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Text File | 1991-01-27 | 24.2 KB | 546 lines | [TEXT/EDIT]

MatchMaker Plus version 1.0d and Documentation by Scott E. King MatchMaker Plus 1.0 Documentation Created By Scott E. King Version 1.0, January 1991 I. Introduction I intend to look at MatchMaker Plus as an ongoing project. There are many more features for this program on the drafting board, this release is intended to show me exactly what kind of need there is for this software. Not only that, but through YOU I expect to hear what needs to be added, changed or removed. The more response I get from you the more time I will spend on improvements.I would like to make this software compatible with other host systems (this can only happen when the format for external applications of various host programs becomes available to me). There are currently two versions of MatchMaker Plus, one for Mac WWIV, one for Red Ryder Host. Now on to the formalities. I wish there were some other way to do this, but I think you underestimate the importance of registering. Many Mac users look at shareware as a "free handout". I certainly did not spend the hundreds of hours programming MatchMaker Plus for my own health. In fact, they tell me that all that time I was actually damaging my health. I don't think 20 dollars is too much to ask for registration, this fee even includes free copies of any minor upgrades. That is why I have decided (against my better judgement) to only release a "crippled" version of MatchMaker Plus into the public domain. Actually, the program has all of the functions at the moment, it just won't let more than 15 users in. This should be sufficient for YOU to decide whether you want the program, and wish to send in the registration fee. Since this program provides a great service to your users (who may be paying some type of subscription to your board) their money should be put to good use. MatchMaker Plus is a very versatile application which allows the SYSOP to provide his or her users with a friendly and annonymous medium for finding other users who share common interests. The SYSOP makes up the questionaires that the users respond to (up to 250 questions for each questionaire with a maximum of ten different questionaires). The availability of different questionaires allows users to select a questionaire most appropriate to them. It is reccomended that a very comprehensive "General Questionaire" be made to apply to all users. Since many users are interested in finding a "mate", you should make these types of questionaires available and I strongly reccommend that you not discriminate against other sexual orientations. Users of MatchMaker Plus choose an alias, and for good reason. There should be no attempt by the SYSOP to invade in another's privacy. The users have the ability to send private messages to one another (each message can be up to 20 lines long). You can reach me at any of the following online accounts: America Online: Scott King GEnie: S.KING4 Compuserve: 72711,1335 II. Applications & Documents There are two applications used for MatchMaker Plus, this was done so that the online application could be as small as possible. The MatchMaker Plus application is used to make the questionaires, and MatchMaker Plus Online is the external application used with the Host BBS. In order for the program to work properly you must follow the following instructions exactly. First let me describe the different documents created by each application. A. MatchMaker Plus 1.0 This application is used to create the various questionaire files and online preference file (all this to be explained later). 1. Questionaire Document for MatchMaker Plus Documents created with the NEW command in MatchMaker Plus have this icon. These documents may only be used with the MatchMaker Plus application. Double clicking on this icon from the Finder will launch MatchMaker Plus and open the corresponding document. 2. Questionaire Document for MatchMaker Plus Online After a questionaire has been completed you need to use the Make Questionaire command, a document with this icon is then created. You will put these documents in the same folder as MatchMaker Online. 3. Preference File for MatchMaker Plus Online When you select the Set Online Options command you are presented with a number of edit fields (to be described later). The sysop chooses which questionaires are to be made available to the users, and which serial port the BBS is on. You will put this document in the same folder as MatchMaker Plus Online (you can only use one preference file with MatchMaker Plus Online). B. MatchMaker Plus Online This application is the actual external application used with the Host. This application must be in the same folder as the Host BBS application (or wherever the 'launch.bbs' file is located). 1. 'Users.MATCH' file for MatchMaker Plus Online MatchMaker Plus Online creates this data file which must remain in the same folder as MatchMaker Plus Online. 2. 'Data.MATCH' file for MatchMaker Plus Online MatchMaker Plus Online creates this data file which must remain in the same folder as MatchMaker Plus Online. 3. 'Messages.MATCH' file for MatchMaker Plus Online MatchMaker Plus Online creates this data file which must remain in the same folder as MatchMaker Plus Online. 4. 'Matcher.Help' file for MatchMaker Plus Online This is a text file which is sent to the user when he selects the ONLINE HELP option. You can edit this file or create a new text file for use as online help, but it must be called 'Matcher.Help'. This file must be placed in the same folder as MatchMaker Plus Online. III. Getting Started A. Plan Your Questionaires 1. MatchMaker Plus is only as good as the questionaires made for it. This requires a great deal of thinking on your part. At the moment all questions for MatchMaker Plus are multiple choice (up to 10 choices). Future versions will incorporate different types of questions (see the section on future plans). The MatchMaker Plus package contains an example questionaire, it is intended to give you ideas for different types of questions, and is not intended for actual use. First you must decide what the purpose of a particular questionaire will be. For example, one that matches people who are seeking other friends. For this example you would probably want to concentrate more on questions reffering to particular hobbies, activities, sports, interests, music, and less on actual physical appearance. You can make up to 10 different questionaires, I thought this number would be sufficient enough, however, if you think there should be room for more questionaires than that let me know! B. Make Your Questionaires 1. Now that you have an idea of what type of questionaire to make, you are ready to make it. Open the MatchMaker Plus application, read the start-up window and click OK. Now select NEW from the FILE menu. Enter an appropriate name for your questionaire and click OPEN. You will now see a totally bogus screen which tells you that there are 0 questions for your questionaire (obviously). In the future this screen will contain more pertanent information, but for now just get used to it. Go to the FUNCTIONS menu and select EDIT QUESTIONS. Here is where you will be entering your "awesome" questions. There are a number of edit fields shown. 2. This is very important: YOU MUST PRESS RETURN AFTER MAKING AN EDIT FIELD ENTRY FOR IT TO BE RECOGNIZED. If you click on an edit field, make a change, and then click directly back to where you were, your change will not be recognized (try it out for yourself by clicking back to the field you "supposedly" changed, and you will find that it hasn't changed). Get used to this. When you press return you will be taken directly to the next edit field. 3. The first edit field is for the question. Following that are ten fields for the answers. You don't have to use all ten answers, but you do have to enter them sequentially starting with number 1. After you have entered however many answers there are for that question skip the rest of the answer fields by pressing return until you get to the last field. This field is a short description for the question. When a user is looking at another users profile, the short description will be displayed followed by that users answer (this helps to speed things up). Click on the NEXT button and you will go to the next question. At any time you may click on the PREV button to go back and look at or edit previous answers. When you are finished (or just have to get some sleep) press the DONE button, this saves all your data. You can always open an existing questionaire file and add more questions later. C. It's Done, Now What Do I DO? 1. When your questionaire is done, select MAKE QUESTIONAIRE from the FUNCTIONS menu (you have to have your questionaire open for this menu item to be enabled). This function writes a text file to the disk containing the questionaire information. The name of this file is the same name as the questionaire with a ".BBS" extension added. You will need to put these ".BBS" files in the same folder as MatchMaker Online (which should also be the same folder as the host BBS). D. Setting the Online Questionaires 1. After you have made all the questionaires you want to use with MatchMaker Plus Online, select SET ONLINE OPTIONS from the FUNCTIONS menu (you have to close your questionaire for this menu item to be enabled). There isn't very much onscreen explanation for this part, so make sure you read and understand all of this. Remember that you can send me e-mail if you have any problems or questions. 2. You will again see a number of edit fields. The first two edit fields are for the sysop to write any kind of message he or she wants. Here is an admittedly conceited example: "Welcome to MatchMaker Plus by SCOTT E. KING. All answers here are confidential, so be honest! Choose one of the following that best suits you." Next there are ten edit fields for the different questionaires. You can have any number of questionaires you want (you don't have to make all ten). You will enter some kind of description for each questionaire in the edit fields, this is what the user sees online. To set the questionaire corresponding to each choice click on the SET QUESTIONAIRE 1 button. You will then see a dialog showing all "TEXT" files on disk. Choose the ".BBS" file that corresponds to choice #1. You will notice that the button now says SET QUESTIONAIRE 2. If there is a second questionaire click on the button again an choose the file from the dialog. You will notice that you have to make all your questionaires into ".BBS" files first before you can set all the online questionaires. You can also choose the serial port used (modem port is the default). When you are all finished press the DONE button, this information will be written to the "Matcher Prefs" file. This file should be put in the BBS folder along with all the ".BBS" files it uses. Once this is done you are ready to use MatchMaker Plus Online. IV. Operation of MatchMaker Plus Online A. How it Works 1. When MatchMaker Plus Online is launched it looks for the launch file to determine who the user is, if it is a new user (and there aren't 15 users yet) then the user enters an alias (up to 25 characters). If there are already 15 users then obviously you should send the $20 so you can get the registered version. Each user has 20 minutes, after which time the Host BBS is launched. 2. The user then sees the questionaires available (which you set with the Set Online Options command in MatchMaker Plus). After he selects the questionaire he wants he sees the main menu. Many of the functions here pertain to the questionaire he has chosen, for example when he chooses the LIST USERS option, it only shows him those users which have answers for that particular questionaire. If a user remains idle for about a minute he will be warned, and if he doesn't respond will be logged off the system. Here is the format for the main menu: MatchMaker Plus MAIN MENU ( User Alias & ID # : # of Letters Waiting) Current Questionaire 1.) Describe Yourself 2.) Describe Your Perfect Match 3.) Match With Everyone 4.) 50% Or Better Match 5.) Describe A User 6.) User List 7.) Send A Message 8.) Read Your Mail 9.) Select Questionaire ?.) Online Help X.) Quit to BBS Describe Yourself: When you select this option you will then answer the questions for the current questionaire (you can press x to return to the main menu at any prompt when answering the questions, however if you do all of your answers will be erased). After each question choose the answer that best fits, or hit RETURN for NO RESPONSE to that question. Describe Your Perfect Match: After you choose this option, you will then be presented with the same questionaire, however this time you will select answers describing the person you are looking for (or hit RETURN if the question doesn't pertain). You should realize that you must describe who you are looking for before you can match with other users. Match With Everyone: After you choose this, MatchMaker Plus matches who you are looking for with the answers for all the other users in that questionaire. You will see a list of all the users (for that questionaire), their ID#, and followed by the score ... 100% being a perfect match, 0% a lousy one. 50% Or Better Match: This option is the same as the previous one, however it only shows you the users who scored a 50% or better. Describe A User: This option asks you for the ID# of the person you want described. You will then see the short description for each question followed by that users answer (or NO RESPONSE). (The ID# of users is very important to remeber, you need it to describe a user or send messages to him or her). User List: This option gives you a list of all users who have answered the current questionaire, and their ID#. Send A Message: After you select this option, you enter the ID# of the user to send a message to. You then have 20 lines of 75 characters each to enter your message. At the end of each line press return to go to the next line. When you are done, press return at the beginning of a line. To skip a line in your message just enter a space and press return. When you are done, you have the following options: Abort: Aborts your message. Continue: Continues on next line. Delete line: Deletes the line number you enter. Enter line: Replaces the line number you enter with again a new line that you enter. List message: Lists the message. Replace: This command lets you edit your messages easily string by first entering the line # that needs editing then you enter the exact string to replace then the string which replaces it. Save: Saves your message and returns to Main Menu. Read Your Mail: This option lets you look at your mail if you have letters waiting. Once you have read a message it gets automatically deleted. Select Questionaire: This option lets you change the current questionaire to one of the other questionaires. Online Help: This option sends the text file 'Matcher.Help' to the user and pauses at the end of each screen. The SYSOP can edit this file to his liking or create a new one. Quit To BBS: This option takes you back to the Host BBS. B. Housekeeping 1. If you want to completely reset MatchMaker Plus, delete the following documents: a. "Users.MATCH" b. "Data.MATCH" c. "Messages.MATCH" MatchMaker Plus will create these files over again when the next user launches it, and that user will become user #1. You may want to do this to let other users get a chance to use MatchMaker Plus, just remember that you should warn users before you do this, since all messages, etc. will be lost. If the messages file is getting too big you may just want to delete that file, informing users before you do that of course. V. A Sample Session A. Let's Set It Up, Step by Step 1. Open the MatchMaker Plus application and click on the OK button. Go to the FILE menu and select NEW. For this example session will will call the new document "General Questionaire". Type the name in and press RETURN (or click on the SAVE button). You will now see a window with the same name as the document you just made (General Questionaire). You will also see an edit field which tells you how many questions there are for "General Questionaire" (which is 0). Now you are ready to start entering the questions. 2. Select EDIT QUESTIONS from the FUNCTIONS menu. You will see the following screen: In the first edit field type your question: "What is your sex? " then press return. You are now at answer #1, type in "Male" and press return, then at answer #2 type "Female" and press return. Enter any other answers for this question or just press return until you get the the last edit field. This is just a short description for this question, so type "Sex:" then press the NEXT button (you don't have to press return in the last edit field, your question is saved only after you press the NEXT or DONE buttons. If you press cancel now the info won't be saved). 2. OK, now that you have pressed the NEXT button, you are at question #2. Enter another question like "What is your age?". In the answers use something like the following: 3. Keep entering questions (the more questions, the more accurate the matches will be). After you have entered the last question, click on DONE. You will now see how many questions long the questionaire is. Since the questionsire is done, you are ready to make the online questionaire document. Go to the FUNCTIONS menu and select MAKE QUESTIONAIRE. You will see a window which tells you how many records are left to write to the file. When this reaches zero, the online file is done. Now all you have to do is select CLOSE from the FILE menu. Then select new again for a new questionaire and repeat the previous steps. Remember, you can make 10 different questionaires for use by your users. As I said, you should make your GENERAL QUESTIONAIRE a questionaire that applies to everyone. Now you may want to make a questionaire for guys who are looking for friends. Obviously you would ask questions like what is their favorite sport (or sports). Use your imagination. 4. Now that you have finished a few questionaires (and have made them into online questionaire files using the MAKE QUESTIONAIRE command) you can make these available to MatchMaker Plus Online by setting up the preference file. Select SET ONLINE OPTIONS from the FUNCTIONS menu. Shown below is an example screen with info: 5. After you type in the two info lines, enter a description for each questionaire. Questionaire #1 is the GENERAL QUESTIONAIRE that we just made (you didn't have to use the same name in the edit field). After you enter a desciption for all the questionaires you are now ready to link the desciption of the questionaire to the actual questionaire file. Click on the Set Questionaire 1 button. You will see a dialog that asks you to select a file. For #1 we want to select the GENERAL QUESTIONAIRE- .BBS file. (You should only select files that have the .BBS extension) After we double click on the GENERAL QUESTIONAIRE.BBS file, the dialog box will go away, and the middle bottom button will now say Set Questionaire 2. Click on the button again, and select the file for the second questionaire. Remeber when you use the MAKE QUESTIONAIRE command another file is written with the same name as the file you were working on with the .BBS extension, this is the file you are looking for to select. Note: When you use MAKE QUESTIONAIRE, it makes a text file with the questionaire information. If you need to make a change to your questionaire, you can use the EDIT QUESTIONS function to go to the question and make the change, then use the MAKE QUESTIONAIRE function to make a corrected version of your questionaire. It does not neccessarily replace the old file, you may need to keep track of which file is the corrected file. Another method which is quicker for a small change is to open the ".BBS" file using EDIT. Be careful not to add or delete any lines or else the questionaire won't work properly, just replace the mistake with the correction. 6. After you set the questionaire files, set the port you are using (the default is the modem port) then click on DONE. Now there will be a file called "MATCHER PREFS" in the default folder. You are ready to set up MatchMaker Plus Online. 7. Put the MATCHER PREFS file in the Host BBS folder (WWIV or RRH), put all the "questionaire.bbs" files that were selected into the Host BBS folder, and of course put the MatchMaker Plus Online application in the Host folder. Refer to your Host documentation on how to setup MatchMaker Plus Online as an external application. Note for WWIV users: If you are running WWIV under multifinder there may be some problems involved in launching. If your system is using sub-launching and multifinder is on, then you obviously want to still be able to use your computer while the host is running, but if you are using a word processer and a user launches an external application, and during which you quit from the word processer, WWIV may be re-launched (even though the user didn't want it to). To avoid these kinds of problem, you should always have sub-launching turned off if you are running multifinder (consult your WWIV docs). If there are launching problems even with multifinder off, send me a message (online for fastest response). Note for RRH users: You must leave the RRH application the way it was named when you got it: "Red Ryder Host". Assuming this, you shouldn't have any launching problems. VI. Looking To The Future A. More Features 1. This demo version barely shows off the features which are planned to be added, here is a list of some new features being added: a. More questionaires? If 10 aren't enough, how about 20? b. Two way matching. This feature will give an even better match by matching other users against what you are looking for, and also match them against you to see if you are what they are looking for. c. Who's looking for me? This feature will give you a score for each user based on who is looking for you. Currently when you match, it scores based on who you are looking for. d. Read your mail will have more features, such as auto-reply, and the ability to save and delete messages. e. The questionaires will have many more features. At present, each question has 10 multiple choices. You will be able to add different types of questions to the questionaire such as free answer questions. Free answer questions lets the user repond to a question by typing a couple lines. Another type of question would let you rank answers in order of importance, or may let you choose more than one answer as a good match. f. Any other features? Let me know! B. More Expensive 1. When MatchMaker Plus incorporates most of these new features it will be raised to $30 or $35. Those that register now for $20 will get free upgrades (except for cost of shipping) to some of the updated versions. More information on that will be sent to you when you register. VII. Registration Information To register, print out the order form from the MatchMaker Plus application. If you want to make any comments write them down on the back of the order form. If you can't print out the form, just copy down the same information on a piece of paper. Send the order form with $20 US check or MO payable to me, to Scott E. King PO Box 42789 Philadelphia, PA 19101 Make sure if you have an account with AO, CIS, or GEnie that you write down your accounts on the order form!