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1991-08-04
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Program : GoodByeGen V2.00
Copyright : July 11 1991, LogiComp Inc.
Written by : Joey P. Lindstrom
Compiler : QuickBASIC V4.5 (Copyright 1990 Microsoft)
This is a SHAREWARE program, if you use this program regularly I ask
that you register it. To do so, simply send me a postcard at the
address listed at the end of this document.
Many sysops like to put the names and phone numbers of other bulletin
boards to call on their logoff screen. QuickBBS, SuperBBS, and
RemoteAccess systems use the GOODBYE.ANS and GOODBYE.ASC files for
logoff messages, and that's where GoodByeGen comes in: its job is to
create neatly formatted and colorful GOODBYE.A?? files for you. You
can give it your own custom datafile to use for output, and/or you can
use a FidoNet-style nodelist. You have full control over all the
colors on the screen and many other commands to customize which nodes
from the FidoNet nodelist get included. Up to 100 nets may be used.
This program was written with myself in mind. This is the type of
logoff screen I like. The program works and works well and I'm quite
happy with it, and if you're happy with it, great. If you'd like to
send some suggestions for improvements my way, please do so (addresses
are listed at the end of this document). Please don't ask for a
tremendous overhaul of the program to radically change the format of
the output: that's not what I want so I'm not going to code it. :-)
How to use it:
GGEN [filename.txt]
GGEN will look for a file in the current directory called GGEN.CTL.
This is its operational control file (described shortly). If you wish
to rename it or store it in another directory, you may specify
explicitly which filename it should load to get control data.
The GGEN.CTL File:
Comments: These lines begin with a ";" and are IGNORED by GoodByeGen
Colour Commands: These lines allow you to customize the color scheme
for the output files. The format for these is:
Command Colour
Available Colour Commands:
BackgroundColour - BackGround Colour (only the first 8 are allowed)
OurnameColour - Colour of our own system's name
HeaderColour - Header Text Colour
BorderColour - Border Colour (remember BOXTYPE?)
NameColour - BBS Name Colour
NumDigitColour - Colour of telephone number DIGITS
NumDashColour - Colour of other telephone number characters, such as:
) ( and -
NodeDigitColour - Colour of node number DIGITS
NodeDashColour - Colour of other node number characters, such as:
: / and .
NoColour - Colour of NO entries in the CheckList
YesColour - Colour of YES entries in the Checklist
BaudColour - Colour of Baud Rate
LastLineColour - Colour of Last Line (Copyright Notice)
Please note: the string "COLOUR" may be replaced with "COLOR". In
other words, you may use HEADERCOLOR instead of HEADERCOLOUR.
Available Colours:
Black - all commands
Red - all commands
Green - all commands
Brown - all commands
Blue - all commands
Magenta - all commands
Cyan - all commands
White - all commands
Grey (or Gray) - not available for BACKGROUNDCOLOUR
LightRed - not available for BACKGROUNDCOLOUR
LightGreen - not available for BACKGROUNDCOLOUR
Yellow - not available for BACKGROUNDCOLOUR
LightBlue - not available for BACKGROUNDCOLOUR
LightMagenta - not available for BACKGROUNDCOLOUR
LightCyan - not available for BACKGROUNDCOLOUR
LightWhite - not available for BACKGROUNDCOLOUR
Other Commands:
BBSNAME - Your System Name
BoxType - As with BinkleyTerm, determine border pattern.
Continuous - Turn on/off MORE prompting
Formfeed - Turn on/off screen-clearing prior to display
Pause - Turn on/off "Press key to disconnect". Note: sysops
using HST or other modems that accept data faster
than they transmit it *SHOULD* use this command, or
else the user will not get the last portion of the
output file.
ANSIoutput - The filename to send ANSI output to.
ASCIIoutput - The filename to send ASCII output to.
Some OPTIONAL Commands (if you wish to override the defaults):
Intro1 - Line displayed just before BBSNAME
Intro2 - Line displayed just after BBSNAME
Intro3 - Line displayed just after Intro2
Nodelist Commands:
Nodelist - Specify a nodelist file, in one of three ways:
NODELIST GGEN GGENLIST.TXT
NODELIST FTSC NODELIST.186 1:134 1:342 1:163
NODELIST FTSC NODELIST.### 1:134 1:342
- With method #1, you are telling GGEN to use a
GGEN-format nodelist (described later).
- With method #2, you are telling GGEN to use an
FTSC-format nodelist, the same type used in FidoNet
and other networks. Additionally, you are telling
GGEN to scan for nets 134, 342, and 163 in Zone 1.
The Zone will default to Zone 1 if not specified. A
Region is considered to be a net, as is a Zone...
so, for example, if you wanted to include all of the
Zone 1 administrative nodes, you could do this:
NODELIST FTSC NODELIST.186 1:1 1:134 (etc)
- Method #3 is identical to #2 but is somewhat more
useful: GGEN will scan the newest version of the
specified nodelist, replacing "###" with the Julian
date of the newest available nodelist.
Exclude - Specify a node number to exclude from output. Handy
for those "hub" type nodes that don't have a HUB
statement on them, and aren't very useful showing up
in a BBS list.
NoDupe - Similar in concept to EXCLUDE. This command, when
enabled, causes GGEN to accept only the first
occurence of any phone number. Subsequent identical
phone numbers that appear in its compiled database
will be THROWN AWAY. It is important to realize
that NODUPE processing is done *AFTER* the EXCLUDE
commands are processed, so any nodes you've already
thrown away with EXCLUDE will *NOT* be a factor in
NoDupe checking. You can therefore, if you like,
force GGEN to keep the SECOND (only) occurence of a
phone number simply by EXCLUDEing the first one,
thus making the actual second occurence the first
one to appear in the compiled database (which later
gets processed into output files).
NoHost - Tells GGEN not to list any HOST, REGION, or ZONE
entries, ie: your Net Coordinator.
NoHub - Tells GGEN not to list any nodes flagged with the
HUB keyword.
NoPvt - Tells GGEN not to list any nodes flagged with the
PVT (private node) keyword.
NoMO - Tells GGEN not to list any nodes flagged with the MO
- (Mail Only) keyword.
HSTmeansMNP - Many nodelists will *NOT* flag a node with the MNP
flag if it already has the HST flag, as a
space-saving measure. This will tell GGEN to assume
that the HST flag implies the MNP flag as well.
V32meansMNP - Same as above but this one turns MNP on if V32 is
found in the node's flags.
The GGEN-format nodelist:
This is really nothing special but it's easy to use and doesn't carry
the "crud" that we don't really need. The format is fairly
straightforward, and an example should be enclosed with the
distribution archive (GGENLIST.TXT). There is one node entry per
line, with several elements per entry seperated by commas. Example:
BBS NAME,000-000-0000,1:134/55,14400,HST,V32,MNP,V42
The first four parameters are REQUIRED. Note that spaces are *OK* but
you may also use the underscore character, which will be replaced by
spaces during compilation. The first parameter is the name of the
BBS, the second is its phone number, the third its node number (you
can enter "n/a" or "none" if this BBS is not a member of any FTSC-type
network), and finally the maximum baud rate supported.
Following this, you may have up to four flags, each specifying various
"special" things about the modem that the BBS uses. Every one that
applies must be explicitly stated: the HSTmeansMNP and V32meansMNP
flags will *NOT* function with a GGEN-format nodelist. If a node is
HST, list it as both HST and MNP. Etc.
GGEN can handle as many individual BBS entries as you have disk space
to handle, although you are limited to scanning 100 nets and you have
a maximum of 100 EXCLUDEs (let me know if this is restricting, I can
probably expand these limits at the cost of a bit of speed).
And that's about it! Hope you like it.
The Vulcan Science Academy BBS
Line 1 Phone 1-403-226-0867
Line 2 Phone 1-403-226-0868
Node 1:134/55 in FidoNet
Node 99:9305/55 in GoodEggNet
Node 201:5500/55 in MetroNet
SnailMail:
Joe Lindstrom
34 Harvest Wood Link N.E.
Calgary, AB, Canada
T3K 3X8
Trek on!
[~] Sarek Of Vulcan [~]
Revision History
================
V0.07 - Initial Beta Release
V0.08 - Made a couple of minor cosmetic changes (prettier now)
V1.00 - Extensive beta-bashing produced no bugs (!), therefore I
simply changed the version number, recompiled, and released
it.
V1.99 - A complete revamping, added FTSC nodelist support.
V1.99c - Hopefully the last beta, added NODUPE command and completely
reworked the EXCLUDE command. Theoretically, I can now
easily reverse the order of processing, so if somebody
thinks NODUPE should be processed before EXCLUDE, that can
be arranged. Feedback?
V2.00 - Yep, that was the last beta. Fixed the formatting, it
finally works right... specifically, the node numbers are
now centred in their column based on the length of the
longest node number to be included with the output files.
- Sped things up. In a series of tests with my 386SX running
at 16MHz with HyperDisk disk caching, V1.99C took 196
seconds to extract Net 134 from NODELIST.193. This version,
after extensive streamlining, now takes 116 seconds. Your
mileage may vary.
V2.10 - Increased nodelist read speed dramatically, thanks to a
programming tip I picked up out of the QB-News.
- Added INTRO1, INTRO2, and INTRO3 so that sysops could use
GGEN's output lists within their BBS systems instead of only
for logoff screens. Specifically, Nathan Moschkin in Net
109 asked for this so that he could set up several GGEN.CTL
files, each of which would be programmed to read certain
portions of his nodelist and output different files, which
the users could then read from a sort of "BBS list" submenu
within his board. As it was, GGEN's lists make it look like
the user is about to logoff and this was undesirable in this
situation (although this *IS* GGEN's purpose). Sysops now
have the option to override the "Thank you for calling" and
stuff, though it's far from as flexible as it could be.