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MR/2 - A QWK Compatible Mail Reader for OS/2. 10/09/94
Copyright (c) 1994, Knight Writer Software Company.
All rights reserved.
===================================================================
N O T I C E
===================================================================
This IS a shareware package, and does require a registration fee if
you choose to continue using it after 30 days. The registration
fee is currently $25 US. Eventually, the product MAY have a
"begging" screen with a key-file that will register the software
and suppress it. The more interest I get, the more likely I am to
continue with improvements.
------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTACTING THE AUTHOR
=====================
You can contact me in a number of ways. Unfortunately, I can't
provide a phone number at this time.
US Mail: Nick Knight
1823 David Ave.
Parma, Ohio 44134
Fido netmail: 1:157/2 to "Nick Knight"
Internet: User "Nick Knight", (nick.knight@pcohio.com)
Fido Echomail: Find the Fidonet OS2PRODSUPPORT conference. I'm there.
Echomail messages to me in more general conferences are
discouraged, as keeping them "on topic" and
interesting to the masses would be difficult. I do
read OS2, OS2PROG, C_PLUSPLUS and DR DEBUG daily,
though. OFFLINE echo also (deals with mail readers),
this might be THE place to ask public questions, eh?
I recently have acquired access to a host of other
networks with OS/2 conferences. These include RIME,
SmartNet, Uninet, Intelec, Nanonet, Racenet and some
others I can't remember.
I also do poll the Fidnet OS2PRODSUPPORT echo.
Direct BBS: Leave a message on the Nerd's Nook BBS (1:157/2) at (216)
356-1772, 356-1872 or 356-1431. I check in here
multiple times a day. I will also keep the most recent
copy of MR/2 posted here. Other boards (non-local)
will get updates at my convenience.
**************************************************************************
**************************************************************************
** NOTE: Nerd's now supports an MR/2 conference **
** and file area. Conference #208 is dedicated to **
** MR/2 support and files. File area #45 contains **
** MR/2-related files. Any file uploaded into **
** conference 208 will be placed in file area 45. **
**************************************************************************
**************************************************************************
Nerd's does support file requests (157/2 or 157/3)
Compuserve: I check only once a week or thereabouts. Try mail to my
user ID - 76066,1240, although internet mail has proven
to be a faster approach.
Changes included in v2.12
-------------------------
o Editing a reply and saving it would (sometimes) cause a crash
when the reply conference was exitted. This was non-destructive;
the reply would be OK, it was a function of the new sorting that
was slightly off. Fixed.
Changes included in v2.11
-------------------------
BETA as far as I'm concerned. Seems to work just fine for me, but I
changed lots of basic, its-been-working-forever code. Please do not
distribute widely ... and report any problems immediately. If all checks
out, I'll post it widely next weekend.
o MQWK.CMD - added and tested command lines for using zip/unzip
(InfoZip utilities). Tested with the DOS versions; assuming
command lines are the same. Comment out the first set of lines,
uncomment out the second. NOTE that zip failed when run with
the "start" command so as to run it in the background. It seems
zip wants to open the source file in a mode that conflicts with
the fact that MR/2 also has it open. Too bad; the PK utilities
work OK this way.
o More minor tweaks to the conference index builder. Someone
complained recently, so I thought I'd have a look. I see room for
some *big* improvements! :)
o When modifying a reply, the fact that the NEW reply had a later date
than the OLDER version would case the message pointer to seem to
"shift" to another message. This was after you would save the reply
... the message viewer showed something different. This would only
happen if other replies had a matching subject. I now sort the
reply headers differently. I disregard date/time when sorting after
a reply-modify.
o Ooops. Forgot to list Ctrl-O on the Editor help screen. Fixed.
o I modified the conference header sort massively. It now uses a
btree sort with minimal data movement. This fix, in addition to
the other little tweaks a day or two ago, result in a great speed
boost. My informal testing (watching the MR/2 clock tick away)
involved loading one 800 message conference, and another with 402
messages. The larger conference took 15 seconds to load with the
old MR/2, it now takes about 5. The smaller conference's time
dropped from 6 seconds to about 2-3. The larger the conference,
the bigger the difference will be. Smaller conferences will show
smaller improvements. Overall, things are just *much* faster.
o Converted all internal storage and formats to support 5 digit
conference numbers, as long as these numbers remain in the
16-bit range (up to 65,635). A user reported a BBS system that
used thousands as a group identifier, and the remainder as the
sub-sconference number. This was a big change, and I'll test
thoroughly before releasing.
o Packet selection screen was expanded 2 characters and underlying
logic modified to support packets from BBS's with 8 characters
names, and with 2 digit TE/2-style collision suffixes. For example,
NERDNOOK.QWK;99 could not be opened, renamed or passed to MQWK.CMD
when merging packets. This appears to be working better.
o Another error dialog has been added. This one agains warns if the
working directory has been specified on a different-but-valid drive
(a potential problem). There's even one more problem to detect; as
MR/2 requires the work directory to be a subdirectory off of its
"base" location. This would occur rarely, and is not destructive,
whereas the one that are now detected and avoided were.
o Added a third level sort to the subject thread sort procedure.
Threads are now sorted by Subject, then date/time, then message
number. As reported, split message all may have the same date/time,
and this usually assures that they appear correctly.
o Editing a message header, then requesting to "pick a conference"
from the master list. Previously, typing letters did not jump to
the first prefix match. Fixed.
o Add in a new INI parameter for myself - FolderOrder. This has the
same parameters as MessageOrder, but allows a different sort to be
applied to the ReplyLog and Inbasket. I found myself constantly
converting these folders to date/time sort, so I decided to add
an option to default the sort for just these folders.
NOTE: By default, FolderOrder = -1, which means that the
MessageOrder is used. Sort orders will work the same for everyone
unless they specify this option specifically.
o Further modified the message sorting ... if DATE/TIME sort is active,
a secondary sort level of message number is activated. Same reasons
as it was added as the 3rd level on subject sorting.
o Revamped the INI parser once again. My while() loop kept growing,
and I kept breaking the compiler. It's now broken into two
separate routines, which gives me plenty of room for expansion, but
also increases the possibility that bugs have been introduced.
Changes included in v2.1
------------------------
o I found rather large memory leak when using the internal editor. It
seems that the cleanup routines ... something I've never looked at
before and always *assumed* were just fine (NOTE: the editor started
as a third party editor "toolkit", which I have modified extensively).
Well, the cleanup routine was empty; totally empty. I added about 8
free() calls to release committed but unneeded memory. I found this
when I went to add the "cleanup" counterpart for:
o The internal editor now has an undo capability ... unlimitted levels.
I keep a record of all block delete's and CTRL-X line deletes. You
can use CTRL-U to insert the text in reverse order of the deletes.
Inserts are always to the current cursor position. In a way, this can
be used as an intra-document cut/paste. Each of the two editor buffers
has its own undo-delete list.
Let me know if you can think of any other place to store text for
"undoing". I'll look through the code for more possibilities, too.
NOTE that I do *not* pay attention to presses of the delete key (for
removing a character at a time).
NOTE: CTRL-U previously would delete a marked block. There are
several other ways to do this, so I remapped this key. I hope
this won't confuse anybody :)
o Well, I finally had to fix the long-time Zortech file open bug,
instead of dodging it. ZTC's fopen(), the call used often to open a
file for reading and/or writing would NOT return NULL on error.
This is a C/C++ standard - to return NULL if an open fails. I
thought this was just a problem on open-for-reads, but I find that
opening a file for write that fails (a bad file name or path, for
example) STILL returns an "ok" value. This was masking the real
reason one user's VC's were crashing. Not that I know the real
reason, yet, but the diagnostics that have always been there can now
work. I cleaned them up further, and tested them using a hand-made
bad file name. In this example, instead of crashing whenever the VC
thread hits its first message, a polite failure message *should*
display on the screen. The VC process will terminate if ever an
open fails. Now, to see what file name this user's system is trying
to open ... :)
o I love the Internet! :) In a single 24 hour period, I was able to
exchange private mail with the aforementioned user a couple of
times, actually upload a test MR2.EXE to his machine via ftp (I
don't yet have personal access like this - a friend "demoed" it to
me :). There was still enough time to get the tell-all error
message back from him!
If you specified a fully-qualified WorkPath, either in the INI file
OR on the command line (for example, WorkPath=C:\mr2\Work or
/WC:\mr2\Work, the VC index building process would crash. I now
handle this for both cases.
o In testing the above, I happened to try a drive/path that didn't exist
at all. I used /WJ:\mr2\tmp, where the J drive is non-existent on my
machine. I picked a packet (of pickled peppers? ... oh, sorry, long
day :), MR/2 pathed to the defined work dir, which of course failed,
and then proceeded to clean out the directory. The directory it
cleaned out happened to be my MR/2 home directory (source code and
all). Bummer! Good thing I keep great backups and hadn't done much
work since I backed up!
And I remember arguing with a user publicly that MR/2 wouldn't
delete files unless the chdir succeeded. Ooops.
NOW, if the change directory fails, a nice 10-12 line dialog box
pops up, explains the problem, shows you your workpath, then
promptly exits w/out deleting a single thing.
o Modified the edit header logic slightly. When editing a message
header where the original message's "from" field is blank, MR/2
now tries to use the @Internet@ value for the TO field. I've
received mail before this way, and when I replied, my message had
a blank TO field and was uploaded to the BBS this way. The message
made it to its destination, but since PCBoard views a blank TO as
being equivelant to "ALL", everyone else on my BBS could read it.
In other words, it was not PRIVATE on my home board. Since PCBoard
ignores the TO line if there's a TO: line in the message, I could
have put anything there, but the INTERNET address (truncated) seemed
appropriate.
o Minor internal editor fixups ... things like names on the top of both
editor windows are correct and stay that way, the search prompt
now stays at the title bar or the "owner" window.
o I modified the Editor=Internal INI options to accept another
parameter. Editor=Internal,FullScreen (or just the work "FULL")
puts the editor into full-screen mode. This uses ALL display lines
when editing a file instead of leaving the source message header
displayed.
o When switching the Editor specification in MR2.INI back and forth
between Internal, ME/2 and/or an external editor, MR/2 would
sometimes ignore the requested change until restarted from scratch.
This works much better now, except ME/2 still doesn't shut down
after it is no longer the requested editor. Minor nit - I'll fix
it eventually.
o When MR/2 packs the folders, a check is made to see if the folder
file is empty (size equal to 128 bytes). If it is, the file is
removed. Also, MR/2 will try to remove any BBS-specific folder
directory on packet exit. If the directory has *anything* in it,
the remove will fail (as it's supposed to). If empty, as is
sometimes the case, the directory will disappear. This will prevent
the system from collecting directories for BBS's for which no data
is stored in a folder.
o Subject sorting was modified to make DATE/TIME the secondary sort
field, rather than message number. I made a bold assumption that
the other way would never really give the desired affect and that
(as many have requested), DATE/TIME is indeed the proper second
sort option. If anyone disagrees, please speak up and I'll add
BOTH choices as options.
o When using the INI parameter SourceFile, MR/2 now starts in the
reply buffer with ALL of the text in the source file marked. A
simple ALT-C or ALT-M will copy/move the block into the reply.
o The default template file "Subject:" line for NewInternet was
changed from @ISUBJECT@ to @SUBJECT@. This will keep MR/2 from
"inventing" long internet subjects and will instead insert the
SUBJECT value from the message header. You can modify the subject
in the message while editing, if desired.
o Another memory leak plugged - this time in deleting the list of
conference message headers. There was also an unneeded call to
lookup and format the Conference name in this loop. This was
removed (microscopic speed improvement).
Changes included in v2.09A
--------------------------
Another short-lived release; v2.09 had a serious bug. I offer this
release quicker-than-planned to ward off potential problems. I still
plan on a bunch more minor fixes, fixing anything else that turns up
wrong with the next internal editor changes, and releasing v2.1 in,
say, another week?
o Modified the folder-packing process. This procedure often left
unattached "source" messages in the log well after the parent
message was gone. I've written a little checker/diagnostic utility
to help me watch how well this works, so I'll be watching closely.
o Ooops! Ctrl-S from within the internal editor did nasty things. It
did save the work to disk, but then it closed the file and cleaned
up. This caused later saves to fail. Fixed.
o Initial MR/2 startup now uses the internal editor instead of E.
Don't know why I didn't switch to this before.
o MR/2 used the E editor as the default if not specified. Now it's
the internal editor.
o Modified the help subsystem slightly - HELP works when editing the
INI file with the internal editor.
o Modified the default colors specified in the default MR2.INI file.
Message text was in yellow, now it's in bright-white and the HEADER
data is in yellow. I like this better.
o Modified the default first-time startup code to copy example.tf to
template.tf, if template.tf is not found. Template.tf is the default
template file specified in MR2.INI. Previously, if a new user did not
put out the effort, templates would not be used ... the INI simply
specified a template file that did not exist. Now one *will* exist.
o Modified the example.tf file and removed all references to my name :).
In place of my name, I've inserted the string @Mix@@UserName@. This
takes the user name from the QWK packet, mixes the case and signs
all message that way. For "Reply-To:" lines in internet templates,
I simply left this blank. If the user gets this far, he can edit the
template and fill this in himself.
o Another pathing patch so that, when using ME/2 as your editor, pressing
ALT-C to edit MR2.INI works ok.
Changes included in v2.09
-------------------------
o Better protection and diagnostics for read_line overflows. All of
my sequential file (text) access to read a "line" are now protected
by a "max" count value. If this value is met, a crude warning is
displayed, a keypress is requested, and the line is truncated. This
has been the suspected cause of a large number of unsolvable crashes
... any files that gets corrupted or modified when CR/LF's are
removed can cause this. Now, at least there is a warning, some
information, and no crash.
o Trying to solve an obscure VC crash for a user, I made minor changes
to the VC search process. Just for my information/reference later :)
o Ooops. I temporarily saved the SplitLongReplies value in a character
variable. That caused overflow/rounding, so that specifying 300 line
messages resulted in 44 line messages (300-256=44). You could not
get messages longer than 256 lines. Fixed.
o When saving a message (or BBS file) to a save file, entering a bad or
invalid file name would show no error message or indication of a
problem, even though the save failed. This has been corrected to where
MR/2 will beep and stay at the file name prompt until a valid save file
name is specified, or ESCAPE is pressed.
o I somehow readded the problem where matching conference names failed to
insert the second name in the master conference list. This is, again,
fixed.
o If you opened a packet with existing replies, unpacked them, then killed
all replies (so no active replies remained), MR/2 would exit and leave
the original reply packet intact. It is now removed (renamed to a .old)
and none of the killed replies are registered in the reply log.
o Cosmetic: left over garbage in background when a "no packets exist"
box is displayed has been removed.
o If no BBS .cfg files existed, MR/2 would display a message about
not having any QWK packets available. Fixed.
o Internal editor work - LOTS of it :). I'm not telling yet! :)
(Just in case bugs are found with what "used to work" ...)
o Ok, fine. I'll tell you about the editor. I'll put this out for
some user-testing, then issue v2.1 when it appears all the kinks are
out. I will add INI variables to specify full screen editing (all 25
lines) and initial split-window sizing.
- Optional 2-buffer, split window editing.
First, if you add the INI parameter SourceFile=somename.txt, MR/2
will automatically go into full screen, split window editing mode on
reply. If you don't do this, the editor starts off looking the
same, but new keys are enabled:
CTRL-O Open a new file (in the secondary buffer only)
prompts for file name, asks if save old one if modified
*This ALWAYS opens the file into the TOP, extra window/buffer*
CTRL-D Divide the editing screen into 2 equal parts
CTRL-C Close/Hide the current editor Window (if split only)
CTRL-G Grow the current window to full size (if split only)
CTRL-S Save the current file
CTRL-UP Move the divider bar up one line
CTRL-DOWN Move the divider bar down one line
CTRL-PAGEUP Expand the bottom window all the way
CTRL-PAGEDOWN Expand the top window all the way
ALT-N Give the NEXT editor buffer the focus
(split or two full screens - Shift F3 works, too)
ALT-C will now copy *across* windows. If nothing is marked in the
current window, the other window is checked for a mark. ALT-M will
do the same; if text is not highlighted in the current window, it
will check the "other" window, cut the marked text and paste it to
the current cursor position.
Sorry, I had to change some things:
FIND was remapped to CTRL-F (from CTRL-S)
FIND NEXT was remapped to CTRL-N (from CTRL-F)
And, for compatibility with ME/2:
ALT-X Save and exit whole editor.
If you don't do the SourceFile thing, then you can still open CTRL-O
a file or two for reference. For example, just today, I CTRL-O
opened MR2.DOC and cut a couple of lines from that. Same with a
snip from pmmle.h.
o Editor Help screen updated to show new key functions, also now includes
clipboard access keys.
o ME/2 USERS: I fixed it now so that ME/2 is initially loaded *after*
MR/2 switches the path to the working directory. This means that
the old ME/2 "erc 100 - reply.msg" error due to a pathing problem is
fixed by default. Your old INI ReplyFile specs will work. If you're
not using ME/2, this change *will not* effect you.
Changes included in v2.08
-------------------------
o By request, and it made sense, the conference name is displayed
at the top of the message index screen. I simply show the
"packet id" string that is optionally shown on the message viewing
screen.
o I noticed that the reply header editing screen still was using that
aweful light red color (on top of white) for the current field. I
changed this to normal red, and I think it's much easier to read.
o Also by request, when MR/2 clears the screen to pack replies, a
simple message is posted informing you of this. On some system,
the delay was significant, and with the screen totally blank,
confusion resulted. The message is simple and modest; I depend on
the archiver to write to stdout, and pretty-stuff wouldn't scroll
off the screen nicely.
o MR/2 would sometimes "lock up" when moving backwards through message
by thread (using Ctrl-PageUp or backspace). This has been fixed.
o Importing text into the internal editor (Alt-R) would often result
in the cursor being shifted to the right one character from where
keypresses would insert characters. This has been fixed.
Changes included in v2.07
-------------------------
o Minor changes - mostly in the interface and communications between
my external PM editor, ME/2.
Changes included in v2.06
-------------------------
o Rime-routed messages that were long enough to be split missed the
auto-routing line placement logic on secondary parts. I was looking
for too exact a match on "RIME". Also, I keyed on "Postlink" within
the original message to tell if it was routed. Editing the header on
pass two, the original message was no longer available.
Anyway, fixed :)
o Added support for ME/2, a PM-based editor I've been playing with.
ME/2 is an MDI-based editor with toolbar, statusbar, multiple
file windows, speller, thesaurus, simple printing ... tons of
features. I'm putting it out at the same time as this (ME2_099.zip).
If you use ME/2 as your editor, it is preloaded by MR/2 on startup.
MR/2 can control it using IPC tricks, so response is better than
you'd get with any normal PM editor. Session switching back and
forth is handled automatically. See the me2.doc file included with
the ME/2 distribution zip.
o INI parameter added - "SourceFile". If specified, a source message
that is being replied to will be quoted to this file, and the actual
reply file will contain no quoted text, just an empty template
read-to-complete. This is used by ME/2 as an option, and may be
useful for other setups.
Changes included in v2.05
-------------------------
o Resolution of the source Internet address enhanced slightly. I moved
the check for PC-Boards @From: specifier before some of the others, as
if this line is there, it's much more reliable than searching for the
tokens like "From: ". Some of my recent replies detected invalid
Internet addresses. This should help. (After a couple of replies,
it does! :).
o Setting extended attributes on packets stored on a LAN Server network
drive would actually modify the datestamp. I added code to query the
original date/time and then reset this *after* the EA's were applied.
Seems to behave properly now.
o I screwed up and overwrote a large, completely unread packet tonight.
I was bummed. But wait! I now save the PTR file and can reset my
pointers!! Only ... MR/2's saving mechanism seems to have been broken
and I uploaded a 3 month old file. Needless to say, I got more messages
than I needed! What a mess ... I had to reset all my pointers by hand
and I know I missed some mail. I then fixed the date compare of PTR
files. They should overwrite the existing one now, if newer, and do
it correctly. For whoever it was that reported this and that I
ignored ... you got your revenge!
o MR/2 would crash when you pressed escape from the "NO PACKETS FOUND"
message. Had something to do with the aggressive optimizations. I've
"unoptimized" a bit until I can figure this out.
o I made a slight goof when I fixed the recursive variable replacement
in the last release. I made it so any *real text* with an "@" in it
would get removed, whether it had a "\" proceeding it or not. You see,
the "\" would *not* be there the second pass, so the "@" was unprotected.
If there was a string between two @'s, this would be removed too, as
it was assumed it was an invalid variable name. I now leave unresolved
variables in the text as-is. This bug effected mostly fidonet
and internet addresses. Fixed.
Changes included in v2.04
-------------------------
NOTE: This version includes alot of optimization from compiler switches
and from some rearranging of localized code. I used it personally for
several weeks, and the only "problems" I saw were minor video (cosmetic)
issues ... like a "black hole" for a second or two when one of the "use
existing?" prompts comes down. I'll track this, but you may see it until
the next version. The fixes in this release are beneficial, and the
video problems just minor and cosmetic.
I've also traced some recent slow downs to the folder subsystem; packing
log files and building indices in particular. I do this way too often, and
it takes too long. I will spend some time on these shortly, attempting to
hit the disk far less than happens currently.
o New INI variable "ALIAS" allows you to set a user name for yourself
other than the one found in the BBS Control.dat file. This alias
name will be placed in the FROM field of all your replies. Best used
in a "local", BBS-specific INI file when accessing multiple BBS's.
For Example: Alias=Billy-Bob will override the settings in Control.dat
(say for this example the BBS name was "William B Gooden"). Replies
would come from Billy-Bob.
o Turns out that the @variable logic was not as recursive as I had
advertised. For example, inserting a "phrase file" line that
contained yet another variable to replace did not work. It does now :)
o Fixed a crash when modifying replies (changing, killing ...). If the
subject happenned to end in column 25 with a number BUT not be a
"split reply", MR/2 would crash looking for the "/" in "x/n". For
example "OS/2 <...> 2.11" would cause this crash to occur.
o Reply log would not always be accessible without an existing packet.
If you had no messages in your inbasket or replies for a specific
BBS, ALT-E (No packet entry) would not allow access to the reply log.
Fixed.
o Some major under-the-hood work. I played around with some compiler
switches that have always been there, but have remained undiscovered
until now. <read: it sometimes pays to read the manual, even if
it's 3 years late :>. I've compiled MR/2's code, including the
speller, thesaurus and editor, with 286-or-better code generation
turned on. The 386 code generator caused problems, and I still have
some v1.3/286 users. One day I'll go full 32-bit, but not yet :)
Also, I turned on some aggressive optimizations. I also recompiled
the ZTC tools with these switches. I tried the C runtime library,
but it showed some bad signs, so I switched back.
All this does is provides a little more snap, and a 12k reduction
in EXE size. Nothing revolutionary, but every bit helps.
Changes included in v2.03
-------------------------
o ADD/DROP still had a problem whenever the DOOR and CONTROLNAME
specifiers did not match (in dorr.id). Fixed. Cammail-Gold door
configuration now works.
o Reply logging would work wonderfully ... until you started replying
to subsequent packets into the same REP file. In other words, if
you had a week's worth of packets (as I ended up having), and rifled
through ALL of them without uploading replies, only the replies from
the first packet would be logged. I fixed another bug after that
having to do with source messages, but this wasn't relevant until
the other bug was tackled.
o Killing replies with multiple parts: fixed the bug that killed the
WRONG messages. Big bug (sorry), but it works now.
o Fixed some problems and made some enhancements to the Fidonet node
detection logic (replacing @FIDONET@ with the source message's
fidonet address). Three digit zones are now supported where two
digits was the previous max (800:676/23). There was a problem with
"@" symbols as part of the Origin line text - fixed. I also now
attempt to extract the Fidonet address from a source message format
that I had never seen before. This format came from a source on
the NITELOG BBS, one which is home to many MR/2 users. I now
look for and use the "Reply:" line when found in a source netmail
message.
o When using U to UNMARK a message (to unkill a reply, for example),
the INDEX markings would not be removed. Fixed.
o Reports of sporadic crashing: some users have emailed me with
crash-reports and supplied debugging addresses. Often these
point me right to a problem. I have a couple of addresses that
are in general routines, and the information supplied is not
helping. I haven't forgotten you! I'm looking for these and
trying to come up with another way to find these. I am also
changing the way I archive older version so as not to "lose"
the chance of making sense out of info from these older version.
Changes included in v2.02
-------------------------
o Modified the after-packet-selection processing so that a local
INI might be loaded *before* the unzipper is called. I've always
held that MR/2 can't know the true BBS name until the packet is
unzipped and the control.dat file is parsed. What happens now is,
as soon as a packet is selected, a "base name" is derived from
the packet name. For example, "e:\dl\pc-ohio.qwk;12" would be
whittled down to "pc-ohio". If an INI file is found with this
base name, it is instantly loaded. Again, this is *before* the
packet is opened, so that BBS-specific unzippers can be identified.
If an INI cannot be found matching this derived name, then MR/2
tries again, the old-fashioned normal way, after the packet has been
opened. If one is found on the first try, no secondary loading is
performed. This *should* work in most cases, particularly when
OS/2 comm packages are used.
NOTE that this is *still* too late to identify a different "working"
directory. MR/2 has already changed the default path by this time.
o Mouse hot spots on message viewing screen changed a little. I made
clicking on the word "Subject:" equal to pressing the "Q" key and
anywhere after the ":" and up to the "Conf:" word is still the same
as pressing "H". This adds easier access to the Q key. Previously,
the entire area was mapped to the "H" key.
While I was at it, I added three more hotspots. The only correlation
between word and feature is that the word starts with the same letter
as the feature. That's how I picked the area :). Click on the "Ref#"
area to "R" Reply. Click on the "Date" area to "D" defer. Click on
the "Status" area to "S" Save.
o That pesky lockup that occured when marking and deleting a block
up to and including the EOF marker has been squashed. I could easily
recreate it here, now it seems to be handled. I simply make sure that
the end mark can't be placed on or after the EOF triangle.
o Bug: With PositionOnMatch set to NO, the key-word highlight would
also be suppressed for virtual conferences. Now the keywords hilite
regardless of the setting of this switch.
o By request ... remapped the numeric keyboard "5" key, when not in
numeric mode (arrows are active) to be equivelent to the ESCAPE key.
As was pointed on, one can now do most message selection and
reading/movement functions from just the numeric pad.
Changes included in v2.01
-------------------------
o Trying to open the WELCOME.QWK packet in the home MR/2 directory
caused a trap and terminated the program. This was caused because of
an error in the code that checks for the "\" character in the packet
file name. If one wasn't there, it would crash. Fixed.
o If a bad "working directory" was set in an icon, MR/2's background
searching virtual conference builder would crash. I've fixed this,
although some questions remain.
Changes included in v1.99cx thru v2.00
--------------------------------------
Well, this is the long awaited v2.0 release! As usual, I wish I
would have had *just another week*, but I'm already 10 weeks late
from my original Jan 1 target. I'm sure there will be some quick
updates as this hits the streets and some more bugs shake out.
I've got to at least get to v2.03 soon, so as that Steve fellow that
still uses v1.03 in Fido's OS/2 conferences will finally upgrade :)
Lots of exciting things still to come. I just added CLONING as an
experiment, and there's lots of potential here. Multiple sessions
for different BBS's has been working ok; also has more potential.
I'm personally in desperate need of a more complete folder setup.
This means some type of database capability - entirely optional and
user defined. I will be collecting ideas, requests and suggestions
for subsequent versions. If I didn't get to something you want or
need, feel free :) I *do* have every piece of correspondence ever
sent to me, and I will pass through this yet again.
o More work on the manual - 91 printed pages. Updated several
sections and the corresponding table of contents entries. No
index yet, but I plan on keeping this more up-to-date than it's
been in the past. I also plan a more nicely formatted version
for those that want more than just ASCII text.
o Modified MR2INI.ORG extensively. This is the default INI file
that is copied to MR2.INI the first time you bring up MR/2.
Mostly a rearrange; I divided the file into sections:
Basic setup, Reply/Quoting, Intermediate, Advanced and Misc.
Some explanation at the front of the file, with notes to
reference SEARCH.INI and EXAMPLE.TF where appropriate.
Much cleaner. I hope this helps new users get going more
smoothly.
o Added more examples to SEARCH.INI, focusing on some of the
newer and more power virtual conference features.
o Added mr2icons.zip to the distribution zip (7k). Several misc.
MR/2 and MR/2 PM icons provided compliments of long-time
registered user John Bales. Thanks John!
o Fixed a bug where, when killing certain replies, MR/2 would
seem to hang, but then come back. There was an uninitialized
counter under certain circumstances. This caused a loop to
"do nothing" for some random amount of time until the counter
ticked down. In the debugger session where I discovered this,
the counter was set to 27,000+. It took about 2 minutes to
come back. Fixed.
o Spaces within an address-book "tag" field would keep the address
from being selectable from the pick-list. Fixed.
o WPS Associations referencing .REP files would fail, as would
referencing a .REP file on the command line (same thing).
This works now.
o Fixed a problem where the reply packet would often be rezipped
even though no changes were made to it. This happened when
using no-packet entry and when selecting a .REP file directly
from the packet selection screen.
o Fidonet addresses that had two digit ZONES (e.g., 40:383/1) were
not working properly. The zone was seen as only the last digit.
Fixed for two digit zones - sorry, I didn't even know they
existed :)
o Address book: when selecting an address specified as private,
either through the pick-list of by direct "!tag" identifier,
the private flag would often remain public. Fixed.
Changes included in v1.99bx
---------------------------
o When using the /I or /W command line parameters (to open a
second MR/2 session, for example), MR/2 would exit when the first
packet was exited. Now it correctly returns to the packet select
screen.
o A user noticed that the highlighted item on the message index screen
was a little difficult to read. In checking, I found that I used
"light red" for foreground. Normal "red" is now used and the text
appears slighlty sharper and easier to read. This effects most
Blue selection boxes and confirmation prompts.
o I *really* didn't want to do this so close to a scheduled major
release. In fact, I don't know if I'll even try to finish this for
v2.0, as to get it just right may take some time and experimentation.
Cloning a session. It works, but there are tons of "how should this
be handled questions". Read the next two entries.
o New command line switch - /Clone or just /C. This *assumes* that
a packet is already open in your default (or overridden with /w)
working directory. This mode simply "uses existing packet",
sets "go to last read position" and opens MR/2. When the packet
menu is exited, you exit the program without cleanup. This is for
use with an already running MR/2, so as to allow reading of the
same open packet in another session.
o Added some preliminary function keys to the MR/2 message viewer.
CTRL-F1 "clones" a windowed session. CTRL-F3 clones full screen.
This opens a second copy of MR/2, using the existing packet. This
allows for multiple windows or session reading independently.
The cloned window will not cleanup files, will not have bookmarks
recorded (they are currently lost when session is closed).
I just cloned three additional sessions from one "main" session.
That's 4 windows into the same packet. This is *too* neat.
This will take more thinking, but it's already been useful to me,
so I'll let this out for others to experiement with. Some problems
for me to resolve (and that means others should feel free to
influence me :).
Is it too restrictive to only let replies be generated from the
"master" session? Hmmm. I've having some brainstorms here. I'm
going to sleep on this one.
NOTE: I've already thought this out to a level that's way too
complicated to finish for v2.0. I will complete this code after
v2.0 is released, and I will take suggestions in the meantime.
So, while this feature will be left for those who wish to
explore it, it will remain undocumented and "unsupported" for
v2.0. I just don't want to rush to fix bugs in this right now.
ALSO NOTE: Each cloned window is a child of the session doing
the cloning. If you close the parent, the clildren disappear,
too. There are so many possibilties here, and so may possible
problems :).
o Fixed a minor problem with selection lists where, when paging down
at the end of the list, the cursor would sometimes move up or down
the list, but not land on the last entry.
o Mouse cursor would sometimes leave a "black hole" on blue prompt
boxes. In fact, mouse cursor was not visible for these boxes unless
first moved.
o Read.me file: removed pre v1.95 material. I will make all complete
modification logs available on Nerd's Nook sometime after v2.0 is
released.
Changes included in v1.99Ax
---------------------------
o Phantom "killed" status would sometimes show up in the corner of
the messge viewer when reading inbasket/logged messages. The
messages was often active, and the status report in error. I've
fixed this.
o More manual work. Checked for spelling mistakes and generated a
preliminary table of contents.
o Thesaurus - cleaned up all the fancy features. They didn't always
work as advertised :(
o Fixed a bug where, upon reentering an "existing", previously opened
packet, the local INI file was not loaded before parts of the packet
where reloaded. This caused things like conferences that were
declared as hidden to be displayed. They would be hidden when the
packet was open the first time, but ALT-X, go back in and they'd
be listed.
o Added S-Save and P-Print to Bulletins, Files and News viewers.
Careful, as ANSI codes *are not* stripped before saving/printing.
Help screen also updated.
o I scrunched the message header form one more time, getting 3 more
characters for taglines. That makes a max tag of 69 chars. When
I get more energy I'll expand this again. I figure I can get 3-4
more, but I'd have to rework the whole form. Not something I care
to do at this time.
o Ouch! Big problem with ADD/DROP logic; whether using the default
door name or a INI-declared name. Both Subject and To fields
in the message header received C-type (zero terminated) strings
instead of QWK formatted, fill-with-spaces strings. I'm sure this
confused many a mail door and was probably the reason I received
so many "not working" complaints. Heck, it confused my message
index screen! Sorry :(. Thanks you to Marc Bourassa for getting
me enough info to find this!
Changes included in v1.99x
--------------------------
o More manual work, of course. I'm up to 81 pages and still more
to do.
o Help screen touch-ups to reflect new keys added in the last
release or two.
o Added new reply-time replacable template variables: TargetTo,
TargetToFirst and TargetToLast. These are the same as the "TO"
series, except that TO is replaced by the original messages TO
and is useful mostly for attribution lines. It was brought to my
attention that accessing the target user's name was not available.
It is now! Still thinking about Subject and others along those
lines ...
o Removed MR2.HST from the distribution zip list. I read it over
and every feature it describes is now documented.
o Added Hotkeys back to the Edit Message Header screen. F4 used to
bring up the tagline picklist, and for awhile F6 brought up the
Address pick list. I removed these keys and received some
complaints. I've added alternate ways to get to the picklists on
this screen: ALT-T to select taglines, ALT-C for conferences and
ALT-A for addresses (these work from *any* field).
o Added some options for accessing external utilities differently.
This was partially in an attempt to solve some rare problems with
either 4os2 or booting from the D:\ drive, or both. These may
offer a performance boots in other cases. Since I just spelled
this all out in a messages, I'll use that:
For all of MR/2 classic's external utility access, I used the
system(command) call. This is a C function that says "load the
command processor and give it this command". This is all dependent
on the comspec being set correctly, and on ZTC's runtime code (which
did look ok, BTW). Still, BW/2 mentioned being able to run an editor
and/or pkzip directly, w/o loading CMD.EXE. I thought for a second,
and remembered that MR/2 PM does exactly this.
So, I scarfed the Run() function out of my MR/2 PM code and made it
optionally accessible. Now, mind you, this gets a little silly and
is subject to one final change :). I still call external EXE's the
same old way ... UNLESS you prefix it with a code or two.
For example:
Editor=q loads q.exe the same old way.
Editor=!c:\qe3\q.exe loads a windowed Q.exe on the desktop,
running q.exe directly (no cmd.exe
involved). File must be fully qualified
with full path specifications.
Editor=!!c:\qe3\q.exe loads a full screen session w/o loading
cmd.exe - q.exe loads directly.
Fully qualify the file name.
Editor=!$c:\qe3\dos\q.exe
loads a DOS windowed session, loading Q.exe
directly. CMD.exe is not accessed, but
command.com is. May still cause D:\ booting
problems, but it's an option.
Editor=!$!c:\qe3\dos\q.exe
Loads the DOS Qedit into a Full screen DOS
session w/o accessing cmd.exe.
NOTE that these work with the zipper/unzipper, too, as well as
PreEdit, PostEdit, F2-F10, etc.,. Anytime an external util is
called, I check for these prefixes for special processing. I
should have done this a long time ago :)
Since CMD.exe is removed from the loop with these commands, the
programs should load more quickly. In fact, they seem to, but it's
very hard to measure.
o Problem with BackDropMaxLines. If this maximum line count was
GREATER than the actual lines in the file, MR/2 would end up
searching/displaying *past* the end of the buffer. This caused
garbage to the screen at best, crashing in most cases. The GCO
ANSI Goodbye screen was only 20 lines long, and with the max lines
set at 24, horrible things would happen. Fixed.
Changes included in v1.98x
--------------------------
o Manual work. It's growing fast. Enclosed is a new "preliminary"
MR2.DOC file. The old manual was 22 pages, this one is 70 or so
and there's still plenty to add. Some sections are incomplete.
No, I haven't checked for spelling errors. I'm open for comments,
but don't dig too deeply, please.
o PurgeAfterDays and PurgeAfterCount now actually function. Here's
how it works: When you close a packet, MR/2 has always "packed"
your InBasket, if any. This process simply involved passing through
the InBasket and removing "killed" message by writing over them with
active ones. When the ReplyLog was added, the same process was
performed. Since the reply log grows with each reply, I added code
to control the number of messages kept, by maximum age or by maximum
count, or by both.
If PurgeAfterDays is not specified (or set to zero), no age
check is performed on replylog messages. Otherwise ...
The Reply log is first packed the old way with a slight additional
check. If a message is found to be active and older that the
cut-off date (older that PurgeAfterDays old), then the message is
marked as killed. The normal removal process follows after this
check. If a message is killed and it has a "source" or "original"
message after it (these have special MR/2-internal markings), this
is also killed. Once this pass has been completed, all manually
killed and "old" message have been removed, along with any "source"
messages recorded with them. A count of active messages is returned
to the packing process.
If PuregAfterCount is not specified, or set to zero, no maximum
message checking is performed. Otherwise ...
Now, MR/2 compares the active message count to the specified maximum
(PurgeAfterCount). If found to be greater, then the number of
messages to delete is calculated. A new pass is made through the
folder, and the oldest messages are marked and deleted until the
number of messages to delete has been reached. Again, if a message
is removed, so is its source/original message, if one exists.
I will add a way to mark a reply as "permanent". This will keep
the packing routines from removing it. A permanent message will
not be deleted until you manually kill it. As an additional
feature, I want to add an "unkill" key. I've killed a couple of
replylog messages that I didn't want to, and saving them was a
real pain. And I even know how! I wouldn't expect anyone else to
be able to figure this out.
o Double confirmation prompt on exiting the editor w/out saving. I
lost my last long-winded reply to this gotcha. If you would press
ESCAPE too many times, too fast, while in the internal editor, you
would often end up losing any/all changes. This was because ESCAPE
is seen as a request to exit the editor, and the "would you like to
save" question, when ESCAPE is pressed, says "No". Two escapes and
you've lost any changes. I've done this more than once by accident.
It angered me; I apologize for causing anyone else this frustration.
Now, if you escape out of the editor and changes have been made, it
asks you if you wish to save them. If you press ESCAPE, it askes if
you're sure, and ESCAPE says "no, I'm not sure" and saves your work.
You must press YES or press ENTER to abort changes.
o Cutting from a DOS windowed session and pasting to MR/2, using
ALT-* fails. Previous versions would actually crash, leaving the
clipboard open and locking up any program that tried to access it
afterwards. I'm still trying to find out why this fails, but in
the meantime, I removed the crashing, and the subsequent lockups.
o Packing the folders (Inbasket, ReplyLog). A informative popup
window now is displayed while this process performs it's work.
o Added a "Make Permanent" key for use within the Reply Log.
Pressing "!" will mark the Reply Log message as a "keeper" and
the Folder packing routine will no automatically delete this
message, nomatter how old it is or how many messages over the
maximum exist.
o Added an "UnKill" keystroke. Pressing "U" will remove the "Killed"
marking from any message.
o New INI parameter - BackdropMaxLines. This controls the maximum
number of lines from the WELCOME and GOODBYE screens will be flashed
to the screen. Some BBS's have ANSI Welcome screens that are
multiple pages long. MR/2 would proceed to flash these messages
completely at various times. Set BackdropMaxLines to 25, for
example, to flash only the first screen. Setting this parameter to
zero will suppress the Welcome screen altogether. The default is
set to -1, which will flash any and all lines of the file to the
screen.
o I think I fixed the problem with crashing when trying to finish
out of MR/2 *before* the background searching was finished. This
would not happen if all virtual conferences had been created but,
if you would open a packet by mistake and try to quickly get out
of it, crash! This was because I was deleting all the work files
before the background process was told to stop ... and it was
trying to read messages.dat.
o New INI parameters: F2 through F10. Used to attach command-line
actions to function keys.
Changes included in v1.97x
--------------------------
o I forgot to list the INI options SavePointerFiles, PurgeAfterDays
and PurgeAfterCount in the MR2INI.ORG file. These are now listed.
More INI's, as I try to clean up some smaller user problems and
requests:
o "DoorName" may now be used to identify the target BBS door "user
name" to which to address ADD/DROP messages. This not only aids
in the case where a BBS door provides no DOOR.ID file, but also
when trying to perform ADD/DROP functions from no-packet entry or
reply packet maintenance. For example, DoorName=RoseMail will
address all ADD/DROP messages TO: RoseMail.
o "CursorSize" may now be specified for the normal internal editor
cursor. Many users complained that, in certain video modes
(large number of lines/screen), and under some setups, the cursor
could not be seen. By default, MR/2's normal editor cursor is
1 scanline high (maybe two?). When lines/screen is 34 or more,
MR/2 changes the cursor to 6 or 7 scanlines. This was reported to
still not be visable sometimes. So, You may now specify the number
of scanlines for a normal cursor - from 1 to 13. MR/2's "overtype"
cursor is 13 (14?) scanlines tall and is not configurable at this time.
Example: CursorSize = 10
o I did manage to finalize the thesaurus data file. The "officially
released" thesaurus wordbase will consist of 9242 "key" words
with a total of 70,101 synonyms. The technique I'm using makes it
easy to find synonyms, even if the word is not found to be a key.
o There was a problem with using a MessageOrder of anything BUT
subject. A variable remained uninitialized in all cases except
by subject, and this caused crashing as soon as a conference was
selected and the message index sort was started. Fixed.
o Selection lists had a bug that wouldn't allow you to select the
LAST entry (if the "page" was full). Clicking on the bottom
line of the box did nothing (it's supposed to page down), and
clicking on the slot for the last entry on the page paged-down.
Fixed.
o INI file now includes a default virtual conference. This will
help new users "discover" this key feature much quicker.
o Manual has actually been worked on! No, it's not in here.
It's not in *that* great a shape yet, but it's progressing :)
Changes included in v1.96x
--------------------------
Still lots left to do, I'll try to get a summary list together
and post it next time. I'm getting close, tho. Bug reports seem
to be light, which makes me happy. I wanted to hit Feb 1st, but
I'm not sure now. If I can get a couple of good days in I can call
it soup. It will be *very* soon, the manual being the last major
"feature" to address.
o New and Improved help screens. Added definitions for dozens of
previously-unlisted keystrokes and functions. HELPS include 20
or so completely *new* screens, too, covering many of the newer
enhancements.
NOTE that mr2.hlp is a simple editor file with [TAG] markers to tell
me where a help section starts. The section ends at the next tag
marker. If you don't like my HELP text, you *can* create your own
text (modify my descriptions). A section must fit on the screen,
tho, with a char/line or two reserved as border. Hey, if you end up
with something you think is better, send it to me and if I agree,
I'll use it :)
I start on the manual next - actually already have, but now I have
to be serious!
o Updated MR2INI.ORG with a section that describes the newest
INI variables.
o Tab expansion in the message viewer. I default this to 4
characters, but allow you to toggle this value via ALT-TAB.
Sequence is 4,8,0,2 where "0" means show the tab character and
don't expand.
o I discovered that searching while in the INBASKET or the REPLYLOG
didn't work. Searching within an INBASKET has never worked.
Fixed this (modified QWK.Getfh()).
o By request (several), the spacebar may now be used as an alternate
to ENTER for selecting a conference w/mail to read. This was a
tough call, as the ' ' is a valid typing character, and I can see
some folks trying to do a conference name prefix jump to the "main
board" conference by typing "Main ". Where this would previously
work, and it still *might*, the spacebar press will cause the
highlighted conference to now be selected. Open for comments, I
think this will be OK, tho.
o It was pointed out to me that many keyboards don't have an F11 key,
and that's what I chose as the "mark" key on selection list. (At
this time, "marking" within a list only has a purpose on the packet
selection screen, for merging QWK packets.) After some thinking and
experimentation, I made the "*" key a synonym for F11 on pick lists.
It was suggested to use + and - to mark, unmark, but the minus or
dash often comes up as part of conference and packet names. So,
"jump to prefix" would be affected. The "*" key will toggle the
mark on and off. This key is easily selected w/o shifting by using
the one on the numeric keypad (eeek! Assuming you have one :).
o UNQWK.CMD bug - my first user "fix" to this routine! Thank you
Wolfgang von Thuelen for pointing this out. In the check for long
file names, I ignored the case where file names were exactly 12
characters long BUT were still non-FAT names (e.g., "mwcst.qwk;11").
The first 'if' statement was changed from "if flongnames < 0" to "if
flongnames <= 0".
o More thesaurus work - mostly minor cosmetics. I've almost got
what I want, although I know the ALT-S and ALT-L are buugy now.
I'm letting it out with these bugs, as it's still functional and
I doubt many are using this feature (yet?). Keys you may press
with descriptions are placed above editor window.
Changes included in v1.95x
--------------------------
I'm calling this v1.95x, as I consider myself "close" to what I wanted
in a v2.0 release. I do have a few features to add; although not many.
Believe me, I've got plenty of ideas for v2.01 and beyond. Existing
users know that this has never been a static product :). I've created
quite a few monsters here ... huge new features that are going to take
some "shaking out" to get them working perfectly.
o Clipboard: When doing an "append" (ALT-GREY-= or ALT-GREYENTER)
to an empty clipboard, MR/2 would crash. The first text copied to
the clipboard had to be done with the ALT-+ command, then appending
would work. Fixed. You can now append to an empty clipboard.
o Reply log messages can now be "Copied" and/or "Replied to". The
message is then copied into the reply conference as to be "sent
again".
o INI parsing problem prevented FolderPath from being recognized.
(Discovered when relinking and testing MR/2 PM).
o Mouse could not be used to select the very first entry in a selection
list. This was broken recently - now fixed.
o Template Sections labeled as "New" using routing lines: I had
previously noted in this document AND personally corresponded
electronically with a few of you about this. Specifically, *before*
this version, the $Body line was needed *before* the routing line,
as for "new" messages, only the "signature" sections was placed in
the reply file. THIS HAS ALL BEEN CHANGED. The 'New' Sections now
work the way you would expect; the entire section is placed in the
reply file, and the $Body (while still necessary) should be placed
where you would normally start your reply. In other words, these
sections should be setup the way you would expect from using the
"normal" sections as an example.
o Packet selection screen: You may now MARK two or more packets on
this screen and actually MERGE them together as one QWK packet.
Use F11 to mark the packets to combine, then ALT-M (Merge) to
merge them together. This process calls upon my new and improved
MQWK.CMD REXX command file to do most of the work. This makes the
process configurable/extendable, as long as you want to tinker with
REXX source code.
Multiple/automatic archiver detection is not supported at this time;
the archiver name is hard-coded in the script to be "pkunzip -n"
and the zipper is 'pkzip'. Modify these in MQWK.CMD if necessary.
When you press ALT-M, and if 2 or more packets are marked, MR/2 will
prompt for a target packet name. If a name is supplied, all marked
QWK packets will be merged into one with this name. If no name is
supplied, MR/2 simply combines the packets in the TMP$$ work
directory, where they can be read as a combined packet. NOTE,
however, that bookmarks will be lost, as there will be no "target"
packet to record them to. I suggest always allowing MR/2 to
repack the combined QWK packet.
FURTHER NOTE: I've now modified the script so that there is very
little reason *not* to repack the combined messages into a new QWK
file. If a name is supplied as a target, MR/2 combines all marked
packets and jumps right into "read" mode. AT THE SAME TIME, I spawn
another session, in the background, to archive the combined packet.
This becomes invisible to you and should not impede your normal
reading operations. If the combined packet does not show up on the
packet selection screen, you may reference MQWK.LOG for possible
error messages. All output from the archiving process is redirected
to this file.
Index files (*.ndx) are discarded by the merge process ... MR/2 will
create index files when it opens the combined packet.
I've tested this procedure with QMail and CamMail doors. I expect
that other doors may created cases that call for a little adjusting.
Keep me posted. ALSO, no error checking is performed to assure that
all the packets you are merging together are of the same BBS. THIS
IS IMPORTANT, as merging dissimilar packets WILL NOT WORK CORRECTLY.
ALSO NOTE that this takes alot of free disk space. A set of QWK
packets totaling 2MB might require 4-5 MB additional free disk space
to function.
o INTERNAL: Messages.dat is now opened in READ-ONLY mode. This allows
the file to be accessed in a background task for archiving.
o INTERNAL: Modifications to zDList, zDLSelect and zDirSelect (linked
list and selection from list(s) routines) to further support "marking"
of members and retrieval of "marked" status in various forms.
o I received a packet via CIS email from the Channel1 BBS. This
board has been a great logic-breaker for me ... they ought to quit
growing! Anyway, their control.dat files finally made it over 64k,
which has always been an MR/2 limitation (due to an initial design
flaw on my part). This is now fixed so that there is *no* maximum
control.dat file size limitation. I now handle/parse this file one
line at a time w/o loading it all into memory up front. Channel1
packets once again work!
o HideConferences can now be specified multiple times within a set
of INI files. The hidden conferences list is now cumulative where
before only the last HideConference line was effective.
o I expanded the packet selection screen even more and added columns
for Per (Personal) and Rep (Replied-to) message counts. I know that
I'm constantly trying to remember which packet had all the personals
to me in it, so this helps me out. The reply count may also help
tell you something about a particular packet.
o Modified ZTC's library routine system(). Command line was deemed
invalid when > 128 characters. OS/2 allows much more; I changed
the max to 256. This will allow more QWK packets to be merged
together (it broke today at 4 fully qualified packet names).
o Changes to the way the built-in thesaurus functions. I've still
got some fancy things to do, but it's getting closer. Invoking
the thesaurus for a word that was not a "key" in the word base
previously did nothing; it just ignored you. Now, MR/2 posts a
message and jumps into a sequential "match" search. When you
request a further search of the database using ALT-S, a similar
message is posted. Both messages mention that you can now press
ESCAPE to hault the search. Also, when a search completes with
out finding any new words, MR/2 keeps the previous word list on
the screen. Before, you would be placed out of the thesaurus.
KNOWN BUGS AND STUFF
====================
The TEMPORARY directory MUST remain a subdirectory of the MR2 home dir.
You can't use "\" or "&" as part of any search text (since MR/2 uses them
as delimiters).
You can't cancel a search until the first "hit" is displayed. This is
particularly irritating when soundex searching, since soundexing is
noticably slower.
If you set "SkipReadMessages" to true, you cannot gain access to a
conferences where all messages have previously been read.
Other frills that have not yet been addressed: Bulk marking, twit filter.
There are probably others. Feel free to bombard me with requests.
