This is a small set of modified “post-it” icons that I have put together for Telefinder BBS SYSOPS (or anyone else who can put them to use, of course).
Essentially, Telefinder will display finder icons (albeit with a somewhat different view) to users of the host BBS. Occasionally, you may want to put out a special notice--say a new bad virus alert--and you’d like it to stand out from other generic Telefinder docs (the kind users can double click online and the text file is loaded into a window on their screen).
By using these mini-apps put together by Russ Coffman, you can create a text file with your favorite editor, assign the file a creator to match one of the post-it icons, and it will share that icon (because I created a TEXT BNDL in the app using the same icon). Unfortunately, even though this may assist Sysops in local file management (say by using a bug icon for a new virus alert message), Telefinder will still display this to the remote user as the standard Telefinder text icon--the one that you can double click to have the text document loaded into your window rather than getting a download get info box.
Wouldn’t it be nice to also have your users be able to see the bug icon? Well, they can provided that you use the application post-it and if you want to just leave a short message in the info box, you can simply write the message into the box using Telefinder, and that will be displayed to the remote users. The down side of this is that inexperienced users may click the download button and receive a copy of the post-it note (which is after all a small apllication) and wonder what the heck to do with it. While this is no major problem, the fact that you might like to inlude a larger message which you want bundled with your bug icon still hasn’t been addressed.
This can be fixed by setting the file type to ttro (which I also added to the post-it apps). Teach-text read only can be read by the Teach text application, but not by Telefinder. So, when the user double clicks the icon while online, the get info box is displayed (where you can put your brief description with Telefinder) and the user can download the full message if so desired.
Of course, the user cannot simply double click the document and have Teach Text launch and open that document since the creator doesn’t match--but they can open it by using the open dialog once they have launched Teach Text.
A more refined way to accomplish everything smoothely would be to bundle Adam Stein’s Jump Start! 1.2 with your user kits (providing that you cleared this with him in advance) and some simple instructions on how to make these documents open automatically when double clicked.
You would also need to include a copy of all post-it icon apps with your kits so that the users desktop could recognize them. Obviously, once the user rebuilds his desktop, he would need to remove those apps since their continued presence would short-circuit the Jump Start! process.
I have added ic18’s and cicn’s within each of the Post-it apps--so they are in color if you use Sun Desk or System 7, and if you want to preview the color look before considering adding the ic18 to Icon Colorizer or Sun Desk, just double click the icon and it should be colorized similarly to the ic18 version (the globe looks a little darker as cicn).
For my BBS, I intend to create special icons for certain events and distribute some info docs (“What *do* those bug icons mean?”;) with them. Any who use Telefinder commercially could create special look icons for sales, promotionals, etc. User Groups can create icons for their electronic columnists and perhaps a logo icon for the BBS/User Group bylaws, notes, meeting dates, etc...
Hope you have fun with them, I did this in an afternoon, so don’t get too serious about the ic18’s. If you are a real programmer, perhaps you can figure out a better way to get these little darlings to launch on click--Rusty Tucker also tells me that the Prefs file of Telefinder User can be modified to display different icons online--and that these can be double clicked to have the text load into a window in the same manner as the generic text icon. I’d be grateful to hear of anyone’s successes (or failures;) with any/all of this and can be reached as signed below. Have fun!
