Software Vault: The Gold Collection/Software Vault - The Gold Collection (American Databankers) (1993).ISO/cdr18/alad170.zip/CHANGES.DOC

Text File | 1993-06-30 | 10KB | 264 lines

The changes for 1.63 are included here for information's sake,
since chances are many of you did not download 1.63.

IMPORTANT: Versions 1.63 and higher of PC Aladdin are now Intel
386 and 486 processor-aware. They will take advantage of the 386
and 486 processor's advanced instructions to do things like
32-bit integer math and such. This means that Aladdin will
probably flush out any TSR's which you may have installed which
do not properly restore 32-bit registers on 386's and 486's upon
return from an interrupt. If this happens, there isn't much that
we can do about it. You'll have to contact the maker of the TSR
to have them correct this programming oversight, or else stop
using the TSR. The one program that we know does this is the
software for Novell =non-dedicated= servers.

Changes from 1.62 to 1.63

NOTE: YOU =MUST= DELETE ALL *.FMK, *.FMS and *.FFM FILES IN YOUR
ALADDIN DIRECTORY. THIS IS BECAUSE THE FORMAT OF THOSE FILES HAS
CHANGED FOR ALADDIN 1.63.

To accomplish this, type the following commands from the DOS
prompt once you have entered your Aladdin directory:

  DEL *.FMS
  DEL *.FMK
  DEL *.FFM

If you don't do this, 1.63 will not work properly.

1) Problem with updating files in the IBM RT's library have been
fixed. To update your local library, after following the
instructions above, go into the F6 RT configuration menu and
choose the "E" command to edit the IBM-PC RT's entry. Go to the
"LAST FILE DATE" field and enter an "930101" into that field.
Press Esc to exit, then go into the IBM-PC RT's file library menu
and ask Aladdin to update the file list.

2) Miscellaneous problems in the help file have been corrected.

3) QUOTES ON script command has been changed to look for `` as
well as '' and change them to a single quote char (").

4) Correct problem in SL file update code having to do with
pressing ESCAPE during start of library checking code.

5) Added new script command UPDALLTOPINDEXES which works exactly
the same as pressing "O" in the terminal mode menu to update all
topic indexes for all RT's with A, C or N in the autopass 1
options field in the RT configuration screen.

6) Modified SL code to properly enter the CyberStrike library.

7) Corrected problems with munging of relative paths in filename
request prompt ( ..\xxx\xxx was turned into -.\xxx\xxx).

8) Fixed Zmodem est time left problem when download went through
midnight.

9) Fixed problem with BYE being sent but Aladdin never hanging up
the phone. Aladdin now sends the BYE command and if it doesn't
see the OFF in 20 seconds it hangs up on it's own.

10) Fixed problem with mail download after command to enter RTC
and plain logon command.

11) Ctrl-A now exits F5 config with no save.

12) Exit from "J" screen puts up "Working..." status line to let
users know that system is not locked up, I'm just doing something
with the SL files.

13) Increased width of all text editing windows to boundaries of
80 character screen.

Changes from 1.63 to 1.70:

CHANGES IN ITEMS 5 AND 6 REQUIRE THAT AS SOON AS POSSIBLE AFTER
YOU INSTALL 1.70 YOU SHOULD GO TO THE TERMINAL MODE MENU AND
PRESS THE "O" KEY TO UPDATE ALL YOUR TOPIC INDEXES.

1) Adjustments made for the new rate structure, including removal
of things like restrictions on page numbers in RT setup, checking
for billing on/off cues, etc.

2) /CMDMODE command line argument no longer available because of
changes to GEnie software. This means that Aladdin will never
switch your menu command mode setting.

3) Modification made to SL upload code so that it doesn't try to
log into the library every time it uploads a file (unnecessary
move commands use a lot of online time).

4) Bug that caused Aladdin to come to a screeching halt when an
upload description was more than 10 lines in length squashed.

5) Topic update command now uses TOP ALL instead of IND.

6) Screens that display topic index or topic mark selections (J
or M) now show a STATUS field instead of a CLOSED field. This
field will show either a blank space, CLOSED for closed topics,
IGNORE for IGN PERM topics, CLO/MA for closed and marked topics,
MARKED for marked topics.

7) The password field in the F5 configuration screen is now
protected. You can't see the password, even as you type it, so be
careful when typing or changing passwords.

8) Attempts to "SET 0", post to a private category to which you
don't have access or to a non-available category will now dump to
DEADMAIL.TXT.

9) COMMANDMODE script command eliminated due to changes in the
way the "C" command works on GEnie.

10) Modified script interpreter to NOT load into memory empty
script lines or lines that begin with a comment character in an
effort to increase available memory for script execution.

11) Added new script vars, similar to how the %0..%9 vars work,
except that wherever these are found in a string they are
substituted for what's listed in the second column:

  Var  Substitute
  ---  --------------
  #H   Current hour
  #N   Current minute
  #M   Current month in MM format, with leading 0 (i.e. 01, 02... 11, 12)
  #D   Current day in DD format, with leading 0
  #Y   Current year in YY format, with leading 0
  #T   Name of current month, 3 chars, uppercase (JAN, FEB, etc.)
  #W   Name of day of week, FULL NAME, no uppercase conversion
       (Sunday, Monday, etc.)

Examples:

         note "The current hour is #H"
         note "The current minute is #N"
         note "The month is #M"
         note "The day is #D"
         note "The year is #Y"
         note "The day of the week is #W"
         note "The name of the month is #T"

12) Added new /MONO and /COLOR command line arguments to force
the color configuration to the monochrome and color default
colors, respectively.

13) Made changes to ensure that if /NOSOUNDS is used as a command
line argument, Aladdin will make -no- noises whatsoever, even if
a script executes the BEEP or ALARM commands.

14) Pressing F4 to delete a configuration set in the F5 config
screen now prompts for confirmation (Y/N).

15) Added another new script command, "POST", which updates the
status field at the bottom right of the screen with a
user-defined string. Syntax is:

 POST {delimitedstring}

The maximum length of the string is 20 characters. Anything over
that will be truncated to 20 characters.

16) Added new command line parameter to run scripts from the DOS
prompt. The syntax is "/RS#" where # is the number of the script
to run. For example, to run Aladdin and have it immediately run
script 4, you would type the following from the DOS prompt:

  ALADDIN /RS4  or  ALAD /RS4

17) Added new script commands SETTIMEOUT and RESTORETIMEOUT. The
syntax of the first command is:

  SETTIMEOUT number

...where "number" is a value in seconds from 0.0 to 9999.0. The
first time you call this command the timeout value in the
configuration screen will be saved.

The syntax of the second command is:

  RESTORETIMEOUT

All this does is restore the saved timeout. If you don't call
this command after using SETTIMEOUT and before your script ends,
Aladdin will automatically restore the timeout value anyway
(which means that you can't use SETTIMEOUT to change the timeout
value for an entire Aladdin session).

18) Added message for unsuccessful search to the parts of the
program that didn't have it.

19) The ALARM script command now times out the waiting period
after 30 seconds.

20) Aladdin now verifies the signature at the beginning of the
configuration file to determine if it is valid or corrupt. If it
doesn't find the signature (or if the signature is from an old
version of Aladdin), it will halt and tell you about the problem.

21) The terminal mode screen will now beep when it gets an ASCII
7 BELL character from GEnie. The <<beep!>> will now only show up
if you have specified the /NOSOUNDS command line argument when
you run the program.

22) Added cps to download log information.

23) Removed additional line of dashes at bottom of saved
messages.

24) New command line argument, /IGNUNREAD. What it does is tell
Aladdin that you DON'T want it to pick up messages when it runs
into an "There were x unread messages..." after posting a reply
in the BB.

25) Added optional parameter to script command UPDALLTOPINDEXES.
Parameter is JOINALL and forces a JOIN command to be sent to
GEnie to reset all previous category CANCEL commands.

26) Added GETMAIL script command. All it does is download any
pending mail.

27) Modified clock display so that connect time clock resets to 0
properly at the end of a session and before the next one.

28) Configuration screen now enforces the four options for baud
rates; 300, 1200, 2400 and 9600 baud.

29) Aladdin now only takes over the com port when it's actually
going to use the modem. When it's not using the modem it will
drop DTR and release the vectors. In other words, when you enter
Aladdin it won't immediately take over the serial port. When you
go to terminal mode to do something, whether it's an automatic or
manual action, it will init the serial port, take over the comm
interrupt and open the terminal mode. If you exit terminal mode
and you're still online, Aladdin will not do anything. If you
exit terminal mode and you're OFFLINE Aladdin will release the
serial port and drop DTR.

30) Fixed recording of new topic info in OUTPUT archive.

31) Tweaked the code that looks for "?" in incoming text to try
and get rid of the false prompts when the text pauses at a
question mark (or whatever the prompt character is set for).

32) Disabled the ability to turn the connect clock on and off by
putting GEnie's cues within a message.

33) Corrected problem with cursor not being restored if Alt-F9 is
pressed at a point in the program where the cursor is hidden.

34) Disabled mail check on login from product index menu
selection.

35) Added support for XON/XOFF from GEnie, for those nodes that
for some unknown reason don't have RTS/CTS support.

36) Made change in config screen from DOWNLOADED MAIL PATH to
ATTACHED FILE PATH to clarify the use of the field. It still
represents the path used for manual Zmodem downloads as well.