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FRAME v2.50 An add-on utility for RemoteAccess BBS system USER MANUAL Software and documentation written by Yat Tung Cheung Copyright (C) 1993-1996 Yat Tung Cheung All rights reserved Made with Pride in Hong Kong, Enjoy BBS (6:700/648@FidoNet) http://www.ie.cuhk.hk/~ycheung3/frame.html Table of Contents 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 2 Legal section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 3 Program features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 4 File descriptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 5 Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 6 FRAMECFG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 6.1 System Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 6.1.1 System Info. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 6.1.2 Pathnames . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 6.1.3 Site Information . . . . . . . . . . . 4 6.2 Bulletin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 6.2.1 File base bulletin . . . . . . . . . . 4 6.2.1.1 Options . . . . . . . . . . 5 6.2.2 User base bulletin . . . . . . . . . . 5 6.2.2.1 Options . . . . . . . . . . 5 6.3 FileHeader system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 6.3.1 Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 6.4 Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 6.5 DOS Shell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 6.6 Exit to DOS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 7 Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 8 Command line parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 9 Template Creation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 9.1 File bulletin template file . . . . . . . . . . 7 9.2 File header template file . . . . . . . . . . . 8 9.3 User statistics template file . . . . . . . . . 8 10 Support site . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 11 Credits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 12 Technical information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 13 Contacting the author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 1 Introduction FRAME is a bulletin and file header generator for RemoteAccess BBS system. It generates top user bulletins, top file bulletins and creates a header with file statistics for file listings. All outputs are customizable with your favourite ANSI, ASCII or RIP editor. 2 Legal section FRAME is neither freeware nor public domain; FRAME is shareware. After a reasonable trial period (14 days suggested), you are expected to register your copy of FRAME with the author if you would like to continue to use FRAME. See the file FRAME.REG for details. Remember that this would give great encouragement to the author and make him 1 continue to develop this and other programs. FRAME is (C)opyright 1993-1996 Yat Tung Cheung. Disassembly of and modifications to the executables and documentation is NOT allowed. Use in a commercial environment without registration is prohibited after the trial period! ** When you registered FRAME, the statement 'This screen is created ** ** by FRAME, unregistered version. Press ENTER.' will no longer be ** ** added to the bulletins generated and the 10 seconds delay at the ** ** end of the program will be removed. ** 3 Program features o FAST top user bulletins generation, including: Top caller, Top message writer, Top downloader(in kilobytes and no. of files), Top uploader (in kilobytes and no of files), as well as totals and averages. o FAST top file bulletins generator, including: Top file, Top file area. o Other user statistics Total no of active users, age and sex statistics o File header is provided with useful statistics o Directly read/write the Remote Acess 2.0x and 2.5x file database (FDB). Fast! o All outputs are CUSTOMIZABLE with an ANSI, ASCII or RIP editor. o The file header can be a colourful ANSI or plain ASCII file. o Each file areas can have its own custom headers. o The bulletins output can be an ASCII, ANSI or RIP file. o "Smart mode" in file header generation, Frame updates only those file headers of areas which has been modified since FRAME was run. This speeds things up a lot. o Can be configured to exclude certain users from user statistics. o Can be configured to excluded certain file areas from file statistics. 4 File Descriptions FRAME.EXE...............The executable file of FRAME FRAMECFG.EXE............The configuration program of FRAME FRAME.DOC...............User manual of this program WHATSNEW.250............History of FRAME FRAME.REG...............Registration form SAMPLE.ZIP..............Archive which contains sample files ready to run ----SETUP.FRM...........Sample configuration file ----HEADER1.ANS/ASC.....File header template file ----HEADER2.ANS/ASC.....File header template 2 ----HEADER3.ANS/ASC.....File header template ----F_CALL1.ANS/ASC.....User bulletin template file, Top caller ----F_CALL2.ANS/ASC.....Top caller template ----F_CALL3.ANS/ASC.....Top caller template ----F_POST1.ANS/ASC.....Top message writer template ----F_POST2.ANS/ASC.....Top message writer template ----F_POST3.ANS/ASC.....Top message writer template ----F_UPLK1.ANS/ASC.....Top uploader in kilobytes template ----F_UPLK2.ANS/ASC.....Top uploader in kilobytes template ----F_UPLK3.ANS/ASC.....Top uploader in kilobytes template ----F_UPLF1.ANS/ASC.....Top uploader in no. of files template ----F_UPLF2.ANS/ASC.....Top uploader in no. of files template ----F_UPLF3.ANS/ASC.....Top uploader in no. of files template ----F_DWLK1.ANS/ASC.....Top downloader in kilobytes template ----F_DWLK2.ANS/ASC.....Top downloader in kilobytes template ----F_DWLK3.ANS/ASC.....Top downloader in kilobytes template ----F_DWLF1.ANS/ASC.....Top downloader in no. of files template ----F_DWLF2.ANS/ASC.....Top downloader in no. of files template ----F_DWLF3.ANS/ASC.....Top downloader in no. of files template ----F_3IN1.ANS/ASC......Top user bulletin template ----F_STAT1.ANS/ASC.....General system statistics template ----F_STAT2.ANS/ASC.....General system statistics template ----F_TAREA1.ANS/ASC....File bulletin template file, Top file area ----F_TAREA2.ANS/ASC....Top file area template ----F_TOPDL1.ANS/ASC....Top download file template ----F_TOPDL2.ANS/ASC....Top download fiel template FILE_ID.DIZ.............Description file for BBS SysOp 5 Installation 1. Make a directory, eg: c:\frame, and copy all files from the archive into it. 2. It is recommended that the FRAME directory be included in the path statement, for example: SET PATH=C:\RA;C:\FRAME In order for the executables to be able to find the configuration files from any directory, the following line should be added to the AUTOEXEC.BAT file: SET FRAME=C:\FRAME 3. You may draw your own templates for the top user bulletins, top file bulletins and file headers to customize the program outputs. For details, please refer to the Template Creation section. The template filenames should be entered using FRAMECFG. The bulletins will be created in the RA text file directory as specified in FRAMECFG. 4. Run FRAMECFG to configure FRAME. FRAMECFG will look for the configuration files in the current directory or directory pointed by the environment variable FRAME. *NOTE: Some samples come from this archive. For a quick start, unpack sample.zip. Try to browse through every options in FRAMECFG. Then you may enter FRAME HEADER STATS at the dos prompt and see what FRAME can do for you! 3 6 FRAMECFG 6.1 System Data 6.1.1 System Info FRAME supports both RA 2.0x and 2.50x. You would need to specify your RA verion here. RA Version Number 2.0x or 2.5x. 6.1.2 Pathnames Within this menu you have to configure some important directories and file names that FRAME needs to perform correctly. BBS System Path of your RemoteAccess BBS system This path is needed to open the CONFIG.RA file. Textfiles Path of your RA textfiles directory. User and file bulletins created will be put in this directory. File base Path of your RA file base directory. User base Path of your RA user base directory. The file, users.bbs, should be in this directory. Log file Path and filename of the log file which FRAME should write to. Enter blank if you do not want to enable logging. 6.1.3 Site Information Here you can enter some information about your system. You should enter your registration code in this menu, if you have registered FRAME. Name Name of your BBS system SysOp Name of the System Operator Registration code Your registration code of FRAME 6.2 Bulletin Within this menu, you configure the bulletin generation functions of FRAME. 6.2.1 File base bulletin Template filename Filenames of the file base bulletin templates. You may have up to 50 templates. File areas to ignore Ignore certain file areas from the file base bulletin. Set the file base path first before entering this menu. 4 6.2.1.1 Options Add commas in numbers Add commas in numeric data output 6.2.2 User base bulletin Template filename Enter the user bulletin template filenames Users to ignore FRAME allows you to specify up to 500 users which you do not want to be included in the bulletins. This is useful if you have users (or co-SysOps, or SysOp yourself) which you want to "hide" from the bulletins. 6.2.2.1 Options Honor hidden flags Toggle it on if you want to hide users from bulletins with hidden flag on. Use user handles Use user handles insteed of user names in bulletins. Maximum security level Enter the maximum security level to include in bulletin. eg. If you specify 99, then users with level 100 or above will be hidden from bulletins. Enter 0 to disable this function. Add commas in numbers Add commas in numeric data output No of days for active Specify the no of days since last call to consider active users. This value is used in macro A. 6.3 FileHeader system Configure the file header generation functions within this menu. Template filename Filename of the default file header template. Each file area can have its own custom headers. If your default header is header.ans and you have header.5, then FRAME will use that file for file area 5. File areas to ignore Ignore certain file areas from header creation. Set the file base path first before entering this menu. File type counters Define file type counters. You may have up to 20 file types. 6.3.1 Options Add commas in numbers Add commas in numeric data output 6.4 Information Display information of FRAME. 5 6.5 DOS Shell Shell to DOS temporarily. 6.6 Exit to DOS Quit FRAMECFG. 7 Operations Enter FRAME with appropiate command line parameters at the dos prompt. Setup events at your mailer for Remote Access to run it at regular intervals to update bulletins and file headers. 8 Command line parameters The following is a list of parameters available. Running FRAME with no parameters will also give you a similar list. Usage: FRAME <commands> [switches] Commands: Header Maintain the file header and generate file base bulletins. Stats Generate user base bulletins. Switiches: -smart Enable smart mode in generating file header When eabled, Frame will only update those file headers of which the file base has been modified since FRAME was run last time. This would save a considerable amount of time, especially with a system of many file areas. Please note you will need to disable this if you would like to update the file headers with another file header template file. -removehdr Remove file headers -hdronly Generate file headers only Examples: FRAME Header -smart --- Generate headers for file listings and file base bulletins with smart mode enabled FRAME Header -hdronly --- Generate headers for file listings without updating the file base bulletins. FRAME Header -removehdr --- Remove the file headers generated by FRAME 6 FRAME Header Stats --- Generate headers, file and user bulletins. 9 Template Creation There are three kinds of template files: 9.1 File bulletin Template File The file bulletin file can be an ANSI, ASCII or RIP file and include any one of the following macros which will be translated. Macros for Top download file list F99 Filename S99 Filesize C99 No. of downloads !99FB Graphic bar for No. of downloads U99 Name of uploader D99 Description of the file I99 Upload date J99 File date K99 Last download date ( Creation date ( Creation time where 99 is the rank of the top download file, from 1 up to 50. is input by pressing CTRL-R in the ANSI editor. F is the front character for the graphic bar. B is the back charcter for the graphic bar. Macros for Top file area A99 Area name B99 No. of downloads @99FB Graphic bar for No. of downloads where 99 is the rank of the top file area, from 1 up to 50. F is the front character for the graphic bar. B is the back charcter for the graphic bar. *** Very important *** Using the codes as they look above will place only the amount of characters needed to display. You can use one of three format modifiers to help when drawing boxes and such. The three characters are \/| and allow for left justify, right justify and centering of the string. In a example if the filename is ABCD.BAK and it is the 10th most download file. Before: │ F10\\\\\\\\ │ F10//////// │ F10|||||||| │ After : │ ABCD.BAK │ ABCD.BAK │ ABCD.BAK │ For textual data, if not enough space is given for the variable, it will be truncated to fit. For numeric data, it will be replaced by a series of # characters. For graphic bar macros, you would need to supply two more characters at the end of the macro to supply the front and the back characters respectively. e.g. the macro @10\\\\\\\\\\█▒ will expand to something like: ███████████▒▒▒▒▒ the macro @10\\\\\\\\\\■· will expand to something like: ■■■■■■■■■■■····· 7 9.2 File Header Template File The File Header template file can be an ANSI or ASCII file and include any one of the following macros which will be translated. B Total no. of bytes K Total no. of kilobytes D Total no. of downloads V Average no. of downloads per file F Total no. of files O Total no. of files offlined A Area name N Area no. S Minimum security level for downloads P Filename of the most popular file(downloaded by most users) Q No. of downloads of the most popular file L Filename of the largest file M Size of the largest file X99 file extension of the specified file type T99 No. of files with the specified file extension ( Creation date ( Creation time where 99 is the file type no., from 1 up to 20 is input by pressing CTRL-T in the ANSI editor. The left three format modifiers are valid in file header template. Limitations on ANSI header: (1) The output of each line should be less than 255 characters, or it will be truncated by RA. If this happens use less colors on a single line. (2) The each line of the ANSI template file should begin with a color code as RA automatically inserts a bright white color at the beginning of each line while displaying the file header. 9.3 User Statistics Template File The User Statistics template file can be an ANSI, ASCII or RIP file and include any one of the following macros which will be translated. A99 Top caller B99 No. of calls of top caller !99FB Graphic bar for no. of calls of top caller C99 Top message writer D99 No. of messages by top message writer @99FB Graphic bar for no. of messages by top message writer E99 Top uploader by kilobytes F99 No. of bytes uploaded by top uploader #99FB Graphic bar for no. of bytes uploaded by top uploader G99 Top Uploader by no. of files H99 No. of files uploaded by top uploader $99FB Graphic bar for no. of files uploaded by top uploader I99 Top Downloader by kilobytes J99 No. of bytes downloaded by top downloader %99FB Graphic bar for no. of bytes downloaded by top downloader K99 Top Downloader by no. of files L99 No. of files downloaded by top downloader ^99FB Graphic bar for no. of files downloaded by top downloader M Total no. of Calls N No. of calls per user O Total no. of messages posted P No. of messages posted per user 8 Q Total no. of kilobytes uploaded R No. of kilobytes uploaded per user S Total no. of files uploaded T No. of files uploaded per user U Total no. of kilobytes downloaded V No. of kilobytes downloaded per user W Total no. of files uploaded X No. of files uploaded per user Z Total no. of users ( Creation date ( Creation time where 99 is the rank of the top user, from 1 up to 50. is input by pressing CTRL-U in the ANSI editor. F is the front character for the graphic bar. B is the back charcter for the graphic bar. A Total no. of active users B No of days since last login to consider active users M Total no. of male users F Total no. of female users G99 Total no. of users in age group 99 H99 Graphic bar for total no. of users in age group 99 Age Group Age Age Group Age 1 0-4 11 50-54 2 5-9 12 55-59 3 10-14 13 60-64 4 15-19 14 65-69 5 20-24 15 70-74 6 25-29 16 75-79 7 30-34 17 80-84 8 35-39 18 85-89 9 40-44 19 90-94 10 45-49 20 95 and above eg. G5 counts the no of users in ages 20-24. The left three format modifiers are valid in user statistics template. 10 Support Site BBS Name: Enjoy BBS Address : 6:700/648@FidoNet Tel no. : (852)2398-2059, (852)2789-4563 SysOp : Yat Tung Cheung Location: Hong Kong, Asia BBS Name: Tokyo Love Story Address : 6:700/685@FidoNet Tel no. : (852)2409-0029 SysOp : Mok Joey Location: Hong Kong, Asia The newest version of FRAME are always available from the above BBSes. File request is available with the magic word 'FRAME'. Webpage at http://www.ie.cuhk.edu.hk/~ycheung3/frame.html, maintained by the author. 9 11 Credits The author would like to thanks the following persons: Mok Joey (6:700/685@FidoNet) --- for supporting FRAME, giving new ideas and beta testing. Simon Fong (6:700/622@FidoNet) --- for supporting FRAME and beta testing. Wong Tang Fung (6:700/416.1) --- for reporting the bugs in v1.0 and beta testing. Yeung On Tai (6:700/795@FidoNet) --- for supporting FRAME, giving new ideas and beta testing. Brett Gallant (1:255/117@FidoNet) --- for supporting FRAME and beta testing. AND of course all registered users! Original visual interface concept designed by Joaquim Homrighausen. Used with permission. All brand and product names are Copyrighted (C) material, Trademarks (tm) or Registered (R) Trademarks of their respective holders: RemoteAccess Andrew Milner and Continental Software, Inc. 12 Technical information This program was written in C language and compiled by the Borland C++ Version 3.1. The program was developed without the use of any third-party library. 13 Contacting the Author You can contact Yat Tung Cheung, the author of FRAME in several different ways. The easiest and quickest way is to send a netmail to Enjoy BBS, 6:700/648@fidonet. (Tel No: (852)2398-2059) All crash netmails will be replied to within a few days. The replies will be put on hold for the originating system. Please poll again after a few days sending your crash mail, and you will receive your reply. You may send e-mail to ycheung3@ie.cuhk.edu.hk. Replies will be made within a few days. Besides all these, you can always reach me by sending physical mail to my address: Cheung Yat Tung 62, Sycamore Street, 4/F, Tai Kok Tsui, Hong Kong. ------------------------<End of Document>------------------------- 10