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Text File | 1994-05-19 | 29.8 KB | 510 lines

The RemoteAccess Pub v1.82 - Development History ------------------------------------------------ This file contains detailed information about the history of the ressurrection of RAP as well as new additions to the program. This is for all of you curious people! A shorter list of major changes can be found in WHATSNEW.DOC. Entries prefixed by the symbol {+} are bonus features for registered systems only. The entries are in reverse order so you can read the latest information first. Version 1.82 ------------ Version 1.81wb was (almost) a total disaster so this version's puprose is to get rid of two major bugs: the endless-message-loop, and the bugs that cause RAP to crash from time to time. This version has been tested enough to justify removing the Wide Beta designation. - Corrected some undiscovered problems with Maximus support. I missed an entire whack of MECCA Attribute Changing Codes. The Blink code is also supported now. - RAP now knows where RAP.EXE is located and will use that path to look for USERS.RAP, ACTIONS.RAP, etc. - MASSIVE CHANGE TO THE FILE I/O SYSTEM!!! All of the file i/o operations have been rewritten. The new system uses record locking for faster file i/o. Most files remain OPEN until the program ends, significantly improving performance. - Ultra-basic RIP support added. RAP will display .RIP files if the user has RIP enabled rather than the .ASC/.ANS/.AVT files. See BETA.DOC for more details. - FINALLY nailed the bug(s) that were causing RAP to crash. I'll be a lot more careful from now on. My thanks to Joel Downer for his idea on why it was crashing. He was right. - RAP now attempts to process messages before processing the user's input. This means that if anybody entered RAP or FORGOT/REMEMBERed the user while the user was typing, the event will be recognized. Thanks to our old friend Joe Lindstrom for spotting this one! - Because of the above modification, "Message Sent" and similar responses won't be sent until the message is actually sent, instead of right away. This the same way Major BBS works, and is a lot nicer. - RAP no longer displays the list of commands on entry, just instructions on getting help. - SEVERAL Major BBS alias commands added. These are: /#, /F, /R, USERS, /?, /P, /L, X, EDIT, /E, /A LIST, ACTIONS LIST, /TIME, /*, WHISPER TO. /L is shortform for LOOKUP and requires a bit of an explanation. On the boards around here /R is defined as "Registry Lookup" globally, but it's ALSO defined as REMEMBER in the teleconference. With RAP, /R will remember as it should, and /L will look somebody up. - A bunch of cosmetic uglies with regard to FORGETting users has been corrected. Sloppiness on my part. Version 1.81wb -------------- Maintenance and bug-fix release. - Cheap cosmetic bug in the action list fixed. A missing statement was causing personal actions to be "uncoloured" if the previous action was Undefined. Thanks to Mike Aleksiuk for spotting this one. - Implemented the Registration Key system. Yes, I admit I forgot the last time, but such is life. See BETA.DOC for what to do when you receive your registration key. - Rewrote the handling of Pascal style strings, which RA procudes in its data files. There was a lot of unneccessary disk accessing going on, and this has now been eliminated. - FINALLY tracked down and fixed the bug in the USERON.BBS handling which was wreaking havoc (as described in PROBLEMS.DOC included with v1.80wb). It had to do with the Pascal string handling, and after I rewrote the routines described above I realized what the problem was. - RAP now creates RABUSY.xxx files in the RAP Work Path if RA Support is enabled and a user logs on that isn't listed in USERON.BBS. No point in taking any risks, since some people use the RABUSY files to determine whether or not certain things can be done safely. - RAP now detects the Do Not Disturb flag in USERON.BBS and won't let you send PAGEs to nodes which have it. - RAP now detects if a node is in use or not and won't allow PAGEs to go to inactive nodes. - Fixed a major bug that was causing RAP to abort if a NODEIDX2.RAP file wasn't found in LAN mode. Again, too much errorchecking was the cause. - Rewrote the string "trimming" routine because the old one was careless and a tad buggy. - SCAN is now accepted as an alternative to WHO, to make it easier on MajorBBS users. - # is now accepted as an alternative to NODES (on RA systems), again to make things easier for MajorBBS users. - MAXIMUS SUPPORT IMPLEMENTED!!!!! Upon detection of a MAX environment variable, RAP will switch on Maximus v2.0x support. Currently, the NODES command works, and RAP will also write any users logging into RAP to an IPCxx.BBS file for all users to see them. The Real Name is used since Maximus is mostly real-name based. - Fixed the Capitalizer, which was actually stripping the colour codes from the strings instead of just ignoring them! - Fixed some shortcomings in the output routine. If ^^ happens to be at the end of a string it will no longer make things look weird. - Fixed a small bug that was causing the TIME command to report time deductions in LOCAL or LAN modes. - Fixed a minor cosmetic problem in the WHO/SCAN list. - Moved the upgrade instructions from this file to UPGRADE.DOC. - Added RA Ctrl-K style colour-codes to RA PAGEs. - Added the ability to interpret RA Ctrl-K colour codes when reading NODExxx.RA files. - Maximus PAGEing added, in full colour. - RAP will now attempt to process Maximus IPC messages. Currently, only CMSG_HEY_DUDE (normal) type messages are processed, and all others will be ignored. In future, all types of messages will be processed. - Renamed this file (WHATSNEW) to HISTORY.DOC and created a shorter WHATSNEW.DOC so people don't have to do a lot of reading. - Fixed a careless mistake that caused RAP to garble the work path if none was given on the command line. - Fixed a problem that was causing RAP to go into an infinite loop when some errors forced an abort. - Revamped the file system. There should be no more sharing errors now. The new file system uses "lock" files to prevent other nodes from accessing files that are in use. This may be a tad bit slower than before but it should be safer. - User File Size doubled to make room for some new information. See UPGRADE.DOC for upgrade details! - Entry/Exit messages added! Users may now configure personalized messages for when they enter and leave RAP. The messages are configurable from the profile editor. RAP will also notify other users when these messages are changed (to prevent unfriendly surprises I guess). - Cleaned up some improper code that caused problems when the user/message/node files got larger than 64K. Whoops! - Removed "reserved" bytes from the inter-node messages, which should speed up the inter-node communication considerably. I forgot that I don't need to maintain backward-compatibility for the inter-node messages, so about 400 useless bytes were being written for each message! OOPS! - The new file system was a total disaster speed-wise, so I took it out. The revised file system uses standard DOS sharing, but it's a lot more thoroughly implemented. - RAP will NO LONGER display the nodes marked "Ready" in USERON.BBS. RA seems to use this flag to indicate a node is waiting for a call, and as I saw first hand on one system this makes for a rather ugly NODES list. - Overlays are GONE. They were never really needed as bad as I thought, and they just caused problems with sharing errors. NOEMS, NOXMS, and NOHIGH switches are no longer valid. - File operations that only do reading now only deny Write access instead of both Read and Write. That should cut down on sharing errors a little. - Fixed up the ACTIONS.RAP and IPCxxx.BBS rescan logic. The old code was causing the odd involuntary rescan, which really did slow things down. {+} - Various Personal Preference Options added. Existing user files will work fine. This is the first feature for registered systems only. - Talktype messages/GA's now echoed by default. - Problems with actions are no longer fatal errors. - SysOp Chat Mode enabled. I had disabled it before. Thanks to Josh Heizman for showing me why this is needed! <grin> Alt-C will engage a SysOp-User chat. Normal Pub Conversation will be stored until the chat is ended with ESC. - Upgrade programs modified to set default Preference bits. - Fixed a bug that made the user's handle appear to be "Male" or "Female" after a sex change. - RA NODES listing now uses Real Names, since it makes more sense. In the future this will be configurable Version 1.80wb -------------- First public beta release. This version of RAP now has everything that 1.00b had internally. External programs (RAPMaint, RAPEdit) are still to come. - RAP now informs users when a TalkType has been sent. This is to clear up some confusion that some users previously experienced. - Forgot to make RAP inform other users when somebody changes a Personal Action. RAP now does so. - Forgot to make RAP inform other users when somebody leaves the Pub abruptly (carrier drop, timeout, etc.). Fixed. - Fixed up some of the colourization during chat so users don't get too confused. - I think I finally cleaned up some problems with the new errorchecking. Too much errorchecking isn't always a good thing! <grin> - Some of the help screens have been expanded a little to help eliminate some confusion users were having. - Fixed up the USERS command. It was VERY buggy before. - Fixed a MAJOR problem in the Pascal String Read/Write routines that wasn't helping my cause with the USERS command very much. - If a node is not in use on the BBS, but in use on RAP, RAP will write the node information to the USERON.BBS file (if the BBS type is RA of course). This will allow users online to see if people (sysops, or users on the LAN, or whatever) are in RAP, and encourage chatting. RAP also deletes the info when the user leaves. - FORGET and REMEMBER commands added! These allow users to control who they can receive messages from. If there is a problem user, just FORGET him/her! All messages from that person will be blocked until either the user REMEMBERs the troublemaker, or the troublemaker or user exit and re-enter chat. - Secret Actions have been added! Appending /S or SECRETLY to an action command will cause the action to be shown only to the recipient! Great for "under-the-table" style nudges, and other things. - User File modified to store a password. Existing user files will continue to work as long as they are in v1.80wb format. - LOCAL and LAN modes added. See BETA.DOC for details. - USERS command has be renamed to NODES, which is what it should have been all along. I dunno, I must have had a mind blank or something when I put it in. I think it came from when I was skimming over the RAP 1.00b WHATSNEW file. <grin> - Corrected a bug where outbound word-wrap wasn't picking up the colour codes. - Corrected a bug where Colour Codes were hampering the proper capitalization of handles, names, etc. - There were lots of instances where Colour Codes in Handles created some problems with displays, searching, etc. I've cleaned up most of these now. - Most of the user input is now "trimmed" so extra spaces at the start/end of the input will be ignored. - Password protection has now been implemented. All users now have the option of setting a password in the PROFILE menu. When a new user signs on in LOCAL or LAN mode, RAP will prompt for a password as part of the new user sign-on. If there is a password defined in the user file, the user must enter it upon entering RAP in order to continue. - In LOCAL and LAN modes, RAP will automatically turn on ANSI colour if a colour monitor is detected, otherwise plain ASCII will be used. - RAP now recognizes and translates the RA Control Code ^K[628, which is used when one user online posts a message to another user that is online at the same time. - Basic logging has been added so SysOps can track user activity within RAP. - RAP now writes the user's real name when a PAGE is sent instead of the user's handle, to avoid confusing the other users on the system who can't see the user's RAP handle. - Fixed a cosmetic bug that was causing the user's handle not to be properly erased when a message was received that was shorter than the user's handle. - Finally tracked down and fixed a very annoying bug in the main input routine that would cause an extra letter to be prefixed to the wrapped word in some circumstances. - RAP now rescans the action verbs before an action listing. This allows the actions to be edited while users are online and used right away! - Colour codes have been disallowed in handles until a bug can be fixed. - High-bit ASCII characters are now allowed. - Colour code trigger ^ was changed to ^^ to provide less of a chance of user's triggering colour codes by accident. A lone ^ will pass through as a ^. In case of a rare need to display a ^^, three ^ characters in a row can be used. - Gave the colour code processor some more AI. Now, if non-Hex characters are detected after ^^ then processing will stop and the characters will come through. This allows users to give simply ^^ to return to the default colour. Also, if only one character is parsed then it will be treated as the foreground colour, to keep things simpler. - Finally started to update the actions listing. I've "censored" it a little, and added many more actions. Some are long-time favourites from the chat boards around here, and others are the ideas of me and my users. - Fixed a few cosmetic problems with the actions list. I also changed the list to display six columns of actions instead of five. - RAP now deletes the message file for a node upon a user entering RAP, thus eliminating any messages that might be left over after an "abrupt" exit (time runs out, sysop punts user, etc.). - Logic added so that if the actions list is changed then the verbs will be rescanned. This allows users to use updated actions immediately after a change is made by the Sysop, meaning the Sysop can safely edit the actions file while users are online. - Removed the ability to "forget" yourself, because it was causing problems. In the future when I fix the problem I will probably put this ability back in, just for completeness. - Corrected the bug with the handles having colour codes, so this feature has been restored. - Corrected a problem that was causing RAP to miss DORINFOx.DEF if x was from 2 to Z. As long as the proper node is given, RAP will now pick up the proper DORINFOx.DEF file. - Correct a lack of code that caused some info in the NODEIDX file to get wiped after an online handle change. - Sped up the NODES command's ability to detect if a node is not in use. The pause that occurs during the NODES command on low-node systems is now very small. - Forgot to modify some other routines to look for the new RAPColour(TM) codes. Fixed. - Fixed a problem that would erase the prompt even if a message was received from a "forgotten" node, thus causing the prompt to dissapear completely. - Fixed a bug in the output routine that caused raw colour codes to slip through sometimes. I should have known better than to use unproven shortcuts! - Fixed a bug where RAP wasn't reading in enough characters from the actions file, so 10 character action verbs caused major problems. - User File modified to store the user's Age. This won't be used in this version, but it will be used later! Thanks to our former RAP-Master Joe Lindstrom for this idea. Existing converted user files will work fine. - NODEIDX File modified to store some new information. Admittedly this isn't a very big deal at this time, a future version of RAP will use this new information in a big way. - Corrected a hazardous bug that caused LOCAL and LAN modes to still scan for a Drop File. - Corrected (hopefully, since this area of RAP is really giving me trouble) some bugs where USERON.BBS wasn't being read/rescanned/modified correctly. - Corrected a bug that was causing sharing errors in logging. Because of this, the logs weren't getting updated when more than one user was in RAP! RAP now writes seperate log files for each node. RAP1.LOG for node 1, RAP2.LOG for node 2, etc. - Increased the number of file i/o retries in order to decrease sharing errors. - Modified code to prevent RAP from stripping off high-bit characters that were previously considered "whitespace". - Fixed a rather lame oversight that caused whitespace to get stripped from the start of user-typed text. This was never desirable, I just screwed up. <grin> Version 1.79beta ---------------- Release for beta testers to get some of the new features tested in advance. - Oops, forgot to mention in the last version's notes that I added word-wrap to the input routine. - Split the source code into more than one module to make it easier for me to work on the program. The split went without any trouble. - RAP now Dynamically Allocates its memory upon bootup. This will allow more flexibility and configurability depending on each individual sysop's memory requirements. If I'm not mistaking, it seems to have shrunk RAP.EXE by about 15K as well. The conversion was successful after some initial problems. - RA support is now AutoDetected by using the RA environment variable. - USERS command has been implemented. If RA support is not detected, RAP will be polite and inform the user that the USERS command is not available. My thanks to David Ong for help with the Pascal data files that RA puts out (namely USERON.BBS). - Fixed a bug that caused RAP to set itself as node 1 if the node number passed was 0 or invalid. - Basic PAGE command has been implemented. As with USERS, this command will not be available if RA support is not detected. There's no checking whether the node is actually online, nor is there checking for Do Not Disturb mode. - User Record has been modified to store some more Preference Options. RAP v1.61beta and RAP v1.70beta User Files will continue to work with no modifications. - I'm still working on Maximus interfacing. I hope to have this in place by v1.90wb, or sooner. - Eliminated the double-spacing during chat. If you really don't like this, live with it for now, and it'll be configurable in a future version. However, Joe and I both agree that this improves the chat greatly, even if it makes it slightly more "busy". We'll give it a try, though. - Whoops! Found a quirk with the new memory usage that was causing something not to be reset, and thus actions to be missed at certain times. Fixed. - Added a new action token, at Joe's request: %f. See BETA.DOC for an explanation. - Output routine has been TOTALLY modified. New features include word-wrap and a much shorter colour code system. This should solve any future problems related to output. See BETA.DOC for details. - Entire program now uses the new output routine, meaning just about anything can be colourized. This will make things much nicer in the future, when RAP has Sysop-configurable text. - Because of the new output routine, users can now use Colour in their text! See COLHELP.ASC for details. - The new output routine also fixes a problem where ` and @ characters weren't being echoed. - COLORHELP command added. This command will display COLHELP.A??, depending on the user's terminal emulation mode. These files are included starting with this release. - Fixed a couple of cases where the Handle wasn't getting capitalized. - Forgot to make RAP free memory upon exit, thus causing some rather nasty results. Fixed. - RAP now picks up on the N/A strings in the actions file and informs the user that he/she can't use the verb in that fashion. The fact the old RAP did this kinda got lost in the shuffle, and I didn't think of it again until Joe reminded me. So...I'm NOT perfect after all! <grin> - Action limit raised to 3072, just in case anybody wants that many. - The Upgrade Program FINALLY converts the old style user file! - Basic error checking added to the Upgrade Program. That's all it'll get, since it's only a simple upgrade. - RAP now scans for and displays the NODExxx.RA files if RA Support is detected. This allows users not in RAP to page users that are in RAP. In addition to translating ^A, ^K[258, ^K[496, and ^K[497 like the old RAP, most of the other ^K and ^F codes are supported. - LOOKUP now accepts a string right after it, as in LOOKUP JOE. I initially forgot that the old RAP did this, so this was left out for a while. - Fixed a slight bug with the LOOKUP feature that wasn't tracking the actual number of displayed users correctly. This could cause a bunch of extra seperator lines to be sent. - Modified the User File to allow Users to choose different types of Personal Actions (Normal or TalkType). While the size of the user file hasn't changed, I decided to bite the bullet and change the order around. See the Upgrade Notes below for details. - Finished the new Personal Action Editor! The initial screen of the Editor is a lot like the old RAP's, but after that, it is totally different. The new editor allows users to change only the parts of the Action that they WANT to change. It also allows experienced users to zoom along since the help is only displayed when the user asks for it. The Personal Action Help is contained in the PERSHELP.A?? files, included with this release. - Personal Actions now work! - Personal Actions are displayed at the end of the ACTIONS list. - Some general File I/O Error Checking added to help prevent crashes. Version 1.70beta ---------------- Release for volunteer beta testers in my local area. - Description editing implemented in the Profile Editor. - LOOKUP command implemented. - Took a look at the Maximus Structures and didn't like what I saw. They are not described very well so I'll need to get more detailed info. The point of this entry? To warn you that Maximus BBS interfacing will be a ways off. I wanted it for 1.80wb, but that's gonna be pushing it. - Fixed a serious potential problem that didn't unregister the node if the program was aborted due to carrier loss, inactivity, etc. - Fixed a MAJOR flaw that caused the New User Procedure to abort with a Sharing Error when it tried to save the user's data! - Gender changing allowed in the Profile Editor. Hey, you can do it with MajorBBS, so why not in RAP? In the end the choice of allowing users to change this will be left up to the SysOp. - COMMANDS feature added. I believe this will be handy to more experienced users who just need a memory refresh. - Colour Coded the Action/TalkType list to distinguish between the two. When I get the chance I'll modify the list to work like the old one (all Actions first, then TalkTypes), but for now this way will work. - User file changed to allow for Date and Time Formats to be stored. Thanks to Mike Aleksiuk for this suggestion. It's not used at the moment, but it will be in v1.80wb. Existing user files will work without any problems. - Improved the Upgrade Program a little so it reports what it's doing. - Fixed the TIME display so the "Time In RAP" displays correctly instead of some weird number. - RAP now prompts New Users for a Description. I have found in the past a lot of my users don't make use of this feature, so I'm hoping this will draw more attention to it. - RAP now broadcasts important profile changes to all users. Description, Handle, and Gender changes are broadcast. - General Actions and Possessive General Actions (collectively GAs) have been added! General Actions are a popular feature on the newer MajorBBS v6's Pub, and Possessive General Actions are my own idea that extends the use of the GA feature. See the new HELP.ASC for information on GAs. - Joe's old ANSI screens had quite a lot of extraneous colour commands so I took the liberty of fixing them up. They should display a bit faster now. - Argh...I forgot to mention in the notes to RAP v1.50beta that RAP supports AVATAR! This is thanks to OpenDoors and RA's AVTCONV program. - Actions can now be done to ALL. I had a heck of a time with the actions at first so I kinda forgot about this feature, otherwise it would have been done sooner. - Fixed the "Last called xx days ago" calculations. They should work even if the person hasn't called in ten years! <grin> - Added RAMDisk support (finally). Unlike the old RAP, this is currently passed on the Command Line, though this will change. See BETA.DOC for details. - RAP now properly Capitalizes handles so they look nicer. - RAP finally checks for Duplicate Handles in the User File before saving a new user or changed handle. - Finally tracked down a terribly catastrophic cosmetic bug in the New User SignOn that caused half of the title page and the entire drop file to get dumped to the user. You can bet I'll have a talk with the author of OD about this one. - Added some extra colour to some command displays (including the short list) for extra readability. Version 1.61beta ---------------- Bug-fix version for beta testers. - Got around a rather nasty problem with OD that would not display any sent text if it was longer than about 130 characters. Version 1.60beta ---------------- Enhanced working version. First version for beta testers. - Actions and TalkTypes work now! - In addition to the old %m and %y tokens, two more are now available. They are %h (gender-sensitive third person) and %s (used in conjuction with %y to make possessives look better). See BETA.DOC for more details. - User's Gender is now either detected or prompted for and stored. - The entire action and talktype lists have been combined into one file. A maximum of 1024 actions and/or talktypes is now allowed. See below for upgrade details. This change allows future new action types to be supported with ease. - In case 1024 actions aren't enough, I plan to increase the limit later once I get a good idea of the total memory requirements. - Action list works. - Okay, maybe this isn't totally new, but it's important. File sharing has been implemented. Only time will tell if it's adequate. - The Command Line is implemented. The format is basically the same as the old RAP with the exception of leaving out the FILENAME of the drop file. See BETA.DOC for more details. - Small Profile Editor implemented. Only handle changing is allowed in this release, the rest will come next release. - Messages are now sent to other nodes when a user enters and exits the profile editor. - Conversation that occurs when a user is in the profile editor SHOULD be preserved and spewed at the user once he/she is done. I intend to put page-pausing in to allow the user to fully catch up. Version 1.50beta ---------------- First operational version. - Began the long task of reconstructing the entire program. Whispers and exiting/entering work, and a few other things sort of work. I had a chat with somebody to test it out and things went smoothly (i.e. we could talk fairly decently). - The user file now uses 1024 bytes for each user. Unlike the old RAP, user records aren't created until they actually are needed, so you won't lose 250K when you first install RAP. This also allows the user file to be of virtually unlimited size. The maximum number of users is 32 768. Of course, the more users that enter RAP, the larger the user file will become, but that's natural. - No personal actions or user profile yet, but since space has been reserved there should only be a minimal space increase (if any) when they come in.