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- ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
- The history of FEBBS
- ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
-
- 1.70 1991-03-14
-
- ■ Here we go again. ( All new Stuff at the End )
-
- ■ SuperBbs 1.06a have a different structure on the Areafile
- called FLSEARCH.BBS. Febbs has changed to reflect this change.
- Reported by Aki Antman.
-
- ■ If you made a filelist from the menu and after that wished
- to enter an area for editing then the Arealist had been
- partialy lost from memory. The other way around Edit first
- lists after that was no problem.
-
- ■ I realised that allthough Febbs supports descriptions up
- to 150 Characters per line it chopped of them to 80 when
- you added the DL counter.
-
- ■ Febbs now removes Avatar codes when creating filelists in
- Remote Access mode as well. This is due to the fact that
- RA v1.00 will be able to handle the Avatar codes.
-
- ■ Febbs didn't recognice Avatar codes sometimes when you
- where editing in the editor. It acted just like all
- codes was spaces.
-
- ■ < F5 > Added a viewer for how the Files.Bbs looks to the user.
- It displays the page your standing at in the editor and it
- is aware of some Avatar codes. Press < F5 > to have a look at it.
-
- ■ Added support for The ^Y<Char><Repeat> Avatar code in both
- the viewer < F5 > and when creating lists. That way your
- users will get a filelist that looks just like the list they
- saw on the screen while they where online.
-
- ■ < Ctr-P > Add character literal at cursor position.
- Press < Ctrl-P > and then Any key ( or use Alt-Keypad ) to
- add any character to the Files.Bbs. Even if it is occupied by
- a function usaly.
-
- ■ < Alt-F9 > Added an easy way to add some nice Avatar colours
- to your file lists. Simply press < Alt-F9 > and choose colour
- from the colour chart. Press Enter and the Proper Avatar code
- is inserted at the cursor position.
-
- ■ < Ctrl-L > Copy description from line your standing on to
- file below. Nice when youre adding same description to multiple
- files.
- Suggested by Andreas Birgerson
-
- ■ Febbs now fully supports the listpath option most BBS packages
- have. Before the Files.Bbs file had to be called Files.Bbs but
- now it can be called anything. With a few restrictions ofcourse.
- The name of the Files.Bbs compatible file must include both a
- name and an extension and the extension must not be .BAK.
- Otherwise that there should be no restrictions. This also cures
- the fact that if the path to Files.Bbs wasn't terminated with
- a backslash then Febbs would go a directory level to high.
- Suggested by Lars Hellgren.
-
- ■ The texts "Matrix File request possible" etc under the header in the
- filelist have been made configurable. This is so that you can put
- a message in your own language there.
- Suggested by Klaus Breuer.
-
- ■ < Ctrl-N > Touch all tagged files. Works just like < Alt-N > that
- touches the file on the current line, allthough this one touches
- all tagged files. By touching i mean setting current date and time
- on the file.
- Suggested by Ludvig Norin.
-
- ■ Support for the 43/50 row mode on EGA/VGA adapters added. Febbs also
- supports other modes of Screen length as long as you doesn't shell
- to dos and reset the screen to an other mode. If you do that youre
- on your own!
-
- ■ The first try to get Febbs into some sort of mode where you can
- edit the whole line has been made. Now you can edit the whole
- 150 Character description line.
-
- ■ I have upgraded to Turbo Pascal 6 and at the same time i upgraded
- Turbo Professionals Toolboxes. I have also dropped CFi that was
- the Unit i used to access the archives. The reason for that was that
- i didn't have the source to it and i couldn't use it with TP6.
- So i built my own interface to the archives.
-
- Febbs now supports the following Archivers.
-
- LHArc 1.13 -> 2.11 SFX
- AR 0.20 SFX
- LArc 1.33 SFX
- ARJ 1.00 SFX
- PKZip 1.10 SFX
- ARC 6.02
- PKArc 3.61
- PAK 2.51
- Hyper 2.50
- ZOO 2.01 SFX
-
- The Archives programs with the SFX flag are Febbs also able to
- peek into the so called SelF-Xtracting files made by these Archives
-
- ■ Added support for a monochrome mode of Febbs. If you're running on
- a non colour screen then supply the /M parameter and Febbs will
- use it's set of B/W-Colours. Of Course you can edit the colours
- with Feppla as well but if you wan't to run Febbs temporarily
- on another machine then this is the way to go.
- Suggested by Tommi Jansson.
-
- ■ The Column that the TAB key indents the line your standing on is
- now configurable. This is because some people like the second line
- of description to begin to the right of any Download counter.
- Suggested by Paul Leffler.
-
- ■ Febbs now remembers what lines that where tagged when you shell to
- DOS or to any other external support program.
- Suggested by Ludvig Norin.
-
- ■ A check to see if a DL Counter already is present is performed when
- you try to add a DL Counter. The Check is very hard to do, due to all
- the different styles of the DL counter. Hopefully it works
- satisfactory most of the time.
- Suggested by Mark bayles.
-
- ■ When Shelling to external support programs Febbs will change directory
- to the directory where the files are before executing any external
- program. Works just like the DOS-Shell. This is because some programs
- doesn't support full path to the files.
- Suggested by Paul Leffler.
-
- ■ The number of Files displayed in the Best Download list is now
- configurable. A value between 5 and 50 is valid.
- Suggested by Paul Leffler.
-
- ■ Five new slots for external support programs installed.
- These programs can be anything you like. They are assigned the
- Ctrl-F1 to Ctrl-F5 keys. Just like all the other external programs
- these can be accessed via the DOS path. And if not in the path
- please supply full path name.
-
- The following meta strings are availiable on the command lines:
-
- ~C = Current directory
- ~P = Path and Name of Current files.bbs
- ~N = Name and full path to file on current line
- ~@ = Text list containing full names of all tagged files in area
- ~D = The description of the file on the current line.
- ~A = The Areaname of the current area as found in the Areafile.
-
- The meta strings can occur more than once on the same line.
-
- Ex1. If Febbs is executed from C:\FEBBS with this commandline
-
- MTA /@~@
-
- Would execute Make Them Anything <Tm> Rob Van.Hoeven with a
- commandline looking like :
-
- MTA /@C:\FEBBS\FBTAGG.TMP
-
- The FBTAGG.TMP file is the file where Febbs puts the list of
- all tagged files in the editor.
-
- Ex2. If your standing on a line looking like this:
-
- FENRIR.GIF Nice Picture of Your SysOp.
-
- And the Command line looked like this :
-
- HATCH /cTIC.CFG /f~N /d~D
-
- Then his would expand to :
-
- HATCH /cTIC.CFG /fFENRIR.GIF /dNice Picture of Your SysOp.
-
- Allowing you to easily hatch files into different File echos.
- ( Hatch <Tm> Barry Geller )
-
- ■ You may now configure if you want Febbs to pause before returning
- from a shell to let you see the last screen of the program that
- you shelled to. This function however does not affect the "look
- inside archives" function.
-
- ■ When you use the ALT-W to sort a section, it is now possible
- to use the PageUp/PageDown keys as well to tag the block to sort.
- Suggested by Mark bayles.
-
- ■ Febbs now wrapps the descriptions in the fileslists if they are to
- long. This is done i all three list types.
-
- ■ Squashed a bug that resultet in double entries in the filearea over-
- view list if you created both a total and a condensed filelist at
- the same time.
-
- ■ If you try to move a file to path, which does not exist, FEBBS will
- ask if you wish to create the directory. The same goes for when you
- try to load a Files.Bbs and the path is missing.
- Suggested by Janne Ristavaara.
-
- ■ When you're looking inside archives Febbs will use any external
- viewer that you have defined, instead of like before, the internal
- viewers allways. To make this operation as fast as possible Febbs
- will creata a BATCH file in its home directory and from that batch
- file execute the programs, Both the Unpacker and the viewer.
- Otherwise Febbs would have to shell twice. If no external viewer
- is defined Febbs will use the Internal ones. Works just like when
- your using the viewer in the editor.
- Suggested by Paul Leffler and the Author.
-
- ■ Added the possibillity to Hurl files and descriptions to any directory
- you wish. Tag as usual the files you wish to hurl and the use the
- F10 hurl and while browsing the areas of your areafile press
- < Ctrl-Enter >. A new box will appear that let you type in the
- full path to where you wish to hurl the files. If the directory
- doesn't exist Febbs will ask you if you wish to create it first.
- Allthough the same restrictions as the MD command in DOS must be
- observed, that is Febbs can't create a whole path
- Ex: C:\FILES\PASCAL\ cant be created but if C:\FILES\ existed
- already then the subdir PASCAL would be added.
- Febbs will also try to create a new Files.Bbs if one doesn't exist
- in the directory your hurling to. All the descriptions will be
- placed in this Files.Bbs.
- Suggested by several.
-
- ■ A display of the Xternal programs that you have assigned in the
- setup was added. < Ctrl - F10 > displays a list of the five DOS
- programs that you have a possibillity to install.
- Suggested by Paul Leffler.
-
- ■ When shelling Febbs has the ability to swap itself out of memory
- to make room for other programs to run. When swapping, Febbs
- can swap to Disk, EMS and now also XMS. If you have extended
- memory and wish to be able to use it as XMS memory install
- the Device driver called HIMEM.SYS that MicroSoft supplies
- with most of their programs. Edit the file called CONFIG.SYS
- to look like this in the begining of the file
-
- DEVICE=C:\HIMEM.SYS
-
- And also see to that the HIMEM.SYS file is located in your root
- directory (or change the path above to where the file is
- located ). Or if you own a 386 then you can use any other
- memory manager ( QEMM, 386Max ) to create XMS memory. But then
- you can just as well use the EMS memory to swap. Febbs will
- check the memory like this: First EMS second XMS and last DISK.
- Shelling to memory is a whole lot faster then to shell to disk.
-
- Since i feel i must give my registered users some value for
- their money i have decided to make the XMS swap only availiable
- to those that have registered. The EMS and DISK swap works just
- the same in both registered and unregistered version.
-
- ■ Febbs will no longer save current Files.Bbs before switching area
- with < Alt - S > unless you have made changes to it.
-
- ■ When running in batchmode Febbs has now the ability to create a
- logfile. This log file lets you know a thing or two about your
- unattended operations. If you do not want a log file then simply
- leave the LogFile field in the setup empty. Today the logfile is
- in a FrontDoor <Tm> style but if you feel that you need a
- different style let me know.
-
- ■ Added Remote Access 1.00 CD-Rom Support. Febbs must because of the
- new RA support for CD-Roms also open the file called Config.Ra.
- Because some info about your Files.Bbs files reside in this file.
-
- ■ Fixed a glitch considering the condensed list.
- Also hopefully fixed some stuff regarding the videomodes on some
- cards.
-
- < End Of File >
-