home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
Text File | 1991-06-16 | 102.5 KB | 2,746 lines |
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- DOWNSORT
- Maximus CBCS DOWNload file SORT and List Utility (OS/2 and DOS)
- Version 5.1
-
-
-
-
- June 16, 1991
-
-
- Rob Hamerling
-
- Vianen, The Netherlands
- Phone: ++31-3473-72136 (voice)
- FIDO-net: 2:512/4.1098
-
- Maximus Download File Sort and List Utility (OS/2 and DOS)
-
-
-
- Maximus Download File Sort and List Utility (OS/2 and DOS)
-
-
-
- CONTENTS
-
-
- About DOWNSORT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
- Registration and Shareware Fee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
- Warranty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
- Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
-
- What DOWNSORT can do for you . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
- Purpose and Objectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
- Functional Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
- File-dates and HPFS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
- File reports (list types) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
- ORPHAN report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
- BBS-list . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
- NEW-list . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
- ALL-list . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
- IPF-list . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
- GBL-list . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
- FILES.BBS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
- General notes about the lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
-
- How to use DOWNSORT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
- Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
- Commandline parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
- Configuration file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
- Parameters with global scope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
- Parameters with local scope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
- Usability hints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
- Specification of AREA.DAT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
- Location of FILES.BBS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
- Privilege control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
- Orphan report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
- Duplicates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
- | Headers, Titles and Include files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
- Privileges with File Request . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
- Sample specifications and usage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
- DOWNSORT specification sample . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
- BinkleyTerm specification sample . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
- Dependencies and restrictions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
- Wishlist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
- Known Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
-
- Packaging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
- RUN-time material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
- Source material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
- Availability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
-
- Internals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
- Development Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
- Program Organisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
- Main Data Organisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
- Storage and Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
-
- Appendix A. History of changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
-
-
- Contents ii
-
- Maximus Download File Sort and List Utility (OS/2 and DOS)
-
-
-
- | Version 5.1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
- Version 5.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
- Version 4.9 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
- Version 4.8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
- Version 4.7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
- Version 4.6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
- Version 4.5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
- Version 4.4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
- Version 4.3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
- Version 4.2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
- Version 4.1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
- Version 4.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
-
- Appendix B. Who use DOWNSORT? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
-
- Appendix C. Sample Configuration File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- Contents iii
-
- Maximus Download File Sort and List Utility (OS/2 and DOS)
-
-
-
- ABOUT DOWNSORT
-
- DOWNSORT was started a few years ago as a program for my own use when I was
- SYSOP of the Bulletin Board PC-Square, to get overviews of my download
- material for the users. The program name is related to the SORTing of the
- collection of DOWNloadable files, in DOWNward time-stamp sequence and a
- Bulletin was the only list that was produced at that time. Also PC-Square
- was running BinkleyTerm and OPUS under DOS, and file-requesting was not so
- popular then.
-
- Now PC-Square runs with OS/2, BinkleyTerm and MAXIMUS CBCS, and I'm not the
- SYSOP anymore but still strongly involved. As a contribution to PC-Square
- and the large international Bulletin Board community of MAXIMUS CBCS
- boards, I decided to upgrade my DOWNSORT program to the current software.
- But at the same time a lot of improvements and extensions have been made:
- many user-configurable options for many more output formats then the
- | original DOWNSORT.
-
- | The only dependency of DOWNSORT on MAXIMUS CBCS is a parameter-file
- | AREA.DAT, which is usually created with a MAXIMUS utility (SILT(P)), which
- | itself can be used without actually running MAXIMUS! This is the way I
- | work for testing DOWNSORT.
-
- "Appendix A. History of changes" on page 29 gives an impression of the
- history.
-
- DOWNSORT is now developed in an OS/2 environment, but it is distributed as
- 'family'-application: it runs under OS/2 and DOS.
-
-
- REGISTRATION AND SHAREWARE FEE
-
- DOWNSORT is a $ 0.00 Shareware Program. This means (to me) that you
- respect the commonly known rules for shareware, but you don't have to pay
- me anything.
-
- Registration is voluntary: please send me a netmail message with your name
- and (net-)address if you are a regular user of DOWNSORT as SYSOP. That
- gives me an impression of the usage and the impact of changes to DOWNSORT.
-
- If you tell me that you are running DOWNSORT on your Bulletin Board as
- service to your users, I'll add your name to the reference list in
- "Appendix B. Who use DOWNSORT?" on page 35 (if you like).
-
-
- WARRANTY
-
- For this price? You must be kidding! But I'll listen to your complaints
- and suggestions, and if time permits, I'll work on the improvements you
- suggest.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- About DOWNSORT 1
-
- Maximus Download File Sort and List Utility (OS/2 and DOS)
-
-
-
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
-
- I would like to thank all users that contributed with constructive remarks
- and encouraging appraisals. Without doubt Emmanuel Sandorfi of 2:320/5
- holds the record in number of suggestions and amount of additionally
- required programming effort. He also provided some additional title-fonts
- (2 and 3).
-
- I also would like to thank the regular users (SYSOP's of Bulletin Boards)
- who made DOWNSORT much more popular than I ever dreamed of! A collection
- of geographically dispersed Boards can be found in "Appendix B. Who use
- DOWNSORT?" on page 35.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- About DOWNSORT 2
-
- Maximus Download File Sort and List Utility (OS/2 and DOS)
-
-
-
- WHAT DOWNSORT CAN DO FOR YOU
-
- DOWNSORT is a utility to make overviews of available download files for
- Bulletin Board Systems (usually running MAXIMUS CBCS). The overviews
- differ in sort sequence, purpose of use and size.
-
- A report is produced for files that could not be listed for any reason.
-
-
- PURPOSE AND OBJECTIVES
-
- DOWNSORT is designed for the following purposes:
-
- 1. Produce different overviews of files which are available for download by
- users of the Bulletin Board and by File Requestors. QUICK and EASY
- retrieval is the main goal for the lists. Therefore many lists-types
- and within a type several variations should be available: versatility
- for SYSOP and users.
-
- 2. Report files which are not listed in FILES.BBS, or which privilege
- (individual or its area) prevents it from being reported. This might be
- caused by several circumstances:
- ■ a file belongs to a collection (area) with a higher privilege than
- the selected report privilege (typically the upload area, but also
- restricted collections for selected users).
- ■ a file appears in FILES.BBS after a ^Px-sequence that specifies a
- higher privilege than the selected report privilege (newly uploaded
- files in a combined up- and download directory).
- ■ an typing-error has been made in the filename.ext in FILES.BBS or a
- file has been renamed without updating FILES.BBS.
- ■ a file is not listed in FILES.BBS on purpose by SYSOP, to prevent it
- being downloaded other than by CO-SYSOP.
-
- 3. Must be able to run unattended (typically overnight).
-
- 4. Should not disclose files to users (file-requesters) without positive
- agreement by SYSOP.
-
-
-
- FUNCTIONAL DESCRIPTION
-
- The program DOWNSORT may create several types of outputfiles.
-
-
- FILE-DATES AND HPFS
-
- One of the function of DOWNSORT is sorting on file date. Since the
- introduction of HPFS in OS/2 version 1.2, there is not one single file-date
- anymore! A file on an HPFS volume has different values for:
-
- ■ Creation date
- ■ LastAccess date
- ■ LastWrite date
-
-
-
- What DOWNSORT can do for you 3
-
- Maximus Download File Sort and List Utility (OS/2 and DOS)
-
-
-
- The date you see normally in DIR-listings is the LastWrite date. Most
- SYSOPs will have noticed that ZMODEM uploads and file-attaches give
- file-dates corresponding to the (LastWrite-) date of the sending system.
- And most utilities handle only this 'single' date. That means that 'old'
- (ZMODEM-) uploaded files are generally not on top of the acquisition lists.
-
- But HPFS stores the date of arrival on your system (Creation) as well.
- DOWNSORT handles this Creation date since version 4.7, although the lists
- (see below) contain the 'old fashioned' LastWrite date. This has the
- following consequences:
-
- ■ A new acquisition is on top of lists (if that list is sorted on date),
- and are marked in the lists as new (flag for an 'age' of a week or a
- month).
- ■ The listed file-date is the 'ordinary' date. So users can judge for
- themselves if the file is 'new' for them as well.
-
- Note: The LastAccess date is not very relevant for the purposes of
- DOWNSORT, although SYSOP may see when it was last downloaded.
-
-
- FILE REPORTS (LIST TYPES)
-
- DOWNSORT can produce several types of output reports, mostly indicated by
- type of list. Below follows for each type of list e general description.
-
-
- ORPHAN REPORT
-
- This is a list of all files in download directories for which there is no
- entry in the corresponding FILES.BBS file. The report contains date,
- area-name and area-path of the orphan. The entries are sorted on area and
- filename. Not reported are MAXIMUS system files like: FILES.?BS, *.BAK,
- DIR.?BS and SYSTEM*.?BS.
-
- Note: If there is an entry for a file in FILES.BBS without a description,
- the file is NOT considered to be an Orphan!
-
-
- BBS-LIST
-
- This is a list of downloadfiles that came recently available
- (DOWNSORT.BBS). The list may be sorted on date (newest first) or on
- filename. It contains compiled MECCA control sequences, for direct use in
- MAXIMUS bulletins: a user-privilege sensitive list! It might be a good
- idea to put a translated [onexit] string, which translates to [^OFpath]
- (without the brackets!). When a user exits from the BBS-list bulletin, it
- will fall back to the exit-bulletin.
-
- The length of the file (number of file-entries) may be limited by
- parameters:
-
- ■ file-count
- ■ maximum privilege
-
-
-
- What DOWNSORT can do for you 4
-
- Maximus Download File Sort and List Utility (OS/2 and DOS)
-
-
-
- (never more than available within the privilege limit). If neither
- specified it will contain all available files in all download directories.
-
- To make it a complete MAXIMUS bulletin-file a user-provided header is
- included preceding the list and a trailer at the end of the list. Header
- and trailer can be built by SYSOP, and may contain any information and
- bulletin-control sequences (a sample is provided).
-
-
- NEW-LIST
-
- Basically the same list as above, but in simple ASCII format and without
- inclusion of header and trailer files.
-
- This list is suitable for file-requestors as brief overview of the latest
- additions, updates or replacements.
-
-
- ALL-LIST
-
- A list of all downloadfiles by area in alphabetical sequence (per area) on
- filename. Files of the same area are listed in groups, separated by
- imbedded headers with area-name, -description, and -privilege. Actual
- status information is provided in the area-header as well: area-filecount
- and -bytecount, and latest acquisition (date and file-name).
-
- At the end a SUMMARY report shows per area the area-title, file-count and
- byte-count, and totals.
-
- This list may be limited by the privilege parameter, but is not affected by
- the specification of filecount-limit. The numbers in area-header and
- summary report show only what is available for the particular privilege.
-
-
- IPF-LIST
-
- Same contents, but different format of ALL-list, only useful for OS/2 users
- (OS/2 version 1.2+ under Presentation Manager). This file has the format
- of an input-file for the Information Presentation Facility Compiler (IPFC).
-
-
- GBL-LIST
-
- Similar to ALL-list, but where ALL-list gives the files in groups per area,
- the GBL-list ignores area-boundaries and gives a single group, sorted on
- filename. For each file the area is mentioned. There is no area-summary.
-
- SYSOP may choose which of both is suitable to make available to users, and
- which to use for himself (or even both). The GBL-list is especially useful
- to check on duplicates over area's. The GBL-list is not limited by the
- filecount parameter.
-
-
-
-
-
-
- What DOWNSORT can do for you 5
-
- Maximus Download File Sort and List Utility (OS/2 and DOS)
-
-
-
- FILES.BBS
-
- A new "FILES.BBS" type of file may be (re-)created for every area. The
- contents of the file-information will be about the same as the original
- FILES.BBS, but with the following notes:
-
- ■ A header is generated with area-name, -title, and -privilege. Also the
- total amount of files and bytes and the most recently acquired new file
- in this area is part of the header information.
- ■ The entries are sorted on filename for all files with a privilege up to
- and including the area-privilege.
- ■ Files can have a privilege other than the area-privilege when the
- original FILES.BBS file does contain ^Pp-sequences ('p' being a
- privilege letter). This construction will be rebuilt by DOWNSORT.
- Files with a higher privilege than the area-privilege will follow after
- a compiled MECCA-sequence (^Pp) in the new FILES.BBS. DOWNSORT respects
- these indicators when reading FILES.BBS, so all file-privilege
- information is retained. This ensures no accidental loss of
- file-information, and the regular user won't see more than he should.
- ■ Wild-card specifications are not propagated to the new FILES.BBS.
- ■ The file description is kept internally as a single string of maximum
- 240 characters. When creating FILES.BBS files, this will be the file
- format (single record per file-entry). The original FILES.BBS may
- contain a (long) single string description, or multiple (short)
- multiline descriptions. When encountering multiline descriptions in
- input-FILES.BBS, DOWNSORT concatenates the separate description lines
- with a single intermediate space up to a maximum of 240 bytes. This
- | will be the output format if the FIL-list is requested.
- | ■ All comments and alignments you may have worked on for many hours is
- | discarded!
-
- See for naming conventions and placements "Commandline parameters" on page
- 8.
-
-
- GENERAL NOTES ABOUT THE LISTS
-
- 1. Dates are marked with a 'new'-indicator: a '*' if the file is only since
- a week on this system, and a '+' if it is since a month. Filedates
- later than the current system date are marked '-' (negative age).
-
- 2. In every outputfile the filename, MAXIMUS-area name, file-size and
- -date, and file-description from FILES.BBS is listed. A report-line
- will never display more than 79 characters.
-
- The file-description will be multi-line in ALL-, IPF- and GBL-list if it
- is longer than would fit on the standard 79-position line, a
- word-wrapping technique is used for readability (line-split on word
- boundary). The description is truncated at end of line in BBS-list and
- NEW-list.
-
- The -T option will force truncation of the description in all reports,
- the -W option will allow multi-line descriptions in all reports.
-
-
-
-
- What DOWNSORT can do for you 6
-
- Maximus Download File Sort and List Utility (OS/2 and DOS)
-
-
-
- If a filename is found in FILES.BBS, but no accompanying description, a
- "--- no description available ---" will be put in place. A replacing
- text may be specified with DOWNSORT.CFG.
-
- Files for which there is no entry in the FILES.BBS (Orphans) are treated
- as Hidden files, which are only listed in the reports if the Hidden
- privilege is specified. For a way to override this see: "Orphan report"
- | on page 15.
-
- | Note: If you want the orphans to appear in FILES.BBS (or in any other
- | report), you MUST also request an ORP-list!
-
- 3. The BBS-list contains MAXIMUS authorisation controls (^PLp-sequences),
- corresponding to the privilege of the area or the individual file. So
- it is not necessary to make different files for different categories of
- MAXIMUS users, even with the default privilege-limit SYSOP a user will
- not see the files he/she is not supposed to know about.
-
- NEW- and ALL-lists do not contain any privilege information, the files
- (or complete area's) above the specified privilege are simply not
- listed, however multiple lists can be produced for different categories
- of users (based on privilege).
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- What DOWNSORT can do for you 7
-
- Maximus Download File Sort and List Utility (OS/2 and DOS)
-
-
-
- HOW TO USE DOWNSORT
-
- This chapter tells you how to install DOWNSORT, how to customise the
- configuration file and what you might specify on the commandline.
-
- A sample configuration file (in "Appendix C. Sample Configuration File" on
- page 36) is part of the package. It contains a lot of comments (in Binkley
- and MAXIMUS style) to help you with the changes.
-
-
- INSTALLATION
-
- With the following directions you should be able to setup and run DOWNSORT
- after very short time.
-
- 1. Make a separate directory for DOWNSORT, and make it the current default
- directory every time you run DOWNSORT. The separate directory is a
- recommendation, not a requirement!
-
- 2. Copy the files DOWNSORT.EXE and DOWNSORT.CFG from the DOWNSORT package
- into this directory.
-
- 3. Modify (edit) the file DOWNSORT.CFG to specify your environment and list
- requirements. The sample file contains comments to help you with this
- process. Most specifications are obvious. AreaDat is the most
- important parameter: DOWNSORT won't do anything useful if it cannot find
- this MAXIMUS file. See "Appendix C. Sample Configuration File" on page
- 36 for a printed sample.
-
- 4. You may give DOWNSORT a first shot by just using its name on the
- commandline, with the parameter -H. This will show a brief HELP-screen
- with the possible commandline parameter specifications.
-
- 5. All reports will be created in the DOWNSORT directory (unless you
- specified 'fpath' for the FILES.BBS output). Browse the lists to see if
- you like the contents and titles, and modify the CFG-file to your
- convenience.
-
-
-
- COMMANDLINE PARAMETERS
-
- This paragraph deals only with the commandline parameters!
-
- NOTE: Parameters from DOWNSORT.CFG are processed first, commandline
- parameters may complete and (partly) override those in the configuration
- file.
-
- For how to read the command syntax diagram see OS/2 reference manual.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- How to use DOWNSORT 8
-
- Maximus Download File Sort and List Utility (OS/2 and DOS)
-
-
-
- ┌────────────────────────┐
- v │
- ──┬─────────┬─┬────────┬─ DOWNSORT ────┬────────────────────┬─┴─────┤
- └─ drive ─┘ └─ path ─┘ ├─ @filespec ────────┤
- ├─ BBS ─┬──────┬─────┤
- │ └─ :p ─┘ │
- ├─ NEW ─┬───────┬────┤
- │ └─ :pp ─┘ │
- ├─ ALL ─┬───────┬────┤
- │ └─ :pp ─┘ │
- ├─ IPF ─┬───────┬────┤
- │ └─ :pp ─┘ │
- ├─ GBL ─┬───────┬────┤
- │ └─ :pp ─┘ │
- ├─ ORP ──────────────┤
- ├─ FIL ─┬──────────┬─┤
- │ └─ :fpath ─┘ │
- ├─ nnn ──────────────┤
- ├──┬─ /T ─┬──────────┤
- │ └─ /W ─┘ │
- ├──┬─ /A ─┬──────────┤
- │ ├─ /D ─┤ │
- │ └─ /K ─┘ │
- ├──┬─ /H ─┬──────────┤
- │ ├─ /Q ─┤ │
- │ └─ /V ─┘ │
- └──── /X ────────────┘
-
- @filespec The character '@' followed by a complete file specification of
- the DOWNSORT configuration file (see "Configuration file" on
- page 13 for details). This file will be used to specify
- processing parameters. If the file cannot be read, only the
- commandline parameters are used.
-
- NOTE: The use of a configuration file is mandatory when the
- file AREA.DAT is not in the default directory when running
- DOWNSORT.
-
- Default: DOWNSORT.CFG in current default directory.
- BBS Create the BBS-list: DOWNSORT.BBS.
-
- Default: DOWNSORT.BBS will not be created.
- NEW Create NEW-list(s): DOWNSORT.N~p, where 'p' is the appropriate
- privilege class (see below).
-
- Default: DOWNSORT.N~p will not be created.
- ALL Create ALL-list(s): DOWNSORT.A~p, where 'p' is the appropriate
- privilege class (see below).
-
- nnn-limit does not apply to ALL-list.
-
- Default: DOWNSORT.A~p will not be created.
- IPF Create IPF-list(s): DOWNSORT.I~p, where 'p' is the appropriate
- privilege class (see below).
-
-
-
- How to use DOWNSORT 9
-
- Maximus Download File Sort and List Utility (OS/2 and DOS)
-
-
-
- nnn-limit does not apply to IPF-list.
-
- Default: DOWNSORT.I~p will not be created.
- GBL Create GBL-list(s): DOWNSORT.G~p, where 'p' is the appropriate
- privilege class (see below).
-
- nnn-limit does not apply to GBL-list.
-
- Default: DOWNSORT.G~p will not be created.
- | ORP Create ORP-list: DOWNSORT.ORP (orphan report, if any orphans).
-
- | If an orphan report is not requested, no other report will
- | contain any orphan information, even when 'Hidden' is specified
- | as reporting level.
-
- Default: DOWNSORT.ORP will not be created.
- FIL Create FILES.BBS type of files for each area.
-
- The specification does not apply to FILES.BBS, a
- privilege-limit cannot be specified and defaults to SYSOP.
- Another privilege limit can be specified however by means of
- the configuration file.
-
- For each individual area the following convention will be used
- for the name and place of the FILES.BBS list (in this
- sequence):
- 1. If the "FIL:" parameter specifies a directory-path, then for
- each area the output file "FILES.ac" is put in the specified
- directory ('ac' is 1 or 2 char area-code). Previous files
- with the same name will be discarded.
- 2. If "ListFile" is specified in AREA.CTL, then that name and
- path will be used.
- 3. Otherwise the file FILES.BBS: will be put in the directory
- with the download files.
-
- For situations 2 and 3 existing files will be renamed to .BAK
- (older .BAK files will be discarded).
-
- Default: FILES.BBS-type of files will not be generated.
- fpath Optional directory path specification for FILES.BBS-output.
- See the "FIL:" parameter for usage.
-
- Default: none
- nnn Maximum number of files to be reported in the BBS- and
- NEW-list(s). A maximum value of 32767 can be specified, it
- does not apply to ALL-, IPF- and GBL-list.
-
- Default: all files up to and including the (specified or
- default) privilege class will be listed for all types of lists.
- p Single privilege character.
-
- Lists only download files with a privilege of up to and
- including privilege 'p'. The indicator must be the first
- character of an existing MAXIMUS privilege level (T, D, L, N,
- W, P, F, E, C, A, S, H). No error-message is given for an
-
-
- How to use DOWNSORT 10
-
- Maximus Download File Sort and List Utility (OS/2 and DOS)
-
-
-
- invalid privilege character, there will simply be no file-list
- for an invalid character!
-
- For the BBS-list only a single privilege character is allowed,
- the listfile is always called: DOWNSORT.BBS.
-
- Default: S (SYSOP): files of all privilege levels will be
- listed, except HIDDEN files (with real Hidden privilege or
- files for which no entry could be found in FILES.BBS).
- pp Multiple privilege characters (minumum 0, maximum 10).
-
- Make for every valid specified privilege level a download-list
- with files of a privilege of up to and including privilege 'p'.
- The indicator must be the first character of an existing
- MAXIMUS privilege level. No error-message is given for an
- invalid privilege character, there will simply be no file-list
- for an invalid character!
-
- Applies to ALL-, IPF- and NEW-lists, these are called
- DOWNSORT.A~p and DOWNSORT.N~p respectively, were 'p' represents
- the applicable privilege character.
-
- Default: S (SYSOP): files of all privilege levels will be
- listed, except HIDDEN files (with real Hidden privilege or
- files for which no entry could be found in FILES.BBS).
- /T /W Action to be taken if the file description would cause the
- reportline to exceed 79 characters:
- ■ T - truncate the description
- ■ W - wrap the description and provide as many reportlines as
- needed to show the complete description.
-
- Default: -T for NEW-list and BBS-list, -W for ALL-, IPF- and
- GBL-list.
- /A /D /K Sort method for BBS-list and NEW-list.
- ■ A - Sort the files alphabetically on filename.
- ■ D - Sort the files on reversed date sequence (newest file on
- top of list).
- ■ K - keep lines in sequence of FILES.BBS.
-
- When the -A option is selected, an additional header-line will
- appear in the BBS-list and NEW-list, indicating the latest
- acquisition. This line is not needed when these lists are
- sorted on date, since the the latest acquisition will be on top
- of the list!
-
- The -K option is only useful in situations where the files are
- primarily grouped on AREA, i.c. ALL-, IPF- and FIL-list.
-
- Default: -D
- /H /Q /V Operating mode
- ■ H - help: display screen with essential information about
- running DOWNSORT, such as the command syntax. In that case
- the program will not undertake any other action.
- ■ Q - quiet: display only start and finish-message, and error
- messages which prevent the program from proceeding normally.
-
-
- How to use DOWNSORT 11
-
- Maximus Download File Sort and List Utility (OS/2 and DOS)
-
-
-
- ■ V - verbose: display a lot of progress messages.
- If neither -Q nor -V is specified, than the number of console
- messages will be 'intermediate': more than -Q, but less than
- -V.
-
- Default: none
- /X Exclude Privilege Indications
- ■ X - exclude privilege indications in all list-types. Some
- SYSOPs want to hide any kind of privilege-system for users
- and file-requesters of their Bulletin Board System. With
- the -X option specified all privilege indications will be
- suppressed.
-
- Note: This does not apply to the compiled MECCA privilege
- controls in the BBS-list!
-
- Default: none (privilege indications will be reported).
-
- 1. All commandline parameters are optional, may be specified in any
- sequence and are case independent.
-
- 2. Parameters from the configuration file are processed before those from
- the commandline. This has some side-effects, like:
- ■ If you specify a specific list in DOWNSORT.CFG, it will be created
- anyhow, whatever you specify on the commandline.
- ■ However, if you specify privilege values on the commandline, only the
- commandline values will be used, and none from the configuration
- file.
- ■ Commandline parameters have a global meaning, and are applied to all
- lists (if applicable). For example: if you specify '-A' on the
- commandline, all lists will be sorted alphabetically on filename.
-
- 3. Parameters that can be specified with the configuration file only, and
- cannot be overridden with a commandline parameter are:
- ■ BLOCK title text, font and BLOCK title suppression
- ■ Subtitle lines
- ■ Filename and individual list-options
- ■ Privilege for FILES.BBS output
-
- 4. Even when specified on the commandline, or in DOWNSORT.CFG, the
- Orphan-report will be generated only if there are any orphans, and then
- the specified parameters apply.
-
- 5. The IPF-list has to be processed by the Information Presentation
- Facility Compiler (IPFC). This compiler is part of the IBM Programmers
- Development Toolkit version 1.2 and 1.3 (maybe also in some other
- toolkit). The following command has to be issued:
-
- IPFC DOWNSORT.IPF /INF
-
- The option "/INF" is essential (but not documented!) to obtain a
- viewable file. Be also sure to have the file DOWNSORT.BMP in your
- current default directory, or in DPATH, as this will be imbedded by the
- IPF-compiler. The result of the compilation is a file DOWNSORT.INF,
- which can be VIEWed with the following command:
-
-
- How to use DOWNSORT 12
-
- Maximus Download File Sort and List Utility (OS/2 and DOS)
-
-
-
- VIEW DOWNSORT
-
- Note:
- ■ The names "DOWNSORT", "IPF" and "INF" are used here as sample,
- actually the filename depends on the specification in the DOWNSORT
- | configuration file, the extensions are the IPFC defaults.
- | ■ If VIEW gives 'garbled' columns and hardly readable block-titles,
- | then it is most likely that you did not install (or removed) the
- | standard fonts that are delivered with OS/2. Start the 'control
- | panel utility', select 'installation', 'add fonts'. Specify in the
- | 'from'-field C:\OS2\DLL (see HELP of control panel). Now choose at
- | least 1 non-proportional font.
-
-
-
- CONFIGURATION FILE
-
- Almost all processing options may be specified in an optional configuration
- file, which can be specified with a commandline parameter. The
- configuration file is a somewhat more convenient way to specify processing
- parameters, and allows even more customisation. It is a good place for the
- more static parameters of your environment, commandline parameters are nice
- to create quickly 'another' list or a different format (for example wrapped
- or truncated descriptions). The parameters are only mentioned here for
- completeness, see "Appendix C. Sample Configuration File" on page 36 for a
- documented specification sample of a configuration file.
-
-
- PARAMETERS WITH GLOBAL SCOPE
-
- The parameters below influence the execution of DOWNSORT, or have impact on
- every list (if it is applicable for that list).
-
- ■ File Specification of the MAXIMUS CBCS file 'AREA.DAT'.
- ■ List title with BLOCK-characters.
- ■ Font for the BLOCK title.
- ■ Pre-titles, Sub-titles and Bottom-lines in 'text' format
- ■ Descriptive text of orphans and files without a description in the input
- FILES.BBS files.
- ■ Maximum number of entries in NEW-list and BBS-list.
-
-
-
- PARAMETERS WITH LOCAL SCOPE
-
- The parameters below are sub-parameters of the xxxFileList keyword.
-
- ■ Up to 10 privileges for NEW-, GBL-, ALL- and IPF-list (each resulting in
- a separate list).
- ■ Alternate output filename (in stead of the default DOWNSORT).
- ■ Directory for the output FILES.BBS-lists
- ■ Maximum number of file entries in NEW-list and BBS-list
- ■ File-entry sort sequence (filename or date).
- ■ Wrap or Truncate long file descriptions.
- ■ Title Font selection.
-
-
- How to use DOWNSORT 13
-
- Maximus Download File Sort and List Utility (OS/2 and DOS)
-
-
-
- | ■ Suppression of privilege indications in NEW-, ALL-, IPF- and GBL-lists.
- | ■ Include textfile in NEW-, ALL-, IPF- and GBL-lists, and in FILES.bbs.
-
- A sample configuration file (DOWNSORT.CFG) is provided. A listing of this
- file is imbedded as "Appendix C. Sample Configuration File" on page 36.
- It contains a complete specification with comments on:
-
- ■ which options are available
- ■ how to specify the options
-
- Read and modify the file as you like. Copy the sample file to a save place
- before you start modifying the original DOWNSORT.CFG!
-
- NOTE: The parameters from DOWNSORT.CFG are processed first, then
- commandline parameters, which may complete and will (partly) override those
- in the configuration file.
-
-
- USABILITY HINTS
-
-
-
- SPECIFICATION OF AREA.DAT
-
- | A MAXIMUS file 'AREA.DAT' is absolutely required by DOWNSORT. It is
- | however not necessary to run MAXIMUS itself, the AREA.DAT file is created
- | with SILT(P) from the MAXIMUS package. You can use this utility without
- | the other MAXIMUS stuff. In fact I do that myself (NOT running a MAXIMUS
- | board)! If you run DOWNSORT in directory without AREA.DAT, then you have
- several options:
-
- ■ You might add a COPY statement in your batch-file to copy AREA.DAT with
- every run into your DOWNSORT directory.
- ■ You might use the "@path" parameter to specify the complete filespec of
- AREA.DAT ("drive:\directory\file.ext").
- ■ You may use DOWNSORT.CFG for the filespec of AREA.DAT.
-
- The latter is recommended.
-
- Currently DOWNSORT does not allow to select the contents of the lists on
- area-code. The '@path' allows you to specify a different AREA.DAT file
- than the one that is used by your MAXIMUS. With SILT you may build a
- special AREA.DAT for exclusive use by DOWNSORT, with different, less, or
- more directories!
-
- If DOWNSORT reports a memory constraint (see also "Storage and Performance"
- on page 27), you may use this technique as circumvention: leave out one or
- more of the file area's and rerun DOWNSORT with the alternate AREA.DAT
- specification.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- How to use DOWNSORT 14
-
- Maximus Download File Sort and List Utility (OS/2 and DOS)
-
-
-
- LOCATION OF FILES.BBS
-
- For input DOWNSORT uses either the ListFile specification in AREA.DAT, or
- the download directory to locate the file with file-descriptions (generally
- known as FILES.BBS).
-
- The destination of FILES.BBS-files is not by definition the same as the
- origin! When specified with the "FIL:"-parameter (or in the configuration
- file), the output may be located in a different directory than the original
- input FILES.BBS. Manual checking or post-processing by some other program
- may follow DOWNSORT, after which the files might be put back on the MAXIMUS
- specified position.
-
-
- PRIVILEGE CONTROL
-
- The default file privilege to be shown is SYSOP.
-
- Files without a matching filename-entry in FILES.BBS are treated as Hidden.
- That means that by default these files will not be listed, unless the 'H'
- privilege is used on the report-request specification. All files with a
- higher privilege than the specified (or defaulted) report-privilege will
- not appear in the report.
-
-
- ORPHAN REPORT
-
- The Orphan report will be generated only if there are any orphans detected.
- In that case it overwrites a possibly present old DOWNSORT.ORP file.
-
- A way of suppressing Orphan-reporting is to include a "*.*" entry at the
- end of FILES.BBS. This has two effects:
-
- ■ In the sense of DOWNSORT orphans do not exist anymore: there is a
- matching entry in FILES.BBS for every file.
- ■ The description of this entry will replace the hard-code text
- "----no-description-----". You may specify your own text in
- DOWNSORT.CFG.
-
-
-
- DUPLICATES
-
- No test on duplicates is done, this means:
-
- ■ If a downloadpath is encountered more than once, the files will appear
- that many times in the outputlist (depending on the area-privilege!)
- ■ If a filename.ext is encountered more than once in different
- subdirectories, it will appear that many times in the outputlist. The
- file-privilege reflects that of the area where the file belongs to
- (unless overridden by a ^Px modifier in FILES.BBS).
-
-
-
-
-
-
- How to use DOWNSORT 15
-
- Maximus Download File Sort and List Utility (OS/2 and DOS)
-
-
-
- | HEADERS, TITLES AND INCLUDE FILES
-
- | There are several ways to custimise the appearance of the lists for
- | DOWNSORT. All items in the following list are optional, but the sequence
- | in the reports is fixed and as listed:
-
- | Pre-Title Up to 20 lines as very first lines of your lists (sometimes
- | called Top-title). Any text may be specified. Leading
- | '~'-characters (tilde) will be treated as full-size required
- | blanks, mainly to manually align (center) the text in these
- | lines. There is no automatic centering. You may have to
- | experiment a little.
-
- | TITLE A short title (8-12 characters), that will appear as
- | 'magnified' big BLOCK-letters. There are 4 block-fonts to
- | choose from. Not all characters are supported and lower-case
- | will be translated to upper-case. The '~'-character (tilde)
- | will be treated as full-size required blank, the '`'-character
- | (accent-grave) as half-size required blank.
-
- | If not specified, a default title is generated as DOWNSORTxy,
- | where xy stands for the current version of DOWNSORT. However
- | even this title may be suppressed by specifying TitleFont 0 in
- | the configuration file.
-
- | Include-file A text-file to be included as is. There will be no
- | manipulation of the contents of this file. This include-file
- | may be all you need to obtain a fully custimised list. For the
- | IPF-list it may (and probably should) contain IPF tags.
-
- | Sub-Title Up to 20 lines. These are treated like the Pre-Title lines.
-
- | BottomTitle Up to 20 lines as very last lines of the lists. These follow
- | my 'signature'. The lines follow the same treatment as
- | Pre-Title lines.
-
- | The BLOCK-title and Pre-, Sub-, and Botton-titles are used for all reports
- | identically, there is no such thing as an 'individual' title specification
- | for each report. However the Include-file may be different for each
- | report.
-
- | Note: Exceptions:
-
- | 1. None of the above does apply to the BBS-list. As it will generally be
- | desirable to imbed (compiled) MECCA control sequences in this type of
- | lists, this report will include dedicated top and bottom files (if
- | available in the current default directory). These files must be called
- | DOWNSORT.HDR (header) and DOWNSORT.TRL (trailer).
-
- | 2. The ORPHAN report will not contain any sort of user-titles.
-
- | 3. The FILES.bbs files will not use any of the title-specifications, but
- | may use an Include-file.
-
-
-
-
- How to use DOWNSORT 16
-
- Maximus Download File Sort and List Utility (OS/2 and DOS)
-
-
-
- | Recommendation: File-requestors appreciate a header with a clear indication
- | of the source of the reports. Many Bulletin Boards use FILES or ALLFILES
- | as 'magic' name, but that is not very distinctive if you collect lists of
- | different boards!
-
- | Note: Specification details and samples can be found in DOWNSORT.CFG.
-
-
- PRIVILEGES WITH FILE REQUEST
-
- If you run a mailer like BinkleyTerm, which makes a distinction between
- 'unknown', 'known' and 'password-protected' users, you could generate
- multiple download lists with different privilege indictor, depending if you
- allow these categories to request different file collections a sample of
- this kind of environment is given in "Sample specifications and usage".
-
- This is not needed for DOWNSORT.BBS, since this file has imbedded privilege
- control sequences for MAXIMUS users. But you should specify a sufficiently
- high privilege for the BBS-list to satisfy your most valuable users!
-
-
- SAMPLE SPECIFICATIONS AND USAGE
-
- Assume you are runnung MAXIMUS with BinkleyTerm as front end mailer.
- Suppose you make a distinction for file-requestors between Unknown, Known
- and Password-Protected (e.g. corresponding to Disgrace, Normal and
- Privileged MAXIMUS users).
-
-
- DOWNSORT SPECIFICATION SAMPLE
-
- You should have a specification like this:
-
- DOWNSORT bbs:p new:dnp all:dnp 100
-
- In addition to or in place of the specifications in DOWNSORT.CFG, this
- specification produces the following lists:
-
- ■ Orphan report (only if there are any orphans).
-
- ■ DOWNSORT.BBS with 100 entries for MAXIMUS users of category Privil.
- Users with a lower privilege will actually see a shorter list if the
- file contains Privil entries.
-
- ■ For file requestors of the magic filename FILES a list, a list with all
- files (with optional titles via DOWNSORT.CFG specifications):
- - DOWNSORT.A~D for UNKNOWN file-requestors
- - DOWNSORT.A~N for KNOWN file-requestors
- - DOWNSORT.A~P for Password Protected file-requestors
-
- Note that each list is a complete list of what is available to the user
- of the specific privilege class, but your system will generally contain
- more files than listed for UNKNOWN and KNOWN users!
-
- ■ For file requests of the magic filename NEWFILES a list of the 100 most
-
-
- How to use DOWNSORT 17
-
- Maximus Download File Sort and List Utility (OS/2 and DOS)
-
-
-
- recent additions to your system (with optional titles via DOWNSORT.CFG
- specifications):
- - DOWNSORT.N~D for UNKNOWN file-requestors
- - DOWNSORT.N~N for KNOWN file-requestors
- - DOWNSORT.N~P for Password Protected file-requestors
-
- Note that each list is 100 entries long, but the contents will generally
- | not be quite the same (depending on your privilege strategy).
-
- In general: files, which the requestor is not supposed to know about due to
- his privilege status, will not be on his/her list!
-
- Note: The counters on top of the lists indicate what your system has
- available in total (including higher privileges), so a clever
- user/file-requester may come up with the question how that is possible:
- explain that he/she has to earn a higher privilege level!
-
-
- BINKLEYTERM SPECIFICATION SAMPLE
-
- In Binkley.Cfg you should specify for requests of FILES:
-
- Avail Downsort.A~d
- KnownAvail Downsort.A~n
- ProtAvail Downsort.A~p
-
- Furthermore you may need to specify different OKFILEs:
-
- OKFile Download.N
- KnownReqList Download.K
- ProtReqList Download.P
-
- And in each of the appropriate filerequest authorisation files you should
- specify the appropriate file-spec:
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- How to use DOWNSORT 18
-
- Maximus Download File Sort and List Utility (OS/2 and DOS)
-
-
-
-
-
- ╔═══════════╦══════════════╦═══════════════╦═══════════════╗
- ║ in: ║ OKFile ║ KnownReqList ║ ProtReqList ║
- ║ ║ (Download.N) ║ (Download.K) ║ (Download.P) ║
- ║ for: ║ ║ ║ ║
- ╠═══════════╬══════════════╬═══════════════╬═══════════════╣
- ║ ..... ║ ......... ║ ........... ║ ........ ║
- ║ @NEWFILES ║ Downsort.N~d ║ Downsort.N~n ║ Downsort.N~p ║
- ║ @FILES ║ Downsort.A~d ║ Downsort.A~n ║ Downsort.A~p ║
- ║ ..... ║ ......... ║ ........... ║ ........ ║
- ╚═══════════╩══════════════╩═══════════════╩═══════════════╝
-
- This will result in sending of the appropriate NEW-list to every requester
- of the magic filename: NEWFILES. If you use the second magic filename,
- then the Avail-lines in Binkley.Cfg are not needed, and you might prefer
- this way.
-
- Of course if the privilege level of all download area's is the same, this
- construction is not needed, but in that case it is unlikely that you have
- specified KnownAvail and ProtAvail!
-
-
- DEPENDENCIES AND RESTRICTIONS
-
- ■ Applies to MAXIMUS CBCS 1.00 and 1.02.
-
- ■ Requires OS/2 or DOS 3.0+.
-
- ■ To convert the IPF-list into VIEW-able format (downsort.INF), the
- IPF-Compiler under OS/2 is required.
-
- ■ The input FILES.BBS files are assumed to contain only filename.ext (the
- regular 8.3 format, no support for OS/2 1.2+ HPFS format), the remainder
- of the line is considered as file description. The filename should be
- left-aligned (start in position 1).
-
- If a privilege modifier (^Px) is encountered in FILES.BBS then 'x' will
- become the privilege of all subsequent files (it assumes ^Px on a
- SEPARATE line, the REST OF THE LINE IS IGNORED!). Heading, comments and
- blank lines in FILES.BBS are ignored. The modified privilege might be
- higher (generally the case) or lower than the area-privilege.
-
-
-
- WISHLIST
-
- DOWNSORT is not finished! There are a number of wishes and requirements of
- users and myself to include in future releases. I list them below not in
- any particular order, but some seem to be more important than others (but
- that differs from SYSOP to SYSOP). And some are more easy to implement
- than others, and that depends mainly on the author!
-
- ■ Follow the MAXIMUS development (changing AREA.DAT and other structures),
- and support several versions simultaneously. I'll try to make DOWNSORT
-
-
- How to use DOWNSORT 19
-
- Maximus Download File Sort and List Utility (OS/2 and DOS)
-
-
-
- independent of MAXIMUS-versions. I'm thinking of parsing AREA.CTL, in
- stead of using AREA.DAT, as suggested by Scott Dudley himself.
-
- ■ Automatic removal of 'bad' files (like .BAK-files, obsolete files, files
- that are not in FILES.BBS), maybe move them to a special BAD_FILE
- directory.
-
- ■ User-configurable options for:
- - week and month indicators
- - indicator for continuation lines in wrapped descriptions
- - font in AREA-header and Summary in ALL-list, and in FILES.BBS
-
- ■ Add [selectable] MECCA control in FILES.BBS, like in the BBS-list.
-
- ■ Logging to file in stead of console, obtaining a history file of
- DOWNSORT usage.
-
- ■ File-selection with MAXIMUS CBCS key/lock parameters in addition or in
- stead of privilege levels.
-
- ■ Selection of files in reports on area, or group of area's.
-
- ■ Support for use of 'barricaded' areas and key/lock.
-
- ■ Selection of NEW-list on basis of oldest date or time-period.
-
- | ■ Another list: with the format of IPF-list but the contents of NEW-list.
-
- | ■ Preserve comments and formattings of FILES.BBS files when rebuilding
- | these files.
-
-
-
- KNOWN PROBLEMS
-
- Although I try to prevent the cause of them, there are problem reports:
-
- ■ Some unidentified characters somewhere between block- and sub-title.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- How to use DOWNSORT 20
-
- Maximus Download File Sort and List Utility (OS/2 and DOS)
-
-
-
- PACKAGING
-
- DOWNSORT is distributed in 2 archives:
-
- ■ A file "DWNSRTxy.ZIP", containing all material you need to run DOWNSORT,
- including documentation, formatted for browsing or printing (formfeed is
- the only printer-control).
-
- ■ A file "DWNSRSxy.ZIP", containing all SOURCE material.
-
- Note: 'xy' is the version indication, for example DWNSRT51.ZIP is the
- version 5.1 (RUN-time) package.
-
-
- RUN-TIME MATERIAL
-
- WHATSNEW.51 Summary of amendments to version 5.1 of DOWNSORT.
- DOWNSORT.EXE Execution module for DOS and OS/2 (Family Application)
- DOWNSORT.DOC Documentation (this file!).
- DOWNSORT.CFG Sample configuration file. This file contains comment
- lines with extensive instructions how to specify the
- parameters in the file.
- DOWNSORT.HDR Sample BBS-list header. You may use this header, which
- is only imbedded in the BBS-list, to imbed text and/or
- MECCA-sequences. A good candidate for the latter would
- be [onexit], which translates to ^OFpath. See the
- sample DOWNSORT.HDR file!
- DOWNSORT.TRL Sample BBS-list trailer.
- DOWNSORT.BMP Bitmap for the IPF-list, to be included by the IPF
- | compiler.
- | DOWNSORT.INC Sample Include-file for the reports, referenced in
- | DOWNSORT.CFG.
- HPFSDATE.EXE Program to display all three timestamps of a file on an
- HPFS volume, and optionally reset the CREATION date to
- LASTWRITE date (helpful after moving or copying of
- files). Start the program without options to display
- command syntax and help.
- README.1ST The actual contents of the package (produced with
- PKUNZIP -V), added to the ZIP-file after this was
- created with the foregoing files of this archive. This
- gives at least some authentication!
-
-
-
- SOURCE MATERIAL
-
- DOWNSORT.C Source of mainline and global variable definitions.
- DOWNCOL.C Source of data collection functions.
- DOWNFNT.C Source of font definition and formatting function.
- DOWNPAR.C Source of parameter processing functions.
- DOWNRPT1.C Source of output report functions (except what is in
- DOWNRPT2.C)
- DOWNRPT2.C Source of output report functions for ALL-list and
- IPF-list.
- DOWNSRV.C Source of miscellaneous services functions.
-
-
- Packaging 21
-
- Maximus Download File Sort and List Utility (OS/2 and DOS)
-
-
-
- DOWNSORT.H Header file, with external definitions of global
- variables.
- DOWNSORT.SCT Unformatted documentation file. This file includes
- formatting tags in BOOKMASTER style for printing on
- whatever devices are supported (like IBM page
- printers). This format is compatible and can be
- formatted on an IBM host system with DCF (SCRIPT) as
- | well. The file can also processed by the IPF-compiler
- | (just ignore the warnings and error-messages!). You
- | may have to 'repair' the file of the Toolkit version
- | 1.1 with symbols (APSYMBOL.APS) in the IPFC directory:
- | e.g. '&titde.' should be '&tilde.', and all symbols
- | should end with a full-stop (.), such as '&box34.'.
- | The IBM Toolkit 1.2/1.3 is distributed without these
- | errors.
- AREA_MAX.H Header file with union specification of AREA.DAT for
- different versions of MAXIMUS (as far as the layout of
- AREA.DAT is concerned).
- AREA_100.H Header file with guessed layout of AREA.DAT for MAXIMUS
- CBCS version 1.00.
- AREA_102.H Header file with layout of AREA.DAT of MAXIMUS CBCS
- version 1.02.
- DOWNSORT.DEF LINK definition file.
- DOWNSORT.MAK MAKE file.
- README.1ST The actual contents of the package (produced with
- PKUNZIP -V), added to the ZIP-file after this was
- created with the foregoing files of this archive. This
- gives at least some authentication!
-
-
-
- AVAILABILITY
-
- The most recent version of DOWNSORT is always downloadable and
- file-requestable from Bulletin Board "PC-Square" of the Dutch IBM employee
- PC club. Search or request DWNSRT??.* to be independent of the version and
- compression method!
-
- FIDO-net address: 2:512/4; phone: 31-79-424107 (USR HST-DS).
-
- DOWNSORT is distributed in area SDSMAX of the international Shareware
- Distribution System.
-
- There is a fair chance you may find a recent version on one of the other
- bulletin boards, listed in "Appendix B. Who use DOWNSORT?" on page 35.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- Packaging 22
-
- Maximus Download File Sort and List Utility (OS/2 and DOS)
-
-
-
- INTERNALS
-
-
-
- DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT
-
- DOWNSORT has been developed with IBM C/2 compiler version 1.1, under IBM
- OS/2 Extended Edition 1.3 with Program Development Toolkit version 1.2/1.3
- | as COMPACT memory model.
-
- | DOWNSORT has been tested for MAXIMUS CBCS 1.00 and 1.02, with the following
- | Operating Systems:
-
- | ■ IBM PC/DOS versions 4.0 and 5.0 (pre-release)
- | ■ IBM OS/2 versions 1.3 and 2.0 (pre-release)
- | ■ DOS-box of IBM OS/2 versions 1.3 and 2.0 (pre-release)
-
-
-
- PROGRAM ORGANISATION
-
- The program is organised as follows:
-
- ■ Initialisation:
- - Read configuration file.
- - Process commandline parameters.
-
- The commandline parameters will override configuration file parameters.
-
- ■ Read AREA.DAT file to collect download pathnames (assumes AREA.DAT is in
- | current directory).
-
- | ■ For all file-area's with a privilege not exceeding any list-request:
-
- - Read subdirectory (with find-file-first/next function). Take only
- Normal files: ignore directory entries, Hidden and System files and
- volume labels. Also ignore MAXIMUS-files with the following
- specifications: FILES.?BS, *.BAK, DIR.?BS and SYSTEM*.?BS
-
- - For all regular file-entries found in subdirectory:
- -- Get filename.ext, attribute, date, time, size (timestamp will be
- 'last-time-written').
- -- Get file-description from FILES.BBS file. The path to the
- FILES.BBS file is (1) obtained from the "ListFile" specification
- in MAXIMUS AREA.DAT file, or (2) if not specified from the
- "DownLoad" specification (among the download files).
- | -- Get file privilege 1) from area, 2) from FILES.BBS file.
- | -- When no orphan reporting is required, then drop the orphan
- | entries.
-
- ■ For the ORP-list:
-
- If any orphan found, and the orphan-report is requested, create the
- orphan report, with the file-entries sorted on (1) area and (2)
- filename.
-
-
- Internals 23
-
- Maximus Download File Sort and List Utility (OS/2 and DOS)
-
-
-
- ■ For the BBS-list:
- - Sort the files primarily on descending file-timestamp (and secundary
- on file-name and area-code).
- - Resort the first files on filename if requested.
- - Create output file for sorted list of filenames, -descriptions, etc.
- The file is placed in the current subdirectory (which generally will
- be the MAXIMUS directory) with the name DOWNSORT.BBS.
- - Copy a headerfile (for a customised MAXIMUS bulletin).
- - Put files in formatted outputfile (filename, area#, date, size,
- description), but only if description is found in FILES.BBS. Skip
- files with privilege higher than commandline (or default) parameter.
- Precede each line with a privilege-control sequence (^PLx string) so
- that MAXIMUS users below the specified max-priv-level do effectively
- see only the files they can download.
- - Include a trailerfile in the outputfile (for a custimised Bulletin).
- - Report non-listed files on standard output device (which might be
- re-directed to printer or disk-file).
-
- ■ If requested, put the above file collection (also in reverse
- date-sequence) in DOWNSORT.N~p with similar contents and layout as
- DOWNSORT.BBS, but without BBS-control sequences, and without including a
- header and trailer file. Produce a list for the default privilege
- (HIDDEN), or one for each specified privilege.
-
- ■ If requested, re-sort files on area and then filename, and create
- DOWNSORT.A~p, containing all files (respecting the privilege
- restrictions!). Area's with zero files within the applicable privilege
- limit will not be listed at all (will seem non-existing!). Produce a
- list for the default privilege (SYSOP), or one for each specified
- privilege.
-
- At the end of the list, an area summary report is generated.
-
- ■ If requested, re-sort files on filename only, and create DOWNSORT.GBL.
-
- ■ If requested, re-sort files on area, privilege and filename, and create
- for each area a FILES.BBS-type of file.
-
- NOTE: the program firstly reads a directory for existing files (not Hidden-
- or System-files, and not Subdirectory or Volumelabel), and then reads
- FILES.BBS to assign a description to each file. This means:
-
- ■ If more than 1 matching file-specification in FILES.BBS of the involved
- area is found (note that wild-card specifications in FILES.BBS are
- supported!), than the first matching description from FILES.BBS will
- appear in the lists (new in version 4.5, was 'last' previous versions).
- ■ Files for which no description is found in FILES.BBS will get "---no
- description available---" (or the replacement string you specified in
- DOWNSORT.CFG) in the user reports.
- ■ Files for which no matching filename in FILES.BBS is found will be
- listed in the Orphan report (DOWNSORT.ORP).
-
- In special cases this might become a very large list. For example if
- you collect files in a single directory for different area's, all the
- files of 'the other' areas are reported as orphan. This will happen for
-
-
- Internals 24
-
- Maximus Download File Sort and List Utility (OS/2 and DOS)
-
-
-
- every area, so each file might even be reported many times as orphan!
- Since the Orphan-list is now optional (from version 5.0 on), this list
- can be suppressed.
-
- Filenames of Orphans appear only in the other reports when the FileList
- request explicitly specifies the Hidden privilege.
-
-
-
- MAIN DATA ORGANISATION
-
- Data structure for access to file information via:
-
- 1. array of file-pointers (for file-sort!)
- 2. pointerchain in file-info structures
- 3. file structure contains pointer to file-description
- 4. file-structure contains pointer to area-information
- 5. Array of area-information
-
- The structures are shown in Figure 1 on page 26.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- Internals 25
-
- Maximus Download File Sort and List Utility (OS/2 and DOS)
-
-
-
-
-
- ╔══════╗
- ║ dm ║
- ╚══════╝
- │ Array of pointers to structures with file info
- │ ╔═══════════╦════════════╦═════════════ . . . ══════╗
- (1) └─────>║ *file[0] ║ *file[1] ║ *file[2] ║
- ╚═══════════╩════════════╩═════════════ . . . ══════╝
- │ │ │
- (2) v v v
- ╔══════╗ ╔══════╗ ╔══════╗ ╔══════╗
- ║ ca ║ ──> ║ next ║ ──> ║ next ║ ──> ║ next ║ ──> . . .
- ╚══════╝ ╠══════╣ ╠══════╣ ╠══════╣
- (first- ║ file-║ ║ file-║ ║ file-║
- element) ║ info ║ ║ info ║ ║ info ║ . . .
- ║ [0] ║ ║ [1] ║ ║ [2] ║
- ╚══════╝ ╚══════╝ ╚══════╝
- │ │ │ │wildcards│ │
- │ └──┐ │ └──┐ │ │
- │ │ │ ┌──────────┘ │
- (3) v │ v v │ ┌──────┘
- ╔══════╗ │ ╔══════╗ │ │
- ║file- ║ │ ║file- ║ │ │(files of
- ║descr ║ │ ║descr ║ │ │ same area) . . .
- ╚══════╝ │ ╚══════╝ │ │
- │ │ │
- (4) v v v
- ╔════════════╦═════════════╦════════ . . . ══════╗
- (5) ┌────────>║ area[0] ║ area[1] ║ ║
- │ ╚════════════╩═════════════╩════════ . . . ══════╝
- │ array of structures of download info
- ╔══════╗
- ║ area ║
- ╚══════╝
-
- Figure 1. Schematic overview of DOWNSORT's in-storage database.
-
- Note: The area-array cannot be sorted itself: this would invalidate the
- pointers in the file-information records!
-
- The block character image is basically a 10x7 matrix (10 vertical and 7
- | horizontal 'pixels'). The pixel-array takes two rows at a time, so that
- | each character can be represented with 5 rows of 7 horizontal
- | 'double-pixels'. Each pixel is displayed as a solid block.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- Internals 26
-
- Maximus Download File Sort and List Utility (OS/2 and DOS)
-
-
-
-
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
- ╔═╦═╦═╦═╦═╦═╦═╗
- ║-║-║-║-║-║-║-║ line 1 (lower + upper)
- ╠═╬═╬═╬═╬═╬═╬═╣
- ║-║-║-║-║-║-║-║ 2 (lower + upper)
- ╠═╬═╬═╬═╬═╬═╬═╣
- ║-║-║-║-║-║-║-║ 3 (lower + upper)
- ╠═╬═╬═╬═╬═╬═╬═╣
- ║-║-║-║-║-║-║-║ 4 (lower + upper)
- ╠═╬═╬═╬═╬═╬═╬═╣
- ║-║-║-║-║-║-║-║ 5 (lower + upper)
- ╚═╩═╩═╩═╩═╩═╩═╝
-
- Each line is represented by a structure of seven 3-bit fields Each 3-bit
- field represents a basic element:
-
- value char description
- 0 (blank)
- 1 ▄ lower half
- 2 ▀ upper half
- 3 █ lower+upper halves
- 4 ▓ gray pattern
- 5 ▌ left part of upper and lower half
- 6 ▐ right part of upper and lower half
- 7 ░ gray pattern
- 8 ▒ gray pattern for not-supported characters
-
- The pitch is variable ('proportional font': a variable number of horizontal
- pixels). Three fonts are provided with different character-image and size:
-
- 1. 6x5 (three lines of max 5 characters)
- 2. 10x7 (five lines of max 7 characters)
- 3. 8x7 (four lines of max 7 characters)
- 4. 10x7 (reverse video image of the 8x7 font)
-
- Not all ASCII characters are represented in the font tables!
-
-
- STORAGE AND PERFORMANCE
-
- As a rough estimate of the memory requirements of DOWNSORT, use sum of the
- following elements:
-
- ■ Program: about 70KB
-
- ■ Each area: 300 Bytes
-
- ■ Each file: 64 Bytes for each file (excl. file descriptions)
-
- ■ The sum of the description texts (on average 80 Bytes?)
-
- There is a theoretical limit on the number of files that can be processed
- by DOWNSORT: about 16000 files. I suppose you'll reach other limits first,
- for example stack-space. DOWNSORT has been built with a 'guess' about
-
-
- Internals 27
-
- Maximus Download File Sort and List Utility (OS/2 and DOS)
-
-
-
- needed stack space. The author would appreciate to receive a report for a
- better estimate.
-
- Processor performance was an issue for large file-area's before version 4.5
- of DOWNSORT in the data-collection process. That has been partly rewritten
- in version 4.5 and significantly improved. Fastest execution will always
- be obtained when the input FILES.BBS is already sorted on filename.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- Internals 28
-
- Maximus Download File Sort and List Utility (OS/2 and DOS)
-
-
-
- APPENDIX A. HISTORY OF CHANGES
-
- The paragraphs below show a brief history of changes in DOWNSORT (most
- recent revisions on top of list!).
-
- DOWNSORT for MAXIMUS CBCS was developed from an OPUS equivalent (by the
- same author). Its pre-MAXIMUS history is not really important here and
- therefore has been omitted. However the name DOWNSORT has been maintained,
- so to prevent confusion, the version number is inherited (the last version
- | for OPUS was 3.1).
-
-
- | VERSION 5.1
-
- | ■ Since the ORPhan report is optional (changed with version 5.0), orphan
- | entries could and now will be removed from internal storage during the
- | information collection phase of DOWNSORT, but only when no orphan-list
- | is requested! This is especially useful for the situation where a
- | single large directory contains the files of several area's, and whereby
- | the file descriptions are contained in different FILES.BBS files.
- | Normally this will result in reporting lots of duplicate orphans
- | (according to the definition of 'orphan' in DOWNSORT!). With this
- | change memory utilisation is lower and sorting faster.
- | ■ Another change of this kind: area's with a privilege exceeding any
- | reporting privilege are not scanned anymore. Apart from lower memory
- | utilisation, this might be useful for CDROM and slow disk(ette) systems.
- | ■ The maximum number of Top-, Sub- and Bottom-Title lines has been
- | extended to 20.
- | ■ In addition all lists may now include a 'logo'-file with a new -I
- | parameter on the individual report request specification (see sample
- | DOWNSORT.CFG). The file will be copied into the list without any
- | editing or translation. It will be positioned directly behind the
- | block-title and before the subtitle (if any). For example: you may
- | include your BBS-logo or a picture of your system configuration, or
- | anything else you want to tell the file-requestors of FILES, ALLFILES
- | and/or NEWFILES. The IPF-list may also include IPF tags, with artwork,
- | etc. It may even include other files itself! For FILES.BBS the
- | contents of this Include-file will immediately follow the 'standard'
- | header.
- | ■ All block-fonts have now a new special character <`> (reversed quote),
- | which will be 'printed' as blank (space) with half the width of a normal
- | character. This is useful for fine-alignment (e.g. manually centering)
- | the BLOCK-title.
- | ■ The chapter on 'titles and headers' has been rewritten to clarify the
- | use of all title-options, please read it!.
- | ■ In the SUMMARY of ALL- and IPF-lists the areas themselves are not sorted
- | anymore, but presented in sequence of AREAS.CTL specification. This is
- | based on the assumption that the file area's are in some kind of
- | 'natural' order in AREAS.CTL (or maybe it is time to do that now!).
- | ■ Descriptions in FILES.BBS are now (again) aligned on column 14 of the
- | FILES.bbs file records.
- | ■ IPF-list again a little more user-friendly (linking of area's).
- | ■ A number of improvements have been applied to the executiontime messages
- | (when running in VERBOSE mode).
-
-
-
- Appendix A. History of changes 29
-
- Maximus Download File Sort and List Utility (OS/2 and DOS)
-
-
-
- VERSION 5.0
-
- ■ Improved IPF-formatting: more colorful, builtin word-wrapping of VIEW
- used for file descriptions (better VIEWable under OS/2 1.3!). It should
- now also compile without errors/warnings. Compiling (with IPFC) takes
- significantly longer however!
- ■ The IPF-list of large filearea's (>200 files) split into parts of 200
- files to prevent files being left unlisted.
- ■ Top-level title in FileLists shows file-count and byte-count as
- available within the privilege of the list. Thus it indicates what is
- really AVAILable to the user! Area-count omitted in lists which are not
- area-oriented.
- ■ ORPHAN report made OPTIONAL (must be specified to get it!).
-
-
-
- VERSION 4.9
-
- ■ Added a new list-format: IPF-list, similar to ALL-list, but meant to be
- made a VIEWable file ('book') under OS/2 Presentation Manager.
- ■ Sourcefile DOWNRPT.C splitted into 2 parts.
- ■ Correction in FILES.BBS header (to prevent the "offline" msg).
- ■ Now also FILES.BBS output can be kept in original sequence with the
- K(eep)-option.
- ■ Added the X-option: all 'written' privilege indications in the lists can
- now be suppressed: the user is then not aware of any privilege-system!
- ■ Header-lines of all lists now more consistent in sequence.
- ■ The 'I'- and '1'-characters in fonts 3 and 4 have been widened to 5
- colums (was 3 colums, but that looked too 'narrow').
- ■ The documentation has been extended with a list of Bulletin Boards, of
- which the SYSOPs have reported being a regular user of DOWNSORT.
- ■ Distribution has been changed: run-time and source material now in a
- separate archive files (DWNSRTxy.ZIP and DWNSRSxy.ZIP).
-
-
-
- VERSION 4.8
-
- ■ A 'KEEP' parameter (-K) added to allow the files to remain in original
- sequence of FILES.BBS. This option is now only valid for ALL-list
- (later for FIL-list too).
- ■ Documentation change: for multi-line file descriptions a continuation
- line must start with at least 1 blank-character, followed by at least 1
- significant (non-blank) character.
- ■ Repaired bug in sort on filedate for FIL-lists.
-
-
-
- VERSION 4.7
-
- ■ Sorting of files on HPFS volumes (OS/2 1.2) now takes into account the
- file CREATION-date (= arrival date on your system). Sort will take the
- most recent of Creation and LastWrite. The 'old fashioned' LastWrite
- date (indicating the age of the file) is displayed in the lists! This
- feature is only effective under OS/2 from release 1.2 for files on an
-
-
- Appendix A. History of changes 30
-
- Maximus Download File Sort and List Utility (OS/2 and DOS)
-
-
-
- HPFS volume.
- ■ Use of DOSOPEN() from OS/2 Program Development Toolkit (allows for
- better multi-session and LAN support).
- ■ New font added: reverse video image of font3, and related changes in
- font generation function.
- ■ Added separation lines in FILES.BBS like in ALL-list.
- ■ Tiny adjustment to date formatting: year 2000 and later will be
- displayed as 2-digit numbers.
-
-
-
- VERSION 4.6
-
- ■ Downsort will try to locate and read a configuration file allowing even
- more processing options (by default DOWNSORT.CFG in current directory).
- An extensively documented sample is accompanying the DOWNSORT package.
- No additional document-reading needed to run DOWNSORT for the first
- time. The introduction of this feature makes some commandline
- parameters superfluous, and allows more flexibility, like:
- - In addition to a number of global parameters, each list has a 'local'
- set of formatting parameters for sort-sequence, description wrapping,
- title-font, maximum number of entries (NEW and BBS only). The
- individual parameters can be set only via the configuration file.
- - Specification of AREA.DAT and "title" not possible anymore on the
- commandline, now only by means of the configuration file.
- - A "@filespec" commandline option now used for specification of the
- configuration file (makes the use of different files for different
- purposes possible).
- ■ Multiline FILES.BBS input now supported. Automatic conversion to long
- descriptions provided when requesting FILES.BBS (re-)creation.
- ■ Multiple GBL-lists can now be generated, like ALL-list. Difference
- between ALL-list and GBL-list is only the grouping by in area's, and the
- area-summary in ALL-list. SYSOP may decide which of both serves the
- users best.
- ■ User supplied pre-title, sub-title and bottomlines now supported for
- NEW, ALL and GBL-lists, as well as replacement text for
- '---no-description---' and '---orphan---' in the lists.
- ■ BLOCK-title font user-configurable and BLOCK-title can now be
- suppressed.
- ■ NEW-list and GBL-list have an additional header-line telling the maximum
- file-privilege shown in the list.
- ■ FILES.BBS has now column header, and a user-specified privilege limit
- applies also to FILES.BBS (orphans now only listed when explicitly
- requested with 'Hidden').
- ■ The HELP-screen is now only shown on request via a commandline parameter
- (-H).
-
-
-
- VERSION 4.5
-
- ■ FILES.BBS-files may be (re-)created now in DOWNSORT-style (like the
- ALL-list format). Read carefully the information about this option in
- the report description!
- ■ An ORPHAN-report is now produced always (not requestable) and
-
-
- Appendix A. History of changes 31
-
- Maximus Download File Sort and List Utility (OS/2 and DOS)
-
-
-
- independent from other reports. It replaces the reporting of ORPHANs to
- the console formerly done during creation of the BBS-list.
- ■ The BBS-list is no longer produced by default, it should be specifically
- requested now, like the other user-reports.
- ■ The BBS-list and NEW-list may now be sorted on filename, and for that
- reason also these lists will have an age indicator 'week' or 'month' old
- appended to the file date.
- ■ 'Verbose' and 'Quiet' operating mode are possible now: many more or much
- less console messages with one of these specifications, than regularly.
- ■ Performance improvement obtained in data collection process, significant
- especially for large area's.
- ■ Filename matching process changed (one of the reasons of the performance
- improvement): first matching filename is used now to assign the file
- description to a file.
- ■ Title block-font is now proportional, and two fonts are added. The
- fonts are not (yet) user selectable.
- ■ A path to the appropriate AREA.DAT file may be specified now (@path).
- ■ The possible specification of "ListFile" in AREA.CTL is recognised now
- (in stead of assuming FILES.BBS in the download directory).
- ■ Added display of an "I-am-busy" indicator during the collection of file
- information (processing FILES.BBS input).
- ■ Added display of date and time of report-creation to bottom of file
- lists (except FILES.BBS files), and also the total elapsed time on
- console.
- ■ Fixed bug in detection of newest file, which in rare situations pointed
- to a file outside the privilege group.
- ■ Added HELP-screen when no commandline parameters specified, or on
- request (-H commandline parameter).
- ■ 'Signature' at bottom of lists extended.
- ■ Documentation extended for all the new features, and a little
- re-organised.
- ■ Internal data structure for file-information changed for improved
- storage utilisation.
- ■ Time has come to split source into several modules!
-
-
-
- VERSION 4.4
-
- ■ Support for different versions of MAXIMUS (1.00 and 1.02), with respect
- to the layout of AREA.DAT.
- ■ Multi-line file descriptions now supported, with word-wrap and an option
- to select or deselect it in different reports.
- ■ Extended AREA-header in ALL-list with area-privilege indicator, and
- latest acquisition (date and file-spec).
- ■ Added indicators '*' and '+' in GBL- and ALL-list for files of 1-week
- and 1-month old respectively.
- ■ Added "--- no description available ---" in lists if filename found in
- FILES.BBS, but there is no description there.
- ■ Added "****** ORPHAN *******" in description field of files, for which
- there is no entry in FILES.BBS.
- ■ Files that are reported to the console as "not listed", now also display
- the area, (pseudo-) privilege and file description (or "no description"
- or "ORPHAN" whatever is applicable).
- ■ Changed default file-report privilege into SYSOP. Hidden files will not
-
-
- Appendix A. History of changes 32
-
- Maximus Download File Sort and List Utility (OS/2 and DOS)
-
-
-
- show up, unless specifically asked for!
- ■ More characters supported as BLOCK-characters (including '/' and '\').
- ■ Fixed a bug in routines for NEW-, BBS- and ALL-list, which occasionally
- gave addressing violations (in the OS/2 version).
- ■ A related change in the data structure of the file-information for the
- file-description decreases storage utilisation, taking advantage of
- wild-card specifications in FILES.BBS as supported by MAXIMUS.
- ■ Fast growing wishlist added to documentation!
-
-
-
- VERSION 4.3
-
- ■ GBL-list added: a complete list of the download base (back from 4.0 and
- earlier versions of DOWNSORT, where it was called ALL!).
- ■ An AREA-summary report has been added to ALL-list.
- ■ ALL-list now also displays total bytecount per area.
- ■ A default title will be generated if none is specified.
- ■ Routine for generating block routines replaced.
- ■ Block character '/' (slash) replaced by '|' (vertical bar).
-
-
-
- VERSION 4.2
-
- ■ DOWNSORT.BBS and DOWNSORT.NEW are not produced any longer by default.
- Each list-type must now be specifically requested by BBS, NEW, or ALL on
- the commandline.
- ■ Multiple ALL-lists and NEW-lists may be produced now. Each of these may
- contain files of different (maximum) privilege level. This makes it
- possible to have overviews for different classes of users.
- ■ A report title for the ALL- and NEW-lists may be specified, and will be
- printed in BLOCK-characters.
- ■ A remark has been added to the top of DOWNSORT.BBS that the list may
- seem shorter due to privilege restrictions.
- ■ Longer file-description where there is space for it (ALL-list).
- ■ Requirement of filenames in FILES.BBS to be UPPERcase dropped.
- ■ Documentation extended and re-formatted.
- ■ Some more re-shuffling of code (for maintenance purposes)!
-
-
-
- VERSION 4.1
-
- ■ Bug-repairs in filename-matching routine.
- ■ SORT changed for DOWNSORT.ALL: sort on name within area, gives an
- alphabetical list per download area.
- ■ File descriptions now left aligned, regardless its position in
- FILES.BBS.
- ■ Group-title (of file-area) copied from AREA.DAT in ALL.
- ■ Files excluded from the lists are now more generally: FILES.?BS, DIR.?BS
- and SYSTEM*.?BS
- ■ Parameter added to hide files above a maximum privilege-level.
- ■ Files without description are treated as Hidden, these will appear in
- the lists when 'H' is selected (note: by default!).
-
-
- Appendix A. History of changes 33
-
- Maximus Download File Sort and List Utility (OS/2 and DOS)
-
-
-
- ■ Improved sort organisation (pointers in stead of structures).
- ■ Minor changes and additions to lists (beautification?).
- ■ Some minor internal re-organisation.
-
-
-
- VERSION 4.0
-
- ■ New setup for MAXIMUS CBCS Bulletin Board environment, this version does
- not support OPUS' file system!
- ■ Support of non-numeric (two-character) area code.
- ■ Support of wild-characters in the file-name part of the records in the
- description-files (FILES.BBS), as allowed by MAXIMUS.
- ■ The file DOWNSORT.NEW (not ".TXT") will be produced always (error in
- previous documentation), but now without TXT2COM formatting characters,
- since there is not (yet) a suitable alternative under OS/2.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- Appendix A. History of changes 34
-
- Maximus Download File Sort and List Utility (OS/2 and DOS)
-
-
-
- APPENDIX B. WHO USE DOWNSORT?
-
- PC-Square may be considered as the home-base of DOWNSORT. The most recent
- version is always available there (file-requests between 07:00 and 24:00
- local time).
-
- PC-Square Marcel Stikkelman Zoetermeer, Netherlands
- 2:512/4 31-79-424107
-
- The following SYSOPs have reported using DOWNSORT on their
- respective boards:
-
- OS/2-MANiA Emmanuel Sandorfi Paris, France
- 2:320/5 33-1-64090640
-
- | OS/2 TASK BBS Rene Carlsen Skagen, Denmark
- | 2:231/85 45-98451070
-
- | Paradigmus Maximus John Taylor London, UK
- | 2:253/68 44-81-566-5393
-
- Fernwood Emitt Dove Branford CT, USA
- 1:141/209 1-203-483-0348
-
- | Bell's Theorem Jeremy Buhler Houston TX, USA
- | 1:106/7674 1-713-777-0633
-
- OS/2 Shareware Pete Norloff Fairfax VA, USA
- 1:109/347 1-703-385-4325
-
- Singing Bear John Tarbox Wilmington DE, USA
- 1:150/130 1-302-984-2238
-
- La Jungle BBS Stephane Seguin Quebec, Canada
- 1:163/116 1-819-595-4917
-
- | 3M Australia Graham Stair Sydney, NSW Australia
- | 3:711/409 61-2-498-9184
-
- I have received reports from others. Too many for this list, which is just
- meant to point to a system in your neighbourhood(?). You may either logon
- to one of these boards, or perform a file-request of 'FILES' or 'ALLFILES'
- to get an impression of DOWNSORT's capabilities.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- Appendix B. Who use DOWNSORT? 35
-
- Maximus Download File Sort and List Utility (OS/2 and DOS)
-
-
-
- APPENDIX C. SAMPLE CONFIGURATION FILE
-
- ;
- ; ██▐███ █▐███ ██ ██ ██▐███ ██▐████ █▐███ ██▐███ ██▐████
- ; ██ ██ ██ ██ ██ ██ ██ ██ ██ ██ ██ ██ ██ ▐██
- ; ██ ██ ██ ██ ██ █ ██ ██ ██ ██▐████ ██ ██ ██▐███ ▐██
- ; ██ ██ ██ ██ ██ █ ██ ██ ██ ██ ██ ██ ██ █ ▐██
- ; ██▐███ █▐███ █▐███ ██ ██ ██▐████ █▐███ ██ ██ ▐██
- ; (font 2)
- ;
- ;
- ; ▄▀▀▀▄ ▄▀▀▀▄ █▄ █ █▀▀▀▀ ▀█▀ ▄▀▀▀▄ █ █ █▀▀▀▄ ▄▀▀▀▄ ▀▀█▀▀ ▀█▀ ▄▀▀▀▄ █▄ █
- ; █ █ █ █▀█▄█ █▄▄ █ █ ▄▄ █ █ █▄▄▄▀ █▄▄▄█ █ █ █ █ █ ▀▄█
- ; ▀▄▄▄▀ ▀▄▄▄▀ █ ▀█ █ ▄█▄ ▀▄▄▄▀ ▀▄▄▄▀ █ ▀▄▄ █ █ █ ▄█▄ ▀▄▄▄▀ █ █
- ; (font 1)
- ;
- ;
- ; █▀▀▀▀▀▀ █ █ █▀▀▀▀▀▀
- ; █▄▄▄▄▄▄ █▄ █▄ █▄▄▄▄▄▄
- ; ██ ██ ██ ██
- ; ██ ██ ██▄▄▄▄▄ ██▄▄▄▄▄
- ; (font 3)
- ; (font 4 is reverse video of 3)
- ;
- ; ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
- ; │ Sample Configuration File for DOWNSORT by Rob Hamerling │
- ; └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
- ;
- ; NOTES: Leading blanks are skipped.
- ; Lines with '%', '*' or ';' as first non-blank character are
- ; considered as comment, as well as empty lines and lines with
- ; a valid keyword, but without any parameter-value.
- ;
- ; Don't put a comment string after a parameter specification!
- ;
- ;
- ; AreaDat: Complete file-specification of your 'AREA.DAT'
- ; -------
- ; AREA.DAT is made by MAXIMUS' SILT(P) with -a or -x
- ; option the path is normally specified in MAX.CTL
- ; with the option AreaDat in Session Section.
- ; With the AreaDat you may specify any file that has
- ; the SILT(P)-format. For example you may make a special
- ; file for running DOWNSORT with a subset (selection)
- ; of the normal MAXIMUS file-area's.
- ; This might be useful for special usergroups.
- ; Another reason may be the memory usage of DOWNSORT
- ; under DOS. If you hit the boundary: make a subset.
- ; Standard OS/2 / DOS naming applies.
-
- ; AreaDat g:\c2\downsort\Area102.Dat
- AreaDat g:\c2\downsort\area5124.dat
-
- ; TitleFont: Reference number of the BLOCK-font you want for your Title.
- ; ---------
-
-
- Appendix C. Sample Configuration File 36
-
- Maximus Download File Sort and List Utility (OS/2 and DOS)
-
-
-
- ; Valid numbers: 1 .. Simple font (5x6 pattern)
- ; 2 .. Pseudo-Stencil Font (7x10 pattern)
- ; 3 .. ROBoComputer Font (7x8 pattern)
- ; 4 .. Reversed Video RoboComp (7x8 pattern)
- ;
- ; NOTE: The fonts are based on the US-codepage (437).
- ; This will also work properly for 860 (Portugese),
- ; 863 (Canadian-French) and 865 (Nordic).
- ; If codepage 850 (Multilingual) is active, the pattern
- ; will be adapted a little, see if you like it or not.
- ; The differences apply mainly to Font2.
- ;
- ; The heading of this file shows font 2, 1 and 3 respectively.
-
- TitleFont 1
-
- ; Title: Short string that will be displayed in BLOCK-characters
- ; ----- on top of all FileLists (except BBS-list).
- ; You may specify this parameter also on the xxxFileList
- ; parameter.
- ;
- ; The BLOCK fonts are 'proportional', the following number of
- ; characters will generally fit on a line:
- ;
- ; FontTitle 1 maximum characters: 13
- ; " 2 .. 4 " " 8
- ;
- ; No more than 20 characters are accepted as input.
- ;
- ; If Title isn't specified, it will be DOWNSORT by default.
- ; Not all characters are supported, and that may vary with
- ; the font itself. All fonts support:
- ;
- ; - UPPER case A..Z
- ; - LOWER case a..z , but will be translated to UPPER case
- ; - Digits 0..9
- ; - - (hyphen), blank
- ;
- ; In addition fonts 1 and 2 support the following characters:
- ;
- ; _ * - | . [ ] ( ) / \
- ;
- ; Not-supported characters are displayed as blank.
- ; The '~'-character (tilde) may be used as required blank,
- ; (5.1) the '`'-character (reverse quote) as half width blank.
-
- ; Title `DownSort
-
- ; PreTitle Lines to be displayed immediately before the BLOCK-title.
- ; -------- The lines will be copied asis, however leading blanks are
- ; skipped, no wrapping or truncation will be applied for
- ; 'long' lines, '~' (tilde) characters are translated to
- ; (5.1) blanks. You may specify 20 PreTitles, excess is ignored.
- ; Empty PreTitle lines are ignored and not counted.
- ; There is no default pretitle.
-
-
- Appendix C. Sample Configuration File 37
-
- Maximus Download File Sort and List Utility (OS/2 and DOS)
-
-
-
- ; To create empty lines in your header specify a PreTitle
- ; with a tilde.
-
- PreTitle ~
- PreTitle ~~~~~~~~<═════:═════ p r e - t i t l e ═════:═════>
- PreTitle ~
-
- ; SubTitle Lines to be displayed immediately below the BLOCK-title.
- ; (5.1) ----- Maximum 20 SubTitles are accepted, and exactly the
- ; same rules apply as for PreTitle.
- ;
-
- SubTitle ~1
- SubTitle ~2 <═════&═════ s u b - t i t l e ═════&═════>
- SubTitle ~3 Overview of downloadable files on this magnificent Board
- SubTitle ~4 Node number 1.234/56, modemspeeds: V.32/V.22bis
- SubTitle ~5 ═══════════════════════════════════════════════════
- SubTitle ~6 ║
- SubTitle ~7 ║
- SubTitle ~8 ║
- SubTitle ~9 ║
- SubTitle ~10 ║
- SubTitle ~11 ║
- SubTitle ~12 ║
- SubTitle ~13 ║
- SubTitle ~14 ║
- SubTitle ~15 ║
- SubTitle ~16 ║
- SubTitle ~17 ║
- SubTitle ~18 ║
- SubTitle ~19 ║
- SubTitle ~20 V
- SubTitle ~21 Should not appear: maximum is 20
-
- ; BottomLine Lines to be displayed at the end of the filelist.
- ; (5.1) ----- Maximum 20 BottomLines are accepted, and exactly the
- ; same rules apply as for PreTitle and Subtitle.
- ;
-
- BottomLine ~
- BottomLine ~~~~~<════════════ b o t t o m : l i n e ══════════════>
- BottomLine ~
- BottomLine ~~~~~<══════ How do you like this DOWNSORT, folks? ══════>
- BottomLine ~
-
- ; MaxNewFiles Limit the number of file entries in BBS-list and NEW-list(s).
- ; ----------- It specifies the actual number of file entries that may
- ; appear in NewFileList and BBSFileList.
- ; If you specify more than one privilege (for NewFileList),
- ; then each list will contain (max) the MaxNewFiles number
- ; of file entries, but the collection of each may differ due
- ; to Privilege considerations.
-
- MaxNewFiles 200
-
-
-
- Appendix C. Sample Configuration File 38
-
- Maximus Download File Sort and List Utility (OS/2 and DOS)
-
-
-
- ; OrphanDesc Description text of Orphan files.
- ; NotFoundDesc Description text of files without description in FILES.BBS.
- ; ------------ The description will replace the default hard-coded text.
- ; Up to 45 characters may be specified.
- ; The '~' (tilde) character will not be translated here!
-
- OrphanDesc ~~~~~ !!!! Orphelin !!!! ~~~~~
- NotFoundDesc +++ Ce fichier défie toute description! +++
-
- ; ══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
- ; Above were the parameters with a global effect: applicable to all
- ; lists or to the execution mode of DOWNSORT.
- ; Below follow list-specific parameters, which might override some of
- ; the settings of the global parameters.
- ; Leave this sequence: first global, then specific parameters!
- ; ══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
-
- ; xxxFileList: Create one or more File lists of type 'xxx'.
- ;
- ; ┌──────────── TWIT
- ; xxx ───┐ │┌─────────── DISGRACE ┌─ FileName of the list
- ; ││┌────────── LIMITED │ (without extension,
- ; ┌── ORP │││┌───────── NORMAL │ maximum 8 characters)
- ; ┌── BBS ││││┌──────── WHORTY │
- ; ┌── NEW │││││┌─────── PRIVIL │
- ; ┌── ALL ││││││┌────── FAVORED │ ┌─ Additional options for
- ; ┌── GBL │││││││┌───── EXTRA │ │ each list individually:
- ; ┌── IPF ││││││││┌──── CLERK │ │
- ; │ │││││││││┌─── ASSTSYSOP │ │ -W - Wrap Description
- ; │ ││││││││││┌── SYSOP │ │ -T - Truncate Descr.
- ; │ │││││││││││┌─ HIDDEN │ │ -A - Alpha sort on name
- ; │ ││││││││││││ │ │ -D - Date sort
- ; │ ││││││││││││ │ │ -K - Keep FILES.BBS seq
- ; │ ││││││││││││ │ │ -If - Include_filespec
- ; │ ││││││││││││ ┌──────────┘ │ nnn - NEW-entries limit
- ; │ ││││││││││││ │ │ -Fn - Title font (0..4)
- ; │ ││││││││││││ │ │ -X - eXcl priv in headers
- ; ││││││││││││
- ; ═══─═══════ ════════ ════════════════════════════════
- ; xxxFileList TDLNWPFECASH FileName Option-1 Option-2 . . . Option-n
- ;
- ; If just xxxFileList is specified, the Level by default will be SYSOP
- ; and the filename will be DOWNSORT.
- ;
- ; For NEW-, GBL-, ALL- and IPF-list up to 10 privilege letters can
- ; be specified and for each character a separate list-file will be
- ; generated with the following extension:
- ; NewFileList: N~p
- ; AllFileList: A~p
- ; IpfFileList: I~p
- ; GblFileList: G~p
- ; where 'p' is the privilege character.
- ; For the BBS-list only 1 privilege character will be accepted.
- ; The default filename (DOWNSORT) for each list can be overridden
- ; with the [optional] third parameter on the xxxFileList line.
-
-
- Appendix C. Sample Configuration File 39
-
- Maximus Download File Sort and List Utility (OS/2 and DOS)
-
-
-
- ; If you do not specify any xxxFileList, only the Orphan report may be
- ; generated.
- ;
- ; Additionally some other parameters can be specified (in any sequence).
- ;
- ; nnn Limit the number of file-entries to maximal 'nnn'
- ; applies only to BBS-list and NEW-list.
- ;
- ; -A Selects Alphabetic sort on filename
- ; -D Selects sort on Date/Time of the file
- ; -K Keep sequence of files in FILES.BBS
- ; (ALL- and IPF-list, and newly generated FILES.BBS files).
- ;
- ; -T Causes Truncation of long descriptions (to about 50 characters)
- ; so that only 1 line will appear per file-entry.
- ; -W Causes Wrapping of long descriptions: the report will contain
- ; as many lines as needed for the complete description.
- ;
- ; -If Include userfile (f = file-spec) in report for NEW-, ALL-,
- ;(5.1) IPF-, GBL-lists and FILES.bbs files. The file is included
- ; without any translations, so beware of formatting (text-float)
- ; in the IPF-list!
- ;
- ; -X eXclude privilege indications in NEW-, ALL-, IPF- and GBL-lists.
- ;
- ; -Fn ListTitle font. Choose for 'n': 1, 2, 3 or 4 (default is 2).
- ; See some samples of the fonts in the top of this file.
- ; If '0' (zero) specified, then NO BLOCK TITLE will be generated.
- ;
- ; If an asterisk (*) is used as parameter value character, the hardcoded
- ; default value will be used. If you specify mutually exclusive
- ; options (-A or -D) or (-T or -W), then the last value on the line
- ; will be effective.
- ;
- ; NOTES 1. For ORPFileList the privilege parameter does not apply, but at
- ; ----- least 1 character must be specified!
- ; 2. Invalid or not-recognised sub-parameters are ignored without
- ; any warning!
-
- ;AllFileList PCASH Down_All -k -T -f1 -X -Idownsort.inc
- AllFileList a Down_All -k -W -f1 -Idownsort.inc
- BBSFileList a Down_Bbs 23 -a -F1 -Idownsort.inc
- GblFileList a Down_Gbl -d -F3 -Idownsort.inc
- IpfFileList d Down_Ipf -a -F4 -Idownsort.inc
- NewFileList a Down_New -d -w -f2 -Idownsort.inc
- ; OrpFileList * Down_Orp -a -f4
-
- ; NOTE: The IPF-list has the format of an INPUT-file for the
- ; Information Presentation Facility Compiler (IPFC), which is
- ; part of the IBM OS/2 Toolkit 1.2+ and equivalent MicroSoft
- ; package. This inputfile has to be processed by this compiler.
- ; For the sample above with the command:
- ; IPFC DOWN_IPF.I~P /INF
- ; Be sure to have the file DOWNSORT.BMP in the default directory and
- ; set the IPFC environment-variable (e.g. SET IPFC=E:\TOOLKT13\IPFC).
-
-
- Appendix C. Sample Configuration File 40
-
- Maximus Download File Sort and List Utility (OS/2 and DOS)
-
-
-
- ; IPFC will produce a file called DOWN_IPF.INF, which is ready
- ; to be viewed with the command:
- ; VIEW DOWN_IPF
- ; See the Toolkit documentation for details of IPFC.
- ; IPFC is not distributed with the DOWNSORT package!
-
- ; FILFilePath Maximum file privilege that any FILES.bbs should contain,
- ; ----------- the path specification of the FILES.bbs type of output.
- ; Specify this in the format: drive:\directory\
- ; If not specified the MAXIMUS path specification will be
- ; used (ListFile parameter or Download-File directory).
- ; Not all parameters of other lists (see above) apply to
- ; the FILES.bbs lists (since it will not contain a TITLE
- ; as the other lists and the file-description will be
- ; kept on 1 (long) line).
-
- ; FILFilePath a g:\c2\downsort\filesbbs\ -a -Idownsort.inc
-
- ;
- ; ═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
- ;
- ; Commandline parameters may supply additional options, and may
- ; (partly) override the specifications in this configuration file.
- ; Consider this file as your customised default setting for DOWNSORT,
- ; and use commandline parameters only to make other lists on the fly.
- ; There is nothing that you can specify with commandline parameters,
- ; that you cannot specify in this configuration file!
- ;
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- Appendix C. Sample Configuration File 41
-