Voter++ v4.03 Copyright (c)1996 by Practical Computer Services HISTORY OF CHANGES, FIXES, & ADDITIONS ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- BIG NEWS! BIG NEWS! BIG NEWS! BIG NEWS! BIG NEWS! BIG NEWS! BIG NEWS! BIG NEWS! 09/22/96 Practical Computer Services is proud to be the new owner of this fine software. PCS will now be taking all registrations, releasing all new updates and handling all support questions. See v4.01 release notes for additional information. BIG NEWS! BIG NEWS! BIG NEWS! BIG NEWS! BIG NEWS! BIG NEWS! BIG NEWS! BIG NEWS! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4.03 10/08/96 Corrected some screen displays that wouldn't show up properly in some cases. 4.02 09/27/96 Changed some key function codes to reflect the name change of the universal key. The key name has changed from UNIVERSL.KEY to UNI.KEY. The old key will work as is. 4.01 09/22/96 Practical Computer Services has purchased the source and rights to Voter++ from GO/4 Software as of 09/22/96. Changes made to the code and related files to reflect this change of ownership. Please direct all questions and registrations to PCS, not GO/4 Software. Company info: Practical Computer Services 483 Klockner Road Hamilton, NJ 08619 Voice: (609) 584-7947 Support BBS: The TAO BBS (609)587-2672 33,600 USR v.everything Internet E-Mail: bob.watson@tao.com 4.0u 12-04-95 . Added in UNIVERSAL key routines, so that now you can pay one small reg fee and use all of GO/4 Softwares PCB products. . Sped up the VOTEGRAF again, seems with each new PPLC that is released, we can speed up execution time a bit more. 4.0 05-15-95 . Major Update, rewrote almost 100% of the code to make use of the new language funtions. Added a few new things. . Vote items can now go up to 999 items! . VOTEGRAF.PPE will not be called if a user only entered the PPE to look at avalailable votong choices or if they displayed the results, now it only gets called if the user actually votes! . Laid the framework to throw all questions and answers and NAM files into DBase records, it ought to speed everything up tremendously (V4.1). To upgrade to this version, you only need to copy over the VOTE.PPE into your vote subdir. 3.0 06-20-94 . Added the number of voters to the Bulletin Generator, this way people can also see what questions are most popular. Looks like this: Created by: Voter++ Bulletin Generator Voted on by 78 callers <-------new line added. . Added the same type of display to the Graphics display section in the PPE itself. This lets the users see how many actual votes there are. . Added a new Command line switch, this switch (BLT) when on the command line will allow you to show your users how many booths there are and to show them how many they have voted on already. I implemented this to work in place of NEWBOOTH.PPE (although I will continue distributing NEWBOOTH.PPE as it also is an alternative). I am sure that you will find that the new command line switch is fast and very easy to use. Check the docs for concise instructions on implementation. . Added a Security list feature (SECURTIY.LST) that will disallow a certain (or more than one) security level from creating a new booth. Just place the security levels that you do not want creating a new booth one on each line like so: 10 16 78 etc They will get politely bounced back to the main menu of Voter++ 2.9 05-25-94 . Found a very annoying bug that seems to have been introduced in the last version, seems that Voter++ would not display possible answers over the actual question count. So if you had three questions, but each one of those questions had 4 or more answers then Voter++ woudl only display the first three. Annoying...Fixed. 2.8 03-05-94 . Added a little tweak to the NEWBOOTH.PPE that show the user their choice (Y/n), a small thing, but stops users from being confused. . Extended the time-out delay to be 30 seconds, some people thought it was a tad to fast. . There was a problem if people went to create a booth, then didn't bother, Voter++ was creating a blank booth, and since no one wants to vote on a blank booth, we nipped that one in the bud! No more empty booths. 2.7 03-03-94 . Caught a quick crawler that really ought not have gotten by me, but it looks like we were allowing users to re-vote on questions even if it showed tehm as having already voted - FIXED! . Minor modifictation to the NEWBOOTH.PPE, it now tells people that they voted on everything already, and that maybe they ought to create a new booth for everybody else. . Voter++ now logs the to the Callers log when a user creates a new booth, with the full question that user created. This way if a user gets foul you know who did it. 2.6 03-02-94 . Some internal changes, allowing the maximum booth count to be virtually unlimited. How many booths can you all want...really? . Externalized all prompts, allowing you to make this Voting Door compeltey custom to your application, please note the maximum length noted in the VOTE.PRM file! . New Feature, allows your user to go from the vote area directly to the display area, or directly from the display area to the vote area, bypassing the main menu entirely. . NEWBOOTH.PPE will now only display those booths that have yet to be voted on, this way if you have many booths, people don't have to wade through hugh listings to see whats new. 2.5 02-28-94 . Found a code problem in the (E)dit a booth section, it wasn't saving the editied booth! It was a simple problem, fixed in under a minute from the bug report. . Found a code problem where if you tried to delete a booth greaer than you cfg line 1, it woudl allow you to try. Nothing woudl be deleted, but it would still write the cfg line 1 to be one less than previously. . Added an informative message if you did try to delete a booth greater than you cfg line 1. . Fixed a small display problem, again nothing major. . Removed a little more code to speed things up, especially in the (D) area, seem sto have given a 20% speed increase. . We are going to be upping the booth count to a sysop definable number booths from 1 to unlimited will be available. Although to date no one has wanted more than 16. 2.4 02-27-94 . A Bug was reported that if there were no votes yet, the VOTEGRAF.PPE program woudl report missing files, now that is very inelegant way to go about it, so we are now checking for the exisitence of the file, and it isn't there we will create zero-byte file which wil stop these annoying error messages. . Along the same lines as the above, if a user woudl go to display a file, they would get just the answers, kinda boring, so we check to see if there are any answers, if not it tells them that "they can be the *FIRST* voter" who knows, might build up some excitiment. . Changed some code to speed up the processing of the Graph form of the Display section. Now there is no difference in speed between the two. 2.3 02-26-94 . Fixed a bug in the (D)display section, where if you had a 3 digit percentage, and a two digit vote number, there would be two extra spaces added to the right hand margin, it looked bad, so we fixed (it took some time to find!). Looks good now, I have run it through with test data that should cover every circumstance, and could not get it to do it again, so it looks to be fixed! . Added new prompts to anywhere the user has to hit an enter key to move on (as in the help screen), it is more colorful, more eye catching, and is still be worked on. . removed some debugging code that was in there, the program went from 1254 lines down to 1068 lines. Thats alot of debugging! . Changed the way a voter can vote now, instead of dumping the user back into the main menu, now it allows them to vote on another booth. Saves your user a few keystrokes, and makes them a bit more willing to vote on all of your important questions. 2.2 02-26-94 . Added a new PPE for you, VOTEGRAF.PPE will generate a bulletin for your users to see the up-to-the-minute results of any of your polls it is a simple addition, you just have to tell PCB about the new BLT, and then you have to tell Voter++ in config line 7 the full name and path to this new bulletin. After that, forget about it (other than the accolades you get from your users over it), as it is an install and forget addition. No-Muss, No-Fuss! Freebie! . Smoothed out a few of the areas that read the files, speeded them up a bit, nothing major, but I can notice it. 2.1 02-25-94 . Added a new way to view your Booth Vote Results, users now have the option to see it in Chart form (colored graphics), or in the standard chart format. This is the first step in the BLT creation process, next version will also create BLTX of your choice. Keep an eye out in the Sysop menu in Voter++ as we will be placing the bulletin creator in there. . Complete color change on this version, I am trying to get a new look one a little less sterile. Let me know what you think. . Code optimization again, cleaning it up, replacing bits of code here and there to speed things up / save a few bytes. . I am toying with the idea of getting rid of the VOTEx.ANS file, as I have the information in the VOTEx.NAM file already, it would mean much new coding, so before I do, anyone have any strong objections? Anyone need the VOTEx.ANS files for anything? 2.0 02-23-94 . Did away with the file VOTE.NUM, it is now internal to the VOTE.CFG file, to transfer over the number of voters, just take a look at the file VOTE.NUM (before you delete it) and copy that number to Line 6 of your VOTE.CFG file, if you leave it at the default of 1 no harm done, but the counter starts at 1 then. Your choice. . Added the ability for the NEWBOOTH.PPE to call Voter++ if the user decides they want to vote on any of the booths. It will time out after 20 seconds if the user does not answer the prompt (like your robocomm users). NEWBOOTH.PPE defaults to no, just in case. . Added the ability for a user (non-sysop) to create their own booths, right now I don't think it is a good idea for a user to be able to delete or edit a booth, but we have given them the ability to create one. T oenable this you need to add a line to your CFG file, on line 5 put a YES (fully spell out YES) if you want to allow your users the great privilege of adding a booth, or place a NO if you do not trust the little suckers to put up a booth worthy of your fine board. . Did some code re-work, and it looks like we speeded up the operation of Voter++ by at least 30% (now hows that for a speed up?). Hope you all can feel the difference. 1.9 02-21-94 . Added a new program called NEWBOOTH.PPE, this PPE can be placed in your security specific file, and run each time a user logs on it will inform your user of the booths they haven't yet voted in, it stays up for 10 seconds, then exits. It gets all the info it needs from your VOTE.CFG file, no maintenance involved at all! . Did a bit of code optimizing, nothing major, but enough to warrant a version upgrade (glad I don't charge by new versions...aren't you?) 1.8 02-21-94 . Fixed a slight "bug" in that when you were using the Create a booth command, it would try to add a booth to the high booth number, ie., if you had 16 booths created, but deleted number 6, it would still try to add a booth to the 16th position, but since you are only able to have 16 booths it would tell you to delete another booth. Needless to say, this was not optimal, so now it goes out to look and see what booth "slots" are open then it fills the lowest slot possible first. . Added a time out delay so that you can place Voter++ into your security specific files, and not break your robocomm users scripts Time out delay is 20 seconds, let me know if you need this changed. Thanks for the suggestion Mauricio!. 1.7 02-21-94 . Ok, we have added a new command, for sysops only, namely the "Hidden Sysop Menu" which can be accessed by anyone with sysop security on your BBS. This hidden menu will allow you Edit any booth, Create brand new booths, and Delete booths. Along with Creating and deleteing Booths, Voter++ will maintain your VOTE.CFG file for you automatically (we strive for plug and play operation over here). Give it a try, it should make your VOTE maintenance next to nil! . Created Sysop Help screen for the "Hidden Sysop Menu". . Changed a bit of the code internally, things seem a bit smoother. 1.6 02-20-94 . Changed the format of the VOTE.NAM file, this way I can pull out information I need. It has been standardized for lengths of the name, date and answer field. . Changed a bit of cosmetic stuff. . Added a flashing square to indicate those things that have been voted on already. 1.5 02-13-94 . From a suggestion of that PPL Guru, Mauricio Pineda, I was able to get rid of that ugly blotch when a user selected something from the main menu. this lead me to find an error in the selection routine under the V or D option where if a user selected a number one more than was the last displayed, they woudl be presented with an empty booth...this was not only ugly, but made the program look bad, so it has been fixed also...thanks Mauricio! . Some minor mods have been made to keep the color integrity between screens. 1.4 02-13-94 (02:15am in the morning) . While sleeping I woke and relaized that I introduced a bug in the 1.3 code, after waking up, grabbing a coke,a nd checking out the code, I saw exactly where we went wrong. Seems that an additional vote was being cast in some circumstances. Fixed, it was registering a percent that was incorrect, if you see a percentage of 50 when you only have one vote, then let me know. I have not been able to recreate it. . Cleaned up the code a bit (hey I was up anyway), and reduced the code size a bit...should be a little faster. 1.3 02-12-94 . Bug Fix! If there was a two digit quantity of votes, and a two digit quantity of percentage (ie. 45 votes 22 %) then there would be an extra two spaces padded onto the left end of the display. Fixed! . Fixed a slight crawler in the voting name check, in some circumstances if you voted on one booth, then immediately choose another to enter, Voter++ woudl erroneously report that you have already voted. Fixed! 1.2 02-12-94 . Not a bug fix, but I had a user who asked that when a voter was displaying the vote stats, the instead of seeing one questions sts and returning to the main menu, that you instead returned to the display screen. . Everything seems to be moving nicely with no bug reports, so we are going to be adding the bulletin module, which will create ansi, pcb and ascii bulletins of the voters stats. After that, you have to come up with the ideas. 1.1 02-11-94 . Fixed A problem with the "display booths" option, where if you hit a return instead of choosing a booth, you would get an empty booth. Fixed. . Made some minor cosmetic changes to the display screens. . Added the ability to have up to 16 Questions, with 16 answers for each question. This is mostly for cosmetic reasons. Do you need more than 16 questions? . We rewrote one module, and in the proces we freed up almost 4k in run time, this worked so well, we are going to be incorporating this module into our other programs. . Added the ability for you to back out of answering vote questions, and from having to select a booth answer to view (if you type "D"). This way you can back right back up to the main menu. 1.0 02-11-94 . First release. Looks good.