BGQWK 1.0 BETA 26 SAT 21 MAR 92 -------------------------------- 1. At the request of the users of the door, I have changed the logic of 'attended' download (not unattended) somewhat. Before, BGQWK would create a QWK packet (sometimes taking several minutes) and then ask the user if he/she wishes to download, hangup after the download or abort the transfer right then and there. Now, BGQWK will still ask this same question, but if a response is not given in a certain number of seconds, BGQWK will automatically assume "regular continue download" and will start the download and return to the BGQWK menu when done. Hmm... Now that I think about it though, there isn't much difference in unattended download and attended download now--except for the fact that unattended download will log off after 30 seconds or so and attended download will return to the prompt (timeout within 4 minutes if no keyboard input received). 2. A new option on the C)onfig menu--(O) Allows you to select how many seconds before a timeout occurs on the timed-prompts. It will default to 15, but users can set it anywhere from 5 seconds to 90 seconds. The two timed prompts so far include 1) the one mentioned up above and 2) the automatic hangup. 3. If you wish to grant PREPACK users (/pu or /pd) sysop authorities for some reason, simply place a "*" right before the users first name on the command line. This will allow them to send "dot" commands and receive private messages. Examples: bgqwk . f: /pu:*russell kroll this will allow Russell to upload "dot" commands in prepack mode bgqwk . f: /pd:russell kroll no "*", so it only packs up regular messages bgqwk . f: /pd:*russell kroll grants sysop authority and he can prepack any private messages 4. BGQWK will now create a USER_MSG.IDX file if not found and will continue to create a USER_MSG.CTL file if that isn't there either. (503+1 records are created in USER_MSG.IDX). 5. Fixed a minor bug in the ansi driver. If you saved your GOODBYE screen with a maximum length of 255 characters, BGQWK would not add the carriage return, line feed correctly. This is probably the reason several of you reported problems with the driver. If you were not saving your screens with a length of 255 and are still having problems, PLEASE let me know. 6. Added a few things to the BGQWK.LOG. 7. Fixed a minor problem with "/pd" prepack download mode. 8. Fixed a problem with the S)elect then D)etails command misprinting conference extended descriptions when double-decker color commands were used in GTMDIR.BBS (such as $[Hello]), etc. 9. Fixed a problem with the netmail packing logic. If a user had netstatus and uploaded messages into the netmail conference, more than likely, that same message would be echoed back to the user later. Now, this problem should be taken care of. Maybe I can have reliable netmail connects from now on?? 10. Fixed some problems with the ^F file insertion. BGQWK was only doing it with bulletins, but now it will also insert ^F files on WELCOME, NEWS, and GOODBYE files. 11. Dan Mancuso said that BGQWK is leaving its temporary disk file (a hidden file known as BGQWK.$$$) in the work directory after the user exits the door. I could not duplicate the problem on my system, but I assume it has something to do with his Novell setup not wanting to let BGQWK delete the hidden file. Well, I managed to change the swap unit so that the BGQWK.$$$ file is a normal attribute file so it should be deleted as the user exists the door. Let me know what happens, Dan! (By the way, if you do a shell, alt-1, in BGQWK, don't delete the BGQWK.$$$ file in the work directory unless you want to loose the current BGQWK session). BGQWK 1.0 BETA 25 MON 15 MAR 92 -------------------------------- 1. Due to the negative feedback and to popular demand the 'H' (don't allow G)oodbye from inside of BGQWK) command line option has been brought back, however, it does come with a catch--it's had a face lift. If you specify the 'H' command line parameter, BGQWK will still give your user's the option to G)oodbye from the BGQWK main menu, however, it will not actually drop DTR so your computer will not reboot (like some computers do). BGQWK will simply exit with Errorlevel 1 so that you can run some kind of keyboard buffer stuffer program (like KEYFAKE) that will automatically generate a "G" and "Y" for the equivilant of a G)oodbye Y)es command from inside of GT. Of course, using the buffer stuffer is completely optional so you might just inform your users that the G)oodbye command will simply return them to the board. 2. Several people have requested something that will let users see a more detailed list of conferences rather than the ten character limit of the QWK specification. I've given you something in this beta--I don't know if its exactly what you were looking for, but it's a start in that direction. Off the S)elect screen, there is a new command D)etails. When a user chooses `)etails, BGQWK will run through the GTMDIR.BBS file on the BBS and cross-index it with the BGQWK.CNF database giving your users up to a 50 character description of each conference. Right now, it's only to be used as reference, but I think it looks interesting. 3. Support for creating ARJ QWKs and receiving ARJ REP's is now included. The user can select whether they want ZIP or ARJ style bags from inside the C)onfig menu. (Sysops must have ARJ.EXE in their DOS PATH if they wish to offer ARJ style bags to their callers). 4. At the request of Jerry Hook and others, whenever a user attempts to J)oin a conference off the S)elect menu, the cooresponding WELCOME.CBS or WELCOME.BBS file will be displayed and the user will be prompted for a enter to return to the S)elect screen. (The use of the WELCOME.BBS file is optional and BGQWK will work fine without it being there!) 5. Several sysops and users found a bug when uploading REP packets with a large number of messages in them. The reference number checking procedure was causing BGQWK to eat up too many file handles and it would bomb out with an fatal i/o [4] error. I believe that problem is now fixed. 6. Fixed a small problem with the finding a corrupted message logic when bagging new messages. 7. The log file now includes which version of BGQWK (beta-wise) is used for the user since many people are forgetting to tell me which beta version they are using when reporting bugs or suggesting comments. 8. Some cosmetic changes; V)ersion command now displays corrected on unregistered copies of BGQWK and a little "clock" is displayed when initializing the door so caller's won't worry about BGQWK locking up. Also, all "M)ain" commands have been changed back to "Q)uit". It just drove me crazy after a while. 9. BGQWK.CNF can now be placed in individual node's GTPATH's on networks. I forgot drive letters were sometimes reassigned . BGQWK will first check for a BGQWK.CNF in the node's GTPATH. If it can't find it, it will then check the LAN path directory. BGQWK 1.0 BETA 24 SUN 1 MAR 92 -------------------------------- 1. DELETE YOUR BGQWK.CTL FILE!!! The format has changed (yet, yet, yet again). I removed some unimportant fields but, at the request of many of you, added something internal to BGQWK that will keep your BGQWK.CTL file at the smallest possible size. On my system, I probably had like 100 people that had opened the BGQWK door, but only 20 or so ever used it. With the new format control file, if a user did not do anything (no QWK packet downloads), there record will be there, but if a new user enters the door after they did, their record will be overridden so no space is wasted (similiar to the way GT Power handles deleted records). And LAN user's don't have to worry. The new control file contains an "in use" byte so BGQWK won't overwrite a current user's record. (In L)ist mode, any "in use" record will be highlighted if you are in ansi mode in the door). 2. IMPORTANT FOR SYSOPS USING BGQWK IN "PREPACK" MODE --- The command line parameter for prepack mode has changed to /PD:first last. Example: bgqwk . f: /pd:russell kroll Prepack mode can now be used in reverse... to accept REP packets rather than create QWK packets. To use Prepack mode in reverse, simply: bgqwk . f: /pu:russell kroll 3. People in my support conference had reported difficulties when first installing BGQWK because it wouldn't acknowledge their general message base was in the config file. I played around with this but could not duplicate the problem with the caps, however, I did discover another problem and fixed that. If the main message area was greater than 255, BGQWK will not recognize it. 4. Some cosemetic adjustments have been made. 5. If a user's netmail message was identified as a duplicate, a netmail credit would be taken from them anyway. Fixed. BGQWK 1.0 BETA 23 SUN 23 FEB 92 -------------------------------- There hasn't been a beta release in about a month. I was pretty busy and just now had the chance to work on it. Please read the following change information. Especially the first three items. 1. In order to optimize BGQWK for LAN use, I made a decision that may have an affect on your setup. From now on, all BGQWK support files (BGQWK.CTL, BGQWK.HLP, BGQWK.CNF, BGQWK.KEY) must be placed in your LANPATH directory (if you don't have LANPATH directory, it's the GTPATH directory). If you still don't know what I'm talking about, just copy all the BGQWK*.* into the same directory with your USER.CTL file. This change is being done so that people don't have multiple copies of BGQWK files lying everywhere. This change was recently done only for BGQWK.CTL, and it worked so well, I decided to do it for all BGQWK support files! 2. The 'H' (allow hangup) command line parameter has been removed. In order for BGQWK to operate the same on every board and to not confuse users of the door, I felt this was necessary. If your board reboots because the carrier is dropped, you need to get a hold of DVDOOR and install it in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. 3. Many people have been complaining about "fatal error: 8 on exec(" errors. An "8 on exec" means that not enough memory is left to run the child process (DSZ, PKZIP, PKUNZIP, COMMAND.COM, etc). A way to solve this problem is overlay the door, but I put something inside BGQWK to help solve this problem for you as well so you won't have to overlay the BGQWK door anymore! This beta version, when shelling to a child process, will dump itself into EMS or a disk file (BGQWK.$$$) and give the child processes about an extra 150K of memory to work with! I've tried it on my computer and on Russell's computer running Desqview and it seems to work fine on both so I hope it works good on yours. Let me know how it goes! 4. Warren Leadbeatter found a security bug in BGQWK relating to netmail handling. If you use to use GT's tight netmail security features, add the 'T' parameter to the BGQWK command line. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you can ignore this option. Since I don't have a "real" netmail 5. Eric McDerrmott discovered a gigantic bug with the processing of the PTR file. What did it do? Well, basically, it would mess up all your last read pointers rather than fixing them, . Fixed. 6. Craig Clark discovered ^F substitutions in bulletins were not working. I added the capability for one-deep subs. I didn't really feel it was that necessarily to go more than one-deep. Let me know. 7. Bryan Nylin discovered a GT-related bug that caused problems with some offline mail readers. Since GT stores 0:00 as 24:00, the mail readers thought the time was corrupt and refused to display it. BGQWK now changes the "24:xx" time to " 0:xx" when inserting in the QWK packet. 8. More cosmetic changes. At the request of some people, I've changed many of the Q)uit commands to M)enu so users won't get confused. Personally, I don't like it too well and might change it back to Q)uit if I get many negative responses. BGQWK 1.0 BETA 22 SAT 25 JAN 92 -------------------------------- 1. Changed REP packet processing logic drastically. a) All messages sent to the door will be marked NOT RCV'D regardless of the flag in the MESSAGES.DAT file b) If a message is directed to "SYSOP" normally BGQWK converts it to the sysop's name, however, now, if BGQWK senses the message is directed to a remote system, BGQWK will leave the "SYSOP" name intact as "Sysop". (A remote system is detected if the message is directed to someone via netmail or if the first two characters in the message are "->". c) BGQWK will no longer use the date/time stamp when checking for duplicate packets since some computer platforms don't add a date/time stamp to their REP files causing BGQWK to think ALL uploaded messages were duplicates. As a result, the R)eset..D)upe function has also been removed since it is meaningless now. d) Several people have reported lockups when users have uploaded REP packets. I believe I've fixed the problem. (It had to do with special control messages not being handled correctly). e) Messages uploaded will now maintain their ORIGINAL date and time, as entered by the user. Why? Because several people have told me that duplicate killers are killing uploaded messages because the date and time are the same (because fast computers can unpack, say, 10 messages in the same time-minute-frame, but people usually don't enter messages in the same time-minute-frame). f) as messages are uploaded, BGQWK will scan for duplicates in the message base before posting the message. This may take a little longer, but it's probably worth it. g) when messages are uploaded from a NON-net status person, if the current user name does not match the uploaded message user name, the message will not be posted at all--before the message would be inserted into the base with the current user's name rather than the message.dat user name 2. Daniel Liebling discovered if a user did a C)onfig..T)ransfer Protocol and then hit ENTER, their current protocol would become blank. Fixed. 3. Allow users to [H]angup after or [ESC] abort transfer before transfer begins at the request of several people. BGQWK 1.0 BETA 21 SAT 18 JAN 92 -------------------------------- 1. Fixed a MAJOR problem with the net status logic. Net status would never work properly on conferences 0, 128, 256, etc, and on all the rest, the positions were shifted over one causing much trouble. Thanks to Richard Walker for discovering this bug. 2. The P)revious command off the S)elect meny now works properly when in the first screen. 3. Fixed some problems with linking message reply numbers. When a reference number was used, the "see reply" flag was being used instead of the "see original". Fixed that and now also flag the other message header so that a reference pointer is generated. This is probably a bug that goes all the way back to the BGPCK days. Fixed. 4. Jerry Hook and others discovered that if you specified a file to be inserted as a new file list (via the UP= directive), it wouldn't be inserted. This feature is now BACK! (Remember, this is completely optional). 5. Fixed a rather peculiar problem with the index/hashing logic. I have two users on my board "Clif Davis" and "Greg Miller". Because their hash codes just happen to be the same, BGQWK would assume "Clif Davis" was on the board when, in actuality, it was "Greg Miller". (Yes, that may have caused some potential security problems). All is fixed now, I believe. 6. Fixed a few minor problems with the ansi driver (that's why ASCII screens were having double linefeeds, etc and also the [xH commands were not being treated properly. Fixed another bug in the ansi driver that caused background attributes to be brough up rather than blinking attributes. Fixed a bug that caused BGQWK to lock up if an illegal ansi call was read. BGQWK 1.0 BETA 20 SAT 11 JAN 92 -------------------------------- ATTENTION ALL REGISTERED USERS: Chris Cook discovered quite a big bug in the registration logic that causes all registered BGQWK's beyond serial number 29 to assume they are unregistered. This problem has been corrected, BUT in order to do so, I had to change the format of the BGQWK.KEY file. You will need to pick up a new KEY file in door number 4! We've overshot the tentative release date a month already, so we might as well keep beta testing, . Several bugs have been reported, but I just didn't have the time to get all of them. I have corrected as many as I could for this beta. This release will only contain the regular version of BGQWK.EXE. From my experience, the AT version ran about the same speed as the XT version. Do any of you have any comments about the difference in XT and AT versions? Well, the source code to BGQWK has gotten so large that I can't even use the Turbo Pascal 5.5 internal editor anymore, so all future versions will be compiled under Turbo Pascal 6.0. (I'll just use it's command line processor since I _hate_ the 6.0 environment!) Beta 19 was very buggy. Numerous bugs have been fixed in this release. 1. The problem John Ferra's users have been reported has finally been corrected (the problem with private messages sent through Winqwk were being marked before it actually was). 2. I have again tried to fix the problem with the garbled select screens on some systems running high speed modems and I belive I fixed it. Let me know please! 3. A bug since long betas since has been fixed. If a user dropped carrier on the board, BGQWK would not clean up its work directory. Fixed. 4. Finally! Errors will now be logged in the BGQWK.LOG file that is created in the GTPATH directory. The log file will probably be changing all the time to suit the needs of the sysops running the door. Let me know what all you want me to add to the log file. 5. Dan Mancuso has suggsted that BGQWK not bomb out when it encounters a missing .MSG or .MES file. This is now done and BGQWK will report the error on screen and in the log file. 1-10-92 19:27 Guest Account~Houston, Texas 1-10-92 19:28 CORRUPTED [D:\MAIL\GENERAL\GTMSGS\00100.MES] SOM2 1-10-92 19:28 CORRUPTED [D:\MAIL\GENERAL\GTMSGS\00100.MES] SOM4 1-10-92 19:28 CORRUPTED [D:\MAIL\GENERAL\GTMSGS\00100.MES] SOM7 1-10-92 19:28 user returns to the board If you are using GT 16 or later, the SOM id will also be given for debugging purposes. 6. Jerry Deguzman reported a bug that has now been fixed. BGQWK was not "trimming" imbedded spaces from the end of some strings in the BGQWK.CNF file causing problems with PKZIP. 7. Fixed some little strang things with the strip bit routines. If BGQWK displays a "unregistered" tagline, high bit characters were not being stripped. Fixed. Also, when the bits are stripped, if it happens to come out to be an ^X, ^Z or null, they will be converted to "~". (Those some redifintions will be used on normal conferences as well). Also, in strip bit conferences, any ESC character will be changed to "~" as well. 8. Several people reported a major bug in prepack mode. If no new messages were available, the program would get stuck in an infinite loop. Fixed. ---------------truncated to save space