Phew.. Homer has come a long way from .92. Many peole haven't seen Homer since .90 was released who knows how long ago. Homer has become many times more stable as well as enhancing the interface and capabilities.
What are the new features... well, a smattering of a few are as follows:
• Enabled the use of the Faces feature.
• Homer will now restart automatically if your IRC session is killed.
• Revamped interface with new graphics for both Color and B&W users.
• Ability to set individual sounds for specific users.
• /help now gives you online help for many topics.
• Start/Close IRC session functions now work properly/reliably.
• Cursor Focusing.
• Indented Text.
• Enhanced sound effects options.
• Macro functions.
• Enhanced features for ignoring (now implements wildcards instead of by nick).
• Notify features.
• Stable DCC capabilities.
• +k mode button for 2.8 servers and above.
• Signoff messages are now saved.
• Nick box bug fixed as well as nicks with more than 9 characters.
• Faster scrolling in channels.
• Ability to clear a channel of text
• Some balloon help installed (not done yet)
What's New in 0.92d8:
• Better memory handling for speech capabilities. Hopefully you won't run into Error 25's anymore with speech on. If you do, just crank up the memory partition for Homer.
• The B&W graphics are much-improved.
• The Sound Options dialog now fits on a 512x342 screen.
• It's now possible to hide the user list, for small-screen folks.
• The Color Options causes B&W machines to crash, so it's disabled for B&W machines.
• Windows will now draw properly on multiple monitors (though not if the window crosses monitors).
• The speech code now uses buffers, so you'll continue to get new incoming text while the speech manager is reading.
• Speech now says "User says 'blah..." so you can tell who's speaking.
• The user list is now moved before it's drawn initially so it doesn't hop around when you first start up.
• The topic/invite buttons now get drawn in the proper place for font sizes > 10 point.
• Plain binary DCC (i.e. not MacBinary) now works.
• New feature! If you leave or get kicked off a channel and then rejoin that channel, Homer remembers that channel's text.
• KNOWN BUGS - using the Channel List feature is currently asking for trouble. Also, the AppleEvent code might not be right yet, so things like HomerPaint might not work.
Major new things in 0.92 that I recall offhand:
• Homer's now 2.8-server-compatible. Woo woo.
• I've made a big effort to fix the problem where folks were joining channels and no window would appear. I've never had that problem happen on my machine, so I can't be sure it's gone, but I haven't received any complaints recently, so I have my fingers crossed. Let me know if you still encounter this problem.
• The interface has been majorly revamped, looks-wise. In addition, most of the graphics and sounds are now stored in a separate file, called Homer Data. This file must be in the same folder with the Homer application.
• We have DCC! Mostly. There's a new window, called the DCC Window (creatively enough). Hopefully it's self-explanatory. I've tried to make it Mac-like. Note that you can't use the ircII /dcc command-line syntax, you have to use the DCC window. DCC seems to be mostly stable, but it's possible that you might encounter some problems. If you do, let me know. DCC transfers between two Macs on SLIP lines can get pretty slow. I'm not sure why that's happening, other than just the fact of two flaky SLIP lines, but if you have that problem, let me know about it.
• Homer supports the new Speech Manager. The Sound Options... dialog box lets you set Homer up to speak certain text (if you're running the Speech Manager, that is). This feature is cute, but will bring your machine to a crawl if you have it trying to speak all the text on a busy channel like #hottub. You've been warned.
• A new memory-management scheme. By default Homer's memory partition is set to 1024k, which, for the TCP version, will give you 3 or 4 available DCC lines. If you're running the Speech Manager also, you'll probably get 2 DCC lines available (where the number of DCC lines dictates the maximum number of simultaneous transfers). You can increase the memory partition to get more DCC lines, up to a maximum of 10. None of this will mean much to the serial users in the audience.
• The font size is changeable now.
• There's a new feature called the Friends List which automates several tasks for you. You bring up the Friend List with cmd-F. If you have a user selected in your user list, that person's address will be the dafault item to be added to the list. The syntax of items to be added to the friend list is:
nickname!username@this.persons.address
• Added 'Invite' button for channels that are in +i mode.
• Reworked the Homer prefs system to work correctly.
• Added the 'Ident Text' option.
• Added the ability to double-click on a users name in the channel which performs a 'Get Info' on that person.
• Resizable control palette.
• Server port option added at startup.
• Added 'Save Prefs Now' so changes made are saved if Homer crashes.
What's New in 0.90:
• Pasting multiple line chunks of text into Homer works properly now.
• Copying works! (fix scrolling selection)
• Now at least recognizes all CTCP things, even if it doesn't know what to do with them.
• Can issue CTCP commands from Homer now.
• List of people to ignore
• The help button on extended keyboards does what you'd expect it to do.
• Cmd-up/down changes the selection in the user list
• Can send /msgs to other channels that you're on and your text will actually appear now.
• Fixed a problem with the page up/down home/end keys in 0.89
• Shouldn't have the problem with bringing up 2 windows for one channel anymore, and hopefully should fix any Prefs files that are suffering from the problem.
• Fixed a 0.89 bug that was causing all actions to go to the top window.
• Fixed a pretty nasty problem dealing with auto-joining more than one channel.
• cmd-keys for view/op/kick.
• Correctly formats twilight zone information line
• Cmd-left/right changes the selection in the msging area
• Can control if there are public beeps and VERSION/FINGER notifications using the "Control What Goes Where..." dialog (formerly the Console Options)
• Timestamping of incoming text
• Channel list is maintained in the user list area of the console.
• Sounds to go with common Homer actions
• Homer prefs. resource inside the application for first-time prefs (HomP resources)
• Lots of bug fixes and other additions that I don't remember offhand.
What's New in 0.89 RS:
• Fixed the /list and /names bug that was in the early version of 0.89.
• Added separate About... and Help... menu items.
• Fixed up a goodly number of little glitches.
• Fixed an annoying graphical glitch with when in b/w mode.
• Dimmed out the DCC menu in the TCP version for your own protection.
• Should now check to make sure that all windows appear within the screen's boundaries (useful if you're moving your preferences file around, or changing screens a lot).
What's New in 0.89:
• Moved the Send Text To: button to the left of the input window.
• Changed the title screen redraw thingie.
• Fixed a little glitch when the user list first gets drawn.
• Window updates are more intelligent now (the whole window doesn't get redraw whenever it's brought to the front...)
• Fixed a weird window-clicking bug that happened when the DCC status window was active.
• Homer<->Homer DCC and Homer<->unix DCC now works (mostly).
• User response while DCCing is MUCH better. When you're not crashing, that is.
• Doesn't munge preferences if there's a whoops at startup time.
• Can disable the auto-join feature at startup time.
• Reports the error code when the "Damn!" dialog box appears.
• New About... box with online help. Well, there WOULD be online help if I ever bothered to write some. Someone wanna write some?
• Window number appears in title bars now.
• Added next/previous window cmd-keys.
• Added color text prefs. dialog.
• Title screen automatically goes away after 2 seconds.
• /join, /leave, and /part are no longer valid commands.
• /who with wildcards now works properly.
• You won't join bogus channels if you start up with a bad nickname now.
• The user list is resizable, and uses bold text instead of italics for ops.
• There's a Set Topic button. Just type some text, hit the Set Topic button (if you can...) and bango, new channel topic.
• Fixed the goofy bug that caused the Console window to not be highlighted if it's the only window.
• Works MUCH better with Homer clients now. Works pretty well, actually.
• A new Messages menu. Has four items:
Reply to Last Messager: this will find whoever last messaged you, insert their name in your messaging menu (if it's not already there), select their name, and turn the Send Text Only To button on.
• Who the hell was that? this will do a whois on whoever last messaged who.
Handy for figuring out who that "BigMama" person is who keeps asking you if you want to have some fun with some farm animals.
• Delete user from Messaging List: this item is only valid if you've selected a person in your messaging list. If you have, this menu option allows you to delete them from your list.
• Save Messaging List: this forces the current messaging list to be saved. Note that the list is NOT automatically saved when you quit, so you can feel free to clutter it all up, quit, and the next time you start you'll just have the folks you really want in there again.
• Session time and clock: each window has a little clock display that show the amount of time that the window has been open. The topmost window's time area will, by default, display the current real time instead of the session time for that window. To show the session time for the topmost window, just click on the time display.
• OODLES of bug fixes. OODLES.
What's New in 0.88gm:
• Fixed a BIG ol' steamy bug in 0.88beta that caused both the serial and TCP versions to crash sometimes on startup.
• The TAB key will toggle the "Send Text Only To:" button on and off.
• Some graphics tweaking.
• Cmd-A selects the text in the input field.
• A few TCP-only changes:
• /notice will now show what you typed.
• "/ctcp <user> <command>" now works.
• Anyone who does a /ctcp FINGER or VERSION on you will receive some feedback now, instead of getting nothing. You're notified when someone tries to FINGER or VERSION you.
What's New in 0.88 beta:
• MORE bug fixes. I think there may still be a problem with the user palette getting confused sometimes, but it's hard to pinpoint.
• The Priv. button has been moved down into the text windoid, and is bright red. This should help prevent some of that /msg confusion that folks were having.
• The user palette is thinner now. It will fit side-by-side with a channel window on a 13" monitor with no overlap now.
• Windows are resizable vertically. Let me know if you have any problems with resizing.
• More preferences: Homer now remembers the location of the user palette, and the size of all your windows.
• Cosmetic changes! We have Cool New Switches (for all users) and a Cool New Op Light (for color users)!
• Homer recognizes CTCP finger requests now and will reply to them.
• The little box which holds the name of the person you want to msg to now has an associated pop-up menu, which remembers the names of people you're messaging to.
What's New in 0.87:
• Lots of little fixes.
• You don't see nickname changes and logoff messages from Homer users that you don't care about. "/homer list" still works though.
• You can capture channel text to files. Check out the new File menu options, they should be self-explanatory.
• The new floating Users window. Hopefully it'll be pretty self-explanatory. Double-click on a name to make it be the new "msg to:" name. When the "Priv" button is depressed, any text you type gets sent as a private message to whoever you've selected
(by double-clicking). You can also select a user to send messages to by clicking on the "msg to:" white box and typing in a name.
You can shift-click to select a whole group of names and perform an action on them.
Holding down the shift key while using the Op button will de-op the person(s) selected.
• Probably a whole new slew of bugs are around now.
• I haven't touched DCC, so it's about the same as before.
What's New in 0.86:
• There's a new Actions menu. You can disconnect from your server at any time and then reconnect. Do this more than twice and you will bomb. Try it, it's fun. I have no idea why.
• A whole bunch of bugs are gone. New ones have taken their place.
• DCC send works, but is quirky. Don't try sending more than one file at once, unless you're very brave and/or want to be mentioned in the list of brave Homer souls on the startup screen. If you send a file to someone using ircII, the file will complete long before the DCC status window says you will complete. This is because ircII isn't sending me the proper data-received values, or I'm not reading them properly, or something. Should be an easy one to fix. In any event, the file gets sent okay.
• It remembers what channels you were on when you last quit, and will auto-rejoin them for you when you run the next time. Don't want it to join channels at startup time? Get rid of 'em before you quit.
• Kick finally works. If you get kicked, the window for that channel will go bye-bye. You can also see other people get kicked properly now too.
• Most importantly, the arty startup screen is gone, and the cow is back. You even get a version number now. Rejoice.
What's New in 0.83:
* Uses less memory
* Doesn't report memory bug when losing net connection
* Hopefully actions will work correctly now (0.82-only bug)
* Doesn't flash grey when redrawing the screen
* Nice bye-bye on cmd-q in serial version
* Fixed a big bug in parts of msgs going to weird places (0.82-only bug)
* Remembers window positions
What's New in 0.82:
* Cmd-p remembers your last 20 input lines
* The page up/page down/home/end keys work now
* Oodles of things to make Homer more stable
* Oodles of stuff that I added to make version 0.78 and didn't document.
What's New in 0.72:
* Fixed a glitch in /mode
* Working on getting DCC to work at receiving files correctly
* Inserted MacBinary read/write code
What's New in 0.71 (8/17/92) (mostly just bug fixes):
* Any leading spaces or : characters got lopped off of input lines.
* Your full signoff text is now sent, not just the first word.
* Checks continuously for TCP connection now and will quit if the connection is lost (instead of just bombing, like before).
* Fixed a cosmetic bug that sometimes appeared when /msgs were sent.
* Dumb terminal window doesn't appear in TCP version anymore.
* /links command's output is parsed correctly.
* "/who" no longer lists everyone on IRC.
* Can type "/quit" from command line now.
* Fixed a bug in TCP version that caused window-switching, joining, and "/who *" commands to screw up on occasion.
* DCC for TCP isn't working yet, but it's getting there - Homer can now detect when a /dcc send has been sent by someone else, and is at least polite enough to automatically reply to the send request and immediately drop the connection so that the person isn't waiting forever.
