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LinuxTaRT - the definitive e-mail signature program for Linux
-------------------------------------------------------------
TaRT - The Automatic Random Tagline
-------------------------------------------------------------
Introduction:
As some of you may know, I first wrote TaRT in Borland Turbo Pascal for
MS-DOS. That version eventually became the TaRT II that many use in MS Windows
95/NT/98.
The 97-98 school year was my first year as a Comp. Sci. student at Acadia
University here in Nova Scotia. At the time I was already quite familiar
with the Linux OS, and I was pleased to see it being used as the platform in
which our course in C programming was taught.
As I got more and more into C programming, I began to use Linux much more than
I had before (mostly due to that fact that I finally had a PC with the space
and speed to run it in a comfortable way). Since I began to use Linux almost
exclusively, it seemed necessary that my e-mail here would also have my
standard TaRT signature appended. So I delved into my limited C vocabulary and
made much use of the Linux man pages for C functions. Finally I arraived at a
nicely working, fairly robust, version of TaRT for Linux (aka LinuxTaRT).
-----
Notes:
LinuxTaRT has undergone many significant changes since v1.00 - it now no
longer assumes that the file .tartrc is located in the same directory as TaRT
itself. It now looks for .tartrc in the directory pointed to by the $HOME
environment variable (i.e. the current user's home directory).
LinuxTaRT 2.00 also provides the ability to use completely customizable
signature layout via a definition file (explained below...)
LinuxTaRT 2.20 provides special date functionality (explained below...)
Another note for users of 1.05 or earlier, is that your current .tartrc file
will no longer work as it is, To fix this, simply add the text CustomText1=
CustomText2=, SignatureFile=, and TagLineDatabase= to the beginning of the
respective lines in the file (alternatively, you can run the new interactive
setup util, TaRT -s).
I changed the .tartrc file to this structure because I wanted to implement a
more reliable way of dealing with the settings. These modifications also allow
the entries to occur in any order, and make it easier to implement a built-in
setup util (again, see below).
The .tartrc file allows the use of comments by inserting a pound or
"hash" sign # in front of any text that you want to be a comment.
LinuxTaRT has fairly self-explanitory help accessable by using the --help or -h
command-line arguments.
Since TaRT checks for .tartrc in the users home directory, TaRT can be
placed in a user accessible folder like /usr/bin or /usr/local/bin.
Then an entry can be added to your .login file or crontab to frequently create
a new signature.
-----
Explaination of custom file:
By running TaRT with +cust it will create your signature based on the layout
in the file specified as your Custom Layout File in the setup. LinuxTaRT can
use custom files directly from TaRT II for MS Windows provided the DOS linefeeds
and CRs are converted to UNIX newlines.
As of 2.51, LinuxTaRT defaults to custom layout signature.
The following format strings are allowed:
%c1 all occurances will be replaced by text in Custom Text 1
%c2 same as above but Custom Text 2
%dt replaced with todays date
%ib the current time in Internet TimeBeats
%12 the current hour in 12-hour time (1 <= n <= 12)
%24 the current hour in 24-hour time (0 <= n <= 23)
%mn the current minute
%ap "AM" or "PM"
%hr horizontal line (64 chars in length)
%tg a randomly selected tagline from the database
If more than one occurance each will be randomly
chosen
%ut for systems that support has been written for, this
will be the uptime in hours for the system
%vi LinuxTaRT version info
Any plain text is directly copied to the signature file. Note that
using custom definitions voids the 64 char line limit; Plain text longer
than 64 chars is still copied to the signature file. Custom layouts
also do not support centering.
-----
Explaination of special dates:
New to version 2.20, LinuxTaRT provides the use of special dates which have
been in the MS-DOS/Windows versions for some time now. Basically, special
dates are used to cause the tagline to be a string of your text when ever the
current date matches a specified date. This can be used to have a special
message displayed on significant dates such as your birthday or holidays.
To setup special dates, create a new file and add entries like the following:
01/01:Happy New Year!!
04/12:This text will appear on April 12th
Note: Any text not of the above format will be treated as a comment.
Comments can be placed after entries by placing a # directly after
the entry text.
Run the setup utility and tell TaRT that this file exists.
If you want special dates turned off temporarily, running TaRT with -sd will
make TaRT ignore special dates.
If your custom signature contains two taglines, and a special date is
encountered, the first occurance of the %tg tag will be replaced with the
special date text, any subsequent ones will be a random tagline as always.
-----
Daemon mode:
New to version 3.00 is the ability to run TaRT as a full fledged signature
daemon. That is, it runs in the background and will update your signature at
regular user specified intervals.
To start TaRT in daemon mode, simply execute TaRT like so:
TaRT --daemon s
where 's' is the desired number of seconds between signature updates.
TaRT also can manage it's own process, and provides a mechanism to prevent
more than one copy from running for a particular user at the same time.
To check if TaRT is running, use the -p or --proc switch.
To terminate your running TaRT process, simply use -k or --kill.
TaRT also understands several signals.
If SIGALRM is received, TaRT will update your signature immediately.
If SIGHUP is received, TaRT will re-read your .tartrc file.
If SIGTERM or SIGQUIT are received, TaRT will exit normally (this is what -k
and --kill do)
Also, simply re-running TaRT without any switches will generate a new signature
immediately.
From version 3.00 onward, preferences such as centering, and special dates can
be saved in your .tartrc file.
Run TaRT -s, selecting the defaults for all options, then examine your .tartrc
file to see the new settings. All of them are boolean values (0 or 1) except
for "RunAsDaemon" and "Running".
RunAsDaemon specifies the number of seconds between updates (0 to disable
daemon mode)
Running is equal to the current TaRT process's PID, or 0 if TaRT is not
running.
If TaRT is abnormally terminated, "Running" will not get set to 0, thereby
preventing TaRT from running. Use the -k or --kill switch to reset it.
-----
And of course, please report any bugs you found, what you were doing when they
occurred, and if you can reproduce them.
Send bug reports, questions, comments, etc, to mveinot@gmail.com
I respond to all e-mails personally, and I try to reply within 2 days.
-----
TaRT is distributed under the GNU Public License and as such carries the
warranty specifed within, which is to say - no warranty what so ever.
Please read the file COPYING file for more information.
Thank-you for trying TaRT. I hope you find it to be of use.
MV GrafX Productions copyright (c) Mark Veinot 2005
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