Black Box 4/BlackBox.cdr/bbs_mail/ghost236.arj/WHATSNEW.236

Text File | 1991-06-08 | 15KB | 340 lines

      Ghostwriter's revision history

2.36  Looks as if at last I fixed the bug causing EMS or the swap
      file to remain allocated after program termination.
      Sometimes "Ghostwriter" didn't release EMS memory or delete
      the swap file; I hope this should not happen again starting
      with this version.

   o  Updated the program's domain table according to a message
      thread in the zone 2 sysop echo.  Of course the domain table
      of Fd.Sys will be used instead of the programs pre-defined
      domains.

   o  The "$fidonews" macro wasn't correct: it always returned
      next week's filename for FNEWSxxx.LZH.  Should be fixed now.

   o  If the "TZ" environment variable is set, "^aTZ: [timezone]"
      will be inserted in messages created by the program.  Although
      "^aTZ: [timezone]" not yet is a Fidonet standard ("Fidonet
      standard?  Are you kidding??") some programs insert and hopefully
      use this kludge line.


2.35  The monster now also should be compatible to FrontDoor 2.01 and
      newer versions.  The names of some FrontDoor support files have
      been changed, for example from "Folder.Sys" to "Folder.Fd".
      I've changed the source code to work with both *.Sys and *.Fd
      file names -- and found out that a *complete* re-write would
      be necessary (pheeh!).


2.34  Fixed the bug causing kludges like "^aINTL 1:1:170/400 2:310/11".


2.33  If the zone of a destination address is not defined the program
      created an illegal "^aINTL" kludge line.  Starting with this
      version the program assumes the same zone as found in the origin
      address if the destination zone is missing.  Thanks a lot to
      Werner Schlagnitweit, 2:310/3, and Johannes Mistelbauer, 2:310/30,
      for notifying me.

   o  Felix Kasza found the bug in the Assembler routine which sometimes
      caused the program to leave a swap file after termination.  This bug
      only was encountered on machines without EMS memory.


2.32  Speeded up my C-to-Pascal string conversion routine.

   o  Recompiled the whole monster using Turbo Pascal 6.0


2.31  The "$sigdiff" and "$signodes" macro templates now are expanded
      to a filename using "Z" (for PKzip) as the default packer
      extension.  Orlando Castillo, 2:346/4, told me that PKzip
      is the "official" file compression program in SIGnet.


2.30  The new configuration keyword "#define forcedINTL" (not case
      sensitive) forces the program to insert "^aINTL <destination>
      <origin>" into netmail messages even if destination and
      origin zone are identical. I've been told that this makes
      FrontDoor operation using AKAs in different zones easier.
      See the section "miscellaneous general settings" in the file
      Sample.Cfg included in Ghost230.Zip.

   o  The "^aFLAGS CFM" confirmation flag of the "Hello and thank
      you!"-message created by "ghost hello!" now only will be set
      if this message is created on systems in zone 2.


2.29  The domain string in the ^aMSGID written to messages
      created by "Ghostwriter" now matches the domain table
      as used by FrontDoor 2.00 (Setup: "Global / Address / Domains").

   o  Added some sounds to the program. If a tag-line could not be
      found in Ghost.Cfg, messages from the "purge" group are deleted
      during a "mailcheck" run and new echomail is found in a "report"
      run sounds will be generated. The sessings in Fd.Sys (Setup:
      "Mailer / Audio Control") will be consulted to check if it's
      allowed to generate some noise.


2.28  The program now uses the site info field which will be
      introduced by FrontDoor 2.00 to determine the system's
      name and location (Setup: "Global / Address / Site info").


2.27  Fd.Sys will now be opened in a somewhat more network
      aware way. Don't know why, but on Felix Kasza's (2:310/11)
      Novell LAN "Ghostwriter" suddenly was unable to read Fd.Sys.


2.26  The new command line switch "-a[n]" allows to specify
      which AKA should be used as origin address in messages
      created by the program. [n] must be a number between
      1 and 10 and refers to the AKA number found in FrontDoor's
      Setup "Global / Address". -a2 refers to AKA #2, -a4 to AKA #4
      and so on. This switch is valid only in FrontDoor environments.


2.25  The program's internal domain table has been updated
      according to an article in Fido739.Nws.


2.24  The program became aware of DESQview and DoubleDOS.
      The message generated when using "ghost hello!" has
      the "Confirm Receipt REQ" flag set as supported by
      FrontDoor 2.00.


2.23  The echomail report now also includes the message
      subjects of new messages addressed to the sysop.
      FrontDoor's "Mail" display flashes if new echomail
      messages were found during execution of the "report"
      function.


2.22  The "$fidonews" macro now reflects the new compression
      method used by the Fido Newsletter editor: LZH.

   o  Fixed a bug which confused the mailcheck option when a
      new month had just started.


2.21  While deleting messages of the "purge" group a field in
      Msginfo.Bbs wasn't updated correctly. This didn't cause
      any troubles, but of course it wasn't nice.


2.20  Changed the program to work with the new format of the
      "address" statement as introduced by BinkleyTerm 2.40.


2.19  Two new macros for automatically updated magic filenames:
      "$Sigdiff" and "$Sigecho".


2.18  Fdrescan.Now will not be written if netmail messages
      to the local system were created by the program.
      Additionally, errorlevel 0 ("no action") will be
      returned in this case.

   o  The blue copyright notice output by the program no longer
      should bleed through other screens if used in DESQview or
      DoubleDOS environments.


2.17  I've received some bug reports concerning the "report"
      function of the program: sometimes the computer would "hang"
      in an endless loop. This happened when folder descriptions
      in Folder.Sys were longer than 39 characters. Now only the
      first 37 characters of the folder descriptions will be
      included in the report message/report file. I've checked
      it; on my machine it works, good luck on your computer.

   o  When executing "ghost mailcheck" the program terminated with
      the wrong errorlevel 1 instead of 0 when no new messages were
      created. This has been fixed.


2.16  Added the "$eggdiff" macro to the built in list of "magic"
      filenames.


2.15  Ghost.Exe is compressed by "Lzexe". If you raise any
      problems please use "Unlzexe" to remove the compression.


2.14  Fortunately I remembered that there's a "QuickBBS style bit"
      present in Folder.Sys [blush]. This version uses this bit to
      check if a folder contains a QuickBBS or *.Msg style board.

   o  The procedure used to extract the address of an echomail
      message contained a bug which has been fixed. I hope the
      program didn't write "Sorry..." messages during mailcheck
      to the right people at the wrong addresses.

   o  When performing a single batch file via "ghost server" the
      temporary batch file created by the program wasn't deleted
      after execution. This has been fixed in this version.


2.13  The swap subdirectory and the subdirectory used for temporary
      files will be taken from the TMP or TEMP environment entry.
      If both are missing the current subdirectory will be used.
      This avoids conflicts if FD or FM already are swapped to a
      probably too small RAM disk.

   o  If QuickBBS boards and subdirectories for *.MSG style messages
      are contained both in Folder.Sys only the QuickBBS boards will
      be available for any message related function of the program.
      Sorry, but the program already is large enough; I fear it's
      impossible to cover both QuickBBS and *.MSG style echomail.

   o  The correct destination address will be written in the message
      header if the program creates an echomail message in a QuickBBS
      board. I found by accident that the program used randomly
      values instead. However: since this happened only in echomail
      folders no troubles resulted.


2.12  Added the ^aPID kludge as suggested by Joaquim Homrighausen.

   o  If the primary network address contains a net number greater
      than 4000 the program assumes it's operated by a somewhat
      dumb point user. The program will not be operable in this
      environment. Use your correct 4-D-address instead.


2.11  The most currently known domains will be inserted in the MSGID.
      A 32 bit Unix timestamp is used as MSGID part; this hexadecimal
      string represents the numbers of seconds passed since 1970-01-01
      UTC.


2.1   A new "trigger" function allows execution of any DOS command
      if specific messages are existing in the netmail directory.

   o  Added some FrontDoor specific goodies: origin lines are taken
      from Folder.Sys, Fdrescan.Now will be built on occasion, all
      AKA addresses are checked when executing the "server" and
      "trigger" functions. The Areas.Bbs file no longer is required
      in FrontDoor environments. The built-in tag "history" creates
      a verbose report of the system's inbound/outbound history.


2.09  Changed the "32 bit Unix timestamp" to what it is in reality:
      a date and timestamp in DOS directory format. *Never* trust
      what you read in a FidoNet specification file.

   o  Fixed the bug which corrupted the time part of the $bouncelimit
      variable.

   o  File attaches now also work with the "onday" and "ondate" option
      (thanks to Ruud De Bruin, 2:281/603, for the hint).


2.08  Support of the 32 bit Unix timestamp as used by Opus, SEADog,
      FrontDoor and other FidoNet mailer/editor programs.


2.07  Added "Opcndiff" and "Opcnlist" to the built-in magic filenames
      supported by the program. Jack Decker, 1:154/8, suggested this.


2.06  I've triple checked the source code to assure that under
      no circumstances unreceived file attach messages will be
      touched by the mail check option.
      Roland Gautschi, 2:302/561, reported some troubles while
      doing mail check with the "cosysop" flag enabled.

   o  If node zero is used in the system's primary network address
      the program complains about that on screen and in the log file.
      Zeroeth nodes or region network numbers normally should never
      be used as primary network address.


2.05  The new optional command line parameter "-n<new_name>"
      performs all program operations with <new_name> instead
      of the sysop's name as found in Binkley.Cfg, Config.Ra
      or Fd.Sys. Use the underscore character (5Fh, Alt-95)
      to separate firstname and lastname.

   o  If an attempt is made to send messages to an undefined group
      this will be logged to the screen and the logfile. Also the
      "trouble" errorlevel (3) is returned to DOS after program
      termination.


2.04  The "country" settings in Config.Sys now affect the time
      format used in the program's log file. The appearance of
      the mailcheck string variable "$bouncelimit" also depends
      on the country code as found in DOS.


2.03  Changed the way the $group operator works: zone numbers will
      only be shown if they are different from the addressee's zone.
      Other group members names and network addresses are written
      in word wrap mode.


2.02  Added support for the MSGID message kludge as published by
      Jim Nutt aka "jim nutt" in the Fido Newsletter, vol 7 #11.

   o  Fixed nasty "tag not found" if "-d [days]" was present
      on a file attach tag line.


2.01  New "onday" feature: valid day names are Monday to Sunday.
      The call "ghost onday <more options>" will search for a tag
      line starting with "onday <current day name>" and create
      the message if tags match.

   o  Message flags now optionally also may be written on the same
      line as "to group <groupname>". Message flags entered in this
      manner are valid for the whole group; already individually set
      flags for specific group members will be combined with the
      group message flag.

   o  Optional "#define endtag <end-of-text mark>" flag. If this flag
      is present the first occurance of <end-of-text mark> on a message
      line is interpreted as end of message text.
      This especially is useful for file request/file update request
      tags (see the included Sample.Cfg for more details).


2.0   Full support for the QuickBBS message format as used by QuickBBS,
      FrontDoor and RemoteAccess.

   o  Powerful "server" feature. Netmail messages can be saved as batch
      files, forwarded to the sysop and executed immediately. Each valid
      batch file command is allowed; there are no restrictions what can be
      done in those "message batches".

   o  Added support for the RemoteAccess configuration file Config.Ra.
      If RemoteAccess is used as BBS software no additional configuration
      is required.

   o  Automatic adaption of the Ghostwriter's log format to the mailer or
      BBS software used. Log file confirms the Opus format used by Binkley-
      Term or the FrontDoor log file format.

   o  Multiple "dos <command>" lines will be written to a temporary batch
      file befor executing them. This is useful for sysops with computers
      without EMS memory: disk swapping only happens once.

   o  Ultra-fast check for new echomail addressed to the sysop: 1000
      messages will be scanned in approximately four seconds. The report
      may be sent to a private netmail message, a disk file or any device
      like a printer etc (only available in a QuickBBS message style echo-
      mail environment).

   o  DOS environment strings can be used in any line of the configuration
      file to substitute user names, network addresses, message subdirec-
      tories, message flags or parts of the message text.

   o  Free configurable mailer specific message flags for complete message
      groups or different single messages.