Digital Man wrote to Gamgee <=-
I was recently battling with the display of "pipe code" colors in messages (over on FSXnet). I wasn't seeing them in the messages while reading on the BBS. Long story short - I didn't have them enabled properly due to some confusion (at least on my part) about how that was done.
In each and every sub-board in a given FTN, under Toggle Options, is the menu choice for Extra Attribute Codes, where you can enable/disable different BBS color display codes. I had those enabled but was not seeing colors (just saw the raw pipe codes). Others said things worked fine on their system.
I was wondering if it had anything to do with DDMsgReader, which I was using, but others said they used it and all was fine. Discussed in IRC with Nightfox and he suggested I try disabling DDMR and use stock SBBS message reader. When I did that, I was able to see the colors as expected, so that seemed to point to an issue with DDMR... However, I eventually stumbled onto an additional place to configure these Extra Attribute Codes, which is under the System menu on the opening screen of SCFG. When I enabled the extra codes there, and resumed using DDMR, the colors worked fine.
Sounds like DDMR is using the wrong setting flags: https://gitlab.synchro.net/main/sbbs/-/commit/da9485cf0e62b
Ahhhhh....! Look at that. Exactly right.
So... it's clear that DDMR only pays attention to that setting, and not the individual message area toggles. I realize that isn't your problem, and perhaps DDMR can be tweaked to pay attention to both, or something.
DDMR should *only* use the per sub-board setting for SBBS v3.21 and
later.
Yes, I see that now that I'm aware of that recent commit.
My real point here (finally getting to it!) is that I'm wondering why the setting is in two different places. I'm thinking maybe the "global" one in the System menu enables it for any/all message areas, and then a Sysop could fine tune that by disabling the color codes for individual message areas or FTNs. I guess that makes a little sense but would seem to be an unlikely configuration. Maybe I'm the first one to be confused by this arrangement, but honestly it is indeed confusing to me at least.
Could you explain the logic for the two places to set this, and how they interact? Thank you, it is greatly appreciated.
The "Global" extra attribute setting is for display files (and strings
in Baja modules), while the per sub-board settings are for messages
posted to those sub-boards. I thought the name of the options made the distinction clear: System->"Extra Attribute Codes in Display Files" Sub-board->Toggle Options->"Extra Attribute Codes in Messages"
You're absolutely right - I missed the complete title in the pop-up
windows for each, just noticed the menu choices that both say "Extra
Attribute Codes...". Perfectly clear now.
The online help for those settings could go into more detail about them
I suppose.
Probably no need, and thank you for the excellent explanation.
I'm assuming Nightfox will notice this, and take appropriate steps. :-)
Thank you again, and thanks in advance to Nightfox!!
... Gone crazy, be back later, please leave message.
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