 100% via this system or netmail whether you have
registered or not. I carry an echo for support which may be
placed on the backbone one day which will make it easier. The
reason that I will support registered users AND unregistered
users is that I have wanted to use a program and the author
felt I should register it before he would help me. This made
me delete the program and refuse to use it ever again.
BUG REPORTS
With all software, there are going to be a few bugs that were
not found during the BETA testing period. This is normal and
is much easier to fix with the help of the user of the
software. If you notice anything weird happening and have
found it to be my programs fault, I would appreciate it if
you let me know. I will see if the bug exists and if you have
in fact found a bug, (and are the first to report it)
I will grant you a FREE version.
Hopefully this will give more incentive to helping me find
problems in my software. You may reach me via FIDO netmail at
address 1:3640/13. This will allow a much faster response to
the problem. If you prefer US MAIL you can reach me at:
2900 Colerain Rd. #938 St. Mary's, Ga 31558
---------------------[ TOPDOOR.EXE ]----------------------
PURPOSE
This program will generate a top ten doors list in ANSI and
ASCII format. Having a top door list can make your users
interested in the doors that get used the most. The file can
be placed anywhere in your log in path. I recommend you place
it as an autoexecute from your main menu so there will be a
pause at the end for the user to read the bulletin in time.
CONFIGURATION
Place all of the files into a directory called TOPDOOR (you
may change this at any time, but make sure you edit the batch
file TDINC.BAT to the proper path.)
Place the file TDINC in your path somewhere so it can be
called from any directory in your system.
Edit the batch files which execute your doors and after the
completion of each door add this line.
CALL TDINC (this is the name of the door as set up with
TDMAINT excluding the parenthesis)
Case is sensitive and you should write down on a piece of
paper the name you used so the program will count correctly.
Do this for all batch files which execute doors INCLUDING the
ones contained in your EXEBBS batch file (if applicable). On
my system I have all of the doors in one batch file and send
a parameter to this file which will call the proper sub
routine. This is merely preference.
Next you need to enter the names into the database with
TDMAINT.EXE. This is pretty simple, you can either ADD the
names or DELETE an old door from the list. If you are done
adding names, press ENTER and the program will close the file
and exit. The next version (beta that is) will hopefully have
a revamped editor available with an option to import the
names automatically from all of your batch files on all of
your drives, I will have to work HARD on that one.
Once you have the name in the database you need to edit the
configuration file as explained below.
Line 1 - Name of your BBS as you would like it to appear in
the TOP CALL files. Cannot exceed 38 chars.
Line 2 - Path and filename WITHOUT an extension of TOP 10
DOORS
Color Chart
1 - Red 9 - Light Red
2 - Green 10 - Light Green
3 - Brown 11 - Yellow
4 - Blue 12 - Light Blue
5 - Magenta 13 - Light Magenta
6 - Cyan 14 - Light Cyan
7 - White 15 - Bright White
8 - Grey
Color 1 -> Created by TOPDOOR by Mark G. Spivey
Color 2 -> Top Ten Doors
Color 3 -> ONLINE INFORMATION SYSTEMS
Color 4 -> ---------------------------------------
Color 6 \/
Color 5 -> MARK SPIVEY .............. 46 <- Color 7
Line 3 - Color1
1
Line 4 - Color2
2
Line 5 - Color3
3
Line 6 - Color4
4
Line 7 - Color5
5
Line 8 - Color6
6
Line 9 - Color7
7
EXECUTION
At night during your maintenance event, change to the TOPDOOR
directory and execute TDCOUNT.EXE for the program to increase
the counters. After this program is completed you will be
able to run TDBULLET.EXE which will create the bulletin you
defined in the configuration file. All other execution should
be transparent and not even noticed. The reason TDCOUNT and
TDBULLET are two files is this, if you have a VERY active
system and there will be more than 500 lines in the doors.cnt
file (the file with the names of the doors in it) then you
need to run this program more than once a day as this is the
limit per session. There also is a limit to the number of
doors you can have: 200. If this is not enough for ANYONE,
please contact me via my system 1:3640/13 and I will make you
a special version which can handle as many as you like.