25 Apr 93 - v3.99v 1) Minor change so if there's a prollem with Plus it returns you to the DOS prompt with the colors reset to normal... It was set so the DOS prompt would appear in bright white [MAJOR annoying to these old eyes :)] 2) Autopause toggle was set to always on when you viewed a file in the View/Extract File feature. Now it is left to whatever the user had set their personal autopause toggle to... 3) Added '? = Display Menu' to the Text/Database/Doors menuing system. Apparently users were unsure what to do when presented with nothing but a series of letters... 21 Apr 93 - v3.99u 1) Had a user suggest that Plus allow a user to select which archiving format they wished to use when extracting a file. Now, JUST before you extract a file for DL'ing, you are given the option to archive it in either .ARJ or .ZIP format. 2) Fixed estimated DL time for extracted files: it WAS displaying the amount of time necessary to DL the ORIGINAL archive, not the extracted file. 3) Modified filename of the archive DL from the first 5 letters of the name the sysop plugged into the PLUSCFG for that purpose plus the extraction number. I.E., when the user selects a file for DL'ing, the filename assigned the archive for the FIRST file extracted on The Murph Zone would be MURPH1.[ZIP/ARJ]... Second file would be MURPH2.[ZIP/ARJ]... Plus USED to put the node number in as well, making the extract filenames in the above example as MURPH11 & MURPH12: just makes things look sloppy and as tho Plus had a bug instead of as a help to the Sysop for debugging purposes.... 18 Apr 93 - v3.99t 1) Minor tweak to AUTODEL. The mod to Plus just re-aligns the header in Plus to accomidate the 'prettying' of the DELUSERS.LOG generated by AUTODEL. 15 Apr 93 - v3.99s 1) Added a viewer for DELUSER.LOG in the Logs Viewer. Plus will check the \LOGS directory first and if it doesn't find DELUSER.LOG there, it will check the \PLUS dir... Also did mod to AUTODEL so you can define where the \LOGS directory is to keep things nice and neat... This also means a minor change to the AUTODEL.INI file... Added a line that tells AUTODEL the aforementioned path [MAKE SURE to read the AUTODEL.TXT file and check the example AUTODEL.INI file as well!!!!] 10 Apr 93 - v3.99r 1) Another REAL minor fix: when a user did a 'Y' for Read Messages Only to You and the To: field had a name in it that had 'all' in their name, [Dave [ALL]en for instance] it would be displayed, Plus thinking that it was a message To: All.... Now it ONLY looks for whatever you have in the PLUSCFG.INI for the posting to All users [mine is Evaboddy]... If you have been using 'All', I'd suggest you try using 'All....' or some such thing like that if you have a user with 'all' in their name and this has happened before to your users... 08 Apr 93 - v3.99q 1) REAL minor fix: when I pulled all the stuph out of MAIL.EXE for mass mailing, I accidently deleted the line that automagically bypassed the 'Correct (Y/n/abort)' prompt at the New User Mail subject header confirm. I.E. when a new user logged on and they are required to leave EMail to the Sysop prior to being validated, the subject header is SUPPOSED to be cast in stone and should go directly to line 1 of the editor. 07 Apr 93 - v3.99p 1) Refined the UL Integrity check so Plus is now looking for the keywords, "ERROR IN ZIP USE PKZIPFIX". [Plus transposes each line into uppercase prior to doing a compare] Apparently just searching for the word 'ERROR' was causing a problem as some BBS' were using 'tested Error-Free' or some such wording, and since Plus found the word ERROR in that notice....... 2) Added a new outboard goodie called Auto Delete... VERY easy to setup and run... Automatically maintains the USERFILE.DAT by deleting users that haven't called back in the Sysop specified time... See the AUTODEL.TXT file included in the AUTODEL.ZIP file in PLUS1.ZIP for more info... 04 Apr 93 - v3.99o 1) Found glitch in batch UL routine: user was getting UL credit for ONLY the LAST file in the batch, not all of the files UL'd. 03 Apr 93 - v3.99n 1) Found minor bug in the Xferfile Editor: if you wanted to view a file that was in .TXT form after doing a search for that file, it would read the file as an archive and display it as it would an archive, altho there wouldn't be any filenames appearing in the window. Now it does as it does everywhere else and if the file ends with a .DOC, .TXT, or .LOG it is read as is every other text file... 02 Apr 93 - v3.99m 1) Tweak to the screen saving option. You may configure the screen saving 'Waiting For Call' screen to be blanked, frozen, or moving once a minute. The options are YES, STILL, or NO. This is the last field in the PLUSCFG.INI's first section, just prior to the list of co-sysops. Screen blanked: [YES option] This totally blanks the screen until a user logs on or the system goes into an event. The only time the system 'hits' the HD is once a minute to check for EVENT1.FLG; a notice to Plus that the midnight event hasn't occured and a signal to do so... Frozen screen: [STILL option] This I did for the folks running Plus under Windows. The less activity in the DOS window, the less Windows has to do... Under the STILL option, the ONLY time the system re-writes the display is when there's a change in the STATUS.LOG [read/post/UL/DL/ last caller, etc] or the Sysop's EMail count has changed. HD space changing does NOT cause the screen to refresh, as it is ONLY checked when Plus is first run or when a user goes to UL a file. Normal Screen Saver: [NO option] Does a random shifting of the screen and it's info once a minute, checking the amount of EMail and for the EVENT1.FLG file. 31 Mar 93 - v3.99l 1) When the Sysop was sent a private UL, the system would send 2 pieces of EMail: one telling the Sysop that there was a private UL waiting for them in the [whatever] transfer section, the second telling the Sysop that someone had UL'd a file to the Sysop privately... Redunancy that would/could fill up a mailbox REAL fast... 2) AARRGGHHH!!!! Was doing a check for numbers only in the phone # portion of the new user app routine and neglected to allow for the hyphen... User would enter their phone number and the routine would then check for numbers ONLY... A hyphen isn't a number so it would tell them that the info they had just typed in was incorrect and ask them to start over... 28 Mar 93 - v3.99k 1) Joe and Robert have JUST upgraded so gotta do a ver change... Minor glitch in the private UL mod: it was sending EMail to the Sysop but not to the user... Have revamped the method slightly now so BOTH the Sysop AND the user the file was intended for get the EMail... Sysop's EMail reads slightly different: it tells them there was a private UL, the user who UL'd the file and the one to whom it is intended, then tells them the notice is provided for their information... Simple little mod that should make some Sysop's feel a bit more comfortable about private UL's and help keep track of users trying to use your BBS for illegal purposes... 28 Mar 93 - v3.99j 1) Bugfix: apparently the logon and logoff messages haven't been updating and worse yet, I hadn't noticed it! VERY sorry! 2) In deference to my Irish ancestry [grin], when a user logs on with a Mc or O' at the beginning of anything but their first name, it's allowed to use a cap for the 3rd character in the name.... 3) Changed the 'hacker log' setup a tad. Plus no longer generates a log entry for each unsucessful attempt to logon. They are stored as a variable and if the user sucessfully logs on, nothing happens, log-wise. If they can't get sucessfully logged on and the system bumps them after 3 attempts, the hacker log is THEN generated... This is due to too many folks not paying attention to the dates and times of the attempts and getting all excited thinking someone was trying to logon with their name and password even tho it was they who did so only moments before... In addition, all 3 password attempts are on the same line in the log. They WERE setup so EACH bad password was a separate log entry. This will also help cut back on the mostly-unwarranted-concerned/paranoic email from users. New log looks like this: Bruce Murphy 28 Mar 93 04:41 am 1)wrongpassw 2)2ndwrongpa 3)again The user STILL only sees the date and time. The display above says that someone tried to logon with my name on 28 Mar 93 at 04:41 am with 3 different passwords: first with the password 'wrongpassw', second with '2ndwrongpa', and finally with 'again'... Also, IF a user drops carrier sometime after the first attempt and the last [3rd before the system dumps them] the hack report is saved... 4) Minor quirk with the updating of the logon/logoff message. Plus was working fine, but the problem came when I tried to run one of my 'Murph sayings' programs. One uses an external datafile and the method used with the logoff would cause a problem if you were doing the logoff from another drive than the one where the rest of the .EXE's were stored. 5) Minor prob with the batch file add feature: when you were done it wouldn't allow you to return to the Sysop Menu unless you hit F3... One of the changes to the paths when I straightened out the PLUSCFG.INI mess in the paths definitions that eluded me... 27 Mar 93 - v3.99i 1) Minor/major mod depending on your point of view... Have it setup now so a new user logging on can enter ONLY the correct case in their userfile. I.E. no more all caps when they enter their info... [makes ME crazy!] If you have the 'Allow Handles' switch in the PLUSCFG.INI file set to 'YES', however, this feature is defeated. 2) Bug fix: when a user filled out their app Plus wouldn't prompt for their Area Code or Zip code... 3) Assume: User logs on and does something that gives you reason to delete them. You want to send them EMail first, but then you need to watch the caller log after that to make sure they haven't called back so you can delete their userfile. Plus now looks for a -2 message level as a flag. Send a user the EMail telling them they are a piece of history, change their message level to -2, and they get to logon JUST long enough to read their EMail and IMMEDIATELY after are logged off and their userfile deleted. In addition, even if the user attempts to logon in all upper case, Plus will ONLY capitolize the first letter and each letter following a space. Sorry to the McMahon and O'Neill and other folks like that; it's simply that the kids were driving me nuts. It PLAINLY STATES in all of my new user messages that 'all caps are the 'kewl' thing to do nowadays, but here on The Murph Zone, we use the shift key'... The Sysop can still manually correct the users file from the Userfile Editor... 25 Mar 93 - v3.99h This mod concerns XMaint Plus... Forgot to mod it when the PLUSCFG went to the .INI format and was shuffled around to make more sense... 24 Mar 93 - v3.99h 1) Dunno how THIS one happened to creep in but the Opening Bulletin wouldn't display ANYWHERE in the Main Menu setup! Has been that way since v3.99c at LEAST, as that is the ver that Brian Bettger is running and it was he who reported the prollem... Whatever it was that DID change is fixed now.... [BTW, Plus was trying to OPEN file #2 and for some reason it was already opened. This causes an error and the routine that displayed the OB would just kick the sucka back to the Main Menu as tho there were no file to open, only without the 'File Not Found' message] 2) Did a s[K]an of my [V] message section here on The Zone and names/subjects were in weird places.... Some fields were left blank, others were where they SHOULDN'T be... Reworked the entire routine to make it a bit more trustworthy... 22 Mar 93 - v3.99g 1) Minor glitch with Private UL's: Sysop couldn't see the file listing when using the [L]ist command, but you COULD see it with the individual file listings... 2) Included two new text files from a couple of Plus sysops with some VERY valuable information: a) From John Gallik, EBBS Plus' Modem God, MODEMS.TXT: a file with a bunch of sample init strings for most modems on the market today b) From Joe Newton, a new EBBS Plus sysop who has only one computer and HAD been running a true Windows BBS until he got disgusted with it and started 'playing' with Plus... End result is WINPLUS.TXT, PLUS.PIF, PLUS.ICO, & SYSOP.ICO for running Plus in the BG under Windows!!! BTW, Joe assures me that it works FLAWLESSLY on his 486-33, altho just how smoothly it runs at 19.2K is yet to be determined... 2400 baud he says is as smooth as silk for both the user online and the Sysop doing things under Windows... He had Windows doing everything he could including things like a slide show using VPIC [a DOS app] and running several OTHER DOS/Windows apps at the same time.... While loading down his 486 with all these differnt tasks, he started a DL at 2400 baud and slowed the DTR WAY down from the normal 238ish cps to something like 130 cps [WHEW!] but it was an ERROR FREE transfer! Remember: he was REALLY WORKING his 486-33 for all it was worth and it STILL worked fine... Joe has a Practical Peripherals 14.4 FXSA, so I'm SURE we'll find out how well things work at high speed under 'normal' circumstances... 21 Mar 93 - v3.99f 1) Minor fix to the Logs viewer: chat page log wasn't stopping after what APPEARED to be the correct number of lines. Reason was that the 'REASON' line was greater than 80 characters in length and Plus was counting it as 1 line, but DOS was doing a word wrap, so 43 lines of info ended up displayed on 60ish screen lines. 21 Mar 93 - v3.99e !!!!!!!!!!PLUSCFG.INI CHANGE!!!!!!!!!!! 1) Managed to forget when I did all the OTHER organizing changes to the PLUSCFG file to organize the paths section as well... All the same fields are there, just swap 'em around to match the sample PLUSCFG.INI in the archives... 2) Edited into Plus so if you are in the greater than 25 line mode and have SANS.COM in your main \PLUS directory it will change your font to that mode. I chose SANS.COM for 2 reasons: 1) It's a PD program written by Chris Smeets and can be freely distributed. 2) It appears to cause the LEAST amount of conflicts with ANYTHING. SANS.COM can be found in the PLUS1 archive. If you are doing an install from scratch, it will already be in your \PLUS directory. Once again: if you are running Plus in the 25 line mode, this mod does NOT effect you, only the 43 and 50 line modes are effected. 3) The '.' was excluded in the logon names.... Kinda bad for folks that include their middle initial in their name... 4) Changed the 'look' of the Next User EMail so it is just a blurb similar to the one liner goodies that pop up all over... Still comes up in the same place and is preceeded by 'Here's a note from the last caller', just doesn't have the 'EMail Look' any more: no To : From: etc in the header or the footer... 20 Mar 93 - v3.99d 1) Happened to notice how cryptic the Legalese Disagree Logs appeared so a) Added a Date/Time stamp to the logs b) Set them up so the newest 'Disagree' is at the top, rather than at the end of the file 2) In the process of doing #1, I noticed that when you disagreed to the xfer section legal junque, it would stick you in transfer section A after you were done. This could be a problem if you had transfer section A setup as one of the areas to be 'legalese'd' [I set it up that way temporarily to do the testing]... Set it now so if a user disagrees to the legal stuph they are dumped instead to the [!] All prompt instead of any one transfer section... 3) Refined the logs viewer: MUCH nicer to look at and less cryptic when you have more than a screen full of complex info like usage log or hourly usage logs... When you hit an autopause, the header kicks up again with the line of info describing each column... 4) Added a "Waiting For Call" screen shutoff switch. A request from Joe Newton who is running Plus in the background in Windows.. This switch is the last field in the PLUSCFG.INI file.... "YES" turns the screen OFF, ANYTHING else leaves it on... 18 Mar 93 - v3.99c 1) Glitch in the Twit Filter that has apparently been there all along but just recently surfaced: IF you didn't have all the fields filled in the area for the co-sysops/Fast EMail the string assigned to those fields would be a single space. Since the program would find a single space in a users name, it would bypass the filter, thinking that it had found a match and the user was now a Co-Sysop... 15 Mar 93 - v3.99b 1) Added a feature whereby a user with Sysop access ['5'] can do a select mass mailing to up to 30 users that the user enters at the time of the mailing. REAL simple and turnkey: just follow the prompts... You will be given the option to edit the list after you have entered the names and it's intuitive in the same way as the EMail and Twit Filter... Also it checks to see if the user is in the userfile as you enter each name, checks for duplicates, etc... One thing you can NOT do is add the Sysop to the batch, altho that may be a future thing... May also setup the system so the Sysop is sent a copy of EACH mass mailing, whether addressed to them or not for security reasons... 2) Added a couple of lines between entries in th chat page log for easier viewing... 14 Mar 93 - v3.99a 1) Minor burp with the Guest User setup: Plus wasn't finding the Guest User as anything other than a user and treated it as such. Problem was that Plus was looking for a EXACT MATCH of the users name and the entry in the PLUSCFG.INI file and the entry in the PLUSCFG.INI file had been shifted into all Upper case... 14 Mar 93 - v3.99 Full number change because the PLUSCFG.DAT file is no more. It's been replaced with PLUSCFG.INI: not THAT much difference, for sure, but the big diff comes when you look at the file itself... It's MUCH easier to read [enough so that there's no more PLUSCFG.TXT] and things are logically arranged instead of the haphazard way they appeared to be in the PLUSCFG.DAT file. Couple of changes in the file as well: not just a rearrangement. You may have a max of 8 co-sysops/Fast Email [formerly Feedback] listed. Minimum is 1. If you don't have anyone you want there, it's just as before: enter "NO" where the name should be and it will bypass that whole display and go directly to the Sysop. There is an additional area expressedly for these names now; they no longer reside in the first portion of the config file. The entire layout of the PLUSCFG.INI file makes it pretty self-explanatory. If you were running Plus prior to this version, you will have a bunch of shuffling to do, but you will like the end result... There have been 4 fields dropped as well. 1) EGAFont: it caused more problems than it did good. 2) Event batch file name has also been dropped as it's totally unnecessary since Plus looks SPECIFICALLY for EVENT.BAT and EVENT2.BAT and not what was entered in that spot. [that was a leftover from an earlier age..] 3) Kill DSZ.LOG is moot now since it's actually a Plus-maintained log and not one that grows forever as in earlier versions. 4) Xfer Section Open: all you need do is rename/delete XFER.EXE and Plus will tell the user that the Xfer section is offline... 12 Mar 93 - v3.98d 1) REAL minor burp in EMail: if you had only one piece of EMail and you marked it for deletion, it wasn't deleted. 2) Minor tweaks to the display after a DL from a No Charge transfer section. IF the user was DL'ing a file that took less than a minute to do so, they didn't see the number of NC bytes they had just DL'd. 3) If a user converted a file prior to DL'ing or extracted a file it wasn't being added to the system stats as a DL. I.E. if the number of DL's for the day PRIOR TO a convert before DL was 6 and a user converted a file prior to DL'ing, it was still 6 DL's AFTER the conversion. Same applies to extractions which are legitimate DL's... 09 Mar 93 - v3.98c 1) Added a feature so you may lockout the board to new users. In the field NUMsgLvl [New User Message Level], enter the word 'CLOSED' in upper/lower/ mixed case and Plus will not allow new users the OPTION to logon as a new user... 08 Mar 93 - v3.98b 1) CHANGE TO PLUSCFG.DAT FILE!!!!!!!!!!!!! For No Charge Transfer sections, whether you have them or not, you MUST change that entry. If you DON'T have any, change the listing from 'NO' to 'NONE'. If you DO have them, enter ONLY the LETTER of the transfer section, not the entire path. This is so you may now have any number of transfer sections you choose to be designated as No Charge. Once again, a No Charge transfer section can ONLY be UL'd to if the user has Sysop access ['5' in their Message Level]... See the PLUSCFG.TXT for an example.... 2) Found a bug in the Mail section that may have been causing any ERROR #52's you have been having... Had to do with the Forward EMail function: if you hit 'F', then hit a return without entering a users name, then hit 'F' again, it would cause a 'Bad File Name or Number' error [52] 08 Mar 93 - v3.98a 1) MAJOR/minor faux pax on my part: one lousy line at the VERY BEGINNING of MAIL module and it caused EVERYTHING to go nuts! Sucker was 'forgetting' basic stuph like the message and xfer section names, etc... VERY strange, since NONE of those variables were directly effected... 07 Mar 93 - v3.98 1) Modded EMail setup so you may have a max of 100 pieces of EMail now, rather than 20 before that mail is ZIPped up for DL'ing. This is a MAJOR rewrite of the MAIL module, thus the bypassing of 7y and 7z... 2) Did some fixes to the Sysop2 module: it was crapping out with an ERROR 50 and don't know HOW long that has been happening.... 07 Mar 93 - v3.97x 1) Added an automagic viewer for FILE_ID.DIZ, a file name that has become quite popular as a nice descriptive [usually from the software author]. When you select a .ZIP or .ARJ file, Plus automatically tries to extract that file from the archive and puts it in \XFER\[node] directory for viewing. If the file is not found, it reports that a FILE_ID.DIZ file is not in the archive. Otherwise, it displays that file then the normal DL screen and options. 2) The [C]onvert option would appear even if the file wasn't a .ZIP or .ARJ 3) Added a FILE_ID.DIZ file to PLUS-1.ZIP and combined PLUS-2,-3,& -4 together into one file for easier handling [WAY too few low density drives out there any more] 06 Mar 93 - v3.97w 3 little bugs that Tom Refano of Riff's BBS in Staten Island, NY reported: 1) When you had 20 or more pieces of mail you couldn't delete individual pieces of mail numbered 20 or greater. 2) If you tried to feedback the sysop and had co-sysops as well, THEN hit a '0' instead of a number, it would try to send feedback to a user instead. 3) If you have a Special Bulletin with the 'Always displayed' feature on, it would display 2 dates and times rather than just one... Also added/fixed the following: 4) Added an ADDITIONAL feature as well: if you have additional sysops or co-sysops setup in your PLUSCFG.DAT for the Feedback feature, you may add a title to their name as well. I.E. I have Glen Jones who has his own BBS called 'The Riverboat Adventure' listed as one of my co-sysops. As Plus WAS setup, a user wouldn't necessarily know that he was a Sysop of his own BBS, only that he was a co-sysop here. By adding to his name in the PLUSCFG his title and anything else I wanted, Plus now displays the following: 2) Glen Jones, Co-Sysop & Sysop of 'The Riverboat Adventure BBS' For those of you who have a joint Sysop-ship happening, you can put Sysop next to the second name, however Plus still treats the second Sysop in every OTHER way as just another user. The way this is accomplished is by adding a semicolon next to the persons name and then their title, like this: Glen Jones;Co-Sysop & Sysop of 'The Riverboat Adventure BBS' EASY as Pie! If you don't add the semi-colon and a title after the co-sysop's name, Plus defaults to 'Co-Sysop' on the line after the name in the Feedback screen. 5) If you aborted while in the Suggestion Box it would save the date in the suggestion box file ONLY and then send the EMail message to the Sysop that there was a new suggestion in the Suggestion box, even tho there wasn't..... 6) Cosmetic stuph: centered vertically the Author/Version display when you first run Plus no matter WHAT screen mode you are running in.... 04 Mar 93 - v3.97v 1) Minor glitch if you had a user that had access to a message base but was not validated and the browse feature was operational, Plus would not let the user post in the message base they were given access to... 25 Feb 93 - v3.97u 1) Minor glitch with the View Files feature: you couldn't use the '_' character that has become popular with archives... Was fixed at one time and somehow crept back... 2) Added Convert File feature to the list of options when a user selects a file for DL'ing and hard-coded the DLM, DLMZ and DLMT menu files so they could be displayed according to what features were available to each DL'er depending on their transfer protocol [no Batch options for Xmodem folks, etc...] and made 'em colorful in the process... 23 Feb 93 - v3.97t 1) Tom Refano reported he was having an ERROR #5 when some users would logon and either had BAD line noids or were entering gibberish at the Enter Name prompt. This led to an additional check so if your BBS setup doesn't allow handles and a user tries to enter ANY characters other than A thru Z or a colon/semi-colon, they are told which character is not allowed and given another chance to logon... IF that user continues to enter the garbage or the line noids persist or whatever, after the 3rd try they are logged off... BTW, what caused the prob with Tom was the letters the user had plugged in was being inserted into the name portion of the status bar at the top of the screen and it exceeded the number of characters expected/allowed: Plus was trying to print a negative number of spaces... Doesn't work like that... :) 22 Feb 93 - v3.97s 1) IF a user selected an transfer area they didn't have access to that was included in a 'legalese' section, they would have to answer the legal statements, even tho they weren't given access to those areas even after answering all questions with an Agree... 2) Tinkering with a glitch that some folks are having. Apparently what is going on is that file listings are disappearing and being duplicated. What appears to happen is that a file is DL'd [using 1K-Xmodem and maybe Xmodem CRC], then the file listing is overwritten by the listing just prior to the one that they DL'd... I.E. if they DL'd file #1 [A.ZIP], the listing for file #2 [B.ZIP] and all it's figures would be placed in record #1 where A.ZIP WAS located. End result is a duplication of file listings and the file that was DL'd was no longer listed. 3) When selecting a protocol, if a user selected something that wasn't on the list of available protocols, the system would go on like nothing was wrong... I.E. if they hit an 'A' instead of C, K, Y, or Z, it would take what the user entered as tho it were a correct selection and then ask for a confirm... The ONLY place it would respond with the bad command msg was when you had restricted Xmodem CRC and 1K-Xmodem and then they selected C or K as an option... 20 Feb 93 - v3.97r 1) Registered Sysop told me that he's running a Plus board which allows handles... When a user would first logon and enter ONLY their first name the system would crash unrecoverably... It be fixed! Thanks, Michael! 2) Brian Bettger of The DataBase BBS in Port Angeles, Washington, joins the EBBS Plus group of support BBS'... Brian has been running Plus almost since it was first released and has been attempting, at least [grin] to keep up with the mods... He's become the God of Doors since Glen has a girlfriend... [MEGA grin!] You can reach Brian's board at (206) 452-5882.... Altho NOT PHYSICALLY connected with The Murph Zone, LV-426 is another place to get the latest version of Plus if you are having a problem getting thru to The Murph Zone. The Sysop there keeps abreast of the latest Plus stuph and his PLUS-x.ZIP archives are ALSO kept in a No Charge transfer section and he is reasonably well versed in the workings of Plus [even if he IS a Mac user at heart [grin]]... He's my neighbor; makes it REAL easy for him to keep up with all the updates... 19 Feb 93 - v3.97q 1) Fixed minor glitch in the quote feature: IF a user decided to start a line with a space, it wouldn't be 'quotable' as far as Plus was concerned... 17 Feb 93 - v3.97p 1) Got a VERY angry letter last night from a Sysop who said that his \PLUS directory was wiped clean after an UL. I did some checking and my best guess is that he missed the info pertaining to the new PLUSCFG.DAT entries re: paths.... At ANY rate, have stuck in a couple of safeguards to deal with the prob... ALSO, both that sysop and Brian Bettger reported that SCAN wasn't... I looked over the source and sure 'nuff, altho it was RUNNING SCAN, it was going to the C:\XFER dir and NOT the C:\XFER\1 dir... My apologies to ANYONE that had a similar experience as the Sysop listed above [Brian had it happen as well]... It didn't happen anywhere here locally or you KNOW I'd have put in a couple of safeties to resolve the prob... 2) Minor burp with Next User mail: IF you were logged on locally and did a Goodbye via the F9 key, you would get the first letter in upper case and then it would do a carraige return to line #2... This ONLY happened if you used the F9... 3) When a new user would logon and you had a message base name that held the }NAME{, they would see }NAME{ and NOT their name in it's stead... 16 Feb 93 - v3.97n 1) Found ONE of the minor glitches with an error #63 [bad record number] that may ALSO solve the error #62.... We'll see... 14 Feb 93 - v3.97m More on VD Day... 1) John just DL'd the latest stuph so it's time for another mod... [grin] This makes PLUS runnable via a DesQView setup. There's an extra field in the PLUSCFG.DAT file where the paths are defined. If you are already running Plus, then change the 14 that preceeds that section to a 15, then add the line: EBBSPLUS = [path to EBBSPLUS.EXE] This tells the program to go to that directory and run the EBBSPLUS that it finds there, which will read the PLUSCFG.DAT that is also in that dir... Now, ALL you need in the directory that is defined in the EBBSPLUS = path is EBBSPLUS.EXE and PLUSCFG.DAT -IF- the path described in EBBSPLUS = is DIFFERENT than the one described in EXE's Path =.... This way you can have 2 separate lines [remember: QB45 ONLY supports COM1 and COM2] on the same machine without any extra hardware... 2) Went to a party with some Underground Informer writers last night and they suggested that I plug in a mod whereby a user can have their own message base: I.E. when the user logs on and they go to a particular message base it displays their name as the name of the message base... In the example PLUSCFG.DAT file, I have the name of the A message base as: }NAME{'s Message Base Note the }NAME{ portion of the label: Plus is looking for }NAME{ in ANY case or combination of cases between the brackets... In the case here, if I were to logon to the board and went to Message Section A, I would see at the prompt: 120 Mins Bruce Murphy's Message Base :> Kinda personalizes things a little.... 3) When entering an individual users Post/Read Message Ratio the system wouldn't allow you to enter a single digit... 14 Feb 93 - v3.97l Happy VD Day! 1) Found bug that would cause error IF you had selected a batch to UL or DL AND IF you aborted during the DL of the first file... [WAS causing an ERROR #6] 2) Minor glitch where if a user had disagreed to the Xfer section legalese then went to the Change Personal Info section and set their preferred xfer sections, they would see the sections they no longer have access to... They still couldn't ACCESS those areas; now they just don't even SEE the xfer areas ANYWHERE... 13 Feb 93 - v3.97k 1) Ever have a user complain that you never answer their pages? They claim they called at such and such a time and tried paging you and you KNOW you were there at the time but didn't hear the page? Just added a Chat Page log viewable to anyone with '5' [Sysop] access... It prints the users name, date/time of page, and the reason, placing the newest page attempt at the top of the screen... This mod compliments of Trystan [whose name I prolly spelt wronk :)] who is a fairly new sysop and doesn't INTENTIONALLY ignore users pages like the REST of us do [grin]... She takes it to heart when a user complains she's never around to answer her pages... :) 12 Feb 93 - v3.97j 1) Minor fluke/bug: IF you had a transfer section that WAS opened and the user had selected that section as one of their preferred xfer sections, THEN you had REMOVED access to that section from the user, they could still see the files within that section when doing an All New Files search, altho they couldn't ACCESS that area to DL those files. 10 Feb 93 - v3.97i The ONLY change is to the accompanying text files... Added was this legal notice RE: source code: 4) a) EBBS Plus BBS Software is Copyright 1991, 1992, 1993 by Bruce Murphy. Upon registration, the program source code for EBBS Plus will be made available. EBBS Plus source code is provided so you may customize your electronic bulletin board in any way you choose. Bruce Murphy retains ALL RIGHTS to this source code and under NO CONDITIONS may you distribute ANY of said source code, nor any of the routines within, nor may you use any of the routines in EBBS Plus with any other program without SPECIFIC WRITTEN PERMISSION of Bruce Murphy. b) Bruce Murphy will be held harmless of ANY damage resulting from ANY changes to the original source code provided to registered Sysops. The above just means that you can NOT give out any copies of the source code to ANYONE, whether they are a registered Sysop or not. You may share them with ME, and *I* will share them with whomever. I do this because only *I* know who is actually registered and who isn't, otay? In addition, it states that you can't use any of the routines written into Plus for any other purpose than to enhance Plus FOR YOUR OWN PURPOSES. I.E. if you come up with a utility that you use for Plus and you wish to distribute that utility, and it uses routines that I wrote [or Ed, for that matter], you must get SPECIFIC WRITTEN PERMISSION from me prior to releasing that software to ANYONE... [BTW, I'm pretty easy about someone releasing a routine that enhances Plus and don't mind you using any of my routines, BUT YOU MUST STILL GET THE RELEASE IN WRITING, ok?] 4b stipulates that I won't be held responsible if you write something into the code that say, wipes out your HD or blows up your CPU or some such thing... I did this 'cuz there ARE characters out there that don't seem to understand that when YOU do something dumb, YOU should take the blame, rather than blame someone else... Like the character that claimed Ed wasn't supporting EBBS-128 because he wouldn't send a FREE REPLACEMENT copy to him after the one he had was thrashed by the disk drive.... You see he was using the ORIGINAL DISTRIBUTION DISKETTE to run his BBS, rather than take Ed's advice [and every OTHER software manufacturer] and run the BBS from a copy.... Some people's kids.... Now THERE'S a good example why we need to keep abortion legal! [grin] 09 Feb 93 - v3.97i 1) Simplified/complicated the AutoValidation routine [depending on which way you look at it.. :)] Several changes relative to that routine: 1) When you opt to autoval a user, you will be prompted with the default access levels just as you would if you used the [C]alculate function in the Userfile Editor. It will stick the access levels first for the message area then the transfer section on the screen and ask you to select one... Should you hit the wrong access level, don't worry, you have another chance because there is a confirm function... If you answer no to the confirm [default is yes] it will pop the access levels back on the screen and you can try again... If you wish to abort the routine, hit A and it will kick you back to the EMail prompt. 2) After selecting an access level for message and xfer, Plus will generate a composite letter to send to the user. It first reads in WELCOME.TXT, then adds WLCM-Mx.TXT and WLCM-Xx.TXT [where 'x' is the number of each pre-config level you selected] so you have a letter that looks like this: WELCOME.TXT [Main body of the Welcoming letter] WLCM-Mx.TXT [Message Base Access info] WLCM-Xx.TXT [Transfer Section Access info] After all that, you will STILL be given the opportunity to append the letter. 3) If Plus can't find the appropriate WLCM-xx.TXT letter it will let you know with a 'WLCM-xx.TXT Not Found' notice and you will/can enter your own personalized letter for that user... Please see my example access level letters in the PLUS1.ZIP archive... They are labeled WLCM-xx.TXT... Also remember that you may have a max of 9 pre-configged setups for both message and xfer sections... 2) Teensy tweak in the Xferfile Editor: if you tried to view a file that was not either .ARJ, .ZIP, .TXT, or .DOC, then it told you you could only view all of the aforementioned file types but .ARJ was not listed... 07 Feb 93 - v3.97h 1) Added the /s switch to the REARJ command line in the file conversion routine... This skips the file count/size check... Did this to a) speed things up a tad b) OCCASIONALLY, if the archive was ZIPped with PKZip 1.93 or newer and has a directory within the archive, it can throw the count off on the file number compare and that causes the REARJ operation to fail:L end result is no file to DL... 2) Added a confirm prompt the the convert ZIP to ARJ portion [confirm still exists for ARJ to ZIP conversion] 3) Even more refining of the conversion routine: REMOVED the conversion of ARJ archives that are multiple archives... I.E. archives with extensions .A01, .A02, etc... These files are intended as part of a 'backup set' of sorts: they are designed to be extracted as a WHOLE... If you were to convert them to .ZIP form, you would loose files that are bridged between the archives... 4) Minor burp in the AutoValidate function: if you opted to append the default email then aborted out of the letter it would send just the header and footer and dump the main text of the message... 5) YEA!!!! Found the Error #62 that's been plaguing me lately: it was a combination of Top10Pls and the new Message S[K]an routine... Turns out Top10's header [for the past year and a half!] hasn't been QUITE the same as the rest of the messages.... It read like this: To :Evaboddy From :Sysop Dood Subj :Top 10 List etc... Now, the subject headers that PLUS generates look like THIS: To : Evaboddy From: Sysop Dood Subj: Top 10 List See the SLIGHT difference? ONE EXTRA SPACE before the colon and missing one AFTER the colon in the one that TOP10PLS generated... NOW, the new reverse message header scan routine looked for To : SPECIFICALLY in the message. If it didn't find it, it would just keep reading the entire message until it hit the end of the file, then it would generate the 'Input Past End Of Line Error' [62].... sigh... Another errant OCCASIONAL bug fixed.... YEA! [grin] 6) AHA! Found ANOTHER little bug where if you tried to DL the DIR-x.TXT file you would get a 'Path Not Found' error... 7) Mod to TOP10PLS that solves the ERROR #62 problem outlined in entry #5 above... In additon, and this is a BIGGIE, it's been converted to Power Basic... Doesn't seem to scream [actually appears SLOWER than the QB45 version!] but is QUITE acceptable speed wise and will deal with 2000 users! That's about TRIPLE what the QB version would work with! Will be dinking with it to see if I can tweak the speed up as well... 06 Feb 93 - v3.97g 1) sigh... Status log stuph AGAIN... Trying a whole different approach this time: taking the alphanumeric date, converting it to numeric, then doing a date compare just like I was ALREADY doing in the New Files search and several OTHER places in Plus... I.E. it converts 06 Feb 93 to 930206, then reads the date in STATUS.LOG and if the date in STATUS.LOG is less than the current system date, it updates the USAGE.LOG and gets ready to run the event... IF, however, the system date is LESS than the date in STATUS.LOG, it does NOTHING unless it comes across EVENT1.FLG, then it runs the midnight event... 2) Added some extra conversions and am using a better method as of converting to ARJ from other formats... One minor hitch tho: you MUST have REARJ.EXE in the same dir as your other archiving progs [PKZIP/PKUNZIP/ARJ] and use the standard REARJ.CFG file that comes with the ARJ230.EXE package... This config file tells REARJ what switches to use... BTW, I'm not positive but I THINK you need progs like ZOO and PAC and such to actually DO the un-archiving before REARJ converts it to ARJ format... The list includes: ZIP, ARC, LZH, PAC, ZOO, HYP, DWC, & LZS: LOTS of archiving methods.... MANY thanks to my ARJ 'gurus', Pete Zsolnay and Joe Newton; a couple of users here on THe Murph Zone... 05 Feb 93 - v3.97f 1) STILL having a few weirdness' with the )(@#*&$@#(*& STATUS.LOG update IF you have more than one user online at once... Bit the big one and just setup the prog to ONLY update the STATUS.LOG and YESTRDAY.LOG IF the node doing the update is node #1: I.E. the main BBS computer... 2) User could abort the NULOM and NULOM.ANS screen [New User LOgon Message] Not no mo! 3) Tweaked the Batch UL feature so it displays the file number of the UL, checks to make sure you didn't enter a duplicate filename [duplicate to a file you just entered: it ALWAYS checked the HD to see if the file existed], and, after entering the 5th and final file [REMEMBER: there's a 5 file limit for batch UL's] it goes IMMEDIATELY to the Batch UL screen. Also, when you hit Q at that screen, it takes you back to the XFER section prompt... 4) NEXTUSER Email now goes to the Next User PERIOD, not the next user on that node 5) Refined the logon a tad: user would logon with JUST a portion of their name, then use the ';password' feature, and the system wouldn't give them the new prompt where it asked if they were such and such and give them a second chance to logon without generating the hack report... Scenario: User logs on as follows: Francis;password User's name is Francis N Stein [grin], but Plus matches him with Francis Leach's userfile and loads up Francis Leach's password, does a compare, and since the name and PW don't match, it asks them if they are [in this case] Francis Leach.... If no, then it returns them to the logon prompt with, "Suggestion: try entering more of your name this time" and then on with the routine again... It ALSO counts against the user as a logon attempt, so if they screw up in SOME way 3 times PERIOD it will kick them offline with the "Trying to hack again, huh? Try it somewhere else..." message.... 6) Made the decision that at LEAST for v3.xx the source code for Plus will now be made available. Also, in this times of tight dollars, I've decided to reduce the registration to $50 for new Sysops [anyone that ISN'T a registered EBBS-PC Sysop] and $30 for REGISTERED EBBS-PC sysops... 04 Feb 93 - v3.97e 1) Changed the ULPROB.LOG to read like the others: newest entry at the top... 03 Feb 93 - v3.97d 1) ANOTHER minor tweak: When you went into the anonymous message base it would turn the entire message yellow instead of just the header... Now it looks like every OTHER base [BTW, the program was keying on the Date: header that WASN'T there for anyone but the Sysop...] 2) Legitimate bug: if you F9'd and were logged on as the Sysop, it wouldn't add any of your stats to the STATUS.LOG, nor would it add you to the CALLER.LOG... 02 Feb 93 - v3.97c 1) Minor tweak: IF the Sysop is logged on and runs thru the message base then F3's out to the Sysop menu, the system stats wouldn't reflect the reads and posts the Sysop did... [BTW, that is the ONLY thing that gets updated to the system stats when the Sysop logs off] 2) Minor patch: user had their city AND STATE all on the same line in their userfile, taking up the entire 20 characters. When I did a userfile search, it gave me an error 6 [this is from the Main Menu and I listed ALL the files]... I put in a limiter so it only will print the first 18 characters in that field: 19 plants the city right next to the last called date without a space and 20 causes the error.... Any other solution screws up the formatting of the screen and you'd have to cut off something ELSE if you did so... 3) Minor change to the Reverse Message Header Scan so it includes the To and From folks.... Due to the limit of 80 characters tho, subjects frequently and occasionally names will be truncated, but the end result will be STILL be more information than you have had to date.... 01 Feb 93 - v3.97b 1) Added log/lister in the View Logs routine. This will list the users name and the users that user has excluded... This will help you find the 'problem users' or confirm your suspicions.... NOTE! This is ONLY viewable by folks with '5' [sysop] access! 2) Changed the logon slightly... IF the user types in less than their entire name [and didnt' add their password as username;password] then the system finds a match and prompts them with 'Are you [user name]?' Saves 'em going thru all three and generating the hack log etc... STILL keeps things secure as well.... 3) Added a line whereby if a user UL's a file that was ORIGINALLY a self- extracting .ZIP file the Integrity Check routine in the UL section will catch that they have renamed the file to .ZIP and kick it out... This ONLY works, however, if the file has the -AV feature enabled [Authorized Version]... I tried MANY different ways but couldn't come up with any other way of testing these files... 31 Jan 93 - v3.97a 1) Slight mod to the 'Twit Filter'. You have a max of 9 users you may exclude now: the 10th field has been given up to a switch whereby ANY time you encounter a message/EMail from a person on the list Plus will bypass them UNLESS you enter the SPECIFIC number of that EMail/Message.. You select this option when you select the users you wish to exclude in the Personal Configuration section. If the file is EMail it is automagically marked for deletion.... 30 Jan 93 - v3.97 1) Added a 'Twit Filter'. If you have users that are being bothered by another user [woman getting unsolicited lewd mail - NOT uncommon!] or just annoyed by the postings of another user, they may go to the [P]ersonal Stats change area from the Main Menu and add up to 10 names to the 'Twit Filter'. When one of the names you entered appears in the From: header of either EMail or Messages, you will be prompted EACH TIME if you wish to read that mail/msg or bypass. In addition to the users name, you will see the subject header, and in the case of EMail, you see the date the mail was sent. Users may NOT add either the Sysop or any Co-Sysops named in the PLUSCFG. THIS POINT IS VERY IMPORTANT! Just having '5' access isn't enough: the users name MUST appear in the PLUSCFG.DAT or any user can place them on their 'Twit List'. This exclusion is so that if the Sysop or any of the Co-Sysop's need to send mail or post a message that involves the BBS, ALL users MUST be able to see same... ALSO! If you have a user that is placed on ANYONE's 'Twit List' then that user becomes one of the stipulated Co-Sysop's, NO MATTER WHAT the user's list SAYS, mail and messages from the new Co-Sysop are treated as tho their name was never on the list. 29 Jan 93 - v3.96p 1) Sigh... I THOUGHT the )($@#*&%()@#$& archive testing was working right: all that was being tested was the archives integrity, and at that, only the MAIN archive was being tested. It wasn't un-ZIP or un-ARJ'ing the archives at all to test them for virii or internal ZIP/ARJ integrity... 2) Redid the GRAFWALL.LOG so it does what most of the other logs do: prints the NEWEST entry at the top and works it's way down to the oldest... Just as with the others, however, you gotta remember that this file WILL be truncated after you hit the max size [defined in the PLUSCFG.DAT file] 3) Minor burp in the New User Validation EMail... IF you decided to append the letter sent by a new user, it wasn't saving what you sent, just the final [Sysop Name] from [your town],[ST] line... UGLY, but not fatal... 28 Jan 93 - v3.96o 1) New method of keeping the STATUS.LOG accurate when running thru the message base. It WAS updating the log after EACH read/post. I did that to keep things accurate if you were multilined. Unfortunately, this ALSO caused things to slow down BIGTIME... Now I keep it all in memory until you exit the message base for ANY reason, even to EMail a reply to a user, adding only the slightest extra pause between loading modules. The REASON for the previous setup was that IF you had 2 users online at the same time it would load the STATUS.LOG into memory and update it from what it found on the HD. Say user #1 logs on and reads 100 messages and posts 10. In the meantime, user #2 logs on and reads 100 messages and ALSO posts 10. When the users log off, it updates the system stats to reflect their 100/10, but as far as it was concerned, the OTHER user was NEVER THERE, since it WAS updating those stats ONLY AFTER the user logged off. Si Habla Maka Sense? The ORIGINAL solution was to update the stats after EACH message post/read. That didn't slow down things THAT much if the user was doing a normal read, but there WAS an annoying pause after each message read. Now it just scoots on to the next message and holds the number of reads and writes in memory until you exit the MSGAREA module for ANY REASON, including dropping carrier... 2) While I was there, I also made it so you can jump to the Sysop menu while at the MESSAGE READ prompt: something you couldn't do before... 3) Brian Bettger reports that he has been getting some ERROR #62's in the message area... Apparently it's from a user that is hitting RETURN real fast so he can hurry thru that section [why he doesn't just do a CONTINUOUS READ is beyond me: Brian doesn't have a Read ratio as far as I know] At ANY rate, I can't seem to reproduce the problem, nor can I see any REASON for it in the code. I WILL be looking for the prob, however... Maybe what I did in item #1 was causing the prollem: apparently it initially appeared AFTER Brian updated to a version that had the original method... [AND I've seen the occasional #62 here at the Zone as well, nearly always by the same guy, but he couldn't remember where it happened or even that it had... Weird, as it would have dumped him to the Main Menu prompt... Oh well.........] 28 Jan 93 - v3.96n 1) I was on at midnight while another caller was on and FINALLY fingered out what was happening and why the program would occasionally zero out the YESTRDAY.LOG. Since you can't get 2 clocks on PC's to run EXACTLY at the same time [not that *I* am aware] then IF you had 2 lines running at the same time and the clock turned over at midnight, the 2 machines would just read that the date didn't match what they had IN MEMORY and update the STATUS.LOG, even if it had already been updated! VERY simple: that's what made it hard to find.... sigh... 27 Jan 93 - v3.96m 1) STILL a minor glitch in the #($)^*&#$%(*& Midnight Event: bugger was still doin it twice occasionally... Using a new method to double check the date in the USAGE.LOG and the date in the YESTRDAY.LOG for comparison [one of the ways Plus determines if it's time to do the midnight event and the probable cause of the doubled event] 2) SLIGHT but IMPORTANT change to the PLUSCFG.DAT file. Added a line at the end of the paths group that points to the directory where archiving progs are located [ARJ.EXE, PKZIP.EXE, and PKUNZIP.EXE]. You no longer have to have them in the \PLUS directory... [one of those anal things that I stick all of MY archiving programs into a directory called \ARC] This will help keep things neater in the \PLUS directory... IF you have already updated Plus and moved the archiving progs into your \PLUS directory, you can still leave them there, it's just not NECESSARY to leave them there any more. The reason you HAD to stick them in ANY specific directory to begin with is that Plus checks for those files prior to even DISPLAYING any support for a particular archiving method so Sysops that choose to NOT support .ARJ or .ZIP format may do so and your users will never know that Plus has the option to do both but YOU aren't supporting both [sweet, eh? :)]. EVERY time it checks for the archiving progs and can't find one or more, it displays it on THE LOCAL SCREEN ONLY for your benefit. It will tell you which file isn't found and the path to that file. ************************************************************************ This also included a change to the COMMON variables, so you MUST update ALL modules or Plus will crash! ************************************************************************ 3) Sorry, but being an 'ARJ virgin' I missed the multiple archiving feature of ARJ where the extension can be A01 or A02 or whatever... Plus now checks and accepts UL's [IF ARJ is an allowed UL method] with extensions that begin with 'A' and are followed by numbers. Not only that, it also does an integrity check and virus SCAN, views/extracts files from these archives: basically ALL of the same things you can do to .ARJ files. The ONE exception to this rule is the conversion process.... As a rule, folks that have archived their software using that kind of method are joining archives for a reason. You could feasably have one file that bridges files from one archive to the next, and currently there is no way [that I'm aware] to convert a file with that kind of setup to .ZIP format. 26 Jan 93 - v3.96l 1) IF you had a user logon prior to midnight and off after midnight, the HRUSAGE.LOG would not reflect their online time. 2) Plus now displays bytes free for 2 different HD's. What it does is reads the PLUSCFG and finds the first drive letter that is different from the one described as the main PLUS path [C:\PLUS in the example setup], reads the space on that drive and puts it up on the display. THIS APPLIES TO ONLY THE FIRST DRIVE LETTER DIFFERENT THAN THE MAIN C:\PLUS DRIVE! I.E. if you have your transfer sections split between C:\, D:\ and E:\ drives and the paths to transfer sections A, B, and C, are C:\XFER\A, D:\XFER\B, and E:\XFER\C, Plus will not recognize the E: drive FOR THE DISPLAY ONLY. It reads the FIRST DRIVE it encounters in the xfer section paths that is different from the main \PLUS directory and displays ONLY the primary and second path. NOTE: CD-ROM's are calculated into this method: if you have one of those critters on your system it is simply ignored in this checking procedure [for obvious reasons [grin]] 3) The Murph Zone is running on a VGA paperwhite monitor... When the modem goes to reset and has a problem, the dark red that WAS displaying the number of retries is now changed to good 'ol stark white that EVERYONE will be able to see... 4) XMAINTPL note: XMAINTPL, the XFERFILE.DAT maintenance program by Darcy McConnell [modded for Plus by me] just went thru a re-write to Power Basic. In the process, I lost all the pretty colors and windows, making the combo of no excess code and written for/compiled in Power Basic a BLINDING fast combination! This critter SCREAMS!!!! I ORIGINALLY compiled it, however, with the 386 switch turned on in the compiler... Glen's 286 complained and wouldn't run it... I recompiled with both the 286 and 8086/8088 switches on, ran all 3 versions against the 1820 file XFERFILE.DAT file and saw NO NOTICABLE DIFFERENCE on my 386! I guess considering the size of the program and what it's doing there's no difference in speed on human terms no matter HOW it's compiled... So, rather than 3 versions of XMAINT for the 3 different classes of machines, the program is just compiled with the 8086/8088 switch so it's compatible on all machines and you STILL get the blinding speed! I'm VERY pleased with this setup, BTW! Power Basic note: An initial attempt at converting Plus to PB was unsucessful. EP DID get EBBS-PC converted to PB but had a TON of little problems and is back to QB3 and a library for the com port. We WILL be trying to get these progs converted to PB, tho... Just run the NEW XMAINTPL against the OLD QB45 version and you will see why: you would SWEAR the critter was written in C++ it's THAT FAST! 25 Jan 93 - v3.96k 1) IF you were setup multinode and your viewed a file, UL'd a file, or a few OTHER things it would change directory to the drive and path described as path$(1)... 2) More refining of the .ARJ file checking after UL and neatening of the ULPROB.LOG 24 Jan 93 - v3.96j 1) Cleared up a few things with the .ARJ UL testing procedures: it wouldn't count a bad header as a bad UL... 24 Jan 93 - v3.96i 1) Minor glitch where if you EMailed a private reply to a user from the message base, it didn't use the message's subject header as the default subject header: it was wiped clean. 2) After returning from EMailing a private reply to a user from the message section, it didn't return you where you left off in the message base if you didn't quote the users message in EMail: you were just returned to the Message Area prompt... 3) EMail from a new user wasn't always automagically added to the 'Mail To Be Deleted' list after auto-validation... 4) Modded the Batch File Add feature so if you are at the [!] All directory, hitting [A] will check/add files in ALL directories... 23 Jan 93 - v3.96h 1) Added .ARJ > .ZIP and .ZIP > .ARJ conversions. Just prior to confirming that you wish to convert the file, the user is warned that IF there are directories stored in the original archive they will NOT be saved in the converted archive. I COULD have added this feature, but the problem then would be getting RID of the extra subdirectories after the file is DL'd that were created when the original file was un-archived. PKZ2.04c DOES delete the directories when you use the -m command, but considering the press it's getting of late and that I'm not sure .ARJ will remove the unused subs, then that's pretty much the way it's gonna stay for the moment. When the new ZIP is fixed and some plan is found to deal with .ARJ [or the new version comes out] this warning will stay intact. Otay, here's whahappenz: User hits 'C' at the XFER prompt. They go thru the selection process as normal, the system checks to see if the user has enough time, DL credit, and checks the post/read/DL ratio if used, then displays the original file listing. It gives the aforementioned warning and a suggestion that if, after installation of the program it doesn't work to try calling back and DL'ing the original file instead. The user is then prompted for to confirm the DL: [if no or abort then it returns to the XFER prompt] The rest of the process is automatic. Plus un-arc's the file to the \XFER\[node number] directory, deletes the original file, then archives the file in the converted archiving method and starts the DL. 2) When you did more than one batch files add it would give you improbable numbers for the minimum number of characters... Had one report where the first time it was the minimum 10, second was 20, third was 40, and fourth was 19 THOUSAND 6 HUNDRED something... woops... Fixed formatting of the descriptions length guides. 22 Jan 93 - v3.96g 1) Added .ARJ viewing/extracting/message archiving for DL to the system. Couple of things tho: you MUST have PKZIP, PKUNZIP, and ARJ in the main C:\PLUS directory and you must create a directory off of your XFER dir named 1 and one more for every additional node.... The latter may sound a bit cryptic, so here goes: the program now archives ALL files in a dir off of the \XFER directory that is named the same as the node. If you have a 2 node setup, for instance, and you have them logically numbered node 1 and node 2 and the path to the ExtFilPath [in PLUSCFG] is C:\XFER then you need to have C:\XFER\1 & C:\XFER\2 directories as well. This new thing takes care of the conflict that arises if you have 2 people doing things at the same time utilizing that directory. As to the archiving of messages, the program now checks first to see if you have BOTH PKZIP and ARJ in your C:\PLUS directory and if you DO, then Plus prompts you with 'Do you want to DL this file in the .ARJ or .ZIP format' [more or less that wording [grin]]. ************************************************************************ YOU MUST MOVE PKZIP.EXE, PKUNZIP.EXE, AND ARJ.EXE INTO YOUR MAIN C:\PLUS DIRECTORY! Archive viewing, extracting, message archiving, etc will NOT work UNLESS you do so! ************************************************************************ 2) Apparently, under some circumstances that I have yet to uncover, the SYSOPUF.DAT is being reset. Not sure WHY yet, so if you have this happen PLEASE note the circumstances so I can fix the prollem. Almost without exception, the SYSOPUF.DAT file will NOT be screwed up: this is a once-in-a-blue-moon kinda thing. 20 Jan 93 - v3.96f 1) Welpers, Glen has caught up now so it's time for another mod [grin]. This one allows you to APPEND/EDIT the WELCOME.TXT file that is automagically sent to new users when you autovalidate them. Here's the process: 1) Plus reads the subject header. If it reads exactly what the subject header is as defined in the PLUSCFG.DAT, it then checks the userfile and what the user's access currently is. If less than the basic access [level 1 in the autoconfig portion], Plus prompts you with, "Do you want to autovalidate [users name]?", with the default being Yes. 2) Plus checks for the existence of WELCOME.TXT in the C:\PLUS directory [drive/directory according to your setup, of course]. If it exists, it is read in then outputted as a piece of mail to the user. 3) Next you are asked if you wish to APPEND this mail, default is No. 4) At this point, Plus is treating this mail like normal mail. You may do everything with it as you would normal mail. 2) If you quoted a piece of forwarded EMail, it would pick up the Subj: line in the QUOTED PORTION and use IT as the default subject header. I.E. I had forwarded a piece of mail to a co-sysop from a new user. He, in turn, quoted that mail and sent it back to me. When I replied to that mail, it found the LAST line that said "Subj:" in it, stripped the first 6 characters from that string and used it as the subject header. Originally it read: SD> Subj: New User Sayin Hi When the first 6 characters were stripped away, it left: bj: New User Sayin Hi as the subject header. 3) Added an option to the Batch File Add in the Xferfile Editor. You may now individually edit each file description or simply go with the default which is initially entered. 20 Jan 93 - v3.96e 1) Got REAL tired of dealing with having to hit return all the time in EMail if I had more than 9 pieces of mail so I got lazy[?] and wrote in a few extra routines so you don't have to hit 2 keys UNLESS: 1) If you have more than 9 pieces of mail and less than 19 and the first key you push is a '1' 2) If you have more than 19 pieces of mail and less than 25 and the first key you push is either a '1' or a '2' ALSO, to print any piece of mail you now have to hit '%'.... I did this for 2 reasons: it frees the 'P' for a Previous Mail switch and it is hard to hit the '%' by accident locally and causing an error #25 [which is now trapped LOCALLY anyway... 2) Also made it a '%' to print userfiles... 18 Jan 93 - v3.96d 1) IF a user opted to do a batch UL then chose to only UL 1 file, Plus would still try to look for a second file. This would cause an error #52... 2) A bug appeared where ANY user could view ANY file that was UL'd... 16 Jan 93 - v3.96c 1) Minor bug: when you logged off locally using F10 it wouldn't update your userfile whether you were the Sysop or not, it would just rerun the board. 15 Jan 93 - v3.96b 1) Had several of my users logon, go thru the message bases, hit an ERROR #62 [input past end of line error] which kicked them back to the Main Menu, and then continue on without saying a word. I didn't know there WAS a prollem until I took a peek at the ERROR.LOG... Problem was a file that was somehow truncated. I.E. the message consisted of the FROM and TO lines ONLY... Now the program checks the first 4 lines of the file FIRST... If there are less than 4 lines, the program doesn't read the file and appends the ERROR.LOG with a message that there is a bad message, the filename complete with the ENTIRE path and the date, time, username included... 14 Jan 93 - v3.96a 1) Redid the Change Personal Stats routine so it's menu driven rather than the user having to go through a bunch of stuph they don't want to change just to change one or 2 things... 2) Modded the logon routine so you get a MAX of 3 logons before the system logs you off. I.E. if you try to logon with another users name OR try to logon with a new user name OR BOTH, it counts as an attempted logon. After 3 tries it gives the user the message: "Sigh.... Hacking again, huh? Do it somewhere else... Bye......" This helps deter the junior hackers from tying up the board or having an unlimited amount of tries at hacking a users account... 13 Jan 93 - v3.96 1) IF a user was joining the BBS AND IF they got to sending EMail to the Sysop AND they dropped carrier the program would save the userfile, even tho they had not sent the EMail or sent the requisite minimum 3 lines. [NORMALLY at that point they would be given a message saying that they screwed up and didn't leave the 3 lines, they would be logged off and their userfile would not have been saved]