You can create a menu by using textlines, but you can also create menus that display a file to the user, in which all the options are shown. This technique works as follows:

The first item in the menu should have ';' as textline and <Ctrl-A> (autoexec) as hotkey. The function to be executed should be function 40 (Display file with hotkeys).

When the user accesses this menu, the specified file will immediately be sent. Setting all the remaining textlines of the menu to ';' will cause NOTHING BUT this file to be displayed.

Combined with the use of text macros, this allows you to show different looking menus for each node you are running. For example, if you use function 40, and enter “MAIN@<NODE>@” in the data field, node 1 will see file MAIN1 , node 2 will see MAIN2, etc.

This feature can be used to create a completely different set of menus for each node on your board!

Another powerful feature is the ability to create a special menu called GLOBAL.PBM This is the same as any other ProBoard menu except that all items defined in this menu will be appended to the bottom of each and every menu on your BBS. This can help convey a standard look and feel for each of your menus to your users. The prompt from the original menu and not from the GLOBAL.PBM is the prompt that will be displayed to your users. Be careful when using GLOBAL.PBM that you do not append hot-keys that are already in use on existing menus.

If you need more information about all the possibilities, take a look at the example menus supplied with ProBoard.