============================================================ ====== Bug fixes and new features in QuickBBS ST 1.10 ====== ============================================================ Hay guys, here we are again. Hope we can fix some bugs and implement some of your ideas. Just one thing about paying, this hasn't changed but I want to mention it again: Checks should be send to Theo Runia and not Jon Webb. My address is: Theo Runia P.O. Box 1183 NL-8900 CD Leeuwarden The Netherlands. The price is still 150 dutch guilders, please only send eurocheques or international money orders. And make cheques send to this address payable to Theo Runia. Ask your bank for the best way to pay, that won't cost me a lot of money! Banks tend to charge me up to 20 guilders for foreign cheques. Cash is fine to, but only in guilders, and send it registered and/or insured. In general I would recommend sending things registered, they tend to arrive faster and hardly ever get lost. If you have problems using qkey, then you can also send a disc to the above address. Do include 2 international reply coupons, and format the disk. On the disc you should put your qkey.inf (so run qkey and fill in the info) and qconfig.bbs. I need both to generate a key. 1.10 contains quite a lot of new things so a lot can go wrong, according to Murphy they _will_ go wrong :-). Have a go at it anyway.. Do take your time to read it all, the new menu options of mail and file area lister and the markfiles menu are quite complex. I also included a new qconfig, mconfig and useredit , you _must_ install these too. The main manual is been rewritten too. Might be a good idea to print this out. A printed version will be available too, it won't be for free (123 pages). Just send me a netmail and ask for it. Filename is Q_DOC110.ZIP for the firsword plus version and Q_ASC110.ZIP for the ASCII version. So that's enough from me for now, here we go: QuickBBS ST 1.10 update information: * Useredit 1.02, small bugfix. I changed the data/voice phone bug. The usereditor thought the voice was data and data was voice phone. We referred him to a 'specialst' to cure this 'problem'... * BTNC Nodelist supported. The new binkley (from 3.10) will only use this new format. You can compile nodelists with BTNC. The advantage of this format is that it is 5D, so points and domains can be added too. QuickBBS ST doesn't use the domains (yet) but it's multizone. If the files: DOMAINS.BNL, INDEX.BNL and NODEINFO.BNL are present in the nodelist folder then QuickBBS ST will use the BTNC format. The old Version 6 (parselist) and The Box (xltlst) formats are still supported, so nothing to worry if you don't want to change over. I heard that from BTNC 2.0 the format will change. So be carefull if you use that version, QuickBBS ST doesn't support BTNC 2.0 as I haven't got the specs yet. * File attached messages. In Mconfig you can configure each area to make it a file attach area. If you do the user will be asked if he wants to attach a file to the message. He can upload the file at that moment then, it will be placed in the new dir PVT_FILE which will be located in the QBBS main home directory. The filename is stored in the subject field, hence you can't give a subject for that message. The advantage is however that it's compatible with Led and all the other fidonet mail utils. The With File flag is also set. Files can be recieved from all areas if the message is either to the user or to ALL. This way a sysop/user can attach a little file for people to download after reading the message. Do take in mind that you should NOT make echomail areas file attach as this is not possible nor allowed. You can make the netmail area a fileattach area but bear in mind that your are generally not allowed to route files via other systems, so you don't have to pay for the transfer costs :-). * 8 Bit characters in message areas are possible to, toggle the 8 bit toggle in mconfig. Remember here also that in fidonet echomail areas only ascii (7 bit) is allowed. * Multitos. If you use multitos then the statusbar of qbbs can cause havoc. You can disable this in the BBS with Alt-D (has been in all versions already) but now you can put -N on the commandline so it is never displayed. The mouse is also switched on again so you can reach the menubar. To run QuickBBS under MTos you need to drag Pcommand onto Mwin.app and start QuickBBS with -l -n to start up locally. I did found that you can't abort the mailscan but in the BBS keys work oke. You could read mail this way, it works better then led :-) * Menutype 86, File arealister. Works like the mailarea lister, see below. The commandline looks like: (up/download menuname) atari updown Now only file areas that have ATARI in the description are shown. This discription is taken from the flsearch.ctl file. This way you can make several list for different computers. The searchstring is case sensitive!! Mind you on the first 20 characters of the description are shown. The word atari will be taken out of the list though! The second parameter is the menu it will jump to. You can also leave this out, it will return to the current menu, for excample if you use a Change Area option in your up/download menu. After the use made a choice the menu updown (in this example) will be run. On the optional data line it will put: c:\atari\falcon\ Falcon,_atari In the up/down menu you can then use &1 as path and &2 as the description. This means that new file areas only need to be entered in the flsearch.ctl file, so this will make the live of the sysop again easier, gee what will the future bring? infrared remote control? :-) * Menutype 85, Mail arealister. This will make live MUCH easier for sysops with a lot of mail areas. It can list the mail areas and lets the user make a selection, the areanumber and name is then relayed to the next menu. To be able to limit acces to some areas I introduced a group number (1-256). You can assing in mconfig for every area a group number. Say 1 for the local areas, 2 for national, 3 for international 4 for atari etc. etc. The Mail arealister will only show the group you want it to show. The optional data line looks like: (readmail menu name) 1 readmail 1 is the groupnumber, readmail is the menu where a user reads the mail. Normally options like read/write/scan etc. are made. The second parameter is the menu it will jump to. You can also leave this out, it will return to the current menu, for example if you use a Change Area option in your read/write menu. The Mail arealister will run this menu after the user has made a succesfull choice. It will write an optional dataline for the menu readmail that looks like this: 10 From_to_Sysop 10 is the normal areanumber, the name is the name for that area you entered in mconfig. You can use both as &1 and &2 in the menu. If you specified more data on the optionale data line of menutype 85 then the rest is also transfered to the next menu. As a bonus the areanames are also sorted, reads a bit better. This means that you don't have to do this in mconfig. This menuoption will become very usefull when entering new areas. You only need to enter them in mconfig, if you enter a groupnumber then they are automaticly used in QuickBBS ST. * Remember that both listers are menu options and not menu's so you can't jump back directly. There is a way however: Mainfilesmenu -> listmenu -> up/down menu The main files menu will have an option like: [A] Atari ST You then gosub to the list menu. In that list menu you will have 2 options: 1: type 85 or 86 with ^A as key (autoexecuting) 2: type 3, return from gosub with also ^A as key If you do a return from the up/down menu you will get the area list again. If you don't enter a number you will be returned to the mainfilesmenu. The same applies to the mailarea lister of course. This is all very complex and not for the novice sysop. If you have problems just pop a message in the area QUICKBBS.ST in fidonet or N.GATE.QBBS.ST in NeST. * Uploading of messagetext. A user can upload a prepared message via the normal upload protocols. The file must be an ascii file, or weird things will happen :-) You can en/disable this in the toggle section of qconfig. * You can use the scandinavian chars {}[]|\ in the upload discription and subject field and alias name now. * Menutype 27, write message could take /T= to send a message to a certain person. It can take /T=sysop too now, it translates this to the your (the sysop) name. * Usage graph. I still am not sure why it doesn't work. It's so diffecult to understand :-). I have done some tweeking. It would be best if you would delete the old TIMELOG.BBS file It's filled with zero's now and that won't help much :-) * Reading messages. Return is also hot now, so you can also press Return during the sending of a messages. It will display the next message then, like the N key. * Browser and Filemenu also have the return key act as the N of next page. * Uploaded files with 0 bytes length are not logged in the upload.log anymore. The user and sysop is however warned that an empty file has been uploaded and deleted. * After external chat the user is also asked to leave a message for the sysop. * If the sysop had a mono monitor and the user color then the sysop would see certain info blank, .e.g. the date and lenght of a file with files.bbs showing was missing. This only happens on the local console, but I changed it anyway. * Added 2 new text files: UP-DESC.* is displayed before an discription of the uploaded file(s) is given PRE-UPLD.* is displayed before an upload starts. * If a user uploaded with a non-batch protocol (X-Modem X-Modem1K) and he didn't send anything (aborted or so) Qbbs would report error -33 file not found. Fixed now. * QuickBBS will say it's QuickBBS STE on an STE or QuickBBS TT on .. you guessed it. Can anyone test this? I have neither a TT nor a STE. I haven't found a flag for the falcon yet... * Netmail, MSGID is written here too now. Netmail credit cannot go below zero anymore. * 2 new menutypes, number 57 and 58. 57 lets the user change the voice phonenumber and number 58 lets the user change the data phone. If you press return nothing will change. * Menu type 32 (download) can have a password on the optional data line.: c:\qbbsst\betas\ /P=password If a user wants to download he needs to enter the password. You can try as many times as you have set for the normal password question when logging in. You can also mix it with the /F (free) or /RF really free options. You can also set a praticular filename on the optional data line: c:\qbbsst\betas\qbbs109e.zip /P=password So you can download that file with password protection. * Menu type 24 Scan messages implemented The optional data takes the board number. You can scan forward and search. It will only list the header of the messages. You can mark a message for later reading. You can read the marked messages after quitting this option or by using Marked in menutype 23 (read messages). Marked messages can be mixed from all areas. * File SECnn.* added. nn is the user level. So if a user has level 100 it will display SEC100.* if this file is available. The file is shown after the WELCOME.* screen. * ALT-I, Shows user info in the status bar. Just to get a glance about what this users has been doing all by himself. * ALT-O Edits the user Account. * Reading marked messages without pause didn't work, it displayed M's :-) Couldn't find a bug, I added two VSYNC and that's it ! Mayby someone knowns why?? * New users, if they dropped carrier too early or if a new user listed the user list the new users date and time were wrong this is fixed now. * New text control code: Control-F7 FSE on/off It shows ON when the Full Screen editor is on for the user. * Uploadpath in external protocols should work now, finally :-) * Oarc, added Quit in the first menu. Seemed to cause dropped carrier with twit users... * Chat, when asking to enter a message the Y is now default. * Call count of a user was updated when exitting with an errorlevel and at some other times. It's now only increased when the user logs off * I allowed |\{}[]#~@ in the user name and subject field now. This is for the scandanavian users. * Downloadmenu. New menutype number 84 The optional data line takes the path of the area just like the normal download option. Marked files will stay marked for the current area only, and they are cleared after succesfull download or after you leave the menu. I will allow a global download but will have to rewrite a major part of the download interface. So that's for a next version. * Contents of an Archive now understands ZIP, ZOO and GIF files. Thanx to erno for the example, which needed some serious rewriting to be able to work in QBBS. Other archivers will be added if I get some specs. Same goes for the online archiver. But don't expect ZIP in there yet, ZIP archives or not that simple :-( The View GIF interface was made by Folkert van Heusden. * Qconfig. Little bug fix, external protocol 5, the last option couldn't be changed. * Upload, external uploads witk xmodem or Xmodem 1k, or better every protocol that doesn't have batch went wrong. You couldn't upload. Also files of 0 bytes lenght are killed now... * Removed showing of A when running door files. This happend when a menuoption was called. * Added updating of download counters. Several external utils already do this. So I used their system. In the files.bbs it looks like: ALLFILES.LZH [387] All files on this board The number between brackets ([]) is the number of times a file is downloaded. Scandinavian sysops that set the "use <> in stead of []" flag should known that QuickBBS ST takes this in account and expects <> in stead of []. You can enable this option in qconfig under toggles, use downloadcounters. * Netmail area: You can enter larger nodenumbers now, it was a bit restrictive. * Chat: When jumping to dos in the chat, the timeout for the chat is now disabled. * Mconfig. The flags were not saved the right way. This is fixed now. People who knew how to fix this won't have a problem it was mconfig who saved everything wrong. QuickBBS ST did it the right way. Mconfig also runs on a TT now. * Mailscan. I did some optimising, but it can hardly go faster then this. Mayby we can implement some system that makes an index field of all To: fields of the message base? Any idea's? * Alias, if you send a message under an alias then also mail in other (non alias) areas was send under this alias, fixed. * Sometimes path/file not found is displayed. I couldn't find why gemdos just returned an error code. Changed the code so lets see if it still happens. * Uploadpath in external protocols didn't work, at least the download path was scanned. Should be fixed now. * Up/download.log lost a space after the download protocol when you used an external protocol. Fixed * Quickscan messages, a > or < is put in front of a message addressed to or from you, this was however case sensetive. It's not anymore. * After relogin the welcome.dor isn't executed anymore. * Implemented accounting system. This is very powerfull and lets you program your own up/dowload limit door and much more. Every user has an account, this is already available for editting in the usereditor. Mind you it can be a negative or postitive number. Have a look at the account part of qconfig 1.24, in here you can determine how much points you want to give for an certain action of the user. For example you could give a -10 for every downloaded Kilobyte and 100 for every uploaded kilobyte. If you don't want to use an option just leave it to zero. Except the last three you need to define those. The values are added or subtracted Downloaded Kilobytes ..... For each downloaded Kb Downloaded Files ..... For each file downloaded Uploaded Kilobytes ..... For each uploaded Kb Uploaded Files ..... For each uploaded file Times connected ..... For each time the user called Read messages ..... For each message read Posted messages ..... For each message written The next values should always be entered: Max points ..... Maximum number of points Min points ..... Minimum number of point New user points ..... Number of points that a new user gets Oke, that's this. We need to be able to use these points of course. QuickBBS ST will however not check them, it only adds them. So if a user get's below a minimum he can still download if his level/limit lets him. It's up to you to use these values in a .dor file or/and external util. QuickBBS ST will however watch the max and min level, the account cannot get above or below that. In the .dor file we added: ACCOUNT You can use this exactly like the TIME or CTIME command. ACCOUNT 100 will set the current account to 100 ACCOUNT -100 will subtract 100 points ACCOUNT +100 will add 100 points The account is also available as a variable, it can be used inside a .dor file and on the commandline of a type 7 menu option. *O will be translated into the current account The account can also be shown in textfiles. Use: ^F6 (Control-F 6) will show the current account status The timestat menu option will also list the account. Hope you can make use of this feature, please let us all know. * PID: Implemented. In areas where QuickBBS ST doesn't put a tearline a PID (Program Identification) is written. This looks like : ^APID: QuickBBS ST 1.10 * REPLY: Implemented. In echo/netmail areas a ^AREPLY: is written if the original message has a ^AMSGID. * MSGID implemented. If you define an origin for an area then a MSGID is written at the beginning of the message. If you have several nodenumbers then don't define an origin in mconfig for areas of the other nets.