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Text File | 1996-03-25 | 92.8 KB | 2,277 lines

********************************************** * RemoteAccess Automated Message System v1.20 * * CopyRight 1995-96 by * * INXS Software * * (Eddy Matthews & Geoff Bassett) * ********************************************** Announcing an ALL NEW automated message system for RemoteAccess BBS. This is the third official release of RAMS.. Please see the WhatsNew file included in the archive for a list of new features/bug fixes. RemoteAccess Automated Message System (RAMS) is a fully automated message posting utility that takes care of all the boring messages a busy Sysop needs to send to his users. It now supports both RA v2.0x. AND RA v2.5x. It has full support for both Hudson and JAM message bases, as well as Local and/or Echo messages, and now Netmail support in some of the message types. RAMS will automatically send Welcome messages to new users, thank uploaders, warn those that drop carrier, send birthday messages, send a message after X calls, send a message based on a keyword or string that YOU define, send regular messages such as BBS ads, send messages on a certain date, and numerous others... Apart from sending messages to the users,RAMS will also send reports of it's actions to the Sysop and generate a detailed logfile that shows any actions it has taken. YOU decide what messages it sends... If you don't want to warn users that drop carrier, simply turn off that message... Carrier drop messages will NOT be sent to a user if they were in an external program.So you can safely use RAMS even if you have a system stuffed full of type 7 and type 15 doors. RAMS can upgrade users, or downgrade them based on what they do. YOU decide what it does, or indeed whether it does anything! You can also EXCLUDE certain users from getting messages if you want. The template files it uses for it's messages are plain ascii text files that YOU can configure to suit YOUR system. It also has over 80 metastrings that you can use to make the messages as flexible as possible (example messages are included in the archive). ---- Page 2 ---- LEGAL DISCLAIMER ================ This program is NOT free, it is shareware. Any use of this program after an initial 30 day trial period requires you to register your copy with the author. Details on how to register are given at the end of this document. Unregistered distribution copies of RAMS are released with an inbuilt 30 day run time after which delays will occur when the program is run....... Please remember shareware programs can only continue to develop if they have YOUR support, failure to register will ONLY end in this and other shareware programs being abandoned which in turn will mean you have a reduced choice of cheap well written programs. This program and it's accompanying documentation are guaranteed to do nothing other than take up space on your drive. The authors and their agents will not accept any liability for any consequential loss or damage arising from your use or inability to use RAMS or any of the information provided, including, but not limited to, economic or financial loss, damage to peripheral equipment or products, loss of use, productivity or time. Whilst every effort has been made to ensure its reliability and functionality you use this program entirely at your own risk and no warranties of any type are given, either expressed or implied. The program and the associated documentation on disk may be freely distributed on the following conditions:= 1) No changes whatsoever are made to the program, its documentation or any associated files. 2) Anyone wishing to charge a fee for distributing RAMS must have the written consent of the author. No charge will be made for this consent but I need to know who is distributing it so that I can send out updates - Apply in writing to the address at the end of this document. NOTE - For the benefit of printing this document out the pages have been formatted to 56 lines per page. ---- Page 3 ---- CONTENTS -------- page About RAMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Legal Disclaimer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Program description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Whats in the archive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Message Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Upgrading from previous versions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Getting Started . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 The menu options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 System setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Message menu options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 The Reports Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Echomail information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Netmail information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Conditions & actions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 The Message Template Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Excluding users . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Installing RAMS into your BBS batchfile . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Multiline Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Metastrings used by RAMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 How to get the most out of RAMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Contacting the authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Future developement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 Credits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 ---- Page 4 ---- WHAT IS RAMS? ============= RemoteAccess Automated Message System, hereafter referred to as RAMS, has been developed to be the number one automatic message system for Sysops of RemoteAccess bulletin board systems. It will work with both Hudson and the JAM messagebase formats, and is capable of posting both local and echomail messages. RAMS will fully automate all of those tedious messages that Sysops need to post to users. It needs only a minimal setup to get it going and can be up and running in a matter of minutes, though to get the best out of RAMS it is recommended that you take time to study all of its many features in some detail. Much time and effort was put into the configuration utility for RAMS in order to make the program as easy to setup and as user friendly as possible. The setup utility has an extensive online help facility to help you through the setup stages while you are learning the program. In addition RAMS will generate daily and weekly reports to the sysop to inform them how many of which type of messages RAMS has posted for each day,along with a brief report on available hard drive space. RAMS will generate a message to the sysop for every user message that it sends, of course this feature can be disabled if you wish! RAMS can automatically send the following messages to your users:= - Welcome to new users - Thankyou for uploading - Carrier Drop - send message to users that drop carrier. RAMS will work correctly with MOST doors - type 7 and 15. If it cannot decide if the user has dropped carrier, because they were in an external program it will NOT post a carrier drop msg. - Watchdog Messages - post a message to a user if he/she exceeds the number of times he/she is allowed to attempt to enter the correct password. This message also lists any passwords that were tried! - Send a message to users after every so many calls he or she has made to your system. i.e. send a message after 10 calls made by a user (Times On) - KeyWord messages - This is a VERY powerful message type which will tell RAMS to search RA's log file for a keyword or phrase you have defined and send the appropriate message. (fully configurable) ---- Page 5 ---- cont... - Every N'th call made by user - Send a msg. after EVERY Nth call .. i.e., set it to 10 and Rams will post a msg. to the user after EVERY 10 calls... 10,20,30 calls etc.. etc.. (fully configurable) - Happy Birthday (automatically generated on users birthday) - Subscription expiry - with this type of message it is possible to send messages warning users of their imminent subscription expiry, and also to optionally downgrade their access once their subscription has expired. Rams can also be configured to reset the Upload/Download counters if required. (configurable for # of days before expiry to send message) In addition to those above, RAMS can also send messages to the Sysop:= - Daily Report - details of RAMS's daily activities with an optional report on hard drive space. - Weekly report - as above, but weekly stats RAMS will also send and Echomail/local messages on behalf of the Sysop:- - The Regular Post type of message allows you to fully automate those regular echomail messages such as BBS advertisements, echo rules etc. This type of message is sent every X days. - Monthly post - as with the Regular post, but on a specific day each month. - Yearly post - Send Xmas and New Year greetings automatically to your users or other systems. YOU decide what date to send the message, and what is contained in the message text. ---- Page 6 ---- IMPORTANT NOTE! =============== When RAMS posts these messages it is also capable of changing a users settings, ie Seclevel, Flags, Group etc. and it can also be setup so that messages will ONLY be sent if a user meets certain criteria defined by you i.e. Security level - Min and Maximum. When posting a message to a user, RAMS will use the users REAL name. These features are all described in detail later in this document. NOTE. FILES ===== You Should find the following files inside the distribution archive: UPDATE.EXE - Program to update previous releases of Rams RAMS.EXE - The main executable file RAMSCFG.EXE - The setup program used to configure RAMS RAMS.DOC - Documentation for RAMS (what your reading now!) REGISTER.NFO - Registration document for all countries. SAMPLE.ZIP - Sample Message files for use with RAMS (see the section on meta strings for more info) It is recommended that you unpack this archive into a separate directory off the main Rams directory so as not to clutter it up with all the msg. template files. EXCLUDE.CTL - An example EXCLUDE control file for Rams. Please see the file for a more detailed explanation of it's use. It's heavily commented. Rams will run without this file, but it WILL generate an error message. This will NOT affect the running of Rams. WHATSNEW.TXT - A list of the new features/bug fixes since the last release of Rams. If you are already using Rams you should read this file. NOTE.. Rams (and it's associated configuration program) will generate the following files when it is run. RAMS.DAT - Used to store message counters, last caller info and other data used by Rams. RAMS.CFG - The main config file used by Rams to tell it what messages are active, path to logfiles, message bases to use !! YOU MUST USE RAMSCFG.EXE TO EDIT THIS FILE TO SUIT YOUR SYSTEM !! ---- Page 7 ---- MESSAGE TYPES - a basic outline. ------------------------------- This is just a quick outline of the message types available to you, more detailed descriptions of what is required for each message type can be got by referring to the section of the docs dealing with the various 'fields' for each message. There you will find more information on what is required for each 'field' in RamsCfg. Rams currently has a total of 14 message types which it can post to users depending on what actions they have taken while they were online. YOU decide which messages are sent by toggling the Active/Disabled switch for each msg. in the RamsCfg program. If The message is set as Disabled, it will NOT be sent to any users. If you run RamsCfg you will see that the messages are split into two basic types, 'Normal' and 'Midnight'. 'Normal' messages will be sent as soon as the user has logged off your system, 'Midnight' messages (as the name suggests) will ONLY be posted on the first run of Rams after midnight. Rams will automatically detect the date rollover and send any 'Midnight' messages that are necessary the first time it is executed after midnight. You DO NOT need to have a separate midnight event for Rams. Rams has both 'User' and 'Sysop' messages. As the names suggest,'User' MSG's are sent to the user, and 'Sysop' messages are sent to the Sysop. 'User' msgs are posted (if enabled) to the user if they do certain things that are assigned to the message, i.e.. Any new users will be sent a 'Welcome' message to welcome them to your system. The 'Sysop' messages are basically designed to be reports that Rams will send to you telling you what it has done. There is no need to enable 'Sysop' messages if you don't want them, as Rams keeps a full history of it's actions in it's logfile. There are also nearly ONE HUNDRED metastrings that you can use in the messages. They are basically used to personalise any messages that are posted by Rams, and will allow you to include user data in the message. Things such as the user name, date of birth, age, the date and time the msg. was sent etc. etc.. They are described in MUCH more detail elsewhere in the docs,and an idea of how they are used can be gleaned by referring to the example message templates supplied in the release archive. All of the messages types in RAMS are 'Multi' style messages. By 'Multi',we mean you can setup MULTIPLE messages and therefore have the ability to send a different msg. to your users based on their security level, group, sex, language, and/or age. Bear in mind that Rams will post EVERY message that the user meets the 'Conditions' for, so be careful when setting up the message conditions if you are using more than msg of a type. The 'Conditions' are described in more detail elsewhere in these docs. ---- Page 8 ---- NORMAL MESSAGES --------------- These messages are sent as soon as the user logs off your system. WELCOME -------- This message (If activated) will be sent to any NEW users to your system. It is designed to 'Welcome' new users to your BBS. It will only be posted ONCE to any NEW users.This message is your opportunity to say 'Hi' and let users know about your setup etc. UPLOAD ------ This is posted to anyone that 'Uploads' any files to your system. It will send a 'Thankyou' message to them. It will NOT send a message if the upload was a 'File attach' but ONLY if it was a normal upload to one of your file areas. A quick 'Thankyou' message can do wonders at getting users to upload! :-) Please note, that this feature may not work if you are using an external file manager, but it has been tested with Derek Bryant's FLM program and works perfectly with that providing that FLM writes it's log to RA's logfile. WATCHDOG -------- This message will be sent if the user EXCEEDS the number of passwords allowed on your system. It can be setup to include the passwords that were tried and is designed to warn users of possible attempts by someone else to gain access to their account. If you decide to use this option, please ensure you disable RA's internal watchdog message or you will get duplicates! CARRIER DROP ------------ Basically this message will be sent if the user Drops Carrier without logging off your system correctly. Rams will ONLY normally send a carrier drop message if the user was in RA when they dropped carrier. If they were in an external door program (either type 7 OR type 15) it will simply report that it was 'Unable to determine' what happened, and NO message will be sent... Therefore you can SAFELY use RAMS even on a system that is stuffed full of online doors (games, mail doors, time banks etc.). There is also the facility to specify a 'List' of doors that DO NOT allow a user to logoff. If a door program DOES NOT allow a user to logoff from within it, you can enter and part of the 'DOS shell' or 'Exit at errorlevel' string that is written to RA's log into this ---- Page 9 ---- cont.... 'List' and Rams WILL then send a carrier drop message even if the user was in that particular door. Please note, this is ONLY for doors that DO NOT allow a user to legitimately logoff from within them! Using it for a door that users can logoff from (Blue Wave for example) WILL cause problems as Rams WILL then send a carrier drop message even if the user has logged off correctly. TIMES ON -------- This message is sent after the user has called your system 'X' times. i.e.. if you set it for 10 it will send the user a message after he/she has made a TOTAL of 10 calls to your system, if you set it for 250 it will send a message after the user has made a TOTAL of 250 calls. Again, this is a 'Multi' style message, so you can setup up to 10 different 'Times On' messages all with different values if you wish. 'Multi' messages are described in more detail in the 'Carrier Drop' message description and elsewhere in this doc file. KEYWORD ------- This is perhaps one of the most flexible message types available in Rams. With it, YOU can specify a string from your RA logfile, and Rams will post a message IF it finds that particular string in RA's log after the user has logged off your system. Because this message can be used for almost any purpose it is impossible for us to supply a generic message template file for it. But to give you some idea of how it could be used, you could enter a string of 'BLUEWAVE.BAT' (without the quotes!) and, assuming the Blue Wave mail door was called up from a batchfile called BLUEWAVE.BAT Rams would send the user a message if he/she entered that door... You could then write a message template file saying 'Why not become a point off ???? BBS?'. That's only a suggestion to give you an idea of just how flexible this message can be.... YOU decide what string to search for AND what message to send if it's found. Please note that Rams will ONLY generate a message based on the FIRST match to the string you specify..If the string isn't found NO message will be sent. Nth CALL -------- This message is similar to the 'Times On' message, except that the value you specify will cause a message to be sent by Rams after EVERY 'X' calls. So if you set it up to use a value of 6, Rams would send the user a message after he/she had called your system 6 times, then again after 12 calls, again after 18 calls etc. etc... ---- Page 10 ---- MIDNIGHT MESSAGES ----------------- All 'Midnight' messages are sent ONCE per day on the first run after midnight. Although Rams will do this without your having to setup a separate midnight event, it is still recommended that you set one up to ensure that Rams does it's daily procedures. If you had a day without any calls to your system (unlikely), Rams may miss some daily messages it needs to send. DAILY REPORT ------------ This is a message to the Sysop ONLY. It will give a report of the previous days activity by Rams, listing the quantity of each type of message it has sent. The message is basically there so you can keep an eye on Rams's activity It can also give a listing of free and used drivespace on your system. Useful in case your away from your machine for a while. See the example DAYREPT.MSG message template. WEEKLY REPORT ------------- As with the Daily Report, this message is to the Sysop ONLY. It will give a list of all messages posted in the previous week by Rams. It can also give a listing of drivespace used and free on your system if you wish. See the example WEEKRPT.MSG message template for more info. HAPPY BIRTHDAY -------------- Here Rams will send every user a birthday message if it is their birthday on that particular day. A nice touch that helps keep you in high esteem with your callers. Rams will post ONE message to each user on their birthday, so it may send quite a few on a busy system. However it will only send ONE Sysop report message if they are enabled, which can list ALL the users it has sent birthday messages to that day. See the USERBDAY.MSG and SYSBDAY.MSG message templates for an idea of what you can do with these messages. REGULAR POST ------------ Another of the 'Multi' style messages available in Rams - See the Carrier Drop message for more info on 'Multi' messages. Here you can setup a message that will be posted EVERY 'X' days... If you set it to a value of 10 for example, it will post that message EVERY 10 days. You have a maximum of 10 Regular Post messages you can setup for various things. This would be ideal for those boring old 'BBS Advert' style messages,or for announcing the 'Rules' for an echo area etc. etc. ---- Page 11 ---- cont... This message also allows you to specify a 'Post to' name... here you can enter 'All' or a 'User Name' (Without the quotes!), or you can even use the '@ALL' macro (as in RA) and Rams will then post an individual message to EVERY user that satisfies the 'Conditions' of the message. Please note, setting this msg. to use the '@ALL' macro (Without the quotes!) can produce a LOT of messages if most of your users meet the conditions assigned to it, it may also take some time to complete! MONTHLY POST ------------ Exactly the same as the 'Regular Post' message, except that Rams will post the message on the date of the month you have specified. If you give it a value of 15 for example, Rams will post that message on the 15th of EVERY month, i.e. 15th January, 15th February, 15th March etc. etc... As with the 'Regular Post' messages you can also use the '@ALL' macro in this message type. See Regular Post messages for more info. YEARLY POST ----------- Exactly the same as the 'Regular Post' messages, except that this time you have to specify a date and month as values for the message. For example, if you set it to 15 for the day, and 7 for the month, Rams would post the message on the 15th of July EVERY year... As with all the other 'Multi' style messages you can setup a total of ten Yearly Post messages each with a different date, or with the same date but different 'Conditions'. So you can easily setup a message to be posted on 25th December to wish all your users 'Happy Christmas' etc. etc. As with the 'Regular Post' messages, you can also use the '@ALL' macro in this message type. See Regular Post messages for more info. SUBSCRIPTION ------------ This message type allows you to warn your subscribers when their subscription is due. You can specify a number of days BEFORE their subs expire for Rams to send them a message. So if you entered 30, Rams would send them a message 30 days BEFORE their subscription was due... Again you have a total of 10 messages so you can setup different messages for different security levels, or post one message 30 days before their subs expire and another 7 days before etc. etc.. There is an option in the actions menu to reset the upload/download counters back to "new user" defaults(as configured is raconfig) which you can set for the user's expiry message, by doing this you will restore their account back to normal status. As with ALL midnight messages, Rams will post any necessary subscription msgs automatically in it's daily procedures... ---- Page 12 ---- cont... Don't forget, if your system should be down for a few days, or it misses a midnight event and Rams is not run EVERY day, Rams will NOT post any messages it may have missed. It is up to YOU to ensure that Rams is run AT LEAST once per day so it can post any necessary midnight messages. UPGRADING FROM PREVIOUS VERSIONS ================================ If you are already using Rams v1.10, or v1.11 you DO NOT need to redo all the setup. Simply copy the RAMS.EXE, RAMSCFG.EXE and UPDATE.EXE into your Rams directory (overwriting the existing files) Then change to your Rams directory and run UPDATE.EXE. This will update your existing configuration, and DELETE the RAMS.DAT file. Rams will recreate the Dat file the first time it is run, but you should note that this will cause all message counters (used in- the daily and weekly reports) to be zeroed. You should take a look through the config program after doing this as new features - mainly to do with 'Conditions/Actions' but also now ALL of the messages are "Multi", Regular, Monthly, and Yearly messages now have Netmail support in this version.You DO NOT need to setup anything as far as these new features are concerned, they will by default be setup to "neutral" values,but you should take the time to look at them as they can GREATLY enhance the flexibility of Rams. INSTALLATION ============ Installation of RAMS could not be easier, Unpack the main files into a directory (C:\RAMS is the suggested directory). Make a directory to hold your message templates and unpack the SAMPLE.ZIP into that, (the suggested directory is C:\RAMS\TEMPLATE). Read the section entitled "Getting Started" and then run the file RAMSCFG.EXE to configure the program. ---- 13 ---- GETTING STARTED =============== Before configuring RAMS you will need to know a couple of basic things about YOUR system:- 1/. - The format and details of your Sysop message base(s). 2/. - The format and details of User and local/echo message bases(s). That's it, as simple as that!! Ok,having unpacked your files into the relevant directories you will now need to setup the "System" section of the configuration. Make sure that RAMSCFG.EXE and RAMS.EXE are installed into the SAME directory otherwise RAMS will not be able to read it's configuration file once it is created. Run the file RAMSCFG.EXE, press either F10 and move the highlight bar to "System", OR, just press Alt-S, then press ENTER. You have then got two options - System or MSG's Setup... Press Enter on the System option. You are now presented with a screen with several input boxes for Sysop Name, System Name etc... You will note that RAMSCFG has placed you directly in the field to enter the sysop's name,just type in your name and the input box will clear of the default text for you. The input routines in RAMS all work the same way, type to edit, Tab or Enter to Skip, and Space to toggle the multi - choice options. Having entered your name by pressing Enter this will be saved and you are in the system name entry field, all these entry fields work in the same way. Having setup the five fields in the system menu you need to press escape to close the window, select MSG's setup and press enter. This is the default message setup, in other words if you forget to specify a message area for a particular message then RAMS will default to these areas. Use space to toggle between Jam/Hudson and then press enter, enter the msgs base number (Hudson) or the message base path/filename (JAM), press enter and you are moved to the User section of the menu which is identical. Having completed that press Escape to exit the menu,then use the left and right arrow keys to select the message menu you require, setup the required messages,(full details can be found in the Message Setup section), then press Alt-X to exit the setup program, you will be prompted to save your configuration, choose Yes and your ready to run Rams for the first time! ---- 14 ---- THE MENU OPTIONS ================ There are many menu options in RAMSCFG, They are very simple to use, an in - depth guide to these options now follows:= MAIN SCREEN ----------- Options are as follows:- = - About RAMS, this simply pops a box telling you who the authors are and what the program is called! System - This is the only part of the program that HAS to be setup. It is in this section where you will enter your name, the System name, Logging options, and set the default message bases. PLEASE NOTE! You CANNOT access ANY of the other menus until you have setup the System menu. Normal - Normal message types. A NORMAL message type is one that is sent when RAMS is run after a caller has been on the BBS. These messages include Welcome messages, Upload messages, Carrier drop messages, and more.. Midnight - Midnight message types. A MIDNIGHT message type is one that is sent the first time RAMS is run AFTER midnight. There are no command line parameters or external utilities required with RAMS, RAMS checks the time and date when it is run and performs it's "daily or midnight" events when they are required. Midnight messages for this reason are messages that require to be posted on a daily, or greater timescale and include messages such as Regular post, Monthly post, Subs expiry and much more. Also from this menu you can setup the Daily and Weekly reports. Reports - New in version 1.2 RAMS can now generate text based report files of it's configuration. This may be handy for a reference or to assist you in setting up. Rams will prompt you for the filepath/name to write to, and also if you require the report to include ALL or just ACTIVE message information. Help - RAMSCFG has an extensive online help facility which will take you to the relevant section of this document file,so as you see, there is no having to close the program down if you want to refer to the docs, just press F1 from just about anywhere in the program. The help file viewer supports the following commands:= PgDn - Down a page PgUp - Up a page ---- 15 ---- cont... Home - Go to the start of the document End - Go to the end of the document Up & Down Arrow keys give full scrolling. Along the bottom of the screen ------------------------------ F1 - Brings up the help from anywhere in the program (see above) Alt - X - Exit the program. You are prompted upon exit to save your configuration. NOTE:= It is ONLY at this point that any changes you have made will be written to the configuration file!!! F2 - Save. Exactly what it says...SAVE the data, this option will overwrite your configuration file WITHOUT warning and is more for piece of mind.ie. If you are worried that the system may lockup or crash for some reason then this will effect a data save. F10 - Activates the top menu bar. Once activated press left and right arrow keys to highlight the option you require, and then enter to select that option. Escape - Escape will always close the menus one stage, back down as far as the opening screen,where upon Alt - X will exit. THE SYSTEM MENU --------------- System Setup - This is compulsory! In this menu is the section where you enter the things RAMS MUST know about in order to function. From within this menu you will enter your name as you wish RAMS to know it, your system name as you wish RAMS to know it. You will need to confirm the path to CONFIG.RA, set your logging options, and tell RAMS where you have stored the message template files. MSG's Setup - This is the default message setup,in other words if you forget to specify a message area for a particular message then RAMS will default to these areas. It is advisable that before setting this section up that you know which message base you will be using for your default sysop and default user message bases. ---- Page 16 ---- THE NORMAL MENU AND MIDNIGHT MENU --------------------------------- As these are really about setting the messages up the option from these menus will be discussed under the headings for the various message types. THE SYSTEM SETUP OPTIONS ======================== SYSOP NAME ---------- This is your name as you wish your users to see it. Please note that this MUST also match the name you give for your key when you register RAMS. It MUST also match the Sysop name in RA config too! SYSTEM NAME ----------- This is the name you wish your system to be known by. Please note that unlike some programs your system name is irrelevant as far as a registration key is concerned, so if you decide to change your system name there will be no need to go through the problems and inconveniences of getting a new key. Rams checks the Sysop name in Config.RA anyway and that MUST match the name stored in the key or Rams will abort with an error, so no-one can use another persons key unless they also use that persons name as the Sysop name in RA!! TEMPLATE DIRECTORY ------------------ This is the directory where RAMS expects to find it's message template files. This is where you should unpack the SAMPLE.ZIP archive contained inside the main distribution archive. It contains example message templates for *MOST* of the messages available in Rams. You may if you wish set this to your main RAMS directory, but a sub-directory is recommended as with all messages active this version (RAMS) allows for 150 PLUS message templates!!! NOTE - This Directory MUST be set BEFORE you may activate ANY message! ---- Page 17 ---- LOG PATH/FILENAME ----------------- Like all good programs RAMS keeps a logfile of it's activities so that you can easily monitor that RAMS is performing as you expect. If you leave this field as default then RAMS will create it's logfile in it's own system directory. You may however prefer the practice of keeping all your logfiles together, in which case enter in here the full path and filename you wish to call your log. For EXAMPLE C:\LOGS\RAMS.LOG NOTE.You can use *N as a node variable (exactly as you can in RA) so using a log file name of RAMS*N.LOG would generate a logfile called RAMS1.LOG for node 1, RAMS2.LOG for node 2 etc. etc. PATH TO CONFIG.RA ----------------- Because of the variance in multinode systems we found it necessary to confirm where your CONFIG.RA file will be for the node you are going to be setting up for. RAMSCFG will attempt to find this from the RA system environment variable. If this is correct then press enter to confirm or edit as required. THE MESSAGE MENU OPTIONS ======================== The message menus within RAMSCFG are set out as a template. It is by doing this that as you become accustomed to setting one message type up you will need very little extra knowledge to setup further messages. Some message types have "extra" options, some have less options, but the layout remains the same, the same keystrokes etc... These options are:= ACTIVE [ ] ------------ Press Space to toggle the "X" in the box, BLANK is INACTIVE, "X" is ACTIVE. This is basically the On/Off switch for the message, so if you don't require to set the message up leave this box blank and exit the menu. If however you wish to activate this message then toggle the box to show "X" and press enter to confirm. NOTE - Rams will ONLY post the message if it is set as ACTIVE *IMPORTANT NOTE* The RAMS cnfiguration program will NOT allow you to activate a message UNTIL the message template directory has been setup in the sytem setup menu! ---- Page 18 ---- AREA TYPE --------- Press Space to toggle between the Hudson and Jam message base format. For the Hudson message base the MsgBase field will show as a three - digit entry box, if Jam is selected a full width path/filename entry field will appear. LOCAL/ECHO/(Netmail) ---------- Press Space to toggle between Local and Echo messages. RAMS has the ability to send both the sysop and the user messages as local. Why the option to send the sysop message as an echo message? Well the sysop may be going away and may wish to use RAMS to check his system remotely!. If this field is set to local then pressing enter will skip this option. If this field is toggled to echo then pressing enter will take you to an "EchoMail Information" menu where you will be prompted for the aka for the message area and to enter an origin line. Please refer to the "Echomail Information" section for more details. Netmail is available for the Regular, Monthly, and Yearly messages. Please refer to the "Netmail Information" section for more details. TEMPLATE FILENAME ----------------- This is the message filename for this particular section of the message i.e.. one for the sysop and one for the user. This must be a valid filename complete with the extension. RAMS expects to find this message file in it's template directory. The file itself is just a simple Ascii text file which may contain METASTRINGS which RAMS will replace with applicable system information at run-time. The metastrings will allow you to insert extra user specific information into each message generated by Rams... Such as username, Sysopname, bbsname,date,time and lots of other details. This makes it relatively easy to use just one message template file for each message and Rams will take care of the detail. There are almost ONE HUNDRED metastrings available for you to use! (for more information on Metastrings please refer to the section that is headed "METASTRINGS"). Please note that although the configuration program will default to certain filenames that it is YOUR responsibility to make sure that these files exist and are edited to suit your needs!!! Both the filename AND the extension are entirely optional - you may call them whatever you wish,you may if you wish even specify the same filename for more than one message - handy for regular posts where perhaps you may wish to have for example your BBS advert posted in more than one mail network under different aka's. You DO NOT have to accept the default filenames, you can call the templates whatever you want. The default names are only provided so that they match the example message template files provided in the release archive. RAMSCFG has an inbuit template editor - see section later.. ---- Page 19 ---- CO-SYSOP FEATURE ---------------- In addition to posting to the sysop RAMS can also now post to up to three co-sysops. Activate this feature by toggling the check box with the space bar. If actived, you will be put into an input screen for UP TO three names. RAMS will post additional copies of the sysop's message headed with the names setup here. The co-sysop's feature can only be activated WITH the sysop's message, and not instead of. MSG AREA -------- This is the message area that you wish to post your message into. In the case of HUDSON this is the THREE DIGIT number for the HUDSON message base. In the case of a JAM area this is the FULL path and filename to the JAM message file WITHOUT any extension. NOTE - This is the filename, NOT the Echotag! RAMS cares not what the Echotag is!!! SUBJECT ------- Each message has a subject line where you may specify the subject of the message. RAMS does have default subjects built in and if this field is left blank then RAMS will insert the default subject line for that particular message. POST TO ------- This option is available ONLY in the Regular, Monthly, and Yearly messages. This allows you to address your message to a particular person, or simply "All". Also in this field you may use the '@ALL' macro. If @ALL (without the quotes!) is found in the 'Post to' field it will generate a message to EVERY user, so it may take a while! It may also generate a LOT of MSG's! These MSG's will ONLY be posted if the user satisfies the conditions you have specified for the msg. concerned. @ALL is NOT case sensitive... You can use @ALL, @all, @All or whatever. CALLS/TIMES ON -------------- This entry field in the Times on message allows you to specify the number of calls made to the system by the user that has just been on line, and in the Nth Call template the number of calls. You may enter a value between 1 and 999. ---- Page 20 ---- KEYWORD ------- Entry in this field can be numerical, alphabetic, and in upper or lower case, but remember that it MUST be an EXACT match to the keystring that you wish RAMS to search for. DAY OF WEEK TO POST ------------------- Only found in the Weekly report template, this allows you to specify which day of the week you would like to receive your weekly report (if active). Arrow keys left and right to move the "highlight" and enter to select. FREQUENCY --------- Only found in the Regular post message allows you to specify the number of days between posts! DATE TO POST ------------ Only found in the Monthly message type. This allows you to specify the date in the month to post i.e.. 2nd, or 17th, or 25th.... NOTE - If you specify for example 30 ( 30th of the month ) then RAMS will not post in February (28/29 days in this month)... MONTH & DAY ----------- Used in the Yearly message. Enter the date in these fields that you wish RAMS to post on. NOTE - RAMS makes no validation of that date, so if you entered the values of 4 (April) and 31(31st) then the message would NEVER be sent as there are only 30 days in April!! DAYS TO EXPIRE -------------- This is found on the Subscription message template and is used to specify the number of days prior to a subscription expiry to post a message to a user. Setting a value of say 90 in this field will cause RAMS to send a message 90 days before a subscription expires, please note that RAMS will only send this message on the 90th day before the expiry date..... Setting this message will not warn users with less than the specified number of days to receive this message...so if say on the 90th day before a subscription expiry RAMS is not run, then that user will NOT receive a message.... ---- Page 21 ---- ACTIVATE DOOR FEATURE --------------------- This field is common to ALL the Carrier Drop message templates, and can be accessed from any one of them! On activating this field another menu appears where you may enter up to ten " DOS shell : " or " Exit at errorlevel " strings that will uniquely identify a door that does NOT permit a logoff from within. Please make sure that the string entered here EXACTLY matches the entry in RA's logfile!! CASE IS IMPORTANT!!! The list of Doors that DO NOT allow a user to logoff needs only be setup for ONE carrier drop message, the SAME setup is applied to ALL carrier drop messages. Some examples:- DOS shell : *C /c c:\ra\acbj.bat *M DOS shell : C:\RA\ABC.EXE *M Dos shell : C:\RA\DOORS\TETRA\TETRA.EXE *M DOS shell : *C /c c:\ra\cs.bat *M DOS shell : *C /C: C:\RA\LISA.BAT *M DOS shell : *C /c c:\ra\4square.bat *M DOS shell : *C /c C:\RA\DOORS\WHEEL\MCSPIN.EXE /N *N *M Any UNIQUE part of the above strings would suffice!! ie. MCSPIN.EXE , acbj.bat, THE REPORTS MENU ================= From version 1.2 RAMS has the ability to generate a textfile of it's settings. There are four reports available :- System Report - All System menu settings Normal Msgs - Normal messages configuration Midnight Msgs - Midnight messages configuration Global Report - Everything! On choosing a report you will first be prompted for a Path/Filename, be warned RAMSCFG will create it's own path/file as entered so if you make a typos the directory/file will be created! Once this is entered you will be prompted to choose from:= 1 - All messages, regardless of whether htey are active or not. The idea being you can find out about those messages you temporarily turned off. 2 - Active messages, this ONLY reports the settings of ACTIVE messages. Pressing escape at any time during this process will abort it! ---- Page 22 ---- ECHOMAIL INFORMATION ==================== RAMS is compatible with a full 4D mail address which means that point numbers are acceptable. In this way sysop's who use point addresses can still use RAMS echomail features, or a sysop who wishes to post from a point address can do so. If a message is set to Echo from the Echo/Local option then the input box for entering this information will appear. There are only two options on this menu:= NODE NUMBER - This is split into four parts, enter your number and press enter. Enter will skip the point field if not required. ORIGIN LINE - This is the origin line that you wish RAMS to append to the end of each message. It may be your BBS name and phone number or any other information that you wish to place there! NOTE. DO NOT add your node number to the origin line, Rams ---- will automatically append it when it generates an echo message. NETMAIL INFORMATION ==================== This is identical to echomail with the exception that there are now two node entry fields, one for the originating system and one for the destination. The "Post to" field is also imported into the netmail setup and removed from the main template. NOTE - RAMS make NO validation of the destination address, the validity of this is down to you! CONDITIONS/ACTIONS ================== Because of the nature and the power of these options this section will be split into three sections, Conditions, Actions, and then a further section entitled " Conditions/Actions - How to get the most out of them". At the moment RAMS supports security level changes, Flag support, age, Group, Language, etc... If the user does NOT meet the 'Condition' for a particular message RAMS will NOT post a message to the user. Similarly, 'Actions' will ONLY be performed IF a message is sent. ---- Page 23 ---- cont... CONDITIONS - SECURITY LEVEL --------------------------- By default these values are set at 0 for min.level and 65535 for max. level that basically tells Rams to post messages to ALL users. If you only want a particular message to be posted to users with a sec.level of 10, set BOTH the minimum AND maximum values to 10...If you want to post to any users between 10-50 INCLUSIVE, set the min. level to 10 and the max. level to 50. REMEMBER, these values are INCLUSIVE. So if you wanted to post to users ABOVE sec. level 10 and NOT to users of level 10 or below, you would set the min value to 11 and the max. to 65535. CONDITIONS - AGE ---------------- By default these values are set at 0 for the minimum age and at 99 for the maximum age, but you can enter any values you wish as long as they are between 0 and 99... Rams will ONLY post a msg. to the user(s) IF they fall between the ages you have entered. So, if you only want a message to be posted to users who are OVER 18,set the minimum value to 18 and leave the maximum as 99... Then any user that is BELOW 18 years of age will NOT get that particular msg. PLEASE NOTE, if you do not have your system setup to ask a user his birthday at first logon, OR if the users birthday is blank in their user record the age will NOT be taken into account and the message WILL be posted. CONDITIONS - FLAGS ------------------ By default the flags are all set to '-' which means that Rams will IGNORE any user flags and post the message concerned. However, you can select either '-', 'O', or 'X' by pressing the spacebar to toggle the entry to the desired one. If you select 'O', then that user flag MUST be OFF before Rams will post the message, if you select 'X' then the user flag MUST be ON for Rams to post the message. Selecting '-' means that Rams will IGNORE that particular flag irrespective of what it is set to in the user record. CONDITIONS - GROUP ------------------ By default Rams will post to ALL user groups. However, you can select any valid group in the range 0-255. If you enter 1, Rams will ONLY post that message to a user in Group 1 etc... You can select ALL by either typing the word 'ALL' (without the quotes!) OR by entering a value of 256. ---- Page 24 ---- cont... CONDITIONS - SEX ---------------- By default Rams will post to BOTH female AND male users. However, you can specify that a particular message is only posted to ONE sex or the other by pressing the spacebar to toggle the condition to either 'Male' 'Female, or 'Both'. CONDITIONS - LANGUAGE --------------------- By default Rams will post to users with ANY language selected. However, you can selesct that Rams should only post to users with a specific language by entering their langauge number here. You can have any valid language in the range 0-255. To select ALL, either type the word 'ALL' (Without the quotes!), OR enter a value of 256. ACTIONS - Alter SecLevel. ------- In this section you have four options:= NONE - This is the DEFAULT value...In other words Rams WILL post the message if the user meets the conditions set for it, but it will NOT alter his seclevel. CHANGE - Change seclevel from the users old setting to the new level you specify here. i.e., setting it to a value of 50 will cause Rams to change the users security level from it's current level to the new one you have assigned. This WILL change ONLY if the user meets the conditions for posting the message, and it WILL RESET his level, whether that be up OR down, to the new level. INCREASE - First you specify an amount to INCREMENT the users seclevel by, and a MAXIMUM value this can go to. So for example,setting the Increment amount to 10 and the maximum amount to 100 would cause Rams to increase the users security by 10 everytime it posted this message, UNTIL the user reached the MAXIMUM level specified. After that situation was reached, Rams would still post the msg. if necessary, but would NOT increase the users seclevel beyond the maximum value you had defined. Once the maximum level is reached, the message will still be posted (if the user still meets the conditions for the message) but his seclevel will NOT be altered any further. ---- Page 25 ---- cont... DECREASE - First you specify an amount to DECREMENT the users seclevel by, and a MINIMUM value this can go to. So for example,setting the Decrement amount to 5 and the minimum amount to 10 would cause Rams to decrease the users security by 5 everytime it posted this message, UNTIL the user reached the MINIMUM level specified. After that situation was reached, Rams would still post the msg. if necessary, but would NOT decrease the users seclevel below the minimum value you had defined. Once the minimum level is reached, the message will still be posted (if the user still meets the conditions for the message) but his seclevel will NOT be altered any further. ACTIONS - FLAGS --------------- By default Rams will NOT change any user flags, but if a message is posted it can do any of the following: O - Turn user flag OFF X - Turn user flag ON T - Toggle user flag. ie. if it's ON turn it OFF, if it's OFF turn it ON. - - IGNORE flag. ie. DO NOT change it. By default ALL flags are set to '-' so that nothing is changed by Rams. ACTIONS - GROUP --------------- By default, Rams will NOT change the users 'Group'. However, you can specify ANY valid user group in the range 0-255 and Rams will change it to the specified level IF the message is posted. To set it to the default of 'N/C' (No Change), either type 'N/C' (without the quotes!) OR enter a value of 256. ACTIONS - RESET COUNTERS ------------------------ For the Subscription messages ONLY there is now also an option to reset the user's upload and download counters. Setting this to active will clear the user's download counters ans reset the upload counters back to "new user" defaults as setup in RACONFIG. By doing this a user who's subscription terminates and who's security level/flags etc are reset by RAMS can now continue with the same download rights as a "normal" user. ---- Page 26 ---- MESSAGE TEMPLATE EDITOR ======================= RAMS has an inbuilt message template editor that can be invoked from any of the message template screens by pressing the "F5" key. RAMS will load in the message template as defined in the template filename that is applicable to the section of the message setup template that you are in. ie.. Sysops part of the setup template will load in the Sysop's message template, The User's section will load in the User's template... KEYS ---- F1 - Help Escape - Exit F2 - Save Alt-F2 - Save As. Please note that the save as option WILL update the template name that you have setup in RAMS!!! F5 - Invokes a "pick list" of metastrings. The template editor will display a different set for the sysop and user message templates. Use the up/down arrow keys to select a metastring. Press enter to graft this into your message at the cursor position. Escape will abort! Ctrl+y - delete a line. Home - start of the message. End - end of the message. PgUp/PgDn - page up or down as appropriate. If a file exists of the same name in your template directory then please note that a ????????.BAK file WILL be created. ---- Page 27 ---- EXCLUDING USERS =============== There may be some users that you wish to exclude from getting any messages or having RAMS alter their security status etc.. for this purpose provision has been made for an EXCLUDE.CTL file... This can be used to specify a list of users that should NOT be sent any messages. One name per line, and the EXCLUDE.CTL file MUST be in the same directory as RAMS.EXE For example: Eddy Matthews Andy Smith Steve Nutt etc.. etc.. The list is NOT case sensitive... If a user is found in this list he/she will NOT be sent ANY user messages, HOWEVER 'Information' messages to the Sysop WILL still be sent (if they are enabled) so you can still keep an eye on what these excluded users are up to... If you choose NOT to have an EXCLUDE.CTL file RAMS will report to the screen that this file is NOT found, but this does NOT affect the running of the program in any way! ---- Page 28 ---- INSTALLING RAMS INTO YOUR BBS BATCHFILE ======================================= Installing RAMS into your BBS batch file is quite easy, just follow these steps: 1. Create a directory on your hard drive and extract all the files from the distribution archive into this directory. C:\RAMS is recommended and is assumed to be the directory you have created. 2. Read the document file!! (okay I know you are already :-)) 3. Run RAMSCFG.EXE to configure RAMS so that it sends the messages you require for your system. You should have done this already as explained in the previous chapters on configuring RAMS. The RAMSCFG program has a built in help system which will explain what is necessary in each field in some detail so you can easily configure RAMS for your needs. Pressing the function key F1 will cause a pop up help window to appear which will remind you of the information and format required by each field. N.B. It is IMPORTANT that you should move through each part of the configuration program in a careful and methodical way to ensure that you DO NOT miss anything thereby causing unnecessary problems for yourself later! If you are in any doubt:- READ THE SECTIONS EXPLAINING HOW TO CONFIGURE RAMS! 4. Edit your BBS batch file so that it will run RAMS after each user logs off your system. This is not only so that RAMS can keep certain stats up to date but so that RAMS can send any messages required. It should be noted that *MOST* messages will be generated when RAMS is run at this time. i.e. edit your batch file to include: <Your BBS batch file> <Error levels> Goto RAMS ---- Page 29 ---- cont.. :RAMS CD\RAMS RAMS Goto Start <batch file continues> As stated above, this MUST be in a section of your batch file that will be executed EVERY time a user logs off. 5. There's NO extra command line parameters to worry about, no midnight events, so there's NO need to make sure RAMS runs in your midnight event, although you MAY do so if you wish. What RAMS has is "Daily procedures". These are when RAMS posts things like Regular posts, Birthday messages, Sysop reports. RAMS detects the FIRST time it is run EACH day and will perform these tasks then, and what's more it only takes a few SECONDS. This is why RAMS does not require a midnight event. That's all there is to it!! RAMS is now ready to take over all those boring messages that a busy Sysop needs to send on a regular basis...... After configuring RAMS to your needs and running it for the first time the following files will be created: RAMS.LOG - Log file of RAMS's activity. This will be placed in the directory RAMS was run from, but you can specify the directory and filename of your choice from within the configuration program. Please see the section of this document about configuring RAMS for more info. RAMS.DAT - This is RAMS "working" file of information. WARNING - deleting or tampering with this file in any shape or form WILL affect the way RAMS will run! ---- Page 30 ---- MULTILINE SYSTEMS ----------------- Using the RemoteAccess Automated Message System (RAMS) in a multi- node configuration RAMS has built-in support for multi-node systems, and requires only minor modifications to its configuration to enable it to be used in this kind of environment. Before you begin, see the RemoteAccess documentation for details of how to install RA in a multi-node environment, as RAMS will utilise the configuration for each node as required. Please note: It is important to use a different copy of RAMS for each node, since each will require different configuration data. Failure to correctly configure RAMS in a multi-node environment MAY result in damage to your userbase - you've been warned! You should also ensure that RAMS keeps a different log file for each node. To do this, use the RAMSCFG.EXE utility to instruct RAMS accordingly. RAMS uses the DOS TASK variable to determine on which node it is running. So, for example, you could instruct RAMS to use 'C:\FD\LOGS\RAMS*N.LOG'. This would append the current node (task) number to the log filename, which would produce a file named RAMS1.LOG in your C:\FD\LOGS\ directory. You must also tell RAMS where to look for the RA config files for each node. Since this will vary depending on how each node is configured, it is not possible to provide specific information on this point. For further details, see the RA documentation. Suffice it to say that RAMS needs to know where the CONFIG.RA file is for the current node. So,for example, if you wanted to use RAMS on node #1, you could point RAMS to C:\RA\NODE1\ for the RA configuration. It is very important that this point is clearly understood before you run RAMS in a multi- node environment, since RAMS needs specific information from your RA.CFG file to function correctly. You must also set the DOS 'TASK' variable to the current node number. For further details on this point, see your operating system's reference guide. If you attempt to run RAMS when configured for multi-node operation, before setting the 'TASK' variable, RAMS will generate the following error message: ---- Page 31 ---- cont.... The RA LogFile Cannot be opened Either the path/logfile defined in Config.RA doesn't exist, OR the RA log is locked by another process... RAMS Aborting! If you run both your nodes on the same machine,you can set the 'TASK' variable via a command-line switch in the batch file which brings up your system as in the following example: @ECHO OFF CLS SET %TASK=1 CD \RA RA 1 <switch> <switch> ETC. ETC. ETC... The number 1 on the above command line defines the 'TASK' variable, and assigns it a value of 1. RAMS will then use this value to append to the log file it creates. That's really all there is to say regarding multi-node systems, see your RA documentation for more details. ---- Page 32 ---- METASTRINGS USED BY RAMS ======================== In the file SAMPLE.ZIP you will find some example text files for RAMS to use. These files are examples only and you are free to edit them as you wish so they are more compatible with your system. The files are plain ascii text, and are used by RAMS to generate its various messages to users/sysop etc. etc. If you examine these files you will see they contain lots of meta strings, such as %USERNAME% , these strings are automatically read by RAMS and are replaced by your systems/users details.In the example given (%USERNAME%) RAMS would insert the name of the user as read from your BBS users file/s. The following is a list of all meta strings currently available in RAMS. They ARE case sensitive, so entering %bOArdnAMe% will NOT work! You may use any of these meta strings in any text files you create for use with RAMS, subject to the limitations of that metastring, Please note the usage specified in the descriptions! !! IMPORTANT !! --------------- Metastrings MUST be enclosed by % signs in order to function, i.e. Program must be entered as %Program% in any message you wish to use it in.... The same is true for ALL other metastrings. Entering a metastring without enclosing it by % signs will mean RAMS will NOT translate the string concerned. %FROM% Specifies the From field %TO% Specifies the To field %SUBJECT% Specifies the subject %PRIVATE% Toggles private flag (by default local messages are set to PRIVATE and echo messages are set to PUBLIC) %USERNAME% Name of User %SYSOPNAME% Name of Sysop %DATE% The date that RAMS posted the message %TIME% The time that RAMS posted the message %BBSNAME% Name of BBS system %SYSOPFIRST% Sysop's first name %USERFIRST% User's first name %DAYOFWEEK% The day of the week that the message was generated %DATAPHONE% The data phone number of the user %VOICEPHONE% The voice phone number of the user %HANDLE% The users handle ---- Page 33 ---- metastrings cont.... %ADDRESS1% Address line one in the users record %ADDRESS2% Address line two in the users record %ADDRESS3% Address line three in the users record %USERNUMBER% The number of the user in RA's userbase %AGE% The User's age in years..ie.21,35,52...etc.. %DOBDAY% The DAY of the Users Date Of Birth. ie 01-31 %DOBMONTH% The MONTH of the Users Date Of Birth. i.e. 01-12 %DOBYEAR% The YEAR of the Users Date of Birth in two digit form. 00-99 %UPLOAD#% Total Number of files uploaded by user, Please note this is NOT the number of files uploaded in the users last call, but the TOTAL he/she has uploaded to your system. %DOWNLOAD#% Total number of files downloaded by user, Please note this is NOT the number of files downloaded in the users last call, but the TOTAL he/she has downloaded from your system. %DOWNLOADK% Similar to %DOWNLOAD#%, except that this is the TOTAL Kb that the user has downloaded from your system. %UPLOADK% Similar to %UPLOAD#%, except that this is the TOTAL Kb that the user has uploaded to your system. %MSGSPOSTED% The TOTAL number of messages posted by the user on your system. This is read from the users record so *may* not contain messages posted using a mail door as *some* of them do not update the users messages posted counter. %PASSWORD% This can ONLY be used in the WATCHDOG messages and will be translated to a list of all the passwords that were tried before RA kicked the user off for exceeding the maximum number of attempts. Because of the way RAMS has to process this line multiple times to list all the passwords you should place this metastring on it's own line within the message text file. NOTE - ANY other text that is on the same line as the %PASSWORD% metastring will be WIPED OUT by RAMS! An example of it's use is shown in the SYSWDOG and USERWDOG message templates. %DOORNAME% The name of the door the user was in when he/she dropped carrier. This currently defaults to RemoteAccess, but it will be expanded at a later date to show the actual door name. This meta is only of use in the Carrier Drop messages. %UPLOAD% Generates a list of filenames that were uploaded it should be placed on a separate line in the 'Thankyou' MSG's, and will be translated to a full list by Rams when it generates the msg. %CALLS% The number of calls made by the user to your BBS, this can be used in any msg. you wish, but is particularly useful in the 'Times On' msgs. ---- Page 34 ---- cont... %BIRTHDAYNAME% This can only be used for the sysop's message template and will be replaced by the names of all the Users that RAMS has posted a birthday message to that day. %DRIVEINFO% This will give info on your hard drives. Useful for checking drive space etc.if you are away from your machine. The %DRIVEINFO% metastring MUST be followed IMMEDIATELY by the drive letter you wish to check. i.e.. %DRIVEINFO%C will give details of drive C:, %DRIVEINFO%E will give details of drive E: etc. See the SYSREPT.MSG template for more info.. Please note, because of the limitations of Dos this metastring will ONLY give correct info on drives up to approx. 2Gb.. Anything larger than that will cause unpredictable values to be written to the msg. NOTE - I don't know how this will behave if used on a network drive, a Ram disk, or on a doublespaced drive etc. It may produce incorrect values in these circumstances... I have no way of checking this myself! %WHOTO% This can be used in the sysop reports for the Regular, Monthly, and Yearly messages. If the @All macro is used this will generate a list of names that the message/s were posted to... %USERMSGS% Total number of User MSG's posted on the previous day.. %SYSMSGS% Total number of Sysop MSG's posted on the previous day.... %TOTALMSGS% Total number of MSG's (Sysop + User) posted on the previous day. %USERMONTHLYPOSTED% Total Monthly MSG's sent to users yesterday. %USERYEARLYPOSTED% Total Yearly MSG's sent to users yesterday. %USERSUBSPOSTED% Total Subscription expiry MSG's sent to users yesterday. %USERBDAYWEEK% Total birthday MSG's sent to users for the last week. %USERUPLDWEEK% Total upload MSG's sent to users... %USERWELCWEEK% Total Welcome MSG's sent to users... %USERWDOGWEEK% Total Watchdog MSG's sent to users... %USERDROPWEEK% Total Carrier drop MSG's sent to users... %USERTIMESONWEEK% Total Times on MSG's sent to users... %USERKEYWORDWEEK% Total Keyword MSG's sent to users... %USERNTHCALLWEEK% Total Nth Call MSG's sent to users... %USERMONTHLYWEEK% Total Monthly messages sent last week... %USERYEARLYWEEK% Total yearly MSG's sent last week... %USERSUBSWEEK% Total Subscription messages sent to users last week. %USERMSGSWEEK% Total User messages sent last week. %USERTIMESONPOSTED% Number of TimesOn MSG's posted to users today. %USERNTHCALLPOSTED% Number of Nth Call MSG's posted to users today. %USERKEYWORDPOSTED% Number of User keyword msgs sent - ONLY for daily report. ---- Page 35 ---- cont.... %USERBDAYPOSTED% The number of Birthday messages posted to the Users yesterday. %USERUPLDPOSTED% The number of 'Upload (thankyou)' messages sent to users yesterday. %USERWELCPOSTED% The number of 'Welcome' messages sent to users yesterday. %USERWDOGPOSTED% The number of 'Watchdog' messages sent to users yesterday. %USERDROPPOSTED% The number of 'Carrier Drop' messages sent to users yesterday. %USERREGULARWEEK% Number of 'Regular' messages posted for the last week. %USERREGULARPOSTED% Number of 'Regular' messages posted yesterday. %SYSBDAYWEEK% Total Sysop birthday reports sent last week. %SYSUPLDWEEK% Total Sysop upload reports... %SYSWELCWEEK% Total Sysop new user reports... %SYSWDOGWEEK% Total Sysop watchdog reports... %SYSDROPWEEK% Total Sysop Carrier drop reports... %SYSTIMESONWEEK% Total Sysop Times on reports... %SYSKEYWORDWEEK% Total Sysop Keyword reports... %SYSNTHCALLWEEK% Total Sysop Nth Call reports... %SYSMONTHLYWEEK% Total Sysop Monthly reports... %SYSYEARLYWEEK% Total Sysop Yearly reports... %SYSSUBSWEEK% Total Subscription expiry reports sent to Sysop last week. %SYSMSGSWEEK% Total Sysop MSG's sent last week. %SYSMONTHLYPOSTED% Total Monthly reports sent to Sysop yesterday. %SYSYEARLYPOSTED% Total Yearly reports sent to Sysop yesterday. %SYSSUBSPOSTED% Total Subscription expiry reports sent to Sysop Yesterday. %SYSNTHCALLPOSTED% Number of Nth Call sysop reports posted today. %SYSTIMESONPOSTED% Number of TimesOn MSG's posted to sysop today. %SYSKEYWORDPOSTED% Number of Sysop keyword reports sent - ONLY for daily report. %SYSBDAYPOSTED% The number of Sysop birthday reports sent yesterday. %SYSUPLDPOSTED% The number of Sysop 'Upload' reports sent yesterday. %SYSWELCPOSTED% The number of Sysop 'New User' reports sent yesterday. %SYSWDOGPOSTED% The number of Sysop 'Watchdog' reports sent yesterday. %SYSDROPPOSTED% The number of Sysop 'Carrier Drop' reports sent yesterday. %SYSDAILYPOSTED% The number of Sysop 'Daily' reports sent yesterday. %SYSDAILYWEEK% The number of Sysop 'Daily' reports sent for the previous week. %SYSREGULARPOSTED% Number of Sysop 'Regular' reports sent yesterday. %SYSREGULARWEEK% Number of Sysop 'Regular' reports sent for the last week. %TOTALMSGSWEEK% Total User AND Sysop MSG's sent last week. --- Page 36 ---- HOW TO GET THE MOST OUT OF RAMS =============================== Although Rams is fairly easy to setup (it is isn't it?), there are a number of ways you can use it to increase it's flexibility even further. Lets take a look at a couple of ideas to show you what we mean. Rams can manipulate the user security levels, flags, Group etc etc. By using these features to their fullest you can get the best out of Rams. The ideas and suggestions listed below are only a quick guideline to what you can do, and are intended only as an outline. You can use these suggestions in your own setup, or devise your own ideas based on them. USING FLAGS ----------- Firstly, lets assume you want Rams to post a message to a user when they use the BlueWave maildoor telling them about becoming a point, but you only want this message to be posted ONCE, and not EVERY time they use the door. This is a fairly easy one, simply setup a 'Keyword' message so that Rams will scan the RA log for something that appears in the log entry that RA writes when it loads the BlueWave door. This may be something like 'C:\RA\BLUEWAVE\BWDOOR.BAT' - Assuming that you call BlueWave with a batch file called BWDoor.Bat. Enter that into the 'Keyword' msg as the text for Rams to scan for... Then go into the message 'Conditions' and set User flag A1 to OFF - that is toggle the entry for flag A1 (using the spacebar) until it changes to an 'O'. That will tell Rams to ONLY post that message IF the user has flag A1 OFF. Jump to the 'Actions' menu and set flag A1 to ON by toggling it as you did before, but this time set if to 'X'. That will tell Rams to alter the user flag A1 to ON when it posts the message to the user. This obviously assumes that you aren't using the A1 flag for anything else... If you are, simply select a different user flag. Then create a message template file that contains the text you want to send to the user if he enters the BlueWave mail door - This is detailed elsewhere in these docs... And enter the name of the message template file into the config for this message. Okay, so what does all that actually mean? Well, Now what you've done is to tell Rams to post a 'Keyword' message when it finds the RA log entry for BlueWave, BUT ONLY if the user has flag A1 OFF... If flag A1 is ON Rams will NOT post the message. When Rams posts the message it will reset the A1 flag to ON, therefore the user will NOT receive that message again as he no longer matches the 'Conditions' for the message. Easy or what? :-) ---- Page 37 ---- USING SECURITY LEVELS --------------------- Okay, now lets assume you want to downgrade a user when their sub- scription has expired. Firstly you can warn your users that their subs are about to expire by setting up a message that will be posted 30 days BEFORE their subs are due, and perhaps another 7 days BEFORE. Simply create two 'Subs' messages, one with a value of '30' days and one with a value of '7' days. You can set the message 'Conditions' for minimum AND maximum seclevel to 50 - In other word ONLY users of seclevel 50 will be sent the message(s). These message will be posted 30 days before the users subs expire, and again 7 days before they expire. Lets say that 'Normal' users have an access level of 10 and 'Subscribers' have an access level of 50. Setup a third 'Subscription' message with a value of '0' (zero) days. Then set the message 'Conditions' to 50 for min AND max security, and ALSO setup an 'Action' to 'Change' the users seclevel to a value of 10. Rams will then post a message to the user on the day that their subs expire and will alter their access level to 10. FURTHER IDEAS/SUGGESTIONS ------------------------- The above are only two possible ways of making Rams more flexible. The potential number of ways you can use it are almost endless. Only YOUR imagination can come up with ALL the possibilities... You could warn users that drop carrier that their behaviour will not be tolerated. And reduce their access if they drop carrier more than 10 times say... How do you do that? Simple... Lets assume 'Normal' users have an access level of 20 and twits have an access level of 10... So you have TWO entries in your LIMITS.CTL file for RA.. One for level 20 access and another for level 10 access. You will need to add a third entry for level 11... I'll explain why in a minute. This entry needs to be the same as the access for level 20. Then setup a carrier drop message that is posted whenever a user drops carrier. Set it's 'Conditions' to Max seclevel 20, Min seclevel 11. Also set the 'Actions' to DECREASE the users seclevel by 1 to a MINIMUM value of 10... Rams will then post the user a message EVERY time they drop carrier AND it will REDUCE their access level by ONE everytime it posts the message. If a user has an access level of 20, RA will use the normal level 20 defined in your LIMITS.CTL file. If they are BELOW level 20 BUT ABOVE level 10, RA will use the entry defined for access level 11 because it will ALWAYS use the level BELOW the users actual seclevel if an entry for that particular level doesn't exist in the LIMITS.CTL file. See your RA doc for more info. ---- Page 38 ---- cont... So what happens now is that Rams will DECREASE the users access by ONE each time they drop carrier... RA will use the values stored in the LIMITS.CTL file for seclevel 11 once they have dropped below access level 20... Rams will continue to decrease their access by one each time UNTIL they are eventually reduced to level 10... Then RA ZAPS EM! :-) Rams will not post the message anymore after they reach level 10 as that is outside the 'Conditions' specified for the message.... FINAL COMMENT ------------- The easiest way to fully undersatnd just what Rams can do for you is to play around with it... Try setting up different messages and changing the various conditions/actions. I'm sure you'll soon see just how flexible it can be. All it takes is a little imagination and a bit of time... Once it's setup it's all automatic. No more haveing to downgrade users manually, or even upgrade them... Rams can do it all. ---- Page 39 ---- BUG REPORTS, CONTACTING THE AUTHORS =================================== Should you find any bugs, undocumented features (future enhancements :-) ) or if something doesn't appear to work as it should :-( Please contact one of the authors at the following addresses: To: Eddy Matthews Netmail: 2:256/651@fidonet Snailmail: 32 Whitley Road Thornaby Cleveland TS17 9HZ England Voice: +44-642-766373 (8am to 9pm GMT) Data: +44-642-764245 (24hrs @28.8k) or alternatively contact:- To: Geoff Bassett Netmail: 2:259/651@fidonet 73:7446/417@RANet Snailmail: 9 Fraser Avenue Inverkeithing Fife Ky11 1eq SCOTLAND Voice: +44-1383-414093 (8am to 9pm GMT) Data: +44-1383-410704 (24 hours @28.8k) Send your registration to :- Minerva Online details and Address are included in the registration document. Credit card registrations are accepted. ---- Page 40 ---- PLANNED FUTURE DEVELOPMENT OF RAMS =================================== RAMS v1.20 is the third release of RAMS. There are already plans to develop RAMS much more for future releases... Some already planned enhancements are:- Download messages for those who use RA's internal file manager. Timelimit exceeded messages. Even MORE Alterations to some of the messages to GREATLY enhance their flexibility. Plus much, much, more... Maybe even support for another BBS package? Convince us!!! In order to develop future versions fully we will require additional beta testers that use RemoteAccess software and would be grateful if any Sysops that are interested in RAMS would contact us at the registration site with details of their software and hardware configurations so that these enhancements can be implemented. PLEASE NOTE. - Anyone that wishes to become a beta tester for these future versions has to pay the normal registration fee, and link into a private beta test echo area (RAMS_BETA). They will also be required to call one of the authors boards to obtain new beta releases of RAMS on a weekly basis. With your support and help, RAMS will develop into the BEST automatic message utility there is!!! ---- Page 41 ---- CREDITS ------- On a final note from the authors we would like to thank our Beta team for their dedication, hard work, bug reports, and perseverance and to say that without their support RAMS would not be half the program that it is.. Our beta team not only tested the program patiently, and believe me some of the beta releases did have one or two faults;-) Also to thank them for their input and suggestions, many of which you see in the final program.... The Beta Team ------------- Andrew Davison (The Hard Rock Studio) - "I broke it again"! Gordon Smith (Tees for Two) thanks for the help with the multinode stuff!! Andy & Caf Smith (Zeons Lair) - "It's not my fault it was Caf"! Steve Nutt (The Computer Room) - "Why's my screen so currupt" Cliff Harrold (The Coracle) - "I grow the best leeks in town" - "Boyo"! Steve Shooter (Ultimate) - "If I used it all I'd need a bigger system"! Alan Walker (Highlander) - "Where's my Scotch"? - "hic" And a final word of thanks to our wives, both for putting up with the countless hours we locked ourselves away in our computer rooms, for keeping the coffee flowing, and for putting up with our moods when things didn't go right!! - On those rare occassions;-) And a little word of thanks to BT for the shares we bought in them whilst developing this program! - What you mean that really was just the bill? -----------=== End of Document ===------------