============================================================================== <------- Screen Watch Program Ver 1.1 --------> Written by: Gerry Freymann This program is released into the Sysop, The Phantom BBS Public Domain for all to hack, P.O. Box 1226 alter, scab, delete or use. Cobourg, Ontario K9A 5A4 Send no money, this program is absolutely free. If you paid for Data: (416) 342-3734 USR Dual it you got ripped off! Tsk Tsk. (416) 342-3766 USR HST The latest versions/updates are available on The Phantom BBS and TDS Network The PC ToyShop Information System 24 Hours, 300 -> 38.4K (503) 342-4447 Eugene, Oregon ============================================================================== Screen Watch V1.1 - What's it all about anyway? =============================================== The concept behind this program is very simple. I have a large stock of Welcome screens that I use throughout the year. These screens are for special days like Christmas, New Years, Easter, St. Patricks Day, the first official day of summer and fall, and days like that. What I wanted was a program that would automatically replace my existing Welcome screens on the days required, PLUS, copy the original screens back when the "special" screen was no longer needed. Screen Watch is the result of this idea, and took one hour to write, compile, test and write the docs. This program is released into the Public Domain. Full QuickBasic source code can be aquired by asking, but since it is linked to Advbas I didn't see the need to include the full basic code as well. V1.1 adds full colour exploding/scrolling/shadowed windows and fixes the DIM statement.. I had it backwards for heaven's sake in v1.0 - this 1.1 release will correctly store information for every day of the year! Thanks to Dana Laude for alerting me to this mistake. Basic program Operation ======================= When activated (it only takes seconds to do the job!) the program scans your .CFG file to find a matching date. It does this twice, one glance through the START DATE and once through the STOP DATE. Why two? This allows you to have a screen up for any period of time, be that one day, a week or a month! Based on the info supplied in your .CFG file your screens will automatically be copied on the days you specified, and returned to normal when you say so. The dates you supply will depend on when you run your event. I run mine during the overnight, so if I want a screen up for St. Patrick's Day, which is March 17th, then I put 03-17 in the .CFG file as the start date, and 03-18 in the .CFG file as the stop date. You could also use this for your NEWS screens, or any other standard type of screen you use on your system. And of course, this can be used with ANY BBS program, it is not specific to PCBoard. When you call up SCRWATCH you can specify a .CFG file after the program's name or leave the space blank, and it will read [SCRWATCH.CFG] by default. Designing your .CFG file ======================== You can have up to 366 lines. If you go past that (which I doubt anyone would ever do. At one screen per day that is 365) the data will be ignored. Each line consists of FOUR pieces of information. The FIRST line is a special line! First: Your everyday standard ASCII screen Second: Your everyday standard ANSI screen Third: Your ASCII Welcome screen as defined in PCBSetup Fourth: Your ANSI Welcome screen. The REMAINING lines are as follows! First: The date to put up the new screen in MM-DD format Second: The ASCII screen name Third: The ANSI screen name Fourth: The date to put back the standard ASCII/ANSI screens in MM-DD format All data must be surrounded by quotes and separated by a comma. Don't quite follow all of this stuff yet? Here's a sample .CFG file to inspect. "WELCOME1.ASC","WELCOME1.ANS","WELCOME","WELCOMEG" 'Line 1 "03-17","STPATTY.ASC","STPATTY.ANS","03-18" 'Line 2 "03-26","EASTER.ASC","EASTER.ANS","03-27" 'Line 3 On March 17th the program will take STPATTY.ASC and copy it to WELCOME, and STPATTY.ANS will be copied as WELCOMEG. Then on March 18th the program will take WELCOME1.ASC and copy to WELCOME and WELCOME1.ANS and copy to WELCOMEG On March 26th the program will take EASTER.ASC and copy it to WELCOME, and EASTER.ANS will be copied as WELCOMEG. Then on March 27th the program will take WELCOME1.ASC and copy to WELCOME and WELCOME1.ANS and copy to WELCOMEG As you can see, you can have a screen on-line as long as you want. Conclusion: =========== In this fun world of being a Sysop, utilities like this make things go like clock_work so you can spend more time trying to understand someone else's documentation that like this, appeared very strange and awkward but in fact turned out to be not half bad! Why are these docs formatted as they are? Why, if you are like me and use LIST all the time to read docs, you'll notice each "page" is formatted for one screen. If you used Pg Dn to view this, the screens lined up perfectly! What a nice touch eh? Sorry, it's Sunday and it's getting late. I hope you enjoy this handy dandy utility as much as I am going to. Read over FLYER.DOC for a list of other programs I have available for PCBoard Sysops (is there anything else but?). Gerry Freymann March 5, 1989/Updated to v1.1 Dec 9, 1989.