This is a beta version of DLG-Edit (rev 39.545) What is it? It's a simple GUI SysOp control centre for DLG. It is also freely distributable. What do you need? * A functional DLG system * A large(ish) Workbench screen, I've designed it using NTSC:High-res Laced (720x480 on my setup) and some of the editor windows only just about fit onto it! * An iron constitution (if you insist on using save...) Why do you need it? The normal SysOp control for DLG is rather unfriendly, requiring the SysOp to first log on locally, and then go through a series of menus before reaching the options that he or she wants to get at. This would be fine if all DLG SysOps only ever managed things from a remote location, but it's not very nice for local use, especially when the poor SysOp has a nice 17" monitor! Who wants to be reading terminal type and pressing keys when you could be pointing and clicking... Since this a beta version, these are beta docs (but they will get 'beta' (argh!)) and as such are pretty sparse... And yes, I do know about TRW, but the author doesn't seem to have done much on it recently, and we needed something usable here at Nemesis' Dungeon when the news areas were being set up. Getting started: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Edit the tooltypes of the icon to suit your preferences. You should also set the user levels that you use on your system. This is simple enough, just set the tooltype with a list of levels, i.e. USERLEVELS=1,10,50,100 Setting the font name to a non-existent font will cause the program to bring up an ASL font requester. Some people have reported getting squiggly lines instead of a font. I haven't a clue what they're talking about! If this happens please detail it as accurately as possible (a screen snap would be nice...) If DLG-Edit is making windows too big or too small for the font you've chosen, then you can override the font width that is calculated for proportional fonts with the FONTXSIZE parameter. 7 seems to work best for 11pt Helvetica. You can also specify a public screen to run the program on. This s useful if you run a non-laced workbench, but your DLGMail screen is big enough to hold the user editor window. Double click on the icon to start, or start DLG-Edit from a CLI (if you are running from the CLI, you must still make sure that you have the tooltypes defined). You should get a small control panel opening up on your Workbench screen, with buttons for managing file areas, message areas, or users. Once you get into these particular sections everything should be self explanatory, or suitably explained by the DLG docs themselves. Importing areas: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If you want to try importing areas, then I suppose it would help if I told you the format of the source text files... The format for file area importing is: number name alternate path (blank line) number name alternate path (blank line) etc. As you can see, each area definition is separated by a blank line, there should be no blank line at the very end (i.e., the cursor shouldn't be able to move below the last line of the file) Take a look at "newfileareas.import.txt" in the archive for an example. You'll notice that if you have "0" as the area number, it will increment by 1 over the last imported area number. The format for message area importing is similar: number name origin/newsgroup (optional) (blank line) number name origin/newsgroup (optional) (blank line) etc. IMPORTANT: The access levels and flags of the imported areas are inherited from the area that was currently highlighted when the "Import" button was pressed! Make sure that if you are importing Usenet news areas and ordinary areas in the same import, that you select or unselect the "USENET" flag for the appropriate areas. Limitations: ~~~~~~~~~~~~ As you may notice, some of the buttons aren't enabled yet, most notably the global options for the user editor, and the user-access options for the area editors. In the user editor, you can edit the user's name, but this will never get changed (since it would require renaming the directory). I'm not sure whether to keep this as an editable option or not, tell me if you would like to be able to change the user's name and have DLG-Edit rename the matching user directory in response to this. SnoopDos users among you will probably have noticed that the way DLG-Edit manipulates file and message area directories is by writing a script in T: that uses DOS commands to delete, rename etc. Have no fear, this will be tidied up and made an integral part of the program in the future, but until I write some suitable code for providing progress displays, then scripts files is how it's done. Future: ~~~~~~~ I hope to write editor sections for other aspects of the BBS system, like the computer types, archivers, character sets etc. WARNING! ******** If you have a backup of your system, and/or are quite prepared for the possibility that something silly may happen then you can press any of the "SAVE" buttons, otherwise EXCERCISE CONTROL OVER YOUR FINGERS! I've tried to eliminate possible disasters, but I'm not omniscient. : .-O .O#0#@O. :8 .. +@= =8 -0 @- oO 0O @: o- @= O- O: +o O: 0o .8 = @. :.@ o0 8. =O :o8- 8= -@. +o -+ .= @: +0+ @. :0 : =8::8 @= .@. .@. O+ 8:+@O :@o 0: +o 8 :#O-o= .+oo. += :##O 0: o#o 0-+@o 0.0o +0O##: =0@ -oo- =0#+oo .0- -#O +. -0#-:+O#@ -+-@ .08o8- 0=#O#+.o0 OOO@0=+o 0o8- +00 .o#= #+ -08..oo=. o+ =#0 0=#O.0+o8- :: :O@==O O@- -+8 O8@00- .@. o@. -OO@@+ ++ @ :0:.0. 8 .+@+ :. oo :. +O.oo. .0: =8O+ @: :O8O: .0- +O :0 -Oo+- #. 8- + -0 @- 8- +o Kevin Phair. fidonet: 2:263/150.6 Internet: Kev@Scorpio.ie Kevin_Phair@Nemesis.ie Today's Date: 30-Jan-1995