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Text File | 1992-02-17 | 16KB | 366 lines

TriTel Online Reader v2.1 (c) 1991 Elm L. Morrow written in Turbo Pascal 5.5 utilizing RMDOOR 2.0 For TriTel v2.x -by- E.L. Morrow 911 N. Pacific Ave #15 Crescent City, CA 95531 Voice: (707) 465-6765 DISCLAIMER: I relinquish any and all responsibility for anything that may occur due to the use of this program, correctly or incorrectly. I am in no way libel for any damage that is attributed to the use of this program by any and all persons. SHAREWARE: TriTel Online Reader is ShareWare. It's not crippled or anything, but it does let your users know that it isn't registered by showing #UNREGISTERED# at the top of the header on the file selection menu. Registration is only $17 for this new version. Future upgrades will be priced accordingly depending on how much is changed and added. Anyone who registers now will never have to pay for another registration of this program. Your registration number will be good for all versions. Distribution of this program will be solely the province of the large number of BBS's across the country. I can't afford to send disks out to people who register. I know this sounds kind of crude, but if you enclose your BBS number when you register along with a password to get on your system, I'll upload the latest version (if it's different) and send you a private message in an appropriate conference that will list your registration information (just a reg number and name actually). Print and fill out the form in this archive called TTREAD.REG and mail it to: Elm L. Morrow 911 N. Pacific Ave Apt 15 Crescent City, CA 95531 Make checks or money orders payable to: Elm L. Morrow WHAT IT'S FOR: This Tritel door is for viewing text files while online. At first, you think to yourself, "that's nuts! who wants to read stuff online?" Well, this just might change your mind. Do you have long, important bulletins? Nobody reads them because it's such a pain. Now they can read them with paging ability, a simple search function and, if they decide it's important, they can download the file straight from the door! This, however, is not the extent to which you can use this door. Any text file you want your users to be able to access will work. The list of files includes a security rating, so you can have various types of information for different levels of users. You can display files up to about 80 Kb. If the file is larger than that it truncates it. I'll work on giving it the ability to be more flexible as I go along, but I think it's capable of holding large enough documents for most people. I don't know what the format is for things like USA Today and any other news service that's out there, but if they're just text files and are within the size limit, there should be no problem using this door. If anyone out there cares to give me the spec's on anything like this, I'd be more than happy to work it into the reader. I do have a filter operating that removes the TriTel @ codes from any document it displays. This is for things like bulletins or news files that contain these special formatting codes that you don't want people to look at. It doesn't remove them from the file, just refuses to display them <grin>. BTW, this filter works with the WildCAT! format commands as well since they, coincidentally, have the same format. Please let me know of any other codes/strings that should be watched for and filtered out of the display. SETTING UP: Since this new version is multinode, you will need to have a configuration file for each node. I have called mine TTREAD1.CFG and TTREAD2.CFG, but you can call them anything you like. Ahhh. Now we come to the fun part! This reader requires a few files besides itself to run. One set is the configuration files and the other is the list of files with descriptions and security levels that you want to give people access to. Here is an example configuration file: PCB C:\TRITEL Works of Art BBS Elm Morrow 0 not registered (or a 0 or something) EMS (or the name of a swap file) The first line is the type of door file you are going to use. In this case, it's PCBOARD. The full list is as follows: PCB for PCBoard, GAP for GAP (DOOR.SYS), SF for Spitfire, RBBS for RBBS, or WC for WildCat! Line two tells the door what directory the door file generated by the BBS will be in. This is generally your node's main directory. For example, Node 1 on my board is C:\TRITEL and node 2 is C:\TRITEL2. Line three is the name of the BBS. This is also the registration name that you must use with your registration number. More on that later. Line four is the SysOp's name. Line five is the speed at which your port is locked. If you don't lock your port, then put a zero (0) on this line. Line six is your registration number. Registration numbers are based on a somewhat random algorithm that is based upon the characters of your BBS's name. All of my utils have a different algorithm, so don't get any ideas <grin>. Line seven can hold either the word EMS (in CAPS!) or the name of a swap file. The reader will attempt to swap itself to EMS if it can allocate the memory. Even if you told it to grab EMS, if there isn't enough available it will swap itself out to a file called SWAP.$$$. If you give *any other* value on this line, it will be used as the name of a swap file. Remember: EMS in CAPS! The reader also needs three data files that essentially define your list of files to view, what archivers are available and what protocols the user can invoke in the download function. They are detailed below. VIEWLIST.DAT ------------ This file *must* reside in the same directory as the reader. It is a simple text file that contains a list of entries that take this form: <d:\path\name.ext>,<file description>,<security> The first field is obvious. You must tell the reader on what drive and directory the file is. There is no requirement that it be in the directory you run the viewer from. <file description> can be up to 50 characters long, so you should be able to get the point across. This is what the users will see when they are selecting the file from the Selection Menu. <security> is the level of security a user must have to be able to read that specific file. ARCHLIST.DAT ------------ This file contains the archivers that you want made available to your users when they invoke the download function. This file is a pure text file that *must* have single lines for each entry that take this form: <d:\path\archname.ext>,<text for menu>,<archiver parms>,<arch ext> The first field must have the full name and path to the archiver. You must also provide an extension. Just follow the form in the brackets and you'll be okay. <text for menu> can only be up to 20 characters long and it will be used as the line on the menu that the user will be choosing from. <archiver parms> is a little more complicated. You need to provide a command line that the archiver will use. There are two parameters that the reader will pass to it: %1 Name of archive %2 Name of file to archive <arch ext> is the three-character extension that archives created with the archiver will have. (i.e. ZIP for PKZIP, ARJ for ARJ, etc...) Here's an example of what your entries should look like: c:\dos\pkzip.exe,PKZIP (Most Popular),%1 %2,ZIP c:\dos\lha.exe,LHA (Very fast),a %1 %2,LZH PROTLIST.DAT ------------ This file contains the list and necessary information for the different type of protocols that the user will have at their disposal. It is also a simple text file that contains one-line entries: <d:\path\name.ext>,<menu text>,<parameters> <d:\path\name.ext> are exactly that. Please provide the full path, name and extension. <menu text> is what the users will see when making their selection of which protocol to use for the download. <parameters> is the command line that the protocol will need in order to execute correctly. The reader passes a number of parameters to the program. The only one that is absolutely required to be used is the name of file to download parameter (%1). The parameters are: %1 Name of file to download %2 Baud rate %3 Locked baud rate The following are examples of how to use the parameters: c:\qmodem\dsz.exe,Zmodem (DSZ),port 2 speed %2 sz %1 c:\qmodem\pcz.exe,ZModem (PCZ),2 %2 sz %1 c:\qmodem\pcz.exe,YModem (PCZ),2 %2 sy %1 c:\qmodem\pcz.exe,SeaLink (PCZ),2 %2 ss %1 After you have set these files up, you're door is ready to be put into use by your BBS. I just want to stress again that it is not required that you run this as a PCBoard door. The GAP door file (DOOR.SYS) is much smaller and has all the information necessary. You can use whatever format you most like to use. I just like PCBoard because most of my doors are of that format (as a matter of fact, now that I think about it, the ALL are!) so I prefer to use a single door type to keep from having multiple door definition files laying around on my HD. RUNNING THE DOOR: The batch file for this door is simple. Do something like this: cd c:\tritel\doors\reader ttread ttread1.cfg cd c:\tritel board SPECIAL SYSOP KEYS: These keys give you (the SysOp) the ability to do a number of things while a user is in the middle of the door. Key(s) Function HOME Toggles between the user status window and a help display that lists the RMDoor special keys. F6 Takes 5 minutes away from the caller. F7 Gives 5 minutes to the caller. F9 Quit the door and return the caller to the BBS. F10 Enter chat mode. Pressing the ESC key exits the chat mode. Alt+D Drop to DOS. USING THE DOOR: Now that you know how to set it up and how the SysOp stuff works, lets talk about the other end of things. The first thing the user will see is a header that names the door and me and lets them know if you're registered or not. Just below this will be a box with a list of file description for the user to choose from. If there are more than will fit in the box at a time, just move the cursor down past the bottom and the next page will come up. I've never bottomed out the total number of entries that the menu can handle, but I'm confident that it's well over a hundred. Basically, the size of your VIEWLIST.DAT can be up to 80 Kb! That's a *lot* of file descriptions. When you have the arrows pointing at the file you want to view, press <ENTER> to view it. If you changed your mind and you want to leave the door, press <ESC> and it will exit the door. After you select a file, it will load and the first page will come up on the screen. Because of formatting restrictions for the SysOps side of the display (the SysOp status screen takes up several lines), the window for viewing files isn't very large. Hopefully, it's adequate for whatever you're doing. Currently the only features implemented are Page Up <8>, Page Down <2>, Search <S>, Search Again <A>, and Download <D>. More features will be put in place once the current ones have been fully tested and optimized. Feel free to make suggestions. I'll probably use them! Pressing S to search will put a prompt at the bottom of the window asking you for a string to search for. Just enter whatever you like and press <ENTER>. Searches are =CASE SENSITIVE=. I'll be adding options for searching in a later version. Search Again will do just that. There is a limitation, however. If you page up or down, it will clear the search string from memory and you'll have to enter it again. The selection of archiver and protocol work exactly the same way that the Selection menu does. Simply press <2> for up or <8> for down until the selection you want is being pointed to by the arrows, then press <ENTER>. WRAP UP: Sound pretty limited? Well, it is. So why should you cough up $17 for it? Well, it would be a shrewd maneuver on your part because the price will go up the better the door gets. As a matter of fact, the price has already gone up since the first version. As I stated at the start of this .DOC file, anyone who registers this program will never have to register it again, no matter how much the price goes up. That's my part of the deal. You support me when I'm first working things out with this door and I keep updating it and making it better. People who wait until it's more advanced will have to pay a higher price! SUGGESTIONS, ETC...: Please leave your suggestions for improvements and any other comments on one or more of the following boards: The WheelChair Express (707) 464-3705 Node 1 (707) 465-1272 Node 2 Conference: Nocturnal Support Of course, there's always snail mail. As a general rule, I don't like answering letters, but if you send a check or m.o. for $17 with a letter, I'll more than likely get in touch with you one way or the other. If I've missed something or you can't make sense out of all or part of this .DOC file, get in touch and let me know. It's really not that hard to get it set up, but I don't always feel like writing and so the descriptions of how to do things get erratic and confusing. <Sigh> HISTORY: Version's 1.0 through 1.2 were essentially ßeta versions of the door. Version 1.1 added minor formatting and version 1.2 was a fairly major addition to the download function. Version 1.3 was released only because my registered version of rmDoor showed up and it only gets rid of the ShareWare notice that comes up when someone enters the door. Version 2.0 is now multinode and will work just fine with TriTel v2.0. Please let me know immediately! if there are any problems running this door on your system. This is one of my first multi-node doors and there may still be some bugs in it. Version 2.1 fixed a minor programming snafu. The downloading function should now be back up and usable. Also recompiled using rmDoor v2.0 which fixes the Drop to DOS and chat functions.