Version 2.0b4 ============= July 13, 1994. New features ------------ Apple's Human Interface Guidlines recommend that programs not cover up the rightmost column of Finder icons when they open and position windows. This isn't feasible on the small classic Mac 9" screen, but on bigger screens, the new version of NewsWatcher does this. Several people who like to use larger font sizes on narrower screens (e.g., full page displays) have objected to this new feature. There is a new checkbox option named "Don't cover Finder icons" in the "General Options" preferences topic. The default value is on. If you don't like the new feature, turn the option off, and NewsWatcher will use your full screen width. There are three new checkbox options in the "Saved Articles" preference topic. All three of these options are off by default. Save threads to separate files Append if file already exists Save encoded text By default, when you save articles from a subject window, NewsWatcher saves all of the articles to a single file. If you prefer to have different threads saved on separate files, turn on the "Save threads to separate files" option. This option also appears in the standard file dialog, so you can change it for a single article save operation if you wish. When you save an article using a default folder, if a file with the same name already exists, by default NewsWatcher presents a dialog asking whether you want to pick a new file name, replace the existing file, or append to the end of the existing file. If you turn on the new "Append if file already exists" option, NewsWatcher automatically appends to the end of the existing file, and the dialog is not presented. By default, when you save articles, NewsWatcher saves only the readable text part of the article. It does not save any encoded text for attached binaries. If you want NewsWatcher to save encoded text, turn on the "Save encoded text" option. This option also appears in the standard file dialog, so you can change it for a single article save operation if you wish. When you are using a default folder for saving articles, extracting binaries, or saving messages, any standard file dialogs for those operations are initialized to open in the default folder. NewsWatcher now notifies you when it completes a long operation in the background. The small NewsWatcher icon blinks in the upper right corner of your screen. If NewsWatcher cannot find a helper program, it presents an alert. In the new version, the message in the alert refers you to "About NewsWatcher" to find out how to get a copy of the helper program. The about window text in turn refers you to our FTP site at Northwestern and gives the URL for the "helpers" directory. There is a new section in the user document which discusses all the header lines in some detail. The "Plans for future versions" chapter has been updated with a few more ideas. We also added several new "Tips" in various sections. NewsWatcher saves and restores window positions for the full group list window, for your auto-fetched newsrc window (if you use one), for user group list windows saved on disk, for message windows saved on disk, and for all movable modal dialogs. The algorithm used to save and restore these window positions has been improved to conform to Apple's human interface guidelines. In particular, if you save an unzoomed window, it is reopened unzoomed intead of zoomed. When you option-click an object, NewsWatcher tries to figure out where the object begins and ends for you. This usually works, but sometimes NewsWatcher doesn't do it right. In these cases, you can now select the object manually first, then option-click it. New window locking feature -------------------------- By default, NewsWatcher does not save and restore window positions for subject list and article windows. These windows do not contain a single document file as their contents, and the window position saving and restoring guidelines for document file windows are not appropriate. By default, NewsWatcher opens these two kinds of windows offset from the current frontmost window. For example, if you open a group in a group list window, the subject list window for that group is offset from the parent group list window. In addition, NewsWatcher automatically resizes these windows when they are opened so that they are just big enough to contain their contents. This is called "automatic shrink-wrap zooming". If you prefer, you can now lay out these windows any way you wish and "lock" them so that NewsWatcher will remember where you put them. This is particularly useful if you have a large monitor or multiple monitors. There is a new small padlock icon in the bottom left corner of subject and article windows. To lock a window position, click the padlock icon. The icon changes from unlocked to locked. To unlock a window position, click the padlock icon again to change it back to unlocked. When you lock a window, NewsWatcher locks both its position and its size. The window is not moved, and it is not automatically zoomed. NewsWatcher only remembers a single locked position for each of the two kinds of windows. For example, if you lock the subject window position, the first subject window you open uses that position and size. If you open a second subject window without closing the first one, however, the second window is opened using NewsWatcher's default window positioning rules. This new window locking feature is optional. You don't have to use locked window positions if you don't like them. Indeed, many people (including the author) prefer the default behavior. I consider this new feature to be experimental and preliminary. Many people have asked for such a feature, and I'm interested in your reaction. It's a bit strange, but I think it gets the job done. I found the padlock icon distracting at first, but no longer notice it now that I'm used to it. I also think I need to do some work on the way this new feature interacts with the "Reuse article windows" option. Perhaps we should get rid of that option, and combine it with the new locked windows feature. That is, locked windows are always reused automatically. Not only do they never move or resize, they never close! Subject windows would be reused in addition to article windows. Please tell me what you think, if you care about this at all. Errors fixed ------------ In version 2.0b3, we made a change to the heuristics for recognizing BinHex and uuencode text. Due to errors in the new code, NewsWatcher sometimes failed to properly recognize encoded text when you opened articles. Sorry about this. It's fixed. Canceling a "Check for new articles" operation resulted in damaged saved user group list files and damaged newsrc files sent to remote hosts. Attempting to read these files later resulted in syntax error messages. Fixed. One of the changes made in version 2.0b1 was to "fold" References header lines. Although folded header lines are legal according to the Internet standards, some other news software in wide use on the Internet does not understand this format. To accomodate this other software, the new version 2.0b4 of NewsWatcher does not fold References header lines. For the same reason, References header lines generated by NewsWatcher are now limited to a maximum size of 1000 characters. When NewsWatcher was busy and the status window was open, if you clicked in the title bar of some other NewsWatcher window, that window was incorrectly brought to the front, in front of the status window. Also, in some other unusual circumstances, it was possible for NewsWatcher itself to move some other window in front of NewsWatcher's status window. These bad things resulted in subsequent bizarre behavior. Fixed. When you close a message window, if there are unsaved changes, NewsWatcher asks if you want to send, save, or discard the message. If you clicked the Send button, NewsWatcher sent the message, but then it improperly presented a standard file dialog asking you to save the message. If you clicked the Save button, NewsWatcher saved the message, but then it failed to close the window. These errors are fixed. When you reply to an article, the "Distribution" header field is now copied from the article to which you are replying. If a server error occurred during posting, and you also asked that the message be sent via mail, NewsWatcher put up a bogus alert claiming the message was posted OK but was not mailed. Fixed. When extracting binaries with a default folder, if the folder contained a subfolder named "temp", you got an unexpected error -48. Fixed. NewsWatcher was not properly translating 8 bit characters when you saved articles from a subject window. Fixed. In dialogs which didn't have any text fields, pressing keys could sometimes cause crashes or other bad things. Fixed. When printing from a subject window, NewsWatcher sometimes used the wrong font and size. Fixed. If you canceled opening a subject window, NewsWatcher sometimes incorrectly marked articles read in the group. Fixed. If you had the "Don't open new connection when checking for new articles" option turned off in the "Server Options" preferences topic, subscribing to a large number of new groups all at once often resulted in either an "out of memory" error or a "could not connect to server" error. Fixed. When you open a saved user group list file or fetch a newsrc file from a remote host, NewsWatcher checks for any deleted groups (groups which are no longer on the server). If any are found, they are removed from the user group list window, and you get an alert. NewsWatcher was not, however, properly remembering that the window had been changed in this situation, so if you later quit or closed the window, it was not saved. Fixed. When you cut or delete text, NewsWatcher's intelligent cut and paste rules no longer delete an extra space if the selected text already includes a space at the beginning or end of the selection. The '5' key on the numeric keypad did not work correctly if the "Keypad shortcuts" option was on but the "Main keyboard shortcuts" option was off. Fixed. Dragging subjects or binaries to the Finder trash doesn't make much sense. In the new version, these drags are rejected (the gray drag outline zooms back to its original location). At some sites, news servers require goofy extra header lines. You can supply these extra header lines by using the "Extra news header lines" field in the "Extra Header Lines" preferences topic. The extra header lines are added to all messages you post with NewsWatcher. Unfortunately, NewsWatcher neglected to add them on cancel messages, so canceling didn't work with these kinds of servers. This oversight has been corrected.