Setting up SynchWall (or another graffiti wall?) for Synchronet? reddit / bbs ---------------------------------------------------------------------- sir-draknor · 2021-05-17 00:10 Hey all, I'm trying to re-create some nostalgia from my youth, and set up a (temporary) BBS for some friends & myself. The old BBS we used to dial into had a public "wall" where you could post little messages, and I'm trying to figure out how to replicate something similar. I've got Synchronet up & running, and it looks like there's a door (xtrn/syncwall) for "SyncWall", which appears to be a graffiti-wall type software. I figured out how to add it to the Doors section, but the documentation on running SyncWall locally is missing. It has a service.js module - is this something I can configure in Synchronet to just run as a service? Is anyone familiar with this? Or is there another recommendation for some other type of graffiti wall software I can use? I haven't been able to find any active / available links in my Googling. Thanks if you can help! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- electronicchicken · 2021-05-17 01:38 Hosting SyncWall yourself should be pretty simple. Make sure you have the JSON-DB service enabled - you should have this in ctrl/services.ini: [JSON] Port=10088 Options=STATIC | LOOP Command=json-service.js And you should have this in ctrl/json-service.ini: [syncwall] dir=../xtrn/syncwall/ You may need to restart your BBS to make sure this kicks in. It's possible that this won't work. I'm not sure why I didn't complete the "host your own" docs for this, but there may have been a reason. SyncWall is for free-form drawing, ie. it's a canvas on which you can draw art or type messages. Another option is 'oneliners' which may be in your xtrn directory, which is just for posting short text messages. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- sir-draknor · 2021-05-17 13:03 Ah, thank you! I appreciate the detailed instructions! (I had been looking at the instructions from this repo: [https://ftp.synchro.net/m ain/sbbs/- /tree/master/xtrn/syncwall](https://ftp.synchro.net/main/sbbs/- /tree/master/xtrn/syncwall) ) One correction - in ctrl/json-service.ini I had to name the section \[syncwall2\] instead - the first time I tried (using \[syncwall\] I got an error in the Services log: JSON Service Error: (1636) Unknown Module: SYNCWALL2 (x2) Now that it's running - I'm not sure this is \*exactly\* what I was looking for. Doesn't look like it shows who posted a message when, does it? Do you know of any BBS "wall" software that shows the who/what/when? Sorta like an old-school Twitter, in a way - except not really threaded conversations (like a message board / forum), more like user/date-stamped post-its on a wall board? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- electronicchicken · 2021-05-17 13:52 Sorry, yes - syncwall2 is the JSON-DB module name. I thought that might be unique to my system but I guess it isn't. Syncwall doesn't really show 'when' and only kind of shows 'who' (in the status bar at the bottom while it's replaying or while someone's drawing, it shows their name and what BBS they're on). My oneliners thing shows 'who' and 'where' but not 'when'; I didn't want to sacrifice the screen real estate to show a timestamp; it'd turn oneliners into two-liners. I'm pretty sure the 'when' data is in the database and the script could be changed to show this, but I haven't looked at it in a long time so I can't say exactly what would need to be done. There is probably something out there that does what you want, but I have no immediate suggestions, sorry. Hopefully someone else around here can chime in. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- sir-draknor · 2021-05-17 17:42 I guess the "when" isn't as important to me as the "who" - what's your oneliners thing? That, or I just bite the bullet & use an actual message board :) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- electronicchicken · 2021-05-17 20:27 I believe it's in the xtrn/oneliners directory; if it didn't come with your install, you can find it on gitlab.synchro.net. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- sir-draknor · 2021-05-17 22:34 I think oneliners will be perfect! Thanks for suggesting it! I've tweaked the UI a little bit, and discovered the Ctrl+A codes for synchronet so now I can subject all my poor friends a wall of high- intensity blinking colored text - just like $DEITY intended :) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- digitlman · 2021-05-27 19:05 What do you mean by "running SyncWall locally"? As with most Synchronet JavaScript modules, you must login to the terminal server to use SyncWall, though you can login from the same computer as the BBS via "localhost". ---------------------------------------------------------------------- sir-draknor · 2021-05-27 20:31 /u/electronicchicken helped me - I just didn't understand enough about Synchronet to know how to run JSON services (such as the JSON-DB service that Syncwall relies on). I'm happy to report it's been running well!