Monster Media 1996 #14/Monster Media No. 14 (April 1996) (Monster Media, Inc.).ISO/pcboard/ulp_213.zip/HISTORY.DOC

Text File | 1996-02-11 | 18KB | 343 lines

    ┌───────────────────┐
    │                   │ ║       UpLoadProcessor Revision History File
    │    ╥   ╥ ╥        │ ║
    │    ║   ║ ║ ╓──╖   │ ║
    │    ║   ║ ║ ║  ║   │ ║        The following is a list of the most
    │    ╙───╜ ╨ ║──╜   │ ║       recent changes made to the ULP system
    │            ╨      │ ║        by revision level, in reverse order.
    └───────────────────┘ ║
      ════════════════════╝


   *** NOTE:  Refer to the UPGRADE.DOC file for upgrading instructions!!! ***


2.13     - Compiled a FAQ file from my ULP Support conferences.  Hopefully this
(2/11/96)  will be of some benefit to people who may be having some difficulty
           already beaten to death in the echoes.  Read it.  Also spent some
           time scrubbing the docs and online help files.

           Altered ULP's startup logic to prevent unnecessarily opening the
           duplication database or BBS ad database files under certain
           operating modes.  This may help a couple of people with database
           corruption problems when no data is written to it (strangely
           enough).  It'll also save some memory along the way...

           Corrected a condition where temporary data files may not be removed
           in the $DATxxxx scratch directory when archives are filtered.

           Added a check for possible junk in the work subdirectories which
           produces warning messages on screen and in the log.  While I could
           add code to remove the junk, I would rather try to figure out why
           it's being left behind in the first place and correct that instead.

2.12     - ARGH!  A last minute "innocent" tweak in ULPSM wasn't so innocent,
(1/23/96)  usually breaking the file checker configuration and causing ULP to
           report strange errorlevels during processing.  Sorry about that...

           ULPSM wouldn't allow you to set <N>ever as an option for a "run
           time" flag.  Fixed.

2.11     - A new control flag has been added to the file/virus checker, GIF
(1/21/96)  file checker and JPEG file checker setup:  "run time".  This flag
           controls when the checker will be executed, online, event, both or
           never.  This offers greatly enhanced control on what utilities are
           executed when.

           A new control flag has been added to the "archive processing" menu
           in ULPSM:  "process nested subdirectories".  This is the counterpart
           to the "process nested archives" and "process nested GIF/JPEG files"
           flags.  This new flag should always be enabled; it is intended for
           debugging purposes.

           Altered the "ignore convert flag" of the individual archivers,
           renaming it to just "convert".  This flag now supports always
           converting a format, not just ignoring (never) converting a format.
           Refer to the online help for more information.

           Added additional debugging messages for debug mode logging.

           Added additional information for the BBS ad database maintenance
           functions in ULPSM.

           Shrank ULP and ULPSM executable sizes somewhat by offloading some
           little-used static strings (e.g. error messages) into the help file
           and out of the executables.

           Bumped the stack space on all ULP executables again to eliminate an
           error in an archive with 7 (!) internal directory levels.

           Due to a Microsoft compiler quirk, the ZIP SFX scanning function was
           broken in the DOS version of ULP, affecting pre-screening and online
           test in fast mode of ZIP SFX files.  Unrolled a section of code to
           correct the problem.

2.10     - Added a new control flag to the "archive processing" menu in ULPSM:
(12/23/95) "repack nested archives".  This flag is by default turned off and
           will prevent ULP from repacking nested archives it encounters while
           testing uploads.  Refer to the online help for this flag for more
           information.

           Added a new @-variable "@GSCOL@", which provides a shortened form of
           GIF or JPEG number of colors (e.g. "16777216" becomes "16M", "65536"
           becomes "64K").

           Added the ability to execute a JPEG graphic file checker (now that
           one exists).

           Added checks to ensure the processing of an upload with imbedded
           paths doesn't exceed the operating system path length limit.  This
           is of particular importance to the DOS version of ULP, which could
           easily be exceeded by archives from other operating systems such as
           OS/2, Unix, etc..

           Added a database repair function to ULPSM.  This function should be
           able to repair most database corruption errors without too much
           data loss.  Refer to the online help for more information.

           Hand-optimized some functions for reduced disk access and improved
           speed.

           Some errors processing deeply nested subdirectories were reported by
           some users and were traced to insufficient stack space.  Increased
           the stack space of all ULP executables.

           Adjusted ULP and ULPSM such that the external program execution
           window remains on-screen when the error message window pops up if an
           error occurs.

           ULP was replacing archive comments in online BBS test mode, which it
           should not have been doing.

           If a failure area was defined without a destination area, ULP's
           override mode would not return the overridden files to the source
           area.  Fixed.

           If a small .EXE file that was not a self-extracting archive was
           encountered, ULP could take a few seconds to determine that it
           wasn't a known archive format.  Fixed.

           Added additional database validation tests to prevent database sort
           module errors from occurring that were really due to corrupted
           databases.

           ULPSM's F2 and F3 invokation functions were broken in the last
           version.  Fixed.

2.05     - Added internal detection support for RAR archives, including RAR SFX
(10/25/95) archives.  Refer to the online help for recommended command lines
           if you wish to support RAR archives on your board.

           Adjusted the file identification routine to detect more recent (but
           apparently not publicly released) versions of the WinZIP self-
           extraction module.

           Added a new error trap for empty archives.  Empty archives are
           archives which have no useful files in them (e.g. it contained only
           removed BBS ads, only subdirectories in the archive, etc.).  Refer
           to the documentation for more information.

           Altered the behavior of ULP's local mode command-line switch (-L).
           With previous 2.x versions, this switch only disabled the comm I/O,
           but the door drop file was still required for operation.  Now local
           mode is truly local: the drop file is not required.  This more
           closely emulates the behavior of ULPTEST in the 1.x versions.  If
           you wish to have the previous 2.x behavior of local mode, simply
           specify a COM port of 0 on the command line (-P0).

           Added an undocumented switch (-+ for those who need it) to ULPSM to
           prevent ULPSM from aborting on startup errors, allowing you to fix
           previously saved configuration errors.

           ULPSM can now merge BBS ad databases that are in ULP 1.x format.

           Altered the handling of the editor command line strings to match the
           command line processing of other external utilities.  This allows
           the inclusion of command line switches for your editor of choice.

           Adjusted the hobbyist registration check to be sensitive to failures
           caused by junk being left over in the work subdirectories.

           ULP and ULPSM would not properly handle nested archives that had
           imbedded spaces in the filename (nested paths with imbedded spaces
           were OK).  ULP/2 and ULPSM/2 were unable to process nested archives
           that contained more that one period in the filename.  These two
           fixes make ULP/2 and ULPSM/2 generally long filename compatible
           (although the uploaded filename must still be 8.3 since the BBS
           software doesn't support long filenames).

           Bad attachments were being rejected in attach mode; an attachment
           should never be rejected, regardless of the reason.  Fixed.

           Broke the newest age checking function under some conditions when
           the statistical age checking method was added in 2.02.

           Nested graphics files were inadvertently being counted twice in the
           archive statistics.  Fixed.

           During automatic installation, ULPSM/2 tried to create PCBTEST.BAT,
           where it should have been creating PCBTEST.CMD.  Fixed.

           Added even more debugging information in the core processing code.

           Added to the documentation, incorporating answers to frequently-
           asked questions into both the documentation and online help.

2.04     - Added a new macro to the macro list for templates: @MODE@.  This
(8/31/95)  basically echoes the mode passed by the BBS software during online
           testing.  If the mode was upload, then "UPLOAD" is put in place of
           the macro, "TEST" for test mode and "ATTACH" for attach mode.

           Added more than 40 new BBS ads to the distribution BBS ad database
           that have been provided to me recently.  Now the BBS ads database,
           less than 9K in size, holds records for more than 1440 BBS ads!

           When running in debug mode, ULP no longer buffers the log file.
           This may slow down ULP slightly when processing in debug mode, but
           will ensure that no log data is lost due to file buffers that were
           not flushed to disk if a crash occurs.

           Added additional debugging information in the core processing code.

           Three filters (privileged file list, files to never process list and
           filename tcan list) would stop filtering after the first match in
           each directory set.  Fixed.

           ULP now packs out unnecessary "lost" files from the process data
           file, those with a directory number of 0 due to the inability to
           match to an upload's location to a specific upload directory set.

           If ULP was processing files online in fast or normal modes and there
           was no destination area defined for an upload subdirectory set and
           if a privileged user uploaded a file, the privileged user upload
           would be reprocessed during every event run.  Fixed.

           Fixed a bug in detecting the image parameters in a few JPEG files.

           Argh!  Fixed another ZDCS interface bug...if you weren't running ULP
           online in slow mode, the database was never being updated with
           duplication data.

2.03     - The DOS version of ULP can now talk to the OS/2 SIO API, in addition
(8/13/95)  to the direct async and FOSSIL interfaces.  This is primarily of
           benefit to OS/2 sysops who need to continue running the DOS version
           of ULP for some reason.  The use of the OS/2 SIO API is activated
           with the -O command line switch.

           The behavior of the -X command line switch has been simplified.
           Prior to this release, it was followed by the actual FOSSIL port
           number.  Now -X is simply a flag to tell ULP to use the FOSSIL
           interface.  The COM port specified in either PCBOARD.SYS/DOOR.SYS
           will be used.

           Two new control flags have been added to the "archive processing"
           menu in ULPSM:  "process nested archives" and "process nested
           GIF/JPEG files".  These flags can be used to prevent ULP from
           manipulating nested files in any way, although I strongly recommend
           the "process nested archives" always be enabled.

           Different image acceptance limits can now be configured for JPEG and
           GIF graphics files.  If you installed a previous version of ULP, be
           sure to set your JPEG values as desired after upgrading to 2.03.

           The DOS version of ULPSM now updates the memory available value on
           the status line on a frequent basis.  It's not 100% real time, but
           it's close enough for government work...

           Altered the database compilation routine for the DOS version of
           ULPSM to better support low-memory situations.  ULPSM can now
           compile (from the command-line) in about 450K.  If you have more
           memory (around 490K), ULPSM will be able to compile faster.

           Added code to help prevent DOS critical error messages caused by
           overrunning the DOS path length on nested and/or pathed archives.

           Tweaked the comm functions in an effort to fix the comm I/O problems
           a few sysops are experiencing.

           Changed the process data file packing function to pack on disk
           rather than in memory, removing size limitations.

           Fixed a bug in the process data file packing function that could
           cause problems if an upload was processed in slow mode and was not
           matched to a specific upload directory configured in ULPSM.

           ULP was ignoring the "generate remote user display" flag in ULPSM,
           enabling the comm port at all times.  ULP was honoring the -L switch
           and the drop file local mode indicator.  Fixed.

2.02     - Added support for JPEG files (JFIF format).  JPEG files will be
(7/29/95)  automatically detected by signature, and accepted/rejected based
           upon the same image width, height and number of colors settings as
           selected for GIF files.  As there are no known JPEG file testers, no
           provision has been made for an external testing program in this
           release.

           Added a third age checking option:  statistical.  This is similar to
           average age checking except if the number of files in an archive is
           large enough, the newest and oldest file are discarded and the
           remainder averaged.  This helps reduce statistical skew caused by a
           few oddball ages in an archive.

           Updated the user interface library to the latest version,
           eliminating the ULPSM/2 CPU-hog problem under OS/2, among other
           things.

           Tweaked the conference assignment functionality added in 2.01 to
           better support sysops who make all uploads immediately available.

           Grrrr...I fixed the ZDCS interface in 2.01 alright, only to find
           that the ZDCS database update was always occurring, not just in slow
           mode!  Fixed.

           The ZDCSULP program was screwing up the local display (it was
           running in a window)...changed ULP to run full-screen to prevent the
           problem.

           Smart word-wrapping in the DOS version of ULP would break under some
           conditions (OS/2 version was unaffected).

           If no archive or GIF/JPEG information line was defined in ULPSM, ULP
           would tack on an extraneous description line repeating the first
           line.  Fixed.

2.01     - Added a preview function to ULPSM for reviewing your remote display
(7/23/95)  templates; this is initiated via the F4 key when editing the
           respective fields.  Refer to the online help for further details.

           In order to provide another means of ULP deciphering which upload
           directories an online upload test belongs to, you can now define
           which conference number an upload directory set corresponds to in
           ULPSM.  Note that unless changed via ULPSM, all your existing upload
           directory sets are now currently configured as the main board
           conference (conference 0).

           The ZDCS interface was broken.  Fixed.

           ULP no longer attempts to move failed uploads to the failure area
           during online test, due to apparent conflicts with BBS software.

           If a failure area was defined and an uploaded file was failed, ULP
           would move the upload to the failure area.  However, PCBoard would
           still append the "FILE FAILED VERIFICATION CHECK" and "Uploaded by:"
           lines to the private upload directory listing, where it caused
           confusion.  Fixed (see above).

           Reduced the memory requirements of the sort module in the DOS
           version of ULPSM, at the slight expense of speed.  ULPSM should now
           be able to compile in a smaller DOS window (I used a 475K window for
           testing).  This change was not implemented in the OS/2 version since
           that's a real operating system without memory limitations... <g>

           If a failure area was defined and a pre-verification file (e.g.
           VERIFY.ULP) was uploaded that generated a failure, ULP would
           complain that it could not be moved to the failure area.  ULP was
           operating correctly, other that it should not have been complaining.

2.00     - Initial version 2 production release.  Changes too numerous to
(7/16/95)  mention.  Suffice it to say MAJOR update...

0.90 through 1.12 - History removed for brevity.  If this information is
           of any interest, it can be provided upon request.