Menu maker
Tools - Automated Menu Maker Tool
The included program "menu maker" is a self-contained utility used to automatically create command menus for each access level on the system.
To use "menu maker", first boot the "+shell" program to install the Color 64 ML. Then load and run the "menu maker" program. If you have just shut down your BBS, you may also load and run "menu maker" without first running "+shell", since the ML will still be resident in memory.
When the program runs, it loads the "√bbs.parms" file in order to determine the access level associated with each command.
The DATA statements located at lines 40000–40043 contain the text descriptions for each command number. Any entries marked "**UNUSED**" are ignored when the menus are created, since they correspond to parameters that are not actual commands.
You may change these descriptions as desired; however, only the first 15 characters of each description are used. This limitation ensures that the menu formatting remains consistent.
Lines 20035–20050 contain the header used for the generated menus. The current header text is generic and can be modified to whatever you prefer.
The menus are designed to display correctly in both 40-column and 80-column modes. Each command entry consists of the command character and description totaling 20 characters, which allows two entries per line in 40-column mode.
Example of the menu display in 40 columns (an F5 color code precedes each description, causing it to cycle through the system colors):
[R] Read Msgs [@] Post Office [L] Caller Log [M] Membership List
The menu maker uses a Variable MCI for each command character inside the brackets. This means that if you later change a command character in SETUP (without changing the access level), the menu files will automatically reflect the new command character. In that case, it is not necessary to run the menu maker program again.
The generated menu files also include MCIs that print the current time and date, which helps reduce overall program space requirements.