BBS Toolkit/BBS Toolkit.iso/doors_2/pchat312.zip/HISTORY

Text File | 1992-09-14 | 19KB | 313 lines

Beta 6   6/24/90
*When a user is not in Prochat, it will no longer permit use of the "/SEND"
 command to that node.
*Added support for larger boards with more than 9 nodes. Additional parameter
 should be added to the configuration file. Line # 10 should now state how many
 nodes are on your system.
*Added sysop-configurable help file. CHTHELP should be placed in your Prochat
 directory. Thanks to Andy Keeves and others for this suggestion. "/HElp"
*Documentation modified to include sample PCBTEXT changes.

Beta 7   7/14/90
*It's been a while since the last beta.  There is nothing much that is new
 in this one, however we have gone from ProKit 3.1 to ProKit 3.2.  This
 upgrade has solved several bugs.
*When a user would abort the display of a text file, ProChat would not accept
 any input from the modem.  Fixed.
*All text in the program is now all encrypted do to some problems we were
 having with people changing the text in the .exe file.
*Added a new configuration file line.  Line 10 now contains the path and
 filename of the help file to be displayed.  If this line does not exist,
 then the default of "CHTHELP" (in the current directory) will be used.

Beta 8   7/22/90
*When a user is typing a Prochat command (ie /SE, /PA, etc), if the line is
 longer than 56 characters and wraps, the command will be issued and the
 command will also be continued on the next line.
*Added checking for text changes inside the ProChat program.  ProChat can
 detect if any text has been changed in the exe file and will display an
 appropriate message to the user if it has been changed.

RELEASE  9/22/90
*When a user enters more than 3 blank lines in a row, it will display a message
 to the user telling the user how to get help.
*Released Prochat as ProChat 1.0

VERSION 2.0 - Beta 1   2/28/91
*Its been a while since I've made a release.  I had hoped to have compiled it
 with a new prokit in tp6.0, but I'm still stuck using tp5.5 because of the
 lack of a version of prokit for tp6.0
*Switched from Prokit 3.2 to Prokit 3.3.  Several bugs with prokit have been
 hopefully fixed, although I am not aware of everything yet.
*I'm now using my own routines for the PCBoard node display.  Previously I was
 using the one supplied with ProKit.  It'll be more accurate now since it has
 support for PCBoard's new status identifiers (Logging on, Paging Sysop, etc)

Beta 2   3/03/91
*When displaying the usernet.dat file, ProChat would leave a () in the caller
 name and location field when there was no caller on the node.  Fixed.
*Added all new configuration program.  No more line editors!  Along with the
 new configuration program I took the liberty of making several things
 configurable.  They are listed below.
*You may now disable the use of handles.  When you disable handles, the user's
 first name is used.  When handles are enabled, the user's first name is the
 default handle.
*You may now choose to not allow the use of SYSOP or SYSTEM in users' handles.
*You may now choose whether or not to allow 2 or more nodes to use the same
 handle while in chat.  Allowing users to have the same handles can become
 confusing often times.
*You may now choose whether or not to display the user's calling location in
 the PCBoard node scan.  There is also an option in PCBSetup for this.
 Unfortunately ProKit does not have this variable available to me and in order
 to get it from PCBoard I would have to read in the entire PCBoard.Dat file
 all over again.  I decided to use this option instead.

Beta 3   4/08/91
*In previous versions, ProChat allowed users to page themselves for chat.  The
 caller would never receive the page, however.  This has been corrected.  Users
 are no longer allowed to page themselves.
*In previous versions, if the user tried to change his/her handle to the same
 handle as he/she was using it would tell the user someone else is using that
 handle.  Now it just acts as if no handle change had been made.
*Changed "Chatting with group" in the PCBoard node scan display to "Chatting
 in ProChat".
*Added an all new split screen chat mode.  Now the user can chat without his
 or her typing becoming mixed up with the incoming messages.  The screen can
 be divided into two windows.  The top one is where incoming messages are
 displayed and the bottom is where the user's typing is displayed.  See the
 accompanying help file for more information
*Updated the help file for the new /SPlit screen command.
*Added a new program.  ProView is now included in the ProChat package when you
 register the program.  Sysops that have already registered the door, please
 contact the author at 401-726-3859 (Data) for the proview.zip file.  This
 program will allow you (the sysop) to view the chat.dat file and see what
 your users have been chatting about.  This is NOT distributed with the
 unregistered version.  If you have not registered your copy of the door, this
 program will not run.
*Updated CHTSETUP to include online help.  You can now press F1 and a help
 window will pop up for any one of the setup fields.  A new file called
 CHTSETUP.HLP is distributed now with the program.  This is the online help
 file.  If it is missing the program will still run but you will not have the
 help feature.
*When a user paged another using within prochat, the chat page would be sent
 to every user in prochat.  Fixed.
*When choosing a squelch value, it was case sensitive.  Fixed.  It is now all
 uppercase.

Beta 4   04/27/91
*Various cosmetic changes.
*Added a new command (/WH) to display who is
 currently chatting with the same channel and squelch settings as the user
 executing the command.  The format is the same as what is displayed at login
 to the door.
*When the channel or squelch value is changed, the users with the same channel
 and squelch settings are listed for the user
*Eagles Nest BBS is no longer a support system for ProChat.  Due to some
 circumstances beyond my control, I no longer wish to have any affiliation
 with that system or the sysop.  Please call 401-726-3859 for online support
 and/or registration.  Thank you.
*Switched to ProKit 3.4.  Hopefully this will be a beneficial switch.  There
 hasn't seemed to be much of a difference as far as ProChat is concerned in the
 new versions of ProKit over the years, but the advantage 3.4 has over 3.3 is
 that it is for turbo 6.0 instead of turbo 5.5.
*ProView is now distributed with the prochat package.  Please note, however,
 that you must register Prochat for it to run.  Without your registration
 information it'll return to dos with an errorlevel of 2.
*Added a new option in CHTSETUP called "Msg Show only after enter".  I think
 this needs a little bit of explanation.  In the past, ProChat would check
 for incoming messages every 5 seconds and after the user pressed enter on
 his/her entry line.  With this option set to no, it will remain that way.  If
 this option is set to yes, ProChat will not check for incoming messages every
 5 seconds.  Instead, ProChat will only check for incoming messages after the
 user has pressed enter on his/her entry line.
*Updated the included CHTHELP file.  Added the new commands to it, and also
 took out the BBS name that was in it.  It is now just a generic reference to
 the BBS as "system".
*Included a new text file that may be substituted for the CHTHELP file called
 BRFHELP.  This is simply the list of commands available without the
 descriptive text following them.
*If there are no bug reports back to me within a couple of weeks, I will go
 ahead and release this as ProChat 2.0R!  Following the release of 2.0, I will
 begin work on version 3.0 which will include all of the features listed below

RELEASE   11/17/91
*Released as ProChat 2.0R

VERSION 3.0 - Beta 1   11/22/91
*Moved most display text to an external file.  Some of the display text is
 still contained in the EXE file, most notably the version ID, copyright, etc.
 All text is still in the EXE file incase the CHTTEXT file becomes corrupted
 or lost.
*Added a new option into CHTSETUP "Display Text Filename" which is the path and
 name to the CHTTEXT file.  This file should not have an extension since there
 may be multiple versions of this file for various languages.  Should anyone
 create this file in another language, I would like a copy of it, Thanks!
*Included a new file with the ProChat package called TEXTEDIT.  This program
 will modify the display text file.  It is basically the same thing as
 PCBoard's MKTXT145 program.  There is no documentation file for this program.
 All the documentation you should need is displayed on the screen.
*VERY IMPORTANT!  Make sure you delete your data files with this release!!!
 The file formats are slightly different.  In the past I tried to keep all of
 the data files as small as possible so I left no extra space.  Now we shall
 all pay for that mistake.  No big problem though.  Just delete the files and
 Prochat will rebuild them for you as they're needed.
*A new command has been added: /AV.  This command will allow users to toggle
 their availability for chat page.  When chat page has been set to off, other
 users are not allowed to send a chat request to that user.  When it is on,
 other users may send any number of chat requests to that user.
*CHTSETUP has been changed a little bit.  BIOS screen writes are now supported.
 Type CHTSETUP without any parameters for more information on this.
*Many new configuration options have been added.  They are listed separately
 below.  Please run CHTSETUP and set these values as you wish before running
 this version.
*Added option to allow or disallow paging users that are in PCBoard.  If you
 do not want your users disturbing others that are in PCBoard then set this
 flag to yes, otherwise users will be able to page users in PCBoard.
*Added option to allow or disallow paging users that are in ProChat.  If you
 do not want chat request messages to be passed back and forth between users
 in ProChat then set this flag to yes, otherwise users will be able to page
 other users in ProChat.
*Added option to display the time left to the user every so many minutes.  If
 you do not want time warnings to be sent then set this value to 0.  Otherwise
 time left messages will be automatically displayed every however many minutes
 you have this set to.  Usually 5 or 3 is a good value for this.
*Added option to display /SE messages to the sysop whether they are addressed
 to the sysop or not.  The sysop is assumed to be using user record number 1.
 If this flag is set to yes and you are not user record number 1 then whoever
 is using record number 1 will be able to see all /SE messages.  If you do not
 want to see /SE messages that are not to you set this to no.  If a message
 comes through that is not addressed to you, a red asterisk (*) will be shown
 between the colon and actual message text.
*Added option to allow or disallow use of the help status line in split screen
 mode.  If you do not want users to be able to have the help status line on the
 top of their screen, set this option to no.
*Added option to allow or disallow adjusting the size of the display windows
 in split screen mode.  If you do not want users to be able to adjust the size
 of the display windows, set this option to no.
*Added option to place all users into a channel other than 1 when ProChat is
 initialized.  If you set this to a value other than 1, make sure you update
 the CHTTEXT file to reflect the proper channel!
*Added option to place all users into a squelch value other than group when
 ProChat is initialized.  The default for this setting is to leave it blank.

** MAJOR UPGRADE FOR PROCHAT 3.0!!! **

*ProChat has been completely rewritten from scratch to make room for the new
 PCBoard 14.5a/Xnnn versions.  The file format for the UserNet.Dat file is
 totally different so I decided rather than hacking through tons of code to
 make the appropriate changes, I'd redo the whole program.  While rewriting the
 entire program, I decided to take advantage of it ... Quite a bit has changed.
 Everything (I think) is outlined below.
*New setup program.  The setup program is now *required* to configure prochat.
 I've tricked prokit into thinking that the binary file used for configuration
 information is a text file.  (pretty nifty, eh?)  The switch from the text
 file format to the binary file format has one major advantage ... On some
 systems, sharing violations would occur of two nodes were trying to read the
 same configuration file at exactly the same time.  This won't happen any more
 because everything is read in much faster and the appropriate file locking
 methods are used.
*File formats for the prochat.dat and chat.dat files have changed.  Make sure
 that you DELETE YOUR OLD PROCHAT.DAT AND CHAT.DAT FILES BEFORE RUNNING THIS
 VERSION OF PROCHAT.  You may also wish to delete your old config file and
 start from scratch.  A new file has also been added called CHANNELS.DAT
 (actually you can name it anything you like)  This file is used internally by
 Prochat and should require no intervention on your part.
*Handle trashcan file has a new feature.  If the first column of a line has an
 asterisk (*) in it, the text following the asterisk will be interpreted as a
 string that should not be allowed anywhere in the user's handle.
*A new command has been added: /AD.  This command is only available if you have
 a security level of 110 or higher.  With this command, you can adjust a user's
 time limit if he/she is on another node inside prochat.
*A new command has been added: /GO.  User's may now log off of the system from
 within ProChat.
*Channel monitoring has been greatly enhanced.  In prior versions only channels
 could be monitored, but now squelches may be monitored as well.  A full
 explanation is included in the docs.  Also, the number of monitors has been
 increased from 5 to 10.
*Added support for paging nodes inside PCBoard with /Xnnn version of the code.
*Added support for the new status commands in the new usernet.dat format.
*Command /SE has been enhanced
*Various (ahem, many) cosmetic changes
*Upgraded from ProKit 3.4 to ProKit 3.44
--03/23/92
*Fixed monitor bug where initially there would be garbage monitors set.
*Cosmetic changes

Beta 2   4/27/92
*Fixed bug where chat pages sent to PCBoard below version /Xnnn were not
 actually reaching users.
*Add PCBoard style node scan prior to requesting node to page in page user
 command.
*If user is not in expert mode, the menu is automatically displayed when the
 user presses / to enter command mode.

Beta 3  5/24/92
*Added configurable security level checks for /AD and /RE commands.
*Added new command: /RE.  This command will allow someone with enough access
 to log another node off of the system as long as that node is in ProChat.
*Added beeps to incoming private messages, chat pages, and system messages.
*Fixed bug with /GO command.  Users are now properly logged off of the system
 when that command is used.  One very important thing to note, however ... If
 you have the "exit to dos after call" flag set in PCBSetup, you must have
 PCBoard create a USERS.SYS file when it runs ProChat.  ProChat itself doesn't
 touch the file, but that will let PCBoard know to exit after the call with an
 errorlevel of 5 if someone logs off from within ProChat.
*Fixed a problem where squelching was not working properly.  When squelched,
 users would receive messages that were not squelched as well as the squelched
 messages.  This is fixed.
*Moved all display text to an external file.  A new program called TEXTEDIT has
 been added to the package.  This will allow you to modify the text displayed.
 Some messages have been retained in the program, but the majority can be
 modified.
*Bug fixed where if a /U configuration was in use, no nodes would appear in the
 node scans, and various other items would not work.  This is now fixed.

RELEASE   07/03/92
*Released as ProChat 3.0R

VERSION 3.1 - Beta 1   7/16/92
*The '/' is no longer a hot key to enter command mode.  I've decided that it
 was not as quick and disallowed the use of stacking command line parameters.
 I have gone back to the old format.  Hopefully everyone will be happy with
 this decision ...
*Added security level protection over every command except for /EX, /QU, and
 /HE.  Everything else is security level protected.  In addition, if the user
 does not have access to the /HA command, the user will not be allowed to
 choose a handle when the door first runs.  Also, if the user does not have
 access to the /WH command, a list of users chatting will not be displayed to
 the user when the door first runs.  ** IMPORTANT **  To edit the security
 levels, in setup, press the F2 key.  Then press ESC to return to regular
 setup mode.  You may toggle back and forth as many times as you wish.
*Added a new command: /AC.  This command will send a special message to the
 nodes chatting in the current settings.  The user may follow the command with
 text on the command line or (s)he will be asked to enter it if there is none
 present on the command line.  The output format as received by other nodes for
 this message is as follows: "<handle> <message>"  <handle> is the handle of
 the user sending the message.  <message> is the text the user has entered.
 An example of it's use ... "/AC is smiling" would come across as "Sysop-Matt
 is smiling"  It's simple.
*Added a new command: /IG.  This command will allow users to create and
 maintain a list of up to 20 handles at a time for the system to ignore
 incoming messages from.

VERSION 3.1 - Beta 2   9/14/92
*Added extended support for the newest version of PCBoard.  To have ProChat
 make use of the new extended format USERNET.XXX file, change the version of
 PCBoard you are using in SETUP to /Xyyy, where yyy is the number of nodes you
 are running.  (ie if you are only running 3 nodes, you would enter /X3 in that
 field).  ProChat will interpret this as a request to use the new USERNET.XXX
 file instead of the old USERNET.DAT.  You must also change the usernet.dat
 allocation field to point to USERNET.XXX instead of USERNET.DAT.  The new
 BR command from PCBoard will also work with ProChat.  Users will be able to
 receive a BR message from PCBoard.  **PLEASE NOTE: ProChat still continues to
 support the old USERNET.DAT format.
*ProChat now uses the (BR)oadcast method to page a user in PCBoard from
 ProChat if the USERNET.XXX file is being used.  When a user pages another in
 this manner, the receiving node will receive a message similar to the
 following: "NODE 4 WANTS TO CHAT IN PROCHAT".
*(BR)oadcast messages from PCBoard will be received in ProChat and handled
 properly.  Please make sure that you run TEXTEDIT on every PROTEXT language
 file that you have.  This will cause ProChat to display "PCBoard Broadcast:"
 in front of a received broadcast message.