MicroPlanet Gravity 2.5 Release Notes

• The VCR allows you to select groups from any of your defined news servers and cycle through and retrieve the headers, bodies, process rules, and so forth. You can start the process right away, or you can schedule it to occur at a later time (such as at midnight). Gravity can optionally exit when all of the jobs have completed.
• The VCR remembers its settings from previous runs, but you can also save VCR settings to a file and re-use them later. Gravity has a new command line switch (/vcrfile: ) that allows you to start Gravity with the VCR running.

• Skip to next unread article
• Skip to next unread in thread
• Skip to next unread local
• Back (move to previously viewed article)
• Forward (move to article that was viewed after this one)

There is a new Navigation tab in Global Options that allows you to control how certain navigation commands work when you are offline or online.

The following keys take you to the respective panes:

• 1 - newsgroup pane
• 2 - thread pane
• 3 - article pane

These shortcuts work whether you are zoomed or not.

• Each server now has both a server nickname and a server address. If no server address is specified, Gravity attempts to connect to the server nickname. Server nicknames allow you to define the same news server multiple times by giving it multiple nicknames. The server nickname maps directly to a Windows file system directory, so each server must have a distinct nickname.

• New settings to allow Gravity to re-establish dropped connections and retry failed connection attempts.
• The Retrieve tagged for selected groups command allows you to retrieve tagged articles for the groups selected within the newsgroup pane.
• A new server property (Server/Properties/Operation/Server creates messages out of order) can be used with news servers that are part of server farms. Enabling the option causes Gravity to keep requesting articles that appear to be missing.
• A new server property (Server/Properties/Operation/Limit headers) can be used to specify that Gravity should not retrieve more than a specified number of headers from any group during header retrieval. This limit can be overridden on a per-newsgroup basis.
• The Retrieve Limited Number of Headers… command has been added to the newsgroup menu. This command allows you to specify a number of headers to retrieve or to specify that all should be retrieved.
• A new newsgroup retrieval property has been added to the General tab to allow you to disable automatic retrieval of the group when headers are retrieved for the entire server.
• If a decode job fails because of a lost connection then it is added back to the waiting job queue.

• Retrieve Tagged Articles
• Skip to the next unread article
• Skip to next unread in thread
• Skip to next unread local
• Back to the previously viewed article 
• Forward to the article that was viewed after the current one

• You can now choose between threading headers based on only the message-id or both the message-id and subject. This setting is contained on the Global Options/Display tab.
• The threading algorithm is faster.
• Collapsed threads that contain new articles are now indicated visually with a "Swiss Army Knife-like" symbol.
• The plus and minus keys ('+' and '-') now expand and collapse the selected thread.

• The option to NOT store headers for newsgroups has been removed. The reasons for removing it include: 
  1. the underlying code for dealing with the absence of headers was very complex
  2. in 2.1 a number of major problems surfaced after the final release even though there were thousands of downloads in the public beta, which convinced us that very few people used that mode, and
  3. while there was a minor benefit in terms of reduced hard disk consumption, many commands would result in re-downloading the information, which is confusing and wasteful. Hence we decided to eliminate it to simplify the code and put effort into other areas.

  Major changes were made to the way Gravity stores and accesses data. These changes were made to reduce the likelihood of corruption and to make recovering from corrupted files easier. 

  The Global Settings file has been broken into a set of individual files (ArtIDs.dat, Bozo.dat, Filters.dat, Ignore.dat, Options.dat, Rules.dat, Score Colors.dat, Scores.dat, Watch.dat). Additionally, the Server Settings file has been split into a number of files (Crosspost.dat, Decode.dat, Outbox.dat, Print.dat, ServerIDs.dat, Tags.dat). 

  All of the global and server level .dat files employ a backup strategy. When a file is written, it is first renamed to a .bak extension and then the new file is written. After the new file is successfully written, the backup (.bak) file is removed. If Gravity attempts to open a file and finds a file with a .bak extension present, then it knows that a previous save attempt failed and automatically reverts to the backed up version. 

  Finally, in addition to the individual server files identified above, all information about subscribed groups is contained in individual group files, which have a “. g” extension. Previously Gravity stored some vital group information in the Server Settings file, and if the data within that file that contained the subscribed group list got corrupted then the entire server was lost. In 2.2, the most that will be lost if a group becomes corrupted is the single group.

• Rules now have optional expiration that allows a rule to be disabled if it does not fire within a prescribed number of days.

• Score entries now have optional expiration so that unused entries can be removed if they are not encountered. This automatic maintenance helps to reduce the overhead of score processing.

• In previous versions of Gravity, the Bozo Bin was implemented as a rule with large regular expressions. As the Bozo Bin grew, the performance diminished and the likelihood of the huge regular expression getting corrupted increased. In 2.2, the Bozo Bin is simply a list rather than a rule.
• The bozo bin also supports expiration. If a bozo is not encountered within the specified number of days it is removed from the list.
• There is a new command (Tools/Apply bozo bin to the current group) that allows the bozo bin to be manually applied to the currently open newsgroup.

• The Outbox now has automatic expiration settings that you can enable to automatically clean up the Outbox.

• Shrink image to fit window
• Enlarge image to fit window

• You can now create trace files from within Gravity using the new Trace File command on the file menu. After enabling tracing, you must disconnect from the server and re-connect for the tracing to take affect.
• The Search DejaNews command now points to the main DejaNews web page (www.deja.com).
• Three server properties were moved to the new Group tab. These properties are 1) Get list of new groups upon connecting, 2) Display new groups after retrieval, and 3) Update server count.
• Gravity can be instructed to let a news server create the message-id for posted articles by disabling Server/Properties/Posting/When posting, Gravity should generate the message-id for the server.
• When defining a display filter, you can specify that the filter will include the entire thread if any article matches the filter. Use this option, for example, if you want to show the entire thread for threads that contain any unread articles.
• A new option has been added to Global Options/Display to allow threading by either message-id and subject or purely by message-id (pure threading).
• The formatting of items that are saved as draft has been improved.
• There is a checkbox on the Global Options/Decode tab now that allows disabling of the low disk space check when decoding.  For some reason, on some systems the amount of free disk space is improperly calculated.  If this is the case for you, use the checkbox to disable the "feature."
• You can unprotect articles with Ctrl+Shift+L (protect is Ctrl-L).
• 2.2 should use approximately 28 bytes less per header in the thread pane than previous versions.
• The Image Factory icon now resembles a factory.
• The status bar now shows the article subject and part number during decode jobs.  Formerly the status bar contained the newsgroup name and the server-based article number.
• Under Global Options/Preferences you can now instruct Gravity what to do when attempting to open articles with more than XX lines.  The choices are:
  1. display the article (default behavior)
  2. decode the article
  3. decode and launch (view)
  4. beep

  This setting is primarily for users who have Gravity configured to open articles with a single click, and who inadvertently cause Gravity to retrieve and display large articles (when they really just want to select them for decoding).

  Ctrl+Enter always shows the selected message, even if you have Gravity configured to decode, launch, beep, etc... articles with lines > XX (Global Options/Preferences).

   

• Image Factory "Move To Top" button now has a keyboard accelerator.  You can now use the keyboard to move items to the top.  Just hit Alt-P.

• The formatting of items that are saved as draft has been improved.

• The Pin and Link filter buttons now have transparent backgrounds for most environments.

• The invalid registration code error message now includes more instruction about possible causes and what to do to obtain a lost key.

• You can now retry decode jobs from within the Image Factory with the new Retry button.

• Formerly Gravity would not let you switch servers when the search window was open.  In 2.2,  Gravity will allow you to close the window from the warning dialog.

• URL highlighting was improved.

• Gravity now will warn when trying to permanently delete an article (Del).  Like other warnings, this can be disabled.

• A new scoring system has been added for assigning relevance values to article headers. Essentially, you indicate keywords that add or lower the score for each article header. These scores can in turn be manipulated by rules. When you add a score entry, you have the options to specify whether the phrase is a wildcard, regular expression or a plain text phrase. You can indicate whether the phrase can appear in the From header, Subject header, or both. Finally, you can indicate whether the phrase has to appear as a whole word, or whether it can appear as a part of a word.
• Add a score for the current group by hitting the ‘S’ key.
• In addition to specifying scores for individual groups, you can specify scores for wildcard expressions such as “alt.binaries.*”
• A new column has been added to the thread pane – Score. You can sort by score.
• Threads can be sorted by their score. In other words, you can sort the most important threads to the top and the least important to the bottom of the list. The thread score value is based on the article with the highest score within the thread.
• A new command has been added to allow immediate re-scoring of the current group.
• Score ranges can have associated background colors. Generally, you will want to use “Define Custom Colors” in the color selection dialog to achieve good results.

• There is a new rule condition that allows the rule to examine the score.
• There is a new rule action to adjust the score of an article.
• You can specify that a rule applies to newsgroups that match a wildcard expression (alt.binaries.* for example)
• You can control the order that rules are evaluated by moving them up and down within the main rules dialog.
• When you create a Rule with the Alert action, the action indicates the group of the matching article.
• There is now a “Replace rules with same name” option for Importing rules.
• Rule conditions can be copied from another rule by using the “Insert From…” button on the rule condition page.

• The directory bar now functions as a most recently used list of directories that you have viewed. Each time you open a directory for viewing, it appears at the top of the list.
• A new toolbar button has been added to allow easy filing using a most recently moved-to directory list. This list is similar to the Move To toolbar button in Microsoft Outlook.
• In the thumbnail view, positioning the mouse over an image that Gravity decoded will cause a tool tip (bubble help) to pop up with the subject of the article.
• In the Image Gallery, when the display adjusts its size or position to accommodate an image, the mouse cursor is automatically repositioned so that it is over the button that was clicked (e.g. Next).
• An option has been added to the Image Gallery that allows the user to turn off automatic viewing even when the user hits the ‘v’ key in Gravity.
• The Image Gallery now supports drag and drop. When you use the Move To button, Gravity will keep track of the image’s From, Subject, and so forth. If you drag the file out of Gravity and into Explorer or the desktop, then Gravity removes the file from its internal description database.
• The Image Gallery now has Waiting and Done indicators in the status bar which correspond to what is in the Image Factory.
• The Image Gallery has a progress bar in the status bar that shows the download progress of the current image being fetched for display.
• The Image Gallery has a Protect command that marks an Image as read only (this read only status is not implemented using the file system read only attribute).
• The Image Gallery now provides a command for launching the Image Factory (Ctrl-I).
• The Image Gallery now has popup menus.

• Filter definitions now allow the specification of the sort order.
• Each newsgroup can have its own default view filter.
• A button has been added to the filter bar for setting the current filter to the default for the group you are viewing.

• Articles with multiple attachments generate multiple Result window items.
• The Delete From Disk command removes the deleted item’s thumbnail if one exists.
• A Priority View (Ctrl+Shift+V) command has been added to allow you to automatically insert an article into the top of the queued jobs in the Image Factory. If you invoke the command on an article that is already queued up, that article is moved to the top of the queue.

• A new server property setting has been added “Verify local headers when retrieving new header,” which can be disabled to speed the retrieval of headers. If your purging options are set aggressively and headers are removed prior to when they would be removed at the server, then this is a good option.
• A "Verify Local Headers" command has been added to the Newsgroup pane context menu to allow manual checking for expired articles.
• A new server property, “Retrieve headers for group automatically after subscribe,” has been added.
• Secure Password Authentication (SPA) is now supported for connecting to servers such as netnews.msn.com.
• Dialup Networking passwords are now encrypted when stored in the registry.
• A /socket command line option has been added that causes Gravity to log the communication between itself and the news server. The files are named GRAVXXXX.TRC and are created in the Gravity program directory.

• Articles with the same subject and articles that have a common ancestor (based on references) now appear as one tree within the thread display.
• When sorted by thread, the threads themselves can be sorted by score.
• The background color can be set for score ranges.

• A new command “Mute Quoted Text”, has been added to allow quoted text to be toggled on and off within the article display. This is particularly helpful if you are following a thread and have already read the quoted material.
• Paging down within the article pane (using the Space key) maintains a couple of lines of text from the previous page.

• Top, bottom, left, and right margins can be set.
• The print font and color can be controlled.
• Full headers can be explicitly included or omitted for each article.

• Gravity now automatically removes signatures that are in the standard format (dash dash space carriage return) from replies and followups.

• A new tab has been added to the Global options that allows Gravity to automatically check the MicroPlanet web site for newer versions of Gravity.  By default, the software will check every 7 days.  The number of days between checks can be adjusted or the check can be disabled altogether.  When a new version is found, Gravity displays a notification that describes the new version.

• The list of servers on the Server menu is kept sorted.
• Numerous usability requests were implemented.

• Can display common formats such as GIF, JPEG, BMP, etc...
• Allows the images to be viewed as thumbnails. The thumbnail size can be specified.
• Has a customizable toolbar.
• Has a directory bar that the user can use to see images in the various decode output directories.
• A Session button that allows the user to restrict the view to the Images that have been decoded in the current session.
• First, Last, Previous, and Next Navigation.
• Enlarge and Reduce images.
• A command to set the viewed image as the Windows desktop wallpaper.
• A command to spawn a new window with the current image.
• Commands to move and delete images.
• Slideshow capabilitities. The user can view a slideshow of all images, or tagged images.
• Images can be sorted on various criteria.
• The image window automatically sizes according to the image size.

• The dialog can be sized so that long group names are easily visible. The orientation of the available and selected groups is improved.
• Multiple items in the Selected Groups pane can be edited at once.
• Groups can be sampled rather than subscribed. Sampled groups are removed at the end of the session or when the user switches to another news server..

• Full Name
• Email Address
• Decode Directory
• Custom Headers

Custom Headers

• Remove decoded items on exit. This is great if you are more into viewing the images than archiving them.
• Output 4DOS compatible description files.
• Use the new Image Gallery to view binaries.