Possibilities - TBBS Third Party Utility Reviews

Contact:   eSoft, Inc. (Makers of TBBS)
           15200 E. Girard Ave., Suite 3000
           Aurora, CO  80014
           (303) 699-6565      Voice
           (303) 699-6872      Fax
           (303) 699-8222      BBS
           support@esoft.com   E-Mail

TBBS THIRD PARTY UTILITY REVIEWS
--------------------------------

*** From May 1991 Possibilities Newsletter ***
*** Copyright 1991 by eSoft, Inc.  All Rights Reserved ***

TBBS Third Party Utility Reviews
by Alan R. Bechtold

The eSoft Support BBS is an excellent resource for TBBS system designers.  
It's the place where you can leave questions for technical support, discuss 
the finer points of running a BBS with other system designers around the 
world, pick up the latest field mods and more.  It's also an exellent source 
of downloadable utilities and programs, designed by TBBS system designers
for TBBS system designers.  Many are free of charge.  Others request payment 
of a small fee if you like them and use them regularly.

In any case, all of the downloadable "Files of General Interest" on the 
eSoft Support BBS are worth checking out.  A few could be real life-savers 
and most are at least interesting aids to the day-to-day tasks that face 
TBBS system designers.

Please note that, while we encourage you to look over the downloadable files 
available on the eSoft Support BBS, the programs you will find are written 
and submitted by eSoft customers and, as such, eSoft cannot and does not 
guarantee their operation or results in any way.

Let's take a look at a couple of the newest arrivals on the eSoft Support 
BBS (see the status section for details on calling the support BBS).

 Next Question, Please...

TBBS's Q&A questionaires provide a simple, elegant way to query your users 
about a variety of subjects.  They can be used to conduct online surveys and 
even take online orders for products.  With their ability to automatically 
set or re-set authorization flags, they can also be used to take 
subscription information from prospective users and automatically set them 
for deeper access to your system.

The TBBS Q&A program is as versatile as it is straightforward and easy to 
use.  However, actually CREATING survey and voting files with QAEDIT takes a 
bit of patience and time.  This is in no small part due to the fact that the 
program QAEDIT, included on your TBBS distribution diskette, isn't a "what 
you see is what you get" program.

To take full advantage of the TBBS Q&A questionaire function, the power of a 
solid word processing program would be nice, allowing you to see the layout 
of all your questions as you write them.  The ability to add special 
characters so your questionairs display ANSI graphics that match your other 
system menus, and to use all the other tricks and gimmicks that most word 
processing programs offer today would also be helpful when creating Q&A's 
for your TBBS.

That's exactly what QAGEN1, a Q&A generator for TBBS, does.  Written by Dr. 
Kevin L. McNeil, the program is available on the eSoft Support BBS, in the 
"Other TBBS Utilities" section, under the name QAGEN.ARC.

QAGEN.ARC contains QAGEN1.EXE and brief documentation file that credits the 
program's author.  Instructions on using QAGEN are contained within the 
program itself, available by typing a question mark after running QAGEN1.

QAGEN allows you to create Q&A files with your favorite word processer, so 
you can have all of your favorite application's capabilities and power at 
your command.  Just follow the simple rules that are spelled out in the 
program and you'll soon find yourself writing TBBS questionaires quickly and 
easily. You can use QAGEN to create either SURVEY or VOTING questionairs.  
Authorization flags to be set or reset can be specified by simply typing in 
the flags, preceded by a "}" designator, on the second and third line of 
your file.  If your word processor of choice allows it, you can also use 
QAGEN to create TBBS Q&As with ANSI graphics.

Another benefit is the ability to add comment lines to your surveys.  You 
can also enter a designator that will force the cursor to stop at the end of 
a (Y/N) question, rather than dropping down to the next line.

The only drawback is the program's limit of 99 lines per Q&A file.  Just 
watch the limit when adding ANSI graphics and comments to your files and you 
should have plenty of room.

To create your finished ".QAF" file, just load up QAGEN then type the name 
you gave the text file you used as your source.  If you named your QAGEN 
text source file TUMMY.TXT, for example, you would type:

qagen1 [tummy.txt] <RETURN>

to generate a Q&A file named TUMMY.QAF.

The program's especially nifty when it comes to fine-tuning your 
questionaire files.  Just re-enter the text source file with your favorite 
word processor, make your changes and re-QAGEN it.  The old .QAF file will 
be overwritten with your revised version.  You can also easily print out 
your Q&A questionaires.

All in all, QAGEN adds a LOT of power to your TBBS Q&A capabilities, in 
return for the requested $25 registration fee.  But -- first you can 
download the program and see if you like it.

Day By Day...

TBBS Dayfiles are enormously useful.  From them, you can determine user 
activity on given days or hour by hour.  You can find out which files your 
users are downloading and which they're ignoring.  In short, it's the 
complete diary of everything that happens on your TBBS.

But, TBBS dayfiles can also get very large very fast.  If your system is an 
active one, chances are it generates a virtually unmanageable dayfile in 
just a few days.

DAILY is a disarmingly simple little utility that can bring order back to 
the chaos.  Just add the program to your RUNBBS.BAT batch file and set it to 
run when your system exits to the first nonrepeating external event of the 
night, every night.

DAILY then renames your DAYFILE.LST file to the previous day's date, with an 
extension of .LST.  That's it -- plain and simple -- day after day.  The 
above setup will automatically break up your dayfiles to a size that is no 
longer than one day in length, with each file named to reflect the day it 
was created.

The author, Gordon Rasnick, created the program for his own use and gladly 
donates it to anyone who wishes to download it from the eSoft Support BBS 
and use it.  Download DAILY1.ZIP from the NEW FILES area on the eSoft 
Support BBS to give it a try.

Play Ball!

Baseball season is now in full swing.  Regardless of the users your BBS 
serves, there are probly more than a few baseball fans within the crowd.  
Many will appreciate BASEBALL DATABASE, from Network 1 Communications.

BASEBALL DATABASE is a collection of baseball statistics, from 1901 to the 
present, covering RBIs, Home Runs and Batting Average leaders.  It's a 
complete "Type 20" text database system, so all you need is TBBS to offer it 
to your users.

There are 48 files in the program, including sixteen ".INX" files, and 
".DES" and ".HDR" files for each.  The system also comes complete with an 
SDL menu file that can be modified to fit your particular system.  If you 
wish, there is also a ready-to-use ".CTL" menu file, complete with ANSI 
graphics, for an almost instant installation.

To set the system up, just create a directory on your hard drive for the 
BASEBALL DATABASE files then add the menu to your TBBS setup by either 
placing the included MENUBALL.CTL file in your TBBS directory and adding a 
"Type 5" command to one of your existing menus, or use the supplied 
"BALL.SDL" file, as-is or edited to your liking.

Network 1 Communications asks that you pay a registration fee of just $25 if 
you try the BASEBALL DATABASE on your system and like it.  Chances are your 
system will be responsible for settling many a bet if you put this one 
online!

Download BASEBALL.ZIP from the New Files area on the eSoft Support BBS and 
find out how many baseball fans are on YOUR system!

- END -
PS0591-6
Rev. 5/91

Copyright (C) 1994 eSoft, Inc., All Rights Reserved.  Permission granted
to distribute this file in its entirety, without modification, to any
interested party.  Any other use requires the written permission of
eSoft, Inc.

IMPORTANT:  The information herein is subject to change without notice.
Please call or write to confirm factual information of importance to you
or your organization.

