1. First have EleBBS/Win32 up and running.

2. Copy the following files included in this archive to your
main EleBBS Directory:
NetFoss.COM
NetFoss.DLL
NF.BAT
You may also need to copy NetFoss.DLL to a directory located
somewhere in your environment path.

3. Run the menu editor (ELCONFIG -M) and choose the desired language
(ie: English) and select the menu to place the door in.

Initially you could try adding a door to your MAIN.MNU, though
if you plan to offer several door games, you could later create a
separate GAMES.MNU, and add a "goto GAMES" option in your main
menu.

Move the cursor to the position in your menu you wish the door
to be placed, and press the INSERT key to add a menu option,
and then press ENTER to edit it.

You will see these default menu options:

Action Display only (Type 0)
Display
OptData
HotKey
AutoExec No
Colour Colour example

MinSec 0 TimeUsed 0 FlatCost 0
MaxSec 0 TimeLeft 0 TimeCost 0
A flags -------- Age 0 Terminal Any
B flags -------- MinSpeed 0 Nodes
C flags -------- MaxSpeed 0 Groups
D flags -------- Credit 0 DayTimes
Lightbar

3a. Move the cursor to the "Action" option and press ENTER.
Select "External - door, exits" followed by
"7 Execute sub-program".

3b. Move the cursor to the "Display" option and press ENTER.
Type in what you want to be displayed on your users menu.
You can press F1 to change colors, F2 to sample how it
looks so far, or F3 to add a macro. Press ENTER when
you are done.
** Important ** : If you use ANSI screens to display menus
rather then having EleBBS create the menu screens itself,
(done using a type-40 command in your menu) then just put
a semicolon ";" on the Display line and press ENTER.
This will prevent a carriage return from being displayed.

3c. Move the cursor to the "OptData" option and press ENTER.
This is where the command line goes that runs the door,
or runs a batch file which will run the door.
Enter the following:

{path\nf.bat} {path\filename of door} {any optional parameters}

Many doors require a batch file, often needed to change to the
doors directory before executing the door itself.
Note that the "*C /c" macro used by Win9x and DOS to allow running
a batch file, is never needed under Windows NT4, Windows 2000, or later versions of Windows..

Assuming that EleBBS is located in c:\ele, the Optdata command
line should look something like this:

c:\ele\nf.bat c:\ele\doors\doorgame.bat *N

The optional *N macro passes the node number to the doorgame.bat
file, which can be referenced as %1 (the first parameter passed)
in the batch file itself.

3d. Move the cursor to the "HotKey" option and press ENTER.
Now press the key that you would like to cause this door to be
run, followed by ENTER. Usually either a letter from A-Z or a
number 0-9, though other characters could be used as well.
Note that if you assign the same hotkey to more then one menu
option in a menu, then only the first option which qualifies
will be executed.

3e. If you want to specify security levels or flag settings required
to access this door, you can define those in the MinSec, MaxSec,
and the A,B,C,D flags. Otherwise just skip over to the next step.

3f. If your menu uses Lightbars, you will need to edit the lightbar
text and position for the Display text. Otherwise just skip to
the next step. To define a lightbar, move the cursor to the
"Lightbar" option and press ENTER. Next select the "Position"
option, and enter the X and Y coordinates where the lightbar
should appear on the users screen (X=horizontal, Y=vertical).
Next select the "LowItem" option, and enter the Display text
shown in the color(s) when the lightbar is not active.
Press F1 to change colors, F2 to see a sample of the lightbar,
F3 to add a macro, and ESC when done. Next do the same
for the "HighItem" option, which should be set to the colors
when the lightbar is active. Finally set the "Enabled" to "yes".
Press ESC to return to the menu editor.

3g. If you want to set other limitations on who can access this
menu option, then set the other menu options accordingly.
(ie: TimeLeft, Age, Credit, Terminal type, Nodes, Groups, etc.)
Otherwise just leave these options at their defaults.

3f. Once you are done editing your menu options, press ESC to return
to the Menu Editor, and answer "Yes" to save changes. You can
press ESC again to exit the menu editor.

4. Next you need to configure your door.
To perform this step, you will need to read the documentation
that came with your door.
Most doors include a configuration program, but many doors
use text based config files that you need to configure with
a text editor. There is often a separate config file needed
for each node, though this is not always the case.

Most DOS doors support a FOSSIL driver. Using a FOSSIL driver
is optional on some DOS doors, in which case it must be
configured to use a FOSSIL driver rather then direct
communication with a COM port.

Dropfiles are used by most doors to get information from the
BBS such as: The users name or handle, the amount of time they
are allowed to use in the door, their terminal settings, their
com port number, and their connection speed.

Most doors allow you to select a dropfile type, such as DOOR.SYS
or DORINFO1.DEF. I suggest you always choose DOOR.SYS, as this
is the most common dropfile. You can also use DORINFO1.DEF, but
some doors assume that its called DORINFOx.DEF, where x= the node
number. Since EleBBS (and most BBS's) create only a DORINFO1.DEF
for each node, this could be a problem.

The most advanced dropfile type is EXITINFO.BBS, which contains
detailed information about the user. This is only supported by
doors designed specifically for EleBBS, RA, or ProBoard. One
advantage to this drop file, is the door is allowed to make
changes to this dropfile, which is read back by EleBBS after
the door exits. This makes it useful for doors that need to
alter the users settings, such as timebanks and mail doors.

Some doors are smart enough to look for the dropfiles in the
current directory, and automatically look for the doors data files
in the directory where the door itself is located. Unfortunately
most doors do NOT work this way, and need to be told the full
path to the dropfile for each node.

EleBBS always creates all dropfiles in the current directory
where it was started, known as a node directory. For example:

c:\ele main elebbs directory, where elebbs.exe is.
c:\ele\node1 where node #1 is started.
c:\ele\node2 where node #2 is started.
c:\ele\node2 where node #3 is started.

If EleBBS.EXE is started from a batch file, then the batch file
itself is responsible for changing to the proper node directory
before running EleBBS.EXE from the main directory.
If EleBBS.EXE is started by TelSrv.EXE (The Telnet Server),
then the node directories must be defined in ELCONFIG.EXE
under PATHS SYSTEM > PATHS > NODE PATHS
(ie: c:\ele\node*N would be used, as *N is replaced with the
actual node number).

Since most doors look for their data files in the current
directory, you will usually need to run a batch file that
changes to the doors directory before running the door's EXE.
The batch file does not need to change back to the node directory
afterwards, as this is automatically done by EleBBS itself.

An example batch file could look like this:

cd\ele\lord
lord.exe %1 /drew

In this example, the batch file changes to the \ele\lord
directory, and then runs lord.exe, passing it two parameters.
The %1 parameter is used to pass the node number (assuming that
*N was the first optional parameter passed to the batch file
on the menus type-7 Optdata command line), and in this case
the door wants an additional parameter "/drew" in order to
function.

Other doors often need to be passed the name of a config file
on the command line, such as this example:

cd\ele\ea
ea.exe ea%1.cfg

And then you would need to edit a separate config file for each
node you wish to support, such as ea1.cfg, ea2.cfg, and so on.
These config files usually include a full path and filename to the
dropfile which should be used, in addition to other information.

Another popular method used by some doors, is to pass the
path and/or the dropfile name on the command line, like so:

cd\ele\gifsee
set gifdesk=file
gifsee.exe c:\ele\node%1\exitinfo.bbs

Again, you will need to consult the documentation that came
with your door to know exactly how your batch file or command
line should look, as not all doors do it the same way.

NetFoss ignores the "FOSSIL com port" it is told to use, so it
really makes no differnce if the door is attempting to talk to
COM1 or COM2. However, many door games were written before there
was telnet support, or were written with older door libraries
which often only support COM1 through COM9, and some doors only
support up to COM4.
Therefore NetFoss allows the door to specify any FOSSIL comport,
and it will work even if all the nodes are set to use COM1 for
example. When running EleBBS's TelSrv.EXE, EleBBS.EXE is not
passed a comport number on the command line, so it will allways
pass the COM port number specified in MODEM.RA to the dropfiles
it creates. As long as the comport defined in MODEM.RA
(found in ELCONFIG > MODEM > OPTIONS > COMPORT) is less then 5,
most doors will work on all 255 nodes! :)

You can optionally replace the TelServ.exe or EleServ.exe telnet
server with Net2BBS.exe if you wish. Here is a NET2BBS.INI for
EleBBS/Win32:

[Settings]
Command=c:\ele\elebbs.exe -n*N -h*H -XT -XC -XI*@ -B65529
StartPath=c:\ele\node*N\
Port=23
Nodes=256
StartNode=1
Semaphore=wait.sem
Log=telnet.log
View=Normal
Debug=0

The advantages of
Net2BBS include Semaphore blocking, and a smaller size.