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ECHOFIX.DOC
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1997-08-22
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┌──────────────────────────────────────┐
│ EchoFix v 1.01 │
│ │
│ Copyright 1997 │
│ Gnome Enterprises │
│ Author : David Chord │
└──────────────────────────────────────┘
EchoFix is a program designed to aid Maximus SysOp's in maintaining their
message areas on their system.
It works by reading in your SQUISH.CFG file, and comparing the echo area tags
with those in your MSGAREA.CTL file. If an area is found in SQUISH.CFG that
does not appear in MSGAREA.CTL, a file named MSGAREA.ECF is created in your
MSGAREA.CTL directory, and the area's details are written into this file in the
Maximus version 3.x format.
CREDITS
Much thanks is owed to Michael McGavin, my main (and with this program, only)
beta tester, without whom this program would be full of bugs and the
documentation full of errers.
WARRANTY
This program has been extensively tested to make sure there are no bugs.
However, since we cannot control the SQ (Stupidity Quotient) of people,
including ourselves, we cannot and will not be held responsible for any
problems resulting in loss of sight, limb or data that occur while you are
using this program. It is up to you to make sure that you run regular backups
of your system and that you use this program only as detailed in this document.
COST
This program is freeware. However, if you like it, a small donation to keep
Gnome Enterprises running would be greatly appreciated.
Send any donations to :
David Chord
PO Box 53053
Cannons Creek
Porirua
New Zealand
GENERAL
This program makes a few assumptions about you and your system, these being :
■ You're not to lazy to sort out your local areas yourself.
■ When you defined each area in MSGAREA.CTL, you remembered to include the
TAG line for use with the ECHOTOSS.LOG file.
■ The default address defined in Maximus and the default address defined
in Squish are the same.
■ For those areas that use an address other than your default one, you've
used the '-p<address>' switch in Squish.
HOW IT WORKS
EchoFix works by scanning your SQUISH.CFG file for the ECHOAREA lines,
breaking the line into seperate parts (Area Tag, Area Path, Area Type and
Area Address), then reading your MSGAREA.CTL file for a matching area TAG.
If the TAG is not found, EchoFix creates a file named MSGAREA.ECF in the same
directory that MSGAREA.CTL is in, then adds each missing area to MSGAREA.ECF.
The new areas are in the format :
MsgArea INTBBS_WK
Acs Normal
Desc INTBBS_WK
Path D:\MAX\MSG\INTBBS_W
Style Pub Echo RealName Squish
Tag INTBBS_WK
Origin . . Your Origin Line
End MsgArea
For those areas that are defined as *.MSG in SQUISH.CFG, the 'Style' line will
become :
Style Pub Echo Realname *.MSG
If you've used a different address for an area in SQUISH.CFG, eg
EchoArea INTBBS_WK D:\MAX\MSG\INTBBS_WK -$m500 -p28:1500/1 3:771/1560.0
(where the '-p28:1500/1' tells squish to use 28:1500/1 as the origin
address) then the origin line will become
Origin 28:1500/1 28:1500/1 Your Origin Line
It is up to you to check each area is correct, add in the description for the
area, and make sure the are Style and Acs are correct.
There is an option to point ECHOFIX to your SQAFIX.CFG file, from where it will
extract descritpions for you. This is only usefull if the bulk of your
descriptions in SQAFIX.CFG are correct. Also, please note that this adds a lot
of extra work to EchoFix, and it will run noteably slower if you are using this
option - if you only have a few areas to add it would probably be best to
simply type the descriptions in by hand after running EchoFix
As each area will be in the same format, it is simple to make global changes to
the entire file, eg replacing 'Your Origin Line' with the origin line you wish
to use.
USAGE :
Usage of EchoFix is very simple. EchoFix takes in 2 or 3 command line
parameters, these being the path/name of your MSGAREA.CTL file, the path/name
of your SQUISH.CFG file, and optionally the path/name of your SQAFIX.CFG file,
eg
ECHOFIX D:\MAX\MSGAREA.CTL D:\MAX\SQUISH\SQUISH.CFG
would tell EchoFix to use the MSGAREA.CTL file in D:\MAX, and the SQUISH.CFG
file in D:\MAX\SQUISH, or
ECHOFIX D:\MAX\MSGAREA.CTL D:\SQUISH\SQUISH.CFG D:\SQAFIX\SQAFIX.CFG
would tell EchoFix to use the MSGAREA.CTL file in D:\MAX, the SQUISH.CFG file
in D:\SQUISH, and the SQAFIX.CFG file in D:\SQAFIX.
After EchoFix is run, edit the resulting MSGAREA.ECF file and make any
necessary alterations to the file, then merge the MSGAREA.ECF file with your
current MSGAREA.CTL file.
NOTE that is is up to YOU to make sure the access levels and addresses/origin
lines used in the areas are correct. The only thing EchoFix can do for sure is
make an area who's name and TAG match an ECHOAREA in SQUISH.CFG.
Naturally, it is a good idea to back up all your files often, especially if you
are going to be changing them.
SPEED
EchoFix V1.x includes several examples of optimized code, as well as some other
features that have improved the speed of EchoFix over earlier versions.
However, in some situations it will still appear to run slow.
If you have a large system, with a lot of areas already defined in MSGAREA.CTL,
and are using the SQAFIX option, again with a lot of areas, the overall speed
of EchoFix will drop with the more areas each of these files has. If your
system is something like this, and you only want to add a couple of new areas,
then you're best to get off your lazy backside and type them in manually, as it
probably will be faster. If you're wanting to add 20 or 30 areas, then EchoFix
should save you a considerable amount of time.
If you have lost your MSGAREA.CTL file for some reason, EchoFix can build it
for you from scratch, but the file MSGAREA.CTL MUST exist somewhere for EchoFix
to start, even if it's a 0-length file. Running like this, EchoFix will move
pretty fast. My machine's record is 388 areas added to an empty MSGARAEA.CTL in
1 minute 50 seconds (compare with 27minutes 43 seconds for EchoFix 0.24 using
the same files).
Naturally, the further into either MSGAREA.CTL or SQAFIX.CFG EchoFix has to
read, the slower it will run.
BUGS
If you have any suggestions for improcements to EchoFix, or you find any bugs
or error codes that we haven't trapped in some way, please send as much
information on the problem as you can to :
David Chord, 170:1701/110@tfnet.ftn
David Chord, 3:771/1560@fidonet.org
david.chord@cobra.galaxy.gen.nz
Please include details about your system including environment and versions of
software used.