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Text File | 1994-12-19 | 16.4 KB | 409 lines

Version 1.05, December 19, 1994 TTTTT RRRR A FFFFF FFFFF II CCC T R R A A F F II C C T RRRR A A FFF FFF II C T R R AAAAA F F II C C T R R A A F F II CCC RICH VERAA'S LITTLE UNIVERSAL MESSAGEBASE TRAFFIC REPORT A BIRDSOFT PROGRAM (C) Copyright 1991, 1994 by Richard P. Veraa. All rights reserved. Veraa-Birdsoft Computer Products. North Miami, Florida, USA TRAFFIC.EXE is a simple messagebase traffic volume report generator for use with bulletin board systems using either the Fido/Opus, Hudson, JAM, or Squish styles of messagebase. TRAFFIC generates an individual report for each conference area listed in an AREAS.BBS-type file (or a restricted list) that you prepare. It tabulates each poster to that echo during the report period in order of activity, with the number of messages posted, the average size of messages by that author, and his/her net address of origin, as well as a total number of messages and posters for each area. Version 1.05 will now handle up to 1024 posters in up to 1024 conference areas. TRAFFIC.EXE also generates a summary report listing number of messages in all chosen areas. FILES IN THIS ARCHIVE: README.RPT - Last minute details. TRAFFIC.DOC - This document. AREANAME.RPT - Sample area report produced by TRAFFIC. SUMMARY.RPT - Sample summary report produced by TRAFFIC. TRAFFIC.EXE - TRAFFIC executable file. TRSETUP.EXE - TRAFFIC Configuration program. TRPLACE.EXE - Utility to reset the TRAFFIC lastread pointers. REGISTER.RPT - Registration information. GUARANTEE There is no guarantee, express or implied. This program works well on my system and the systems on which it's been tested... Your mileage, as the saying goes, may vary. USER DEVELOPED SOFTWARE This program is Shareware. It is NOT free, and it is NOT public domain. You may try it out for the period of one month. If you decide to continue to use it after that month, you should register your copy. I'm not a professional programmer; I just program for fun. All of what you see is done in my spare time, and the bills are paid out of my own pocket. TRAFFIC will not stop working after one month, or do anything nasty, nor does the registered version have more features than the non-registered version (except for nicely identifying you on the reports it generates). However, if you don't register TRAFFIC, I will not be able to continue to work on it and implement new user requested features. So support shareware! REGISTRATION For information on how to register, see the file REGISTER.RPT in the TRAFFIC distribution archive. When I've received your registration form and registration fee, I will send you a registration key via netmail or snailmail (post). TRAFFIC will list your name and BBS name on the reports it generates to indicate that you're using a registered version of TRAFFIC. For your convenience, you may register TRAFFIC by mail using cash, (not recommended, but if you are outside of North America, the difficulties involved in other ways of payment may make the risk acceptable), check or money order. You may also pay for TRAFFIC with your VISA or MASTERCARD credit card, either by snailmail, by netmail, or online. Just fill out and send the form in REGISTER.TRF. To order online by Credit Card, call Sox! BBS at 1-305-821-3317 or 1-305-821-4311 then type _C_ from the Main Menu! INTRODUCTION TRAFFIC.EXE works by reading the area tag names from an AREAS.BBS-type file called AREAS.TRF that you create, see below. It may include any or all of the areas on your message base. It then searches the messagebase for messages in that area, and looks up each poster's net address in the header or origin lines of his/her messages. Finally, it generates detailed reports for each area, and a summary report of all listed areas. INSTRUCTIONS Installation 1. Message Base You must be using a BBS program that utilizes either an Opus (*.MSG), Hudson, Squish, or JAM messagebase, or any combination thereof and you must have or create an AREAS.BBS (or AREAS.TRF -- see below) control file. 2. AREAS.TRF You will need a file called AREAS.TRF listing the message areas on your BBS. It is similar to AREAS.BBS, and the easiest way to prepare AREAS.TRF is to copy AREAS.BBS and deleted unneeded information. If your setup does not use AREAS.BBS, you will need a text file listing the areas you wish TRAFFIC to scan. See Appendix A of this document for instructions on constructing one. Some tossing software (like GEcho) will create an AREAS file for you (see 'Export Files' in GSetup if you use GEcho). If you do not want TRAFFIC to count all the areas you carry, -- just make a copy of AREAS.BBS named AREAS.TRF. Delete the lines from AREAS.TRF that you do not with reported on. Delete also the addresses of any links that may have been listed in AREAS.BBS (see Appendix A). CAUTION: AREAS.BBS, as created by many programs lists the addresses of links for the areas it lists. TRAFFIC, on the other hand, uses this field for AKA addresses of your system if you use different addresses in different areas. (see example in Appendix A) TRAFFIC will prepare reports for all areas listed in AREAS.TRF. If you do not want TRAFFIC to count all the areas you carry, -- just make a copy of AREAS.BBS named AREAS.TRF. Delete the lines from AREAS.TRF that you do not wish reported. Delete also the addresses of any links that may have been listed in AREAS.BBS (see Appendix A). Most users do not want TRAFFIC to report on ALL the message areas on their systems, so when you prepare AREAS.TRF, use an editor to delete the lines for the areas you do NOT want reports on. Note that TRAFFIC will start reading at the THIRD line of this file. 3. TRAFFIC.EXE, TRPLACE.EXE and TRSETUP.EXE Place the above executable files in a convenient directory. This may be the same directory as your mailer or your BBS, depending on how your system is set up. If (as I sincerely hope) you are registered, place your key, TRAFFIC.KEY in this directory as well. 4. Configure TRAFFIC by running TRSETUP. Run TRSETUP from the command line and simply fill in the blanks on the screen. You may use the up and down arrows to change fields until all blanks are correct. Then press <F-10> to accept the displayed information. Enter your name as it appears on your registration form. If you are registered, make this exactly as shown on your key certificate -- it is case-sensitive. Enter your BBS or point name -- or your own name. This is the name that will appear on the reports TRAFFIC generates (if you are a registered user). If you use AKAs other than your principle address, list the AKA address after the tagname in AREAS.RPT (see Appendix A). If this field is left blank in AREAS.TRF, TRAFFIC will use the default address from TRAFFIC.CFG (Created by TRSETUP.EXE) if you are a registered user. Enter your node or point address (enclosed in parentheses). Enter the full path designations for the files TRAFFIC needs to find: The Hudson messagebase (if used). Data files created by TRAFFIC AREAS.TRF Enter the path designations for the directories where you wish TRAFFIC to place the reports and data files it creates. These may be any valid directory on your system. Include a trailing backslash "\" after all path names. 5. Operation Running TRAFFIC.EXE. Every time TRAFFIC is run, it retrieves its own data and scans the message base for new messages in all areas in AREAS.TRF. TRAFFIC will also generate a summary file called SUMMARY.RPT, listing all the areas listed in AREAS.TRF, with the total number of messages posted in each, and perform report and reset functions designated by command line switches. 6. Command line switches TRAFFIC may be followed by any or all of the command switches (plus none or "/h" for a help screen): /s SCAN only TRAFFIC will scan the messagebase, update its data files and lastread pointers, but will not produce a report (unless /r is also switched). /r REPORT on individual areas TRAFFIC will scan the messagebase and generate a separate text file for each area, named <tagname>.RPT (tagname truncated at eight characters), listing the posters to that area in order of the number of messages posted, along with the number of messages posted, and the writer's net address, if TRAFFIC can find it on an origin line in the poster's message. /n NEW data. Ordinarily TRAFFIC continues to accumulate data so that (assuming it's run daily) each days' reports show the current day's mail added to the previous day's report. When the /n switch is used, TRAFFIC will write its reports and then discard its old data to start a fresh reporting period. It will also reset its beginning date for future report periods. I run the /n option every two weeks. Note: /n AND /z (below) will force TRAFFIC to scan (and report if requested) _all_ areas listed in AREAS.TRF, and then reset the pointers to begin cumulative reporting from the close of this run. /z ZERO place pointers. This will reset message number pointers prior to scanning. If you only use TRAFFIC periodically, use this switch to scan all messages on your system, resetting any old pointers that may remain from previous scans. 6. TRPLACE.EXE Every time TRAFFIC runs, it creates a four-byte file called areaname.NUM for each message area, which keeps track of the last message number accounted for by TRAFFIC. However, if your messagebase cleanup utilities renumber the messagebase, this number will change. Accordingly, the little utility TRPLACE.EXE is used to reset areaname.NUM to the same number the last message is changed to. To make sure no messages go unreported, it's a good idea to run TRAFFIC immediately before cleanup and TRPLACE immediately after, as described in the next section. 7. Running TRAFFIC from a batch file. The best way to run TRAFFIC is to call it every night from the batch file that runs during your cleanup event. Call TRAFFIC just before cleanup and TRPLACE just after, so that your batch file should look something like the following: CLEAN.BAT d:\DIRECTORY\TRAFFIC.EXE /r d:\DIRECTORY\mbutil purge (or SQPACK, or whatever) d:\DIRECTORY\mbutil pack d:\DIRECTORY\mbutil link d:\DIRECTORY\TRPLACE.EXE You'll note that I use the /r (report) option every night.. that way I've always got a current report of each echo area in a directory I call \FD\STAT\. Every two weeks, I run TRAFFIC /n /r from the command line to make final "official" reports for that period, that I can archive for my records. 8. Occasional use of TRAFFIC TRAFFIC is designed for daily use to monitor areas over time. It can also be used, however, to make occasional reports of all the messages on your messagebase at any time. In this case, you will want to delete old data files created on previous occasions. Simply delete all *.DAT and *.NUM files in TRAFFIC's data file directory. 9. That's all there is to it! You may register this program for US$ 15.00 and I will send you a key that will work on subsequent regular versions. Registered users of our previous traffic programs, MTRAFFIC or HTRAFFIC may register TRAFFIC for US$ 5.00. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Contact me for further information, help, bug reports, comments, or Christmas greetings at: FidoNet 1:135/907 (You may route crashmail to me at 1:135/71 or 1:135/711 or route via 1:135/0). Internet rveraa@907.sunshine.com z002798b@bcfreenet.seflin.lib.fl.us rveraa@newssun.med.miami.edu or by SnailMail at: Richard Veraa Room 211 Villa Maria Nursing Center 1050 N.E. 125 Street North Miami, FL 33161 Thanks to Ronnie Toth for alpha testing this program, and for not giving up on it through the search for some puzzling insects. JAM(mbp) - Copyright 1993 Joaquim Homrighausen, Andrew Milner, Mats Birch, Mats Wallin. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Squish - Copyright 1990-1994 by SCI Communications. All rights reserved. Maximus and Squish are trademarks of SCI Communications. TRAFFIC was programmed using MkMsgSrc v 1.02 MKMsgJam - Copyright 1993 by Mark May - MK Software Mythical Kingom Tech BBS (513)237-7737 HST/v32 FidoNet: 1:110/290 Rime: ->MYTHKING maym@dmapub.dma.org Thanks a lot, Cheers, Rich Veraa RELATED PROGRAMS: HTRAFFIC.EXE -- a program similar to TRAFFIC designed for use with the popular Hudson messagebase used with RemoteAccess, QuickBBS and other boards. Archived as HTRAFnnn.ARJ. MTRAFFIC.EXE -- a program similar to TRAFFIC designed for use with the Opus-style (*.MSG) messagebase. Archived as MTRAFnnn.ARJ. The above programs are rendered superfluous by TRAFFIC.EXE. Registered users of either may register TRAFFIC.EXE for US$5.00 APPENDIX A. AREAS.TRF AREAS.TRF is a plain ASCII text file listing the message areas of your BBS that you wish TRAFFIC to process, in the following format: Line 1: Your BBS Name Line 2: A semicolon (;) Remaining lines: The path to message area preceded by: '!' for JAM areas; '$" for SQUISH areas. The area number for HUDSON areas. The area pathname for OPUS/*.MSG areas. If you do not wish to generate traffic reports for all the echoes carried by your system, list only the message areas you wish TRAFFIC to scan, as described in the installation instructions. If you use a net address other than your main address for some areas, list the AKA after the tagname, and that address will be placed on reports for that area (registered users only). SAMPLE AREAS.TRF FILE Birdsoft Online, North Miami, Florida, USA ! Rich Veraa ; ; Hudson messagebase areas are designated by the AreaNumber on the left 035 BARDROOM 077 MUSE 031 PARROTS 045 SYSOP_JUNGLE 043 WRITING ; ; If you use an aKA address in some areas, list the AKA after the ; tagname (Registered users only) 029 UNUSUAL_PETS 50:305/907 ; ; Opus/Fido *.MSG areas have the pathname with no prefix on the left D:\FD\PKDROP\ PKEY_DROP D:\FD\Z1E\ Z1_ELECTION ; ; Note optional AKA in following Opus/Fido listing D:\FD\FLOO FL_OOZ 129:131/907 ; ; JAM message areas are indicated by an exclamation point "!" on the ; left !E:\JAM\A1\EXOTIC_B EXOTIC_BIRDS !E:\JAM\A1\ALTMED ALTMED !E:\JAM\A1\AVICULTU AVICULTURE ; ; Note optional AKA in following JAM listing: !E:\JAM\A1\FL_LIVIN FL_LIVING 129:131/907 ; ; Indicate Squish areas with an "$" $D:\SQUISH\MSG\NETSYSOP NETSYSOP $D:\SQUISH\MSG\PASCAL_L PASCAL_LESSONS ; Note optional AKA in following Squish listing: $D:\SQUISH\MSG\NET_CHAT OTHERNET_CHAT 50:305/907 ; -END-