Category : BBS Programs+Doors
Archive   : TBREAD21.ZIP
Filename : TTREAD.DOC

TriTel Online Reader v2.1
(c) 1991 Elm L. Morrow
written in Turbo Pascal 5.5
utilizing RMDOOR 2.0
For TriTel v2.x

-by-

E.L. Morrow

911 N. Pacific Ave #15
Crescent City, CA 95531
Voice: (707) 465-6765


DISCLAIMER:
I relinquish any and all responsibility for anything that may
occur due to the use of this program, correctly or incorrectly. I am
in no way libel for any damage that is attributed to the use of this
program by any and all persons.


SHAREWARE:
TriTel Online Reader is ShareWare. It's not crippled or
anything, but it does let your users know that it isn't registered by
showing #UNREGISTERED# at the top of the header on the file selection
menu.

Registration is only $17 for this new version. Future upgrades
will be priced accordingly depending on how much is changed and added.
Anyone who registers now will never have to pay for another registration
of this program. Your registration number will be good for all versions.

Distribution of this program will be solely the province of the
large number of BBS's across the country. I can't afford to send disks
out to people who register. I know this sounds kind of crude, but if
you enclose your BBS number when you register along with a password to
get on your system, I'll upload the latest version (if it's different)
and send you a private message in an appropriate conference that will
list your registration information (just a reg number and name actually).

Print and fill out the form in this archive called TTREAD.REG
and mail it to:
Elm L. Morrow
911 N. Pacific Ave Apt 15
Crescent City, CA 95531

Make checks or money orders payable to: Elm L. Morrow



WHAT IT'S FOR:

This Tritel door is for viewing text files while online. At first,
you think to yourself, "that's nuts! who wants to read stuff online?"
Well, this just might change your mind.

Do you have long, important bulletins? Nobody reads them because
it's such a pain. Now they can read them with paging ability, a simple
search function and, if they decide it's important, they can download the
file straight from the door!

This, however, is not the extent to which you can use this door.
Any text file you want your users to be able to access will work. The
list of files includes a security rating, so you can have various types
of information for different levels of users. You can display files
up to about 80 Kb. If the file is larger than that it truncates it.
I'll work on giving it the ability to be more flexible as I go along,
but I think it's capable of holding large enough documents for most
people.

I don't know what the format is for things like USA Today and any
other news service that's out there, but if they're just text files and
are within the size limit, there should be no problem using this door.
If anyone out there cares to give me the spec's on anything like this,
I'd be more than happy to work it into the reader.

I do have a filter operating that removes the TriTel @ codes from
any document it displays. This is for things like bulletins or news
files that contain these special formatting codes that you don't want
people to look at. It doesn't remove them from the file, just refuses
to display them . BTW, this filter works with the WildCAT! format
commands as well since they, coincidentally, have the same format.

Please let me know of any other codes/strings that should be watched
for and filtered out of the display.

SETTING UP:

Since this new version is multinode, you will need to have a
configuration file for each node. I have called mine TTREAD1.CFG and
TTREAD2.CFG, but you can call them anything you like.

Ahhh. Now we come to the fun part! This reader requires a few files
besides itself to run. One set is the configuration files and the other
is the list of files with descriptions and security levels that you want
to give people access to.

Here is an example configuration file:

PCB
C:\TRITEL
Works of Art BBS
Elm Morrow
0
not registered (or a 0 or something)
EMS (or the name of a swap file)

The first line is the type of door file you are going to use. In
this case, it's PCBOARD. The full list is as follows:

PCB for PCBoard,
GAP for GAP (DOOR.SYS),
SF for Spitfire,
RBBS for RBBS, or
WC for WildCat!

Line two tells the door what directory the door file generated by
the BBS will be in. This is generally your node's main directory. For
example, Node 1 on my board is C:\TRITEL and node 2 is C:\TRITEL2.

Line three is the name of the BBS. This is also the registration
name that you must use with your registration number. More on that later.

Line four is the SysOp's name.

Line five is the speed at which your port is locked. If you don't
lock your port, then put a zero (0) on this line.

Line six is your registration number. Registration numbers are
based on a somewhat random algorithm that is based upon the characters
of your BBS's name. All of my utils have a different algorithm, so don't
get any ideas .

Line seven can hold either the word EMS (in CAPS!) or the name of
a swap file. The reader will attempt to swap itself to EMS if it can
allocate the memory. Even if you told it to grab EMS, if there isn't
enough available it will swap itself out to a file called SWAP.$$$.
If you give *any other* value on this line, it will be used as the
name of a swap file. Remember: EMS in CAPS!


The reader also needs three data files that essentially define your
list of files to view, what archivers are available and what protocols the
user can invoke in the download function. They are detailed below.

VIEWLIST.DAT
------------
This file *must* reside in the same directory as the reader. It is a
simple text file that contains a list of entries that take this form:

,,

The first field is obvious. You must tell the reader on what
drive and directory the file is. There is no requirement that it be
in the directory you run the viewer from.

can be up to 50 characters long, so you should
be able to get the point across. This is what the users will see when
they are selecting the file from the Selection Menu.

is the level of security a user must have to be able to
read that specific file.


ARCHLIST.DAT
------------
This file contains the archivers that you want made available to
your users when they invoke the download function. This file is a pure
text file that *must* have single lines for each entry that take this
form:

,,,

The first field must have the full name and path to the archiver.
You must also provide an extension. Just follow the form in the brackets
and you'll be okay.

can only be up to 20 characters long and it will be
used as the line on the menu that the user will be choosing from.

is a little more complicated. You need to provide
a command line that the archiver will use. There are two parameters that
the reader will pass to it:

%1 Name of archive
%2 Name of file to archive

is the three-character extension that archives created
with the archiver will have. (i.e. ZIP for PKZIP, ARJ for ARJ, etc...)

Here's an example of what your entries should look like:

c:\dos\pkzip.exe,PKZIP (Most Popular),%1 %2,ZIP
c:\dos\lha.exe,LHA (Very fast),a %1 %2,LZH

PROTLIST.DAT
------------
This file contains the list and necessary information for the
different type of protocols that the user will have at their disposal.
It is also a simple text file that contains one-line entries:

,,

are exactly that. Please provide the full path,
name and extension.

is what the users will see when making their selection
of which protocol to use for the download.

is the command line that the protocol will need in
order to execute correctly. The reader passes a number of parameters
to the program. The only one that is absolutely required to be used is
the name of file to download parameter (%1). The parameters are:

%1 Name of file to download
%2 Baud rate
%3 Locked baud rate

The following are examples of how to use the parameters:

c:\qmodem\dsz.exe,Zmodem (DSZ),port 2 speed %2 sz %1
c:\qmodem\pcz.exe,ZModem (PCZ),2 %2 sz %1
c:\qmodem\pcz.exe,YModem (PCZ),2 %2 sy %1
c:\qmodem\pcz.exe,SeaLink (PCZ),2 %2 ss %1

After you have set these files up, you're door is ready to be put
into use by your BBS. I just want to stress again that it is not required
that you run this as a PCBoard door. The GAP door file (DOOR.SYS) is much
smaller and has all the information necessary. You can use whatever format
you most like to use. I just like PCBoard because most of my doors are
of that format (as a matter of fact, now that I think about it, the ALL
are!) so I prefer to use a single door type to keep from having multiple
door definition files laying around on my HD.


RUNNING THE DOOR:
The batch file for this door is simple. Do something like this:

cd c:\tritel\doors\reader
ttread ttread1.cfg
cd c:\tritel
board


SPECIAL SYSOP KEYS:
These keys give you (the SysOp) the ability to do a number of things
while a user is in the middle of the door.

Key(s) Function

HOME Toggles between the user status window and a
help display that lists the RMDoor special
keys.

F6 Takes 5 minutes away from the caller.

F7 Gives 5 minutes to the caller.

F9 Quit the door and return the caller to the
BBS.

F10 Enter chat mode. Pressing the ESC key exits
the chat mode.

Alt+D Drop to DOS.


USING THE DOOR:

Now that you know how to set it up and how the SysOp stuff works,
lets talk about the other end of things. The first thing the user will
see is a header that names the door and me and lets them know if you're
registered or not. Just below this will be a box with a list of file
description for the user to choose from. If there are more than will fit
in the box at a time, just move the cursor down past the bottom and the
next page will come up.

I've never bottomed out the total number of entries that the menu
can handle, but I'm confident that it's well over a hundred. Basically,
the size of your VIEWLIST.DAT can be up to 80 Kb! That's a *lot* of file
descriptions.

When you have the arrows pointing at the file you want to view,
press to view it. If you changed your mind and you want to leave
the door, press and it will exit the door.

After you select a file, it will load and the first page will come
up on the screen. Because of formatting restrictions for the SysOps side
of the display (the SysOp status screen takes up several lines), the
window for viewing files isn't very large. Hopefully, it's adequate for
whatever you're doing.

Currently the only features implemented are Page Up <8>, Page
Down <2>, Search , Search Again , and Download . More features
will be put in place once the current ones have been fully tested and
optimized. Feel free to make suggestions. I'll probably use them!

Pressing S to search will put a prompt at the bottom of the window
asking you for a string to search for. Just enter whatever you like and
press . Searches are =CASE SENSITIVE=. I'll be adding options for
searching in a later version.

Search Again will do just that. There is a limitation, however.
If you page up or down, it will clear the search string from memory and
you'll have to enter it again.

The selection of archiver and protocol work exactly the same way
that the Selection menu does. Simply press <2> for up or <8> for down
until the selection you want is being pointed to by the arrows, then
press .


WRAP UP:
Sound pretty limited? Well, it is. So why should you cough up
$17 for it? Well, it would be a shrewd maneuver on your part because
the price will go up the better the door gets. As a matter of fact, the
price has already gone up since the first version. As I stated at the start
of this .DOC file, anyone who registers this program will never have to
register it again, no matter how much the price goes up. That's my
part of the deal. You support me when I'm first working things out with
this door and I keep updating it and making it better. People who wait
until it's more advanced will have to pay a higher price!


SUGGESTIONS, ETC...:

Please leave your suggestions for improvements and any other
comments on one or more of the following boards:

The WheelChair Express
(707) 464-3705 Node 1
(707) 465-1272 Node 2

Conference: Nocturnal Support


Of course, there's always snail mail. As a general rule, I don't
like answering letters, but if you send a check or m.o. for $17 with a
letter, I'll more than likely get in touch with you one way or the other.

If I've missed something or you can't make sense out of all or part
of this .DOC file, get in touch and let me know. It's really not that
hard to get it set up, but I don't always feel like writing and so the
descriptions of how to do things get erratic and confusing.

HISTORY:

Version's 1.0 through 1.2 were essentially áeta versions of the
door. Version 1.1 added minor formatting and version 1.2 was a fairly
major addition to the download function.

Version 1.3 was released only because my registered version of
rmDoor showed up and it only gets rid of the ShareWare notice that comes
up when someone enters the door.

Version 2.0 is now multinode and will work just fine with TriTel
v2.0. Please let me know immediately! if there are any problems running
this door on your system. This is one of my first multi-node doors and
there may still be some bugs in it.

Version 2.1 fixed a minor programming snafu. The downloading
function should now be back up and usable. Also recompiled using
rmDoor v2.0 which fixes the Drop to DOS and chat functions.