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Update Information

The following table contains information on the latest versions of WebNews. The table is in reverse order, with the latest versions at the top. New versions may appear in the webnews/beta directory prior to full release. If there is not a current build of the latest version for your operating system, please let us know by sending an email to support-webnews@netwinsite.com

Version Date New Features and Bugs Fixed
1.1r 18th July 2003
(Beta)
  • Added INI setting: login_last_frames - when set to true it will login to frames/non-frames depending on what they were last login as.
  • Fixed: Sorting article sorting and prev_thread_id/next_thread_id values.
  • Fixed: On advance search when doing a search for a group 'rec.h*' can generate
    error when incorrect.
  • Added INI Setting: use_http_host - When set to true will use the 'http_host' to determine the serer name to build the correct http://..../ link.
  • Added: 2 extra varaibles are setup on a search:
    no_article_match - Set to true when no articales are located
    no_articles - The number of articles located.
  • Added: 2 extra variables within the 'user.access' file called:
    always_allowed ...
    always_allowed_post ...
  • Added TPL Command: ||ifeven||x||...||else||..||endif|| - This command check a number for a even or odd value.
  • Added: -ini <ini_path> were this is the path were the CGI will look for the ini file. Normally only needed when running webnews via cron jobs were the workarea isn't setup.
  • Added INI setting: cookie_path - This sets up the cookie path of the cookies sent out by the CGI.
  • Added: yEnc decoding of news articles.
  • Updated: Test page to include disk space left.
  • Updated: ftsearch.tpl - Replaced '||number||' with '||ft_id||'
  • New INI setting: enable_second_sort - When set to true will enable sorting the
    ||begin_list||..||end_list||
    To use the second sorting method.
1.1p 6th August 2002
  • Added INI setting: auto_timezone - When set to 'true' this will automatically account for daylight savings when display dates to the user.
  • Fixed: Autotime out issue with temp accounts.
  • Updated INI setting: cookie_valid_days - to accept hours and mins as a setting.
    ie cookie_valid_days 1h
    cookie_valid_days 10m
  • Added INI setting: delta_cookie - When set to true all cookies use 'Max-Age=..' instead of 'expires=..'
1.1o 27th June 2002
  • Fixed: Bug with news that started with a '.', Not all news groups were being displayed.
  • Fixed: When News groups had capital letter cause some issue in some cases.
  • Updated: When a 'cmd=thread-||uidl||' is process on an item that is in the middle of a thread it will attempt to show the whole thread if possible. Also the variable '||top_uidl||' will be setup with the UIDL of the top thread.
  • Added: WebNews now has a print and save options for articles.
    Changes in: item.tpl
  • Added INI setting: cache_control - This setting will add like the following
                  cache_control no-cache
    converts to:
                 Cache-Control: no-cache
    when sendback the 'content-type' of the data back
1.1n 21st May 2002
  • Updated: Searching for groups is not not case senitive.
  • Updated: SO that 'cmd=thread-xxx' will also update the listing.

  • Added INI setting: auto_subscribe_display - When set to true this will default any subscribed groups to be displayed on the group list page.
  • Added INI settings: bind_sockets - This will force all outgoing sockets to bind to a selected IP number. Only used if the machine has mutiple IP's and
    you want to make sure that the CGI when talking to the Mail server,
    looks like that it is comming from 1 address.
  • Added INI setting: enable_user_encode - When set to true it user profile directories that have '/\:*?"<>|!' will be encoded.

  • Updated: Personal Spelling Dictionary is now Alpha order.
  • Updated: 'javascript:' tags when viewing emails are now replace with '#'.
    ie. <img src="javascript:..."> <a onmouseover="javascript:...">

  • Added TPL variable: On the item template the following variables are available:
    ||prev_thread_id|| - The next ID of the prev thread
    ||next_thread_id|| - The next ID of the next thread
1.1m 18th March 2002
  • Fixed: Next and Prev Article were not correct when sorting 'Thread-Subject'

  • Updated: When you reply to a News Article only 1 'Re:' will be displayed.

  • Added INI setting: sort_by_page - When set to true when it does a thread sort
    by the page and not the entire list of threads.
  • Added INI setting: allow_read_flag - When set to true this will store which aticles have been read by the user.
    SUGGESTED NOT to use on large system.
    generates a file called: read.dat
    in each users directory.
    layout: group.name start_article end_article

  • Added: WebNews now remembers what articles that you have read.
    Only News Groups that you are subscribed to will be perserved between
    login sessions

    ||h_isread|| - if true then article has been read
    ||h_isread_thread|| - if true then all article in this thread have been read
    ||h_isread_thread_count|| - The number of read articles in thread.

  • Updated: Managers 'Reload News Groups List' so that is the following ini setting: user_group_cache true
    is enable it will clear out all users group caches as well.
  • Updated: Changed message that is display to user when access to a news group is denied.
        You do not have permission to access/subscribe this news group
        You do not have permission to post to this news group
1.1k 21th February 2002
  • Fixed: News Artciles that start with dots now are display correctly.
  • Fixed: Buffer Overflow Vulnerability reported by NGSSoftware Insight Security Research.
  • Fixed: News Artciles that start with dots now are display correctly.
  • Updated: When display a thread the thread order is correct.
  • Updated: ||news_age|| in days is now worked from the users timezone setting. :-)
  • Added: sgt Timezome (Singapore)
  • Added ini setting: tpl_set - This is used to setup multiple template sets for WebNews.
                                tpl_set <number> <template dir> <nwimg> <text>
  • Added ini setting: no_xgtitle - When set to true no 'XGTITLE' command will be sent to the news server.
  • Added INI setting: set_umask - This will change the umask bits. Needed on some O/S that has setup the umask to be strange, so directories can't be created with executable access.
                                    ie.     set_umask 002
  • Added ini setting: command_admin_only - When set to true then the admin functions can only be done by processing via the command prompt.
                                        ie.         ./webmail.cgi -admin_fns
  • Added INI settings:    admin_news_user username
                                       admin_news_pass password
    These two settings are use to generate the list of valid groups that the users can see and are restricted by the 'user.access' file.
  • Updated ini setting: auto_delete <wild user> <x days> [<y days>]
    This setting is used to determine when accounts will be automatically used if not login for x number of days. You are allow multiple settings. When set to 0 days then this account will never be removed. Accounts that haven't been used for y number of days their cache will be removed to save disk space.
                            NOTE: order of these settings matters.
                                    ie.     auto_delete lynden* 0 0
                                        auto_delete *@temp 1
                                        auto_delete * 60 20
  • Updated INI settings:    'auto_group_reload' and 'min_group_reload' are now in seconds and are '300' (5 mins) and 8 seconds. When a login occurs the group cache will get refreshed every 10 seconds. This stop the long wait when a new group is added.
1.1j 29th November 2001
  • Added: The folowing variables setup on a cmd=config
                            v_raw, v_headers, v_font, v_inline
  • Added INI setting: log_stats log.log - This logs the Login and Logout of all users using the system. This will store the following in a tab seperated file:
                                time     user@domain    login/logout
  • Added ini setting: outgoing - The filename is appended to, for every EMail that is sent out, Either sending or draft message etc.
                                        OUT: time username@domain smtp_server:port num size text
    NOTE: The size is the size of the news article only.
  • Added TPL command: ||update_tpl_item||number|| - This template command will setup all the variables that an 'item-number' command does so that you can display an news body inside the thread list.
  • Updated TPL: 'attach' and 'sp_show' templates have been updated.
  • Updated: Deleting of Email messages now will double check the IP numbers as well as the IP names.
  • Updated: if the ini setting 'lowercase_username true' is set the user.access file will all be lowercased.
  • Updated: The subject and Authour search on groups are now 'AND' instead of 'OR'
1.1i 9th July 2001
  • Fixed: Bug with groups names that were larger than 100 characters. These are now ignored and logged.
  • Updated: Thread display pages to now force the same amount to be display on every page.
  • Updated: The email date fields to accept the layout:
              Tue May 1 15:54:31 2001 -0400
  • Added: new file 'user.access' which has what user is allowed to access what.
  • Added: Sorting Threads by subject - Add the following link to your listf.tpl (and/or list.tpl)                    
              <a href="||action||?cmd=listitems&sort_on=none&second_sort=subject&
                sort_method=text&sort_reverse=true&group=||group||
                &utoken=||utoken||">Thread Subject Sort</a>
  • Added:    from_email and from_personal - To be available on the postf.tpl.
  • Added:    reload_articles=true - When set to true either in INI or submited as part of a link, the when a 'cmd=item-*' it performed the group list if rebuilt.
  • Added: cmd=del_list&uid=||uid||, cmd=del_list_grp&cmd=del_list, cmd=del_list_art&cmd=del_list. This will unsubscribe the selected group.
  • Added: Sorting subscribe list in alphanumeric order.
  • Added: The ability for users to delete the News Articles that they setup. Template changes on the listf.tpl and/or list.tpl.
                ||ifdef||allow_delete||
                         <a href="||action||?cmd=delete-||number||&group=||group||
                                 &utoken=||utoken ||&news_pos=||news_pos||">
                                 <img border="0" src="||nwimg||/trash_icon.gif">
                          </a>
                ||endif||
  • Added: ||no_re_subject|| to be available that has the 're:' and "fwd:" removed from the subject.
  • Added INI Setting: admin_user - Which is a comma seperated wild card user list that if the user matches are allow to delete any EMail.
  • Added INI Setting: re_fwd_ignore - Which will make the new sort routines to ignore any 're:' and 'fwd:' at the beginning of the subject.
  • Added TPL Command: ||java_text||var|| - Which will convert the value of the variable to work correctly as a javascript variable, no spaces, commas, qoutes, etc..
  • Added TPL Command: ||/*||...||*'/'|| - This will not phase out any tpl code within these.
1.1h 17th April 2001
  • Fixed: New Password to be used if the password changes.
  • Added: Articles that are broken up into sections are now decoded, and treaded as one article.
  • Added: new varaibles that are available on the article lists:
                            line - Ranges from 0 to 'max_line_count'
                            msg_no - Ranges from 1 to number displaying
  • Added: ||lines|| and ||bytes|| varaibles available on the item.tpl and listf.tpl for each article.
  • Added INI setting: time_offset - This is used when the CGI does not correctly determines the CGI's GMT. Set this to the timezone that the computer is on. This also shows up on the 'cmd=test' page.
  • Added INI setting: date_layout and time_layout : which allow the changing to the h_date_day and h_date_time.
  • Added INI setting: limit_reference - Which is used to limit the size of the reference field of new articles when sending a new message. Most news server do this internally but some don't.
  • Added TPL command: ||begin_for||start||end||...||end_for|| - This will preform a for loop starting at 'start' and ending at 'end' and setup the variable '||for||' the the number.
1.1g 29th January 2001
  • Fixed: Non-English news group could not be correctly posted to.
  • Fixed: Auto Login.
  • Fixed: .pdf display problem on IE on PC's.
  • Added: date, author and subject sorting on articles.
              sort_on=date              sort_on=subject        sort_on=author
              sort_method=date        sort_method=text    sort_method=text
              sort_reverse=true         sort_reverse=true     sort_reverse=true
1.1f 14th December 2000
  • Fixed: The web links (<www.netwinsite.com>) incorrect seem to also included then last angle bracket.
  • Fixed: Problem with displaying a Hotmail auto-response message.
  • Fixed: EMails which ended with '=' on a line were getting removed.
  • Fixed: EMails which have content-type 'message/rfc822', to correctly get decoded.
  • Fixed: Quotes in spell checking were not being ignored.
  • Fixed: Key problem when using DNews servers.
  • Added: utoken cookie to add security.
1.1e 28th September 2000
  • Fixed: Uudecoding problem.
  • Updated: Inline HTML now has <style> and </style...> removed.
  • Updated: Thread Sorting Method.
  • added ini setting:    allow_style - When set will keep the <style> tags inline.
  • Added ini setting:    body_sig_spaces - This sets the number of lines between the body of the EMail and the user's signature.
  • Added: Extra testing details for timezones.
  • Added: New method to add attachments, where a new template is used.
             -    Template changes in send.tpl, sendf.tpl, sp_show.tpl, sp_showf.tpl
             -    New Templates attach.tpl and attachf.tpl
             -    There are also added template commands:
                      ||begin_attach||..||end_attach||
1.1d 5th September 2000
  • Fixed: Displaying of inline HTML for IE browsers. (had problems with <pre>)
  • Updated: EMails that are 'multipart/alternative' now have a link to display both. The ini setting 'alternative_multiple' is created if the message has alternative parts. When 'alt_multi_display' send to cgi when displaying an email then the alternative part is also displayed.
  • Updated ini setting: netwin_autologin <url> <product directory> <extra> - This is used to setup autologin to other NetWin products.
                       ie (WebIMAP/WebMail, WebNews, DMailWeb/CWMail).
  • Updated: Display problems with some inline images.
  • Updated: Problems with some Articles with large reference.
  • Updated: Inline HTML has been updated so that the background image does not mess up the page.
                        Removal of Some HTML tags.
                            <meta ... >
                            <header> ... </header>
                            <body ... >
                            </body>
  • Added: Authentatication via Environment variables.
                        environ_user REMOTE_USER
                        environ_pass AUTH_PASSWORD
                 or     environ_pass HTTP_AUTHORIZATION
1.1c 25th July 2000
  • Fixed: Problem with uuencoding attachments.
  • Fixed: Date on EMail when in Daylight Saving, being an hour out.
  • Fixed: On some Unix systems sending very large files causes timeout errors.
  • Fixed: Crash on some Cookies.
  • Fixed: When using 'Hash_Method 2', keep getting 'No Password Entered'.
  • Fixed: Articles that had 'gif' inside the subject caused another link to appear when viewing an EMail.
  • Fixed: Displaying of HTML that has been 'quoted-printable' encoded.
  • Fixed: The ||do(..)|| command
  • Fixed: New Articles which had from addresses like:
                        "anything@1.2.3.4" <lynden@1.2.3.4>
                        were causing sending problems. :-)
  • Fixed: Problem logging on to authent_host setting when using all authen methods.
  • Updated: Replying to EMails which were 'multipart/alternative' the HTML was being used and not the first text field.
  • Added: The ability to login to other NetWin products.
                (WebIMAP/WebMail, WebNews, DMailWeb/CWMail).
  • Added: The ability for other NetWin products to automatically login.
                (WebIMAP/WebMail, WebNews, DMailWeb/CWMail).
  • Added ini setting: netwin_autologin <url> <product directory> -
                This is used to setup autologin to other NetWin products.
                ie (WebIMAP/WebMail, WebNews, DMailWeb/CWMail).
  • Added ini setting: auto_delete <wild user> <un-used days>
    This setting is used to determine when accounts will be automatically used if someone has not logged in for x number of days. You are allowed multiple settings. When set to 0 days, this account will never be removed.
    NOTE: order of these settings matters.
                 ie.     auto_delete lynden* 0
                        auto_delete *@temp 1
                        auto_delete * 10
  • Added ini setting: attach_target - Which allows the setting up of a target for all attachments.
                        ie.     attach_target target="_blank"
  • Added cmd: add_list_art - same as add_list except goto's the article list page.
  • Added cmd: add_list_grp - same as add_list except goto's the group list page.
  • Added: Full Text Searching. (Only available on DNews servers)
  • Added template: ftsearch.tpl - Used for the Full Text Searching.
  • NOTE: Cobalt Raq3 systems does not like empty gets commands so when referencing the CGI you should use a URL simular to the following
                <http://your.domain.name/cgi-bin/webimap.cgi?cmd=%20>
1.1b 31th May 2000
  • Added: The ability to login to other NetWin products.
                (WebIMAP/WebMail, WebNews, DMailWeb/CWMail).
  • Added: The ability for other NetWin products to automatically login.             
                (WebIMAP/WebMail, WebNews, DMailWeb/CWMail).
  • Added ini setting: netwin_autologin <url> <product directory> - This is used to setup autologin to other NetWin products.
                 ie (WebIMAP/WebMail, WebNews, DMailWeb/CWMail).
1.1a 12th April 2000
  • Updated: Single words in the search screen automatically have the '*' attached to the beginning and end of the word.
  • Updated: The test page to also display the cache checks.
  • Updated: The caching and search of the first/second Pages.
  • Updated: words.dat file to also account for languages that do not use the characters:
                'a'...'z'
  • Updated: Search Link on articles that had Japanese characters in the subject. (Change item.tpl to fix)
  • Fixed: Help button not displaying the help screen.
  • Fixed: Multi-attachments finial boundary was incorrect.
  • Fixed: Deleted groups on Solaris caused problems.
  • Added: Displaying the number of new articles to the users in a group that they have viewed before. uses the user setting (group#grp_name cur new)
  • Added: The listing of Articles can be by thread or all the articles.
                Using ||begin_alist|| and ||end_alist||.
  • Added: Automatic Detection of DNews server.
  • Added ini setting: dictionary - This is used to default which words.dat file to use for the spell checker. (default words.dat)
  • Added template command: ||lchop||var||size|| - This is a language chop. This will chop the variable to the specified size, only displaying whole words ending in '...'.
  • Added: When replying to Articles that have attachments, the following is added:
                > [Attachment: filename]
1.0b 24th March 2000
  • Updated: Single words in the search screen automatically have the '*' attached to the beginning and end of the word.
  • Updated: The test page to also display the cache checks.
  • Updated: The caching and search of the first/second Pages.
  • Updated: words.dat file to also account for languages that do not use the characters: 'a'...'z'
  • Updated: Search Link on articles that had Japanese characters in the subject. (Change item.tpl to fix)
  • Fixed: Help button not displaying the help screen.
  • Fixed: Multi-attachments finial boundary was incorrect.
  • Fixed: Deleted groups on Solaris caused problems.
  • Added: Displaying the number of new articles to the users in a group that they have viewed before. uses the user setting (group#grp_name cur new)
  • Added: The listing of Articles can be by thread or all the articles. Using ||begin_alist|| and ||end_alist||.
  • Added: Automatic Detection of DNews server.
  • Added template command: ||lchop||var||size|| - This is a language chop. This will chop the variable to the specified size, only displaying whole words ending in '...'.
  • Added ini setting: dictionary - This is used to default which words.dat file to use for the spell checker. (default words.dat)
1.0a 15th November 1999
  • WebNews - Web NEWS Based news Client -
    1.0a beta release available for testing
    WebNews is a NEWS Client system which enables your users to access NEWS servers using a web browser.