BGQWK 1.0 BETA 40 SAT 14 NOV 92 -------------------------------- Well, beta 39 didn't make the last cut ... maybe Beta 40 will, . 1. The bug causing many offline readers to show the correct date info has finally been fixed! 2. BGQWK now does some things to make messages look more "qwk-like" while users read messages from GT on their QWK readers. 3. BGQWK will now check for 'controltype' messages addressed to GTQWK as well as BGQWK and QMAIL. 4. BGQWK now reports the correct CB handle in the PID file for LAN systems. BGQWK 1.0 BETA 39 SUN 8 NOV 92 -------------------------------- Unless I think of anything else to change or bug fix, Beta 39 will become the official BGQWK 1.0 in two weeks, . Let me know if you spot any bugs so we can wipe them out of here! 1. When users are downloading packets, any lines in a message that has a ';rep' on it will not be included in the packet. 2. Support has been added for multiple naming conventions for multiple QWK packet downloads per session ... i.e., the first QWK packet downloaded in a session is BBSID.QWK, if they download again and select N)ew packet, the next packet will be BBSID.QW0, again, BBSID.QW1, etc. 3. BGQWK now utilitizes the PID_FILE.BBS for LAN systems. It is updated enough so that a sysop (or user) will be able to tell pretty much exactly what is going on on that other node. BGQWK 1.0 BETA 38 SUN 1 NOV 92 -------------------------------- Well, a message I entered earlier this week in the BG companions echo said I was planning to fully release BGQWK 1.0 in a week if I didn't find any bugs. Well, thanks to the help of many people, we will continue beta testing until we swat the bugs. Anyway, if this release works okay for two or three weeks, then we'll try to go for full release then. I guess this pushes the release date back to Decemeber '92/January '93. (Well, it doesn't sound bad, but considering the original planned relase date was December '91/January '92 it sounds different, ). 1. Several people reported BGQWK locking up on some error messages. I traced this (at least the errors I could duplicate) back to some changes that were done in Beta 36 or before relating to the deletion of the temp disk swap file. Anyway, I've tried correcting this problem. Let me know if you still get lock ups or not. 2. Thanks to Roy Salisbury for finding some things that needed to be updated in the CONTROL.DAT file. The number of messages in a packet will now be inserted instead of a constant "0". Also, the headers in the MESSAGES.DAT file now include a relative message number. (The relative number on the last message should match the number of messages specified in CONTROL.DAT). Also, the line with the serial number and BBS ID was somehow messed up slightly. That has been corrected. Other problems that have finally been fixed ... If for some reason either the WELCOME, NEWS or GOODBYE file cannot be constructed, BGQWK will no longer add the respective filename to the CONTROL.DAT but rather leave it as a blank line. 3. Someone was inquiring about the amount of disk space BGQWK will use. The variable was always internal before, but now BGQWK will display the maximum about of disk space that it will possibly use for the MESSAGES.DAT file. The calculation (roughly) used lets the MESSAGES.DAT file be half the size of available disk space. So, if you use a 1024K ram disk, BGQWK will roughly use (at a maximum no matter what the user has selected as their maximum packet size) about 512K for the MESSAGES.DAT size. 4. For compatibility reasons between BGQWK and the new GT Beta, BGQWK will now place ";rep:callernum,serialnum" line on all incoming REP messages from your users. Please note that 'serialnum' will be ZERO unless you are a registered BGQWK user. Your GT serial number is stored in the BGQWK.KEY file. If you don't have a BGQWK.KEY file, i.e. aren't registered), BGQWK will not know what your serial number is. This isn't anything to worry about though. Paul Schwarz and Steve Johns may have to get in touch with me regarding this. 5. Again, for compatibility reasons, BGQWK will now support GT Beta's new netmail address format. I don't know if I'm at liberty to say what the characters are since this is a public beta release, so if you aren't a GT Beta tester this won't mean anything to you. BGQWK 1.0 BETA 37 SUN 18 OCT 92 -------------------------------- Hopefully, this will be the last BGQWK beta. If all goes well in this release for a few weeks, I'll release an offical BGQWK 1.0. Let me know if you find any bugs ASAP. 1. The "special person" option has changed a little. I don't think anyone used it, so it shouldn't make a difference. 2. The D)etails screen will now display properly with the new GT BETA. 3. BGQWK will now expand imbedded TAB characters to eight space characters. 4. BGQWK now supports 'NE:' messages. The extract: If a user uploads a message with the first three characters of the subject equal to 'NE:', BGQWK will mark the message as (BAGGED) so that the MBAGGER program will not process it and send it into the network. NE stands for "no-echo". 5. The new DN= option in BGQWK.CNF has been added to fix problems with unaffiliated netmail conferences. Here's the extract from the docs: DN= Set this equal to the "net id" that contains the netmail confernece you want unaffliated netmail messages to go into when posted by users. See the 'N,~' CONFERENCE OPTION sections a little further down in the documentation for more information on this. Please note that netmail messages can be placed in _any_ conference. BGQWK will assume a message is a netmail message if it contains an "xxx/yyy" netmail address as the first line in the message. The net and node numbers must be padded with zeros. Since you can have multiple netmail conferences (for example, one for GTPN and one for AFSN), BGQWK will select the netmail conference that has the same "net id" as the conference the message was entered in; i.e., if you enter a netmail message in GT/Cookbook it will go into GT/Netmail. If you enter a message into AF/TradePost, it will go into the AF/Netmail area. A problem comes up if a user attempts to enter a netmail message in an UNAFFILIATED conference like LO/Main Board. BGQWK will essential put the message in the trash can, because it doesn't know which netmail conference to place it into. To solve this problem, the "DN=" option in the BGQWK.CNF file will let BGQWK know which network to route unaffiliated netmail into. If you set "DN=GT", any LO/Main Board netmail will be sent in GT/Netmail. If you set "DN=AF", any LO/Main Board netmail will be sent in AF/Netmail. To check your netmail "routings", do a S)elect A)ll D)etails from the BGQWK user prompt to be sure nothing is routed into the dreaded "TRASH CAN". Please note that you should use the 'V' command line option to disable the searching of the NODELIST.BBS file if you are joined in multiple networks. BGQWK 1.0 BETA 36 SUN 20 SEP 92 -------------------------------- This is basically a bug fix and house keeping release. I want to get BGQWK released as soon as possible before my course load starts to get too heavy at school. Please note that BGQWK.EXE is now distributed in UNCOMPRESSED form. Two sysops reported that Beta 35 was unable to function with their 486 systems and we traced the problem down to the DIET EXE compression program. Don't be alarmed that the size of the BGQWK.EXE file has doubled! I would recommend compressing the EXE yourself, with either DIET or PKLITE. There will probably be one or two more betas before the release. Also, I've finally got a LAN installed at my house, so I'll finally be able to see first hand how BGQWK (and GT) works with one. 1. The author credits for the compression programs were listed in the wrong place in the C)onfig menu. 2. A new command line option has been added, F. F If specified, BGQWK will make a request to the user's offline reader that Fido style taglines should be used on all uploaded messages. Please note that the user's offline reader must support the "FIDOTAG = YES" command in the DOOR.ID file for this command line option to work. 3. BGQWK now appends the "MIXEDCASE = TRUE" line to the DOOR.ID file created in the QWK packet. QWK readers that support the MIXEDCASE variable will allow users to enter subject lines with both upper and lower case characters. 4. BGQWK will now scan for <249>[ and <250>[ psuedo-ansi and translate it into true [ ansi prefix codes on all uploaded messages. (Previously, BGQWK would only check for <`>[ psuedo-ansi codes, ... now all three are checked for. 5. Okay, so I can't make up my mind ... ... The BGQWK work directory will now be called BGQWKpid.WRK and the disk swap file will be called BGQWKpid.SWP. You don't need to be concerned about that. However, the log file will now be called BGQWKpid.LOG. Where "pid" is the network PID number (which is zero on non-LAN systems). The LOG file now contains the PID so that two BGQWKs don't try to write to the same LOG file at the same time. 6. Well, another long time bug rose from the dead ... The BGQWK swap file was not being deleted under a network environment. Some hacking of the EMS swap routines has fixed this, I believe. 7. The new 'SKIP' ('NOT') feature was moving users last read pointers when they should have remained the same. Fixed. 8. A bug was found causing net status users to sometimes download private mail in conferences the users didn't even have net status in. This has been fixed so that private messages are no longer bagged in a standard net status configuration. However, yet another NEW command line option has been made available. I, include private messages: I This option will allow net status users to have any private mail included in their packet. The private mail will come only out of the conferences they are granted net status into. 9. More than one netmail conference is now supported. Where the netmail messages goes depends upon which conference the message is entered in. For example, if you enter a message in a 'GT' conference, it will go into a netmail area that is identified as net 'GT'. If you enter a message in a 'AF' conference, it will go into a netmail area that is identified as net 'AF'. BGQWK 1.0 BETA 35 THU 27 AUG 92 -------------------------------- 1. FINALLY! The BGQWK.HLP file has been updated! The BGQWK.DOC file has again been updated for the changes made in Beta 35. 2. Error handling has been improved when the sysop forgets to set the GTPATH, DOS PATH, or command line parameters correctly. 3. Support for local logons has been added without having to go and manually edit the GTUSER.BBS file. To login locally, use the following command line syntax: bgqwk . g: /ll:*b.j. guillot dummy The "." just means I'm not using any special command line options. You can still add those in. The "/ll:firstname lastname" logs that specific user in locally. The "dummy" is just a dummy variable that will be used in the future, but it must be there. If you wish to login locally from DOS, I suggest writing a quick little batch file to do so. The "*" means give that user sysop authorities. 4. During Prepack Upload/Download mode, the time limit used was never really set at any specific value. Now, any prepack mode operation and local logon operation will default to 60 minutes. 5. The 'Z' command line parameter has changed. Now, if you are a registered user, 'Z' will force display of your registered BGQWK tagline on all uploaded messages. Before, if you were registered, 'Z' would stop the display of the tagline. It seems messages now-a-day have so much extra overhead from taglines, etc., that BGQWK shouldn't show the registered tagline unless the sysop really wants it to be shown. 6. BGQWK now checks to see if an errorlevel is reported from PKZIP, PKUNZIP, ARJ, LHA and/or LHARC. Normally, an errorlevel should never be reported from one of these programs, but, in some cases, such as memory errors, etc., they will report an errorlevel. If BGQWK finds that one is reported, it will exit out with a fatal error. 7. I have attempted to fix the error when pipelog reporting was used when users tagged files. BGQWK 1.0 BETA 34 TUE 4 AUG 92 -------------------------------- 0. ***** DELETE YOUR BGQWK.CTL FILE ***** THE FORMAT HAS CHANGED!!! Well, I originally planned to release BGQWK in December of 1991 ... well, it looks as if this open beta test is "still going and going and going" just like the Energizer Bunny. I am hoping to get BGQWK 1.0 released before I start my freshman year at college (starting August 31st). Anybody want to make any betas, oops, I mean bets on whether I will or not? Anyway this beta had much more stuff in it than I originally was planning to put into it. It came out to be a pretty major revision with all the new user flags, etc. Anyway, I'm providing something here that has finally been updated ... DOCUMENTATION!!! It originally hadn't been updated since December 29, 1991, but now, just 8 months late ... a REVISED copy! 1. ***** DELETE YOUR BGQWK.CTL FILE ***** THE FORMAT HAS CHANGED!!! Several people suggested that I add some additional user-settable flags to BGQWK. I was going to hold off until BGQWK 1.1, but decided to go ahead and put it in there. Anyway ... When the user selects the F)lag option in the S)elect Menu ... they will now have four choices: [0] Skip [1] To you [2] To you and "all" [3] All messages This should be a very nifty feature. 2. LHARC is now supported as a compression protocol. To determine if your system supports it, BGQWK will first checked for LHARC.EXE in the PATH. If that's not found, it will then check for LHA.EXE in the PATH. BGQWK will also auto-detect uploaded packet compression LZH format. PLEASE NOTE that you must be using the latest version of LHA (even if you rename it to LHARC)! (I'm using 2.12 if you're interested). 3. Attempted to fix bug with BGQWK pipelog reporting. It looked as if BGQWK were trying to open the GT.LOG twice at the same time to report the user logging off and this would cause parts of the log file to be scrambled. 4. The L)ist command has been altered to include the BPS rate the user lasted used the door at for statistical purposes. 5. The way "Prepack" mode is called has been changed somewhat. If you use the /PD or /PU feature, you MUST make the following changes to your batch files ... After the users last name, you must add an additional parameter, a directory name. Examples: BGQWK . G: /PU:B.J. Guillot C:\GT\OATMEAL BGQWK . G: /PD:B.J. Guillot D:\TASTES\GREAT This additional paramater is a MUST in /PD and /PU mode and BGQWK will not run Prepack mode without. Basically, in /PU mode, BGQWK will look for the id.REP packet in the C:\GT\OATMEAL directory. In /PD mode, it will create the id.QWK packet in the U:\TASTES\GREAT directory. This way, there will be no more hunting on your part to find out where BGQWK is looking/putting files if you forget what your entries in the GT.CNF file say. 6. Prepack mode may have not been allowing people with "*" sysop privledges the right for them to send "dot" commands through netmail. 7. If a ";" character exists on the first column of a line, the line will be treated as a "remark" and will not be read by BGQWK. (You can also use the dash "-" character). BGQWK 1.0 BETA 33 FRI 24 JUL 92 -------------------------------- 1. Added Q command line option: Q Normally, if a fatal error occurs, BGQWK will sound three short bells to alert the user and sysop. If you wish to disable the bell and use BGQWK in "quiet" mode, use this option. 2. In all non-Fido (8-bit strip) conferences, all psuedo-ansi "`[" characters will be converted to true ansi "[" characters when a user attempts to upload a message. In Fido conferences, as of this release, any characters will be converted to "`" rather than "~" as they had been converted in earlier versions of BGQWK. 3. BGQWK now supports something new--"special people". Basically, a sysop can now instruct BGQWK to "override" or "alias" a conference to a different pathname. Russell Kroll suggested this be done to assist non-GT sysops who wish to join the GT network. This already can easily be done by granting the non-GT sysop net status for all the echomail conferences, but there was no way to provide netmail service. First, here is how you set up "special people": sp=B.J. Guillot/045,g:\mail\nm_001040 <- for 001/040, not 001/070 let's say conference 45 has ... 045 | 0 | Netmail | lo=G:\MAIL\NM_001070,n Normally, no one except people with sysop access level will be able to view conference 45 (access level 0) and it normally is Russell's netmail area (g:\mail\nm_001070), but Russell wishes to give B.J. his own netmail area without using up another conference in his BGQWK.CNF, so he just makes B.J. a "special person". The net field will be changed to "$$" (and net status will authomatically be granted to the "special person" for that conference and any other "special" conferences) and the pathname to the message base will be changed to (g:\mail\nm_001040). Of course, this is all at the BGQWK level. You'll have to play funny tricks with MBAGGER and MDIST to alias and do other things to get two or more nodes netmail to go into different areas. If you want to do this, I suggest you contact Russell Kroll at 001/070 about it. 4. Changed work directory name to \BGQWK$DR.pid and swap file name to \BGQWK$WP.pid for compatibility with BGNET incase, for some reason, you try to run BGQWK and BGNET at the same time on a Desq'ed system without PIDing out the network. 5. Changed "express duplicate scan" logic somewhat to improve. ---------------truncated to save space