BBS in a Box 3/BBS in a box - Trilogy III.iso/Files/Tele/D-F/FileTrix/about FileTrix...

Text File | 1990-12-03 | 8.1 KB | 230 lines | [TEXT/MPS ]

version 1.0 , 3 dec 1990
(the latest version is always available for freq at 2:512/114)


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FileTrix is provided on a shareware basis as a service to the
BBS community. You do not HAVE to pay for it, but it would
be much appreciated.
It's copyright 1990 J.W. Sinteur, and you may not sell
it. You may distribute it, but you cannot ask any money for
distribution other than normal costs (such as disk costs,
on-line time (compuserve, etc), and download costs).

If you feel that this is a usefull utility for you,
let me know by sending a check for $20 to
J.W. Sinteur
Strawinskypad 82
2324 DB The Netherlands

Apart from the message 'I like this', I will also
consider this as a 'Please go on creating great utilities'
message.
/////

known 'bug' in this version: messages to filetrix get
imported into Mansion 7.15, and, because filetrix is usually an
unknown username, rerouted to the sysop. Since this message
will have been processed, it can safely be deleted. This is
a mistake on Mansion 7.15's part, and I have informed Michael
Pester of it.



FileTrix does the same as AreaTrix, BUT ON FILES.

Some sysops will want to distribute certain files to
other nodes, either because they are boss of a FidoNet
area, or because they've got a certain number of points,
and want to distribute things like nodediffs, fidonews
digests, etc. to them. FileTrix automates this process,
and allows the points (and nodes) to automatically update
the list of files they want to receive periodically

Up until now, this was a task the sysop had to do by
hand, with Tabby Robot. FileTrix automates this process.

FileTrix is completely compatible with all TabbyNet compatible
BBS systems. It works only on TabbyNet files, and thus is not
dependedn on various BBS file formats. It is modelled after
the AreaFix applications, which can be found on IBM systems,
and was implemented as AreaTrix on the Macintosh by Pete Johnson.



How to install:

FileTrix consists of two applications, FileTrix Distribute
and FileTrix Mail (note: you can rename them if your event
chain gets too long...)


drag FileTrix Distribute to the folder where all your other Tabby
programs and your BBS program reside.

with ResEdit, edit the STR resources to reflect your
BBS situation.
STR 1: the name of the application FileTrix Distribute will attempt
to launch when, for whatever reason, the launch.next
file is not found, or contains weird data.
STR 2: the pathname of the folder where your Tabby work
files (like the seenby.bbs, the dup data base, etc) are
located.
STR 3: the pathname of folder with the Tabby setup files
(such as the schedule and the routing files)
STR 4: the pathname of the folder where FileTrix will put
a copy of the file to be distributed.
STR 5: the pathname of the folder where fileTrix will look
for files to be distributed.

NOTE: STR 5 MUST contain the full pathname, including disk
and folder names (example: 'HD:Folder:TabbyWork:') All
others may contain partial pathnames. The shipped application
contains string which reflect this. FileTrix distribute
will NOT work if STR 5 is NOT a complete pathname.

(Tabby 2.x puts received files into the folder defined in STR 2.
Tabby 3.0 or later may change that.)

next, put FileTrix Distribute into your event chain, if possible
before Tabby sendNews and Tabby sendMail.
NOTE: Don't forget to edit not only the events file with Tabby Maint,
but also Tabby Robot and TabbyNey with ResEdit!


Create two text files, one called:

files.bbs

and one called:

Filetrix.setup

both in the folder pointed at by STR 3 mentioned above.

Files.bbs contains the following:
per line:
<magicname><tab><node><space><node><return>

with a minimum of none, and a maximum of 8 node numbers per line
Note that when you have no nodes listed, the Tab character is
still required. This 8 node limit may change in the future. However,
you may put the same magicname more than once into this file.
An example of this would be:
NODEDIFF    512/36 512/121

This would distribute the nodediffs to nodes 512/36 and 512/121
There is a current maximum of 60 lines in this file.

The file filetrix.setup defines what the magic name NODEDIFF
really means. In this file, there are the following lines:
<magicname><tab><filename><return>

For every magic name used in files.bbs, there must be a line
in filetrix.setup

An example:
NODEDIFF    nodediff.a##

This would mean that the magic file name NODEDIFF points
to a file with the name nodediff.a followed by two digits.
The only wildcards allowed at this moment are the # and $ characters,
# gets translated to 'any digit', meaning 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 or 9.
$ gets translated to 'any character', meaning a,b,c,d...x,y,z
If this is not enough, contact me.

Thus, when there are two files named:
nodediff.a01
nodediff.a08
they BOTH will be distributed.

When FileTrix Distribute has completed distributing the files, it will
append '.filetrix' to their name. This may change in the future.

With this release, there are sample files for filetrix.setup and
files.bbs included.


A sample run of FileTrix Distribute.

When FileTrix Distribute launches, it wil first open the files.bbs and
filetrix.setup and read the information in it. It will then
search the file directory specified by STR 5. If it finds a file
that needs to be distributed it will attempt to copy that file
to the directory pointed at by STR 4. If there already exists a
file with that name, it will look if that file is in an internal
list of 'files copied there today' If it is in not that list, it
will REPLACE the file. This means, if you distribute a file
called, say, NETWORK512, which happens to be a file distributed
weekly by the host of network 512, there may be a file called
NETWORK512 in the directory left over from the distribution
last week. This file will then be replaced by the newer copy of
the NETWORK512.
When fileTrix Distribute is finished copying the file into the 'outbound'
directory (STR 4, remember?), it will generate a mail message
for the sysop of the node where the file gets sent. It will
also generate an entry in the 'sendfilesxxx/xxx' file that
Tabby uses to keep track of the files to send to a certain node.
When FileTrix Distribute is finished, it will launch the next application
in the event chain.
FileTrix Distribute will put an appropiate notice in the Tabby Log for
every file it distributes.

Thus, with Filetrix Distribute you can automate the distribution of
files.

Next, you would probably like to be able to automate the process
of updating the list of files to distribute.
First, copy the FileTrix Mail application to the same
location as FileTrix Distribute.
Second, put FileTrix Mail in your event chain (MUST be after
Tabby DeliverNail and before the import routine that takes the
message into your BBS).

Next, change the following STR resources with ResEdit:

STR 1: the name of the application FileTrix Distribute will attempt
to launch when, for whatever reason, the launch.next
file is not found, or contains weird data.
STR 2: the pathname of the folder where your Tabby work
files (like the seenby.bbs, the dup data base, etc) are
located.
STR 3: the pathname of folder with the Tabby setup files
(such as the schedule and the routing files)

Next, create a file called FileTrix.passwords. Every line
in this file MUST be in this format:
<node><tab><password><return>

A sample fileTrix.passwords is included with this release.
Put this file in the folder with Tabby setup files (STR 3)

Now, your points and nodes can send mail to FileTrix to change
which files they get without disturbing you.
How they do this is explained in the document 'FileTrix.Help',
included in this release. Please read it.

Put the file 'FileTrix.Help' into the folder with Tabby
setup files (STR 3) so that users who send FileTrix a message
with a '?' in the subject get an explanation of the working
of FileTrix.

Optionally, you can also create a file called FileTrix.list
in the folder with Tabby setup files. This file will be sent
to all nodes who put a '-L' in their subject lines.
An example is included.


You can reach me at:

John Sinteur, 2:512/114
Strawinskypad 82
2324 DB Leiden
The Netherlands

[e-mail]
[e-mail]

or in the echo TABBY, MANSION, or MACSYSOP

or by screaming loud enough.