I. Introduction A. What is ASTG? ASTG is, literally, "Another Stupid Tagline Generator." ASTG arose from my desire to combine the best features of all the other tagline generators I have used along with what I consider a superior method of choosing taglines. For those of you who do not use offline readers or point software, a tagline generator is something that randomly (in theory) selects a humorous or thought-provoking (in theory) one-liner to stick onto the end of your messages. If you do not use such programs, you can probably discard this program and its archive without missing out on anything. (Are they gone? Good. Now we can continue...) B. Why ASTG? The problem with TagArt, QUOTEMONGER, and other tagline generators I have used is that they rely on either the Arexx randomizing functions or something similar to select the tagline for a message. What is not commonly known is that it is fairly impossible for a computer to generate a truly random number, and thus impossible to select a tagline in a truly random manner. The results vary, but the selection pattern generally conforms to a bell-curve. With the Arexx generators I have used, the randomizing function was based on the time of day, and I noticed quickly that the selections clustered around a point that indeed varied with the time of day that I was writing the message. Not good. Another reason I decided to write ASTG was that most tagline generators were limited to one line. While it is generally good practice to confine one's self to one line per tagline, ocassionally you come across a quote that you must simply have, but which stretches out to two or maybe three lines. NOTE: ABUSE OF THIS FEATURE MAY DRAW EXCESSIVE ABUSE OF THE PERSON WRITING THE MESSAGES. I WILL NOT BE HELD LIABLE FOR CUT FEEDS, NASTY NETMAILS, OR GENERAL HARRASMENT CAUSED BY THE OVERUSE OF MORE THAN ONE LINE TAGLINES. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. I WILL NOT ACCOMPANY YOU TO THE GALLOWS. C. Disclaimers and other stuff 1. It works on my machine... 8-) 2. Copyright I have no intentions of trying to copyright this thing. It is an Arexx script, and as such can easilly be changed to say anything you want it to. Rather rediculous to try to copyright something like that. I therefore release it into the public domain. Do with it as you will. I would appreciate, still, a modicum of respect by way of acknowledgement if you happen to use this program in something that you design (such as a signature generator for UseNet newsgroups...) Speaking of which: 3. Acknowledgements This program is based, originally, on the program TagArt 1.4. Unfortunately, I cannot remember the original author's name (I no longer have TagArt handy), but if you happen to see it, there's the basis for this program. I will say in my own defense that there are maybe one or two lines of original TagArt code left, but it IS where I started this project... 4. Modification You hereby receive Carte Blanche to modify this program in any way required to suit yourself. In fact, as you will see, part of the setup of this program requires it! (I hope I didn't just lose some folks -- it's easy, trust me!) You may even remove the ASTG bragline without any prospect of repercussions. 5. Prospect for flaming I hope I have made it plain that use of this program for one's own use is perfectly OK as long as one does not make any undue claims of authorship. If I do see someone using a basically unaltered ASTG and claiming it as thier own creation, I will most certainly flame that person publicly and without hesitation. This program is released as is on an honor system. Be cool and so will I. 6. Technical Support I will not be held responsible for any damage occurring as a result of use of this software. However, if bug reports are made I will most certainly correct them and release the fix so that others don't get bitten in the same way, with thanks to the reporter. I can be contacted in the following manner: By FidoNet: Jeff Grimmett at 1:202/720.0 (Crashmail not possible at this time. Route via 1:202/701 for fastest response) From Internet: Jeff.Grimmett@n720.f202.z1.fidonet.org (Replies may not be possible) Snail Mail: Jeff Grimmett 3152 Kemper Street #5 San Diego, CA 92110 II. Setting it up I have designed ASTG to work with as many applications as possible. It is possible that you might have to be creative to make it work for you. I say now that I have only tested it with Foozle and April, using TurboText as an editor. You will, of course, have to change things for other editors and message software. A. Contents of this archive 1. ASTG/April/ a. ASTG ASTG configured for April and TurboText. This is the actual program used. It will generate the tagline, append it to your message, and call your editor for you. b. FZ.TTX A macro I use with TurboText and April. 2. ASTG/Foozle/ a. ASTG ASTG configured for Foozle and TurboText. This is the actual program used. It will generate the tagline, append it to your message, and call your editor for you. b. FZ.TTX A macro I use with TurboText and Foozle. 3. ASTG/QUOTES This is a sample collection of taglines. Use it as a starter, or substitute your own. 4. Docs/ a. ASDG.DOC ASDG.DOC.INFO Documentation for ASTG. For your convenience, this document was created in TurboText with folds, and includes the icon, ASTG.DOC.INFO. The folding information is stored in the icon itself, so if you wish to maintain the folding and take advantage of it, you must include the icon in the directory that you place the doc file in. B. Installing ASTG 1. ASTG Where you install ASTG is irrelevant. I put it in MAIL:/April, but it could be as easilly used from REXX: or any other directory. The important thing is telling your mail program where to find it. 2. Quote File Again, this is irrelevant. You will tell ASTG where to find this file when you configure it. C. Configuring ASTG To configure ASTG, you must modify the program itself. To do so, simply edit it with a text editor. The lines that must be changed are near the top of the program itself. You must change them to match your system setup and text editor. 1. TAGFILE This is the text file that contains your pool of taglines. In the copy of ASTG furnished in the archive, it is set up as such: TagFile = "Mail:/April/Quotes" This is the full path and filename of your tagline file. In this case, it is set up for my "Quotes" file. Change this to reflect your own setup. 2. EDITOR1 This is the first half of the command line used to call your text editor from ASTG. In operation, your mail program is configured to call ASTG to edit your messages, and ASTG in turn calls your editor. The EDITOR1 parameter sets the part of your editor's command line BEFORE the filename of the message. Editor1 = "TurboText:TTX" This calls the TurboText activator. Since TurboText expects the very first argument to be the name of the file to edit, this is as far as we go for Editor1. At a minumum, then, the path and name of the editor must be given in Editor1. 3. EDITOR2 This is the second half of the command line used to call your text editor from ASTG. It is the part of the command line that occurs AFTER the name of the file to edit (the message itself). Editor2 = "macro mail:/April/Apr.ttx WAIT" This further modifies the way I call TurboText. It specifies a default startup macro and tells the activator to wait until I save and quit it before returning to the calling program (ASTG). If you have no such things to add, EDITOR2 can simply be a set of blank quotes: Editor2 = "" This is the MINIMUM that Editor2 can be set up as. Eliminating it will cause the program to fail. So, in overview, the above two values for Editor1 and Editor2 would turn into the following command line: TurboText:TTX macro mail:/April/Apr.ttx WAIT Bear this in mind when configuring for ED, CED, Edge, or whatever. D. Configuring your mail software As stated above, ASTG basically wedges itself between your mail program and your text editor. However, YOU are responsible for that wedging. You must configure your mailer to use ASTG instead of your editor. 1. April For April, select the General1 configuration menu. Instead of your editor, set the EDITOR field to ASTG, including the full path. For instance: MAIL:/April/ASTG That should be the extent of the needed change in configuration. 2. Foozle For Foozle, run FZI and select the GENERAL 1 button. Hit the OKAY button until the window for configuring your editor appears. Change it to ASTG, including the path, and follow it with either the "%" symbol or leave blank (Foozle will append the filename of the message file in either case). For example: Mail:/Foozle/ASTG % Mail:/Foozle/ASTG 3. Others Other programs, such as offline mail readers or other point software, or whatever, should be configured in a similar fashion. Keep in mind that what is required is for you to redirect your program to call ASTG instead of the editor, and then configure ASTG to call the editor. This should work for just about anything, including DLG or other modular BBS software. E. Constraints of the Tagline file The Tagline file format is important to follow, but after you realize what it is, it's easy to set up and maintain. There is one tagline per line in the file, even for taglines that will eventually extend over more than one line in the message. 1. Leading characters You may notice from my QUOTES file that all lines start with "...", or an elipsis, as it is known. This is not a requirement of the tagline file. There is only ONE requirement for leading characters, and that is that your leading character is NOT an asterisk (*). ASTG uses the Asterisk as a marker, and using an asterisk at the beginning of your tagline will confuse it. 2. Multiple line taglines You may create taglines that extend over two or more lines in the message, and even control where the line breaks occur. ASTG filters each tagline for the special character pair, "\n." When it sees the \n pair, it removes those characters from the tagline and inserts a carriage return. For instance: ... "Beam me aboard, Scotty!"\n "Aye, Cap'n! Uh, will a two-by-four do?" would end up as ... "Beam me aboard, Scotty!" "Aye, Cap'n! Uh, will a two-by-four do?" in your message. Several examples of this are included in the sample quote file. Hopefully, the format will become clear if this did not make it so. 3. The last line The last line of the tagline file MUST be the three characters, "###". Without these, the program will search forever for the end of the file. The reason I did this is that using normal Arexx functions to find the end of the file can yield out blank taglines. Rather than require you to ensure that the last line of the file is the last tagline, I decided to go with this. The QUOTES file included already has this, but if you desire to use your own tagline file, you must add this to the end of the file. 4. Adding taglines Adding taglines is easy. Simply edit the file with your favorite text editor. You will probably notice that some lines in your tagline file have an asterisk in front of them. Do not be concerned with this, this is how ASTG marks which taglines it has used. It will clear them out for you when it has used all taglines in the file. I recommend that you add all new taglines to the top of the file. This is not a requirement, but saves time and reduces the chance of messing up the file somehow. III. Last Word A. Requirements ASTG requires, at a minimum, a tagline file, an editor, some sort of mail program, and AREXX 1.15 or later. Arexx 1.15 is included with AmigaDOS 2.04 and later. The program RexxMast must be running before you can use ASTG. Modify your S:User-Startup (or startup-sequence) with: Run >NIL: