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ZNEWS97D.ZIP
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WHATS.NEW
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Text File
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1994-01-12
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14KB
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274 lines
What's New With the ZipNews Door
1/09/94 v0.97d Beta
Added compatibility with DOOR.SYS BBS systems.
Corrected a problem in addressing some non-standard comm ports
Fixed processing of "Cc:" lines. Carbon copies not being generated/sent
by the door when processing messages uploaded with "Cc:" lines. Fixed.
7/19/93 v0.97c Beta
The Message-ID header line produced by the door was not in accordance with
RFC-822. Fixed.
Corrected problem where door would not extract personal mail if the caller
did not have a JOIN file (had not joined any newsgroups).
Found that some long article lines were being truncated to 120 bytes in
length. Corrected to allow up to 256-character lines.
7/13/93 v0.97b Beta
Found that the archiver (usually PKZIP would use the last news group
directory as a work directory when building the packet which would give
RNEWS fits if tossing at the same time on a busy system into that directory.
Fixed.
Certain failure conditions and Ctrl-X would cause share errors and
files unerased because they had not been closed before attempting to
delete them. Fixed.
Added capability for use as a SpitFire BBS door
Fixed bug where on some lines the ":" following a drive letter was being
interpreted as a parm delimiter.
5/08/93 v0.97 Beta
We've added the capability for running ZipNews as a Wildcat! BBS Door!
And we've added a new method of caller access from PCBoard BBSs. It
is similar to that just implemented for Wildcat! in that callers no
longer have to enter their login ID (if the sysop chooses to configure
the PCBoard setup this way).
Added deletion of the packet's component files in the work directory
after successful build of download archive (to reduce average RAMDRIVE
utilization). Of most impact on multi-node systems, it was deemed quite
wasteful of RAMDRIVE resources, to have 1-2 megs of component files
stored with the .5-.7meg which was in process of download. Frees up
RAMDRIVE capacity sooner where the total RAMDRIVE is shared by multiple
nodes.
Fixed a bug which was causing improper speed matching at 57600 bps
connects.
Re-wrote ZIPNEWS.DOC (long overdue)
Added ability to handle non-standard comm ports using high IRQs (>8).
3/27/93 v0.96e Beta
Added ability to handle new users directly. No need for users to use
Waffle for setting up newsgroups, later adding/deleting, or for
establishing last article read pointers. The door will provide callers a
list of active newsgroups if the caller goes into C)onfig, and proceeds
thru the archiver, protocol selections, etc., and when asked to toggle on
the sending of a list, responds with a 'Y'. The list will be provided,
that is, if the system operator has added the new "list" specification to
the ZN.CFG file, and has stored the list in the indicated location.
(Please see the sample ZN.CFG file included for more info on this. The
list will one day be automatically generated from Waffle's USENET and LOCAL
forums files but, for now, it must be made up by the system operator. It
is just a simple text file of the newsgroup names, one per line, beginning
in the first position of each line.)
The door now has the ability to handle changes to the caller's JOIN file
via packet upload from versions of the ZipNews reader 0.92d and later,
also released on this date. The reader may delete newsgroups, it may
specify new last article read pointers, and (if the BBSs newsgroups list
has been downloaded, as described above) it may add new newsgroups via
information generated for packet upload. When a username.CMD file is
found in an uploaded packet, the user's JOIN file is changed by the
door as requested. The caller may download the result of any such changes
during the same session.
Of significance to PCBoard system operators is that the new features added
with this release now allow elimination of the Waffle BBS as a door. There
is no need for callers to first enter the Waffle BBS door to register, or
to maintain newsgroup selections. If a registered version of the ZipNews
door is used and callers are using registered readers (which handle mail
downloads and uploads), all necessary communications operations are
completely handled by the ZipNews system. Waffle, of course, must be
installed (and registered with Thomas E. Dell) in order to implement uucp
transfers of news and mail to/from your Internet host, and to support the
basic news and mail handling operations. The Waffle BBS package itself
(WAFFLE.EXE), however, need not be installed or used on PCBoard systems.
If you're operating this on a PCBoard system, please also read PCBOARD.OPS
contained in the original ZNEWS96E archive.
Known problems:
We have yet to implement access to Waffle's STATIC file for the purpose
of controlling access to newsgroups. There may be some security issues
connected with this that are still unresolved. Also, newsgroups that
result in invalid DOS names when translated to a DOS directory structure
and pathname cause problems (because we're not yet accessing STATIC and
thence the USENET/LOCAL files). We have fixed the one caused by
C++ newsgroups (the + symbols are replaced by the letter p, so
c++ becomes cpp). We have done nothing yet to fix problems with
with newsgroups ending in ".aux" . We also are not yet able to check
for moderated newsgroups ("/mod= ..." being found in USENET).
3/03/93 v0.96d Beta
Was unnecessarily adding the 20 smiley delimters at the end of the
extracted mail file. Resulted in doubling the delimiters when appending
to prior mail files at the reader level. Fixed.
Added special test mode used on for demo purposes at the Northern Lights
Added ability to try again after an aborted download (up to 2 more attempts)
without having to re-build and rezip the packet.
Added automatic generation of sender's name on the "From:" line by the
door. The name is the name in which the uploader's ZipNews Reader is
registered. Example: If Bill Jones, bjones, uploads a news article or
message to somesite.com, the door generates the following "From" line
and inserts it into the article or message --
From: bjones@somesite.com (Bill Jones)
2/28/93 v0.96c Beta
Under various conditions the door was not cleaning up after itself and
was leaving files undeleted in the "temp" directory upon completing
and returning to the BBS. Some instances of this could leave pkunzip
asking if ok to overwrite, etc. (causing a BBS to hang if an upload
packet was being processed! :( ) FIXED.
There was a condition whereby an earlier user of the door who was previously
obtaining ASCII text format downloads, when upgrading to the ZipNews reader
format, would not obtain the .IDX file from the door on the first call.
2nd use of the door would give the caller the .idx. Puzzled many, including
yours truly....but that bug is now squashed.
The door seems to be in good shape and is close to official release as
soon as the docs are brought up to date.
2/24/93 v0.96b Beta
A change in the mailer/reader code (to Reader v0.91c) necessitates this
release. This version can now user Waffle's RMAIL more effectively to
generate more complete mail headers (and the reader has been updated to
include these header lines). Door versions prior to this one will not
produce correct headers if run with readers of vintage v0.91c or later.
Trying to get this release of the door out and around before the next
version of the reader hits. This version is backward compatible to
earlier readers, but unfortunatlely older versions of the door are not
forward compatible to the newer reader. (Clear as mud?)
2/21/93 v0.96ß
This is a MAJOR UPDATE. Do NOT load this package in place of a prior
version without reading these update notes and making the changes
indicated. You'll get some very strange results if you ignore this
advice.
- Before you do anything else, if you have previously installed the
ZipNews door on your system, delete the present ZN.COM on your system.
Significant new functionality has forced us out of the 'C' tiny model
and into the small model resulting in ZN.EXE as the executable rather
than a .COM. Delete the ZN.COM file now so that you don't execute
that in error later.
- The ZN.CFG file has also undergone significant changes. If you
previously had installed the ZipNews door, save your old ZN.CFG under
a different name so that you can reference it while you do
re-customization for your system using the ZN.CFG in this release as
the starting point.
[ OK. Enough on what you gotta do if you installed this before. On
with the good stuff . . . ]
- The major enhancement to this version is the new ability to
communicate with the door's companion program, the ZipNews Reader
(and Mailer in that program's registered from). The ZipNews Door
offers the caller a choice of download formats: the original ASCII
text file format and the new ZipNews Reader format. The ZipNews
Reader, by the way, will be available soon. It is in a limited
BETA testing cycle as of this writing.
- The ZipNews door now operates both ways! It can accept uploads of
news articles composed on the registered form of the ZipNews
Reader/Mailer. It posts them appropriately under control of Waffle's
RNEWS program. The door continues to offer full NEWS-related
functionality in its unregistered form.
- Also new with the registered form of the door for this release is the
ability to access and transfer to the caller his/her personal mail as
received on the Waffle system. The mail operations also include
acceptance of uploaded mail composed on the registered form of the
ZipNews Reader/Mailer. The uploaded mail is processed under control
of Waffle's RMAIL program. Mail operations are NOT supported by the
unregistered form of the ZipNews Door.
- The significant changes to the ZN.CFG file mentioned earlier involve
the two-way nature of the door now. Additional lines had to be added
to accommodate command specifications for the uncompressing of files
(the uploaded packets) and for specifying the "receive" protocol
command line. There is also a new "organization :" line and a
"hostname :" line. See the ZN.CFG included within this archive.
- Several significant bugs have been fixed in the news scanning
operation. One had been bothering us for many months, and would
occasionally result in preparing for download fewer new articles
from a newsgroup then what were really available. We're very happy
to have nailed that elusive one.
- There were occasions with prior releases where the caller's JOIN
file would be inappropriately changed. Two bugs in this area have
been squashed, and JOIN file updating appears to solid and reliable
with this release.
One parting comment for first-time ZipNews Door users -- the file
ZIPNEWS.DOC included with this archive is sadly out of date. I have
not taken the time to update it in order to expedite the releases of
these BETA versions. Please key off this text file and ZN.CFG for
the down and dirty installation details. The original .DOC is still good
for the general overview.
2/07/93 v0.95ß
- Fixed bug which resulted in resetting the last article read
pointers of LOCAL newsgroups in the caller's JOIN file.
- Fixed bug whereby errors occurred with some callers when reading
PCBOARD.SYS (for those PCBoard systems offering ZipNews optionally
from the main PCBoard prompt). The affected callers were unable
enter ZipNews directly from the PCBoard main prompt, although they
still could gain access via Waffle (running as a door under PCBoard).
- Added capability for downloading ALL local forums and newsgroups. To
include local forums, merely include the head directory along with your
news directory spec in ZN.CFG. Example:
# The full pathname to the directory(ies) heading your newsgroups
# (Separate multiple directory specifications with a space)
newsgroups : d:\news d:\waffle\local
- Other changes in preparation for support of the ZipNews Reader/Mailer
which will be able to handle mail downloading, and uploads of mail
and news articles for posting.
1/22/93 v0.94ß
- Introduced initial operation capability with PCBoard BBS software.
ZipNews can now be executed as a door directly from PCBoard (but must
have Waffle installed on same system). For further details, see the
file PCBOARD.OPS
- Some early BETA testers are experiencing confusing error reports when
either an incorrect Waffle Account spec is given on the command line
for invoking the door OR the directory name (corresponding) to a
Waffle Account cannot be found off the directory specified as the
"user" parm in ZN.CFG. To make the error report hopefully more
meaningful, it now says:
"Cannot open user's personal config file.
Possibly invalid Waffle account specified?"