                          BIRTHDAY GREETER 1.0
                           Copyright 1993 by:
                        Studio, Eh? Productions
                          All rights reserved


                           -=*What it does*=-

        Birthday Greeter will automatically create a logon screen or
bulletin with the current months birthdays of your users.  It is
designed for use with TriBBS 5.x and will create the bulletin/logon
screen in the .bbs format using the @-codes for color.

        As sysop you may configure four color choices, whether to use
aliases or the user's names, and whether to make a bulletin or a logon
screen from it.

                         -=*The legal stuff*=-

        Birthday Greeter 1.0 is a copyrighted program and may not be
sold, altered, or otherwised messed with without the written permission
of either the author or Studio, Eh? Productions.  Please see later in
this file for cost.

                            -=*Guarantee*=-

        This program is released "as is" and is not guaranteed to do
ANYTHING but take up space on your harddrive.  The author has tested it
on his own system and it works fine... but neither the author nor
Studio, Eh? Productions will be held liable for any damages whatsoever
that may arise from the use of this program.

                          -=*How to use it*=-

        First create a directory for Birthday Greeter and copy the files
into the directory.  The only needed files in the directory are the .exe
and .cfg file.

        Next, edit the config file for your board.  This is a simple
textfile and you may edit it with any text editor.  I've included a
sample, BIRTHDAY.CFG, but  you may call the config file whatever you
wish. Below is a line-by-line description of the .cfg file...

                BBSName=THE LEFT-HAND PATH
                NameFlag=U
                Month=11
                Color1=*GREEN
                Color2=YELLOW
                Color3=*MAGENTA
                Color4=*BLUE
                DatPath=C:\TRIBBS\MWORK\USERS.DAT
                ScreenPath=C:\TRIBBS\DISPLAY\LOGON#.BBS

        Please make sure that there are no spaces between the equal sign
(=) and your entry.  Also, everthing to the left of the equal sign must
be EXACTLY as printed above.

        Line 1 is pretty self explanatory.  Substitute your bbs's name
for mine!  :)

        Line 2 is for which name to use.  Put a U there if you want to
use the User name and an A there if you want the screen/bulletin to use
the alias.

        Line 3 needs to be done in the two-digit format, i.e. January is
01 NOT 1, February is 02 NOT 2, etc.  When you first set it up put the
current month in there, as you will want to run the program "manually"
the first time.  When it's done making the screen/bulletin it will edit
the .cfg file so that it won't keep overwriting the screen or bulletin
(more on this later).

        Lines 4 - 7 are your color choices.  The program produces a
header, the main body of the text (i.e. the birthdays), and then a
footer.  Color1 and Color2 are the two colors that will alternate for
the birthday entries.  Color3 and Color4 are the two colors that will
alternate for the header and footer.  The background color is always
black.  Your color choices for the foreground are as follows...

BLUE            GREEN           CYAN            RED             MAGENTA
BROWN           WHITE           YELLOW          *BLUE           *GREEN
*CYAN           *RED            *MAGENTA        *WHITE

        Putting the asterisk (*) in front of the colors indicates you
want the bright version of them.  Please make these entries in ALL-CAPS
(as shown).

        If you don't want the colors to alternate on the birthday
entries and/or the header/footer, simply put the same color in the two
lines that deal with them.

        Line 8 is the path to your USERS.DAT file.  It is located in
your main node's MWORK directory.  Please note that you must include the
complete path AND filename on this line.

        Line 9 is the path and filename to your logon screen or
bulletin.  In the example it is to do a LOGON#.BBS, where # is replaced
by whichever logon screen you want it to be.  The same set up goes for
if you wish to make a bulletin, except the filename would be BULLET#.BBS
(or BULLET##.BBS).

        Note that you can run the program twice, each with a different
config, and turn out both a logon screen and a bulletin (if you so
desire).

                       -=*Running the program*=-

        You should run it the first time by changing to the directory
where the .exe and .cfg file are and type in:

        birthday birthday.cfg

and then hit <ENTER>.  Of course, if you called your config file
something besides birthday.cfg, you'd type that in instead.

        This will make a screen or bulletin for the current month and
then edit the config file to reflect the next month.

        Now put an entry in your daily maintenance batchfile something
like this:

cd c:\tribbs\birthday           <--- change to BIRTHDAY's directory
birthday birthday.cfg           <--- the command line

{more batch stuff}              <--- continue with your daily .bat

        That's it!  When the daily .bat is run, BIRTHDAY GREETER will
check to see what the current month is.  If it doesn't match what's in
the .cfg file it will simply print "Screen already produced for this
month" and quit, returning control to your batchfile.  So if you start
it up in mid-January for instance, it won't make a new screen or
bulletin until your daily .bat runs on February 1st.

        If you want to do both a screen and a bulletin, you make one
config file for each and then the .bat's entry would say something like:

cd c:\tribbs\birthday
birthday bday1.cfg
birthday bday2.cfg

{more batch stuff}

                    -=*So... what does this cost?*=-

        Nothing.  I'm releasing this program as FreeWare to all
registered TriBBS sysops.  Enjoy!

                             -=*Support*=-

        Since it is FreeWare, I'm not going to spend an inordinate
amount of time on support.  If you discover a bug, or if you have some
trouble installing it, you may send me a letter (include an S.A.S.E.
please) and I will do my best to fix the problem.  My address is:

                            Mark Alan Pruitt
                            c/o Studio, Eh? Productions
                            2318 - 2nd Ave  #337-A
                            Seattle, WA  98121

        I have written (and am writing) a number of programs, both Free
and ShareWare, for BBS's and general computing use.  Sending a disk
(720k minimum) and a pre-paid mailer will get you a copy of all the
latest versions of my programs.

                        -=*A quick tech note*=-

        The executable has been compressed using Tinyprog (free plug...
Tinyprog is an EXCELLENT and inexpensive program... you other programmer
types should look into it... and no... I didn't write it! :) ) so that
while it only takes up 28592 bytes on your hard drive it's load image
(how much RAM it needs) is 35562 bytes.

        Happy computing!!!

Mark Alan Pruitt
Seattle, WA
November 16, 1993
