synchro.net

home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search

/ synchro.net / synchro.net.tar / synchro.net / modem.madness / SMMNETML / MPLUS311.ZIP / HISTORY.DOC < prev next >

Wrap

Text File | 1993-08-25 | 31.0 KB | 666 lines

Mail Manager +Plus+ Version history: ----------------------[ v3.11 - 08/25/93 ]------------------------ A minor update to the version 3 series. Changes since the release of v3.10: 1) Fixed bug which required pressing "Q" or <enter> multiple times when attempting to exit message pointer setting screens under some conditions. 2) Violation notice prints name of intended conference as well as conference number. 3) No longer goes thru countdown timer before exiting from export mode (/o command line option). 4) Updated MAILCFG.EXE, CFG2TXT.EXE, and TXT2CFG.EXE to implement sysop configurable "show empty conferences" choice are included this time (versions included with v3.10 failed to support this option). 5) Updated to be 4D point aware for *.MSG netmail areas. Also supports "fakenet" addressing. MAILCFG, CFG2TXT, and TXT2CFG all updated accordingly. 6) When following the prompts and posting *.MSG netmail messages, now accepts input for destination address ONLY in the following format: Zone:Net/Node[.Point] All previous versions prompted you separately for Zone, Net, and node. Crashmail addressed to a point is sent to that system's host (.0). The host's software then takes care of routing the message off to the individual point on his system. Normal *.MSG netmail messages addressed to a point are handled by your Fido scan/pack software in whatever way you have configured it. 7) [F1] help added to MAILCFG conference edit screen. 8) Non-selected conferences not shown when choosing conference in which to R)ead or P)ost. 9) Now shows zone in netmail conferences when reading netmail *.MSG areas online within the door. 10) R)ead and P)ost options now only work with joined conferences. 11) New command line switch (/Snnnn) added to MAILFIX utility, to allow sysops with modified versions of RBBS-PC to use MAILFIX on messages bases that contain more than 999 msgs. ----------------------[ v3.10 - 06/06/93 ]------------------------ A minor update to the version 3 series. This is the first release under the banner of Makai Software instead of Newark Connections. Changes since the release of v3.01: 1) Can now abort out of extract session when /O command line option used. 2) Fixed obscure potential math overflow problem. 3) Fixed display for net status users - no longer reports that there were more personal messages extracted than were actually extracted. 4) Fixed problem of always showing long descriptions when choosing which conference to R)ead/P)ost online. Now shows long description only if sufficient security to access the conference. 5) Fixed error-handling bug that could cause program to go into an endless loop when encountering some invalid message headers. Now moves on through message file until good header found or end of file reached. 6) Some mail processors tack a single 128-byte "high water mark" record on the end of "expandable" message bases, which was causing message extraction problems at end of message file. Program now recovers and handles it. 7) Can now specify "0" for number of lines allowed per message, to force Mail Manager +Plus+ to *NOT* split long uploaded messages into smaller parts. In addition to MAILMGR.EXE itself, the MAILCFG configuration program, and CFG2TXT/TXT2CFG utilities were all updated to handle this. 8) Fixed bug in which message addressed to nobody ("") was always converted to the current user's name, in conferences in which user has no established alias. 9) Sysop can now configure to NOT display empty/unjoinable conferences in the conference selection screens. 10) Option to reset message pointers and choose type of messages to extract in individual conferences moved from main menu to configuration menu. Menu display files and help files updated to reflect this change. Also, this option now only displays conferences marked as active by the user. 11) When door is configured to allow carrier drop at G)oodbye and E)xpedite!, there is now a 10-second countdown timer before logging user off. Expert mode users choosing G)oodbye are logged off without countdown. 12) E)xpedite option no longer returns to menu if no new messages found - goes to countdown timer instead. 13) Log file gives more detailed information about messages extracted. 14) Minor display fix to MUSER.EXE utility. Was displaying the last field shifted one character too far to the left. 15) First major update to the MAILFIX utility. Much faster operation, new command line switches added, can renumber message file and reset user lastread pointers accordingly. See MAILMGR.DOC. (Mailfix is also available separately as a FREE program, with QB4/PDQ source code.) ----------------------[ v3.01 - 01/29/93 ]------------------------ A minor update to the v3.00 series. Changes since the release of v3.00: 1) Users configured for "net-status" were unable to access conferences when SysOp initially set them up, unless they first joined the conferences from within RBBS-PC. Now allows this "presetting" of net status user conference flags prior to the user actually joining the conference. 2) Now checks uploaded REP packet for type of archive, and can handle situations where the user was configured for one type of archiver, but uploads a REP packet created by another. The door can automatically determine archives created by PKZIP, LHA, and ARJ. If some other type of archive, the door will use the user's setting of archiver, as it has always done. 3) Can now optionally read ONLY your personal messages via the R)ead option (and to "ALL" if that flag is set in the configuration area). Default is to read all messages. 4) When posting a netmail message, you can now include a "TO: address" line as the very first line of the message body. Example: TO: 1:226/1400 If the "TO:" address line is found, the door will automatically post the netmail message to the address you specified, requiring no further manual intervention. The message will be scanned out and routed appropriately when your mail processor finds it. Designed to help automate the REP process. This works only for "normal" netmail messages, not "CRASH"/attach/request messages. Requirement: the address in the "TO:" line must be found in Mail Manager's compiled nodelist, MMGRNODE.DAT. If not, this line is ignored, and you will have to enter the address information as per previous versions. 5) Slight update to MNET utility. Fixes problem with some systems that do not handle an "IF EXIST" test for "PATHNAME\NUL". ----------------------[ 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.