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1992-06-23
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Changes to RBBS-PC 17.4 Affecting File Exchange
by Ken Goosens 01-31-91
17.4 has four major enhancements affecting file exchange:
1. personal directories have been made a special case of FMS
directories, making the advantages of each available to both
2. personal uploads can sent from one caller to another
3. files can be "marked" for later downloading and viewing
as a group
4. the list of files requested for downloading can be edited
when there is insufficient time.
Personal Versus FMS Directories
17.4 melds together the features available for personal downloading
with those available with FMS directories, so that features that
were available to only one are now available for both. In
effect, the personal directory is now just a special FMS directory.
The enhancements include:
o the file commands s)earch, n)ew, and l)ist now all work for
the personal directory as well. Before, you could only list
personal directories using the l)ist suboption of P)ersonal
download.
o any FMS directory can be declared to be a personal directory
by including the keyword "PERSONAL" in the header.
o the features associated with personal directories have now
been "unbundled" and can be separately elected for any FMS
directory. These features include:
o downloads must be only from the files explicitly
listed in the directory. This can be invoked by
including the word "LISTONLY" in the FMS header.
o downloads can be exempted from any ratios. This
can be invoked by including the word "FREE" in the
FMS header. You can also make downloads from a
personal directory not be free by including the
word "NOFREE". Note: formerly, personal downloads
were counted against ratios - now by default they
are not counted.
o downloads from an FMS directory can have any number
of "free" or "extra" time for downloading. This is
invoked by including "TIMEEXTRA n" where n is the
number of extra minutes. The default extra time for
the personal directory is now 60 (it used to be
unlimited) and the default extra time for non-personal
directories is 0 (no extra time above time remaining).
o items in an FMS directory can have a min security to
be viewed (listed) and downloaded by including a blank
in the 1st space of the category code and a number
after it (up to 2 spaces for the number). Note that
if you put in a security level, you cannot put in any
category code.
A personal directory by default implies LISTONLY, FREE, and
TIMEEXTRA 60. The only other feature a personal directory has is
an extra last character at the end of the line that is "*" when
the file has never been downloaded and is changed to a "!" when it
has.
Personal Uploads
17.4 also supports personal uploading. This allows callers to do
private exchange of files as well as messages. However, under the
former setup for the personal directory, the recipient would have
unlimited time to download these files. Hence the default set up
is now that personal downloads have an extra 60 minutes. The
personal downloads also do not count against ratios. Clearly,
personal uploading allows users to fill your BBS with many and very
large files. A minimum security to do a personal upload can be
specified in configuration parameter 159. The default is that
only a SysOp can do a personal upload. If you want to extend this
privilege to other callers, you might want to restrict personal
downloading further to prevent abuses by
o making it count against ratios. Just put a header record
in the personal directory (begins with "\FMS"), add
"NOFREE", and make sure it extends out to the full length
of the lines in the personal directory. This has no
effect unless you are restricting downloads by ratios.
o giving the download no or less extra time. Put
"TIMEEXTRA 0" or some small number in the header record.
Note: when an upload is sent to a person, a flag is set in the
user record and the person will be notified upon logon if the user
file is included in the conference mail scan.
Marking Files
RBBS 17.4 supports a new option inside file directory listings to
M)ark files. Mark essentially is a shorthand way to keep a listing
of files for later viewing or downloading. The idea is that the
caller can mark all the files of interest and then later download
them all at once. Marked files operate as a group, just like
an ordinary file. For example, "d y file1 z m w file2" would mean
to download, using protocol "y", file "file1", then use protocol
"z" to download the marked files, then use protocol "w" to download
"file2". The markings are removed once the marked files are
downloaded. Marking is operative for both viewing and downloading,
and for all directory listings, including the upload directory,
FMS directories, and personal directories.
Marked files are especially valuable for non-FMS directories, since the
listing does resume after a mark. Hence, callers for the first time
can pick all the files to download and continue viewing, without having
to terminate the viewing to download. Marked files also make picking
off files for downloading easier in FMS directories, when the files are
scattered across different screens.
The marked file option forced a change in the prompts. RBBS used
to let you just list files for downloading at a pause in a directory
listing, with an implied download. Since one must be able to both
mark new files, "M" is used for the command to mark. How, then,
would the called say to download previously marked files? It became
necessary to always have the "D)ownload" option available. This
allowed new prompts that used to take file names to support TurboKeys.
So, the option to simply list files by name for downloading is no
longer listed in the prompts (... or file(s) to download). However,
if the caller is not in TurboKey mode (or suspends TurboKeys with "/"),
RBBS will continue to interprete a list of files as an implied download
command.