PCBoard uses several display files and hundreds of text records (PCBTEXT) to display information to the caller of the system. Each of these display files and nearly all of the text records can be modified to your liking.

Without a doubt, you will spend a large amount of your time customizing your bulletin board system to suit your needs and to help differentiate your system from the other bulletin board systems. This section describes some of the ways you can customize the look and feel of your system.

To help enhance the presentation of your display files, PCBoard will allow you to create graphic specific versions of all of your display files by adding a G to the end of the filename to be displayed. For example, if you use a file called WELCOME and you want to create a graphics specific version of the file, create a file called WELCOMEG. These graphic specific files are usually created using either ANSI codes or @X color codes. There are several ANSI screen and @X editors such as PCBEdit (included with PCBoard). Simply use the editor program to create your file and save the file using ANSI or @X codes.

Despite the fact that you can create graphic specific files, you may not want to create both a non-graphic and graphic version of the same file. With the @X code format, PCBoard can analyze the file and will omit the color information in the file if the caller is not in graphics mode. By making just one version of the file, you can save a lot of maintenance time and probably a significant amount of disk space.

Because most of the text that PCBoard displays comes from the PCBTEXT file (for each language) you can put a great deal of time into customizing the PCBTEXT records.

Each PCBTEXT record varies in length up to 79 characters. There are nearly 700 records in the PCBTEXT file that you may customize to fit your own needs.

To edit the PCBTEXT file, use a utility called MKPCBTXT.EXE which is included with your package. This utility will enable you to edit each record in the PCBTEXT file to say whatever you want it to display.

If you browse through the various records, you may notice what appears to be duplicate records which contain the same text. One record is displayed to the user when they are in novice mode, and the other record is displayed when the user is in expert mode. The best way to determine which is which is by trial and error – there is no set method.

To increase the flexibility of each PCBTEXT record, there are some special characters you can use at the beginning of a line to signify you would like to do something other than display the record text.

For example, if you begin a record with a % followed by a filename, PCBoard will display the filename instead. This enables you to break the record length limit in case you need to display additional text. The screen on the following page is a sample record showing you what it would look like to display a filename instead:

You can also elect to execute a menu rather than displaying a particular record. This can be done by starting the line with a $ followed by the MNU file that you wish to use for your menu.

If you have a PPE file that you wish to execute in place of a normal record you may do so by beginning the record with an ! followed by the filename of the PPE to execute.

NOTE: There are some records that are built by PCBoard on the fly and therefore cannot use the %, $, or ! characters as the first line. A good example would be record #609 in the PCBTEXT file which displays the credits that are rewarded to a user after uploading. PCBoard replaces the 0 in that record with the appropriate values, hence it builds the record before displaying it to a user. If you use %, $, or ! as the first character, it will be ignored.

For more information on MKPCBTXT, refer to the Utilities chapter of this manual.

Perhaps the greatest way to customize how your bulletin board system operates is to use PPE files. You can use PPE files in the following places:

In a PCBTEXT record as described in the previous section

In place of a standard script questionnaire file simply by specifying the filename of the PPE (including the PPE extension) in SCRIPT.LST.

In place of any menu display file (BRDM, CNFN, DIR, BLT, etc.) by creating a PPE file using the base name. For example to execute a PPE file instead of displaying the normal menu, create a file called BRDM.PPE in the same location as BRDM.

Within any display file by beginning a line (column 1) with an ! followed by the filename of the PPE to execute.

From a menu selection as defined in a MNU file.

A PPE (PCBoard Programming Executable) file is simply the compiled version of a PPL file. In order to compile your own PPE file you will need to purchase the PPL Compiler which is an optional add-on to your PCBoard software. If you have any background in BASIC or batch file programming, you should be able to easily understand the PPL language.

PCBoard uses standard text files for its context sensitive help system.
Therefore, you may modify the files that make up the help system to suit your needs. Your help files will be located in the directory you specified in the Location of Help Files (PCBSetup | File Locations | System Files). The following lists the help files names that are included with PCBoard and a description of the command or function that they provide assistance with.