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REDA v5.0 Copyright (C) 1988 - 1991 by Robert W. de Wit ALL RIGHTS RESERVED You are allowed to distribute this package as long as the package is complete and not modified in any way. You may charge for the distribution at maximum the price of a white lable diskette. If you are going to use REDA you must register yourself by sending a check or mony order of 35 US dollars to: Name: R & P COMPUTER SERVICES Holland Street: Bovenkerkerweg 2-4 Zipcode: 1185 XE City: Amstelveen Country: THE NETHERLANDS After registering you are licensed to use REDA. No guarantee is given in any form. The author retains the right to withdraw the licence. Page 1 CONTENTS Introduction: 1.0 WHAT IS REDA ......................................... 3 1.1 FILES THAT REDA USES ................................. 4 1.2 THE FOSSIL DRIVER ..................................... 4 1.3 LIST OF FILES IN THIS PACKAGE ......................... 4 Discription of the files: 2.0 REDA.EXE & THE SWITCHES ............................... 4 2.1 REDAKEY.EXE ........................................... 5 2.2 LINES_x.FIL ........................................... 6 2.3 COLOR.FIL ............................................. 6 2.4 BASE.FIL .............................................. 6 2.5 DIR.FIL ............................................... 7 2.6 LOGO files (logon) .................................... 7 2.7 EXIT files (logoff) ................................... 7 2.8 MENU files ............................................ 8 2.9 HELP files ............................................ 9 2.10 AREAS files ........................................... 9 2.11 REDA.TXT .............................................. 9 2.12 REDA logfile .......................................... 10 Working with REDA: 3.0 INSTALLATION OF REDA .................................. 10 3.1 UPDATE REDA 4.xx TO 5.0 ............................... 10 3.2 HOW TO CREATE A TEXTFILE FOR REDA ..................... 10 3.3 REDA 5.0 RUNNING UNDER DESQVIEW ....................... 11 3.4 REDIRECTING OF THE REDA SCREEN OUTPUT ................. 11 Appendices: 4.0 ANSI COLOR CODES ...................................... 11 4.1 DISCLAIMER AND RESTRICTIONS............................ 12 4.2 REDA HISTORY .......................................... 12 Page 2 1.0 WHAT IS REDA The name REDA is a combination of REmote DAtabase. It is a all-purposes database designed for communication programs like bulletin board systems. Although REDA is made for remote operation, you may use it as a local database as well, for instance as a video-cassette database or as an electronic magazine database. You may fill REDA with all kinds of information using ordinary ascii/ansi textfiles. REDA can handle up to 1100 textfiles. REDA is compatible with the SDA textfile format used by the Software Distribution Network (sm). Using (collorfull) textfiles you may fill REDA with all kinds of information, tagged to one or more keywords/areas. Some examples of keywords/areas are: DISK, COMPUTER, COMMUNICATION, CARS and so on. Selecting the right keywords/areas an user can select the wanted textfile(s). For example an user may select all the files about COMPUTERS using the keyword COMPUTER, and select all the files about NCR systems using NCR. To select all the files about NCR COMPUTERS, he has to use the keywords COMPUTER and NCR. REDA can search on at maximum five keywords at once. REDA supports: - cancelling the text transmission using Ctrl-C, Ctrl-K and Escape. * - One .TXT file for ASCII as well as ANSI mode. - LOGO, AREA and EXIT files. - menus and all other questions in your own style, language and colors. - a maximum capacity of 1100 textfiles. - An optional AREAS (keywords) list. * If the terminal <> modem speed is higher then the modem <> modem speed (fixed baudrate) it may happen that this won't work properly. Large data buffers may have the same effect. REDA 5.0 supports two languages. When loggin on, REDA will ask the user wich of the two languages (s)he prefer. You are free to choose the languages. We recommend to use your native language as the primary language and English as then secundairy language. Read this documentation first before you are going to install REDA. It describes all of the files REDA uses. Page 3 1.1 FILES THAT REDA USES. REDA assumes that the fossildriver and ansidriver are present. Fossils like X00, Opus!Com and BNU are tested with REDA. It is possible to redirect the screen output according to the DOS rules. See also the DOS manual. Further system requirements: PC, XT, AT, PS/2 or compatible computer, DOS 2.11 or higher, at least 135 Kb of memory, RS232 communication port for remote use of REDA and a (floppy or) harddisk. 1.2 THE FOSSIL DRIVER AND THE -I SWITCH To let REDA operate efficiently you must tell REDA to reinitialize the fossildriver using the -I switch on the commandline. REDA then reinitialize the fossildriver. However, some of the older types of fossil drivers will reset the baudrate also. IF this happens, you can NOT use the -I switch. If the fossil driver doesn't support flow control properly REDA will try to emulate this. You can check this by pressing the Escape-key instead of Ctrl-C or Ctrl-K. Pressing the Escape key then will have the same effect as Ctrl-C or Ctrl-K. 1.3 LIST OF FILES IN THIS PACKAGE REDA consist of the following files: - REDA.EXE Main program - REDAKEY.EXE Generate BASE.FIL - LINES_x.FIL Questions and answeres - COLOR.FIL Basic ANSI colors - BASE.FIL List of TEXTfiles - DIR.FIL optional - LOGO.ASC and LOGO.ANS Logon screen - MENU_x.ASC and MENU_x.ANS Main menu - HELP_x.TXT User information - AREAS_x.TXT optional - REDA1.TXT Dutch example - REDA.LOG REDA logfile - REDA50.DOC Dutch documentation - REDA50E.DOC This documentation 2.0 REDA.EXE & THE SWITCHES REDA.EXE (REDA50.EXE) is the executable program. You may use REDA local or in a shell of another communication program, like a Bulletin Board System. Page 4 REDA support the following switches: -ASCII or -ASC or -0, run REDA in the ASCII mode. -ANSI or -ANS or -1, run REDA in the ANSI mode. -I Re-initialize the fossil driver. -K Keyboard (local) mode. -Lxx Select screen length, xx = max rows. Default = 24, range 10-99. -Px Select communication port x, COM1: = 0, COM2: = 1 -Rxxx Maximum available time for user. -Txxx Same as -Rxxx -N <name> Username (log purpose only) -B <path> Directory where to search for the (selected) file BASE.FIL. If you are using the -B switch without using the dir.fil option, BASE.FIL then has to be in the same directory as the textfiles. You don't have to supply the baudrate. REDA will select this automatically using the fossil driver. REDA assumes: No parity, 8 databits and 1 stopbit. With another configuration of the communication port it may happen that REDA won't work properly or not at all! Running in the remote mode REDA scans the status of CD every second. When CD is low REDA knows that the communication link is broken. REDA will stop immediately en returns control back to the main program or DOS (batchfile). When showing the itemlist or one of the text files REDA supports Ctrl-C, Ctrl-K and sometimes Escape (in flow control emulation mode) to abort. --> When REDA is running in the local mode, don't use the Ctrl-C. It may happen that DOS take action on this bypassing REDA. Any further commands will not be executed properly. Please reset the computer first. 2.1 REDAKEY.EXE While running this program it will create a list called BASE.FIL containing data of every .TXT (or .SDA) file it finds. The file BASE.FILL contains the filename, keylist and discription of every .TXT file REDAKEY have found. The keylist is the first row in a .TXT file, the discription the second row. Every time you want to add new textfiles you have to run REDAKEY.EXE. REDAKEY will read the textfiles sequential as found in the directory. If you want the items sorted alphabetically or by date you have to sort the directory first. If REDA cannot find the file BASE.FIL it will give an error and abort. Page 5 It is not nessesary to have all of the textfiles in the same directory as REDA. Using the file DIR.FIL you may select up to 50 different directories where REDAKEY has to scan for textfiles. See also chapter 2.15 REDAKEY recognizes only one switch: -SDA. With this switch you can tell REDAKEY to scan for SDA textfiles. These textfiles are supplied by the Software Distribution Network (sm). We advise you to run REDAKEY automatically after receiving SDN and SDA files so that REDA is up to date. 2.2 LINES_x.FIL The files LINES_A.FIL and LINES_B.FIL contains all of the questions and possible replies (except for the main menu) of REDA. You may translate the questions and replies into any language you want as long as the contents doesn't change. We advise to use the file LINES_A.FIL for your native language and the file LINES_B.FIL for the English language. Use a plain ASCII editor to edit the LINES_x.FIL files. Every question and reply sequence has it's own unique row (column) in the file. Don't change this. REDA won't work properly then. To avoid problems, make a backup of these files first. You may use ANSI color codes in the questions (NOT the replies!). These codes are automatically filtered out when REDA is running in the ASCII mode. If REDA can't find the wanted LINES_x.FIL file it will give an error and abort. 2.3 COLOR.FIL While running in the ANSI mode REDA will use the file COLOR.FIL. This file contains the basic (ANSI) color (codes) for the questions, listings and text files. See the file color.fil for more details. If REDA can't find the file COLOR.FIL or if REDA is running in the ASCII mode REDA will use the actual color. 2.4 BASE.FIL This file is or will be created by REDAKEY.EXE. The file BASE.FIL contains data of every .TXT (or .SDA) file, with a total of three rows per file. Every first row contains the filename, the second row the keylist and the third row the discription. REDA can handle at most 1100 textfiles at once. If BASE.FIL contains more than 1100 textfiles, REDA will ignore the rest. Maximum loading time on a 6 Mhz AT computer is 5 seconds (1100 items) Page 6 The file BASE.FIL does not have to be in the REDA directory. Using the -B switch, it is possible to select a different directory where REDA can find the file BASE.FIL. Using this option, it is possible to have more than one BASE.FIL, for instance when the are more than 1100 files, or to create more databases. If REDA can't find the file BASE.FIL it will give an error and abort. 2.5 DIR.FIL The file DIR.FIL is optional. You have to use this file, when the textfiles are not in the same directory as REDA. DIR.FIL can contain at maximum 50 directories where REDAKEY has to scan for textfiles. Don't delete or change this file after running REDAKEY, because REDA will use this file also. Every time you make changes in the file DIR.FIL, you have to run REDAKEY again to make a compatible file BASE.FIL. 2.6 LOGO.ASC and LOGO.ANS The first screen REDA shows is the LOGO screen. When running in the ANSI mode REDA will check if the file LOGO.ANS exist. If this file does not exist or if REDA is running in the ASCII mode REDA will check for the file LOGO.ASC. These files have to contain a question asking the wanted language. The possibile answeres (character selections) have to be on the first row. The first position refers to the the file LINES_A.FIL, the second position to the file LINES_B.FIL. When a user selects a wrong answere, REDA will send the last row of the file LOGO.xxx again. If REDA can't find the LOGO file, it will skip directly to the main menu, using the primary language (LINES_A.FIL) REDA will also use the primary language, when the first row does not contain the possible answeres. 2.7 EXIT.ASC and EXIT.ANS However not supplied with this package you may use a logoff screen. If it takes some time to return from REDA to the main program you may send a logoff screen so that in the meantime the user has something to read . The logoff files should be named EXIT.ANS and EXIT.ASC. If REDA can not find the file EXIT.ANS or EXIT.ASC REDA will inform the user in English that (s)he has logged-off REDA. Page 7 2.8 MENU_x.ASC and MENU_x.ANS The main menu of REDA consist of an ascii and ansi file. There are nine options: - Search on keyword - Scan textfiles (search on catchword) - Summary - Last showed file - Read particulair file - Help - Toggle ASCII / ANSI mode - Screenlength - Logoff It's totally up to you how the main menu looks, wich keys to use for a particulair action and so on. The first row is used by REDA and contains the nine possible character replies (menu options). If you don't want to use a particulair option you must put a space character on the position on the first row representing the action. From the second row you are totally free. In het ANSI file you even may animate using ANSI codes. The positions on the first row are: Position 1: Search on item Position 6: Show help file Position 2: Summary Position 7: Toggle ANSI-ASCII mode Position 3: Show particulair file Position 8: Scan on catchword Position 4: Last showed file Position 9: Change # of rows Position 5: Logoff REDA If you want that a user must type a '1' to Search on item, you put a '1' on the first row, at position one. Example: (position 123456789) ( line 1) 123LGHASC ( line 2) ( line 3) REDA MAIN MENU ( line 4) ( line 5) 1) Search on item 2) Summary 3) Show file ( line 6) L)ast showed file G)oodby H)elp ( line 7) S)can on catchword A)nsi-ascii mode C)hange # of rows Page 8 It is recommended to make the main menu not to large owing to the time it takes to send it over. When running in the ANSI mode REDA will check first if the file MENU.ANS exist. If this file does not exist or when running in the ASCII mode REDA will check if the file MENU.ASC exist. If this file does not exist (either) REDA will give an error and abort. When one of the files is corrupted REDA also (may) give an error and abort. MENU_A.ANS and MENU_A.ASC: Primary language. MENU_B.ANS and MENU_B.ASC: Secondairy language. Remark: When REDA is running in the ANSI mode, REDA tries to send the main menu as less as possible. If possible REDA will send only the last row of the MENU_x.ANS file. 2.9 HELP_x.TXT These files are to help the user to select an option from the main menu. We have tried to make REDA as easy as possible to use for the user (and the sysop). HELP_A.TXT is the help file for the primary language, HELP_B.TXT for the secondary. You may use ANSI color codes. These codes are automatically filtered out when REDA is running in the ASCII mode. If REDA can not find the wanted HELP file it will send an errormessage to the user and return to the main menu. 2.10 AREAS_x.TXT When a user wants to search on keyword(s) it is possible to show a summary of keywords (areas) to make it easier for the user to select keyword(s). To insert this option you must create two files called AREAS_A.TXT and AREAS_B.TXT. REDA automatically checks if these files exist. Should this be the case REDA will show one of these files depending on the selected language. 2.11 REDA.TXT This file shows how to make a textfile for REDA. The file is created for use as a textfile for REDA so that a user can read this. You may use this file as an example in chapter 3.2, 'how to create a textfile for REDA'. Page 9 2.12 REDA.LOG REDA keeps a logfile called REDA.LOG. This file contains the usernames, mode, logdate and time, showed files and errors. You may use this log to trace (severe) errors or to scan for statistics and so on. 3.0 INSTALLATION OF REDA Create a directory named REDA on the target drive. Copy all of the files on the distribution diskette into this directory. Copy also your own textfiles into this directory. If you want to use textfiles in other directories (this will be the case when you want to use SDA textfiles), you have to make a file named DIR.FIL containing a list of all of the directories. See the file DIR (.FIL) for more details. The next step is to create the file BASE.FIL. Therefore run the program REDAKEY.EXE. If you want Reda to run directly from any other directory, add the following rows to the config.sys and autoexec.bat files: config.sys: SET REDA=[drive:][\path] autoexec.bat: PATH [drive:][\path] 3.1 UPDATE OF REDA 4.x TO 5.0 Do the following steps to update form REDA v4.x to REDA v5.0: - Copy the new files LINES_x.FIL into the REDA directory or edit the old ones. (The new version has one row more). - Replace the old REDA with the new one. - Replace the old REDAKEY with the new one. - You may replace old LOGO files with the new ones. - Run REDAKEY to make a compatible file BASE.FIL REDA v5.0 have some new switches. See also chapter 2.0. REDA v5.0 does not recognize the files BBS.ANS and BBS.ASC. If you were using these files to interface with the mian program, you have to change this using the (new) parameters. See chapter 3.0 to run REDA directly from any other directory. 3.2 HOW TO CREATE A TEXTFILE FOR REDA REDA uses the same textfile with the extention .TXT or .SDA for the ANSI and ASCII modes. You may use ANSI color codes in the Page 10 textfile. When REDA runs in the ascii mode the ANSI color codes are automatically filtered out. Even at 19.200 Bps you will not be able to notice this. REDA uses the first two rows for it's own information. You may not use ANSI color codes on these rows! The first row must contain a list of keywords on wich REDA can select the item. The second row must contain a brief discription. This row is showed when REDA display's (part of) the summary. For example, if the text is about floppy diskdrives, you may put on the first row 'FLOPPYDISKDRIVES 5 1/4 DISKS'. When an user wants to read the items about floppy diskdrives (s)he may type 'DISK' or 'DRIVE' or even 'PYD' and so on. REDA always will find this item. On the first row you may use up to 60 characters, spaces not included. On the second row you may use the first 70 positions, spaces included. You are free to chose the filename as long as the extention is .TXT and the name does not conflict with the DOS rules. 3.3 USING REDA WITH DESQVIEW REDA has been tested with desqview without any problems. But it may be possible that REDA will not work properly or not at all. 3.4 REDIRECTION OF THE SCREEN OUTPUT It is possible to redirect the screen output of REDA to another device following the DOS rules. For instance redirecting to a diskfile, so that it is not nessesary to be present looking how the users work with REDA or to discover possible errors. 4.0 ANSI COLOR CODES A list of the ANSI color codes. Syntax: ESC[ PS; .....; PSm PS may have the following values corresponding whith a particulair action listed on the next page. 0 reset ansi mode 1 Hilight on 5 blink on Page 11 color foreground background black 30 40 red 31 41 green 32 42 yellow 33 43 blue 34 44 magenta 35 45 cyan 36 46 white 37 47 4.1 DISCLAIMER AND RESTRICTIONS If you are going to use REDA it is at your own risk. The author can not be held responsible for any damages in any form due to running REDA. REDA ought not to be sold or distributed as part of or with other programs. This includes distribution on a diskette containing other software than the REDA package. You are allowed to charge the cost of the distribution disk, being no more than the price of a white label diskette. You have to mention that it is NOT the price for the package, but only for the distribution diskette. REDA is tested thoroughly, but it is always possible that REDA has some bugs left and (sometimes) will not work properly. If this happens, please report this to the author. IBM is a trademark of the International Business Machines Corporation DOS is a trademark of the Microsoft Corporation NCR is a trademark of the NCR Corporation 4.2 REDA HISTORY REDA 0.5 - First release. REDA 0.6 - Fixed communication bug with the fossil. REDA reported sometimes wrongly that there was no fossil driver. REDA 1.0 - Created the possibility to use ANSI textfiles also. REDA 1.1 - Fixed bug in inputbuffer routine. REDA 1.6 - Improved flow control emulation. Page 12 REDA 2.0 - Changed some of the questions and answeres. It's now possible to go reverse in a text file. - Questions may contain ANSI color codes now. - Improved 19.200 Bps support. - Changed and improved the command line commands. REDA 2.1 - When using a high baudrate ( 4800 and higher) and all the databuffers are full when disconnecting (remote) it sometimes happened that REDA locked up the computer instead of aborting. The responsible assembler routine is rewritten so that it may not happen again. - Fixed small bug in command line. REDA 3.0 - The ANSI and ASCII textfiles are now combined in one file with the extention .TXT. This saves diskspace up to 50%. Also the use of color in REDA will be encouraged. - REDA 3.0 is not backward compatible. REDAKEY is rewritten to scan .TXT files. The program TRANSLAT is written to rename the .ANS and .ASC files to .TXT using the file BASE.FIL - All of the search routines are rewritten for a better performance. The maximum searching time ( 6 Mhz AT, 500 items) is 0.2 seconds. REDA 3.1 - Added the possibility to toggle ANSI/ASCII mode in the main menu. - Rewritten the disk i/o routines for a 30% better performance. - Fixed a logfile error. - Solved compiler bug so that the backpage works properly now. - The -I parameter now also force REDA to test the presence of a fossil driver. Page 12 - Solved a bug in the main menu section so that REDA accepts the spaces on the first row of the menu file properly. - At the end of the HELP file REDA now waits for a key input before sending the main menu. REDA 3.3 - When showing the helptext file REDA ignored the input of the questions and continued showing the rest of the file. This bug is fixed. - Fixed memory bug wich was affected when the maximum capacity of REDA (500 files) was used. REDA's capacity is also increased to 575 files. - Added the possibility to scan through the textfiles and to change the screen length ( in the range of 10 to 99 lines) - Some of the text and questions were supposed to be in a basic color. Because of a bug this didn't work properly. This bug is fixed. - There are three new command line paramters: -ANSI (or -ANS), -ASCII (or -ASC) for ANSI/ASCII mode and -Rxx to adjust the screenlength. REDA 4.0 - REDA 4.0 is bilingual. It's up two you to choose the two languages. - The new commandline switches are: -L (replacing the old -R), -T or -R, -N <name> and -K. - The user is not forced to go to the main menu first to logoff. - Optimised the ANSI screens to lessen the data transmitted. - It is now possible to show a list of keywords (areas) when an user wants to search on keyword(s). The responsible file is called AREAS_x.TXT and is optional. - Two bugs are solved in REDAKEY.EXE. REDAKEY now will run with DOS 4.xx and with the special 'DOS only' SCSI harddisk controllers. - You may use .SDA textfiles. SDA textfiles are supplied by the Software Distribution Network (tm). To select this mode, use the /SDA commandline option switch with REDAKEY.EXE. Page 13 REDA 5.0 - Increased the maximum capicity to 1100 textfiles. - Improved the loading time of the items with 50%. - With the -B switch, you may select a different directory where REDA can find the file BASE.FIL, so that it is possible to have more than one file BASE.FIL. - Fixed a compilerbug in REDA v4.x, so that the function Scan on Catchword works properly now. - Textfiles don't have to be in the same directory as REDA anymore. You may select up to 50 directories. - Changed the switch /SDA of REDAKEY in -SDA. - Added the switches -0 and -1 representing the same function as -ASCII and -ANSI. Page 14