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Below is a list of changes recently made. Minor bug fixes and feature additions might not be listed.

Version and Release Date Features Added Bugs Fixed
2.9r
1 Jun 2005
New Settings:
auth_remove 		  Server / Web Browser:
  • fixed performance problem when accessing forums containing thousands of attachments
 
2.9p
8 Apr 2005
New Settings:
discussion_user_group_members_only 		Server / Web Browser:
  • changed default behaviour in forums and chat rooms that are only accessible to members of a particular user group. If the forum also contains additional users in the forum members page, send those members are now able to access the forum. In previous versions this would not happen. Use the setting called discussion_user_group_members_only to make it work like it did in previous versions. The reason for it working like it did in previous versions is that when a user chooses to receive e-mail messages when new posts are made to the forum, then they get added to the forum members list. If the administrator later removed the user from the user group, they would still have access to the forum.
  • users can now use simpler links to access online support. For example http://your.domain.name:8132/chat?with=username
 		 Server / Web Browser:
  • fixed bug where administrator status command in Web browsers other than Internet Explorer would display the HTML source of the page.
  • when a user is banned from dbabble, they are now disconnected from the server immediately, and they no longer receive email copies of articles in forums they are subscribed to.
 
2.9n
16 Feb 2005
New Settings:
web_domain 		Server / Web Browser:
  • Added setting web_domain setting for servers where the web domain name is different from your email domain name.
 		  
2.9m
26 Jan 2005
New Settings:
None 		Server / Web Browser:
  • Added options to allow creation of user groups, forums and chat rooms from a text file. See add_users.txt in server directory for details
 		  
2.9i
14 Jan 2005
New Settings:
web_only_show_chat_room , web_only_show_forum 		  Server / Web Browser:
  • Fixed bug that could stop outgoing email working if you had changed the max_file_size setting from it's default value.
  • Fixed bug that could crash in rare situations when users use the email checking feature.
Windows Client Only:
  • Fixed bug that could crash DBabble in rare situations
 
2.9g
9 Nov 2004
New Settings:
None 		  Server / Web Browser:
  • Fixed bugs where displaying forums in some web browsers did not work correctly.
 
2.9f
2 Nov 2004
New Settings:
None 		  Server / Web Browser:
  • Fixed bug where members of a user group belonging to a forum could sometimes not post to it. Also fixed related problem where when the administrator tried to add members to a forum they would sometimes appear not to get added.
 
2.9e
14 Oct 2004
New Settings:
authors_can_move_articles , discussion_edit_prepend_note , discussion_resend_on_edit , discussion_move_prepend_note , discussion_move_copy_read_status 		Windows Client Only:
  • URLs in the user details section tab (available when composing an instant message) are now clickable.
  • Changed default printing to use a larger font and a page margin. Added preferences to change these.
  • Edited discussion group articles are now marked unread and resent to users who receive email/instant message copies of new articles.
  • Added discussion group administrator and moderator options to move articles between threads and discussion groups.
 		  
2.9d
5 Oct 2004
New Settings:
None 		Server / Web Browser:
  • Improved threading support for incoming posts to forums by looking for both the references and in-reply-to headers in the incoming email messages.
 		 Server / Web Browser:
  • Fixed bug where incoming email/nttp attachments that were encoded as quoted-printable we wrongly having underscore characters (_) converted into space characters.
  • Fixed bug where if you have the authent_uses_full_email_address setting on, and are not using an external authentication process then users would not be able to login to DBabble (the authent_uses_full_email_address setting was originally only intended to be used in conjunction with an external authentication system).
 
2.9c
27 Sep 2004
New Settings:
web_background_color , web_text_color , web_section_header_background_color , web_odd_table_line_background_color , web_list_background_color , web_list_text_color , web_list_background_color2 , web_list_text_color2 , web_list_background_color3 , web_list_text_color3 , web_important_text_color , web_important_text_color2 , web_login_page_heading_background_color , web_login_page_heading_text_color 		Server / Web Browser:
  • Added section to web admin interface to make it easier to customize web browser interface colors.
 		 Server / Web Browser:
  • Fixed bug where chat rooms in Mac Safari browsers would not work properly in some situations.
  • Fixed bug where incoming email for forums was treating the email address as case sensitive, so not matching when it should have.
  • Fixed bug where forwarding a signed message with an attachment and not signing the forwarded message would leave the original signature on the forwarded attachment when the attachment was viewed or saved.
 
2.7z
24 Aug 2004
New Settings:
None 		  Server / Web Browser:
  • Fixed bug where auto-login to DBabble from SurgeMail web interfaces would fail if the user's password was longer than their base user name.
  • When using an external authentication process and allowing users to create their own accounts in that database through DBabble, the server now checks that the domain they specify is a valid domain name for this server before creating the account.
 
2.7y
23 Aug 2004
New Settings:
None 		Server / Web Browser:
  • You can now send instant messages to users on other servers (in your master/slave list) by addressing them to user_name-domain.name or user_name-host_id (e.g. john-netwinsite.com)
  • Minor changes to layout of web browser login page.
 		 Server / Web Browser:
  • Fixed bug that could crash server when using client im.exe program to send instant messages to users on other servers.
 
2.7w
17 Aug 2004
New Settings:
None 		  Server / Web Browser:
  • Fixed install bug where if SurgeMail was present on the same machine it could set the default DBabble domain name incorrectly.
Windows Client Only:
  • Fixed a memory leak bug that could occasionally happen when connected to ICQ, MSN, etc gateway servers. In rare situations this could cause DBabble to hang (stop working).
 
2.7u
10 Aug 2004
New Settings:
None 		Server / Web Browser:
  • If SurgeMail is installed on the same system and the SurgeMail setting g_dbabble_links is on, then links to switch to WebMail and SurgePlus (if the g_surgeplus_links setting is on too) are added to the DBabble web interface menu on the left.
  • If you require users to use their full email address to log in and the user only uses their base name when using the web interface, it will append the host name in their browser url to form the complete email address.
 		 Windows Client Only:
  • Fixed bug in 2.7s where a web page embedded at the top of a chat room window did not work.
 
2.7s
4 Aug 2004
New Settings:
authent_uses_full_email_address , authent_valid_domains , authent_surgemail_defaults , ugroup_communicate_with_all , user_restrict_communication_to_same_domain 		Server / Web Browser:
  • Added authent_process option of SurgeMail which means if SurgeMail is installed on the same machine it users the same user database for authentication.
  • Added authent_uses_full_email_address setting (default to on when using SurgeMail authentication) which means that your users log in using their full email address, and DBabble does @ to - conversion on the name so that the user's internal DBabble name is of the form user-domain.name instead of user@domain.name. This allows users to send messages to either users via email or via DBabble since they now have different names. It also allows users full names to be displayed as user-domain.name instead of user@domain.name-domain.name as would happen in previous versions. There is also now a setting to restrict users in different domains from seeing and communicating with each other.
  • Added ugroup_communicate_with_all server setting to allow you to create a user group that is allowed to communicate with all users, including those in restricted communication user groups.
Windows Client Only:
  • Added option (default on) so that the button image is highlighted when the mouse is hovering over it.
 		 Server / Web Browser:
  • Fixed bug where on some systems when changing your user details it would incorrectly say "You must specify a value for password"
  • Fixed bug where if you added all local users to your contacts list, the status of those users would not get updated until you logged out then logged in again.
  • If your outgoing email gateway server rejects a message (rather than accepting then generating the bounce itself), DBabble now generates a bounce message for the sender.
Windows Client Only:
  • Fixed bug where choosing to save all attachments to a folder that does not exist saves them into the default 'documents and settings' folder.
  • Fixed printing bug where tab characters were not being correctly printed.
  • Fixed bug where the login window could remain visible but disabled after you logged in in some situations.
  • Fixed bug where the send button in the online support chat window had a blank caption.
  • Fixed bug where changing your user details in your preferences would sometimes leave ugly gray boxes in the window.
 
2.7q
14 Jul 2004
New Settings:
None 		  Windows Client Only:
  • Fixed rare crash bug caused when creating a reminder for a deleted message.
 
2.7p
6 Jul 2004
New Settings:
None 		  Server / Web Browser:
  • Fixed bug that could cause slow logins for some Windows client users due to a bug in old versions causing instant message read/unread status to get out of sync with server.
 
2.7n
28 Jun 2004
New Settings:
None 		  Server / Web Browser:
  • Fix for bug in 2.7m on Windows only. The IP address of occasional incoming connections was not available meaning those connections would be dropped if you restrict the ip address of users allowed to connect to your server.
 
2.7m
21 Jun 2004
New Settings:
key_email 		Server / Web Browser:
  • Changed license key system to use the newer license key system that other Netwin software uses. Old license keys will still work.
  • Added tcp_socket_dup setting (default true). On the occasional Windows XP system where socket duplication (for the purpose of changing sub-process inheritance properties) doesn't work, turning this setting off should allow DBabble to work. Do not change this setting if DBabble is already working.
  • Windows only. Installer adds "DBabble Server" program group to Windows Start menu.
  • Added manager command to list the number of instant messages sent/received each day.
 		 Server / Web Browser:
  • Fixed bug with text in incoming email headers starting with space causing headers to be treated as blank in some situations.
 
2.7h
20 May 2004
New Settings:
None 		  Server / Web Browser:
  • Applied OpenSSL patch to fix security problem in OpenSSL 0.9.7c
Windows Client Only:
  • Fixed a few minor bugs
 
2.7e
11 May 2004
New Settings:
None 		  Windows Client Only:
  • Fixed a few minor bugs
 
2.7c
5 Apr 2004
New Settings:
None 		Server / Web Browser:
  • Added server setting called client_run_external_program that lets you add an option to the Windows client tray and file menus to start the specified application.
 		  
2.7b
19 Mar 2004
New Settings:
chat_show_users , chat_send_transcripts , client_run_external_program 		Server / Web Browser:
  • Changed server so that chat_messages (maximum number of old messages to display when entering a chat room) setting can be larger than 20.
  • Added server setting chat_show_users that lets you specify whether or not everyone (or just moderators or just admin) can see the list of users present in chat rooms.
  • Added server setting chat_send_transcripts that lets you send transcripts of a particular chat room to all users once every specified time interval.
 		 Server / Web Browser:
  • Fixed problem when client tries to download all their old instant messages. Previously, if there were enough large instant messages, the list could be truncated by the maximum tcp buffer size causing the client to not get all their messages.
 
2.6k
9 Feb 2004
New Settings:
client_background_image_off_low_color , jabber_resend_status_interval , tcp_socket_dup 		  Server / Web Browser:
  • Fixed web browser interface bug where if the total length of the users on your friends list was more than a few thousand characters, then the list displaying your friends would be truncated and have some friend names drawn over the top of others.
  • Added work around for Jabber gateway server bug causing user's online status to be lost on MSN.
  • Fixed bug that could hang server when doing lots of domain name lookups that take longer than 10 seconds.
Windows Client Only:
  • Fixed minor bug in 2.6h - pressing a button and moving mouse away before releasing button would click the button when it shouldn't have.
  • If your machine supports 256 colors or less, then the background image preferences defaults to off due to it not looking good and causing performance problems.
  • Fixed problem where replying to a sent message or a message to multiple recipients would refer to the user by their user-id instead of user-name for encryption certificate purposes.
 
2.6h
14 Jan 2004
New Settings:
english_replace_words 		Server / Web Browser:
  • Changed so that if you set the port and extra_ports settings to 0, the server will not listen on any port at all. Useful if you only want to allow secure connections to the server.
  • Added server setting (english_replace_words) to replace words with other words. For example "friends"->"contacts","discussion groups"->"forums". These examples are now the defaults for new installs. If you want existing installations to use them, there is a manager command to set them.
Windows Client Only:
  • When sending a message to a gateway user who is on your friends list, it now displays their online status at the top of the window.
  • Added immediate reconnect preference so that if your connection to the server is lost it will try to reconnect immediately. Useful if your ISP does not allow connections to remain open for more than a few minutes.
 		 Windows Client Only:
  • Fixed problem with MSN communication showing your name as "(NULL)" to other users in some situations. If you are already using MSN through DBabble then in the preferences window, you may need to delete your MSN name/password in DBabble, click apply, then enter them again to make this fix take effect.
  • Fixed problem with the 'start in chat mode with gateway users' preference not always working.
  • Fixed bug where instant message headers could continuously flicker in very rare situations.
  • Fixed problem where some animated gif images would not display correctly.
  • Fixed bug that could crash DBabble in rare situations when upgrading to a new version. If this happens while upgrading you should shut down your existing version and download the new version from your DBabble server web page (e.g. http://domain.name.com:8132 where you replace domain.name.com with your DBabble server domain name) and install that over the top of your old version. Your existing preferences and settings will be maintained.
 
2.6e
19 Nov 2003
New Settings:
None 		Server / Web Browser:
  • Reduced Windows client download size by using better compression from about 2.8 MB to 1.8 MB
Windows Client Only:
  • Added support for connecting to the server through a proxy server using SSL (encrypted communication).
  • Added discussion group and chat room option to automatically open the window on startup.
  • Added option to dock chat room windows to the main window and a preference to automatically dock newly open chat room windows.
  • Added option to only display friends and subscribed groups in old instant message user list.
 		 Server / Web Browser:
  • Fixed bug where browsing discussion groups on other servers would sometimes give a 'not allowed to use discussions' error message.
  • Fixed bug that would cause all discussion group attachments to not be displayed in the file list prior to any article that had been deleted.
  • Fixed administrator only bug in Windows client that would crash it when trying to add slave servers.
Windows Client Only:
  • Fixed warning display about message not being signed for instant message copies of articles posted to discussion groups.
 
2.5r
22 Oct 2003
New Settings:
None 		Server / Web Browser:
  • Added support for certificate chain files for the server SSL certificate. Some certificate authorities require that you use a certificate chain when you buy a certificate from them. In this situation you just now put both your certificate and the intermediate chain certificate into your DBabble server certificate file (e.g. dbabblesvr/certificate_netwinsite.com.pem)
 		 Server / Web Browser:
  • Fixed bug where viewing old instant messages in Mozilla web browser didn't work.
  • Fixed bug where searching in web browser discussion group members would fail.
  • Fixed problem where using web browser chat rooms over occasionally unreliable network connections could cause the client to stop receiving chat room update messages.
  • Removed 1000 member limit in user groups.
  • Fixed problem with repeating reminder messages and daylight savings. If the repeat interval is a multiple of exactly 1 day, then the server now adjusts the repeat interval at daylight savings switch over dates to make the message occur at the same time of the day both before and after daylight savings changes.
Windows Client Only:
  • Fixed minor bugs and improved performance for some features.
 
2.5q
7 Oct 2003
New Settings:
None 		Windows Client Only:
  • Added chat room option to not be notified when users enter the chat room while the window is not focussed
  • Added 'Start in chat mode with user groups' preference.
 		 Windows Client & Web Browser:
  • Upgraded to OpenSSL 0.9.7c to fix encrypted communication security bugs.
Windows Client Only:
  • Fixed chat room bug where it would scroll down on every refresh when connecting through a proxy server
 
2.5n
26 Sep 2003
New Settings:
keep_client_message_connections_open 		Server / Web Browser:
  • Added server setting (keep_client_message_connections_open, default on) to allow connected Windows clients to keep open their connections for sending instant messages to improve performance.
 		 Server / Web Browser:
  • Fixed bug in 2.5m where viewing the administrator web interface sometimes would incorrectly make internet explorer prompt you to save the pages rather than viewing them.
  • Fixed user group permission management to allow administrator users to modify or delete the user group permissions for the user group creator.
 
2.5m
19 Sep 2003
New Settings:
None 		Server / Web Browser:
  • Extended jabber_reject_from setting to accept a list of users. Default for this setting is now updated to reject messages from messenger@microsoft.com and YahooMessengerTeam@yahoo. Both of these accounts are used to tell clients of their instant messaging protocol to upgrade to a new version, which means DBabble users would get these messages due to DBabble pretending to be a client of the relevant protocol.
  • Added more server performance logging information.
 		 Server / Web Browser:
  • Fixed bug that could crash server in rare situations when the administrator changes the user details of a user.
  • Fixed bug that could crash server when the obsolete icq_enabled setting was on.
  • Fixed bug that could crash Solaris Sparc servers when connecting to jabber gateway servers.
  • Fixed minor security problem that could allow malicious web sites that a user visits to obtain DBabble cookies from a user's web browser using an XSS (cross site scripting) attack.
 
2.5i
1 Sep 2003
New Settings:
show_online_support_ip_addresses , jabber_reject_from 		Server / Web Browser:
  • Added setting (default on) to display ip address of guest users who connect for online support to the recipient of the request.
  • Added setting to reject incoming Jabber messages from particular users. Intended for ignoring the microsoft message that now gets sent every time you connect to MSN via DBabble telling MSN clients that they must upgrade their client. The default for this new setting is to ignore messages from messenger@microsoft.com. Note: Microsoft intends to stop supporting the current protocol that DBabble uses (via Jabber) to connect to MSN from October 15, 2003. Hopefully the Jabber MSN transport developers will have support for the new protocol by then.
 		 Server / Web Browser:
  • Fixed bug where discussion group introductions were not available on systems where the direct_discussion_group_access setting is off in versions 2.5a and later.
Windows Client Only:
  • Fixed problem where program could crash in rare situations when upgrading to a new version
  • Fixed bug (in versions 2.5c and later) where typing the letters r, k, or w in the discussion group search box would not work due to those characters being treated as hot keys.
  • Fixed bug that could cause received attachments to be saved to disk as empty files.
 
2.5g
27 Aug 2003
New Settings:
None 		  Server / Web Browser:
  • Fixed problem where some external news servers would reject articles DBabble tried to post to them due to DBabble including system headers within the posted article.
 
2.5f
26 Aug 2003
New Settings:
guest_logins_for_online_support_only 		Server / Web Browser:
  • Added user group option (for administrator users only) to make all members of the user group only able to see and communicate with other members of the user group. Administrator can optionally specify which restricted communication user groups a user belongs to when they create the account or on their user details page.
  • Added more administrator options on the admin web page.
  • Added option to make selected chat rooms and discussion groups only visible to members of a given user group
  • Added user permissions to disable the use of chat rooms, discussion groups, instant messages, and user groups.
  • Added setting (guest_logins_for_online_support_only) so that guest users are not able to use chat rooms, discussion groups, send instant messages or view details about other users.
Windows Client Only:
  • Added status options in the system tray right click menu to set your state to idle/offline until you move the mouse.
  • Added status options for whether you are available for online support (only applies if the server administrator allows guest users on your server)
  • Added option to not notify you about partial typing in private conversation windows.
 		 Windows Client Only:
  • Fixed bug that happened if you tried to send an instant message larger than 20K in size. It would ask you if you wanted to send it as an attachment instead, but if you choose yes it would not work.
  • Fixed bug where sending a digitally signed instant message with an attachment to an email address would include the attachment signature as part of the attachment data in the email.
 
2.5e
11 Aug 2003
New Settings:
direct_discussion_group_file_access 		  Server / Web Browser:
  • Fixed bug in version 2.5c only where administrator could not create new user accounts using Windows client interface
  • Fixed problem where large attachments posted to discussion groups accessible to any user when users choose to receive an email copy of the article. If the attachment was larger than 100K it includes a link to download the attachment, but the server refused access to the attachment because the allow_direct_discussion_group_access setting was off. There is now a separate allow_direct_discussion_group_file_access setting which is on by default
  • Fixed bug that could crash the server in rare situations when using the email checking feature.
Windows Client Only:
  • When you save an encrypted instant message to disk it now decrypts the message before saving it.
  • Fixed bug where importing AIM buddy lists would not work in some situations.
  • In instant message chat mode, it now does not display the full user name after the first chat message from each user in order to make it easier to read.
 
2.5c
5 Aug 2003
New Settings:
auth_append , direct_discussion_group_access , show_find_groups , show_find_groups_options , show_group_categories , jabber_gateways_upgrade , default_ugroup_filter_index 		Server / Web Browser:
  • When clicking on discussion group articles in web interface, the subject of the most recently clicked article is changed to red to make it easier to see where you were up to when you return to the article list page.
  • Added user management options to web browser administrator interface
  • Added silent Windows client installation options to make it easy to install the Windows client on many machines without having to use the Graphical interface. See the 'Windows Client' section of the server administration web interface on your server (e.g. http://domain.name:8132/admin)
  • Added user permission (and permission group) field to prevent users from being able to use the jabber gateways to communicate with ICQ, MSN, etc users. Useful if you only want to allow some of your users to use this feature.
  • Added server setting (show_find_groups - default on) that specifies whether the 'Find groups' window is used or not. If it is not, then all public discussion groups and chat rooms appear in every user's list of subscribed groups. Useful on systems with only a few groups.
  • Added server setting (show_find_groups_options - default 10) that specifies the number of discussion groups and chat rooms that must be on the server before the group searching options (group categories, group name etc) are displayed. Makes it clearer and easier to use on systems with only a few groups.
  • Added server setting (show_group_categories) that can be turned off to hide the discussion group and chat room categories on those servers that don't want to use them
  • If you turn on the direct_discussion_group_access setting then users are able to directly read public discussion groups via a URL like http://free.dbabble.com/forums/dbabble.general
  • If an incoming email to be converted to an instant message is larger than the maximum size allowed (20K) then it is converted to an attachment instead.
  • Added setting (default_ugroup_filter_index) for specifying the default option for sending instant messages to user groups (out of All Recipients, Online Recipients, etc)
  • After logging in to the web browser interface, the page displayed is either the user's subscribed groups or old instant message list depending on which of these they last viewed before logging out last time.
  • Text starting with www. in messages received using the web browser interface are now converted to clickable links. Previously this just worked on text starting with http://. Clickable www. links are already supported in the Windows client.
  • Added auth_append setting. If specified, this text is appended to username (if it is not already there) before sending to the authentication process or pop server. Useful if your authentication process or pop server requires a full email address but you want your users to login to DBabble using just their user name rather than entire email address.
  • Added more options to the online support setup so that the online support window can now be embedded into an existing web page rather than having to be in a separate window like in previous versions.
Windows Client & Web Browser:
  • Added options in discussion group windows to select whether you want to be sent email and/or instant message copies of all articles posted to the discussion group.
  • Added discussion group option to open the discussion group with all threads expanded.
  • In discussion groups, added option to only display threads that contain unread articles.
  • Added option to mark discussion group threads as watched and added option to only display watched threads.
  • Added option to ignore discussion group threads which means any articles in such threads will not be visible to you in future unless you turn on the option to show ignored threads. Additionally if you choose to receive instant message or email copies of articles posted to the discussion then you won't receive those posted to threads you are ignoring.
Windows Client Only:
  • Added an instant message chat mode (click the chat mode button when composing an instant message). This means that when you send a message the window does not disappear from your screen, and you can see recent replies to the message in the same window. This feature works with multiple recipients and with user groups. You can optionally see text as other users type it. This feature replaces the private conversation feature in previous versions and is better in that it works with multiple recipients and with gateway (ICQ, MSN) and email users and supports client to client encryption. When communicating with gateway users chat mode (rather than message mode) is now the default communication method.
  • Added better instant message reply options, so that if someone sends a message to a user group which they are not a member of, then when you choose to reply to all recipients, then sender is included in the recipients of the reply.
  • Added instant message folders so you can file important instant messages to make them easier to find later.
  • When sending an instant message to a user who is not on your friends list you are now asked if you want them added to your friends list. There is a checkbox option to not display this message in future.
  • If you try to send an instant message larger than the maximum size allowed (20K) you are now asked if you want to send it as an attachment instead.
  • After you download an instant message attachment from the server it now asks you if you want the attachment deleted from the server. There are options to automatically delete attachments from the server after downloading and to never delete attachments from the server after downloading.
  • When adding a user group to the recipients of an instant message, the options to send only to all recipients or online recipients are now displayed.
  • Added 'reply to group' and 'reply to sender' buttons in discussion group window
  • In discussion groups, added 'expand all threads' and 'contract all threads' menu options.
  • Added option to expand discussion group threads on double click.
  • When downloading additional discussion group items the currently selected article remains selected in this version.
  • Added retry button when downloading an attachment fails due to a lost connection. When you click the retry button the download will continue from where it was up to.
  • Added option to save all attachments at once in a single message rather than having to save them all one at a time.
 		 Server / Web Browser:
  • Fixed administrator bug when setting default preferences that would incorrectly limit integer preferences to a maximum value of 9999
 
2.4r
9 Jul 2003
New Settings:
None 		  Server / Web Browser:
  • Fixed bug on unix based servers where the feature to automatically delete old instant messages would not work in some situations.
  • Fixed bug with allow_discussion_email setting that would prevent users being sent instant message copies of articles posted to discussions when this setting was turned off.
  • Incoming email that gets converted to instant messages is now decoded if it is in base64 or quoted-printable format.
Windows Client Only:
  • Fixed bug that could crash program when pressing a hot key in the main window in versions 2.4e and later.
 
2.4q
5 May 2003
New Settings:
None 		  Server / Web Browser:
  • Fixed bug where nntp hosted discussion group emailed replies were not getting posted back to nntp server, nntp server said "441 obsolete headers", DBabble now removes those bad headers.
 
2.4p
17 Apr 2003
New Settings:
None 		  Server / Web Browser:
  • Fixed bug in 2.4k and later that could crash server when user's add friends without a name.
  • Fixed bug in 2.4e and later that could crash server when pulling newsgroups from another server and a user had chosen to receive instant message copies of articles posted to the discussion group and the user had the preference to forward their instant messages to their email address on and the article being fetched from the external newsgroup contained lines longer than 80 characters.
 
2.4n
15 Apr 2003
New Settings:
None 		  Server / Web Browser:
  • Fixed bug where incoming email messages that get converted to instant messages could have the 'from' field corrupted if the recipient had the preference to forward all their instant messages to an email address on.
  • Fixed bug where saving web browser preferences would fail with a javascript error if you had the check_email_enabled setting off.
  • Fixed bug where connecting to ICQ, MSN, etc would not work for users on your server that have DBabble login names containing the @ symbol.
Windows Client Only:
  • Fixed bug where your idle/offline time could appear wrong on the server in rare situations
 
2.4k
14 Apr 2003
New Settings:
show_client_license_agreement , jabber_gateways_enabled , jabber_gateway , jabber_server_port , jabber_domain 		Server / Web Browser:
  • Added support for connecting users to other instant messaging protocols whenever they connect to DBabble. This is implemented by the DBabble server connecting to publicly available Jabber protocol gateways. Your server must be accessible from the internet on port 5269 for this feature to work. If it is not, then you should disable the jabber_gateways_enabled setting. Use the jabber_gateway setting to specify the domain name of the servers that DBabble connects to.
  • Added support for editing server settings that can have multiple values from within the server administrator graphical interface. In previous versions the only settings that could have multiple values were the phone_gateway and auto_login settings, and to edit these you had to edit dbabblesvr.ini using a text editor. In this version there is also the jabber_gateway setting that can have multiple values.
  • When a client sends a message, but looses their connection to the server before the server acknowledges receiving the message, previous versions would resend the message which could result in 2 copies of the message being delivered. There are now checks to avoid multiple deliveries of the same message.
Windows Client Only:
  • Added support for communicating with users on other instant messaging protocols (ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, AIM). You must have an existing account on each of these protocols and you can specify it in your preferences so that you are automatically connected to these protocols whenever you connect to DBabble.
  • Improved performance when using a large background image.
  • Added system wide hot key preferences for searching old instant messages and for setting state to idle.
  • Changed column sorting header arrows to point in the same direction as they would for Microsoft products. There is now an 'invert sorting arrows' preference to make them point in the direction they pointed in previous versions
  • Added option to automatically set state to idle when using a full screen application. Also added option to not be notified about new messages (or only particular priority messages) while using a full screen application
  • When viewing user group members, it now lists the unique user name of each member and you can search members based on the unique user name.
  • Position and sizes of user group, chat room, and discussion group member windows are now maintained between sessions.
 		 Server / Web Browser:
  • Fixed bug where replying to all recipients of an instant message in the web browser interface would include yourself in the recipients instead of the original sender in some situations.
  • Fixed problem with not being able to reply to email received from users with a trailing bracketed comments or spaces at the end of the email 'From' field.
  • Fixed problem with the web browser online support feature sometimes not showing the guest user what is being said when using a slow network connection.
  • Fixed bug where in rare situations, the web browser interface would display message dates as 'Tomorrow' when they were actually sent a day or two ago.
Windows Client Only:
  • Fixed bug in 2.4e where cached attachment downloads could become corrupted.
  • Fixed problem with wrapping of long lines in chat rooms not working properly in some situations.
 
2.4g
4 Mar 2003
New Settings:
delete_accounts_never_used , client_open_group_window , web_groups_list_moderators 		Server / Web Browser:
  • Added support for listing group moderators in any web template page. See tpl/list_moderators.htm for details.
  • Added options so the invite user feature now gives the invited user a link to download a customized version of the Windows client with their user name and optionally password already set for them.
  • Added setting to automatically delete accounts that are created but never used after a given time interval. See delete_accounts_never_used setting. This can be used in addition to the setting delete_accounts_not_used added in earlier versions which will automatically delete accounts that have not been used recently.
  • Changed default online support web browser window layout to be much smaller in size and containing less unnecessary information.
 		 Windows Client Only:
  • Fixed bug with background images not being correctly redrawn when resizing some windows.
  • Fixed bug where notify of new messages in chat rooms did not work if you turned of the user enters and exits messages.
 
2.4e
28 Feb 2003
New Settings:
guest_login_talk_greeting , guest_login_talk_style , ads_in_main_window , ads_in_chat_rooms , win_client_web_page , hide_old_articles , accurate_article_counts , ssl_private_key_bits 		Server / Web Browser:
  • Added better support for adding links to your web pages to provide your customers with online support. For example, you can now copy and paste a small piece of javascript code into your web pages so that when you are online it has a link like 'Live chat with our sales team' and when you are offline (or idle) it says 'Live chat is not currently available'. When a user clicks the link it will initiate a private conversation request with you or a random online member of a particular user group. For more information, see the 'Online support setup' section of the DBabble web browser administrator interface.
  • Added option to show a specified web page instead of advertisements in Windows client. The web page is embedded within the Windows client main window and/or chat room windows. This feature requires the user has Internet Explorer 4.0 or later installed on their computer. You can also optionally restrict showing the web page to certain ip addresses or members of a particular user group.
  • Added option to display advertisements at the top of every chat room window in the Windows client.
  • Added option to specify how many bits your SSL encryption private key should be rather than the default of 1024 bits.
  • Added better support for the email checking feature. If the user moves messages out of their email inbox using IMAP, DBabble no longer wrongly reports that there is new email.
  • The 'reply to this message with the subject remove' line that is appended to outgoing discussion group email messages is now automatically filtered from incoming email replies to the message.
  • Added "is_subscribed" and "is_friend" web template page variables for search_group.htm and search_user.htm respectively
  • Added setting to hide articles in discussion groups posted more than x days ago. Administrator and discussion group moderator users can still view old articles.
Windows Client & Web Browser:
  • Added option to save drafts of discussion group posts
  • Added support for multiple attachments in discussion group posts
Windows Client Only:
  • Added optional subject field (which is hidden by default unless replying to an instant message with a subject) when composing instant messages. Useful when sending instant messages to email addresses.
  • Added caching of attachment downloads on your disk drive as well as caching of partial downloads to you can continue the downloads latter without having to restart them if you loose your connection to the server.
  • Added option to switch between different account names you have used to system tray popup menu.
  • Added option to mark particular chat rooms as encrypted so that all messages sent in such chat rooms must be signed and encrypted.
  • Chat room feature additions: Optionally gives messages when users enter/leave chat rooms. Optionally view full user names of users present in chat rooms. Optionally hide attachment options and checkbox options at bottom of window.
  • Added option to specify how many bits long your public key encryption private key should be rather than the default of 1024 bits.
 		  
2.3r
21 Feb 2003
New Settings:
None 		  Server / Web Browser:
  • Fixed security problem in the OpenSSL encryption libraries used by DBabble. There was the potential for attackers to view encrypted communication between the server and client in the previous version of OpenSSL (0.9.6h) used by DBabble. Extract from OpenSSL documentation: The attack assumes that multiple SSL or TLS connections involve a common fixed plaintext block, such as a password. An active attacker can substitute specifically made-up ciphertext blocks for blocks sent by legitimate SSL/TLS parties and measure the time until a response arrives: SSL/TLS includes data authentication to ensure that such modified ciphertext blocks will be rejected by the peer (and the connection aborted), but the attacker may be able to use timing observations to distinguish between two different error cases, namely block cipher padding errors and MAC verification errors. This is sufficient for an adaptive attack that finally can obtain the complete plaintext block.
Windows Client Only:
  • Fixed security problem that could have allowed an attacker to view encrypted communication between the server and client due to a problem with the OpenSSL encryption libraries that DBabble uses.
 
2.3q
11 Feb 2003
New Settings:
None 		  Server / Web Browser:
  • Fixed memory leak and missing search results when doing full text searching in discussion groups with partial word matching on.
  • Fixed bug that could crash server when using multiple linked servers and a user registered on one server is in a chat room hosted on a different server.
Windows Client Only:
  • Fixed minor bugs.
 
2.3p
24 Jan 2003
New Settings:
nntp_cancel_from_matching_ip , smtp_user , smtp_pass , expire_more_than_group_settings , web_login_page_image , max_memory_allocation 		Server / Web Browser:
  • Added smtp authentication support for sending email to outgoing email server. Use the smtp_user and smtp_pass settings to use this.
  • Added support for cancelling discussion group posts via the NNTP connections. Users can only cancel posts if they are using NNTP authentication, or if they come from the same ip address as the original post and you turn the nntp_cancel_from_matching_ip setting on.
Windows Client Only:
  • Private conversation features. Option to not let other user see text as you type it. Option to automatically accept private conversation requests. Option to initiate private conversations by double clicking on friends.
  • Added preference (default is on) where DBabble does not attempt to connect to the server when you are not connected to the internet. This is to prevent your computer automatically prompting you to connect to the internet when DBabble automatically starts when your computer starts.
 		 Server / Web Browser:
  • Fixed bug where if you sent a signed instant message with an attachment, if the recipient was using a web browser or old version of Windows client, the attachment signature was included within the attachment contents. The server now removes the signature before giving the attachment to web browser and old Windows client users.
Windows Client Only:
  • Fixed minor bugs.
 
2.3j
30 Dec 2002
New Settings:
external_authent_create_accounts , external_authent_write_password , max_online_users , max_users_per_chat_room 		Server / Web Browser:
  • Changed default Windows client tray icons to have a transparent background rather than a grey background. Will only apply to new Windows client installations rather than upgrades.
  • Server administration interface can now be accessed through your web browser at http://domain.name:8132/admin without having to login as a standard DBabble administrator user.
  • There is now an administrator web browser interface to changing the user detail fields that users enter when they first create their account.
Windows Client & Web Browser:
  • Added command line interface for sending instant messages. Run im.exe, or download unix versions from the server.
Windows Client Only:
  • Added encryption preference to clear private key password from memory after x seconds.
  • Added option to sort old instant messages by from/to instead of by date.
 		 Windows Client Only:
  • Fixed bug in 2.3h where uninstalling would not work.
  • Fixed bug in 2.3h that could crash program if you made changes to the background image preference, cancelled the change, then went back and viewed your preferences again.
  • Fixed bug where choosing a custom instant message reminder time would not use the reminder time specified
 
2.3h
6 Dec 2002
New Settings:
web_background_image , client_background_image_on , client_background_image , client_background_image_adjust , client_data_in_user_directory , client_use_windows_login_name 		Server / Web Browser:
  • Windows client now has a background image preference. This is on by default (since it looks much nicer than a plain background) so if you don't want it to use it, turn the background_image_on setting off before your users start upgrading their Windows clients.
  • Added windows client support for going to http links in chat room introductions.
  • Added option to Windows client to set the login name to the current Windows login name on startup. (default controlled by server client_use_windows_login_name setting)
  • Added option to Windows client to save all user specific data (e.g. saved user name and passwords, cached instant messages) to the Windows user profile directory (default controlled by server client_data_in_user_directory setting)
  • The feature to automatically delete accounts that haven't been used for more than x days will no longer delete administrator users.
  • Added web template page functions. Form input variables like tpl_set_abc=def now set the template variable called 'abc' to the value 'def' in the resulting template page displayed. Also, input variables called set_user_pref_* now set the current users preference values. (e.g. set_user_pref_custom_text_1=test would set the user preference custom_text_1 which would then be accessible in all future template pages for that user using the template variable called 'user_pref_custom_text_1')
  • Added machine language translations for 10 different languages. 5 of the languages are partially translated by hand with the un-translated sections merged with machine translations. Use the languages server setting to make use of them.
Windows Client Only:
  • Added preference to have a background image
  • Replying to encrypted messages now sets the replied message to be encrypted by default
  • When viewing user group members, there is now a checkbox (default on) to only show members who receive messages sent to the user group.
  • Added option when sending reminder messages to only send to recipients who are online
  • Chat rooms now display users present as idle if they haven't typed or moved their mouse recently.
 		 Server / Web Browser:
  • Fixed bug in 2.3d that could crash server when finishing private conversations between users on two different servers.
  • Fixed bug in 2.3d where Windows client users could not connect to non-local servers when using encrypted communication with their local server.
  • Fixed bug where if using pop server user authentication, in user preferences it would wrongly give them the option to change their password.
Windows Client Only:
  • Fixed bug that could crash program when viewing preferences if encryption feature was disabled
  • Changed shortcut menu keys that used ctrl-alt key combinations to ctrl-shift instead to avoid conflicts with international language settings where right-alt key combinations are equivalent to ctrl-alt key combinations.
 
2.3d
4 Nov 2002
New Settings:
guest_login_private_talks , users_can_edit_own_posts , ignore_users_enabled 		Server / Web Browser:
  • Added server setting to prevent users from ignoring other users (default is to allow users to ignore other users)
Windows Client & Web Browser:
  • Added editing of existing discussion group posts by the original poster unless it is a moderated group. Moderator/administrator users can modify articles posted by any user.
Windows Client Only:
  • Reply below original message preference now applies to discussion group posts as well as instant messages.
 		 Server / Web Browser:
  • Fixed a few bugs in 2.3a and 2.3b
Windows Client Only:
  • Fixed bug that could crash program in rare situations if you turned on the preference to automatically show messages when they arrive (rather than flashing the tray icon)
 
2.3a
23 Oct 2002
New Settings:
ssl_port , encryption_default , win_default_use_ssl , submit_average_user_rating , ssl_port_tell , extra_ssl_ports , ssl_msie_bug_workarounds , ssl_cipher_suite , ssl_allow_version3 , smileys_enabled , show_netwin_links 		Server / Web Browser:
  • Added SSL (encrypted server to client communication) support to both the web browser and windows client. SSL is not supported on some uncommon unix servers. By default all existing clients that upgrade will be set to use SSL unless they switch back to non-SSL mode. If you already have many users simultaneously connected on your server which is resulting in a high server CPU usage you may want to change the default to non-SSL connections using the win_default_use_ssl setting as SSL connections are more CPU intensive than non-SSL connections. See https://netwinsite.com/dbabble/manage.htm#enc for server administrator information on SSL in DBabble. For user/client help, see /help/encryption.htm on your server.
  • Improved user details handling so that users.dat no longer grows in size every time a user changes their details.
  • Added a login form variable after_logout_page to allow taking the user to any specified url (rather than back to the login page) after they logout. Edit tpl/login.htm to change it.
  • Added web browser login option to take user directly to a private talk session with specified user.
  • Added smiley images to web browser interface. Any matching text in the smileys.txt file on the server is replaced with the corresponding image.
  • Added recording of total user discussion group posts and average rating of those posts which are displayed when viewing user details. If enough posts by a particular user have been made and rated by enough different people, then all new posts from this user are automatically given initial ratings equal to their average rating of all previous posts.
Windows Client Only:
  • Added SSL (encrypted server to client communication) so that any information you send over the network can not be viewed by others.
  • Added public key encryption for sending encrypted messages to other users and digitally signing messages.
  • Added option to remove close button from instant message window (right click on the close button to show option to remove it)
  • After the sender of an instant message it now displays the full unique user name of the sender after their display name. (right click on name to show option to remove it)
  • Can now right click on instant message attachments when composing message to remove them.
 		  
2.2h
2 Oct 2002
New Settings:
None 		  Server / Web Browser:
  • Fixed bug where server could hang in some situations when a user sent an instant message with an attachment and had set their preferences to forward copies of their sent instant messages to their email address
Windows Client Only:
  • Fixed bug where DBabble would crash on Windows XP service pack 1 when the screen saver comes on and password locks the computer
  • Fixed bug with some animated gif images not displaying correctly
 
2.2f
11 Sep 2002
New Settings:
None 		  Server / Web Browser:
  • Fixed security hole in versions 2.1c and later. Anyone using using a version containing the security hole should upgrade their server. This bug was found by Netwin staff so as far as we know, no one outside of Netwin knows about this problem or how to take advantage of it.
  • Fixed bug in versions 2.1s and later where in rare situations on the group searching page (when 2 groups have their most recent post within 1 second of each other), groups would not be correctly sorted and on Solaris platforms this could crash the server.
  • Fixed bug where sending an instant message to a user group and an individual recipient could sometimes cause the individual recipients display name to appear blank or corrupted in the "To" field of the message (the message would still be correctly delivered to all recipients)
  • Fixed bug where the client_check_interval setting was flagged as an integer rather than time interval setting, so setting it to a value like "2 minutes" would actually be interpreted as being "2 seconds"
  • Fixed bug where if user has preference on to not show discussion group articles in a separate window, then when they choose to make a new post it would try to maximize the posting frame, which would effectively remove scrollbars from it and look bad.
  • After modifying discussion group members it now shows the same page again rather than displaying the group modify window so that is doesn't give an error for users who are only allowed to modify the group members but not the group properties.
  • Fixed so that discussion group members who have permission to add members, but not delete and moderate articles, can now no longer give permission to other users to delete and moderate articles.
  • Fixed bug that could crash server when changing the host id (hid) setting in preparation for linking to a master server
  • Fixed problems that happen when server runs out of disk space. Previously users preferences could be reset to default values and their old instant messages might appear lost until the manager did a "dbabblesvr -repair_msg username" command. This would only happen if the server ran out of disk space entirely due to a different application using it all. DBabble already prevents delivery of new messages when free disk space falls below 25MB.
  • Fixed bug that could crash server when decoding invalid incoming email mime attachments
Windows Client Only:
  • Fixed bug where upgrading to new versions in some cases would give error message about not being able to install the file called tmp
  • Fixed bug on Windows 98 where viewing text attachments would sometimes show up blank until the window was resized.
 
2.2d
20 Aug 2002
New Settings:
None 		  Server / Web Browser:
  • Fixed 2.2c bug where javascript files containing template variables were not generated correctly if the tpl_cache setting was on.
Windows Client Only:
  • Fixed bug where adding multiple attachments from a single directory using * (e.g. c:\test\*) would try and add the invalid file (c:\test\..)
  • Fixed problem with DBabble using up to 4K (or more if you changed the maximum number of messages to insert into instant message list preference) of memory per instant message received since logging in due to memory fragmentation problems.
 
2.2c
16 Aug 2002
New Settings:
use_discussions , use_chat_rooms , use_user_groups , use_instant_messages , use_todo , use_windows_client , use_web_browser_interface , users_can_choose_features , hide_user_details_for_hidden_features , guest_login_chat_rooms , guest_login_discussions , uppercase_first_display_char , nntp_min_rating , phone_max_length , chat_show_times , min_ratings_before_average , use_group_ratings , guests_can_rate_articles , image_cache_control 		Server / Web Browser:
  • Reduced language translation file by removing about 200 phrases which were never used or only used when server is setup incorrectly.
  • Changed program setting (the text that appears in urls - e.g. http://free.dbabble.com/dbabble) to now default to the same as the program_name setting but without spaces.
  • Added direct login to chat room/discussion options to web browser interface. This lets you specify the first page that users see after login and to optionally remove the links frame on the left and friends frame on the right. Use the setting guest_login_chat_rooms to activate it on your server, or see our example guest login links at http://free.dbabble.com
  • Changed references to /tpl/xxx.htm to now perform template variable replacement before returning the page, so you can now place custom pages in the /tpl directory and create references to them using links like localhost:8132/tpl/test.htm. You can fetch tpl pages without using variable replacement using /tplsource/test.htm
  • Added uppercase_first_display_char setting - if this setting is on then when a user's display name is automatically generated to be the same as their login user name at the time their account is created (e.g. using pop authentication or external authentication) , the first character is automatically made uppercase.
  • Administrator can now disable some features (e.g. chat rooms, discussion groups, instant messages, user groups, to do list.). For features left enabled, user's can choose on an individual basis to hide features they don't use to simplify and speed up the interface.
  • Improved logging. Actions.log now logs when users set their state to online/idle/offline (or it is automatically set due to them not doing anything). Actions.log & messages.log now logs when users mark messages as read/unread, delete/restore messages, and log creating and delivering reminder messages and creating draft messages. Messages.log only logs the contents of messages once (is used to be recorded once for each recipient and for the sent message saved for the sender).
  • Added additional cache-control headers to images to workaround a problem in IE web browsers not caching images within non-cachable pages even when it should be. This will stop images in discussion groups being reloaded every time a user views a list of articles in the group.
Windows Client & Web Browser:
  • Added the time to chat room messages.
  • Added an optional rating system to discussion groups. All articles can be given a rating from 1 to 5 by each user. When viewing a discussion group you can choose to only see articles with average ratings or more than a particular value. (average ratings are only used when at least 3 people have rated the article)
Windows Client Only:
  • Added a preference (default 100) to restrict the number of friends added to popup menus since it can get quite slow if you have too many.
  • The menu that pops up when you right click on the tray icon now defaults to being in simple mode where the less commonly used features are not displayed. Additionally you can now customize the menu to pick whichever items you want it to contain.
  • Added preference (on by default) to automatically retry to send failed instant messages every 15 seconds. Useful it your network connection is not working at the time you try to send the message.
  • Added feature to automatically login as a different user if you are already online, or were online recently at a different location. (useful if you often connect from 2 different locations, but don't want DBabble to login as your normal account if you are online at one location and someone else uses your computer at the other location)
  • ftp:// links with spaces in the directory names now work when clicking on them.
  • F3 now repeats last search in messages composition window.
 		 Server / Web Browser:
  • Fixed bug where upgrading server on Windows 95 based (rather than NT based) machines would hang at end of upgrade and not inform you it had finished.
  • Fixed bug that could sometimes crash server when when a user did a user search with a large number of words.
  • Fixed security hole in versions 2.0c and later.
  • Fixed incorrect help url links on the new user and talk request pages.
  • Fixed bug in version 2.1s to 2.2b where server could crash in rare situations when a user is searching for a particular discussion group.
  • Fixed bug when doing a user search for users on remote servers in different time zones, the time since they were last online listed in the search results was incorrect.
Windows Client Only:
  • Fixed bug where you sometimes could not right click on an instant message attachment and view or save it.
  • Fixed bug that causes it to crash when uninstalling.
  • Fixed bug where marking a sent message as unread and the read again would change the time that the message was recorded as sent to the current time (but it would not be updated in the Windows client, so you would not notice this unless you viewed the message again using a different client or using the web browser interface).
  • When right clicking on the quick message window and choosing options like "online friends only" it now updates the friends list immediately rather than a few seconds later.
  • Fixed bug where if you logged out and then shutdown DBabble by right clicking on the tray icon and choosing shutdown, then your locally stored preferences would be cleared.
  • Printing now wraps long lines so that they appear on the printed page.
  • Fixed problem where displaying large text attachments (> 1 MB) was sometimes very slow. Also fixed problem with large attachments always being very slow if they contained hundreds of http links.
  • Fixed tab ordering in instant message composition window so that pressing tab in To: field takes you to the message content.
  • When the system is set up to display advertisements and some advertisement images are different sizes than others, it now centers the image before showing it, rather than showing the image in the wrong place and then centering it.
  • Fixed bug where instant messages with multiple attachments would sometimes incorrectly say "Deleted from server" for all attachments after the first one.
 
2.2b
16 Jul 2002
New Settings:
error_auto_restart , error_hang_timeout , error_catching 		Server / Web Browser:
  • Adding settings to automatically restart the server if something goes wrong and it crashes or hangs.
  • Increased maximum number of characters users can enter in chat messages from about 200 to about 900
 		 Server / Web Browser:
  • Fixed bug that could slow down server. Happened when guest logged in users are automatically subscribed to discussion groups their subscription was duplicated in the group members record every time they logged in causing the server to become significantly slower after about 10,000 guest logins.
Windows Client Only:
  • Fixed bug where sometimes trying to change colors in the "windows default" color scheme would switch to a scheme other than custom (The custom scheme is a copy of the windows default scheme which you are allowed to edit)
  • Fixed bug where program could crash if your server administrator turned on the setting to force you to upgrade to a new version. Program would crash when you started it without having your password saved and you needed to upgrade.
  • Fixed bug where for 1 minute after logging in you could not create groups (if you have permission to) or upgrade to newer versions.
  • Removed buttons and menu items to reply to transcript messages from chat rooms. Previously clicking reply to these messages would do nothing.
 
2.1u
1 Jul 2002
New Settings:
None 		  Server / Web Browser:
  • Fixed serious bug in 2.1s that could crash or hang server in rare situations, and the server would still crash or hang when restarted.
  • Fixed serious bug in versions 2.0d to 2.1s where if server was restarted while you had more than 400 (as defined by client_listen_threshold setting) connections open to your server, then some users using the windows client would not get instant messages delivered to them until they logged out and logged in again.
  • Fixed bug that occurs when using multiple servers linked together. "Administrator" users on one server would have "Administrator" after their name on other servers, and sometimes have "Administrator" after their name twice.
 
2.1s
27 Jun 2002
New Settings:
friends_of_all_users , append_admin_status_text , nntp_anonymous_from_append , max_daily_posts_per_user , max_daily_anonymous_nntp_posts_per_ip , smtp_from_append , max_daily_smtp_posts_per_ip , socket_expire_pending 		Server / Web Browser:
  • If user accounts are deleted, the deleted users are now immediately removed from the friends lists of all users. In previous versions, users had to log in again before deleted users were removed from their friends list. Automatic removing of deleted users can be disabled with the remove_deleted_friends setting.
  • Added friends_of_all_users setting which lets you specify a list of users who are added to the friends lists of any new users when they are created. Added a manager command to apply this setting to all existing users. Default for this setting is to make the first created user, so combined with the append_admin_status_text setting, the first user is now automatically added to the friends lists of all newly created users, and the text (Administrator) appears after their name.
  • Added append_admin_status_text setting which is some text that is appended to the state of all administrator users so that other users can easily see that they are administrators.
  • Server installation now prompts you for whether to upgrade or perform a new installation (for easier use when having multiple servers installed on the same machine)
  • Added smtp_from_append and nntp_anonymous_from_append settings so that if users post to discussion groups by SMTP or anonymous NNTP, some text is appended to their name. Used to prevent them impersonating other users.
  • Added max_daily_posts_per_user, max_daily_anonymous_nntp_posts_per_ip, and max_daily_smtp_posts_per_ip settings to prevent users from flooding the server with junk posts. Both of these settings default to 10, to you may want to change these settings.
  • When anything is said in web browser chat rooms, the name of the user saying it is now in green if they are a chat room moderator. Edit tpl/c_refresh.htm on your server to change this.
  • Added chat room only and discussion group only checkboxes on the find group web page.
  • Size and position of server administration window in windows client is now saved between sessions.
Windows Client & Web Browser:
  • Added 'Never receive discussion group messages you send' preference so that you don't have to receive email or instant message copies of discussion group messages you post.
  • Sender's current status(online/idle/offline) is now displayed adjacent to senders name in received instant messages
  • Discussion groups and chat rooms now display how long since the most recent message was posted to them.
  • Discussion groups and chat room search results are now sorted by either name, most recent post time, or total number of posts.
  • User search results are now sorted by user choice of display name, unique user name, full name, or how long since they were last online
  • There is now a window for listing all users on the system who are currently online
Windows Client Only:
  • If you get sent a message containing a file link to a program file, when you click on the link DBabble now prompts for confirmation before running it.
  • All references to friends now use the display name you have set for them rather than their current display name (unless you have the 'synchronize names in friends list with friend display names' preference on). For example, if in your friends list you have a friend called 'Matt', but Matt has set his display name to 'Matthew', then when he sends you a message, it will now say 'message from Matt' rather than 'message from Matthew' like previous versions did.
  • Added color scheme preferences for the colors of online,idle and offline friends. Also friends list boxes don't keep friends highlighted when no longer focused.
  • When composing instant messages, you can now right-click on the reminder tab to quickly choose a reminder time.
  • Old instant message viewing list is now split into columns for easier reading.
  • Size and position of group searching window is not saved between sessions
  • Quota used and message delete button are changed to red when quota usage is over 90%
  • Repeating reminder messages can now be selected in conjunction with the send now option when composing messages.
 		 Server / Web Browser:
  • Fixed memory leak bug caused by deleting a user account and then creating another one with the same user name.
  • Fixed bug that could hang DBabble server if you had friend names containing the quote character (")
  • Fixed very uncommon file not closed bug in full text searching that could cause full text searching not to work properly. (there will be fts errors in your server error.log file if it happened on your server, in which case you should apply the manager command "full text index all existing articles" to repair it)
  • If two servers are linked, but in different time zones, the when viewing the "local time" field for users on other servers, it is now correct.
  • Fixed javascript error when clicking "Reply to All" or "Reply to User Group" on instant messages in the popup window for the web browser client. Also fixed problem where "reply to all" did not reply to all recipients in netscape web browsers.
  • Fixed bug with full text searching not working properly if you set the fts_page_size setting to more than 50.
  • Fixed serious problem in 2.1j when changing server host id setting in preparation for linking to master server. Instead of converting some users to the new host-id, some were also duplicated so that accounts under both host-id settings existed on slave server. A security hole (now also fixed) in master server would allow slave servers to replace user details of users registered on master server, and in some situations slave server would send the duplicated accounts with the wrong host-id to the master server. Also fixed small server memory leek when host-id setting is changed. Also, server now prevents you from linking two servers before changing the host-id (hid) setting on one of the servers.
  • When using an external authentication process that sets each user's initial display name, the new display name is now set before (instead of after in previous versions) the user is automatically added to the friends lists of other users.
  • When doing user searches for non-local users, the master server will now allow partial name searching as long as the user_partial_search setting is on.
Windows Client Only:
  • Fixed bug that could hang DBabble if you had friend names containing the quote character (")
  • Fixed bug where DBabble could crash if it is configured to use a proxy server but make a direct connection to server if possible instead.
  • Fixed memory leak bug (memory used would very slowly increase as you did things in DBabble)
  • Fixed problem where if the server was reinstalled, or your account deleted and recreated, then you would not receive some instant messages sent to you unless you choose "Clear messages and download from server again" from the message menu. This version automatically does this command if it detects that the account you are connecting to is different.
  • Fixed program crashing bug on Windows 98 machines if you clicked on the tray icon before the program had finished loading.
  • Fixed problems with flickering of menu bars on Windows XP machines.
  • Fixed bug on Windows XP machines where closing the quick message window in some situations would cause it to reappear a second later.
  • Fixed problem on Win9x machines where Windows explorer right click menu would not have the Open/Print options available. This would happen if you had more than 100 friends and also have additional software installed that adds explorer menu items. There is a limit on the number of menu items that can be added, and while DBabble obeys the limit, some other programs (like WinZip) don't, so if they added their menu items after DBabble, then there would be too many. DBabble now stops adding items 10 short of the limit, and there is an additional preference to remove the "Send using DBabble To" option from explorer and leave the "Send using DBabble" option there.
  • Fixed flickering problems when removing lots of friends from friends list at once.
 
2.1j
28 May 2002
New Settings:
manager_instant_message_to , authent_write_fields , authent_translate_fields , authent_translate_values , delete_accounts_not_used , delete_accounts_force , web_show_chat_users , remote_use_ip , external_viruschecker , min_free_disk_space , user_group_all_can_send_to , user_group_search_show_all 		Server / Web Browser:
  • Added web user preference for marking instant messages as read as soon as they are opened in a new browser window. (default is on). This means that users can close the instant message window by clicking on the close window button in the top right corner of the window, and the message won't pop up again since it is already marked as read.
  • User group searching now shows user groups that the user already has in their subscribed user group list, unless you turn off the setting user_group_search_show_all
  • A setting (external_viruschecker) that lets you specify an external virus checker to run on each attachment sent and received.
  • Administrator users can now send messages to users who are over their message quota limit.
  • Manager command to list all users registered on the server.
  • Chat rooms and private conversations in web browsers now scroll down to allow showing of all messages in the window since entering the chat room/talk session. In previous versions messages were removed from the display after about 6 messages were displayed to make room for more.
  • If you are using external authentication, or adding lots of users using the add_users command, there is now support for converting specific field/value pairs into group or user group value lists. For example if your existing database contains field names like "dep=sales" or "dep=accounts" you could specify that when DBabble sees "dep=sales" this is interpreted to mean "groups=5,6 ugroups=1". See the file auth_groups.txt in your server directory for more details.
  • When using external authentication, you have now optionally choose to have user details modified within DBabble written back to your external database.
  • User group option for making all members automatically friends of each other. When new members are added, all existing members (who receive messages) will be added to the friends list of the new member, and the new member will be added to the friends lists of all existing members.
  • If free disk space is below the value for the min_free_disk_space setting, prevents sending of instant messages, discussion group posts and chat room posts. If disk space drops within twice this value, a warning message is sent to administrator.
  • Adding a 'manager_instant_message_to' setting for specifying a local user name to send system warning messages to as instant messages (in addition to the email address it already sends them to as specified by the 'manager' setting)
  • Setting for automatically deleting accounts of users who have not logged in recently. Use the delete_accounts_not_used setting to enabled this feature.
Windows Client & Web Browser:
  • Chat rooms can now be optionally moderated, which means that any messages from non-moderator users are not visible to other users until a moderator has accepted it.
  • Option to delete all old instant message attachments from the server (this is an easy way to reduce your quota usage without actually deleting any message contents)
  • Added preference for hiding friends who have not been online since more than a given number of days ago.
Windows Client Only:
  • All message content windows now have a right click option to change the font and a checkbox to view the message in a fixed width font
  • The main window is now independent of other windows, so if you minimize it, other windows are not minimized, and the main window no longer needs to be restored (if it was minimized) to view other windows that were already open when it was originally minimized.
  • If Windows Explorer crashes while quick message window is docked to the desktop, it now automatically re-docks after Windows Explorer starts again.
  • When a user group member's permissions are changed (or the user group name is changed) that members user group list is automatically refreshed.
  • Removed word wrapping from instant messages so that they when the recipient views a message, it doesn't matter if their window width is not the same width as the text was wrapped to when you sent it.
  • Added view most recent message and view most recent message from each friend options to right click on tray icon popup menu
  • Added buttons on instant message window to show previous or next message to or from the same person.
  • A reply option is now available on messages you sent (which quotes the original message and lets you send a new message to the same recipient(s).
  • Ctrl-F now shows a search dialog in message composition and 'To Do' list windows.
  • Added preference so that reminder messages do not have to be always listed first in your list of old instant messages.
  • Popup menus listing friends now show times since friends were last online. There is a preference to turn this off.
  • When left clicking on the tray menu, it now shows a list of your friends to send a message to. There is an option in the menu you can uncheck to revert to the old behavior.
  • A user group owner can be changed by anyone who is already able to modify the user group (and can create user groups that other users can see and find) by right clicking on the user group owner label in the Windows client.
  • Can save transcripts of chat room and talk sessions to disk from the file menu in the chat room or talk window. This is in addition to the already existing feature where transcripts are automatically saved in your old instant messages list.
  • Popup menus that list all your friends now defaults to only showing recently contacted friends, and there is an additional sub menu to show all friends. This behavior can be changed to the way previous versions worked with the 'Filter options' sub menu.
  • Popup menus that have sub menus now have a final sub-menu option to merge all items in the sub menu into the parent menu. For example, you might use this to show all your subscribed user groups on the same level menu as your friends are listed.
  • When state is set to idle or offline, tray icon changes so you know what your own state is
  • Multiple friends can now be selected from friends lists, and right-clicking gives options to send a message to all selected friends, and to remove all selected friends from your friends list.
  • Can now set online/offline status messages. For example 'gone to lunch - back at 2pm'. You can also set an online message status on a per client basis. For example if you use two different machines - one from work and one from home, you could set it so that either (work) or (home) appears after your name depending on where you login from.
  • Preference for removing friend state change messages after x seconds.
  • The 'Online friends only' checkbox in the quick message window can not be right-clicked on and you can change to it show only users who are online, or have been online within the last specified time interval.
 		 Server / Web Browser:
  • Fixed bug where users could send messages to user groups even if they did not have permission to. In case anyone had set previous versions with wrong member permissions for all their user groups, there is a server setting called user_group_all_can_send_to to make newer versions act like older versions did.
  • Fixed bug that could occasionally crash server when shutting the server down if users were still present in chat rooms.
Windows Client Only:
  • Fixed bug where if you logged in using uppercase characters in your login name, then your preferences which should be saved on your local disk drive were not correctly saved.
  • Fixed problems with window resizing in chat rooms taking a long time when there were a few hundred messages. It now works fine with 10,000 or more messages. Saving transcripts of thousands of messages is now faster too.
  • When viewing user details of someone who has field more than 1 line long, it now wraps to the next line.
  • Fixed bug where if you change the color scheme while viewing a discussion group, it could crash the program.
  • No longer truncates preference signatures to 80 characters.
  • If a modal dialog window would not be visible due to a different top most window obscuring it, the modal dialog window is now made a top most window too.
  • Fixed bug when viewing text attachments larger than 64 K on Windows 2000 would show additional formatting text mixed in with the attachment text.
  • Fixed bug (in version 2.1c only) where program could crash in rare situations when you tried to shut it down.
  • Fixed bug where messages could be printed on the wrong printer when you have multiple printers installed. This bug only occurred on Win 95 and not Win NT based systems.
  • Fixed bug caused by trying to print messages when you have no printers installed.
  • Fixed problems caused when you have more than 10,000 old instant messages and choose to download them all from the server again.
  • Fixed problem with old instant messages not being correctly saved to disk (so you would have to download them again next time you login) if someone sent you a message containing the End of File character (ASCII 26)
  • When right clicking on a user and choosing the view most recent message from option, it would sometimes display a message other than the most recent message from them.
 
2.1c
9 Apr 2002
New Settings:
show_nntp_names , nntp_ban , user_group_incoming_email 		Server / Web Browser:
  • ICQ Note: It seems recently, ICQ changed the way their servers work, and DBabble can no longer connect to their network. We plan to find a way around this problem in future, but for now, you may want to turn of the icq_enabled server setting, so that your users won't see the option of connecting to ICQ anymore.
  • Administrator note: This version adds an extra 'quick message' window to the Windows client for sending instant messages and seeing which friends are online. This window can be set to stay on top of other windows, and/or docked to the desktop. If you do not primarily use DBabble for instant messaging, you may want to turn off this window by default. After upgrading, go to the default preferences page, and change the preferences 'default_show_quick_message_window' (121) and 'tray_click_quick_message' (119) to off, and also choose the option to update these preferences for all existing users.
  • 'Reply to all' option is now available on instant messages that have more than one recipient in the web browser interface (in previous versions this was only available in Windows client)
  • If you enable the user_group_incoming_email setting, then anyone can send email messages in to user groups that will be delivered as instant messages to all members of the user group.
  • When using external authentication, there is support for setting the user's friends list, user groups, chat room, and discussion groups that they belong to. Adding lots of users using the -addusers or -setusers commands also supports these fields. See manage.htm#authent_ext for details.
  • When users receive instant message or email copies of articles posted to discussion groups, the article in the discussion group is now automatically marked as read for that user.
  • User's list of subscribed groups in web browser is now sorted alphabetically.
  • Administrator users using windows client now have options to search for server settings, and search for default preferences, rather than having to look through the entire list to find the one they want.
Windows Client & Web Browser:
  • A 'To Do' list that is saved on the server, allowing you to access it from any location you login from. You can optionally allow it to be viewed by other users (e.g. everyone or friends or particular user group members)
  • When viewing messages from users who are not in your friends list, there is now an add to friends button available.
  • Instant messages can now have multiple attachments with each message.
Windows Client Only:
  • A small window that displays your friends list. Can optionally be made to stay on top of other windows, or docked to the desktop so it is always visible and does not overlap other windows. Left clicking on the tray icon shows this window, unless the "show quick message window when left click on tray icon" preference is turned off.
  • Preferences to play sound when anything is said in chat room and talk windows.
  • Double click on tray icon now shows the main window (if the preference "show quick message window when left click on tray icon" is off, then double clicking shows the quick message window)
  • Most windows now save their position as well as size between sessions
  • You can now choose to not be notified of new messages, or only be notified of high priority messages from the Notify sub-menu when right clicking on the system tray icon.
  • When logging in and you have only one unread message, it now shows you this message rather than showing you a message saying you have one unread message.
  • Can now drag and drop attachments onto discussion group and user group lists on the main window.
  • When right clicking on users, there are now options to "View most recent message from", "View most recent message to", and "view message history"
  • A checkbox to only display recently contacted friends in friends list. Recently contacted time interval can be changed by right clicking on the checkbox.
  • Attachments have added an "Open with..." option to their popup menu.
  • Many windows now have the option of "Stay on top" available from the window system menu.
 		 Server / Web Browser:
  • Replying via email to unsubscribe from subscribed discussion groups was broken in recent versions.
  • In moderated discussion groups that were visible via the NNTP protocol, if more than 4 unmoderated articles were deleted at a time (using a delete thread or delete all from sender options), then it was possible for all future articles to not appear visible to NNTP users.
  • If a chat room administrator deleted the chat room while users were still present in it using the Windows client, it could cause the server to crash.
  • When sending instant messages to multiple user groups, the message 'to:' field now correctly displays both names rather than repeating the second one twice.
  • When sending attachments between two different servers, the display name of the recipient of the message was used in place of the display name of the sender.
  • When using pop authentication, if a second user attempted a login while still waiting for a reply from pop sever for an authentication request, then sometimes the second authentication request would not start immediately and cause the user to receive a "no reply from authenticating pop server" message.
  • The group_name template variable is now always just the group name without the nntp name appended. (it was previously different on different pages as to whether the nntp name was appended or not.) Use group_nntp_name for just the nntp name, or group_name_and_nntp_name for both names with the nntp name in brackets after the name.
Windows Client & Web Browser:
  • Sent attachments now have the correct attachment size appearing next to them when the preference to not save sent attachments is enabled.
Windows Client Only:
  • Fixed excessive system resource usage on Win 95/98/ME systems. Now uses about 1/3 of the system resources previous versions used.
  • Fixed problem where if preference to open hyperlinks in new windows was enabled, then all file links would try and open in default web browser.
  • When quickly double right clicking on tray icon, the task bar was not redrawn properly when the popup menu disappeared on some computers.
  • Fixed bug where if the status of an instant message changed while not logged in to server (e.g. marked or deleted using a different client, or a reminder message delivered while offline), then sometimes that status was not correctly updated in the local copy of the messages stored on your computer next time you logged in.
  • When right clicking on files in Windows Explorer, and choosing the Send to user option, if you had more friends than the height of the screen, then clicking on friends in the second column of friends would select the wrong friend for sending the file to. You may need to restart your computer after upgrading to fix this problem.
  • Chat room "invite users" button was accidentally hidden in some previous versions.
  • Combo box drop down menus now only use available space on the screen either above or below the combo box rather than the entire screen space. This fixes problems with it selecting items when the mouse button is released instead of it waiting for items to be selected.
  • Size and position of main window are now correctly saved between sessions. Previously, these sizes were reset when configured to login automatically after starting.
  • Fixed problems with menu bars and message text flickering on some machines when changing between windows and/or messages. Fixed problems with small sections of menu bars sometimes not using the current color scheme.
 
2.0e
28 Feb 2002
New Settings:
log_warning 		Server / Web Browser:
  • Web template variables for total number of users, number of users online, number of groups, and number of discussion group articles. See tpl/server_info_include.htm on your server for example usage.
  • Can specify default DBabble.ini settings for the windows client download available from your server. For example, you might want to set the default proxy server to connect to. See manage.htm#custom_client_settings for details.
  • For creating default color schemes for Windows client downloads from your server, see customizing the windows client color schemes
  • Server error log file has been split into warning.log and error.log. Both warnings and errors are logged to warning.log and only errors are logged to error.log
  • web browser users can forward messages (previously this option was only available to windows client users)
Windows Client & Web Browser:
  • Preference to place signature above original message when replying to messages
  • Preference to quote/not quote messages when forwarding them
  • Preference for synchronizing names in friends list with display names of users (default is off)
Windows Client Only:
  • Preferences to show delete, forward, and remind buttons when viewing instant messages
  • Can override the default windows color scheme. Administrator can create new schemes and set them as the default for downloads from their server, and user can choose to override the color scheme with whatever they want
  • Can search within the text of a single message in for particular words
  • Can right click on hyperlinks in windows client and choose to 'copy link location to clipboard' or 'open in new browser window' or 'open in existing browser window'
  • Can choose to make reminder messages into reminder messages that are periodically repeated. Also now accepts different reminder time formats. e.g 0955 for 9:55 am
  • Preference for automatically checking subscribed group list for new items once a minute. Also, subscribed group list tab caption now appears in bold if there are any subscribed groups containing new items
  • When it asks if you want to upgrade to future versions, the message gives a http link that lists changes made to each version. Also when the upgrade message briefly pops up above system clock, it is no longer truncated part way through a sentence
 		 Server / Web Browser:
  • Fixed bug that could crash server when viewing discussion group articles via web browser interface in some situations
  • When sending an instant message failed in a web browser, clicking on 'change message and try again' was corrupting the message contents
  • Bug causing email checking feature to not work if smtp_listen setting is false
  • Bug where sometimes in help files some phrases that contain the : character had it replaced by \c
  • If using the bind_address setting (only used on machines that have multiple ip addresses), ICQ code now informs the icq server that it's ip address is this instead of the default machine ip address
  • Fixed memory leek that occurred when users connect to ICQ, but don't have any ICQ contacts in their friends list
Windows Client Only:
  • Minor color scheme bug fixes to 2.0c
  • Choosing 'Open' or 'View old messages' from Windows tray popup menu when you have new incoming messages does not open the incoming messages anymore
  • Clicking on hyperlinks that are longer than a single line no longer truncates the link to the first line.
  • Fixed problem with messages that are flagged as replied-to loosing their replied-to status
  • When choosing to be notified of friend coming online, and friend went offline again before the popup window above the system clock naturally disappeared (default 3 seconds) then that window remained, and was not properly drawn for the remainder of the 3 seconds. Also fixed bug with icq user friends come online, and go offline again before reading the online message
  • When logging in, the message that says 'You have x unread messages' no longer counts unread messages in the trash
 
2.0b
Feb 5, 2002
New Settings:
icq_enabled, users_with_hyphen_symbols, lang_warnings, max_tcp_data_size, force_listen
  • Users can specify an existing ICQ account/password in their preferences to log in to whenever using DBabble. This allows them to send/receive instant messages with ICQ users, and to see when ICQ users are online etc
  • Trash folder for instant messages so they are not deleted permanently. By default messages are now permanently deleted from trash after 7 days
  • Users can send delayed messages, and reminders to themself
  • All times/dates are displayed to users in their local time. Users can see what local time is for other users
  • User groups can contain email address/phone numbers/icq users
  • Can save drafts of messages of instant messages
  • User groups can contain email address/phone numbers/icq users
  • Support for attachments large than 10MB. Use max_tcp_data_size to raise it
  • Windows Client
    • Instant messages are saved on the local disk drive for reading later without having to download them again. There is a user preference for disabling this feature
    • Supports proxy servers that require authentication
    • Users can override the default font and font size with whatever they want
    • Preference to not make DBabble automatically try and connect to server after starting
    • Preference to show how long ago each friend was online in the friends window
  • Many other minor interface improvements and changes
 		 Server:
  • Bug in moderated discussion groups in web browser interface, where clicking on the "next in thread" link on articles will show unmoderated articles
  • When using custom web pages in the /pages directory, and the tpl_cache setting was on, and the page has the same name as a page in the /tpl directory, the server cache would not realize they were distinct pages.
  • User's birthday field was not kept private from other users when the user had selected to hide their details from other users.
  • If user chooses to only accept messages from their friends, then it was incorrectly rejecting messages from friends that were sent while they were offline
 
1.5u
Nov 27, 2001
   Windows Client:
  • Fixed problems when running on machines with large fonts.
 
1.5t
Nov 9, 2001
New Settings:
check_email_enabled, check_email_min_interval, check_email_max_chans, check_email_default_server, check_email_defaults, bind_address_out, delay_tell_upgrade
    • Windows Client Preferences have been reformatted to make them easier to find and use
    • Users can specify existing email POP accounts to be notified of new email
    • Web user preference for how often to check with server for new instant messages
    • Web user preference for how often to refocus instant message window
 		 Server:
  • Bug introduced in 1.5h that could crash server under some circumstances
  • Bug with solaris-sparc servers crashing when trying to connect to a master server
  • Bug with incoming email messages with low priority being treated as high priority when converted into instant messages
Windows Client:
  • Windows client bug where clicking on http links in some versions of Windows NT did not work.
 
1.5n
Oct 11, 2001
New Settings:
instant_message_email_subject
  • Windows Client:
    • Users can set system wide hot keys for sending instant messages, viewing friends etc. Can also set hot keys for sending messages to specific friends
    • Drag and Drop support. Can drag attachments into message composition windows or onto friend names in friends list
    • Adds an entry to the Windows "Send To" folder for sending attachments by right clicking on them in Windows Explorer
    • Customized Icon Support. System administrator can modify default icons by replacing icons in the server "client" subdirectory and after typing "dbabblesvr -reload" DBabble server automatically rebuilds a new client download to make use of the new icons. Users can also customize the icons for their installed copy themself
    • Users can choose to be notified when specific users come online/go offline (rather than the general option for when any friend comes online/goes offline)
    • Optionally briefly shows who a message is from by system clock whenever a new messages comes in
    • Server administrator can now modify default user preferences and permission groups from within Windows client
  • Easier translation of single words to something else. e.g changing "Friends" to "Contacts". See changing single words throughout DBabble
  • Preference for allowing users not to receive copies of messages they send to user groups they belong to
  • Sound playing support in web browser for new messages. Server now comes with a selection of sounds, which windows client users can optionally download
  • Server installation now works on Win 95 based machines
 		 Server:
  • When sending an instant message to both a user group and a user, and the user group id equals the user id, then the message would not be sent to both of them
Windows Client:
  • On some machines when viewing instant messages, the scrollbars would jump to the bottom of the message.
  • On win nt machines (but not win 2000) machines, if a message contained just a url and nothing else, all messages viewed later in the message preview pain would be underlined.
  • Bug where DBabble was removed from the windows startup folder during an upgrade sometimes.
 
1.5h
Sep 6, 2001
New Settings:
remove_deleted_friends
  • users can choose to have copies of discussion group articles to be sent to them as instant messages.
  • html links are highlighted and clickable in messages in Windows client. Replied text is made gray. Can be turned off via user preference option.
  • Chat room transcripts are sent to users as instant messages after they leave a chat room sessions.
  • Can invite users and user groups to enter chat rooms.
  • Can have multiple user groups and email addresses as instant message recipients.
 		 Server:
  • Bug with saving discussion group/chat room member information to disk. (such as recording what messages each user has read, and whether they want email copies of new messages). 1.5b introduced a bug where every member apart from the first was written to the wrong part of the disk file so information was not updated, and changes to any member apart from the first member would corrupt other member data. Data was correctly cached in memory so the problem will not have been noticed in many cases.
  • Bug where server crashes on startup after changing the hid (host - id) setting.
  • Blue template set javascript errors fixed.
Windows Client:
  • Bug with truncating messages more than 10K in windows client 1.5b
  • Problems with lots of friends -
    1. Wraps popup menus with too many entries to new columns.
    2. Fixed problem with popup menus taking a few seconds to display when user has 200+ friends.
    3. When friends change state, now does not update friends list immediately if user has moved the mouse within it or scrolled through it within the last 2 seconds to avoid problems with clicking on wrong user.
  • Bug where Windows client did not work on systems where the Windows user profile name contained high ascii characters (e.g Ö)
 
1.5c
Aug 14, 2001
New Settings:
  • None
 		 Server:
  • Bug fixes for bugs introduced in 1.5b to Solaris Sparc builds only. Fixed problem with server not working at all on some older OS versions. Fixed problem with server occasionally crashing due to bus error.
Windows Client:
  • None
 
1.5b
Aug 10, 2001
New Settings:
users_delete_accounts, client_check_interval, client_listen_threshold, max_tell_upgrade_per_minute, show_posting_ip, log_error, log_info, log_debug, log_tcp_info, log_tcp_data, log_messages, log_discussion, log_chat, log_talk, user_hash_num
  • Greatly improved server performance. Can now support up to 10 million user databases and up to 10,000 online users on a single server. See DBabble Server Performance for more details.
  • Improved instant message handling to allow users to have thousands of old instant messages each without degrading performance like old versions did.
  • More log files to allow the administrator to optionally log all discussion messages, chat room messages, private conversations and instant messages.
  • Support for specifying initial friends and user groups of new users when adding a large text file of them to your DBabble user database. See Adding Lots of Users for details.
  • A few minor improvements.
 		 Server:
  • None
Windows Client:
  • None
 
1.4v
July 27, 2001
New Settings:
bind_address, 		  Server:
  • Fixed bug that could crash server when choosing the "Reload" command on the Manager Commands Page
  • Fixed bug where setting user fields to be able to be set once and not changed after the account has been created (by editing user_fields.dat) did not work when creating the account from within the Windows client.
  • Fixed bug where users would appear to get stuck in a chat room if the user logged in from another location while still in a chat room in the Windows client.
  • For discussions which normally allow anyone to post them, a fix has been made to allow non-member email addresses to post to it.
Windows Client:
  • None
 
1.4t
July 19, 2001
   Server:
  • Fixed bug where help searching did not work if the tpl_cache setting was on (which it is by default)
  • Email address matching is now case-insensitive to fix problems with people sending email to discussions when they have changed the case of their email address.
  • Fixed bug where web browsers try to reconnect to the server after a lost connection every 6 seconds instead of every 60 seconds.
  • All user groups can now be found and modified by the server administrator.
  • Fixed Javascript error the happens in some versions of Internet Explorer during private conversations.
    • Windows Client:
    • None
     
    1.4r
    June 20, 2001
    New Settings:
    client_no_server_change, nntp_anonymous_posting, fts_min_substring_length, max_daily_article_delete
    • The option for each discussion group to make it moderated. This means that articles posted by users who are not moderators will not be visible to other users until a moderator has accepted it. The moderator can accept articles in either the DBabble interface, or can reply to the email sent to them.
    • Full Text Searching enhancements - can now search for partial words and can optionally search only article "Subject" or "From" headers.
    • Support for adding lots of users to your DBabble database from a list in a text file. See Adding Lots of Users for details.
    • User permission fields for:
      1. Deleting and Moderating articles in every discussion group.
      2. Preventing from posting to every discussion group
      3. Being allowed to modify every discussion and chat room
      4. Being allowed to modify other user permissions in every discussion and chat room
    • Support for adding custom preferences to your web browser templates. See Adding Custom Preferences for details.
    • All preference values are available on every template page. See Standard Template Variables for a list of variables available on every template page.
    • A few other minor features
         		 Server:
    • Fixed bug where messages sent that start with a space will loose all of the message up to the first blank line.
    • Fix bug where in discussion groups with more than 2000 items, sometimes 1 or 2 articles would not show up in article listing.
    • Fixed javascript error that would happen on login in some versions of Internet Explorer 5.0
    • Fixed bug in full text searching that could crash the server.
    • Fixed bug that was previously preventing posting of email into private discussions from a valid email address
    Windows Client:
    • Fixed bug where if you had set it up to use an external encryption library, then upgrading to later versions of DBabble would give an error.
     
    1.4f
    May 24, 2001
    New Settings:
    ad_click_recent_interval, nntp_fix_from_line, fts_enabled, fts_page_size, fts_index_numbers, fts_index_high_bytes, fts_index_headers, fts_item_words, fts_word_max, log_ex_process, external_process, using_https, daily_ops_at
    • Full Text Searching - Search all your DBabble discussions groups for any word(s) within the content of any articles. Use the manager command "Full Text Index All Existing articles" if you have upgraded and want to enable full text searching on articles posted before the upgrade.
    • Support for running external encryption programs to allow client to server encryption in both web browsers and the Windows client. See DBabble Encryption for details.
    • Now decodes incoming base64 and quoted-printable encoded SMTP and NNTP articles.
    • Administrator can view parts of and search all log files from within DBabble interface
    • A few other minor features
         		 Server:
    • Fixed bug that could crash server if it logged it's status while waiting for a reply from a POP authentication server.
    • Fixed bug that could crash server if a user was intentionally doing something that should not happen under normal DBabble usage.
    Windows Client:
    • Fixed bug that showed all subscribed groups as receiving email copies of posted articles, even when not actually receiving them.
     
    1.3f
    May 3, 2001
    New Settings:
    user_partial_search, nntp_include_attachments, smtp_include_attachments, members_page_size, nntp_add_footers, max_cross_post, reject_blank_articles, log_users, log_stats, log_actions, log_email_in, log_email_out, nntp_extra_ports, tpl_cache, memory_files
    • Better performance - including: Faster template page parsing and rendering. Template pages are also read , partially parsed and cached in memory for faster performance. Faster handling of incoming SMTP and NNTP posts and faster attachment handling. Faster rendering of web browser discussion group tree views on client machines.
    • Can add headers/footers to articles viewed via nntp. See nntp_add_footers for details.
    • More administrator logging - see log_users and other log_* settings.
    • NNTP Posts can go to multiple discussion groups.
    • Can have attachments appear inline in discussion email and nntp articles. See nntp_include_attachments and smtp_include_attachments for details.
    • Partial text searching on users. (eg search for "gues" would find user name "Guest 1")
    • Printing messages from within Windows Client
    • Users can have friends entries that are email addresses.
    • Nicer Server Installation
    • Paging in web browser for listing group members
    • Discussion Group administrators can delete entire threads and all posts within a discussion from a particular user
    • Some other minor features.
         		 Server:
    • Web template page for discussion group items would not expand tree views when first listed article had replies in Internet Explorer.
    Windows Client:
    • None
     
    1.3a
    March 30, 2001
    New Settings:
    authent_process, authent_process_num, authent_process_timeout, auth_check_cookie, user_add_self_friend, user_max_add_all_friends, add_footers, pull_add_footers, member_email_footer, discussion_reject_words, chat_reject_words, group_index_memory_cache, show_login_on_empty_request
    • Nicer default web pages with more flexibility to customize.
    • New features within web templates pages include: can choose discussions to be viewed in non-tree format, only show unread items, and not to use separate windows when viewing articles. Can choose friends frame to not show up at all. All of these options are preferences that individual users can change.
    • System administrator can set what the default values for all user preferences are.
    • Support for external authentication modules (eg LDAP, MySQL, NT, Unix) and all DBabble user details and permissions can be read from database. See user authentication for details.
    • Records Transcripts of private conversations as instant messages that can be viewed later.
    • Can add headers or footers to discussion group articles. See add_footers
    • A footer is automatically added to outgoing discussion group emails informing them how to unsubscribe. Use member_email_footer to disable this feature.
    • Can reject chat room and discussion articles containing offensive words. See discussion_reject_words and chat_reject_words
    • Users can specify signatures for discussions and instant messages from their DBabble preferences
    • Preference to automatically add any new users to friends list. (on systems with less than 50 users) See user_max_add_all_friends to disable this.
    • Users can choose to be notified of activity in open chat rooms/talk windows in windows client while not focussed.
    • Users can search in old instant messages.
    • Better performance when using large discussion groups (e.g. 5000+ items). Use group_index_memory_cache to control this.
    • Some other minor features.
         		 Server:
    • Fixed bug where solaris servers could not handle more than 128 socket/file handles, so could not read from disk when there were too many connections.
    Windows Client:
    • None
     
    1.2k
    February 27, 2001
    New Settings:
    guest_logins, guest_admin_password, show_ad_details, smtp_user_base, smtp_accepts_instant_messages, users_can_send_email, allow_discussion_email, allow_discussion_email_posts, give_user_email_bounces, auto_responder_headers, max_user_email_out, phone_gateway, phone_remove, unsubscribe_words, tpl_sets, users_with_at_symbols.
    • Allow guest logins. Use guest_logins to enable this feature.
    • Can accept incoming email even if you already have an SMTP server running on the same machine. See Sending and Receiving EMail from DBabble for details.
    • Windows client now uses the current Windows scheme font size (so that complex character languages are large enough to be readable)
    • Can accept incoming email for users which gets converted into instant messages. Users can also reply or send outgoing email to any email address.
    • Can add phone gateway settings to DBabble (as long as you have an email to phone gateway available to you) so that users can just enter phone numbers to send instant messages to mobile phones as text messages.
    • Support for multiple template sets and separate web page template sets for each language.
    • Users can forward messages received while they are offline (and online if they want) to an email address
    • Users make themselves appear offline even when they are online
    • Message can have high/low priority, and in the Windows client, users can choose to be notified differently for different priority messages.
    • Some more minor features
         		 Server:
    • Fixed problem in 1.2g that could cause server to crash when users reading old messages in a web browser, read messages sent before version 1.2g.
    • Fixed performance problems over NNTP connections for large discussion groups
    Windows Client:
    • None
     
    1.2g
    January 26, 2001
    New Settings:
    languages, lang_errors, chat_messages_from, timezone_add, time_show_seconds, give_email_bounces, show_using.
    • Support for other languages in both the server and Windows client.
    • User Groups - Send instant message to groups of users.
    • Improved performance in some areas
    • Optionally have no old message show up when entering chat rooms
    • Can have user fields that are initially setable by users, but they can't change them later
    • Windows client doesn't download all old instant messages during login (the user can choose to download them later if they want)
    • Many more minor features
         		 Server:
    • None
    Windows Client:
    • None
     
    1.1p
    January 26, 2001
    		   Server:
    • Hasn't changed
    Windows Client:
    • Fixed bug that could cause DBabble to crash on some Win95/98/ME machines when selecting a private conversation window to be always on top of other windows.
     
    1.1n
    January 17, 2001
    		   Server:
    • Hasn't changed
    Windows Client:
    • Fixed bug that would cause DBabble to crash on startup on systems where the Windows scheme tooltip font was bold. ("Desert" is the only standard Windows scheme that has this, so it is quite uncommon.)
     
    1.1m
    December 13, 2000
    		   Server:
    • Fixed bug that could sometimes crash server in discussion groups with more than about 1000 items.
    Windows Client:
    • Fixed bug that could sometimes crash client in large discussion groups with attachments.
     
    1.1k
    November 7, 2000
    New Settings:
    auto_login_user,
    • Support for http web basic authentication. If enabled, users are prompted for name and password by web browser on first request, and this same authentication information is passed to other programs (eg your own CGIs) so that users do not need to login again. See HTTP Basic Authentication for more information.
    • If you have disabled the email address field in user_fields.dat, and have set email_add to "1", then the user's email address is assumed to be the same value as their user name. Also, you can disable the display_name field in user_fields.dat, and it takes on the same value is the user name.
         		 Server:
    • Fixed problem with auto-login feature. It should now work in all cases.
    • Fixed problem with server installation of linux_libc6 version crashing on some Red Hat 7.0 systems.
    • Fixed problem with some of the links in the friends window not working when viewed using Netscape for Linux.
    Windows Client:
    • No Problems to fix.
     
    1.1i
    October 19, 2000
    New Settings:
    win_host_port,
    • Support for permission groups for users. You can specify a list of permission groups with associated permissions, and each user can be assigned to belong to one of these groups. All their permissions (quota, can create chat rooms, can broadcast messages, etc) then take on the values of that permission group. Note - currently you can only create new permission groups, and modify their properties through the web-browser interface on the server configuration page.
         		 Server:
    • Fixed problem with server crashing in rare situations.
    Windows Client:
    • Fixed problem with the current listed instant message in the list not being the one that is displayed in some circumstances.
     
    1.1g
    October 16, 2000
    New Settings:
    program_name, pass_disk_cache, email_from, support_email, require_cookies, invite_users, priority, max_msg_to, auto_login_links, auto_login,
    • Can change name of both web browser and windows client to a name other than DBabble.
    • Instant messaging improvements - Can read sent messages. If in windows client, can send instant messages to multiple recipients and can forward instant messages to other users.
    • Many minor improvements to windows client - better attention getting, optionally have taskbar icons for individual windows + more.
    • Support for automatic login to other Netwin web-based products from within the DBabble web interface. See auto_login_links to enable this feature.
    • Added a user preferences section to web browser version.
    • Many minor improvements to server.
         		 Server:
    • No bugs to fix.
    Windows Client:
    • Fixed problem with DBabble system tray icon disappearing when windows explorer (the program that displays the task bar, start menu, and system tray area) crashes and restarts, which it will sometimes quietly do.
     
    1.0c
    August 22, 2000
    New Settings:
    friends_frame,
    • Friends window can optionally be in a frame in main window instead of a separate window. Cleaned up friends window/frame to look nicer.
         		 Server:
    • Solaris-Sparc Server could crash with Bus-Error message in some cases. Now Fixed.
    Windows Client:
    • No problems to fix
     
    1.0b
    August 18, 2000
    New Settings:
    email_forgotten_password,
    • Can allow users to retrieve forgotten passwords by email.
         		 Server:
    • Server could crash before when pulling from external news-groups containing attachments.
    Windows Client:
    • Could crash on login if user had a large instant message
     
    1.0a
    August 15, 2000
    New Settings:
    items_read_expire,
    • Server records which items in a group each user has previously read. Takes about 300 bytes of disk space per user per group, which is only used when a user actually reads at least one item in the group. See items_read_expire.
    • Can customize the group categories (Sports, Music, Computers etc). See the file group_categories.dat for more details.
    • Users can open external news-reading program to read nntp groups.
         		 Server:
    • Version 0.6b had broken the ability to request private conversations with users on remote servers. This is fixed now.
    Windows Client:
    • No problems to fix
     
    0.6b
    August 8, 2000
    New Settings:
    win_set_host, extra_ports, date_day_first, email_add, must_setup, connections_from, local_users_from, nntp_users_from, smtp_users_from, port_tell.
    • User details are now customizable to include whatever fields you want. Each field can be not used, optional or required. You can also specify fields to be a list of options in a select box. See the contents of the file user_fields.dat for more information.
    • Users can specify who is allowed to view their user details from the choice of everyone, local users and friends, local users, friends, or just the administrator. Users are also able to specify who they accept instant messages and requests from.
    • Automatically sets server host and port in windows client download so that users do not need to specify it. See win_set_host to disable this feature.
    • Windows client installation/upgrade procedure is nicer.
    • Can restrict which IP addresses are allowed to connect to server. See connections_from, local_users_from, nntp_users_from, smtp_users_from for more details.
    • Server can listen on multiple ports. See extra_ports for more details.
    • No longer have to append pop authentication host to usernames to form default user email address. See email_add for more details.
    • Can force users to enter their user-details after first pop-authenticated login. See must_setup for more details.
         		 Server:
    • Web browser chat rooms and private conversation frames do not clear and redraw on every refresh, giving a much nicer feel to them.
    • Fixed problem on Internet Explorer for Mac where instant messages received after first one caused JavaScript errors
    • Fixed problem with not being able to send instant messages from web-browser when using Netscape 4.7 for Linux
    Windows Client:
    • Previously Win98 machines would lock up if more than 2 instances ran simultaneously
     
    0.5d
    July 4, 2000
    New Settings:
    brand_text, brand_image, ops_on_startup, chat_images_inline,
    • Provides customizable text and image in help-about box in windows client. See brand_text and brand_image.
    • Windows client now tries to connect directly to server rather than use proxy server, even if the proxy settings indicate that it should use the proxy server. This is to improve performance (direct connections are better for both server and client) since a lot of users have their web-browser proxy settings incorrect. This feature can be disabled in the proxy-server configuration dialog box.
    • Image attachments in chat rooms can now appear inline in web browser. (as opposed to appearing as a link that a user must click on to see it). See chat_images_inline.
     
    • Previously a bug caused server to lock up for a few seconds once an hour when more than about 100 users in database. No longer a problem, and server should comfortably handle user databases of 100,000 users.
     
    0.5b
    June 27, 2000
    New Settings:
    key, show_ads, log_status_interval, max_chans, ad_change_time, ad_click_confirm, nntp_must_auth, first_user_admin, tpl_names,
    • NNTP Authentication - you can optionally force news-readers to authenticate when they connect, which also allows posting to private groups. See the configuration setting nntp_must_auth.
    • Advertisement Lists
    • License Key Support
    		 Server:
    • Correctly decodes incoming smtp and nntp message attachments
    • Can now receive email from subscribed groups even if poster of article has no valid email address
    • Fixed problem with posts to groups from some news-readers bouncing from linked newsgroups
    Windows Client:
    • Memory leak fixed
    • Support for non-standard font sizes (windows are now sized correctly)
    • Word-wrapping in message composition
    • Fixed error when opening discussion articles in separate window
    • Fixed problem with resizing main window with friends section resizing to nothing