Macdev Project List

Last Modified: 13 June, 1996

dosdev projects , dosdev resources , macdev resources

MacDiscuss

Current Release: 1.0

Current Status:

Current Tasks:

  1. Installer needs to be created.
  2. final beta release, work with support and delivery for fully supported release 1.1
  3. develop requirements for release 2.0 and begin work
    1. SMTP support
    2. MIME support
    3. multiple flag support

Recent changes:

  1. switch to Kclient
  2. Changed MacDiscuss so it now works like newsreaders and loads all the new transactions at once. It seems reasonable with 150 new transactions, though I need to get Scott to test it with PPP.
  3. Added status bars to loading transaction information in the transaction window so the user doesn't feel like s/he has no idea how long it's going to take to load all the new transactions (it gives a current transaction number and the final transaction that will be loaded -- sort of like a countdown to being done).

Resources Assigned :

  1. (inactive)aellwood

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MacZephyr

Current release: 1.1

Current Status:

GOALS FOR MACZEPHYR 1.2 RELEASE

FIRST DRAFT - 4/28/94This is a list of problems that I plan to fix for the final release of MacZephyr 1.2 . Please let me know if you see anything that you think is filed inappropriately, or sounds unreasonable to try. As soon as the CodeWarrior port and ghudson client changes are working, I plan to release a test version, and then work on adding the rest.These items I have not touched yet. The "High Priority Items" are definitely going to be done, the "Lower Priority Items" will be addressed as time permits.5-28-95 CW 5 has a bug that does not support far data. While waiting for v6 to arrive Scott made sure that MacZephyr would also still build under MPW. It does but it exhibits the same old bugs that have plauged it since adding the code to support ghudson's changes. We hope this is a bug in MPW. Scott should have a version built on Cwv6 by June 2nd.Current Tasks:

Recent additions and fixes:

  1. Kclient support
  2. Have MacZephyr check to see if the CAPS LOCK key is down when in the authentication dialog, and warn the user that the CAPS LOCK key may cause problems, because this is the most common error when a correct password is entered but it fails to authenticate.
  3. Some copies of MacZephyr can get corrupted so that when you close a zwrite that has been edited but not sent, the confirmation dialog flashes rapidly and dumps you into the SFSave dialog. Try to fix this. (CodeWarrior port has found several things which could be causing the problem.)
  4. Fix "flashing authentication dialog" bug which affects some users. (CodeWarrior port has found several things which could be causing the problem.)
  5. Fix problem in MacZephyr 1.1 which reports an out-of-memory error in "auto_reply_it" (but doesn't quit or hang) when the auto-reply string is more than four lines or so long. (CodeWarrior port has found a spot that could be causing this.)
  6. Fix: If you choose the Znol menu option and don't actually do a znol (because it can't find the file and/or you cancel out), MZ goes ahead an updates the locate list anyway. Worse, it doesn't clear out the Locate/Znol Results window before doing this, so you get lots of duplicate entries. It should do nothing in these cases.
  7. If you try to use Znol when your authentication has expired, you do not get a warning message that you shouldn't do this - it just goes ahead and tries to do a znol and gets tons of errors. Need to reinstate warning.
  8. Znol never gets a chance to to tell you what it's looking for ("a text file with usernames") when it prompts you for a file. It used to do this when it couldn't find a file and stopped, but now that it prompts you, this message has gotten lost. Find a way to bring it back in at an appropriate location.
  9. Toggle the "Show LIST window," "Show TTY window," "Show Subscriptions," and "Show Filter List" menu items so that they change to "Hide LIST window" (etc.) when the window is actually on screen (and then actually hide the window and switch back to "Show list window")? Apparently the Human Interface Guidelines say we should be doing this.
  10. If you try to send a message and auto-reply is still on, MZ should present a dialog warning you that it's still on (because most likely people will reply to you and get the auto-reply message), and offer to turn it off (since you are sending a message, you are obviously back).
  11. Include the host machine that person is sending from in ZWGC windows.
  12. Fix this: If you cut and paste the entire text of a ZWGC window - actually, it doesn't have to be the entire text, but you must include the final carriage return at the bottom of the message; and then open a new message, paste this text in, and type new text after it, the additional text does not get sent when you send the message. This has to do with the fact that there's a null (\0) character at the end of each ZWGC window, and when you copy the whole thing, this gets included.
  13. When TTY window is frontmost, "Cut," "Copy," "Clear" menu items are active even if there's not a selection (they shouldn't be). Probably "Clear" shouldn't be active at all.
  14. You can paste text into the TTY window. This probably should be disabled.
  15. Add "Locate" button to the "Locate/Znol Results" window, since it now accepts Locate results as well.
  16. Have some way (an "Update" button) to update one or some of the users listed in the Locate/Znol Results window, but not have to go through all of them again.
  17. Have the Locate/Znol Results window would update in response to Login/Logout zephyrs. (discuss-list [326] [478,480])
  18. Fix problem: User reports that MacZephyr crashes if he clicks on the "anyone there" button when there is no user specified in the recipient line of a message. (MZ should display an error dialog.) User is on PowerMac 7100/66, with System 7.1.2 . This may be a conflict with Greg's Buttons INIT. This is a low-priority item because only one person has experienced and reported it, and it was fixed by removing Greg's Buttons. (However, the CodeWarrior port has located some potential problems that might be causing this.)
  19. Several users (and SGM) notice that occasionally list window does not update properly when a message is deleted (the message goes, but listing is incorrect unless an update is forced). Try to fix this.
  20. Instead of just saying "You have a new zephyr" in the (optional) notification dialog, the first 200 characters or so of the zephyr message is stated in the dialog. This may satisfy the people who wanted a window to pop up in front, "like Athena," although it's not really the same. But it was cheap.
  21. Fixed an extra error message that was given if you started MacZephyr without a network connection. MacZephyr will now allow you to quit gracefully from this situation (although it does so slowly).
  22. Changed the default format used for non-"message" class zephyrs to match what the default format used by zwrite on Athena. The 1.1 default format didn't include who the zephyr was from!
  23. Fixed bug where incoming zephyrs that were not terminated by a newline had their last character truncated (this showed up mostly when people received messages from emacs-zwgc users).

Resources Assigned :

TechMail

Current release: 2.2 ?

During the spring semester meeroh rewrote several portions of TechMail. SMTP and POP3 libraries were created using TechMail as the testbed. These were written so that this functionality could be easily incorporated into other applications. Kclient support was added.

This work needs to be audited and tested.

Recent Changes:

Resources Assigned :

  1. (previously)James Rath, ratjamm
  2. (previously)Miroslav Jurisic, meeroh

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TechMail-S

Current release:

Current Status:

Although this service will be desupported in the near future there are several outstanding high priority bugs. We shold spend some time to identify how rapidly this can be fixed.Tasks:

Resources Assigned :
none
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TechNotify

Current release: 1.2

Status:

Teddy has built TechNotify using the lastest MIT libraries and has modified the program to use Kclient version 1.5. Kclient 1.1b1 is the version being distributed by net-dist at this time. Version 1.5 has been tested with NCSA Telnet.We have asked Mike Sampson to perform an initial test of Kclient 1.5 with Eudora, NCSA Telnet, and TechNotify. If he does not run into any problems we then need to develop a test plan for a wider audience and work on release plan.

Tasks:

Recent changes:

Resources Assigned :
sampson
edward
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Macdev Libraries:

  1. kerberos
  2. com_err
  3. macbsd, smcguire has found one bug and the patch. He needs to check in the change.

Kclient

Macdev applications suffer from not having shared Kerberos tickets. The Kclient driver developed by Cornell has been widely adopted by other sites and vendors including Qualcomm and Cygnus. DCNS must port many of the existing Mac applications to this interface. Future applications should also be developed to this interface.

  1. Installer for Kclient and a location on net-dist to distribute the lastest version of kclient. Currently we are distributing v1.1b1 with NCSA Telnet but our own applications need v1.5. We also need to track when a new version comes out from Cornell.
  2. TechNotify
  3. MacZephyr
  4. MacDiscuss
  5. MacOLxx
  6. TechMail ?

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NCSA Telnet

Current Version: ?

Status:

This application has been Kerberized using the kclient interface. It is being distributed to the MIT community.Tasks: noneResources Assigned : noneBack to top

GUI / Cross Platform Tools

Status:

DCNS has a strong interest in emerging cross platform development tools. Two of the most promising at this time are PowerBuilder and MS's MFC. Re-engineering groups are investing efforts in PowerBuilder. DCNS has a growing expertise in MFC from the dosdev team. DCNS has purchased a copy of the Microsoft Visual C++ compiler for Macintosh cross compilation.Tasks:

  1. Identify some small dosdev applications for porting to the Mac.
  2. Continue to watch the re-engineering development efforts.

PowerMac Support / Codewarrior

Status :

Teddy spent time last summer converting TechInfo to the CodeWarrior compiler and porting the application to the PowerMac. Scott McGuire is presently porting MacZephyr to CW although he not working on a PowerMac binary.A working draft of Teddy's documentation is available.Tasks:

  1. Create documentation that talks about the porting issues so that more of our developers can make this switch and we can speed the process. This document should also address problems encountered.
  2. Currently the draft results of task 1 are located under Teddy's home directory. This work should be moved to the macathena locker. A Documentation subdirectory should be created with further subdirectories of ASCII and WWW. The current work is in html, a plain text version should also be available in the ASCII subdirectory.
  3. Port MacZephyr to CW.

Kerberos Version 5

Status :

MIT has contracted with Cygnus to port Kerberos version 5 to the Mac along with libraries for GSSAPI. This work is currently behind schedule. We are waiting for a revised schdule from Cygnus.Cygnus has contracted Fusion.com to work on the Mac port. Fusion has also been the subcontractor on the Windows port.Tasks:

  1. Develop a test plan for acceptance.
  2. Determine who will work on this

Hesiod packaging

Status:

The Mac Hesiod libraries needed to be packaged for use by sites external to MIT. Specifically Qualcomm for incorporation into Eudora. The Mac work was completed by Teddy.Bug fixes were made and the source was consolidated with the UNIX source tree by Mark Virtue. The Mac sources have been packaged with current copyright notice, sample code, library sources and released to net-dist.Tasks: none outstandingResources Assigned : noneBack to top

Eudora

Status: Eudora Pro 2.x in wide use. Marshall has been evaluating the Eudora 3.0 beta. This is in open beta so many users around the institute are also using it.

Tasks

  1. The mail converter program occasionally fails. It appears that this only happens when multiple mail folders are converted at the same time. Still should be resolved.
  2. Need to improve installer so that more configuration issues are resolved.

Moira / GDB

Status:

During the summer of '94 Steve Tamm ported a large portion of the Moira / GDB libraries from UNIX to the Macintosh. When he reached the point of needing to test the port he became frustrated with working for DCNS. Steve was testing against a test server that was running th wrong version of Moira. He felt that he was getting inadequate support and attention from the full time staff. By the time the problem of testing against the wrong version of the server was discovered it was too late.Dan started over from scratch. He has a TTY mrtest program that exercises the libraries. He is now working on a GUI ListMaint program.Source code location: The latest sources on Athena from this work can be found in /mit/macmoira. These date from Dec '94.Tasks:

  1. GUI ListMaint
    1. need to look at the UI
    2. test plan
    3. documentation

Dylan investigation

Status:

Dylan is Apple latest foray into cross platform development tools. Several of the Mac developers are interested in looking at this environment. A plan needs to be developed and a resource assigned or hired. Wade has some experience with this already. He will not have the time to perform a full investigation but he is probably the person best suited to develop the plan.Tasks: Resources Assigned noneBack to top

Developer documentation

Teddy has suggested making more documentation available to our developers via TechInfo and/or the web.Tasks:

TechMail - Eudora Migration

We need to provide two applications to provide a migration path. I feel that these should be bi-directional, others do not.First we need a utility to convert the address book data.Second we need a utility to convert the mailboxes. One already exists. NSS reports that this works fine, other users do not have similar result.Tasks:

  1. determine Eudora file format (done)
  2. sketch out UI (done)
  3. write (in progress)
  4. develop test plan
Installers

Create a Mac ftp library/application that can be used by installers created by either InstallerMaker or VICE. Possible source code bases so that we do not have to start from scratch:

time estimate: anywhere from 2.5 to 5 weeks

Work on detailed Mac specific installer requirements. Other people involved in this portion: mjv, pbh, repa, Jeff Harrington, thorne, ? time estimate: 1 week

Create a prioritized list of installers to be created. Here is the list of up-prioritized installers that have been presently mentioned. Please let pbh know if you have others that need to be added.

time estimate: 20 hours of one person to coordinate this effort across several groups in IS

Create the installers listed as a result of the previous task. A subgoal here is that the installers should be written in such a way that common routines are developed that can be used in subsequent installers. time estimate: to be determined

At some point we also need to create a useful method to distribute client configuration files and similar static configuration information. (tnsnames.ora used by SQL*NET)

follow ACAP progress and possibly work on a Mac implementation Resources Assigned
Richard Gansler
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