Version 2.0b17 ============== November 1, 1994. Opening URLs ------------ In addition to opening news, mailto, and ftp URLs, you can now also open nntp, http, gopher, wais, telnet, tn3270, finger, and whois URLs. The nntp URL is an alternative to the news URL for identifying news articles. As with news URLs, for nntp URLs, NewsWatcher opens the referenced article and displays it in an article window. No helper program is used for these kinds of URLs. For the other new URLs, as with ftp URLs, NewsWatcher invokes "helper programs" to open and display them. The old prefs topic named "FTP Helper Program" has been replaced by two new topics named "URL Helper Programs 1" and "URL Helper Programs 2". There are now eight configurable URL helper programs. NewsWatcher initializes these preferences to appropriate default values, provided you have new enough versions of usable helper programs installed on your system. If you later install a helper or upgrade a helper to a new enough version, NewsWatcher finds it and uses it automatically, so most people shouldn't have to do much manual configuration, if any. The following table lists the usable URL helper programs, the minimum version number you need to use each helper with NewsWatcher, and the URLs for which each helper is most appropriately used. Helper Min version URLs most appropriate Program number for the helper ----------- ----------- --------------- Fetch 2.1.2 ftp Anarchie 1.2.0 ftp NCSA Mosaic 2.0a8 http, gopher MacWeb 0.0.0 http, gopher MacWAIS 1.2.9 wais TurboGopher 2.0a1 gopher NCSA Telnet 2.4 telnet tn3270 2.4d7 tn3270 Finger 1.5.0 finger, whois The latest versions of all these helper programs except for TurboGopher and NCSA Mosaic are available at: ftp://ftp.acns.nwu.edu/pub/newswatcher/helpers/ If you want to use TurboGopher as your gopher URL helper, you must use the test version 2.0a1 or later. The current production versions 1.0.x don't work. You can get the test version at: ftp://boombox.micro.umn.edu/pub/gopher/Macintosh-TurboGopher/ Test-TurboGopher/ If you want to use NCSA Mosaic as a URL helper, you must use the test version 2.0a8 or later. The current production versions 1.0.x don't work. You can get the test version at: ftp://ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Mosaic/Mac/ The current release version of MacWeb is an alternative to TurboGopher and NCSA Mosaic for gopher and http URLs. The finger and whois URLs require the new version 1.5.0 of Peter Lewis' "Finger" program. It's at our NU FTP site referenced above. The non-FTP helpers are run in the foreground. Also, with the FTP helpers, they are now run in the foreground if the ftp URL ends in '/'. This is a change from the previous version of NewsWatcher. ftp URLs which end in '/' represent directories, not files, and in this case you want to bring the FTP helper to the front so you can see the directory listing and get the files you want from the directory. NewsWatcher now saves you a step and brings the helper to the front for you in this case. See the revised chapter titled "Opening URLs" in the user doc for more details. I very much wanted to also support Mosaic Netscape as a helper, but unfortunately the current version 0.9b0 does not support the kind of Apple events required by NewsWatcher. If and when such a version is released, I will support it as a NewsWatcher helper. (Netscape does support Apple events, but there are technical problems with the way the events are implemented in Netscape which make it impossible for NewsWatcher and Netscape to work together. The Netscape folks are aware of the problems and all the technical details about the problems. I hope the problems will be fixed in some future version of the program.) Apple Events ------------ NewsWatcher now has a minimal preliminary implementation of a new draft standard URL Apple event suite. NewsWatcher supports news, nntp, and mailto URLs. You can send NewsWatcher an event and tell it to fetch a news article and display it in a window. You can also tell NewsWatcher to open a mail message window addressed to someone. This makes it possible for the authors of other Mac TCP/IP programs to make use of NewsWatcher as a helper program for these URLs, in much the same way that NewsWatcher itself uses helper programs. For more details, see the following documents: ftp://ftp.acns.nwu.edu/pub/newswatcher/url-ae-standard.txt ftp://ftp.acns.nwu.edu/pub/newswatcher/url-draft-rfc.txt NewsWatcher now has an Apple event terminology ('AETE') resource. You can get more information about the events NewsWatcher accepts by using the "Open Dictionary" command in Apple's Script Editor program. You can also script NewsWatcher, although the things you can do with scripting are very limited in the current version. Also see the new FAQs #51, #52, and #53 in the user document. Errors Fixed and Other Changes ------------------------------ Articles are now marked read when you save, print, or extract binaries in a subject window. If you extract binaries in an article window, all the parts are marked read. Article windows for articles with multiple sections now have left and right triangle controls at the bottom of the window which you can click to go to the previous or next section. The command key equivalent for the "Search" command in the "Special" menu has been changed once again, from Command-/ to Command-minus. This was done because Command-/ (Command-?) is reserved for help systems. Indeed, when we finish the Apple guide for NewsWatcher, the Help key on the extended keyboard and Command-/ (Command-?) will probably be used to open the guide. You can now use the "Search" command when a subject list or article window is active. When a subject list window is active, the command searches the group for that subject window. When an article window is active, the command searches all the groups in the Newsgroups header line of the article. The "Cycle Windows" command in the "Windows" menu is now enabled and disabled properly. NewsWatcher now sets the cursor to the watch when you open the "Font and Size" prefs topic, while the system builds the font menus, which can take a long time if you have lots of fonts installed. If you entered a bad address for a news, mail, or FTP server, sometimes you could get an "unexpected" error number -23041. NewsWatcher now issues an English error message for this error. In the standard file dialog presented by the "Append" command, the "Open" button has been renamed "Append" (when a file is selected - for folders, it still reads "Open", of course). With the "Extract Binaries Manually" command, NewsWatcher displays the selected parts in a dialog window. In the new version, NewsWatcher displays the unique article number of each selected part in addition to the subject. This makes it possible to distinguish between parts which have the same subject. This is an unusual situation, but it can happen. NewsWatcher now accepts the formats and URL:xxx:... for URLs. NewsWatcher now detects situations where a previously new enough version of a URL helper program is later replaced by an older not new enough version. For example, if you use a personal NewsWatcher floppy in multiple labs, and some labs have new enough helpers on their file servers, and some don't, NewsWatcher will now detect what's going on and behave appropriately. If a helper is not new enough, you get an alert telling you what version is required for that helper. You can now print saved messages from the Finder. If you have an open saved user group list or message window in NewsWatcher, then switch to the Finder and change the saved file name, when you switch back to NewsWatcher, the window title is changed to the new file name. If you delete a saved file in the Finder, NewsWatcher detects this, and makes the window "unsaved" and "changed" in the sense that if you use the "Save" command, a standard file dialog is presented, and if you close the window, NewsWatcher asks if you want to save the changes. In message windows, the window title is set to the subject you type in the Subject field. If you later go back and change the subject, NewsWatcher changes the title of the window to the new subject. If you save the message window to a file, however, the window title becomes tied to the saved file name, and is no longer adjusted as you change the message subject. Instead, it is adjusted as you change the name of the saved file in the Finder. If you later delete the saved file in the Finder, however, the window title in NewsWatcher is untied from the saved file and retied to the Subject header. Plans for Future Versions ------------------------- I have changed my plans for future versions of NewsWatcher. Version 2.0 final will include support for the Internet Config program, an unreleased work in progress that will make it possible to configure common information for all your Mac TCP/IP networking programs at once (assuming we all support it, of course). I've also added a new "Mark Kept" command to the plans for version 2.0 final. 2.0 final will also have balloon help and an Apple guide with active assistance. Version 2.1 will still be the filtering/killfile version, and I've added posting binaries to that version. For version 2.2, I've changed my mind and decided I'd like to do trn-style reference threading and support the "XOVER extension". I've moved MIME and support for non-Roman languages to version 2.3. See revised Appendix G in the user doc for more details on these plans. As mentioned in Appendix G, these plans are not promises, and I can't predict when these mythical future versions might be finished and released, if ever. I do indeed change my mind about my plans quite often.