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1996-08-24
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* --------------------------------------------------------------------------- *
Twinsoft HOMEPAGER v1.0
(C)opyright 1996 Wolfgang Hommel, Twinsoft Development
* --------------------------------------------------------------------------- *
Installation manual and program reference for the sysop
===============================================================================
! Important !
-------------
This one is not a program for your coffee break ... if you want to use this
powerful program, you must be ready to get in closer contact with it. It's not
one of these "Install & Forget" - PEXes! You should print out this manual and
study it carefully. It will take more than 5 minutes to understand how it all
works, so if you hate "big" programs, leave better now ...
But if you want to install a very powerful, attractive and fine-working program
which will give much joy to you and your users, read on ;-)
Introduction
------------
"Homepager" - what is this exactly? file_id.diz sound's great, but what can I
do with it?
You should know the name "homepage" from WWW. There are e.g. big companies
offering their homepages, e.g. to let the visitors download new device drivers
e.g. for their graphic cards. This big company - homepage can be compared to
our BBS. In our BBSs, too, we offer info texts, display (ansi) pictures and let
the callers download some fine files.
In WWW there is the possibility for private persons, too, to create a own
homepage, e.g. if company servers offer free space for private users, or if you
are a member of AOL etc.
What about user-homepages in our BBS? not much, huh ? ;-) Some blackboards, a
pinwall, that's all. No chance for users to integrate intro your BBS - at least
no real chance.
But now there is HOMEPAGER ... and this sweet little PEXie will fill the gap
between WWW and BBSs! With homepager installed in your BBS, your users will be
able to have their own homepages in your BBS! But there is more about it: there
area file networks where these homepages can be distributed among other BBSs ..
more about this later...
But what can users do with it ... it has been tried (and it works :) ) to copy
the functionality of WWW homepages (HPs) to BBS 1:1 ... this means: there can
be righteous menu structures (some nifty BBSs-in-your-BBS), they can offer own
files for download, there are visitor counters, guest books and scripts, links
to other homepages and much much more. It's not HTML, it's ANSI, it's not some
web browser, it's a terminal program. Great atmosphere included ;-)
It's what many sysops have been dreaming of ... and this dream has become
reality.
Shareware
---------
The Homepager is shareware at a price of 20$ for a private BBS. I think this
price is acceptable for such a powerful program. More info you will find in the
order form in the REGISTER directory.
There are some good reasons to register, because in the unreg'd version:
- you may not modify the ANSI pictures of the Homepager PEX itself
- you may not modify the user info package
- only 5 users can install their homepage in your system.
You may use this program for 30 days to check out whether you like it or not.
After 30 days you have to register it or remove it from your system. Ask your
users whether they are interested in it or not, because in the first 30 days
not too much users will like to upload their homepages. They get the user info
package and then it takes about 2 weeks until a homepage gets uploaded, so get
your user's opinion before removing the program!
Important: I cannot guarantee that his program will run on your system, and I
cannot be made responsible for any errors or damages occuring while using or
abusing this program. Use it at your own risk!
But: it works fine at hundrets of sites :-)
Installation
------------
Now the rave can go on :-) Please read the following instructions CAREFULLY, do
EXACTLY what you should do and don't get frustrated if something doesn't work
on first run.
Tip: if you got to specify a directory somewhere (e.g. a INI file, as a
parameter for a .EXE) this directory name must ALWAYS be terminated with a
backslash " \ " !!
First of all, we have to create a BaseDir for homepager ... this must be a
directory reserved only for homepager ... give it a short name, you will have
to type it often. so, do not create
"c:\user1\communic.ate\mybbs\proboard\tools\pexes\misc\twinsoft\1996\homepage\"
but name it D:\HP ... OK ? short name, directly below the ROOT ... great !
Then, copy all files from this archive's PEX directory to your proboard pex
directory e.g. c:\pb\pex ... and edit HOMEPAGE.INI ... i.e. set the right value
for the DIRECTORY variable, but you also can take a look at the other
variables, if you want :)
Next step, copy all files from archive \HP to your new created D:\HP directory
... to the BaseDir !
Finally, copy all files from archive \txtfiles to your proboard
txtfiles-directory, e.g. c:\pb\txtfiles ...
The only thing left to do is to create a new menu hotkey in your BBS's main
menu, using Procfg F9 ... there you create a new hotkey with
Menufunction 60 - run SDK file
Data: HOMEPAGE.PEX
(tip: if it doesn't work this way, try specifing
Data: HOMEPAGE
instead ! just leave the .PEX away ...)
That's all ...
If you want to do more than that
--------------------------------
... then have a look at USER.EXE in the HP basedir, copy it to a temporary dir
and execute it ... this is the user info package which you should read
carefully and then you could install the example homepage from this package in
your BBS. Read in the user info what you got to compress and how, then get into
your own BBS and upload your homepage the way described, using the LOCAL
PROTOCOL which is distributed with Proboard. If you do not have the local
protocol, you will have to call your own BBS from remote and upload
HOMEPAGE.ZIP and FILES.ZIP (see userinfo) ...
It would be even better if you would create your real own homepage and install
it in your system ... helps users very much, most of these are cowards who wait
'til another one does the first step... but then it goes round and round ;-)
After installing your (or the example) homepage, take a look at D:\HP and see
how situation has changed. Take a look at this dir from time to time and you
will know how it all works.
If you run out of HDD capacity on the drive your Basedir lies, just try the
following: move the homepage-subdirs (d:\hp\1 d:\hp\2 aso.) to another drive
and edit the ascii file index.hp, line 3 of every 5-line entry, and set the
directory to the new drive. huuuuh ??? forget it, you will see ...
Local utilites
--------------
- Run them both from within your Basedir d:\hp !
hpbiglist: nice filelist generator ... very detailed list, let the users
download the generated list from somewhere in your BBS (homepager only offers a
small overview list)
run it from within your basedir without parameters ... and then take a look at
HPBIGLST.TXT ... btw ... you should have some homepages before you do this ;-)
Hpkiller will remove unwanted user-own-files, e.g. porns, cracks, viruses etc.
run from basedir, parameter: 1 filemask
e.g. hpkiller.exe teen*.jpg
Network tools
-------------
That's cool. Swap homepages round the world ... much better WWW feeling if your
homepage can be visited from whereever the user is ...
Found / expand a regional file network with an area for homepages ... all you
need is a file tosser/scanner like FileScan, Allfix, MegaTic ... which is
capable of newfile-hatching.
Then, you will need two new directories:
d:\hp\inbound ... where your filetosser puts homepage-files from the net in
d:\hp\outbound ... where your filetosser scans over and hatches new files from
To prepare your new homepages to be hatched, go to basedir and run
hp2net.exe <pkzip> <target-dir\>
e.g. hp2net.exe c:\dos\pkzip.exe d:\hp\outbound\
(dunno forget the trailling \ ... !)
If there are new sharable (see user info) homepages at your local system, this
new homepage will be compressed and named as it's CRC-32 to avoid dupes, e.g.
it is then named d:\hp\outbound\e32fa3c5.zip ... this file should be recognized
by the filetosser's newfilehatch. yeah!
To sort in the files that came from the net, use net2hp ... from basedir!
net2hp.exe <pkunzip> <inbound\> <basedir\>
e.g. net2hp.exe c:\dos\pkunzip.exe d:\hp\inbound\ d:\hp\
There is a automatic watch for dupes ... so ... no fear !
Hints
-----
If it happens that Proboard says "Upload is a dupe - deleted" when the user
uploads FILES.ZIP (see userinfo), you must remove all download-able FILES.???
files from your system. I had this problem, in one of my file areas there was
"files.bbs" downloable because it had a entry in my filelist (files.bbs, too).
So what I am trying to tell you: if you enter "FILES.*" when downloading files
in your file menu, no file must be found!
Another case: someone has upped a private file for you. Description is saved in
FILES.PVT ... now there comes a file manager, finds this new file and adds it
to your filebase, e.g. by writing "files.pvt [00] (no desc)" to your files.bbs
and then rebuilds the Proboard fileindex (PBUTIL FI). Now everyone could
download FILES.PVT, and if the user uploads FILES.ZIP in homepager, this
files.zip gets killed as dupe.
So again: remove all FILES.??? from your filebase ... this doesn't mean that
you have to kill/rename all your FILES.BBS's !! These FILES.??? just may not be
made downloadable.
Take a look into filesidx.pb and search there for "files." ... if you find one,
you have forgotten one ... remove it and then rebuild the proboard index.
Great example: this is the listing file FILES.BBS of your area 10:
--------------------
dummy1.zip [00] (no desc)
dummy2.zip [00] (no desc)
dummy3.zip [00] (no desc)
dummy4.zip [00] (no desc)
dummy5.zip [00] (no desc)
files.pvt [00] automatically added file
---------------------
Then you just got to remove the FILES.PVT entry in this files.bbs and run
PBUTIL FI after you've done the same in all your areas (this is because I like
using proboard's download function, there you can see areas where FILES.??? are
left).
Support
-------
Support is available for all registered users. Have a look at SUPPORT.SIT for
more information.
If you are interested in this program and want to register it, do not wait
'til the next version comes out: it will only run with a key, so you would have
to register this version 1.0 anyway ... ;-)
Hope U enjoy it ...
Wolfgang Hommel
[ author of the Homepager program ]