
        7. Hopefully requires nothing but integral SBBS functions to set
        up so that adding, and wrecking-balling any room is easy and
        involves no custom programming or software author support. No
        offense to the many excellent and responsive software developers
        out there (Rob and many others), but I usually need to talk to
        you at 1:30 a.m. - and I know you're working then and have no
        use for me!


                              --------------

                    Early Thinking & Other Problems
         (Of course my Early Thinking was PART of the problem!)


        I spoke with several sysops about this many months ago and everybody
seemed to want it too. Each had different views about what to use "rooms"
for, and none seemed to have a total solution.

        I logged on to boards where the sysop claimed on DOVE-Net to have
"virtual" BBSes and separate rooms or "matrix" logons and found the
identical problem in every case: while they had set up separate areas
with some menu/baja function to take users to the appropriate message
base or file area, or other function, when a user scanned_all for his
messages or new ones, he ended up scanning the entire board. I even saw
one sysop on DOVE-Net, many months ago, talk about running a separate
instance of Synchronet or some other freeware bbs, either as an external
program door, or as a baja function. That seemed very inappropriate to me too.

        It is clear that none of the sysops (or myself) wanted that, and
that we all wanted functionally separate rooms, or truly separate "virtual"
BBSes or more limited rooms.

        I spoke with Digital Dynamics about it and Rob said on one
occasion "Yes, you can do that now" and I hung up and didn't press for
the solution. (I'm used to that brick wall imprint after all.)

        Quickly I realized that in order to do it inside the current
shell, there had to be a way to isolate the functions and limit them to
the room only, without disrupting the rest of the board outside the
room. Both areas, inside the room and the areas outside, have to exclude
each other.

        It dawned on me that if I could toggle ARS flags from baja then
I could probably do this. However, baja doesn't allow this - although it
does allow other user toggles. So, to be sure, I spoke with Allen at DD
(who is also the Domain Entertainment developer), and he said "Nope,
can't toggle flags from baja at this time."

        It's one of those problems that you end up just staring at,
knowing that there IS a solution and you just can't *see* it. This went
on for several months while I set up and learned all the other "languages"
(read that "programs") needed to run my board. (A process still continuing
and that has me in "total immersion" - man, I pray to everybody's gods
for software documentation that doesn't assume I know *their*
assumptions!)

        What made it more frustrating was that I had successfully,
and easily, written a baja command shell adding instant online help
(without modifying or simplifying the menus - I hate novice shells - and
separated the Main and Message menus, and some other things. (Unlike
some other successful Synchronet boards, I'm ending up with only one
command shell that is getting modified beyond recognition and I'm not
going to take the time to modify all the other shells.)

        I had even contacted an SBBS sysop who is a skilled and bright
programmer and he said yes, he could write a utility with command line
parameters that could do what I wanted. It wouldn't take him long,
etc... and, we were working out how to pay for it, share it, etc...

                            +++++++++++++++

          *** And then, late one cold, coffee-tanked night...

there it was. Right in front of me. On page 261 of my Synchronet manual.
The MODUSER.DAT file. The drop file external programs return to the BBS
to alter user ARS settings! Could I use this? How? When does SBBS read
the file? I knew that from UEDIT, when I change a users settings, they
take effect immediately so I concluded if I could change them from baja
they must be similarly instant. [BTW, I learned long ago that reading
instructions and manuals is just part of living, so I read Synchronet's
manual constantly. "RTFM!" isn't lost on me. But, for me, I use a
different acronym - "RTFM&UI!" - "Read The Friggin Manual & Understand
It!"]

        I called Allen again (I think he knows my voice at the first
"Hello" at this point), and he said SBBS reads this file only on
returning from an external program that must be configured in
SCFG -> External Programs. <whew!> I was a step closer.

        In the last few months I've developed an email relationship with
the author of the book "Dr. Batch File's Ultimate Collection", Ronny
Richardson [ Windcrest/McGraw-Hill, a great book IMHO ], and have learned,
and done, some amazing (to me) things from DOS batch files, so I realized
that I could create a batch file as an external program to deal with the
moduser.dat placement.

        That's the key, but it takes several other modifications for it
to work. And in retrospect, it seems so simple that I can only laugh at
