Internet Tools (InfoMagic)/Internet Tools.iso/news/readers/nnmvs/00CHANGES.v3r1.Z/00CHANGES.v3r1

Text File | 1993-05-07 | 21KB | 265 lines

 New Features in V3

  Newsgroup article management is radically different, which should
  result in improvements in response time and memory usage, as well
  as avoiding out-of-memory abends.

  A new pseudo-browse interface replaces the BRIF code, enabling
  more commands while browsing a news article.

  The PRT command is implemented, similar to EXTRACT except that it
  prints to the SYSOUT class of your choice.

  You have the option of letting the cursor remain next to the most
  recently selected newsgroup or article.

  New commands to simplify debugging have been added.

  Additional installation-time customization for different levels
  of ISPF.

  Miscellaneous bug fixes and feature tweaks.

 Latest Fixes to V2 R4

 NNMCLRNG.C: - Fix memory leak when exiting from NNMVS.

 NNMDLANG.C: - Fix 0C4 in "new newsgroups" function when the server
               has duplicate entries in the active.times file.

             - Check for bad output from news server's active file
               in the NNTP LIST command, adjust counts and display a
               nasty message so the user can nag the administrator.

 NNMBPEXT.C: - Fix bug whereby all article headers were being
               retrieved even when EXTRACT UNREAD was requested
               in a batch job, causing excessive resource usage
               and memory blowouts.

 New Features In V2 R4

 * Memory usage has been improved significantly.

 * Handling of missing/expired articles has been improved.

 * Miscellaneous Bug Fixes

 * Enhancements to NNMVSP Exec

 New Features In V2 R3 M2

 * New commands:

 - SORT Subject / Number - in article viewing mode, you may use this
   command to sort the article display by subject or return it to the
   default article-number order.  Note that this may require a lot of
   processing, both to retrieve article titles and to perform the
   sorting, which tries to match messages up with "re:" replies.
   When the LOCATE command is issued from an article display in this
   mode, it takes a character string rather than a number.

 - QUIT - from almost any panel, terminates NNMVS immediately.
   It works like repeated END's, which means that it will save
   your NEWSRC file.  (QUIT from display-new-newsgroups or
   display-bogus-newsgroups skips updating NEWSRC, though, for
   your protection.)

 * Miscellaneous changes:

   The MARKALL and UNMARKALL commands now prompt you as to whether
   you want to mark all the articles in the newsgroup or just the
   ones currently shown in the table.

 * The extra blank line that used to appear at the bottom of articles
   is gone.  There may be some effects on article extraction,
   particularly when append mode is used, but in general this means
   that what you get is more like what is really out there.

 * In POST and MAIL, the format of the inserted message and the
   dashed line separating the signature from the body have been
   changed to be more in accordance with standard practice.

 * Even more tweaking of missing article handling.  It's better
   than it was, and may even be considered acceptable now.

 * Removed Features

   Apologies:  The PATH variable in batch has been removed.
   It was of dubious value (I'm sure you don't miss it).
   Basically, we needed the slot to implement subject sorting.

 New Features In V2 R3 M1

 * A user option to turn automatic scrolling on or off in the
   newsgroup and article display tables has been added.

 * In POST and MAIL, headers are no longer inserted into the text of
   your reply.  Instead, a message of the form
    "In article <messageid> on <date>, <author> writes:"
   is inserted.

 * Remaining bugs and pitfalls of missing articles are finally
   cleared up (hopefully).

 * The ONLY and FIND commands in article display mode will cause
   fetching of article headers if you are in "A" (all articles) mode.

 * An OPTION operand has been added to the NNMVS exec, and support has
   been added to NNMVS so that you will go directly to the requested
   option if you use this and provide a number of other values.

 * An attempt to protect users from crashing TCP/IP with multiple
   copies of socket applications is included.

 New Features In V2 R3

 * New Commands for Controlling Newsgroup and Article Displays

   Note: In the following descriptions of operands, "strings" are
   unquoted single words or strings quoted with either single or double
   quotes.  Case is ignored.

   The following new commands are available on the newsgroup display:

     ORDER {Alphabetic/List} - specify the order in which the groups are
     listed.  The initial setting is A (alphabetic).  You may change to
     L (list) to view the newsgroups in the same order as the NNTP
     server's active file (what the NNTP "LIST" command returns).

     ONLY "string" - limit the newsgroup display to newsgroups with
     "string" in the name.  Type ONLY with no operands to restore
     the display to all newsgroups (or registered, depending).

     FIND "string" {NEXT/PREV/FIRST/LAST} - position the newsgroup
     display to the next, previous, first or last group which has
     "string" in the name.  FIND with no operands repeats the find.

   The following new commands are available on the article display:

     ONLY "string" - limit the article display to articles with
     "string" in the subject.  Type ONLY with no operands to restore
     the display to all articles (read or unread, depending).

     FIND "string" {NEXT/PREV/FIRST/LAST} - position the article
     display to the next, previous, first or last article which has
     "string" in the subject.  FIND with no operands repeats the find.

 * New Options for Navigating Article Views

   The following new commands are available from article browse:

     NEXTU or NU - like NEXT but goes to the next unread article.

     NEXTT or NT - like NEXT but goes to the next article currently in
                   the table.  When you use ONLY to filter the article
                   display, NEXTT honors the filter.  NEXT doesn't.

     NEXTS or NS - like NEXT but goes to the next article in the current
                   subject thread.

     PREVU(PU), PREVT(PT), PREVS(PS) are analogous to the above.

     FIRSTSUBJ or FS - goes to the first article in the current
                       subject thread.
     LASTSUBJ or LS  - goes to the last article in the current
                       subject thread.
     NEWSUBJ or NS   - goes to the first unread article of a subject
                       other than the current thread.
     SUBJECT or SUBJ - displays or changes the current subject.

 * Prompting to Protect Existing Data Sets on EXTRACT

   When you use the EXTRACT command, if the data set already exists
   you will get a pop-up asking you to confirm that you want to
   reuse the data set.  Simply press ENTER to do so.

 * Changes To Commands

   The NNTP command may now be specified like this:

     NNTP   - by itself, puts you in the NNTP panel, as before
     NNTP nntp-command   - executes NNTP command immediately

     For example:  NNTP GROUP COMP.LANG.LISP
                   NNTP HELP

   The OPTIONS command has been changed to take you to a menu of
   general options.  The RFC822 header settings are now option 1.
   You can type OPT 1 to go directly there if you don't want to
   see the extra panel.  Also, in BROWSE, you can type HEADERS
   (or HEADER) instead of OPTION to go directly to the RFC822
   header setting panel.

   In addition to RFC822 header display options, you may now specify
   how you want screen displays to tell you about operations in process.
   (There are some fancy new ways that NNMVS can do this.)
   You can also control the prompting for overwriting on EXTRACT.

 * Changes to Selection Codes

   When you select "A" to see all the articles in a newsgroup,
   NNMVS will fill in the title lines.  No more empty lines.
   To save processing, it will get only those that are necessary
   to fill your screen.  Scrolling down (or up) will get the next
   batch - this will appear to be slower.

   Also, only those articles that have actually been fetched (not
   just the headers) will be retained in the table when you switch
   back to using "S" to look at the articles in the newsgroup.

   Note that whether you select "A" or "S" will affect subject
   searches.  If you selected "S", subject searches will be limited
   to unread or already-retrieved articles.  If you selected "A",
   subject searches will retrieve previously read articles, and
   potentially take longer.

   You can select "N" to view only new (unseen) articles.  "N" is
   like "S" except that articles are removed from the display once
   they are read whenever you reenter the article display or change
   the viewing criteria.

   The "Z" option, which will remain undocumented for now, is similar
   to the "A" option except that it retrieves NO articles headers,
   read or unread.  Good for quick entry into a huge newsgroup, but
   not very good at recording the correct status of the articles.

   You can select "C" to cancel an article by posting a control request
   to the server.  You must be the original author (poster) of the
   article to be allowed to cancel it.  Cancellation is implemented
   by sending a control message to the NNTP server.

 * POST, FOLLOWUP and REPLY now allow you to specify a Reply-to email
   address and a signature file.  In addition, you may specify a
   Followup-to list of newsgroups on POST or FOLLOWUP.

 * FOLLOWUP and REPLY now follow the RFC1036 rules for generating
   the default lists of newsgroups to post to and mail address to
   reply to.  FOLLOWUP even checks if the Followup-to: header says
   "poster" or contains an email address, and strongly suggests
   that you email instead of posting.  Since BITNET postings dont
   conform to RFC standards, the actual From: address is displayed
   for REPLY in case you need to type it in.

 * New Batch mode variable CHECKPOINT allows you to control whether the
   NEWSRC file gets rewritten on every change or just at the end of a
   batch run.  Good for preventing NEWSRC wipeouts on 322 abends.

 * Support for Multiple NNMVS's in a Single TSO Session
   (assuming that they're talking to two different servers and
   that you have the required TCP/IP multitasking socket support
   APAR from IBM).

   Basically, it dynamically generates a ddname for the newsrc file,
   and you can specify different newsrc files, so there you go.

   Warning:  PIE users - DO NOT run 2 NNMVS's from different PIE
   sessions - the IBM TCP/IP fix doesn't work for this!  Use ISPF
   split screen to do it.

 * Optional Driver CLIST and REXX exec using XPROC to specify
   parameters in CLIST-style Syntax

   See installation instructions for details.