Customizing FINGER

FINGER has a great many customizations you can do.  This short document  is
meant to give some idea of a few of them.  All locations with site-specific
selections are commented and begin with the string "site-specific".

Defaults:

     To select default fields for display, you edit FINGERCLD.CLD.

     You  have  to edit FINGER.FOR to change widths of  individual  display
     fields, however.

Minimum_match_characters:

     By defining this parameter, you set the fewest characters permitted in
     a  wildcard match. If it's 0, then the % character will give  a  total
     user  list,  and short queries such as vowels can be  used  to  obtain
     lists  of users.  If it is defined to be some larger number (e.g.,  3)
     then  when  you request users and give that many characters  of  their
     names, Finger reports full account names.  For shorter queries, Finger
     only  tells  if an account that is exactly the  string  given  exists.
     Thus,  if  it's 3, Finger A will say "no such account: A"  whereas  if
     it's  0,  Finger would list all accounts whose  usernames  or  account
     names contained the letter A.  Edit LOCAL_FINGER to change this.

Public directories:

     Finger can be set up to report only images in specific "public" direc-
     tories  (so if image names are sensitive, it won't report them  unless
     they're  in  "open" directories like sys$system. You  have  to  define
     which  are  public directories on your system and uncomment  the  code
     that checks them in GET_IMAGE.

Mail:

     Finger can report unread mail.  There are selections that cause it  to
     report  or not report counts of unread messages. In addition  you  can
     have  Finger  report the date, time, and Subject  fields  of  messages
     *you* sent to the fingeree.  As of version  V51.1.20 these  can now be
     changed without recompiling.  In the FINGERCLD.CLD file are two quali-
     fiers  (DISMAILREP - disable  *all* mail  reporting,  and DISSUBJREP - 
     disable the  date/time/subject  information).  Simply add the  keyword
     ', Default' after the qualifier you want. As these are defined as non-
     negatable, users cannot circumvent them by saying (for example) NODIS-
     MAILREP.

Bypass:

     Finger  can be built, by uncommenting all the BYPASS logic, to  filter
     all  control  characters in FINGER.PLN files.  If users at  your  site
     have a habit of inserting escape sequences into their FINGER.PLN files
     that turn on "organ mode" in VT100, or lots of non-DEC terminals  that
     VT100  escape  sequences could confuse, select  this.   The  resulting
     Finger  will  normally filter control chars out,  unless  the  /BYPASS
     switch  is given. If this is done, it will pass these characters  nor-
     mally.  You  have to edit the FINGERCLD.CLD file also  to  define  the
     BYPASS qualifier or you'll never be able to turn it on.

LAT Info:

     LAT  terminals  are  reported as  'server_name'+"  "+'port_name'.  The
     maximum  lengths displayed, etc. are changeable by  editing  GET_LOCA-
     TION.

Load Averaging device:

     The  load averaging device name can be selected as LAV0:  or  whatever
     else is appropriate. If you don't have the LAV driver, load  averaging
     will  not be displayed. (NOTE: LAVDRIVER.MAR [for VMS V5] is  included
     on this distribution). Edit HEADER_FULL to change.


User information:

     The  USER_INFO  routine can be modified on a site  specific  basis  to
     change field widths. Selecting what information is displayed by  edit-
     ing the FINGERCLD.CLD file.

Treating DECnet as a single system:

     Normally,  you need to have a 'perfect' match of user and node to show
     the  unread mail  information.  An option  exists to treat the  entire 
     DECnet as a single system.  Thus, if person X has username Y on all of
     your systems,  if X fingers someone,  mail from X will be shown  inde-
     pendently  of the node it came  from matching the node the  finger was
     done from.  This is only for  DECnet,  and is OFF by default.  In PER-
     SONAL_INFO.

Planfile name:

     The name of the FINGER.PLN file can be chosen on a per site basis. The
     current  version  will try both FINGER.PLN and PLAN.  You  can  change
     these as you like.  In PERSONAL_INFO.

Prettying of personal names:

     You  can  elect to have some standard transformations applied  to  the
     personal  name  fields, such as changing 'Lastname, First'  to  'First
     Lastname"  and converting to mixed case. However, be aware  that  this
     will  mess  up names like 'First Lastname, Jr.'  (becomes  'Jr.  First
     Lastname'),  as well as things like 'McDonald' coming out  as  'Mcdon-
     ald'. In GET_USERNAME, LOCAL_FINGER, and FIX_NAME.

Prettying in general:

     You can elect several styles of 'prettying'. In MAKE_PRETTY.

/IAM stuff:

     By default, Finger will tack on a qualifier called /IAM containing the
     username and nodename of the person who originated the Finger request.
     This is so mail reporting across  DECnet will work properly.  However,
     older versions of Finger do not recognize this  qualifier and will re-
     port a (harmless)  error message.  If you have  systems running  older
     versions  of Finger and cannot upgrade them,  there are two possibili-
     ties: 1) Simply add an /IAM qualifier to the old Finger's .CLD and re-
     build it, or 2) If that is not possible,  select the site-specific mod
     which prevents this version of Finger from sending the /IAM across the
     DECnet link. In DECNET_FINGER.