So I'm having some more trouble with ansimrd.ans, but this time specifically with the MCI codes used to display various fields therein. After slamming my head against the desk repeatedly for forgetting to remove the spacing in the original ansi and then wondering why everything looked so fucked up, I went back and removed all extraneous spaces and let pipe codes do the work. Bam. Problem solved.

However, I noticed a new problem: some of the control codes seemingly aren't being recognized.

Specifically: The codes for To, From, Message Base, and Subject all return valid and correct values, but the codes for Date and Time (&4 and &0) just print out their codes, as though the entire pipe code sequence went unrecognized. Same for the In Reply to code (&7). The codes for # of # only half work -- the first returns just a blank space, while the latter returns
the correct value (i.e. the number of messages in that base). See Also also returns blank, although honestly I don't think I've ever seen that field used and wonder if it's unimplemented.

All codes in question are properly prefix'd with a |, so I'm not sure why
some codes are returning proper values and others are not. Any ideas?

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 2019/03/03 (Windows/32)
* Origin: d i s t o r t i o n // d1st.org (46:1/145)

on 19 Sep 2019, Digital Avatar said...

So I'm having some more trouble with ansimrd.ans, but this time

...aaaaand disregard. Fun fact for anyone else who runs into this problem:
the trimming and padding functions used in conjunction with the MCI code
system is *very* unforgiving. It expects exactly 2 digits. No more, and more importantly, no less. So if you do something like, say, pipe $R4 pipe &4, Mystic will happily give you the finger and just print out the string '&4'.
If, OTOH, you use pipe $R04 pipe &4, you'll get the results you expect.

Just one of those fun little gotchas that's irritating as hell and par for
the course.

NOTE: Edited because Mystic dutifully converted the pipes into color codes. *sigh*

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 2019/03/03 (Windows/32)
* Origin: d i s t o r t i o n // d1st.org (46:1/145)

Hello Digital,

On Thu Sep 19 2019 17:14:44, Digital Avatar wrote to Digital Avatar:

...aaaaand disregard. Fun fact for anyone else who runs into this
problem: the trimming and padding functions used in conjunction with
the MCI code system is *very* unforgiving. It expects exactly 2
digits. No more, and more importantly, no less. So if you do something like, say, pipe $R4 pipe &4, Mystic will happily give you the finger
and just print out the string '&4'. If, OTOH, you use pipe $R04 pipe
&4, you'll get the results you expect.

Yep, it takes some getting used to, and there still a couple head scratchers I've had to deal with recently. For example, if you decide to do a screen (23-24 line ansi at least) for last callers, in the process of using pipe codes
at the end of the ansi for starting cursor placement, then somewhere in the strings editing some of those to just go to the next line, it would end up giving a pause prompt after the first node was displayed, and after hitting enter, would show the rest of the nodes in the correct places. I believe all it
took to remove that pause prompt was to add a PO MCI code in one of the strings
(as it was already at the top of the ansi, but didn't seem to be doing it's job).

NOTE: Edited because Mystic dutifully converted the pipes into color codes. *sigh*

HAHA!

Regards,
Nick

... "Friends help you move. Real friends help you move bodies."
--- GoldED+/LNX 1.1.5-b20181215
* Origin: thePharcyde_ distribution system (Wisconsin) (46:1/100)