Information Servers
and TScript
One of the new, unique features of TNOS is the
Information Servers. These are Hypertext drivers that
allows tutorials, help systems, on-line surveys, etc. to
be easily added to the BBS. The whole process is driven
by a standard ASCII script file. The TNOS scripting
language is named TScript, and is used for many features
throughout TNOS.
Within TScript, all lines that begin with a '~' are
control lines. All other lines are simply data. Special
Text Control Sequences can be contained within a data
line, allowing easy customization.
This message will serve to wet your appetite and also
to document the file format until better documentation is
available.
INFORMATION SERVER SCRIPT FILENAMES:
Who cares! The user never sees them, they see the
description from the file's title line, and a number to
use to choose the entry. The file must be in the
spool/TUTOR, spool/NEWS, or spool/INFO sub-directories,
depending on whether your wish this to be a general
tutorial, a news item, or an information source. The file
MUST have a ".tut" file extension to be
displayed as a part of one of the Information Server
menus.
When using TScript outside of the Information Servers,
the filename has no restrictions at all.
TSCRIPT TITLE LINE:
The first non-blank line of the TScript file is
special! It serves to provide the Information servers
with the description of this particular entry. The title
line can also allow you to nest into sub-directories
easily. This allows sub-menus very painlessly.
The title line can start with preceeding spaces or
tabs (they are ignored). This allows you to center the
line, since this is the first line displayed to the user.
The rest of the title line will be displayed as the
file's description in the Information Server menu.
The title line is also used by the TScript command
that allows you to send a mail message. The title line is
used as the subject of all these mail messages.
If the title line starts with a tilde (~), it expects
a line of this format:
~ subdir description
The 'subdir' is the name of a sub-directory within
that directory. This allows you to define one-line files
that make nested sub-menus.
Outside of the Information Servers, the first line of
the TScript file has no special significance, other than
that already mentioned involving mail files.
TSCRIPT TEXT CONTROL SEQUENCES:
There are a few special character sequences, which all
begin with the '~' character. All other characters pass
through unchanged. The special control sequences in data
lines are:
~~ - replaced by a single '~' character
~n - replaced with a newline character
~c - replaced by the user's callsign
~e - replaced by the Error variable
~b - replaced with a bell character
~h - replaced by the name of the host computer
~d - replaced by the current date
~t - replaced by the current time
~u - un-terminate the current line; remove ending newline character
~l - replaced by the elapsed time of this script, in seconds
~p - replaced with the file position of the current data file
~0 - replaced by variable string 0
.. ............................. through
~9 - replaced by variable string 9
~i0 = replaced by value of index 0
.. ............................. through
~i9 = replaced by value of index 9
TSCRIPT CONTROL LINES:
All lines that begin with a '~' are treated as control
lines by the TScript language. These special control
lines are:
* Parameters marked with an astrick (*) can be
either a literal number an index counter (~i0 - ~i9), or
an variable string (~0 - ~9)
Last updated: Sunday, 25-Jan-2004 14:20:57 UTC
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