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1996-01-26
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WHAT'S NEW in Mail Manager +Plus+ v4.00 - January 26, 1996
==========================================================
v4.00 is a major update. This file is not an attempt to tell you how
to install or upgrade to this version of the door, but simply to let
you know what you're getting into. :)
We want to make you aware that the set of files you have before you
represent the biggest changes to the door since Mail Manager +Plus+
was first released in 1992. This is no minor update - once running,
the door looks and acts quite like the previous releases that you're
used to, but internally it is a major rewrite. We have been working
on this almost continuously since the release of v3.61 last September.
All of the executables except MNET and MMGRNODE have been updated
for this release. Be sure to use *ALL* of the new .EXE's.
You can now configure up to a whopping 25,600 conferences.
The door can now handle as many as 999 nodes.
For several reasons, the format of the door user file and binary
configuration files have changed.
New filenames for just about everything, due to 999 node support.
An additional small user file for every RBBS-PC conference/subboard.
This was necessary to keep the size of the door's user file down.
These files will be named xxxxxxxU.MGR, in the same directory as
the RBBS user file.
Can now autodetect RIP graphics, and use "R" versions of text files.
Can use RBBS 17.5b *I.DEF "Internet conference" configuration files
when replying to or posting a message online in one of these types
of conferences. All five options of *I.DEF will be used, if it
exists in the same directory as the message file for that conference.
See the 17.5b "features.txt" for more information.
Many more smaller tweaks/additions.
The following is the complete list of what has changed since the
previous release (v3.61):
1 - As many as 25,600 conferences can now be configured. (We get
dizzy just THINKING about 25,600 conferences!)
2 - Expert users no longer get the "press a key" prompt at end of
opening screen. They go straight to main menu prompt. You might
want to notify any of your users using logon scripts, as this may
affect their operation.
3 - Screen is now cleared before jumping to DOS locally.
4 - "Checking conferences" at startup was eliminated. (HOORAY!)
There is now only one conference in memory at any given time.
This means some extra disk access when selecting conferences and
manually resetting message pointers. It also works out to a net
time savings for normal operation of the door, due to not having
to scan every conference when the door loads. This tradeoff was
necessary to support more than 500 conferences.
5 - New user option added in C)onfiguration section: Whether or not to
include only active conferences in CONTROL.DAT. Including only
active conferences in CONTROL.DAT can cut down the time required
to build the QWK packet considerably, especially if you have many
conferences configured. The downside is that depending on the
offline reader being used, the user might not be able to ADD a
conference via REP packet unless all conferences are listed in
their CONTROL.DAT.
6 - F)ind a conference tweaked in C)onfig option A: can now enter
"F text" to immediately start search for "text". This option also
now shows whether or not the conference is activated prior to
letting you toggle it on or off.
7 - Can now specify an alias file for Fido conferences as well as RBBS.
This means you can now use Alias names in Fido areas (at Sysop's
discretion, of course).
8 - Added /TS command line switch, to aid in troubleshooting a new
installation or upgrade. This will create a TSHTx.LOG file in
the directory for log files. If you have a problem running this
door, the contents of this file may help.
9 - Displays twiddle when constructing conf selection screens (most
useful on slower systems, where the user might think the door had
gone to sleep).
10 - CDOOR 9406 puts sysop real name in DORINFO instead of "SYSOP".
The door can now deal with this.
11 - When posting an *.MSG netmail message, the door now searches the
entire compiled nodelist when looking up a partial sysop name,
allowing you to pick and choose which address to send the message
to. All prior release versions of Mail Manager +Plus+ only
returned the first hit on your search string. This does not
affect Sysops using RBBS *M.DEF message bases for netmail.
12 - Fixed bug in which a blank name in the "From" field in a REP packet
would be accepted.
13 - Extended R)eset all option in config option X. Can now also reset
pointers to what they were before the last time they were changed
by the door, i.e. previous extraction or manual change. Extended
this to individual conferences, as well. (Whether or not to allow
"reset to previous" is sysop-configurable in MAILCFG).
14 - E)xpedite goes into only a 4-second countdown timer in expert mode.
15 - Copyright updated to 1996 (sheesh).
16 - Violation notices now return original message text to user.
17 - Support added for as many as 999 nodes. This required changes to
the filenames for the door's system text files. Conventions:
(node) = node number (1, 2, etc.). Optional.
(graphic) = graphic version of file (R, C, G). Optional.
Node and graphic-specific versions are optional. If you want to
share a common set of non-graphic, ascii graphic, ansi graphic,
and RIP graphic files between all nodes on your system, leave the
(node) argument off of the filename.
The door looks first for correct graphic and node-specific version.
If not found, steps down and looks for the next-likely candidate,
and eventually looks for the non-graphic, non-node-specific version
of the file before it gives up.
EXAMPLE
OLD FORMAT NEW FORMAT (Node 1, Ansi) DEFAULT
----------- ----------------------- -------------- --------
MAILMGR.ARL -> MMGR(node).ARL MMGR1.ARL MMGR.ARL
MAILMGR.BUL -> MMGR(node).BUL MMGR1.BUL MMGR.BUL
MAILMGR.MNU -> MMGR(graphic)(node).MNU MMGRC1.MNU MMGR.MNU
MAILMGR.FMS -> MMGR(node).FMS MMGR1.FMS MMGR.FMS
MAILMGR.PRE -> MMGR(graphic)(node).PRE MMGRC1.PRE MMGR.PRE
MAILMGR.PRO -> MMGR(node).PRO MMGR1.PRO MMGR.PRO
MAILMGR.SWP -> MMGR(node).SWP MMGR1.SWP MMGR.SWP
MMGR1.HLP -> MMGR(graphic)(node).HL1 MMGRC1.HL1 MMGR.HL1
MMGR2.HLP -> MMGR(graphic)(node).HL2 MMGRC1.HL2 MMGR.HL2
NEW_USER.OPT -> MMGR(node).OPT MMGR1.OPT MMGR.OPT
PRELOG.RBS -> MMGR(graphic)(node).HEL MMGRC1.HEL MMGR.HEL
EPILOG.RBS -> MMGR(graphic)(node).BYE MMGRC1.BYE MMGR.BYE
MMGRNODE.OB -> MMGR(node).OB MMGR1.OB MMGR.OB
MMGRNODE.AKA -> MMGR(node).AKA MMGR1.AKA MMGR.AKA
All of these in the "Path to text files" directory, as-listed in
MAILCFG.
ALSO... the UPDATE utility will only look for and create node-
specific versions of these files if it is run against a node-
specific MAILMGRx.CFG configuration file. If you are using a
common MAILMGR.CFG for all nodes, yet have a few node-specific
versions of the above text files, you will need to manually copy
the existing versions to the new filenames. An example would be
a special swap file for node 1, which may currently be on your
disk as MAILMGR1.SWP. In this case, if the UPDATE utility did
not create MMGR1.SWP, you will need to create it manually.
And lastly - MMGR.OPT has a new argument at the end of the file,
for whether or not to include only active conferences in
CONTROL.DAT. See the example MMGR.OPT in this archive.
18 - Long conference description upped from 25 to 60 characters.
19 - Fido Areaname upped from 15 to 25 characters.
20 - Path/name of user files, message files, and alias files dropped
from a max of 80 chars each to a max of 60 chars each.
21 - Check for LANtastic bypassed, since we don't really need to know
this, and keeps from errantly reporting LANtastic active when it
isn't on some systems.
22 - Tweaked checking of available disk space. Should fix problem in
determining free space when free clusters are > 32767.
23 - Fido *.MSG conferences: The name of each Fido conference's index
file now agrees with the new user filename for each conference.
Filenames are now:
Fido user file = CONFNAMU.MGR
Fido index file = CONFNAMU.NDX
Both of these will be located in the same directory as the *.MSG's
themselves for each conference.
24 - Memory management tweaks.
25 - Improved handling of long messages in Fido *.MSG conferences. Now
extracts messages (and handles messages in REP packets) longer than
99 lines. Online read/reply in these types of areas are still
limited to 99 lines.
26 - Zone and Point displays in the first line of *.MSG netmail messages
were eliminated, due to some mail processors putting incorrect
values in the Fido message header for these fields. This doesn't
affect operation, just keeps from reporting incorrect Zone and
Point in the top line of the message.
(Suggested by many over the years)
27 - Rudimentary RIP support added, and new configuration option on the
2nd screen of MAILCFG for whether or not to autodect RIP. Door
now looks for and displays "R" graphics versions of files if
caller's graphic type is "3" or higher in DORINFO/DINF, or if RIP
is detected and caller's graphics in RBBS are at least ANSI or
better. The latter was a neccessary addition, as no version of
RBBS currently supports graphics type 3 in DORINFO/DINF.
(Suggested by George Omoregie, Robert Holmes, and several others)
28 - Support added for RBBS 17.5b "Internet conference" *I.DEF files.
If you have this type of conference configured in RBBS 17.5b, the
door will function equivalently to RBBS 17.5b when P)osting or
R)eplying to a message online in the door in one of these areas.
All five options of *I.DEF are supported, and the *I.DEF file
must be in the same directory as the message file for that
conference. See the 17.5b "FEATURES.TXT" for more information.
* NOTE * Messages found within REP packets that are destined for
one of these types of conferences are handled as per all previous
versions of the door.
29 - Smarttext is now honored in text files that are displayed to the
user. (We're amazed that nobody ever mentioned this)
30 - UPDATE.EXE modified to handle a few known problems with earlier
versions of Mail Manager +Plus+:
- The TXT2CFG utility in versions 3.51, 3.52, 3.60, and 3.61 sets
the version number to 3.50 when it saves the configuration file.
- An early beta of MAILCFG (v3.71c) was given to a few beta testers,
prior to 3.91a. This version of MAILCFG sets the version number
to 4.00. Oops again.
Either one of these conditions would cause UPDATE.EXE to think you
were attempting to update from the wrong version number. UPDATE
now pauses and allows you to fix your version number prior to the
actual file conversion, when it runs across these situations.
The other (less complicated to explain) way to fix the problem is
to run MAILCFG from your current non-beta release, and save your
settings with no changes, prior to running the UPDATE utility.
This too will allow UPDATE to do it's job.
(Reported by Francois Massonneau and several others)
31 - The RBBS-PC v17.5 wide beta (220 version) smarttext colors are now
supported in bulletins, news, and text files. The difference from
previous versions of the door are:
- {C1 through {C4 are the same colors, but low intensity instead
of high intensity. (To agree with 17.5)
- There are now a total of 24 colors (instead of the original 4).
The complete list follows (those of you running the 17.5 beta can
just look at COLOR.DEF... they're the same):
Smarttext
Code Color Description
--------- ----------------- ---------------
C1 GREEN Foreground
C2 YELLOW "
C3 MAGENTA "
C4 CYAN "
C5 RED "
C6 BLUE "
C7 WHITE "
C8 WHITE ON BLUE Foreground/Background
C9 BRIGHT BLUE Foreground
CA BRIGHT GREEN "
CB BRIGHT CYAN "
CC BRIGHT RED "
CD BRIGHT MAGENTA "
CE BRIGHT YELLOW "
CF BRIGHT WHITE "
CG BLACK "
G0 BLACK BACKGROUND Background
G1 BLUE BACKGROUND "
G2 GREEN BACKGROUND "
G3 CYAN BACKGROUND "
G4 RED BACKGROUND "
G5 MAGENTA BACKGROUND "
G6 BROWN BACKGROUND "
G7 WHITE BACKGROUND "
(Suggested by Francois Massonneau)
32 - If you are using FMS directories, the number of new files found
when a user extracts a mail packet is now written to the log file.
If you have multiple FMS directories configured, multiple entries
will be written to the log file.
(Suggested by Francois Massonneau)
33 - Screen is no longer cleared just before the main menu is displayed.
34 - Error reporting clarified.
35 - All executables are now compressed with LZEXE to save disk space and
improve execution speed.
36 - All of the supplemental utilities except MMGRNODE.EXE have been
updated for this release.