WRITEUP LIBRARY by Gordon Schmitt Academic Computer Services St. Cloud State University St. Cloud, MN 56301 gordie@msus1 gordie%tigger.decnet@msus1.msus.edu CREDITS Many parts of the main command procedure originated from the NEWS Utility v2.0, 1986, written by J F Lawrence. It was a DECUS submission a few years ago. DISCLAIMER This software is provided "as is" and St. Cloud State University provides no warranties of any kind. You may copy and distribute this program as long as this title page remains intact. This utility is used to maintain an online WRITEUP library(s) on our systems. Of course this is something that should be done in a high level language, but it didn't happen that way, the next version perhaps. We use it for two libraries, one for the staff and the other for the users. There is a privileged mode which allows selected users, via a rights identifier, to create, modify, add, delete entries and topics. Topics are origanized using subdirectories where the directory name is the topic. Each entry has a description which can be searched to find a desired writeup in the library. The user can read the documents online or have them printed. The setup involves placing these files in a directory, creating your topic directories someplace, defining some logicals and symbols, and some customizing of WRITEUP.COM. If you want your topics to be in a certain order then what will help is to use an outline prefix in your directory names, e.g. A-, AA-, AAA-, B-, or something like this. Once you have decided on directory/topic names and have added documents, be careful about changing the directory name. The locations and filenames of the documents is stored in a file NEWSDIR.DAT and WRITEUP will not find the documents if the directory name is changed. It can be done but you will essentially have to reenter the files into the new topic all over again. This utility uses the LIST utility that is from an earlier DECUS submission by Jon Pinkley. It is a very useful utility for more complicated file searching and I've included it in this submission because WRITEUP.COM uses it too. Edit WRITEUP.COM and change the symbols PROGRAM_DIR, S_U, and maybe EDIT. Initializing the WRITEUP library at boottime improves the performance a great deal. This is done by; $SUBMIT/NOLOG/NOPRINT/PARAMETER("WRITEUP$USERSROOT","I") WRITEUP$DIR:WRITEUP This defines the topic directories as system logicals. Below an example of our symbols. WRITEUP == "@writeup$dir:writeup writeup$usersroot" There are two ways of being a privileged user. One is to have SYSPRV and the other is to have an identifier named STAFFWRITEUP. When using the identifier method then the files and directory need to also use ACLs for it to work correctly, here is what we use; SOFTWARE-AVAILABLE-ON-UNISYS.DIR;1 [11,0] (RWE,RWE,R,RE) (IDENTIFIER=STAFFWRITEUP,OPTIONS=DEFAULT,ACCESS=READ+WRITE+EXECUTE+DELETE) (IDENTIFIER=STAFFWRITEUP,ACCESS=READ+WRITE+EXECUTE) (DEFAULT_PROTECTION,SYSTEM:RWED,OWNER:RWED,GROUP:,WORLD:RE,OPTIONS=DEFAULT) RESEARCH_PROJ.ASC;2 [11,0] (RWED,RWE,RE,RE) (IDENTIFIER=STAFFWRITEUP,ACCESS=READ+WRITE+EXECUTE+DELETE) (DEFAULT_PROTECTION,SYSTEM:RWED,OWNER:RWED,GROUP:,WORLD:RE) This is what the beginning of the utility looks like, all topics are seen from the top level; This is Academic Computer Service's help utility. With this utility, you can view and/or print help documents called "WRITEUPS". Check the MASTERLIST (print it out) to see what writeups exist and under which topics they are located. The following outline shows what help TOPICS are available TOPIC MENU 1. ACS-POLICIES 2. ACS-PROCEDURES 3. AVAILABLE-SOFTWARE-ON-VAX-NETWORK 4. EMAIL-AND-COMMUNICATIONS 5. LANGUAGES-RELEASE-NOTES 6. LANGUAGES 7. STATISTICS 8. UTILITIES-AND-PROCEDURES 9. VARIOUS-OTHER-APPLICATIONS 10. DATABASES-AND-DATAFILES-AVAILABLE 11. HARDWARE 12. MAINTENANCE 13. MICROCOMPUTERS 14. SOFTWARE 15. UTILITIES 16. VARIOUS-OTHER <>, Enter number or RETURN to list more topics: 17. SOFTWARE-AVAILABLE-ON-UNISYS 18. VARIOUS-OTHER-SYSTEMS-AND-SOFTWARE Enter> Topic-#, Exit, M(see/print writeup Masterlist) S(Search masterlist): 8 Writeups for topic: 8.UTILITIES-AND-PROCEDURES Item Description Lines Last Change ---- -------------------------------------------------- ----- ----------- 1 Commands/Symbols Defined at Login & Their Meanings 258 17-OCT-1990 2 Hands-on, Consultants Seminar 953 4-NOV-1987 3 How to Backup File(s) to Floppy Diskette 80 20-JUL-1989 4 How to Run UNISYS Programs Via VMS(TIGGER) 101 15-OCT-1990 5 How to Use VAX/VMS DCL (Digital Control Language) 407 20-JUL-1990 6 How to use BATCH Utility on VAX/VMS 60 7-SEP-1989 7 How to use BATCH2 Utility on VAX/VMS 111 20-SEP-1989 8 Hsprint, quick way to get hardcopy of a WRITEUP 55 15-SEP-1989 9 LIST, a File TYPEing/SEARCHing/Formatting Utility 885 17-APR-1989 10 Online WRITEUP Documentation 46 28-MAR-1990 11 PHOTO, terminal input/output saving utility 31 14-SEP-1989 12 SORTing Files on VAX/VMS 55 28-JUN-1989 13 TPUEVE, full screen editor for VMS 84 7-FEB-1990 14 Using EDT Editor on VAX/VMS 62 20-JUL-1990 15 Using Full Screen Editor on VAX/VMS 325 21-MAR-1989 16 VAX Logon Procedure via Terminal Server(in BEEHIVE 49 17-AUG-1989 17 VAX/VMS Commands, DCL and EDT(Editor) 283 20-JUL-1989 C(Create) D(Delete) E(Exit) M(Modify) P(Print) R(Read) T(TOPICS) W(80/132): One additional note worth mentioning about the DESCRIPTION fields. They are listed in alphabetic order,i.e. sort of. Characters are alphabetized according to their ascii value. Therefore, all capital letters come before any lowercase letters, e.g. "Z" is before "a". So it is suggested to either enter it as all capital letters or at least some agreed upon convention. The program could easily be modified to convert everything to uppercase automatically but this has not been done.