WINDIS.  Version 0.1 Alpha.

Basic Functionality:
This version of Windis has been designed to replace DICS and provide a bit more
functionality than DICS has.

NNTP Client:
Windis' nntp client is fairly standard although it provides updated feedback on the speed of
download.  It also allows you to download the complete list of groups every few days.  I figure
this is a useful addition since it only takes a couple of minutes and it's less of a bother than
sorting in the new groups.  NNTP batch is on by default.  Let me know if this is a problem.  It
does however, use the ka9q history file so you don't have to bugger about with access format
databases.


SMTP Client:
Again, a pretty bare bones client.  Unfortunately, due to a brain failure, I can't get the socket
timeouts to work very well so all the mail is being punted through your mail server.  You can
unset the option in the setup dialog (See later) but it will still get sent via post.demon.co.uk
(or whatever).  The hooks are in place for SMTP batch mode but I haven't really tested them
yet.

SMTP Server:
Seems to work fine.  At present, it default delivers all the mail it gets.  There's no checking
for valid user names and no bouncing of mail.  So if you get some mail to
unknown@myhost.demon.co.uk, you'll find a file in your incoming mail directory called
unknown.txt.  However, although it isn't very useful, the server accepts as many
simultaneous connections as you like.

Finger Client.
You can finger people (or coffee machines!).  There is a default finger string (which you
probably want to have as myhost@post.demon.co.uk) which allows you to check for your
mail with a single keystroke.  The finger names you set up appear on a menu.  More about
this later.

Time Client:
This is really boring.  I don't know why people bother.  Anyway, you can kick off a time client
to set the system time at any time.  Also, the news client kicks off a quick time client to set
the time before it downloads any news.  The system time is always set since who gives a
toss.  Note that a WM_SYSTIMECHANGE message is sent to windows and if you've got 400
applications open, this might slow things down a bit.

Setup Sets:
I'm often shifting my setup between home and work.  You can set up as many different setup
sets as you like and switch between them.  If there's a command line string, this is setup is
loaded.

Unbatching.
Yes, the unbatch I wrote for Newswin has been included.  Well, why not?

Nice User interface.
Well, I think so.

Async Host Lookup:
Currently, windis calls gethostbyname in the winsock library rather than calling
WSAAsyncGetHostByName and waiting for a message to come back.  This is pure laziness
on my part.  However, while say the mail client is resolving an address, the nntp client may
get a whole string of WSAEINPROGRESS errors until the name is resolved.  However,
unlike DICS, windis realises this is going to happen and retries.  Infact, for interest, I think
this is why DICS hangs.  It is very dependent on when the resolution happens but reading the
code for the WSANET vbx control, it looks like it's getting screwed when this happens....

Sort out kick logic:
Although you set the number of seconds to kick everything, it still doesn't seem to get the
message.  (Might be fixed in the release).

Sending mail direct if possible.
Aforementioned brain failure permitting.

Batch Mode SMTP
...I know it makes sense.

Animated Minimised Application Icon
..Can't be bothered to draw them.

Much much better bitmaps for the toolbar buttons.
I know they're horrible but I want to get the program working first.

Better icons
for the SMTP client and SMTP server windows...if anybody has got any nice icons that they
think might fit then send them to me...

Short Cut setup for Demon users.

POP3 client.
Pretty much finished but I haven't got a real pop3 account to test it out on.  Maybe next
month..

Telnet Client
...maybe.

Support for WinPMail and UMail mailboxes.
The hooks are all there, the objects are all waiting to be subclassed, it's just a matter of me
finding time and the file formats.  Anybody got any info?

Support for bouncing mail and validating users.

Optimisation.
Somebody (Knuth?) said that the way to screw up a program was to try to optimise it before
you've finished.  There's lots of places where things are done really stupidly which will be
fixed.

Error Messages:
There's some pretty obscure error messages and there's some places where things aren't
checked terribly well.  This is next on the list.

Tracing:
Right now, I'm not sure what gets traced at level 2 and what gets traced at level 6 etc.  This
has to be sorted out.

Sensible support for timeouts.
There's some socket timeout checking but it's all a bit seat of the pants.

Other things that people request.
.....this is up to you people.

So that's the current and future state of play.  Your feedback and bug reports will be
extremely useful in prioritising these and fixing them.  I need feedback on real bugs
(obviously), features which don't work, user interface issues which are wrong, user interface
features which look rubbish, features which should be added.  To give you some idea of
where I'd like to get to, I'd like to see Windis + a Winsock Stack + Newswin (or WinPMail and
WinSnews)+ ws_ftp and mosaic(?) to be able to be distributed by Demon as an "Internet in a
box" sort of product.  So windis has to be extremely easy to use and pretty much as
unbreakable as DIS.