Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Path: utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!XX.LCS.MIT.EDU!MRL%PFCVAX From: MRL%PFCVAX@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Newsgroups: mod.computers.vax Subject: (none) Message-ID: <8610280845.AA06936@ucbvax> Date: Mon, 27-Oct-86 09:24:34 EST Article-I.D.: ucbvax.8610280845.AA06936 Posted: Mon Oct 27 09:24:34 1986 Date-Received: Tue, 28-Oct-86 17:49:46 EST Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: The ARPA Internet Lines: 73 Approved: info-vax@sri-kl.arpa Occasionally I see requests for a BBOARD/BULLETIN program for VMS, so I'd like to republicize my own since I have a new version out (as of 10/1/86). The program was on a DECUS tape about a year ago, but has been greatly modified since then. Any user wishing a copy should let me know and I'll mail you the sources. The following is a general description of the utility. It is written mainly in FORTRAN (a small amount in MACRO). Mark, MRL%PFCVAX@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU -------------------------------------------------------------------- The PFC BULLETIN utility is a utility to display bulletins to users when logging in. Users are notified of bulletins only once. They're not forced into reading them every time they log in. Submitting and reading bulletins is easy to do via a utility similar to the VMS MAIL utility. Privileged users can create bulletins which are displayed in full. (known as SYSTEM bulletins). Non-privileged users can create non-SYSTEM bulletins, but only topics are displayed at login. Folders can be created so that bulletins pertaining to a single topic can be placed together. Folders can be made private so that reading and writing is limited to only users or groups who are granted access. Alternatively, folders can be made semi-private in that everyone is allowed to read them but write access is limited. When new non-system bulletins are displayed, an optional feature which a user may enable will cause BULLETIN to ask whether the user wishes to read the new bulletins. The user can then read the bulletins (with the ability to write any of the bulletins to a file). A user can enable the notification and prompting of new bulletins feature on a folder per folder basis. However, the exception is bulletins submitted to the default GENERAL folder. Users are always notified at login of new bulletins in this folder, but can disable the prompting. This is to give non-privileged users some ability to force a notification of an important message. Bulletins have expiration dates and times, and are deleted automatically. Expiration dates and times can be specified in absolute or delta notation. Privileged users can specify "SHUTDOWN" bulletins, i.e. bulletins that get deleted after a system shutdown has occurred. "PERMANENT" bulletins can also be created which never expire. Privileged users can broadcast their bulletin (to either all users or all terminals). A user can select, on a folder per folder basis, to have a message broadcast to their terminal immediately notifying them when a new bulletin has been added. An optional "Bulletin Board" feature allows bulletins to be created by users of other systems connected via networks. A username can be assigned to a folder, and any mail sent to that user is converted to bulletins and stored in that folder. This feature originally was designed to duplicate the bulletin board feature that exists on some Arpanet sites. However, with the addition of folders, another possible use is to assign an Arpanet mailing list to a folder. For example, one could have an INFOVAX folder associated with an INFOVAX username, and have INFO-VAX mail sent to INFOVAX. Users could then read the mailing list in that folder, rather than having INFO-VAX sent to each user. Optionally, the input for the bulletin board can be directed to be taken from any source other than VMS MAIL. This might be useful if incoming mail is stored in a different place other than VMS MAIL. There is a feature which allows adding GENERAL non-system and system bulletins to other DECNET nodes from within the BULLETIN the utility (see the ADD command). All information about the message, such as expiration date, are transferred to the host, thus making it more flexible than the BBOARD method of adding bulletins. Deletion of bulletins is also possible across DECNET. Bulletins can be either sent to a file, to a print queue, or mailed to another user.