PPL Conference Indexer From Visions Information Systems 1755 Courtwood Cres., Ottawa, ON, Canada K2C 3J2 Voice (613) 228-1726 Fax (613) 228-4329 Telnet cancap.com LIMITED WARRANTY ON SOFTWARE Visions Information Systems disclaims all implied warranties on the software and manuals, including without limitation, warranties of merchantability, performance, and fitness for a particular purpose. Visions Informations Systems will not be liable for any bug, error, omission, defect deficiency of nonconformity in any software. As a result, the software is sold "As Is", and the Purchaser assumes the entire risk as to its quality and performance. Visions Information Systems shall in no event be liable for direct, indirect, special, incidental, contingent, or consequential damages resulting from any defect in the software or its documentation including damages from loss of data, downtime, loss of goodwill, damage to or replacement of equipment or property, and even if Visions Information Systems has been advised of the possibility of such damage, you agree that Visions Information Systems' liability arising out of contract, negligence, strict liability in tort or warranty shall not exceed any amounts paid by you for this product. Introductions This conference index allows the sysop to maintain one master list of all available conferences on a board, while allowing the users to search the conferences for specific topics via a keyword search, view information on any available conference, and jump directly to any conference with one click of a mouse button. As well, the program fully supports both ANSI and RIP graphics. The program is highly configurable, in that it allows the sysop to specify both a particular conference list data file, and a particular front screen to be used. Thus, multiple calls can be made to the index, from different areas on the board, and for different subsets of conferences, simply by specifying a new data file and a new front screen. The program is also very low maintenance, as any updates to the conference list can be made by updating one file. The program does not expect any particular size of listing, so such changes can be made at any time, with no loss of performance. Requirements To run, the program requires several data and display files, all of which are included in the zip file with the program. There are fourteen "area" buttons, fourteen "information" buttons, a "front screen" file, a "blank screen" file, and a sample conference list. Please note that there are both ANSI and RIP versions of the front screen and the blank screen, but that there are no ANSI versions of the area and information buttons. As well, there are 108 "bar" files, again only for the RIP version of the program. These contain the various side scroll bars, which indicate the page positioning. Any of the display files may be altered to reflect the particular needs of the system using the program, as long as no changes are made to the locations of buttons or labels. All data files and display files should be kept in the same directory as the program. Selection of a particular data file and front screen display file is made using command line parameters at the time the program is called. For instance, the call "g:\index\cindex.ppe conf front c:" would call the index from the directory "g:\index\", and tell it to utilize the data file "conf" as its list of conferences, and to display "front" as its front screen. As well, the file "frontb" must exist, as the "blank screen" to be utilized. Of course, for RIP graphics, the files "frontr" and "frontbr" must also exist. Finally, the "c:" parameter tells the program that the local hard drive is c:, which is utilzed by the keyword search engine. Structure of the data file The program expects to find a data file that utilizes a particular structure to organize its information. Basically, the file is divided into sections of 10 lines, with each 10-line block acting as a record for one conference. The first line of the data file should contain a single integer, which would be the number of records in the file. A sample of such a data file is also included in this package. Below is a sample for a 2-record data file. Line 1 is the number of records in the file. Line 2 is the text to be displayed to the user, up to 56 characters long. Line 3 is used for any sysop needed information, and has no effect on the performance of the software. Line 4 is the Conference Number used by PCBoard. Line 5 is the drive, path and file name of an information file to be displayed to the user when the "Information" button is clicked. Any valid display file can be used. Line 6 is a list of key words to be searched, for various topics. The Conference Index also searches line 2 for keywords. Lines 7 through 11 are currently blank. They are to be utilized in future updates to this index program. They also act to make the data file easier to read. Lines 12 through 21 duplicate this structure for record #2, and so on for additional records. line1: 2 line2: Bakers Street Coffee & Grill (613) 231-4089 line3: 399 Elgin Street, Ottawa, Ontario line4: 1008 line5: p:\pcb\re\3\bak\text\map line6: resaurant food coffee line7: line8: line9: line10: line11: line12: Buffet Charbonneau Inc. (613) 232-3707 line13: 337 Catherine St. Ottawa, Ontario line14: 1039 line15: p:\pcb\re\15\bch\text\about line16: restaurant food buffet line17: line18: line19: line20: line21: Data File Maintenance Updating the data file, as new conferences are added or old ones are deleted, is designed to be very easy. To add a conference, simply insert the new record in between any two existing records, and change the number in line 1 to reflect the new number of conferences in the data file. Similarly, to delete a record, just remove its 10-line block, and alter the value in line 1 once again. In addition to adding or deleting whole records, it is possible to add and delete sections of records. It is not necessary to have a complete record for every conference. Thus, the index can be utilized right away, even if the sysop does not yet have an information screen available for every conference. New screens can be added at any time, simply by adding the drive, path and file name to the appropriate line in the conference list data file. When using an incomplete record, the missing lines should be replaced by blank lines, so as to maintain the standard 10-line record format. The Conference Index program looks for the needed information at a particular spot, and sets the appropriate flags if no data is found in that location, so program performance is not affected. Keyword searching Currently, keyword searches can be made for one keyword at a time. However, it is possible to narrow your search parameters by doing several consecutive searches, as the keyword search engine searches on the currently active data file. The keyword search creates a temporary file, search.dat, on the local hard drive specified in the command line parameters. This becomes the default data file for the main body of the program. A button has been included to allow the user to return to the full directory listing with a single click. Returning to the full listing sets a flag so that search.dat will be deleted when the user exits the conference index, but if this flag is not set search.dat is retained, so that the user may return directly to their keyword search file, allowing multiple accesses to the specified subset of conferences. How to Use the Index In RIP Graphics, the index can be controlled by "pointing and clicking" on all the available buttons. To make a keyword search, click on the "keyword Search" button. A prompt will appear in the text window at the bottom, allowing the user to input the keyword. To returen to the full listing after a search, simply click on the button labeled "Full Listing", no more actions are needed. Paging up or down is accoplished by clicking on the side scroll bar. To move a single page, click directly on the up or down arrow. For faster scrolling, clicking on the bar itself above or below the page marker will move the list up or down by two pages. Clicking on the up arrow while on the first page will take you to the last page, and clicking on the down arrow while on the last page will take you to the first page. To exit from the index, click on either the "Quit" or "Main" buttons. Quit will exit into the current conference area, and main will exit to the main conference area. These will act the same if the index was called from the main conference, of course. To enter a particular conference area, simply click on the appropriate "Area" button. To view additional information on a conference, click on the appropriate "Info" button. Please note, these buttons will only appear if the corresponding data is present in the conference list data file. To utilize the Conference Index in ANSI mode, the user must use the keyboard to enter commands. P - page up one page N - page down one page D - page up two pages A - page down two pages 1 -> 14 join this conference number I - See information on a conference (program will prompt for conference number 1 -> 14) S - Keyword search (Program will prompt for keyword) F - Return to full listing (after keyword search) M - Quit to the main screen Q - Quit to the current conference All of these keyboard commands will work in RIP Graphics mode as well, for users who do not have a mouse on their system.