[2089] in comp.os.os2.announce archive
FREEWARE: VSoup version 1.2.5 for OS/2 Warp (offline newsreader)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Hardy Griech)
Sat Nov 16 16:58:04 1996
To: os2ann.DISCUSS@bloom-picayune.MIT.EDU
Date: 13 Nov 1996 17:30:58 GMT
From: rgriech@ibm.net (Hardy Griech)
Reply-To: rgriech@ibm.net (Hardy Griech)
Reply-to: rgriech@ibm.net (Hardy Griech)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
I am announcing VSoup version 1.2.5, a Souper replacement for OS/2 users. It
is the successor of the version 1.2, is still free (and will be forever),
source is included, it is still multi-threaded only for news receiving. A
enhanced version of YarnIo is contained, which allows simultaneous exchange of
news/mail (should be usable also with Souper), dial in and so on.
This version is intended as a bugfix, but nevertheless contains some new
features. Most significant are:
- extended documentation available as .INF-file
- several utilities to make Yarn/VSoup operations more comfortable
I'd like to thank Barrie Smith for helping me with the documentation and the
three gamma testers Jim Holcomb, Kay Pyrtek and Ralph D. Bednarski (although
those three had not very much to do).
For new installers: pay attention to the installation section in the
documentation, also read the FAQ. For upgraders: read the history section for
advice what must be changed.
Especially the TZ setting seems to be a show stopper, because VSoup will crash
with an exception. This is a bug in the EMX runtime and is fixed in the newly
released emxfix01 package.
Placed for downloading are:
- ftp://ftp.leo.org/pub/comp/os/os2/tcpip/news/vsoup125.zip
(at the moment ftp://ftp.leo.org/incoming/os2/vsoup125.zip)
- ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/os2/incoming/vsoup125.zip, later on it can be
found at ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/os2/internet/vsoup125.zip.
For information the feature & history list from 1.2 to 1.2.5 follows:
3 Features
==========
- Multithreaded news receiving is supported, anything between 1 and 10 threads
can be started (default 4), and in addition there are several possible
strategies for fine tuning.
Multithreading gives a speed gain of 200%-500% depending on the overall speed
of the connection and the number of threads; on the other hand multiple
connections have a communication overhead (i.e. the connections must be
established, the groups selected). Estimated loss is around 5%...
- all the packets are exchanged in SOUP format files, i.e. offline readers
expecting as input format either SOUP or USENET batch format can be used
together with VSoup1.2.5.
- VSoup1.2.5 generates a status message as incoming mail. (this is not in the
SOUP standard, but is recognized by Yarn). Normally this message is only
generated in case of failure (eg., cannot select newsgroup) or when special
events occur (eg., when new newsgroups are added), but the generation can be
forced to always occur by means of a command line option.
- VSoup1.2.5 will show some statistic information about data transfer.
- Specification of the required servers is easy by using URLs on the command
line.
- It is possible to filter articles by header lines before retrieving the body
text, see kill file handling.
- VSoup1.2.5 detects too low throughput or stuck connections.
- VSoup1.2.5 knows about NNTP authentication.
- YarnIo, a script to do VSoup1.2.5 operation safely (without risk of message
loss etc.) is included in the archive. YarnIo is capable of simultaneously
receiving news from up to nine separate NNTP news servers, posting news to
NNTP, receiving mail from up to nine POP3 servers and sending mail to SMTP.
- Other utilities included are
OwnSoup
This, with the help of the Yarn import program, redirects news
articles matching a specific pattern into a separate mail folder
which will show up when you read your mail with Yarn.
For example you can search newsgroups for any mention of your name or
any mention of a program you are interested in.
QSoup This appends mail and news messages to the Yarn reply packet file for
transmission by VSoup.
ConvSoup
This transforms all articles from binary SOUP format to
mailbox/USENET format.
- FAQ included.
- source code included.
- freeware according to GPL (without any warranty for correct function etc.).
11 History
==========
Version 1.2.5
-------------
- Improved Documentation, thanks to Barrie Smith.
Documentation now in TXT and INF format available, thanks to emxdoc.
- SOUP format for import has been changed:
- .\STSMAIL.MSG has format "mn" (same as before)
- from POP3 incoming Mails have format "bn": binary 8-bit clean mail format.
This allows from headers in the first column of the mail, i.e. mail
handling is now transparent (old was "mn").
- news have format "Bn": binary 8-bit clean news format (old was "un")
To allow the conversion to the old format ConvSoup has been added.
- Added OwnSoup which filters news articles containing a specific pattern into
a mail folder.
- Added QSoup to allow injection of messages into the SOUP reply packet.
- YarnIo changes:
- YarnIo now only zips the SEND packets (this is to allow re-edit of the
replies). Received messages are imported via import -u. If you have an
older version of YARNIO.SET it must be updated.
- YarnIo now supports OwnSoup. To allow operation of OwnSoup the entry
preImportProg has been added to YARNIO.SET.
- YarnIo now supports up to nine NNTP servers for news reception and up to
nine POP3 servers for EMail reception.
- -T-1 disables throughput check completely.
- the <kill-section> for one <group> can now be separated, e.g. the kill file
may now contain several "all" sections.
- now article ranges are allowed in the sendme of .\COMMANDS. This is a
non-standard SOUP extension.
- bug fixes:
- hostname is now fetched through TCP/IP API, no longer from 'internet
settings'
- it was possible in -S2 that during final catchup of articles the
connections were changing group assignment on each fetched article
- catchup did not work as expected. It sets the %HOME%\NEWSRC, so that in any
case 'n' articles were read afterwards. Display now shows groupLo & groupHi
- ^Z was not recognized correctly for %HOME%\NEWSRC & %HOME%\KILL
- Now again linked dynamically, the EMX.DLL and EMXLIBCM.DLL are required
- Lines containing a single '.' were aborting EMails, even if the '.' is
actually doubled for transfer. Don't know if this is an SMTP bug. Appending
a blank behind the '.' helped (i.e. ".. " is actually transferred to the
SMTP server). For news articles it works without appending the blank.
- sockets are now opened in text mode, because all the RFCs requires \r\n as
a line delimiter.
--
Hardy Griech, Kurt-Schumacher-Str. 25/1, D-72762 Reutlingen
=====================================================================
-- To submit to c.o.os2.announce: POST (or email os2_ann_req@bix.com)
-- For comments to the moderator: email lfirrantello@bix.com.
- for posting guidelines see: http://www.bix.com/pub/os2ann/pindex.htm
