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WildFire Ver 1.5
A Live Program External Menu System and Execution Monitor
for
Spitfire Ver 2.5+
(c) 1988 Stephen L. Cox
A LiveStuff Presentation
* Spitfire is trademark and copyright Buffalo Creek Software
Welcome to the wonderful world of WildFire!! WildFire 1.5 provides COMPLETE
external menu and execution control of doors running under Spitfire 2.5 and
up. It adds many useful features to Spitfires slim support of doors. Here are
the highlights of version 1.5..
*EXTERNAL MENUS - Registered versions provide 22 menus of 22 entries each.
Shareware versions provide 2 menus of 4 entries each.
Allows up to 484 total doors in system
*NO BATCH FILES - Execute Wildcat!, RBBS and PCBoard and GAP doors without
batch files.
*RE-ENTRANT MENUS - All doors return to MENU instead of Spitfire FAST!!
*USER SELECTABLE MENUS - Users select new menus without return to Spitfire
*AUTO LOCAL SUPPORT - Runs MOST doors in LOCAL mode automatically
*RE-RUN LOCKING - Lock out multiple daily runs of each individual door!
*TIME CONTROL - Control the time users can spend in individual doors
*SECURITY CONTROL - Control security level for each individual door.
*MULTI-LEVEL TIME LIMITS - Different time limits for different security!
*EXPIRED DOORS - Automatically runs many expired doors!
*UP/DOWNLOAD RATIO DETECTION - Lock doors on ratios - multi-level-optional
*VAULT TIME LOCK - Lock doors completely during certain hours of the day!
*FULL FEATURED EDITOR - Includes editor to construct and edit menus.
*USES CSHELL 1.0 - Written in Microsoft C 5.0 using CSHELL door system!
*OTHER FEATURES TO NUMEROUS TO MENTION!!
THE PRELIMINARIES:
[[[ Limited License ]]]
This software is copyrighted but a limited license is granted and you
are free to use and share it under the following conditions:
1. WildFire is not distributed in modified form
2. No fee or other consideration is charged for WildFire itself
3. The REGISTERED USER version of WildFire MUST NOT be distributed
4. Reference to the copyright and author is retained.
5. If your callers like this program, or if you want updates sent to
you, or if you need support or immediate answers to problems
Then please send a registration fee of $30.00 to:
Steve Cox
Flite-Line BBS
938 N. 70th, Suite 102
Lincoln, Ne.
68505
With registration you receive:
Full registered copy of the latest version of WildFire
Program support
Updates via Flite-Line Download
[[[ Warranty ]]]
The WildFire system is provided "AS IS" without warranty of any kind,
either expressed or implied, including, but not limited to the implied
warranties of merchantability and fitness for any purpose. The entire
risk as to the quality and performance of this program is with the user
and should the program prove defective, the user and not the author will
assume all responsiblity with correcting all information. The author
does not warrant that this program will function in the desired mode or
will meet any users requirements or that the operation of the program will
be error free.
* THE INSTALLATION OF WILDFIRE ON YOUR SYSTEM CONSTITUTES ACCEPTANCE OF THE
ABOVE TERMS *
This program is written in Microsoft 'C' V 5.0.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING:
I am deeply indebted to the following people for their participation in
the beta testing phase of WildFire. Without their efforts this product
would not have been possible... Thanks guys!
Don Gump, Silicon Alternative, Fort Wayne IN.
Herb Mellinger, The Silicon Lab, Hudson FL.
Alan Criado, PBM Connection , Miami FL.
Rick Kingslan, Lost Boys BBS , Omaha NE.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[WildFire Overview]]
The real reason WildFire was developed was to control time usage on my
extremely active BBS system and to better organize the entire doors system.
I currently run about 70 doors and have found it to be a problem because of
the addictive nature of the games, especially those of the calibur of Trade
Wars 500. I wanted to encourage users to spend at least part of their daily
time participating in other sections of the BBS besides the games. I had
dozens of users logging in and playing out their entire daily time allotment in
the doors and never doing anything else. My reasoning was that if a user is
limited to a certain amount of time that is something less than their daily
board time, they might, just might, spend their remaining time doing other
things. Experience with LiveMon has shown this assumption to be correct. The
success with LiveMon led to the plan to expand it into the full blown door
monitor that you are now looking at, WildFire!
WildFire operates as a door program itself although a very special one. It's
purpose is to tightly control the execution of other doors within your system.
It organizes your doors into categories that let you place like games in
specific menus. It also allows you to place a specific door in more than one
menu. The menu layouts follow those of Spitfire closely so they should present
your users no problems. You may have upto 22 menus of 22 entries each or
484 doors total in your system. Try doing THAT in your Spitfire DOORS menu.
The Shareware version allows 2 menus of 4 entries each.
Doors executed within the WildFire environment are no longer forced to return
back to the BBS upon termination thereby forcing the user to go through the
log-on sequence repeatedly. Return from each door is back to the WildFire
menu from where the user started. This saves a great deal of time for the
user and provides greater execution control for the sysop. Users may change
menus and move around at will, selecting any door your system has availabe
without returning to the main board.
WildFire provides built in support for door programs written to be run under
serveral types of BBS systems. Most of the doors we have available today
were designed to run under either the PCBoard system or RBBS-PC. At present,
although growing, there are very few Spitfire specific doors available.
Running doors for these other systems under Spitfire can be tedious at best
and capable of producing cardiac arrest at worst! WildFire does it's best
to make this task easier. It will automatically produce all the conversion
files necessary to run doors for these other systems. Doors for most all
versions of Wildcat, PCBoard 11.x thru 12.x, doors for the newer versions
of RBBS 15.1C and up, GAP doors, QBBS doors are supported. Most of them
even in the LOCAL mode!
The time monitoring features of WildFire allow you to set the maximum amount
of time a user may spend in doors each day. Additionally each
individual door may have a time limit for each access by the user. These time
limits are independent of the daily Spitfire time limit controlled by the users
security level. The timing features are multi-level in that users with
different levels of security can be given different time allocations within
WildFire.
WildFire provides full security control of all the doors in your system.
You can attach a security level to each door that will prevent users with
lower security levels from executing it. This can be set for EACH
door in your system. You might for instance have a few doors that could be
considered adult doors and you do not want them accessed by users without the
proper clearance and verification. Or, you might have some doors that you
want available only to registered or contributing users. You can assign those
doors a security level that would let only the selected levels access them.
WildFire also provides a feature called 'Vault Time Lock' or VTL. This
feature allows you to completely lock your door system to ALL users between
certain hours of the day. Ever suffered the frustration of trying to get onto
your own board during the day to do maintenance from some remote location, and
couldn't get on because Joe was playing out 50 Trade Wars turns? WildFire
can alleviate this problem by making it impossible for users to enter the doors
between the times you set. This will at least keep gaming activity from
interfering during your selected times. The lock time can be as short as 1
minute or as long as 23 hours and 59 minutes. You should be able to find a time
slice that will meet your needs.
WildFire also provides a feature called 'UDR' or Upload/Download Ratio
monitoring. This feature will allow you to optionally lock the doors system
to users who have exceeded the pre-set up/dn load ratios.
WildFire provides a method whereby SOME expired doors can be run indefinetly
on your system. There are several criteria that must be judged before using
this feature. It is NOT provided as a way to keep you from having to
register a door that is useful to you!! It is inteneded to help you and your
users evaluate some of those doors that you download and find already
expired after you get them. If you continue to use the door then you SHOULD
register it to encourage the author to produce other works that are of use
to you. 'EDS' or expired door support will not work on all the variations you
find. The only way to find out is to try it and see if it will work.
One other feature worth mentioning that WildFire provides to you is Re-Run
locking. You may mark any door in your system as a 'run once only' door and
the user will automatically be prevented from accessing it more than once
a day. Nice for the addicts out there that never get a chance to see what
else you have because they can't tear themselves away from Star Traders or
whatever.
That pretty well sums up what WildFire is and what it can do for you. While
the features that it provides are extensive, it is relatively easy to set
up and run. I have provided a full featured editor for the menu system to
make the task of door installation into WildFire nearly painless. I hope
you enjoy it. If it proves usefull to you and your users then please
register it and encourage me to continue to enhance it. I believe that
WildFire will prove to be a valuable enhancement to an already superb piece
of software, Spitfire
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[INSTALLATION OF WILDFIRE]]
The package you downloaded should contain the following files. If any of the
files listed below were not included, call Flite-Line BBS to download the
latest Shareware version:
WILDFIRE.EXE The main menu/monitor system Version 1.5sw
MENEDIT.EXE V 1.5 of the menu editor
LCTCP.EXE The PCBoard time calculator
LCTCR.EXE The RBBS time calculator.
LCTCG.EXE The GAP time calculator.
WILDFIRE.CFG Example menu/monitor runtime configuration file
WILDFIRE.PRM Example contains the time control parameters for WildFire.
MENEDIT.PRM Configuration and important info for the editor.
LCUSER.DAT Initialized empty user file
WILDFIRE.DOC This documentation.
PROBDOOR.DOC Listing of doors with known problems
README.1ST Last minutes notes not in the documentation
GAMEDES.BBS Beginning games description file.
MENEDIT.RPM Duplicate of MENEDIT.PRM for restart
SF.TAB Sample SF.BAT to run WildFire with Spitfire
TIPS.DOC Tips from the author on running doors.
DAT4PCB.ARC Sample PCBOARD.DAT file and docs to get you started
STARTOVR.BAT Batch file to kill all necessary files after done practicing
your setup so you can start over.
Files created at runtime by the editor:
MNAMES.LST Menu names
MDESCP.LST Menu description lines
LCMENU.SCN File containing all the WildFire menus
XXXXXXXX.SCP One file for each menu, contains the execution script for
each door listed in the menu.
Setup of WildFire is relatively easy but you MUST DO IT RIGHT!!!!
Step 1: Make a backup copy your current SF.BAT file. It will require
some changes to run WildFire and we want to keep the original
safe till everything is ready to go.
Step 2: Copy all of the WildFire files to a separate subdirectory. I
recommend that this should be 1 directory down from the Spitfire
directory. IE: \sf\wildfire.. You may place all .EXE files
in the WildFire system in a ram disk or anywhere in your DOS
search path but all DATA files MUST be in the WildFire directory.
Step 4: Modify the WILDFIRE.CFG file. This file contains all of the
ENVIRONMENT information for WildFire. Modify it per the example
below to conform to your needs.
Line #1 1 <-- Comport (Do not include COM:)
Line #2 Flite-Line <- BBS Name (35 Characters max);
Line #3 Steve <- Sysop first name (15 charachters max)
Line #4 Cox <- Sysop Last name (25 characters max)
Line #5 NONE <- 19200 if locked DTE otherwise NONE
Line #6 c:\sf\sfds.org <- Path to the door info file
Line #7 c:\sf\callers.log <- Path to the activity log
The above configuration file MUST be set correctly or WildFire will
not run!!
Step 5: Modify the WILDFIRE.PRM file. This file contains all of the TIMING
parameters that WildFire will use. Modify it per the example and
explanations below.
The format of the WILDFIRE.PRM file is as follows:
Line #1 67 <- door time limit in percent or flat minutes
LIne #2 10 <- Upload/Dnload ratio lockout at 10:1
Line #3 1 <- percent or flat time flag
Line #4 07:00 <- Start time to lock doors (VTL)
Line #5 08:00 <- End time for door locks (VTL)
Explaination of each line follows:
Line #1: May be 10 to 99.
This number is interpreted one of two different ways. In one case
it is the maximum number of minutes ANY user regardless of
security level can spend total in door programs in one day. In
the second case it as a PERCENTAGE of TOTAL BOARD TIME that the
user may spend in door programs in one day. It's interpretation
is controlled by line #3.
Line #2: May be 0 (zero) to x (any number)
This number controls the upload download ratio lockout feature.
In the example above, if the user entered WildFire and their
up/dn load ratio was not within 10 to 1 they would be locked out
of the doors until they had done some uploading. This number can
be any ratio you wish. If you do NOT wish to use this feature
then just set line #2 to a 0 (zero) and ratio monitoring will be
disabled.
Line #3: May be 0 (zero) or 1 (one).
This line is important. It tells WildFire how to interpret Line #1.
If you set line 3 to a 0 (zero), WildFire will interpret line #1 as
a flat time and whatever number is in line #1 will be assigned
to every user as their maximum allowable door time. If line #3
is set to a 1, WildFire treats the number in line #1 as a
percentage. It will calculate the daily doors time for a
user by examining the dailylmt.bbs file to see how much daily
board time a user with this security level is allowed and then
assign the indicated percentage of that time as total daily
door time. This effectively allows users with higher security
levels that give them more daily BBS time to also have
correspondingly higher daily door program times.
Line #4 May be 00:00 to 23:59
This line tells WildFire when to TOTALLY lock the door system (VTL)
Line #5 May be 00:00 to 23:59
This line tells WildFire when to OPEN the door locks (VTL)
Doors will be totally locked between the times in lines #4 & #5
After initial setup of the WILDFIRE.PRM file it can be edited and changed
with ease by the menu editor program. Thats all there is to configuring
WildFire itself. Please read the above descriptions competely until you
understand them. The setup of these two files is crucial to the proper
operation of WildFire. It is extremely important that the two path lines
in the WILDFIRE.CFG file be set correctly. If not set to the proper directory
WildFire will absolutely refuse to function properly.
Here is a graphic of how I have WildFire set up on my system:
DRIVE C:
/TW500M
/
/DOORS
/
ROOT DIRECTORY
\
\SF \
\
\WILDFIRE
all WildFire files
This corresponds exactly to the way the path lines (#6 and #7) are set up
in the WILDFIRE.CFG file.
**** SPECIAL NOTE **** **** IMPORTANT *****
In order for WildFire to do all the things it is designed to do, you MUST pay
close attention to your use of security levels in Spitfire. It is
recommended that you only use the MINIMUM number of security levels to
properly secure your system.
In a Spitfire system, the most important file to WildFire is a file called
'DAILYLMT.DAT'. This file contains an entry for each security level being
used in your Spitfire system and the total amount of daily BBS time users
with that security level can have. This file is read by WildFire when a
user enters doors for the first time each day. It looks up their security
level in this file and then determines how much daily time they can have.
This time is the one against which all other WildFire time calculations
are performed. YOU SHOULD MAKE SURE THAT THERE IS AN ENTRY IN THE
DAILYLMT.BBS FILE FOR EACH SECURITY LEVEL IN USE ON YOUR SYSTEM..
If WildFire cannot find a security level in the DAILYLMT.BBS file that
matches the one assigned to the user that just entered doors, it will
by default assign security level 10 and a maximum daily board time of
30 minutes. It will use these numbers to calculate the door control times.
I further recommend that you assign to yourself, as sysop, a security level
of 1000 and make sure it is entered in the DAILYLMT.DAT file with the
proper time limits. This makes it easier for Wildfire to recognize you
as the sysop and not control you as tightly as a regular user.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
NOTE:
In the following pages I have chosen to present the editor to you more in
the form of a step by step tutorial rather than just a disjointed list of
functions. My suggestion is that you use the documentation to create a few
sample menus to get the feel of things. Once you feel ready, delete all
the practice files with the included STARTOVR.BAT batch file and then go to
it for real. Some may not like the format of this documentation, others
will. I'm not entirely happy with it myself and I will be continuosly
revising it. Any suggestions you could provide would be greatly appreciated.
[[ YOUR ORGANIZATION ]]
Before you actually start building menus for WildFire, you need to spend some
time thinking about and planning how you will organize your doors.
WildFire can keep everything orderly for you only if you do your planning!
Running under WildFire it is best to categorize all of your doors into
specific themes such as WAR GAMES, Trivia Games, Board Games and so on.
You will want to create a Spitfire DOORS Menu that presents the user a
selection of all these categories, and then you will want to take care
to place all the doors of the same type into the appropriate WildFire menu.
Here is a reproduction of the Spitfire DOORS Menu I use on my system.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>>>>> SPITFIRE DOOR MENU <<<<<<<<
<1> ... War Games <2> ... Adventure Games
<3> ... Trivia Games <4> ... Quick & Easy Fun Games
<5> ... Database Systems <6> ... Simulations
<7> ... Demos for Sysops <8> ... Unavailable to you
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
The corresponding SFDOOR.MNU file would like this to support the above
structure:
War Games,10
Adventure Games,10
Trivia Games,10
Quck & Easy Fun Games,10
Database Systems,10
Simulations,10
Demos for Sysops,10
Set the security level (10 in the above example) to the LOWEST level in use
on your system for ALL of the menu entries and then let WildFire handle
the individual door security for you.
The above example illustrates the categorization of a WildFire system that
could have up to 154 doors, or 22 entries in each of the 7 categories.
The door numbers shown each correspond to a DOOR_X entry in the SF.BAT file
required to start WildFire with the indicated menu as the default.
Now that you have decided how you will categorize your doors and how many
categories there will be, you must name each one of them.
A CATEGORY name and a MENU name are the same thing. A category or menu name
must follow all the rules of a DOS FILE NAME, 8 characters or less, no spaces
and alphanumeric characters . These category names will be displayed to the
user when they are inside WildFire so they should be descriptive. Door #1 on
our example Menu screen is WAR GAMES. Inside this category we will have
Trade Wars II, Power Struggle, Galactic Conquest and other war game doors. It
seems that a logical name for this menu or category might be WARGAMES, right?
Right now, decide on the names that you will use for the menu categories you
decided on.
Now that we have decided how many categories we will have and what their names
are, we must construct 1 entry in the SF.BAT file for each of them. This
SF.BAT entry is VERY simple.
Again, using door #1 in our example, named WARGAMES, here's what we would do.
If you placed WildFire in it's own directory according to the structure I
recommended earlier, heres what your DOOR_1 entry in SF.BAT would look like.
COPY SFDOORS.DAT SFDS.ORG
CD \SF\WILDFIRE
WILDFIRE WILDFIRE.CFG WARGAMES
CD \SF
If you placed all of the WildFire files right in the Spitfire directory, here
is what the DOOR_1 ENTRY would look like.
COPY SFDOORS.DAT SFDS.ORG
WILDFIRE WILDFIRE.CFG WARGAMES
See, very simple! Construct one of these DOOR_X enties in the SF.BAT to
correspond to the number and name of each of the categories in your
proposed Spitfire DOORS Menu.
If you placed WildFire in it's own directory then it is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT
that the commands to CD to the WildFire directory and then back to the
Spitfire directory be in the proper place or you will have a mess!
If you previously had doors running on your system and you ever got your
directory changes wrong you will understand what I'm saying.
Once you have determined what your menu categories will be, named them and
constructed a DOOR_X entry for each of them, make a list of the doors that
you will include in each category and write down the category name, you will
need all this information to construct your WildFire menus with the editor.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[ CREATING NEW MENUS ]]
The next step in configuring WildFire to run on your system is to build
the system menus and install the execution script for each door in your
system.
The WildFire editor is designed to make this as easy and intuitive as
possible, but I'll warn you now, it's going to take some time and work.
Make sure you are logged into the WildFire directory and that all of the
WildFire files from the ARC package are there. If you are ready to start
building just type: MENEDIT
The intro screen of the editor does a little salesmanship for me and then
expects you to press <ENTER> to get started. When you press <ENTER> the
main operating menu appears.
Building a menu with the editor is a three step process and isn't difficult
but you must have the particulars of each door you are going to install at
hand. This includes the name of the directory in which the door resides, the
name of the executable program, the name of the .CFG if any, associated
with the door, and the type of BBS that the door was designed for.
All of the work in setting up WildFire comes at the front end when you are
installing all of your existing doors for the first time. After that, the
installation and maintenance of doors inside WildFire is extremely fast and
simple.
Step 1: [F1] Create/Select menu
This is the first step in building a new menu or editing an existing
one. In WildFire, each menu has a name by which it is referenced.
Press F1 now and the menu selection window will open. Since this
is your first menu it will be blank and you are being prompted for
the name of a new menu.
The menu name you enter here is the CATEGORY name you selected
in the previous step and put into each of the DOOR_X entries in
the SF.BAT file. Remember, menu names MUST follow all the rules of
a DOS file name. They must contain standard characters, no spaces
and they must be 8 or less characters in length. The name you chose
for the menu will be displayed to the user while in WildFire so
the names should be meaningful. We are going to build the menu for
our WARGAMES category and we are going to install two doors in
it: Trade Wars 500 and Power Struggle. Type in WARGAMES now and
press <ENTER>.
When you pressed <ENTER> a verification window opens and asks you
if in fact this IS a new menu and this IS what you want to name it.
Simply answer Y or N and the editor will act appropriately.
If you answered Y to the verify prompt another window opens (I love
windows) and you are prompted for a description of the menu being
created.
These one line descriptions are displayed to the user while in
WildFire so they also should be as descriptive as possible within
the one line allowed. The description for our WARGAMES menu might
look like this: WAR GAMES (Space & Sea) Multi & Single Player.
When you enter your menu description and press <ENTER> you are taken
automatically to a fresh menu entry screen.
It's hard to do much wrong in this screen. Just enter the menu
entries as you wish the user to see them. All of the editing keys
are available including INSERT, DELETE, BACKSPACE and all of the
ARROW keys. Left and Right arrows move you back and forth in the
field and the Up and Down arrows move you between fields.
The one thing you must NEVER DO in this screen is leave BLANK FIELDS
between entries. You MUST fill out the entries in sequential order
or you will blow WildFire's mind.
We are putting in two entries. The highlight bar is setting at entry
[A] waiting for input. Let's type in: Trade Wars 500 (don't indent,
the first character must be at the left margin). Pressing <ENTER>
moves you to the [B] entry position. Type in: Power Struggle 3.0 and
again press <ENTER>. The highlight has now moved to [C]. We only
want these two entries in our menu so this completes our entry.
To save these two entries press CTRL+ENTER. This saves the new
screen, sets up some system parameters and leads to step 2. You
can press CTRL+ENTER in almost any screen to save the current state
and return to the main menu.
Step 2: DOOR ATTRIBUTES
The door attributes are the heart of the WildFire system. They are
responsible for exerting the control over the door and the user
The name of the door whose attributes we are entering is displayed
in the window border so you don't get confused about which entry
you are working with.
You should be seeing the attribute window for Trade Wars 500 right
now.
Each door installed in WildFire has a door number. This number is
assigned by the system and cannot be changed once the door has
been installed. The door number is used internally by WildFire to
control re-run locking.
The first attribute you can enter is the BBS type flag. WildFire
can handle doors for several types of BBS systems. Wildcat 1.10 and
1.11, Wildcat 1.12, PCBoard, GAP, QBBS and certain types of
RBBS-PC doors. For more information on the specifics of the door
types that WildFire can handle, refer to appendix A.
Since we are installing the Mutli-Board version of Trade Wars 500
it has a Wildcat 1.10/1.11 interface. Enter the letter 'W' for
Wildcat and press <ENTER>. If it had been a PCBoard door you would
have entered 'P' and for RBBS you would have entered an 'R'.
See, that isn't so difficult is it?
Now enter the number of minutes PER SESSION that a user will be
allowed to be in this door. I limit my TW players to 30 minute
sessions.
Now enter the security level that is required to run this door.
The security level you enter here is a 'greater than or equal to'
number. I require a minimum of level 20 for playing trade wars. If
you enter 20 here then all users with security level 20 and UP will
be allowed in the door.
Next you are asked if you wish to permit the user unlimited runs of
the door daily or if it will be restricted to 1 run per day. You
be the judge! If you answer 'Y' here, then the door is locked to
the user after return from the first run. If you answer 'N' then
the user will be able to enter the door as many times as they want
within their time limits.
The next prompt is for expired door support or 'EDS'. If you enter
a 'Y' to this prompt then WildFire will alter the system at run-time
and try to execute the door. This may work with the selected door
and it may not. It just depends on how the author chose to block
it. The only way to find out is to try it! Since Trade Wars is
not an expired door, enter 'N'
Step 3: EXECUTION SCRIPTS
Now the editor jumps to the EXECUTION SCRIPT screen.
Entering an execution script is very easy to do if you have all of
the info about the door. Each script can be upto 13 lines in length
and each line can be upto 70 characters wide. As in the menu entry
window, all of your editing keys are active.
When you enter an execution script it MUST NOT CONTAIN anything
other than pure DOS commands. You MUST NOT enter batch language
commands such as IF ERRORLEVEL and IF EXIST in the script, although
you CAN place the names of batch files themselves in the script.
Enter only the bare minimum commands to change to the directory
where the door is at, execute it and change back to the WildFire
directory.
I have all my doors in a subdirectory off of root named DOORS.
Each door has it's own subdirectory below that. Trade Wars is in
a directory named TW500M. The entire path to TW on my system is:
C:\DOORS\TW500M. Remember that and try to visualize the paths
as we create the script.
The script on MY system would like this, you just change it to
suit your path names.
cd \doors\tw500m
tw2
cd \sf\wildfire
Thats it!! Notice that I did NOT include a command to restart
Spitfire such as 'sf.bat' or a command to restart WildFire. Thats
because WildFire is memory resident throughout door execution. You
don't want to run Spitfire again at this point or you would have one
screaming nightmare on your hands.
In ALL cases you MUST NOT run other types of file format coverters
such as WC2PCB or MAKEPCB to convert from one board type to another
unless you are specifically instructed to do so by this documentation
because WildFire does all that for you and if you try to include
these other conversion uitlities in your script you DEFEAT WildFire's
attempt to time control the door.
There are some special characters available that you can put in
the script file to instruct WildFire to take some specific action
before the door is run. These special action characters are the
predecessor to a full blown COMMAND LANGUAGE that will be upcoming
in Version 2.0 and will be documented at that time.
I don't recommend that you use 'carrier watchers' in your system
such as Watchdog because the reboot forced by them does not allow
any user information to be updated. My opinion is that you are
better off to take those doors completely out of your system that
hang themselves up on a carrier drop. BUT, if you wanted to run
watchdog in the above script it would look like this:
watchdg1 ON
cd \doors\tw500m
tw2
cd \sf\wildfire
watchdg1 OFF
NOTE: If you DO run watchdog with any of your doors you will NOT
be able to run them in LOCAL mode from WildFire.
Again, very simple! Any DOS command can be included in the script
such as commands to copy files back and forth and so on. Generally
speaking, you can put anything in this script that you would put
in a batch file, except batch language commands themselves.
NOTE:
In the case that a user should drop carrier while inside one of
the doors, WildFire IS smart enough to catch them at it and still
get their time use records updated if Watchdog is NOT used. As the
door program senses that carrier was dropped and shuts itself down,
WildFire intercepts the exit and recognizes that carrier was dropped
and goes ahead and updates the users time record and then recycles
Spitfire. If you use watchdog this feature is defeated. Be aware
however that are conditions under which a door can lock up and
not release itself from memory. This happens most often to doors
that are written in Basic. They will hang up when the BRUN runtime
support package reports an error and will not release until a
carriage return is entered from the local keyboard. This is the
kind of thing that Watchdog can catch and WildFire cannot, although
many times even Watchdog is unable to act when this happens.
NOTE:
It is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT that if directory changes are required
in your script to run the door, that you return back to the WildFire
directory when the execution is complete. If you end up in the
Spitfire directory or some other, you are going to have a mess! It
won't hurt anything in your system, but your time records will not
be updated and subsequent runs of a door will probably fail and the
user may not be able to return back to Spitfire You MUST get that
script correct.
After you have entered the last line of your script, press good ole
CTRL+ENTER and the script will be saved away. Trade Wars has now
been installed in WildFire.
The editor has now looped back to the ATTRIBUTE window for the
next menu entry, Power Struggle. Just follow the same procedure
for installing PS as we did for Trade Wars.
That completes all the steps necessary to install a door into WildFire. It
may seem a bit confusing the first time or two that you do it, but as soon
as you get used to the procedure you will find that the editor makes it very
easy and fast to install a new door, edit an existing one and to diagnose a
problem with any door in your system.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[ EDITING EXISTING DOORS ]]
It is neccessary from time to time to edit menus that are already in your
system. This is how you would add a new door to an existing menu or alter
some aspect of a door that is already in the system. You might want to
change the time users have for the door, it's required security or possibly
change the re-run lock flags.
To edit an existing menu you first need to SELECT a menu to work with. You
do this just as if you were entering a new menu, by pressing F1 at the
main menu. Instead of typing the name of a NEW menu, just type the name
of one of the existing menus that are displayed to you in the window.
When you type the name of the menu you want to edit, the editor sets up
everything, loads the requested menu and takes you to the edit screen.
The edit screen has two windows. The small window at the top tells you what
you can do, and the big window shows you what you can do it to!
The two primary functions of the edit mode are to 1) F1 Edit menu entries
or 2) Edit and change attributes and scripts.
EDITING MENU ENTRY TEXT
F1 Edit menu entries.
This is the function that you would use to change the displayed menu entry
that the user sees. When you press F1, the highlight bar is position on
entry [A]. You may change the entry in anyway you wish but you MUST NOT
LEAVE IT BLANK. The only entry you may change to a blank entry is the
last one. What I am trying to tactfully tell you here is that the
editor is NOT smart enough (yet) to reorder all the entries following
the blank entry. In other words, once any entry except the last entry has
something in it, it MAY NOT BE DELETED. If you wish to delete a menu
item then I suggest that you move the last valid entry in your menu to the
one you want to delete, and then delete the last one by just replacing the
text with blanks! I hope that makes sense. A later release will include
the ability to delete and automatically re-order the entries.
When in the entry edit mode, all of your keyboard editing keys, the backspace
all the arrow keys, insert and delete are active. Just experiment a bit
and you will get the hang of it.
After you have changed all of the desired entries in your menu, press the
CTRL+ENTER keys to save your changes. The highlight bar disappears and you
can now edit the attributes and scripts if you wish by pressing F2, or you
can return to the main menu by pressing F9.
EDITING SCRIPTS AND ATTRIBUTES.
Edit menu function F2
To edit the script and attributes for any door, just press F2. When you
press this key, a small window opens and asks for the item you wish to
edit. This window will not allow you to select the script for non-existant
entry.
When you select a valid entry, the attribute window you saw when you were
entering your menus appears and the current attributes are display. You
can change any of them or you press press CTRL+ENTER to bypass the attributes
and go directly to the script window.
The script window displays the current execution script for the selected
door, positions the highlight bar on the first line and goes into text
edit mode. Use the arrow keys, DEL and INS keys and do anything to the
script you need to do. When finished, hit CTRL+ENTER and the changes will
be saved. If you do not hit CTRL+ENTER, your changes will NOT be saved. This
is true anyplace you have the option of hitting CTRL+ENTER. Hitting ESCAPE
for instance will exit the edit screen you are currently in and will NOT
save any changes you made.
When the script window closes you again see the edit menu and selections
screen. If you are done editing your entries just press F9 to return to
the main menu or repeat your editing steps for any of the displayed entries.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
PRINTING ATTRIBUTES AND SCRIPTS
Main Menu
F3 Print Attributes and Scripts
The ability to print scripts and attributes can be a valuable diagnostic
aid in locating a problem with a specfic door or menu. The script printer
gives you a paged listing by menu name of all the doors, their attributes
and scripts in your system.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
RENUMBERING DOORS:
Main Menu
F4 Renumber doors
This function in the main menu is provided as a safeguard. During the
development of WildFire we had a number of situations develop that resulted
in the door numbers getting out of sequence. This doesn't really cause a
problem unless two doors get the same number, or you get more than a couple
of hundred doors in your system. I included this so that if a problem
ever did develop you would have a way to resolve it easily. I'd suggest
you run this function after about every 10 or 12 new doors you put into
the system.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
EDITING SPITFIRE TIME PARAMETERS
Main Menu
F5 Edit WildFire system parameters.
This function is very easy to use and self explanitory. It allows you to
quickly change any of the WildFire timing parameters such as VTL lock and
un-lock times, maximum daily live program time ETC:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
(yes, I'm getting tired of writing documentation!)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[BOARD LOCAL MODE]]
If you have followed all of the steps above, WildFire should be ready to run.
The easiest way to see if everything is working is to boot up Spitfire and
go into Spitfire locally. Log onto Spitfire using ALT-Q for local log on and
when Spitfire starts up hit [S] for Spitfire DOORS just as if you were a
remote user. Your new DOORS menu should appear.
If your new Spitfire DOORS menu displayed normally just press the number for
any one of the categories in the screen and WildFire should come up running
showing all the entries for that particular category.
Select any one of them by pressing the associated letter indicator. If you
set up your script properly, and you configured the door itself properly,
the door should start running. When the door has finished, it should return
almost instantaneously to the menu from which you started.
[[DOS LOCAL MODE]]
You may also run WildFire in DOS LOCAL mode by changing to the WILDFIRE
directory and typing: WILDFIRE LOCAL MENUNAME, where MENUNAME of course is
the name of one of your valid menus.
Thats WildFire! I hope you enjoy it!!!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[ APPENDIX A - DOOR SUPPORT FOR OTHER BBS TYPES ]]
WildFire 1.5 automatically supports the following door types:
The codes displayed in the editor's attribute entry window have the following
meaning.
W = Wildcat 1.10/1.11 format. Required by most Wildcat doors available at
this writing. The file produced is CALLINFO.BBS and is placed in your
Spitfire directory.
2 = Wildcat 1.12 format. Required by some newer doors for Wildcat such
as Masters of the Universe. This type will become popular very
shortly. The file produced is CALLINFO.BBS and is placed in your
Spitfire directory.
P = PCBoard 11.x thru 12.x format. This is compatible with most known doors
that run under the PCBoard system. File produced is PCBOARD.SYS and is
placed in the Spitfire directory
R = RBBS 15.1c+ format. This format is compatible with version 15.1c and up
of RBBS-PC. WildFire produces a file called DORINFO1.DEF from which the
door program will obtain it's callers information. DORINFO1.DEF is placed
in the Spitfire directory. If you are running your system on COM1, the
RBBS door will use this file directly, if your system is running COM2,
the DORINFO1.DEF MUST BE RENAMED TO DORINFO2.DEF in your DOOR_X entry
and then either file must be copied to the directory in which the
door itself will run. Any RBBS door in a download area that you see with
a dating of 0288 or later in it's name such as CAVE0288.ARC or
KING0488.ARC can be run by WildFire.
G = GAP format. This format is compatible with doors written to run under
the GAP BBS system. WildFire produces a file called DOOR.SYS and places
it in the Spitfire directory.
Q = QBBS format. This format is under development and should not be used at
this time although it's type code does show in the editor attribute
screen.
In later releases of WildFire I plan to provide support for the older RBBS
doors that use the MESSAGES files to get the caller information but I still
have some research to do on the formats and different versions of RBBS.
One other note about RBBS door support. WildFire provides automatic LOCAL
execution for PCBoard and Wildcat doors but NOT for RBBS doors. The format
of the local execution command is different with the RBBS doors that it
is for the other two and I haven't yet figured a way to automatically
get them to run local. If you want to run one of the RBBS doors in local
mode, just drop out of WildFire with the F1, DropDos key, CD over to where
the door is and just run it by typing it's name. Local mode on these
doors does NOT require a .CFG file of any kind and does not require any
kind of local indication on the command line.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
I hope this documentation proves sufficient to get you going! But, if you
have problems getting WildFire to go, give me a call on Flite-Line at
402-421-2434, 24hrs 7days at 300/1200/2400/9600 USR and I will assist you in
getting it running.
Again if you are going to continue using WildFire, please fill out the
form below and mail it to me so I can make sure you get notified of an update.
Your suggestions for improvement and your bugs reports will be appreciated.
Steve Cox
Flite-Line BBS
938 N. 70th, Suite 102
Lincoln, Ne. 68505
DATA 402-421-2434 300/1200/2400/9600 USR (NODE 1)
DATA 402-421-1171 300/1200/2400 (NODE 2)
DATA 402-421-1376 300/1200/2400 (NODE 3)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LiveStuff Registration
NAME: ________________________________ ADDRESS: __________________________
CITY: ___________________ STATE: ___ ZIP: ________ PHONE: _____________
LiveStuff system you are registering _________ SPITFIRE VERSION: _________
COMMENTS: ____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
Registration fees: Single User WildFire 1.5 (registration) $30.00
Single User LiveCat 1.5 (regsitration) 30.00
Multi-User LiveCat 1.8/3 (3 node) 50.00
Multi-User LiveCat 1.8/4 (4+ nodes) 75.00
Upgrade from LiveMon 2.x to LiveCat 10.00
Upgrade from LiveMon 1.x to LiveCat 15.00
LiveMon 2.3 (New system) 15.00
CSHELL 1.0 (registration) 25.00
SuperCat Single User 1.0 50.00
SuperCat Multi-User 1-3 Nodes 100.00
SuperCat Multi-User 4-16 Nodes 125.00
Registration fee of $_________ enclosed.
MAIL TO: Steve Cox
Flite-Line BBS
938 N. 70th, Suite 102
Lincoln, Ne. 68505
______________________________________________________________________________