A System Operator Message File Utility for Red Ryder Host
INTRODUCTION
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As most Red Ryder Host system operators are aware, Red Ryder Host's message handling capabilities have three limitations:
1) messages are limited to 40 lines of text,
2) There can not be any blank lines in the text, and
3) It is not possible to send the same message to several
individuals (bulk mail with the use of mailing lists).
SYSOP MAILER addresses all three problems. With this utility the system operator can take any text file and send it to as many members of their userlog as they wish. The title of the text file becomes the subject of the message. Any blank lines that may be in the original text file are kept intact. If the message is longer than 40 lines, the first 38 lines, a blank line, and then a line saying, “ (continued...)” are sent and the subject is modified to subject “--pt 1”, “--pt 2”, etc. Additional pieces are sent until the entire text file is complete.
You have the option of sending these messages to individuals in private mail (message section 1) or posting the message to ‘ALL’ to any other message section board.
In order to save space, if the sysop sends the message to more than one individual, only one copy of the text is mailed and multiple headers are created each pointing to the same message text in MSGTXT. This ensures that the files on your hard disk remain small even when you are sending lots of bulk mail. Right now this bulk mail option is only an option for the system operator.
(WARNING: IF YOU USE THE BULK MAIL CAPABILITIES OF
SYSOP MAILER, YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO USE
OTHER MESSAGE MANAGER UTILITIES!!)
HOW IT WORKS
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You must shut down Red Ryder Host so SYSOP MAILER can modify the files MESSAGES, MSGHDR, and MSGTXT. When SYSOP MAILER starts up, it will look for the MESSAGES and USERLOG files in the same HFS folder as itself. If it does not find them, it will give you the standard “open a file” dialog so you can help locate them. (It speeds things up slightly if SYSOP MAILER, MESSAGES, and USERLOG are all in the same folder with RRH.)
Once it has located these files, you can _Open_ any text file into a window on the screen. The window is scrollable so you can look over the file. The text file will NOT word wrap--any lines longer than 75 characters will be cut off. You need to limit the lines to 75 characters with a return at the end of each line when you create the file. (The next version will fix this, see below for other features being added to version 3.)
The title of the text file (as stored on disk) will be displayed as the title of the window. This will become the subject of your message. Be sure to name your files appropriately when you save them.
The Mail Menu now has two options available: “Mail to Individual(s)...” and “Post on a Board...” If you choose Mail to an individual, you will get a dialog box asking to which users this message should be mailed. Your users will show up in a standard list as they appear in your userlog. Click on the name you want, shift-click to select multiple names, disjoint selection is allowed.
LIMITATION: Because I used the standard List Manager Routines
which limits the size of a list to 32,000 characters and
we need 32 characters for each Username, SYSOP MAILER will
only handle 1000 names in your userlog.
At this point SYSOP MAILER will check the Messages file to get the path to your MSGHDR and MSGTXT files, the lowest and highest message numbers, and the length of the MSGTXT file. SYSOP MAILER then checks your message to see if it is longer than 40 lines. If so, it converts the first 38 lines to the correct format (maintaining blanks lines as a line with a space) and appends them to the MSGTXT file. It appends a blank line and a line “ (continued...)”
SYSOP MAILER now creates a header record for each name selected. It uses the text file name as the subject. If the message is longer than 40 lines, it appends “--pt 1” to the end of the subject. Each successive piece will have the part number incremented and appended as needed. It then writes a Header record for each name selected. Thus all the users get a private mail message, but all are using the same piece of text in the MSGTXT file.
IT IS THIS MULTIPLE USE OF TEXT IN MSGTXT THAT PREVENTS OTHER MESSAGE MANAGERS FROM WORKING PROPERLY. IF YOU WANT TO USE OTHER MESSAGE MANAGERS, DON’T BULK MAIL!! Send mail to only one user at a time to avoid this problem. If you never shift-click when selecting addressees, you will be okay.
After writing the multiple headers, SYSOP MAILER updates the high message number and MSGTXT length in Messages, and writes the next piece. It continues this process until the entire text file has been mailed.
We have been using RRH and SYSOP MAILER for the past 6 months with no problems. Typically, we send 5-6 messages to ~60 users each week. Some of these messages are 300+ lines (as many as 10 pieces).
That’s on the order of 1500 headers.
The “Post On a Board...” menu option works in a similar manner. The dialog will show you your message center names in the standard List Manager format. You CANNOT select multiple public message sections.
MAINTENANCE
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Because I write bulk mail files in a way that RRH is not expecting, the standard message utilities do not work. Consequently, SYSOP MAILER needs a utility to backup the message files.
The “Backup Messages...” option on the maintenance menu will delete all messages older than _some number_ days. The default value is 30 days. It will also remove any messages that have been flagged for deletion.
If a message is flagged for deletion in its header, most message utilities delete the text from the MSGTXT file. This utility is necessary since we don’t want one user deleting a message and erasing the text needed by another user. Remember both users share the same text in MSGTXT.
You can change the default number of days to save by modifying the item list of that dialog with ResEdit.
The Backup utility copies the MSGTXT, MSGHDR, and MESSAGES files into Copy of MSGTXT, Copy of MSGHDR, and Copy of MESSAGES before doing anything else. (It erases old “Copy of” files if they exist.) Thus, if something goes wrong during the backup (like telling SYSOP MAILER to delete all messages older than 1 day instead of 100 days!), you can trash the MSGTXT, MSGHDR, and MESSAGES files and rename the “Copy of” files to recover.
ANTICIPATED NEW FEATURES IN VERSION 3
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1) The ability to create and edit mailing lists. Rather than having to pick and choose the same individuals from you user log each time you want to send a message, you will be able to create a mailing list and just choose the list. SYSOP MAILER will then send the message to each user in the list.
2) A Preferences Dialog where you can specify:
a) the name to use as the ‘FROM:’ in messages sent with this
utility. Right now it is ‘System Operator’. We have several
individuals in our office that send mail to our clients. It
would be nice if each could address their own mail with their
own name.
b) whether to allow true carbon copies. A flag could be used to
tell the system whether to use the same piece of text for
multiple users in a bulk mail, or whether to create a new piece
of text for each. This would allow those who wish to use other
message utilities to do so. For that matter, a flag could be
used to allow/disallow selecting multiple users.
3) The ability to create/edit text in the window for a message. Also the ability to rename a window since this is used as the subject of the message. All standard File and Edit abilities: Save, Print, Cut, Copy, Paste, etc.
4) Add word wrap at 75 characters and let SYSOP MAILER identify lines as it needs to.
5) The ability to open multiple windows with full cut and paste between them.
6) The ability to send all open windows or just the front one. When sending several items to the same place (individual(s), mailing list, or bulletin board), it would be nice to open all of the items to be sent and pick the target. Right now, you have to open a message, get the dialog, pick the target, send the file, close the file, open the next file, etc.
7) The ability to extract text from a specific board to a text file. The ability to extract mail to a specific user to a text file.
8) The ability to specify different timelines for the different message sections when deleting old messages. It is conceivable that you could want the messages in one section forever and the messages in another to be deleted after 6 days. Also, it would be nice to be able to renumber the messages on backup occasionally. (Our RRH messages go from 12,345 to 16,956!)
9) The ability to manipulate the various header flags on each message: i.e. the ability to undelete, unread, etc.
10) Make into a Command 50 Application, so some Users could send bulk mail, or to allow maintenance from the field.
11) Enable Undo wherever it makes sense.
This is a ShareWare utility. You are entitled to try it out for 45 days. You can give away freely to others, but you cannot sell it. If, after the 45 day trial period, you decide to keep it, then you should send $10 US funds to:
Steven King
5423 Liberty St.
Cheyenne, WY 82001
Questions/comments should be sent to the above address or to:
