Die Speccy' 97/Die Speccy' 97.iso/amiga_system/the_aminet/comm/fido/mercury117.lha/Mercury.Doc

Text File | 1995-09-21 | 21KB | 561 lines

                    MERCURY - The REAL Amiga Tire Pump
                              by Roger Clark
                        ⌐ 1994 BitPlane Enterprises

  Mercury is designed to use Quick Silver's configuration file for seamless
integration  with  the  file  server.   Many  of  the keywords that Mercury
recognizes  are  standard for Quick Silver.  Those commands indicated by an
asterisk  (*)  are  recognized only by Mercury and ignored by Quick Silver.
If  you  are not running Quick Silver (and why not?) these commands are all
explained  below.

  Mercury  will generate both plain text file lists, as well as AmigaGuide«
formatted  file  lists.   Both  files will be placed in the same archive so
your  callers  will  get both lists when they download or file request your
file listings.

  Mercury  will also recognize Quick Silver's keyfile and use it as well as
it's  own special keyfile.  So if you have registered Quick Silver, Mercury
will  run  in  the registered mode as well.  The registered version is also
quite a bit faster than the unregistered version.

  Mercury  was  originally  derived  from Robofiler, another ARexx filelist
generation  utility  by  Robert  Blayzor.   But this was long long ago in a
galaxy far far away...


QSilver/Mercury Keywords
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

CNETDESC

DEFCOMMENT [Comment]

DIRECTORY [Path] {LEVEL} {TITLE} {LINK}

DLGDESC

EXCELDESC

HEADER [Path]

IGNORE [File extension]

MAGIC FILES [Path] {Level}

MAGIC NEW [Path] {LEVEL}

NAME [BBS Name]

NODE [Node Number]


Mercury Only Keywords
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

ARCHIVER [Archiver command]

BUTTON [Filename] [Button Title]

DELETELISTS

ENDSUBMENU

FILEHEADER [Path]

FILENOTE [Filenote]

FOOTER [Path]

ICON [Path]

NEWDAYS [Number of days]

NEWFILENOTE [Filenote]

TEMPDIR [Path]

SHOWFULLPATH

SUBMENU [Menu Title]

SUBTEXT [Filename]

TXTICON [Path]



Description of commands
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

DIRECTORY:

   This defines the paths that Mercury searches in for files to list.  Each
area  can have an optional access level or levels associated with it.  If a
level  is  assigned,  then  Mercury  will only include the contents of that
directory  in the file list(s) that have the proper access levels assigned.
You  may also specify an optional area title for Mercury to use in the file
listing  for each area.  This title is defined AFTER any levels if they are
used.

 Example:  DIRECTORY DH0:Files/Games   LEVEL 5 TITLE Amiga Games
           DIRECTORY DH0:Files/Comm    TITLE Amiga Communications
           DIRECTORY DH0:Files/Private LEVEL 10,14

   If  you  have  your  file  directories  split  among different drives or
directories,  you  can  use the LINK keyword to tell Mercury to include all
files in the current directory with the files in the previous directory. In
the following example, all files in all three directories will be listed in
the file listings as if they were all in the same phisical directory.


 Example:  DIRECTORY DH0:Files/Stuff   TITLE My stuff
           DIRECTORY DH1:Files/Stuff   LINK
           DIRECTORY DH2:Files/Stuff   LINK


MAGIC FILES:

  This defines the filelist(s) that Mercury will create.  If a file listing
has  been  given an access level, then only those areas appropriate for the
access  levels  will  be included in the listing.  You may specify multiple
filelists each with a unique name and assorted access levels.  Mercury will
strip the last 4 characters from the filename and create each list with the
partial  filename that results.  So in the first example below, the created
listing would be named "DH0:Files/FileList".

  New to version 1.05 is the optional switches ASCII and GUIDE.  These will
tell  Mercury  to  only generate one type of file listing or the other.  By
omitting  both  switches, Mercury will generate both style file lists.  See
examples 3 and 4 below.

  Also  new  to  version 1.05 is the optional switch NOBUTTONS.  This tells
Mercury to not add the file request generating buttons to the file listing.
See example 5 below.

  These  options are not position sensitive, so they may appear anywhere on
the line following the path and filename of the filelist.

  New to version 1.06 is the ADDCR option.  This will add a CR character at
the  end  of each line in the ASCII filelist to maintain compatibility with
PC  systems.   The default action is to not add the CR character.  The last
example  will  create only the ASCII file list and append the CR to the end
of each line.

 Example:  MAGIC FILES DH0:Files/FileList.LHA
           MAGIC FILES DH0:Files/FileList10.LHA LEVEL 10

           MAGIC FILES DH0:Files/FileListG.LHA GUIDE
           MAGIC FILES DH0:Files/FileListA.LHA ASCII

           MAGIC FILES DH0:Files/FileList.LHA NOBUTTONS

           MAGIC FILES DH0:Files/FileList.LHA ADDCR ASCII

MAGIC NEW:

  The  same  as  MAGIC  FILES, except this option names the file lists that
contain  only  the  NEW  files  on  the  system.  All options are the same,
including the new ASCII, GUIDE and NOBUTTONS switches.

 Example:  MAGIC NEW DH0:Files/NewFiles.LHA
           MAGIC NEW DH0:Files/NewFiles10.LHA LEVEL 10


NAME:

  This  is your BBS name.  It is only used for the default file comments if
you  don't  specify  FILENOTE  or NEWFILENOTE.  If this keyword is ommited,
then  the  default  comments  are listed as "Full File List" and "New Files
List", otherwise your BBS name is pre-appended to the filenotes.

 Example: NAME The Hotel California


NODE:

  This  is  your  FidoNet  node  number.   It  is used in version 1.04 + to
generate  automatic file requests when the end user clicks on a filename in
your  listing.   This  new feature requires the NODE keyword to be present.
If  Mercury can not find the NODE keyword, then the auto-request feature is
disabled.  Note: Your full 4D address must be used.

 Example: NODE 1:382/105.0


FILENOTE:

  This  comand  defines  the  AmigaDos  filenote  to  be added to each full
filelist  and  it's  associated  archive.   If  you omit this keyword, then
Mercury  will  use  "Full  File  List"  as a default.  If Mercury finds the
keyword NAME, then it will pre-append the BBS Name to the default filenote.

 Example:  FILENOTE My complete filelisting


NEWFILENOTE:

  This  comand  defines  the  AmigaDos  filenote  to  be  added to each new
filelist  and  it's  associated  archive.   If  you omit this keyword, then
Mercury  will  use  "New  Files  List"  as a default.  If Mercury finds the
keyword NAME, then it will pre-append the BBS Name to the default filenote.

 Example:  FILENOTE My complete filelisting


HEADER:

  This  defines a textfile that can be placed at the beginning of each file
listing  and  new  file  listing.   The HEADER keyword is shared with Quick
Silver.   If  you  wish to use a different header for the file listings and
Quick Silver's reply messages, then use the FILEHEADER option.

 Example:  HEADER DH0:BBS/Header.TXT


FILEHEADER:

  This  defines a textfile that can be placed at the beginning of each file
listing  and  new  file  listing.   Since the HEADER keyword is shared with
Quick  Silver,  you  may  wish  to use a different header file for the file
listings.   In  this  case,  the  FILEHEADER  keyword is used to define the
header  file  that Mercury uses while the HEADER keyword will still be used
by  Quick  Silver.  If both keywords are used, FILEHEADER will override the
HEADER  option  and  be  used by Mercury.  Omitting this keyword will cause
Mercury  to  fallback  to using the HEADER keyword, or in it's absence, not
using any file header.

 Example:  FILEHEADER DH0:BBS/FileHeader.TXT


FOOTER:

  This  defines  a textfile to be appended to the end of each file list and
new  file  list.   If  this keyword is omitted, then Mercury will not use a
footer comment at the end of the file listings.

 Example:  FOOTER DH0:BBS/Footer.TXT


DELETELISTS:

  This  command  tells Mercury to delete the file lists when it is finished
archiving.   This  will  delete  all of the .TXT and .GUIDE file lists, and
leave  just  the  archived file lists.  The default action is to not delete
the file lists.

 Example:  DELETELISTS


ICON:

  This  defines the AmigaDos .info file to be copied into the file archives
with  each  .Guide file.  If you want to create your own icon, make sure it
is  a  PROJECT icon with the default tool of your AmigaGuide viewer.  I use
Sys:Utilities/AmigaGuide but you can use MultiView or whatever you need.

  Example: ICON DH0:BBS/Mercury.Icon


TXTICON:

  This  defines the AmigaDos .info file to be copied into the file archives
with  each .TXT file.  If you want to create your own icon, make sure it is
a  PROJECT  icon  with  the  default  tool  of  your  text  viewer.   I use
Sys:Utilties/More but you can use MultiView or whatever you need.

  Example: TXTICON DH0:BBS/MercTXT.Icon


DLGDESC:

  This  keyword tells Mercury to use DLG's special file comments instead of
the standard AmigaDos filenotes when getting the file descriptions for each
file.  If you are not running DLG BB/OS then leave this keyword out.

 Example:  DLGDESC


EXCELDESC:

  This  keyword  tells  Mercury  to  use Excelsior!'s special file comments
instead   of   the  standard  AmigaDos  filenotes  when  getting  the  file
descriptions  for  each  file.  If you are not running Excelsior!  BBS then
leave this keyword out.

 Example:  EXCELDESC


CNETDESC:

  This  keyword  tells  Mercury to use CNet Pro BBS's special file comments
instead   of   the  standard  AmigaDos  filenotes  when  getting  the  file
descriptions for each file.  This has only been tested with version 3.05 of
CNet  Pro  BBS, so previous versions of CNet may not work with this option.
If you are not running CNet Pro BBS then leave this keyword out.

 Example:  CNETDESC


DEFCOMMENT:

  This  defines a default file comment to be used for a file if Mercury was
unable to use the AmigaDos file comment, or the DLG file comment if DLGDESC
was used.  This defaults to "No file description available".

 Example: DEFCOMMENT -- I've got no idea what this is! --


IGNORE:

  This  defines  a  suffix for files that Mercury should not include in the
file  listings.   Define each suffix with a seperate IGNORE keyword.  These
are not case sensitive.

 Example:  IGNORE .BBS
           IGNORE .INFO


TEMPDIR:

  This  defines  an  alternate  working directory for Mercury to store it's
temporary  files.   This defaults to "T:", so if you have lots of files and
file areas, but not a lot of ram, you might want to define TEMPDIR to point
to  a  directory  on  your hard drive instead.  This directory must already
exist, or else Mercury will default back to using the T:  directory.

 Example:  TEMPDIR DH0:Trashcan


NEWDAYS:

  This tells Mercury how many days old to consider files as new for the new
files  listing, and to be flagged in the full file listing as new.  Default
is 15 days.

 Example: NEWDAYS 10


ARCHIVER:

  This  defines  the  archiver  command  that  Mercury uses to compress the
completed file listings.  The archive name will be added to the archive and
so  the  MAGIC  FILES  and MAGIC NEW filenames should reflect this as well.
The  default  archiver  command  is "LHA -2 u" (-lh5 compression and update
archive contents).

 Example:  ARCHIVER ARC a


BUTTON:

  This  defines the textfile and button text to be added to the .GUIDE file
listings.  You can add as many of these user-definable buttons to your file
listings  as  you  like.   Perfect  for  displaying  information about your
system,  or  information  on  how  to become a member of a network that you
participate in.  BUTTON requires two arguments and an optional access level
indicator.  The required arguments are the name of the file to include, and
the  text  to  display  in  the  button  itself.   Due  to  the way Mercury
interprets  the  arguments,  TITLE  must always be the last argument on the
line.   If  the  LEVEL option is omitted, then the access level defaults to
level 0.

 Example:  BUTTON LEVEL 1 FILE DH0:BBSInfo TITLE About The Hotel California


SHOWFULLPATH:

  This option tells Mercury to add a line at the start of each file section
listing the full path for the area as defined in the config file.  This may
have  some  strange results if you are using Linked file areas, as only the
first file path will be listed.

 Example: SHOWFULLPATH


SUBMENU / ENDSUBMENU:

  This  option  will  let  Mercury  generate  a submenu for a group of file
areas.   This  is useful so you can keep associated areas together, and not
have  them  all  listed on the "Contents" page of the AmigaGuide file list.
This  option  is  available  to  registered  users only.  It takes only one
argument, the text to be placed in the button gadget.  You must also supply
an appropriate ENDSUBMENU command after the last area to be included.

 Example: SUBMENU ADS File Echos
          DIRECTORY File:ADSAnims/  TITLE Amiga Animation
          DIRECTORY File:ADSARexx/  TITLE ARexx Scripts
          DIRECTORY File:ADSArtG/   TITLE IFF/HAM/JPeg Art Gallery
          DIRECTORY File:ADSBBUtl/  TITLE Amiga BBS Utilities
          DIRECTORY File:ADSComm/   TITLE Amiga Communications
          DIRECTORY File:ADSDLG/    TITLE DLG BB/OS Support Files
          DIRECTORY File:ADSExcel/  TITLE Excelsior BBS Support Files
          DIRECTORY File:ADSFido/   TITLE Amiga FidoNet Utilities
          DIRECTORY File:ADSGames/  TITLE Amiga Games
          DIRECTORY File:ADSInfo/   TITLE ADS Information
          DIRECTORY File:ADSMisc/   TITLE Amiga Misc Programs
          DIRECTORY File:ADSSTMod/  TITLE Amiga MOD Sound Files
          DIRECTORY File:ADSMusic/  TITLE Amiga Music
          DIRECTORY File:ADSNetDv/  TITLE Amiga Network Developers
          DIRECTORY File:ADSText/   TITLE Amiga Text Files
          DIRECTORY File:ADSUtils/  TITLE Amiga Utilities
          DIRECTORY File:ADSWork/   TITLE Amiga Workbench 1.3 Programs
          DIRECTORY File:ADSWork2/  TITLE Amiga Workbench 2.0 Programs
          DIRECTORY File:ADSWork3/  TITLE Amiga Workbench 3.0 Programs
          DIRECTORY File:ADSTrans/  TITLE TransAmiga Support Files
          ENDSUBMENU



SUBTEXT:

  This  option lets you define a text file to be added to a submenu page of
the  AmigaGuide  file  listing.   This  option oly works with an associated
SUBMENU and ENDSUBMENU pair, and is only available to registered users.

 Example: SUBMENU Graphics Files
          SUBTEXT File:Graphics/About.TXT
          DIRECTORY .....
          DIRECTORY .....
          DIRECTORY .....
          DIRECTORY .....
          DIRECTORY .....
          ENDSUBMENU



Registration Information
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Mercury  is  released as shareware.  If you wish to register Mercury, you
have  two options.  First, for $5.00 US you can register Mercury alone; and
second, for $15.00 US you can register both Mercury and it's companion file
server, Quick Silver.  Send your registration to the following address:

Roger Clark
Attn: Mercury Registration
5508 Delwood Drive
Austin, TX 78723   USA


Technical Support
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Technical support for Mercury is available through the following:

Email to the author at "[e-mail]"

                    Fidonet address coming again soon.

Voice support at the following number: 1-512-928-4955


History
~~~~~~~

v1.00  27-Jan-94   -> Initial release.

v1.01  30-Jan-94   -> Bug fix - Fixed small problem with linked file areas
                      creating multiple sections in the AmigaGuide listings.

v1.02  07-Feb-94   -> Bug fix - Fixed packing routine that was including
                      the full file list .Guide file in the newfiles
                      archive.
                   -> Bug fix - Fixed error that was reporting incorrect
                      values in the New File listings.
                   -> Bug fix - Fixed bug that added an @NODE header in the
                      .Guide file lists for areas that were not allowed due
                      to access levels.
                   -> Added DELETELISTS option by request.

v1.03  08-Feb-94   -> Mercury now only adds buttons in the .Guide filelists
                      for areas that have files/new files in them.
                   -> Added ICON option to define the .info file that
                      should accompany the .Guide files in the archives.

v1.04  26-Feb-94   -> Hopefully fixed a small "misfeature" in the DLG
                      comment routine.  It was including user comments in
                      the description.  The same fix is now also applied to
                      Quick Silver.
                   -> Added new feature to let the end user of your file
                      listing generate file requests simply by clicking on
                      the filename that they want to request.

v1.05  01-Mar-94   -> Removed dependancy on AmigaDos COPY command wherever
                      possible.  Some people didn't seem to have it in
                      their path (?!?)
                   -> Added user-definable buttons for the .GUIDE files.
                   -> Added NOBUTTONS option to MAGIC FILES and MAGIC NEW
                   -> Added ASCII and GUIDE swtiches to MAGIC FILES and
                      MAGIC NEW
                   -> Rewrote the wordwrap code.  Much more reliable now.

v1.06  02-Mar-94   -> Added ADDCR option to MAGIC FILES and MAGIC NEW
                   -> Added TXTICON option to add a Workbench icon for the
                      ASCII file lists.

v1.07  09-Mar-94   -> Modified text output to reduce number of columns.
                      Makes it easier to view on 640 wide screen with
                      Topaz/8 default font.
                   -> Modified Mercury internally to recognize month
                      abbreviations other than English.  If you used
                      another Locale setting it would cause Mercury to
                      crash. (Sascha Blank)

v1.08  13-Mar-94   -> Fixed potential problem with most invalid dates. Now
                      treats years less than 78 and greater than 99 as if
                      they are 2000 through 2077.  This should take care of
                      things long enough into the future :-)
                   -> With the help of DLG sysop Andy Wasserman, I think I
                      have eliminated the last bug in the DLGDesc routines.

v1.09  14-Mar-94   -> Modified Mercury to accept filenames that contain
                      spaces.  Seems this is why many people were having
                      problems getting Mercury to compile their file lists.

v1.10  15-Mar-94   -> Bug Fix.  Missed a change that needed to be done in
                      1.09 to fix the problem with spaces in file names.
                      Only showed up if you had any LINKed directories.
                      Thanks to Chris Brundell for pointing this out.

v1.11  18-Mar-94   -> Added EXCELDESC option to use Excelsior! BBS data
                      files to lookup the file comments.  Expanded the
                      file lists to 84 columns to accomodate FILE_ID.DIZ
                      file descriptions.

v1.12  29-Mar-94   -> Added SHOWFULLPATH option by request of Bob Lindabury.

v1.13  06-Apr-94   -> Addec CNETDESC option to use CNet Pro 3.0 data files
                      to look up the file comments.  Many thanks to Chris
                      Brundell for helping with this addition.

v1.14  14-Aug-94   -> Finally tracked down the last bug in Mercury and
                      fixed it!  Should no longer error out when file
                      comments have embeded CF or LF characters in the
                      AmigaDOS file comment.
                   -> Now, on to the biggest challenge: MORE SPEED!

v1.15  06-Nov-94   -> Major rewrite in the way Mercury generates it's file
                      listings.  Easily a 350% speed increase here!
                   -> Added SUBMENU / ENDSUBMENU keywords.
                   -> Fixed a couple remaining bugs when run with CNet BBS.
                   -> Fixed the last small bug when run with a CDRom.
                   -> Added SYSOP FAVORITE, UNVALIDATED, OFFLINE and
                      FAILED TEST flags for Excelsior! BBS usage. Need the
                      flag locations for the CNet and DLG options still.

v1.16  10-Sep-95   -> After a long break, here we go again!
                   -> Added SUBTEXT keyword.
                   -> Fixed but that put the last archive name in the
                      titlebar of the .GUIDE file.

v1.17  21-Sep-95   -> Fixed bug that snuck in while compiling the new file
                      lists.
                   -> Fixed bug that would not show the SubArea title in
                      the .TXT files for the last area in each Submenu.


                             --->BitPlane!<---

"We get Brilliant.......................................in our spare time!"