October 23, 1990 Updates, news, and changes between FrontDoor 1.99c and FrontDoor 2.00: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- General ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- * MS/PC-DOS 3.10 or above is now required. * Added AT-BIOS detection and time slicing. * FD and FM now resolves any partially entered paths and ALWAYS uses a complete path name. This should also make sure the Novell filename convention (server\vol:path) syntax is handled properly. * FD now requires that the FOSSIL you're using supports the enable/disable transmitter call (function 0x10, 16 decimal). It doesn't check if it's present or not, it's just assumed that the FOSSIL drivers out there follow the FSC-0015 specs. * Improved handling of DOS shells, etc. Specially in environments like Novell where it's possible to remap A: to a network drive, but not the other way. * Fixed problem with using short-form addressing within your own net. Short-form addressing (ie. '.286', '308', '308.3') is ONLY valid for your own network and is always assumed to be in whatever your primary AKA is defined as. * Option to disable window shadows. It can be disabled by using NOSHADOW in the FDOPT= environment variable, or by running FD, FM, and SETUP with /NOSHADOW. * Added true filename resolution (configurable) for all filename prompts. * Added support for '.' and '..' as filemasks in expansion routines. '.' expands to '*.*' and '..' expands to '..\*.*'. * Added support for FDOPT enviroment variable. To indicate more than one string, separate them by a comma, ie. FDOPT=NODASH,INTL. A list of supported strings/switches follows (most of these can also be specified on the command-line): RDEBUG Enables Mailer routing debug output. Useful for tracking route file errors. NODASH Forces FD and the Terminal to strip the - (dash) from all dialed numbers (except those dialed from a script). This was implemented because some modems can't handle the dash character. NOMDM Forces FD to ignore the information the MODEM section in FDNODE.CTL, allowing you to run several copies of FD using the same FDNODE.CTL with different modems. NOSLO Forces FD to never use SEAlink Overdrive (SLO) during mail sessions. NOEKBD Forces the programs to not use Enhanced keyboard calls, regardless of the FD.SYS setting. INTL Forces FM and FD to always create an INTL line whenever a new message is created. NOZAP Disable ZedZap (only do DietIFNA if YooHoo). NOYOOHOO Disable YooHoo handshaking. NOFTSC1 Disable FTSC-0001 handshaking. NOEMSI Disable EMSI handshaking. NOBNUD Don't attempt to detect BNU FOSSIL driver. NOMULD Don't attempt to detect multi-tasker software. NORES Don't use path/filename resolution (required for PC-MOS/386). * The nodelist browse function now shows all the flags of a system when you press (verbose) instead of just "Accepts crash mail". * Added move function to folder manager in SETUP. This allows you to reposition folders precisely to where you want them. The "Sort folder/ type" function was removed. * Changed maximum folder limit in SETUP to 300 folders. * Added "Synchronize" function to SETUP's security manager. This one should make it a little less painful for those of you who talk to systems with a million AKAs :-) * SETUP's security manager now allows you to specifically disable EMSI, YooHoo, FTSC-1, etc. for specific systems during outbound connections. This allows you to disable EMSI for those systems it may cause problems with. * Added CDMASK (Carrier Detect Mask) to FD and SETUP (commercial version) so it's possible to change the CD mask in case of a NUL modem connection, etc. The default is 128. * Added FDCD (FrontDoor Communications Driver) inbound and outbound buffer sizes (commercial version). * Added fourth (and optional) field to NAMES.FD. You can now specify an optional subject after the address field. Ie. am3,AreaMgr,3:632/308,coolpwd -Q It will not be placed in the subject line if you use Alt-D (change destination) from within editing or view mode. For the mailer, the fourth field can be used to automatically insert filenames in the (Transmit), and (Get) functions. * Added extensive and very flexible AKA matching table. * Added "AUTO" mode for number of lines on display. This means that having a setting of "25" will force the program(s) to reset the screen to that mode. "AUTO" will adapt to the current screen mode, and "43/50" forces "43" or "50" line mode depending on the adapter in your machine. Mailer ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- * "File requests not accepted from unlisted systems." has been removed from the failed request response message and changed FD so that the following is added to the response if the requesting system is unlisted: This system does not allow file requests right now. And "- Ignored file request (unlisted system)" is logged to disk. * Outbound BARK file/update request support. Inbound BARK file/update requests is scheduled for the 2.01 release. * If the specified filemask for a BARK update request (eg. C:\UPDATE\IM*.*) doesn't exist, the following is logged and displayed: - C:\UPDATE\IM*.*: No target exists And the update request is converted to a normal BARK file request. The files received for IM*.* (above) will still end up in C:\UPDATE. * Improved DietIFNA (YooHoo/SEAlink/Telink) and FTSC-1 (Xmodem/Telink) sessions. Tested FD with Fido 11w in both incoming and outgoing mail sessions. * Added support for FTS-0049 (Bob Hartman's "domain" proposal) during YooHoo sessions. * Threw out the Xmodem/Telink/SEAlink transmitter code completely and spent a few hours coding the new transmitter precisely according to the FTS-0007 specs. put out by Phil Becker/Thom Henderson (thanks again guys, they were beautiful). This means that FD now supports RESYNC (restartable as well) SEAlink, SLO, and the SEAlink MacFlow option when sending Xmodem/Telink/SEAlink. * Changed maximum number of session-level passwords from 255 to 512. * Changed the 'Truncate()' function to use _create() instead of opening the file and writing zero (0) bytes. * Made sure the 'IMM' (Immeditate) and 'DIR' (Direct) message status isn't honored unless the message originated from your system. * Made sure FD treats In-Transit mail as Kill/Sent, regardless of if the Kill/Sent flag is actually present in the message header or not. * Completely new routing code. Added MYPOINTS as a ROUTE macro. It will expand to "zo:ne/no" where zo is your zone, ne is your net, and no is your node. Added MYZONE as a ROUTE macro. It will expand to "zo:ALL" where zo is your zone. Changed MYNET to mean "zo:ne/ALL" where zo is your zone and ne is your net. Use the below described short addressing to address individual systems in your net. The short addressing (10, 11, 12, 13, etc.) used to indicate a system in your own net didn't have your ZONE in front of it. Ie. "10" meant "/10" rather than ":/10". A "Hold ALL" wouldn't have any effect on a message marked as DIRect and also had a file attached to it. Changed how "Hold file requests" is treated. If enabled, FD will ignore any locally generated (your) file request messages EVEN if the destination system calls in. If "Hold file requests" has been enabled for the event, then they will be held. Fixed the treatment of "Send to systems once only" so that an IMM (Immediate) message doesn't screw up dynamic events. Ie. you have an event that will "End when no more mail to send" and "Send to systems once only".. * Support for the TrailBlazer "FAST" modem response to indicate a reliable link. Supported substrings are now ARQ, REL, MNP, V42, FAST, and LAPM; and any connection that's at 9600 or above. * Support for Mark Howard's original "capability word" suggestion (which was later improved on by Jan Vroonhof). * Session handler no longer attempts to do a Zmodem send if the calling system refused to pickup its mail. * Instead of renaming an invalid .PKT, FD now sets the Read-Only file attribute on it and the following is displayed: ? Grunged packet: 98739124.PKT; set to Read-Only Programs like TosScan and FrontDoor ignore packets with the read-only bit set. * When scanning a message, FD will use the zone found in the MSGID line (if any) as the default destination zone, unless an INTL line is found. * When FD 'touches' FMRESCAN.NOW (after a mail session, or when it has received new mail), FDRESCAN.NOW is also 'touched' in case there are more than one FD (mailer) running in the same machine or on a network with a shared netmail folder. * Made sure "Failed request" message (.PKT) has three NULs at the end rather than just one. * Tidied up the logging code a bit - it should now be *theoretically* possible to disable all log levels and not get anything logged to disk. * Added "Heartbeat" support in EMSI code (sender and receiver). * Drastically improved repacking of OUTBOUND.HIS and INBOUND.HIS (mail history). * Added optional display of the current time in the main activity window. * Added undialable indicator (UD). If FDNODIAL.SYS exists in FD's SYSTEM directory, the text "UD" will be shown to the left of where the waiting mail (Mail) indicator is shown. "UD" will be shown in the same color as the program header and will never flash (blink). * Added EMSI session transaction numbers. This allows two system operators to synchronize their logs and find possible unauthorized or unknown connections. Whether or not your system actually logs the transaction information is controlled by the ':' (Transaction info) loglevel. The log entry looks like: :