How to use ANSI art for your BBS

[Raybdbomb]

It's been awhile since I contributed anything useful to this forum, so I thought I'd do something that I know about: How to use/edit ANSI images on your board.



Everyone's board looks the same recently; stock logon screen with stock menus, plain boring Jane. Nice looking menus are easily available, quick to add and edit, and gives your board an enticing, professional feel.



Download an ANSI file, from http://ansiart.org.ua/, or http://acid.org, or some other site containing ANSI images.





Put the file in your Worldgroup directory



Two places you'll want to add it: either on a textblock or menu.



TextBlock

I used "HELLO" for an example, but you can do it for any of the textblocks.



Open Start> All Programs> Worldgroup Server (Common)> Utilities> Edit Text Blocks



Go into Core Text Blocks

Go to HELLO: Greeting message when user first connects to Worldgroup

Click WGSDRAW



Type ALT-L, then type in the filename of the ANSI file



Make sure to re-add your system variables (ALT-V)

If you don't can't figure out how to add them, you can copy and paste from the textblock window.

And check out the Help for WGSDRAW (ALT-H)



Then ALT-S to save once finished, with the name "CNF00000.ans", then Escape to exit.



Save and exit the Worldgroup Text Blocks. Start up the BBS and see it in action:





Menu

Save the ansi file from above as TOP.ANS

Select "Edit the way this menu looks?": Yes (type Y)



Select TOP.ANS

Edit it, adding your menu items.



ALT-S to save, then exit WGSDRAW and exit WGSRUNMT.



Start up the BBS and see it in action





Sure it looks kind of ugly, but the potential is there for some good looking ANSIs. And of course, tweak to your heart's desire

[hybrid]

that's a nice info to know..someone make it sticky..grin

[Raybdbomb]

Ah shoot i meant to include TheDraw and talk about it...

[iNViSiGOD]

Good job ray, people who own BBS's need to know how to customize their setup.

[DeathCow]

Personally I'd rather the plain jane over the ansi art.