-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hey, I think I captured your attention! Please, read this short document before you run the program. And xcuse my English... i was kidnapped by the aliens last sunday, and they dumped my knowledges about languages into their bionic computer (it became something called "MS windows'95 compatible", commiting suicide after a few microseconds). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WHAT HAVE YOU GOT IN YOUR HANDS? This is my first version of Rwanda's Spellbook, a text-file oriented data base which allows you to surf between the ASCII versions of the Great Net Spell Book and the Great Net Prayer Book... so you will need those files in order to take any profit! Download them if you haven't do it before from http://onyx.arts.kuleuven.ac.be/~ezra/gnb.html It's not difficult to arrive there throught yahoo: http://yahoo.com Recreation Role playing games AD&D Net books Great Net Spell Book The program allows you to perform searchs, sorting of spells, write Adv*nc*d D*ng**ns and Dr*g*ns spellbooks, write the spells to disk or to the printer and lot of more options you'll discover by yourself. Consider this text like a little introduction, and e-mail (o mail) me if you've any question. I'll looking forward for suggestions and comments! Really! Just do it. LEGAL NEWS: To the hell with the legal news! This is true-freeware, so make with the program whatever you want. But consult the copyrights of the GNSP and GNPB before anything... I have no rights about them. If you're interested in the source code, just write me a note. It's full of nice text oriented routines and a complete double linked list unit. It would be nice if you *DON'T CHANGE* the credits file... if it's not to correct misspelling errors! (especially if you are a being of salva's race ;) -just kidding- FIRST STEP: You should do a minor modification of the LEV_0.TXT file (GNSB): add a return before the Arousal cantrip. Trust on me. NOTE: the program will not recognize that spells or prayers without any school defined between brackets after it's name. I'm sorry, it was necessary to keep an accurate spell's name indexing. You need to make a directory in which you'll put the net books. Copy directly the GNSB to it, and run CONVERT over the GNPB in order to transform the format of the book so the program can manage it. Convert is a dangerous tool (I haven't test it enought) so make a backup of your files. I assume you're in the root directory, and you've my program in BOOK\ and the net books in GNSB\ and GNPB\ CD book MD source MOVE C:\GNSB\*.* source\ CONVERT C:\GNPB\pr.txt source\ Now you should have eleven wizard's spell files and eight priest's spell files in SOURCE\. Note: cantrips are in LEV_0.TXT and the Quest Spells're in PR_8.TXT. It's time to update (or create) SPELL.INI file, a text file with the info about some enviroment variables. So take your favourite text editor... The file should have this appearance: INDEX = C:\BOOK\IDX\ SPELLS = C:\BOOK\SOURCE\ PRINTER = STANDARD MAGICRATE = 100 Let's see again the second line: it's the driver letter + the program directory + the text files directory. This info is essential, so take a second watch over it. By the way, only EPSON and STANDARD printers are supported. I'd add more devices if you could send me some tech information, like control codes and so. Lastly, you must to index the source files. I assume you're in C:\BOOK\, so type this instructions: MD idx (* Look at the ini file! *) INDEX wizard (* Creates the wizard's spells index *) INDEX priest /priest (* Creates the priest's spells index *) INDEX will take INDEX variable info from the SPELL.INI file, and will put the index records on this directory. Now you should got two files in the BOOK\IDX\ directory, one for each database. This is the great moment, run the main program (RSBOOK) and choose the Files options. Choose Load, and type "wizard" or "priest". Play some time with the options and enjoy. Then return here! HOW TO MERGE IDX FILES: Just use the old good COPY command. By instance, if you wanna to mix priest.idx and wizard.idx in one big idx file, try with: COPY /B priest.idx+wizard.idx power.idx Don't forget the /B parameter, or you'll be in problems. WHAT IS A TAGGED OPTION: If you press enter over a spell name, it will become 'tagged' (or 'untagged'if it already was). Some functions, like purge, considers only tagged spells. OPTIONS OF THE PROGRAM: FILE has three options: load (put a idx file in memory), save (reverse operation) and credits (please, execute it before do anything else). MARK allows you to perform search throught the memory allocated info, (name, level and schools of each spell). First you must decide the action that will be performed on every spell which match the request (tag, untag or switch) and after which field will be scanned seeking the info. By example: - Mark Names Vylja - will tag all items with "Vylja" substring in their names. SEARCH The program will ask you for a name, and it will light the next spell which its name matchs the given pattern. READ will show the full description of the currently lighted spell. You can then jump to the next spell or directly to the next tagged spell. WRITE Is useful if you want to print (or to write in disk) the spells. If you choose Names you will have a line-oriented lists with the names of the spells, their levels and their schools. Full information will be reported if you choose the Description function. PURGE Will delete all the untagged spells. Be careful with this option... TOOLS In fact, they are some misc options that will be explained in the next lines. Be patient... these are slow or VERY SLOOOWW options: GREP : Allows you to perform searchs through the DESCRIPTIONS of the spells. Multiple keys can be provided if you separate them with commas. WRITE SPELLBOOK : You can write automatically spellbooks! This function will work right only with wizard's spells, and will provide a complete book. The MAGICRATE enviroment variable (see spell.ini) marks how many spells will be writted by level. The normal value should be 100, but if you are in a heavy-magic campaign you can specify 200 or even 500 in order to increase the spells by level. You should add by yourself some copyrighted spells, like Dispel/Read/Detect magic, Indentify and if you wizard is an evocationalist, fireball. SORT : You can sort again the spells by name or by level with this option. BYE And you will return to the boring DOS, the boring real life... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Be free to investigate by yourself. The program've what I think are nice and powerful options, but perhaps I will release a second version if you ask me enought for it... $10 will make your wishes reality (6000 code lines without remuneration aren't a simple thing!). Constructive critics, remarks, comments, etc are VERY ENCOURAGED. Some new features could be a compressed data handling, graphic interface, on-line help facility and more efficient (read: FASTER) routines! You can find me in EI47610661@EST.FIB.UPC.ES (in school time only) or in c/Rovellat n§5 atc 4¦, 08950 Esplugues de Ll. - Barcelona, SPAIN. I'm quite often in IRC, too. Make "/Whois Segador" in order to know if I'm present. Bye. JAVI.