


                      FrontDoor Nodelist Browser 1.00

                                User Guide

                     Colin Turner - Piglet Productions




       1. INTRODUCTION

       1.1 LEGAL NOTICE

         FrontDoor is a registered trademark of Joaquim Homrighausen.
         Other brands and product names are trademarks or registered
         trademarks of their respective holders.

         This publication is protected by international copyright laws
         and treaty provisions. It may only be distributed and used in
         accordance with those laws and treaty provisions.

         NLBrowse is provided to you "as is", without warranties of
         any kind. In no event shall Piglet Productions be liable to you or
         anyone else for any damages or costs arising from the use or
         inability to use this program.

         NLBrowse is protected by copyright laws, and may not be
         modified, reversed engineered, sold or distributed in any way that
         would involve some sort of trade, without written permission from
         Piglet Productions.

         NLBrowse may be used without charge by anyone that is running
         a registered copy of the shareware version of FrontDoor, or the
         commercial version of FrontDoor.

         NLBrowse may also be used during the 30-day trial/evaluation
         period of the shareware version of FrontDoor. After this period,
         FrontDoor must be registered if you want to continue using this
         program (or FrontDoor).


       1.2 USING THIS DOCUMENT

         This document is intended to be a reference guide for NLBrowse
         It makes the assumption that the reader understands the basics of
         the FrontDoor Mailer (FD).


       1.3 WHAT THIS PROGRAM DOES

         The FrontDoor Nodelist Browser (NLBrowse) has two major functions:
         it is a test of the C++ FrontDoor Nodelist Class which is planned
         for release soon, and, of course, it is hopefully a useful utility
         for the FrontDoor sysop.

         NLBrowse can also be used as an external nodelist browser by
         programs that cannot otherwise implement nodelist support. This is
         done by means of the command line parameters and drop files, as
         detailed below.


       1.4 SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

         NLBrowse does not require any special components to be
         installed on your system. The program has been tested under DOS 3.x
         and above, Windows 9x, Windows NT 4.x with good results.                                             


       1.5 INSTALLATION

         Copy the files contained in the distribution archive into any
         directory on your system.

         You may wish to copy it into the path or the FD directory. In any
         case, NLBrowse will need to be able to find SETUP.FD, either in the
         path pointed to by the "FD" environment variable, or in the current
         directory (that is, the same directory as NLBROWSE.EXE).

         NLBrowse does NOT hide hidden telephone data, as that make many
         applications of the external browser useless. Therefore you should
         control access to this application if need be.



       2. USAGE

         When NLBrowse is run with no parameters, it should launch an
         interactive nodelist browser. It is not the intention of this manual
         to detail the operation of this browser as it is very similar in
         look and feel to the browser built into FrontDoor.


       2.1 FREEZE / THAW LOGIC

         This program uses different semaphores to the FrontDoor Mail Editor
         (FM) and the FrontDoor Mailer (FD). These are detailed more fully
         in the FrontDoor Development Toolkit. (FDDEV230 or above).

         When running, the program will create a semaphore of the form

         FDNODE<Instance>.<Task>

         if the task is known, or possibly

         FDNODE<Instance>.BSY

         otherwise.

         The semaphore will be removed either when the program terminates,
         or when the program is in a Frozen state. The significance of the
         Instance is beyond the scope of this document.


         To cause NLBrowse to freeze, you should create either the semaphore

         FDNLFREZ.<Task>

         to freeze third party applications on a specified task, or

         FDNLFREZ.ALL

         to freeze all third party applications.


         Please note that no FDNLFROZ or similar semaphore is created to
         signal success, the FDNODE*.* semaphores will simply be removed.

         YInf, produced by Mark Kerr, and available for download from
         Definite Solutions or Piglet Productions fully supports and handles
         the Freezing and Thawing of both native Definite Solutions products
         and thirdy party programs which honour the new semaphores.


         NLBrowse will check whether is should freeze or thaw when it is
         idling (waiting for user input). The frequency of checking is as
         defined in FDSetup -> General -> Semaphore Timer.


       2.2 USE AS EXTERNAL BROWSER

         It is possible to use NLBrowse as an external browser for other
         programs.

         You may NOT distribute NLBrowse without the full package (i.e. the
         full validated distribution archive).

         To launch NLBrowse in this way, you should specify a drop file with
         the command line parameters (detailed below). When NLBrowse
         terminates it writes a text file with the following format.

         ROW    VALUES          DESCRIPTION

         1      1 or 0          1 signals a selection, 0 signals a quit.

         Subsequent rows are only valid (and present) if a selection was
         made.

         ROW    VALUES          DESCRIPTION

         2      FTN Address     Full address of selected item.
         3      16 bit integer  Zone only
         4      16 bit integer  Net only
         5      16 bit integer  Node only
         6      16 bit integer  Point only
         7      Text            System Name
         8      Text            System Location
         9      Text            System Operator Name
         10     32 bit integer  Speed
         11     16 bit integer  Cost
         12     Text            Raw (untranslated) number
         13     Text            Translated (as per FDNODE.CTL) number
         14     Text            Nodelist Flags

         NOTE: All integers are unsigned.



       3. COMMAND LINE PARAMETERS

         NLBrowse supports the following parameters.


         /CRITERION:<Search Criterion>

         This launches the nodelist browser as if the specified criterion
         has been entered in the input box. You may use underscore characters
         to represent spaces.

         Examples would be
           /CRITERION:Joaquim_Homrighausen   (Userlist Search)
           /CRITERION:?:                     (Zone list)
           /CRITERION:2:?                    (Nets in Zone 2)
           /CRITERION:2:443/?                (Nodes in Net 2:443)
           /CRITERION:2:443/13.?             (Points of Node 2:443/13)
           /CRITERION:?                      (Nodes in "Home" Net)
           /CRITERION:2:443/13               (Absolute address)

           Absolute addresses are only useful in conjunction with the
           /DROP: parameter. It is possible to assume segments.

           /CRITERION:443/?                  (Nodes in net 443, default Zone)


         /DROP:<Filename>

         If this parameter is specified the nodelist browser will write
         information about any selected entry into a drop file with the
         specified name. (See above for details on the drop file format).

         This is intended for other programs calling NLBrowse as an external
         nodelist browser and then parsing the resulting information.



       4. ERRORLEVELS

         NLBrowse uses the following errorlevels when it exits.

         0       A match was selected.
         1       The user quit the browser with no selection.
         2       Parameter error
         3       Fatal memory allocation error
         10      Error handling SETUP.FD
         11      Error opening FrontDoor Nodelist DataBase
         12      SETUP.FD incompatible version




       5. OTHER INFORMATION

         When NLBrowse is waiting for input it should detect and timeslice
         under DESQview, MicroSoft Windows, and OS/2.

         Thanks are due to:

         Joaquim Homrighausen for FrontDoor and for the FrontDoor Development
         toolkit.

         Chris McCandless for sections of the Piglet Productions library
         used in the package.         

         Flemming Danielsen, Malte Erikson, Daniel Gulluni, Peter Hampf,
         Richard Hansen, Eric Larson, Jim Smoot, Mats Wallin, and all the
         FrontDoor beta team members for suggestions, help and testing.



       6. DISTRIBUTION

         This is a Piglet Productions program, developed and distributed
         from

         The Heart Of Gold BBS

         +44-1247-274919         2:443/13.0
         +44-1247-273172         2:443/14.0

         Both lines also support FAX.

         WWW: http://www.piglets.com

         For support, NetMail Colin Turner at 2:443/13.0 or,
         email support@piglets.com.

-=-

The product was brought to you by the letter "Q" and the number 9.

// End of file NLBROWSE.TXT


