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Text File | 1993-08-18 | 26KB | 571 lines

ENHANCEMENTS (All versions) --------------------------- * Completely revamped the file system. Make sure you read the accompanying upgrade documentation before going any further. * Optimised RACONFIG; base memory requirement is now about 100k less than previous versions. * Added support for textfile macros in all origin lines. {+} It is now possible to force a destination address in a netmail message by specifying /N=z:n/n.p on the optional data line of a post message menu command. * Menu type 6 (selection menu) now accepts an optional full path with the bulletin name. If a full path is supplied, RA will look for all the associated bulletins in this path instead of the standard text file path. * RA will now abort a sysop page if the user enters a blank reason for chat. Additionally, users are now asked for a chat reason before chat hours/limits are checked. * Added support for detection and time-slicing for OS/2 2.xx. * Added the capability to flag a user record to override paging hours. * Added new user upload credit fields to RACONFIG; it is now possible to automatically credit new users with a specified number of uploads and upload kilobytes. * RA now supports multi-line online messages. {+} If a user posts a message to a user who is currently on another node, that user will be automatically informed that there is a new message waiting. * Added a default protocol setting to the user profile. There is a new menu type (72) to change the default protocol setting. The textfile control code to display the name of the default protocol is ^F! * Added security level and flag settings for each language. * Online messages now only display while RA is waiting at a blank prompt. * RA now asks existing users to supply their date of birth if the recorded date is invalid. * RA now converts spaces in zmodem upload filenames to underscores. * Extended the maximum length of language prompts to 127 characters. * Putting a /G=<group> on the optional data field of the list users menu command forces a listing of users in a specific group number. {+} Added a feature to display a textfile once only to a user when an individual file or message area is entered for reading or browsing. The textfile names are: MGA#####.A?? for message areas (#####=area number) FLA#####.A?? for file areas These are treated in the same way as the ONCEONLY file, ie. displayed once whenever modified. * Putting a /1 on the optional data line of a select file area or select message area menu type will force a one-column list instead of the default two. {+} Added a field in RACONFIG to allow an external archive viewing utility to be used in place of the internal one. Use a "@" to represent the filename. * Added XMS swapping support. RemoteAccess now attempts to swap to XMS, EMS, and disk file, in that order. * Added a user flag to prevent echomail messages from showing in a mailbox scan. Menu type 73 allows users to toggle this flag. The textfile macro is ^F". {+} Added GIF support to the "list archive" function. {+} Added support for modems which support incoming FAX connects. Simply define the connect response in the RACONFIG.MODEM.RESPONSES and then set up an errorlevel in OPTIONS.ERRORLEVELS. When the modem returns the defined connect string, RA will exit to DOS with the defined errorlevel. {+} Added support for GUEST accounts. Simply create a new user record with a name/handle of "GUEST" (or whatever you choose), and enable the GUEST flag for that user. NOTE that a GUEST has logon defaults set to those in the user record, so it's probably wise to disable AVATAR, ANSI and any other capabilities that the simplest terminal program might not have. Every time a GUEST logs in, the "time used today" and "k downloaded today" is reset to zero. A GUEST may change terminal display parameters (ANSI, AVT, screen length etc) but these changes are never saved permanently. A GUEST may not modify his/her password. A GUEST may log onto more than one node at the same time. It is probably a good idea to also lock GUEST accounts as "No-kill" to prevent deletion. The textfile GUEST.A?? is displayed whenever a guest logs in to the system. * RACONFIG now has the ability to generate multi-level directories. * When a user leaves a message to the sysop after a failed page attempt, RA automatically places the user's page reason into the subject field. * For security reasons, the "From:" information is no longer displayed when entering a message to the sysop after a password failure. * RA now auto blanks the subject field when replying to a local file-attach message, since the subject normally contains the path to the attached messages. * Replies posted in areas which allow both PRIVATE and PUBLIC messages now default to the status of the original message, ie. private or public. * The internal "times paged" counter is now reset to zero when the sysop responds to a page request. {+} New textfile control code: ^K! displays another textfile. Simply place the name of the .A?? file to display after the code, and terminate the name with a pipe. This new code works anywhere that the textfile macros are valid, including all language prompts. Example: ^K!INFO| would display INFO.A?? to the user. It is valid to nest this command by displaying a textfile from another textfile to the limit of available memory. {+} It is now possible to put custom messages into the 'activity' field of the "Who's online" menu command by using the new *U macro on the optional data field of a type 7 or 15 menu command. For example: *UTime_Bank Would display "Time Bank" for that user until control is returned to RA. Note that spaces must be replaced by underscore characters. Only 10 characters maximum will be displayed. * For added security, RA may now be configured to verify the users date of birth every certain number of calls. The textfile DOBCHECK.A?? is displayed prior to asking the user for his/her date of birth. If the user does not enter the correct birthdate, RA will activate a questionnaire called DOBCFAIL and then terminate the call. Users which are disconnected due to an incorrect logon password are automatically asked to verify date of birth upon the next successful logon. * Added internal support for external bi-directional protocols. See RA200FDB.TXT for details. * The type 47 (make log entry) menu command now supports all textfile macros in addition to the two previously supported. * If the modem init response field is left blank in RACONFIG, RA will always assume that the modem initialised successfully without actually sending the init string. * Added support for loading the overlays into XMS. Upon loading, RA now attempts to move the overlay file into XMS first, and then tries EMS if there is insufficient XMS available. The use of XMS may be disabled with the -NOXMS command-line switch. * RA now makes a warning entry in the log if a message is posted which has an origin line that exceeds 80 characters. * Added pre-subscription expiry support. If it exists, a questionnaire called SUBDAYnn.Q-A will be executed, nn days before subscription expiry if the user logs on that day. Eg. the questionnaire SUBDAY30.Q-A would be executed if a user whose subscription expires in 30 days logs on. * Groupmail now only works in LOCAL areas. * LIMITS.RA is now used in place of LIMITS.CTL. LIMITS.RA is a binary configuration file which holds much more information than the old LIMITS.CTL. Limits are now modified with the RACONFIG.Manager.Limits option. * All modem-specific configuration has been moved from CONFIG.RA to MODEM.RA. This allows many sysops to keep just one copy of CONFIG.RA in the system directory, with a separate MODEM.RA file in each node directory. * Enhanced the questionnaire language. New command: ASSIGN <VarNum> <literal> Places <literal> into variable number <VarNum> Eg. ASSIGN 1 Hi there! Both the DISPLAY and OUTPUTANSWER verbs now fully support the textfile control codes. The IF statement has also been enhanced. It now takes the form: IF <VarNum> <operator> <operand> VarNum = Number of the variable to compare operator = Type of comparison. May be any combination of =, < or >. operand = Value to compare with. May be "literal", #VarNum or any textfile control codes. Eg. IF 1 <> #2 Would return true if the contents of variable one did not equal the contents of variable two. Eg. IF 5~ <= O Would return true if the value of variable five was less than or equal to the user's time left. Note the use of the '~' to indicate that this is a numeric comparison rather than a string comparison. * Added variable overlay buffer size support. People who load their overlays into EMS/XMS will automatically get an extra 12k of conventional memory while RA is loaded. If you do not have XMS/EMS but keep RA.OVR on a RAM disk, you may use the -SMALLOVRBUF command-line parameter to reclaim the extra 12k. * Completely revamped the menu structure. There are a *lot* of new options available from the edit menu item window, including flat and per minute option costs, required logon speed, terminal type, time left and time used, availability on a per node and per user group basis, and time per day of week when each option is available. * Maximum number of menu entries per menu has been increased from 50 to 100. * Implemented NOT flags. This is supported for all flag security settings. Each flag may now take one of three states: X = user flag must be ON for access - = user flag may be ON or OFF for access O = user flag must be OFF for access * Added the facility to display a textfile on a particular day of the year at logon. Simply create a textfile in the textfile directory named MM-DD.A??, where MM is the month number and DD is the day number of that month. Both values must be padded with a leading zero if below 10. For example, 11-05.A?? would be displayed on the 5th of November. * Implemented support for the FSC-0035 Internet gating specification. This allows users to correspond with users on the Internet without having to worry about return addressing, provided that the inbound gateway software also supports FSC-0035. * The IEMSI "ZAP" protocol flag is now supported. * New users who present the IEMSI "ZMO" protocol flag will automatically have their default protocol set to Zmodem. * Implemented a per-minute logon cost, deducted from the users credit. The cost is definable on a security-level basis in the limits manager, and is deducted in real-time. When user credit reaches zero, questionnaire NOCREDIT.Q-A is initiated. * RA now supports FD's TASK environment variable "as is"; ie. TASK=1 translates to node 1. * It is now possible to specify an alternative page data file on the optional data line of the "page sysop" menu command. For example, to use ALTPAGE.RA instead of the default PAGE.RA, simply insert the new filename at the beginning of the optional data: /P=ALTPAGE Paging the sysop, one moment please.. NOTE that is is not necessary to specify the .RA extension as it is appended automatically. * Users are now prompted if they would like to download a text file containing the descriptions of their downloads. * Users now have the option of downloading a text file which contains the name and full description of each file in a batch download. * Implemented support for message carbon copies. * Implemented support for message return receipts. * Selected message reading now has the ability to search on keywords in message text. * Added a "minimum age" setting for each message area. * Added a number of fields to the user record: Field Control code Address1 ^F$ Address2 ^F% Address3 ^F& Sex ^F' Post billing ^F( Current msg group name ^F) Current file group number ^F* Current message group number ^F+ * If a user's post billing flag is enabled, *ALL* checking on the user's credit field is ignored (includes files credit, logon time credit and menu option credit). This enables a user to be billed for credit used "after the fact". * Added a menutype to allow the user to change his/her 3-line mailing address. * Added support for message and file area groups. See documentation for details. * User passwords are no longer stored in the userfile. Passwords are stored as a CRC32 of the actual password. This means that passwords can no longer be displayed anywhere, including the user editor. The textfile macro to display the users password is therefore no longer valid. Hitting Enter on the password field of a user record will allow you to enter a new password in place of the old. * Implemented support for message area groups. The Select Message Area menu command supports message groups through the following optional data line parameters: /MG - Displays only file areas in the user's currently selected file group. /MG=0 - Displays a list of all groups the user has access to, asks the user to select a group, and then displays all file areas within the selected group. /MG=n - (n is a specific group number). Displays only file areas in file group n. These parameters are also available for the Select Combined and Areas with New Mail menu types. The file MGROUPS.A?? will be displayed in place of the hard-coded file area group list, if present. The file MGRnnnnn.A?? (nnnnn= group number) will be displayed to the user in place of FILEAREA.A?? if any of the above command-line parameters are used. Additionally, the /M=+ and /M=- menu template commands have been enhanced. The following new parameters are available: /M=> - Select the next available file area WITHIN THE CURRENT GROUP. /M=< - Select the last available file area WITHIN THE CURRENT GROUP. /MG=+ - Select the next available message group. /MG=- - Select the previously available group. /MG=n - Set the current message group to n. * The system log file name (RACONFIG.Paths) now supports the *N macro to place the node number in the filename. All external utilities default to node 1. * Combined message reading now displays all messages from each area before continuing to the next area. * The "delete message" menu command now *requires* a /M or an area number on the optional data field. * Added a new type to the "status" field for each message area. Areas may now be private, public, pvt/pub, read-only, or no-reply. A read-only area does not permit any messages to be posted at all. A no-reply area permits new messages, but no replies. Note that netmail replies may still be used (if enabled) for both of these area types. * Implemented full support for the extended DOOR.SYS standard, as defined in Rick Greer's DOOR.SYS standard documentation. * Added an option to the menu editor. The ALT-P settings window now contains a SUPPRESS option. If enabled, this will prevent all hard-coded CR/LF and colour change sequences from being sent when the menu is displayed to the user. This option has been implemented to support non-native emulations which do not support ANSI or AVATAR fallback, such as NAPLPS. * Added an option in RACONFIG.Options.New users to disable the new user telephone duplicate check. * Changed the way in which the *D type 7/15 parameter works. DOOR.SYS is now *always* written. With this version of RA, the -R string is inserted in the first line of DORINFO1.DEF to indicate an error-free connection. Placing a *D on the optional data line of a type 7/15 will prevent the -R from ever being written. This is for compatibility with older doors that do not understand the extended format. ENHANCEMENTS (Professional version only) ---------------------------------------- * RANETMGR has been enhanced somewhat; it now indicates when a user is paging the sysop by highlighting that node's entry. It also incorporates a mode to view the last callers to the system. RANETMGR is now multitasker-aware, and incorporates a screen-blanker activated by the -B command-line parameter, eg -B3 sets a timeout of 3 seconds. RANETMGR also supports a new "last caller" mode. Access this with "L" from the node status display. * Implemented an auto-attach function in RANETMGR, which automatically attaches to each active node in turn for a definable number of seconds until a key is pressed. * Implemented support for handles-only real-time conferencing. * Changed the help key in RTC from CTRL-X to ESCAPE. BUG FIXES --------- * Increased the maximum MSGID length to 40 characters. * Fixed a bug in RTC which would cause RA to effectively hang if a user with read-only access to a conference tried to type to other users. * Fixed a cosmetic date input handling problem. * RAUSER would crash on a SORT operation if the RA environment variable was incorrectly set. Fixed. * RAUSER now handles insufficient diskspace situations much more gracefully. * Optimised the internal file copy routines. Should be about 100% faster now. * The "Continue" prompt now works correctly during a View Archive menu command. * Fixed a file list bug which caused RA to display FILES.n instead of FILES.BBS in the target directory if a full file path was specified instead of a template area. * Fixed a small bug which made it possible for a user to enter a message with a blank subject line. * An overlength input field would previously cause RA to wrap to the cursor to the next line and prevent proper editing. Fixed. * The use of the /F=+ and /F=- template commands is now consistent with the select file area menu command in that it will not allow the user to select an area unless he/she has LIST security for the area. * If the last entry of a control file was not terminated with a carriage-return character, that line would be ignored. Fixed. * Improved (again) the handling of checking whether the GOODBYE file has been fully sent before dropping DTR on logoff. * RA would not append an origin line to messages which were 60 lines long entered with the internal editor. Fixed. * The FOSSIL outbound buffer is now flushed prior to a questionnaire WAITENTER command. * RA would hang on a file list where a description contained a word which was longer than a single description line. Fixed. * Internode messages could occasionally cause sharing violations. Fixed. * USERON.BBS is now updated immediately to reflect any changes to the QUIET and HIDDEN flags if changed during an ALT-E. * RA will now restore the video mode if it has been changed during a shell. * RA no longer appears to lock up if an upload is attempted to a path which does not exist. * RA now correctly re-reads the current file area after a shell and updates all necessary variables if it has changed. * Local global downloads always logged garbage instead of the file path. Fixed. * RAUSER would generate an incorrect user file index entry every 51st user, which meant that RA could not locate that user next logon. Fixed. * Pressing ESCAPE would produce strange results at an input prompt. Fixed. * The "touch dates" option now works on local uploads and file moves. * RACONFIG would not recognise the root directory of any drive as existing. Fixed. * The More prompt is now disabled on the protocol selection list. * /K= now works from a MENUCMND statement within a questionnaire. * The macro to insert a language prompt would previously return the activation keys as well, if the prompt required input. Fixed. * RACONFIG now correctly detects video mode 2. * Textfile macros now work correctly in the logon prompt. * Fixed a bug which would cause exported netmail replies to echomail to be addressed to the wrong zone, if the original echozone was not set as the primary zone. * The time-limit warning message will no longer interrupt in the middle of a screen or line. * Menu type 65 (change flags) no longer displays an extra blank line when executed. * Group messages no longer send to users marked as deleted. * The STATUS field in USERON.BBS is now correctly updated when shelling from a textfile display. * RA now generates the "<user> has left the conference" when a user leaves a RTC unexpectedly, ie. lost carrier, or sysop hangup. * RA no longer displays "Unable to access message-base files" if the userfile index is rebuilt. * The semi-colon character is no longer incorrectly treated as a command-stack separator at normal text prompt inputs. * Occasionally the fixed header in the full-screen message reader would scroll off-screen. Fixed. * Fixed the 486 timing bug. * Fixed a bug in the local AVATAR emulation which allowed the status bar to be overwritten by renegade AVT+ sequences. * Fixed a small bug in the CRC calculation in the USERSIDX.BBS file. * The IEMSI FILE request flag is now only honoured if the "check new files" option in RACONFIG is set to "yes" or "ask". * Fixed some logic that was causing the "read-only" message area type to allow users to post messages under some circumstances. * Corrected a minor bug in the IEMSI error-handler. * Fixed a long-standing bug which would cause RA to not correctly restore a user's time after an event. * Fixed a bug which would cause netmail addressed to the current user on another system to be flagged as received when read. * Fixed a bug which was causing excessive disk access while RA was waiting for the modem buffer to empty. /* End of file "WHATSNEW.200" */