Maximus BBS

Documentation for Maximus BBS — Next Generation

View on GitHub

Info Codes

Information codes for dynamic data substitution

Information codes are two uppercase letters (or special characters) that are replaced with live data about the BBS, the current user, or the system.

User Information

Code Description
\|UN User name
\|UH User handle (alias)
\|UR User real name
\|UC User city / state
\|UP User home phone
\|UD User data phone
\|U# User number (account ID)
\|US User screen length (lines)
\|TE Terminal emulation (TTY, ANSI, AVATAR)

Call & Activity Statistics

Code Description
\|CS Total calls (lifetime)
\|CT Calls today
\|MP Total messages posted
\|DK Total download KB
\|FK Total upload KB
\|DL Total downloaded files
\|FU Total uploaded files
\|DT Downloaded KB today
\|TL Time left (minutes)

System Information

Code Description
\|BN BBS / system name
\|SN Sysop name

Area Information

Code Description
\|MB Current message area name
\|MD Current message area description
\|FB Current file area name
\|FD Current file area description

Terminal Geometry

Code Description
\|TW Terminal width in columns (2-digit, e.g. 80)
\|TC Center column of screen (2-digit)
\|TH Half-screen width (2-digit)

These codes expose the current user’s terminal width as zero-padded two-digit numbers so they can be used both for display and as dynamic width parameters in format operators.

How the values are calculated

All three derive from the user’s configured terminal width (usr.width). If the width is unset or zero, 80 columns is assumed.

Code Formula 80-col result 97-col result
\|TW width (clamped ≤ 99) 80 97
\|TC (width + 1) / 2 40 49
\|TH width / 2 40 48

|TC and |TH differ only on odd widths: |TC rounds up (giving the true center column in a 1-based coordinate system), while |TH truncates (giving a pure half-width count).

Use as format-operator widths

Because these codes resolve to numbers, they can replace the ## width parameter in any format operator. See Format Operators — Using Info Codes as Width for details.

$D|TW=           draw '=' across the full terminal width
$r|TH-|UN        right-pad user name to half-width using '-'
[X|TC             move cursor to the center column

Date & Time

Code Description
\|DA Current date (DD Mon YY)
\|TM Current time (HH:MM)
\|TS Current time (HH:MM:SS)

Example

|14Welcome to |15|BN|14, |15|UN|14!
You have |15|TL|14 minutes remaining.
Current message area: |11|MB

Produces something like:

Welcome to Maximus BBS, Kevin!
You have 60 minutes remaining.
Current message area: General

Info codes can be combined with format operators for aligned output:

$R30|UN          translates to: "Kevin Morgan                  "

Inline String Literals

The |{text} syntax provides an inline string literal that the MCI engine treats as a value — just like an info code — but containing arbitrary fixed text instead of dynamic data.

|{Hello, World!}

Produces: Hello, World!

On its own, |{text} is simply a pass-through — the delimiters |{ and } are stripped and the content is emitted directly. Where it becomes useful is as the target of a format operator:

$R30|{Welcome champ!}     "Welcome champ!                "
$C|TW|{=== MENU ===}      center text across terminal width
$T10|{Hello, World!}       "Hello, Wor"

If no closing } is found, the | is emitted as a literal character.

See Also