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Cream of the Crop 21
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Cream of the Crop 21 (Terry Blount) (October 1996).iso
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QuoteMagic for BBS Programs
Text Manual
Please read Sections 1.0 and 2.0 for the disclaimer and copyright
information.
================================= CONTENTS ===================================
1.0 Usage Disclaimer
2.0 Copyright Notice
2.1 Distribution Information
3.0 Installing QuoteMagic
3.1 Minimum Program Requirements
4.0 Running QuoteMagic
4.1 QM-BBS.EXE
4.2 SETQ.EXE
4.3 CHECKQ.EXE
5.0 Limitations of QuoteMagic
6.0 The Quote List File (QM-QUOTE.LST)
7.0 Miscellaneous Information
========================= 1.0 - USAGE DISCLAIMER =============================
THE AUTHOR OF THIS PROGRAM ACCEPTS NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR DAMAGES
RESULTING FROM THE USE OF THIS PRODUCT AND MAKES NO WARRANTY OR
REPRESENTATION, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO,
ANY IMPLIED WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
PURPOSE. THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", AND YOU, ITS USER, ASSUME
ALL RISKS WHEN USING IT.
IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGES RESULTING FROM
THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO, DAMAGES FOR LOSS
OF BUSINESS PROFITS, BUSINESS INTERRUPTION, LOSS OF DATA OR BUSINESS
INFORMATION, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, OR OTHER FINANCIAL LOSS
ARISING OUT OF THE USE OF OR INABILITY TO USE THIS PROGRAM, EVEN IF THE
AUTHOR HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
========================= 2.0 - COPYRIGHT NOTICE =============================
QuoteMagic for BBS Programs is Copyright (c) 1996 by Timothy R. White.
All Rights Reserved.
All product names referenced herein are trademarks or registered
trademarks of their respective holders.
2.1 - Distribution Information
------------------------------
You are granted the right to use and to make an unlimited number of
copies of this software. You may not disassemble, decompose, reverse
engineer, or alter this file or any of the other files in this package.
This includes, but is not limited to, modifying the QM-DOS.EXE file,
the CHECKQ.EXE file, the SETQ.EXE file, or any of the displays associated
with these executables.
This software is provided as FREEWARE and cannot be sold. This
restriction does not apply to connect time charges, or flat rate
connection/download fees for electronic bulletin board services. The
author encourages you to use these methods to distribute the
QuoteMagic package. This software can not be bundled with any commercial
package without express written permission from the author.
2.2 - Registration Information
------------------------------
Since QuoteMagic is freeware, no registration fee is required and it
is already fully functional. If you are interested in obtaining the
C++ source code for QuoteMagic, it is available for a nominal fee.
Contact the author at the E-mail address listed in Section 7.0 of
this manual for further information.
QM-DOS and QM-BBS are written with Turbo C++ 3.0 for DOS under Windows
95. QM-WIN16 and QM-WIN32 are written with Borland C++ 5.0 under Windows
95.
====================== 3.0 - INSTALLING QUOTEMAGIC ===========================
Installing QuoteMagic for BBS Programs is very simple. First, create
a directory for the files on your hard drive (it can be called anything,
and placed wherever you please). Copy all the files from the
QM-BBS.ZIP archive into this directory (or, better yet, unzip it into
the new directory). QuoteMagic includes a default QM-BBS.DAT file
which should work fine on most systems. The default date in this file
is 01/01. If you are installing it on January 1st (doesn't matter
which year), use SETQ.EXE to set a different date (see Section 4.2).
The hardest part about setting up QuoteMagic is getting the files it
generates (QUOTE.ANS and QUOTE.TXT) copied/moved into the files you
need to display to your users. This has only been tested on an RBBS
bulletin board system, so I can't really give you many directions as
to what to do. Take a look at the QM-QUOTE.BAT file for an example
of what the sysop does on my local RBBS board. Basically, he uses
the files QuoteMagic generates as a "welcome" message for the users.
I wrote up a simple "Page Break" text file which he appends onto
the WELCOME and WELCOMEC files as they are having the QUOTE.ANS and
QUOTE.TXT files copied into them. Works great for RBBS (and with
the Page Break, the quote won't just fly by--the user actually has
to press <Enter> to continue past it).
3.1 Minimum Program Requirements
---------------------------------
QuoteMagic for BBS Programs will occupy roughly 200K on your hard
drive (this can vary based on the size of the QM-QUOTE.LST file). It
requires approximately 250K of free DOS conventional memory to run.
You will also need DOS 3.3 or higher, but if you don't have that,
QuoteMagic isn't going to be your only problem...
The BBS version of QuoteMagic has been designed for generating quote
files for use by any BBS. However, this is not its only possibility.
There could be many other uses for the QUOTE.ANS and QUOTE.TXT files.
I'll leave it up to you to adapt for your own purposes.
======================= 4.0 - RUNNING QUOTEMAGIC =============================
QuoteMagic for BBS Programs is a rather simple program that generates
a new quote from a predefined list either daily or each time it is run.
The new quote is written to two different files: QUOTE.ANS, a full color
ANSI text file with high-order ASCII characters; and QUOTE.TXT, a
one-color text file with NO high-order ASCII characters.
QuoteMagic pulls its quotes from the QM-QUOTE.LST file. This file
is in simple ASCII format and can be edited with any text editor.
You can have up to 9,999 different quotes in this file.
QuoteMagic stores the your current quote information (Quote ID Number,
Day, Month, and Execution Option) in the QM-BBS.DAT file. This file is
in binary format and can not be changed except with the provided editors
(see below).
4.1 - QM-BBS.EXE
----------------
This is the main program executable. You *MUST* specify the directory
that QuoteMagic has been installed to on the command line. For
example:
C:\>C:\QM\QM-BBS C:\QM
If you do not specify the directory on the command line, QuoteMagic
will generate a DOS ErrorLevel 1 and give you a message indicating the
format you must use.
If QuoteMagic has an error during execution, it will pass a message
along to you stating what's wrong, and generate a DOS ErrorLevel
value. The possible ErrorLevels are:
1 - No directory specified on the command line.
2 - Could not write the QUOTE.TXT file to the directory specified
on the command line.
3 - Could not write the QUOTE.ANS file to the directory specified
on the command line.
4 - Could not open the QM-QUOTE.LST file in the directory
specified on the command line.
5 - Could not write the updated QM-BBS.DAT file to the directory
specified on the command line.
Once run, you will find the QUOTE.ANS and the QUOTE.TXT files in your
QuoteMagic directory (whatever you specified on the command line).
You can then move/copy these files wherever you need them.
4.2 - SETQ.EXE
--------------
This simple program can be used to manually change the options in the
QM-BBS.DAT file. It allows you to change the current Quote ID Number,
the current Quote Date, the current Quote Month, and the Program
Execution option. The program is self-explanatory. Run it and it will
prompt you for what it needs.
NOTE: MAKE SURE YOU RUN SETQ.EXE FROM THE MAIN QUOTEMAGIC DIRECTORY.
IT *WILL NOT* FUNCTION COR