                      Alternating logoff screen generator
                               For DCTList v0.10
                    Copyright (C) 1996..1998 Dan Traczynski

                   Released May 17, 1998 with DCTList v0.10.


[ Introduction ]


This utility allows you to have a different logoff screen shown each time a
user logs off your system.  Its basic purpose is to select up to nine entries
from the BBS list, then stick them into an ANSI and ASCII file of your choice.
ANSIGEN can also be configured to select a separate template file each time it
is run, so that you always have a unique logoff ANSI.  Each time a user logs
off, he will be shown 9 different BBSs from the last time he was on.


[ Installation ]

   This guide assumes that your output files will be named GOODBYE.A??.  This
can be changed in CONFIG if necessary.  If you run a Telegard system, the
archive TELEGARD.ZIP has been included with the template files in .MSG
format.

   You must first have DCTList v0.10 installed before you can use this
utility.  Also, please make a backup of your current GOODBYE.A?? files
because they will be overwritten with a new copy each time ANSIGEN is run.
To install the program, simply configure CONFIG > Editor > ANSIGen to your
system.  After this, you must run ANSIGEN.EXE after each user logs off so
that the next user online will see a different GOODBYE.ANS/ASC file.  This
could be a sample batch file for use with RemoteAccess.

-----------------------------
@echo off

:start
cd\ra
ra
\ra\doors\dctlist\ansigen.exe
goto start
-----------------------------

As you can see, ANSIGEN is very easy to install in your system once it has
been configured.  You do not need to run ANSIGEN.EXE from the current
directory, as illustrated in the above example.


[ Creating your own template files ]


   Four sample template files have been included in this archive, however
they may not fit your board's theme and you may want to design your own
logoff ANSI files.  Doing so is very easy.  The following control codes may
be inserted into your template file(s):

       %A  Addition Date
       %B  Shortened Baud Rate (ie. 28.8)
       %C  Lengthened Baud Rate (ie. 28800)
       %H  Hours
       %L  Location
       %N  Name
       %O  Software
       %P  Phone
       %S  Sysop
       %T  Theme
       %V  Verified

   To display the BBS name of the first BBS, you would use "%N1".  This would,
however, truncate the BBS name to only three characters, so you must pad the
code with dots to the effect of something like "%.................N1".  This
would display the BBS name 20 characters long, because the length of the code
is 17 dots + 3 control codes.

   The second method of using the codes allows you to have more control over
the output.  Using this method, you could only display the second character
of the BBS name if you wanted.  The format is basically like this...

  %Xn.xx[.yy]

  X   This is one of the control codes listed in the above table.
  n   A number between 1 and 9 telling ANSIGEN which BBS entry to list.
  xx  Length of the string.  If it is longer than xx chars, it is truncated
      to that length, otherwise it is padded with spaces, but is always xx
      characters long.
  yy  This optional instruction tells ANSIGEN which character to start at.  If
      it is not specified, a default of 1 will be used.

   If you are familiar with Turbo Pascal, the "%Xn.xx.yy" code is the
equivalent of "Copy(%Xn, yy, xx);".  Here are some examples:

%N1.20                  "No Name BBS         "
%N1.17.3                "Name BBS         "
%N1.20.3                "Name BBS            "
%.................N1    "No Name BBS         " (same as %N1.20)


   Please see the sample template files included in this archive for more
help on using the imbedded codes.


[ Distribution & Disclaimer ]


     DCTList and ANSIGEN are copyrighted (C) 1996..1998 by Dan Traczynski.
  All Rights Reserved.  I encourage you to distribute it, but DO NOT change
  any of the files within the original archive.  ANSIGEN may not be included
  on CD-ROM collections.  The archive should be named AGEN010.ZIP, preferably
  kept in its ZIP format.

     The author, Daniel Traczynski, will take no responsibility to
  anything that this program may or may not do to your system.  Although
  the program has been tested thoroughly, no guarantee can be given that
  it will do what it was made to do.  Nevertheless, if anything should
  happen, the user is totally responsible and the author will be under
  no obligations whatsoever.  By using this program you agree to this
  disclaimer.


[ History ]

  + Added a new feature/Something was improved.
  - Removed something.
  * General comment.
  > Bug fix.


 Version 0.10 -=- May ??, 1998.
   * Changes made to support DCTList v0.10 data files.
   * Modified some of the macros as some of the fields in DCTList have
     changed.
   + ANSIGEN is now more integrated with DCTList and its configuration is
     now done within DCTList's CONFIG.
   + You can now specify in CONFIG > Editor > ANSIGen > File Extensions which
     file extensions to process.  The purpose of this function is to cater to
     systems like Telegard which use .MSG files rather than ANSI/ASCII files
     for the user display.  This can also be used to disable certain output
     (ie. disabling ASCII if your BBS is ANSI-only).
   + Added TELEGARD.ZIP which contains the template files in .MSG format.


 Version 0.05 -=- December 27, 1996.
   > Fixed a small error in TEMPLAT1.ANS.


 Version 0.04 -=- July 13, 1996.
   * First released as an add-on for DCTList v0.04.
 

[ End of ANSIGEN.TXT ]
