VERSION/UPDATE HISTORY FOR DOORBILL =================================== Version 5.3 ----------- (08-27-92) Fixed a bug that would generate a 'Time Expired' message when the local display was toggled off (F9). This apparently only occurred when using PCBoard's command stacking ability. Version 5.2 ----------- (06-15-92) Due to a silly oversight on my part, only 99 Bulletins have previously been allowed. Changed that so you can now have up to 999 Bulletins (which should cover 400 Doors nicely!). Somewhere along the line the Security Level for the Categories got screwed up and Categories that were above a callers level were being shown anyway. Who knows how long it has been like that! (06-01-92) <- NOTE: Not implemented yet! Ok, I am gonna try putting COMLOCK back in, but as an internal function this time rather than a separate program. There is a new field in DBUTIL in each Door screen labeled DTE. If you have an HST and are locking the baud rate, enter the first 2 numbers of that value here. For example, you are locking at 38,400, enter 38. If you are locking at 9600, enter 96. If I have as much trouble with it as last time, I will probably just give up on it altogether! (05-29-92) For PCBoard users: When you indicate that a Door is not multi-node, DoorBill writes a 'BUSY' file to keep other nodes out while someone is playing. If something happens that the file doesn't get deleted (lock-up, power failure) then no one can play the game until that file is deleted. DoorBill now checks the PCBoard USERNET.DAT file to see if the name listed in the BUSY file is really online. If not then it automatically deletes the BUSY file and lets the caller go ahead and enter the Door. Version 5.1 ----------- (05-09-92) Fixed a Path/File Access error in the Sort routine in DBUTIL. I was opening the temporary file before the sort was done and it balked when time came to write to the file. Moved the OPEN statement after the sort was done and it works fine now. Still haven't figured why that would affect it! Fixed an oversight on displaying the menu colors. If you chose a black border in DBUTIL it would display as white in DoorBill. (05-06-92) DoorBill now returns a DOS Error Level of 62. I understand GAP systems can use this to recycle the BBS correctly when a caller logs off from within DoorBill and not have 'Carrier Lost' written in the log. (05-05-92) Fixed a problem when running under PCBoard and the caller logged off from within DoorBill. It was not updating the total time used and last date on fields correctly. Julian dates are tricky! Version 5.0 ----------- (05-02-92) Fixed a problem with the Multi-Node field. Sometimes it would leave a space in the middle of the filename when creating the BUSY file. Thus it would generate a 'Bad Filename' error and abort. This only occured when there was an 'N' for Multi-Node. (05-01-92) Fixed a problem when moving a door between categories. Seems the titles came up black on black so you couldn't read them! Also fixed a 'Permission Denied' error in the same routine. (Thanks Thom!) (04-22-92) to (04-30-92) Major upgrade time! Expanded the Command Lines in the Door screens from 50 characters to 70 characters each. And you now have 15 lines to work with rather than 10. You may now configure what the menus will look like. You have a choice of 20 border styles displayed in any color you wish. The Category Menu and the Doors Menu are separately configurable. Another new addition is the ability to lock any door or DoorBill itself by time of day. You may specify up to 2 different periods during the day. You may now specify whether a Door is multi-node compatible or not. If you flag a Door with an N in this field, DoorBill will lock that Door while a caller is accessing it. Other callers trying to open the Door will be notified that the Door is currently in use and to try again later. For non-PCBoard systems, when you choose P in the Conversion field, DoorBill now creates PCBOARD.SYS, USERS, and PCBOARD.DAT instead of just PCBOARD.SYS. This parameter is ignored on PCBoard systems (you already have the files, why create them again?!). Consequently, DUMMYPCB.ZIP (which contained USERS and PCBOARD.DAT) has been removed from the .ZIP file. Added a Time Limit field for each Door. If this field is non-zero, DoorBill will limit the callers time to the number of minutes in the Time Limit field or to the number of minutes left on the BBS, whichever is less. Added the Prolog and Epilog fields. The Prolog field is for sending an ANSI or ASCII screen before the Door runs. The Epilog field is the same except it sends the screen file after the Door finishes. The filename of the screen file must not contain an extension! If you have both ANSI and ASCII screens, enter the ASCII screen filename which must be no more than 7 letters as DoorBill will tack a G on the end for the ANSI file. For example, your ASCII screen is SCREEN1 so DoorBill will look for SCREEN1G as the ANSI filename. DoorBill would ignore a filename of SCREEN1.ANS, etc. Which screen gets sent is determined by the callers ANSI.SYS compatibility. Finally removed the COMLOCK parameter from the Categories Screen and the program has been deleted from the .ZIP file. The program was a poor attempt at best. If you need a port (un)locker, I recommend FORCE381.EXE. You can download it from MicroNet as FORCE38.ZIP. Finally figured out how to make DoorBill switch back to it's home directory after a drop to DOS (F5 key)! Previously, if you dropped to DOS and then switched directories or drives, then EXITed back to DoorBill, you would get a blank menu when you hit ENTER since it was trying to re-read the data files which weren't in the current directory anymore. We now have GT Power support (again!). I had switched some libraries around for v4.3 and accidently left out the routines for GT support. Added support for generic game bulletins. When not running under either PCBOARD.SYS or USERS.SYS, you may specify a Bulletin Menu filename in Field #2 of DBUTIL and a Bulletin listing filename in Field #3. These are files that you will create yourself. Check the DOCs for a detailed explanation. One more time on that pesky error when the printer is toggled on but no printer is available. Had a RESUME statement out of place. Corrected it so we should have a graceful exit now (which also toggles the printer off). Version 4.3 ----------- (03-21-92) DoorBill can now use of the IRQ environment variable. For example, instead of DOORBILL DOORBILL.CFG /5 you can use DOORBILL DOORBILL.CFG /%IRQ% (provided you have used SET IRQ=x to set the environment variable). Have no idea how this one slipped by for so long but there was a slight problem reading the location of DORINFOx.DEF. Fixed and working. (03-19-92) DoorBill will now recognize the PCBoard %PCBDRIVE% and %PCBDIR% environment variables. For example, if your path to PCBOARD.SYS is C:\PCB\PCBOARD.SYS, you can use %PCBDRIVE%%PCBDIR%\PCBOARD.SYS instead and DoorBill will substitute the drive and directory. This allows multi- node systems to use just one DOORBILL.CFG even if the paths are different for each node! (03-18-92) Guess again! I used a routine from the PBClone library to test if the printer was online and ready. Seems it doesn't work to well since it always returned a zero indicating the printer is offline. So it's back to the drawing board with a routine of my own. This one seems to work as it should (where have I heard that before!). (03-05-92) Looks like an error in the printer routine finally surfaced! Hard to believe no one has stumbled on this one since it has been in place since the early days of DoorBill. If you run PCBoard and have the printer toggled on with no printer attached, you got a Device Fault error and the error routine didn't trap it. Anyway, all fixed and ready to go now. Version 4.2 ----------- (02-27-92) For those of you running more than 1 node you may now run multiple .DAT and .CNF files from the same directory. Just pass the filename when calling DoorBill. For example, on a 2 node system you might call the files DBILL1.CNF, DBILL2.CNF, DBILL1.DAT, and DBILL2.DAT. For Node 1 your command line would be: DOORBILL DOORBILL.CFG CNF:DBILL1.CNF DAT:DBILL1.DAT and for Node 2: DOORBILL DOORBILL.CFG CNF:DBILL2.CNF DAT:DBILL2.DAT If you do not specify the CNF: or DAT: parameters, they will default to DOORBILL.CNF and DOORBILL.DAT. Version 4.1 ----------- (02-24-92) Fixed a bug in the Categories screen. When creating a the screen from scratch it would go haywire on the Text and Border fields. I'm suprised no one has reported that since it has been like that for 6 months! (02-09-92) Fixed a potential problem with the backspace locking the system in local mode. That and the new BBS number and address for MicroNet are the only changes so far for this version number. Version 4.0 ----------- (10-19-91) Fixed a couple of problems in writing CALLINFO.BBS having to do with the time left and the total download bytes available. (09-19-91) Added Node number parameter for GT BBS systems. If you are running under a network, such as Lantastic, put the node number on line 6 of the .CFG file (which means your registration number goes on line 7!). NOTE: This is for GT systems ONLY! (09-02-91) Since I have had a few requests to make the menu colors configurable, I have added that feature. There are 2 new fields in DBUTIL. One for the border color of the menus and one for the text. The colors range from 1 to 15 (see DOORBILL.DOC). (08-25-91) As per recommendations from Mustang Software, DoorBill no longer writes USERINFO.DAT. It still updates the DOOR.SYS file, however. (08-15-91) Seems when I made the changes for 3.6 and 3.7 (which necessitated some field changes), I neglected to also change the conversion routine for versions 2.6 and below. Shouldn't affect too many of you but if it did you would end up with a trashed .CNF file! Ouch! Version 3.9 (07-15-91) ---------------------- The folks at Mustang finally discovered the 52-line DOOR.SYS and have gone to that format. Disregard the instructions for v3.8! Just put the path to USERINFO.DAT on line 1 of the .CFG (forget about line 5 mentioned below). Fixed an obscure bug that would, in certain instances, not display the Categories above #9. And while I was at it, I installed a paging feature. If you have more than 14 Categories or Doors listed, DoorBill will display them in 2 pages. There will be an additional 'P] Page x' option on the menu. And just for fun I optimized the code a little more and shaved about 2.5K of the .EXE file! Version 3.8 (06-17-91) ---------------------- Added support for Wildcat! v3.0! This version of Wildcat! started using the DOOR.SYS format, however, it is the old 31 line version (as opposed to the PCBoard/GAP 52 line version). DoorBill will know the difference (I hope!). WildCat v3.0+ users must put the full pathname to the USERINFO.DAT on line 5 of the .CFG file. If you have registered DoorBill, your registration number now goes on line 6. Version 3.7 (05-20-91) ---------------------- Added an option to write a log file (DOORBILL.LOG). This option is available to all systems. If you are running PCBoard, DoorBill will write to both the CALLER log (automatic) and to DOORBILL.LOG (optional). This option defaults to Y so if you do not wish to create a log file, you must place an N in the second field in DBUTIL. Expanded the G] Goodbye command to include all systems (not just PCBoard). Fixed a problem with time remaining on GT systems. Also changed the Level calculations for GT so they should hopefully be straightened out now. Version 3.6 (04-12-91) ---------------------- Made the G]oodbye command for PCBoard systems configurable. This field replaces the BBS directory field in DBUTIL. The default is "Y" so if you wish to disable it, you must insert an "N" in this field. Otherwise, no action is required on your part. Fixed an overflow problem in one of the date routines. Completely reworked the offending date routine so we should be back on track now. I apologize for any problems the overflow error may have caused. Version 3.5 (03-25-91) ---------------------- Added PCBOARD.SYS conversion for non-PCBoard systems. This will create the PCBOARD.SYS file only. Dummy PCBOARD.DAT and USERS are included in the file DUMMYPCB.ZIP if your Door requires these files. Added support for non-standard COM port IRQ's (other than IRQ3 and IRQ4). See the docs on how to activate and use a non-standard IRQ. Version 3.4 (02-25-91) ---------------------- Added the conversion for DOOR.SYS doors so you can now run GAP doors without the need for an external converter. This means we have a new DBUTIL. The version number is 3.4 to match this version of DoorBill. Added the conversion for SFDOORS.DAT which gives you the ability to run Spitfire doors without a converter. Added support for WWIV so hopefully DoorBill will now run on those systems. Also added the WWIV Doors conversion so non-WWIV systems can run WWIV doors. This is untested - any of you WWIV Sysops care to report back to me on how it performs? Added support for GT Power systems. DoorBill will read GTUSER.BBS and that's it. It does not update any files on a GT system. This is untested so there may be some bugs in the routine. Fixed a problem in the DORINFO routine. It was writing COM1 for a Local logon instead of COM0. Version 3.3 (02-11-91) ---------------------- Added support for SFDOORS.DAT so Spitfire BBS systems can now run DoorBill. Changed the color switch to default to the BBS setting. Also added a generic menu border made up of keyboard characters rather than the IBM extended ASCII characters for those unfortunate souls who haven't discovered ANSI.SYS yet. What this means is you MUST have the Detect ANSI switch set in DBUTIL to "Y" to display color menus. If it is set to "N" then all you get is the generic menus. When set to "Y" you get the extended characters and the color defaults to the BBS setting. You can now run multiple nodes from the same DoorBill directory. Just make sure that the paths you enter in DBUTIL are exactly the same for each node that is to share the files. This will also apply to the Door's .CFG file. You will need to change the DOORBILL batch file (see the sample DOORBILL file for differences). For example, the BILLRUN.BAT file is now called DBRUNx.BAT where x is the Node number. Fixed an error in the CALLINFO.BBS routine where it would not write the file in some cases. Also updated it to write the 36 line CALLINFO instead of the old 30 line. Had a report that the DBRUNx.BAT and DBILLx.TIM files on single node systems were being written with 0 as the node number instead of node 1 as they should be. Fixed! Tweaked the printer routine some more. Took the CR/LF out so that should eliminate the blank lines. I neglected to send the entry to the printer when the caller logged off from DoorBill so that has been added also. Version 3.2 (12-13-90) ---------------------- Added support for PCBoard 14.5's USERS.SYS file! The main advantage is that any changes in Time or Level are now passed back to PCBoard. Also, the Call Waiting screen is updated when the caller logs off from DoorBill. Version 3.1 (12-07-90) ---------------------- Hooray! Finally fixed that pesky midnight time problem where the caller would get a time expired message if he logged on the BBS before midnight and entered DoorBill after midnight. Added the Help command. It's not much but will let callers know that command stacking is available. The Goodbye command didn't work anywhere but at the Category menu. Fixed. Version 3.0 (11-26-90) ---------------------- Fixed a problem with the display routines where no line feeds would be sent if the local display was toggled off. Added CALLINFO.BBS support so DoorBill can now run on Wildcat! systems! Added the Goodbye command so users can now log off from DoorBill however, this option is only available when running under PCBOARD. Fixed a problem when running under PCBoard where DoorBill was writing the callers elapsed time to the USER log. Thats' fine but it was inaccurate! It now only updates USERS if the caller logs off from DoorBill. Version 2.9 (10-26-90) ----------------------- Since a couple of Sysops expressed concern about the automatic ANSI detection, I have made this configurable in DBUTIL. The default is ON (Y). If you want to turn it off just put an N in the Auto-ANSI field. Added the ability to stack commands from the PCBoard prompt! (Here ya are Chuck!) The format is: .... Command? OPEN 1 1;3 2;5 5;1 B Q This would OPEN Door #1 (DoorBill), select Category 1 - Door 3 and run the door. When that door is finished DoorBill reloads (so it can check carrier etc.) then selects Category 2 - Door 5, and so on. After all the doors have ran, DoorBill reloads and displays the Bulletin Menu then exits to PCBoard. If the caller enters either an invalid Category number or Door number, an error message is displayed and DoorBill goes on to the next parameter. NOTE: This option only works with PCBoard! Version 2.8 (10-22-90) ---------------------- DoorBill now provides a conversion for DORINFO1.DEF and CALLINFO.BBS! There is a new field at the bottom of the Door entry screens in DBUTIL. Just place a D for DORINFO1.DEF conversion or a C for CALLINFO.BBS in that field and DoorBill will write the appropriate conversion file in the door's directory. Fixed a problem with the chat routine and the backspace introduced in the conversion to BIOS screen writes. Version 2.7 (10-20-90) ---------------------- Added auto-ANSI detection! If the caller has ANSI capability, DoorBill will switch to Graphics mode regardless of his setting on the BBS. This does not change the BBS setting. Right now auto-ANSI detection is not configurable. Please let me know if you would like it to be. Added Up:Dn to the Status line which indicates uploads and downloads. Fiddled with the Sort routine in DBUTIL since it wasn't quite right. Hopefully it will sort ALL the doors now! Changed the local screen printing from Direct Screen Writes to BIOS screen writes which should solve the problems with bleed thru for those of you using DesqView (I hope!). Added 2 shortcuts to the menus: 1. If you hit any key while any of the menus are printing, it will stop and prompt you with 'Yes? '. This way you do not have to sit thru the whole menu if you know which number you want. 2. You are now able to bypass the second menu altogether! For instance if you want to enter Category 3 and Door 5 of that category, you can now type 3;5. The delimiter must be a semi-colon (;). Version 2.6 (10-04-90) ---------------------- DoorBill is now DOOR.SYS compatible! This entailed some changes in DBUTIL as well as DoorBill. The DOORBILL.CNF file has changed with this version and must be converted. Never fear, the conversion is automatic. Both DoorBill and DBUTIL will detect the older format and do it's thing. You won't even know it is happening! You no longer need to enter the path to PCBOARD.DAT in DBUTIL. The fields for the Doors BLT Menu and BLT.LST are now 25 characters instead of 20 and the BBS DIR field has shrunk from 30 characters to 25. The DOOR.SYS version is pretty much like the PCBoard one except you do not have the ALT-N (Sysop next on) and ALT-X (exit to DOS) options while in DoorBill. The Bulletin of your Categories and Doors that DBUTIL creates has been changed to make ASCII and ANSI files instead of the PCBoard @X files. Version 2.5 (09-30-90) ---------------------- Added Sort option to DBUTIL. This option will sort all Doors in all Categories and put them in alphabetical order. (Pretty quick too!) Version 2.5 (09-21-90) ---------------------- Fixed the CHAT MODE routines so the user gets credit for any time spent in CHAT with the Sysop. Changed the Status Line Help Menu key from ALT-H to HOME for reasons to complicated to go into here. The Bulletin option now displays both ASCII and ANSI bulletins. Version 2.4 (09-14-90) ---------------------- Fixed a bug in the time routines. If a caller logged on just before midnight and entered DoorBill after midnight, it wasn't calculating his time correctly and would kick him out with a 'time expired'. Added option for the Sysop to Shell to DBUTIL. Added Doors Bulletin viewing ability! If you enable this, the user can now list your Doors Bulletins from within DoorBill. Added the user's time left to the menu prompts. Version 2.3 (09-02-90) ---------------------- Think I finally solved the lock-up problems some Sysops were having. The problem stemmed from a sub-routine that checked for the existance of a file. Took that out and put another routine in it's place which should solve the problem. (later note: Nope, that didn't fix it!) Version 2.2 (08-24-90) ---------------------- Added the MOVE command to DBUTIL. Changed the DoorBill version number so we can keep the version numbers in sync. Version 2.1g (08-22-90) ----------------------- Made some adjustments to the COM routines in COMLOCK and DoorBill. COMLOCK wasn't picking up the HST 38400 parameter correctly. Fixed a bug in the CHAT mode. If you stayed in CHAT longer than 5 minutes, when you came out DoorBill would kick the caller back to the BBS with a 'Keyboard timeout' error. Version 2.1f (08-20-90) ----------------------- Had some reports of 'Out of String Space' errors so I cleared out a bit more for this update. Version 2.1e (08-16-90) ----------------------- Ok, I got it this time (I really do!). These time calculations are giving me a fit! Finally solved it by ignoring PCBOARD.SYS altogether and writing a file just for time keeping. Version 2.1d (08-16-90) ----------------------- Thought I had the timing routines fixed but did not. Time calculations kept getting screwed up due to the fact that some doors update PCBOARD.SYS with the time remaining and some do not. I THINK it is fixed now. Fixed a bug in the CHAT routine. It would give a Keyboard Timeout error after 5 minutes even though keyboard input was going on the whole time. Version 2.1c (08-14-90) ----------------------- Fixed a bug in the security routines where DoorBill would allow a caller with a level less than that specified would be allowed to see and enter categories he shouldn't have. Version 2.1b (08-10-90) ----------------------- Added logic so DoorBill would know a little earlier when a caller had logged off while inside a door. Version 2.1a (08-08-90) ----------------------- Fixed a bug in the timing routines. If a caller logged on close to the event and he had already been on previously that day, DoorBill would sometimes figure his time wrong and kick him out with a 'Time Expired' message even though he had plenty of time left. Added Bulletin creator to DBUTIL. Version 2.1 (08-06-90) ----------------------- Quite a few improvements over v1.1! Added full screen editor in DBUTIL. Added security levels for the categories. Added locks based on callers baud rate. Expanded COMLOCK to include 9600, 19200 and 38400 baud. Added insert and delete options to category and door screens. Version 2.0 ----------- Development and Alpha test version. Not released. Version 1.1 ----------- First public release. Version 1.0 ----------- Development and Alpha test version. Not released.