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Read Local LAN News of the Day Sample Script 

Keywords: 	  read news
This script was donated by Paul Howe at Northwest Airlines.

It's a newsreader for news on their local LAN, and looks in their registry under a key they custom create under HKCU\Software\NWA (stands for NW Airlines).

Maybe it'll prove useful to someone else along the way... 

; News of the Day program
; Paul Howe, Northwest Airlines, Inc.

; Display "News of the Day" message the current user has not yet seen.
; Store registry key to hold the date stamp of the last news item seen.

; Program has two modes:
;	News of the Day - run from login script and displays any news items
;                     not yet seen the by the current user.
;   News History    - allows the user to browse past news items
;                     they can view or print the news items

; Constants

NewsPath="C:\temp\"		; defaults, set in ParseParams
NewsFiles="*.txt"

cAppTitle="NWA LAN - News of the Day v1.0"
cNewsOfTheDay=1
cNewsHistory=2

NewsKey="software\nwa\LanNews"						; our key
NewsReadValue="software\nwa\LanNews[LastRead]"		; our value
OldDateStamp="1990:01:01:00:00:01"					; a very old date

Gosub ParseParams									; read command line, setup defaults, set viewing mode

If NewsMode == cNewsOfTheDay then
	Gosub NewsOfTheDay								; new news only
Else
	GoSub NewsHistory								; let the user pick news items to view/print
Endif
Exit

; ******************************************************************

:NewsOfTheDay

; Display all new news items.

; Is the registry setup?
If !RegExistValue(@RegCurrent,NewsReadValue) then
	Ok=RegCreateKey(@RegCurrent,NewsKey)
	Ok=RegSetValue(@RegCurrent,NewsReadValue,OldDateStamp)
endif

Gosub CreateNewsList

;	Date/Time in YmdHms of last news item read
NewsLastRead=RegQueryValue(@RegCurrent,NewsReadValue)

ONCANCEL="NewsOfTheDaySkip"

For i= 1 to ItemCount(FileTimeList,@Tab)
	FileTimeItem=ItemExtract(i,FileTimeList,@tab)
	Timestamp=ItemExtract(1,FileTimeItem," ")		; the TimeStamp
	Offset=ItemExtract(2,FileTimeItem," ")			; the offset in original list

	; Is the file newer than the last news item read?

	If TimeDiffSecs(TimeStamp,NewsLastRead) > 0 then
		; yes, display the file...
		NewsFile=StrCat(NewsPath,ItemExtract(Offset,NewsFileList,@tab))
		; set AskFileText window a little smaller than display - nearly full screen
		IntControl(63, 10,10,900,900)
		a=AskFileText(Strcat(cAppTitle," ",NewsFile," ",TimeStamp), NewsFile, @UnSorted, @Single)
		IntControl(63,0,0,0,0)
		; update registry with new timestamp
		Ok=RegSetValue(@RegCurrent,NewsReadValue,TimeStamp)
	Endif
Next I

:NewsOfTheDaySkip
Return

; *******************************************************************************************************

:NewsHistory

; Let the user select news items to be viewed or printed

cExit=2		; exit dialog
cDisplay=1	; display button
cPrint=3	; print button

Gosub CreateNewsList
;
MasterList = "       Date     Index                        Description%@Tab%"
For i= 1 to ItemCount(FileTimeList,@Tab)
	FileTimeItem=ItemExtract(i,FileTimeList,@tab)
	Timestamp=ItemExtract(1,FileTimeItem," ")		; the TimeStamp
	Timestamp=StrReplace(StrSub(Timestamp,1,10),":","/")
	Offset=ItemExtract(2,FileTimeItem," ")			; the offset in original list
	FileName=ItemExtract(Offset,NewsFileList,@Tab)
	
	; Get first line in file as title text
	Fptr=FileOpen(StrCat(NewsPath,FileName),"Read")
	FirstLine=FileRead(Fptr)					   
	FileClose(Fptr)

	sOffSet=StrFix(Offset," ",4)
	MasterList = StrCat(MasterList,TimeStamp," ",sOffSet,"   ",StrSub(FirstLine,1,50),@Tab)
Next I

NewsFormat=`WWWDLGED,5.0`

; Setup static dialog box items
NewsCaption=cAppTitle
NewsX=103
NewsY=44
NewsWidth=268
NewsHeight=200
NewsNumControls=7

News01=`4,4,60,DEFAULT,STATICTEXT,DEFAULT,"Historical News Display"`
News02=`8,178,38,DEFAULT,PUSHBUTTON,DEFAULT,"&Display",1`
News03=`210,178,38,DEFAULT,PUSHBUTTON,DEFAULT,"E&xit",2`
News04=`52,178,38,DEFAULT,PUSHBUTTON,DEFAULT,"&Print",3`
News05=`8,20,116,DEFAULT,STATICTEXT,DEFAULT,"Please select the news items you what to read."`
News06=`8,30,116,DEFAULT,STATICTEXT,DEFAULT,"You may select more than one item."`

Done=@False
ONCANCEL="HistNewsSkip"

While !Done
	; need to recreate the LIST variable after each call to Dialog
	; as LIST will return the (smaller) list of items selected.
	List=MasterList
	News07=`6,44,252,132,ITEMBOX,List,DEFAULT`
	ButtonPushed=Dialog("News")
	
	Select ButtonPushed
		Case cPrint
			NewsOutput=cPrint
			Gosub DisplayPrintNews
			Break
		Case cDisplay
			NewsOutput=cDisplay
			Gosub DisplayPrintNews
			Break
		Case cExit
			Done=@True
			Break
	EndSelect
EndWhile

:HistNewsSkip
Return

; *******************************************************************************************************

:DisplayPrintNews

; display or print the news items selected in NewsHistory routine
ONCANCEL="DisplayPrintNewsSkip"

For i = 1 to ItemCount(List,@tab)
	CurNewsItem=ItemExtract(i,List,@tab)
	Offset=ItemExtract(2,CurNewsItem," ")
	If IsNumber(Offset) then
		NewsFileName=ItemExtract(Offset,NewsFileList,@Tab)
		NewsFileNamePath=StrCat(NewsPath,NewsFileName)
		If NewsOutput == cDisplay then
			IntControl(63, 10,10,900,900)
			IntControl (49, 2, 1, 0, 0)
			a=AskFileText(Strcat(cAppTitle," ",NewsFileName," ",TimeStamp), NewsFileNamePath, @UnSorted, @Single)
			IntControl(63, 0,0,0,0)
		Endif
		If NewsOutput == cPrint then
			; print the file using the default print program for the file extension
			a=Print(NewsFileNamePath,"",@Hidden,@NoWait)
		Endif
			
	Endif
Next I

:DisplayPrintNewsSkip
Return
; *******************************************************************************************************

:Cancel
Goto %onCancel%


; *******************************************************************************************************
:CreateNewsList
;	Get a list of news files, sort them by file date/time
;	Two lists are created,
;		NewsFileList contains the file information
;		FileTimeList list contains the file date/time and an offset to the NewsFileList
;			         we can then sort FileTimeList, and use the offset to find the original filename

FileTimeList=""
NewsFileList = FileItemize(StrCat(NewsPath,NewsFiles))

; for each filename get its date/time stamp. Build a list.
; since we will sort this list on date/time, we need a pointer back
; to the origrinal file's offset in the list.  The FileTimeList
; is formated
;     timestamp  offset  @tab
;     timestamp2 offset2 @tab

; we can then use ItemExtract with a space delimiter to get the original offset.

For i = 1 to ItemCount(NewsFileList,@tab)
	Ftime=FileYmdHms(StrCat(NewsPath,ItemExtract(i,NewsFileList,@Tab)))
	FileTimelist=StrCat(fTime," ",i,@tab,FileTimeList)
Next i

;	Sort the list by Date/Time

FileTimeList=ItemSort(FileTimeList,@tab)

Return

; *******************************************************************************************************

:ParseParams

; Decide what command line parameters were passed

;	Calling format:  News.exe /? /hist /news /path:path_to_news
;		/?    - display help screen
;		/Hist - History mode
;		/News - News of the day mode (default)
;       /Path - path to news items, (default=Program path)
;
ParamError = @False
; default options are
;	/News  
;	/Path:curdirectory

NewsMode=cNewsOfTheDay
NewsPath=DirGet ( )

If Param0 != 0 then
	; parse parameters
	Msg="The following errors were found on the command line:%@crlf%%@Crlf%"
	For i = 1 to Param0
		CurSwitch=StrUpper(StrSub(Param%i%,1,5))
		If CurSwitch == "/HIST" then
			NewsMode=cNewsHistory
		endif
		If CurSwitch == "/NEWS" then
			NewsMode=cNewsOfTheDay
		Endif
		If CurSwitch == "/PATH" then
			n = StrIndex(Param%i%,":",1,@FwdScan)
			NewsPath=StrSub(Param%i%,n+1,StrLen(Param%i%)-n)
			If StrLen(NewsPath) == 0 then
				Msg=StrCat(Msg,"Missing news file path on /PATH:path_to_news option",@crlf)
				ParamError=@True
			Else
				IF !DirExist(NewsPath) then
					Msg=StrCat(Msg,"Can not locate news path specified in ",Param%i%," option",@crlf)
					ParamError=@True
				Endif
				If StrSub(NewsPath,StrLen(NewsPath),1) != "\" then
					NewsPath=StrCat(NewsPath,"\")
				Endif
			Endif
		Endif
		If Param%i% == "/?" || Param%i% == "-?" then
			Msg="News of the Day v1.0%@crlf%%@crlf%"
			Msg=StrCat(Msg,"This is a News of the day program used to display news items",@Crlf)
			Msg=StrCat(Msg,"to LAN users.  News items consist of ASCII text files.",@crlf,@crlf)
			Msg=StrCat(Msg,"Command line options:",@crlf,@crlf)
			Msg=StrCat(Msg,"  /?    - this help screen",@crlf,@crlf)
			Msg=StrCat(Msg,"  /HIST - history mode - display list of past and future news items",@crlf)
			Msg=StrCat(Msg,"          for the user to read.",@crlf,@crlf)
			Msg=StrCat(Msg,"  /News - News mode - display only those news items the user has not",@crlf)
			Msg=StrCat(Msg,"          yet read.  Last read date is stored in the Current users",@crlf)
			Msg=StrCat(Msg,"          registry at HKCU\SOFTWARE\NWA\LANNews.",@crlf,@crlf)
			Msg=StrCat(Msg,"  /Path:path_to_news - path to directory containing news text files.",@crlf)
			Msg=StrCat(Msg,"          This allows custom news folders for differnt user groups.",@crlf)
			Msg=StrCat(Msg,"          Default path is current application directory.",@crlf)
			ParamError=@True
		endif
	Next i
	If ParamError then
		Message(cAppTitle,Msg)
		Exit
	Endif
Endif
Return



Article ID:   W14958