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Text File | 1993-02-21 | 17.1 KB | 387 lines

Registered User Tracking Utility Copyright 1993 -- Ron Bergeron ════════════════════════════════ ┌─────────────┐ │ What is it? │ └─────────────┘ The Registered User Tracking Utility is a set of programs that allow you to easily and automatically keep track of your registered users. Here are some of its features: * Automatically downgrade users after registration period expires * Alter user security level and/or access flags * Display .ANS/.ASC screen encouraging users to register with your BBS * Display .ANS/.ASC screen warning registered users when registration is going to expire soon * Display .ANS/.ASC screen advising users when their account has expired * All .ANS/.ASC screens are fully customizable by the sysop * Ignore users with certain security levels and/or access flags set * Automatically upgrade users by simply entering their name and expiration date into database * Track up to 500 registered users * Logs all upgrades or downgrades * Multitasking capable for multinode systems * Many options yet easy to set up ┌───────────────────┐ │ How Does It Work? │ └───────────────────┘ When every user logs onto your BBS, REGCHECK.EXE will check to see if their name appears in the registered user database (which is created by CONFIG.EXE). If the user is NOT in the database, REGCHECK.EXE will display a sysop configurable screen which suggests that the user consider registering with your BBS. If the user IS in the database, but their registration period is due to expire soon, then a screen warning them of this will be displayed. If the user IS in the database and their registration period has expired, REGCHECK.EXE will lower their security level and/or access flags and then display a screen telling them of this action. If the user IS in the database and their registration period is NOT due to expire in the near future, the program exits and the user is sent to the BBS. This version of the program can track up to 500 registered users. If you need to be able to track more than this, let me know and I can arrange a special version for you. ┌─────────────────────┐ │ How Do I Set It Up? │ └─────────────────────┘ Create a separate directory and uncompress the distribution file into it. The files in this compressed file include: REGCHECK.EXE - The door portion of the program CONFIG.EXE - The configuration and registered user database program SUGGEST.ANS - A sample ANSI "suggestion" display screen SUGGEST.ASC - A sample ASCII "suggestion" display screen WARNING.ANS - A sample ANSI "warning" screen WARNING.ASC - A sample ASCII "warning" screen EXPIRED.ANS - A sample ANSI "expired" screen EXPIRED.ASC - A sample ASCII "expired" screen REGCHECK.DOC - The documentation (the file you are reading now) REGISTER.EXE - Program to create the registration form OTHERS.TXT - List of other available programs The following files will be created by REGCHECK.EXE and CONFIG.EXE: REG_USR.DAT - The registered user database REGCFG.CFG - Configuration file REGCHECK.LOG - Upgrade/downgrade/error log file ┌───────────────┐ │ Configuration │ └───────────────┘ First of all, you must create the configuration file. This is done using the program CONFIG.EXE. Start the program and press "C" to enter the configuration menu. You MUST enter the configuration menu even if you want to use the default settings. Entering the menu the first time will create the configuration file. Without the configuration file, the program will not work. Figure 1 shows the configuration menu with all the default values displayed. ╔═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗ ║ Configuration Options ║ ╠═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╣ ║ (A) Number of Warning Days: 7 ║ ║ (B) Warning Delay: 5 ║ ║ (C) Suggestion Delay: 5 ║ ║ (D) Expire Delay: 1 ║ ║ (E) Zero D/L Counters (Y or N): YES ║ ║ (F) Before Security: 45 ║ ║ (G) After Security: 5 ║ ║ (H) Before Flags: A:???????? B:???????? C:???????? D:???????? ║ ║ (I) After Flags: A:???????? B:???????? C:???????? D:???????? ║ ║ (J) Ignore Flags: A:???????? B:???????? C:???????? D:???????? ║ ║ (K) Ignore Security Level: 32000 ║ ║ (L) Prompt Color: Foreground (0-15): 11 Background (0-7): 0 ║ ║ (M) Ignore User's First Number of Calls: 20 ║ ║ (X) Exit Configuration Menu ║ ╚═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝ figure 1 - Configuration Options A brief explanation of each configuration item follows: "A" is the number of days before the expiration date that you want to start warning the registered users. Give the user enough warning so that they can register again before their registration period expires. "B, C, D" are delay times (in seconds) that occur after the various screens are displayed (0 = no delay). You can use this to make sure your users get plenty of time to read the information on the screens. "E" is whether or not to zero out the user's up/download counters when the user's registration expires and they are downgraded. This is to prevent them from having an unfair upload/download ratio once they are downgraded. "F" is the security level of a "registered" user. The program will bring the user to this level if their name appears in the database. If you enter a "0" here, the user's security level will NOT be affected in any way. This can be useful if you have several registered user security levels. The drawback is that you will have to alter the user's security level and access flags manually instead of having REGCHECK do it automatically. "G" is the security level to downgrade the user to when their account expires. Again, enter a "0" if you don't want to change the security level. "H" are the user flags of a registered user. If a user's name appears in the data base, their flags will be altered according to what you enter here. Enter an "X" to turn the flag on, a "-" to turn it off, and a "?" to leave that particular flag alone. (See the section "USER FLAGS" for more information on this). "I" are the user flags of an unregistered user. When a user's registration period expires, their flags will be altered according to what you enter here. Enter an "X" to turn the flag on, a "-" to turn it off, and a "?" to leave that particular flag alone. (See the section "USER FLAGS" for more information on this). "J" are the ignore flags. If, for example, you set flag A1 to ON and a user logs on with A1 set, the door will allow the user to go straight to the BBS without displaying any of the .ANS/.ASC screens to them. This is good for your friends and visiting sysops. If you choose not to use this feature, just leave all the bits as "?". "K" is the ignore security level. Anyone with a security level of this or above, will be sent straight to the BBS without seeing the .ANS/.ASC screens. You'll want to at least put your own security level here. "L" is the foreground and background colors of the prompts that are displayed after each screen is displayed to the user. The colors are as follows: 0 - Black 8 - Bright Black 1 - Blue 9 - Bright Blue 2 - Green 10 - Bright Green 3 - Cyan 11 - Bright Cyan 4 - Red 12 - Bright Red 5 - Magenta 13 - Bright Magenta 6 - Brown 14 - Yellow 7 - White (gray) 15 - White (bright) "M" is the number of calls you want the user to have made to your BBS before the program starts displaying the "donation suggestion" screen. This is so a new user can have time to use your BBS for while without feeling pressured to send in a donation. ┌────────────┐ │ User Flags │ └────────────┘ REGCHECK alters the user flags based on the information that is in the configuration file. If you put an "X" in one of the user flags, REGCHECK will turn that flag ON no matter how the flag was set originally. If you put a "-", then the flag will be set OFF. If you put a "?", then REGCHECK will NOT change the flag at all. example: flags when user logs onto BBS: A:XX------ B:--X-X--- C:-----X-X D:X-X-X-X- "after" flags: A:-??????X B:???????? C:???????? D:???????? If a user whose registration has just expired logs onto your BBS, REGCHECK will change the flags to: A:-X-----X B:--X-X--- C:-----X-X D:X-X-X-X- Notice that the only changes were that flag A1 was set OFF and that A8 was set on. All other flags were left alone because of the question marks in the configuration template. ┌───────────────┐ │ User Database │ └───────────────┘ Pressing "(R) Registered User List" from the main menu will bring you to the main registered user database menu (figure 2). From this menu you can enter, edit, search, delete, or browse through your registered user list. ╔═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗ ║ Registered User List ║ ╠═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════╣ ║ User Name: ║ ║ Expiration Date (MM/DD/YY): ║ ║ Record Number: of ║ ╟───────────────────────────────────────────────────────╢ ║ (M) Main Menu (E) Edit User (L) Last User ║ ║ (A) Add User (S) Search (N) Next User ║ ║ (D) Delete User (F) First User (P) Previous User ║ ╚═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝ figure 2 - Registered User List The following is a brief explanation of the choices on this menu: "M" will return you to the main menu. "A" will allow you to add a user to the registered user database. The user's name will automatically be capitalized. Note that you MUST use a slash (/) as the delimiter between the month, day, and year. "D" will delete the current user from the database. "E" will allow you to edit the current user information. "S" will bring you to a search menu to search for a particular user. You can search for either a full or partial name. "F" brings you to the first user in the database. "L" brings you to the last user in the database. "N" displays the next user in the database. "P" displays the previous user in the database. ┌─────────────────┐ │ Display Screens │ └─────────────────┘ All the .ANS/.ASC screens which are displayed to your users are FULLY customizable. You are encouraged to change the screens so that they match your bulletin board's look and feel. You can use most of the QuickBBS/Remote Access "metacharacters" in your screens. Metacharacters are control sequences that are automatically translated by the BBS to display information such as user name, password, time remaining, etc. (Check your BBS documentation for more details). I have added a new metacharacter for this program. You can use the metacharacter $ (or ^K$) to automatically display the number of days remaining until the user's registration period expires. You can see an example of this on the screen WARNING.A??. If you do not wish to take advantage of the feature which displays a screen suggesting that the user register with your BBS, then you can delete the files SUGGEST.A??. If REGCHECK.EXE does not find these files in the default directory, it will not display them and will also skip the time delay and the prompt. This happens only in the registered version. In the unregistered version, the file is not displayed but the delay and prompt still occur. ┌──────────────┐ │ Installation │ └──────────────┘ The program REGCHECK.EXE MUST be run as soon as every user logs onto your BBS. REGCHECK.EXE needs access to both your DORINFO1.DEF and EXITINFO.BBS files. See the documentation for your BBS software for full details on setting up an external door. You must pass the path to your DORINFO1.DEF and EXITINFO.BBS files to REGCHECK.EXE on its command line. The following examples should make it clear how to set it up on your system. This setup assumes that you have a separate TOP and MAIN menu. If your TOP menu is also your MAIN menu, then REGCHECK will run every time the user goes to your main menu. It is a very good idea to have separate TOP and MAIN menus as in the following diagram: ┌─────┐ │ TOP │ └──┬──┘ ┌───┴───┐ │ MAIN │ └───┬───┘ ┌────────────────┼──────────────────┐ ┌───┴───┐ ┌───┴───┐ ┌─────┴────┐ │ FILES │ │ DOORS │ │ MESSAGES │ └───────┘ └───────┘ └──────────┘ This arrangement allows for more flexibility in your BBS. If your TOP menu also serves as your MAIN menu, then you will have to come up some type of flag scheme to compensate for it. For example, require that a certain user flag be ON in order to run REGCHECK. Then, after REGCHECK runs, use a utility to turn that flag OFF. Then, as part of your bulletin board's logoff routine, turn that flag back on so that REGCHECK will run next time the user is online. ┌───────────────────┐ │ Single Node Setup │ └───────────────────┘ For a single node BBS, you can use the following TOP.MNU type 7 menu entry as an example: *c /c *M c:\doors\regcheck\check.bat The appropriate batch file for this would be called CHECK.BAT and would look like: @echo off cd\doors\regcheck regcheck c:\qbbs cd\qbbs ┌──────────────────┐ │ Multi-Node Setup │ └──────────────────┘ For a multiple node set up, you can use the following TOP.MNU type 7 menu entry as an example: *c /c *M c:\doors\regcheck\check.bat *N The appropriate batch file for this would be called CHECK.BAT and would look like: @echo off cd\doors\regcheck regcheck \qbbs\node%1 cd\qbbs\node%1 When running in a multitasking environment, MAKE SURE that SHARE.EXE has been loaded! ┌──────────────┐ │ Registration │ └──────────────┘ These programs are NOT freeware! If you use them on your BBS for more than four weeks, you are required to register them. Run the program REGISTER.EXE if you decide to register. When you register, your BBS name will appear in place of the bright yellow [UNREGISTERED] displayed in the door. This will show your callers that YOU support shareware! You can't expect your users to support you if you don't support the doors that you use. Registration is $20.00 US. The program may pay for itself by encouraging your users to register with your BBS! ┌───────────┐ │ Copyright │ └───────────┘ REGCHECK.EXE and CONFIG.EXE, Copyright 1993 by Ron Bergeron, are being distributed as Shareware. Under this concept you may use the SHAREWARE (unregistered) versions for a reasonable period of time (4 weeks) for evaluation after which you must either register your copies or remove them from use on your BBS. ┌──────────┐ │ Warranty │ └──────────┘ Care has been taken in the development of this program. However, I cannot guarantee its operation on your particular setup. This product is provided AS IS without warranty of any kind. The entire risk as to the results and performance of the programs is assumed by you. Furthermore, the author does not warrant, guarantee, or make any other representations regarding the use of, or the results of the use of the program, and you rely on the program and results solely at your own risk. The author cannot and will not accept responsibility for system damage, loss of profit or any other special, consequential or incidental damages resulting from the use of or inability to use this product. If this policy is not acceptable to you, DO NOT run the program. ┌───────────┐ │ Questions │ └───────────┘ I can be reached for questions or comments on my BBS. The Machine (508)948-2921 FidoNet 1:324/124