ÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜ DCT Voting Door v0.20, áeta Release By Dan Traczynski June 16, 1996. Copyright (C) 1996 Dan Traczynski. All rights reserved. ßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþß DCT-Vote is a deluxe voting door for any BBS software which supports the DORINFO1.DEF or DOOR.SYS drop file. Setup is amazingly fast and easy, and the voting door will be FreeWare until v1.0, after which I'll decide whether it should continue as freeware or make it shareware. ÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜ ÄÄÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÄÄ Table of Contents ÄÄÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÄÄ Features ................................... o1 Installation ............................... o2 SysOp Hotkeys .............................. o3 Distribution & Disclaimer .................. o4 Credits/Acknowledgments .................... o5 Things to look for in upcoming releases .... o6 History - Notes from the Past .............. o7 ÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜ o1 ÄÄÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÄÄ Features of the DCT Voting Door ÄÄÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÄÄ þ Supports both DORINFOx.DEF and DOOR.SYS allowing it to be run on virtually any bulletin board system. þ User time-out after a configurable amount of time. þ Auto-Deletion of old booths. þ Lightbar selector for you eLiTe d00ds. þ Problem users can be locked out. þ Language support (not all of us speak English ;). þ External ANSI file support. þ Optional user censor (allowing you to filter out swearing). þ Bar graphs/percentages when displaying results. þ Users may leave their comments on each booth. þ Colour configuration. þ Internal SysOp-User full-screen chat mode. þ DCT-Vote can be set to have users vote for all new booths when they login. þ Multi-tasker capability. ÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜ o2 ÄÄÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÄÄ Installation Guide ÄÄÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÄÄ Installation is extremely simple; all you must do is create a directory for DCT-Vote, then run CONFIG.EXE to configure DCT-Vote to your system. You may also wish to edit DCTVOTE.FLT if you will be using the censor, as no words have been pre-defined to filter out. DCT-Vote does not have to be run from the directory it resides in, since it automatically looks for all of its files in the its home directory. Have your BBS call DCT-Vote via a command-line similar to "C:\BBS\DOORS\DCTVOTE\DCTVOTE.EXE /PC:\BBS". The "/P" parameter specifies the path for DCT-Vote to read the drop file from and is only required if the drop file will not be in the current directory. If your BBS supports memory swapping, please activate this option. If you would like to have your users presented with any new voting booths when they login, have DCT-Vote executed at login with the "/A" parameter for a command-line similar to "C:\BBS\DOORS\DCTVOTE\DCTVOTE.EXE /PC:\BBS /A". DCT-Vote will have users vote for all new booths that they have not yet voted for, then return to the BBS automatically. If no new booths exist, DCT-Vote will terminate without even letting the user know that it has been run. You may also specify "/A2" instead of "/A", and that would simply tell the user how many questions he has not yet voted on, then ask him if he would like to vote for them. This way people would realise that the booths are there, but they are not forced into them. You may also specify "/A3" which acts the same as "/A" but does not let users abort the voting (they can't hit ESC). Command-Line Parameters ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ /A[1|2|3] úùú Invoke Auto-Vote (1=Vote for all new booths, 2=Prompt then vote, 3=Force users to vote on new booths). If no number is specified, it defaults to "1". /Bxxx úùú Specify locked baud rate (i.e. /B38400). /L úùú Local mode (logs in with the SysOp's name). /Nx úùú Specify node number (not really needed unless you want it to read DORINFO2.DEF for node 2 etc). /Pxxx úùú Specify path to drop file (i.e. /PC:\BBS). /V úùú Turn local video off. /W úùú A DOS only network is present. International Support ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ New in v0.20, support has been added so that all strings can be modified which allows the door to be translated into a different language altogether. All of the internal strings can be modified from within CONFIG.EXE, but some parts of the program allow more customisation by allowing you to design your own ANSI screens. The following files, if they exist, will replace the internal displays. Note that these files are not required in order for the door to function properly. LOGO.ANS This replaces the default "DCT-Vote" logo that is displayed in the main menu. LOCKOUT.ANS This is shown if the user is locked out. NOANSI.ASC If the user's terminal does not support ANSI, this file is displayed instead of the hard-coded message. INUSE.ANS Message telling the user that someone else is using the door on a separate node and that he cannot enter the door at this time. MAINHELP.ANS Replaces the help box that is shown when a user hits "?" in the main menu. The following imbedded codes may be used in the language prompts. %U User's name. %B Title of the current booth being voted on. On language prompts that would appear in places such as the main menu, this code is "undefined". %H Number of booths user hasn't voted for yet. %A Number of active booths. %S Board name. %T A temporary string that varies with each language prompt. ÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜ o3 ÄÄÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÄÄ SysOp Hotkeys ÄÄÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÄÄ SysOp hotkeys allow you to do a number of things while the user is in the door. Hotkeys supported in this release are as follows. F1 úùú Shows the SysOp hotkeys on the status bar. AltùC úùú Invokes the internal chat mode. AltùT úùú Twits User. Returns user back to the BBS. PgUp úùú Adds 5 minutes to the user's alloted time in the door. PgDn úùú Removes 5 minutes of the user's time in the door. ÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜ o4 ÄÄÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÄÄ Distribution & Disclaimer ÄÄÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÄÄ DCT-Vote is copyright (C) 1996 by Dan Traczynski. All Rights Reserved. I encourage you to distribute it, but DO NOT by any means alter any of the files within the original archive. The archive should be named DCTVD020.ZIP, preferably kept in its ZIP format. The author, Daniel Traczynski, will take no responsibility to anything that this program may or may not do to your system. Although the program has been tested thoroughly by the support team, no guarantee can be given that it will do what it was made to do. Nevertheless, if anything should happen, the user is totally responsible and the author will be under no obligations what- soever. By using this program you agree to this disclaimer. ÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜ o5 ÄÄÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÄÄ Credits and Acknowlegments ÄÄÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÄÄ I'd like to thank the following people in my making of this program. -Alan Ianson of Al's Place BBS (604)251-1817 for his support of my programs and for allowing users to FREQ all DCT Productions from his BBS. -Francois Massonneau for his idea of adding language support and a few other miscellaneous options. My gratitude goes out to him for writing the French language file. -Philip Wright for his useful suggestions and bug reports. -Justin Bourne for testing DCT-Vote remotely for me and finding some of the bugs in the first áeta. -Steve Lorenz for DDPlus. -Ryan Walsh on Rogue's Inn BBS for áeta testing the program for me. Too bad his board went down. -Neural Meltdown BBS (604-255-5198) for being my new áeta tester. -Mark Mcleod for bugging me for a new release and being there when I didn't want him there. :) ÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜ o6 ÄÄÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÄÄ Things to look forward to :) ÄÄÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÄÄ DCT-Vote is very new and is still in its developmental stages, so some features you may wish to see in a voting door may not be implemented yet. Most of the features that I add to this door are requests made by SysOps, so if you would like to see a new feature added to this door, by all means send me e-mail and I will try to add in your request. I can be reached at dan.traczynski@als.dudd.uniserve.com. If you do not have internet e-mail access, I can also be contacted via the FidoNet RA_Util echo. Although the booth editor is not yet completed, it will allow you to edit the basic attributes of each booth. In the following version, I plan to have it so that you may delete/add answers as well as booths. I will also add in a comment file editor, and as well I *may* add more external ANSI file support into the door so that SysOps can design their own screens. Multiple language files are possible at this time, although DCT-Vote can only allow the SysOp to select one. In the next version, the user may select his language from whichever language files are available. ÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜ o7 ÄÄÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÄÄ Release Notes ÄÄÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÄÄ The DCT-Vote project began on December 27, 1995. The first public beta release was on April 17, 1996. + Added a new feature/Something was improved. - Removed something. * General comment. > Bug fix. Version 0.20á -=- June 16, 1996. > If a user was at the spinning stick prompt and the SysOp hit a function key or other SysOp hotkey, the stick would stop spinning. Fixed. > If a user "Voted for all booths" and hit ESC to stop voting on them after voting on the first one, the "press any key" prompt would not be displayed right. Fixed. > If a user was in auto-vote mode and answered "No" to the "Vote for next booth?" prompt, the "would you like to create your own booth?" string would not be displayed. Fixed. + Added language support. + Added the external ANSI file support. > If censoring mode was enabled, it would not filter anything entered on the second line of the question in each booth. Fixed. + DCT-Vote can now optionally prompt the user to confirm his voting selection. + If the drop file says that the user doesn't have ANSI turned on, DCT-Vote checks to make sure and lets him in if the user's terminal program supports ANSI. + The string input strings now allow cursor editing keys as well as support word wrap. + Added an INUSE.FLG file so there shouldn't be any more runtime errors on multi-node systems. + Added the internal SysOp-User full-screen chat mode (the screen doesn't always redraw after exiting chat though as I haven't completed this feature yet). + Users may now add more than one answer per booth if the SysOp allows it. + Added "/A2" and "/A3" parameters. * I changed the structures of the data files. + If the censor is enabled, any text is now filtered out as the user enters it rather than after he hits [Enter] on the string. + Users with SysOp access may now view the results of a booth before voting for it, however the unvoted booths are still dimmed out so as to show him which booths he hasn't voted for yet and which ones he did. + Added word wrap to the log file so the lines in the log should never go past the end of the screen any more. > Fixed a bug where DCT-Vote would return the locked baud rather than the caller's baud rate when DOOR.SYS was selected as the drop file. + Users may now add comments using aliases they have selected. The structure to the comment file has also changed to accomodate this new feature. + The voting results screen is now displayed line by line rather than first the left column, then the answer box (it just looks better this way :). * Removed the date-check routine that many of you will soon be noticing in v0.11. =) + Added the booth editor. + You may now force users to vote for a booth (they can't hit ESC). This is, of course, a SysOp-only feature (and can only be turned on in the booth editor :). + The spinning stick may now be configured. This little feature really makes the door look different. One interesting possibility is to make the string "Û²°±²" which gives a pulsing effect and does away with the stick completely. + Improved the colour configuration menu. + Made a slight change to the DCT-Vote logo in the main menu. Version 0.11á -=- April 17, 1996. * This version is mainly just a bug fix from v0.10 and also contains a few new things that I forgot to add in the previous version or never got around to adding. > Aaarrgh! The day it's released and already I find a bug! The user time-out wouldn't activate if a user was at one of those spinning stick prompts; the stick would just spin endlessly until he hit a key. :( Well it's fixed now. * If no booths exist (ie. a new copy was just installed), DCT-Vote now creates a default booth. I just felt like doing this. :) > Fixed a bug in the voting results screen where the title would sometimes not be displayed properly. This bug's been around since the first áeta, I just found it out now. + DCT-Vote now shows the user which answer he voted for when displaying the voting results. + DCT-Vote now shows the user when the booth was created in the voting results. > If the SysOp had the Auto-Vote feature in use and a user whose terminal didn't support ANSI entered, DCT-Vote would display to them the message telling them they didn't have ANSI. It now simply exits without bothering the user about it every time s/he logs in. + DCT-Vote will now allow users to create a new voting booth when they login using the auto-vote feature. > Fixed a bug in the string entry prompts. > If the user left a comment on a booth whose question was two lines, the "Press any key to continue" prompt would be displayed on the bottom border line and mess up the display. Fixed. + Users can't just hit [Enter] on the first answer in auto-vote any more (it forces them to think about which answer to choose now >;). * It takes less time to save the voting results now (the program used to be re-writing the whole vote file before - now it just saves the booth voted on). + Added colour configuration. > Fixed a bug where DCT-Vote would sometimes crash if you tried deleting a booth and comments had been written on it. > Booths being deleted during maintenance were destroying the data files, making the whole voting door have to be reset. This has thankfully been fixed. :) + Added an error handler. If a runtime error occurs, it will be logged in the log file. > If a user left a comment that was 5 lines long, DCT-Vote would not save the last line. Fixed. Version 0.10á -=- February 17, 1996. * Well there have been MANY changes in this version from the previous one, though many of them won't even be seen by the users. Setup and installation for the SysOp should be much easier now. > If a booth was deleted and the comment file was empty, the program would terminate with a runtime error. Fixed. + If there are booths which the user hasn't voted for yet, DCT-Vote now tells them that in the main menu. + Added the user time-out. If the user doesn't press anything for 120 seconds, s/he is returned to the BBS. + Added the auto-vote feature. + The docs look a *LOT* better now. :) > Oooh. Bad bug. On one BBS, when you hit a cursor key on the remote end, DCT-Vote would act as if the user hit [ESC] because it didn't wait long enough to see if more characters had been sent. (When the user hits a cursor key, the terminal program sends ASCII character #27 followed by "[A" or whatever the code is, and DCT-Vote didn't wait long enough for the "[A" part.) > Fixed a bug where if you hit backspace when selecting a booth, it wouldn't write the "ú" character remotely like it should have. + You may now hit the first letter of the option in the sysop menu as well as the number. I did this to the main menu a few versions back but somehow missed doing it in the SysOp menu. + Finally! I made a configuration program, so you won't have to worry about the messy text configuration file any more. Not all of the features within it have been implemented yet. + Users may now post booths anonymously if the SysOp allows it. Please keep in mind that if you have SysOp access, DCT-Vote will show you who created the booth when voting, but to regular users it simply says "Posted By: Anonymous". * I made a little change to the voting results screen regarding the percentage bar. + Fixed up the string entry prompts a bit. + Made a few subtle changes to the Yes/No prompt. + Improved the program info screen. Version 0.06á -=- January 25, 1996. * After releasing v.05 to be áeta tested, I found a few bugs. This version has all of the bug fixes. > OOPPS!! There was a little bug where DCT-Vote wouldn't let users move the lightbar onto the "create new booth" if they didn't have sysop access. They could still create booths by hitting "3" though. > If you had the status bar turned off and hit F1 to display the help, it would go back on. Fixed. > If the user's name was only one word, DCT-Vote would add a trailing space character to it. Fixed. Version 0.05á -=- January 23, 1996. * This version has some nice new features, and a few bug fixes as well. I still have to add file-locking though, and eventually when I get around to it, I'll rearrange the file structure so that DCT-Vote can support an unlimited amount of booths and answers per booth. > Fixed the spinning stick in the "Press any key" prompts. It worked fine locally, but remotely it screwed up with some terminal programs. + Added the "user comments". + Added the "@" random filter character macro. + Added a minimum security level to create a booth. + You may now hit the first letter of the option in the main menu as well as the number. + If the user enters an invalid booth number, it now informs him of that instead of returning to the main menu. > If a user whose terminal program doesn't support ANSI enters the door, it will now display a message to him informing him that he must have ANSI. Version 0.01á -=- January 7, 1996. * My initial creation of DCT-Vote. I'll be playing around with the data file formats in the next few versions until I find something that I like and that is easy to work with. ßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþßþÜþß {EOF}