SitC Lister is a utility for TeleFinder, FirstClass, and NovaLink Professional sysops, which allows the listing of their BBS file directories into text files, complete with descriptions. This is done by extracting the SitC=0 resource out of the individual files. SitC Lister begins in a source directory (hereafter called the Sources) of your choice and recursively lists all files and subdirectories contained in that directory. A user specified header and footer is applied to the output files (hereafter called the Outputs). The user has the option to write the file's path, the description, size, and date modified. The user can filter files from being written to the Output, based on age and/or size. The Output will be written to the user-specified location, overwriting any existing Outputs. Each Output maintains its own list of Sources, so that a Sysop can set up many different file listings and use the “Make During Tabby Events” and the “Make While Interactive” options to control when or if the Outputs are created.
What is it good for?
Lots of things! Here are a few:
• creating online library listings with descriptions.
• creating the magic FILES and ALLFILES listing that FIDONet uses for File Requests.
• creating the Tabby "Request Directories" file.
• creating the magic NEWFILES file can be created, listing files only of a certain age.
• filtering large files out of your file request lists.
Installation:
If you want to use SitC Lister with Tabby, you must put it in the same folder with all the other Tabby modules. If you don’t run Tabby, you can put SitC Lister anywhere you want. SitC Lister will run on a locked disk, but the startup volume must not be locked, since SitC Lister makes frequent trips to the Preferences Folder.
First Time Launching:
The first time SitC Lister is launched, it will create its preferences file “SitC Lister2.prefs” in the Preferences folder. The preference file is named differently than version 1.x was, so it won’t conflict with earlier versions of SitC Lister. In addition, SitC Lister will create a “DefaultHeader” and a “DefaultFooter” file in the preferences folder. They will be placed at the top and bottom of all output files, and will have some default text in them. You can, of course, edit the DefaultHeader and DefaultFooter files with a conventional text editor.
Configuring SitC Lister:
Use the “Text File Type…” item in the Options menu to set what creator attributes all Outputs will have. The default is “ttxt” (TeachText). The following figure shows the dialog box used to select the creator type.
Use the Configure… item in the Options menu to create new Outputs and Sources. The following figure illustrates what the Configure window looks like.
Once the Configure window is brought up, menu items in the Outputs and Sources menus will become active at times when they are appropriate. For example, in the above figure, the Output entitled "ALLFILES" is selected, which brings up its associated list of Sources in the right scrolling list. In that list, the "MPW" Source is selected. Following is a list of the menus and what they do:
Edit Menu
The items in the edit menu perform their normally
expected behavior depending on what is selected. If
an Output is selected, but no Sources are selected,
then the Cut, Copy, Paste, and Clear operate on the
currently selected Output. If a Source is selected,
then Cut, Copy, Paste, and Clear operated on the
currently selected Source. This enables the user
to quickly set up similar configurations for batch
or interactive operations.
Options Menu
Configure…
Configure the Outputs and Sources.
Text File Type…
Allows you to set the creator type of all Outputs.
QuickList…
This option will generate a file listing without any
configuration. You will be prompted for a Source
path and an Output file, and a listing will be created
using mostly default options (Mac Text, no headers or
footers, Some Paths, Size in Bytes, no Date/Time stamp,
no Date, Write Description). Note: the QuickList
option is only available to registered owners of
SitC Lister.
QuickDiskList…
This option will have you select a source path, and
an output file name, and a recursive list with that
name will be created in each of the top level folders
in the source path. The following picture gives a
better idea of what it does. Note: the QuickDiskList
option is only available to registered owners of
SitC Lister.
Outputs Menu
New Output File…
Creates a new Output with an empty list of Sources.
Change Output File…
Only applies to the currently selected Output. Renames
the currently selected Output to the users choice. The
old Output file will not be deleted, so you will need to
take care of that.
Select Header…
Only applies to the currently selected Output. Selects a
different file for the header. The Output defaults to the
DefaultHeader in the Preferences folder.
Select Footer…
Only applies to the currently selected Output. Selects
a different file for the footer. The Output defaults to
the DefaultFooter in the Preferences folder.
When to Create (heirarchichal menu)
Make During Tabby Events
Only applies to the currently selected Output. If
SitC Lister is launched in the presence of a launch.next
file, then all Outputs with this flag turned on will be
created, and then the next program in the sequence will
be launched.
Make While Interactive
Only applies to the currently selected Output. If the
“Go” item in the Options menu is selected, then all
Outputs with this flag turned on will be created.
File Types (heirarchichal menu)
Mac Text
Only applies to the currently selected Output. The
Output will be a conventional Mac text file with a
carriage return separating lines.
PC Text
Only applies to the currently selected Output.
The Output will be an MS-DOS type text file with
a carriage return/linefeed combination separating lines.
Note that if you use this option, you will need to
convert any headers and footers to also contain linefeeds.
In other words, SitC Lister writes the headers and footers
without modifying them.
Date/Time Stamp
Only applies to the currently selected Output. A line of
text containing the current Date and Time will be placed
in the Output directly after the Header.
Tab-Delimited Output File
Only applies to the currently selected Output. The file
listing will be formatted in database format, with no
labels. It will be written out in tab-delimited text
format as name<tab>size<tab>date<tab>description. The
resulting files can be imported into a spreadsheet or
database.
Sources Menu
Source Directories (heirarchichal menu)
Select Source Directory…
Only applies to the currently selected Output. Creates
a new Source
Change Source Directory…
Only applies to the currently selected Source. Changes
the input directory.
Writing File Paths (heirarchichal menu)
No Paths
Only applies to the currently selected Source. No path
information is written to the Output file. Only the
file’s name is written. This is the default setting.
Some Paths
Only applies to the currently selected Source. Only the
file’s name is written to the output, but the directory
the files are found in is listed at the top of the list
of the files in each directory and subdirectory.
All Paths
Only applies to the currently selected Source. No
directory header information is listed, but the complete
path to each file is written to the Output.
Only Paths
Only applies to the currently selected Source. Only
the folder’s complete paths are written to disk. This
option is really for creating the Tabby “Request
Directories” file. You might want to define an empty
header and empty footer file for this option. All of
the other Source options are ignored if this option is
selected, since all of the other options only apply to
files and not folders.
Writing File Sizes (heirarchichal menu)
No Sizes
Only applies to the currently selected Source. No
file size is written on the line after the file’s
name.
Size in Bytes
Only applies to the currently selected Source. The
file’s size in bytes is written on the line after
the file’s name. This is the default setting.
Size in Kilobytes
Only applies to the currently selected Source. The
file’s size in kilobytes is written on the line
after the file’s name.
Write Descriptions
Only applies to the currently selected Source. The file’s
description will be written to the Output. If no SitC=0
resource is found, then the default text (No description
available) is written.
Write Date Modified
Only applies to the currently selected Source. The date
the file was last modified will be written after the
Name and Size (if turned on).
File Filters…
Only applies to the currently selected Source. This
option will bring up a dialog box that allows you to
selectively filter files from the listing based on their
date or size. Files can be filtered based on being larger
or smaller than a certain size, and/or by being older or
newer than a certain date. For example, some sysops
might want to use this feature to create a NEWFILES list
that contains all files less than 30 days old, and
smaller than 300K (to restrict the sizes of FREQed files).
The following figure shows the file filter dialog box.
Recursively Scan Source Folder
If this option is checked (the default) then SitC Lister
will recursively scan the source folder by looking in
every folder that is inside the source folder, and every
folder in that folder, and so on. If it is not checked,
then SitC Lister will ignore folders that are in the
source folder.
Advanced Information
If anyone is not squeamish about using ResEdit, most of the text that the users see is contained in the resource fork of SitC Lister (unless I spaced something out in the interest of getting something running and then forgot it). By hacking SitC Lister with ResEdit and changing the STR# resources, minor modifications to the Outputs can be made. Note: ResEdit is a powerful program, capable of totally messing up the operation of SitC Lister. Only hack on a copy. Here is a list of what is in the STR# resources that might be of interest to users.
STR# ID 128 - the status strings, including the default name for the QuickDiskList.
STR# ID 130 - the names of the default header and footer files, and the text that is written into the default header and footer files if none are present in the Preferences Folder.
STR# ID 131 - the labels that are written to the output files, such as the word "Name: " that shows up on the line prior to the file's name.
STR# ID 132 - the information that gets written to the Tabby log.
Use with MacKennel
In order to get SitC Lister to log its activity with MacKennel, you need to modify STR# 132 using ResEdit, otherwise logging will be written to :Tabby:Tabby Log if it is present at the same level as SitC Lister.
• The 5rd element should be changed to read ":FIDONet:Session Log" or wherever the partial (or complete) pathname to where MacKennel's Session Log file is, from where SitC Lister is.
Note:
Under Tabby, SitC Lister checks for the launch.next file to determine if it needs to run in batch mode. Since MacKennel doesn't create a launch.next file, SitC Lister also checks the process list to see if a copy of Runner is running, and runs in batch mode then. If you use Runner for any tasks other than MacKennel, be forewarned that launching SitC Lister while Runner is running will result in batch processing being performed.
