DOORLOG.DOC S/L Doors Log Manual Page 1.
D O O R L O G S U I T E
Version 1.6
A Searchlight BBS "Useful Utility"
DOORLOG is Copyright (C) 1989 ASTORSOFT Programming
The DOORLOG suite was written by: James Roberts-Thomson,
22 Rodrigo Road,
Kilbirnie,
Wellington,
New Zealand.
This software is supported through FEELING BAUD, the NZ & OZ
Searchlight Support BBS, on 64 4 264 276 24hrs.
DOORLOG.DOC S/L Doors Log Manual Page 2.
1. Table of Contents
1. Table of Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. Notice: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.1 Licence Agreement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.2 SUPPORT FREEWARE! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.3 DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3. What is The Door Log Suite? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
4. Using The Door Log Suite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
4.1 Equipment Needed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
4.2 Using the Programmes . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
4.2.1 LOG.EXE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
4.2.2 LOGANAL.EXE . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
4.2.3 The LOG.CFG file . . . . . . . . . . . 5
5. Notes on Version 1.6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
5.1 Any Problems? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
5.2 Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
5.3 Known problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
5.4 Future enhancements . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
DOORLOG.DOC S/L Doors Log Manual Page 3.
2. Notice:
2.1 Licence Agreement
You may make copies of this program, manual, and other files
and give it to your friends, upload it to bulletin boards, or
include it in the library of a non-profit computer club. You
may not distribute The Door Log Suite without the DOORLOG.DOC
file, or without the LOG.EXE and LOGANAL.EXE files. You may
not modify the DOORLOG.DOC file, nor the LOG.EXE or the
LOGANAL.EXE file.
I forbid any for-profit venture from selling this software
and manual, either separately or as part of a "library"
diskette.
By using the software, you indicate your acceptance of this
licence agreement.
2.2 SUPPORT FREEWARE!
If you find this software has any value for you, congratul-
ations. You didn't even pay a cent for it! There are no
registration fees for this programme, and no contributions
are required.
However, if you feel you must reward my intensive programming
effort, feel free to send some money. I'll gladly take it -
I'm not a fool!
Send any comments or suggestions about The Door Log Suite
to the above address, or via e-mail on any of the BBS systems
listed below. Your letters will provide the incentive needed
for me to continue to improve this product by adding new
features, or fixing any bugs.
Please feel free to share this software with others.
2.3 DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY
THIS SOFTWARE AND MANUAL ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT
WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING,
BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY
AND FITNESS OF PURPOSE. THE USER OF THIS SOFTWARE AND MANUAL
ASSUME ALL RISKS.
DOORLOG.DOC S/L Doors Log Manual Page 4.
3. What is The Door Log Suite ?
The Door Log Suite is a small suite of programmes which
provide a Searchlight (tm) BBS Sysop to log and then analyse
the usage of his (or her) Door programmes.
There are two programmes which make up the suite. These are:
1) The LOG.EXE programme, which is placed in the DOORS.DEF
file, and which logs the information about the doors usage
2) The LOGANAL.EXE programme, which analyses the file made
by the LOG programme, and produces the Top Ten print-out.
4. Using The Door Log Suite
4.1 Equipment Needed
The Door Log Suite uses quite a bit of memory, but not nearly
as much as Searchlight, so if you can run The Searchlight BBS
software, you will be able to use The Door Log Suite software
4.2 Using the Programmes
4.2.1 LOG.EXE
To use LOG to log stats for a door, you have to modify the
DOORS.DEF file, and place a call to LOG.EXE instead of the
door programme.
For example, assume that you have ASTORSOFT's TRIVIA game as
a door on your BBS. You would have a line like this in your
DOORS.DEF file:
1;0;1;20;Trivia Game;c:\doors\trivia;trivia.exe
You add LOG.EXE to this line so it looks like this:
1;0;1;20;Trivia Game;c:\doors\trivia;\log.exe trivia.exe
NOTE:
-----
This example assumes that the LOG.EXE programme is kept
in the root directory of the hard-disk. This is where ASTOR-
SOFT recommend you put LOG.EXE, but you can put it anywhere
you like, but you MUST make sure that the path is supplied in
the DOORS.DEF entry. For example:
1;0;1;20;Trivia Game;c:\doors\trivia;c:\bbs\log.exe trivia.exe
DOORLOG.DOC S/L Doors Log Manual Page 5.
If the door programme needs any parameters passed to it, then
just include them on the command-line, and LOG will pass them
thru to the door. For example:
1;0;1;20;Anydoor;c:\door;\log.exe doorname.exe %w FRED!@# %g
will cause the %w FRED!@# and %g parameters to be passed to
the doorname.exe programme.
4.2.2 LOGANAL.EXE
To use LOGANAL to analyse the data captured by LOG.EXE, you
simply call:
LOGANAL
The programme will then read the LOG.EXE logfile, and produce
the top-ten printout on the screen. You can use the DOS I/O
redirection facility to re-direct the output into a file, so
that the information may be included in a bulletin.
For example:
LOGANAL > C:\BBS\INCLUDE\DOORTOP.TEN
will routine the output from the programme to the DOORTOP.TEN
file in the C:\BBS\INCLUDE sub-directory. This file will be
automatically created if it doesn't exist, otherwise the old
file contents will be automatically over-written.
4.2.3 The LOG.CFG file
Both LOG.EXE and LOGANAL.EXE rely, for correct logging and
analysing, on a file called LOG.CFG. In this release of The
Door Log Suite, this file MUST be kept in the C: drive ROOT
directory (ie it MUST be called C:\LOG.CFG). The file con-
tains two records, and can be easily created via the DOS COPY
command (ie COPY CON: C:\LOG.CFG). The two records contain
the FULL path and filename of the file to which LOG uses to
record its stats in, and which LOGANAL will analyse. The
second record contains a path to the Searchlight (tm) BBS
'home' directory. This is required so that the programmes
can read the .BBS files to find out about who the online
caller is.
If this file cannot be found, or if the information in it is
not correct, then the LOGANAL programme will FAIL. The LOG
programme, however, will not fail, but will be unable to log
any stats. It will still execute the command passed as the
first parameter, however, so the door will still execute.
DOORLOG.DOC S/L Doors Log Manual Page 6.
5. Notes on Version 1.6
5.1 Any Problems?
Are you having problems with this program? Would you like to
see any extra features added? Any comments you would like to
make?
Leave me a note on: The Magic Tower, Ph. 64 4 767 326, or
The Cave BBS, Ph. 64 4 697 379, or
Contact New Zealands Searchlight Support BBS
FEELING BAUD, Ph. 64 4 264 276.
300/1200/2400 24hrs
Or write to: James Roberts-Thomson,
22 Rodrigo Road,
Kilbirnie,
Wellington,
NEW ZEALAND.
5.2 Development
The Door Log Suite was developed using Turbo Pascal v5.0. The
hardware used was a DG-1 Laptop, with CGA and running MS-DOS
version 3.2, with Searchlight (tm) version 1.30. No other
hardware/software combinations have been tried, but there is
no reason why any generic MS-DOS machine shouldn't work
correctly.
v 1.0 - Initial "quick-hack" to get the concept working.
v 1.1 - Tided up v1.0, and corrected sorting routine.
v 1.2 - Added Door duration to output chart.
v 1.3 - Added Number of Calls to Top Ten User display.
v 1.4 - Fixed a 'midnight-rollover' problem.
- First version released for Public Use.
v 1.5 - Fixed a bug in the Top Ten User display.
v 1.6 - Tided up documentation, and fixed a bug introduced in
v1.5 fix.
5.3 Known problems
I am not aware of any problems, and it is up to you, the
user, to point them out to me.
This software has been extensively tested and used online on
The Dragon's Tower BBS.
5.4 Future enhancements
Again, it's up to you as the user, to suggest new features to
me.
Turbo Pascal is a trademark of Borland, Ltd.
Searchlight is a trademark of Frank LaRosa and Seachlight
software.