Re: screen sizes
By: Justmike to All on Tue Feb 20 2024 05:58 pm
Hello I am a just getting started being a Sysop of a BBS. My BBS will cater tothe Tandy Color Computer users. With that there are a few different screen sizes to accomidate, 32x16, 64x32 and 80x24. Is there a way to configure Synchronet BBS to ask for the user's screen size and then display appropriate menus and / or graphics? If this information is already in the manual, I was not able to find it. If someone could point me to that area of the manual thatwould be great. If there isn't something already in the manual, is there a way? An addon? any assistance would be much apprecate.
If the terminal program supports ANSI, the screen dimensions should be auto-detected automatically by Synchronet (no "asking" the user is necessary).
If the terminal does not support ANSI but does support Telnet "Negotiate Window Size" commands, then the terminal dimensions can be communicated to the BBS's Telnet Server via Telnet commands (automatically).
That said, Synchronet will only allow terminal windows of at least 40 columns (a screen width less than 40 is considered "invalid" and effectively ignored):
File sbbsdefs.h:
#define TERM_COLS_MIN 40
You can change this value at compile time or if it's really important, we could lower this value in the source code. But the BBS experience for 40 column users is already barely acceptable, I don't think 32 columns would be very pleasant.
Each user already has the option to specify their terminal height and width manually in their user settings/defaults. Again, the minimum terminal width/columns is currently 40.
Several 40 column menus are already inculded with Synchronet.
And yes, you could add a few lines of JavaScript (e.g. to exec/login.js) to ask the user how many rows and columns they have on their console (for every login) and use their answers to set the console.screen_rows and console.screen_columns properties accordingly. Most users probably wouldn't like answering that question on every login and I certainly wouldn't do that for any ANSI terminal users.
--
digital man (rob)
Synchronet "Real Fact" #116:
Synchronet v1a r5 (for MS-DOS) was released on February 19, 1992
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