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---------------------------------------------------------------------- --- TECHNICAL NOTES --- This file contains detailed and often highly technical notes about all the news/fixes/changes of each version since 2.40. Symbols used: - Bugfix. + New feature. ! Changed feature. * Information/clarification. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Notes for GoldED 2.41, PUBLIC release sunday 07 march 1993. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- * The OS/2 version (GoldED/2) is delayed due to a major system re-configuration here at Goldware HQ. I simply don't have OS/2 installed right now. Sorry. GoldED/2 should be released within 1-2 weeks, along with a brand new protected mode DOS-extended version (GoldED/X) which breaks the 640K barrier for systems with a 286 or better CPU. + Added "AreaLink", "AllFix", "Raid" and "GEcho" as built-in ROBOTNAME's. + Implemented support for RemoteAccess 2.00 GAMMA. Use "AREAFILE RemoteAccess" just like in the previous versions. GoldED detects the RA configuration version (in CONFIG.RA) and accesses the USERS.BBS file accordingly, because the record structure is very different. NOTE: The USERSIDX.BBS and USERSXI.BBS files are not accessed / updated / created at all, nor were they in earlier versions. NOTE: Do !!! NOT !!! use earlier versions of GoldED with RA 2.xx, because doing so may damage parts of your USERS.BBS file! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Notes for GoldED 2.41.A0301, ALPHA pre-release 01 march 1993. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- - Removed auto-disable of the Sound Blaster support under Windows. Reports indicate that it didn't work anyway, and should be an option. For now, I'll just kick it out. ! Internal limit of the echoid size was in previous versions 29 chars. This limit is now liberated to 49 chars, to help people with very long echoids. - Default attributes (including especially LOC) were not set in IMAIL 1.3x areas. Fixed. - GoldED now saves the Ezycom lastread pointer value as the last message read plus one, as specfied by the author. I hope I got it right this time. - AREAFILE Ezycom was not aware that CONFIG.EZY could be named CONFIG.<taskno> if the TASK environment variable was set. It is now. - Quoting of certain low-ascii characters was still a bit buggy. - The quotebuffer filename did not get set correctly for Ezycom areas. Fixed. - When QBBSSCAN was set to "old" (meaning scan all areas in one go), and you had Ezycom areas with the same board numbers as in the Hudson msgbase, GoldED would mark the those Ezycom areas as having the same unread mail as the Hudson areas. Fixed. ! There have been recurring reports about GoldED inflating the Hudson MSGHDR.BBS file to 12MB in certain circumstances, such as replying to the first msg in a Hudson netmail area and answering Yes to the question about deleting the original. I have not yet been able to reproduce this problem in my own setup, but I have now added a small test in the code that writes to the MSGHDR.BBS file. If the test determines that a write to the MSGHDR.BBS file will go too far beyond the end, it will safely close all msgbase files and exit with the error message "Invalid index value: iiiii. Max value: mmmmm". If you get this error, please report it and tell me how it happened and what you did. Try running GoldED again, and try to do the same thing and see if it happens again. Let me know the results. - Fixed problem in the new key system with some keys expiring when they should not. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Notes for GoldED 2.41.B0108, BETA release 08 january 1993. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- - Fixed a handful of bugs in the internal editor which caused memory GPF's and memory access violations in the OS/2 version. These bugs could in the DOS version have been responsible for at least some of the strange editing behaviour, and in some cases they could cause corruption of random memory locations, leading to strange and unpredictable crashes. These bugs have been in GoldED for a very long time. Thanks to the OS/2 version, they could finally be located, debugged and fixed - this would have been (and is) next to impossible in the DOS version. - Fixed my is_dir() function yet again. It did not recognize the root (such as C:\) as a valid directory. This most prominently affected stuff like the SWAPPATH. - Fixed TZ=ZZZ0 in GoldED dos shells. This was a messy workaround to a problem concerning some internal time format conversions. - Fixed Ezycom support to look for the EZYMSG.NOW semaphore and create/delete it as needed. - Fixed problem with scanned areas sometimes showing as unscanned in the arealist. + Added more debugging information to the Squish API error logging. The log now also displays the API source line where the error occurred. Be sure to send me a cutting from the log (if any was generated) when reporting errors in the Squish msgbase support. - Found and fixed a serious bug in my binary search algorithm. This algorithm is used for many things in GoldED, including all msg number handling, nodelist lookup, config reader etc. Under certain circumstances the buggy algorithm would "jump off the rail" and search way outside the memory locations it was assigned. This could cause lockups and crashes in DOS and General Protection Faults (GPF's) in OS/2. This was a long-standing bug, and it is almost certainly to blame for many of the reports of lockups and crashes, as well as the reports of error exits with msg #0 not found and such. If you still encounter lockups, crashes or GPF's, please report them as soon as possible and include a step-by-step description of how to provoke the error to occur. It should be much easier now, because the bug described above did not have predictable behavior, and that's gone now. + New replacement token, "@os2slash". Is replaced with "/2" in the OS/2 version and "" (empty string) in the DOS version. Example usage in a template: @cfname@os2slash In my case, this would sign my msgs with "Odinn/2" in OS/2 and "Odinn" in DOS. Cute, eh? :-) * GoldED/2: It is currently not possible to use the SCREENSIZE keyword to switch to 43/50 lines mode. You have to do it manually with the OS/2 MODE command. ! If GoldNODE runs out of DOS memory, it will try to use XMS and EMS. If it still cannot get enough XMS/EMS, it would previously use a disk buffer. The problem is, even a very small disk buffer can cause dramatic increases in nodelist compile times. Horror stories of several hours have turned up regularly in the echoes. I got a bit tired of that... In this release of GoldNODE, the disk sort buffer is now DISABLED by default. Instead of trying to use a disk buffer, it will simply drop the nodes that doesn't fit in the available memory (a beep and a warning message is given). If for some strange reason you want to try your luck with the disk sort buffer, a new commandline option can be used: "-ND" (Enable DISK usage). ! Okay, I give up. The overlay buffer size is now back down to the original size. If you want better performance, I can recommend to use the -O commandline option to increase the overlay buffer size, but check your memory meter and don't let it get below 100k. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Notes for GoldED 2.41.A1220, PRE-BETA release 20 december 1992. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- - Fixed AREAFILE Ezycom: Origins and AKA's are now set correctly. - Changed the error logging in the Ezycom support to let me see more accurately where the access error occurs when saving a msg. I have not been able to reproduce any access error myself :-( - Fixed bug when deleting the first msg in Squish areas. There appears to be a bug in the MSGAPI itself, which breaks some frame links if the first msg is deleted while the area is locked. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Notes for GoldED 2.41.A1218, PRE-BETA release 18 december 1992. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- + GoldED can now display the size of attached files if a msg has the file attach attribute set. The size (in bytes/kbytes) is displayed in the bottom header line below each file in the subject line. If an attached file is missing, GoldED shows "n/a" instead. + New keyword: DISPATTACHSIZE <bytes/kbytes/no>". Defaults to kbytes. Controls how the size of attached files is displayed in the header. Either the exact byte size, the rounded kbyte size, or not displayed at all. If the kbytes setting is chosen, the value is rounded according to the following formula: kbytes = (bytes + 512) / 1024. So a 600 bytes file is rounded up to "1k", but a 500 bytes file is rounded down to "0k". - The GoldED logo during startup looked bad in codepage 850 and other codepages that doesn't have single to double line connector chars. GoldED now checks the current codepage and uses a pure single-line logo if the codepage does not have single to double connectors. Currently the following codepages have been determined to have these connectors: 437, 860, 861, 862, 863, 865. Any other codepage makes GoldED defaults to single-line. - Fixed bug in the Squish MSGAPI itself concerning the deletion of the first msg in Squish areas. I have not been able to reproduce the reports of this bug, so please let me know if there is still a problem in this beta. + New arealist key command: "AREAjumpnextmatch". When this key is hit, the selection bar will jump to the next area (if any) that matches the "fuzzy" quick-search string. This is useful when two areas that match are wide apart in the arealist. Suggested key assignment is <Ctrl-Enter> and/or <Tab>: ^Enter AREAjumpnextmatch Tab AREAjumpnextmatch Add the above lines to your GOLDKEYS.CFG. - It was not possible to enter the alpha char using Alt-224 on the keypad. Fixed. - Fixed a nasty bug in the internal editor. When undeleting the last undeletable line, a word (2 bytes) in a random memory location got zeroed. This, and a related (but non-fatal) bug, resulted in access violations under OS/2. This one has been in GoldED for a very long time :-( - Changed some code concerning the screen blanker / timeout logic. There have been reports about the blanker and timeout freaking out when running GoldED past midnight. I have not been able to reproduce these problems myself, so I don't know if my changes fixed the problems. Let me know. - If Windows is detected, the Sound Blaster support in GoldED will now be disabled. - A new whitespace triming algorithm was too agressive when saving your messages. It trimmed everything below ascii '!' off the end of lines, including such useful characters as '' :-) - When in the message lister it was once upon a time possible to hit Alt-L or just L to "redraw" the list and center the selection bar. Now it is possible again. - When using a Random System origin such as "ORIGIN @tfname", where @tfname is the first name of the TO: name, GoldED did not process the replacement token at the correct time. The tokens in Random System items were processed immediately after they were read from the GOLDRAND.CFG file, and that was before the TO: name was entered. - Fixed headeredit name/node lookup bugs: Previously acceptable "name address" form was broken, such as "Some Point .1" (which would fill in my address field with 2:231/77.1). It also hung when looking up a blank name field - the default action for this situation is now to start the node browser at ".?", which is your current AKA or your Boss's address if you are a point. - EEEK! Just discovered that my function to detect whether locking is possible in a particular msgbase path was totally brain-dead. This resulted in the Hudson msgbase (and lately also the Ezycom msgbase) never being locked properly before writing to the it. This could very well have been the cause of _some_ of the reports of crashed Hudson msgbases. FIXED. This looks like it was a long-standing bug! :-( + GoldED now reports the name of the multitasker it detects, if you use the -V (verbose) commandline parameter. This is to help you determine whether your TIMESLICE setting is correct. If you are running GoldED under a multitasker and have a CPU monitor that says GoldED is grabbing a lot of CPU time, try this and make sure your TIMESLICE keyword is set to the name of your multitasker as described in the manual. If your TIMESLICE setting is correct, GoldED's CPU use should be very very low when just waiting for keyboard input. - Fixed extremely stupid bug concerning the use of AREAS.BBS with AREAFILE's that need this file to get the echoids in stead of ECHOMAILxxx. Sorry about this! - Finally fixed the problem in GoldNODE when using USERLIST's, where names got reversed and garbled. The source code for that section has been put back to the way it was in the 2.40 release. Note that I have not tested this part myself, but only recognized the bug and fixed it. Please let me know if there are still problems. + New replacement token, "@pid". It gives "GED" for the DOS version and "GED/2" for the OS/2 version. Mostly for use in tearlines. + New replacement token, "@longpid". It gives "GoldED" for the DOS version and "GoldED/2" for the OS/2 version. Mostly for use in tearlines. The internal default tearline uses "@longpid @version". ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Ezycom specific notes: ! GoldED now only supports the config files of Ezycom v1.02 and (hopefully) later. The previous beta was only tested with 1.01, and unfortunately there were a number of significant differences to 1.02 that I overlooked. This beta is tested to work with 1.02, and also adds the various watchdog, paging, bad logon etc boards if defined. If GoldED detects 1.01 or older configs, it will tell you so and skip it. - If an Ezycom area was defined but did not exist, GoldED would in some cases fail to create it and report "another user". Fixed, and GoldED will now only report "another user" if DOS actually reports "access denied" when trying to open the msgbase files. Otherwise it exits and reports the error. - The EZYCOMMSGPATH and EZYCOMUSERPATH no longer override the paths in the CONFIG.EZY file, unless they are specified _after_ the AREAFILE Ezycom. * Support for the new deleted msgs file (MSGDLTD.BBS) has not yet been added. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- OS/2 version specific notes: * Ctrl-Break still terminates GoldED rather brutally. I have tried trapping it to ensure proper closing of files and such, but I keep getting access violations. I could also ignore it, but then it would be impossible to close the process... So be careful with that key! - Fixed problem with cursor keys showing alpha chars and generally not working well. Oddly enough, I never had this problem in my own OS/2 setup. I suspect different keyboard layouts generate slightly different key scan codes. NOTE: Since this problem did not occur in my setup, I cannot be totally sure it is correctly fixed! Let me know. - Removed the counter in the statusline. It has not been replaced with anything else at this time. - As mentioned in the notes for the previous version, GoldED/2 was a nasty CPU hog, due to unavoidable keyboard polling and a OS/2 timeslice function that did not work as I expected. This problem has now been solved to an acceptable degree. Pulse will no longer hit the roof, but not always hit rock bottom either - the activity during the keyboard poll between the timeslices can keep it a couple of percent above zero. NOTE: To others who may have the same problem with their quickly ported keyboard polling, timeslicing DOS applications, the solution is to use DosSleep(1) instead of DosSleep(0) for the timeslicing. Apparently DosSleep(0) only yields its timeslice to other processes with the same or higher priority, and Pulse is naturally at a very low priority. DosSleep(1) creates a 1 ms (in practice probably more) pause _and_ releases the entire timeslice to any process. Or so I'm told. But at least it works! - The intense background colors and border (overscan) color could not be set. Fixed. * When GoldED/2 tried to find a GED2.CFG in the previous beta, this was actually a bug. But now it is a design feature that GoldED/2 looks first for a GED2.CFG and then GOLDED.CFG if the other was not found. - Due to a bug in the TopSpeed compiler I use for the OS/2 version, GoldED could under some circumstances fail to find the correct GOLDED.CFG file, and sometimes even try to read GED2.EXE or GOLDED.EXE as a config file :-( Fixed. - The PID kludge was incorrect for the OS/2 version. It is now GED/2 for the OS/2 version and GED for DOS. The tearline was also not always set correctly. Now GoldED uses the @longpid (see above) internally when building the standard tearline. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Notes for GoldED 2.41.B1207, BETA release 07 december 1992. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- * Notes about the OS/2 version (GoldED/2 and GoldNODE/2): This is the first functional beta release of the OS/2 version of GoldED. It has not been thoroughly tested, so unexpected behaviour and bugs will probably be found. OS/2 IMPLEMENTATION NOTES: ... The Sound Blaster support is currently disabled in the OS/2 version. Later versions may support special SB drivers or perhaps the MultiMedia extensions. The standard beeping effects have been ported to the degree it was possible. The "gwynk" noise when msgs to you are found sounds a bit different. The BEEPFACTOR is currently not functional. ... Some configuration keywords are not functional in the OS/2 version. I don't have a list of them right now, but it is mainly keywords associated with hardware. ... Ctrl-Break and Ctrl-C will terminate GoldED/2 immediately, without warning, and without saving anything before terminating. Be careful. This will be fixed in later betas. ... If you are using a CPU monitor like Pulse or similar, you will find that GoldED/2 eats a lot of CPU time (in Pulse the curve will hit the roof!). I don't know why, because GoldED/2 DOES release timeslices (using DosSleep(0) calls) in a manner that works just fine in the DOS versions when running in DOS boxes. I'm not sure how to fix this annoying problem, but I will do my best to find out. ... The statusline does not have a memory meter in the OS/2 version. It is currently replaced with a counter that shows how many times the statusline has been updated. This will change in later betas, but I'm not sure to what. ... When running in a window on the WPS, the screen update may seem very sluggish. This is at least partly due to the fact that CXL (the user interface library I'm using in GoldED) often writes a character at time, instead of complete lines. This will probably be optimized a bit in later betas. ... The GoldED/2 icon (GED2.ICO) is designed by myself, but the G.E.D letters are based on some nice GoldED Windows icons made by Karsten Palmvig (2:231/78.76). I have taken the liberty of recoloring them to yellow/gold shades and made them shorter to fit the OS/2 text under it. There is currently no icon for GoldNODE/2. If YOU have some nice icons for GoldED and/or GoldNODE, in either OS/2 or Windows format, please send them to me or the nearest reg.site. I will put the GoldED icon collection in the public release archives. ... GoldED/2 and GoldNODE/2 are compiled with TopSpeed C++ 3.02. TopSpeed only generates 16-bit applications, but I have enabled 386 code generation so the speed should be fairly satifactory. ... GoldNODE/2 has been released in a beta before (in may). This release contains the fixes (and perhaps bugs) that were included in the P0720 release. + Added support for the Ezycom msgbase! Please note that this is the first implementation, and there may be some bugs or quirks in it that I have not found yet. If you find any problem with GoldED and Ezycom msgbases, please let me know as soon as possible, with a detailed description of the problem and ways to reproduce it. EZYCOM MSGBASE IMPLEMENTATION NOTES: ... The Ezycom msgbase support in GoldED is based on structures and documents for 1.01 and 1.02, but has only been tested by me with a quick install of Ezycom 1.01. ... Due to the way the Ezycom msgbase is designed, it is not practically possible to exclude deleted msgs when scanning and reading msgs. This means that you will always see the deleted msgs (they will have the DEL attribute set in the header display and the msg body is replaced with a dummy). To be able to exclude deleted msgs within the current Ezycom msgbase design, GoldED would have to read through the entire MSGHxxxx.BBS file to look at one single DELETED bit in each msg header. This would take way too long on most systems. I have discussed this problem with the Ezycom author, and he has agreed to implement a simple solution for the next Ezycom release (and beta). I will implement my support for that solution in the next GoldED beta. ... GoldED does not add to or create the Ezycom userbase. If a user is not found in the Ezycom USERS.BBS, the user is assigned the first set of lastreads. No warning is issued about this. You should add new users by logging on locally with EZY -L. ... Ezycom userbase lookups have not yet been implemented. ... For manual setup of Ezycom areas, the <msgbase> parameter of the AREA keyword must be 'E' and the <loc> parameter must be the board number of the area. For the new AREADEF keyword the <msgbase> parameter must be 'Ezycom' and <path/board> paraneter must be the board number. Examples: AREA EZYCOM "Ezycom support" EE 1 AREADEF EZYCOM "Ezycom support" 0 Echo Ezycom 1 2:231/77 (LOC) + New "AREAFILE Ezycom [path to system files]". Reads CONFIG.EZY and MESSAGES.EZY to get the area setup. Should be compatible with both 1.01 and 1.02, but has only been tested with 1.01. + New keyword: "EZYCOMMSGBASEPATH <path>". No default. If not set, AREAFILE Ezycom will set it. Defines the base path for the Ezycom msgbase. + New keyword: "EZYCOMUSERBASEPATH <path>". No default. If not set, AREAFILE Ezycom will set it. Defines the base path for the Ezycom userbase. * GoldNODE is included in this beta release. Nothing significant was changed since the P0720 version. If I recall correctly, there were some bug reports about GoldNODE in P0720. If you find bugs in this beta version, please let me know in GOLDED.BETA or in netmail, and I will try to get them fixed. It works fine in my setup (as P0720 have until today). - Fixed name lookup from the header edit of names containing points, such as "van.der.somebody". It would work if the name contained a space, but not without. Note that names in the GoldED nodelist index is sorted so that "van.der.somebody" goes with the S'es and not the V's. - If GoldED finds a DBRIDGE.LRQ file in the AREAPATH, it will try to find your first USERNAME in it, so that the lastreads can be updated correctly. In previous versions GoldED would exit with an error if the name was not found, but it would add you to the file anyway. Now the error exit has been removed. - In EDITCOMMENT the following was not possible: EDITCOMMENT "," "Pause eller grammatisk? ;-)" It would show and beep the comment constantly. (The comment is in Danish and refers jokingly to the fact that in Denmark there are two allowed standards for setting the comma, causing much confusion). + New feature: With 5 new keywords (see below) it is now possible to specify where and how wide the name/node/date fields in the header display/edit are. This makes it possible at last to view/edit the full length (35 chars) of the name field - and this is in fact the new default in GoldED. The new keywords and their new defaults are: DISPHDRNAMESET 8 36 ; old default was 8 28 DISPHDRNODESET 44 16 ; old default was 36 24 DISPHDRDATESET -20 20 ; old default was the same EDITHDRNAMESET 8 36 ; old default was 8 28 EDITHDRNODESET 44 36 ; old default was 36 44 The syntax of the two parameters of these keywords are: <keyword> <pos> <len> Where <pos> is the position on the display line and <len> is the field width. If <pos> or <len> is a negative value, that value is _added_ to the display width (such as 80, 100 or 132), so that it is relative to the right margin. For example a <pos> of -20 on a 80 char display will put it at position 80 - 20 = 60. NOTE: The attributes display moves along with the DISPHDRNODESET values. - Significantly reduced memory requirements for the msg lister. When run in very_wide*very_tall videomodes like 132x60, it would usually run out of memory even with the memory meter showing more than 100k in the statusline... + When setting the FRQ attribute in Hudson netmail areas, it is now again (also) set in the ^aFLAGS kludge. This was removed in P0720 because I found that QuickBBS had defined one of the undefined attribute bits to FRQ. Unfortunately this new bit was not as widely supported as ^aFLAGS FRQ. + Even if the new FIDONULLFIX keyword is disabled, GoldED will still fix a NUL if it is the _first_ character in the msg body. This probably fixes most of these buggy msgs without the overhead of checking the entire msg. + New keyword: "FIDONULLFIX <yes/no>". Defaults to NO. If set to YES, GoldED will replace NUL chars with LF chars in the msg body when reading a Fido *.MSG file. This is slower of course, but not noticably on fast machines. This option was created to enable GoldED users to read msgs that were created/handled by brain-dead programs (I don't have names, sorry) which are not obeying our primary technical standard: FTS-0001. FTS-1 states that a NUL terminates the msg body. But sometimes msgs are encountered which have a NUL as the first char in the msg body or perhaps in other places, thereby causing GoldED to show a blank or cut-off msg. In some Pascal-based readers, such as FM, these msgs can be read anyway, because in Pascal a NUL does not terminate a string like in C/C++. NOTE: I really ought to make GoldED display a big fat window complaining when a msg is not conforming to FTS-1 :-( - Fixed garbage in nodelist lookup when trying to lookup a name or address which is beyond the end of existing nodes, such as 11111:2/3 or ZZZZZZ. + For AREAFILE Squish, it is now possible to specify the filename of SQUISH.CFG, using a new -C<cfgfile> option. Example: AREAFILE Squish -cMYSQUISH.CFG This example will use MYSQUISH.CFG instead of SQUISH.CFG to read areas. + New Random System keyword: "FORCETEMPLATE <yes/no>". Defaults to NO. This keyword can be used instead of (or together with) the TEMPLATE keyword in Random System GROUP's. If used, GoldED will popup the template selection menu when you start writing a new msg or reply. If you have TEMPLATE's as well as FORCETEMPLATE, you can use the (random) TEMPLATE's by hitting ESC instead of selecting from the menu. NOTE: This keyword ONLY works in GOLDRAND.CFG! + New keyword: "AREADESC <setup>". No default. Adds a description and optionally a group letter, aka, attributes and origin to an _existing_ area. This is useful if you use an AREAFILE that does not contain descriptions, groups, akas, attributes or origins. The full syntax is: AREADESC <echoid> <"desc"> [group] [aka] [(attrs)] ["origin"]" <echoid> The echoid. <"desc"> Area description in quotes. [group] Optional groupid letter (A-Z), or 0 if not in a group, or '-' to keep the existing group letter. [aka] Optional aka address for the area, or '.' for main aka, or '-' to keep the existing aka. [(attrs)] Optional default attributes in brackets (), '-' to keep the existing attributes. Note that the attributes, if specified, are _added_ to the default net/echo/local attributes. ["origin"] Optional default origin in quotes. Note that you cannot skip one of the middle optional parts, even if you only want to set, say, an origin. Use '-' to keep the existing value for the parts you skip. + New "AREAFILE EchoList [path]<filename>". The [path] defaults to the AREAPATH. Reads a simple ascii-text file containing an echolist in this form: <echoid> <description> This feature adds descriptions to already existing areas in GoldED. A common use for this feature might be: AREAFILE AreasBBS AREAS.BBS AREAFILE EchoList ECHOLIST.TXT Descriptions for unknown echoids are ignored. Blank lines and lines beginning with characters which are illegal in echoids (such as ';' are also ignored. + New commandline parameter: "-W". If "-W" is used, GoldED will create/overwrite the file GOLDAREA.INC, which will contain all areas in the new AREADEF form, sorted by your AREALISTSORT specification. This is very useful for converting your AREAFILE's to a form you can edit with your favorite text editor and use in GoldED. It is also useful if you have used the new AREADESC keyword or the new AREAFILE EchoList reader. The GOLDAREA.INC file (created in the GOLDPATH) can be used by adding "INCLUDE GOLDAREA.INC" to your GOLDED.CFG or GOLDAREA.CFG. When creating the file, GoldED will use '.' if an aka is the same as the main aka, and leave out the optional origin if it's the same as the first ORIGIN in your GOLDED.CFG. This makes it easier to share the same GOLDAREA.INC between different setups. Try the option now, and look at the output GOLDAREA.INC. It won't hurt, and will probably be interesting. + New commandline parameter: "-M" (for Mute). If "-M" is used, GoldED will turn off all sounds and noises. Can be turned on again with "-M-", for example if you have it turned off in your GEDCMD environment variable and want to turn it on. - The single '.' in AREADEF's did not work as intended. Fixed. + New keyword: "NODELISTWARN <yes/no>". Defaults to YES. If set to YES, GoldED will warn you during startup if one or more nodelists are missing. Use NO to disable the warning if it bothers you or you delete/pack your nodelists when the nodelists are compiled. Note that GoldED can work fine with lookups etc. without nodelists as long as it can access its own indexes (GOLDNODE.?IX). Only the extra details will be missing. + Added extra safety measures when shelling to DOS. Now GoldED will close all msgbase files in _all_ circumstances before shelling, and re-open afterwards. Previously it closed the msgbase files in most places, but not all. Some reports indicate that having an open Hudson msgbase while shelling out, could in some unfortunate circumstances cause fatal damage to the msgbase if you started GoldED again while in the GoldED DOS shell :-( This can no longer happen, because the msgbase files are now 100% _closed_ while in the DOS shell. The same new safety measures also apply to Squish and Ezycom msgbases. The Fido msgbase does not need it, because each *.MSG file is opened, read/written and closed at once. - If you moved an _unscanned_ msg in a Hudson area, the NETMAIL.BBS or ECHOMAIL.BBS file would not get updated correctly. This could cause IMAIL and other scanners to report that the file was invalid. - When using the ATTRIBUTES keyword in the GOLDRAND.CFG file, the attributes would be added to the areas _existing_ attributes (as set with AREA/AREADEF/AREAFILE. Now they will instead be added to the default net/echo/local attributes. - At last! Found and fixed the problem with leading zeroes for Hudson board numbers in AREAS.BBS: 007 JAMES.BOND 2:231/77.007 The contents of AREAS.BBS can now look like the above without problems. - When using more than one COOKIEFILE, only the first one got correctly indexed. Fixed. - Fixed bug in AREAFILE D'Bridge for version 1.50. - Fixed wrong akas in AREAFILE FastEcho for 1.10 and later. + New keyword: "COOKIEPATH <path>". Defaults to the GOLDPATH. Defines the default path for the new COOKIEFILE keyword and the @random template token. Previously the path for cookies was also GOLDPATH, but in the @random template token, the default path was that of the template file. This could give problems if the templates were not in the GOLDPATH.. + New keyword: "TEMPLATEPATH <path>". Defaults to the GOLDPATH. Use this if your templates are not in the GOLDPATH. - When scanning areas, GoldED would attempt to open a Hudson msgbase, even if you didn't have any. If it could not open a Hudson msgbase, it would exit with an error message. No problems if you already have a Hudson msgbase. Fixed. ! Changed the overlay buffer size again, this time from 150K down to 100K to help operation in low memory situations. If you liked the improved performance with 150K, just use -O150 on the GoldED commandline or GEDCMD environment variable. If you still keep getting out of memory errors, set it to -O64 or lower (down to about 32). GENERAL NOTE ABOUT MEMORY: Watch the memory meter on the statusline (to the left of the clock). GoldED feels most comfortable if the memory meter shows more than 100k. However, memory fragmentation can occur if you read and write msgs for extended periods in one session, and that could make the memory meter show very low values and still work okay. This is a very difficult problem to solve, and it will not be dealt with in the 2.4x series. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- * There were some things I forgot to tell you about in the B1124 notes: + Added popup warning if GoldED detects that one or more of your defined nodelists are missing. (See above for a new keyword to turn off the warning). + Some of the initialization messages previously displayed in the statusline during startup has been moved up in popup windows. Note that the related language strings are still named ST_something instead of IL_something. Just goes to show that the naming of the language strings could use a complete re-think :-) ! The default overlay buffer size has been increased from about 64K to 150K. This boosts performance, but may cause out of memory problems if you are running GoldED in DV windows and such. If that is the case, use the -O commandline parameter to reduce the overlay buffer size. (See above for changes and notes). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Notes for GoldED 2.41.B1125, BETA release 25 november 1992. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- - A change in the GOLD*.CFG reader did not allow the use of comments on lines with keywords. This could result in very strange error messages and exception errors. Fixed. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Notes for GoldED 2.41.B1124, BETA release 24 november 1992. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- - Fixed Hudson msgbase scanning in the arealist <Alt-S> for both the QBBSSCAN Old and Rescan options. They gave some frightening looking results, like zapped lastreads and such. It was not fatal, but "a bit" shocking to see :-) + New keyword: "DISPSTATUSLINE <yes/no>". Defaults to YES. If set to NO, the statusline with memory meter, clock etc. will be disabled. This option has been implemented as a temporary help for visually impaired users. More extensive help will be implemented in later versions. + When GoldED exits with some kind of error, the error description on the screen was not very informative. Now the description is the same as the one put in GOLDED.LOG. The logging has been modified to give a bit more "human readable" meaning, but it is still primarily designed to give me in your bug reports. - Fixed the handling of Squish areas with zero msgs. They will now correctly be reported to contain zero msgs, and entering the area will no longer give you strange "ghost" users accessing it :-) + Tweaked the Squish MSGAPI to report the actual DOS errorcodes, so that GoldED is able to find out if a real error occurred, or another user *actually is* accessing the msgbase. Changed the Squish open area/msg checking to only report "Another user" when the DOS error code concerns accessing errors, or exit with the errorcode if not. This should be the final end to the dreaded "Another User" problem. - GoldED now makes sure the subject field is correctly terminated with a NUL if you have a long subject (the max is 71 chars+NUL), and trailing spaces are now trimmed from the end. + Improved the error log description for when the Hudson msgbase could not be opened or locked. It now tells which directory it is trying to access the msgbase in, and specifically tells about a failure to lock it, instead of saying it could not open it. - Finally got around to fixing the nodelist lookup. Previously the lookup would almost consistently hit the "wrong" node (one above or below the obvious choice) if there was no exact match. This was a long standing bug that got a bit worse in the P0720 update. - The msg lister didn't show pointnumbers in the header. Fixed. - Fixed long-standing bug (since 2.40 and probably most 2.32 betas) in the D'Bridge 1.30 reader in AREAFILE D'Bridge. The .AA1 and .AA2 files were opened in textmode when they should have been opened in binary mode. GoldED would therefore in some cases read garbage or end prematurely and not read all areas. + Changed the operation of the TWITMODE keyword, so that the Sound Blaster feature plays the MsgIsTwit event even if TWITMODE is set to "Show". - The file attach dialog window was really messed up. Fixed. + New keyword: "AREALISTECHOMAX <size>". Default: 0 (dynamical). Allows you to specify a fixed width of the EchoID column in the arealist, or make it dynamically sized (see below). If a negative value is specified, the width will be the that of the widest echoid in the arealist plus the negative value. This might be useful if some long-name echoes have uninteresting ends, such as "VERYLONGECHOID_R23.PUB" (could benefit from a <size> of -7). + The arealist can now dynamically resize the EchoID and Description columns, so that long echoids are not cut off. The sizing of the EchoID column is done against the Description column, which thereby looses or gains width. Previously the EchoID column width was fixed at 13 chars on 80 column displays, but when we switched to new and much longer echonames in Denmark recently, this had to be changed of course ;-) I don't understand why no-one asked for this feature before! - When changing the origin at the save menu, the new origin was inserted with a space missing between the colon and the origin text, resulting in an invalid origin. Fixed. Argh.. This was the most visible bug of P0720, because many didn't see it before saving their msgs :-( - The origin was truncated at 78 instead of 79 chars. Fixed. - When using "AREAFILE Squish" and no origin was defined in SQUISH.CFG, GoldED would put in garbage instead. Fixed. It now uses the first ORIGIN in GOLDED.CFG instead. - Spaces in the "word" part of an EDITCOMMENT definition were not handled correctly. Fixed. - Fixed long-standing bug in both GoldED and GoldNODE, that took the point part of an address from the wrong place in some circumstances, like in SQUISH.CFG: "-p2:231/77 7:77/321.1". This would set the area aka wrongly to 2:231/77.1. Using .0 would work. - Fixed bug in handling of the SOUNDDEVICE SB/SBPRO parameters. The parameters were handled before the driver was loaded, and so they could never take hold. Also the name of the driver file was stated incorrectly in the notes - the correct filename is CT-VOICE.DRV. - Fixed a bug was the very likely cause of at least some of the strange behaviour of P0720, which I have described as "wild pointer" problems. It was indeed a wild pointer. It was a silly bug in the new EVENT keyword handler which put data in regions outside the properly allocated memory. The EVENT keyword was introduced in P0720, so this particular "wild pointer" does NOT account for the strange problems reported for versions earlier than P0720 (such as leading zeroes in AREAS.BBS not being handled correctly although the code that does it is 99.99% safe). + Speeded up the config reading a bit, especially the parts that add new areas, such the AREAFILE, AREA and AREADEF keywords. + New keyword: "AREADEF <setup>". This is a new version of the "AREA" keyword, with new and more verbose parameters. The full syntax is: (must be all on one line of course) AREADEF <echoid> <"desc"> <group> <type> <msgbase> <path/board> <aka> <(attrs)> ["origin"] <echoid> The echoid. <"desc"> Area description in quotes. <group> Groupid letter (A-Z), or 0 if not in a group. <type> Net, Echo or Local. <msgbase> FIDO, FTSC, HUDSON or SQUISH. <path/board> Area path, boardnumber or base filename. <aka> Aka address for the area, or '.' for main aka. <(attrs)> Default attributes in brackets (). ["origin"] Optional default origin in quotes. As you can see, it looks a lot like the old AREA keyword. New stuff is the <group>, the verbose <type> and <msgbase>, the fully specified <aka> address, the brackets for the attributes and the optional origin. Note the possibility of using '.' to specify the main aka. This, and the optional default origin, makes it simpler to create a common INCLUDE'able area configuration for several setups with different addresses, for example two people sharing the same msgbase. + New keyword: "ATTRIBSFRQ <attributes>". No default. Defines the attributes to use for messages generated with the file request function. Suggested attributes are: PVT K/S CRA. The FRQ and LOC attributes are added automatically. + The TIMESLICE OS/2 function has been modified so that it now works even in a booted DOS box (image). A new commandline parameter "-2" has been added to _force_ the OS/2 timeslice, even if a DOS box is _not_ detected. Note that using -2 in a regular DOS session (not under OS/2) may cause GoldED to crash or hang the system. The -2 parameter will be removed in a later version if I can find some trick to find out whether a DOS session is booted or not. If you know such a trick, please tell me about it! The TIMESLICE OS/2 function tests the DOS version to see if it is running in an OS/2 DOS box. The timeslice function will only be activated if the reported DOS version is 10.0 or later (20.0 for OS/2 2.00). The big version number indicates a built-in DOS box running under OS/2. However a booted DOS image will NOT report these big versions, only the version of the DOS image (such as 5.00). So unless you have used the SETVER program of MS-DOS 4.0x or later to tell GoldED it is running under v20.0, you must use the new -2 parameter as described above. + New commandline parameter -FF (Force Force :-). Works like -F (Force config compile) except that _all_ files are compiled, even if not out of date. This was added because starting with this release some files are no longer compiled even with -F unless they are really out of date. ! To speed up config compiles, GoldED will now only compile GOLDHELP.CFG if it is really out of date (is newer than GOLDHELP.GED), or the -FF commandline parameter is used. - One day I rewrote an "is_dir" function, with the unfortunate and unexpected result that it didn't work with paths with a backslash in the end. Fixed. This affected AREAFILE Maximus, the swapper (to disk) and a few other things. + Added support for IMAIL 1.30. Just use AREAFILE IMAIL as usual. + Added support for the FMail mail processor (0.90/g and later) by Folkert J. Wijnstra. Use AREAFILE FMail [path to FMAIL.CFG and FMAIL.AR] [options] The FMail support has only been tested with 0.90, but it was built with structures for 0.92. ! Removed support of the older versions of GEcho in AREAFILE GEcho. The current GEcho support is based on the structures in the GEDEV100 archive by the GEcho author. It should however work okay with any version which uses the SETUP.GE and new AREAFILE.GE files. + New language keyword: "ST_INDEXINGCOOKIE". Defines the string to display in the statusline when/if GoldED indexes a cookie file. Defaults to "Indexing Cookie File". + New keyword: "COOKIEFILE <[path]<file>>". No default. Path defaults to the GOLDPATH. Defines any number of "cookie" files, which will be automatically indexed if needed. The cookie (or "random") files are those which can be used in the templates, using the "@random" token. NOTE: This feature only works for REGISTERED users, and replaces the external utility "GoldRAND" which was distributed in the GRAND101.ARJ archive. ! AREAFILE Userdefined has been removed. In my opinion it gave more confusion and problems than it was worth. There were a couple of the regular AREAFILE's which used the userdefined stuff internally, including RemoteAccess and D'Bridge. These now use real old-style code instead to read the areas. In the case of RemoteAccess, this should also fix a few bugs.. - When patch-updating GOLDED.EXE using the BUPDATE program, you could get a garbled screen. This would clear away as soon as you forced config compiled (-F) or deleted all *.GED files. Fixed. * GoldED is now compiled with Borland C++ 3.1. Previously it was compiled with 3.0. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Notes for GoldED 2.40.P0720, patch update release 20 july 1992. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- * This version has been through some pretty extensive sourcecode cleaning, in order to prepare it for porting to the TCXL C user interface lib. This mean that there is a small risk that bugs have crept in that were not there before. Please report any strange behavior asap. * This is probably the last patch update before the full 2.41 maintenance release with updated manual etc. After 2.41, the 2.xx series will be formally closed, and I take the plunge and go all-out for version 3.00. Yes, for REAL this time! The code is as ready as it will ever be for it. There may be a few patch updates to 2.41 if needed, but mainly bugfixes, nothing fancy. * I hate to say this, but there is a bug that only appears when using screen modes with more than 50 lines (such as 80x60, 132x60 etc). The bug appears if you enter the msg lister, where it usually crashes the computer and/or generates exception 13's. I can reproduce it consistently, but all attempts at fixing it have failed. The code looks okay. All indications are that it's a wild pointer :-( Wild pointers are extremely hard to find :-((( So.. This is just to warn you that this is a known bug, and beware of running in 60 line modes. + Added support for the QuickBBS 2.75 (and later) area config files. Use "AREAFILE QuickBBS [path and filename of AREAS.BBS]". If GoldED finds the file QUICKCFG.DAT in the path pointed to by the QUICKBBS or QBBS environment variable, or the AREAPATH, it uses the new 2.75 config, otherwise the old 2.6x config. NOTE: This is *untested*, because I don't have QuickBBS 2.75 installed, but I was very careful with the implementation and followed the STRUCT.276 (gamma-2) structure file closely. ! When I added the support for QuickBBS 2.75, I noticed that the two "reserved" attributes in the QBBS msg header had been allocated to "group msg" and "freq" now. Accordingly, GoldED now supports these attributes (GRP and FRQ) for QBBS msgs. The FRQ attribute was previously supported via the FLAGS kludge - not any longer. The GRP attribute is unknown to me, I don't know what it's for exactly, but now you can set it! :-) + Added support for the Sound Blaster! Yes, this is probably the silliest and most useless feature ever to be implemented in a msg reader/editor, but after buying the Sound Blaster Pro, I simply couldn't resist it... :-) The code is on overlay and doesn't take much extra space in GOLDED.EXE, so don't feel too bad about it if you don't have a Sound Blaster ( - YET, hehe .. <evil grin>). To enable the Sound Blaster support, use the new SOUNDDEVICE, SOUNDPATH, PLAY and EVENT keywords described below. I have compiled an "authorized" set of soundfiles (VOC's) to use with the PLAY and EVENT keywords. The archive is named GOLD_VOC.ARJ and is xxxk in size. It has been distributed to all GoldED reg.sites and is also available from many other BBS's. During the development of the SB support, I created a couple of utils for testing and manipulating VOC's and extracting samples from MOD's. These will be released separately on a later date. + New keyword: "SOUNDDEVICE <device> [parameters]". Default is no device, and only the standard set of beeping effects. Valid <device>'es are: SB Enable the Sound Blaster support. SBPRO Same as SB. This version doesn't know the difference. If SB or SBPRO was chosen and the card is setup with the factory defaults, you don't have to supply parameters. If no parameters are specified, GoldED uses the SOUND and BLASTER environment variables to get the parameters or just uses the factory defaults. The valid parameters for SB/SBPRO are: -A<ioport> -I<intnum> <full path and name of CTVOICE.DRV) Example: SOUNDDEVICE SBPRO -A220 -I7 C:\SBPRO\DRV\CTVOICE.DRV In this release the SB support is done by loading the CTVOICE.DRV driver into memory and handing it the VOC's to play with. + New keyword: "SOUNDPATH <path>". Defaults to GOLDPATH. Tells GoldED where to find the sound files. + New keyword: "PLAY <soundfile>". No default. If used in GOLDED.CFG, it defines the default sound to play when entering an area. If used in GOLDRAND.CFG, it defines the sound to play when entering an area or group of areas. If more than one PLAY is used in a group in GOLDRAND.CFG, one will be chosen at random. The only soundfile supported in this release is the Creative Technology Voice format - the *.VOC files. When a VOC is played with GoldED, it is first loaded complete into memory (so don't use big ones...) and then the CTVOICE driver plays it. It is possible (in most situations) to do other things while the VOC is playing, but beware that you may run out of memory. Keep an eye on the memory meter in the statusline. The VOC will be automatically unloaded when it stops playing. NOTE: It is important to supply the .VOC file extension. This is the only way GoldED knows what kind of soundfile it is. Later version might add support for .WAV and other types. + New keyword: "EVENT <eventtype> <eventcommand [parameters]>". No default. This keyword allows you specify what soundfile to play when a specfic event occurs. The following <eventtype>'s are defined for this release: Arealist AskYesNo Attention DosShell EditComment EndOfMsgs ErrorFatal Exit JobDone JobFailed MsgDeleting MsgFromYou MsgIsLocal MsgIsTwit MsgToYou SearchFailed SearchSuccess Startup The names speak for themselves I think (and hope). There is only one <eventcommand> defined in this release: PLAY. NEW_GOLD.CFG file in this archive contains a set of default assignments. You will need the GOLD_VOC archive with the "authorized" set of VOC's if you want to try these default assignments. Example usages: EVENT MsgToYou PLAY HIMAN.VOC (Bart Simpson :-) EVENT MsgIsTwit PLAY SHOTGUN.VOC As I found out(!), you have to select the sounds carefully and probably with a lot of experimentation, unless you want to turn your mailreader into a honking, wailing and farting monster and drive your poor family nuts with a cacophony of noises... The "authorized" set harbours no illusions of being well balanced, but it's fun to use - for a while anyway. If you develop a good (in your opinion) set of sounds, I would very much like to get a copy of the VOC's and the relevant part of your GOLDED.CFG. Example of both well balanced cool sets and noisy heavy metal hard-rocker sets are welcome :-) ! Changed the binary search algorithm I used previously to a different type. Maybe it's my imagination, but it *feels* like GoldED now compiles the configuration faster! (Binary search is used here to lookup CRC's of the keywords in a table). The new algorithm is also used for the internal functions that convert from a "real" to a "relative" msg number. This appears to have speeded area scanning up a bit too. As I say, this may just be my imagination - I haven't done benchmark tests, because I have all the new keyword in my config and I'm too lazy to take them out for testing.. - Got rid of the "(Compiling Configuration)" message at startup. It has been replaced with three dots "...", which I hope look less annoying. The dots do not appear unless it compiles the config (all of it - it does NOT appear if only the help/random/language files are compiled). + New keyword: "AREASCANEXCL <echoid or wildcards>". No default. With this keyword you can prevent areas from being scanned with AREASCAN on startup. Useful if you always use "AREASCAN *", but have a few big areas which slows it down. + New keyword: "AREASCANINCL <echoid or wildcards>". No default. Here you can specify areas to be scanned with AREASCAN even if they were excluded with AREASCANEXCL. Useful for partial reversal of wildcard specs in the excludes. - The new "QBBSSCAN Rescan" option introduced in the P0621 update didn't work at all. Well.. I DID say it was completely untested, right? :-) It has now been completely fixed (as well as I can determine, since I normally don't use the QBBS format myself). Please read about this feature in the P0621 notes. I hope you like the extra memory this feature releases! It is now possible to re-scan QBBS areas in the arealist using the Alt-S menu, just like you can for *.MSG and Squish. You don't have to enable the QBBSSCAN Rescan option for this. NOTE: If you are using the QBBS format, I suggest you enable this option, even if you feel it's a bit slower right now. In a later version the "Old" option is very likely to be removed. The speed will be improved with later version, where and when possible. ! A long-standing bug: In the confirmation receipt template (GOLDED.CFM), it was impossible to get correct data for the original message using the @odate etc. tokens. This works correctly now, but the contents of the .CFM file must be changed slightly. Please see the example CONFIRM.CFM provided with this update. - Using the Ctrl-G function to directly enter a msg number, if you entered a negative number, GoldED would behave strangely and/or crash. Fixed. When entering a negative number now, it will go to the message with number "active + entered_num". So if you have 132 msgs in the area and enter -32, you will end up at msgno 100. Negative numbers entered are always relative, even if you have set GoldED to display the real msg numbers. - There were several reports of garbage in the CHARSET kludge. I could not reproduce the problem, but in my investigations I found one small bug which could have caused it. If the charset table required could not be found, a pointer to the charset name would point at some random memory location instead. ! The quotebuffer system was a very popular new feature of patch version P0621. However, because of time pressure, the first implementation was not really up to my usual standard... Well, this time, I have made some changes and additions to make it a lot more useful: * Previously there was only one quotebuffer file, named QUOTEBUF and placed in the GOLDPATH. Now there is a different quotebuffer for each area, named according to msgbase type: QBBS: GOLDQxxx.QBF, placed in the QBBSPATH. xxx = board num. *.MSG: GOLDED.QBF, placed in the directory with the *.MSG's. Squish: filename.QBF, placed where the Squish area is. Note that they all have extension .QBF, so that you can easily find them. Useful for a quick global kill of all quotebuffers. * To use a quotebuffer in your msgs, you had to manually use the text import function and type the QUOTEBUF name. Now there is a new keycommand, EDITimportquotebuf, that automatically imports the current quotebuffer. If you want to import another quotebuffer, you have to do it manually of course. * Previously the function always only appended to the single quotebuffer file. Now the function detects if the file exists already, and the new QUOTEBUFMODE keyword determines if you should be asked, or if it should just go ahead and append or overwrite. I hope you will find all this new functionality useful :-) As always, suggestions for enhancements are always welcome. + New keyword: "QUOTEBUFFILE <filename>". No default. This keyword can be used in both the GOLDED.CFG *and* the Random System GOLDRAND.CFG. If used, it sets the default filename for the quotebuffer, either globally (in GOLDED.CFG) or by group/area (GOLDRAND.CFG). If no path is specified, the GOLDPATH is used. NOTE: If this keyword is used in GOLDED.CFG, it effectively disables the automatically named quotebuffers, as described in the section above about the changes to the quotebuffer system. + New keyword: "QUOTEBUFMODE <ask/append/overwrite>". Default is ASK. Specifies what GoldED should do, if the quotebuffer file exists already. ASK A menu asks you to select append/overwrite/skip. APPEND Always append, no asking. OVERWRITE Always overwrite, no asking. The "always overwrite" mode is not very useful I guess, but it's there if you need it. NOTE: The ASK menu is directly stolen from the write-to-a-file function, and I have not yet implemented the "re-enter filename" menu item. It just skips the generation of the quote. + New keycommand: "EDITimportquotebuf". Standard assignment in GOLDKEYS.CFG: [Alt-Q]. A specialized version of EDITimporttext, this defaults to the current quotebuffer filename (see description of the QUOTEBUFFERFILE keyword above). + New keycommand: "READmovecommentmsg". Standard assignments in GOLDKEYS.CFG: [Alt-B] and [B]. This keycommand does for READcommentmsg what READmovequotemsg does for READquotemsg. It allows you to write a reply to the TO: person in another area. + New keycommand: "EDITcleardeletebuf". Standard assignment in GOLDKEYS.CFG: [Alt-F5]. Clears all lines in the undelete buffer and frees the memory used. Successful operation is indicated with a noise. + New keycommand: "EDITclearpastebuf". Standard assignment in GOLDKEYS.CFG: [Alt-F6]. Clears all lines in the paste buffer and frees the memory used. Successful operation is indicated with a noise. + New keyword: "AREAAUTOFREQ <echoid>". No default. Sets the default area for the filerequest function. You should set this to the netmail area where you normally put the filerequest messages. + New keyword: "KLUDGECHRS <yes/no>". Default is NO. If set to YES, GoldED uses the "^aCHRS" kludge instead of the "^aCHARSET" kludge when appropriate. + New keyword: "DISPAREANO <yes/no/always>". Default is YES. This keyword specifies if GoldED should display the area number on the top line in the reader. YES Display it only if non-zero. NO Never display it. ALWAYS Duh... Guess what... Always display the area number. The area number is the same as that displayed in the leftmost column in the arealist. This also means that the number displayed can be either the "real" area number (QBBS board) or the standard sequential number (toggleable with Alt-B in the arealist). The number is displayed in square brackets to the left of the area description. I am not sure that is the best place for it - things are getting kinda crowded up there... Suggestions are welcome. ! I have now removed the mouse support code. No use in having it in there, when it's useless in practice... Not until I start using the new TCXL C user interface lib, will the mouse support begin to work again.. ! The code for QBBSREBUILD has been removed in this release. Reports seem to indicate that it does not work correctly, and I haven't had time to check it out yet. + GoldED now finally supports SuperBBS explicitly! Version 1.16 and later (1.17 betas) are supported. Older versions are not directly supported, but you can use AREAFILE QuickBBS for those. Usage: AREAFILE SuperBBS [path and filename of AREAS.BBS] It tries to find the CONFIG.BBS, SCONFIG.BBS and BOARDS.BBS files in the path set with the SUPERBBS or SBBS environment variables, or the GoldED AREAPATH if no env.var. is present. One thing not yet implemented is for GoldED to update the SUSERS.BBS file in parallel with USERS.BBS, when adding a record (your first USERNAME, if not already in the userbase). - Fixed a long-standing bug in the binary search algorithm I use. It typically showed itself if you tried to move the first msg in an area anywhere. Afterwards the msg number in the statusline would get really weird.. This bug *could* also have affected the mark/bookmark functions, most notably in the msg lister, but I'm not sure about this. In extreme situations, this bug _may_ also be the cause of some of the QEMM exception #13 errors. Those of you who have had these, please report if they have now disappeared (of course they might be gone for other reasons..). - If you had a USERNAME in GOLDRAND.CFG with a name but no address, GoldED would use a Z:0/0 address as current aka. This was a small leftover from the weird akas of P0621.. - Fixed a minor, but potentially dangerous bug. If you tried to make an empty originline (like " * Origin: (..)"), GoldED would write one byte outside the memory allocation for the origin text, and would force two spaces in the origin instead of the single one you wanted. Now the single space is allowed, and there is no writing (that I know of) outside bounds. - Various GoldNODE fixes/code cleaning. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Notes for GoldED 2.40.P0623, patch update release 23 june 1992. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- - While unifying some duplicated code, I accidentally removed the code that updated the NETMAIL.BBS and ECHOMAIL.BBS files... Now added again. - The "current aka" field in the top of the display showed weird addresses on many setups. Fixed. - In the hurry to release the first patch, I forgot to remove a definition that told the program that it was a beta, and so it would refuse to work without a key or betakey :-( ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Notes for GoldED 2.40.P0621, patch update release 21 june 1992. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- + New keyword: "AREAREADONLY <soft/hard>". Defaults to "soft". If this keyword is set to "hard", it is no longer possible to enter/reply/change messages in areas marked read-only with the R/O area attribute. The "soft" setting uses a menu to ask permission as in the previous versions. This option is designed for those who setup a system for "green" computer users who might be confused enough to enter a message in a read-only area despite the warning menu. + New keyword: "QBBSSCAN <old/rescan>". Defaults to Old. The "rescan" setting turns off the full area scan for the QBBS msgbase, and instead makes it scan each area separately, just like it is for Squish and *.MSG areas. This is slower, but has the advantage that GoldED no longer have to hold indexes of all the areas in memory. This saves a lot of memory if you have many and/or large areas, thereby elimininating many of the "out of memory" errors you might have encountered. NOTE: This function is !!! NOT TESTED AT ALL !!! There should be no risk of damaging your msgbase, since this is just a different area scan method, but there may be special situations where GoldED crashes or behaves strangely (please report this immediately!). Use the "old" setting (default) if in doubt - it works like the previous versions. PLEASE REPORT IMMEDIATELY ANY BUG YOU MAY ENCOUNTER WHEN USING THE QBBSSCAN RESCAN OPTION!!! - For Squish areas, GoldED no longer keeps the message index for each area in memory always. This saves quite a lot of memory (in my own setup it right now saves 57k!). Actually this was already the case if using the slow SQUISHSCAN API option, but I had not noticed.. :-) That this is possible for Squish areas at all, is due to the fact that Squish areas are _always_ rescanned anyway when entered. In a later release I will make the same memory savings possible for QBBS (update: done already, see above) and *.MSG areas. Matters are not quite so simple for those, because *.MSG areas are comparatively slow to scan, and almost any other scanning method for QBBS is likely to be slower than it is now... - If you were using VIEWHIDDEN/VIEWKLUDGE in GOLDRAND.CFG for some areas, you would not be able to manually toggle them on/off and then enter/change a msg with the toggled settings - the Random System setting would get reloaded instead. The settings are now not touched during an enter/change-type msg operation. + New keyword: "FRQEXT <.ext>". With this keyword you can add extra known filename extensions for the filerequest function. The following extensions are already known by default, and need not be defined (but dups are ignored so it won't hurt): .ARC .ARJ .COM .EXE .LHA .LZH .PAK .RUN .SDA .SDN .ZIP .ZOO .DOC .TXT .GIF The last three are new since the original 2.40 release. Suggestions for more default extensions are welcome. Each extension _must_ have the leading dot. Example: FRQEXT .XYZ + The following ROBOTNAME's are now defined by default: AreaFix, AreaMgr and FileFix. This is to help those who are using the simple setup, and have not found the ROBOTNAME keyword in the manual yet. If you have these names defined in your advanced setup, don't worry: Duplicates are ignored. + Support for the newer FastEcho betas added. NOT TESTED! + GoldED now exits with an error message if the detected screen size is too small (minimum 80 columns and 10 rows). + New keycommand: "READquotebuf". Default assignment in my GOLDKEYS.CFG is <Ctrl-W>. If pressed, the current message is quoted internally and the result is appended to a file named QUOTEBUF in the GOLDPATH. When you wish to use this "quotebuffer" in a message, you just import the file QUOTEBUF in the internal (or external) editor and edit/delete it suitably. The only visual indication of successful operation is that GoldED displays a popup of the filename, but a noise is emitted when it is done. The noise is the same as the "search found" noise. A new template token has been added to aid costumization of the attribution ("In a msg of...") used for the quotebuffer quotes: "@quotebuf". It works similar to the @reply, @comment and @quoted tokens. See the example GOLDED.TPL in this archive for a demo of how to use it. As currently implemented, the quotebuffer function is still quite primitive. Planned enhancements include: + Automatic quoting of a set of marked msgs. + Options for append/overwrite/delete of the quotebuffer. + Options for autoload of the quotebuffer when starting a msg. + Visual indications. + Etc, etc. Suggestions are very welcome. - The textfile import function in the internal editor now automatically looks in the GOLDPATH if the desired file is not found in the current directory. When using the '>' character to quote the imported text, the function now properly sets the quote color for each line. + New keycommand: "READtouchnetscan". Default assignment in my GOLDKEYS.CFG is <Ctrl-Z>. If this key is pressed, the SEMAPHORE NETSCAN file (typically FDRESCAN.NOW or DBRIDGE.RSN) is touched. This will normally cause the mailer netmail area to be re-scanned. The only visual indication of successful operation is that GoldED displays a popup of the filename, but a noise is emitted when it is done. The noise is the same as the "search found" noise. - The Shift-F10 destination nodelist lookup did not work properly in echomail/local areas, where there is normally no dest-address. Now it lookups the name instead of the address if in echo/local areas. - If the Frq attribute was set on an incoming msg with Cfm or RRQ (as is the case in the latestest D'Bridge betas), GoldED would incorrectly respond with a Frq in the confirmation receipt. Fixed. + New keyword: "TIMEOUTSAVEMSG <yes/no>". Defaults to YES. If set to YES, GoldED behaves as usual: It saves the (perhaps partially written) msg text in the internal editor to the msgbase and exits. If set to NO, GoldED will save the msg text in GOLDED.MSG just as if EDITAUTOSAVE function was in use and the power went out. Next time you started GoldED and entered a msg, it would detect the "lost" msg and ask you if it should be continued. + The address macros can now also specify attributes to add to the message. The new syntax of the ADDRESSMACRO keyword is: ADDRESSMACRO <macro>,<name>,<address>[,"subject"][,attribs] If (and ONLY if) the subject is enclosed in quotes ("" or ''), GoldED will look for the attributes after the subject. Attributes are specified in the usual way: K/S, PVT etc. You cannot have quotes within quotes (not the same type anyway). The attribues are *added* to the ones already there, they do *not* replace them. Example of use: ADDRESSMACRO af91,AreaFix,2:231/91,"mypwd -q -l",K/S This new feature works equally well with the ADDRESSMACRO keyword and the external NAMESFILE, but you should only use it with the ADDRESSMACRO keyword, because FrontDoor and other programs do not understand this new syntax and will treat the attributes as part of the subject. + New language keyword: "MS_CROSSPOSTEDIN". Defines the string to use with the crossposting list in messages. Defaults to "* Crossposted in %s". - For unregistered users, the init countdown no longer goes berserk if it runs over midnight. - The search functions no longer looses the search criteria between areas, unless the Random System defines another for an area. - The "timesread" field is now always updated for netmail msgs, for better compatibility with FrontDoor. The timestamp of the netmail *.MSG files is only touched if the Rcv attribute is set. + If errors (unknown keywords mainly) were found in the .CFG files, GoldED will now stop and pause just before setting up the start screen. This will enable you to see the error messages that would otherwise disappear too quickly on fast machines. You can dump the error messages to a file by using the '>' DOS redirection. - When using the marking menu (Alt-S) in the message lister, it would only do the search starting at the msg you were at when entering the lister. + It is now possible to enter the msgnumber you want to go to in the message lister without the list reverting to reader mode. Please note that a LISTgotomsgno key has not been implemented yet, but the READgotomsgno key also works in the lister. - If you have set a USERNAME with an address in the Random System, the address did not show at the top of the screen. Not strictly a bug, but a nuisance anyway. - When copying/moving marked msgs, the lastread pointer would jump to the last msg processed instead of staying at the msg you started with. - GoldED no longer matches the Pvt attribute when replying to echomail messages with the Pvt bit set. The Pvt is normally not allowed in echomail, because it prevents BBS online users from reading echomail msgs (which by definition are always public). - If a Squish area had been packed to zero msgs, GoldED would do the "another user accessing...". Fixed. This was a side-effect of the Quick scan method. If the API method was used, there was no problem. - If you had some QBBS areas, and added a bunch of Squish areas with the same echoid, all the QBBS areas would be overridden, and GoldED would exit with a "Gotcha error". Fixed. - Speeded up the area scanning and copying a bit by changing the keyboard check during scan to one that doesn't give out free timeslices. This should speed up the scanning quite a bit in multitasking setups. - When using the Alt-4 key to toggle the Squish Scanned attribute, the Sent attribute was not set correctly. There was also a minor inconsistency when using the Alt-S key to toggle the Sent attribute. The Local attribute is now automatically set if a toggle results in "Uns". These fixes/changes *may* fix the problem with the Squish mail processor ignoring msgs you want to re-send by toggling Uns on again. ! Changed zone detect logic. GoldED will no longer try to "guess" the zone, but instead leave them at zero if no zone information was found in the msg. - GoldED didn't read the zone and point numbers properly from *.MSG format in the FTSC style. Fixed. NOTE: Some people may now see strange zone and point numbers in their msg headers in some areas. If that is the case, redefine those areas to use the Opus style instead of FTSC style. - Removed the "Detect" option from the TIMESLICE keyword. When used, it simply locked or crashed most systems. Sorry about that... You have to manually specify which multitasker (if any) you have. - If there were no ORIGIN's defined in GOLDED.CFG, and no origin was defined for an area in GOLDRAND.CFG, GoldED could put garbage characters in the origin. - You could not use XLATEXPORT I51 and get the ^aI51 kludge. Fixed. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The version before 2.40.P0621 was the full 2.40 release. ----------------------------------------------------------------------