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HISTORY.DOC
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1993-01-06
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Mail Manager +Plus+ Version history:
----------------------[ v3.00 - 01/06/93 ]------------------------
A major update to the Mail Manager +Plus+ series. (Just when you
thought that we were asleep)...
Major changes:
1) Now supports QWK networks, and can generate MarkMail-compatible
mail packets for "net status" users. This is a very involved
topic. See the separate NETINFO.DOC, which covers this in
detail.
2) New MUSER utility to manually edit/update the door's internal
MAILMGR.USR file. Was created to manipulate net status users,
but has other obvious uses, too.
3) New MNET utility to handle file conversion between REP and QWK
for the "node" end of the QWK network. This utility is available
as a standalone item; it can be used with mail doors other than
Mail Manager/Mail Manager +Plus+, and also with BBS types other
than RBBS-PC.
4) Can now R)ead, reply, and P)ost messages while online within the
door. New option in the user configuration section as to whether
or not to update message pointers for messages read online.
(Especially useful when previewing messages before downloading
your packet).
5) New optional command line arguments:
/I = "Import mode". Look for, and automatically process
an existing REP packet, then return to DOS. Works as if
you manually loaded the door, U)ploaded in local mode,
then Q)uit out of the program. Useful for net node
operation.
/O = "Output mode". Works in reverse of above. Extracts any
new messages in your selected conferences, and returns to
the DOS prompt after creating the QWK. Useful for net node
operation.
/Wx: = Specify a drive (and optional PATH) designation to use as
the base for Mail Manager +Plus+'s work directories. Can
significantly reduce packet preparation time if you specify
a ram drive. CAUTION: If you elect to use a ram drive, you
had best have a VERY LARGE one... don't forget that a
single MESSAGES.DAT can be over 1 meg in size... plus the
archived packets themselves.
See documentation for example uses of these.
6) 25-character conference descriptions added. Can now better describe
your conferences to your users. Users can elect to see conference
descriptions when selecting which conferences to follow from the
C)onfigure menu, and also when selecting conference in which to
R)ead or P)ost.
Not-quite-as-major-but-still-significant changes:
1) Rudimentary dupe checking added. Now checks the user's previous
REP filesize, and date stamp, and will not process the exact
same REP packet twice in succession for the same user.
2) ADD, DROP, and RESET mail reader requests are now supported.
3) New SysOp configuration options in MAILCFG -
- Can now select whether or not to have the door drop DTR (hangs
up most modems) when G)oodbye or E)xpedite options chosen from
main menu.
- Conference description in each area (25 characters).
- Can now select maximum number of lines allowed per message
in each RBBS-PC *M.DEF conference.
4) If an extremely long message is uploaded to an RBBS-PC *M.DEF area,
Mail Manager +Plus+ will now "split" it into several smaller
messages, based on the number of lines that you specified for that
conference.
5) Netmail messages uploaded into Mail Manager +Plus+ now ALWAYS have
an "INTL" line added, regardless of zone. Seems that some mail
processors absolutely require this.
6) "Times read" field in Fido *.MSG's is now incremented (if user
specified to do so) whenever a personal message is received in
a Fido area. v2.04 and below did not implement this.
7) Now creates "type 2" zone-aware Fido messages and outbound crashmail
packets. v2.04 and below created 1987-format Fido messages/packets,
due to outdated format documentation. Thanks to Eddie Rowe for both
bringing this to our attention, and actually providing a copy of the
updated FTS-0001 document.
8) New command line option in MMINDEX program; can now specify an
individual fido conference to update, rather than always going
through all conferences in configuration file.
Side-Effects of all this new stuff:
1) As you might have noticed, the door is now over 300K in size.
Did you pick up a copy of Davis Augustine's SHROOM yet? Almost
any archive utility OTHER THAN PKZIP/UNZIP will probably
require SHROOM at this point. Pay close attention to what the
I)nfo screen reports for free space in "non-string array".
That's how much RAM you have available for a shell.
2) R)ead options are somewhat rudimentary. We did not try to
duplicate RBBS-PC itself in this regard.
3) R)ead option will not show the full message to the user, if it is
longer than the number of lines you specified as the max for that
conference. (There SHOULDN'T be any that long in there anyway).
We might-as-well-mention-it stuff (less significant changes):
1) SEEN-BY: handling modified to work similarly to RBBS-PC's own
implementation - now continues trying to read the rest of the
message after encountering the first SEEN-BY: line.
2) All conferences that the user has sufficient security to join
are now shown in the conference list within the QWK packets.
Needed to support ADD keyword.
3) Added additional error check when creating DOOR.ID file. Fixed
rare bug that could cause CPU hang if disk full condition when
creating the small DOOR.ID file.
4) A real live BASIC error number is now returned if any error
opening a file, rather than the cryptic "-1" displayed in v2.04
and below.
5) Now gives back DESQview and DoubleDos time slices when the door
is waiting in a loop. Frees CPU considerably in those multitasking
environments.
6) [F10] chat mode now does word wrap (GASP!).
7) Sped up the saving of user information each time the user saves
his settings in the C)onfigure menu.
8) Old irritation fixed - if you select E)xpedite, and there are no new
messages, it now exits the door as expected, rather than return to
the main menu.
9) Upload in local mode sped up and streamlined.
10) Generic (Y/N) displays changed to always show default selection
to user: "([Y]/N)", etc.
11) Old irritation #2 fixed: When configuring which confs to follow,
if you enter a number not on the current screen, system would
change it, but not show it to you. Now brings up correct screen
for last conference entered. (Especially important when showing
conference descriptions - only 15 confs per screen).
12) AOBF (Another old bug fixed): In EXTREMELY rare situations, it was
possible to go into an endless loop when doing an I)D search for
uploaded netmail messages. How rare, you ask?
- I)D search chosen.
- Zone and Net ID found.
- Node ID NOT found.
- Net ID in question was the very last one listed, at tail
end of MMGRNODE.DAT.
Pretty rare, eh? It's amazing that we discovered it.
13) Split help files so that help on configuration options is available
from configuration menu instead of from the main menu.
14) YAOBF (Yet ANOTHER old bug fixed): When displaying a help file,
color was not properly reset after an end-of-screen prompt.
15) Modified the way that NEWFILES.DAT is created, for the first
time in over a year. Now handles extended descriptions both
for stock RBBS-PC, and also copies of RBBS-PC that have been
recompiled with the "Maple" merges. Should keep from chopping
off NEWFILES.DAT when sysop is running Maple code. Thanks to
Eddie Rowe for bringing this to our attention.
16) Versions 2.03 and 2.04 added an extra blank line to all text
files that were copied to the work directory, and included in
the QWK packet. (News, bulletins, prelog, epilog, etc.).
Modified so that EOF does not cause an extra line to be added.
Thanks again to Eddie Rowe for letting us know about this one.
----------------------[ v2.04 - 10/02/92 ]------------------------
A maintenance release to the v2.0 series.
1) Manual update of last message read in FIDO *.MSG areas did not
check for gaps in message numbers. Code is now consistent in
all routines to allow for up to 10 "missing" message numbers
in any given FIDO area.
2) A "rollover" in a FIDO *.MSG area (where last message read no
longer exists) caused "No new messages" to be displayed when
trying to extract from that conference. The program will now
recover properly, and begin extracting at the first available
message in the conference.
3) If there was only ONE new message to extract in a FIDO *.MSG
area, Mail Manager would report "No new messages". It now
properly extracts the message.
4) If user "joined" an RBBS-PC conference for the first time from
within Mail Manager +Plus+, and then tried to extract mail from
that area in the same session, the user would always see "No new
messages". Bug was due to security level not having been read
during initial conference scan at startup. Fixed in v2.04.
5) Shifted conference name display one character to the left. Was
running into conference number in next column when conference
number is 3 digits long.
6) Modified display of conference names, to help avoid confusion
and improve consistency. Now shows all conferences that the
user has immediate access to in UPPER CASE. The only ones
shown in lower case are conferences which the user has
sufficient security to join, but which SysOp has marked to
not allow joining via the door.
7) Fixed bug in auto-join of RBBS-PC conferences that prevented
the program from utilizing a deleted user record.
8) Slight tweaking of FIDO *.MSG netmail message extracting. Now
shows a couple of additional attribute flags (if they are set)
at the top of the message body when extracting a netmail message
(local, and sent).
----------------------[ v2.03 - 09/09/92 ]------------------------
A maintenance release to the v2.0 series.
1) Now tests available DOS memory before attempting to allocate
it for conference handling. Should help in avoiding QEMM
exception 13 errors when Mail Manager +Plus+ is loaded in
tight RAM.
2) Attempted to speed up the smarttext conversion when copying
news and bulletin files.
3) FIDO *.MSG handling & reliability greatly improved. M)sg
selection menu now runs faster, and program can now handle
up to 4,096 messages in a single FIDO conference. Also fixes
several related bugs that were present in v2.00 through 2.02
in regard to FIDO *.MSG handling.
4) Now shows FIDO message # being posted whenever the user uploads
a message to a FIDO area.
5) Handling of security levels improved - now uses the security
level present in DORINFOx.DEF only while at Mail Manager +Plus+
main menu. Now checks the user's actual security level from the
RBBS-PC *U.DEF user file in each conference, and uses those for
individual conf. handling. If "auto-join" is enabled in any
given conference, the user's security level from MAIN is used
when adding the user to the conference. This does not apply to
FIDO areas, and they work the same as before.
6) When using the M)sg selection menu, you are now prompted whether
or not to save your Mail Manager Configuration, if any changes
were made. Fixes problem in which conference settings were
saved when the user did not want them to be.
7) Now sets message extraction option to "System default" when user
first joins a conference. Previous versions defaulted to "ALL
mail", which could cause unwanted hassle if trying to globally
extract only personal messages.
8) Messages extracted from FIDO netmail areas now show the origin
and destination net/node addresses at the top of the message
body, as well as whether crash, file attach, or request. The
QWK standard does not otherwise allow you to know these things
when you are looking through the messages in your offline mail
reader.
9) "Whirling dirvish" changed from the characters "\|/-" to "-+*"
to avoid a possible conflict with someone else's patent and/or
copyright.
10) In MAILMGR.DOC, we discovered that we had overlooked the concept
of "AKA" addresses for FIDO netmail areas, and had neglected to
mention the two system text files pertaining to FIDO areas in the
"Sysop-configurable text files" section. Also added an example
MMGRNODE.AKA file to the 203-TXT archive.
11) "Type of message base" option in MAILCFG.EXE program moved up
closer to the top of the conference edit screen, to keep from
having to jump around quite so much when adding new conferences.
----------------------[ v2.02 - 08/17/92 ]------------------------
Quick maintenance release to the v2.0 series. Isn't new code fun?
1) MAILMGR.EXE - Fixed problem with updating last msg read markers
in conference numbers greater than 255.
2) MAILMGR.EXE - If SysOp is using Mail Manager's list of archivers
(MAILMGR.ARL), Mail Manager +Plus+ no longer attempts to run
RBBSQWK.BAT unless RBBSQWK.BAT physically exists in Mail Manager's
directory. If you are running SHROOM, and are swapping the
application to disk, Mail Manager +Plus+ will now operate a
little faster due to the elimination of the un-needed shell.
3) MAILMGR.EXE - Now reports "error-correcting connection required"
instead of "MNP required" when user cannot use a protocol due to
a non-reliable connection.
* NOTE * - Due to a bug in RBBS-PC v17.4, Mail Manager +Plus+ will
not allow your users to use any "reliable-connection-
required" protocols. As soon as the RBBS authors put
the "-R" back into DORINFOx.DEF, they will work again.
This does not affect SysOps running 17.3C or lower.
4) MAILCFG.EXE updated to reflect the new version number.
----------------------[ v2.01 - 08/15/92 ]------------------------
Version 2.00 was distributed to all those who pre-registered the
package with us, as well as three beta test sites, approximately
one week before the scheduled release date of August 15. v2.00
was never available for download on our home board, but it is
likely to have been passed around a bit by now, anyway. [sigh]
Last-minute changes to the initial v2.00 pre-release:
1) MAILMGR.EXE FIDO handling: Was possible to give incorrect values
and/or lock the CPU under certain conditions when updating last
msg read in a FIDO area after the download.
2) CFG2TXT and TXT2CFG utilities were mistakenly still coded for a
max of 250 conferences instead of the 500 that can now be
configured.
3) MAILCFG utility updated to reflect new version number 2.01.
4) DOC.UPD contains a new cover sheet, and the pages of the v2.01
documentation with significant wording changes. (The intention
is to keep you from having to reprint the entire 200K doc file
if you already printed the v2.00 docs).
All executables not mentioned above will still have the 2.00 version
number, and are unchanged from the v2.00 pre-release. See v2.00
comments (below) for what all has been changed since the release of
the v1.3x series of Mail Manager.
----------------------[ v2.00 - 08/15/92 ]------------------------
Initial release of Mail Manager +Plus+
Changes since the release of the v1.3x series of Mail Manager:
1) Conferences are now configured to allow/disallow the users to
"join" from within the door.
2) Support added for bi-directional protocols such as Samuel Smith's
HSLINK, etc. If a REP packet is found after the download, it
will be automatically processed.
3) Node-specific configuration files supported. Mail Manager +Plus+
will first look for MAILMGR1.CFG, MAILMGR2.CFG, etc. (depending
on node number) before falling back to MAILMGR.CFG.
4) Support added for all three graphics types in bulletins, news
file, and all Mail Manager +Plus+ text files.
5) Now deletes only an exact name match on QWK, REP, and RBX (text
extract) files found in the work directory. Eliminates problem
of inadvertantly deleting mail packets from other BBS's if the
SysOp has configured the \MAILMGR\LOCAL directory for all personal
mail packets.
6) Messages uploaded into *M.DEF message bases have byte 67 of the
RBBS message header set to indicate that this message only has
one header. (For RBBS-PC 17.4 compatibility). This was an unused
byte in RBBS-PC v17.3C and below.
7) To allow offline readers to mark the SysOp's messages as personal,
anything addressed to "SYSOP" is now changed to the SysOp's first
and last names.
8) Support added for the popular ALIAS merge for RBBS-PC. Can now
handle alias names.
9) RBBS-PC smart text is now supported in bulletins and news files.
10) SysOps who dislike the "press any key to continue..." prompt after
the initial conference scan can now have Mail Manager +Plus+ go
straight to the main menu. If no "MAILMGR*.PRE" prelog file is
found, Mail Manager +Plus+ heads straight to the main menu after
the conference scan.
11) FIDO-style *.MSG conferences supported.
12) FIDO-style *.MSG netmail conferences supported.
13) Registration of the door is now required to eliminate the one-line
"* UNREGISTERED * Evaluation copy" display on the startup screen.
14) Can now manually reset last message read pointer to the last message
in the conference by entering "L", or to the last X messages by
entering L-X (L-10 for the last 10 messages in the conference).
15) RBBS-PC "last call date" in the user file for each conference is now
automatically updated when the message pointer for the conference is
updated after a download. Should keep external utilities from
purging the user out of the conference due to lack of activity if
user uses Mail Manager +Plus+ exclusively to handle mail in that
area.
16) "Automatic" mode added. If "/A" found on the command line, Mail
Manager +Plus+ goes straight into EXPEDITE mode. Allows batch
operation for SysOp use.
17) RBBS-PC [CBAUD] template variable now supported in PROTO.DEF, and
can now correctly report file transfer time estimates if passed
on the command line. (See documentation on how to handle this).
18) If highest message # in an *M.DEF conference is LOWER than the
user's last message read, last message read is now reset to the
highest message number, instead of zero. Keeps from extracting
the whole conference if the highest physical message has been
killed.
19) Now checks the security level present in the individual message
headers of *M.DEF message bases, and will not allow a user with
less than this security level to extract the message. All
previous versions of the door relied on the settings in the
configuration file exclusively.
20) Two-second pause added just prior to de-initializing FOSSIL driver
to allow any pending characters to be processed.
21) RBBS-PC v17.4 completely changed the method used to determine the
BPS rate of callers on other nodes. W)ho's on now handles both
17.3x and 17.4 methods transparently, and correctly shows the
BPS rate of the callers.
22) BPS rate, and communications parameters are now shown on initial
screen at startup, such as "Online at 2400 BPS, N,8,1". This is
the easiest check to see if your /CBAUD command line is working
properly with RBBS-PC 17.4.
23) Door can now be "time locked" to restrict access to general users
during mail processing hours on the BBS. Users with sufficient
security to read ALL messages are allowed into the door during
restricted hours, after a 10-second warning message is displayed.
24) New pair of utilities CFG2TXT and TXT2CFG for SysOps who dislike
the configuration program, MAILCFG.EXE. Can now use a text editor
to create the configuration file, and run TXT2CFG.EXE to "compile"
it into Mail Manager's binary configuration format. This also
allows a way to "import" FIDO *.MSG conferences, rather than adding
each one individually via MAILCFG.
25) Conferences can now be configured to allow/disallow private messages.
If private messages not allowed, and user attempts to upload one,
user is prompted to either convert the reply to public, or kill the
message.
26) Fixed bug that was in all previous versions of Mail Manager: was
possible (in network and DV environments) to get a hung system if
a user attempted to upload a reply to an *M.DEF conference, and
that conference was "full".
27) "(R)" and "Re:", when found as the first three characters of
the message subject, are now stripped from the field to allow
offline readers to group related messages together. (Rather
than 1 group with, and one without). Previous versions of Mail
Manager looked only for "(R)".
28) "Fido-style tearlines" changed so that any line beginning with
"---" will have the three hyphens replaced by blank spaces,
not just if "---" is by itself on a line.
29) Mail Manager now supports up to 500 conferences.
30) Users can now set individual conferences to extract A)ll messages,
P)ersonal messages only, or S)ystem default as they defined it
in the configuration menu. User expresses this choice when
setting message markers ("M" from the menu).
31) New utility UPDATUSR to convert a Mail Manager v1.34 and lower
user file (MAILMGR.USR) to the new format used by Mail Manager
+Plus+.
32) UPDATE.EXE utility revised to update a v1.30 through v1.34
configuration file (MAILMGR.CFG) to the new format.
33) New utility MMGRNODE.EXE to compile fido-style nodelists for
Mail Manager +Plus+'s use. (Used for *.MSG netmail areas only).
34) New utility MMINDEX.EXE to create an index file in each fido
conference, to aid in determining last msg read for the user,
and to speed up FIDO conference handling. See documentation on
how to use this utility.