Release Notes for VNEWS, 1.4.				July, 1991

Here are the major changes to VNEWS.  If you are a current VNEWS user,
please skip to the end and read "CAUTIONS FOR CURRENT USERS!"

BUGFIXES: 

over 100 bugs and problems in VNEWS were fixed.


CUSTOMIZATION:  

VNEWS is now much more easily customizable than
before, both in terms of logical names and news customization.  It
still suffers from FORTRAN's inability to easily dynamically deal
with memory allocation.  Most of your customization will occur in
SITE_SPECIFIC.DEF.  Some systems will need to change NEWS.DEF, 
particularly if you have many groups, or  groups with very long names.


SERVER SUPPORT: 

VNEWS now supports NNTP servers which require AUTHINFO.  If your NNTP
server requires AUTHINFO, look at SITE_SPECIFIC.DEF for a username and
password.

VNEWS now supports news servers which don't allow
posting, in a friendly way.

VNEWS will create Message_IDs and Dates for servers that (incorrectly) require
them.

Change dates to be RFC-compliant.  Requires new logical name NNTP_TIMEZOME,
or a logical name in your network software that will do the same.


NEW COMMANDS: 

	Z - next unread article in thread, else next unread article.

	Y - don't confirm "catchup" commands.
	N - confirm "catchup" commands.
	/AUTOCATCHUP - same as "Y" command.

	C - cancel an article.
	F - followup & mail reply to original poster
	S - send a copy of this article to someone.

In addition, the /c switch - applies to F/c, R/c, S/c, 
does a Copy_Self of the message.  You can also supply a username
for S, R, and F to replace the default if there is one (original poster).


NEW TRANSPORTS:

VNEWS had support added for CMU-TEK TCP/IP, 
Process Software TCPware, DECnet/NNTP,
and UCX.


PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT:

VNEWS has a totally re-designed makefile.  VNEWS also now compiles
without complaint under FORTRAN HPO (although beware if you make
changes to NEWS.DEF that this may not be true!)

VNEWS doesn't require you to install a verb in your systemwide
or process DCLTABLES; it allows you to use either a verb or
a simple foreign command (or, you can just type RUN VNEWS).


FASCIST MODE:

VNEWS now restricts options users have to muck about with headers,
and has a nice place for you to insert special site-specific headers,
or to otherwise require headers in the message.  


EDITING AND MAIL:

VNEWS now supports more powerful editing - callable TPU, EDT, and any 
other callable editor, plus standard MAIL$EDIT command file.

VNEWS also supports callable mail for V5.0, and versions of VMS which
do not have callable mail (V4.7). 
The users mail personal name now comes from logicals, the MAILUAF, or
the system UAF. 

VNEWS also respects the user's wishes in his/her MAIL profile with
regard to COPY_SELF on all email type operations.


CAUTIONS FOR CURRENT USERS:

1- VNEWS now supports DNS names instead of IP addresses.  You will probably
want to change NEWS.DEF.

2- VNEWS now supports callable editors.  If you have "EDIT/TPU" assigned
as your NNTP_EDITOR, you should change it to CALLABLE_TPU.  It will work
faster and better, and be less prone to $SPAWN-induced artifacts.

3- VNEWS has a lot of new logical names, including a timezone one.  You
should read the section about new logicals and let your users know.  Some
of the changes can cause unexpected behavior (such as your MAIL personal
name being used for NEWS postings all of a sudden).  

4- VNEWS does not require a .CLD verb entry in DCLTABLES.  However, the
new version of VNEWS has two new switches, so if you have added a verb,
then you need to update it.  You could also switch to using foreign
command definition, if desired.

5- Over 80% of the cpu time that VNEWS burns is done before the first
message is read.  The best way to reduce that is to reduce the number of
groups in your xx.newsrc file, since an O(n**2) is done based on groups
in xx.newsrc.