Subj : What I Don't Like About Synchronet To : Mark Lewis From : Mvan Le Date : Fri May 04 2007 09:15 pm ml> MvanL> That's my point - they opted for the current style. I think the ml> MvanL> Maximus style is better. ml> i still don't understand what you are calling "style"?? In Maximus 3.x you can do things like this: filearea 2 acs demoted desc Opus v1.79 (May 1st, 1997) download m:\base\filebase\lcl\bbs\software\opus\v1.79 upload m:\base\filebase\uploads end filearea filearea tools acs demoted desc Opus v1.79 (May 1st, 1997) download m:\base\filebase\lcl\bbs\software\opus\v1.79\tools upload m:\base\filebase\uploads end filearea ; end .lcl.bbs.soft.opus filedivisionend filedivisionbegin iniq demoted . Iniquity filearea 1 acs limited desc Iniquity program files and source code download m:\base\filebase\lcl\bbs\software\iniquity upload m:\base\filebase\uploads end filearea ; end .lcl.bbs.soft.iniq filedivisionend ; end .lcl.bbs.soft filedivisionend filedivisionbegin dailey demoted . johndaileysoftware.com filearea 1 acs normal desc BBS Doors download m:\base\filebase\lcl\bbs\doors\dailey\doors upload m:\base\filebase\uploads end filearea ... ... ... ; end .lcl.bbs.dailey filedivisionend ; end .lcl.bbs filedivisionend You can nest as deep as you want, and file areas can represent your physical directory structure on disk which makes sorting and organising files more natural. Which ends up looking like this when they're displayed: ============================================================================ File Areas -------------- lcl.bbs.1 ... Fidonet nodelists and policies ... ... ... lcl.bbs.soft ... BBS Software lcl.bbs.dailey ... johndaileysoftware.com For more areas, type ".." to go up one level or "/" for top level areas. File area (Area, "["=Prior, "]"=Next, "?"=List): ============================================================================ And at the "File area (Area..." prompt users can enter atomic paths to switch file or message areas eg.: File area (Area, "["=Prior, "]"=Next, "?"=List): lcl.bbs.soft.opus.tools instead of typing in meaningless numbers when displaying "groups & subgroups" while switching areas etc. To my knowledge the Synchronet & RA-style only allows a two-level breakdown of file & message areas into groups & subgroups. That's crap. imo. ml> MvanL> I'm not fully purposely descending into a BBS software war, ml> me either... i'm just trying to figure out what you are ml> trying to describe and respond to that... [...] ml> hunh?? nonono... i'm talking about joe sysop and john sysop who both ml> download the same bbs software and install it without any modification ml> using all the default screens and menus... users to ml> their boards see the same presentation... now, one of ml> those users calls fred sysop's bbs which is also ml> running the exact same software but fred has taken the time to "skin it" ml> by making his own screens... next door to fred, is alex ml> who also runs the same bbs software... alex has gone ml> even further because he has found the menu editor and ml> come up with his own menu keys and option layouts... ml> alex comes from an old mainframe style world where ml> everything is chosen from menus of no more then ten ml> (10) options... that makes it very easy cause there's ml> only 0-9 to hit but it makes it more complicated ml> because now there have to be dozens more menu screens... ml> none of the above have "hacked" anything or had to work ml> around any problems as there are none... now, the ml> callers, on the other hand, may be a bit confused or ml> maybe not... Yeah. Well to draw distinctions between BBS software it's more comparable to compare the standard features (excluding mods and plugins). That's the approach I use, until people/authors start cheating by distributing plugins & modules as part of thier "standard" package which is arguably misrepresenting practice to me :) ml> MvanL> For example it'd be a nightmare to mimmick the Maximus area ml> MvanL> divisioning behaviour in Synchronet / RA where areas are ml> MvanL> numerically defined instead of alphanumerically capable. ml> but it isn't all that hard... one could easily do it with a script... but When BBS functions/functionalities are not part of the BBS binary, or outside the source code that's cheating. ml> yes, alphanumeric access to an area may be easier for ml> some... but it also all depends on what you get used ml> to, too... i have to wonder, though, at what happens ml> when things are moved around and reorganized... with RA, there are two Well one day I'm going to add environment variables to Maximus control files baby. Add a preprocessor to Silt that translates Operating System environment variables and/or #define directives in Maximus Ctl files. If I want to change or move things around, just change a global variable. eg. C:\> set bbsdrive=M: Filereas.Ctl: #define BASE \base\filebase #define UPLOAD_DIR %%bbsdrive%%\BASE filearea 1 acs normal desc BBS Doors download BASE\lcl\bbs\doors\dailey\doors upload UPLOAD_DIR end filearea MuahaHAHA (evil laugh). ml> numbers with each area... one used for display and the ml> other used behind the scenes for the record number of ml> the area definition as well as the datafile names... so ml> i can "renumber" my areas without changing anything and external software ml> won't loose track as long as they go by the proper id ml> number... this type of thing also comes into play with ml> offline mail setups... in the past, if a sysop added ml> new areas by inserting them instead of appending them, ml> users who downloaded offline mail before the change and ml> uploaded after the change would inevitably get some ml> messages posted to the wrong message areas thru no ml> fault of their own... no fault, really, of the sysop, ml> either... many folk like to see stuff alphabetically ml> instead of in arrival order... What you've described is the limitation of numerically based area definitions, which necessitates use of an internal ID number to maintain consistency when inserting new or reordering areas. In Maximus any file or message area can be given a unique definition or label so there're no clashes. They work like domain names, so the label/area itself acts like a RA equivalent internal ID number. If I wanted to reorder an area I just cut & paste a block definition somewhere else. Should the need to increment "numbers" arises I'd have to resort to a sed/awk script or something. But then again, Maximus can implement the TAG keyword for filearea definitions since it already supports it for message areas. This would solve all perceivable problems and allow external programs to differentiate between areas that have the SAME number in the SAME "subgroup". Sort of how Squish and areas.bbs works with universal static echoarea tags. I'll add it to the todos list. Heh. All this flexibility stems from Maximus' native support for alphanumeric area definitions. [...] ml> apparently you don't have all the facts, either... bob ml> jones is limited by a job contract in what he can do as ml> far as developing and coding anything... the ml> limitations of that contract are almost expired... ml> until that expiration time passes, he felt that it was ml> safer for the existing code to not be handled by ml> himself so that it would not be misclassified and have ml> that company he was contracted with trying to claim it ml> for their own... ml> MvanL> I remember that thread. ml> it didn't seem that you did... I don't lead-in my messages/replies with disclaimers and clauses. It's all assumed knowledge unless there's blatant ignorance or misinformation has occurred. ml> MvanL> I appreciate all efforts and contributions towards Maximus. ml> MvanL> That doesn't change the fact that there has been nothing new ml> MvanL> since 2003, ml> what do you expect to see as a new feature? Here's my wishlist so far: Directory of M:\todos\dev 05/05/2007 13:34 . 05/05/2007 13:34 .. 05/05/2007 13:40 459 add.division_indicators.txt 13/10/2006 17:06 277 add.ip_number_in_(xxx)_yyy-zzzz_format.txt 21/09/2006 22:25 129 add.msgdivision_mail_indicator.txt 23/10/2006 07:15 346 add.msg_browse_list_date.txt 16/04/2007 03:39 198 add.tags.filename_wildcards.txt 23/10/2006 06:10 214 add.tags.list_tagged_areas.txt 10/04/2007 05:39 1,899 add.useredit.number_of_total.txt 16/10/2006 11:37 56 add.wfc_node_number.txt 10/04/2007 09:26 3,283 bug.change_squish_message.txt 22/10/2006 11:05 718 bug.msg_ptrs.txt 05/05/2007 12:39 791 enhance.files.bbs_line_limit.txt 30/12/2006 08:49 133 enhance.files.download_limit.txt 11/04/2007 08:35 478 enhance.files.locate.txt 30/12/2006 09:12 64 enhance.files.scroll_listing.txt 27/12/2006 06:16 459 enhance.menus.selection_char_position.txt 16/04/2007 03:54 409 enhance.msgs.browse.txt 05/05/2007 13:43 219 enhance.msgs.multiple_editors.txt 11/04/2007 08:57 376 enhance.msgs.search_echotags.txt 16/04/2007 03:55 369 enhance.msgs.search_echotags2.txt 29/04/2007 11:43 441 enhance.msgs.txt 02/05/2007 21:52 476 enhance.timeout.txt 13/10/2006 17:13 506 fix.make_guest_reconfig_optional.txt 18/11/2006 08:22 501 misc.Future_Version_roadmap.txt 17/11/2006 15:22 146 new.+ice_2_mexchat.txt 17/10/2006 09:47 113 new.door32sys.txt 28/04/2007 09:02 65,717 new.exitinfobbs_dropfile.src-sbbs3-xtrn_sec_cpp - view - 1_55.mht 27/12/2006 06:03 347 new.global_menus.txt 16/04/2007 04:01 286 new.login_by_usr#.txt 12/10/2006 01:31 69 new.long_filenames.txt 11/04/2007 09:00 797 README.TXT 13/10/2006 17:09 421 svr.ftp.txt 12/10/2006 01:43 94 svr.http.txt 18/11/2006 08:17 23 svr.smtp.txt 28/04/2007 10:00 1,997 util.silt.txt 27/04/2007 20:37 1,271 util.silt.txt~ 34 File(s) 83,404 bytes 2 Dir(s) 865,581,056 bytes f Anybody up for it ? Heh. [...] ml> you can't blame bob for what happened to him WRT that ml> job he took... truth is that most bbs software is a one ml> man endevor and always has been... i'm aware of only ml> two or three packages that were more than one person ml> teams but every one of them started as a one person ml> project... two of those are dead and gone and another ml> has gone back to a one person endevor... I'm dissing the lack of progress on Maximus. But I'm blaming noone. There're about 5 people working on Synchronet. I agree with Andrew Clarke's post about attitudes to OSS. Either pay someone to do it or go DIY. When VMware doesn't work anymore I'll have to pay a whole team to port it to another platform using MVC++ or something. Who knows. I might even contract Rob Swindell =P --- Maximus/2 3.01 * Origin: Top Hat 2 BBS (1:343/41) .