Hello! v1.20 December 1992 History ~~~~~~~~~ Hello! represents many hours of work by it's Author and Beta testers. On top of these great amounts of hours are those long nights, and aproximately 28 cases of beer and some 50 odd pizza boxes. Despite all this hard work you will not find one time delay or REGISTER ME screen in Hello! Hello! is being released under the freeware concept, if you like it, use it, if you don't like it, don't use it! Some people wonder why it's free, as fellow Sysops we feel that there are enough costs running a BBS without having to register third party programs. There is no need to send money, but a USRobotics Dual Standard modem will always be accepted, but we'll be happy with a thank you letter ;) Legalities ~~~~~~~~~~~~ The author makes no claims as to any kind of a warranty, you use Hello! at your own risk. If your computer blows up, or your HD mysteriously formats itself every second day at midnight, we will not be held resposible. Hello! is a Searchlight Specific program, it works on our 2.25 versions and should work with 2.15. So naturally if it is SL specific, don't bother trying to run it on RA! Not that this helps since those Sysops probably don't read these doc files anyways....;) Hello! Page 1 Introduction ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Now thats out of the way, your all wondering what exactly is Hello!. Hello! is basically a logon Statistics door. Before you groan... Hello! is more than just another one of those doors that shows your BBS statistics, it does more. Not to mention it is easy to set-up, no fancy big config files where you have to wonder if maybe all the doc files is doing is telling you how to write your own door. Here are some of the features of Hello!: o Uses your default SL colors from your config.sl2, blends right in with the BBS! o Takes all information from the Config.sl2 file, no messy long command line parameters or meta characters, simply add the path to your config.sys after the .exe file. o Displays many BBS statistics ranging from Total calls today, to the users percentage of calls to the System. Also shows the amount of files uploaded and downloaded from the System by the user, and his consequent ratio. o Displays the Users access level as designed in the .cfg file, up to 255 different access levels available. o Displays a one line default quote for each access level, or a random quote from a file of over 1350 funny and hilarious quotes! o Sends the Sysop and/or Co-Sysop mail when a new user logs on with some information about him. And does so without the use of SLMAIL, the user never even knows it's happening. This option can be disabled in the hello.cfg file. o Sends the New User a .txt file to his mail box so when he logs on he automatically gets some new mail. The NewUser.txt also suports SL color codes! This option is disabled if Newuser.txt does not reside in the Hello! directory. o Can turn the Leave a Quote? option off, simply create a twit.sl2 file in the Hello! directory with one users name on each line. When a user in this file logs on, Hello! will turn the quotes off until he logs off. The Quote option is not touched if the user isn't in the Twit.sl2 file or if your quotes are set OFF in your SL config file. o Can also turn the Quotes only at a certain level to stop New Users from leaving quotes. o Controls the Sysop availability for chat through a hello.cht file, by using this file Hello! will turn the chat on or off when certain users log on during a set time. o Users are prompted if they wish to review the statistics, they don't have to view it each time they log-on. Hello! Page 2 o Suports up to 10 nodes, and logs the number of callers to a file for those people lucky enough to get more callers than SL remembers ;) o Has a "fake" status bar on the bottom of the screen so even locally the door looks likes it's in SL all the time. Setup ~~~~~~~ Hello! is designed to be setup farily easy, included with these files you should have a Sample.cfg file, this is a sample of what you Hello.cfg file should look like. It is basically self explanatory and if you want you can just rename it after editing it and use it. Any line starting with a ";" (with out the quotes) will be ignored. The only command line needed to run Hello! is the path to your config.sl2 file for THAT node, Ie: Node 1 - Hello.exe c:\bbs\node1\ Node 2 - Hello.exe c:\bbs\node2\ If you are using SL 2.25 your setup in the startup menu should look like this: 1. Command Name ................. Hello! 2. Command Key .................. 3. Description .................. A Great Door! ;) 4. Minimum Access Level ......... 0 5. Maximum Access Level ......... 255 6-9 ............................. As you wish! 10. Door Command ................. Hello.exe c:\bbs\node1\ trailing backslash a must!!! -------------------^ 11. Directory Path ............... C:\bbs\doors\hello 12. Communications Support ....... Standard 13. Abort Method ................. Terminate 14. Write Protection ............. NO 15. Parameter File ............... NONE 16. Pause after door ............. NO If your using SL 2.15 this door can be easily installed in your Auto-Logon door as follows: 1. Command ...................... Hello.exe c:\bbs\node1\ Trailing backslash a must! --------------^ 2. Directory Path ............... C:\bbs\doors\hello 3. Communications Support ....... Standard 4. Abort Method ................. Terminate 5. Write Protection ............. No **Notes** - Please remember to change the paths in the above examples to reflect yours, through extensive Beta Testing, we've found that the program runs a lot easier with the right pathnames. Hello! Page 3 - Don't forget the path after the hello.exe has to reflect the path to your config.sl2 for that node! Each node should have a different pathname... That should get you running nice and easy, if it doesn't work... you must have done something wrong ;). If it still refuses to run after reviewing all the commands, feel free to contact us at the below places. If you want to run this from the dos prompt to see if you want to really run it, after setting up your config file, simply type in your hello directory: Hello.exe Optional Files ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Twit.sl2: a simple plain text file that stops those massive "twit" users that we all get from leaving quotes. Simple type this "twit's" name on a blank line exactly as it appears on the BBS. When he logs off, he won't get the "Leave a Quote Prompt" after logging off the quotes are turned back on. Hello! will run fine without this file, and will not touch the quotes if they are turned off in your SL config, or if the user isn't in the Twit.sl2 file. No offence to any of the Twits out there of course ;) Newuser.txt: The text file that gets sent to a new user's mail box everytime a new user logs on. This plain text file suports SL color codes, or the new meta charaters in SL 2.25! It's use is pretty obvious, and you don't need to use it, if a Newuser.txt file doesn't exist in the Hello! directory, no mail is sent. Hello.qts: The quote file from which Hello! pulls its random quotes from if you turn this option on in the hello.cfg file. After each access level in your config file you'll notice theres a line for a quote, if you place the word QUOTE (in uppercase) Hello! will look into the quote file and pull out a random one. It currently has over 1350 funny quotes that are sure to make you and your users roll on the floor. It was painstakingly typed in by the Sysop Of Evening Shade BBS (1-514-466-9637). If you find any of them stupid, or want to add more.. simply edit the file. Remeber though that the first line of the file has to be the total number of quotes in the file. If you do add a fair amount, consider sending a revised copy to us.... Hello! Page 4 Required Files ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Hello.Cht: This is a simple text file, the first seven (7) lines define the times that Hello! will play with the Sysop Availability. The times do NOT mean that Hello! will turn the chat on at and off. They are simply a period when Hello! will check for users in the file. The seven (7) lines each represent a day of the week with the first day being Sunday. The times should be listed in military fashion with a space between the two times.. IE: 9 21 - This line would tell Hello! to change the chat availability between 9 in the morning and 9 at night. After the seven times are listed each on blank line, you can begin listing user names. For user you want to be available for you just type their name as it appears on the BBS, if you don't want to chat with the user because he might be one of those above mentioned "twits" you put a "!" (without the quotes) before his name. When a user logs on Hello! checks the first seven lines of the file for the correct day, if the call is during the specified time for that, it checks for the user names. If it finds a username without a "!" (without the quotes) it turns the chat on, if the chat is all ready on, it leaves it alone. If the user name has a "!" (without the quotes) in front of it, it turns the chat off, if the chat is all ready off, it leaves it off. It is important to note that Hello! will leave the chat alone if: o The chat is set to the right position already o If the time isn't between the ones in the hello.cht file Hello! maintains the Chat status of each Node and will change the Chat status back to it's original state when the next user Logs on. If you don't want to use this Feature, simply put the times in as: 0 0 And your Chat will be left alone. Thats basically it, we hope you will enjoy Hello! as much as we enjoyed making it. If you have any comments/sugestions or just plain old questions about Hello! or any of our other programs, please feel free to send us netmail or even call us at one of our BBSes below. Iron Hill Software is always looking for new and great ideas for future FREEWARE programs. If you have any great ideas for a door or some other utility, please drop us a line with a description of what it is that you'd like. The more detail you give us the more the door will be to your liking. Include some demo screens of what you think it should look like. We can't say we'll make the door, but we will consider your ideas. Hello! Page 5 Hello! and all the other cute things associated with it are Copyright 1992 by Rick Macdougall and Iron Hill Software. The Quote file is Copyright 1992 By Evening Shade BBS and Chris Ross. Some parts Copyright Frank Larosa of SearchLight Software(tm) Searchlight is a Trademark of Searchlight Software USRobotics Dual Standard is a Trademark of USRobotics RA is a Trademark of Remote Access Other Programs by Iron Hill Software, SL Specific and Freeware.... o Bang - A russian Roulette Door o Hi-Low - Higher or Lower Card Game o In-Between - Another Card Game o Hockey - A Hockey Trivia Door over 100 questions o Mines - try to detect the mines without getting blown up! o Sl-User - Automatically Joins Users to Sub-boards! o Guess - Guess the Number the computer has choosen! o RickWave - Off-Line QWK packet generator! Coming March 1993! The Latest version of Hello! or any of the other Iron Hill Programs can be found on Rigel BBS - You can log on under Name: IronHill Password: IronHill Rick Macdougall Author of Hello! (Clap-Clap, Aplause!) No Tomatoes Please! SL-Net : 250:1000/985 250:10/0 250:10/1 Fido : 1:167/135 Sysop Rigel BBS 1-514-748-5673 14,400 v32b/v42/v42b Chris Ross Author of that damn good quote file! And Doc Writer! And Beta-Tester! SL-Net 250:504/1352 Sysop Evening Shade BBS 1-514-466-9637 14,400 v32b/v42/v42b Many Thanks to the various Beta Testers, and to Chris for the great Quote file and all these docs... plus all those bugs he found! ;) Great job Chris!!