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1993-02-21
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Registered User Tracking Utility
Copyright 1993 -- Ron Bergeron
════════════════════════════════
┌─────────────┐
│ What is it? │
└─────────────┘
The Registered User Tracking Utility is a set of programs that allow you
to easily and automatically keep track of your registered users. Here
are some of its features:
* Automatically downgrade users after registration period expires
* Alter user security level and/or access flags
* Display .ANS/.ASC screen encouraging users to register with your BBS
* Display .ANS/.ASC screen warning registered users when registration is
going to expire soon
* Display .ANS/.ASC screen advising users when their account has expired
* All .ANS/.ASC screens are fully customizable by the sysop
* Ignore users with certain security levels and/or access flags set
* Automatically upgrade users by simply entering their name and
expiration date into database
* Track up to 500 registered users
* Logs all upgrades or downgrades
* Multitasking capable for multinode systems
* Many options yet easy to set up
┌───────────────────┐
│ How Does It Work? │
└───────────────────┘
When every user logs onto your BBS, REGCHECK.EXE will check to see if
their name appears in the registered user database (which is created by
CONFIG.EXE).
If the user is NOT in the database, REGCHECK.EXE will display a sysop
configurable screen which suggests that the user consider registering
with your BBS.
If the user IS in the database, but their registration period is due to
expire soon, then a screen warning them of this will be displayed.
If the user IS in the database and their registration period has
expired, REGCHECK.EXE will lower their security level and/or access
flags and then display a screen telling them of this action.
If the user IS in the database and their registration period is NOT due
to expire in the near future, the program exits and the user is sent to
the BBS.
This version of the program can track up to 500 registered users. If
you need to be able to track more than this, let me know and I can
arrange a special version for you.
┌─────────────────────┐
│ How Do I Set It Up? │
└─────────────────────┘
Create a separate directory and uncompress the distribution file into it. The
files in this compressed file include:
REGCHECK.EXE - The door portion of the program
CONFIG.EXE - The configuration and registered user database program
SUGGEST.ANS - A sample ANSI "suggestion" display screen
SUGGEST.ASC - A sample ASCII "suggestion" display screen
WARNING.ANS - A sample ANSI "warning" screen
WARNING.ASC - A sample ASCII "warning" screen
EXPIRED.ANS - A sample ANSI "expired" screen
EXPIRED.ASC - A sample ASCII "expired" screen
REGCHECK.DOC - The documentation (the file you are reading now)
REGISTER.EXE - Program to create the registration form
OTHERS.TXT - List of other available programs
The following files will be created by REGCHECK.EXE and CONFIG.EXE:
REG_USR.DAT - The registered user database
REGCFG.CFG - Configuration file
REGCHECK.LOG - Upgrade/downgrade/error log file
┌───────────────┐
│ Configuration │
└───────────────┘
First of all, you must create the configuration file. This is done
using the program CONFIG.EXE. Start the program and press "C" to enter
the configuration menu. You MUST enter the configuration menu even if
you want to use the default settings. Entering the menu the first time
will create the configuration file. Without the configuration file, the
program will not work. Figure 1 shows the configuration menu with all the
default values displayed.
╔═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗
║ Configuration Options ║
╠═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╣
║ (A) Number of Warning Days: 7 ║
║ (B) Warning Delay: 5 ║
║ (C) Suggestion Delay: 5 ║
║ (D) Expire Delay: 1 ║
║ (E) Zero D/L Counters (Y or N): YES ║
║ (F) Before Security: 45 ║
║ (G) After Security: 5 ║
║ (H) Before Flags: A:???????? B:???????? C:???????? D:???????? ║
║ (I) After Flags: A:???????? B:???????? C:???????? D:???????? ║
║ (J) Ignore Flags: A:???????? B:???????? C:???????? D:???????? ║
║ (K) Ignore Security Level: 32000 ║
║ (L) Prompt Color: Foreground (0-15): 11 Background (0-7): 0 ║
║ (M) Ignore User's First Number of Calls: 20 ║
║ (X) Exit Configuration Menu ║
╚═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝
figure 1 - Configuration Options
A brief explanation of each configuration item follows:
"A" is the number of days before the expiration date that you want to
start warning the registered users. Give the user enough warning so that
they can register again before their registration period expires.
"B, C, D" are delay times (in seconds) that occur after the various
screens are displayed (0 = no delay). You can use this to make sure
your users get plenty of time to read the information on the screens.
"E" is whether or not to zero out the user's up/download counters when
the user's registration expires and they are downgraded. This is to prevent
them from having an unfair upload/download ratio once they are downgraded.
"F" is the security level of a "registered" user. The program will
bring the user to this level if their name appears in the database. If
you enter a "0" here, the user's security level will NOT be affected in
any way. This can be useful if you have several registered user
security levels. The drawback is that you will have to alter the user's
security level and access flags manually instead of having REGCHECK do
it automatically.
"G" is the security level to downgrade the user to when their account
expires. Again, enter a "0" if you don't want to change the security
level.
"H" are the user flags of a registered user. If a user's name appears
in the data base, their flags will be altered according to what you
enter here. Enter an "X" to turn the flag on, a "-" to turn it off, and
a "?" to leave that particular flag alone. (See the section "USER
FLAGS" for more information on this).
"I" are the user flags of an unregistered user. When a user's
registration period expires, their flags will be altered according to
what you enter here. Enter an "X" to turn the flag on, a "-" to turn it
off, and a "?" to leave that particular flag alone. (See the section
"USER FLAGS" for more information on this).
"J" are the ignore flags. If, for example, you set flag A1 to ON and a
user logs on with A1 set, the door will allow the user to go straight to
the BBS without displaying any of the .ANS/.ASC screens to them. This
is good for your friends and visiting sysops. If you choose not to use
this feature, just leave all the bits as "?".
"K" is the ignore security level. Anyone with a security level of this
or above, will be sent straight to the BBS without seeing the .ANS/.ASC
screens. You'll want to at least put your own security level here.
"L" is the foreground and background colors of the prompts that are
displayed after each screen is displayed to the user. The colors are as
follows:
0 - Black 8 - Bright Black
1 - Blue 9 - Bright Blue
2 - Green 10 - Bright Green
3 - Cyan 11 - Bright Cyan
4 - Red 12 - Bright Red
5 - Magenta 13 - Bright Magenta
6 - Brown 14 - Yellow
7 - White (gray) 15 - White (bright)
"M" is the number of calls you want the user to have made to your BBS
before the program starts displaying the "donation suggestion" screen.
This is so a new user can have time to use your BBS for while without
feeling pressured to send in a donation.
┌────────────┐
│ User Flags │
└────────────┘
REGCHECK alters the user flags based on the information that is in the
configuration file. If you put an "X" in one of the user flags,
REGCHECK will turn that flag ON no matter how the flag was set
originally. If you put a "-", then the flag will be set OFF. If you
put a "?", then REGCHECK will NOT change the flag at all.
example:
flags when user logs onto BBS: A:XX------ B:--X-X--- C:-----X-X D:X-X-X-X-
"after" flags: A:-??????X B:???????? C:???????? D:????????
If a user whose registration has just expired logs onto your BBS, REGCHECK
will change the flags to: A:-X-----X B:--X-X--- C:-----X-X D:X-X-X-X-
Notice that the only changes were that flag A1 was set OFF and that A8
was set on. All other flags were left alone because of the question
marks in the configuration template.
┌───────────────┐
│ User Database │
└───────────────┘
Pressing "(R) Registered User List" from the main menu will bring you to
the main registered user database menu (figure 2). From this menu you can
enter, edit, search, delete, or browse through your registered user list.
╔═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗
║ Registered User List ║
╠═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════╣
║ User Name: ║
║ Expiration Date (MM/DD/YY): ║
║ Record Number: of ║
╟───────────────────────────────────────────────────────╢
║ (M) Main Menu (E) Edit User (L) Last User ║
║ (A) Add User (S) Search (N) Next User ║
║ (D) Delete User (F) First User (P) Previous User ║
╚═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝
figure 2 - Registered User List
The following is a brief explanation of the choices on this menu:
"M" will return you to the main menu.
"A" will allow you to add a user to the registered user database. The
user's name will automatically be capitalized. Note that you MUST use a
slash (/) as the delimiter between the month, day, and year.
"D" will delete the current user from the database.
"E" will allow you to edit the current user information.
"S" will bring you to a search menu to search for a particular user.
You can search for either a full or partial name.
"F" brings you to the first user in the database.
"L" brings you to the last user in the database.
"N" displays the next user in the database.
"P" displays the previous user in the database.
┌─────────────────┐
│ Display Screens │
└─────────────────┘
All the .ANS/.ASC screens which are displayed to your users are FULLY
customizable. You are encouraged to change the screens so that they
match your bulletin board's look and feel.
You can use most of the QuickBBS/Remote Access "metacharacters" in your
screens. Metacharacters are control sequences that are automatically
translated by the BBS to display information such as user name, password,
time remaining, etc. (Check your BBS documentation for more details).
I have added a new metacharacter for this program. You can use the
metacharacter $ (or ^K$) to automatically display the number of days
remaining until the user's registration period expires. You can see an
example of this on the screen WARNING.A??.
If you do not wish to take advantage of the feature which displays a
screen suggesting that the user register with your BBS, then you can delete
the files SUGGEST.A??. If REGCHECK.EXE does not find these files in the
default directory, it will not display them and will also skip the time
delay and the prompt. This happens only in the registered version. In
the unregistered version, the file is not displayed but the delay and
prompt still occur.
┌──────────────┐
│ Installation │
└──────────────┘
The program REGCHECK.EXE MUST be run as soon as every user logs onto
your BBS. REGCHECK.EXE needs access to both your DORINFO1.DEF and
EXITINFO.BBS files. See the documentation for your BBS software for
full details on setting up an external door. You must pass the path to
your DORINFO1.DEF and EXITINFO.BBS files to REGCHECK.EXE on its command
line. The following examples should make it clear how to set it up on
your system.
This setup assumes that you have a separate TOP and MAIN menu. If your
TOP menu is also your MAIN menu, then REGCHECK will run every time the
user goes to your main menu. It is a very good idea to have separate
TOP and MAIN menus as in the following diagram:
┌─────┐
│ TOP │
└──┬──┘
┌───┴───┐
│ MAIN │
└───┬───┘
┌────────────────┼──────────────────┐
┌───┴───┐ ┌───┴───┐ ┌─────┴────┐
│ FILES │ │ DOORS │ │ MESSAGES │
└───────┘ └───────┘ └──────────┘
This arrangement allows for more flexibility in your BBS.
If your TOP menu also serves as your MAIN menu, then you will have to
come up some type of flag scheme to compensate for it. For example,
require that a certain user flag be ON in order to run REGCHECK. Then,
after REGCHECK runs, use a utility to turn that flag OFF. Then, as part
of your bulletin board's logoff routine, turn that flag back on so that
REGCHECK will run next time the user is online.
┌───────────────────┐
│ Single Node Setup │
└───────────────────┘
For a single node BBS, you can use the following TOP.MNU type 7 menu entry as
an example:
*c /c *M c:\doors\regcheck\check.bat
The appropriate batch file for this would be called CHECK.BAT and would
look like:
@echo off
cd\doors\regcheck
regcheck c:\qbbs
cd\qbbs
┌──────────────────┐
│ Multi-Node Setup │
└──────────────────┘
For a multiple node set up, you can use the following TOP.MNU type 7 menu entry
as an example:
*c /c *M c:\doors\regcheck\check.bat *N
The appropriate batch file for this would be called CHECK.BAT and would
look like:
@echo off
cd\doors\regcheck
regcheck \qbbs\node%1
cd\qbbs\node%1
When running in a multitasking environment, MAKE SURE that SHARE.EXE has
been loaded!
┌──────────────┐
│ Registration │
└──────────────┘
These programs are NOT freeware! If you use them on your BBS for more
than four weeks, you are required to register them. Run the program
REGISTER.EXE if you decide to register. When you register, your BBS
name will appear in place of the bright yellow [UNREGISTERED] displayed
in the door. This will show your callers that YOU support shareware!
You can't expect your users to support you if you don't support the
doors that you use.
Registration is $20.00 US. The program may pay for itself by
encouraging your users to register with your BBS!
┌───────────┐
│ Copyright │
└───────────┘
REGCHECK.EXE and CONFIG.EXE, Copyright 1993 by Ron Bergeron, are being
distributed as Shareware. Under this concept you may use the SHAREWARE
(unregistered) versions for a reasonable period of time (4 weeks) for
evaluation after which you must either register your copies or remove
them from use on your BBS.
┌──────────┐
│ Warranty │
└──────────┘
Care has been taken in the development of this program. However, I
cannot guarantee its operation on your particular setup.
This product is provided AS IS without warranty of any kind. The entire
risk as to the results and performance of the programs is assumed by
you. Furthermore, the author does not warrant, guarantee, or make any
other representations regarding the use of, or the results of the use of
the program, and you rely on the program and results solely at your own
risk. The author cannot and will not accept responsibility for system
damage, loss of profit or any other special, consequential or incidental
damages resulting from the use of or inability to use this product.
If this policy is not acceptable to you, DO NOT run the program.
┌───────────┐
│ Questions │
└───────────┘
I can be reached for questions or comments on my BBS.
The Machine
(508)948-2921
FidoNet 1:324/124