  |
 || UPLMSG.PEX v1.0
||| "Upload a message" option add-on for Proboard v2.00
 || Copyright (C) 1994  David L. Nugent & Unique Computing Pty Ltd
  |


UPLMSG provides a way for users to upload messages and posting them
into the message base.  All types of message base formats are supported
(Proboard itself does the posting), and any of the upload protocols
selectable from the 'Upload file' prompt are available.

The style used in writing UPLMSG was intentionally kept close to that
used by Proboard for normal message posting. UPLMSG supports all forms
of mail available in proboard, alias names, anonymous areas, private
mail, echomail areas etc.


INSTALLATION

UPLMSG is very straight-forward to install.  Place it into a menu
of your choice (probably the MESSAGE menu) make it a type 60 ("Run
Proboard SDK File") and use the following in the data field:

  UPLMSG @<CurMsgArea#>@

Copy UPLMSG.PEX into the 'pex' directory defined in Proboards config.

That's it!


SECURITY

Security is always a concern in any Bulletin board system. It is
possible that a remote user may attempt to 'hack' into your system
using any means possible, so to this end UPLMSG does take a 
conservative approach and will not allow just 'any' file to be
posted as a message.  After receiving the file, UPLMSG does some
basic santity checking on the file prior posting; it ensures that
no 'illegal' control characters are found in the file (basically
any control chars below ASCII 32 - space - which are not used for
text controls), and that the file being posted is less than 32K.
Should the file be too large or illegal characters found, UPLMSG
will reject (and delete) the file uploaded and will inform the
user of the failure and why.

UPLMSG *does* allow posting of messages with so-called extended
(8-bit) ASCII which are necessary in many non-English speaking
countries.  However, it cannot be used to post ANSI pictures,
since the ESC character is one of the 'illegal' ones. This
ommission is intentional - messages containing ANSI graphics 
made by a malicious user can potentially do damage to the less-
security conscious reader.  If requested, this may be made an 
option in a later version - if you need this, just ask.


BUGS/TODO

Proboard currently does not provide any interface to it's nodelist
index to the PEX programmer, and short of writing my own nodelist
index routines (for one function? you must be kidding!) there is
no way that UPLMSG can currently support nodelist browsing, lookup
and costing. This is a shame, and I hope Philippe updates the PEX
API to fill this large gap in a future version of Proboard.

Consequently, entering a '?' in an address at the "Node Address:"
prompt in a netmail area will not invoke address browsing as the
prompts indicate.  When/if the PEX API is updated, or whenever I
find out how NODE_IDX.PRO is structured, UPLMSG will be updated
accordingly.

Another shortfall is that prompts within UPLMSG are not configurable.
Again, the SDK lacks any multi-language support or the ability to
access and/or use any language strings nor define new ones. Hopefully
this too will eventually be provided.

Also, note that if you use netmail costing in any way, then UPLMSG
represents a 'security hole' since it currently assumes that all
netmail is free.  [Soapbox on :-)]  To be honest, I don't know why
anyone would consider charging for netmail in FidoNet anyway, since
it is, in general, far LESS expensive overall than the alternative
of encouraging users to post private responses into echomail
conferences.  The option to charge for netmail made sense once, 
when FidoNet was small and individual operators did pay to send
netmail long distance on their own personal dime, but this has not
been the case for some time except in special circumstances, and
where a hub system decides to route for his/her downlinks. Since
echomail costs the network effectively MORE than netmail replies,
encourage your users to use it by NOT charging for it and making
it freely accessible to them!


CONTACTING THE AUTHOR

  david nugent
  Snail Mail: c/o Unique Computing Pty Ltd
              PO Box 352
              Doveton, Victoria, Aust  3177
     FidoNet: 3:632/348@fidonet
    InterNet: davidn@csource.oz.au
              davidn@csource.pronet.com


REDISTRIBUTION

This file is part of the 'PEXPAK' distribution and must not be
distributed separately. Terms and conditions of redistribution
and use of this software are covered in the license agreement
in LICENSE.TXT which accompanies the PEXPAK suite of programs.


