Rusty Tucker: The idea is that you can perform testing using #if and set a user variable accordingly
Rusty Tucker: then you can use the variable in the rest of the code, rather than retesting.
Bill Gram-Reefer: http://www.hotwired.com/webmonkey/geektalk/97/26/index3a.htm
Bill Gram-Reefer: I just tried it and got a failed address notice
Bill Gram-Reefer: html next time
Rusty Tucker: In their example I think they we're setting page specific BGCOLORs for tables or something.
Rusty Tucker: and the #included files were able to inherit the same color scheme
Jonathan Paisley: [like the mail Plugin ;]
Bob Nunn: I did some of that on my homepage menu and in the sysop admin example I set up.
Donald McHose: Nice page Bob
Bob Nunn: I don't follow how variables can do that though. Thanks Donald
Bob Nunn: You assign color codes as a variable and call the variable on the other pages?
John Agapitos: what version of tfemailer are you up to Jon?
Rusty Tucker: like >
Bob Nunn: Now you are cooking. I understand that.
Jonathan Paisley: internally, the one 'just after' 0.9b1. This is the email Plugin.
Rusty Tucker: prior to that you need to
Bob Nunn: I can have the variable populate any area then like you do in a business letter template.
Rusty Tucker: yep
Bob Nunn: Aha, why didn't you just say so.
Rusty Tucker: even randomly choose them, just to keep things interesting!
Bob Nunn: Like your banner example?
Bill Gram-Reefer: so you could have a random color of the day?
Rusty Tucker: yep, that would work
Rusty Tucker: or change your scheme to ORANGE and BLACK on Halloween
Jonathan Paisley: although you might lose some users that way
Bob Nunn: And that would work throughout the site. What about users?
Rusty Tucker: Yes, user pages can set their own variables.
Jonathan Paisley: How long do these variables persist?
Jonathan Paisley: or rather, what's the scope of the variables?
Rusty Tucker: they have the lifetime of the page
Jonathan Paisley: how about global variables and per-user variables?
Jonathan Paisley: can we have them (at some point in the future?)
Bob Nunn: You assign the variables where? Anywhere as long as they are read in before they are called?
Rusty Tucker: Yes, that's right Bob
John Agapitos: this may sound silly but is there a way that we can allow a user to access a site for a limited time? I'm reluctant to allow web access to our library as users may share the password with non members
Jonathan Paisley: you could therefore make one SPML file that sets up various variables and then every page on your website could simply include that at the top
Rusty Tucker: Globals you can implement via defining a variable in an #include file.
Rusty Tucker: beat me!
Bob Nunn: That way you would only have to install the variables from one file and only edit one file to make changes.
Jonathan Paisley: exactly
Jonathan Paisley: The mail Plugin works like this
Bob Nunn: See that's the kind of examples I need to see.
Rusty Tucker: One other point
Rusty Tucker: If you define a user variable, with the same name as a predefined variable, the user variable takes precedence
Jonathan Paisley: cool
Rusty Tucker: I'll let that sink in a bit
Rusty Tucker: if you
John Agapitos: who me :-)
Bill Gram-Reefer: like, what TF group they are assigned to in UM?
Rusty Tucker:
Rusty Tucker: if will override whatever the actual USER_AGENT string is .
Bob Nunn: So on my log file I would get Stupid Browser instead of Mozilla?
Rusty Tucker: That's also true for the FORM field and Header fields.
Rusty Tucker: Yep
Bob Nunn: So I can make my pages say that my Server is TF5.7 if I want?
Rusty Tucker: Yep :)
Rusty Tucker: uhh, but not in the reply header, if that's what you mean.
Bob Nunn: Adds a whole new meaning to administrative reporting - yep that was it. But that's okay.
Rusty Tucker: Just in
Bob Nunn: That'll do
Rusty Tucker: I think I'll update the 8 ball to use variables, then it can log the answers too.
Bob Nunn: Then we can all know who at WebStar really asked if TF is faster :)
Rusty Tucker: And know what TeleFinder told them!
Bill Gram-Reefer: so you could have a different set of answers for 8 ball according to which browser they were using?
Bob Nunn: I have a lot of fun reading the questions. It'll be much better seeing what the answer was.
Rusty Tucker: Yes, but that's not a problem for variables to solve
Rusty Tucker: You would just make a second test for browser name at the point you've found the matching random number.
Eric: TeleFinder
Rusty Tucker: At the top of the SPML you could make a detailed check of browser name to simplify the checking later on.
Eric: dad
Rusty Tucker: That's where variables really shine to speed up the SPML.
Rusty Tucker: The browser names are getting so complex, that you might need to make several tests to group them
Jonathan Paisley: A built in SPML command with nice heuristics to get an idea of what the browser is would be nice.
Rusty Tucker: Especially if you want to use Java Script for example
Jonathan Paisley: eg it could tell you simply if its internet explorer or Netscape, what platform [eg mac/win] and which version
Jonathan Paisley: You cold even have an internal mini-database of features supported by each version that could be checked by the SPML page
Bob Nunn: Is there a list somewhere of what info is available and how to ask for it? other than active.html?
Rusty Tucker: somebody could make a nice include file to test all that and set appropriate variables.
Jonathan Paisley: ahh yes, that would be true ;)
Bob Nunn: and then upload it so I could have it.
Rusty Tucker: :)
Bob Nunn: :)
Bob Nunn: I have often thought that many admin functions would be improved through lasso and FM
Jonathan Paisley: Plugin are the way to go!
Rusty Tucker: Jon, since we've got many new chatters here tonite, do you want to talk about FTP?
Jonathan Paisley: yeah, that might be an idea
Donald McHose: Love to here about it.
Bob Nunn: How does it compare to Rumpus for example?
Bob Nunn: I bet your has cooler screens.
Rusty Tucker: a little background:
Rusty Tucker: Jon is working on a FTP server Plug-in.
Donald McHose: please
Rusty Tucker: It will operate using the User Manager database and Access Groups.
Rusty Tucker: But he's still working out some of the details of operation.
John Agapitos: sounds like he has a lot on his plate
Jonathan Paisley: [bob: please make yourself available for private chat!]
Jonathan Paisley: It actually works, including all the privileges and things, except you can't upload or download since I haven't implemented that.
Jonathan Paisley: I've spent time refining the virtual file system.
Rusty Tucker: PERFECT security!
Rusty Tucker: Yeah, that's the big part of the work for sure.
Bob Nunn: Will it work from aliases, Like the ones already set up for search on OAT?
Jonathan Paisley: As suggested by participants in the chat earlier today, I will be implementing access to all users pub folders at addresses like ftp://ftp.domain.com/~user/ which will link to that user's pub folder
Bill Gram-Reefer: go on girlfriend
Jonathan Paisley: bob: I see what you mean. Currently, it just presents the root level directory as you would get all your items on the BBS desktop in TF/User
Bob Nunn: That'll work
Bill Gram-Reefer: the "pub" folder specifically?
Rusty Tucker: Yes, and that will be OK for anonymous access I think
Rusty Tucker: ^ pub
Jonathan Paisley: I though I would make it access a directory called 'ftp' inside the 'pub' folder. That way people won't be able to access the likes of your forward.txt or signature.txt (used by the mail Plugin)
Bill Gram-Reefer: that's what i was getting at
Bill Gram-Reefer: so the files in this ftp folder of the pub folder would have to be in .hqx format or could TF's on-the-fly translation kick-in?
Jonathan Paisley: nope, the server fully supports the MACB macbinary extension to FTP, as well as adding '.hqx' or '.bin' to the end of a file to translate it on the fly
Jonathan Paisley: So if you use anarchie, Netscape or fetch (or others) it'll be seamless
Bill Gram-Reefer: we're having fun now
Bill Gram-Reefer: I think many bbs users would like this
Bill Gram-Reefer: to be able to establish an ftp site as well as an ftp
Rusty Tucker: brb
Bob Nunn: Can you drag and drop files into the file area like you can with Netscape 3 and Rumpus?
Bob Nunn: I was amazed when I accidentally did this
Jonathan Paisley: Depends on your FTP client
Donald McHose: Netscape?
Bill Gram-Reefer: how will you let admins of these ftp sites set up more secure levels from the anonymous access. I'm thinking interface issues
Jonathan Paisley: It all uses TF access groups
Jonathan Paisley: You set up a user called 'anonymous' for anon ftp. If this user doesn't exist, anon ftp isn't alowed
Rusty Tucker: What if I call your system and make a user named anonymous?
Bill Gram-Reefer: Maybe I missed it.
Bob Nunn: He is already there and has no access?
Jonathan Paisley: that's a good point rusty
Bill Gram-Reefer: I have a user named Fred. He has a pub folder. He as an ftp in there that's anonymous. How does that user set up a more secure area cause I don't give Fred access to UM?
Jonathan Paisley: but the way it should actually work is that you always have a user called anonymous when you're using the FTP Plugin
Jonathan Paisley: If he password for anonymous user is empty then anon access is allowed, otherwise it's disallowed
Jonathan Paisley: In fact it works like this for every account, not just anonymous
Rusty Tucker: Hmm, I'd make it a little more specific than that.
Rusty Tucker: Usually Anon uses Guest as the PW.
Eric: Eric
Rusty Tucker: Maybe we need either a special check box or access group name.
Jonathan Paisley: [while I remember; a few weeks back we were talking about the problem of TF User saving passwords in lab macs. I have written an extension for your settings file/copies of TF user that will wipe out the password once it is used to log on so it has to be reentered. Email me for a copy]
Jonathan Paisley: Why does it need to be 'guest' as pw?
Jonathan Paisley: I could add in the possibility for empty password or password equal to 'guest'
Rusty Tucker: that's just common
Rusty Tucker: The idea is to allow access to the user's "pub" folders, right?
Rusty Tucker: The rest of the access comes from TF's settings.
Jonathan Paisley: yes, exactly
Jonathan Paisley: Currently only paths declared as file areas are used
Rusty Tucker: So we need a flag that tells your PI if the sysop wishes to allow this for a given user name.
Rusty Tucker: And, whether a given user name can have an FTP site.
Rusty Tucker: so we need 2 more privs.
Jonathan Paisley: yes, that makes sense, but isn't that just 1 priv?
Rusty Tucker: Or, overload the meaning of some of the existing ones.
Rusty Tucker: One, is this user may have a PUB FTP site
Bill Gram-Reefer: gotstogo, good work guys, BYE
Rusty Tucker: the other this user may access other user's PUB FTPs
Rusty Tucker: see ya Bill!
Jonathan Paisley: surely if it's pub FTP you'd want anon access to them?
Rusty Tucker: yes, to give, but not to get others
Bob Nunn: Can you change the port Jon to allow more privileges for certain levels of users?
Bob Nunn: Or does that even make sense?
Jonathan Paisley: please explain a bit further
Bob Nunn: ON regular served pages you can specify the port if you like so your web bbs pages for example could have more access assigned to them.
Jonathan Paisley: but anyone could discover what that port is and use it
Bob Nunn: That's true of the web sites as well. It would just keep the honest folks out.
Jonathan Paisley: But remember its all based on your access group, so only if you're a sysop would you be able to access the sensitive stuff (assuming your access groups are set up as such)
Bob Nunn: I was just thinking about the limited bandwidth that some of us face and perhaps a way to deal with it.
Jonathan Paisley: It would be possible to deny access to certain access groups, for example
Bob Nunn: That'll do. Can we control the amount of users some way?
Jonathan Paisley: Yes, I intend to add a kind of 'max users per access group setting'
Rusty Tucker: ooh, that would be nice!
Bob Nunn: Yup Yup
Rusty Tucker: Guest= 1
Jonathan Paisley: This'll all be accessible once I get the user interface finished (nice list of current users logged on and what they're up to)
Jonathan Paisley: hint hint rusty
Jonathan Paisley: ;)
Rusty Tucker: Actually, here it would be open to all levels.
Jonathan Paisley: Folder messages and logon messages are already implemented (same as in Netpresenz, a file called '!Folder Info')
Rusty Tucker: Hmm, I guess that means I need to tweak the WSAPI framework :)
Jonathan Paisley: heh
Bob Nunn: We will have to have some annoying screen telling us the maximum number have users have been reached.
Jonathan Paisley: Oh yes "Sorry, the maximum numbers of users in your class has been exceeded" and "You are user number 10 of a possible 20"
Jonathan Paisley: etc
Bob Nunn: Great....
Donald McHose: That would do
Rusty Tucker: Well that should wrap it up for now.
Rusty Tucker: Any last q's before we head out?
Jonathan Paisley: a reminder: while I remember; a few weeks back we were talking about the problem of TF User saving passwords in lab macs. I have written an extension for your settings file/copies of TF user that will wipe out the password once it is used to log on so it has to be reentered. Email me for a copy
Jonathan Paisley: simply paste the resources into the app or settings file with resedit and your away!
Bob Nunn: Good deal!
Donald McHose: Thanx for the time. See ya'll later
Rusty Tucker: See ya!
Jonathan Paisley: bya all
Bob Nunn: Goodnite!
 September 12,1997
-- ©Copyright 1997, Spider Island Software
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