ÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿ ÜÛÛÛÛÛÜ ÜßßÜ ÜÛÛÛÛÛÜ ÞÛ ÛÛ ÛÛÛÛÛÛÜ ÜÛÛÛÛÛÜ ÛÛ ÛÛ ßÜÜß ÛÛÜÜÜÛÛ ÛÛÜÜÛÛÜ ÛÛ ÛÛ ÛÛÜÜÜÛÛ ÛÛ ßÜÛÛ Üß ßÜß ÛÛßßßÛÛ ßßßßÛÛß ÛÛÛÛÛÛ ÛÛßßßÛÛ ßÛÛÛÛßÜ ßÜ ÜßÜ ÛÛ ÛÛ ÛÛ ÛÛ ßÛÛ ÛÛ ÛÛ ßß ß Revision 11 Questions and Answers for RemoteAccess 2.x °°±±²² NEWINFO.Q&A ²²±±°° Updated on 02/04/96 By: Eric Staufer The Concession Stand FidoNet 1:374/6568 RemoteAccess 2.50........The long awaited release. --------------------------------------------------- [RemoteAccess 2.50] - Questions and Answers Q. How do I upgrade to RemoteAccess 2.50 from my RA 2.0x version? A. FIRST : BACKUP your \RA directory just incase something goes wrong with the upgrade process. SECOND : Unpack the RA_250.ARJ or RA_250G1.ARJ (whichever is the latest version while you are reading this) into it's own directory. THIRD : Copy all of the new EXE and OVR files ontop of the existing 2.02 ones. FOURTH : Run 20xto250.EXE which will upgrade your RA 2.02 settings to the new 2.50 format. FIFTH : Run RACONFIG. Doing this, it will update your CONFIG.RA to the 2.50 format. Go into the language editor and update language prompts 116, 665-672. FINALLY: If you are copying your RA.OVR to a semaphore directory, be sure to copy the new RA.OVR to it! Failure to do so will most likely cause either a lockup, EMM386, or QEMM Exception Error. The reason is because of the conflict of the two versions. If you did forget to do this, it will only happen one time until the new RA.OVR file is copied to the drive...so dont sweat it. If all goes well, the next time you boot up RemoteAccess, you will see 2.50 or 2.50.g1 instead of 2.02! Q. I've waited forever to be able to view my user's passwords again, dont ask me why but I have, and how can I do this? A. Go into the RACONFIG.OPTIONS.SYSTEM.SAVE PASSWORD -> Yes Once this is set to "Yes" the next time the user calls up to your board, his/her password will be saved to text format again. To view their password then, simply go into the User Editor and select the user and then highlight the Password Field and press ENTER. Q. How do you notify the user of their files tagged before they logoff? A. Simply go into the RACONFIG.OPTIONS.FILES.LOGOFF WARNING -> Yes Prompt #668 will be displayed to your users, saying something like: "You have files tagged... Disconnect anyways (y/N) ?" If you dont like the looks of this prompt, simply turn it into an ANSi screen, by using the ^K!filename| feature. Use the new textfile control codes of ^K& and ^K' for number of tagged files and kilobytes tagged into your customized ANSi screen to make this prompt a little more worthwhile. Q. On some of the multinode support boards who were running 2.50/beta, they had a certain feature which really impressed me. On their Who's Online command, specifically in the Status field, they showed "Main Menu" "File Menu" "Door Menu" etc.. instead of the built-in "Browsing" string. How did they accomplish this, when a *U only works on a Type-7 menu command? A. With RemoteAccess 2.50, *U can now be used on menu types 1-4, the switching to a new menu; menu commands. On the optional data line of each of your Clear/Goto Menus add a *UMenu_Name. Such as: Menu Type: 4 (Clear/Goto Menu) Opt. Data: MAINMENU *UMain_Menu When someone switches to this menu, and then someone else on another node uses the Who's Online command, it will show that the John Doe will be on the "Main Menu" This is a very powerful new addition for RA 2.50. It doesnt really do much, but it will make your multinode board a little more user-friendly. I HIGHLY suggest that you add this *UMain_Menu to your Top Menu command which switches over to your main menu. The reason because is from what I noticed with the beta version, if you didnt add anything in your *U field buffer, it would show absolutely nothing to your users when they do Who's Online. Also, if you use a GlobalRa.Mnu, and you have commands in there, which switch to other menus, add the *U parameter in there. Q. I hate animating each of my screens just so that a few control codes will fit into place. How can I make my life easier without animating each screen? A. There is now Textfile Padding support for the control codes. Simply add a "." in between the ^F / ^K part and the second part of the control code to give one space padding. Example: ^FA "Displays the user name" ^F......................A Displays the user's name with 20 spaces of padding. Q. I have global menus which display the time remaining and some global commands on the bottom of each of my menus. I've seen on a board or two that when you select a certain menu, such as the KeyWord Search or the FileName Search, it'll display another menu ontop of the original file menu. Everytime I've tried this, my global menu gets displayed and it gets in the way. How can I get the menus to display correctly? A. The way I do this on my board is I made my File Menu, KeyWord Search, and FileName Search Menus all SUPPRESSED in the menu editor. My KeyWord and the FileName Search Menus are animated and saved with "Home Screen" savings using TheDraw, and it has an animation placement (a simple space to where I want put the cursor at). Now, to get the Global Menu from not displaying on the KeyWord and the FileName Search menus, simply go into the Menu Editor, and press Alt-P for the Prompt Menu. Then where it says "Global Menu" set this to "No" and then boot up your board and give it another shot, if all works well, it should display properly. Q. Often, when a user calls up and goes through a questionnaire, and they accidently get disconnected, whatever questions that they've answered werent saved. How can I get RemoteAccess to automatically store the answers IMMEDIATELY whenever they answer a question? A. Simply add the command COMMIT on the top of the questionnaire. It's a new feature of RA 2.50. Q. I'd like to make my board especially stand-out from the others. I'm aiming at giving each filearea their own filelist format. How can I accomplish this? A. In the menu command 31 (List files), you can add a /A= parameter followed by their filelist format codes. This /A= parameter must be the LAST switch on the optional data field for the command. Example: Type 31 (List Files) Opt Data: /F /T /A=@NE @DF Color Codes are accepted for this parameter, but remember that there is a limited number of characters allowed on the optional data field for each command, so you might not be able to get all the colors you want in the filelist format. Q. How do I change the (Y/n) prompt to be (y/N) in the language prompts? A. Go into the language editor and highlite the prompt that you want to edit. Once selected, press ENTER on it, and then a box will come up with a "Y=Yes, N=No: " simply press "Y" or "N" to make it what you want, and then exit and save. Reboot RemoteAccess and check out the new language prompt. In the upper-right-hand corner of the screen in the language editor, right before the language prompt number, there is a Y or a N. This is the DEFAULT setting of the prompt. This value will NOT change if you edit the Y/N field for the prompt. So, dont get confused when you edit the prompt to be a "Y" but it still says "N" on the top of the screen. Q. When someone calls up at 31200 or 33600bps, RemoteAccess will log them in as 64000bps. Why is that? A. Make sure that you filled out the errorlevels as well as the new connect messages for the new connect speeds. Q. When I ran 20xto250.EXE all I saw actually being upgraded was the LANGUAGE.RA and ENGLISH.RAL, it said it could not convert the FILES.RA and the MESSAGES.RA, what did I do wrong? A. Probably nothing. Simply try deleting the .RDX files which are located in your C:\RA directory and give it another try. [RA Questions & Answers] - For any versions of RemoteAccess. ------------------------------------------------------------- Q. I'm setting up a brand-new board, and when I try to adopt files into a specific file area RA will just hang there, saying Adopting Missing Files. The paths for that specific area exists and there are actual files in the directory. How come it's not importing them into RA's databases? A. Make sure that you have created the HDR, IDX, and TXT directories off of your specified "Filebase" directory which you set in the Raconfig. Q. When a user fills out a questionnaire, I want the Answer (ASW) file to be immediately posted to me, the SysOp, how can I do this? A. You'll need a 3rd-party message posting program to do this. I use "mark lewis's POSTIT" program to do this. How I do this is, when the questionnaire is almost finished, I have it run a batch file which calls PostIt to run. You must run this batch file AFTER the OutputAnswer part of the questionnaire. Here's an example: [SAMPLE.Q-A (Bottom Part of Sample Questionnaire)] DefineOutPut C:\RA\QA\SAMPLE.ASW <-- New Feature of RA 2.50 OutputAnswer " Whatever " 1 OutputAnswer " Whatever " 2 OutputAnswer " Whatever " 3 OutputAnswer " Whatever " 4 OutputAnswer " and so on..." 5 Display "Press Enter to be transferred back to the BBS.|" WaitEnter MenuCmnd 7 *C /c c:\ra\postit\sample.bat *F *L *N *M Quit The SAMPLE.BAT file is named after the questionnaire to avoid confusion. Here is what the batch file looks like: @Echo Off cd\ra\postit postit.exe -MC:\RA\QA\SAMPLE.ASW -BJ3 -Pvt -SSAMPLE Answer File -TEric Staufer -F%1 %2 (wrapped from top line) del c:\ra\qa\sample.asw exit PostIt will then post the message to the specified message base located in the PostIt.Cfg File. (Read PostIt.Cfg for more info.) Q. What are the DUMMY.ASC and RESET.ASC files for? And how come they aren't listed in the RemoteAccess DOC file? A. DUMMY.ASC is displayed right before the logon screen, and, RESET.ASC is displayed sometime before the TOP.MNU, an exact location I have no idea. I'm pretty sure it's after NEWS.A??. The reason why they are not mentioned in the RA DOC is because that these two files were either a joke, or they were used for testing purposes. The exact reason is unknown. Q. When I shell from RA and go to edit language prompts, when I return to see the new changes, they arent made. Why? A. You must REBOOT RemoteAccess in order for the new changes to take place. The same thing goes with changing main settings in the RACONFIG. Q. I've tried to contact Wantree Development in the USA and get a prerecorded message saying that the number has been disconnected. What happened to it? Is RA/Pro being supported anymore? A. Yes, there is support for the Professional Versions of RemoteAccess, it's just that there is a new company handling all of the orders and support for it. The company is called: "InterScape Development" They can be reached at below: Enquiries for the professional version should be directed to: InterScape Development (ISD) 5700 Broadmoor, Suite 1014 Mission, KS 66202 Voice Phone: (913) 262-4638 BBS Phone: (913) 262-7000 Netmail: 1:280/316.0 WWW: http://www.fileshop.com/ Email: wlane@fileshop.com Sales: rapro@fileshop.com Tech Support: rapro@fileshop.com Internet FTP: ra.fileshop.com (/pub/ra) file: rademo.arj Q. How can I display ANSi/ASCii files for each individual file and msg group? I know that this can be done, because I've seen it on other boards. A. Unfortuneately, these hardcoded textfiles were left out of the RA Doc file. Here are the screens: FGROUPS.A?? - Displays File Groups Selection Screen MGROUPS.A?? - Displays Message Groups Selection Screen FGR1.A?? - Displays File Areas in File Group #1. FGR2.A?? - Displays File Areas in File Group #2. MGR1.A?? - Displays Msg Areas in Msg Group #1. MGR2.A?? - Displays Msg Areas in Msg Group #2. Q. How do I make a file FREE on a Type 48 menu command? A. To make a file free on the "Download a Specific File" menu command, simply add a /FREE after the path and the filename. This was not mentioned in the RA.DOC. [3rd Party Program Setups] --------------------------- Q. How do I setup IceCBV with RemoteAccess? A. IceCBV is a pretty simple, yet powerful, callback verifier to setup with RA 2.xx. Simply go into the CBVCFG.EXE program and fill out all of the paths necessary and the settings that you see fit, and once that is done, you are basically setup. As for a command-line path, here is what is use: [Single Line] Menu Cmnd: 7 (External Door) Opt. Data: C:\RA\ICECBV\ICECBV.EXE -D:C:\RA *M [Multi Line] Menu Cmnd: 7 (External Door) Opt. Data: C:\RA\ICECBV\ICECBV.EXE -D:C:\RA\NODE*N *UIceCBV *M Q. What is a good userbase statistic program? A. Sys-Stat is an excellent, do-it-all-in-one-program statistic program. Once you unarchive Sys-Stat, you have to run INSTALL.EXE and it will install itself, including making its own directories, etc. Once completed, you run SYSCFG.EXE and it will automatically import all of your RemoteAccess 2.xx configuration, making the job alot easier. Not only will Sys-Stat generate Top 10 Bulletins, but it will also create a news bulletin, upgrade users, create inbound/outbound stats from your mailer, post messages to your users for uploading files, etc. Here are the parameters on how to run Sys-Stat. Type "SYS-STAT.EXE" without any parameters will run the program according to the settings defined in SYSCFG.EXE. Except : /OPTIMIZE - Optimization /UPGRADE - Upgrade system /NEWS - News generator /WELCOME - Welcome message to new-users "SYS-STAT.EXE /ALL" will run all commands. "SYS-STAT.EXE [commands]" will run the commands which you write on the command prompt. Available commands: /? Displays this screen /ALL /A Generates all statistics /SYS-STAT /B Generates overall statistics /SYS-CALL /C Generates today callers /USERLIST /D Generates user-list /LIMITS /E Generates security levels overview /AGEGRAPH /F Generates age graph & age statistics /FLAG /G Generates flag report /FILEAREA /H Generates file area status overview /MSGAREA /I Generates message area status overview /FILEGROUP /J Generates file-area groups /MESGGROUP /K Generates message-area groups /WANTED /L Generates Most Wanted! files /TOP10 /M Generates top 10 statistics /FDCALL /N Generates FrontDoor callers: inbound/outbound /OPTIMIZE /O Optimization of the user-file (USERS.BBS) for errors /UPGRADE /P Upgrade system (upgrade users) /NEWS /Q News generator /WELCOME /R Welcome messages to new users Example: SYS-STAT.EXE /SYS-STAT /SYS-CALL /R The program will when it's executed show you a list of all commands. In a window in the right buttom you'll see the activity of what it is doing, right know. °°±±²² NEWINFO.Q&A ²²±±°° Total Lines: 400 Total Size: 18k