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LAST.DOC
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1991-11-05
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┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒ LAST v2.10 ▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒│
└────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
Todays callers bulletin maker for RemoteAccess v1.10+ and FrontDoor.
What is LAST?
────────────────
LAST is a little program that writes bulletin showing todays callers on a
RemoteAccess Bulletin Board Systems. It also includes in the bulletin all
incoming/outgoing FidoNet mail calls made with FrontDoor as a mailer.
Optionally it can also show up to the last 150 callers before today on your
system and show up to 9 days back in FidoNet calls. LAST can be used on RA
systems that do not use FrontDoor, but then only the last xx callers database
makes it better than the built in todays callers list in RA.
In order for it to run properly you must run LAST.EXE before calling the
mailer in your batch file after a caller has exited from the system and after
a mail event has happened.
Here is a demo of a batch file that runs RA, FD and LAST.
:Loop
LAST
RA -m\FD\Fd.exe*M -E20 -N1
< Insert your stuff here >
Goto Loop
LAST makes three bulletins in your textfile directory, ONTODAY.ANS,.ASC and
.AVT to provide compatibility for RemoteAccess version 1.00 and later. ANS is
for ANSI, ASC for ASCII and AVT for AVATAR. LAST finds your BBS Name and
Sysop name in CONFIG.RA and also checks there to see if SysOp should be
excluded from the list.
What you need to run LAST.
────────────────────────────────
Simple. LAST will _ONLY_ operate correctly on system running MS-DOS 3.xx or
higher with RemoteAccess and FrontDoor installed. LAST will work on systems
that have only RA installed but not on systems that have only FD. It needs
the combination of both to function as it should and as it was intended to run.
Last currently works on systems running RA 1.10 and FD 1.99c-2.02.
I can guarantee nothing about compatibility in future releases of those
programs.
How to run LAST.
────────────────────────
You must run LSETUP.EXE before you can use LAST and everything there should
be pretty self explanatory...
Here is a short list of the main options in LSETUP:
[1] Name of bulletin to make
This option allows you to change the name of the Bulletin LAST makes.
Default is ONTODAY
[2] Name of database to make
This option allows you to change the name of the database LAST makes.
Default is LASTDAYS.DBF
[3] Exclude FD information
If you have only a RA system, then use this to disable the FD part of LAST.
The LAST will work only as any other "todays caller" program, except that it
does of course show calls from the caller database.
[I] Name of inbound history file [FD]
Default is INBOUND.HIS in your FD directory
[O] Name of outbound history file [FD]
Default is OUTBOUND.HIS is your FD directory
[4] Hide users real address
Show "** Confidential **" as address instead of real address.
[5] Show users handle
Show users handles instead of real names.
[6] Show cost of outbound calls
Override the standard output for outbound FD calls and display
session cost, received and sent bytes plus a total of all instead
location of system called. Point numbers are NOT shown.
[7] Exclude Hidden callers
Callers with hidden flag ON are displayed.
[8] Show callers point number
Include systems point numbers in FidoNet calls.
[9] Show local logons at what speed
This is a sort of 'cheat' option as you can show 0 baud logons as 300-38400bps
logons if you want to...
[A] Show FidoNet calls for how long
Include FidoNet Calls for x days in list. Maximum = 9 days.
[B] Show number of callers from database
Show last x callers before today on the BBS. Maximum = 150 callers.
[0] Modify prompts in bulletin
Here you get a option that allows you to change the headers in the bulletin
[*] Modify text in bulletin
Here you get a option that allows you to change all other texts displayed in
bulletin. 0 and * are handy if you want to change the language of the
Bulletin made.
General stuff.
──────────────────
LAST is *NOT* public domain. It is shareware and therefore you must register
it. You must register by sending a postcard to me telling me you are using
the program. You are allowed to makes as many copies of LAST as you want and
distribute it freely as long as you don't charge anything for it except the
cost of the diskette, if you provide it :-) However if you ever feel the need
to support a starving student then you can send large amounts of money to the
address below :-) LAST doesn't have any guarantees. If it ruins something on
your system I can never be held responsible for it. Before you run LAST for the
first time you must be sure of that you are doing it on your own. But it should
work! Also LAST does not write to any files except those ONTODAY files so
nothing much _SHOULD_ go wrong. I would never have finished this program
without the help and endless bug hunting of John Barton, Mark Kerr and Barry
Phillips. They found bugs almost every where and thanks to them I think
this version is mostly harmless - I think :-) LAST was the original program
that showed both mailer and bbs calls in one file. Only one public version
of LAST has been released outside the RA beta test team cycle, version 1.30.
The changes in version 2.10 are so many that it's impossible to mention them
all. The reason why versions 1.50 to 2.03 have not been seen is the constant
changes that RemoteAccess structures have undergone since I began to have
access to them. Therefore I decided to wait until RA 1.10 was released and
release versions of all my programs that were 100% compatible with that
version. Hope you enjoy the programs.
Good luck
Hilmar Thors
The Travelling Frobozz BBS
14 Alexandra Drive,
Wivenhoe,
Colchester,
Essex CO7 9SE,
ENGLAND.
FidoNet@2:257/15
Appendix A
About the LASTDAYS.DBF file.
NOTE: This text is taken straight the docs with one of the betas, therefore
it is not very well written, but because of lack of time I will include it.
At midnight, it should do something rather devious to your computer. To tell
you the facts if checks if there is a LASTDAYS.DBF file in your RA directory.
If it exists then it reads the file into memory, the dumps it along with the
contents of LASTCALL.BBS into a new LASTDAYS.DBF file. If LASTDAYS.DBF does
NOT exist then it makes one for you. In LASTDAYS. DBF it stores the following
information:
Line : Line number of caller
Name : Name of caller
Handle : Callers handle [from USERSXI.BBS]
City : Location of caller
Baud : Speed of caller
Times : Number of times he has called
LogOn : Time of logon
LogOff : Time of logoff
Date : Date of call
Every day, the first time LAST is run after midnight it adds this info
to your LASTDAYS.DBF file and thus making a database of all your callers for
since you began using LAST. Don't worry about the size of the file, it
should only be about 120 bytes per caller, so after 100 callers the size is
12 K and after 1000 callers 120K.
Now why am I doing this? The reason is simple. If you want to see who called
last x days ago, or more simply the last 100 (or any number) callers before
today then you use LASTDAYS to do it. RA does not store that info in any other
file than in RA.LOG and I DON'T want to touch that file as then things can first
begin to go wrong. I think LAST will work properly. It does NOT write the
data in LASTDAYS.DBF in ONTODAY now, first I want to know if the database is
working alright.
What can go wrong? Well, there is only one thing that I can think of. LASTDAYS
.DBF will NOT be made if LAST is NOT run before a caller enters the system
after midnight. If you run LAST before you start the mailer, then nothing
can go wrong. The reason for this is that LAST reads the data from
LASTCALL.BBS but when a caller logs on after midnight LASTCALL.BBS is deleted.
Now there is one thing that I really like about this. I would like to see a
complete list of callers that have called since I started Frobozz. In that
case, if I had run LAST from start the LASTDAYS.DBF file would be about
1 meg in size. One meg - and I would have all the info I need in it.
Compared to the size of things that I keep around the BBS I don't think
that is much for all the data that is there. But of course that's optional,
and purging the file after it has reached 100 calls or 5 days or whatever will
be possible - when I write the util!
Appendix B
The utils that come with LAST
READLC - This file allows you to view your lastcall.bbs file (that is todays
callers) offline. I use it as a function key in FroDo to view how
has been online today, so I don't have to log on to check.
Syntax: READLC {-s}
-s : Optional, excludes the sysop from the list.
READLD - This one allows you to view the lastdays.dbf file that LAST
has made for you.
Syntax: READLD {-sh}
-s : Optional, excludes the sysop from the list.
-h : Optional, shows users handles instead or real names.
LAMA is a purging util for LAST. For summary of what LAMA does just type
LAMA. It does of course not work unless you have the LASTDAYS.DBF database
file in you ra directory. So don't run this until LAST has made that one for
you.
Here is the general summary of what it does (from the source :-)
■ There are only purging options:
-NOSYSOP : Removes all occurrences of the sysop name in the file.
-DELETEn : Deletes the first n users from the file. Note if you specify
to high number LAMA will not do anything. You must leave at
least 10 callers in the file. This is a safety measure.
-LEAVEn : Deletes all but the n last callers. The same as before applies
here, you must at least leave the last 10 callers. If you want
to leave fewer then there is no real need for LAMA, you can as
well delete the LASTDAYS.DBF file.
■ NOTE : You can only use one of those options at time.