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SBNews: News Robot Utility
(C) Scott M Baker
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I variously refer to this program under the names "NewsBot" and "SBNews"
throughout the document. You can for the most part consider them to be the
same. Eventually, I plan on including extra utilities in this package, "SBNews"
will be the name of the full package and "NewsBot" will be the name of the News
Robot utility within the package.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Table of Contents
* Purpose
* General Information
* System Requirements
* Distribution Information
* Features
* Files Included
* Installation
* Command Line Parameters
* JPEG Viewer
* Configuration
* Appearance
* Host Name
* Download Path
* Path Expansion
* Miscellaneous
* Lockout Lists
* Authentication
* Acceptable File Masks
* Dupe Checking
* AutoSave
* Auto Encryption
* Files.BBS Generation
* Statistics
* Coord: The Newsbot Coordinator
* Unfinished Stuff/Planned Enhancements
* Acknowledgements
* Registration
* How to Contact the Author
* Revision History
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Purpose:
The purpose of this program is to automatically download and uudecode files
from newsgroups via a winsock connection. If you've found this program, then
you probably know what this means, so I won't go into detail. Newsbot will
attempt to piece together multi-part files.
If you're new to binary newsgroups, then here are a few G-rated newsgroups that
you might wish to try:
alt.binaries.pictures.astro
alt.binaries.pictures.animals
alt.binaries.pictures.cartoons
alt.binaries.pictures.fractals
There are a wealth of adult-oriented newsgroups, but I'm not going to list them
in this document.
I have included a sample file, SAMPLE_G.TXT, which includes a listing of binary
newsgroups. There are no descriptions, but you can probably find out from the
newsgroup name what subject matter the newsgroup deals with.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Requirements:
* Windows 3.1 or greater
* Winsock connection capability (i.e. SLIP or PPP)
Distribution:
* 16-bit (Windows 3.1) Version: SBNEWSxx.ZIP (xx denotes version number)
* 32-bit (Windows 95) Version: SBN32_xx.ZIP (xx denotes version number
Features:
* Unattended download - do other work (or go out to lunch) while downloads
and uudecoding are all processed for you!
* Automatic HTTP address logging -- NewsBot will keep track of any HTTP
URL's that were found while downloading addresses. These will be saved to
a convenient HTM file, HTTPGRAB.HTM.
* Built in JPEG viewer. Allows you to see postage-stamp size images of the
files you are downloading in progress.
* Delete/View previously downloaded JPEG files.
* Comprehensive logging capabilities - save the subject and from
information for files that you might want to follow up on later.
* Dupe Checkers -- avoid downloading the same files multiple times.
* Auto-Encryption -- can be set to automatically encrypt files when saving
to disk to keep their contents private.
* Automatic FILES.BBS generation for sysops
* Eliminate advertisements/SPAM with the Maximum XRef Limit (see
preferences) and the XRef Lockout Filter (see lockout lists)
Files Included:
* NEWSBOT.EXE: Executable; what you need to run to get the program to work.
* NEWSBOT.HTM: Documentation in HTML format (read with your browser)
* NEWSBOT.DOC: Documentation in plain-ASCII format (read with any plain
ascii text editor)
* BWCC.DLL (16-bit) or BWCC32.DLL (32-bit): Borlands Custom-Control DLL
library; used to support Newsbot's grey dialog boxes.
* FILE_ID.DIZ: Brief description file; useful for bbs distribution
* SAMPLE_G.TXT: Plain-ASCII listing of binary newsgroups
* REGISTER.HTM: Registration info in HTML format
* REGISTER.DOC: Registration info in plain-ASCII format
* README.1ST: General information on documentation & archives
* ENCRYPT.EXE: Standalone utility, Used to encrypt files on disk
* DECRYPT.EXE: Standalone utility, Used to decrypt files on disk
* COORD.EXE: (32-bit version only) Used to coordinate multiple Newsbot
applications running concurrently
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Installing and Using the Program:
Here are some very quick notes on installing and using Newsbot:
Installation:
1. Unzip the distribution archive into the directory of your choice.
Running:
1. Run NEWSBOT.EXE -- this can be done in various ways - from the Win-95
command prompt, the Windows Explorer (and/or file manager), the Windows
Run Program command, etc.
2. On your first session, you'll be prompted for a "News Host Name". This is
the name of your news host, and should be given to you by your ISP
(internet service provider).
3. On your first session, you'll be prompted for a "download path". This is
the path where you want the files you download to be placed.
4. Once NewsBot is loaded, you'll want to add some newsgroups. This is done
with the "Add" button. You'll need to know the names of the groups you
want; you might want to consult SAMPLE_G.TXT for some sample newsgroup
names.
5. Press the "CONNECT" button to start everything. All else should be mostly
automatic from here on. Feel free to tinker around with the menu items
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Command Line Parameters
* "-i INI_FILE_NAME". Sets the name of the INI file to use. By default,
newsbot uses the file newsbot.ini in your windows directory. Specifying a
filename here will cause newsbot to use the file under that name in
newsbot's home directory. For example "Newsbot -i news1.ini" would use
the filename "news1.ini" in newsbot's home directory.
* "-auto". Will automatically begin downloading news articles as soon as
newsbot has loaded. Note: For unregistered users, about screen will still
be displayed!
* "-autoexit""-noabout". Omits display of the about dialog on startup of
Newsbot. Note: Only supported in registered version!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jpeg Viewer
SBNews has a built in Jpeg viewer for viewing JPEG files offline. The JPEG
viewer can be operated in several ways:
1. By double-clicking on a [RECEIVED] entry in Newsbot's log window
2. By single-clicking on one of the preview pictures on the right hand side
of Newsbot's main window.
3. By using the FILE:VIEW JPEG option from Newsbot's pulldown menu.
Once loaded, the JPEG viewer window will display the JPG file selected and
include a listing of filenames and directories on the left-hand side of the
window. This listing is provided to let you easilly select other files to view.
Double clicking on a directory in the directory list will change to that
directory and double clicking on a filename in the file list will display that
file. The CHDIR and VIEW buttons perform the same functions, respectively.
The "<" and ">" buttons will view the immediately previous and next files in
the currently selected directory. You may use these to rapidly view a list of
files that were downloaded overnight for example. The ">" button will activate
a slideshow of the current directory. Each file will be displayed, there will
be a slight delay, and the next file will be displayed.
The FILE menu of the viewer has several options:
* Open File: Allows you to open a new file using the windows common-dialog
open method.
* Delete File: Deletes the current file that you are viewing.
* Save as BMP: Saves the current image as a BMP image, which may later be
used as windows wallpaper, for example.
* Set as Wallpaper: Saves the current file as a BMP and tells window to use
it was wallpaper.
The SlideShow menu has a few options as well:
* Start/Stop: Starts and stops the slideshow, equivalent to the ">" button.
* Set Interval: Sets the amount of delay between slideshow pictures.
* "Normal Mode": Images will be displayed in the jpeg viewers window.
* "Wallpaper Mode": Images will also be set as WallPaper. This sort-of
turns your entire desktop into a slideshow display. You can minimize the
JPEG viewer window and continue to do work while images display in the
background as wallpaper.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Configuration
Appearance:
Newsbot has several different main window styles. You may select whichever
style appeals to you most, they all convey more or less the same information:
* Small: Designed to display as much information as possible in a small
footprint. The "file log" is unavailable, but all other information in
present.
* Large: Default configuration for systems with 800x600 resolution or
above.
* Windows-95 Tabbed: Same footprint as the small dialog, but uses a tab
control to select different panels of information. Somewhat less
cluttered, but you will need to use the tab between the information you
want to see. Large current/previous thumbnails.
Host Name:
The host name is the name of the nntp host which NewsBot will connect to. If
you don't already know this, then you may wish to contact your Internet Service
Provider (ISP) or check an existing news program on your system for the name.
Download Path:
The base path where downloaded files will be placed. If you enable any of the
download path expansion (see misc. preferences), then files may be downloaded
into sub-directories of this base path.
Path Expansion:
By default, all files will be downloaded into the download directory that you
have specified. However, this can lead to confusion, since you will not know
which files came from which newsgroups. Thus, there are several "path
expansion" options that will create a sub-directory tree for the individual
groups. The options are:
* None: All files go into the same subdirectory
* Group Number: Files are placed in numerical directories, according to
their order in your newsgroup list.
* Expanded Group Name: Each field of the Newsgroup name is made into a
subdirectory name. For example, "alt.binaries.pictures.misc" would become
"alt\binaries\pictures\misc". This option is useful for Windows-3.1
systems, since subdirectory names may only be a short length.
* Full Group Name: The entire Newsgroup name is used as one big
subdirectory name. This is only available in Windows-95 with long
filename support.
┌──────────────────┬─────────────────────────────────────────┐
│Path Expansion Exa│Resultant Path es.pictures.misc) │
│Path Exp Setting │ │
├──────────────────┼─────────────────────────────────────────┤
│None │c:\download\ │
├──────────────────┼─────────────────────────────────────────┤
│Group Number │c:\download\group1\ │
├──────────────────┼─────────────────────────────────────────┤
│Exp Group Name │c:\download\alt\binaries\pictures\misc\ │
├──────────────────┼─────────────────────────────────────────┤
│Full Group Name │c:\download\alt.binaries.pictures.misc\ │
└──────────────────┴─────────────────────────────────────────┘
For the "group name" options, you may wish to trim repetitive prefixes from the
front of the path name. For example, there's no need to include
"alt.binaries.pictures" in the beginning of each pathname -- it just leads to
wasted space. The Path Prefix Removalbox is used for this purpose. Any
string(s) that you enter in this box will be removed from the front of the
newsgroup name before the path is generated.
Miscellaneous Preferences:
Miscellaneous preference options are located under the Configure menu under the
heading Preferences.
* Logging: Logging options control the creation of the newsbot.log file.
The log may be useful so that you have more information about the files
that you have downloaded. The log filename is "newsMMDD.log", where MM is
the current month and DD is the current day. For example, the log for
June 6 would be saved in "news0606.log". The log is plain-ascii and may
be viewed with any text editor, or by using the dos "type" command.
* Log Enabled: if checked, then a log file will be written. Otherwise, no
log will be written.
* From user name: records the name of the person who posted the
message
* Subject: records the subject line of the message
* Comments: records the first few non-file lines of the message.
Useful if the sender has prefaced the message with some explanation
of it's content.
* Too Small: Messages that are below the minimum message line limit
(see below).
* Too Long: Messages that are above the maximum message line limit
(see below).
* Dupe File: Files caught by the dupe-file checker.
* Dupe Subject: Messages caught by the dupe-subject checker.
* Mime Headers: Really just debugging info for me....
* Delete old Logs: If checked, then any log files not equal to the
current date will be deleted when newsbot is run. This minimizes
* Case Conversion: These options will convert the case of the filename to a
uniform format. Due to limitations in the 16-bit application model,
filenames will probably be always upper case in the 16-bit executable.
* None: Leave filename case as it appears over the modem.
* Lower: Convert all filenames to lower case.
* Upper: Convert all filenames to upper case.
* Disconnect/Reconnect: The disconnect/reconnect system will automatically
disconnect and reconnect the current nntp session in order to abort a
message that is being transmitted. This is used to save time, rather than
downloading entire messages which are not stored on disk. If you disable
disconnect/reconnect, then Newsbot will receive the entire message,
although the message will not be written to disk. You may toggle
disconnect/reconnect on or off for several subcases:
* No-Data: Messages with more non-encoded lines than the no-data
threshold set below.
* Dupe-File: Files caught by the dupe-file checker (not relevent to
the dupe-subject checker, as the dupe-subject checker won't
download the message in the first place)
* No-Mask: Files which do not match an acceptable file mask.
* Current-Delete: Files which were deleted during transfer by a user
request.
* Lockout-File: Files whose names are matched by the lockout filename
system.
* Lockout-XRef: Messages where a string in the XRef field matches the
lockout-xref system.
* Lockout-Host: Messages where the NNTP-Posting-Host name matches the
lockout-host system.
Note: Sometimes the Disconnect/Reconnect options may cause your news
server to record an excessive load. This is because Newsbot will
disconnect the connection, but your news server may continue to keep the
connection open for a short period of time. Thus, the news server may
think that you are using more connections than you really are. This
situation is unlikely, but if it does present a problem, then you may
wish to disable the disconnect/reconnect options.
* Message Line Limits: Newsbot can limit which messages are downloaded
based on the length (number of lines) of the message.
* Minimum Lines: Messages with fewer than the specified number of
lines will not be downloaded. The rationale is that small messages
do not contain any useful information (pictures are big!) and some
efficiency may be obtained by not downloading them.
* Maximum Lines: Messages with greater than the specified number of
lines will not be downloaded. The rationale is that really huge
messages are a waste of time. It's usually the case of someone who
scanned in a picture at too fine a resolution.
* "No Data" Threshold: This specifies the number of lines that can be
in a message when no attached files (eg images) can be found before
the message is skipped. For example, if 500 lines are scanned, and
no attached image is present, then the message is probably grunged,
a misplaced part of a multipart encode, or some other useless data.
* Maximum XRef Limit: Many people have complained about an excess of
off-topic advertisement messages (i.e. SPAM) being present in the
newsgroups. This option is designed in an attempt to avoid these
advertisements. Typically, advertisers will post their messages to a
large number of newsgroups, and thus the XREF list for the article will
have many entries. Newsbot can be set to filter messages with too many
XREF's out. The default is set at 999 which effectively disables XREF
filtering. You can enable XREF filtering by entering a lower number here
(10 is a good place to start).
* Preload XRef hdrs: By default, the "lockout XRef" and "Maximum XRef
Limit" systems do not filter out an invalid message until the download
has begun. This is because the XREF line is not transmitted until the
message is sent. However, you can tell Newsbot to download all the XREF
headers ahead of time, before any messages are downloaded. Thus, Newsbot
will know the XRef information ahead of time and can avoid the unwanted
messages entirely. However, XRef information is somewhat bulky, and does
require a fair amount of time to download the headers. Thus, there is a
trade-off involved. Feel free to experiment.
Lockout Lists:
The lockout lists are used to lock out messages that contain certain text
strings. For example, you may not wish to download messages written by a
certain person, or messages whose title contains a certain string. There are
several types of lockout lists supported:
* Lockout Poster (i.e. Author): Applies to the "From:" line of the nntp
message. Use this if you wish not to receive messages from a specific
person.
* Lockout Subject: Applies to the "Subject:" line of the news message. This
is useful if there are certain keywords which you want to lockout if they
are present in the subject field.
* Lockout FileName: Prevents specific filenames from being downloaded. You
can type a specific filename or a wildcard specification to lockout a
group of files.
* Lockout Host: Checks the "NNTP-Posting-Host" field of the news message.
This is useful to eliminate posts from a specific news server. Many
obnoxious posters will alter their email name in the from field, making
them impossible to lockout by normal means. However, the news server
usually will put it's correct host name in the "NNTP-Posting-Host". Thus,
this field may be used to weed out the obnoxious poster. However, be
warned that locking out a NNTP-Posting-Host will lockout all users who
post from that host!
* Lockout XRef: Checks the "XRef " field of the news message. The XRef
field contains a list of other newsgroups that the message is
cross-posted in. Sometimes a person will post a message into several
groups at once -- this is called crossposting. Sometimes an obnoxious
poster will cross-post their messages into groups that they don't belong
in.
All lockout lists are case insensitive (i.e. capitalization does not matter).
All lockout lists support wildcard characters, * and ?. "*" is interpreted as
"any sequence of zero or more characters" and "?" is interpreted as "any single
character". Here are a few sample wildcard strings:
* (Lockout-Poster) "joe@fubar.com" would refuse any messages from
joe@fubar.com
* (Lockout-Poster) "*@foobar.com" would refuse messages from ANYONE at
fubar.com
* (Lockout-Poster) "joe@*" would refuse messages from "joe" no matter where
he posts from
* (Lockout-Filename) "*.zip" would refuse any file that had an extention of
ZIP
* (Lockout-Filename) "fastcash*.*" would refuse any file which had
"fastcash" as the first 8 characters.
* (Lockout-Filename) "index-?.jpg" would refuse any file which had
"index-", exactly one more character, and then ".jpg" as an extention.
* (Lockout-Host) "news.somehost.com" would refuse any messages posted on
"news.somehost.com"
* (Lockout-XRef) "alt.binaries.pictures.erotica" would refuse any messages
that are cross-posted into "alt.binaries.pictures.erotica"
The is an additional toggle which lets you toggle between an "exact match" and
"match any position in text".
* Exact-Match: The search pattern must match all of the text exactly; There
can be no leading or trailing characters. For example, "abc" would not
match "abcd" or "xabc".
* Match-Any-Position: The search pattern can match any position in the
text. There can be leading or trailing characters. For example, "abc"
would match "abcd" and "xabc".
There is a TEST button on the lockout dialog which will let you enter a string
and see if it matches anything. This is useful if your a little confused about
the wildcard strings and want to make sure what you entered does actually do
what you think it should.
Note #1: The "NNTP-Posting-Host" and "XRef" lines of a message are not normally
displayed by SBNews, so you might be wondering where to get the information to
type into those lockout lists. If you notice a particularly annoying message,
you can use the Headers button to bring up a header listing for the group, then
use the Read button to display the full text of the annoying message. Inside
the read screen will be a header listing where you can find NNTP-Posting-Host
and XRef fields.
Note #2: Some lockout settings, such as Lockout Poster and Lockout Subject can
be determined before the message is downloaded. Thus, Newsbot will bypass the
message completely. Others, such as Lockout File, Lockout Host, and Lockout
XRef, can not be determined until the message has begun to be received. Thus,
Newsbot must start receiving the message and then abort the message while the
download is in progress.
Authentication:
The authentication options are used for news servers which require a user name
and password to access the newsgroups. If your news server does not require a
name and password, then you should leave this option alone. Authentication is
located under the Configure menu.
Acceptable File Masks:
Newsbot allows you to specify which types of files will be downloaded.
Specifying "*.*" will enable any file to be downloaded, and this is the
default. For example, if you only wanted to receive images, then you may wish
to remove *.* and add in *.gif and *.jpg. If you only wanted archives, add in
*.zip. etc.
Dupe Checking:
Two different types of dupe checking are supported. They may be used
independantly, or you can use both of them at the same time if you wish. By
default, the dupe checkers maintain a list of approximately the most recent
2048 messages received.
* Subject Dupe Checker: Remembers duplicates by keeping track of the
subject of the message. Normally, the Dupe-Subject checker should be used
with the "Consider 'From'" setting checked as enabled. Thus, if the same
person posts multiple messages with the same subject, the message will be
flagged as a dupe. This is useful for preventing download of crossposted
messages (i.e. identical messages posted in multiple groups)
* Filename Dupe Checker: Remembers duplicates by keeping track of the names
of the files that were downloaded. This is very effective at weeding out
dupes, but has the side effect of sometimes deleting messages that are
not really duplicates. For example, there are a lot of files name "1.JPG"
out there!
Both of the two above mentioned dupe checkers have some options that control
their behaviour:
* Reject Duplicates: If checked, then dupe checking will be performed as
stated above. If not checked, then no dupe checking will be performed.
* Save dupe list: If checked, then dupe information will be saved from
session to session. If not checked, then dupe information will only be
kept for the current session.
* Items to Keep: This is the number of items to "remember" for the dupe
checker. A bigger number here will remember more messages (or files), but
will also require more memory and/or disk space to hold to dupe checker
information.
* Consider "From": If enabled, requires the from fields of two messages to
be identical for the files to be considered duplicates. A good idea for
the dupe subject checker, but probably not advisable for the dupe file
checker.
* Consider "Lines": If enabled, requires the number of lines of two
messages to be within a 10% tolerance for the messages to be considered
duplicates. For multi-part files, only the first message is considered.
AutoSave:
Automatic save is used to automatically save the current state of Newsbot
periodically during operation. This is useful since if Newsbot crashes, Newsbot
will be able to start back up at the correct position in the newsgroups and
with all of your dupe checking and lockout information enabled. There are two
types of autosave:
* AutoSave Pointers: Saves message pointers. These pointers tell newsbot
your current position in the newsgroups, i.e. how many messages you have
already seen in each groups.
* AutoSave Everything: This saves all state information, including the dupe
checkers (assuming the dupe checkers have saving enabled), HTTP grabber,
lockout lists, messages pointers, etc.
Auto-Encryption:
Auto-Encryption is intended to keep files that you download "private". This is
primarily in case you are downloading sensitive information that you don't want
unauthorized people to be able to access. If Auto-Encryption is enabled, then
files will be encrypted with a key that you specify. Only those persons who
have this key will be able to retrieve the information in these files.
Note #1: Be careful when you pick an encryption key. If you forget what you
picked, then there is no way to "find out" what it was. Case is important, so
make sure you know what parts (if any) are capitolized. Longer encryption keys
do offer better protection. However, my algorithm is by no means perfect, and
someone with enough time and computing power could undoubtably crack the code.
Note #2: Encrypted files cannot be "read" by another other programs until they
are decrpyted in some manner! No other program except Newsbot and it's
associated utilities can deal with files encrypted in this manner.
There are two ways to retrieve (or "decrypt") encrypted files:
* With the built-in jpeg viewer. The built in jpeg viewer will
automatically detect encrypted files and prompt you for the decryption
key if necessary.
* With decrypt.exe. Decrypt.exe (and for that matter, Encrypt.exe) are
standalone utilities that you can use to encrypt and/or decrypt a series
of files. Once decrypted with decrypt.exe, a file may be read by any
other program. To decrypt files, use a command line similar to the
following:
decrypt key filename.ext
Where "key" is the decrpytion key and "filename.ext" is the filename that
you want decrypted. You may use wildcards in the filename and decrypt.exe
will decryypt all files matching the specification. Decrypt.exe will not
"mess up" unencrypted files, nor will it improperly decrypt a file if an
improper key is supplied.
Decrypt.exe and Encrypt.exe have some additional options. Run the program
without any command line parameters to get a list of applicable options.
FILES.BBS Generation
FILES.BBS files are used by bulletin board systems to catalog files in download
directories. If you're the sysop of a bbs, then you may find the automatic
FILES.BBS generation useful. Otherwise, it probably won't be of much interest
to you.
Newsbot can create a variety of different FILES.BBS styles; You may select
whichever one works best with your bbs. If none of them do, then you can
probably find a conversion or import program for your bbs software which will
do the trick. The various styles are listed in the listbox. Selecting "none"
will disable files.bbs generation.
By default, Newsbot will generate a FILES.BBS file in each directory that files
are downloaded into. The FILES.BBS file will be "appended", not "overwritten".
You may specify an alternate filename if you wish. If you include a
drive/directory in the filename, then all groups will be listed in one big
file.
The "Convert to 8.3" option will put standard DOS 8.3 (filename.ext) filenames
in the FILES.BBS rather than the Windows-95 long filenames. For example,
"longname.jpg" would be entered as "longna~1.jpg". This may be useful for bbs
programs which do not understand long filenames.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Statistical Options
There are a variety of options listed under the statistics menu item. Most of
these simply return information that SBNews has collected while processing
newsgroups.
* Similar NewsGroups: Newsgroup headers contain an "Xref:" line which lists
other newsgroups to which a specific article has been posted. Many times,
a poster will "cross-post" an article to multiple groups which share the
same interests. The Similar Newsgroups list will display all of the
accumulated Xref's for the current area.
* HTTP Grabber: The HTTP Grabber automatically keeps a list of any WWW
addresses that are found in the text and/or subject lines of downloaded
messages. In addition, a HTML file called HTTPGRAB.HTM will be written to
the newsbot directory. You may load this file with your WWW browser and
look up any references that SBNews found.
* Dupe File List: The list that the dupe-checker keeps in memory to catch
dupe files.
* Dupe Subject List: The list that the dupe-checker keeps in memory to
catch duplicate subject lines.
* Latency: A measurement of how long it takes your news server to respond
to a command message. Times listed are in milliseconds (1 second = 1000
milliseconds). Slower or highly-used servers will have greater latency
times, whereas faster servers will have low latency times. If you are
using other Internet applications at the same time as NewsBot, then the
latency figure may rise.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Coord: The Newsbot Coordinator
Coord.Exe (only available in 32-bit version) may be used to synchronize the
dupe-checking capabilities of multiple news robots. Running multiple Newsbots
at the same time may allow you to better utilize some of the slower news
servers out there. To do this, you must run COORD.EXE before loading any
instances of Newsbot.
Some notes about using Coord:
* Coord should be considered EXTREMELY BETA. It seems to be working for
most of our testers, but there hasn't been time to conduct widespread
testing at this time.
* Make sure you run it before loading any newsbots.
* Coord is used to run multiple newsbots at a time -- if you only want to
run one newsbot, then don't bother with it!
* Coord has it's own preferences for the dupe checkers -- you might want to
be sure to set them to what you want.
* Dupe Checking Statistics in Newsbot will be unavailable while running
coord (use coord's dupe statistics instead)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unfinished Stuff
Although most of the core of Newsbot is finished, there are still quite a few
bells and whistles that I'm planning to add. If you have any features that you
would like to see that aren't listed below, then please email me. The following
are some of the more important things on my list:
* Ability to download newsrc (the list of newsgroups)
* Ability to specify search filters (i.e. only retrieve messages with xxx
in the subject field)
* "Catch-up" capability
* User specified download paths
* Multithreaded operation in 32-bit version
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the following people for their help, support, or
contributions to SBNews/Newsbot:
* The many people who've helped me beta-test!
* The Independent JPEG Group
* The ISO Jpeg Standards Committee
* Brian Kantor & Phil Lapsley (RFC977)
* S. Barber (NNTP Extensions document)
* The Papa winsock site
* The Tucows winsock site
* Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen, "Notes on News"
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Registration
SBNews/Newsbot is a shareware program and as such, you are only granted the
right to operate it for a limited time to evaluate it's performance. Continued
usage requires registration in the amount of $15.00.
For information on registration, please see REGISTER.DOC (or REGISTER.HTM).
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Contacting Me
US-Mail:
Scott M. Baker
2241 W Labriego
Tucson, Az 85741
United States of America
My Bulletin board:
The Not-Yet-Named BBS
(520) 544-4655 (USR Dual 14.4k)
(520) 797-8573 (USR Sportster 28.8k)
Email:
smbaker@primenet.com
My Homepage:
http://smbaker.simplenet.com
Find the latest SBNews/Newsbot at this address:
http://smbaker.simplenet.com/sbnews/sbnews.html
Find the latest SBJV at this address:
http://smbaker.simplenet.com/sbjv/sbjv.html
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Revision History
* Version 1.0
* Initial public release
* Version 1.1
* Added about dialog and shareware delay
* Cleaned up (shrunk) main screen and reorganized information
* Added context-sensitive hint text at bottom
* Fixed problem with message pointers not being recorded properly
* Version 1.2
* Added JPG viewer window (supported in 800x600 or above only)
* Probably fixed a nasty stack overflow (Runtime Error 202) bug that
was causing trouble with new users.
* Version 1.3
* Made JPEG viewer more crash resistant
* Increased JPEG viewer read buffer to deal better with images with
large headers
* Added a title to the main window
* Finished registration code system
* Version 1.4
* Added icon
* Version 1.5
* Made sure to free gensock.dll on exit
* Added Configure:Preferences dialog, many new preference options
* Version 1.6
* Raised counter-over threshold from 250 to 1000
* Set update timer at 100ms instead of 250ms
* Added Lockout Poster system
* Revamped dupe checker for better reliability
* Added similar newsgroups list
* Raised maximum number of newsgroups from 32 to 128
* Added view and delete options to current and previous menus
* Fixed problem with crashes on high-ascii characters in lockout
poster list
* Fixed possible bug with long header lines
* Now handles nonexistant newsgroups without halting
* Version 1.7
* Shareware delay now increments by 1 every day Newsbot is used
* Newsbot now stops loading groups from INI file when first blank
entry is found (speedup?)
* Revamped the dupe message checker (again!)
* Fixed bug which was causing unnecessary JPEG error 117
* Fixed problem with decoding lines that started with a double period
* Version 1.8
* Added message when old BWCC found
* Version 1.9
* Change "about" menu to "file" menu
* Added open jpeg viewer option to file menu
* Prevented crash if 0 messages in a group
* Added HTTP URL Grabber
* Fixed problem with long subject/from lines (i.e. >256 chars)
* Double clicking on the log will bring up a viewer
* Made sure files are written to proper directory
* All uudecode filenames are normalized to lower case
* Added dupe file checker
* Revamped dupe subject checker (again!)
* Version 2.0
* Added authentication support (AUTHINFO Original)
* Ability to deal with SOME mime messages
* Added acceptable file mask dialog
* 32-bit version available
* Incorporated gensock code into SBNews; Gensock.DLL no longer
needed.
* Fixed memory leak in jpeg viewer
* Used suballocater to deal with strman hash table nodes
* Added "add" and "refresh" options to similar groups dialog
* Version 2.1
* Spiffed up Jpeg viewer window
* Fixed up error handling on JPEG decoding routines
* Fixed possible error with "Null" strings
* Version 2.2
* Fixed problems with palette in 256 color mode
* More tolerant of uuencoded lines with extra characters
* Made small version of window even smaller
* Dupe File, Delete Current, and No Mask signals will now
disconnect/reconnect the session to keep from having to download
entire message.
* Several user-friendliness improvements
* Included SAMPLE_G.TXT, a list of binary picture newsgroups
* Added "-i [INIFILENAME]" command line parameter
* Added Save as BMP option to JPEG viewer
* Added Set Wallpaper option to JPEG viewer
* Added normal vs Wallpaper mode toggle to JPEG viewer slideshow
* If you drag & drop a JPG file into newsbot's main window, then
Newsbot will launch a Jpeg viewer window to view the file.
* Moved dupe checker preferences to their own menu item
* Added "Items to keep" settings for dupe checkers
* Fixed major distribution problem in hash function
* Added Blank option to Current/Previous menus to blank out the
current picture
* Viewer enable defaulted to active
* Fixed problem with long pathnames in jpeg viewer
* Fallback when improper BWCC.DLL loaded
* Version 2.3
* Fixed GPF on loadup of nonregistered users
* Version 2.4
* Fixed problem with invalid (missing?) dates causing GPF
* Made mime filename guesser stop at punctuation (except _ -)
* Added color options to Jpeg viewer
* Automatic restart after communications errors
* Added automatic start command line option -auto
* Added about box disable command line option -noabout
* Fixed possible GDI leak in small viewer windows
* Added wildcard (* and ?) support to lockout poster list
* Cached hostname/ip address for reconnect
* Added table of contents to documentation
* Included seperate register.htm / register.doc
* Automatic disconnect when all groups finished
* Added Exit menu item to file menu
* Version 2.5
* Fixed GPF when lockout poster list empty
* Version 3.0
* Major redisign of internal header listing
* Use linked list instead of array
* Use hash table while downloading rather than linear search
* Modification to header sort methods
* Store from & subject in hash table
* MSGID only stored for duration of current message; Needed to
save wasted memory.
* Major redesign of dupe checker routines
* Store from & subject lines in same hash table as header
listing to reduce memory requirements.
* Allow FROM and LINES fields to be included in comparison.
* FROM and LINES fields remembered and saved to disk
* Addition of [Headers] button to group list: Manually configure
header table
* Added Received File statistics to statistics menu
* Added Font configuration to config menu
* Added help text for menu options
* Added FROM and LINES toggles to dupe file checker
* Added LINES toggle to dupe subject checker; Made FROM toggle-able
* Revamped re search engine to support more than 4000 re nodes.
* Added Lockout-Subject and Lockout-Filename
* Made lockouts so they can be restricted to specific groups
* Revamped dupe checker dialog to include edit and find/findnext
features
* Added stateset system to RE checker to improve speed in RE
matchings
* Log files now include date in filename to make deleting old logs
easier
* Delete old logs option added; Defaulted to on; gets rid of previous
day(s) log files.
* Added delete button to jpeg viewer to speed up deleting.
* Added horizontal scrollbars to main dialog list boxes
* Added autosave configuration
* Added Save Preferences command
* Rewrote ctime function to tolerate bad dates
* Added Auto-Encryption to downloader
* Added Auto-Decryption to viewer
* Added Encrypt.exe and Decrypt.exe
* Added additional file formats to fullscreen jpeg viewer
* Version 3.1
* Bug Fix: Major problem with Jump-To button
* Bug Fix: Re-statesets (i.e. Lockout system) had a bogus quicksort.
Fix should run faster & use less memory.
* Jpeg Viewer: Added scaledown capability to TGA/BMP formats
* Jpeg Viewer: Index window
* Jpeg Viewer: Added stretch-to-fit option
* Set maximum headers per group to 8000
* Fixed infinite loop on nonexistant newsgroups
* Fixed crash in ctime with bad dates
* Fixed bug with shareware delay not working (Arrgghhh!)
* Fixed gif/bmp/tga support crashing big viewer in 256-color mode
* Version 3.2
* Fixed thumbnail viewers not working properly in 256-color mode
* Version 3.3
* Fixed scrollbars in full screen jpeg viewer
* Increased maximum number of newsgroups from 128 to 512
* Made "Path Expansion" a seperate menu option
* Added "full name" path expansion for win-95 users
* Added Path Prefix elimination to path expansion options
* Added READ and LOCKOUT buttons to header list
* Better mime filename guessing
* Auto append .JPG or .GIF to mime images if extention missing
* Fixed uudecode filename routines to handle quoted strings
* Re-aligned log listbox in large screen version
* Added categorization system to jpeg viewer
* Toggles for categorization and directory panes
* Added horizontal scrollbars to header listing
* 32-bit version: Changed header listbot to a ListView control
* Added lines field to header listing
* Fixed problem with jview colormodes not being saved properly
* Fixed memory leak in re stateset routines (eg lockout system)
* Minor speedup to re search routines
* Enabled current/previous viewers in 16-bit version
* Truncated subdirectory names to 8 chars in 16-bit version
* Added confirmation options to JPeg viewer
* JView file list reflects deleted files
* Added tabbed windows-95 main dialog option
* Added Configuration:Appearance option to set main dialog style
* Replaced line count by progress bar in 32-bit version
* Fixed GPF when "%" character in header
* Added Latency/Throughput statistics
* Version 3.4
* Fixed problem of .DOC file not being updated in previous release
* Added Menu to header dialog
* Added selection functions to header dialog menu
* Possible fix for Coord problems under NT 4.0 (maybe 3.5 too!)
* Turned on 32-bit packing in 32-bit versions
* Fixed abort problem in unregistered about dialog
* Added 5-minute timeout to NNTP routines
* Fixed message reader so it can handle passworded sessions
* Added stretch to min(Window,Fullsize) option to jpeg viewer
* Added center option to jpeg viewer
* Made Jpeg picture viewer background gray
* Eliminated flicker when resizing JPeg viewer
* Spiffed up appearance of Jpeg and Index windows with gray
background
* Eliminated auto-generation of header log
* Added save header log option to header dialog
* Added file marking options to jpeg viewer
* Added "only display marked files" option to slideshow
* Made move and delete handle marked batches of files
* Moved several of newsbots error messages to the resource file
* Allow 224 in place of 221; Fix for microsoft nntp server
* Send "mode reader" in response to a 200 or 201 message (only send
once!)
* Msg reader now has a window for header lines to be displayed
* Added Pointers button to let user change message pointer
* Version 3.5
* Fixed the "fix" I put in for "mode reader" in version 3.4
* Version 3.6
* Fixed problem with jpeg viewer delete button causing crash
* Added "-autoexit" command line option
* Added lockout host and lockout xref menu options
* Made Strman's Enumerate function not recalculate list if no changes
* Added too many xref limit to miscpref
* Added preload xref to miscpref
* Added Next and Previous menu items to Jpeg viewer menu
* Added keyboard shortcuts for next and previous items in Jpeg viewer
* Fixed tabbing problems in jpeg viewer somewhat
* Mouse click+drag can be used to scroll images in hpeg viewer
* Fixed JPeg viewer categorization pane getting messed up when window
resize
* Improved GrayStatic control; Eliminated unneccessary repaint of
full control
* Fixed wrong date being written to files.bbs file
* Version 4.0
* Added automatic lookahead to Jpeg viewer
* Maybe fixed a memory leak while viewing GIF/BMP files
* Newsbot will now load minimized if set by shortcut, etc.
* A port number may now be specified in the nntp host name (i.e.
news.foo.com:119)
* Set literal strings in code segment option in 16-bit version (save
dseg space)
* Added print command to jpeg viewer
* Added generate catalogs command to jpeg viewer
* Added context sensitive help to several dialog boxes
* Fixed minor tab-order problem in main window
* Added splitter to Jpeg Window to allow resizing of file/dir pane
* Added horizontal scrollbars to Jpeg Window file/dir pane
* Raised maximum number of Jpeg categories to 75
* Categorization pane will automatically go multi-column if necessary
* Added temporary checkbox to lockout list edit
* Stretched thumbnails to fill entire thumbnail window
* Centered thumbnails
* Fixed problem with large jpeg's not being displayed in thumbnail
viewer
* Fixed keyboard navigation in header window
* Header download now shows on progress bar
* Fixed protection violation when blank space is first character on
line
* Version 4.1
* May have fixed problem with 'Lockout Posting Host' causing crashes
* Reduced memory requirements of 'Preload XRef Headers'
* Fixed goof-up if path prefix removal removes entire group name
* Added 'Lockout Any Header'
* Added 'Lockout Organization'
* Added -autocat command line switch
* Added 'Default Command Line Switch' settings to configure menu
* Added 'Catalog All Groups' command to file menu
* Added timeout settings to configuration menu
* Changed JView path storage to use a variable rather than system
wide cwd so one JView window won't interfere with another's path
* JView windows opened on a specific filename will now automatically
switch to that directory
* Spiffed up jpeg viewer File:Open dialog
* Fixed help file problem if program not loaded from directory with
help file
* Version 4.2
* Fixed problem with lockout-any causing GPF on long header lines
* Added confirm delete toggle to Configure:Preferences dialog
* Added hotkeys for "Current" menu
* Added delete indicator to thumbnail preview
* Fixed problems with 16-bit version not working in Windows-3.1
* Spiffed up overwrite messagebox in jpeg viewer
* Version 4.3
* Added join directory command to jpeg viewer
* Jpeg viewer can now load bitmaps with less than 256 colors
* Raised Re-Stateset stack size from 2048 elements to 4096 elements
* Added "require file mask in subject" toggle to acceptable file
masks
* Fixed problem in RE search engine that had to do with high-ascii
characters
* Credit card registration now supported on web site
http://smbaker.simplenet.com/
* Web site moved from Primenet to Simplenet
* Added additional information to jpeg viewer overwrite messagebox
* Fixed problem with "Maintain NewsRc" switch not working properly
* Fixed bug with "Preload XRef Headers" missing the first newsgroup
in each xref
* Improved subject line filename guesser
* Eliminated mime header information from status display