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Searchlight Bulletin Board System (t) Autodoor Batch Utilities Version 1.1 PRESIS ------ A suite of Searchlight BBS (t) utilities to enhance the abilities of SLMAIL.EXE, VALIDATE.EXE and to provide the SLBBS (t) Sysop with tools for providing access based upon agreement with the SYSOP's criteria for use of the BBS. Additionally, a simple questionnaire-type of utility is included to further enhance the SLBBS (t) Sysop's ability to process users. INTRODUCTION ------------ I originally purchased Searchlight (t) after reviewing a number of BBS packages. One of my main criteria was the ability to extend the software easily. As (something of) a programmer, I chafe when presented with few options for customization and control. Of all the BBS software I reviewed, Searchlight was, by far, the most extensible. It also retains a very high level of simplicity from the Users' perspective and has a rather unique and pleasing interface. By the same token, it is was not an "oddball" in the sense of non-standard command keys, and, with the introduction of SL225, can be fully configured to conform to the command key templates used by other popular and prevalent BBS software. Frank LaRosa is to be commended for all of this. This package is intended to help you, as an SLBBS Sysop, to further extend your BBS and to bring you and your users a higher level of professionalism and enjoyment. I wrote these utilities for myself and my BBS, and have had them running with good effect for over one year. I consider them to be fully tested and debugged. I am, therefore, releasing them now for the use and enjoyment of the SLBBS community. These utilities are distributed FREE of any obligation on the part of non-commercial users. Absolutely no warranties, either express or implied, are made or given with respect to the fitness of these utilities for their intended purpose, or for ANY purpose. Side-Bar BBS and Shane Anderson hereby expressly disclaim any such warranties; further, by use of these utilities, you agree to indemnify and hold Side-Bar BBS and Shane Anderson harmless from damages, however constituted or plead, which might be attributed to use of these utilities. Commercial users may contact the Sysop of Side-Bar BBS for inforamtion regarding the licensing of these utilities. The number appears below. At present I have no plans for extending these utilities, and I do not expect that it will be necessary to "support" them. However, I am willing to entertain any suggestions or comments, and to consider the possibility of taking these utilities further, as applicable. (1)INSTALLATION ------------ The best place for these utilities, to guarantee that they will work, is the main BBS directory. This is the directory where your CONFIG files are, and where you should have SLMAIL.EXE, VALIDATE.EXE, etc. Simply copy the files into that directory and follow the examples and templates given for each utility below. Please note that the archive should include the following files: SL_MAIL.EXE SL_VAL.EXE AGREE.EXE QUERY.EXE SLUTILS.DOC If you are concerned that you have not received a "clean" archive, you may FREQ a source copy from my BBS at the address given at the end of this document. The "Magic Name" for the file is "SLUTILS." You are, of course, welcome to log in and download it from the SLBBS file directory. SL_MAIL.EXE ----------- One of the greatest revelations I had during my review of BBS software was the ability to run batch files as autodoors. That feature nearly sold me on Searchlight (t) on the spot. However, I did find that, due mostly to the vagaries and quirks of batch language, certain limitations were imposed on the way Frank LaRosa's SLMAIL.EXE could be used. I found that I could not use SLMAIL.EXE to send a user a private or even public message from an autodoor. If I used the %N parameter to send JOE SMITH a message, the name JOE_SMITH was used. In reality, there is no JOE_SMITH as far as SLBBS (t) is concerned. So the message was not sent. Using the %U parameter is not an option either, since SLMAIL will try to send the message to JOE, who also does not exist to SLBBS (t). I tried using quotes, etc., in the batch file to cause the full name contained in the %U parameter to be carried over and passed by SLMAIL, but to no avail. A "shell" program was clearly needed that would perform the translation of the parameter to an SLMAIL acceptable format, and to then call SLMAIL.EXE. SL_MAIL.EXE is such a shell. All it really does is take the %N parameter, translate it to the appropriate name and then call SLMAIL. Accordingly, it is not, nor is intended to be, a replacement to SLMAIL.EXE. Rather, it is an extension and an enhancement to be used in conjunction with SLMAIL.EXE. The syntax of SL_MAIL.EXE, as you might expect, is essential identical to SLMAIL.EXE. The following example is taken and adapted from my NEWUSER.BAT autodoor. In this example, for the sake of simplicity, the batch file is (2)only being passed ONE parameter, namely the %U parameter. To use other utilities in this package, you will wish to pass other parameters as well. :NEW USER AUTODOOR BATCH FILE : %1 = User Name (%U) :---------------------------- . . {programming statements go here} . echo Mailing New User Information to %1's Mail Box . . . sl_mail S mail -t%1 -fSYSOP "-sNew User Information" -xc:\bbs\newinfo.txt . . {programming statements go here} . As you can see, the file NEWINFO.TXT is being mailed to the new user's mailbox. Nothing fancy, nothing too terribly earth shaking. But it WILL allow you send messages to users from autodoors. I find this useful in my two-tiered validation system, particularly in light of the fact that the whole process is automated and requires a certain amount of message passing to help orient my users. With a little extra thought and batch file programming effort, you can easily personalize messages such as: Dear Joe: Thanks for your patience during the registration process... Additionally, when used in conjunction with the utilities described below, you can set up some rather complex validation routines which result in the sending of various different messages based upon user security levels, etc. If the above is not clear, please refer to the (excellent) documentation accompanying SLMAIL.EXE. SL_VAL.EXE ---------- SLBBS' (t) VALIDATE.EXE suffers from the same "problem" that SLMAIL.EXE suffers from - namely, there is no way to pass a user's name to it from a batch file in order to upgrade (or downgrade) a user's security attributes and levels. Again, it is a simple matter of needing a "shell" program to perform the translation. SL_VAL.EXE performs that translation for VALIDATE.EXE, and again, is a mere "enhancement," not a replacement. The following example has also been extracted and adapted from my NEWUSER.BAT autodoor: (3):NEW USER AUTODOOR BATCH FILE : %1 = User Name (%U) :---------------------------- . . {programming statements go here} . sl_val %1 /A5 /F5 /T45 /R5 /SAB . . {programming statements go here} . Simple enough. As you can see, the user is being upgraded to have the security level of "5" for both the main and file functions, is being granted 45 minutes per day, a download Ratio of 5 to 1, and the Security Attributes of "AB." If this is not clear, please refer to the (excellent) documentation accompanying VALIDATE.EXE. Again, nothing earth shattering but certainly useful, particularly where you wish on-line, interactive validation of users. One Caveat: I have found, through experience that SLBBS (t) does not necessarily immediately recognize the new Time Limit given to the user. All other attributes and levels ARE recognized, but the user is stuck with whatever time limit was initially imposed prior to validation using this utility. However, the new time limit does go into effect upon the next login by the user. For example - let's say that the user has 30 minutes and is at level "2." Once the above example validation is performed, he will have all of the new attributes and levels specified, but will still have only 30 minutes (or balance thereof) during the current session. While this is unavoidable from my perspective, you should note that upon expiration of the 30 minutes, the user will still be able to log in for 15 minutes more during the same day. Thereafter, he will always have 45 minutes per day. This utility does not really stand by itself, and is intended to be used with the utilities discussed below. AGREE.EXE (aka C Y A!) --------- I wrote this utility to dispatch my duties as a SYSOP and to protect myself from any claims that the user was not aware of any applicable legal disclaimers, and to obtain full agreement with the terms and conditions imposed upon users of my BBS. Quite simply, the utility displays a screen to the user, and asks the user if he agrees to the terms and conditions presented by that screen. The program then drops an errorlevel to the calling batch file based upon the answer. Thus, you can branch to the appropriate batch file label based upon the user's response. This allows you to set up a validation scheme which, perhaps at the very beginning, allows access on the basis of a user's agreement or disagreement to the terms and conditions of use. (4)The syntax of AGREE.EXE is as follows: AGREE [path] [prefix] [agree] [noagree] [name] [g] [color] WHERE: [path] the path to the display screens [prefix] the prefix of the screens - eg: prefix of test.ans, test.txt = test [agree] the log filespec for logging users who have agreed [noagree] the log filespec for logging users who have NOT agreed [name] the SLBBS parameter for user name - %U [g] the SLBBS parameter for graphics - %G [color] the numeric color value for the "-- more --" prompt To invoke a "-- more --" prompt, place the control characters "^S^P" in the files to be "typed" to the screen at the position in the file where you wish to pause. The characters "^S^P" are Ctrl-S and Ctrl-P, NOT "Caret-S," "Caret-P." Please note that your ANSI and Non-ANSI screens MUST use the extensions ".ANS" and ".TXT." The errorlevels dropped by AGREE.EXE are simply 1 and 0, and correspond to "Yes" and "No" respectively. Colors are expressed as follows: Black - 0 Dark Gray - 8 Blue - 1 Light Blue - 9 Green - 2 Light Green - 10 Cyan - 3 Light Cyan - 11 Red - 4 Light Red - 12 Magenta - 5 Light Magenta - 13 Brown - 6 Yellow - 14 Light Gray - 7 White - 15 The following example is adapted from my NEWUSER.BAT autodoor. Please note that, here, more parameters are being passed to the batch file, as required by AGREE.EXE. Please also note that I have included SL_MAIL.EXE and SL_VAL.EXE calls, as discussed above, to help you see how all of these utilities work together, and that I have even included a little batch environment trick for typing the appropriate ANSI or text "information" screens to the monitor: (5):NEW USER AUTODOOR BATCH FILE : %1 = User Name (%U) : %2 = Graphics Mode (%G) : %3 = First Name (effectively) (%N) :---------------------------- @echo off cd\bbs : /* this small subroutine sets an environment variable for use in : typing "information" screens to the monitor. */ if "%2"=="C" goto ansi if "%2"=="M" goto ansi if "%2"=="N" goto NONE :ansi set SCR=ANS goto VALIDATE :NONE set SCR=TXT : /* the following comprises a two-step agreement process. The call to : AGREE.EXE shows a standard Disclaimer Screen to the user and asks him to : agree to its terms. If the user does not agree to screen displayed, : his or her access is set to pretty much "0" all around. If he or she : DOES agree, he or she is validated to a higher level. */ :VALIDATE cd\bbs cls agree c:\bbs\include ecpa c:\bbs\ecpa.log c:\bbs\no_ecpa.log %1 %2 12 REM if "Yes" if errorlevel 1 goto agree REM if "No" goto no_agree :agree REM increase access... sl_val %1 /A2 /F2 /T30 /R5 /SAB REM type appropriate thank you screen type c:\bbs\thanks.%SCR% echo %3, Please press {ENTER} to continue pause>nul echo Mailing New User Information to %3's Mail Box . . . sl_mail S mail -t%1 -fSYSOP "-sNew User Information" -xc:\bbs\newinfo.txt goto CLEAN (6) :no_agree cd\bbs sl_val %1 /A0 /F0 /T10 /R3 /SA REM type appropriate SORRY, ERNT, WRONG, TOO BAD! screen... type c:\bbs\no_agree.%SCR% echo %3, Please press {ENTER} to continue pause>nul echo Mailing GUEST User Information to %3's Mail Box . . . sl_mail S mail -t%1 -fSYSOP "-sLimited Access Information" -xc:\bbs\limit.txt :CLEAN REM clean up environment set SCR= cd\bbs cls Now, while the above may seem somewhat complicate at first, it is actually pretty straightforward. A little study should make it clear. I am confident that this will work, with some work on your part in putting the screens together and adjusting the paths to reflect the reality of your system. I HIGHLY recommend that, if you do use this utility for the purposes of disclaimers and legal notices, you keep your logs INTACT and ALWAYS on file. As a paralegal and a student of privacy, etc. issues as relates to electronic communications, I assure you that we CANNOT be too careful in this regard. QUERY.EXE --------- I wrote this simple utility because I did not need or even like the various script questionnaire utilities currently available. For a simple questionnaire, it was rather the case of shooting a mouse with an elephant gun - difficult and awfully messy! I therefore wrote this simple utility to be straightforward and even idiotic, but pleasing to the eye. USAGE: QUERY [questionnaire] [output] [name] [graphics] <switches> WHERE: [questionnaire] => text file containing questions; [output] => text file for logging answers [name] => users name using the SLBBS "%U" parameter [graphics] => the SLBBS parameter for graphics mode <switches> => optional switches as follows: /M or /m => mail answers to SYSOP /V or /v => use verbose format The following text presents the format of [questionnaire] file. (7)Please describe some of your interests: What BBS services do you make the most use of (eg: NetMail, Files, etc.): Are you currently employed? (If so, please describe:) How did you hear about SIDE-BAR BBS? Simple, eh? No script language or control codes. Simple text! Limited, but useful. Please note that a carriage return should follow the last line in the text file for the utility to properly process the entire text of the file. Please note, further, that you may place multiple carriage returns anywhere in a questionnaire file in order to present "blank" lines. Thus, in the following example, two "blank" lines would be presented after the initial line with the question, for a total of three lines of text. Please enter feedback (three lines) Any other comments? It might be better to use the following format, however, so that the user does not think he is locked. Please enter feedback (three lines) (Line 2 of 3) (Line 3 of 3) Any other comments? It is important to have QUERY in the same directory as SLMAIL.EXE and SL_MAIL.EXE, since these utilities are used to mail the Sysop responses to the questionnaire, if desired. If the /M switch is used, the answers will be logged __AND__ sent to the SYSOP'S Mailbox - the user name is parsed so that a reply to the questionnaire can be made by the SYSOP. If the /V switch is used, the questions __AS WELL AS__ the answers will are logged in the [output] file. When the /V switch is not used, only the answers are logged. I personally prefer the verbose format. Both [questionnaire] and [output] parameters support path names. This utility is very nice for feedback doors, etc. where you do not wish to use complicated script utilities and where answers are straightforward and do not require branching based upon the response. I use it in the instance of a user who has not initially agreed to the terms and conditions of use for the BBS. When that user goes into my validation door for the purposes of upgrading his account, I ask why he or she or she did not initially agree. I have the answers sent to me, and, because of the proper translation of the name of the (offending) party, I can then reply to that user's reason for not initially agreeing. (8)PUTTING IT ALL TO WORK FOR YOU ------------------------------ As related previously, I have had this type of setup running, in a much more complex configuration, for over a year now and it works quite nicely. I have received no complaints from users, and have been freed from some of the more rigorous and time consuming duties on the BBS such as manual validation through the use of "Please write the SYSOP a private message to request validation and include..." My system actually presents two levels or agreements that a new user must agree to; then, if I have total agreement, I present the user with the ability to further upgrade himself through call-back verification. This system works very nicely. Additionally, with some further work, those users who did not agree may be presented with the opportunity, via a door, to agree to the questions again, thereby upgrading themselves. This further cuts down on the incidence of messages such as "I meant to agree, but I pressed the wrong button..." The fact that AGREE.EXE provides you with logs of just who agreed and who did not agree can be used to great effect. You can even set it up so that when a user does not agree, you send yourself a message indicating who it was that did not agree, for further disposition, if any. The QUERY.EXE utility rather pulls it all together for a full suite of utilities that should help you as a SLBBS (t) sysop to process and present various options for validation, questionnaire, and massaging, without needing to resort to highly manual methods. We hope that these utilities will help... if they do, please take the time to comment to me via netmail or otherwise. BEST, Shane G. Anderson Sysop, Side-Bar BBS 818/783-2069 FidoNet: 1:102/819 (Sherman Oaks, California)