They got a name for the winners in the world...I want a name when I lose.

Hi Daniel,

Here's the last one.  Hatching files is not something that every one is
going to be doing.  Mostly this is for FDN members that are programmers
and want any files that they put into a certain area hatched into the
distribution network.  I'm not a programer (who'd a guessed?!) so I
don't have any great need to be able to hatch files into a FDN.

However, there are a few things that I use it for, like distributing a
newsletter to our local SysOPs ( Don't laugh, it's how Jack Rickard got
started) or, here's one that you might be interested in, sending the
PCBLIST to my downlinks when it comes in.  This is what I'll use to
illustrate file Hatching.

Open ASETUP | Fileecho System | hatch manager and you'll see a screen like
this:

 Adding new entry 1/1  Hatch manager 
                                                                   
 Area                                                              
 Spec                                                              
 Desc                                                              
 Days SMTWTFS                                                      
 Repl                                                              
 Mgic                                                              
 FDB  No                                                           
                                                                   
;

Edit it to look something like this:

 1/1  Hatch manager 
                                                                   
 Area PCB                                                          
 Spec C:\PCB\FIDO\IN\PCBLIST.*                                     
 Desc PCBNet Nodelist for day %10%11%12                            
 Days SMTWTFS                                                      
 Repl PCBLIST.*                                                    
 Mgic PCBLIST                                                      
 FDB  Yes                                                          
                                                                   
;

What this section is basically doing is looking in a certain place for a
certain file (indicated in the Spec line) and when it finds it it uses
this information to build a TIC file.  It will then address netmail to
each of the systems that are linked to the PCB area and attach the file
and the TIC to it.  When the downlink receives these files it's TIC
processor will know what to do with the file based on this tic.

When you press <enter> on the Area field you get a picklist of areas
that you have configured.  If you haven't set up an area for this in
ASETUP | fileecho manager you'll need to do this first.

Spec is the file that allfix will look for.  When I get the PCBLIST from
     Bobby and Alecia my mailer puts it in this directory.  This tells
     AllFix the name and location of the file. You can use wildcards.

Desc is what ALLFIX will write in the TIC files desc line.  If there is
     no FILE_ID.DIZ file in the archive then this is the line that the
     downlinks tic processor will add to that systems file directories.
     The %10%11%12 part is a macro to add the day number to the
     description line.  What it actually does is this.  Say I get the file
     PCBLIST.225 from the Darrins.  Allfix will read this filename and
     use the 10th, 11th and 12th characters of the filename in the
     description so that the description line now reads "PCBNet nodelist
     for day 225.  Cool, huh?

Days is the days that you want ALLFIX to hatch this file into the FDN if
     it is found.  I set it for everyday because there is no telling
     when I'll get a new PCBlist.  I could set it for one or two days
     and no matter when the file came in, AllFix would wait until those
     days to hatch it.

Repl   This is another field that the tic file needs.  This is
       especially handy when dealing with nodelists.  The name that you
       put here is the name that your downlinks system will look for
       when it gets the file and it's TIC.  If it finds it, the downlink
       system will replace the file named in this line with the new
       file if they have this option enabled.
Mgic   A lot of files have standardized FREQ names.  On just about any
       system in the world that is hooked to FIDONet you can FREQ the
       magic name NODELIST and get a copy of the current FidoNet
       nodelist.  If the file you are hatching is one of those types of
       files then put the magic name here and it will add it to the
       downlink's system's magic names, if they have that option enabled

FDB    If you are setting this up with PCB then this needs to be set to
       yes.

Ok, so here's what's going to happen when I get the PCBLIST from the
Darrins.

When ALLFIX runs it will see the file PCBLIST.xxx in my inbound
directory.  It will hatch this file into a FDN with the tag PCB.  It
will then create a TIC file with the information from this screen,
attach it and the PCBList.xxx to a netmail addressed to my downlink(s).
AND (this is cool) it will toss the file into my nodelist directory
where it will replace any previous versions of PCBList.xxx.  Then ALLFIX
will scan for magic names ( not the one used for freq.  This time it is
looking for the magic name that tells it what to do with the file when
it gets it) and based on what I've set up in this file's magic
configuration it will make a copy of it in C:\PCB\DL03 and put the
description in my FDB (File Data Base) so that it is available for
download.  It will also make sure that the Magic(FREQ) name is in my
Board's configuration so that it can be FREQed.

Hope that doesn't confuse you as much as it did me!  Took me a long time
to figure that one out.  Those magic names are really confusing.

Well, that's pretty much it.  There are a lot of things that I didn't
really cover all that well, I'm sure, so if you have any questions, fire
away.

More importantly if you have any ideas on how things could be set up
better or easier, let me know.

Enjoyed it!  Keep in touch

Later,
Mark

They call Alabama the Crimson Tide....Call me Deacon Blue.
