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Text File | 1991-09-08 | 19.9 KB | 451 lines

** ** ** ** ****** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** *** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ***** ****** Version 4.2 * The eXpress Userlist Compiler * (C) Copyright Artwork Software 1991 Written by Michael Barnes All Rights Reserved This release finished on 27/8/91 ┌─┬───┬─┐ ├─┘ _ └─┤rtwork │ (_) │ │ ┌───┐ │ . │ │■ █│ │ / └─┴───┴─┘/ \ \ oftware / ./ "Quality Shareware software for the IBM Compatible PC" P L E A S E N O T E ! ! ! ========================== My netmail address is now 2:252/125, instead of 2:252/7. Netmail to 2:252/7 will still reach me as that is the board I collecting mail from. If the 2:252/125 address disappears (the future of the BB is a little uncertain) then go back to using 2:252/7. Users of pervious versions will find several large changes in this version. Please don't try and use it without reading the documentation, or you may regret it! ============================================================================ License !!!!! I M P O R T A N T P L E A S E R E A D !!!!!! ============================================================================ The license for XUC is as follows... You can try out XUC absolutely free for 30 days. After that period of time, I must ask you to register. There is no way for me to *make* you register, but I hope the program is sufficiently useful to warrant it's registration. I've spent a fair number of hours working on it (far more than I'd like to admit), and the very modest fee is designed to allow even the poorest user to register. I fear that the effect may be the opposite to that which I want - because the price is low, people think it's not worth registering. I hope that this isn't the case, but if it is then there's a simple solution... Anyway, whether you are registered or not, you are welcome to any help that you require, so long as I can provide that help. If you want to purchase a number of copies, bulk discounts may be available. ONE purchase equals ONE user - there is no other arrangement. The above extends back to all previous versions of XUC. The registration fee is 5 pounds sterling (quid=pound, for you foriegn users who might be confused by the term!). If you've already paid, you're already registered - registration is for life and all future versions. Introduction ------------ There's a saying in the world of software writing - "If you spend as much time testing as you need to, you'd never get the program out the door." At least, if there isn't there should be. It's true. Where to strike the balance between reliability and time is the problem - I use the "it seems to work" principle, which states: "If it seems to work then release it - to hell with the little lurking bugs." Well, little lurking bugs are often actually big lurking bugs in disguise, as has been demonstrated adequately with previous versions of XUC. I'd hoped that no more demonstrations would be necessary, but they have been... So here's another release. XUC V4 didn't work. Quite simply, it was a load of doggy do. Somehow I'd managed to forget to make it check to see if it had already extracted the record it has just extracted already (got that? it means "dupe checking"), except for looking at the last record. Oops. Also, I'd missed out the vital word "Var" in one of my procedure declarations - if you know Turbo Pascal, you'll know that this would mean that parameters are not returned. Put simply, it was a cock up which meant that all point numbers were wrong - except those that weren't. I've also made the node number extraction a little better, which is an improvement rather than a bug fix. A little weeny bug in the browser has also been removed. That was all true for V4.1, which was a bug-fix in a minor sort of way. This new version includes a few new things including some more keywords in the control file (look at the XUC.Ctl file itself for info on those). Browser now also includes an echomail statistics section, and the PgUp and PgDn keys work. Browser accepts command-line options, for use with XRS macros when they arrive. The search facility will write all the node numbers of matching entries into a file called "Found.Xuc", from which XRS may conceivably grab them in the future - basically this feature allows XUC to create results which can be used by another program. And a few bugs have been squashed too. *** I ought to just point out that you really ought to read the "Other Programs" bit at the end of this document. Address Master is a pretty neat program, which I hope will go a long way. It also includes USA support now (meaning it will convert "Postcode" to "Zip Code" - not a big change but nifty!). The Programs and How to Use them -------------------------------- Convert ------- "Convert" will convert your old userlist style list into the new XUC style userfile. XUC now uses it's own format for the userfile - see below for more details. Convert has four command line parameters you can use. -U:<FileName> - Specify userlist to convert ("Userlist.XRS" default). -W - If the userlist is in 58 column mode, use this! -N - Don't process entries where the username contains a numbers. -J - Don't process entries with characters of ascii value higher than 126 or lower than 32. XUC --- XUC is a utility that you can run after you've read your mail which will look through the mailbag and extract the names and Net/Node addresses of the originators of messages which fulfill the following requirements. a) They must have an address! Some boards seem to produce mail which does not have an address in it. This is, I think, against FidoNet policy so please ask sysops producing messages with no address on the origin line to stop it! If a "^AMSGID" control flag is found in the message, the node number will be taken from that. This also works for "^AFROM" - assuming I've got the specs for this right! b) They must have the address (if the ^AMSGID or ^AFROM isn't used) surrounded by brackets "(" and ")". Text in the brackets is ignored until a zone number and a colon (":") is found. Thus if there is, for some reason, a number that has been specified in the control file - or if none specified then the defaults of 1 to 5 - followed by a colon *before* the actual address, the resulting address will be invalid. c) The zone number must be preceded by either a space or an open bracket "(". There should *never* be any other arrangement - if there is, please tell me! Any messages where any of the above requirements are not met will be ignored. You should find, if you're getting all the zones, that you're getting around a quarter of the total number of messages. The reason it's that low is because it only takes each person once! The simplest way of running XUC is to just type "XUC" at the command line. This will set XUC going on a default mailbag of "Bat1mail.XRS". If your mailbags have a different name from this, you need to run XUC by typing: "XUC -B<Name of MailBag.Extension>" or use the control file to change the default. If there is no control file, XUC will use built-in default values. You *must* give XUC the entire filename. Once XUC has extracted the names and Net/Node numbers it will sort them and write them out to a file called "UserAdd.XUC". XUC then merges this sorted userfile file with your main userfile. Where there are duplications of name, XUC will add the new name. If the node number (*not* including the point number) is the same the new entry won't be added. "What?" I hear you say... "duplicates allowed?". Yup! The "Browser" program, included in the package, will search the userlist succesfully with or without duplicates. Hopefully Mike Ratledge will support the new file format soon. But don't worry - if you ask XUC nicely, it will produce an old-style userlist too. To create a userlist, use the "-M" command line parameter, or use the keyword "MakeList" as described in the XUC.CTL file. A whole host of new keywords have been added to the XUC.CTL range. Read what I've written in the XUC.CTL file for full details. One thing to remember is that XUC has a 850 address limit. If it manages to extract that many, it should ignore any that come after. As the number of messages you can download in one session is limited, there shouldn't be any problem at all with this! Incidently, the "comment" field in the program is not a text field, it's a pointer to another record in a file called "Comments.Xuc". This means that if you don't write a comment, you don't take up much disk space! The down side is that this sort of thing is prone to problems if the links go wrong. This may happen if my programming is as bad there as it is everywhere else, or ot may happen due to disk errors. It will also happen if you delete the Userfile.Xuc file or the Comments.Xuc file without deleting the other (ie: if you delete one, make sure you delete the other!). Browser ------- This program gives you a whole host of features, none very complex. Add: "A" - You can add a user to the userlist. You must then merge ("M") the new record or records with the database. Delete: "D" - Tag a user for deletion. You must then pack the database ("P") to remove tagged records. By Date: "B" - Tag for deletion all users written to the userfile before a specific date. Edit: "E" - Edit the nodenumber of the highlighted user. Search: "S" - Search by string or part of a string for any user. Details: "Return" - This will show you the full stored details on any user. Pressing "N" while in extended view mode will search the nodelist (if there is one) for the details of the BBS. More on that later. Help: "?" - This will give you a summary of all commands. If you are a sysop, or a keen user, you may have a nodelist handy. You'll need a nodelist compiler such as Parselist, and you should use this or a similar program to create a nodelist in one of the formats supported by Browser. Tell Browser which type of nodelist to use, and where to find it, using the two keywords "Nodelist" and "NodePath". You can then use Browser's lookup function to find the name and telephone number of the user's BBS. The nodelist routines were written by Mark Cole, who's such a brilliant chap that they actually work, and work well, so a big hand for Mark please. In V4.2, when you do a search Browser writes the results to a file called Found.Xuc. This file is in the format: Barnes, Michael, 2:252/125.0 This may be useful to someone. Browser now has a few command line options. These are: -! This tells Browser to display echomail statistics automatically when you load the program. -A Browser will automatically show extended info on a record which you find using the search facility. -S<Name> Automatically search for <Name>. Note that spaces in the name should be replaced with underscore characters - ie: -SMichael_Barnes. This feature is not case sensitive. -N With this option, Browser will automatically look up a board's details in the nodelist from the "extended view" section. These new additions should allow XUC to work with the upcoming XRS V5 macro options. Then again they may not. That's the trouble with being ahead of the game for once (unles V5 is already out, in which case I'm behind again). Bugs!, Bug Reports, and FeedBack -------------------------------- If you find a bug, don't keep it to yourself! Write to me by snailmail (address below), Netmail me at 2:252/125, or use any echo which seems appropriate (QMX_XRS is a good bet). If you think of something you think I should add, I'm open to suggestions as well as criticism. This fourth version has been written from ideas from users. I hope everyone is happy with it, if not please feel free to tell me exactly what you think! This documentation was dashed off in one mega finger-killing, keyboard bashing exercise. Well, that's not quite true by now - several re-writes have been required, but why spoil a good line? If you spot a gruesome error in it, please tell me! There shouldn't be any spelling errors, but Word Perfect won't spot them darned grammatical errors... New features in V4.2 -------------------- 1) Browser command line options. 2) Browser keywords in the Xuc.Ctl file. 3) PgUp and PgDn work in Browser now. 4) The merge in XUC and Browser was improved to make it work properly with duplicate names. 5) Echomail statistics section added in Browser. 6) It probably now doesn't work either, but there's a large probability that some it it that didn't work before now works to some extent. The reverse is probably also true. I've discovered that the comments can go walkies quite often - I'll try and make that work later on! New features in V4.1! --------------------- 1) I decided that I really ought to make the program work. New features in V4! ------------------- 1) I rewrote the program. Nearly all the code is new, and the program now uses it's own userfile format. Also included is a program to let you browse the userfile. Note that "Userfile" refers to the new file format, "Userlist" refers to the old one. Two many new features to list in full here - most are covered in the XUC.CTL file. Users who have used V3 or before should read this and not just blunder into it! Money, luvely Money!!! ---------------------- Well, I've already mentioned (somewhere up there) the price for this fine piece of software. No need to impress on you further that if you use this program you will feel utterly low and depressed until you send me 5 quid is there? Please make all cheques payable to Michael Barnes. I won't accept money from abroad in any form other than cash unless it also covers the bank charges. It's probably easiest to buy a five pound note from your local bank, shove it between two bits of paper so that it isn't too obvious, and send that. As promised somewhere further up the page, here is the address to send all of that money which I just know you're gonna be reaching into your pockets for as soon as you get your trousers on: Artwork Software 67, Heath Road, Holtspur, Beaconsfield, Bucks. HP9 1DG. England. If you're very poor, but just happen to have a spare PC (with a hard disk and preferably a colour monitor) just lying around somewhere collecting dust, feel free to send that along instead. File Formats ------------ I meant to include this in V4, but forgot... The UserFile.Xuc file format: Type URec = Record First:String[20]; Last:String[20]; Zone:Word; Net:Word; Node:Word; Point:LongInt; Year:Word; Month:Byte; Day:Byte; Comment:Longint; End; The Comments.Xuc file format: Comm = Record Message:String[50]; User:Longint; End; If you want to include the XUC format in a program you're writing, please go ahead. I'd like to know about it, but that's up to you really. It's a fairly simple format but seems to work quite well. Registered Users ---------------- My profound thanks (and the thanks of my bank manager) go to: Steve Dixon John Buckley Paul Carrol Ivar Peterson Daan Van.Rooijen Jeroen Smulders for their registration of XUC. And may I say that with the money received I have established a private army which will track down and kill anyone who decides not to register... Eh? Oh well, tough - I've said it already. Other Stuff ----------- 1) Address Master Version 2 - marvellous Address Book program. Absolutely brilliant. Far too many features to do the program justice here, but included is Word Perfect mail merge support, scrolling menus, full colour selection, label printing, etc etc. Freq as AdMaster. 2) NewsView - Newsfile creation program for sysops. Rather handy and easy to use. It allows you to enter some text and a title to post as a news item, and then the program adds this at the top of the news file (News.Ans and News.Asc on QBBS - but you can define it to any name you like) in both ansi and ascii format. You can specify how many news items you want kept, and the program automatically only keeps as many as you tell it to. This is a definate must for sysops. 3) StoryMan on-line story creator. This one's really good - it allows users to add to a story, which builds up as each user decides to add a bit. Because it's written by different people, it can turn out very funny. This program was written for QBBS/RA systems, but can be modified for other systems that don't use the Dorinfo1.Def file. For more information Netmail me, Michael Barnes, at 2:252/125 - or write to the address given above. Michael Barnes - Owner, Chief Programmer, and Tea boy of Artwork Software. _ () '\/\ /|^ _| \ (the Author - not a nancy boy, it just looks that way (but not in real life!)) ┌─┬───┬─┐ ├─┘ _ └─┤rtwork │ (_) │ │ ┌───┐ │ . │ │■ █│ │ / └─┴───┴─┘/ \ \ oftware / ./ "Quality Shareware software for the IBM Compatible PC" Thank you for using Artwork Software programs... I hope I will soon be able to thank you for buying Artwork Software programs! I also hope, fervently, that the quality and usefulness of this program is enough to encourage you to register - if not, then nobody's forcing you to use it! If you think it's a crap program, feel free to tell me so. This documentation, the XUC program, and everything else in the XUC zipfile (XUC1.Zip, XUC2.Zip, XUC3.Zip, XUC4.Zip, XUC41.Zip or XUC42.Zip) are (C) Copyright Artwork Software 1990,1991.