GALLERY.DOC Page 1 of 8
******************************************
* *
* GALLERY.EXE *
* *
* Created 3/12/90 by Avatar (Andrew Pam) *
* Sysop of S.I.G. BBS +61 3 888-8846 *
* *
* Ver 1.1 written 10/12/91 *
* Copyright (c) 1991 Serious Cybernetics *
* *
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Table of Contents
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Table of Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Legal Notice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
| Vertical Bars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Status Line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Local Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Control Characters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Using Gallery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
The Main Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
The Category Menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Viewing A Picture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Customising Gallery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
ANSI codes supported . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Colours . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Technical Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Future Enhancements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
GALLERY.DOC Page 2 of 8
Legal Notice
~~~~~~~~~~~~
This program is Shareware. You may distribute it as widely as you wish.
| You may not modify GALLERY.EXE, the update history GALLERY.NEW or this
| file GALLERY.DOC in any way, nor may you omit any of them or the sample
| GALLERY.CTL file. You may not include any other files as part of the
| Gallery distribution package, and you may not charge more than a fair
| and reasonable copying fee. If you continue using this program on an
| ongoing basis after having tested it, you must send $5 (A$10 or
| equivalent in foreign currency if outside Australia) or more to the
| address at the end of this documentation with your name and (if a Sysop)
| the name of your bulletin board.
You will receive a disk containing the latest version of the program
registered in your name and a selection of other Freeware and Shareware
software from Serious Cybernetics. Please specify the size and shape of
disk you require when ordering. No warranty of any kind is expressed or
implied, and the author will not be held liable for any damages,
consequential or otherwise, caused by the use, misuse or abuse of this
program. We told you the rules, now don't forget them! Failure to
abide by these terms constitutes a breach of copyright law. Nyaah!
| Vertical Bars
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
| Lines in this document with a vertical bar "|" in the left margin have
| been added or modified since the original version 1.0 release.
Introduction
~~~~~~~~~~~~
I decided to write Gallery as a replacement for the rather cumbersome
arrangement of menus I had created to display a selection of ANSI
pictures for the amusement of the users on my BBS. In addition to
saving me a great deal of time and trouble maintaining these menus every
time I wanted to add or remove a picture from my collection, I also
decided to make it possible to optionally store all the pictures in a
single archive using any popular archiving program. This can reduce the
amount of space needed to store the pictures by over 70 percent!
Gallery is primarily intended for use on bulletin boards, but it can
also be used without a bulletin board as a simple and convenient way to
store and view your own collection of ANSI pictures. Share and enjoy!
GALLERY.DOC Page 3 of 8
Installation
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Gallery is designed to work with all bulletin board software. It does
| not require access to any files maintained by the BBS, but it is
| capable of reading RBBS style DOORINFO.DEF or DORINFOn.DEF files (also
| used by Remote Access, SuperBBS and QuickBBS), WWIV style CHAIN.TXT
| files, Wildcat style CALLINFO.BBS files and GAP style DOOR.SYS files.
| Multi-user operation is now fully supported.
For a summary of the command line parameters, run GALLERY. This will
produce the following usage guide:
Usage: GALLERY {options...} {username} {options...}
Options: /<baud> where <baud> = 0 for local
/<port> where <port> = 1 to 4
| /G<ANSI> where <ANSI> = 0 to 3
| /L<rows> where <rows> = length of user's screen (12 to 60)
| /N<line> where <line> = BBS line number (1 to 99)
| /T<time> where <time> = max time in Gallery (minutes)
| /W<name> where <name> = filename of WWIV style chain file
| /D => read GAP style DOOR.SYS file
| /R => read RBBS style DORINFOn.DEF file
| /W => read Wildcat style CALLINFO.BBS file
To use Gallery locally, the only parameter required is your name, since
Gallery defaults to local operation with ANSI colour enabled. A baud
rate other than zero will enable remote operation using the specified
communications port. It is a fatal error to specify a non-initialised,
disconnected or otherwise invalid port since Gallery assumes that a user
is already online and makes no attempt to check that the port is
operational.
| The /D, /R and /W parameters will automatically determine the user's
| name, baud rate, port, ANSI capability and time remaining, so no other
| parameters are required when they are is used; this is therefore the
| recommended option where possible. However, the other options will
| override these settings if placed later on the command line. The /G,
| /G0 and /G2 options will disable ANSI facilities and use only standard
| ASCII text, which will cause Gallery to exit with the message "This
| program requires ANSI graphics capability." The /T option will limit
| the amount of time that the user can spend in Gallery. The user will
| never be allowed more than half an hour in Gallery in any case, or ten
| minutes if Gallery has not been registered.
The use of a FOSSIL (Fido-Opus-Seadog Standard Interface Layer)
communications driver such as David Nugent's BNU or Ray Gwinn's X00 is
highly recommended when using Gallery remotely, especially at speeds of
2400 BPS and higher. Characters are unlikely to be lost at normal
typing speeds, but if macros are used at the higher speeds they are very
likely to lose characters if a FOSSIL is not used. Gallery will
automatically detect the presence of a FOSSIL.
GALLERY.DOC Page 4 of 8
Status Line
~~~~~~~~~~~
While Gallery is running a status line will be displayed on the bottom
line of the screen in reverse video. From left to right, the status
line gives the following information:
* The version number of this release of Gallery
* LOCAL or the current communication port and baud rate
* The current user's full name (if known)
* LOG if Gallery is currently logging the chat to CHAT.LOG
* The time left in Gallery, or [CHATTING]
Local Commands
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The following local commands are currently provided by Gallery:
Alt-C Chat mode
Alt-J Jump to DOS
Alt-L Logging toggle (in chat mode)
PageUp Add one minute to time left in Gallery
PageDn Subtract one minute from time left in Gallery
Escape Terminate chat (in chat mode).
Control Characters
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The following control characters are currently supported by Gallery:
Crtl-G Bell (does not ring at local console
when entered by remote user except in chat)
Ctrl-H Backspace (will not backspace beyond first column)
Ctrl-I Tab (uses standard 8 character tab stops)
Ctrl-J Line Feed (scrolls at bottom of screen)
Ctrl-K Reverse LF (will not move beyond top of screen)
Ctrl-L Clear Screen
Ctrl-M Carriage Return
Ctrl-N Home Cursor (moves cursor to top left corner)
| Ctrl-O Cursor to EOL (moves cursor to end of current line)
| Ctrl-R Redraw Screen (only if entered by remote user)
Ctrl-U Cursor Forward (will not move beyond last column)
Ctrl-X Cancel (deletes the entire line)
| All escape sequences from the user except ANSI/VT100 cursor movements
| are currently ignored. The "arrow" cursor keys are fully supported and
| the Home, Ctrl-Home and End keys perform Ctrl-N, Ctrl-L and Ctrl-O
| respectively.
GALLERY.DOC Page 5 of 8
Using Gallery
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When entering Gallery, the first thing you will see is the copyright
| notice and a single line of instructions. Press any key when you have
| finished absorbing this riveting information. :-)
The Main Menu
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You will now see a list of all the available categories. At the bottom
will be the amount of time you have left in minutes and the prompt
"Select:". You may type the number next to any of the categories listed
| to select that category or X to exit Gallery. Any other key will have
| no effect and cause a "beep" to let you know you goofed.
The Category Menus
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
After selecting a category, you will see a list of all the pictures in
that category with their filenames and descriptions. Once again your
remaining time and the "Select:" prompt will be displayed at the bottom.
You may type the letter next to any of the pictures to display that
| picture or minus "-" to quit back to the Main Menu of Gallery.
Viewing A Picture
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
| When viewing a picture, you may press the "P" or Ctrl-S key to pause
| (any key will continue) or the "S" key or Ctrl-C to abort the picture if
| you don't want to see the rest of it. Some pictures which are longer
| than 24 lines will not display properly on the local screen in 25-line
| video modes because of the status line, but will nonetheless look just
| fine to a remote user if they have enough lines on their display.
| Some communications programs also have various bugs which may prevent
| some pictures from being displayed properly; in particular, Telix
| doesn't like the Ctrl-P character (a triangle pointing right), most
| programs will not display the "Del" character (a little house), and some
| programs have trouble wrapping lines at the right edge of the screen.
GALLERY.DOC Page 6 of 8
Customising Gallery
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Gallery uses a file called GALLERY.CTL to describe the pictures. If
this file is not present or readable when Gallery is run, it will exit
| with the message "*** Unable to open GALLERY.CTL ***" and errorlevel 2.
If Gallery can't read a description of at least one picture in the file
it will exit with the message "*** No descriptions in GALLERY.CTL ***".
GALLERY.CTL is an ASCII text file and can be edited with any text editor
of your choice. The sample GALLERY.CTL provided with this program is
| suitable for use with the ANSIPICS.ARJ collection available for viewing,
downloading or file requests from S.I.G. BBS on +61 3 888-8846.
The first line of the file should be the full drive, path and name
(including extension) of the archiving program to use with any
parameters necessary and the drive, path and name of the archive
| containing the pictures. E.g: "C:\UTILS\ARJ.EXE E ANSIPICS" will use
| ARJ in the C:\UTILS directory to unarchive ANSIPICS.ARJ in the current
| directory when Gallery is run. If you do not wish to store your
pictures in an archive just leave the first line of GALLERY.CTL blank.
The current directory when Gallery is run will be used to store the
pictures temporarily while displaying them - unless the environment
variable "TMP" exists, in which case the value of TMP will be used as
the temporary directory. E.g: "SET TMP=M:\" where M: is a RAMdisk.
The rest of the GALLERY.CTL file contains a group of lines for each
category of pictures. Each group must be separated by at least one
blank line. If there are more categories than Gallery can handle
(currently ten) it will ignore the remaining lines. The first line of
each group must be the description of the category in a maximum of fifty
characters.
All the other lines in a group must begin with the filename of a picture
in that category (the extension defaults to .ANS if not given), at least
one space, and the description of the picture in no more than fifty
charaters. If you are not storing the pictures in an archive, the
drive and path should be given or it will default to the current
directory at the time Gallery is run. If there are more pictures in a
category than Gallery can handle (currently twenty) it will ignore any
pictures after the twentieth.
GALLERY.DOC Page 7 of 8
ANSI codes supported
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
<ESC> [A Move cursor up one line
<ESC> [#A Move cursor up # lines
<ESC> [B Move cursor down one line
<ESC> [#B Move cursor down # lines
<ESC> [C Move cursor right one character
<ESC> [#C Move cursor right # characters
<ESC> [D Move cursor left one character
<ESC> [#D Move cursor left # characters
<ESC> [H or <ESC> [f Home cursor
<ESC> [#H or <ESC> [#f Move cursor to row #
<ESC> [#;#H or <ESC> [#;#f Move cursor to row # column #
<ESC> [J or <ESC> [#J Clear screen and home cursor
<ESC> [K or <ESC> [#K Clear to end of current line
<ESC> [m Reset colours to light grey on black
<ESC> [#{;#...}m Change colours (see below)
<ESC> [s Save current cursor position
<ESC> [u Restore cursor position
Rows and columns are numbered starting from one. The following numbers
are supported for the <ESC> [#m code:
0 Reset colours to light gray on black
1 Set foreground colour to highlighted (bright colours)
| 2 Set foreground colour to normal (dim colours)
| 3 Set foreground colour to blue (italics on some terminals)
4 Set foreground colour to blue (underlined on monochrome systems)
5 Set foreground colour to blinking
| 6 Set foreground colour to blinking (fast blink on some terminals)
7 Set colours to black on light grey (reverse video)
8 Set colours to black on black (invisible!)
30 Set foreground colour to black
31 Set foreground colour to red
32 Set foreground colour to green
33 Set foreground colour to brown (yellow when bright)
34 Set foreground colour to blue
35 Set foreground colour to purple
36 Set foreground colour to cyan
37 Set foreground colour to white
40 Set background colour to black
41 Set background colour to red
42 Set background colour to green
43 Set background colour to brown
44 Set background colour to blue
45 Set background colour to purple
46 Set background colour to cyan
47 Set background colour to white
GALLERY.DOC Page 8 of 8
Colours
~~~~~~~
The following colours are used by Gallery:
Light Grey Default colour
White System messages, menu prompts
Cyan Characters typed by user, picture descriptions
| Purple [ENTER] prompts
Yellow Characters typed by sysop, user choices
Light Red Fatal error messages
| Light Green Exit choice on menus
Light Blue Filenames in menus
Light Cyan Menu titles
These colours are not currently customisable.
Technical Notes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Gallery provides a wordwrap facility superior to the one in the Remote
Access internal chat routines. Although Gallery will read the BIOS row
and column information and work correctly on any text resolution with at
least 80 columns (I often use 132 columns by 60 rows) the wordwrap will
always ensure that text is wrapped after column 79 to match user
displays. Words longer than 20 characters will not be wrapped.
The Alt-J Jump to DOS facility will swap most of Gallery to EMS (if
available) or disk, leaving only about 7K of RAM in use.
All I/O is done strictly through DOS and BIOS calls without any direct
hardware access whatsoever, so it should work with any PC system
compatible at the BIOS level, which is just about everything these days.
| Gallery will also relinquish time slices to multitaskers when possible.
Future Enhancements
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If you have any further suggestions or comments, feel free to leave a
message to "Avatar" on my bulletin board, E-mail me as Avatar on
| 199:4242/1@RainbowNet, 3:632/358@FidoNet or 58:4100/32@INTLnet,
"avatar@csource.oz.au" on the Internet or write to:
Serious Cybernetics
P.O. Box 409
Canterbury VIC 3126
Australia
This program was brought to you courtesy of S.I.G. BBS on +61 3 888-8846
Share and enjoy!