• Returning to Talisman

    From j0HNNY a1PHA@21:4/158 to All on Tuesday, November 28, 2023 06:59:16
    Hey all. I ran a Talisman BBS (alpha complex) for quite a while, until
    life came partly undone a couple years ago... Then, a couple months ago I
    got the itch to return to my BBS and started playing around with BBS
    software selection.

    I went through the usual list -- all awesome software -- then I fell down
    a DOS rabbit hole.

    I had both Inquity and Renegade about 50% configured using Mystic as a
    telnet server only, using doseum2 on Linux, but I soon ran into a bunch of limits with this method: file xfers, doors, general PITA with dosemu,
    old issues, etc. I assume these are all addressable, but finally realized
    that DOS software is best suited to Win 32 bit machines (which I don't have/want).

    While I really love the nostaligia that DOS BBSs offer, I couldn't see it
    being my main BBS (maybe spoiled by 'modern' amenities like full screen readers, SSH, QWK networks, ability to write my own doors as console apps, etc.). I really do admire those who are running those DOS-based setups.

    So, this weekend, I fired up the latest Talisman version from Apam's repo,
    and it became immediately clear to me why I chose Talisman in the first
    place, all those years ago (beyond Apam's kindness and helpfulness): it's friggin' awesome.

    There's so much under the hood, the LUA script labguage (like Mystic's MPL
    or Iniquity's IPL) is very powerful for customization -- I built a
    complete login matrix using it, a game -- and a lot of Taly's features use
    it, like IBOL, Last Callers, Top 5 and Avatars. Plus, it's got a great full-screen reader, door support, custom fonts, hackable strings. And
    it's reliable under Linux. Open source.

    Anyway just a long post to say HELLO! and that I'm BAAAAACK (with
    Talisman)...

    Apam, I apologize in advance for the inevitable, forthcoming stupid
    questions and feature requests (ha).

    Cheers! Proverbial doors opening soon on R3TR0/X BBS!

    .jA.

    --- Talisman v0.48-dev (Linux/x86_64)
    * Origin: R3tr0/X BBS :: retrox.us:1992 (21:4/158)
  • From apam@21:1/182 to j0HNNY a1PHA on Wednesday, November 29, 2023 06:38:06
    Anyway just a long post to say HELLO! and that I'm BAAAAACK (with Talisman)...

    Welcome back! Thankyou for the kind words :)

    Apam, I apologize in advance for the inevitable, forthcoming stupid questions and feature requests (ha).

    Hah, it's ok. Just don't ask for a configuration GUI. LOL. I would love a configuration GUI, but... soo much work.

    Andrew


    --- Talisman v0.49-dev (FreeBSD/amd64)
    * Origin: Smuggler's Cove - scove.talismanbbs.com:2323 (21:1/182)
  • From j0HNNY a1PHA@21:4/158 to apam on Tuesday, November 28, 2023 15:03:22
    Apam, I apologize in advance for the inevitable, forthcoming stupid questions and feature requests (ha).

    Hah, it's ok. Just don't ask for a configuration GUI. LOL. I would
    love a
    configuration GUI, but... soo much work.

    Hahah, yeah totally understand it. Very used to the strctured text files
    now, with Talisman, Engima 1/2, etc. Who needs a GUI anyway???

    One thing I'm working on is documenting the MSGID strings, as I encounter
    them. Pretty easy to search the Gitlab repo for the string and find it to override in strings.dat, I'll share if anyone wants it! Only about 13 so
    far, mostly around user signup and login.

    Oh, and it turns out that Talisman Matrix mod I wrote (Phenom) in Lua
    waaaay back still works like a charm.

    Cheers,

    .jA.

    --- Talisman v0.48-dev (Linux/x86_64)
    * Origin: R3tr0/X BBS :: retrox.us:1992 (21:4/158)
  • From apam@21:1/182 to j0HNNY a1PHA on Wednesday, November 29, 2023 12:41:29
    Hahah, yeah totally understand it. Very used to the strctured text
    files
    now, with Talisman, Engima 1/2, etc. Who needs a GUI anyway???

    With the help of toolbelt to generate fragments for message bases (convertmsgna) it was a bit easier, but still a lot of work to set up
    lots of message bases.

    Seems like every single net has a different format for the file.na file
    which was a bit of a pain.

    I don't know if a gui would be quicker or not, I'd prefer to do a QT
    based gui, but thats no good for headless linux setups.

    them. Pretty easy to search the Gitlab repo for the string and find it
    to
    override in strings.dat, I'll share if anyone wants it! Only about 13
    so
    far, mostly around user signup and login.

    Cool! I'm not sure anyones really used that feature yet, so if you
    encounter any bugs let me know.

    Oh, and it turns out that Talisman Matrix mod I wrote (Phenom) in Lua
    waaaay back still works like a charm.

    Cool, I haven't changed a lot with lua scripting, so not suprised, but
    pleased it works :)

    Andrew


    --- Talisman v0.49-dev (FreeBSD/amd64)
    * Origin: Smuggler's Cove - scove.talismanbbs.com:2323 (21:1/182)
  • From Tiny@21:1/222 to apam on Wednesday, November 29, 2023 06:30:25
    Hah, it's ok. Just don't ask for a configuration GUI. LOL. I would configuration GUI, but... soo much work.

    One thing I don't want. :) I've always prefered to configure my BBS
    using my favorite txt editor then a GUI.


    |09S|11hawn


    --- Talisman v0.49-dev (Windows/x86)
    * Origin: Tiny's BBS - tinysbbs.com:4323/ssh:4322 (21:1/222)
  • From apam@21:1/182 to Tiny on Wednesday, November 29, 2023 22:03:01
    One thing I don't want. :) I've always prefered to configure my BBS
    using my favorite txt editor then a GUI.

    :)



    --- Talisman v0.49-dev (FreeBSD/amd64)
    * Origin: Smuggler's Cove - scove.talismanbbs.com:2323 (21:1/182)