First I take no credit for this ppe and I am not aware of who actually
wrote and complied it. I saw it as a lot of you did in use on the SaltAir
BBS and ask how or what was the name of the ppe during a tech support
call to CDC and ask if it was available for download.
This was several months ago when it was first in use on SaltAir
I was told to flag *.PPE and *.PPS I recieved no Doc's or
installation info. I was told at that time there was no support for
the ppe's I would recieve in the download.
I have since been told it is on the board in a ZIP file format but
I myself have never seen it.
(I never really bothered to look either)
LEGALS
I will not and can not be held responsible for any damage to ANY! part of
your hardware or software due the the use of this ppe.
I see it causing any though we been using it for a while now.....
What I did:
I simply edited the cnfn.pps source file to rid the
ppe of the graphics that were displyed to the user from the ORIGINAL ppe.
In NOWAY has the PPE been altered in any way other than the graphics
display. PRINTLN statements used in original.
Why would I do this. Well if the user is in rip mode
then its plain to see that a rip header for the ppe would appear
much nicer to the user. Also using the rip header cured a problem we
had caused by the ppe. The original ppe will display how ever many lines
of txt the user has available. so being that rip uses 50 line mode
the more prompt included in the RIP kit supplied by CDC would
print itself over the top of several of the conf listing at the bottom of
the screen and preventing the user from ever seeing sevral
listings (This was not good) Using our method cleared up this
mess and now the ppe along with a similair rip header like we have provided
will produce a proper list for the user to select from.
Edit the CNFNR.PPS to see how to change the amount of conferences
that the ppe will actually scan it is currently set for 50 conf's.
I have seen it work using 5000 on a single node bbs setup on a
486 DX250 MHZ with 8 mb ram.
In this archive we have included a simple Rip header for the PPE to show
you how we made the ANSI version of the CNFN.PPE work on our BBS.
If you use Flatline to view the RIP sreen do not pay any
attention to the line calling the actual ppe because Flatline will
distort the real command line which we use.
!C:\PCB\PPL\CNFNR.PPE
But you will notice that we use a txt window that is just about
the right size to allow about 23 lines of display and allow the
MORE RIP prompt included in the RIP kit provided by CDC to be displayed
at the bottom of the page without displaying itself over the top
of the txt window displaying the conf selection.
Once the user selects NO to stop the txt then the user will be shown
inside the txt window your default ANSI prompt:
Select Conference Number, (Enter)=none ?
At this point the user simply enters the conf number he or she wishes
to join using the key board. We decided to do this like this because
the user would still have to go to the keyboard to enter the conf number
he or she wishes to join so why bother with a rip prompt for this option.
The CNFNR.PPE does not replace the CNFN.PPE (ANSI VERSION) you must
use them both if you so desire to have this type conference menu on your
BBS. In your PCB\GEN dir simply have your CNFN file call
the CNFN.PPE and have your CNFNR or CNFN.RIP file call the CNFNR.PPE
Simple.
The CNFN.RIP is nothing but a Rip drawing using the ability of the ppe
language as if it were a ANSI drawing doing the same.
Once the rip drawing is displayed it calls up the ppe.
One little trick we learned in playing with rip graphics is if you
use a TOP of PAGE Char on your RIP drawing it will FREEZE the rip drawing
to the screen and will not redraw itself every time the ppe or display
graphics such as news file or bulletins txt scrolls the screen.
I think you will like this method and it can be used through out your
bbs in other display functions on your bbs.
We have our Bulletins do the same thing but no ppe is required. Just
be sure you setup your bulletins so that the user only sees about
20 lines of txt when in ansi or rip mode this way the screen will appear
to scroll from the top down. Always use a Clear line at the top
and seperate the txt at line 20 then use the macro @WAIT@
If you want super looking display files like in your NEWUSER log on where
you would display maybe your rules files or options your board offers
don't make one big long screen make several and on the bottom of each
screen call the next screen up like so:
BLA BLAH BLAH
welcoming them to the board then call your bext screen (FILE)
MAX LINES being 20
%C:\PCB\GEN\whatever Maybe rules.
This method is real snappy and looks great. These ideas will help
in figuring out how to make the rip graphics work proper.
Yeah its me again Seth Whetstone from
Harvey's Home of the Lazy DOG! if you saw our first file
including our rip graphics we have changed the board tremendously
since that time and have complete mouse control on our bbs, our users
never touch the keyboard except to upload a file or maybe enter a file
directory number or conf selections number.
Well I never was much of an artist so I don't draw trees etc for the board
our new theme is space (outer space) all our buttons and menus are now
displayed to our users as if they were sitting in outer space a top of the
stars and planets.
And we still do not require our user to have icons for our bbs we like for
our users and newuser to be able to see the rip graphics on the first call
with out d/ling a couple hundred icn files.......
You can see our board buy calling
205-586-0216 HST D/S 28.8k v.FC/v.34
after Jan 21,1995 we should have our second node
installed we are just waiting on the phone company.
You can try the first number or this one
205-586-0193 also HST D/S 28.8k v.FC/v.34
Everybody gets a free demo so you should be able to see
enough of the rip to get the idea. You won't see some of the
conf's listings is all and don't bother trying to get a capture
file of our users list for junk mail listings...he he he
I hate junk mail.....save a tree how about it....
