.standard 67
.set paragraph 0,1
.p;The NOTICE system allows a system manager to maintain a database of
system notices that are displayed when users login to a VAX/VMS system.
Additionally, it can be used by users as a reminder system.  Each notice
in the system has several attributes:
.list;
.le;Start date
.le;Termination date
.le;Distribution list (a list of usernames)
.le;Terminals (the notice is only displayed on these terminals)
.le;Repetition type
.list
.dle "(",ll,")"     
.le;display notice once,
.le;display notice once a day,
.le;display notice every time the user logs in,
.le;display notice once but always on the termination date,
.le;display notice daily but always on the termination date,
.els
.le;Text
.els
.p;When the NOTICE system prompts for a distribution list or a terminal list,
the user may respond with a list of usernames or terminals separated by
commas, *ALL, <CR> or @filename.  *ALL and <CR> mean all users or all
terminals and @filename gets the list from a file.  If more than one name
is entered in response to the initial prompt, the NOTICE system will keep
prompting for more names until it receives a response of _^Z.  When the
NOTICE system prompts for text, the user may respond with a series of lines
of input terminated with _^Z or with @filename to read the text from a file.
.p;The NOTICE system is composed of two programs, NOTICE and NOTICEUTL, and
two ISAM files, [SYSMGR]MESSAGE.DAT - the message file, and [SYSMGR]USER.DAT -
the user file.  These files are created by issuing the commands MCR DEF
@MESSAGE.DEF and MCR DEF @USER.DEF.  The format of these files is described
in the file NOTICEUTL.PLI.
.page
.p;The NOTICE program displays all of the notices that a user is supposed to
see.  The NOTICE program is normally run by inserting the following line
in [SYSMGR]SYLOGIN.COM or in each user's LOGIN.COM:
.literal

  $IF "''F$MODE()'" .EQS. "INTERACTIVE" THEN RUN SYS$SYSTEM:NOTICE.

.end literal
Each notice and the date it was entered into the message file is displayed
on the user's terminal.  The NOTICE program requires SYSPRV in order to
access and update the NOTICE files.
.p;The NOTICEUTL program is used to add notices, display notices, edit notices,
find out who has seen notices and delete notices.  There is a HELP command
in NOTICEUTL that lists the available commands.  The NOTICEUTL program
requires SYSPRV in order to access and update the NOTICE files.  If the
NOTICEUTL program is run by a user without SYSPRV or with the command
line argument "REMIND" and the program operates on reminder notices
instead of system notices.  A reminder notice can only be seen, edited
or modified by the user who entered it (and the system manager).  In reminder
mode, the NOTICEUTL add command doesn't prompt for a list of users since
the notice is only sent to one user, the one who entered the notice.  However,
the user is still prompted for all the other notice attributes.  When the
system manager runs NOTICEUTL in normal mode (REMIND argument not given),
the reminder notices show up with their repetition type preceded by an
asterisk.