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------------------The FileHerald: User's Manual-------------- ████████┐ ██┐ ██┐ ███████┐ └──██┌──┘ ██│ ██│ ██┌────┘ ██│ ███████│ █████┐ ██│ ██┌──██│ ██┌──┘ ██│ ██│ ██│ ███████┐ └─┘ └─┘ └─┘ └──────┘ ███████┐ ████┐ ██┐ ███████┐ ██┌────┘ └██┌┘ ██│ ██┌────┘ █████┐ ██│ ██│ █████┐ ██┌──┘ ██│ ██│ ██┌──┘ ██│ ████┐ ██████┐ ███████┐ └─┘ └───┘ └─────┘ └──────┘ ██┐ ██┐ ███████┐ ███████┐ ███████┐ ██┐ ████████┐ ██│ ██│ ██┌────┘ ██┌──██│ ██┌──██│ ██│ └██┌──██│V1.00-1 ███████│ █████┐ ███████│ ███████│ ██│ ██│ ██│ ██┌──██│ ██┌──┘ ██┌─██┌┘ ██┌──██│ ██│ ██│ ██│ ██│ ██│ ███████┐ ██│ ███┐ ██│ ██│ ██████┐ ████████│ └─┘ └─┘ └──────┘ └─┘ └──┘ └─┘ └─┘ └─────┘ └───────┘ File lister, new files announcer and file base maintenance utility V1.00, date: 26.05.93 (c) Copyright 5/1993 by Oblivion Software, Norbert Schlia This documentation is for release V1.00 of The FileHerald Karlsruhe, Germany, Version 1-1001 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS 2 PREFACE 4 This version 4 INTRODUCTION 5 Features overviewed How to use this manual 6 Definitions 7 INSTALLATION 8 Setting up the system 8 HERALD'S SUPPORTING FILES 9 FileHerald's supporting files overviewed 9 How FileHerald finds its files 9 HERALD.OLD 10 The secret of the template files 10 What's behind the list files 12 CONFIGURING FILEHERALD 14 The configuration file 14 Quick setup 14 The sections and all keywords in detail 15 The [SYSTEM]-section 15 The [MAINTENANCE]-section 20 The [REPACK]-section 29 The [ANNOUNCE]-section 31 The [NETMAIL]-section 36 The [ECHOMAIL]-section 37 The [SQUISH]-section 38 The [FILELIST]-section 39 CREATING FILELISTS 45 CREATING MESSAGES 45 CONVERTING AREA LISTS 46 Multiple BBS systems 46 A convenient way to support WME 46 MISCELLANOUS 47 Pattern matching rules 47 Command line switches 48 Errorlevels 50 ENVIRONMENT 51 Network/multitasker operation 52 Multiline 53 Batchfiles 54 APPENDIX 56 Copyright and shareware notice 58 Disclaimer 59 Trouble shooting 60 Support 61 How to register 62 How to register in Europe 62 How to register in the United States 63 How to register outside the US and Europe 64 Ordering upgrades 65 Differences between keys 66 SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS AND LIMITATIONS 67 Processor type and memory management 67 Disk caching 67 Bugreport 68 Revision History 69 Future versions 70 3 Credits 71 The Beta Crew 71 Other software 72 QUICK REFERENCE GUIDE 73 4 PREFACE FileHerald has taken us a lot of time, effort, sweat, nerves, gallons of coffee, many good night's sleep and some broken fingernails to make it what it is right now. I put nearly every idea I had that a good utility should do in it, but there will be other versions, bugfixes and ones with new features, in the future. It started all last year in June 1992. As I run a BBS myself, I always found it annoying having to execute several small, but frankly convenient, utilities one after another to create my filelists, announce new uploads, reformat my area lists and more. Often they did not fit my needs or simply were not capable of what I wanted them to do. Naturally it is possible to run them in a batch job, but then you have to configure each of these programs individually, and if just one of them fails, you have the painstaking process of finding out which one is to blame. This is sometimes a pretty annoying and time consuming task. Furthermore, for the matter of a good conscience, you will have to pay for those utilities, which are not free - maybe small fees, indeed, but they add up to a considerable amount measured on what one of them does alone. So now, there is one program that does most, if not all, of these jobs, and you will only have to pay once - that's the best part to it! If there is something you would like FileHerald to do, let me know. If possible I will try to add it as a new feature. Since I run only one BBS software, there may be others that are not compatible to mine. If you do uncover any problems, send me, or one of my support sites, netmail and describe them. Include information on your system software and configuration, and I will try and fix it. Refer to "Bugreports" for further details. This version Current version is 1.00-1, this means release 1.00, revision 1. My beta sites have been pushing me on and on for months to release Herald. But every time I had a stable and mature version on my hand I found another nice feature to add. So I programmed it, we had to test it and thus the release date was postponed one more time. Now, as I have nearly run out of ideas, I think it's time to hit the market. If you think that there is something Herald should be able to do, just send me a netmail. If possible it may be available in future versions. I hope you are satisfied by Herald. Have fun with it! 5 INTRODUCTION Features overviewed: FileHerald provides an easy and convenient way to perform several actions on your entire file base. These include: - creates neatly formatted filelists, of both complete and new files - can make up to 65655 lists in a single pass, each one freely configurable. So you can create special lists for your CD-ROM files, or other specialised areas without having to call FileHerald again for each list - a fully configurable template system, allowing for headers and footers in the file lists, area lists, and messages - multi language support - configurable date and time format for your country's standards and your own personal taste - multi BBS support for all BBS systems using a FILES.BBS compatible format. (SuperBBS, ProBoard, Remote Access, RoboBBS, Windowed Modem Environment, Wildcat and Opus). - lists and messages can be sorted by filenames, date and size. Comment lines or graphics are fully supported - Full FILE_ID.DIZ support, with correct formatting for extended descriptions, stripping of non-standard ASCII if desired. - creates an area overview summary to be presented to your users or to be packed with or appended to the lists (both ANSI and ASCII version) - sorts and reformats your area lists, adds missing download counters and missing files, removes missing files from your listings, takes care that only a certain number of particular files (nodediffs for example) are kept in your file base. - Deletes or moves files according to your specifications. You can remove old files, with to few downloads, by name, or keep only a certain number of files per area. - adds predefined comments for frequently updated files, i.e., for nodediffs or fido newsletters. These files can be added to your file list and commented automatically. - Complete 4DOS support. Comments can be retrieved from DESCRIPT.ION;- Files and also removed as files are deleted from your filebase - identifies unwanted files and removes them from your file base, or to a specified path not accessible from from the BBS, or, they are simply killed - announces new uploads via netmail, echomail, squish mail and as text messages - announcements are not made according to time stamps. FileHerald simply maintains its own file list, which means you don't have to touch the time stamps for FileHerald to work properly - high exection speed. FileHerald is written in Borland C++ and uses the 286 specific instruction set. - capable of handling large file bases. Depending on how much memory your system has free under DOS about 20,000 Files over all and 1000 files per area are supported (future versions will support unlimited numbers of files). - configuration allows to exclude any area from listing, announcing, sorting, repacking and trashing or killing. - CD-ROM support. FileHerald can handle file areas and area list which are accessed from different paths - ASCII text configuration file. FileHerald has no seperate setup program. Everything is configured by HERALD.CFG which is a standard ASCII file including comments on every command. This means easy and fast setup. 6 How to use this manual I know you want to start using FileHerald as quick as possible. The best way would be to print out this whole document, and then read the following sections carefully: At first, look in "Definitions" for a better understanding of the syntax used in this text. Switch to "Installation" to get FileHerald installed on your system. Then refer to "Quick setup" to set up those statements absolutely necessary to FileHerald's functioning. If it works, go through "The Configuration File" to get some better results. The FileHerald is not a very complicated program, but it has many features which may seem confusing at first. You may never need every single function of FileHerald, but in order to get the best performance out of FileHerald, you need to get a little better aquainted with it, and how it works with your file areas. 7 Definitions Each Keyword is explained using these brackets: <...> means this is mandatory for this keyword [...] indicates that this is optional for the keyword (...) is the default value for the particular keyword | seperates parameters that exclude each other , seperates parameters that may be combined "..." Text has to be enclosed in double quotes '...' Text has to be enclosed in single quotes fidoaddress fidostyle address: [zone:][net/]node[.point][@domain] Area list a list containg information on your file base, usually in a particular format, depending on your BBS software Area file a list containg file names and their descriptions, usually found in the same path as the files themself Commonly an area file is called "FILES.BBS" and its contents look something like this: - - Textfiles - alice26a.arj [01] Alice in Wonderland timem10.arj [01] H.G. Wells: The Time Machine warw10.arj [01] H.G. Wells: War of the Worlds warworld.arj [00] H.G. Wells: War of the Worlds Texts complete with on-screen reader, search functions and more - - Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy - - Buch 1: "Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy" - Buch 2: "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe" - Buch 3: "Life, the Universe, and Everything" - Buch 4: "So long, and thanks for all the fish" - hitch1.arj [04] Book 1 hitch2.arj [01] Book 2 hitch3.arj [01] Book 3 hitch4.arj [01] Book 4 - 101ways.arj [00] 101 ways to say 'no' :-) The way long comments are handled differ from one BBS system to another, but the format is widely compatible. I therefore strongly suggest you make a backup copy of all your area lists prior to running FileHerald! 8 INSTALLATION Unpacking software Unpack the HER100 archive into a temporary directory, or drive if you prefer. Make sure that all the files are present: INSTALL.EXE The installation utility HERALD.DAT The FileHerald data file Then execute the installation program (no additional parameters are required), and perform the following steps: - At the initial welcome screen, select the number of your preferred language. - Then enter the destination drive (only the letter) - Now enter the destination directory. - If you upgrading from a previous version of Herald, you will now be asked if you want to upgrade, overwrite, or install anew. Select the appropriate option. 4DOS-Users will notice that there is a DESCRIPT.ION file, too. It has not got the hidden-attribute set, so it is visible with the "dir" command. You may set the hidden flag with "attrib +H DESCRIPT.ION". For those not aquainted with 4DOS, it contains short descriptions of all these files. Setting up the system It is not necessary, but possible and convenient, to put FileHerald in a directory along the DOS path. If set up correctly, FileHerald will find its supporting files wherever you put them. This directory containing the support files will also become FileHerald's temporary work directory. There are three ways to let FileHerald know where its support files are: - If they are in the same directory as FileHerald, it can locate them itself, as long as HERALD.EXE is executed from that particular directory. - FileHerald will recognise an environment variable if specified. This way, if you want the support files in a different directory to the main HERALD.EXE executable, it will still know where to find them. In this case the following environment variable should be set from your AUTOEXEC.BAT, where "x:\pathname\" is the full drive and directory specification. SET HERALD=x:\pathname\ Place HERALD.EXE somewhere along the DOS path, and when executed, it will locate the neccessary support files. Those few bytes occupied in your environment memory may be worth it in the long run. - The last way is to put HERALD.EXE and HERALD.CFG in the same directory and specify all supporting files from within the configuration file with their complete paths. But this may be more trouble than it's worth... 9 HERALD'S SUPPORTING FILES FileHerald's supporting files overviewed FileHerald writes into the following files. This means, they have to always exist in Herald's work directory: HERALD.LOG Logfile itself CFGERROR.LOG Special logfile for configuration errors FileHerald reads from and writes into the following file: HERALD.OLD List of files already announced These files are only read: FILEAREA.TXT Area header template for the area files MSGHEAD.TXT Header file for announcement messages MSGAREA.TXT Area header template for announcement messages MSGFOOT.TXT Footer file for announcement messages LISTHEAD.TXT Header file for file lists LISTAREA.TXT Area header template for file lists LISTFOOT.TXT Footer file for file lists These files need not exist, if they exist, they will be used: COMMENT.LST List of default comments KILLALL.LST List of files that will always be killed NOKILL.LST List of files that will never be killed TRASHALL.LST List of files that will always be trashed NOTRASH.LST List of files that will never be trashed Herald writes these files when creating lists or a text message: ALLFILES.TXT Complete file list NEWFILES.TXT New file list MESSAGE.TXT Announcement message You may change all of the abovelisted names except those .LST files and the CFGERROR.LOG. How FileHerald finds its files If you want to understand how FileHerald locates its supporting files, you will need to know the following: Files FileHerald only reads will be located first in the current directory, then in the specified directory, unless you enter the complete path with a filename. Then only this absolute path will be used. "Specified" means by the environment variable "HERALD" or in the same directory as HERALD.EXE. Thus you are able to copy some supporting files into a different directory, change them as you like, and start FileHerald there using these changed files. All files FileHerald writes to will always be put into the specified directory, unless you specify a complete path. For example you will find HERALD.LOG there, no matter from what directory HERALD.EXE is run. 10 HERALD.OLD Herald needs this file to "remember" which files have been announced and/or repacked. This makes it possible to announce files without having to touch their dates, manipulate their attributes or anything else. Although it is an internal file of Herald, you may edit it with a text editor when necessary. This is the format: FILENAME EXT [flags] Areanumber Flags currently are "A" which indicates the file has yet to be announced and "R" which means the file has still to be repacked. A "W" marks files with descriptions adopted from FILE_ID.DIZ. This allows together with the "KeepDiz" command to preserve them formatted as they are, even when "AutoWrap" is on. If you want a file to be announced one more time, simply add "A", or remove it completely from HERALD.OLD. In this case however, it will also end up being repacked again. An example: HELLO ARJ A 5 This file has not been announced, but repacked and is located in file area number 5. The secret of the template files The template files allow custom made area headers for your lists, messages, and file areas. You can assemble them as you like. If you have ever used FEBBS you will find that the headers you have used with it are widely compatible. To choose one of the demo headers in the *AREA.TXT templates, mark the start with "HEADSTART" and the end with "HEADEND". Only this fraction of the template will show in your list, messages and area files. Take care, because lines with semi-colons, ";", will NOT be treated as comments between the "HEADSTART" and "HEADEND" parameters. These macros allow you to insert data about the current area into your headers: ~A Areaname left justified (40 characters) ~B Areaname right justified (40 characters) ~# Areanumber ( 3 characters) ~L Access level to the current area (10 characters) ~+ Minimum age to the current area ( 3 characters) ~F Number of files in the particular area ( 5 characters) ~S Size of all files in this area in kBytes ( 6 characters) ~M Size of all files in this area in MBytes ( 6 characters) ~N New files in the current area ( 4 characters) ~O Size of all new files in this area ( 6 characters) ~D Number of downloads from this area ( 4 characters) ~R File request info (short) (10 characters) ~T File request info (centered) ~% Current date as defined by DATEFORMAT ~$ Current time as defined by TIMEFORMAT ~! Here the actual list will be inserted. 11 If you forget the "~!" macro, only the files and descriptions will be written and a warning appended to your log file. You may delete the filearea.txt file when you do not want to have any headers in your FILES.BBS. 12 What's behind the list files The list files provide a convenient and clearly arranged means to perform many maintenance functions on your file base. Each file is a plain ASCII file, as in the configuration file ";" marks comments. You find some demonstration listfiles renamed to "*.dem" in your FileHerald archive. Each line consists of a filename, optionally containing wildcards. In COMMENT.LST should also be a description. COMMENT.LST; List of default comments This file may contain a list of default comments which will be added to files that have no comment or what is defined by "MISSINGDESCR". It may look like this: ; ; Demo comment file ; FNEWS*.* Fidonewsletter ; Comment for fido newsletters NODEDIFF.* Nodediff ; Comment for nodelist diffs KILLALL.LST; List of files that will always be killed Use this list to remove the 100th upload of Telix 4.25 and other hacks. Works like this: ; ; Demo Listfile ; NODELIST.*, MaxCount 5 ; Hold a maximum of 5 nodelists NODEDIFF.*, Days 30 ; Kill all diffs older than 30 days FIDONEWS.*, MaxCount 5 ; Hold a maximum of 5 newsletters TELIX425.* ; Kill each hack version of Telix 4.25 GOOFUP.*, Days 200, Dlds 3 ; Kill this file if older than 200 days and ; downloaded less than 3 times The global values from "KILLFILE" and "TRASHFILE" will be applied to all files, except those matching one of those in that lists. The values "DAYS" and "DLDS" are ANDed (as you can see above). You may also enter "FILE.*, Days 250, Dlds 3, MaxCount 4", FileHerald will then kill or trash this file when it is older than 250 days and downloaded less than 3 times. Then, if more than 4 files remain, the oldest will be removed. "MaxCount" always deletes or trashes the oldest matching files first, thus you will have the desired number of the latest versions of these programs in any area. Note that "MaxCount" is only applied to a single area, if these files are scattered over more than one they will not be detected! NOKILL.LST; List of files that will never be killed File listed here will never be deleted. Specify files here which should not be deleted. This does not affect files found in KILLALL.LST. 13 TRASHALL.LST; List of files that will always be trashed This is the same as KILLALL.LST, the only difference is that files will only be moved to the trashpath, but not deleted. NOTRASH.LST; List of files that will never be trashed Files listed here will never be trashed. Specify files here which should not be removed from you base. This does not affect files found in TRASHALL.LST. 14 CONFIGURING FILEHERALD The configuration file The configuration file is a plain ASCII file which can be changed for your purposes using your favourite text editor. Each line starting with a colon ";" is a comment, also everything that stands behind a colon, even if it is inside a line. Keywords are not case sensitive, upper and lower case letters may be mixed for readability. You will get a warning for unknown or misspelled commands and all configuration errors will be written in a file named "CFGERROR.LOG". When FileHerald is started again, further error messages will be appended to that file. Data which is out of range is, if possible, replaced by its default value. You will get warned about that as well. Some commands and parameters however are required and FileHerald will not be able to work without them. Keywords are grouped in sections. Each section begins with a section identifier which looks like "[NAME]". They have to stand in the proper sections. If not, FileHerald will give a warning. Some keywords with similar function exist in more than one section. Don't get confused about that. Only the mere information is read from HERALD.CFG. Make full use of it's comments as they will not occupy any valuable system memory. FileHerald doesn't even read all information from the file but only what it needs for it's tasks. Quick setup FileHerald has many fine features and is not an easy program to set up. If you consider yourself "Master of Setups", okay, go ahead and do what you have to do. HERALD.CFG contains all configuration options available, but not all information necessary to understand what exactly will happen. First of all, and very important, make a backup of all your area files before you start FileHerald the first time. By default it will not write into them, but if you enable this function and setup up something incorrectly, it may damage your lists. It also is capable of removing files from your list. I strongly suggest you do not make use of the kill and trash functions until you get a little more familiar with FileHerald. Make a streamer backup if you can! Go through HERALD.CFG line by line. Correct all paths to fit your needs, also define the type of BBS software you use. Then start FileHerald to see what happens. It almost certainly will stop with an error, then go and correct it and start Herald again. Repeat that until the desired results are obtained. 15 The sections and all keywords in detail The [SYSTEM]-section This section allows you to set up basic parameters like temporary drives, your name and BBS address, what BBS software you use and country specific settings as Day and Month names. This section must be the very first in FileHerald's configuration file, otherwise it would miss essential information. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- SYSOPNAME; <First and last name> BBSNAME; <Name of you BBS> BBSADDRESS; <Your network address if exists> Enter your personal name, your BBS's name and your network address here. This will be inserted at the bottom of the lists and is used in all messages FileHerald creates. If you let FileHerald create any message types besides text messages, this is mandatory. REGISTERKEY; <personal registerkey> Registered users have to enter their registerkey here. Refer to "How to register" and "Differences between keys" for more information. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- TEXTWINDOW; <YES|NO> (YES) Switches the window containing information on file count, area size, downloads and more on and off. On slower computers that may speed up execution. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- TEMPDRIVE; <Drive spec> (environment variable) FileHerald needs a directory to store temporary files. By default FileHerald reads the environment variables "TEMP" or "TMP" to determine the drive or directory. Use this command if you have not set up one of these variables or if you want to overide its contents. You should specify a RAM drive because it increases execution speed significantly. 16 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- SWAPDIRS; <List of paths> (TEMDRIVE) This list of directories will be used when swapping to disk while external programs are called. You can enter multiple paths seperated by ";", but you should specify not only different directories, but also different drives then, because being unable to swap to one directory of a drive means being unable to swap to any directory of that drive. SWAPTYPE; <DISK,XMS,EMS,EXT,ANY> (ANY) This defines where to Herald swaps. You can specify one or more of the above types. Of course XMS and EMS will be fastest, but require HIMEM.SYS and EMM386 or QEMM respectively. If you use a 286 machine or do not have enough memory available, Herald will swap to disk, which will be considerably slower. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- LOGFILE; <Filename> (HERALD.LOG) This determines the filename of FileHerald's logfile. You can specify the same filename and path as your mailer and BBS system uses. LOGLEVEL; <NORMAL|FULL|DEBUG> (NORMAL) These are three possible logging levels. "NORMAL" just logs errors, warnings and whether filelists or messages have been created. "FULL" saves some more information, what has been written, what areas were processed. "DEBUG" gives detailed information what happened. "NORMAL" logs: - Errors and warnings - Files killed or trashed except those not removed because they are in a NOKILL.LST or NOTRASH.LST. - Files which were added to the area list - Area lists or 4DOS-DESCRIPT.ION-Files that were created "FULL" logs anything like NORMAL and: - Number of files read from old files list - Areas processed - New files found in every area - Descriptions added to or removed from the list - Totals on the filebase "DEBUG" logs all of the above and: - Filenames and paths of all processed area files - Areas skipped and the reasons - Detailed information about every area 17 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTIFYMSGTYPE; <SQUISH|FIDO|ECHO|TEXT> You can define one message type here. You will then receive a message containing short but valuable information what happened when Herald was last run. This is very helpful if you run Herald over during the night hours. NOTIFYMSGAREA; <SQUISH AREA|NET PATH|BOARD NO|FILENAME> In case you have specified a message type you must enter a valid board number for echo mail, a squish area for squish, a path for fidostyle or a filename for text messages here. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- AREASDIRLIST; <filename> If you specify a filename here, Herald will create a list of all your filebase directories. Include will only be those areas which have filerequests allowed to everyone. This list can be used by Frontdoor mailers for filerequests. This functions assures you your mailer has a up-to-date list available. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- BBSTYPE; <BBS Type> (SBBS) You can specify the type of BBS system you use here. If you run one which is not compatible to those listed below, you can use the QBBS format described in "BBS SOFTWARE SUPPORTED" as a work-around. It will help you to support almost any type of software. FileHerald will try to find out itself which software you use by searching for one of these environment variables: "SBBS" SuperBBS 1.16 "QBBS" QuickBBS 2.75 "PB" ProBoard 1.30 "RA" Remote Access 1.11 "RBBS" RoboBBS 1.x "WME" Windowed Modem Environment 1.x "WC3x" Wildcat 3.x This BBS systems do not use a system variable and therefore you have to use "BBSTYPE" to define it: RoboBBS 1.xx WME 1.xx Wildcat 3.xx If Herald can find one of them, "BBSTYPE" and "AREALISTTYPE" will be set accordingly. In case you have set just one of them, you do not need these three commands. Only if you want to use another type, or even use several BBS systems at once, you may need to tell FileHerald which one is the correct one. Should more than one of these be set, they will be searched in the above order. Herald stops at the first one it finds, e.g. this will be PB if PB and RA were set. 18 This value is essential, because if you let FileHerald update your area files, it decides how they are formatted. This is necessary because different BBS software uses slightly different formats, which can cause somewhat messed up area files. AREALISTTYPE; <SBBS|QBBS|PB|RA|RBBS> (SBBS) FileHerald needs some information where to find the area list, the files and more. He can read the formats listed above. All are binary files except for QBBS which uses a plain ASCII file giving you the opportunity to edit it using any text editor. It contains any information needed by FileHerald. Herald will set "AREALISTTYPE" to the same as BBSType, but you may use another listformat than your BBS software does by entering the one you wish here as arealist type. These are the files, Herald needs one of them depending on your BBS software: FLSEARCH.BBS SuperBBS 1.16 FLSEARCH.CTL QuickBBS 2.75 FILES.PRO ProBoard 1.30 FILES.RA Remote Access 1.11 FILEAREA.DEF RoboBBS 1.xx FILEAREA.BBS Windowed Modem Environment 1.xx FILEAREA.DAT, ALLFILES.DAT Wildcat 3.xx Later versions should work as well. Drop me a note if problems occur! FileHerald will handle special functions some BBS types have. Look in "BBS SOFTWARES SUPPORTED" for further information. AREALISTPATH; <path> The command specifies the path where FileHerald can find the above area file. If you have defined an area list type explicitly using the above keyword or by defining a BBS type, FileHerald will still use the environment to find the path. Should no environment variable be found, or when you want to use a different file (e.g. one in a different path) you can define it using this keyword. BBSDATEFORMAT; <EUROPEAN|AMRICAN> (EUROPEAN) If you want to use the special way of ProBoard to support CD-ROMs, you have to define which date format you use with it. This command is only needed with ProBoard 1.30. AREASDIRLIST; <PATH> Path and filename of your areas directory list. This is the list which tells your mailer where to locate all requestable files. 19 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- TIMEFORMAT; <0|1|2|3> (0) You can choose the time format which is used in your country. The four formats look like this: 0 HH:MM Hours from 00 to 23 1 HH:MM:SS Hours from 00 to 23 2 HH:MM Hours from 01 to 12 and AM/PM 3 HH:MM:SS Hours from 01 to 12 and AM/PM DATEFORMAT; <FORMATSTRING> (m-d-y) You can have FileHerald use exactly whichever date format you like. Assemble it using these characters: d replaced by the day D replaced by the name of the day m replaced by the month M replaced by the name of the month y replaced by the year (YY) Y replaced by the year (YYYY) Other characters are not changed. Examples: d.M'Y -> 01.Sep'1993 d.m.y -> 01.10.93 MONTHNAMES; <12 NAMES> (English names) By default FileHerald uses the English month names. You can specify the names in your own language. You must enter all 12 names seperated by commas. They have to be exactly 3 bytes long: MonthNames Jan,Feb,Mar,Apr,May,Jun,Jul,Aug,Sep,Oct,Nov,Dec DAYNAMES; <7 NAMES> (English names) The same as MonthNames but for the weekdays. 20 The [MAINTENANCE]-section In this section you find keywords to configure how your area files are formatted, old files treated or missing descriptions handled. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- UPDATEAREAFILE; <YES|NO> (NO) Whether FileHerald writes back new formatted area files or not. Normally you would want it to do it, because it allows you to add new files, comments, remove files missing from your base and more. All these functions will not work fully if updating the area files is not enabled. However, you should be careful and disable it as long as you are not sure that everything is set up correctly, since it may mess up your area files. AUTOCREATEAREAFILE; <YES|NO> (NO) Normally FileHerald warns you if it cannot find the area file, and subsequently skip it. If enabled, it will create a new one. Depending on the other settings all files in the area will be added. BACKUPAREAFILE; <YES|NO> (YES) This is a useful function which lets FileHerald create backups of your area files and keep them until the next run. Thus if they are called "FILES.BBS" you will have a "FILES.BAK" with the old contents if something does go wrong. But be careful, these backups will be overwritten at each new run! ------------------------------------------------------------------------- EXTRAAREAFILETYPE; <BBS Type> Herald is able to create a second areafile of any type you like. This allows to convert areafile formats from any type to another or run two BBS softwares at once. All by "BBSType" and "AreaListType" supported BBS softwares are allowed. EXTRAFILESPECNAME; <YES|NO> (NO) RoboBBS and Remote Access allow the use of special area files in a different path. This command instructs Herald to create them. They are called FILES.n and located in "ExtraListPath". Otherwise they will be named as usual for that system and created in the default area. 21 EXTRALISTPATH; <path> Remote Access 1.11 and RoboBoard offer CD-ROM support by using a special path where the area lists are stored, because naturally it is not possible to put them on the ROM. These lists have to be named "FILES.n", where n is the area number. The BBS software scans first to see if it finds a matching file in that directory. RoboBoard simply uses its system path, Remote Access allows to specify a special directory keeping all that junk away from your system path. Enter this special path here and Herald will use these FILES.n if it finds them, just as your BBS software does. You can also use this the other way round by entering the command line switch "/oX", where "X" is one of the above BBS types. This allows you to create RoboBBS-style area files from your own. For example, if you run both SuperBBS and RoboBBS at the same time, you can let FileHerald convert these files from SBBS to RoboBBS. "/oRBBS" writes FILES.n into the list path instead of reading them. They will be correctly formatted for the target system. This keyword is not necessary for SuperBBS and ProBoard. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ADDNEWFILES; <YES|NO> (NO) If you specify "YES", FileHerald will scan each area for files missing in the area list and insert them. If possible descriptions will be added from "COMMENT.LST" or 4DOS-DESCRIPT.IONs. ADDFROMCDROM; <YES|NO> (NO) Normally CD-ROM areas are automatically excluded from auto-adding, for there will never appear new files and it is wasted time to search these areas. On the other hand, when you have a new CD-ROM, you might want Herald to create new FILES.BBS for it once, set this keyword to yes. IGNOREFILE; <File specs> Of course you would not want FileHerald to add "FILES.BBS" and "FILES.BAK" everytime. So if you specify "*.BBS, *.BAK" they will be ignored. ADDGRAPHINFO; <YES|NO> (NO) Instructs Herald to add information on dimensions and resolution to graphics - i.e. for a GIF it would look something like this: "GIF 89a, (480*200*16)". This means that the picture is a GIF version 89a with a 480 x 200 resolution and 16 colors. Currently supported are only GIF and PCX, more will follow (if someone tells me how to determine these data for JPGs). 22 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- USEFILE_ID; <NO|MISSING|ALWAYS> (NO) Program authors tend to put a short description of their efforts into the distribution archive. A common filename is FILE_ID.DIZ, but there are others. Henceforth FILE_ID.DIZ stands synonimous for all of these. Using this function you can enable Herald to adopt these descriptions easily. "MISSING" means if a file lacks a description, Herald attempts to find such a file. This will be repeated everytime you run Herald, so take care you add a proper info if this function should fail. "ALWAYS" means that all new files are scanned for a FILE_ID.DIZ no matter if they already have a description. If found, it will be replaced by that in FILE_ID.DIZ. DESCRFILENAME; <list of filenames> This list of filenames will be used to find description files. No wildcards are allowed. UNPACKCOMMAND; <extension, command> This is a list of packers which are needed to search the archives. Syntax is the extension, a komma, and the unpack command for that particular archiver. "%ARCHIVE%" is replaced by the archive name to unpack, in "%TEMPPATH%" the unpacked files should be placed, and "%DESCRFILES%" is the above list of files. Note that some popular packers like LHA return a non-zero errorlevel if at least one of the files that should be unpacked is not there, but Herald takes that as an error. In HERALD.CFG is a list of most widespread archivers. Do not comment any out as they all may be needed sometimes. KEEPDIZ; <YES|NO> (NO) If enabled Herald preserves the format in FILE_ID.DIZ's as it is, e.g., newlines remain where they are. This allows you to run Herald with "AutoWrap SMART" and reformat your descriptions where necessary without ruining nicely formatted ANSI graphics from FILE_ID.DIZ's. However, mostly these pictures are up to 44 characters wide which is to much for SuperBBS. Therefore these graphics will be messed up by some BBS softwares. STRIPHIASCII; <YES|NO> (NO) This tells Herald to remove any non-standard ASCII characters from FILE_ID.DIZ's when adopting them. Has no effect on already existing descriptions. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- MISSINGDESCR; <Text> This is the description that is inserted if it could not be determined otherwise. Please enter exactly the same string you use in your BBS. This is because FileHerald can also identify missing descriptions of older files and add them. 23 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- SKIPUPDATE; <list of areas> These are the areas which you do not want to be updated. There are three ways to specify the areas. First is by its number, which may look like this: 26 means area number 26 -3 means area 1,2 and 3 30- means area 30 and every following area 7-9 means area 7,8 and 9 Exactly by its name: "TOOLS" specifies the area "Tools", of course case insensitive By name, but using regular expressions: '*CD-ROM*' fits any area name with "CD-ROM" in it, this is case insensitive, too ------------------------------------------------------------------------- USE4DOSDESCR; <YES|NO> (NO) When you are a 4DOS user, you will find it convenient that FileHerald fully supports 4DOS-DESCRIPT.IONs. To enable this feature, set this function to "YES". Only then the next two keywords are functional. If enabled, The FileHerald will try to find descriptions of new files or those with the string defined by "MISSINGDESCR" in the 4DOS-DESCRIPT.IONs. UPDATE4DOSDESCR; <NO|NEW|ALL> (NO) If set to "NEW", each file that has been added its description will also be added to the DESCRIPT.ION. Further if set to "ALL", FileHerald will look for every file if it is already described and when not add it to the 4DOS-list. Of course this demands that it is read completely for each file and will increase the execution time significantly. On the other hand you are sure that the DESCRIPT.ION-file is complete. When no such file is found in an area and "UPDATE4DOSDESCR" is at least set to "NEW", FileHerald will create a new one and add all descriptions. REMOVE4DOSDESCR; <YES|NO> (NO) When FileHerald kills or trashes a file the discription will remain in the DESCRIPT.ION-file. This command tells him to remove them. From my experience 4DOS does not always remove them itself. 24 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- LONGDESCRMARK; <NONE|SPACE|Character> (SPACE) This command determines the way long descriptions are treated in area files. "SPACE" means that a description that does not fit in one line will be continued in the next line and indented a suitable number of characters. Download counters will be considered and you will see that the result is nice. If you use "NONE", all will remain in the same line. This is not suggested, because the results can be ugly if a line gets too long for your BBS software. Remote Access 1.11 for example reacts with fast screen scrolling when a line gets longer than 255 characters. If you specify a character it will be used to identify following lines. SuperBBS uses ">", ProBoard "+". The latter, however, does not want a blank before the "+" while SuperBBS demands that. You see, setting the appropriate BBS software type using "BBSTYPE" is essential. You can convert each of the three formats since FileHerald detects it automatically. Therefore, if you change it, FileHerald will read it correctly and write it in the desired format. Here is a list of BBS types and what they "like" most: SuperBBS 1.16 ">" and SPACE ProBoard 1.30 "+", SPACE and NONE Remote Access 1.11 SPACE and NONE (no lines longer than 255 characters!) RoboBoard 1.xx NONE only SPACE is the best way for SuperBBS and RemoteAccess, because following lines will be indented so that download counters have their own column which makes listings clearer to read for the mere price of a few bytes more on your HD. ProBoard handles any of the three, so I suggest you use "+" because it does not waste any HD space. On the other hand, NONE allows your area list to be changed by a text editor more easily. RoboBoard allows one-line-comments only, they may be longer that 64 characters, but only these will be displayed. But it demands that the download counters look exactly the way it wants, and it allows no comment lines at all. Take care when converting to RoboBBS, all comment lines will be discarded! Please be careful if your BBS system uses a different tag, because FileHerald will not read your area files correctly if you do not define it explicitly here! This means your area files will get messed up if you define for example "&", run Herald with the "UPDATEAREALIST" option enabled and then change "LONGDESCRMARK" to a different value. So be careful! Note also that Herald only writes FILES.BBS back, when they have been changed since it was last run or when a file has been added, removed or somthing similar. This makes execution faster, but may sometimes be bewildering. 25 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- AUTOWRAP; <NONE|FULL|SMART> (SMART) Normally Herald reformats your descriptions appropriately. If, for some reason, you want to preserve them, use this command. "NONE" switches word wrapping totally off as long as a line does not get dangerously long (e.g. more than 78 characters for FILES.BBS). "FULL" means that everything remains as is, but if a line gets longer than the maximum for your BBS software it is reformatted. "SMART" is the best way because it allows Herald to wrap any line to the most suitable length. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- REMOVEEMPTYLINES; <NO|YES> (NO) Normally Herald leaves empty lines in your FILES.BBS. If you enable this, they will be removed. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- BLANKSASCOMMENT; <NO|YES> (YES) If you did not set "LongDescrMark" to SPACE, Herald will consider lines starting with a blank as comments as long as there are no more than 30 columns before the first non-space character: This is a comment DEMO.TXT [12] This is the first description line This is the second description line The second description line will be appended to DEMO.TXT's description, but the line with only two blanks considered a comment. If you set "BlanksAsComment" to NO, each line starting with at least one blank is considered a long description.. 26 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- LEFTBRACKET; <character> ([) RIGHTBRACKET; <character> (]) COUNTERLEN; <value> (2) These three keywords define the outlook of your download counters, if you use them. By default it will look like this "[00]". The value of counterlen may vary from 1 to 5. FileHerald will correct the counter length to the given value. If the number of digits is less than this value it will be filled with "0"s, otherwise the counter will remain longer as specified. Example: CounterLen 3 [2] -> [002] [1234] -> [1234] LeftBracket and RightBracket have to be the same as your BBS system uses. Otherwise FileHerald cannot identify the counters and this as well as some statistical functions will not work properly. You can however change the length as often as you like. FileHerald will match the counter length as desired. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- KILLFILE; <REMOVEMISSING|DAYS n|DLDS m> TRASHFILE; <DAYS n|DLDS m> TRASHPATH; <path> These three keywords allow you to remove descriptions of files which do not exist, delete files which are too old or haven't been downloaded for a certain period of time. "REMOVEMISSING" works only with "KILLFILE" and tells FileHerald to remove descriptions of missing files. "DAYS n" lets FileHerald kill or trash files which are older than n days. "DLDS n" makes FileHerald kill or trash files which have been downloaded less than n times. If you enter "DAYS 200, DLDS 2" files older than 200 days and downloaded less than 2 times will be removed or killed. The trashpath is where files will be move when they are trashed. FileHerald also moves their descriptions and date and time when they were moved to that path. You must enter that path when you want to use the trash-feature. Please be careful with "KILLFILE" as it actually deletes the files from your base and they may be lost forever. So I suggest you first try out the results using "DEBUG YES" instead of risking valuable software. A better way is to trash the files because it leaves it to your discretion as to what actually happens to it. If a file is actually trashed or killed when the given expression is true also depends whether the filename is found in "NOTRASH.LST" or "NOKILL.LST" respectively. A file found in "KILLALL.LST" or "TRASHALL.LST" will always be removed or killed regardless of your specification by the keywords. This makes it possible to remove unwanted files automatically from your base. 27 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- AREAHEADER; <filename> (FILEAREA.TXT) By default FileHerald will use the contents "FILEAREA.TXT" as template for your area files. This keyword allows you to use another file. Please make sure, even if you want no headers in your area files, just delete "FILEAREA.TXT". ------------------------------------------------------------------------- FILEMAXLINES; <value> (0) This is the maximum number of description lines you allow for one file. "0" means don't care, any other number means that a maximum of so much lines will be used. This, of course, only if you don't use "LONGDESCRMARK NONE" because then there will always be exactly one line. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- FILEEOLMARK; <string|~string> This offers you the possibility of letting FileHerald begin a new line for a certain word. Many sysops keep the names of every uploader in their area files, allowing downloaders to know the origin of the file. For SuperBBS that displays as "Uploader: xxxx". It looks nice when it stands in a seperate line. If you enter "FILEEOLMARK ~Uploader:" FileHerald puts "Uploader:" and the rest of the text into a new line. It is not case insensitive, but works only for the first occurrence of the string. If you just enter "Uploader:" the string itself and the rest of the line will be cut away. Use this only if you want to remove the messages once and for all. The function is actually only useful for file lists and announcement messages as you will see below. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- FILECASE; <IGNORE|CAPITALIZE|LOWERCASE> (IGNORE) Depending on your personal taste you can change your filenames to upper or lower case using this keyword. If you enter "IGNORE" nothing will happen to them and they will stay as your BBS system creates them. 28 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- FILEDLCOUNTER; <IGNORE|STRIP|FIT> (IGNORE) You can have FileHerald add missing counters as defined by the three commands "COUNTERLEN", "LEFTBRACKET" and "RIGHTBRACKET". As well as you can have them removed, while by default FileHerald will not touch them. "FIT" also means, that they are changed if they do not look the way you have defined. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- FILEORDER; <IGNORE,[!]ALPHA,[!]DATE,[!]SIZE,[!]NEW> (IGNORE) FileHerald sorts your area files as defined with "FILEORDER". You can only give one of the following commands : IGNORE leave original order untouched ALPHA sort by filenames DATE sort by date SIZE sort by filesize You may optionally give this command together with one of the above. FileHerald puts new files at the beginning (Files newer than the number of days specified with "MINDAYS") and sorts both sections as stated with the other command: NEW new files first A "!" reverses the sort order. Examples: FILEORDER ALPHA, NEW Sort by filename, new files first FILEORDER !DATE Sort by date, the oldest file first FILEORDER SIZE, !NEW Sort by size, old files first 29 The [REPACK]-section FileHerald can automatically repack new uploads to your own packer. You need an external utility to do it, but this gives you the opportunity to use your favourite software. But, of course, you are always sure that the correct filenames are in your lists (as they change with the archive type). REPACKCOMMAND; <command> This the repack command, here REARJ. The first "%s" is replaced by the ; file to repack. Re-comment it out to enable repacking. You may use another repacker, you just have to enter the correct command and command line to call it: REPACKCOMMAND rearj %s /tARJ /u /d /v /s >NUL Here's an overview on the command line switches of REARJ: /a[suffix] convert archives within archives ("*" for all formats) /bcommand execute DOS command before extracting files /ccommand execute DOS command on extracted files before counting them /d delete original archives /e do not return error if no archives were found /f convert diskette archives /i[name] check integrity of REARJ.EXE /l[name] write append log file (default name is REARJ.LOG) /o allow overwrite of existing target archive /q query for each archive to convert /r recurse through subdirectories /s skip verify of file count and total size /tsuffix create suffix type archives /u[bak] allow update of archive with backup (default is BAK) /v execute configured command on extracted files /wdir assign work directory /xfile exclude file or wildname /z simulate operation REPACKEXTENSION; <3 letters> Enter here which extension the target archives should have. This is mandatory, otherwise you will not find the correct filenames in your lists!! 30 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is the set of error messages and corresponding errorlevels. "TrashFile" decides wether the file is trashed when that particular error occurrs: ERRORLEVEL; <value> ERRORMESSAGE; <Text string> TRASHFILE; <YES|NO> (NO) These commands can be given several times to define the complete set of errorlevel functions supported by your re-packer. Errorlevel 0 always means "repacking okay" (and must not be defined here). An unkown error code always results in trashing that particular file. You may omit these commands completely, but then every file will be trashed whenever a non-zero errorlevel is reported. Refer to the docs of your repacker if you want to user your own to enter the correct data here. This is an example: ErrorLevel 1 ErrorMessage File not found TrashFile NO "Errorlevel" always has to be the first of these three commands, the next two will be related to that level. The levels do not have to be in order but the same level must not have duplicate entries. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- SKIPREPACK; These are the areas which you do not want to be repacked. There are three ways to specify the areas. First is by its number, which may look like this: 26 means area number 26 -3 means area 1,2 and 3 30- means area 30 and every following area 7-9 means area 7,8 and 9 Exactly by its name: "TOOLS" specifies the area "Tools", of course case insensitive By name, but using regular expressions: '*CD-ROM*' fits any area name with "CD-ROM" in it, this is case insensitive, too 31 The [ANNOUNCE]-section The following commands allow you to control the announcement function, the looks of the messages ------------------------------------------------------------------------- CREATEMESSAGE; <NO|YES> (NO) This command enables announcement messages. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- SKIPANNOUNCE; <list of areas> These are the areas which you do not want to be announced. There are three ways to specify the areas. First is by its number, which may look like this: 26 means area number 26 -3 means area 1,2 and 3 30- means area 30 and every following area 7-9 means area 7,8 and 9 Exactly by its name: "TOOLS" specifies the area "Tools", of course case insensitive By name, but using regular expressions: '*CD-ROM*' fits any area name with "CD-ROM" in it, this is case insensitive, too ------------------------------------------------------------------------- UPDATELIST; <NO|YES> (YES) By default FileHerald updates the list of files he has already announced every time he created a message. With this command you can disable this function. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- LISTFILE; <filename> (HERALD.OLD) This command defines the name of the old files list, in which all announced files are stored by their name. FileHerald uses this list to identify new files. You can manually delete or add files if you want to. Although the format is DOS-like, you can also enter names in the "FILENAME.EXT" format. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- MAXLEVEL; <value> (32000) This is the maximum security level an area may have to be announced. If you enter 100 any area having more than 100 will not be announced. 32 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ANNOUNCEALWAYS; <list of filenames> Any file you define here will always be announced. Wildcards are allowed, FileHerald uses his own pattern matching mechanism. ANNOUNCENEVER; <list of filenames> This command works like "ANNOUNCEALWAYS", but exactly the other way round. Any file matching one of those in this list will never be announced. Wildcard patterns are allowed. ANNOUNCEMISSING; <YES|NO> (NO) By default files without a description will not be announced. You may switch that on using this keyword, but remember it is not of much use for anyone who reads you messages when files are presented without a hint what they represent. DESCRJUSTIFIED; <YES|NO> (NO) If you want justified description texts in your announcements, enable this. But note that it only works properly if you have very long descriptions, e.g., mostly about three to five lines. Otherwise the optical effect will be inferior. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- MINFILES; <value> (5) This is the number of new files which at least have to be found that FileHerald creates a message. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- SCANMODE; <NORMAL|STRICT> (NORMAL) Determines how files are compared. Normally files with different extensions are considered equal, so that if you repack a file for example from ZIP to ARJ it will not be announced again. If you choose "STRICT" this will happen. 33 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- MSGHEADER; <filename> (MSGHEAD.TXT) You can specify one or more header files here, seperated by kommas. They will be put before the message. Please do not define too large files here because it might annoy cost sensitive fellows. AREAHEADER; <filename> (MSGAREA.TXT) This template file defines the look of every area header. MSGFOOTER; <filename> (MSGFOOT.TXT) These footer files will be put under the messages. Enter one or more names, seperated by kommas, here. Of course their length fullfill the same terms as for the headers. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- MSGMAXLINES; <value> (1) This is the maximum number of lines you allow for one file. "0" means don't care, any other number means that a maximum of so much lines will be used. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- MSGLINEFORMAT; <SIZE|DATE|TIME> By default only the filename and its description shows in each line. You can specify any combination of commands you like here. The order does not matter, in the line it will always be size, date, time. How date and time look like depends on the definitions in the [SYSTEM]-section. Examples: MSGLINEFORMAT SIZE DATE -> FILENAME 36725 12.12.1993 MSGLINEFORMAT DATE TIME -> FILENAME 12.12.1993 11:02:22 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- MSGLINELEN; <value> (78) This value is the maximum number of characters that can be in one line. A word that exeeds this limit will be wrapped to the next line. Take care with the headers, footers and area templates, because they will not be truncated or wrapped around in any way if their lines are too long. This is your concern. 34 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- MSGEOLMARK; <string|~string> This offers you the possibility to let FileHerald begin a new line for a certain word. Many sysops keep the names of every uploader in their area files, allowing downloaders to know the origin of the file. For SuperBBS that displays as "Uploader: xxxx". It looks nice when it stands in a seperate line. If you enter "FILEEOLMARK ~Uploader:" FileHerald puts "Uploader:" and the rest of the text into a new line. It is not case insensitive, but works only for the first occurrence of the string. If you just enter "Uploader:" the string itself and the rest of the line will be cut away. This makes the announcements shorter and removes unnecessary information. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- MSGFILECASE; <IGNORE|CAPITALIZE|LOWERCASE> (IGNORE) Depending on your personal taste you can change your filenames to upper or lower case using this keyword. If you enter "IGNORE" nothing will happen to them and they will stay as your BBS system creates them. MSGFILEFORMAT; <DEFAULT|DOS> (DEFAULT) Also a matter of taste is how you want your file names formatted. "DEFAULT" means the common "FILENAME.EXT"-look, "DOS" refers to the outfit of DIR listings. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- MSGDLCOUNTER; <IGNORE|STRIP> (IGNORE) "STRIP" removes the counters from the descriptions, thus reducing the size of the messages. "IGNORE" by default leaves them untouched. 35 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- MSGORDER; <IGNORE,[!]ALPHA,[!]DATE,[!]SIZE,[!]NEW> (IGNORE) FileHerald sorts your messages as defined with "MSGORDER". You can only give one of the following commands: IGNORE leave original order untouched ALPHA sort by filenames DATE sort by date SIZE sort by filesize You may optionally give this command together with one of the above. FileHerald puts new files at the beginning (Files newer than the number of days specified with "MINDAYS") and sorts both sections as stated with the other command: NEW new files first A "!" reverses the sort order. Examples: MSGORDER ALPHA, NEW Sort by filename, new files first MSGORDER !DATE Sort by date, the oldest file first MSGORDER SIZE, !NEW Sort by size, old files first ------------------------------------------------------------------------- MSGTYPE; <TEXT|ECHO|FIDO|SQUISH> This command determines the message types that will be created. Echomail, fidostyle and squish messages are currently not supported. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- MSGNAME; <filename> (MESSAGE.TXT) This is the name of the text message. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- MSGMAXLEN; <value in Kbytes) (12) Some mail processors do not support large messages. You can limit their size using this word. Larger messages will be split into a decent amount of mails. The maximum value here is 16 KB, you should not change it because some mail processors could get in trouble otherwise. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- NETPATH; <path> Defines the path to your fidostyle (*.MSG) messages. Only necessary when you enable "FIDO" with "MSGTYPE". ECHOPATH; <path> Defines the path to your hudson style message base. Only necessary when you enable "ECHO" with "MSGTYPE". 36 The [NETMAIL]-section This is all necessary data for a netmail. You can specify a footer by "PVTFOOT" which will only be appended to that particular message. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- MSGNO; <value> (1) Each message has to have a uniqe number using the "MSGNO" command. You can let FileHerald create certain messages or all at one time. Message no 1 provides the default values for all following messages. So you just have to change those which are different. Theoretically you can create 65535 fidostyle messages. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- FROM; <sender name> (SYSOPNAME) TO; <receiver name> SUBJECT; <text string> ("New files at BBSADDRESS") It is possible to attach files to your announcement messages. Enter path and filename as subject and specify "ATT" with the "ATTRIB"-command. FileHerald does not check if the file exists, so take care that filename and path are correct. ORIGADDR; <fidostyle address> (BBSADDRESS) DESTADDR; <fidostyle address> If you omit any of the address fractions, they will be replaced by the corresponding value of your BBS address. Some examples, if you were 77:222/123, the results will look like: DestAddr 233 Result 77:222/233 DestAddr 332/2 Result 77:332/2 ATTRIB; <list of attributes> (K/S PVT) Possible attributes for fidostyle messages are: PVT Private message CRA Crash mail FIL File attach (valid path and filename must be in subject) K/S Kill after sent LOC Local message HLD Hold for pick-up FRQ File request (valid filename(s) must be in subject) RRQ Return receipt request NETPATH; <path> (NETPATH) Allows you to specify a different path for this particular mail. Registered users only. Sysop name and BBS address can only be changed by registered users. 37 The [ECHOMAIL]-section This is all necessary data for an echomail. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- MSGNO; <value> (1) Each message has to have a uniqe number using the "MSGNO" command. You can let FileHerald create certain messages or all at one time. Message no 1 provides the default values for all following messages. So you just have to change those which are different. Theoretically you can create 65535 echomail messages. This, of course, exceeds the number of echomails a hudson style message base can hold. FROM; <sender name> (SYSOPNAME) TO; <receiver name> ("ALL") SUBJECT; <text string> ("New files at BBSADDRESS") ORIGADDR; <fidostyle address> (BBSADDRESS) ORIGIN; <text string> BOARD; <board number> Sysop name and BBS address can only be changed by registered users. 38 The [SQUISH]-section This is all necessary data for a squish mail. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- MSGNO; <value> (1) Each message has to have a uniqe number using the "MSGNO" command. You can let FileHerald create certain messages or all at one time. Message no 1 provides the default values for all following messages. So you just have to change those which are different. Theoretically you can create 65535 squish messages. FROM; <sender name> (SYSOPNAME) TO; <receiver name> ("ALL") SUBJECT; <text string> ("New files at BBSADDRESS") ORIGADDR; <fidostyle address> (BBSADDRESS) SQUISHPATH; <path> Squish path is the path and area name wher this message should be posted in. Sysop name and BBS address can only be changed by registered users. 39 The [FILELIST]-section This section sets up all paramaters that define your lists. FileHerald can create up to 65535 file lists at one pass. List no 1 provides the default parameters for all following lists. You can change them separatly for each list. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- LISTNO; <value> (1) Each list has to have a uniqe number using the "LISTNO" command. You can let FileHerald create certain lists or all at one time. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- CREATFILELIST; <NO|YES> (YES) Enables the list function. If set to "NO", no list at all is created. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- MAXDAYS; <value> (10) The maximum number of days a file may be old to be added to the new files list. All these files will be marked with an asterisk before their description. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- MAXLEVEL; <value> (32000) This is the maximum security level an area may have to be listed. If you enter 100 any area having more than 100 will not show up in the list. Allowed are values between 0 and 65535. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ALLFILESLIST; <filename> (ALLFILES.TXT) This is the filename of the complete list. NEWFILESLIST; <filename> (NEWFILES.TXT) This is the filename for the new files list. The default value is only for list no 1, for every following list a new files list will only be created if a filename is explicitely defined. 40 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- INFOFILE; <filename> If defined, an info file showing a brief overview of all file areas your system has. It will only show those areas that are listed. Areas with a too high security level or which are found in "SKIPLIST" will not show. Herald creates two nearly identical files, one named as above and one with the extension "ANS". The latter will contain ANSI sequences to colorise it. These sequences are stripped for the "normal" version. You can allow your users to display the ANSI version in your BBS. APPENDINFO; <NO|YES> (NO) Whether the (ASCII) infofile is appended to the end of the lists. INFOHEADER; <text string> These three strings work just like the template files. You can give this commands several times. Each command starts a new line. Please consider that each template string can not be longer than 1024 characters. As newlines are stored in these strings you have to add one character for every line. Any character exceeding this limit will simply be discarded. AREAINFO; <template string> In AREAINFO you may use the following tokens: ~A Areaname left justified (40 characters) ~B Areaname right justified (40 characters) ~# Areanumber ( 3 characters) ~L Access level to the current area ( 5 characters) ~+ Minimum age to the current area ( 3 characters) ~F Number of files in the particular area ( 5 characters) ~G Actual number of files ( 5 characters) ~S Size of all files in this area in kBytes ( 6 characters) ~M Size of all files in this area in MBytes ( 6 characters) ~D Number of downloads from this area ( 6 characters) ~R File request info (short) (10 characters) For example "AreaInfo | ~# | ~A | ~F | ~S | ~D | ~R |" creates the following result: | 5 | Utilities/Tools | 146 | 12702 | 115 | anyone | INFOFOOTER; <template string> ~F Number of files in the particular area ( 5 characters) ~G Actual number of files ( 5 characters) ~S Size of all files in this area in kBytes ( 6 characters) ~M Size of all files in this area in MBytes ( 6 characters) ~D Number of downloads from this area ( 6 characters) ~% Current date as defined by DATEFORMAT ~$ Current time as defined by TIMEFORMAT 41 For the ANSI version you can use these commands to colorise it: %CLRSCR% clear screen %NORMAL% all colors to default %BRIGHT% bright colors %BLINK% blinking colors %INVERSE% inverse colors %RESET% reset all attributes Foreground colors %FGBLACK% black %FGRED% red %FGGREEN% green %FGYELLOW% yellow %FGBLUE% blue %FGMAGENTA% magenta %FGCYAN% cyan %FGWHITE% white Background colors %BGBLACK% black %BGRED% red %BGGREEN% green %BGYELLOW% yellow %BGBLUE% blue %BGMAGENTA% magenta %BGCYAN% cyan %BGWHITE% white ------------------------------------------------------------------------- MISSINGFILE; <short text string> (<missing>) Short message that show if a file is missing in your base. It will be placed instead of size, date and/or time. 42 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- REQOKMSG; <text string> This text string should contain the info "Filerequests possible in this area". SHORTREQOKMSG; <text string> Same as above, only a shorter version, "anyone" for example. NOREQMSG; <text string> This text string should read like "No requests possible from this area". SHORTNOREQMSG; <text string> This text string should read like "none". PWDONLYMSG; <text string> This informs the user about "Requests only possible with password". SHORTPWDONLYMSG; <text string> Could be "password" for example. NOFILEREQ; <list of areas> PWDFILEREQ; <list of areas> These commands allow you to define the area which allow requests with password or no requests at all. The list of areas has to be formatted as written below in "SKIPLIST". ------------------------------------------------------------------------- SKIPLIST; <list of areas> These are the areas which you do not want to be listed. There are three ways to specify the areas. First is by its number, which may look like this: 26 means area number 26 -3 means area 1,2 and 3 30- means area 30 and every following area 7-9 means area 7,8 and 9 Exactly by its name: "TOOLS" specifies the area "Tools", of course case insensitive By name, but using regular expressions: '*CD-ROM*' fits any area name with "CD-ROM" in it, this is case insensitive, too 43 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- LISTHEADER; <filename> (LISTHEAD.TXT) You can specify one or more header files here, seperated by kommas. They will be put before the lists. AREAHEADER; <filename> (LISTAREA.TXT) This template file defines the look of every area header. LISTFOOTER; <filename> (LISTFOOT.TXT) These footer files will be put under the lists. Enter one or more names, seperated by kommas, here. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- LISTLINEFORMAT; <SIZE|DATE|TIME> By default only the filename and its description shows in each line. You can specify any combination of commands you like here. The order does not matter, in the line it will always be size, date, time. How date and time look like depends on the definitions in the [SYSTEM]-section. Examples: LISTLINEFORMAT SIZE DATE -> FILENAME 36725 12.12.1993 LISTLINEFORMAT DATE TIME -> FILENAME 12.12.1993 11:02:22 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- LISTMAXLINES; <value> (1) This is the maximum number of lines you allow for one file. "0" means don't care, any other number means that a maximum of so much lines will be used. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- LISTLINELEN; <value> (78) This value is the maximum number of characters that can be in one line. A word that exeeds this limit will be wrapped to the next line. Take care with the headers, footers and area templates, because they will not be truncated or wrapped around in any way if their lines are too long. This is your concern. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- LISTEOLMARK; <string|~string> This offers you the possibility to let FileHerald begin a new line for a certain word. Many sysops keep the names of every uploader in their area files, allowing downloaders to know the origin of the file. For SuperBBS that displays as "Uploader: xxxx". It looks nice when it stands in a seperate line. If you enter "LISTEOLMARK ~Uploader:" FileHerald puts "Uploader:" and the rest of the text into a new line. It is not case insensitive, but works only for the first occurrence of the string. If you just enter "Uploader:" the string itself and the rest of the line will be cut away. 44 This keeps lists short and removes unnecessary information. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- LISTFILECASE; <IGNORE|CAPITALIZE|LOWERCASE> (IGNORE) Depending on your personal taste you can change your filenames to upper or lower case using this keyword. If you enter "IGNORE" nothing will happen to them and they will stay as your BBS system creates them. LISTFILEFORMAT; <DEFAULT|DOS> (DEFAULT) Also a matter of taste is how you want your file names formatted. "DEFAULT" means the common "FILENAME.EXT"-look, "DOS" refers to the outfit of DIR listings. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- LISTDLCOUNTER; <IGNORE|STRIP> (IGNORE) "STRIP" removes the counters from the descriptions, thus reducing the size of the messages. "IGNORE" by default leaves them untouched. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- LISTORDER; <IGNORE,[!]ALPHA,[!]DATE,[!]SIZE,[!]NEW> (IGNORE) FileHerald sorts your messages as defined with "MSGORDER". You can only give one of the following commands: IGNORE leave original order untouched ALPHA sort by filenames DATE sort by date SIZE sort by filesize You may optionally give this command together with one of the above. FileHerald puts new files at the beginning (Files newer than the number of days specified with "MINDAYS") and sorts both sections as stated with the other command: NEW new files first A "!" reverses the sort order. Examples: LISTORDER ALPHA, NEW Sort by filename, new files first LISTORDER !DATE Sort by date, the oldest file first FILEORDER SIZE, !NEW Sort by size, old files first ------------------------------------------------------------------------- DESCRJUSTIFIED; <YES|NO> (NO) If you want justified description texts in your announcements, enable this. But note that it only works properly if you have very long descriptions, e.g., mostly about three to five lines. Otherwise the optical effect will be inferior. 45 CREATING FILELISTS When you want to create file lists with FileHerald, you first have to set up at least list no 1 ("LISTNO 1"). Enter the names of your lists, what areas should be listed. Then call Herald with the "/m0" and "/u0" switches if you don't want him to create messages or update the old files list. When you want to create a certain list, add for example "/l2" to create list no 2. Of course it has to be defined in HERALD.CFG. You can enter this switch several times to create more lists or use "/la" to create all defined lists, but this is default anyway. CREATING MESSAGES Defining Multiple Lists and Messages Herald can theoretically handle up to 65535 filelists and messages of each type. Of course this is limited to less than that by the amount of time it would take for the lists and by the maximum number of messages your Hudson style base or harddisk drive can keep. Each single list or message must be assigned a unique number. These numbers do not have to be in their natural order and it is not necessary that all preceding values are there. But there has to be a fraction number 1, because it supplies default values for all following fractions (there are some exceptions, see below). You may omit the keyword "MSGNO 1" or "LISTNO 1", anything that stands before the next number definition will be taken as if this word was there. If a number exists several times, these fractions will be handled as one even if they are not direct neighbours, so it is your concern to make sure that the numbers really are unique. Exeptions to Defaults Concerning lists, everything that is defined in "LISTNO 1" is default for all following lists, but not "BOARDS" and "NEWFILES", if you do not define these words explicitly in every fraction, no infos and no new files list will be created. Take care also to redefine "ALLFILES", because otherwise the older list will be overwritten. For messages everything from "MSGNO 1" is default except in netmails where "NETPATH" is replaced by its default value for every message and squish mails where "SQUISHAREA" must be defined again in every fraction. Also "SUBJ", but only if a file is attached to message no 1 (you would not want it to be sent to every other adressee, would you?). 46 CONVERTING AREA LISTS Multiple BBS systems If you run Wildcat or WME and want to have valid FILES.BBS for your d'bridge mailer, use this command line switch: HERALD /oX create X-style FILES.BBS You can let Herald create an additional FILES.BBS for each area. For SuperBBS, Opus and ProBoard they are created in the particular area path and named FILES.BBS. It doesn't matter which type you choose (SBBS, QBBS or PB), it makes little difference how the files look as long as they are formatted as d'bridge likes them. It is also possible to use the "EXTRAAREAFILETYPE" keyword which has exactly the same function as the switch. For Remote Access and RoboBBS you will find them in what's defined by "EXTRALISTPATH", when you set "EXTRAFILESPECNAME YES". These files are named FILES.n where "n" is the number of the particular area. The purpose is to allow you to run multiple BBS systems (e.g. SuperBBS as main system and RoboBBS as an option, then each time Herald is run FILES.n for the subsystem are generated). A convenient way to support WME WME's weird area list format makes it hard to add new files, sort them or anything like this. So if you run WME, you can set "AreaFileType WME", "BBSType SBBS" and "ExtraListType WME". Of course you also have to define the correct path were WME wants its area files with "ExtraListPath". Herald will the use WME's configuration to locate the areas, use SBBS type FILES.BBS to store all file descriptions and create WME type area files from them. You just have to change these FILES.BBS, add new files or change descriptions as suited. Herald takes care that a proper WME style area file is created. 47 MISCELLANOUS Pattern matching rules Everybody is familiar with MS-DOS and its pattern matching rules. In fact the designers of DOS and CP/M did some fairly strange things with their command processor and OS. One of those things was to only selectively adopt the regular expressions allowed within the *IX shells. Only '?' and '*' were allowed in filenames and even with these, the '*' was allowed only at the end of a pattern and in fact when used to specify the filename the '*' did not apply to extension. This gave rise to the all too common expression "*.*". FileHerald's pattern matching rules offer considerably wider flexibility in file specification or when matching area names is concerned. FileHerald allows allows such specifications as *75.zip or * (equivelant to *.* in DOS lingo). The latter will match ANY string of characters. If you want it to fit only complete names (e.g. "test.bat") you have to explicitly specify "*.*". Expressions such as "[a-e]*t" would fit the name "apple.crt" or "catspaw.bat" or "elegant". So you are able to define much more closely the name of the file you want to fit to your expression then it would be possible using merely MS-DOS matchin rules. For example "FNEWS*.*" would match "FNEWS29.LZH" as well as "FNEWSCAN.ARJ" and eventually lead to incorrect behaviour of FileHerald. However, if you use "FNEWS[0-9][0-9].LZH" it will only fit if two digits follow the name. In the specified pattern string... ...`*' matches any sequence of characters (zero or more) ...`?' matches any character ...`\' suppresses syntactic significance of a special character ...[SET] matches any character in the specified set, ...[!SET] or [^SET] matches any character not in the specified set. A set is composed of characters or ranges a range looks like 'character hyphen character' (as in 0-9 or A-Z). [0-9a-zA-Z_] is the minimal set of characters allowed in the [..] pattern construct. To suppress the special syntactic significance of any of `[]*?!^-\', and match the character exactly, precede it with a `\'. 48 Command line switches HERALD /c<filename> use 'filename' as configuration file This switch allows you to temporarily use a different configuration file instead of HERALD.CFG. HERALD /s work silent, without most of the screen writes That switch supresses most screen writes so FileHerald run a little bit faster on slower machines. On the other hand if it runs in a night-time event you won't need screen writes at all. HERALD /d0 do not update DESCRIPT.IONs HERALD /d1 add new files to DESCRIPT.IONs only HERALD /d2 update all DESCRIPT.IONs completely If you use 4DOS and want to have all descriptions available for its dir- command, you can run Herald with "/D2". He will look for each file if it is already described and if not insert it. If an area lacks such a DESCRIPT.ION file, it will be created. Non-4DOS-user should not use the /D command, because this is a feature which is completely useless for them. "/D1" will only add files which are new. These means files which are added a description from COMMENT.LST or inserted into the area file because they missing AND a default description exists in COMMENT.LST. This switch overrides the "UPDATE4DOSDESCR" keyword. HERALD /a0 do not update area files HERALD /a1 update area files If you enter "/A0" the area files will not be updated and if you enter "/A1" they will, no matter what has been defined by the "UPDATEAREAFILE" keyword. Use it to temporarily override it. HERALD /u0 suppress updating HERALD.OLD This allows you to test FileHerald or just use him to create a message. There are keywords available for that, of course. But it is more convenient if you want to switch this function off just one time. HERALD /m0 does not create a message When you haven't run FileHerald for some time you may want to update the list of already announced files without creating a huge announcement message. Use this swtich for that purpose. The following command line parameters allow you to selectively create on message out of all, all of one style (echomail, netmail) or all at once. None of these switches can be combined with /m0 of course. HERALD /mNn create netmail no n HERALD /mEn create echomail no n HERALD /mSn create squish style message no n HERALD /mA create all messages HERALD /mNA create all netmail messages HERALD /mEA create all echomail messages HERALD /mSA create all squish messages 49 You can enter these switches more than one time, e.g. HERALD /mn2 /mn3 /mn6 /EA will create netmail no 2, 3 and 6 and all echomails. HERALD /l0 will not create a filelist That switch turns the filelist off. It may not be combined with the following, which, similar to /m, allow you to create certain lists or all at once: HERALD /ln create filelist defined in section n HERALD /lA create all filelists HERALD /oX create X-style FILES.BBS You can let Herald create an additional FILES.BBS for each area. For SuperBBS, Opus and ProBoard they are created in the particular area path and named FILES.BBS. This allows Wildcat or Windowed Modem Environment to make FILES.BBS for their d'bridge mailer. For Remote Access and RoboBBS you will find them in what's defined by LISTPATH. These files are named FILES.n where "n" is the number of the particular area. The purpose is to allow you to run multiple BBS systems (e.g. SuperBBS as main system and RoboBBS as an option, then each time Herald is run FILES.n for the subsystem are generated). To get a brief online help, enter one of these: HERALD /? and /h displays help screen 50 Errorlevels 0 No errors, message(s) created 1 No errors, no message created 2 Error occurred, no message created 3 Fatal error occurred, no message created 4 Virus detected! 5 Aborted by CTRL-BRK If you want to know whether a message has been created, you just have to check for errorlevel not zero. 51 ENVIRONMENT HERALD Defines the workpath Herald uses this directory to store his supporting files TZ Set system time zone You can define what timezone you are in by setting the environment variable "TZ": TZ = zzz[+|-]d[d][lll] zzz name of you time zone, EST, UTC, GMT etc. [+|-]d[d] difference between your and world standard time (GMT) in hours "+" or "-" defines whether this value is to be added or subtracted [lll] defines if you have daylight saving time. Enter this only during this time period These environment variables of other software are also recognized: SBBS, RA, PB Read "BBS SOFTWARE SUPPORTED" for more information. 52 Network/multitasker operation Herald has been tested with networks. He is capable of sharing and locking files, you just have to load SHARE.EXE before starting FileHerald. Problems may occur because FileHerald is an ovlerlaid DOS executable which may caus sharing violations. If, then change HERALD.EXE to read-only by entering "attrib +R HERALD.EXE". You can run FileHerald more than once at the same time in from a single directory. Herald takes care that temporary files will not conflict. In that case, you have to change Herald's attributes because otherwise you are bound to cause a sharing violation! If you run Herald more than once in a multitasker environment there should be no problem, because FileHerald uses his program ID to generate unique filenames. HERALD.OLD and other system files may cause problems when both computers try to access them at the same time. To avoid conflicts they should reside in different directories for different computers. 53 Multiline Herald opens FILES.BBS and other shared files in "read-only" mode. Therefore, if a user browses an area while Herald wants to access it, this should work without problems (as tested with SuperBBS and Proboard). It depends on the way the BBS software opens the area listings. It must not lock them for reading. A problem is when the BBS software wants to write to the area listing, e.g., when a user uploaded a file to insert the description. What may happen is either Herald is denied access and has to skip the area or the BBS software. In that case you will lose the description. All this will normally not lead to a system hang, because Herald intercepts this bloody "(r)etry, (i)gnore, (c)ancel" junk. After the lists are created, you usually pack the lists and put them into an user accessible area. What sometimes happened on my system was that a user was downloading my list while my filelist batch wanted to copy the new archive there and my computer hung until I pressed "r" next morning. 54 Batchfiles This is a demo batchfile which creates three lists. You have to configure those lists using "ListNo". We assume that you called these lists "ALLFILES.TXT", "NEWFILES.TXT", "SPECLST1.TXT" and "SPECLST2.TXT" FILELIST.BAT: @ECHO OFF HERALD -M0 -U0 -L1 -L2 -L3 %1 %2 REM Parameters could also be "-M0 -U0" which would have the same effect REM as long as only three lists are defined in HERALD.CFG IF NOT ERRORLEVEL 0 GOTO ERROR REM Here only if nothing happened on the way DEL F:\FILES\FILES.ARJ DEL F:\FILES\SPEC1LST.ARJ DEL F:\FILES\SPEC2LST.ARJ ARJ A -E -zF:\HERALD\LISTHEAD.TXT F:\FILES\FILES E:\ALLFILES.TXT ARJ A -E -zF:\HERALD\LISTHEAD.TXT F:\FILES\NEWFILES E:\NEWFILES.TXT ARJ A -E -zF:\HERALD\LISTHEAD.TXT F:\FILES\SPEC1LST E:\SPEC1LST.TXT ARJ A -E -zF:\HERALD\LISTHEAD.TXT F:\FILES\SPEC2LST E:\SPEC2LST.TXT DEL E:\ALLFILES.TXT DEL E:\NEWFILES.TXT DEL E:\BOARDS.TXT DEL E:\SPEC1LST.TXT DEL E:\SPEC2LST.TXT :ERROR This demo batch file creates a list and announces new files: @ECHO OFF HERALD IF ERRORLEVEL 2 GOTO ERROR IF ERRORLEVEL 1 GOTO NOMSG REM Here only if a message was created POST E:\MESSAGE.TXT #153 -From "FileHerald" -To All -Subj "New files" POST E:\MESSAGE.TXT #157 -From "FileHerald" -To All -Subj "New files" REM Of course you can use the internal posting functions of Herald! :NOMSG 55 REM Here only if nothing happened on the way DEL F:\FILES\FILES.ARJ DEL F:\FILES\SPEC1LST.ARJ DEL F:\FILES\SPEC2LST.ARJ ARJ A -E -zF:\HERALD\LISTHEAD.TXT F:\FILES\FILES E:\ALLFILES.TXT ARJ A -E -zF:\HERALD\LISTHEAD.TXT F:\FILES\NEWFILES E:\NEWFILES.TXT ARJ A -E -zF:\HERALD\LISTHEAD.TXT F:\FILES\SPEC1LST E:\SPEC1LST.TXT ARJ A -E -zF:\HERALD\LISTHEAD.TXT F:\FILES\SPEC2LST E:\SPEC2LST.TXT DEL E:\ALLFILES.TXT DEL E:\NEWFILES.TXT DEL E:\BOARDS.TXT :ERROR DEL E:\ALLFILES.TXT DEL E:\NEWFILES.TXT DEL E:\BOARDS.TXT 56 APPENDIX BBS SOFTWARE SUPPORTED; This section gives an overview on the different types of BBS software FileHerald supports and which of their special features are handled. The version numbers listed here are the very versions FileHerald has been tested with. He may work with older or later versions as well, but at least for RoboBBS I can say that the configuration file structures may change and problems may occurr. Software name and version: SuperBBS 1.16 Configuration file used : FLSEARCH.BBS Environment variable used: SBBS You have to enter a seperate listpath and filename for SuperBBS to CD-ROMs. FileHerald will automatically use this special list. Software name and version: QuickBBS 2.75 Configuration file used : FLSEARCH.CTL Environment variable used: QBBS FLSEARCH.CTL is a simple ASCII-file formatted like this: PATH <ACCESSLEVEL> <DESCRIPTION> [AREA_FILENAME] The path leads to the area file which has to be named "FILES.BBS" and the files themself. ACCESSLEVEL is the minimum level a user needs to access the area. If it is omitted, 32000 is used as default. "DESCRIPTION" is a brief description, in which underscores have to be used instead of blanks. Those underscores are replaced by blanks and will not show in lists. AREA_FILENAME is a non-standard feature only used by FileHerald which allows you to specify for FileHerald a different path and filename for the area file. This is the only way to support CD-ROMs where the area files can not be in the same directory with the files for understandable reasons. If your other software gets troubled about this you may have to use a seperate area list for FileHerald, but at least you have the chance to support your CD-ROM at all. Some lines may look like this: C:\files\tools 10 Utilities_and_tools F:\files\windows 5 Windows_applications J:\util\driver 10 CD-ROM:_BGI-driver C:\files\ROM-DRIV.BBS Software name and version: ProBoard 1.30 Configuration file used : FILES.PRO Environment variable used: PB ProBoard has a very clever and fast way to support CD-ROMs. You can enter a special area file name and path like for SuperBBS. But you can also define the area as a CD-ROM area. Proboard will then not scan the file directory to get file size and date but use only the data stored in the area file like this: PINBALL.ZIP 22234 12/11/92 Nice pinball game WOLFD3D.ZIP 676355 09/11/92 Demo version of Castle Wolfenstein 57 So it is not neccessary to access the CD-ROM to get this data which speeds up search significantly. Herald supports this feature but will also autodetect when a line not fits this format and convert it (i.e. he will try to get that data from the ROM and insert it into your area file for further use). Software name and version: Remote Access 1.11 Configuration file used : FILES.RA Environment variable used: RA Remote Access 1.11 offers the possibility to use seperate area files by naming a path where they are stored. If in this path a file called FILES.n is found, where n is the area number (e.g. area 22: FILES.22) this file will be used instead of one in the area path. Herald will also do this when "LISTPATH" is defined. Software name and version: RoboBBS 1.xx Configuration file used : FILEAREA.DEF Environment variable used: n/a RoboBBS uses a way similar to Remote Access, but the number has to be defined explicitly after a colon ";", e.g. "F:\FILES\TOOLS\;5". RoboBBS will then search for a "FILES.5" in its system directory. As there is no environment variable which allows Herald to find that path, you have to enter it using "LISTPATH". Software name and version: Windowed Modem Environment 1.xx Configuration file used : FILEAREA.BBS Environment variable used: n/a WME stores all area files in its work path. They are named FILEAREA.n where "n" is the area number. They are binary files. FileHerald can both read and write these. Software name and version: Wildcat 3.xx Configuration file used : FILEAREA.DAT, ALLFILES.DAT Environment variable used: n/a WC stores all data including file size and upload date in a single file (ALLFILES.DAT). Herald can read the necessary files but not write anything to it. 58 Copyright and shareware notice The FileHerald is copyrighted software and not free. You are granted a 30 days trial period after which you will either have to register or stop using FileHerald. The program is shareware and may be distributed freely via BBS and any other way, provided nothing more than a reasonable fee is charged. This should not exceed the mere cost of the disk FileHerald is handed over on. 59 Disclaimer The well known sentences noone ever reads: FileHerald is tested on various systems with different configurations. To make it short, it worked there, it may not work for you. There is no guarantee whatsoever that it will work for you. It is only sure that it occupies disk space and will cost your money to download it somewhere. Any damage directly or indirectly occurring to your system's hard- or software is at your own risk and I am not responsible for any loss of time, data or money. 60 Trouble shooting * Sharing problems: In multitasker or network environments: Set the read-only attribute for HERALD.EXE (attrib +R HERALD.EXE). 61 Support Support is granted to registered and unregistered users without distinction, but of course I will not send crash mails to unregistered users. Just write a netmail to: Norbert Schlia, MUSIC-BBS 2:248/504@fidonet, 1200 - 19200 bps (ZYX, FAX), ++49-721-68 88 34 (24h online) 2:248/508@fidonet, 300 - 2400 baud, ++49-721-681532 (24h online) 68:2493/104@cinemanet, 1200 - 19200 bps (ZYX, FAX), ++49-721-68 88 34 (24h online) In the United States: You may contact me by netmail through our U.S. Distributor Butch Bridges at 1:19/132 (24 hour line). All netmail messages are forward to me in Germany on a timely basis and I answered as quickly as possible by netmail. In the South Africa: Write a netmail to Grant Anderson, 5:7101/64 (CDS Online, Johannisburg). 62 How to register This is copyrighted software owned by OBLIVION SOFTWARE. You are granted a 30 days trial period, after which you have to register or stop using FileHerald. Otherwise you are in violation of copyright laws. Send your registration to the registration site in charge for you. Please specify whether you want your key sent to you via crash or ground mail. Crash mail of course is only possible if you are member of Fidonet or Cinemanet and run a continious mail system. There are extra charges for ground mail delivery. If you want the latest version of The FileHerald, this is only possible via ground mail. Of course you can download it from 1:19/132, 2:248/504, 2:248/508 or 68:2493/104. How to register in Europe Send a Eurocheque or BANK cheque payable to Norbert Schlia or transfer it to my account listed below. Please do not send cash money! Norbert Schlia (2:248/504, 2:248/508) Ruschgraben 26 W-7500 Karlsruhe 1 Germany Bank Account: 972 48 16, Sparkasse Karlsruhe (660 501 01) FileHerald costs US$25 plus US$ 6 for delivery when you want your keys sent to you on floppy disks. Specify which disk size you need. You may fill in the equivalent amount in your currency. Please advise if you want FileHerald mailed to you on 5.25 or 3.5 diskette. If you do not specify, it will be mailed to you on 5.25 diskette. 63 How to register in the United States Obtain a money order or cashier's check in the amount of US$25 and make it payable to - Butch Bridges Mail it to our Distributor in the United States: Butch Bridges ( 1:19/132 ) P.O. Box 11 Ardmore, OK 73402 USA Please advise if you want FileHerald mailed to you on 5.25 or 3.5 diskette. If you do not specify, it will be mailed to you on 5.25 diskette. Be sure and give a street address as your mailing address. PO Box is not an acceptable mailing address, UPS requires a steet address. Business and personal checks are not excepted and will be returned to their sender. Also we do not accept C.O.D. orders. Orders with proper payment are shipped postage-paid in 72 hours or less. If you want to have your key sent to you on floppy disks, specify which size you need and add US$ 6 for delivery. 64 How to register outside the US and Europe Send a BANK cheque payable to Norbert Schlia or transfer it to my account listed below. Please do not send cash money! Norbert Schlia (2:248/504, 2:248/508) W-7500 Karlsruhe 1 Germany Bank Account: 972 48 16, Sparkasse Karlsruhe (660 501 01) FileHerald costs US$25 plus US$ 9 for delivery when you want your keys sent to you on floppy disks. Specify which disk size you need. You may fill in the equivalent amount in your currency. Please advise if you want FileHerald mailed to you on 5.25 or 3.5 diskette. If you do not specify, it will be mailed to you on 5.25 diskette. 65 Ordering upgrades The latest version of Herald is always available from these nodes (Magic: HERALD): System Phone Node Speed Request hours -------------------------------------------------------------------------- MUSIC-BBS Line 1 49-721-668834 2:248/504 2400 - 19.200 ZYX 6.00 to 5.00 MUSIC-BBS Line 2 49-721-681532 2:248/508 1200 - 2400 6.00 to 5.00 F&S-Soft Mail only! 2:248/509 1200 - 16.800 ZYX 20.00 to NMH Suedpfalz Box 1 49-7273-5279 2:248/504 2400 - 19.200 ZYX not NMH Suedpfalz Box 2 49-7273-1547 2:248/508 2400 - 16.800 ZYX not NMH High-Speed BBS 49-721-474758 2:241/7455 1200 - 16.800 ZYX LachSack 49-721-757034 2:241/7557 2400 - 14.400 Dual 6:00 to 2:00 Sued-Afrika (Johannisburg): -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CDS-Online 0027-11-403-1248 5:7101/64 2400 - 16.800 Dual USA (Ardmore, Oklahoma): -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Heat Is On 001-405-221-5522 1:19/132 2400 - 14.400 Dual 66 Differences between keys There are two different keys: Register key: allows to run Herald V1.xx and V2.xx without time limit and annoying behaviour. Evaluation key: allows to run Herald for a limited time period. This is intended if you want to test Herald for more than 30 days. If you have a good reason, write me, I give you such an evaluation key. 67 SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS AND LIMITATIONS Like any other program, The FileHerald has certain limitations which you should be aware of using the program. The line length of any text input file, except of the area files, may not exceed 255 characters. Any input beyond that limit is simply discarded and you will get a warning "Line too long - truncated!". In area files 1023 characters per line are allowed, which should do well. Also, a single description may not be longer than 1023 characters or else will be cut. The number of lines in an area file is also limited to 1000. This does not directly refer to the actual line count, because internally each comment and each file with its description is stored as a single line independent on how many lines it occupies in the area file itself. If an area file exceeds that limit, FileHerald will give a warning and skip the area. How much files FileHerald can handle over all depends on the amount of conventional memory your computer has free. About 600K will be enough for 20,000 files, if it is less, the number may be smaller. Processor type and memory management Herald was compiled using 286 code and therefore will not run on 8086 based machines. In any way, due to FileHerald's memory management the 640 KB such machines have at disposal would never be enough. Herald is an overlaid DOS executable, he needs about 200 KB XMS or EMS. Make sure that it is available, because otherwise Herald would have to load his overlays from disk which worst case can become very slow. He tries to allocate XMS first, then EMS. He also uses XMS/EMS for swapping when calling other programs. He is also capable of swapping to DOS extenders or disk, but you should prefer the first two. This means about 650K of additional XMS/EMS is needed. Considering that third party programmes call by Herald (e.g. archivers) may swap themselves, about 1MB of free XMS/EMS is recommended. Disk caching A disk cache may greatly increase execution speed. As FileHerald needs information on each file it processes, for 2000 files it is necessary to call a DOS function to get filesize, date and other information 2000 times as well. Tests have shown that about 85% of the execution time goes into accessing file dates, only the rest in computing data... Therefore using a staged disk cache will raise the effectivity significantly. 68 Bugreport If you discover bugs, send a netmail to my US distributor or directly to me containing information on... * what happened * how did it happen * does it happen always or sometimes Include your complete FileHerald configuration AND CONFIG.SYS/AUTOEXEC.BAT, write what system you have (computer, HD, BBS software, DOS Version). 69 Revision History 0.93-1 Released by popular demand 1.00-1 Out now, after nearly a year of hard work 70 Future versions Future versions will feature unlimited numbers of files and maybe lots of new functions I now can never think of. Depends upon what YOU demand! 71 Credits Thanks for giving me advise to Heinz Stelzig who sacrificed much time giving me hints, checking my code and at least it would not have been possible for me to write FileHerald so fast without his professional help. Thanks also for not laughing at me when I came up with silly ideas :-) Thanks to Grant Anderson and Butch Bridges for proof reading this document, especially to Grant how did a great job also updating descriptions as they changed. Saved me a lot of precious time! Thanks to SWF 3 for providing music, spent much time headbanging while programming here :-)) Yes, and to the makers of "Married with Children" for their excellent portray of intersexual relations. To IBM for not being responsible for my computers. I promise someday I'll get very rich, buy IBM, fire Bill Gates and give it as a gift to Cuba. Should throw them back to stone age! So, if you don't like IBM, register now! Also thanks to Vogelbräu for providing me good beer, the doctor who revived me after I got my last electricity bill (3 computers running 24h, I ended up with a heart failure as I saw the amount I had to pay :-(( To the girls for avoiding me, a new girl-friend would only have spoiled FileHerald and delayed its completition! The still-not-existing-but-planned German manual will be translated by Andreas Lorch. The Beta Crew This is my beta crew. Thanks for having confidence in me, risking your filebase and all, not minding having your system hung over night or brushed away megs of files by accident: Grant Anderson, Frank Lachmann, Andreas Lorch, Heinz Stelzig, Bernd Wagner, Stefan Witzens 72 Other software The FileHerald uses these third party products or parts of them for which I want to thank their developers saving me much time and efforts by letting me use their code: --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Swapping routines: SPAWNO v4.13 12/12/91 disk/EMS/XMS/INT15 swapping replacement for spawn() (c) Copyright 1990,1991,1992 Ralf Brown. All Rights Reserved. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wildcard matching schemes: REGEX Globber (Wild Card Matching) A *IX SH style pattern matcher written in C V1.10 Dedicated to the Public Domain March 12, 1991 J. Kercheval [72450,3702] -- johnk@wrq.com --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Squish posting and fidostyle message handling by: +-----------------------------+ | Squish MsgAPI, revision 0.0 | +-----------------------------+ Copyright 1991 by Scott J. Dudley. All rights reserved. "Squish", "SquishMail" and "Maximus" are trademarks of Scott J. Dudley. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Registration key system: REGISTRATION KEY SYSTEM FOR PROGRAMMERS Version 2.20 (C) Copyright 1992, Brian Pirie. All Rights Reserved. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fidostyle address matching routines are adapted from: FIDOADR.C - 3/7/92 - David H. Bennett - V1.0 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- The critical error handler was coded in assembly by: Matthäus Stadler, 2:248/504.1 73 QUICK REFERENCE GUIDE ADDFROMCDROM 21 ADDGRAPHINFO 21 ADDNEWFILES 21 ALLFILESLIST 39 ANNOUNCEALWAYS 32 ANNOUNCEMISSING 32 ANNOUNCENEVER 32 APPENDINFO 40 AREAHEADER 27, 33, 43 AREAINFO 40 AREALISTPATH 18 AREALISTTYPE 18 AREASDIRLIST 17, 18 ATTRIB 36 AUTOCREATEAREAFILE 20 AUTOWRAP 25 BACKUPAREAFILE 20 BBS SOFTWARE SUPPORTED 56 BBSADDRESS 15 BBSDATEFORMAT 18 BBSNAME 15 BBSTYPE 17 BLANKSASCOMMENT 25 BOARD 37 COMMENT.LST 12 COUNTERLEN 26 CREATEMESSAGE 31 CREATFILELIST 39 DATEFORMAT 19 DAYNAMES 19 DESCRFILENAME 22 DESCRIPT.ION 5 DESCRJUSTIFIED 32, 44 DESTADDR 36 ECHOPATH 35 ERRORLEVEL 30 ERRORMESSAGE 30 EXTRAAREAFILETYPE 20 EXTRAFILESPECNAME 20 EXTRALISTPATH 21 FILECASE 27 FILEDLCOUNTER 28 FILEEOLMARK 27 FILEMAXLINES 27 FILEORDER 28 FROM 36, 37, 38 IGNOREFILE 21 INFOFILE 40 INFOFOOTER 40 INFOHEADER 40 KEEPDIZ 22 KILLALL.LST 12 KILLFILE 26 LEFTBRACKET 26 LISTDLCOUNTER 44 LISTEOLMARK 43 LISTFILE 31 LISTFILECASE 44 74 LISTFILEFORMAT 44 LISTFOOTER 43 LISTHEADER 43 LISTLINEFORMAT 43 LISTLINELEN 43 LISTMAXLINES 43 LISTNO 39 LISTORDER 44 LOGFILE 16 LOGLEVEL 16 LONGDESCRMARK 24 MAXDAYS 39 MAXLEVEL 31, 39 MINFILES 32 MISSINGDESCR 22 MISSINGFILE 41 MONTHNAMES 19 MSGDLCOUNTER 34 MSGEOLMARK 34 MSGFILECASE 34 MSGFILEFORMAT 34 MSGFOOTER 33 MSGHEADER 33 MSGLINEFORMAT 33 MSGLINELEN 33 MSGMAXLEN 35 MSGMAXLINES 33 MSGNAME 35 MSGNO 36, 37, 38 MSGORDER 35 MSGTYPE 35 NETPATH 35, 36 NEWFILESLIST 39 NOFILEREQ 42 NOKILL.LST 12 NOREQMSG 42 NOTIFYMSGAREA 17 NOTIFYMSGTYPE 17 NOTRASH.LST 13 ORIGADDR 36, 37, 38 ORIGIN 37 PWDFILEREQ 42 PWDONLYMSG 42 REGISTERKEY 15 REMOVE4DOSDESCR 23 REMOVEEMPTYLINES 25 REPACKCOMMAND 29 REPACKEXTENSION 29 REQOKMSG 42 RIGHTBRACKET 26 SCANMODE 32 SHORTNOREQMSG 42 SHORTPWDONLYMSG 42 SHORTREQOKMSG 42 SKIPANNOUNCE 31 SKIPLIST 42 SKIPREPACK 30 SKIPUPDATE 23 SQUISHPATH 38 STRIPHIASCII 22 SUBJECT 36, 37, 38 75 SWAPDIRS 16 SWAPTYPE 16 SYSOPNAME 15 TEMPDRIVE 15 TEXTWINDOW 15 TIMEFORMAT 19 TO 36, 37, 38 TRASHALL.LST 13 TRASHFILE 26, 30 TRASHPATH 26 UNPACKCOMMAND 22 UPDATE4DOSDESCR 23 UPDATEAREAFILE 20 UPDATELIST 31 USE4DOSDESCR 23 USEFILE_ID 22 76