S.F. Eley #9
Mon Apr 15 23:05:04 1991
5PART ]I[:
7Other B.S. you'll never need
7to know but I'm telling you anyway!

   That's about all there is to know about the Magic of Macro-Making..  Just 

remember to get in there and 25EXPERIMENT2!5E2!5X2!5P2!5EE2!5R2!5I2!5M!2!5M2!5E2!5N2!5T!2!5!Ee0
   Play around with things, see what works and what doesn't work (that last 

EXPERIMENT was one that 1almost 0worked), and hope for the best.  If you are 

like most people you'll spend a net total of 20 minutes coming up with your 

macro, which is a <hades> of a lot less time than I took writing this file.
SO.  Hope you learned something, and in case you didn't here's a few more 

observations about style:

2I.
  I've noticed over time that there gets to be a certain, vast sense of 

CONFORMITY amongst macros..  Somebody gets a good idea, and everybody else 

copies it.  For instance, take the current fad of tossing a catch-phrase or a 

silly quote in at the end; for instance:
1Ý2°²6³3±°4Billy-Bob3°±6³2²°1Þ
7"Don't worry, Be Crappy"
  Now that's OK in certain instances, 1BUT0, as personal advice, if you're gonna 

macro in a commonly accepted style, make sure the actual SUBSTANCE of it is 

original!!   If any of us see another old, overused clich‚ such as
"1Ruler of All Mankind0" or "3The Man With The Modem0" or, most especially, "7:1'07-(0"
we run the risk of vomiting on our keyboards, and SysOps CAN be legally held 

responsible for such damages.  Therefore, take some time out to be COOL!!
And original!  (Which is the same thing as COOL.)
   Not just in sayings, but in 32EVERY 0part of your macro.  The same could be 

said of every part of POSTING, but that's a different textfile and I have to 

shut up SOMEWHERE, don't I??

2II.
   If you have trouble getting a creative macro worked up on the message 

editor, try one in TheDraw instead.  (If you don't have TheDraw, download it 

from any BBS in the free world.)  It makes it much easier to play around.

2III.
   If you can figure out how, you might want to try actually UPLOADING a macro 

directly FROM TheDraw!   With the old versions of TheDraw, it was not possible 

to create a color or animated macro that 1WWIV 0would accept, as the 1WWIV 

message editor does not like any ANSI codes that it did not create (unless you 

//UPLOAD them, but that's yet ANOTHER textfile).
   However, beginning with version 4.00 of TheDraw, it is possible to plant 

control codes (like the BBS's 5CTRL-P 0and 5CTRL-N0) directly within your files..
Meaning that you can create a drawing, implant the CTRL-P colors, use TheDraw 

coloring so you can see what it would look like, and save it as ASCII.  Should 

work beautifully, and give you an opportunity to use EXCELLENT graphics.

2IV.
   Oh yeah, and if you ARE going to save from TheDraw..  Save it by making a 

Block around your macro, and using the Block Save.  Once again, be sure you 

save it as ASCII, not ANSI!   To install it in the BBS, just go to the 

D:efaults, hit update macros as usual, choose your macro, and INSTEAD of 

typing anything in, do an 3ASCII UPLOAD 0from your friendly neighborhood Comm 

program.. Once again, ought to work nice.  And that's all I have to say..
42V. 010(oops, sorry, there IS no 2V.0)   In any case, Cya L8r..  Oh yeah, my macro:
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