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Text File | 1994-05-21 | 18.1 KB | 409 lines

▒▒▒▒▒▒▄ ▒▒▒▒▒▒▄ ▒▒▒▒▒▒▄ ▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▄ ▒▒█▀▒▒█ ▒▒█▀▀▀▀ ▒▒█▀▒▒█ ▒▒█▀▀▀▀▀▀ ▒▒█ ▒▒█ ▒▒▒▒▒▒▄ ▒▒█ ▒▒█ ▒▒█ ▒▒▒▒▒▒▄ ▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▄ ▒▒▒▒▒▒▄ ▒▒█▒▒▒█ ▀▀▀▒▒█ ▒▒█ ▒▒█ ▒▒█ ▒▒▒▒▄ ▒▒█▀▒▒█ ▀▀▒▒█▀▀▀ ▒▒█▀▀▀▀ ▒▒▒▒▒▒█ ▒▒▒▒▒▒█ ▒▒▒▒▒▒█ ▒▒█ ▀▒▒█ ▒▒▒▒▒▒█ ▒▒█ ▒▒▒▒▄ ▀▀▒▒█▀ ▀▀▀▀▀▀ ▀▀▀▀▀▀ ▒▒█ ▒▒█ ▒▒█▀▒▒█ ▒▒█ ▒▒█▀▀ (c) Copyright 1993-94 ▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒█ ▒▒█ ▒▒█ ▒▒█ ▒▒▒▒▒▒▄ Modern BBS Development ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ ▀▀ ▀▀ ▀▀ ▀▀▀▀▀▀ * FIRST TIME USERS OF QSOGATE: Please be sure to read the file called HISTORY.DOC once you have browsed this DOC file. The HISTORY.DOC file contains latest info on changes and additions to QSOGATE that are not mentioned in this file. (Please see HISTORY.DOC and UPDATE.DOC for latest info BEFORE installing) * Description * QSO Gate is a utility that enhances the operation of eSoft's QSO and also provides a nice interface for tagging conferences. QSOGate also allows you to read/write messages from the TBBS message base and also will allow reading of PcBoard 14.5 message bases on-line. * (See notice at bottom of this file for info on PcBoard 14.5 bases) √ Enhanced message area listing with ability to list NETWORK, and a brief description for EACH entry! √ High speed 'select' utility that allows using methods such as #-# or single entries such as # or #,#,# or even #,#-#,#,#-# ! √ The MAIN MENU of QSO Gate is YOURS! You are free to make it look any way you like, and to go one step further.... you can place any key and TBBS/TDBS entry type on the screen too! QSO Gate only holds the rights to key 1 and key 2, which are ENTER QSO and SELECT CONFERENCES respectively. Using the QSOGate.Ctl file, you can define ANY key entry to do things like: 1) let user return to last calling menu KEY=- TYPE=12 OPT DATA=1 2) allow user to use ASR's QWKFIX to upload reply packets KEY=U TYPE=200 OPT DATA=C:\Tbbs\QwkFix\QwkFix /q 3) allow user to download help file for QSO KEY=D TYPE=1 OPT DATA=C:\Qso\QsoHelp.Doc /D 4) or let the user log off using your logoff menu! KEY=G TYPE=5 OPT DATA=BYE NOTE: Software, especially on-line applications, need to be stamped with a Copyright Notice. We feel that letting the MAIN MENU be yours for design is better than making it to our liking. So, in order to comply with that methodology, we placed the Copyright stamp 'on the way out' of QSO Gate into QSO. There is ZERO delay to display this notice, so the only delay that is felt is the actual process time of QSO Gate to generate a custom INCLUDE file, drop it, and close all datafiles. √ QSO Gate comes with QGate.Exe, which is an off-line utility that is the heart and soul of setup. Using that, and the Ctl2Gate.Exe utility, you can mass import your qso.ctl file. After the import, enter Qgate.Exe, and make all the adjustments you need to make including authorizations using the users PRIV, A1, A2, A3, A4 or even LINE considerations! Qgate.Exe even comes with a high speed "Mass Update" feature that allows you to change a whole group of records with only a few keystrokes! √ Advanced datafile structures! QsoGate keeps a 'ptr' file with a 1k BINARY entry for each user. Their conference selections are stored here until you squeeze the QsoUser.Log file for age.. or until he makes changes. Using the QsoGate.Ctl file, you are able to store your defined MAIN MENU key entries and have them read on the fly. With limited use of "resource draining" programming engines, QSO Gate is very considerate of your system in respect to impact. * Purpose * QSO Gate was written with one initial intent. With the latest outbreak of TBBS satallite installations, everyone seems to want to make 4700 or more conferences available via QSO, naturally. After discovering some of the limitations QSO and TBBS impose due to the multi-user environment, a 'front door' type utility was in demand. Some of these limitations are as follows: 1) Not more than 1500 conferences can safely be defined in the QSO.Ctl file when using the QsoExtern.Ctl file. This limits the use of PcBoard style (EXTERNAL) message bases. 2) When using 1500-1800 conferences, a user may have to withstand a 3 to 10 minute run time load period. They are better off reading on-line! :-) 3) When a user enters the "Select Conferences" function, QSO displays a list of available areas. When running with any more than 300 or more msg areas, a user can/will find it hard to understand what each entry is suposed to be due to the truncation of of the MSGAREA definition to only 12 characters, and there is no way to descibe what each entry is.. nor can the user tell where the message originates... FidoNet, RIME, SeekNet, Internet, ThrobNet, etc... QSO Gate addresses these problems directly by first, making the user enter the QSO module THROUGH QSO Gate, letting the user select conferences from a list that shows him the Conference NAME, DESCRIPTION, And NETWORK all in an ergonomic style. If the user has a Conference selected, it is clearly denoted with a √ next to the conference. When the user is finished making his choices, he enters QSO with a CUSTOM CTL file that is loaded JUST FOR HIM! No longer will QSO have to crunch through 5000 conferences... it will just be expected to load THAT user's list, which is ONLY what he selected, normally between 10 and 50!! QSO Gate keeps a record for each user so that the selections are saved for the next call(s). NOTE: QSO Gate is a TDBS utility that clearly demostrates the power of TBBS/TDBS and QSO working together. In no way does QSOGate take the place of QSO nor does it compete with the excellent software mechanics of eSoft's QSO module. QSO Gate is meant only to enhance it's operation and appearance. * Setup Instructions & Information * Please follow these instructions CAREFULLY. We recommend that you read ALL the instructions first, and then come back and follow each step in order. STEP 1) Make a directory for QSOGate to live in. EX: C:\QGate Place all of the files from the QSOGATE.ZIP archive into this directory. Step 2) (If you are NOT already running QSO, go to step 3) The very next thing now is to make a copy of your QSO.CTL file into your QsoGate directory. If you are just setting up eSoft's QSO for the first time, create your QSO.Ctl according to your needs as instructed in the QSO manual. When you have a copy of the QSO.Ctl file in your C:\QGate directory, edit the file to include only MSGAREA and RESTRICT statements. Delete EVERYTHING ELSE! Only lines that either start with the work 'MSGAREA' or 'RESTRICT' or 'ENDRESTRICT' will be valid. Anything else in this file that is not commented out using the ';' will cause setup interference. EXAMPLE: ; Comment Line, this will be ignored. MSGAREA 1x TBBS "TBBS" FIDONET MSGAREA 2x WINDOWS "WINDOWS" FIDONET RESTRICT A1=-------X A3=X..X.... Priv=200 MSGAREA 3x CUSTOMERS "CUSTOMERS" LOCAL ENDRESTRICT NOTE: This file is VERY strict in it's format. It complies with the normal QSO setup 100%! You must have the following items defined for the Ctl2Gate program to work properly: MSGAREA <msgID##><attributes> <qwk name> <msg base name> <networkID> Even if you never used a NETWORK ID statement before, edit the file to now include one. Use 'LOCAL' for non network msg areas or something similiar. Now run Ctl2Gate.Exe and this will mass import the edited QSO.CTL file into the QSOGate.DBF file and build its indexes. STEP 3) Run the QGate.Exe program. This program is very user friendly and allows you to edit each area for things like PRIV level, flags, etc. Once you make all the necessary changes to the actual database of entries, it is now time to do the on-line installation. STEP 4) If you already have QSO installed on your system, simply replace the menu entry with the following info. If you do not have QSO installed, make a menu entry like the following to access it... ENTRY: Key=Q Type=5 Opt Data=GATE This will call the following menu you will create next. Now, make the following menu and compile it and place it into your menu????.ctl directory (where all your menus are). You can clip this out and use it or make your own..... Menu: GATE Entry: Key=^@ Type=200 Opt Data=C:\QGate\QsoGate /q -C:\Tbbs Entry: Key=^@ Type=45 Opt Data=GATE EndMenu: Note the trailing 'C:\Tbbs' in the call to QSO Gate Entry in menu GAT1. This is a path to TBBS so that QsoGate can access the REAL QSO.Ctl file which is where this file should be. If you don't include this, QsoGate will look for it in the C:\Tbbs directory by default. STEP 5) Edit the menu and display files. Using TheDraw or something similiar, edit the GateMain.Ans and GateMain.Asc files. These are your MAIN menus for when you enter QSO Gate. You must have at least three entries in this file for operation. One key for entrance into QSO, one to select conferences, and one to allow the user to exit the program back to the calling menu. You can use many methods, but the recommended way to to send the user back to the calling menu (out of the program) is by using the following entry in the QsoGate.Ctl file: KEY=Q TYPE=12 OPT DATA=1 The QSOGATE.CTL file is for defining keys that are used on the main menu. The format is VERY STRICT, which was done to allow for HIGHEST SPEED. All CHARACTERS ARE CaSe SeNsItIvE! They must all be in CAPS, and the format is: KEY=<char> TYPE=<num> OPT DATA=<string> for example: KEY=1 TYPE=999 OPT DATA=QSO KEY=2 TYPE=999 OPT DATA=SELECT KEY=3 TYPE=200 OPT DATA=C:\QGate\QwkFix /q KEY=G TYPE=5 OPTDATA=BYE All entries are to be seperated by a single line, generated by simply hitting ENTER. Note: An entry type 999 is an INTERNAL type and is not related to TBBS's menu entries at all. When using a type=999, you must place one of three possible commands in the OPT DATA= field. These are as follows: 1. OPT DATA=QSO (Enter QSO) 2. OPT DATA=SELECT (Select conferences) 3. OPT DATA=READ (Read/Write messages on-line) *DISPLAY FILES* NEWUSER.ANS and NEWUSER.TXT are very similiar to QSO's own QSONEW.ANS and QSONEW.TXT files, and serve the same purpose. This file is used to welcome the user, and explain what they must do, and why they are being placed into the CONFERENCE SELECTION function immediately. Actually, you could probably use the standard NEWUSER.ANS that is used in QSO normally. It has been observed that using two screens will do more to help the user understand what is happening so we will use the NEWUSER.* to display to a new user on entry to QSO Gate and we will use QSONEW.* to show on the way into QSO. A modified QSONEW.* file has been included with the release archive and these files, although can be modified, should be used in place of the old QSONEW.* files that are now resident in your QSO directory. NOTE: See the HISTORY.DOC file for an UPDATE to this operation. You should also edit your qsocfg.ans & qsocfg.txt files that are used by QSO itself. There is a key ('C') for 'Conference Select' that you will not be able to use any longer on that screen. Also, to aviod any "slips of the finger", you should run QSOlang and disable the C key that activates that selection. This is done by make it LOWER CASE. CONFHELP.ANS and CONFHELP.ASC are displayed when a user presses ? when at the conferences selection prompt. READHELP.ANS and READHELP.ASC are displayed at the READ/WRITE messages prompt. STEP 6) The next step is to edit your REAL QSO.CTL file (NOT one used for mass import). You are advised to make a backup copy too. Edit the QSO.CTL file to NOT include ANY MSGAREA statements. All that is required to be in this file is the basic header info that contains info about the system itself and the following: Add 1 INCLUDE statement for EVERY line on your system. This statement consists of an INCLUDE statement and a RESTRICT block. This is how the format will be..... RESTRICT Line=00 INCLUDE C:\QGate\QsoGate.00 ENDRESTRICT RESTRICT Line=01 INCLUDE C:\QGate\QsoGate.01 ENDRESTRICT RESTRICT Line=02 INCLUDE C:\QGate\QsoGate.02 ENDRESTRICT ......etc. Make one for EACH line on your TBBS System. These are the actual files that will tell QSO how to operate for each caller. One glitch that QSO has at this time is to check for the existance of EACH INCLUDE file that is defined. Even if the caller does not qualify for that file, QSO will still check for its existance. So for this, we need to make dummy files to keep QSO happy until real users come in and start using QSOGate. There is a batch file called Init.Bat in this archive. Edit this .bat file to contain only the line definitions that you have lines for. This bat file will create the dummy files that are needed. Make sure they are created in the QSOGate directory (C:\QGate). Also, make sure that the INCLUDE statements are pointing to the files titled QsoGate.## and that they are being called FROM the QsoGate directory (C:\QGate) as in the above example. Now, simply run QSOGate and you're set! There is one final part of installation that is not mandatory, but is HIGHLY recommended. We've included another mass import function to the Qgate.Exe program that will mass import descriptions for each area. The way it works is like this: Once selecting to import, you are prompted for a filename to import. That file MUST be in the folowing format- ;<tagname> <description> TBBS National TBBS Sysop Echo This format derived from the common FIDOnet.Na file that is available from your fido hub. When the process starts, each record in the QSOGate database will be searched against this list. Actually, only the QWK NAME field will be searched against the list. When a match is found, the description will be entered in the description field and you are prompted to save or skip this entry. The reason for the prompting is so that you can verify that this is the actual description for this entry. Now, although this is quite easy, it is very tedious since if you are carrying several msg networks, there can be similiar tag names that will trigger a match on a search. So you will be prompted to verify each match. * SYSOP On-Line Operation * As the SYSOP (priv=255), there is one additional feature that you can use. It is called EDIT and will allow you to type EDIT 100 to edit the fields of record of record 100 on-line. Other users can not see, nor can they use this function. * PcBoard 14.5 Message Operation * To use QSOGate's Reader option, you must first have the following statement listed in your QSOGATE.CTL file: CNAMES=<D:\path> (path to your existant CNAMES.@@@ file) It is recommended that you place the CNAMES.@@@ file into the current QGATE directory. A copy of this file is fine, as long as it is current. Next, you will need to place the actual CNAMES.@@@ record number of each conference in the 'Cnames Rec ##' field within QGATE.EXE. Lastly, make a directory called \TEMP within your current \QGATE directory. This TEMP directory is used to copy the message base and index file into so that sharing violation possibility is greatly reduced. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Notice About PcBoard 14.5 Message Bases And QSOGate * The ability to read PcBoard 14.5 message bases within QSOGate was provided as a feature enhancement. When you register QSOGate, you will not pay for this feature in any way since it is severely limited in many ways and Modern BBS will not be able to support this feature at all. The reason for this is simple. You must have a cnames.@@@ file to operate in this mode and QSOGate contains NO utilities to create this file. You must ALREADY have a cnames.@@@ file installed, and you must already have your message bases created and indexed. We can and will not provide any assistance in using PcBoard 14.5 message bases. This is a FREE option and you do not have to use it. It is recommended that only advanced SYSOPS challenge this type of setup. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Modern BBS, The BBS Superstore! 744 Walnut Avenue UNIT 1C Bensalem, PA 19020 (215) 638-1424 voice (215) 638-1299 data fido: 1:273/730 internet: rick.kosick@modern-bbs.com telnet: modern-bbs.com