DBANNER 1.02

This program allows you to transform simple ascii text in beatifull ascii art :-)
Fonts can change, according to your needs

This is the README file. It has information about using, format of
config and font files, and about the program itself.
 Well, it could be a kind of man page, if I had patience to format it:-)))

 For installing (and quick install) read INSTALL

 For other nice things check out the contrib/ dir. There you will find an
IRC script and other nice things that people sent to me. (Not fonts. These
are in the directory fonts/ and will be automatically installed)

 NEW: For checking the differences from the last release, look at HISTORY. The 
important ones have to do with changing the name of config files and the 
default library dir: 
  After 1.02, the config file will be called .dbannerrc (or dbanner.cfg), and
the default lib dir is /usr/local/bin/dbanner/            
  And now you can specify the config file with a environment variable:
DBANNER_CONFIG_FILE. (This must be usefull to MS-DOS users):
  On bash: export DBANNER_CONFIG_FILE=/full/path/to/your/config/file.cfg
  On tcsh: setenv DBANNER_CONFIG_FILE /full/path/to/your/config/file.cfg
  On DOS/win95: put the following line (or some like it) at your autoexec.bat: 
     set DBANNER_CONFIG_FILE=/full/path/to/your/config/file.cfg 
 
 Well, after these modifications, on near future probably there will be not 
many changes on the program itself... But you can always check 
http://alfa.ist.utl.pt/~l38061/download/ for new fonts that may appear (ppl 
send them to me :-)), and for a GUI front-end for dbanner (in TCL/TK) that I 
am thinking to do (something like a editor... In one win you type, and the 
text appears on the other... So you can do cut-and-paste... Choose the fonts, 
width, optional input and output files, etc...)


Using:
  - HELP: "dbanner -h" shows a little HELP.
  - It reads from input and prints the ascii-art-chars on output.
     type "dbanner", type something, and you will see the result :-)
  - It takes chars from the command line too : 
     type "dbanner -s Hello this is my text" and see the result

* Config File


 1) Where is it ??

 When program starts, it tryes to read a config file ('.dbannerrc' in unix, or 
'dbanner.cfg' on other systems, but you can change these names editing config.h
before compilation).
  It first search this file in current dir: ./dbannerrc
  If unsucessfull tries to open the file specified by the environment variable
 DBANNER_CONFIG_FILE. 
  If unsucessfull tries $HOME/.dbannerrc . If still unsucessfull, it will try 
the default system config file (DEFAULT_CONFIG_FILE_DIR/.dbannerrc
  If unsucessfull, it will use the hardcoded defaults (see config.h and 
banner.c)


 2) Format of Config File
   
  The config file must have lines with he following format:

 <font_name> <font_directory> <name_of_file_with_the_font>  

  The strings <font_name>, <font_directory> and 
 <name_of_file_with_the_font> must not have spaces.
 Example of configuration file (in unix):

 normal  /usr/local/lib/dbanner/  dban_font_normal
 gothic  /usr/local/lib/dbanner/  dban_font_gothic


 With a config file like this , if you do a dbanner -f, it will show the 
following fonts:

 (1) - normal
 (2) - gothic



** Font File
R

  1) Where are they??

 They can be on curent dir or on the dir defined by the config file, or in the 
file defined by the -f argument (if this is not already a defined font)
 When you do dbanner -f <font_name>, it first search if <font_name> is defined
in config file. If it is, uses the entry on config file. If not, it will try
to open a file with the name <font_name>.


 2) Format of Font File (YES, YOU CAN ADD NEW FONTS!! :-))
  
  The font files must have the following format:

BEGIN_CHAR <char>
.
. (put the char's  ascii-art-picture here)
. 
END_CHAR

  Example:


BEGIN_CHAR A
  ___  
 / _ \ 
| |_| |
|  _  |
| | | |
|_| |_|
END_CHAR

BEGIN_CHAR B
 ____  
|  _ \ 
| |_) |
|  _ < 
| |_) |
|____/ 
END_CHAR

 - Important: Note that the number of lines of the AsciiArt font (height) 
   will be the height of the biggest char of all. All the chars will have 
   the same number of lines (height).


*** About dbanner

  Well, it toke me more time to write the makefile for it than writing the 
program itself :-))). Besides, I wrote it some time ago (in middle 95, I guess)
and I think it was the first program I wrote to unix to distribute (with a 
Makefile and a README and a INSTALL :-)) ).
  It was first written on a Digital Unix (I guess). Now I just finished it 
(take out warnings, changed names of config files and put a install on 
makefile) on a Linux 2.0.27. 
  It is distributed under GPL (General Public License)
  The code was written all in portuguese (in 95 I always coded in portuguese).
  So, if you want to change something, unfortunally, the comments will not
help you, they are all in portuguese... But the program is simple.
  If you change something, (or if you use this) please let me know.
  Oh... by the way... Dont judge me by looking at this code :-))) It is not 
very well designed, the coding style is a mess... (That time I still haven't 
read about OO and encapsulation...)... But it is a small program...  And
works nice !!! :-)))

**** Credits and Contact:

  This program was made by Aristides P. Preto Jr.
  Except the ascii art for the fonts. They were taken from the net... (Don't 
 know who did them  :-(( ) I just formated then for dbanner font file format.
  Bugs, suggestions, $$$, etc, please contact:
  
  appj@rnl.ist.utl.pt
  http://alfa.ist.utl.pt/~l38061

  And if you USE this program, let me know (unbelivable... You are really 
 reading this, and using this program!!! :-)).
  Send me a e-mail with something like "I use dbanner (ooh gosh!!!)" as
 subject.  


***** Contributions:

  - Dawid Kuroczko  <dark@pipeta.krakow.linux.org.pl>
      The first official contributor :-)) Sended me a lot of sugestions, the
      Font files pipechar (and others), the IRC script and is the brave soul 
      that built (and mantains) the RPM and SRPM distributions for dbanner.
      Polish Language Support.
      Also, never stops looking (and asking ppl) for new fonts... Thanks Dawid.

  - Kitya Karlson <karlson@karlson.mccme.ru> 
      Russian language support, and pointed a bug (dbanner did not recognize 
      chars with ascii code > 127 because I used "char" instead of
      "unsigned char" :-))

  - Jim Jackson <jj@scs.leeds.ac.uk>
      The manual page.

  New font files will be ***very*** welcome!!!!!
  Send then to appj@rnl.ist.utl.pt, please!!! (And you happily will appear on 
  the contributors list :-)))) 

****** Thanks:

 - Christoph Tietz <Christoph.Tietz@mch.sni.de> 
     For lots of suggestions about making this program more portable (look at 
     the HISTORY file).

 - Patrick Fischer <gandalf@babcom.chnet.ch>
     A little tip (bugfix?) about the makefile.


