Subj : [Mystic] GE, MPL, and USES
To   : Digital Avatar
From : Accession
Date : Sat Sep 28 2019 08:07:22

Hello Digital,

On Fri Sep 27 2019 19:16:12, Digital Avatar wrote to All:

 DA> So here's a fun question: You're trying to design a replacement for
 DA> newuserapp.mpx that is configurable with respect to what fields it
 DA> asks for (on the idea it might be useful to others and they don't
 DA> necessarily want to ask for the same information you do). So you go
 DA> about listing all the different fields that might be asked for and
 DA> what USER variables they correspond to in MPL ... and then you see it.
 DA> There's a great big gap where certain variables appear to be missing.
 DA> So, for example, there's no variable exported for the user's HomePhone
 DA> or DataPhone (corresponding to ThisUser.HomePhone and
 DA> ThisUser.DataPhone, respectively). There are other examples, but I
 DA> won't boor you with the details. (And no, I don't really care about
 DA> anyone's phone number, but I'm just using it as an example and it was
 DA> the first I could think of.)

Holy sheeyat batman! I set my board back up after a long hiatus back in '04, 
and am fairly certain I've known you for most of that time. So for ~15 years, I 
have never seen you show so much interest in setting up a BBS. Not really sure 
why I brought it up, but it's pretty cool to see, to be honest. When do we get 
to come troll your oneliners and message areas? ;)

As for the above, is it just in this newuserapp.mpx you're seeing this stuff 
missing? I was led to believe newuserapp.mpx was like a starter platform type 
thing, and never finished. Just something someone could base something of their 
own off of. It's possible whoever made it didn't care much about phone numbers 
either, so just left them out.

However, I vaguely recall (and actually, sometime in the last couple/few 
months) someone mentioning that some of these variables went missing at some 
point from MPL altogether?

 DA> 2. Does GE even work in this condition? What I mean is -- is GE
 DA> strictly for editing an existing user record stored in the database,
 DA> or does it modify a temporary record in memory such that it would be
 DA> suitable for handling new user applications as in this example?

Unfortunately, I've never been able to grasp MPL. I've been able to edit 
existing ones to make them do what I want, but maybe since I never had much 
pascal experience, or the severe lack of documentation for a n00b to be able to 
understand anything, I never got into it. Every mod I've ever made have been 
menu editing, with lots of MCI codes for X/Y coordinate positioning. ;)

 DA> ........this would be the point where g00r00's presence would be
 DA> welcome.

Agreed. Unfortunately, when he leaves for long periods of time and I run into 
things I can't figure out or get answered, I tend to leave it all alone for 
lengthy intervals. Which is probably why I haven't used Mystic as my main BBS 
since 1.08A31. Then again, not actually taking the plunge and *making* it my 
main system leaves me with the comfort of already having a working system, so 
it makes trying to fix things on a secondary system not as important. ;)

After the last update, I had a couple questions that have still been 
unanswered. Either nobody else using Mystic has run into the same issue, or I'm 
the only person going about doing things the way I have been and it's my own 
damn fault. *shrug*

Regards,
Nick

.... "I don't suffer from insanity; I enjoy every minute of it."
--- GoldED+/LNX 1.1.5-b20181215
 * Origin: thePharcyde_ distribution system (Wisconsin) (46:1/100)

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