BBS
Sounds like your external program support (aka DOORS) is just what I
need. I wrote a program awhile back for the CLI that would search a CD-Rom
for Amateur Radio callsigns, and then print the information (address) to
the console. Would probably have to change it a little since it uses
command line arguments.
Hmmm….file catalogs for a CD-Rom. Depends on how the catalog is
generated. Most BBS systems have you go in and enter the descriptions and
other information manually. If you want to take the time and write a
program to generate the file listing automatically, it can be done but most
Sysops don't have the time or programming experience to do so. The 'Baud
Bandit BBS' system by Richard Stockton probably has the best implementation
of a CD-Rom door I've seen so far, using an Arexx program. Basically, it
assumes that you already know what files you want to download from a file
listing of the CD usually provided on the CD itself. Then the Arexx program
lets you go in the CD-Rom drive and its sub-directories just like any other
device. You then get a paged listing of the files in that directory. Then
you can mark what files you want to download, go into the next directory,
mark more files, etc., and then download the whole bunch. Get the idea?
Using a file listing for a CD-Rom can be impraticle unless it is easy and
automatic. With thousands of files and dozens of directories, it can be a
real pain.
John – K7KB (via Whap!)