Ever run one of those "Random" WB backdrop programs, with about a thousand
pics on your harddrive for it
to choose from only to discover that the "random" routine used in the program
only seems to choose the
same 20 out of all those 1000 pictures?
    I have.
    Being tired of random routines in programs that aren't really random, and
having a good one up my
sleeve, I broke out the old compiler and did something about it.
    Enter Randyprog.  It will run the specified program with a random parameter
as picked from the
specified list.


USAGE

    from shell:  Randyprog <ProgramName> <Random Parameter List>
      Where:
	  ProgramName = the complete path and name of the program to run;  no need to
put in the "RUN
<>NIL:", I do all that for you.  Also include here any NON-random parameters you
want the program to use.
If there will be any spaces in this part then enclose the whole thing in double
quotes.
	  Random Parameter List:  This is the complete path and name to a file that
contains a list of
random parameters, one per line.  For Instance:  If you're using Randyprog to
run a WB backdrop program, then
each line in this file would contais the complete path to a differnt picture
someplace on your hard drive.
Don't use any wild cards here or they will be passed to the original program and
allow it to use it's own
internal random routines for that part, defeating the whole purpose of using
this program.

    That's it; nothing too difficult.

EXAMPLE

I use this for a random WB backdrop program called RndBG.  In S: I keep a file
called "wbbackpics" which
is a list of every picture on my harddrive, each line a complete path (just use
"list" with an LFORMAT
parameter to generate it in a jiffy).  My command line (slaved to a hot-key for
immediate use) is
  Randyprog "C:RndBG WBPIC" S:wbbackpics
Of course you can use this for any program that you want to give a random
parameter to (bootpics,
backdrops, whatever).

FUTURE

    Like there's more I can do with this thing?

HISTORY

  v1.0  Initial release
  v2.0  played around with the random routines a bit to make things more random
for when dealing with a large paremeter list file (hundreds to thousands of
lines or more); it had seemed to be falling into select patterns of numbers (or
my computer just really likes those same pics).

 PERMSSN    UID  GID    PACKED    SIZE  RATIO     CRC       STAMP          NAME
---------- ----------- ------- ------- ------ ---------- ------------ -------------
[generic]                11235   20260  55.5% -lh5- 2694 Mar 25  2000 Randyprog
[generic]                 1199    2455  48.8% -lh5- a515 Mar 25  2000 Randyprog.readme
---------- ----------- ------- ------- ------ ---------- ------------ -------------
 Total         2 files   12434   22715  54.7%            Mar 28  2000