Telegard Bulletin Board Software, v3.03
                       Revision History Documentation

                   Copyright (C) 1995,1997 by Tim Strike
                            All Rights Reserved.


                       3.03 Beta 1 - January 4, 1997


                               Release Notes:

        This is the first beta that some of the newer sites have received.
        My sincere apologies for taking so long to release a beta following 
        the 3.02 release, but there are honestly two reasons for not doing
        so--
                1. School caught up to me bigtime in September, and took
                   most of my free time for various projects.  For those
                   who want to be 'in the know', I'm a third year CS/Math
                   major (I've also finished a year of Commerce, and a year
                   of Elec. Eng.).  I intend on graduating a 1/2 year early
                   from my program.

                2. I was near burnt out.  After finishing 3.00 of Telegard,
                   including all four gamma releases in a little less than
                   a year of really concentrated work, I just had no more
                   juice -- especially in the summer when I was working
                   50+ hour weeks.

        That said . . . I think I'm rejuvenated, in at least enough to get
        some work done . . .

        This release marks the new file section.  I honestly admit that
        it has not been as well tested as it should be, but that is what
        you folks are for.  The file section lists files, and it adds files
        without a problem.  What else works, what else doesn't?  Test it
        heavily--although I suspect your users will do so as well.

        Keep a backup of your 3.02 system (you can revert if you have
        too many problems).

        The file structures have been included for this 3.03 release.  
        Please note that these structures are *not* final, but should be 
        enough for everyone to work with for now--especially those amungst
        us who wish to update their utilities for the new file section .

        OF NOTE: The new scan records have not been implemented yet--they
        will be shortly (and I'll include sample code on how to access
        the scan records, for both the file & message areas).


                            Installation Notes:

        As with previous beta distributions, this package is based on the
        3.02 public release-- you must have 3.02 installed in order to 
        patch your files.

        As always, keep a backup of your previous installation!

        For old sites, it works as normal.  For new sites, it works as
        follows-- The TELEGARD.DIF file is applied with the command

                          BUPDATE -i TELEGARD.DIF

        while in your /telegard/ main directory.  The __UPDATE.ZIP file
        contains updated files (text/language/etc) that were changed since
        the previous version (as samples), update your own files as 
        neccessary.

        Data structure updates are completed with UPDATE.EXE utility.

        Language updates are kept in LANGUAGE.B01 as normal, listed with
        changes in reverse chronilogical order (latest=first).
        

                               Release Notes:

        LANGUAGES

            * Review LANGUAGE.B01 for the minor changes to this version.

        AREAS
        
           + A second group set has been added (so you can now keep your 
             file/msg groups separate if you so desire). The group sets are 
             now governed as follows:

                    Set 1 - Main Groups          Set 2 - File Groups               
                         File  GROUPx                 File  FGROUPx              
                          MCI  ~CC (desc),             MCI  ~CH (desc),
                               ~CG (tag)                    ~CK (tag)
                          ACS  Cx                      ACS  Dx                   
                       Change  OR                   Change  OQ                   
                        Setup  *G                    Setup  *G                   
              
             Note that some utilities will produce FALSE if you use the
             Dx ACS--so separate your groups only if your utilities will 
             still work.  The naming convention Msg/File is completely
             ambiguous (Telegard does *not* care what you limit in each
             group--internally they are Set 1 and Set 2--the naming 
             convention is just for convenience!).

             ** Your old group configuration will work without change **

        MESSAGES

           + Added toggle for appending "Re:" to the reply subjects.

           * Squish bases with unlimited messages were marked with max
             messages == 65535 rather than the Squish standard == 0.

           * Processing messages > 32K should _not_ have worked because of
             some filtering variables if either mbfilter or mbstripcolour
             was turned on.  It did infact work on occasion, but it 
             shouldn't have.  Fixed--hopefully this fixes importation of
             large files (.ANS/etc) over 32K.

           + Anonymous messages have a new tracking mode.  Previously,
             all 'anonymous' message types were posted with a ^aREALNAME
             kludge (even in echomail areas).  However, three new tracking
             methods are now available-- Name, UserID, and None.  The three 
             modes operate as follows:

                                             Storage of      Export
                           From field       Original User     Name   Restore

                 Name    Anonymous types  ^aREALNAME kludge   YES*1    YES

               UserID    Anonymous types    #### in from      NO*2     NO*3
                         + (an####)        field is userID

                 None    Anonymous types       NONE*4         NO       NO


                *1: The ^aREALNAME kludge is exported.  Ideally, other
                        systems will not show kludge lines to general users,
                        but this is not always the case.

                *2: UserID is exported, which is unique to the local system,
                        and only visible by the current user (from info
                        screens) or from the user editor (SysOps/etc).
                        If you have utilities which print the private
                        UserID of a user for public consumption, this 
                        method is not anonymous either!

                *3: Since UserID's can change (user is deleted, new user
                        logs on), the original name of the poster will not
                        be restored.

                *4: Logs will contain message posting information; which is
                        only available for as long as the logs are kept.

        FILES
        
           + New file section--the description files are now 'flat access'
             which means that to get the file description, you seek to the
             description offset, read the description ID (should be the 
             matching filename--13 bytes in length), then the description 
             of fbrec.desclength size.  No more pointers to maintain 
             besides the offset = easier to use/maintain file section.

             The new structure use NEW files (i.e. utilities which use
             the old filenames will not load the new structure and crash).
             External utilities have been included for support with other 
             utilities which make use of the old structures.

             For utilities which only _read_ the file areas (file listers, 
             etc.) or utilities which update things which may not be too
             important during this beta stage (download counters, whatever):
        
                        FA2FB           /* generates old files from current
                                                structure files */
                        ...utilities here...

             For utilities which update the file areas:
        
                        FA2FB           /* generate old files... */
                        ...utilities here...
                        FB2FA           /* convert old files back to new
                                                FA files */

             I have included several switches with the utilities so that
             you can obtain optimum performance with these conversions:

                        -NOCD     /* do not process CD-ROM areas */
                        -DATE     /* only process if dates on files are
                                        different */

             Assuming that the utilities, when they change the file, also
             change the files date, the -DATE option will ensure that you 
             only update files which have _indeed_ been changed (which will
             save going through all your file areas = faster update).  In 
             addition, since utilities like ALLFIX do not update CD-ROM 
             areas, the -NOCD switch does not process those areas either.

             The new files are slightly smaller than the previous files; it
             is more noticable on the first coversion because the file
             descriptions are packed and wasted space is removed--thus, the 
             following results were obtained:

                        Old files (w/wasted space)      810,843
                        Old files (w/o wasted space)    309,950
                        New files (w/o wasted space)    226,462

             The new files are easier to pack and remove the wasted space,
             so I'll write a packer shortly (actually, I'll build it into
             the INDEX utility).

           * The search engine for the file section has been updated to
             reflect the new structure--it's using the QuickSearch now
             instead of the much slower POS(), and was noticably faster
             on my machine (perhaps not on yours . . . )

           * FILES.1 file listing & description file (for downloads) was
             missing the second line of the description. Fixed.

           + Preliminary support for PNG (Portable Network Graphics) format
             added.

           * Uploader names > 36 characters were truncated to 20 characters
             during editing; names longer than 20 characters after input 
             would crash the system.  Fixed.

        OTHER

           * Original bet will be adjusted if maximum bet < 5.
        
           + If deleting a protected user and the online user has SysOp 
             ACS, an override protection prompt is now used.

--- Fringe BBS