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1995-09-21
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MERCURY - The REAL Amiga Tire Pump
by Roger Clark
⌐ 1994 BitPlane Enterprises
Mercury is designed to use Quick Silver's configuration file for seamless
integration with the file server. Many of the keywords that Mercury
recognizes are standard for Quick Silver. Those commands indicated by an
asterisk (*) are recognized only by Mercury and ignored by Quick Silver.
If you are not running Quick Silver (and why not?) these commands are all
explained below.
Mercury will generate both plain text file lists, as well as AmigaGuide«
formatted file lists. Both files will be placed in the same archive so
your callers will get both lists when they download or file request your
file listings.
Mercury will also recognize Quick Silver's keyfile and use it as well as
it's own special keyfile. So if you have registered Quick Silver, Mercury
will run in the registered mode as well. The registered version is also
quite a bit faster than the unregistered version.
Mercury was originally derived from Robofiler, another ARexx filelist
generation utility by Robert Blayzor. But this was long long ago in a
galaxy far far away...
QSilver/Mercury Keywords
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
CNETDESC
DEFCOMMENT [Comment]
DIRECTORY [Path] {LEVEL} {TITLE} {LINK}
DLGDESC
EXCELDESC
HEADER [Path]
IGNORE [File extension]
MAGIC FILES [Path] {Level}
MAGIC NEW [Path] {LEVEL}
NAME [BBS Name]
NODE [Node Number]
Mercury Only Keywords
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ARCHIVER [Archiver command]
BUTTON [Filename] [Button Title]
DELETELISTS
ENDSUBMENU
FILEHEADER [Path]
FILENOTE [Filenote]
FOOTER [Path]
ICON [Path]
NEWDAYS [Number of days]
NEWFILENOTE [Filenote]
TEMPDIR [Path]
SHOWFULLPATH
SUBMENU [Menu Title]
SUBTEXT [Filename]
TXTICON [Path]
Description of commands
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
DIRECTORY:
This defines the paths that Mercury searches in for files to list. Each
area can have an optional access level or levels associated with it. If a
level is assigned, then Mercury will only include the contents of that
directory in the file list(s) that have the proper access levels assigned.
You may also specify an optional area title for Mercury to use in the file
listing for each area. This title is defined AFTER any levels if they are
used.
Example: DIRECTORY DH0:Files/Games LEVEL 5 TITLE Amiga Games
DIRECTORY DH0:Files/Comm TITLE Amiga Communications
DIRECTORY DH0:Files/Private LEVEL 10,14
If you have your file directories split among different drives or
directories, you can use the LINK keyword to tell Mercury to include all
files in the current directory with the files in the previous directory. In
the following example, all files in all three directories will be listed in
the file listings as if they were all in the same phisical directory.
Example: DIRECTORY DH0:Files/Stuff TITLE My stuff
DIRECTORY DH1:Files/Stuff LINK
DIRECTORY DH2:Files/Stuff LINK
MAGIC FILES:
This defines the filelist(s) that Mercury will create. If a file listing
has been given an access level, then only those areas appropriate for the
access levels will be included in the listing. You may specify multiple
filelists each with a unique name and assorted access levels. Mercury will
strip the last 4 characters from the filename and create each list with the
partial filename that results. So in the first example below, the created
listing would be named "DH0:Files/FileList".
New to version 1.05 is the optional switches ASCII and GUIDE. These will
tell Mercury to only generate one type of file listing or the other. By
omitting both switches, Mercury will generate both style file lists. See
examples 3 and 4 below.
Also new to version 1.05 is the optional switch NOBUTTONS. This tells
Mercury to not add the file request generating buttons to the file listing.
See example 5 below.
These options are not position sensitive, so they may appear anywhere on
the line following the path and filename of the filelist.
New to version 1.06 is the ADDCR option. This will add a CR character at
the end of each line in the ASCII filelist to maintain compatibility with
PC systems. The default action is to not add the CR character. The last
example will create only the ASCII file list and append the CR to the end
of each line.
Example: MAGIC FILES DH0:Files/FileList.LHA
MAGIC FILES DH0:Files/FileList10.LHA LEVEL 10
MAGIC FILES DH0:Files/FileListG.LHA GUIDE
MAGIC FILES DH0:Files/FileListA.LHA ASCII
MAGIC FILES DH0:Files/FileList.LHA NOBUTTONS
MAGIC FILES DH0:Files/FileList.LHA ADDCR ASCII
MAGIC NEW:
The same as MAGIC FILES, except this option names the file lists that
contain only the NEW files on the system. All options are the same,
including the new ASCII, GUIDE and NOBUTTONS switches.
Example: MAGIC NEW DH0:Files/NewFiles.LHA
MAGIC NEW DH0:Files/NewFiles10.LHA LEVEL 10
NAME:
This is your BBS name. It is only used for the default file comments if
you don't specify FILENOTE or NEWFILENOTE. If this keyword is ommited,
then the default comments are listed as "Full File List" and "New Files
List", otherwise your BBS name is pre-appended to the filenotes.
Example: NAME The Hotel California
NODE:
This is your FidoNet node number. It is used in version 1.04 + to
generate automatic file requests when the end user clicks on a filename in
your listing. This new feature requires the NODE keyword to be present.
If Mercury can not find the NODE keyword, then the auto-request feature is
disabled. Note: Your full 4D address must be used.
Example: NODE 1:382/105.0
FILENOTE:
This comand defines the AmigaDos filenote to be added to each full
filelist and it's associated archive. If you omit this keyword, then
Mercury will use "Full File List" as a default. If Mercury finds the
keyword NAME, then it will pre-append the BBS Name to the default filenote.
Example: FILENOTE My complete filelisting
NEWFILENOTE:
This comand defines the AmigaDos filenote to be added to each new
filelist and it's associated archive. If you omit this keyword, then
Mercury will use "New Files List" as a default. If Mercury finds the
keyword NAME, then it will pre-append the BBS Name to the default filenote.
Example: FILENOTE My complete filelisting
HEADER:
This defines a textfile that can be placed at the beginning of each file
listing and new file listing. The HEADER keyword is shared with Quick
Silver. If you wish to use a different header for the file listings and
Quick Silver's reply messages, then use the FILEHEADER option.
Example: HEADER DH0:BBS/Header.TXT
FILEHEADER:
This defines a textfile that can be placed at the beginning of each file
listing and new file listing. Since the HEADER keyword is shared with
Quick Silver, you may wish to use a different header file for the file
listings. In this case, the FILEHEADER keyword is used to define the
header file that Mercury uses while the HEADER keyword will still be used
by Quick Silver. If both keywords are used, FILEHEADER will override the
HEADER option and be used by Mercury. Omitting this keyword will cause
Mercury to fallback to using the HEADER keyword, or in it's absence, not
using any file header.
Example: FILEHEADER DH0:BBS/FileHeader.TXT
FOOTER:
This defines a textfile to be appended to the end of each file list and
new file list. If this keyword is omitted, then Mercury will not use a
footer comment at the end of the file listings.
Example: FOOTER DH0:BBS/Footer.TXT
DELETELISTS:
This command tells Mercury to delete the file lists when it is finished
archiving. This will delete all of the .TXT and .GUIDE file lists, and
leave just the archived file lists. The default action is to not delete
the file lists.
Example: DELETELISTS
ICON:
This defines the AmigaDos .info file to be copied into the file archives
with each .Guide file. If you want to create your own icon, make sure it
is a PROJECT icon with the default tool of your AmigaGuide viewer. I use
Sys:Utilities/AmigaGuide but you can use MultiView or whatever you need.
Example: ICON DH0:BBS/Mercury.Icon
TXTICON:
This defines the AmigaDos .info file to be copied into the file archives
with each .TXT file. If you want to create your own icon, make sure it is
a PROJECT icon with the default tool of your text viewer. I use
Sys:Utilties/More but you can use MultiView or whatever you need.
Example: TXTICON DH0:BBS/MercTXT.Icon
DLGDESC:
This keyword tells Mercury to use DLG's special file comments instead of
the standard AmigaDos filenotes when getting the file descriptions for each
file. If you are not running DLG BB/OS then leave this keyword out.
Example: DLGDESC
EXCELDESC:
This keyword tells Mercury to use Excelsior!'s special file comments
instead of the standard AmigaDos filenotes when getting the file
descriptions for each file. If you are not running Excelsior! BBS then
leave this keyword out.
Example: EXCELDESC
CNETDESC:
This keyword tells Mercury to use CNet Pro BBS's special file comments
instead of the standard AmigaDos filenotes when getting the file
descriptions for each file. This has only been tested with version 3.05 of
CNet Pro BBS, so previous versions of CNet may not work with this option.
If you are not running CNet Pro BBS then leave this keyword out.
Example: CNETDESC
DEFCOMMENT:
This defines a default file comment to be used for a file if Mercury was
unable to use the AmigaDos file comment, or the DLG file comment if DLGDESC
was used. This defaults to "No file description available".
Example: DEFCOMMENT -- I've got no idea what this is! --
IGNORE:
This defines a suffix for files that Mercury should not include in the
file listings. Define each suffix with a seperate IGNORE keyword. These
are not case sensitive.
Example: IGNORE .BBS
IGNORE .INFO
TEMPDIR:
This defines an alternate working directory for Mercury to store it's
temporary files. This defaults to "T:", so if you have lots of files and
file areas, but not a lot of ram, you might want to define TEMPDIR to point
to a directory on your hard drive instead. This directory must already
exist, or else Mercury will default back to using the T: directory.
Example: TEMPDIR DH0:Trashcan
NEWDAYS:
This tells Mercury how many days old to consider files as new for the new
files listing, and to be flagged in the full file listing as new. Default
is 15 days.
Example: NEWDAYS 10
ARCHIVER:
This defines the archiver command that Mercury uses to compress the
completed file listings. The archive name will be added to the archive and
so the MAGIC FILES and MAGIC NEW filenames should reflect this as well.
The default archiver command is "LHA -2 u" (-lh5 compression and update
archive contents).
Example: ARCHIVER ARC a
BUTTON:
This defines the textfile and button text to be added to the .GUIDE file
listings. You can add as many of these user-definable buttons to your file
listings as you like. Perfect for displaying information about your
system, or information on how to become a member of a network that you
participate in. BUTTON requires two arguments and an optional access level
indicator. The required arguments are the name of the file to include, and
the text to display in the button itself. Due to the way Mercury
interprets the arguments, TITLE must always be the last argument on the
line. If the LEVEL option is omitted, then the access level defaults to
level 0.
Example: BUTTON LEVEL 1 FILE DH0:BBSInfo TITLE About The Hotel California
SHOWFULLPATH:
This option tells Mercury to add a line at the start of each file section
listing the full path for the area as defined in the config file. This may
have some strange results if you are using Linked file areas, as only the
first file path will be listed.
Example: SHOWFULLPATH
SUBMENU / ENDSUBMENU:
This option will let Mercury generate a submenu for a group of file
areas. This is useful so you can keep associated areas together, and not
have them all listed on the "Contents" page of the AmigaGuide file list.
This option is available to registered users only. It takes only one
argument, the text to be placed in the button gadget. You must also supply
an appropriate ENDSUBMENU command after the last area to be included.
Example: SUBMENU ADS File Echos
DIRECTORY File:ADSAnims/ TITLE Amiga Animation
DIRECTORY File:ADSARexx/ TITLE ARexx Scripts
DIRECTORY File:ADSArtG/ TITLE IFF/HAM/JPeg Art Gallery
DIRECTORY File:ADSBBUtl/ TITLE Amiga BBS Utilities
DIRECTORY File:ADSComm/ TITLE Amiga Communications
DIRECTORY File:ADSDLG/ TITLE DLG BB/OS Support Files
DIRECTORY File:ADSExcel/ TITLE Excelsior BBS Support Files
DIRECTORY File:ADSFido/ TITLE Amiga FidoNet Utilities
DIRECTORY File:ADSGames/ TITLE Amiga Games
DIRECTORY File:ADSInfo/ TITLE ADS Information
DIRECTORY File:ADSMisc/ TITLE Amiga Misc Programs
DIRECTORY File:ADSSTMod/ TITLE Amiga MOD Sound Files
DIRECTORY File:ADSMusic/ TITLE Amiga Music
DIRECTORY File:ADSNetDv/ TITLE Amiga Network Developers
DIRECTORY File:ADSText/ TITLE Amiga Text Files
DIRECTORY File:ADSUtils/ TITLE Amiga Utilities
DIRECTORY File:ADSWork/ TITLE Amiga Workbench 1.3 Programs
DIRECTORY File:ADSWork2/ TITLE Amiga Workbench 2.0 Programs
DIRECTORY File:ADSWork3/ TITLE Amiga Workbench 3.0 Programs
DIRECTORY File:ADSTrans/ TITLE TransAmiga Support Files
ENDSUBMENU
SUBTEXT:
This option lets you define a text file to be added to a submenu page of
the AmigaGuide file listing. This option oly works with an associated
SUBMENU and ENDSUBMENU pair, and is only available to registered users.
Example: SUBMENU Graphics Files
SUBTEXT File:Graphics/About.TXT
DIRECTORY .....
DIRECTORY .....
DIRECTORY .....
DIRECTORY .....
DIRECTORY .....
ENDSUBMENU
Registration Information
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mercury is released as shareware. If you wish to register Mercury, you
have two options. First, for $5.00 US you can register Mercury alone; and
second, for $15.00 US you can register both Mercury and it's companion file
server, Quick Silver. Send your registration to the following address:
Roger Clark
Attn: Mercury Registration
5508 Delwood Drive
Austin, TX 78723 USA
Technical Support
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Technical support for Mercury is available through the following:
Email to the author at "Kaedric@clubhouse.email.net"
Fidonet address coming again soon.
Voice support at the following number: 1-512-928-4955
History
~~~~~~~
v1.00 27-Jan-94 -> Initial release.
v1.01 30-Jan-94 -> Bug fix - Fixed small problem with linked file areas
creating multiple sections in the AmigaGuide listings.
v1.02 07-Feb-94 -> Bug fix - Fixed packing routine that was including
the full file list .Guide file in the newfiles
archive.
-> Bug fix - Fixed error that was reporting incorrect
values in the New File listings.
-> Bug fix - Fixed bug that added an @NODE header in the
.Guide file lists for areas that were not allowed due
to access levels.
-> Added DELETELISTS option by request.
v1.03 08-Feb-94 -> Mercury now only adds buttons in the .Guide filelists
for areas that have files/new files in them.
-> Added ICON option to define the .info file that
should accompany the .Guide files in the archives.
v1.04 26-Feb-94 -> Hopefully fixed a small "misfeature" in the DLG
comment routine. It was including user comments in
the description. The same fix is now also applied to
Quick Silver.
-> Added new feature to let the end user of your file
listing generate file requests simply by clicking on
the filename that they want to request.
v1.05 01-Mar-94 -> Removed dependancy on AmigaDos COPY command wherever
possible. Some people didn't seem to have it in
their path (?!?)
-> Added user-definable buttons for the .GUIDE files.
-> Added NOBUTTONS option to MAGIC FILES and MAGIC NEW
-> Added ASCII and GUIDE swtiches to MAGIC FILES and
MAGIC NEW
-> Rewrote the wordwrap code. Much more reliable now.
v1.06 02-Mar-94 -> Added ADDCR option to MAGIC FILES and MAGIC NEW
-> Added TXTICON option to add a Workbench icon for the
ASCII file lists.
v1.07 09-Mar-94 -> Modified text output to reduce number of columns.
Makes it easier to view on 640 wide screen with
Topaz/8 default font.
-> Modified Mercury internally to recognize month
abbreviations other than English. If you used
another Locale setting it would cause Mercury to
crash. (Sascha Blank)
v1.08 13-Mar-94 -> Fixed potential problem with most invalid dates. Now
treats years less than 78 and greater than 99 as if
they are 2000 through 2077. This should take care of
things long enough into the future :-)
-> With the help of DLG sysop Andy Wasserman, I think I
have eliminated the last bug in the DLGDesc routines.
v1.09 14-Mar-94 -> Modified Mercury to accept filenames that contain
spaces. Seems this is why many people were having
problems getting Mercury to compile their file lists.
v1.10 15-Mar-94 -> Bug Fix. Missed a change that needed to be done in
1.09 to fix the problem with spaces in file names.
Only showed up if you had any LINKed directories.
Thanks to Chris Brundell for pointing this out.
v1.11 18-Mar-94 -> Added EXCELDESC option to use Excelsior! BBS data
files to lookup the file comments. Expanded the
file lists to 84 columns to accomodate FILE_ID.DIZ
file descriptions.
v1.12 29-Mar-94 -> Added SHOWFULLPATH option by request of Bob Lindabury.
v1.13 06-Apr-94 -> Addec CNETDESC option to use CNet Pro 3.0 data files
to look up the file comments. Many thanks to Chris
Brundell for helping with this addition.
v1.14 14-Aug-94 -> Finally tracked down the last bug in Mercury and
fixed it! Should no longer error out when file
comments have embeded CF or LF characters in the
AmigaDOS file comment.
-> Now, on to the biggest challenge: MORE SPEED!
v1.15 06-Nov-94 -> Major rewrite in the way Mercury generates it's file
listings. Easily a 350% speed increase here!
-> Added SUBMENU / ENDSUBMENU keywords.
-> Fixed a couple remaining bugs when run with CNet BBS.
-> Fixed the last small bug when run with a CDRom.
-> Added SYSOP FAVORITE, UNVALIDATED, OFFLINE and
FAILED TEST flags for Excelsior! BBS usage. Need the
flag locations for the CNet and DLG options still.
v1.16 10-Sep-95 -> After a long break, here we go again!
-> Added SUBTEXT keyword.
-> Fixed but that put the last archive name in the
titlebar of the .GUIDE file.
v1.17 21-Sep-95 -> Fixed bug that snuck in while compiling the new file
lists.
-> Fixed bug that would not show the SubArea title in
the .TXT files for the last area in each Submenu.
--->BitPlane!<---
"We get Brilliant.......................................in our spare time!"