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HISTORY.DOC
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1991-08-11
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N.B. This document now starts with the most recent version and
works backwards to version 1.00.
By next release, I hope to have the bulk of History.doc
merged into powerqwk.doc so that history may start once
again from scratch.
PQ214.ZIP
~~~~~~~~~
Changes and New Features
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- For improved useability with XT keyboards, colour changing
at the message screen is now accomplished using F7 and F8
rather than F8 and F9.
The following standard has been adopted throughout
Power-QWK for all screens which can be recoloured within
PQ rather than by calling the Colour Customiser element
of Power-QWK Configuration Manager:
F5 - highlight bar background
F6 - highlight bar foreground
F7 - text background
F8 - text foreground
At this release, the message screen may be recoloured in
this way, as may Tagline Manager window, Hot Key Manager
window, the Addressee Pick List and the Conference Pick
List. The last four all use the same set of colours so
changing at one window will automatically cause change to
the others when next they are used.
- Two new questions have been introduced into the Power-QWK
General Configuration Manager:
Does your computer have a printer?
Do you want 'Continue?' prompts before printing actions?
The second question is only asked if you reply Y to the
first.
In a future release, answering Y to the first question
will cause Power-QWK to prompt for further printer
configuration information such as Form Depth,
Initialisation String and so on.
I have introduced these questions in advance of the
provision of full printer configuration because I can find
no SURE way of detecting the presence or absence of a
printer device, other than by using hardware-dependent
services which I don't want to do (and even they are only
reliable when a printer IS online). Therefore, currently,
if a user accidentally asks Power-QWK for printer output
when there is no printer, unpredictable results can ensue,
usually requiring a reboot.
If you answer N to the first question then any attempt to
use the printer within Power-QWK will result in the display
of an error message.
If you answer Y to the first question then, if you answer
Y to the second question, Power-QWK will always ask your
permission before continuing with requested printing
actions, giving you the chance to back out if the request
was made accidentally.
If anyone out there can tell me of a robust hardware and
Operating System independent mechanism for detecting the
*absence* of a printer, I will be very glad to hear from
you. By 'Operating System independent' I mean it has to
work with all versions of DOS from 3.xx upwards and
must also work with 4DOS and under Windows, Desqview, etc.
- Power-QWK now handles mail from UltraBBS and UBBS mail
doors.
- The Power-QWK error message window can now be moved,
whilst leaving it on display, by pressing the PgDn (Page
Down) key.
- The Power-QWK Rebuild facility has been extended to include
a 'Bulletins' option.
This enables recovery when UNREAD bulletins are deleted
inadvertantly by mechanisms external to Power-QWK. e.g.,
accidentally at the DOS command line or by necessity
following a disc fault.
At the Topics Menu, press R for Rebuild and then B for
Bulletins. It's very rapid and can do no harm if run even
when there is no need.
A side-effect of running Rebuild/Bulletins is that ALL
Bulletins in ALL conferences become marked as UNREAD.
To aid the recovery process further, you can now press
R and U at the Bulletins Menu to toggle the Read/Unread
status of the currently highlighted bulletin.
- This release sees the inclusion of full message-body
wildcard string searching.
At the message screen, press W to set up a Wildcard
pattern and find the first message in the current
conference which contains a matching string.
Then, pressing Y finds 'Yet another' message with a
match. Repeatedly pressing Y presents each message in
turn which contains a match on the wildcard pattern
until every such message in the conference has been
seen.
Within individual messages, pressing E 'examines' the
current message for occurrences of the wildcard pattern,
ignoring the line which is currently at the top of the
screen. If an occurrence is found, the display is
repositioned so that the new occurrence is at top of
screen.
So, to find every occurrence of a particular string in
the current conference, press W, set up the string,
press Y to skip to each matching message in turn, press
E to find each occurrence within each matching message.
You can in fact press Y or E at any time. If you've never
pressed W to set up a pattern then the default pattern
'*' will be used. This matches every line within every
message within every conference.
Once you have set up a wildcard pattern, it survives
changes in conference so it is easy to search for the same
pattern in several or all conferences.
For more information, press F1 for Help at the message
screen.
- You can now press D at the Online Service Topics Menu
to tell PQ whether to date/time stamp messages sent to
the current online service or to leave the field blank.
You should only tell Power-QWK to leave this field
blank if you are sure that blank is acceptable to the
online mail door.
For Tomcat doors, blank tells the mail door to insert
date and time when the message is uploaded.
Other mail doors may only insert date/time of upload
if you specifically configure them to do so.
- The Reply History window now carries a legend near the
top of the screen which indicates how many messages
are currently available for review. i.e., how many
messages would be written to the .REP file were you to
exit Power-QWK at that point.
This should make the picture clearer when there are more
replies than will currently fit on the History screen.
- You can now press M at the History screen to update the
date/time stamp of the currently highlighted message to
'time now'. Because the date/time stamp is not displayed
at this screen, Power-QWK beeps softly to indicate that
the stamp has been changed successfully (same beep as
that used for personal message indication).
Note also that the date/time stamp is now updated
automatically if you edit a reply or message at the
History screen.
- As well as Alpha, Beta and Delta flagging of messages,
PQ now supports 'marking'. A Mark is a flag which you
can set or unset at will, to highlight messages for
future action.
For instance, you could mark a read message to remind you
that you haven't replied to it yet.
The current message may be marked or unmarked by pressing
M either at the message screen or within the Message Pick
List.
As with Alpha/Beta/Delta flags, Marks survive Power-QWK
Rebuild.
Power-QWK Prune treats Marked messages as Alpha.
- When at the message screen, the Alpha/Beta/Delta/Marked
status of the current message is now displayed in the
bottom right-hand corner of the header.
The status may be changed or toggled at the message screen
by pressing one of