Getting Started

Installation

If you currently use Winscore :

TrivHost is designed so that it can be placed in the directory that contains your existing Winscore files, and run right away...by default it will use the same files Winscore used. Make sure when you run TrivHost, that your Winscore/TrivHost folder is the folder the program runs in.

The best way to ensure this is to create a shortcut icon on your Windows desktop for TrivHost. To do this, right-click your mouse on the background of your desktop. A pop-up menu will appear...point your mouse at the "New" menu choice, which will then cascade another menu of choices...you should select "Shortcut". This brings up a dialog box titled "Create Shortcut"...click the "Browse" button in this dialog box. Use the "Browse" dialog to find your copy of Trivhost.exe, making sure it resides in the same directory as the files it uses (Gottems, Warnings, Rules, Welcomes, Buzzers, etc.). When you have found it, press the "Next" button, which will then let you label the shortcut however you want. You then press "Finish"...now you have a TrivHost shortcut icon on your desktop that will always be there and that will run TrivHost from the correct folder every time. You can verify this by looking at the shortcut's properties, under "Start In:". Repeat this procedure to create a shortcut to the TrivEdit program.

If you are not a Winscore user :

You should create a new folder to contain your TrivHost software and other files. You should then follow the instructions above to create a desktop icon (shortcut) to the TrivHost and TrivEdit programs. Additionally, you will want to create your own custom files for Gottems, Warnings, Welcomes, and Buzzers. These files should contain plain text (do NOT save as a Word or Rich Text Document), with one item (Gottem, Warning, Welcome, or Buzzer) per line. You might also want to make a Rules file to contain your full rules. You can name these files anything, but the names must match the names in the TrivHost Preferences, and the files must reside in the same folder where TrivHost is run. The default names for these files are Gottems.txt, Warnings.txt, Welcomes.txt, and Buzzers.txt.

Also, you will want to create your own custom macros. You do this from within TrivHost, by using the Options...Edit Macros feature. And if you are asking the questions, you will need to make your Game files. You use the TrivEdit game editor to create or change these files.

Troubleshooting

TrivHost requires a file called MFC42.DLL to be present in your \windows\system directory. This is a standard Microsoft file that ships with the latest versions of Windows 95, and with various other software packages. If you get an error that mentions this file when you try to run TrivHost, e-mail me by clicking here.

Problems while running TrivHost

Make sure you save your Rules, Gottems, Warnings, and Welcomes files as plain text documents, not as Word or Rich Text Format documents. These formats have embedded formatting characters that will garbage up your text when you send it.

If you get an error message whenever you try to send any text to the chat window, go into Options...Change Preferences...Chat Window, and make sure you have the appropriate choice set. If you are in a private room you need to specify that room's name in the box by the "private room" choice.

If you are using the "Insert Text Before Greetings" and it does not automatically insert the name of recently entered players, make sure you have the AOL Chat option set that shows players entering the room...this must be turned on for this feature to work.

Tips on using TrivHost :

Don't forget you don't have to scroll back in the chat window to score, just hit the score button shortly after the answer is revealed.

When scoring a roll call or a large group of consecutive correct answers, click on the first answer, then tap the arrow key through the rest of the correct answers. This is much easier and faster than touching each with the mouse.

If for some reason one hosts scores get messed up, the other host can e-mail the Scores.sav (NOT Scores.log) file, and the host receiving it can use the restore scores to load this.

Remember there is normally no need to touch Show Scores... TrivHost will show scores automatically if there are differing point values or if more than one point was awarded to anyone.

If you are hosting, set your preferences to show short names instead of gottems, so you don't have to change it each time you score a question.

If you want to edit a game file you worked on recently, just go to your Windows 95 Start menu, under Documents, and find that file...clicking on it will start TrivEdit automatically with that file opened.

Windows Scrollbars

This information may seem obvious to most, but not everyone is aware of the versatile operation of scroll bars...so they end up scrolling lists one line at a time using the arrow buttons at the end of the scroll bar...this is one use, but often you will want to page down instead. To do this click on the scroll bar between the arrow button and the "slider" or "thumbtrack" control that moves up and down the scroll bar. This will either page up or down just one page at a time, depending if you clicked above or below the "slider". You can also grab the "slider" by touching it and holding the mouse button down, which lets you move up and down long lists very quickly. Once you get used to these features they will become second nature and save you much time and frustration.

Other Windows hints

Anytime you are presented with a window that has one or more buttons on it, if one of the buttons has a thicker border around it than the others, this is the "default" button, and pressing Enter on the keyboard is the same as pressing this button with the mouse. Similarly, instead of pressing a "Cancel" button, you can virtually always use the Esc key instead.

Limitations of TrivHost

For icky technical reasons that need not be discussed here, certain limits apply to the use of Trivhost as follows:

To remain compatible with existing Game and Macro files:

Questions, Answers, Hints and Macros are limited to 255 characters.

Categories are limited to 50 characters.

Other limits are:

No more than 200 questions in a game file.

No more than 120 macros in a macro file. (Multiple macro files for different settings files are allowed though.)

No more than 100 each of Buzzers, Welcomes, Warnings, and Gottems in the respective files. No more than a length of 120 characters for each item.

Rules file length is limited to 4096 characters.