Category : BBS Programs+Doors
Archive   : ROBOM13A.ZIP
Filename : ROBOMAIL.HST

RoboMail 1.3 History File 02/14/94
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Welcome to RoboMail 1.3!

This file contains a listing of all changes to RoboMail since the
1.2 release. This upgrade has been a long time coming, and I hope
that you will enjoy the many new features it contains.

I'd like to extend a big thank you to the beta testers who really
pounded away on this version to make sure it is the most solid
release ever and to everyone who contributed suggestions for
enhancements. The primary goals for this release were improved
memory management and Internet mail handling. I think we have
accomplished both of the goals with the switch to protected mode,
improved support for very long messages and the addition of many
Internet-specific addressing features.

Development on the next release, which will expand RoboMail's
ability to read other mail formats is already under way, so please
be sure to let me know about any additional features you would like
to see. When trying to contact me, please keep in mind that the
"echo conferences" are primarily for user-to-user communications.
For a prompt response, use any of the following methods:

Email: [email protected]
[email protected]
CompuServe: 72167,3662
FAX: 312-752-1222
BBS: 312-752-1258 or 312-752-6528 (Use "C"omment command)

Thanks very much for your continuing support!

-- Dan Parsons


IMPORTANT NEWS
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

ROBOMAIL IS NOW A PROTECTED MODE EXECUTABLE! - This means that the
program will now use a built-in DOS Extender to access extended
memory (any memory above the 1 megabyte mark) to execute both code
and data. This new method of operation provides significantly
enhanced speed as well as increased reliability.

In order to function in protected mode, your machine must be able
to provide the following resources to RoboMail:

o A 80286 "AT" or higher CPU.

o At least 1 megabyte of free "extended" memory. Extended
memory is any memory installed in your machine above one
megabyte. RoboMail can use almost any type of free memory,
and contains a built in DPMI server which will be used in
the event your memory manager does not already provide DPMI
or VCPI services.

NOTE: If you are a registered user and your machine is unable to
run this protected mode version, leave a message on Group
One BBS asking for access to the special "real mode"
version of RoboMail 1.3.


PERFORMANCE AND CONFIGURATION ISSUES
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When running in protected mode, all of ROBOMAIL.EXE is loaded in
memory at once. The amount of conventional (below 640K) memory
available when you start the program is not very important. As
long as there is at least 320K of conventional memory and
sufficient extended memory the program will run very well.
People using many TSRs, DesqView, Windows or running in a
network environment will now find that RoboMail runs much better
and provides greatly improved memory management.

Previous versions of RoboMail made extensive use of EMS memory.
If you are certain that no other programs on your system will
need EMS memory, and you have verified that your system will
support protected mode operations, you may want to set up your
system so that EMS memory is disabled. Doing so will provide
you with an additional 64K of high memory which can be used by
other programs. Please consult your DOS or 3rd-party memory
management documentation for details.


RUNNING UNDER DOS
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Just run ROBOMAIL.EXE from within the same directory as your
RoboMail data files. The program will examine your hardware and
memory environment and verify that protected mode operations
are possible. All available extended memory (up to 8 megabytes)
will be used.


RUNNING UNDER WINDOWS
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
By default, RoboMail will request up to 8 megabytes of extended
memory before resorting to a disk swap file. This all happens
automatically without you needing to do any special
modifications of any settings. In effect, RoboMail will be
using Window's own swap file mechanism for its own virtual
memory operations. This is very efficient and fast.

If you are running other applications simultaneously and want
to stop RoboMail from using a full 8 megabytes of Windows
virtual memory, you can add a MAXMEM:nnnn switch to your
ROBOMAIL environment variable. However, don't do this unless
you feel RoboMail's appetite for memory is adversely affecting
the performance of other programs running at the same time. For
example, to limit RoboMail to 4 megabytes of extended memory,
you would use the environment variable:

SET ROBOMAIL=MAXMEM:4096

If you need help setting up a program item for RoboMail on your
Windows desktop, use the sample ROBOMAIL.PIF that has been
supplied in this upgrade kit.


RUNNING UNDER DESQVIEW
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To run successfully under DesqView make sure that the minimum
program size is set to at least 400 and that you specify at
least 1024 in the PIF setting for Expanded memory usage. A
sample RM-PIF.DVP file has been supplied that contains the
settings needed for normal operations. If you have sufficient
resources, you should increase the amount of Expanded memory to
4096 for optimal performance.

If you find that you are unable to open other windows while
RoboMail is running, you may want to place an absolute limit on
the amount of physical memory that will be requested by adding:

SET ROBOMAIL=MAXMEM:2048

...to your environment.


RUNNING UNDER OS/2
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You should edit your DOS settings to provide at least 4
megabytes of DPMI memory (8 is better) and 640K XMS (for
fastest swapping to external programs). Because of a conflict
between RoboMail, OS/2 2.1 and PKZIP's usage of DPMI memory, it
is important that you do not remove the supplied PKZIP.CFG file
from your RoboMail directory. The file disables PKZIP's DPMI
usage when shelled out from RoboMail.

Under OS/2 2.1 GA, the TAME21 utility (available on Group One -
The RoboMail support BBS) is required for correct timeslice
yielding.


WHAT ELSE IS NEW?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

o Added an Internet Settings configuration screen. This screen
allows you to specify a primary Email conference that will be
used for your Internet Email.

>>> IMPORTANT <<<

IF YOU READ INTERNET EMAIL IN ROBOMAIL, MAKE SURE TO IDENTIFY
YOUR PRIMARY EMAIL CONFERENCE ON THIS NEW SETUP SCREEN. (Screen
#4) From the control panel, Press F2, and select "RoboMail
Settings" then press PgDn three times to get to the new screen.

RoboMail 1.3 has many new features that make use of this
setting to make intelligent handling of all Internet related
messages much easier and more convenient:

o INTERNET SIGNATURE FILE: You can now specify a special
signature file that will automatically be appended to any
message you send to a conference with the "Internet
Conference" flag set.

o INTERNET EMAIL CONFERENCE: Added intelligent handling of
reply addresses when responding to mailing-list type Email.
RoboMail will now look for a "Reply-To:" address when you
tell it to reply in your configured Internet Email
conference. If one is found, and if it differs from the
"From:" address in the message, you will get a pop-up menu
asking which address you wish to reply to. This allows you
to easily reply in private to the mailing list contributor
(From:), or publicly to the whole list (Reply-To:).

o INTERNET "NEWSGROUP" CONFERENCES: When you reply to an
article in any "Internet" conference that is not configured
as your primary Email conference, RoboMail will ask if you
want to post a public follow-up article to the group or if
you want to respond to the article privately via Email. If
you post a follow-up to the newsgroup and have the new
"Include Message ID reference in Newsgroup follow-up
articles" option selected, RoboMail will pull the
Message-ID information out of the message you are replying
to and insert it at the beginning of your outgoing reply.
This will keep your reply from become "fragmented" from the
ongoing thread on the unix systems which handle the
newsgroups. In addition, RoboMail automatically changes
the addressee of the message to ALL when creating newsgroup
follow-up messages.

o ALL INTERNET CONFERENCES: RoboMail is now more intelligent
about grabbing addresses when you are in a conference that
has the "Internet Conference" flag set. If you elect to
add the message sender to the address book, RM will scan
the current message for a FROM: line and take the default
routing address from that line. If an address is found, RM
will ask about assigning your default Internet Email system
and conference to the address book entry.

o NON INTERNET CONFERENCES: Added easy Internet Email
routing in any conference. If you are reading a message in
a non-internet conference that contains an Email address,
highlight the line containing the address and press "R" and
you will be asked if you want to reply via Email to the
address contained in the line.

o ANY CONFERENCE INTERNET ADDRESS GRABBING: If you have the
highlight bar enabled on the message viewing screen, you
can highlight a line containing an internet address and
press F3 to add the sender or recipient to the address
book. RoboMail will examine the current line to see if it
contains an internet address, and if so, it will ask if you
want to assign that address to the new address book entry.

o HINT: Are you Using UQWK to create Internet NewsGroup
packets? If so, did you know RoboMail will handle
conference names up to 25 characters long? Be sure to add
a "-l25" switch to your UQWK command line to enable longer
conference names in your packet.

o Added the ability to control high-ASCII stripping in Internet
conferences on a conference-by-conference basis. A new option
allows you to disable RoboMail's global high ASCII stripping
of Internet conferences. When this option is disabled, the
individual conference high ASCII options will be used. This
will be very useful in countries who's languages require these
characters.

o Added PASSWORD PROTECTION at program start-up. Use the new
setting on the System Configuration screen if you want to enable
this.

o Added a new option to the "Message Setup" configuration screen
to default all forwarded messages to private status. If you do
a lot of forwarding of confidential information, you will want
to make sure this option is selected.

o Added a configuration option for a RIP GRAPHICS viewing program.
The "V" key when viewing messages will now automatically
display the message with the RIP viewer if RIPscript code is
found in the message. The default utility for viewing RIP
graphics is DEADVIEW, which is available on Group One BBS.

o Added quoted text highlighting to the internal editor. Changed
the default color scheme to improve legibility of inverse video
on the highlighted text. If you are using a custom color
scheme, you might want to use the ALT-D command on the color
settings screen to try the new defaults.

o Added an "Attach" column way out on the right side of the
message index (Press [Ins]) screen. (you did know the cursor
scrolls off the right side of the screen, right?) It will
contain the word "Attach" if the message has an attached file.

o Added Ctrl-Y as a duplicate for Alt-D (Delete Line) in the
internal editor.

o Added the following quick-merge macros: {DAY}, {MONTH} and
{YEAR}. For example, including: {MONTH} {DAY}, {YEAR} in
a message on 1/8/94 would yield: January 18, 1994

o Added the ability to process quick merge macros imbedded in
messages created with an external editor.

o Added message creation time to text output message header
information.

o Added a Cam-Mail Gold mail door driver.


IMPROVEMENTS
~~~~~~~~~~~~

o Improved support for Big and Long messages! Two new
configuration options have been added to the message importing
configuration screen: "Maximum allowable bytes in an individual
message:" controls the number of bytes allowed in individual
messages. Any imported messages which exceed the number you
input here will be split into multiple parts during import.

When running RoboMail in protected mode, the maximum bytes
option should be set to its highest value of 60,000. RoboMail
can now manage an unlimited number of messages each up to
60,000 bytes long!

The new "Maximum number of message lines to display:" can be
set to any value up to 4000. Any messages which exceed this
length (pretty unlikely -- they will most likely exceed the
byte limit first) are stored properly, but truncated during
display.

o Improved display of ANSI news, welcome, goodbye, file list and
bulletin files. RoboMail will now pause for a keystroke before
executing clear screen codes embedded in ANSI display files.
In addition, a little "More" message is now displayed on the
screen when RoboMail is waiting for a keystroke.

o Improved the F3 pop-up address book when addressing a message.
If you press F3 while the message addressing dialog box is
displayed, RoboMail will attempt to locate an entry for the
current recipient of your outgoing message. If none is found,
the address book will be displayed starting with the first
entry. This will make it even easier to direct a private reply
from a non-Internet conference to Internet Email.

o Improved the global Quick-Scan routines so that lines containing
search matches are now highlighted when viewing messages
collected via a Quick-Scan from the control panel.

o Improved tagline manager routines to allow tagline files with
the same name as a BBS ID.

o Improved conference reconciliation routines to better trap
invalid packets which contain multiple listings for the same
conference number.

o Improved error-trapping code to handle QWK packets from the
PCBoard 15 Internal QWK routines which contain invalid (NULL)
status information for messages.

o Improved the "HELP INDEX" help screen you can now use the
[PgUp], [PgDn], [Home] and [End] keys to navigate through the
long related topics list.


WHAT'S CHANGED?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

o The switch to protected mode has eliminated the need for many
of RoboMail 1.2's exotic configuration switches. The following
are now obsolete and should be removed from your ROBOMAIL
environment variable if you are using them: E:nnn, /CX, /CE,
/OP, and /OU.

o Changed the default ZIP and UNZIP commands to:

UNZIP: "PKUNZIP -+-)3 -o %S %T"
ZIP: "PKZIP -+-)3 %T @%S"

The 1.3 version will update your existing settings when you
install it. If you have made changes to the RoboMail defaults,
you may need to go back in to the configuration routines and
update them again. If you are using an older version of PKZIP,
you will need to remove the "-+-)3" part from the ZIP command.

If you are using PKZIP version 2.x and call systems which
cannot accept REPly packets created by PKZIP 2.x, then change
your configured ZIP command to:

PKZIP -+-)3 -e0 %T @%S

If you are still using PKZIP version 1.x, change the command to:

PKZIP %T @%S


WHAT'S FIXED?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

o Fixed a bug in the pop-up directory display routines that made
it impossible to select a file that was flagged as read-only.

o Fixed a bug that would create an attachment record in the
attachment manager even if an attachment was not included in
the QWK packet.

o Fixed import problem that caused messages with an empty TO
field to be assigned personal status. Empty TO fields are now
converted to "ALL" during import.

o Fixed import problem that caused all messages with an empty
FROM field to be filtered during import. Messages with an
empty FROM field are now converted to ANONYMOUS during import.

o Fixed bug that caused an out of memory error when importing a
file larger than 64K into the internal editor with ALT-F.

o Fixed rare problems with intermittent incorrect matches and
bizarre results with the "Q"uery and "Q"uick-Scan functions.

o Fixed a rare problem with low level file i/o routines that
could cause the problems some people encountered when importing
QWK packets containing messages that needed to be split into
multiple parts.

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