From: SMTP%"terry@SPCVXB.SPC.EDU" 24-MAY-1993 16:26:49.90 To: EVERHART CC: Subj: A list of bugs in V6.1B7 (feel free to fix one 8-) Date: Mon, 24 May 1993 03:31:51 EDT Reply-To: "Terry Kennedy, Operations Mgr." Sender: ANU-NEWS Discussion From: "Terry Kennedy, Operations Mgr." Organization: St. Peter's College, US Subject: A list of bugs in V6.1B7 (feel free to fix one 8-) To: Multiple recipients of list ANU-NEWS A number of people have asked me what bugs I'd like to see fixed (or just that I know about) in the latest version of ANU News (V6.1B7). To answer those people, as well as to maintain a working list of things for me to investigate, I've created the following list of problems. Most of these problems are "classic" bugs that have existed since at least V6.0. Many of them go back to V5.7 or earlier. Some are trivial to fix, some may be impossible to fix without completely redesigning news (the reaction to a default list of newsgroups, subject, title, etc. wider than the screen comes to mind). If anyone tackles any of these bugs, I'd appreciate it if you let me know, as well as Bob Sloane, (keeper of the official sources), and Charles Bailey (keeper of the unofficial patch collection). Terry Kennedy Operations Manager, Academic Computing terry@spcvxa.bitnet St. Peter's College, Jersey City, NJ USA terry@spcvxa.spc.edu +1 201 915 9381 ** Bugfixes and improvements for ANU News ** + means done, o means still needs to be done + Change "delete ALL items?" to "delete ALL items in group?". + Change "news is locked" to "news is down for maintenance". + Disable the "Waikito menus" prompt if menus not configured in NEWSSITE.H. + Make the default response to "quit" NO instead of YES. + Clean up NNTP server help and welcome messages. + Users can't cancel item(s) - get ACCVIO in do_new_menu_itm. This isn't really fixed - apparently the definition of the control newsgroup changed between V6.1B4 and B7 so that users have to have access to it now for cancels to work properly. + Using "reply" doesn't honor the copy_self in VMS mail. This seems to have been fixed somewhere along the line. o Ignore newgroup control messages with !becker!feline in the path. This should be a new configuration file to allow sites to select paths, senders, and functions they want disabled. The following item could be merged into this new configuration file as well. o Silently ignore sendsys, senduuname, and version control messages. o Make sure that patches applied properly (some may not have). o Harmless "Error parsing ITEM" when deleting a news item. o Fix the creation of DEAD.LETTER and LASTPOST.LETTER so there is only one and it accurately reflects the last unconfirmed or confirmed posting, respectively. o Find out what is causing News to interact so badly with VMS V5.5-2 SMG on followups to massively cross-posted groups. o "show entry" changes if any "set newsgroup" command is given. ("Show entry: Newsgroup" changes to "Show entry: Newsgroup newsgroup.name"). o Only expand the keypad definitions, etc. at the NEWS> prompt, not on things like "Subject:". o Fix the bug where ANU "converts" timezones by changing the zone and keeping the time the same. Preferably we should interpret all timezones ad display them as the correct local time, but even displaying them as-is would be better than the current behavior. o Handle the case where the list of groups, subject, etc. is longer than the line and gives the "no authorized newsgroups" bug. o If NEWREGISTER=*, get an extraneous per group registered on startup. o Fix the problem where a news.sys line like !to,to.uunet doesn't work. This may not be this simple - sometimes unrelated changes will "fix" problems in the feed. This needs more investigation. o Is the SET PROFILE/NEWREG bug fixed? o Is the SET PROFILE/RCORDER bug fixed? o Broadcast messages are truncated when you do SHOW MESSAGE. They should wrap, and be stored/displayed as multiple lines. o Need to pick up personal name from MAIL, if not there from $GETUAI. o Need to build a new help file from the current CLD file. Documentation, too. o Skipping an item should skip it in all crossposted groups. o If you skip an item in one group, and then skip it in a later group, news will "forget" that you skipped it in the earlier group. o When exiting and re-entering News rapidly, some groups appear to have new items, but when opened, there aren't any. Why? o Make sure all news prompts use a consistent method of displaying defaults (like "are you sure? [n]") rather than the current hodgepodge. o ^Z should only exit news if at the NEWS> prompt. If at some sub-prompt (like show aliases, etc.) it should return to the main NEWS> prompt in- stead of exiting. o Change default NNTP access to disallow all posting and xfers.