home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
BBS Toolkit
/
BBS Toolkit.iso
/
rbbs_pc
/
ad2qwk9b.zip
/
ADD2QWK.DOC
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1992-08-20
|
14KB
|
463 lines
Add2QWK - Adds personal downloads to .QWK packets
Release 0.90ß
August 20, 1992
(c) Copyright Eddie Rowe (Work in Progress)
All Rights Reserved
Eddie Rowe
P.O. Box 434
Ruston, LA 71273
HOTLine RBBS
(318)-254-0019 (v.32bis)
Fidonet 1:19/124
RBBSNet 8:975/6
Table of Contents
Copyright and License 1
Warranty 1
What is Add2QWK? 1
Software Requirements 1
Hardware Requirements 2
Acknowledgments 2
Installation 3
Operation 4
Author's Committment 5
Future Enhancments 5
Add2QWK Development 5
Add2QWK History 6
Add2QWK (.90b) Page 1
COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE
Add2QWK is (c) by Eddie Rowe (Work in Progress)
All Rights Reserved.
You are hereby granted a limited license to use, copy and
distribute Add2QWK on the following conditions:
1. You may use the program for any non-commercial or
commercial purpose.
2. You may copy and distribute as many copies of this
program, provided you do not charge money for the
program. A small fee (for copying, handling,
mailing, and the disk containing the copy) is
allowed, but this amount shall NOT exceed your real
costs.
3. The program and documentation shall NOT be modified
in any way. While permission is granted for the
conversion of the distribution archive to one's
favorite flavor, files shall NOT be added or deleted
from said archive.
WARRANTY
No warranty of any kind is offered on Add2QWK except that
it may occupy valuable disk space.
Furthermore, you use this program AT YOUR OWN RISK.
Under no circumstances shall the author be liable for
damage this software may inflict upon your or your
property - either by itself or with your help.
WHAT IS Add2QWK?
Add2QWK is designed for the sysop who has users who
prefer to do a turbo logon directly to the QWK mail door.
Add2QWK will insert any outstanding personal downloads
into the user's QWK packet and overwrite the EPILOG
screen contained in the QWK packet so when the user exits
the packet they are alerted that their personal download
was included.
SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS
RBBS
To use Add2QWK you must first have a copy of RBBS-PC
installed (and working). This version of Add2QWK was
developed with RBBS-PC 17.4 with Maple merges and should
Add2QWK (.90b) Page 2
work along side any previous/future versions of RBBS-PC
provided the Personal Directory's structure is in line
with RBBS-PC 17.4's.
QWK Mail Door
Add2QWK was developed alongside Chip Morrow and Doug
Wilson's Mail Manager Plus QWK mail door. Add2QWK is NOT
hard coded to work only with Mail Manager. I have used
their mail door for many months now and Add2QWK was
written for my users and is now being shared with you.
If you are using another mail door and make the necessary
modifications so that Add2QWK will work alongside your
QWK mail door, I would appreciate it if you would drop
off an archive with examples of how you did it. This
will enable me to help others out in the future by
distributing such information.
Archivers
Add2QWK has been tested with Robert K. Jung's ARJ,
Haruyasu Yoshizaki's LHA and Phil Katz's PkZIP. Add2QWK
is NOT hard coded to support only these, but does require
that the archiver read a filename which is actually a
list of files. If you add some additional archivers, I
would sincerely appreciate a copy of your batch
file/command line to share with others.
If you need to pickup these files, I have the following
versions which I have tested & use currently:
ARJ230.EXE 200k
LHA213.EXE 44k
PKZ110.EXE 150k
These are File Requestable the normal 23 hours per day at
v.32bis speeds from 1:19/124. You could also logon as
(name) NOSNAIL LATEST (password) VERSION and access my
personal download directory which contains these.
HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS
There should be no hardware requirements in excess of
those you are currently operating under with RBBS-PC. To
quote Jan Terpstra, "think about that for a while....".
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The RBBS-PC community.
Add2QWK (.90b) Page 3
INSTALLATION
Step 1 - RBBS-PC SETUP
Your personal downloads directory should already be setup
and most likely contains a few entries of files. If you
have not setup your personal downloads directory, refer
to the RBBS-PC documentation.
STEP 2 Add2QWK.CFG
A sample configuration file is included in the
distribution archive - identical to the one presently
being used on my system. There should NOT be any
comments in the configuration file!
Sample Add2QWK.CFG File:
c:\rbbs\personal\
priv.def
Line 1 is the full path (with a trailing "\") to your
personal downloads directory.
Add2QWK REQUIRES ALL personal files to be located here!!!
Line 2 is the name of your personal download directory.
STEP 3 - Modification of RBBSQWK.BAT
Your RBBSQWK.BAT file needs to be replace with one that
calls Add2QWK. (Note to none Mail Manager users:
RBBSQWK.BAT is the batch file that Mail Manager uses to
create its archives. You are on your own here if you do
not use Mail Manager. Sorry.) By all means SAVE A COPY
OF YOUR WORKING BATCH FILE! I've included a copy of the
one I use so feel free to use it after making any
necessary changes for paths, etc.
STEP 4 - Placement of EPILOG
The EPILOG screen (the one which will replace the normal
EPILOG screen in the QWK packet when the user has a
personal download) needs to be placed inside your
personal downloads directory. I've included the one I
use as a beginning point for you. I suggest if you have
users who are not capable of support IBM graphics that
you make this an ASCII file....
Add2QWK (.90b) Page 4
STEP 5 - Placement of Add2QWK.EXE
You may place the executable of Add2QWK anywhere as long
as you remember to edit RBBSQWK.BAT to provide a full
path to its directory should it NOT be in your DOS path.
STEP 6 - Setting DOS environmental variable for the port
While I would like to learn to use the fossil to send
text out the COM port, I currently have not learned
enough about fossils to begin this task. Single node
systems need only hard code their batch files to send
some text out the COM port, but multinode systems cannot
do this for obvious reasons. 8-) If you are not using an
environmental variable for your ports, might I suggest
the following for com2:
Set port = 2
Then in your batch file you can echo text to the com port
like this:
Echo This is neat stuff > com%port%
OPERATION
Add2QWK's operation thrives on the command line. Add2QWK
will not run if it does not find the necessary infomation
on the command line. Multinode systems will want to make
use of the %node% environmental variable. Here is the
syntax used to call Add2QWK:
Add2QWK /CFG:xxx /DOR:yyy
xxx = the full path and name of your configuration file
yyy = the full path and name of your dorinfox.def file
As you might imagine Add2QWK does a bit of manipulation
of the personal download directory. In order to
hopefully minimize problems, Add2QWK copies your personal
directory to the file ADD2QWK.OLD each time it runs.
Add2QWK reads in each line of the personal directory and
looks for matches. As it reads the information in from
the personal directory, it writes a duplicate copy of the
personal directory as ADD2QWK.NEW. The ONLY difference
between your ADD2QWK.OLD and ADD2QWK.NEW will be the
character in column 105. If Add2QWK finds a file
belonging to the user in the QWK mail door, it replaces
the "*" in column 105 with a "!". After Add2QWK reaches
the end of the file, it copies ADD2QWK.NEW on top of the
old personal directory. If this does not work for you
(ie those who multitask) PLEASE LET ME KNOW!!! I would
Add2QWK (.90b) Page 5
also be grateful to any suggestions you could offer.
AUTHOR'S COMMITMENT
Add2QWK was written for my users who prefer to do
business with the QWK mail door. While I have some ideas
for fine turning Add2QWK, I cannot speculate as to when I
may have an opportunity to work on them. If you enjoy
Add2QWK and would like to see something added/changed to
it then by all means drop me a netmail note detailing
your ideas. I always relish netmail from people who have
found my software to be of use to them! Might I suggest
you use my Fidonet address if possible as Fidonet is
netmail routing friendly.
BUG REPORTS
If you experience any difficulty with Add2QWK, strip your
system of any software which may be resident and
potentially causing conflicts. If you ARE able to point
the finger at a TSR or device driver, please pass this
information on to me so I can document it and attempt to
remedy. If the item is a shareware product which would
allow you to send me a copy, please do. If not please
supply me with complete information as to the name &
version of the software and the address & phone number of
the author.
If you are unable to point the finger at anything on your
system, then it is time to let me try to duplicate it
here. In order for me to do this I will need the
following as a minimum:
1. DOS manufacturer and version
2. Machine type (microprocessor), manufacturer,
bios manufacturer & date
3. Environment under which you operate.
4. Copy of your AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS
5. Add2QWK.CFG
6. Complete details as to what is wrong, how
discovered, and attempted futile remedies.
Archive the various files into a unique archive which
includes your node address as part of the name if you
have an address, else dream something up.
Add2QWK (.90b) Page 6
FUTURE ENHANCEMENTS
For those that are curious, here are my tentative future
plans:
1. Continue to squash any buglets which spring up and
a continued optimization of the code for efficiencies
sake - no sense getting sloppy in the beginning.
2. Support a fossil driver to control messages going out
the COM port.
Add2QWK DEVELOPMENT
Add2QWK was developed under Digital Research's DOS 6.0
QuarterDeck's DESQview 2.41. While there is NO support
coded for DESQview, it has been operating happily in the
window used for Binkley/RBBS-PC.
Add2QWK HISTORY
0.90ß August 21, 1992 - First public release of Add2QWK