I have a fairly complex system setup over here to page the sysop, and figured 
i might as well pass it around, if people are interested (let me know if you 
are, and i'll package it up and redo a couple programs which need redoing, 
and see if i can hatch it out in MaxFDN or something).
Basically what happens, is when someone pages me, it loads up a mex program, 
which is a screen with a little bbs logo on it, and it also says "Please 
enter a page reason..", and then a big box where they can enter why they're 
paging me.
Once they actually page, it spawns an external program (I'm using OS/2, but 
Win95/NT should handle it since they support spawning new windows) which 
basically plays an .ICE file for whatever amount of time, and shows the chat 
reason on the screen. I have mine setup for 10 seconds (partially because the 
sound is off anyways, because someone lives down in the basement where the 
bbs is temporarily, and they wouldn't want the thing making noises all night 
;)), then it waits for 30 seconds before deleting a file which tells the mex 
program that it's alright to page again (so they have to wait 40 seconds in 
between pages).
It also writes a file, which shows up on my menu from my login (you have to 
have sysop access to see it) down at the bottom:
User John Doe (Johnny) paged at 12:42 on 01/16/98
Reason: Hi there I'd like to donate some money
 ..that's also written to another file, "page.log" or something.
When i log in, it shows me that file, or i can also access it from the sysop 
menu, as well as "reset" it (delete it). This is pretty handy cuz if someone 
pages me while i'm away, i can just check out that file and if there's 
something important leave them a message or whatever.
You can also toggle pages on/off. For actually chatting with someone, i have 
MaMaChat (very nice little program ;)) setup on the F1 key (or you could use 
any chat program really) or i can use the internal Alt+C (i leave that as the 
internal one rather than MaMaChat because it's good for quickly breaking in 
to say something without loading a big ansi background etc).
Anyways, here's basically what the user sees (without the fancy screens) just 
to give you an idea:
                       Chaos BBS - Sysop Page
                       Ya, What do ya want? :)
 Hi there I'd like to donate some money.....................................
Paging Sysop...  The sysop is being paged in 
the background.
A message will appear on his/her screen notifying that you paged, and the 
page will be logged so if the sysop is not around he/she'll know you paged. 
Meanwhile, you can get back to whatever you were doing.
Press ENTER to continue..
if YELL.OFF exists, then it will just say "Sorry, the sysop is unavailable at 
the moment, please leave a message to him/her."
I personally really like this method, and since i'm almost always logged in 
(give myself 64000 mins or so, can stay logged in forever pretty much) so the 
screen comes up as soon as i get back (unless the user logs off, then it's 
setup to delete the page flag - it's still in the log though).
Also, along with this i have another separate thing setup for sending 
messages to other people on different nodes (another mex program).
Node to page: 1
Message: Hey bud, what's up?
Page Sent!
then the same program that's located at the bottom of all my menus to pick 
upthe sysop pages sees those and displays it down near the bottom:
Johnny [Node 2]: Hey bud, what's up?
There are a few requirments for this to work however :) You must be running 
Maximus under a multi-tasking environment.. it's only been tested under OS/2, 
no idea if it works on the NT version of max or in a DOS box in any other 
multitaskers (don't see why it wouldn't, so long as they can start new 
sessions).
The other thing is if you have a custom menu (and why not, the max ones 
really aren't very good ;)), then it has to have about 3 lines down at the 
bottom to have room to display everything, and keep in mind there's also 
gotta be room to enter the command :)
now that i think about it, it could also work with the default canned menus, 
as a menu header.. would just show up like:
Johnny [Node 2]: Hey bud, what's up?
Message Menu (29 minutes left)
E)nter message  A)rea change etc..
Select:
Anyways, those menus are ugly ;) I'll just post my menu, with an example 
user-user page as well as an example sysop page:
                      ±Ü²             ,Üž
            ÜÜžß"ßžŪ°ŻŪŪŪŻßžÜś  ,Üžßß ŪŪß Üž²žß"ßžÜ, ,śžßßßßßÜž
          °ŪŪ± ,ž  ßŪŻ°ŪŪ , ŽŪŻÜŪŪŪ ž ŪŪÜŽžŪŻ ž,  Ū°Ż`śßžßŪŪž,
ŚÄÄÄÄÄ ž° Ū²ŪŻ° ž; °Ü ŪŪŻ°ž ±²°Ž°ŪŻž,Ż°±ś²±²;Ū°ž°°°²² °ž°± °Ū±ž²°²Ūž ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄæ
³         °ŪŪ²   ž śÜŻŽŪŪž  ŪŻŪ ŪŪ° ; ŪŪŻß²ŪŻ ,  žŪŻś  ' ž;ŽŪŪ° .as         ³
³           ßßŪžÜ_Üžß °Ūß   ŪŪŪ śžŪžÜÜŽŪ² ßžŪžÜ,žŪßžś`ßžś.śŽŪžß             ³
³                           žß'       `ßž   śCśHśAśOśSś śBśBśSś             ³
³ General Commands          Movement                Advanced Commands       ³
³ Enter Message            -Change Area-            = Read Non-Stop         ³
³ Change Message            Next Message            - Follow Thread (last)  ³
³ Reply to Message          Previous Message        + Follow Thread (next)  ³
³ Forward Message           Browse                  ^Download Attaches      ³
³ :Read Current             List                    Upload Message          ³
³ Kill (delete) Message     Hurl (Move) Msg         Unrecieve Message      ³
ĆÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ´
³ ! Logoff ś @ Main ś # Message ś $ Files ś % Doors ś & Sysop ś /? QuicKeys ³
ĆÄ[Message Menu]ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ´
ĄÄ[Select: śśśś]ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ[Jan 16th,  6:18]ÄÄ[Node: 01]ÄÄ[Timeleft: lots]ÄŁ
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Locust Wind [node 1]: Hey there, just paging myself :)
User Greg MacLellan (Locust Wind) paged you at 06:17:02.
Reason: Hey me! cool bbs
(i guess it doesn't display the date on there, i thought it did. it does in 
the log file anyways :))
just fyi, that line with [Select: ....]------ is also a mex program, it's 
just nice to have the date/node/time limit displayed on there plus it looks 
neat. that's not included in this stuff ;)
Anyways... this message is getting long. i've blabbed on enough :) now that 
i've gone through all this trouble i think i'll release it anyways, so just 
watch for it in the next week or so depending on how busy i am.
Enjoy the power of being a maximus sysop =)
ttyl, greg
--- Maximus/2 3.01
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