This release of Pegasus Mail/Mac v2.1 is the first "official" release of the 2.1 version. For inscrutable reasons, it carries the version number 2.1.2. The 2.1 family has been in extended testing for quite some time, and a prerelease version was available for over a month prior to this release. We believe this version should be reasonably stable, but you should expect to see (and should probably look for) regular releases over the next few months, both for bug fixes and for feature additions.
The main improvements in this release include:
* Built-in support for POP3/SMTP mail using either MacTCP or the Novell LAN Workplace for Macintosh TCP/IP stack (as far as I know, nobody has tested it with the Novell stack, but since it uses Novell's own TCP/IP APIs it should work as advertised). Built-in TCP/IP support is configured using the "Network configuration" option on the preferences menu, and there are two new commands in the file menu for getting and sending mail.
* No longer requires a NetWare server connection to run. In non-NetWare mode, the only mail transport currently supported is the built-in POP3/SMTP routines, although support is planned for others using a gateway scheme similar to the DOS version.
* MIME support: Pegasus Mail can now generate proper multipart MIME messages and messages using International character sets using the various MIME encoding options. It can handle any incoming MIME text message, but currently does NOT have a multipart browser. This is slated for the next release. Multipart MIME messages will not be handled correctly if read in Pegasus Mail/Mac v2.1. To enable MIME support, check the "Use MIME features" control in the "More options" view of the message editor dialog.
* Considerable user-interface improvements. Most windows have been redesigned, and all the major windows are now resizable. Folder windows remember their last position on the screen when opened. Folder selector and Addressbooks now support speedsearch (type the first few characters of the item you're searching for). <Esc> and <Cmd+.> now work as "Cancel" in most places where this is appropriate. In the major dialogs, the new button controls all have an underlined character: the function of the button can be activated by pressing <Cmd> + <Shift> + <The underlined letter>. <Cmd+Return> can be used as a shortcut for sending the message as in the DOS and Windows versions. The browser font can now be selected as well as the reader and printer fonts.
* Much better attachment handling. Pegasus Mail now recognizes messages with enclosures (such as those generated by cc:Mail's SMTP gateway and Eudora) and has much easier and more flexible attachment management from the message editor. Pegasus Mail can now also generate enclosures instead of attachments, if you check the box in your general preferences: with enclosures, all the file attachments are sent tacked onto the end of the message instead of being sent separately.
* Paste behaviour in addressbooks and user lists has been improved; you can now repeatedly paste addresses from these sources by highlighting them and pressing <Enter> or by double-clicking on them; the Window will no longer drop into the background as it used to.
* "Next message" and "Previous message" buttons in the message reader.
* New mail folder resynchronization: you can now force the new mail folder to be rescanned by choosing "Read new mail" from the file menu or by pressing Cmd+R. This will force a rescan irrespective of the number of messages in the new mail folder.
There will be more releases of Pegasus Mail/Mac this year, now that I have managed to overcome most of the mechanical difficulties I had with hardware. This release should be viewed as a statement of direction - a release made as part of the process of pulling the Mac version into line with the DOS and Windows versions. The eventual aim is that all versions of Pegasus Mail will have a completely common feature set.
If you have problems with this version of Pegasus Mail, please report them to me at david@pmail.gen.nz.
Enjoy!
-- David Harris --
-------------- Version 2.0.5 release information follows ------------------------
Pegasus Mail v2.0.5 is a consolidation release intended to tide users over until the next major release, which will have substantial user-interface and functionality changes. The principal features of this release over Pegasus Mail/Mac 2.0.2 are as follows:
* Added support for the Mercury Spool interface for SMTP mail submission. If you are
using the Mercury SMTP gateway and have set it to use its spooler interface, then this version of Pegasus Mail can support that. To enable spool submission, you must run the "PMail Config" program supplied with this release and choose "Charon/Mercury SMTP setup" from the main screen. In the SMTP setup dialog, you should check the "Use Mercury spool directory interface" control, then enter the path on the file server where the files should be placed. Note that the filename must be entered in Macintosh filename format - so, if you are using FUBAR/SYS:SMTPMAIL under DOS and the SYS: volume appears on your Mac's desktop as FUBAR.SYS, then the appropriate Macintosh path would be FUBAR.SYS:SMTPMAIL. Note that in order for Pegasus Mail/Mac to be able to submit mail to the spool directory, the volume containing the spool directory must be mounted before you run Pegasus Mail. Apple have not made public the code necessary for a Mac application to mount a foreign file system volume, so Pegasus Mail cannot do it itself (this is also the reason why Pegasus Mail/Mac cannot deliver between servers on its own).
* Fixed a problem which caused the SYS: volume of the file server to be listed twice in the startup dialog when Pegasus Mail/Mac was run from the file server.
* Fixed small problems in both the uuencoder and BinHex support provided in Pegasus Mail/Mac.
* Fixed a severe problem which made Pegasus Mail/Mac v2.0.2 extremely unreliable on 68040-based Macintoshes, such as the Quadra 840AV. The previous version would crash unpredictably when the send button was pressed during a reply. The problem turned out to be the result of a documentation error in Inside Macintosh, and should no longer occur. There may be another problem as yet not tracked down which will cause occasional problems on a small number of Macintoshes, but this should be rare and infrequent. Pegasus Mail/Mac v2.0.5 has been worked out thoroughly on a Quadra 840AV and seems quite reliable.
Development of Pegasus Mail/Mac was delayed severely last year because of the untimely demise of my venerable Mac IIci and my inability to replace it. Since that time, a person who would sooner remain anonymous has donated a Quadra 840AV to allow me to continue development, and I am now trying to catch up on lost time. There should be a number of releases between March and June 1994, each offering incremental improvements in functionality, the aim being in due course to have the Mac version match the functional level of the DOS and Windows versions of Pegasus Mail. On the list of things to add are:
* Built-in POP3/SMTP mail and standalone operation, to allow use on
non-NetWare systems (**).
* MIME support
* Spelling checker (**)
* New mail filtering rules
* Hierarchical foldering
* Improved editor, allowing reading and composition of much larger
messages (**).
* Considerable user-interface changes, including resizable windows,
better-looking controls, saved window positions and more.
* Completely redeveloped list manager allowing extensive use of drag
and drop between windows
* More System 7 awareness.
* ... and more.
Items marked (**) above are already written, and will be available in the next major release, version 2.1, due out late in March.
I thank you all for your patience - I realise that it's quite some time since the Mac version has been properly updated, but I want to assure you that the program is still alive and won't be left languishing in the corner.
-- David Harris --
david@pmail.gen.nz
28 February 1994
------------------ Old release information follows -------------------------
New in Pegasus Mail/Mac v2.0.2:
-------------------------------------------------
PMail 2.0.2 should be considerably more reliable than 2.0.1; while I have not as yet completely eliminated the System Error 25 problem noted in the file "Important Release Note" supplied in this archive, I have largely worked around it. I now believe it to be related to an optimization problem in ThinkC v5 and am attempting to find a long term fix.
Other additions or changes in this release:
* A message count indicator now appears in mailboxes.
* A new command has been added to the File menu — "Read new mail", which is accelerated by pressing Cmd-R. This command will open the new mail folder, or if the folder is open, it will make it the frontmost window and force it to rescan for new mail.
* PMail/Mac will now recognize system-wide folders and lists: they must be located in the directory named for system-wide address books using "General Setup" in PMail Config. Note that PMail/Mac will simply ignore any entry for another list in a system-wide list if the entry is in PMail/PC format (that is, @filename). To nest lists with PMail/Mac, you should use the long name of the list enclosed in smart quotes. PMail/PC version 2.35 and later will ignore Macintosh list names, so it is safe to include both formats in a system-wide list.
* Reply-to-all: A new option has been added to the reply dialog which allows you to send a reply to everyone who received the original message. PMail does this by creating a distribution list with the name "Temporary list", which will subsequently appear in the distribution list selector, and may be deleted if no longer desired. Note that using reply to all will result in you receiving a copy of the message yourself, since you were one of the original recipients.
* The behaviour of the Shift and Cmd keys has changed in lists: the Shift key now allows disjoint selections, while the Cmd key now does a range selection. This change has been widely requested, although the opposite behaviour is what Apple recommend, and in fact is the default behaviour of the Mac List Manager toolbox routines.
* New keywords in lists: you can use a number of new keywords in distribution lists to control the behaviour of the list. Keywords appear on their own on a line, and always start with a single '\' character at the start of the line. While this mechanism is not very Macintosh-like, I couldn't think of any way of doing it that was... The new keywords are as follows:
\CC all addresses following this line will be placed in the message's CC field
\BCC all addresses following this line will be placed in the message's BCC field
\TO all addresses following this line will be placed in the message's TO field
You can use \CC, \BCC and \TO as many times as you wish in a list - the effect is cumulative.
\READING Y or N - if Y, then the "request confirmation of reading flag in the message is set, otherwise it is cleared.
\DELIVERY Y or N - if Y, then the "request confirmation of delivery" flag in the message is set, otherwise it is cleared.
\URGENT Y or N - if Y, then the urgent flag for the message is set, otherwise it is cleared.
\NOSIG Y or N - if Y, then no signature will be appended to the message, otherwise it will be.
As well, several minor parsing bugs have been fixed, and general performance improved.
Missing from this release:
-------------------------------------------------
I had hoped to implement new mail filtering rules (a la PMail/PC) and forms handling, but pressure of time has made this impossible. The next release of PMail/Mac will be in March or April 1993, and will support the following:
* Forms
* Basic MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) support
* Resizable windows
* User-defined gateway support (a la PMail/PC)
* A built-in POP3 transport for sites with MacTCP
* Newmail filtering rules
* A more attractive user-interface.
Bug reports and suggestions to david@pmail.gen.nz (or from CompuServe, >internet:david@pmail.gen.nz).
