This NewsWatcher version (2.0d15 Latin1) was modified by Lasse Hiller√∏e Petersen <lassehp@imv.aau.dk> to support ISO 8859-1 (Latin alphabet No. 1) character set in a MIME compatible way.
• When reading articles, characters will be converted from 8bit Latin1 to the Macintosh character set, no matter what. 8bit Latin1 is widely used on Usenet, so I consider it the de facto standard.
• When posting articles, characters will be converted to Latin1 and sent using 8bit encoding, with appropriate MIME headers.
• When mailing replies, characters will be converted to Latin1 and sent with MIME headers, using 7bit quoted-printable encoding which is suitable for Eudora1.4fc1 or better. (Highly recommended.)
KNOWN BUGS AND SHORTCOMINGS
The implementation is pretty brain-dead. It does not conform to RFC-1342 (Representation of Non-ASCII text in Internet Message Headers) but will try to send 8-bit characters if they occur in the headers. As the dialogs only permit plain ASCII anyway, this can only happen by editing headers directly. With 8-bit transparent news, this will probably work fine, but SMTP servers will strip the highest bit, so æøå in mail headers will become fxe. This will only happen in headers. RFC 1342 specifies:
From: Lasse Hiller√∏e Petersen <lassehp@imv.aau.dk>
to be encoded as:
From : Lasse =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Hiller=F8e?= Petersen <lassehp@imv.aau.dk>
so perhaps you understand why I didn't bother.
The implementation does not care about word-wrapping and line lengths. Possibly it will construct lines longer than 76 characters when replacing multiple letters with quoted-printable encodings. If this turns out to be a significant problem with other MIME mailers and newsreaders, let me know.
As the Macintosh character set does not contain all ISO 8859-1 graphic characters, this implementation cannot claim to implement ISO 8859-1 in full. However, most European letters (except Icelandic) are supported.
Icelandic users of can probably modify the conversion table with ResEdit to support eth and thorn, which replace single angled brackets and the ff and ffl ligatures in the fonts from Icelandic system software. (Let me know if you do so.)
DELIBERATE OMISSIONS
In the first "Danish-speaking" version (a modification of 1.3d6) I had primitive support of ISO 646-DK. RFC 1341 discourages the use of ISO 646, so this has been omitted in this version, and will not be added.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The conversion tables ('TRLT' resources) are taken from the program MacToISO 1.0 by Carles Bellver <bellverc@si.uji.es>.
This version is mailware: if you use it, please drop me a line, so I can notify you about improvements. I will try to keep it synchronized with the versions from John Norstad, until he gets around to implement MIME in a more stable and capable manner.
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NewsWatcher is free. It may not be resold for profit or included with software which is sold for profit, but otherwise you should feel free to use it and redistribute it.
Please note that this is a development version of the program (it’s not even beta yet!). That’s what the “d” stands for in the version number. Many features are not yet implemented. There are many known problems and errors which have not yet been fixed. You can expect existing features to change as the development process continues. If you require perfection in your software, do not use this program!
On the other hand, you shouldn’t let the previous paragraph frighten you. Most people report that NewsWatcher is very robust, even in its current unfinished state, and they find it useful and like the program.
The anonymous FTP site for the program, its documents, and the Think C source code is ftp.acns.nwu.edu, directory pub/newswatcher. Please read the documents, especially the user document.
NewsWatcher requires a Macintosh running System 7.0 or later with 2.5 megabytes or more of memory and a hard drive. The Mac must be connected to the Internet, and MacTCP must be properly installed and configured. For dialup use, NewsWatcher works with the various SLIP and PPP programs, and with AppleTalk Remote Access together with an appropriately configured AppleTalk/IP gateway.
The original version of NewsWatcher was written by Steve Falkenburg of Apple Computer. John Norstad of Northwestern University is leading the current project to continue development of the program. John Werner of UC Berkeley is a major contributor. Other contributors include Steve Dorner, Ron Flax, Haydn Huntley, Steve Klingsporn, Peter Lewis, Jeremy Norstad, Howard Rafal, Larry Rosenstein, Jeroen Scheerder, Eric Slosser, and Neal Trautman.
