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ACTVIEW.DOC
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1991-11-18
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---------------------------------------------------------------------------
ACTVIEW 3.2 (c)
Wildcat! Activity Log Viewer/Analyzer
Copyright (c) 1991 by Greg Wilson
All Rights Reserved
11/18/91
Author: Greg Wilson
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Purpose
-------
Actview was written out of my own need for a tool to assist with reading
the activity log of my BBS. The task of viewing the log with a file viewer
was taking too long and I found myself rushing through the process,
missing many important events such as system ERRORs and invalid logon
attempts.
Actview started as a simple program that produced a one line per call
report with a few flags. After getting input from some fellow sysops, I
decided to write a complete activity log viewer!
Instructions
------------
For a quick look at what Actview has to offer, copy ACTVIEW.EXE to the
directory containing your ACTIVITY.LOG's and run it. If you have more than
one node, you will have to build a file named ACTVIEW.CFG (see below). The
program will display the last recorded day's activity in a one line per call
format with the critical information shown. At the top of the screen, the
range of dates in the log is displayed along with the date of the information
being displayed. The primary Fkey functions are displayed at the bottom of
the screen. More functions are shown in the help window (F1). The calls can
be scrolled using the arrows, home, end, page up, and page down keys. If
enter is pressed, the detail of the highlighted call is extracted from the
activity log and displayed. Important events such as invalid logon attempts,
file overwrites, etc., are highlighted.
Key Function
------------------------------------------------------------------------
F1 - Displays the help window.
F2 - Swaps to another node's log. Directories to your different logs must
be entered in a file named ACTVIEW.CFG (see below).
F3 - Displays the following activity:
* Events
* Wildcat system errors such as files missing.
* Changes to the user's record such as changing birth dates,
passwords, ..etc.
* File overwrites.
* Invalid logon attempts. When detail is viewed for invalid logon
attempt, the next call is displayed for reference.
To return to the normal display, hit escape.
F4 - Displays totals for the currently displayed date.
F5 - Displays new users for the day showing their city and state.
To return to the normal display, hit escape.
F6 - Allows jumping directly to any date in the activity log.
F7 - Jumps to the previous day's activity.
F8 - Jumps to the next day's activity.
F9 - Displays all calls of a specified user. The program will prompt for
user name, beginning date, and ending date of search. The name will
default to the highlighted call. The dates will default to the
beginning and end of the activity log. Actview will scan the log
finding all matching calls and then display the calls in the usual
one line per call format. To view totals for the user, hit F4. To
return to the normal display, hit Escape. To abort the search, press
the space bar.
F10 or ALT-X - Quits to DOS.
ALT-L - Toggles local calls. Local calls will not be displayed or
included in the daily counts.
ALT-S - Allows the entire activity log(s) to be searched for a given string
(such as filename, Message#, ..etc.). Here are some ways I use this
feature:
* Search for all activity related to a particular file.
* Search for all activity related to a bulletin or door.
* Find all users that still use XMODEM.
* See who is using TomCat.
* See who has exceeded their time limit.
* ...etc.!
ALT-D - View all downloads for the day.
ALT-U - View all uploads for the day with descriptions (if available).
ALT-O - Sort calls. Actview will display a menu of 7 different sort types.
This function also works while viewing downloads and uploads.
ALT-V - View all activity logs for all nodes. Every log in the ACTVIEW.CFG
file is scaned for the currently displayed date and the calls are
loaded. This is a major time saver!
A typical Actview session would go something like:
* Type ACTVIEW (if multi-node use the VIRT parameter to load all logs).
* Hit F3; if any errors are displayed, view the detail.
* Hit F5; view new users.
* Hit ALT-U to see what was uploaded.
* Hit ALT-D to see what was downloaded.
* Hit ESC to go back to viewing all calls.
* Scroll though the summary looking for uploads, msgs, carrier
drops and pages viewing the detail of these activities if desired.
An average review takes me about 2 minutes compared to 20 minutes before
I had ACTVIEW!
User Defined Flags
------------------
Actview allows sysops to define flags to indicate that a certain activity
has occured during a call. These one character flags are displayed on the
initial call summary screen and are defined in the file ACTVIEW.FLG. This has
many uses including:
* Flag all users that download a certain file
* Flag all users that use a certain door
* Flag all users that drop carrier
* Flag all users that exceed their download ratio
* Flag all users that leave a message in a certain folder
* Flag all users that complete a certain questionnaire
* .. etc.
A flag is a single character to be displayed in the flag column on the
summary screen. Up to 5 flags can be displayed for a single call. If more
than 5 flags are found, the last flag will be then character "*". Also, when
viewing the detail of a call, any lines that contain the flag string will be
highlighted. In the ACTVIEW.FLG file, the first column contains the flag
character to be displayed. The string to turn on the flag is enclosed in
quotes on the same line as the flag character.
Example: If an additional flag was desired to show any activity related to
the file "FILELIST.ZIP", ACTVIEW.FLG would be updated as follows (remember
that the flag characters must be in column 1):
E "ERROR"
C "DROPPING CARRIER"
D "OVER DOWNLOAD RATIO"
M "MNP:YES"
F "FILELIST.ZIP"
V "ACTVIEW.ZIP"
*** Note: Case is ignored ***
See the file ACTVIEW.FLG for more examples. The initial flags for dropping
carrier, errors, new users, and exceeding download ratio are already set up.
Multi Node Features
-------------------
For multi-node operation, create a file named ACTVIEW.CFG with the
directories and filenames in the following format: (in column 1)
C:\WC30\ACTIVITY.001
C:\WC30\ACTIVITY.002
C:\WC30\ACTIVITY.003
C:\WC30\ACTIVITY.004
The entire path *and* filename must be specified in each line.
NOTE: ACTVIEW.CFG must be in the same directory as ACTVIEW.EXE
This feature may also be useful for single node sysops that maintain
backup copies of their logs under other names and/or directories and still
want to access them via Actview.
NOTE: Actview only opens the ACTIVITY.LOG when needed and closed the file
during all other activities therefore allowing Wildcat to keep writing to the
log without any type of share violation. This greatly increases the
reliability of Actview when using on a log that is currently active. This
also gives the ability to view the current callers activity to see what
he/she just did.
Actview parameters
------------------
ACTVIEW mm/dd/yy NOLocal ERRors NEW NODE=x MONO SNOW BIOS
mm/dd/yy - Go directly to mm/dd/yy.
HELP - Display help screen.
NOLocal - Do not show local calls (ALT-L toggles).
ERRors - Show errors for the day (F3 toggles).
NEW - Show new users only (F5 toggles).
NODE=x - Go to node x. ACTVIEW.CFG must be present.
MONO - Force monochrome attributes.
NOMOUSE - Turn Off Mouse support (speeds up entry and exit).
SNOW - Turn on snow checking during screen writes.
VIRT - View all nodes at once (ACTVIEW.CFG required).
BIOS - Use bios screen writes. This option is not necessary
when running Actview under Desqview because checks for
Desqview are made and direct screen writes are
re-mapped accordingly. BIOS writes are much slower than
the normal direct screen writes and should not be used
unless necessary.
LARGE - Use large jump values during searches. This parameter
is normally not needed unless some of the calls in the
activity logs exceed 100 lines (usually netmail hubs).
If Actview sometimes hangs, try this parameter. It is
not the size of the actual activity log file but the
size of the individual calls within the log. See
MAJ/MIN/MAX paramters to fine tune Actview (only try if
having problems)
Requirements and Limits
-----------------------
* ACTVIEW has been tested with the activity logs created by Wildcat 3.01,
3.0, 2.55, 2.50, 2.15, 2.0 and the Wildcat Test Drive!
* ACTVIEW is Desqview aware. No extra parameters are needed.
Memory requirements: 220k (Multi node see note)
Max nodes in ACTVIEW.CFG: 100
Max flags: 100
Max number of displayed calls is now only limited by the available memory.
The max number is displayed in the help window. This is also the max number
of hits when searching (ALT-S or F9). If the search finds more than the
available number of displayed calls, a message will be displayed and the
search will be halted.
Multi-node note: If your BBS receives a lot of calls each day, more memory
will be needed to view the calls. With 180k, only about 400 calls per day
are allowed to be viewed at once. The max number of calls is displayed in
the help window.
* Actview opens the ACTIVITY.LOG's in READ ONLY mode. *No* writes are made to
*any* files.
Liability
---------
Actview has been tested on multiple machines using many different
configurations and no problems have occured. However, if a problem does arise
due to Actview, I cannot be held responsible. Use at your own risk.
Distribution and Registration
-----------------------------
Actview may be freely distributed only as the following unaltered files:
ACTVIEW.EXE
ACTVIEW.FLG
ACTVIEW.DOC
ACTVIEW.HIS
READ.ME
REGISTER.DOC
ACTVIEW is not free. You must register after the 30-day evaluation time
period.
ACTVIEW is a Shareware product. It is distributed through public access
channels so that perspective buyers can have the opportunity to evaluate the
product before making a decision to buy. If you decide to use this software,
then you are under both legal and moral obligation to register it with the
author. But if you decide not to use it after evaluating the software, you
are under no obligation. It is fully protected by State, Federal and
International copyright laws.
If you continue to use ACTVIEW after the 30-day evaluation time period you
must register it.
Registration Fee : $25 US
Why Register?
--------------------------------------------------------------------
* All opening and closing screens are removed!
* Registered users have access to the Actview support BBS is granted!
* All Actview reports can be downloaded from the support BBS!
* All future updates are free!
To register ACTVIEW, complete in the order form (REGISTER.DOC) and mail along
with your check or money order payable to "Greg Wilson" to:
Greg Wilson
1427 Valley Lake Dr. #1228
Schaumburg, Il 60195
██████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████
* Credit Card Orders (VISA/MC/Discover/Amex) *
██████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████
Visa/MC/Amex/Discover (via the Public Software Library):
1-800-2424-PSL or 713-524-6394
FAX: 1-713-524-6398
CIS Email: 71355,470
Product #10407
Credit card Price is $15 + $3 handling
THESE NUMBERS ARE FOR ORDERS ONLY!
Do not call these numbers for technical support!
All orders are relayed back to me the same day the order is made.
The registered version can be shipped, uploaded or downloaded from my
BBS or via CompuServe.
██████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████
Contacting the Author
---------------------
I can be reached for comments, questions, suggestions, complaints, etc., at
the following EMAIL boxes:
My BBS (SYSOP) - mail checked daily
Mustang BBS (GREG WILSON) - mail checked daily
CompuServe (76547,3106) - mail checked daily
EXEC-PC (GREGORY WILSON) - mail checked daily
Channel 1 (GREG WILSON) - mail checked daily
PC-Ohio (GREG WILSON) - mail checked daily
Executive Network (GREG WILSON) - mail checked daily
-end-