Beijing Paradise BBS Backup/PARADISE.ISO/software/BBSDOORW/NVIEW20.ZIP/NODEVIEW.DOC

Text File | 1994-10-18 | 18.4 KB | 382 lines

                       ╒════════════════════════════╕
                       │       NodeView v2.0        │
                       ╘════════════════════════════╛

                  A NodeList Browser For RemoteAccess v2.x

         Copyright (c)1994  David Bellchambers.  All rights reserved.


║     1.      What is NodeView?
╙──────────────────────────────

NodeView is a very powerful and easy-to-use program which allows users to
search through Fido-compatible nodelist files for bulletin-board systems
based on a search criteria.

NodeView has been designed to operate as a "door" program running under the
RemoteAccess v2.x bulletin-board system.  NodeView can also be run as a
stand-alone application from the DOS prompt.

Here's a summary of some of the main features of NodeView v2.0....

      ■     Full-screen ANSI graphic display with pop-up windows and
            buttons that press on-line (>2400 baud only)
      ■     Built-in on-line help facility
      ■     Search nodelists based on BBS name, sysop name, location or
            telephone number
      ■     Fully "remote aware" - takes care of monitoring users' on-line
            time, checking for dropped carrier and inactivity time-out.
      ■     New configuration program, NVCONFIG.EXE, includes:
            -     definition of multiple nodelists
            -     telephone number translation
            -     built-in nodelist compiler
      ■     Support for multi-node RemoteAccess systems


║     2.      Installing NodeView
╙────────────────────────────────

To install NodeView, make a sub-directory anywhere on your hard disk
and copy all of the NodeView files to it, or decompress your NodeView
archive file into it.  You should have the following files:

            NODEVIEW.EXE     -     the executable program
            NODEVIEW.HLP     -     the help file text
            NVCONFIG.EXE     -     the NodeView configuration program
            NODEVIEW.DOC     -     this documentation
            REGISTER.DOC     -     a shareware registration form

The help file NODEVIEW.HLP is a simple ASCII text file which is used to
display on-line help to the user.  This has been provided as an external
file so that non-English-speaking sysops can customise this file to their
own requirements.  For sysops who are considering re-writing NODEVIEW.HLP
the following points should be remembered:

      a)    Any characters in column 59 and beyond in the NODEVIEW.HLP file
            will be ignored.
      b)    NodeView outputs the text in blocks of 13 lines - remember this
            if you want to create attractive help screens, avoiding
            "widows" and "orphans".
      c)    The NodeView on-line help facility does NOT recognise control
            characters, so plain text only - RA ^K and ^F sequences are NOT
            implemented.
      d)    The help file must be called NODEVIEW.HLP and located in the
            same directory as the NODEVIEW.EXE program.

Before you can run the NodeView program, you will need to use the NVCONFIG
utility to configure your installation.  NVCONFIG is used to configure all
aspects of NodeView operation, leaving the NODEVIEW.EXE executable file as
a stand-alone program.

Note: Users upgrading from an earlier version of NodeView should delete all
      previous configuration files together with NODEVIEW.TBL - version 2.0
      has renamed all of these files and uses incompatible file formats, so
      these files are no longer required.  The easiest way to upgrade is to
      delete ALL of the old files and install NodeView v2.0 into the same
      directory, then use NVCONFIG to reconfigure the system as described
      below.

NVCONFIG is based on pull-down menus and pop-up windows and can be used
with a mouse or just the keyboard.  To select any item using the mouse,
click on the item using the left mouse button.

Keyboard users can make use of the defined "hot-keys" which are highlighted
in any text.  Pressing the "Alt" key, together with the hot-key letter,
will activate or select the required feature.  The "F10" function key also
acts as a menu short-cut key.  Once a menu has been pulled down, menu
options may be selected by using the cursor keys, pressing "Enter" to
activate an option, or "Escape" to cancel and close the menu.  Dialog boxes
which contain a number of selectable entries may also be navigated by using
the "Tab" key.  Pressing "Tab" in a dialog box moves the active field from
the current field to the next field, cycling through all of the available
fields.  Pressing "Shift" and "Tab" together allows the fields to be
selected in the reverse direction.  Buttons that appear in dialog boxes can
be selected as for any other field.  When the caption on a particular
button is highlighted then that button is selected, and pressing the
"Enter" key will push that button.  The "Alt"+hotkey combinations also work
with buttons.  If a "Cancel" button is presented, this may be pressed
regardless of which field is selected by pressing the "Escape" key.

Each of the NVCONFIG menu options are now presented in order:


About

      Presents an information dialog box regarding this version of
      NodeView.  If the software is unregistered, details of how to
      register will be presented.

Register

      This brings up a dialog box into which you can enter your name and an
      8-digit registration code.  This code will be supplied when you have
      registered your version of NodeView.  You must enter your name
      exactly as specified with your registration key.  If you do not, the
      key will not work and the software will only operate in unregistered
      mode.  The success or failure of the registration procedure will be
      notified by an on-screen message.  If you have problems with any
      aspect of registration please contact the author (details at the end
      of this document).

Exit

      Exit from NVCONFIG and return to the DOS prompt.  If you have made
      changes to any of the settings in NVCONFIG you will be asked if you
      wish to save the changes.  Always save any changes unless you are
      sure that the changes were unintentional. NodeView may make changes
      to the configuration during operations such as nodelist compilation,
      without you being aware.  Failure to save changes may result in
      unusual operation.

Include

      This option allows you to specify which nodelists are to be made
      available to BBS users for browsing.  A window lists all of the
      current nodelists which are specified for compilation.  The list of
      nodelists may be increased or reduced, or individual entries can be
      edited, using the "New", "Delete" and "Edit" buttons.  The list box
      will always highlight the current entry on which editing or deleting
      operations will be performed.  List entries can be selected by
      clicking on them with the mouse, or by selecting the list box using
      the "Tab" key and the cursor keys to move the selection bar up and
      down through the list.  The scroll bar to the right of the box may
      also be used, but only in conjunction with a mouse.

      Note that the nodelists are specified WITHOUT numerical extensions.
      Only the 8-character filename needs to be specified here.  When
      NVCONFIG compiles the nodelist(s) it will automatically search
      nodelist filename extensions and compile only the latest version of
      each nodelist.  Thus the following would be valid entries:

                  NODELIST
                  RNETLIST
                  PASNLIST
                  ROBO-NET

      while the following are INVALID :

                  NODELIST.323     ( don't specify the extension.... )
                  ROBO-NET.Z47     ( ....especially not an archived one! )

      An input line is provided for the provision of the path to the
      nodelist file(s).  NodeView will look in the directory specified here
      for the latest version of each nodelist.  If no directory is
      specified, only the current sub-directory will be searched.  The
      default for this field is:

                  \FD\NODELIST

      You will need to change this if you are using a different mailer or
      your nodelists are located in an alternative directory.

      When satisfied with the changes that have been made to the nodelist
      entries, press the "OK" button.  To close the dialog box without
      keeping the changes, press the "Cancel" button.  Changes are not
      written to the configuration file until you exit NVCONFIG.

Dial translation

      The introduction of dial-translation is a new feature for NodeView
      v2.0.  Readers who are using a front-end mailer will already be
      familiar with the idea of dial-translation, which allows you to
      replace sections of telephone numbers with other digits.  Sysops will
      certainly want to make use of this feature because telephone numbers
      in nodelists are listed in international format - that is, with a
      country code prefix.  These prefixes can be an obstacle for the
      NodeView BBS user who may not be aware of this, or how to adjust
      their searches to compensate.  For example, the author's telephone
      number in the FidoNet nodelist is given as 44-1252-545138, but within
      the UK this number would be dialled as 01252-545138.  Enabling dial-
      translation allows users to search for area codes which are familiar
      to them.

      The dial-translation dialog box is very similar to the nodelist
      dialog box, and entries are inserted, edited and deleted in the same
      way.  Clicking on the "New" or "Edit" buttons will bring up another
      dialog box in which the entry is made or edited.  Each entry consists
      of two parts - the digits to remove from the telephone number, and
      the digits to replace it with.  Note that the "Replace" string must
      be the first digits in the untranslated telephone number - NVCONFIG
      will not translate sequences in the middle of a telephone number.
      Within the United Kingdom, one dial-translation entry should suffice
      for most sysops:

                       Replace  44-  with  0

      Using this example, all UK numbers commencing with 44- will be
      converted into a local dialling format.  Thus in the case of the
      author's BBS number:

                  44-1252-545138  becomes  01252-545138

      which is the correct format for dialling within the UK.

Compile

      Compiles the nodelist(s) specified in the "Include" list into a
      binary format suitable for use by NodeView.  The new nodelist file
      will be created in the NodeView sub-directory, where the door program
      expects to find it.

      The exact time taken to compile the nodelist(s) will depend on the
      size and number of the nodelists.  On a 386DX/33MHz, the world
      FidoNet nodelist (2.9Mb) was compiled in just under three minutes.
      Compilation progress is displayed in a window.

      You will need to re-compile the NodeView nodelist file each time you
      obtain an updated nodelist if you intend to keep the nodelists up-to-
      date for NodeView users.  Problems can occur when the version number
      of the nodelist "wraps-around", i.e. NODELIST.365 becomes
      NODELIST.001 on an update, because NVCONFIG searches for the highest
      numerical filename extension.  This problem will be familiar to
      sysops who have tried to re-compile the first nodelist issued in a
      New Year.  This can be avoided by moving older versions of the
      nodelists to an alternative directory, or deleting them altogether if
      you do not wish to keep them.

      NVCONFIG may also be run as a stand-alone nodelist compiler, which
      may be used to re-compile the NodeView nodelists during a system
      event.  Sysops who receive nodelist updates automatically may wish to
      make use of this facility by including NVCONFIG in the BBS batch
      file, after the file-processor has processed incoming files.  If your
      nodelists are received in compressed form, you will need to
      decompress the new nodelists before NVCONFIG can compile them.
      Running NVCONFIG.EXE with the command line parameter /C will force a
      recompilation of the nodelist and then exit, requiring no input from
      the sysop.  A segment from the batch file may look like this:

                  REM Process inbound files...
                  \ALLFIX\ALLFIX FILE
                  REM Unpack them...
                  PKUNZIP \FD\NODELIST\NODELIST.Z?? \FD\NODELIST
                  REM Now run the NodeView compiler...
                  \NODEVIEW\NVCONFIG /C
                  REM And re-compile the FrontDoor indexes too...
                  \FD\FDNC /F

      Remember that the new nodelists must be available in the directory
      specified in NVCONFIG, or in the current directory if no path is
      specified.


║     3.    Running NodeView
╙───────────────────────────

Once NodeView has been installed and the NVCONFIG utility has been used to
set up the system and compile the nodelists, you will need to set up your
RemoteAccess menus to run NodeView in response to a user request.  NodeView
can be run as a Type 7 menu option, or from a text file shell.  The first
option is likely to be the most popular, but note that if you DO use the
text file method of execution, you will need to have "Text File Shelling"
set to "Yes" in RACONFIG.

The NodeView command line is as follows:

            <path to NodeView>NODEVIEW.EXE

NodeView checks for the presence of the RA exit file EXITINFO.BBS on
starting up.  If this file cannot be found, NodeView will run in local
mode.  NodeView supports multiple-node installations in the established way
- it first looks in the default directory (which should be the node sub-
directory) for the system files it requires.  If the files do not exist
there, it looks in the directory specified by the RA environment variable.
If the files still cannot be found, NodeView assumes local-mode execution,
although the CONFIG.RA file *must* be found for NodeView to run.  Note that
users who run NodeView in local mode, whether from the BBS or from the DOS
command prompt, are not restricted to how long they spend using NodeView -
NodeView will only install it's timer routines for remote users.

To run NodeView as a Type 7 menu option, set up the menu parameters in the
usual way to fit in with your menu structure, and set the Optional Data
field to:

                  C:\NODEVIEW\NODEVIEW.EXE

replacing the path to NodeView with your own if it is different.

If you are running NodeView from within a text file, the text file will
need to include a line which looks something like this:

                  ^XC:\NODEVIEW\NODEVIEW.EXE|

That's all there is to installing NodeView.  Log in to your system locally
and check that everything has been set up correctly.  If an error is
encountered, NodeView will respond with an on-screen message and then
terminate itself.  Problems are most likely to have been caused by
incorrect settings in the NVCONFIG utility.  In the event of a problem
being unresolved, registered users are entitled to full and unlimited
support by telephone, post or netmail.  Unregistered users may receive
assistance at the discretion of the author, and then not beyond the thirty
day evaluation period.


║     4.      Acknowledgments And Disclaimers
╙────────────────────────────────────────────

While every effort has been made to ensure that NodeView performs according
to the descriptions and limitations laid out about, the author cannot
accept responsibility for any direct or indirect loss or damage arising
from the use of NodeView.  You use this software entirely at your own risk.

All trademarks used in this documentation are acknowledged as being the
property of their respective holders.

The author also extends his thanks to the following for their assistance
and feedback during the beta-testing programme:  Anthony Paulus, Colin
Turner and Marcel Cook.


║     5.     Registering NodeView
╙─────────────────────────────────

NodeView is a copyrighted work distributed under the shareware principle.
If you use NodeView for more than thirty days (the evaluation period), you
must register with the author.  Sysops who register will receive a special
unique key-code which, when entered into NVCONFIG will disable the
shareware banner that displays on first running NodeView.  Registered users
are also entitled to indefinite support by telephone, post or netmail.
Unregistered users are only entitled to support during the thirty day
evaluation period, and then only at the discretion of the author.

To register your copy of NodeView, please send an International Money Order
for £10 (ten Sterling pounds) made payable to 'D.G. Bellchambers' to :

                        NodeView Registration
                        74 Dart Road
                        Farnborough
                        Hampshire
                        GU14  9PF
                        U.K.

Cash, personal cheques and postal orders are also acceptable from UK users.
Cash should ONLY be sent by Registered Post/Recorded Delivery.  No
responsibility can be accepted by the author for lost, delayed or mis-
directed registrations.

Please include the following information with your registration :

            a)    Your name (as you will enter it into NVCONFIG)
            b)    Your full address, including postal/ZIP code
            c)    Daytime and evening telephone numbers
            d)    Name of your bulletin board
            e)    BBS telephone number (and hours of operation)
            f)    FidoNet address (or alternative network address)

Your registration key will be netmailed or posted to you as soon as your
funds have been cleared, along with product support information.

I would be very pleased to hear comments from sysops on their experiences
of using NodeView, along with any suggestions for improvements or ideas
for other RemoteAccess utilities.  Enquiries can be addressed to me as
above, or to 'Dave Bellchambers' at FidoNet address 2:252/175.

Thank you for taking the time to review this software.  I hope it will
prove useful to you and I look forward to receiving your registration.

=8-)

Dave Bellchambers