I working on alternate themes, but how do I get Mystic to see them and switch to them? I've got various subdirs in the themes/ dir, and the wiki says each needs to have an .ini in the them, but there's little other info on themes in the wiki, such as the structure of the ini file or how I switch themes.

Can someone offer a quick tutorial?

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 2019/03/03 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: *HUMONGOUS* BBS (jenandcal.familyds.org:2323) (21:4/123)

On 29 Mar 2019, nathanael said the following...

I working on alternate themes, but how do I get Mystic to see them and switch to them? I've got various subdirs in the themes/ dir, and the
wiki says each needs to have an .ini in the them, but there's little
other info on themes in the wiki, such as the structure of the ini file
or how I switch themes.

might be info on the wiki but each theme must have it's own language file aka prompts and screens i like to have in their own directory imho.

goto system config -> editors -> theme/prompt editor -> press / and insert and then edit it and change paths etc

|08 .|05ú|13ù|15Dr|07e|08am Ma|07st|15er|13ù|05ú|08.
|08 øù|05ú|13ùø |13øù|05ú|08ùø
|11 DoRE|03!|11ACiDiC|03!|11Demonic
|08[|15bbs|09.|15dreamlandbbs|09.|15org|08]

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 2019/03/03 (Windows/32)
* Origin: |08--[|15!|07dreamland BBS bbs.dreamlandbbs.org (21:1/163)

goto system config -> editors -> theme/prompt editor -> press / and
insert and then edit it and change paths etc

Thanks. I'd gotten that far. According to the wiki, each theme needs a .ini
in its root -- e.g., themes/theme1/theme1.ini -- but I don't know what's supposed to go in the .ini. Is there an example floating around somewhere?

Also, how does a user go about selecting a theme? So far, the only way I've discovered is by manually setting a theme for a user in the user editor. Is
it possible for a user to select a theme on the fly?

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 2019/03/03 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: *HUMONGOUS* BBS (jenandcal.familyds.org:2323) (21:4/123)

Also, how does a user go about selecting a theme? So far, the only way I've discovered is by manually setting a theme for a user in the user editor. Is it possible for a user to select a theme on the fly?

Themes equal language - I had to modify my default.txt to change the
"language" prompt to "Theme" so people could change themes

Michael2

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 2019/03/02 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Mike's Mansion - Pdx,Or (21:2/145)

Themes equal language

Ah, that clears that up. Thanks.

Could you post one of your theme .ini files as an example? That seems to be where I'm stuck.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 2019/03/03 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: *HUMONGOUS* BBS (jenandcal.familyds.org:2323) (21:4/123)

On 29 Mar 2019, nathanael said the following...

Thanks. I'd gotten that far. According to the wiki, each theme needs a .ini in its root -- e.g., themes/theme1/theme1.ini -- but I don't know what's supposed to go in the .ini. Is there an example floating around somewhere?

g00r00 is changing the theme system for A44 but he would be able to answer the .ini never heard about that.

Also, how does a user go about selecting a theme? So far, the only way I've discovered is by manually setting a theme for a user in the user editor. Is it possible for a user to select a theme on the fly?

when you login to the bbs you will be presented with a themes menu to select.

|08 .|05ú|13ù|15Dr|07e|08am Ma|07st|15er|13ù|05ú|08.
|08 øù|05ú|13ùø |13øù|05ú|08ùø
|11 DoRE|03!|11ACiDiC|03!|11Demonic
|08[|15bbs|09.|15dreamlandbbs|09.|15org|08]

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 2019/03/03 (Windows/32)
* Origin: |08--[|15!|07dreamland BBS bbs.dreamlandbbs.org (21:1/163)

g00r00 is changing the theme system for A44 but he would be able to
answer the .ini never heard about that.

It's mentioned on the wiki, but now that I've looked again it says A44 and later, and I'm still on A43.

So anyone who has multiple themes going on A43 or earlier, how'd you do it?

when you login to the bbs you will be presented with a themes menu to select.

I don't. But I believe I set up my account with "quick login" a while back,
so that might explain it. In any case, Mystic isn't recognizing my other themes. When I try to change Language in my account settings, it lists the other themes, but when I attempt to select one, it says something "not available" and goes back to the default.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 2019/03/03 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: *HUMONGOUS* BBS (jenandcal.familyds.org:2323) (21:4/123)

On 30 Mar 2019 at 01:44p, nathanael pondered and said...

It's mentioned on the wiki, but now that I've looked again it says A44
and later, and I'm still on A43.

Yep that's a work in progress and you will likely see it in action from A44 onwards. The basis of this will be taken from the Mystic 2.0 system. It's a good idea and will mean themes will be far more modular and interchangeable across instances of Mystic.

So anyone who has multiple themes going on A43 or earlier, how'd you do it?

Create themes in config > theme/prompt editor > insert

Set a theme name and a file name. Then specify a unique path for text,menu,script assets.


Clone your default Mystic dirs into those new dirs

Customise what you want with the menus, ansi,etc. for that theme.

Note the option 'allow fallback' best to set this to yes, if set this will allow users of the theme you are creating to access the 'default' theme
options as a fall back if something in your theme is missing.

Head to config > login/matrix settings > ask theme - set this to yes


As others have mentioned from a logged in user state the user can change
themes by heading to the 'account' menu and using option K to change what are called 'language' settings. That name is a throwback to when Mystic ran Language files... but these days it means 'change theme'

Hope that helps :)

Best, Paul

--- E:avon@bbs.nz ------ W:bbs.nz ---
--- K:keybase.io/avon --------------

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 2019/03/03 (Windows/32)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

On 30 Mar 2019, nathanael said the following...

I don't. But I believe I set up my account with "quick login" a while back, so that might explain it. In any case, Mystic isn't recognizing my other themes. When I try to change Language in my account settings, it lists the other themes, but when I attempt to select one, it says something "not available" and goes back to the default.

ask smooth because i kn ow he has different themes

|08 .|05ú|13ù|15Dr|07e|08am Ma|07st|15er|13ù|05ú|08.
|08 øù|05ú|13ùø |13øù|05ú|08ùø
|11 DoRE|03!|11ACiDiC|03!|11Demonic
|08[|15bbs|09.|15dreamlandbbs|09.|15org|08]

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 2019/03/03 (Windows/32)
* Origin: |08--[|15!|07dreamland BBS bbs.dreamlandbbs.org (21:1/163)

Create themes in config ...
Set a theme name and a file name. ...unique path
Clone your default Mystic dirs
Customise what you want...
login/matrix settings > ask theme - set this to yes

Yup, I've already done all this. I have three themes currently defined in
theme editor. When I log in I get the theme prompt, but only two themes are display and when I attempt to choose a non-default, it says, "Selected theme not available. Using default theme."

I've got something messed up.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 2019/03/03 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: *HUMONGOUS* BBS (jenandcal.familyds.org:2323) (21:4/123)

Could you post one of your theme .ini files as an example? That seems to be where I'm stuck.

if I had one.. I was doing it back on A39 - didn't have a theme.ini then.

Michael2

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 2019/03/02 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Mike's Mansion - Pdx,Or (21:2/145)

if I had one.. I was doing it back on A39 - didn't have a theme.ini then.

My bad. Turns out the wiki is describing A44.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 2019/03/03 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: *HUMONGOUS* BBS (jenandcal.familyds.org:2323) (21:4/123)

On 30 Mar 2019 at 06:11p, nathanael pondered and said...

Yup, I've already done all this. I have three themes currently defined in theme editor. When I log in I get the theme prompt, but only two themes are display and when I attempt to choose a non-default, it says,
"Selected theme not available. Using default theme."

I've got something messed up.

Yep, are the permissions on the specific dirs you created for the other
themes set correctly?

Do you have different theme file names created?

I think this may the issue. I did a test and created two test themes


ßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßß Edit Theme ßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßß

File Name ³ new1 1: Prompts
Description ³ new1 2: Menus
Text Path ³ c:\bbs\mystic\new1\text\ 3: Options
Menu Path ³ c:\bbs\mystic\new1\menus\ 4: Display Files
Script Path ³ c:\bbs\mystic\new1\scripts\ 5: Templates
³ 6: Percent Bars
Allow Fallback ³ Yes 7: Box Style 1
Allow ASCII ³ Yes 8: Box Style 2
Allow ANSI ³ Yes 9: Box Style 3
Column Size ³ 80 Column 0: Box Style 4


ßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßß Edit Theme ßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßß

File Name ³ new2 1: Prompts
Description ³ new2 2: Menus
Text Path ³ c:\bbs\mystic\new2\text\ 3: Options
Menu Path ³ c:\bbs\mystic\new2\menus\ 4: Display Files
Script Path ³ c:\bbs\mystic\new2\scripts\ 5: Templates
³ 6: Percent Bars
Allow Fallback ³ Yes 7: Box Style 1
Allow ASCII ³ Yes 8: Box Style 2
Allow ANSI ³ Yes 9: Box Style 3
Column Size ³ 80 Column 0: Box Style 4

ÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜ

I then took stock files from a out of the box Mystic install and copied the contents of the text, menu and script dirs into each of the corresponding
dirs of the two new themes.

The red flag was when I went to try and edit prompts

ßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßß Edit Theme ßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßÜ
Û
File Name ³ new2 1: Prompts Û
Description ³ new2 2: Menus Û
TextÛßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßß Info ßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßÜions Û
MenuÛ Ûplay Files Û
ScriptÛ Unable to open c:\bbs\mystic\data\new2.txt Ûplates Û
Û Ûcent Bars Û
Allow FalÛ OK Û Style 1 Û
Allow ßÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÛ Style 2 Û
Allow ANSI ³ Yes 9: Box Style 3 Û
Column Size ³ 80 Column 0: Box Style 4 Û
Û ÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÛ


So regardless of those three new dirs and files I have worked on I also
needed to copy the default.txt file in data as new2.txt and place it in the same dir.

When I did that I could edit the prompts and also saw that I could load the theme at login. For the new1 theme I left it untouched and so without a
prompts file it could not load and Mystic took the default theme option as I said it could.

Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 for Windows Node 2
Copyright (C) 1997-2019 By James Coyle

Detecting terminal emulation: ANSI detected.

Available themes:

1 ..... default
2 ..... new1
3 ..... new2

Select your theme [Enter/Default]: 2

Selected theme not available. Using default theme.
þþþÝ Pause Þþþþ


As an aside you will also need to drop to each scripts dir and run mplc -all
to compile the scripts in your new theme scripts dir.

Best, Paul

--- E:avon@bbs.nz ------ W:bbs.nz ---
--- K:keybase.io/avon --------------

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 2019/03/03 (Windows/32)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

So regardless of those three new dirs and files I have worked on I also needed to copy the default.txt file in data as new2.txt and place it in the same dir.

Yeah, I had everything else pretty much right, but this turned out to be the issue. Once I copied default.txt over to ASCII.txt and HUMONGOUS.txt I was almost good to go. Thanks.

The only other issue I had was my ASCII theme wasn't being offered on log
in. Turns out I needed to enable Allow ANSI.

Thanks for the hlep.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 2019/03/03 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: *HUMONGOUS* BBS (jenandcal.familyds.org:2323) (21:4/123)

Thanks for the hlep.

Dang! I *really* need to install the spell checker :-)

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 2019/03/03 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: *HUMONGOUS* BBS (jenandcal.familyds.org:2323) (21:4/123)

Still some minor issues. For one, is there any way to set the default theme? Under Configuration --> General Settings I've set the Start Theme to my HUMONGOUS theme, but if I hit ENTER at the theme prompt, I get the default theme anyway.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 2019/03/03 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: *HUMONGOUS* BBS (jenandcal.familyds.org:2323) (21:4/123)

On 01 Apr 2019 at 04:46a, nathanael pondered and said...

Still some minor issues. For one, is there any way to set the default theme? Under Configuration --> General Settings I've set the Start Theme to my HUMONGOUS theme, but if I hit ENTER at the theme prompt, I get the default theme anyway.

You can set a default theme at General Setting

Start Menu prelogin
QWK Net Menu qwknetwork
Start Theme default
Config Theme 3D ANSI

So that sets what new users are assigned when then join up unless they get
the option to choose a them each time they connect using the
Login/Matrix config settings where 'Ask Theme' is set to Yes.

If that is set to No and you are wondering why you can't seem to get your option then I think it's because your user account has default theme set so your choices are (while logged in) to go to 'account' menu and change 'language' aka theme to the one you want. Or when logged out, go to config > editors > user editor > settings 1 > change 'Theme' for the user to the theme you want them to have.

I hope this answers the question?

Best, Paul

--- E:avon@bbs.nz ------ W:bbs.nz ---
--- K:keybase.io/avon --------------

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 2019/03/03 (Windows/32)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

You can set a default theme at General Setting
because your user account has default theme set

I had done all that. Best I can tell is default.txt just IS the default.
So I renamed HUMONGOUS.txt to default.txt and so far I haven't encountered any problems.

The other issue I encountered was with the Display File field for each menu. It's only 20 chars, which makes it difficult to specify something like "themes/humongous/menus/mainmenu.ans". I've had to resort to single-letter
dir names to get around that: "themes/h/m/main.ans".

We'll see how things go. Thanks for the help.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 2019/03/03 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: *HUMONGOUS* BBS (jenandcal.familyds.org:2323) (21:4/123)

On 31 Mar 2019, nathanael said the following...

Thanks for the hlep.

Dang! I *really* need to install the spell checker :-)

I've heard that it does hlep... :)


---

Black Panther(RCS)
a.k.a. Dan Richter
Sysop - Castle Rock BBS
telnet://bbs.castlerockbbs.com
http://www.castlerockbbs.com
The sparrows are flying again....

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 2019/03/02 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Castle Rock BBS - bbs.castlerockbbs.com (21:1/186)

I've heard that it does hlep... :)

I gather you're not speaking from from epxerience :)

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 2019/03/03 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: *HUMONGOUS* BBS (jenandcal.familyds.org:2323) (21:4/123)

I gather you're not speaking from from epxerience :)

Blast! Now the grammer checker's gone on the fritz, to.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 2019/03/03 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: *HUMONGOUS* BBS (jenandcal.familyds.org:2323) (21:4/123)

On 03 Apr 2019 at 03:40p, nathanael pondered and said...

I've heard that it does hlep... :)

I gather you're not speaking from from epxerience :)

Nothing worse than getting it wrong in pubic

Best, Paul

--- E:avon@bbs.nz ------ W:bbs.nz ---
--- K:keybase.io/avon --------------

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 2019/03/03 (Windows/32)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

On 04-03-19 20:43, Avon wrote to nathanael <=-

Nothing worse than getting it wrong in pubic

Come again? :D


... Tip #9: Add DEVICE=FNGRCROS.SYS to CONFIG.SYS
=== MultiMail/Win v0.51
--- SBBSecho 3.03-Linux
* Origin: Freeway BBS Bendigo,Australia freeway.apana.org.au (21:1/109)

Nothing worse than getting it wrong in pubic

Now that's fanny!

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 2019/03/03 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: *HUMONGOUS* BBS (jenandcal.familyds.org:2323) (21:4/123)