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1990-07-05
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[*] RAAE [*]
Version 1.0
(C) Copyright 1990, By Randall Edwards
DISCLAIMER
----------
The program RAAE.EXE and this documentation are the
copyrighted property of Randall Edwards. All rights, except
those outlined in this document, are reserved.
By using this software you acknowledge that this
software may not suit your particular needs or be completely
trouble free. Use this program at your own risk.
In no event will Randall Edwards be liable for any
damages, including any lost profits, lost savings or other
incidental or consequential damages arising out of the use of
or inability to use these programs, even if Randall Edwards
has been advised of the possibility of such damages.
In short, there's absolutely no guarantees with this
program. Use it at your own risk. If you break it, you can
have both pieces.
CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE
---------------------------
Thanks to Adam Hudson, who wrote the orignal QuickBBS
program which led to RemoteAccess. Thanks also to the
RemoteAccess authors for their innovative work in BBS's.
Thanks to P.J. Muller who wrote a library for QuickBBS
which I arrogantly hacked apart and modified in order to come
up with routines to use in this program.
I give credit to the Taiwanese, who for near-slave wages
produced this computer that this program was written on. By
allowing companies based in the United States to steal their
labor and the profits from their hard work, I have the wealth
and time to 'play' around with this machine and to write
programs like this. They have only their near-slave wages,
terrible working conditions, and my appreciation and hope
that they can overcome obstacles in their way and achieve
full social justice.
PURPOSE AND USAGE
-----------------
RAAE is a program to enter a message into
RemoteAccess' message base. RAAE will convert a text
file into a message from the Sysop and to whoever the Sysop
specifies or optionally to "All" users.
RAAE stands for "RemoteAccess Auto-Enter." It is
pronounced like "ray" or "rae" as in "Norma Rae" that famous
union working lady played by Sally Field in the movie of the
same name. Smart, cute AND a determined union member?!
That's my kind of lady!
RAAE is dedicated to all the exploited workers of the
world and to all workers struggling to form unions to get a
fair share of the profits they themselves create.
RAAE uses the following command line parameters:
RAAE <BoardNumber> <FileSpec> [FirstName] [LastName]
"BoardNumber" is a number 1-200 which tells RAAE to
put the message in a specific message area or "board" in
RemoteAccess' message base.
"FileSpec" is the name of a text file that will be
converted into the message that RAAE generates. This
parameter can contain an option drive/path specification.
For instance, FILE.TXT and C:\TEMP\FILE.TXT are equally
valid. This text file should be plain ASCII text with no
lines longer than 79 characters.
"FirstName" and "LastName" are two optional parameters.
If one or both are given then the message is address to that
person. If neither the "FirstName" or "LastName" parameters
are given, then the message will default as To: All.
All messages generated by RAAE are listed as From:
<Sysop Name> where the "Sysop Name" is the name listed in
RemoteAccess' CONFIG.RA file. The Sysop's name is specified
in the RACONFIG program. In my case this would read:
From: Randy Edwards
All messages have the subject set to "Auto-Enter Message
From <Sysop Name>". Where Sysop Name is the name specified
in RACONFIG's CONFIG.RA file. Again, in my case this would
look like:
Subj: Auto-Enter Message From Randy Edwards
To run the program just specify the proper parameters.
For example:
RAAE 1 C:\RA\TEST.MSG John Doe
would create a message in board number 1 with the text from
C:\RA\TEST.MSG and address it to John Doe.
RAAE 50 ECHO.RUL
would create a message in board number 50 with the text from
the file ECHO.RUL in the default directory, and address it to
All.
RAAE will add a tear line to all messages it generates.
If the board that it is posting a message into is an echomail
board, as defined in the MESSAGES.RA file, then RAAE will
also add the correct * Origin: line and node address that is
specified for use with that message board.
There are many ways to use RAAE. For instance, I
moderate the ANEWS echo, an echo of alternative news, and I
post the rules to ANEWS in the echo once a month on the first
day of the month. I use RAAE like this:
ErrorLvl DOM <-- This determines the day of the month
IF ErrorLevel 2 GOTO START <-- restarts the batch file
RAAE 10 C:\MISC\ANEWS.RUL <-- run RAAE
IF ErrorLevel 1 TSUtil Index <-- check for a RAAE error
This sequence would create a message in ANEWS with the
rules to the echo on the 1st of every month. The message
would be to "All" contain the text from C:\MISC\ANEWS.RUL.
Another ingenious use of RAAE is to greet new users
to your system. For instance, the top lines of the file
NEWUSER2.ASC of my system contains the following:
Please Wait ...
^XC:\UTILS\RAAE.EXE 1 C:\MISC\NEWUSER.MSG *F *L|
This sequence runs a shell from a text file (the
Control-X, ^X) which runs RAAE to generate a welcome
message in board 1 (my local message area). RemoteAccess
supplies the user's first and last names with the *F and *L
macros. Then during RemoteAccess' sign-on mail check the
user will be told that he already has a message waiting (even
though it's his first call!). This has surprised quite a few
users on my system. See your RemoteAccess manual for more
information about doing shells from text files.
I'm sure you'll be able to think up many more uses for
RAAE.
NOTES AND WARNINGS
------------------
RAAE was coded for use on a single-line RemoteAccess
system. It contains no code for file-sharing or record-
locking and it requires sole access to RemoteAccess' message
base files.
RAAE has been tested extensively, but of course no
guarantees are given. If the program encounters an error it
will return an errorlevel of 1. If the program runs
successfully it returns an errorlevel of 0.
I've never had the program corrupt a message base in
testing. The most common errors are that the text input file
cannot be found, the board number is out of range (not 1 to
200) and minor things like that.
Because of the potential of a severe error corrupting
RemoteAccess' message base, the program, if run from a batch
file, the program should be trapped to determine the
errorlevel it ends with. If the program ends with an
errorlevel of 1 (an error occured) then you should run a
message base packing program to re-create the index files to
your message base. While this is normally not necessary, it
is cheap insurance!
For instance, in my batch file I run RAAE like this:
RAAE 10 C:\MISC\ANEWS.RUL
IF ErrorLevel 1 TSUtil Index
or using QuickBBS' message pack program it'd look like:
RAAE 10 C:\MISC\ANEWS.RUL
IF ErrorLevel 1 MsgPack -I
This batch file chunk would detect an error and then run the
appropriate program to create new index files.
RAAE can be run from any directory. It checks the
default directory and the RemoteAccess environment variable
RA= to find the CONFIG.RA and MESSAGES.RA files. Once it
finds CONFIG.RA it then reads info such as the directory to
where the message base is located, the Sysop's name, node
numbers, and things like that. From MESSAGES.RA it reads the
type of board that it is to work on -- Local, Netmail or
Echomail -- and which node number and origin line to use.
Failure to find any of these files -- the message base files,
CONFIG.RA and MESSAGES.RA --will cause an error.
VERSION HISTORY
---------------
1.0 - Initial public release.
LICENSE
-------
It's free. If you like it use it. If you don't like it
then erase it from your disk(s) and forget all about it.
The only persons and/or organizations that are
specifically forbidden to use this program are anyone
employed by the Department of Defense and/or the National
Security Agency of the United States Government.
Please don't modify and then redistribute the program
and/or documentation.
Suggestions and bug reports may be sent to Randy Edwards
at the Socialism OnLine! BBS at 1-203-274-4639, 300-14400 bps
HST, FidoNet 1:141/552.0 or Good Egg Net 99:9300/552.0.
Trademarks mentioned in this document are probably
registered to their respective owners.