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1992-03-10
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WC30VIEW.EXE
For WILDCAT 3.0+ only! (c) 1992 Karl Schneider
8505 Woodwick Ct.
Tampa, FL 33615
813-884-9661 voice days
" " " BBS Midnite to
0800 only!
--------------------------------------------------------------------
3-10-92: Fix, was failing to read some DOOR.SYS files correctly when
the WC board had a very large number of conferences.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
11/19/91 Note: WC30VIEW can be used for another purpose, which I
hadn't even thought about until talking with Gaylon O'Dell. It can
be called from a DOOR to read a .ZIP'd, ARJ'd, ARC'd or LZH'd file
such as a newsletter, etc. Just replace the '%1' argument with
the archive file name.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
11/02/91 update. Fixed problems with COM ports 3 and higher with
nonstandard IRQ, address, etc. WC30VIEW now begins with MAKEWILD
to get Port, IRQ & address, then checks for SET WCPORTID, SET
WCIRQID, SET WCBASEID, and SET WCMDM and uses the values from these
environment variables. (See pages 32 & 278 in your manual).
These changes are transparent to the sysop; setup and operation are
unchanged. Also added code to display 'time remaining' while awaiting
a response from the caller, and changed the timeout values: if the
caller doesn't input a command within one minute, or drops carrier
at any time, control is returned to WILDCAT.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
10/1/91 Maint. update, minor changes.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
9/29/91 update. Made DV aware, added code to operate with COM
ports 3 and 4, using IRQ and port address directly from WC setup.
Should work on most any port setup. Replace any versions dated
prior to 9/29/91.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
9/20/91 update. Discovered some DOOR.SYS files have more than 1
line of Conferences Joined....fixed to skip these to get proper
Wildcat Home node dir. Please discard earlier dated versions.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
WC30VIEW allows a user to view any .DOC, .TXT, READ-ME...etc. (ASCII)
file within a .ZIP, .ARC, .ARJ or .LZH archive in your download areas.
It will immediately reject any request to read a .COM or .EXE file,
and, in the case of other strangely-named files which may not be
readable, aborts the read if it detects strings of 'binary' char-
acters which wouldn't make sense anyway. Any WC indexed file with
a .ZIP, .ARC, .ARJ or .LZH extension can be viewed; anything else
is rejected.
I would like to thank Vernon Buerg for graciously extending permis-
sion to include his fine FV utility in this archive, and Robert
K. Jung, the author of ARJ, an excellent archiving utility which
is becoming deservedly popular.
Following is a short excerpt from AV.C which is distributed with
the ARJ archives:
/***************************************************************
AV.C, ARJ, R JUNG, 01/28/91
Display the contents of an ARJ archive
Copyright (c) 1990 by Robert K Jung. All rights reserved.
License policy:
You are free to use this code for any purpose as long as you make
mention of its original author.
******************************************************************/
Consider Robert mentioned, and his AV code has been used to make
a slightly shorter version of AV.EXE for use with WC30VIEW.
Vern Buerg is the author of many excellent programs, and I urge those
who use software written by him and Robert to support them as well
as other authors of shareware!
---------------------------------------------------------------------
IMPORTANT NOTES:
1. This program is for WILDCAT 3.0x and later.
It will NOT work with 2.xx or any earlier versions! Runs
on either single-line systems and any/all nodes of a multi-
line board. File sharing is supported.
2. You MUST have, somewhere in your PATH, the following:
FV.COM or FV.EXE (c) Vernon Buerg.
PKUNZIP.EXE (c) Phil Katz
LHARC.EXE (c) Yoshi
ARJ.EXE (c) Robert K. Jung
AV.EXE (c) Robert K. Jung (needed for ARJ files)
PKXARC.EXE or PKUNPAK.EXE (c) Phil Katz
(if you want to use PKUNPAK, you must re-name
it to PKXARC.EXE; only these exact filenames
are valid!)
If you absolutely have NO .ARC, .ARJ, or .LZH files in your system,
you don't have to have the corresponding programs....however, keep
in mind that if, for example, you DO have an .ARJ file catalogued
and do NOT have ARJ.EXE and AV.EXE in your PATH (or the current
working directory when this program is run), it will lock up your
system. I didn't include code to FORCE these programs to be in-
stalled in your system for those sysops who absolutely know for
sure they will not have one or more of these archive types.
> All the above are required for 2 reasons: fairly regular changes in
> these archiving utilities occur, making an 'all-in-one' de-arcing
> program difficult to maintain, and we believe that the authors
> of those programs would prefer to have THEM used to
> extract files created BY them, respectively.
3. If you have any problems running WC30VIEW it is probably due
to either (a) failing to have the programs above in your PATH,
or (b) running out of memory. WILDCAT does a shell to DOS for the
View Arc function, and furthermore, WC30VIEW invokes another
copy of COMMAND.COM which loads the un-archiving programs
(PKUNZIP, etc.). You will need about 150K free memory after
WILDCAT shells to [V]iew arc, so you MAY have to change your
MAKEWILD settings so that WILDCAT is swapped out of memory
for this (and external protocol) functions. Unless you have
an awful lot of memory-resident stuff, it shouldn't be a
problem.
4. There is no 'LOCAL' option on this program. It ONLY talks to
the COM port that Wildcat uses. You can always drop to DOS
and use any of the programs described above. If you log on
locally and attempt to [V]iew an archive, the program will
abort and return you to WILDCAT.
5. I have not included the ability to Download individual parts of
an archive. That's my personal preference; I don't like just
'pieces' of an archive to get distributed around....but if there
is sufficient demand for this feature (?), I will consider adding
it.
WC30VIEW will be invoked in your \wc\wcwork\nodex directory, where
VIEWCOMP.BAT gets copied to. Edit it in your Wildcat home node dir-
ectory for the node in question, just as you normally would.
Carrier detect is monitored and returns to the board if a caller
drops carrier. WILDCAT then takes over and recycles in the normal way.
Callers using ANSI will see different portions of their selections
in colors.....prompts green, archive contents list yellow, warnings
in red or flashing red, and ASCII files in bright cyan.
The 'chat' function is included in case you need to yell at
the user real quick for some reason. The user can NOT page you
or INITIATE the 'chat' which is a very rudimentary kind;
it does not include line-wrap or other fancy stuff.
You can dump a user immediately back to the board by pressing ESC.
To install WC30VIEW:
Create or edit VIEWCOMP.BAT in your Wildcat HOME NODE DIRECTORY,
It should contain ONLY this ONE line: (other than REMs you may
want for reference)
wc30view %1 n
In place of the 'n', put a number. This is the number of
MINUTES the caller will be allowed in this program,
REGARDLESS of his activity and will send him back to
your board after that time. 5 or 6 minutes should be
plenty for most applications. The timer stops during
a 'chat' with the user. In any case, the user's keyboard
is checked and WC30VIEW will dump him back to WILDCAT
after 5 minutes of inactivity.
***** DO NOT use the '>' redirection to a file such as has been
used with PKUNZIP, etc....like: pkunzip %1 > viewcomp.dat,
and do NOT try to return to WILDCAT with a CAT.BAT command!
That's all there is to it; the program gets everything it
needs from the various WILDCAT system files.
If you find this program useful, a registration of $10 or thereabouts
is in order. Doing so will get you support for the program and
modifications you may want, within reason. Thanks!
-end of file-
---------------------------------------------------------------