BBS in a Box 3

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Text File | 1988-05-24 | 17.9 KB | 499 lines | [TEXT/EDIT]

|@ MAIN MENU HELP MESSAGE COMMANDS ---------------- S - Scan messages on the current board. This command allows you to read the messages on the board you are currently on. The current board name and number are shown on the main menu prompt. Q - Quickscan current board. This will read the new messages on the current board. N - Newscan. Newscan quickscans all the boards. P - Post. This will allow you to post a message on the current board (validated users only) R - Remove. This allows you to remove messages you have previously posted. * - Board list. You will be given a list of boards you have access to. Number - Typing a number will change the current board to that board number. MAIL COMMANDS ------------- C - Chat with the sysop. This command turns on a sysop page, which may attract the attention of the sysop. F - Feedback. This enables you to send a letter to the sysop personally. M - read Mail. This lets you read mail addressed to you personally. E - E-mail. You will be able to send mail to other users. (validated users only) /E - E-mail to more than one user. This will let you send the same piece of mail to up to 20 different people. (validated users only) ACCOUNT COMMANDS ---------------- Y - Your info. Information is displayed about your account. $ - Password change. X - eXpert mode. This will toggle the display of the main menu. D - Default change. This lets you set your screen size, wordwrap status, cursor, and the boards you want quickscanned in a N:ewscan. H - Macros. There are two "macros", ctrl-D and ctrl-F. Hitting those keys will make the BBS substitute a string of characters which you may specify. The "H" command lets you change/display those macros. K - Kill old E-mail. If you send a piece of mail that you later decide you didn't actually want to send, you can delete it with this command. J - Purge. This will print out all the messages you have posted on the current board and ask whether or not to delete them. This is useful if you want to remove outdated messages. Z - Global purge. This will purge all boards. BOARD COMMANDS -------------- T - File system. This lets you upload and download files. (validated users only) W - Write auto-message. This allows you to change the auto-message seen when users first log on. (validated users only) V - Vote. There are up to 9 questions that you may vote on (only validated users may vote) B - BBS list. This will display the numbers of other BBS systems. A - Add to BBS list. This enables you to add to the BBS list. (validated users only) G - G-files. These are general-interest files that you may view. I - Info on system. This will display the logon message and other information about the system. L - Log of the day. This displays a list of users who logged on today. U - User list. This shows a list of users of the system. O - Off the system. This logs you off. /O - Log off immediately. . - Execute external application. This displays a menu of external applications you are authorized to execute. |A Add to BBS list. You may now add the phone number of a BBS to the system list. You must enter the phone number in the form ###-###-####. Then you must enter the name of the system, and any other information about it, such as operating hours. |B Browse files. This function allows you to "browse" through the files available for download to decide which you want to download. Valid commands are: L - List the next 10 files. Q - Quit back to the download main menu. U - Upload a file. D - Download a file by file number. # - Entering a number will download that file number. |C Chat. This command will page the sysop to come to the computer to chat with you. You must enter a reason for chatting, such as "VALIDATION" or some other meaningful reason. The page will continue until you hang up or turn it off by hitting "C" at the main menu again. If you do not wish to do this, just hit <RETURN> here. |D Defaults. Here you may change certain information about your terminal and the way you want the BBS to respond to you. The options are: 1. Screen size. The screen width is usually 40 or 80, although some terminals use 32 or 64. This information is used to format messages for your screen size. The number of lines on your display is also asked for. 2. Spinning Cursor. Some people want to have a spinning cursor. If you do you can set it with this option, and may set what characters you want the cursor to be composed of. If you are not sure of what this is, try it. 3. Input. This allows you to set whether or not you wish to have "one key input," where you do not have to hit enter where only one character is required as input. 4. Wordwrap. This lets you turn off wordwrap if you want to. Unless you have some good reason to, you should leave wordwrap on. 5. Pause on screen. If you are using a high-speed modem, some information may scroll off the screen faster than you can read it. You may use ctrl-S or "P" to pause the screen, but it might be easier to use this option. If the pause is set on, the BBS will pause when your screen is full of information, wait for you to hit a key, then resume. 6. Mailbox. If, for some reason, you do not wish to receive mail from other users, you may "close" your mailbox. 7. Configured Q-scan. This lets you identify which boards you want to Q-scan in a N:ewscan. |E Multi-Mail. This feature enables you to send the same piece of mail to up to 20 different users. You may want to do this if you are, say, notifying people of an upcoming meeting. You must first tell the system the user numbers of the people you wish to send this piece of mail to. Enter them, all on the same line, separated by commas. If you do not wish to do this, just hit <RETURN> at the prompt. You will then be presented with a list of the users, listing their names and numbers, and asked if this is correct. If so, hit "Y". After that, you will enter the message to be sent. |F Write message. After entering the title for the message, you will enter the actual text of the message. While writing, or after you have finished, there are several "slash commands" that you may use. They are: /es - This saves the message. /s - This saves the message. /ex - This allows you to edit what you have entered so far. /abt - This aborts the message, and nothing is saved. /clr - This clears the message and allows you to start over. /li - This lists what you have entered so far, optionally with line numbers. /rl - This lets you replace the last line you have entered. Essentially, it deletes the last line you have typed. /c: - this centers a line on the screen. /t: - this boxes and centeres a line you enter. examples of centering and boxing. /c:this is centered you get: this is centered /t: this is boxed you get: +---------------+ ! this is boxed ! +---------------+ Ctrl- keys: The following control keys are available: Ctrl-F - Ctrl-F macro Ctrl-D - Ctrl-D macro Ctrl-N - backspacing. This inserts a backspace in your line Ctrl-J - downspacing. This inserts a line feed in your line Ctrl-X - Delete entire line. Ctrl-W - Back a word. This deletes the current word you are typing. Ctrl-I - Tab. (or your tab key) |G G-files. G-files are "General Files", files of general interest. They may be sub- divided into categories. To read a G-file, just enter the number of the file you want to read, or press Return to read each one in turn. |H Macros. Macros enable you to enter a sequence of characters with only one keystroke. There are two macros, Ctrl-D and Ctrl-F. If your Ctrl-F macro is set to "Hi There", then whenever you hit Ctrl-F, it will act the same as if you had typed "Hi There". Presumably, this macro will be for use when you are writing a message, but it may also be activated at, say, the main menu. If this macro were activated at the main menu prompt, un-predictable things might happen. So you should be careful of when you activate your macros. Macro sub-menu commands: L - This lists out what your macros are currently set to. Q - This quits back to the main menu. M - This allows you to Make your macros. After hitting "M", you will be asked which macro you would like to make, Ctrl-D or Ctrl-F. Hit "D" or "F" to specify which. Then type the keystrokes you would like in your macro. They may each be up to 80 characters long. When you are done entering your macro, hit ctrl-D or ctrl-F to end, depending on which macro you are making. You will then be asked if this is correct. If so, say "Y" for yes. |I Q-scan boards in defaults. Here you may specify which boards you want quickscanned in a N:ewscan. In the list, a "*" before the board indicates that that board will be q-scanned. If you do not want a board q-scanned that is marked, just type the number of the board, and it will be un-marked. To re-mark the board, just enter the board number again. |J Purge. This command prints out each of your messages on a certain board, or on all boards, and optionally deletes them. If you wish to delete the last message printed, just hit "D" and it will be deleted. If you do not wish to delete it, hit "I" to ignore it. If you do not wish to continue, hit "Q" to quit. |K Kill old e-mail. If you have sent a piece of mail that you decide you actually didn't want to send, you may remove it with this command. Each un-read piece of mail you have sent will be gone through, and you may optionally delete them. For each piece of mail, the destination user, title, and how many days it was sent will be printed out. Your options here are: R - Read the piece of mail. D - Delete it. N - Go on to the next piece. Q - Quit back to the main menu. |L File mask. You are being asked to enter a file mask. Specifying a file mask allows you to have printed out only files that fit that mask. A mask is specified in standard PC-DOS notation, such as "*.*" to list all files, or "*.PAS" for all files with the .PAS extension, or any other such name, which may include "?" or "*". If you just hit enter, it will default to "*.*", for all the files. In the case of Macintosh filenames, "?" represents any single character, and "*" matches 0 or more characters, and Macintosh filenames do not have a 3 character extension, so * represents all files. |M Read mail. If you have mail waiting that you have not yet read, this is how you read it. If you have more than one piece of mail waiting, you will be presented with a list of who each piece is from. This is so that if a certain user sends you more than one piece of mail, you do not have to respond to each one seperately, but may read them all first, then respond. After you hit <enter> to get past this list, you will read the mail. Your options there are: D - Delete the piece of mail. I - Ignore it. Keep it in your "mailbox" so you may come back and read it again later. R - Re-read the letter. A - Auto-reply to the letter. This enables you to send a letter in reply to whoever wrote it. After replying, you must then delete the original letter. |N Scan1 prompt. You are being asked where to start listing the titles of messages. You are given a numeric range of the messages, and you may start listing the titles anywhere in that range. Optionally, you may type "S" to go directly to the message read prompt, or "Q" to quit back to the main menu. |O Off the system. If you continue, you will be logged off the BBS system. |P New file date. You are being asked to enter a date for new files. The date you enter here will be used when you do a new file search ("N"). The files listed in a new file search will be any files that were uploaded on or after the date you specify. |Q One-user E-mail. You are being asked to identify a user to send e-mail to. You may enter the user's name or user number. |R Remove message. This allows you to remove a message you have posted. You will be presented with a list of the messages you have posted on the current board, and you will be asked which one to delete. You may enter the number of the message you wish to delete, or just hit <enter> if you do not wish to delete one. |S Scan2 prompt. This is the message read prompt. In the prompt line, you are told: The range of message numbers, and the last message number you have read. Your options are: <enter> - This reads the next message. # - Entering a number will read that message number. Q - This will quit back to the main menu. B - If you are in a N:ewscan, this will cause you to stop reading the messages on this board, and go on to the next one. T - This will list the titles of the next 10 messages. P - This allows you to post a message at the end of this board. A - Auto-reply to last message. This will let you send a piece of mail to the person who wrote the last message you have read. C - This allows continuous mode - all following messages in this section will be displayed without pause - useful for capturing messages to your terminal program's capture buffer for off-line reading. |T d/l main menu. BOARD COMMANDS -------------- Q - Quit back to the BBS main menu. O - Log off the BBS. /O - Quick log off. C - Chat with the sysop. Y - Your info. LISTING FILES ------------- L - List matching files in this directory. S - Search for matching files in ALL directories. F - Find matching file description. V - Verbose listing of interior files. Files that have the extension .ARC or .LBR actually contain other files in them. This command will list out the files that are contained within them, along with the sizes of the files. You may enter global-filename characters, such as "*.ARC" to list out the interior files for all .ARC files. *** Not implemented in this version *** N - This will list all the new files since your last logon. P - Set the date for a new file scan. If you wish to see all new files since last week, you may enter a date for last week, and N:ew file searches will list out those files uploaded on or after the date you enter. FILE TRANSFER ------------- U - Upload a file to the current directory. D - Download a file from the current directory. You may enter global filename characters, such as "*.PAS", and you may download all .PAS files. After listing out information on each matching file, you will be asked for the protocol you wish to use. If you decide you do not wish to download it, hit "Q" or "0", and you will not. R - Remove file. If you have uploaded a file, and you wish to remove it, you can do so with this option. B - Browse files. This will allow you to "browse" through the files in the current directory, so you may pick which you wish to download. |U Upload file. After entering a filename for upload, the BBS will check to make sure that that filename is valid, and isn't already in use. If it is valid, you will be asked to make sure you want to upload it. If so, you will be asked for a one-line description of the file. The description should give some general information about the file, such as what it does and/or what version it is. A description may be up to 60 characters long. After entering the description, you will be asked what protocol you would like to use. Hit "?" for a list of valid protocols. After you tell which protocol, the BBS will wait for you to start sending the file. If you get this far, and then decide you don't want to upload it, hit Ctrl-X. |V Vote. Users may vote on certain topics which the Sysop picks. When you first enter the voting section, you will be given a list of topics you may vote on. Enter the number of the topic you wish to vote on. After specifying a topic, you will be given a status of how the votes are so far, and be shown what your current vote is, and asked if you wish to change it. If you do, you will be asked to enter which response NUMBER you wish to change it to, then you will be given an update of how the responses have changed with your vote. |W Write auto-message. The auto-message is read by all users when they first log on. If you wish to change it, it must be three lines long, up to 80 characters per line. |X Download file. If you chose this option from the download main menu, you may enter the filename you wish to download using global filename characters, such as "*" and "?". So if you enter, say, "*.PAS", you will be given the option of downloading all matching files in the current directory. After you specify a file, you will be given information on that file, such as the description, who uploaded it, and when it was upload, as long as the file length. The file length is given as the number of blocks for an XMODEM transfer, a hyphen, and the number of kilobytes (Kb). The approximate trasfer time is also given, although this is usually an over-estimate if you have a good connection. You will then be asked what transfer protocol to use. Hit "?" for a list of protocols. If you do not wish to download this file, hit "0", or "Q". If you selected YMODEM Batch, the selected file will be added to the batch for downloading later, otherwise the BBS will wait for you to start receiving the file. If you get this far, and then decide you don't want to download it, hit Ctrl-X. |Y Find description. Here you may search the file DESCRIPTIONS to find matching entries. You may, for example, search for "BBS", to find any files which may have to do with BBS's. All descriptions are converted to uppercase first, so you do not have to worry about whether to use upper or lower case. |Z Change password. Using this option, you may change your password. |[ verbose listing. If there are .ARC or .LBR files in the current directory, this option will let you list out the files that they contain, as well as the file lengths. You may use global filename characters, such as "*.ARC" here. *** Not inplemented in this version *** |] Download batch Here you have 5 main options: D - Download the files marked for batch transmission. L - List the files marked for transmission. R - Remove a file from the queue (by its number). C - Clear the batch queue. N - New files are automtically selected for transmission. NOTE: You must have a terminal program which supports batch downloading.