ftp.wwiv.com/ftp.wwiv.com.zip/ftp.wwiv.com/pub/HATCH/!CDANN11.ZIP/CDANN.DOC

Text File | 1995-09-02 | 17KB | 304 lines

                      Documentation for
                 CD Announce! v1.0

                An X-ware Production
            Copyright 1995 by X-Ware Productions
                             Code by:  Madam X
                  Ansi by: Zepplin


THANKS TO**********************************************************************

Several people have contributed greatly to the development of CD Announce.
 I would like to give them all credit right now, along with their email
 addresses and BBS numbers, where applicable.

The following have provided encouragement and/or technical support...

Bullship        Malaclypse The Younger        Carolina Cowboy
Ship's Online        Similar Line Noise        The Byter
[phone]        [phone]            [phone]
1@1 SierraLink        90@7403 TerraNet        1@1 CowboyNet
1@2932 TerraNet                        1@7424 TerraNet

Zepplin            Riffraff            The Inn Keeper
The Druid's Keep    WWIVnet 112@2732        Howard's Inn
[phone]                        [phone]
1@7403 TerraNet                        1@7408 TerraNet

The Inn Keeper is listed here because, so far as I know, his was the original
 idea to announce the available CD to users at logon.  So thanks for the
  idea!!!

Thanks also to all the posters on the sub Beginning & Intermediate C/C++
 Programming, hosted by Bullship, on Terranet (also gated to other nets).
  I found lots of useful tips there, and found many people willing to
   answer questions that I had.

WHO AM I???********************************************************************

I am Madam X, sysop #2 of The Druid's Keep BBS.  If you have questions or
 comments about this program, here is how you can reach me:

The Druid's Keep [phone] User #2

Or email me at one of the following addresses:

TerraNet 2@7403
CowboyNet 2@6069
ACnet 2@7403
WWIVnet 17@6049
Internet address: [e-mail]

I welcome any suggestions or comments...

WHAT DOES CD ANNOUNCE DO???****************************************************

Well pretty much what it says.  CD Announce! will alert your users to
 which CD is in the CD-rom at logon or, with modding, when they enter
the transfer section.  They will be prompted at that time whether or not
they wish to view information on today's available CD, and if they choose yes,
they will be shown an ansi or text file of your design, telling them which
CD is there for them to download from.  I also have included a little
information about what kinds of files are available on that CD in my ansi's

here as well.  My BBS has 8 CD's, all rotating on one CD-Rom drive.
We have a set schedule for these CD's, but as anyone who has done rotation
will tell you, it's a great idea, but it's easy for a sysop to get busy
and forget to change CD's for a day or two.  With CD Announce!, your users
will no longer be trying to tag files on a CD that is supposed to be in
rotation, when in actuality, there is another CD there instead.  Try it,
your users will love it!!! It will make things easier for them, and it
will end hate mail if you forget to change your CD's.  I think this file
is a must for any sysop who rotates CD's.  But of course I think that, I
wrote it.  You try it, and see what your users think...  It is very popular
on The Druid's Keep.  Rarely do I ever see a user enter the transfer section
and not choose to see which CD is available.

This file has been tested on WWIV 4.24, but does not read chain.txt, so I
believe it will work on any BBS software that has the advantage of adding
external logon programs.  If you use it on any other software, please let
me know.  I would be very interested in this.  It should also work on any
prior versions of WWIV that have the external logon event option.

INSTALLATION*******************************************************************

Yeah, yeah.  Bet you were wondering when I'd get to this part huh???

First let me tell you a little of how CD Announce! works.  CD Announce!
works on the principle of looking for a unique filename and path for each of
your CD's.  Installation is not hard, I have made a utility to help you out
with it.  But before you run the utility, there are two things that you need
to do.

1.  You need to write down the path and file name of a file on each CD.
I am assuming that you won't have any CD's with an exact same filename and
path, but if you do, you will realize this when it starts telling you the
wrong CD is in.  If on the odd chance that you should, and as luck would have
it, you choose that very file to use with CDANN, just go in and edit your data
file and give CD Announce! a different file to look for on that CD, one that
does not have the same exact path and filename as any other file on another CD.

2.  You need to prepare an ansi or text file for each cd that you have,
label them something that you can understand, and place them in your CDANN
directory.

Once this is done, you are ready to run the utility.

The utility is called annutil.exe.  It will give you a menu, and of course
you will choose to set up your CD's.  Then it will ask you to type in the
name of the first CD.  In this version, the CD name is not used, but you
still need to type it in.  And most likely it will be used in future versions,
as I didn't get to do all that I had planned for this first version.  In other
words, great things are in the works for CD Announce!!!  After you type in
the CD name, you will be prompted for a path to the unique file for that CD.
Enter it in now.  After that, the utility will ask you for the name of your
ansi (or text file) that gives the information about the CD.  Just enter the
name only, no paths are necessary.  If, for some unknown reason, you don't
want your ansi's in the CDANN directory, put the entire path to the ansi's
there instead of just the file name.  It's flexible, and will still work that
way.  But to me it makes more sense to store the ansi's in the actual CDANN
directory, and it makes it easier to install as well.  Next, you will be asked
if everything you have entered is correct.  If you answer yes, CD Announce!
will store your information in a data file.  If you say no, it will dump that
info and ask you all over again.  I wanted it to work this way because, in
this version, I do not have a utility to go in and make changes in the data
file.  If you need to make changes, you will need to go in and do so manually,
which won't be hard to do.  I'll give more info on that later.  The CDANN
utility will then ask you if you want to add another CD.  Why of course you
do!!!  Why would you need this file if you only had one CD!!!  So it repeats
the whole process.  It's kinda like washing your hair...lather, rinse,
repeat!!!

An enclosed ansi called NOCD.ANS is provided for use by CD Announce! when the
CD in the drive does not match any of the filenames/paths you have entered.
For example, you leave your Kings Quest game in the drive, or you are playing
it in Windows while multi-tasking the BBS, this is what the caller will view.
Feel free to change this ansi to whatever you would like, but do not change
the name.  The code looks for this file and you will get an error if it is
missing.

After running the utility, you will need to add CD Announce! to your BBS.
If you already have a logon.bat file set up in INIT, just add the path and
executable file for CD Announce to it.  If not, you will need to make a
logon.bat, and inform INIT of it's location on your hard drive.  It would
look similar to this...

@ECHO OFF
CD CDANN
CDANN.EXE

If you want to test CDANN before adding it to your BBS, you will need to have
at least one CD set up.  I recommend setting them all up first, because if you
don't, you will have to add the rest manually, or delete your CDANN.DAT file
and start over.  Just put a CD in the drive and run CDANN.EXE.  It will stand
alone and does not rely on the BBS to work.

You may even choose to run CDANN as a chain.  I have not tried this, but see
no reason why it would not work.  However, you will need to have the BBS
intercept DOS calls, and you would not be able to put it in a Chain utility
such as Doorbill.

On one of my ansi's that I use here at The Druid's Keep, I get an extra pause
down near the bottom.  This is WWIV's internal pause, and is caused because my
ansi is too large.  This ansi is 2803 bytes, while my next largest ansi is
2390.  So somewhere between those two points is where the WWIV software
decides to pause.  If this bothers you, make your ansi smaller, and you will
have no problems.  If you have lots of extra pauses, read the following
section on Ansi Draw programs.

NOTES ABOUT ANSI DRAW PROGRAMS************************************************

If you use an ansi draw program such as TheDraw to make your ansi's, you may
find that when you run CD Announce! inside WWIV, you get a bunch of extra
pauses.  These are the WWIV internal pauses.  This can be easily corrected
though.  Zepplin gives these tips for your ansi's used in CD Announce!  First
save your ansi in clear screen format.  Save at 55 lines.  If you still have
the extra pauses, you may need to manually edit your ansi file.  Just load it
up in any DOS editor, and look for blank lines in the middle of your ansi file.
If you find them, delete them until your ansi is in one nice neat little section
with no blank lines saved in it.  This will not change the way your ansi looks,
it just reduces the size of the file, and therefore cuts down or eliminates the
extra pauses from WWIV.  If you still have problems, your ansi is probably just
too large, as I mentioned earlier in the doc.  Simplify it some.  You don't
want it too fancy anyway; it is just there for information.  And if all else
fails, hold off on the ansi's and use text files in the meantime.  They will
serve the purpose just as well.


SETUP FOR MULTIPLE CD-ROM DRIVES**********************************************

CD Announce! will work just fine with multiple drives.  Here are a few tips for
you though.  When setting up your CD's from the beginning, enter the info for
CD's used on the first CD-rom drive (meaning, which ever drive DOS looks to
first), and then the ones for the second drive, and so on.  It will work if
you don't do it this way, but it will be helpful to your users perhaps to keep
things orderly.  In fact, when I made my ansi's, I would indicate which drive
that CD occupies.  Of course, be sure that when you enter in the paths to your
unique files you give the appropriate drive specification, which is only
common sense.


ADDING NEW CD's AFTER INSTALLATION
OR MODIFYING INFO FOR CD's ALREADY SET UP**************************************

Unfortunately, I didn't get to add a utility to do this on this first version
of CD Announce!.  But, never fear, it is coming in later versions, and it is
not hard to modify the information in the cdann.dat file created when you
first set up your CD's.  Just use any DOS text editor to do so.  You will
notice the format for the data file is as follows...

CD Name
Path to unique file for that CD
Name of ansi or text file for that CD

And at the bottom there is the word 'END'.

The main thing when editing this file is to stay true to the format, and
always, ALWAYS!, leave the word 'END' at the bottom.  And also, no blank lines,
please.  So you went to a Computer Fair and bought a brand new shareware CD for
your BBS, huh???  Ok, open up the cdann.dat file in your editor, move the word
'END' out of the way, and insert the file above it.  It's that simple.  Just
remember, stick to the format, don't skip any lines, and be sure to have the
word 'END' at the bottom of the file.  No problem for a sysop like you, huh???


To change information on CD's already set up, just do the same thing, load it
up in the editor, go in and make the changes, and be sure to follow the same
rules as when setting up a new CD that I just got finished telling you about.
Simple!!!

WHY REGISTER???****************************************************************

Well two very obvious reasons to begin with.  One is the annoying pause.  Yes,
I hated to do it, but I could think of no better way to try to convince you
guys that I worked hard on this project, and to ask for your support.
CD Announce! is just in the beginning stages, and I have a lot of great ideas
for it.  Register it now, and you are registered for life!!!  Upon registration,
if you are a registered WWIV sysop, you may obtain instuctions on how to mod
your BBS to put CD Announce! at the beginning of the transfer section, which
is really great, and the way I have it here.  Of course, if you are a good
modder, you may be able to do this yourself, but I will offer it to those who
request it, upon receipt of their WWIV reg. number.  So basically, I am asking
you to register if you like CD Announce.  If no one registers, I will think no
one likes it, and won't release any future versions.

HOW DO I REGISTER???***********************************************************

Just fill out the enclosed registration form and mail it to me at the following
address, along with a check or money order for $10.

X-Ware Productions
3310 Kennington Drive
Waxhaw NC  28173

You will then receive a registration number unique for you, and if your are a
registered WWIV sysop and request the mod to move CD Announce! to the beginning
of your transfer section, I will include that as well.  Please indicate on the
order form how you would like to receive them.

KNOWN BUGS*********************************************************************

I know of one bug, and it not a serious one.  It is with the mod to add it to
the transfer section.  If you have the 'blue screen' down when a user enters
the transfer section, the ansi may overwrite it.  But this is not serious, and
you can just hit F2 again to redraw it, and it is not messed up on the callers
side.  I am not a modder, and I feel this bug is in the mod, and not serious
enough to delay the release of CD Announce!, because I really like it, and I
hope that you will find it useful as well.

CD Announce! is written in Bordland Turbo C, so if any of you C wizards want to
send me advice on how to fix this, I'd love to have it.

If you find any bugs that I don't know about, please let me know so that I can
get them corrected for the next version.

BE AWARE***********************************************************************

CD Announce! will read the CD-rom drive each and every time a user logs on to
your BBS, or if you use the mod, when they enter the transfer section.  This
means that you need to keep a CD in the drive at all times.  It doesn't have
to be a Shareware CD, any CD will do, so long as it has computer data on it,
and not only music.  Some music CD's do have a short film on them for you to
watch on your computer, usually of the band.  I don't own one of those CD's,
but I feel like it would work if it found one of those CD's in the drive.
If you don't have a CD in the drive or you have a music only CD in there when
CD Announce tries to read it, you will get a 'error reading drive D' type
message, and your BBS will be locked up until you choose Abort, Fail, or Retry.
This is not a bug, it is simply a fact.  I suppose if I knew how to make it
check for a music CD as well, that could be fixed, but that goes beyond my
current knowledge, and it would still lock up if it found no CD at all in the
drive.

STANDARD BORING DISCLAIMER*****************************************************

I make no guarantees with CD Annouce.  It works just fine on The Druid's Keep,
and so far as I know should cause you no problems.  But in the case it does,
you installed it, not me, and upon doing so agree to assume full responsibility
for any damage caused by, or as a result of, installing CD Announce!!!

THANK YOU**********************************************************************

for downloading CD Announce!!!  I do hope that you will try it on your BBS.  I believe that you will really enjoy it, and I KNOW that your users will.  If for some reason you do not like this idea, or think that I have went about it in a truly idiotic fashion, please let me know.  If I can improve it any, I would love to.  And I do plan to, as I have several ideas in the works for the next version!!!  I think you will like CD Announce! even better as it grows and becomes even more sysop friendly.  Meanwhile
, your ideas and suggestions, and even criticisms are welcome.  My addresses are at the top of this file.  Thanks again!!!