Announcements
The announcement system for Karma is actually quite simple. $dr{note} points to a directory for the placement of the announce databases (``/home/karma/notes'' in the default installation).
The announcements, or bulletins, are accessed via the announce and announce/new menus. Both take a single argument: the name of the database file to manipulate.
The files are laid out as follows:
required access ( chosen from $cf{acs} )
handle - old date\bline one\bline two\bline three
handle - new date\bline one\bline two\bline three
Please forgive the un-karma like binary format of these files. Fortunately this allows us to forego the normal locking run-around, in that the Operating System will simply interleave simultaneous entries at line boundaries. Conflicts are avoided, since each announcement is compressed into a single line.
As of yet there are no provisions for the expiration of old postings. It is assumed that the announcement system will be used primarily for administrative communiques, and therefore remain well within its intended scope.
required access is optional, defaulting to 'Special' when omitted. Otherwise you may choose which message access level is required for posting. There is no access restriction for simple viewing.