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Text File | 1994-11-01 | 32.9 KB | 826 lines

Maximus Version 2.02 Revision History Created November 1, 1994. Copyright 1990, 1994 by Lanius Corporation. All rights reserved. Maximus and Squish are trademarks of Lanius Corporation. INTRODUCTION This file describes the changes made between Maximus 2.00 and Maximus 2.02. This release is a minor maintenance release, but it adds some small features and corrects a number of defects in existing commands and functionality. New features in Maximus 2.02 * A new file transfer protocol driver. This driver supports Ymodem and Ymodem-G, in addition to faster implementations of the existing protocols. Support for Telink was dropped. * Internal support for the FrontDoor nodelist format. Max can now directly read the nodelist files used by FD 2.0x and FD 2.1x, so FD users no longer have to create a separate nodelist. * Internal support for the Version7 nodelist, as used by BinkleyTerm 2.50 and above. Users of the V7 nodelist will realize a significant space savings over the older V6 format. * Max can now use the userlist capabilities of both the Version7 and the FD nodelists to provide name lookups in netmail areas. If you use V7 or FD, a FIDOUSER.LST is no longer required. * Improved multitasker detection for DOS. * Support for the FD 2.1x "CALLER.nnn" interface file. * Major performance improvements for FB, especially on CD-ROM drives. * Commands on the Browse menu will now "mirror" the equivalent commands on your message menu. * A new "Global High Bit" keyword for non-English systems. * Improved handling for 4D point systems using multiple addresses. * A selectable default origin address for each individual netmail area. * New "Toggle Kludge Display" and "Unreceive Message" commands on the message menu. * A "[download]" MECCA token. This allows the sysop to specify a full path and filename to be downloaded, without using [menu_cmd download] (which relies on the file being in one of the file areas). * A new status display for the QWK mail packer. * The filename for the protocol data file (PROTOCOL.MAX) can now be selected in MAX.CTL. See the detailed list of changes for more information. * A keyword to permit single-word names, even for the "real name" logon prompt. * Menu titles can now include "%" characters, such as "Title MAIN (%t mins left)". In addition, Maximus now requires the use of the "IBM", "IBM/snow" or "BIOS" video modes. The DOS, FAST and FOSSIL output modes are no longer supported. For more information on any of the features described above, please see the detailed list of changes. Detailed list of changes between Maximus 2.01wb and Maximus 2.02 * SILT should now be able to handle up to 4,600 areas x FB/2 will now use the HPFS "write" date as the file date, and the HPFS "create" date as the upload date. Also fixed a small problem that caused FB to skip certain file entries. x The "/tb" parameters in FILES.BBS are now case-insensitive x Fixed a problem with the FD nodelist routines that caused some messages to appear with a cost of 32767 x Max should now recognize private messages created by the WinQWK reader x Max/2 and SILT/2 should now be able to recognize CD-ROM file areas x Fixed an accounting problem that used to allow users to reset their download statistics x Fixed a problem with barricade files that sometimes caused the barricaded priv level to become "sticky" and last for the rest of the session x Fixed a problem with certain strings causing a system crash when used in the "reason for paging sysop" part of the yell command x Fixed an out-of-memory error that occurred when performing many replies using the browse command x Fixed the RoboCop error message x Fixed the "out of file handles" problem for PKZIP and other archivers under OS/2 x Fixed a problem with the L)ocate command that occasionally caused Max to orphan memory x Fixed a bug with the multi-line delete function in BORED x Fixed a bug that caused the editors to trap when entering an empty message x Fixed the [download] token so that it now works as documented x Fixed a problem with the Chg_Alias command * Changed to a new protocol driver. Support for Telink was dropped, but internal support for Ymodem and Ymodem-G was added. A new windowed user interface (on the sysop side) is also supported when users are downloading files. Detailed list of changes between Maximus 2.00 and Maximus 2.01wb - Maximus now prompts the user to press <enter> after displaying the Version screen. x Fixed a problem in the OS/2 version which sometimes caused a trap when performing an area list. x WELCOME.MEC can now start with a colour of [cyan]. x Fixed a bug in the BORED D)elete command which allowed users to specify a starting line which was greater than the ending line. x If a "%" is placed as the last character on a line for a DownloadCmd, Max will no longer create a garbage text string. x The W)ho Is On command will now show the proper text when users are downloading QWK packets and when chatting with the SysOp. x Max will now properly handle aliases when using the multi-line chat. x A problem with the F)iles command not always showing the T)ag option at the bottom of the file list has been fixed. x When displaying the "Bad pwd 'xxx'" error message because of a failed password attempt, Max will now log the password that the user ENTERED, as opposed to incorrectly logging the password which was required to gain access to the area. x Fixed a potential problem with the SEAlink file sending code. * Implemented partial support for the Version 7 nodelist. By adding this statement to the Matrix section of MAX.CTL: Nodelist Version 7 and by deleting your old "Nodelist Version ..." statement, Max will use the Version7 nodelist. Notes: . At the matrix prompt, the net list ("/") and node list ("#") functions are *NOT* supported when running V7, and unless someone else writes the code to do it, they probably never will be. * Implemented support for the FrontDoor nodelist. To enable the FD nodelist code, add this statement to the Matrix section of MAX.CTL: Nodelist Version FD With this option enabled, Max will expect to find NODELIST.###, NODELIST.FDX, USERLIST.FDX, FDNET.PVT (if any) and FDPOINT.PVT (if any) in your nodelist directory. Max can use the FD nodelist for lookups, but the same browsing restriction (lack of the "/" and "#" commands) apply to the FD nodelist as well as V7. Notes: . The nodelist will be used both to look up addresses and SysOp names. Node lookup works as usual, but when processing an unknown SysOp name, Max will do things in this order: - Check for aliases in ALIAS.MAX. - Check the V7 nodelist, if any. - Check the FrontDoor nodelist, if any. - Check FIDOUSER.LST, if any. x When performing a global T)ag, Max will now check for any FileOverrides in an area before allowing the user to tag files in that area. Previously, this only worked for barricades. x Fixed a bug which caused redirection in an xtern_run command to "stick" even after the shell has been executed. x Fixed a bug which caused the user's "time on today" field to be doubled when using ReRead or "@" with xtern_dos/run. x Fixed problems with the MsgOverride handler becoming greedy and overriding the commands on the EDIT menu in addition to the MESSAGE menu. x Fixed a problem which caused Max/2 to trap when displaying a message with no kludge lines. x Fixed the untag message area function. When untagging any given area, untag would sometimes untag the prior area too. * Max now has a new way of handling the multitasker autodetection: If "Multitasker None" is specified in MAX.CTL, Max will not use any multitasker code at all, nor will it try to detect one. If "Multitasker Auto" is specified in MAX.CTL, Max will behave as it did in 2.00/rel. Similarly, the -mn and -ma command line switches can also be used to achieve the above results. Also, the MultiLink and DoubleDOS detection code was removed because of instability problems. (Those of you who run non-dedicated Novell servers will know what I mean. :-) ) If you use MultiLink, you'll have to specify so explicitly in the control file or on the command line. x The colour specified for "Hotflash Bar" will now actually work. x The Yes/No/=nonstop characters will now be used from the current language file, rather than only the first one specified in LANGUAGE.CTL. * Added support for the CALLER.nnn interface in FrontDoor 2.10+. This allows Max to be spawned without a dozen command line arguments, as follows: max -iC:\FD\CALLER.0 This causes Max to read the caller information from the specified file, taking the caller's baud rate, port rate, locked baud rate, and other factors into account. FD will create CALLER.1, CALLER.2 and so forth for additional nodes, so multi-line systems can use multiple caller files like this: max -n%task% -iC:\FD\CALLER.%task% x ACCEM will now properly decompile [menu_cmd] tokens. x Took out the "Pig Latin" feature in MaxEd. * Minor performance improvements for FB, especially on CD-ROM drives. x Fixed a problem with FB hanging when it runs out of disk space. x Fixed an erroneous error message in SCANBLD which pops up if every single user in the user file has an alias declared. x Fixed a bug in the MSC/WC version of FB which caused a trap when a file with a blank description is encountered. x Max will now let the SysOp enter netmail messages, regardless of his/her "credit" setting. x Max/DOS will now allow a "-p" command line parameter greater than 8. x Fixed a bug which stopped Max from properly hurling files on a network. x Fixed some spurious RoboCop messages. x The user editor can now accommodate download and upload totals in excess of 65 megabytes. * The search command in the user editor (and the "@Edit User" menu option) will now check the user's alias for a match. x Removed the code to support the "Compatible Localbaud" feature. This is pointless with the new user record, and it was also causing the last-call dates to be damaged. x When using the FSR, the "area header" will only be displayed the first time you enter an area or when a non-message-displaying command is entered. (This means that you won't see the header when doing N)ext, P)rior, C)urrent, etc.) Since everything else is shown on the FSR header anyway, this information doesn't need to be duplicated. x Max will no longer allow users to post to a read-only area using the off-line reader. x When browsing messages in hotflash mode, hitting an invalid key at the browse menu will no longer cause the hotflash bar to change colours to white on black when the "Try again" message is displayed. * The "Kill" and "Reply" command on the Browse menu will now mirror the equivalent commands on your message menu, on an area-by-area basis. In other words, any access modifications you make to the "Reply" command on the message menu will also be used to restrict access to the Browse Reply command. The same applies for the Browse/Kill command. Note that both of these restrictions are IN ADDITION to the "Mailchecker Reply/Kill" settings in MAX.CTL. All access restrictions are taken into account, including the priv level on the menu itself, barricades and overrides. The "Reply" priv level also applies to uploading messages with the QWK reader. x Added extra protection against users uploading files called FILES.DAT, FILES.DMP and FILES.IDX. x High bit characters should once again work in the logoff comment area. * A new keyword has been added to facilitate European systems. Placing the following keyword in the SESSION section of MAX.CTL: Global High Bit instructs Max to allow high bit characters almost anywhere. This option is automatically enabled when using "Charset Chinese". This command enables high bit characters everywhere in the system, except in message areas. To allow high bit characters in a given message area, the "High Bit Allowed" keyword must be explicitly specified for each area. CAUTION: Using this command means that callers with 7 bits and parity will NOT be able to log on to your system until they change to 8N1! x Fixed a bug which caused SILT to erroneously report high-bit characters in origin lines as bad, even when the area was declared with 'High Bit Allowed'. x Max should now be much more amenable to Chinese characters, even used throughout the BBS. x The 'time' field on uploaded QWK messages will now be parsed correctly. - Streamlined the menu handling code. Max should now be much quicker when reading .MNU files from disk. x ORACLE will now show a non-zero value for the [syscall] token. x When parsing the destination address on a QWK-uploaded messages, Max will now ensure that it starts with a digit. If not, Max will create it as a local message (instead of sending to the net host, like 2.00/rel did :-) ). In addition, blank lines after the "To:" will also be stripped on import. x The QWK U)pload function should now properly support "Alias OK" message areas. x The normal access restrictions will now apply when trying to forward a message into a read-only area. x Max will now properly truncate too-long fields in PROTOCOL.CTL. x The dots displayed when performing a Browse have now been replaced by a "rotating line". x When creating a QWK packet, the SysOp's full name will be used. Max will also add the correct phone number to the QWK packet, even if spaces are included. x Fixed a bug in the .BBS-displaying routines which caused Max to improperly skip over certain lines. x When 'Reboot' is turned on, Max will no longer reboot when hitting <Alt-J> from the WFC screen. x If "Alias System" is enabled, the user's alias will now be written by the [post] token. x Fixed a bug which caused Max to crash when a [colour] token had no following [endcolour]. x Max will now ensure that an Xtern_Erlvl protocol cannot be used for uploading a message. x The [syscall] token will now return the correct ordinal suffix for systems with more than 65,535 calls. x SILT will no longer attempt to write SYSTEMxx.BBS or DIR.BBS (if the Opus option is specified) if the area is declared with a FileList. x CVTUSR will no longer grunge the screen length/width settings when converting from an Opus 1.1 user file. * When writing an origin line on a point system, Max will always use the address AFTER the one specified in the "Origin" statement when writing to the seen-bys. In other words, given this: Address 1:249/106.4 Address 1;24906/4 Address 89:487/106.3 Address 89:33451/3 Using "Origin 0" (the default) would create messages like this: * Origin: asdf (1:249/106.4) SEEN-BY: 24906/4 and using "Origin 1" would create messages like this: * Origin: asdf (89:487/106.3) SEEN-BY: 33451/3 x Max/2 will now clear the inbound character buffer before trying to accept the user's first name. This will get rid of extraneous <esc>s which caused the first character of the username to be lost. x Max will now check the "Minimum Baud" rate right after displaying the Maximus logo, instead of waiting for the caller to enter a name. x Fixed a problem with hurling files with descriptions more than 120 characters long. x Fixed a bug which caused an incorrect display of pathed filenames in FILES.BBS. x Max will attempt to identify and correct uploaded messages with a bad date. If such a message is found, the timestamp is set to the current date, with a time of 00:00:00. (This ensures that a doubly-uploaded packet will be properly caught by dupe checkers.) x Fixed a problem with users getting a "TIME LIMIT" message after an upload that went over their time limit, even though the upload should have been rewarded with more time. * The default origination address for netmail areas can now be selected. When entering a message in a netmail area, Max will use the origination address indicated by the "Origin" line in MSGAREA.CTL, if any. The origin text itself will be ignored (if used at all), but the number specifying the AKA will be used to select the default origination address. x MECCA is now compiled in the compact memory model, meaning that it can handle more than 48 labels in one MECCA file. * The [xtern_os2] and [xtern_shell] commands are now synonyms for [xtern_dos]. x If files queued with the T)ag command would exceed the user's time limit by the time she/he gets around to selecting D)ownload, Max will print an error message and allow the user to edit the filename list, as opposed to just dumping all of the filenames. * Added two new menu commands: Msg_Unreceive and Msg_Kludges. The suggested configuration is this: Msg_Kludges Sysop "!Toggle Kludges" Msg_Unreceive Sysop "#Unreceive Msg" The Msg_Toggle_Kludges command toggles the visibility of kludge lines within messages. If this command is not used, the priv required to see kludge lines defaults to the value set in MAX.CTL. The Msg_Unreceive command will remove the "Rec'd" bit from the current message. This can be used to make it look as if you have not received a particular message. If either or both of these commands are placed on the message menu, they will also show up on the Browse menu (assuming that the user has sufficient access rights). x When handling carbon copies in the message editor, Max will now ensure that the 'cc' name fits within the "To:" field. x The cc: command will now work properly for users with a dot (".") in their names. - When downloading QWK packets, the "Press <enter> or wait 10 seconds to download" prompt will now appear AFTER the file statistics are displayed. * Added a [download] MECCA token. "%" characters are supported. This command adds a filename to the download queue; to send this file to the user, your MECCA file must also include [menu_cmd download] (or call the Download menu function). If the filename is preceded by a "!", the download will not count against the user's download limit. If the filename is preceded by a "@", the download will not count against the user's time limit. These two flags can be combined. ie. "[download]@!d:\max\util\max200-1.lzh". x Fixed up some small cosmetic problems when running Max/2 in a Vio window. * Added a new status display for the QWK packer. * Added a new "%" token: %y will now display the "last call date" for the current user. x Max will now write a blank line when opening the log file, instead of when the log is closed. x Fixed a small cosmetic problem with the "Menu Name" colour and the REGULAR help level. x Fixed a trap problem in FB/2. x MECCA should once again be operational. I found that the standard OS/2 "sort" program was not case-sensitive, so it caused the token table to be improperly sorted (and thereby breaking any mecca tokens which contained an underscore). x Fixed a bug which stopped SILT from creating SYSTEMxx.BBS files for areas that had a Squish-format message area and a normal file area. x ORACLE will now print the opening banner to stderr instead of stdout. x Stomped an extremely paranoid bug which caused lastread pointers to become corrupt if there were more than 2K users in the user file. x The H)url command should now properly stomp over ^Z characters in FILES.BBS. x The "Save Directories" statement is now ignored under OS/2. Aside from the fact that OS/2 does this automatically, it was causing problems with block device drivers (such as Sytos drives). x Max will now strip control characters ( < ASCII 32) from uploaded QWK messages. It was supposed to be doing this in the first place, but a coding error prevented the stripping routing from being called. x Fixed the tab expansion routines when using a local editor. In addition, Max will now check locally-entered messages for invalid high bit characters in non-high bit areas, just as it does for the internal editor. x Max should now correctly handle carbon copies entered using an external editor. x Max will no longer generate duplicate MSGIDs when processed multiple carbon copies. Unfortunately, this means that there may be a bit of a delay when saving carbon-copied messages. x The C)ontents command will now properly display the \max\hlp\contents help file. x If a user runs out of time right after downloading a QWK packet, Max will ensure that the user's lastread pointers are updated before he/she is logged off. - When building more than one .QWK packet in a session, Max will build the second and subsequent packets using an extension of .QW1, .QW2, and so forth. * The path and name for the PROTOCOL.MAX file (binary dump of information in PROTOCOL.CTL) can be specified in the SESSION section of MAX.CTL. The following keyword: ProtocolCtl d:\max\protocol.max instructs Max to use d:\max\protocol.max as the protocol information file for the current task. If this keyword is omitted, Max will default to using PROTOCOL.MAX in the current directory. x Fixed a long-standing bug which caused Max not to find a file such as "FTS-0009.LZH" when the given search pattern was "009", as opposed to "0009". x Added semaphores to prevent the internal QWK reply tosser from colliding with itself on another line. When two users were unpacking replies at the same time, Max extracted the packets into the current directory, thereby causing a potential conflict. Although the packets are still initially unpacked into the current directory, this is done under the protection of a semaphore, and in addition, the .REP file is moved out of the way as quickly as possible. x Security fix: added protection from Leech Zmodem. x Tightened up error checking in SILT. x Fixed a bug which caused spurious "Archiver returned errorlevel 0" messages after packing more than one QWK packet in one session. x When writing quotes to a temporary file to be read by an external message editor, Max will now always wordwrap the quotes at 80 columns, since 132-column quotes (or whatever the user's screen width was set to) look messy on other systems. * The new keyword "Single Word Names" can be placed in the SESSION section of MAX.CTL can be used to allow single-word names at the log-on prompt. x Fixed a bug in the forward command which caused the user's matrix credit to be deducted BEFORE the destination address was entered in the message header. x Max should once again honour the 'Mask Carrier' in MAX.CTL, at least in the DOS version. * The "Title" directive in MENUS.CTL can now include "%" characters. eg. "Title MAIN (%t mins)". x When creating message areas, SILT will now create a directory tree (if necessary) to store Squish areas. x When rewarding upload time, Max will now give back the MINIMUM of the following two values: 1) The actual length of time it took for the user to download the file. 2) The estimated time required to download the file. This prevents users from resuming the last 2K of a 400K file and receiving a time credit worth 400K for doing so. x Fixed a bug in the library RTL which prevented Max/2 from sending files on a remote network drive (!). x When performing a QWK pack, Max will now display "Warning! Too many messages packed!" if the user's message limit has been reached after all of the area totals have been printed. x The ^q and ^s keys will once again work in MaxEd. x Fixed a bug which caused strange characters to appear if a cursor key is pressed at a MaxEd "I don't understand X" prompt. x Max will now replace spaces in uploaded Zmodem filenames with underscores. x Fixed a problem in Max/2 that caused Max to ignore IPCxx.BBS files if they were stored in lower case. x Changed the Max/2 startup code to allow up to 40 file handles to be opened. This should prevent weird behaviour if Max inherits "too many" file handles from the parent process. x Fixed a bug which sometimes caused MaxEd to lock up when receiving a ^c from the local console. x When performing a U)serlist, the search command will now only search the field that is displayed on-screen. In other words, when Alias System is enabled, users can only search for strings in the "Alias" field. Similarly, if Alias System is NOT enabled, users can only search for strings in the "Real Name" field. Note that callers with a priv of SYSOP can search for strings in either of the above two fields. x Fixed some Max/2 trap problems when performing a locate using a FileMenuName. ###