How to get more out of Akiva's WebBoard version 4.x, 5.x, and 6.x with Rog's Reply notification / and Post forwarding system (version 1.1)

This describes freeware that I wrote which allows any virtual board manager (or WebBoard administrator) to set up a board in which all users (except guests) can ask to be notified by e-mail when someone replies to their post . . . or forward the first 500 bytes of a post to anyone.

This also contains a subsystem that allows you to use the "ushered URL" feature (described below) by itself, so that you can create a set of "highlight" links on another site that will tempt readers to go to your WebBoard.

(The "reply notification" feature shouldn't be confused with the form of e-mail notification offered by WebBoard, in which one can be notified when there are any new posts to a given conference.  This product is different: posters can ask to be notified when someone replies to their post . . . as opposed to merely posting any message to a given conference.)

Nor should it be confused with the "watch this topic" feature that's available in WebBoard 5, or 6.

Anyone who gets an e-mail notification of a reply to their post (or who recieves a forwarded post), also gets a special URL, which I refer to as an "ushered URL" . . . this URL takes them back to the relevant post, without any required searching.

Specifically, here's what the interface supports:

  • Any poster may ask to be notified of replies their post(s), even if they're posting with a "JavaScript challenged" browser (such as an older version of WebTV).

  • You may not enable (1) posting via news reader, or (2) posting via e-mail.

    This is because I have no way of removing double quotes in such posts, since form scripts don't work.  You also can't use WebBoard's built-in feature to make URLs "hot" and image links "hot"  (However you can set a flag when configuring the system that will accomplish the same thing.)

    Note that you may allow e-mail lists or newsreader access on a read-only conference, provided that all posts are done from the web interface.

  • Any user who's not a guest and who isn't accessing the message board with a "JavaScript challenged" browser (such as an older version of WebTV) may forward the first 500 bytes of a post to anyone, regardless of whether or not the recipient is a user.  (For security reasons, you may also disable message forwarding.)

  • Whenever a reply notification message is sent (or a post is forwarded), the recipient recieves an "ushered URL" that will take them to the relevant post, after they login.

  • Whenever a reply notification message is sent (or a post is forwarded), the recipient recieves a second URL that will immediately take them to the relevant post . . . by logging them in as a guest (if guests are allowed on that board).

    This allows the recipient to view the relevant post with just one click, provided s/he has an e-mail interface that makes links hot (viz.: "clickable").  Virtually all e-mail interfaces, including AOHell, now satisfy this criterion.

  • The "ushered URL" feature may be used on a "standalone" basis, so that you can put together a list of interesting posts on another board, in order to tempt readers to log into your WebBoard.

    By leveraging your board's help folder entries, you can even turn your WebBoard into a web site with this capability.

  • Whenever a reply notification message is sent (or a post is forwarded), an "abuse" e-mail address and other information are sent to the recipient, to maximize the likelihood that the facilities are used with proper discretion.

  • No programming skills are required to install this product, nor need the WebBoard administrator cooperate: it's enough if the virtual board manager can follow a few simple instructions and has the ability to modify standard WebBoard files on the virtual board.  

  • Access to the standard freeware script formmail.pl is required, as well as the ability to create four small pages on a web server which can access a copy of formmail.pl.

    If you don't have a Unix server, you can also install the freeware NT version by downloading this zip file: http://www.rs-freeware.org/e/form2mail.zip

  • If you install this code on a system with an existing message base, you will need to repace all double quotes in the *.htm files within your /confs folder with single quotes.

This code is freeware.  You use it at your own risk.  No warrany of fitness for use or any other form of guarantee inheres.

You may use it and/or the source code in whole or in part for any otherwise legal purpose that you deem fit; however you may not claim legal ownership of same for legal purposes against anyone who's obtained it from an "independent source" (such as this web page).

1:  Install: (0) "Rog, you install it!"

2:  Install (1): Complete Install Zips

3:  Install (2): Standard Install

4:  Install (3): Rebuilding the source files, and/or making modifications

5:  Install: (4) preparing your conferences and messages

6:  Install: (5) configuring the files

7:  Install: (6) multiple boards

8:  Install: (7) Installing the "Ushured URL" component by itself, and working with ushered URLs.

9:  Installing FormMail.pl: a suggestion

10:  Bug reports, comments, and change requests, etc.

11:  Other freeware products

12:  Version history information

13:  Acknowledgements

1:  Install: (0) "Rog, you install it!"

My basic rate is $75/hour.

If you aleady have access to formmail.pl, you can give me FTP access to the servers, and you haven't extensively customized any of the WebBoard files I need to use, then it's more than likely that the install will cost no more than two hours (i.e. $200).

If you decide to install it yourself, I may also be willing to answer your questions on a gratis basis (time permitting), if you contact me.

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2:  Install (1): Complete Install Zips

If you want this documentation, as well as all the included zip files, WebBoard 4 users can download e4.zip instead.  WebBoard 6 users should download e6.zip.

Since the upgrade to WebBoard 6 is free for WebBoard 5 owners, I haven't provided a separate WebBoard 5 version.  However, for WebBoard 5, there's just one small change that has to be made to each of Read.html, PostMsg.html, and PostMsg-F.html.  I'll be happy to supply a WebBoard 5 complete install zip: just contact me.

Once you download the complete zip file, you'll still have to follow the rest of the install instructions.

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3:  Install (2): Standard Install

For WebBoard 4 users, the install file is: e_rel4.zip.

WebBoard 5 users should contact me.

For WebBoard 6, use: e_rel6.zip.

I also haven't supported the "modern" layout for WebBoard 6.  If you wish, you can contact me for the appropriate version of read2.html  and readfull2.html.

There are two subfolders in the install.

The E folder contains the WebBoard files.

There are four files that you have to put on a web site: these are contained in the EWeb folder ... there's more information about these files in section 6.

If you've customized any of the WebBoard pages that are in my install, you'll have to either propagate your customizations to my pages, or propagate my alternations to your customized page.

Here's a list of each file, along with the role it plays in the various operations:

WebBoard name or name on server: Purpose:
E_Fwd.htm This goes on your web server to handle post forwarding.
E_Notify.Htm This goes on your web server, and handles e-mail notification.
E_Sent0.htm This goes on your web server, and it's the redirect URL used by formmail.pl, which comes up after a post has been forwarded.  It acknowleges that the post has been forwarded, and lets the user know that the window will close automatically soon.
E_Sent1.txt This goes on your web server, and is called by E_Sent0.htm (the previous file).  This actually closes the window.
E_Sent2.htm This goes on your web server, and you only need this file if you plan to test the system from a local (non-Internet-accessible) copy of WebBoard.  This is required only because some versions of formmail.pl won't "redirect" to localhost.
ConfAdd.html Added warnings about not using e-mail lists, news group participation, and WebBoard's built-in features that make URLs and image links "hot."
ConfEdit.html Same as previous entry.
Colors.html This module has been "leveraged" in order to handle the case in which a poster is reading a message outside the message board frameset, and serves as a "code mule" make sure that the utility routines load only once.  It also loads once a "no frames" starts reading posts.  The original functionality of colors.html has also been retained..
Intro.html This is Intro.html which comes up in the right frame for frames users.  It handles "ushered URLs" by taking whatever's after the #dest= portion of top.location.href and loading that page.  Of course it has no effect for "no frames" users.
Login.html Login.html handles "ushered URLs" by taking whatever's after the #dest= portion of top.location.href and setting the WB_Dest cookie to that value (this cookie will later be "picked up" by Topics.html and reset to "NONE" after the relevant page has been requested..
PostMsg.html PostMsg.html lets "no frames" users post messages.  It explains that all users can request e-mail notification of replies simply by putting <!notify> anywhere in their posts.  Most users can simply check a box to achieve this result, but if their browser doesn't have JavaScript, they're also warned that the checkbox won't work for them.  If the user is replying to a post for which reply notification is turned on, the URL line for postmsg.html will contain all the required information after the pound sign.  This information is then jammed into the WB_Notify cookie when the user clicks on post.  (If the user's browser doesn't have JavaScript, then of course this won't occur.)  Finally, if the variable G_MakeHotFlag is 1, it will "hotten" URLs and image links.
PostMsg-F.html PostMsg-F.html lets "frames" users post messages.  All comments above for PostMsg.html apply here as well.
Preview.html Preview.html lets users preview posts.  All it does is to pick up the value of the WB_Notify cookie when it first loads, and then to reset it after the user presses the post button.  This makes it much less likely that there will be "cross-talk" if the poster is simultaneously replying to two posts, when both have reply notification requested.  (Obviously this scenario can only occur if the replying poster has opened up at least one of the two posting pages in a new browser window).
Read.html Read.html is invoked to read the last post in a thread.  A lot of processing is done here to format the reply, reply/quote, and forward links, for posters with JavaScript-capable browsers.  Read.html will also check for the WB_Notify cookie and reload itself to E_Notify.htm whenever that cookie is set to a non-null value other than NONE.  The cookie is also reset after the value has been picked up.  Before calling E_Notify.htm, Read.html will add the current message posting number to the query string.
ReadFull.html ReadFull.html is invoked for all-but-the-last post in a thread.  The only difference between my version of ReadFull.html and Read.html is that the former will not assume any responsibility for processing reply notifications.  Otherwise, the comments above regarding Read.html apply here.
Toolbar.html This is ToolBar.html, for the toolbar frame at the top of the message board for users who are using frames.  Most of the code needed to build the reply, reply/quote, and forward links is placed here.  Although ideally one might wish to put this code in either Read.html and ReadFull.html, O'Reilly has provided no "stub" that loads once for a thread.  For this reason, as much of the utility code as possible has to be loaded in some module outside of either Read/ReadFull.html, otherwise this code will be sent to the user's browser for each and every post.
Topics.html This is Topics.html, i.e. the left frame on the message board for users who are using frames, or the "conferences" page for "no frames" users.  Topics will set the WB_UserEMail and WB_UserID cookies, since these values can't be obtained from the standard <WB-Email> and <WB-UserID> tags when posts are being read.  (During post reading, those values are those of the poster, instead of the current user).  These two cookie values are needed for post forwarding, to ensure that this facility isn't abused.  For guest users, Topics.html makes sure that WB_UserID is set to 0 (this is how the current release of WebBoard operates as well, but I didn't wish to assume that future releases would also do so.) Topics.html will also pick up the WB_Dest cookie for both frames and "no frames" users.  In the case of frames users, this scenario occurs if and only if the user has saved their password or is a guest.  WB_Dest contains the value of any "ushered" URL, i.e. the post which is to be read (either as the result of a notification of replies, or a forwarded post).
PostMsg.js This is the form script for the HelpLine board's PostMsg-F.html, which ensures that double quotes are converted to single quotes in both the message body and the subject.  This is required in order to capture this data in a form with hidden fields.  It also removes any occurances of the delimiter used in the one hidden field to separate all the different data (poster name, email, date, etc.) in a post, and replaces the delimiter with a space.  The delimiter is: @!$#.
Vars.Txt This is a WB-INCLUDE file that's shared by both Colors.html and ToolBar.html.  It contains all but one of the configuration variables.  See the next section for more information.

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4:  Install (3): Rebuilding the source files, and/or making modifications

If you want to modify the system, you'll need to download the source code.  For WebBoard 4 users, this is in: e_src4.zip.  For WebBoard 6 users, this is in e_src6.zip.

WebBoard 5 users should contact me.

Note that these zip files are contained within the "complete" install download, as described in section 2.

You'll need to unzip these files into a new folder on your hard drive.

After you do so, you'll have to install my "JavaScript MakeFile" system onto that same folder: http://www.rs-freeware.org/jsm.

Within the JavaScript MakeFile system, I offer specific instructions for WebBoard users, at: http://www.rs-freeware.org/jsm/jsmdoc.htm#WebBoard_Regenerate.

In a nutshell: after installing the "JavaScript MakeFile" system, you'll have to modify the "make" file: e.mak.

The two lines that you'll have to change are these: 


DEST=f:\\w\\html\\e
DESTW=f:\\w\\html\\eweb

DEST should have the folder name of the virtual board.

DESTW is where the five files that are destined for the web need to go.  These files are: E_Notify.htm, E_Fwd.htm, E_Sent0.htm, E_Sent1.htm, and E_Sent2.htm.

Note that double backslashes are required to separate folder names.

For more information about folder names, please see my DOS primer.

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5:  Install: (4) preparing your conferences and messages

Make sure all the conferences have e-mail and news group access disabled, except on read-only conferences  (and make sure that any posts to these conferences are done via the web interface).

Also, disable WebBoard's built in feature to make URLs and image links "hot."  (O'Reilly refers to this as making these links "active").

Finally, you must convert all double quotes in the *.htm files in your /confs folder to singe quotes.  (If you don't have a way of doing this, you can contact me.

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6:  Install: (5) configuring the files

There are five files that have to be changed.

Although there are comments in front of each value that has to be modified, I recommend that you keep a backup copy of my versions of these files, so you can see what worked for me (just in case there's any doubt about what the variable value truly represents).

If you aren't a programmer, please be very careful when modifying these files.

Double quotes should not be part of any value.

These files should be edited with a standard text editor, such as Windows Notepad.  If you use anything else, you need to save the file as "MS-DOS Text."

If you're a Macintosh user or on a Unix machine, what's required here is often known as an ASCII plain text format.

  • PostMsg.JS

    The first line has the variable G_MakeHotFlag.

    Set this to 1 if you want image links and URLs to be made "hot."

    The URL "hottening" will strip off the "http://" part of the URL (as displayed), while maintaining it in the rest of the link.  It won't "fire" if the "http://" is preceeded by a single or double quote.

    There's currently no way to separately enable the "hottening" of images and URLs (you can contact me if you really need that capability).

    You absolutely mustn't use WebBoards built-in features that accomplish the same effect, when adding or editing conferences.  This is why I've supplied new version of both confadd.html and confedit.html that have warnings against this.

  • Vars.Txt

    This file has nothing in it, other than several variables (and a function) which you must set.

    U_Forward_URL is the full URL of the place where E_Fwd.htm resides (i.e. on your web server, which also has formmail.pl in its CGI directory).  Note the comment that tells you how to disable forwarding, if you wish.

    U_Board_Descrip is the description of the board which will be used in reply notifications and in forwarded posts.

    U_Board_MEmail is the e-mail address of the board's manager.  Its only purpose is to provide an e-mail address for complaints about "spam" or abuse from recipients of the e-mail messages.

    U_Board_GuestOK is set to 0 if guests aren't allowed on your board, otherwise 1.  Keep in mind that boards which use "basic authentication" (i.e. the password "challenge") don't allow guests, nor do "closed" boards.  Other boards may also be specifically configured to disallow guests.

    U_OkayEmailPredF is a function, not a variable.

    This function returns true when its argument (an e-mail address) is a valid e-mail address..

    If you're a JavaScript programmer, you can modify this function to do quite a number of checks if you wish, without substantially affecting the load-time efficiency of the board (i.e. this code will generally be loaded only once each time a user logs into the message board.)

    If you're not a programmer, you might just want to leave it as it is.

    Another purpose for this function is to handle the case in which you've "seeded" the board with members who may not have valid e-mail addresses.  Since WebBoard requires an e-mail address for each new user, you may have a standard "dummy" address that you use.

    In the version of this function that you see with this release, that standard "dummy" address is: need.email@ddress.com, and you may wish to replace it with a value that's appropriate to your board.

    Keep in mind that if a user has an invalid e-mail address and requests notification, then the bounced e-mail will go back to "root" on many servers.  You may wish to consult the hosting provider for the web server on which formmail.pl resides for more information.

  • Read.html

    For efficiency reasons U_Notify_URL should be set in this file.

    (I didn't want to burden Read.html with the entirety of Vars.txt, nor did I want to create a seperate WB-INCLUDE file for just one variable that has to be set only rarely.)

    U_Notify_URL is the full URL of the place where E_Notify.htm resides (i.e. on your web server, which also has formmail.pl in its CGI directory).

    U_Board_Descrip is the description of the board which will be used in reply notifications and in forwarded posts.

    To find the variable U_Notify_URL, you may wish to use the search capabilities of a text editor, such as Window Notepad.

  • E_Fwd.txt

    Look for the phrase "Change #" in this file.

    Change #1 requires you to provide the full URL of E_Sent0.htm (on your web server, which also has formmail.pl in its CGI directory).

    Change #5 requires you to provide the full URL of formmail.pl on your web server (it's almost certainly in a cgi directory.

    Change #2 and change #3 are optional: you can use a "template" to determine the format of the default forwarding message, and the "anti-spam" addendum.

    The poster who's forwarding the post can't change the latter, and this makes it less likely that this feature (or web page) will be abused.

    Change #4 is also optional, but it allows you to offer the forwarding poster a "drop down option list" of e-mail addresses.  For example, if a user is forwarding a post that s/he regards as an example of inappropriate posting conduct, it may be convenient to have the board manager and/or other staff e-mails listed here.

  • E_Notify.txt

    Use your text editor to search for the phrase "Change #" in this file.

    Change #1 requires you to provide the full URL of E_Sent2.htm (on your web server).  You don't need to make this change unless you plan to test the system from a locally-installed and non-Internet-accessible copy of WebBoard.

    Change #3 requires you to provide the full URL of formmail.pl on your web server (it's almost certainly in a cgi directory.

    Change #2 is optional, and allows you to use a "template" to configure the text of the e-mail reply notification message.

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7:  Install: (6) multiple boards

You can configure as many boards as you'd please to use this system, provided that none are "no authentication" boards.

The only file which must necessarily vary by board is Vars.txt (see the previous section).

U_Board_Descrip (board description) is obviously going to be different for each board, and you could (if you wished), use the same value for U_Board_MEmail on all boards (since this is only used as a "spam/abuse" e-mail address).

If you want to customize the "drop down" options list of e-mail addresses that will be available for post forwarding, then you can simply use a separate version of E_Fwd.htm for each board (just rename them).

When doing this, make sure you change U_Forward_URL in Vars.txt to reflect the distinctive version of E_Fwd for each board.

There's no limit to the number of boards that can use this software.

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8:  Install: (7) Installing the "Ushured URL" component by itself, and working with ushered URLs.

You should read this section even if you're trying to install the full system.  Only the first paragraph is relevant to those who wish to use the "ushered URL" component by itself.

If you just want the "ushered URL" component, you need only install 3 files: login.html, topics.html, and intro.html.  You do not need to configure the system..  You do need to have a cookie authorization board, the ability to use JavaScript, and your users must have session cookies enabled.  The install files are described in (?install_files)section (#?install_files).

Regardless of whether you're installing the full system or merely the ushered URL component . . . you might wish to put a list of links into your WebBoard on another site.

Here's the format of a typical "ushered URL" link to message #176 in conference #18, where wb.com is your WebBoard domain name, and board is your board alias: 


http://wb.com/~board#dest=/read%3F176%2C18

The above URL leaves the user at the login page, although they will be taken to the post if they click on the "guests" button (assuming that you allow guests).

BTW, the question mark has been escaped to %3F and the comma to %2F (that's really "/read?176,18").  As you may know, special characters must be escaped when passed as the query string (i.e.: the part after the question mark on a URL line).

If you do allow guests, you can use this format for a guest login: 


http://wb.com/~board/guests#dest=/read%3F176%2C18

Note that any HTML page that you place in the "/help" folder may be loaded with the syntax "help?blah" (that loads "blah.html").

With proper use of JavaScript's ability to assign location.href, you can use either of the above syntaxes to leverage this capability.

For example, suppose the file "blah.html" contains this code right at the very beginning: 


<SCRIPT LANGUAGE='JavaScript'>
if (parent != window)
   {parent.location.href = location.href;}
</SCRIPT>

To take a reader (who isn't logged in) to blah.html, you code this URL: 


http://wb.com/~board/guests#dest=/help%3Fblah

This will log them in as a guest, and bring them to the blah.html page, which will replace WB's frameset with itself.  You can load other pages from the /help subfolder in a similar way, i.e. with URLs that contain /help?whatever for whatever.html.

In this way, you can essentially eliminate the distinction between WebBoard and a web site.  To load images, you'll need to put them on the images folder for your board (or on the /upload folder, or on another site).

It's not entirely clear to me why someone would want to do this, but it's rather interesting to note that it can be done.

There is one very practical use for this.  Let's say you're drawing new users in from several other sites.  If you wish, you can load a fully-featured web page in the messages frame for users who have come from a particular site, by using a URL syntax like this: 


http://wb.com/~board#dest=/help%3Fblah

Essentially, that means you can customize their "intro" pages, at least for those who have frames turned on.  Don't forget to put a link back to the topics page for "no frames" users, otherwise they won't know how to get back there!

In this case, you don't need to use the JavaScript that I provided earlier.

Someone requested that I extend this feature to allow you to reload the topics (left) frame, instead of the messages (right) frame.

To specify a URL for the topics frame, follow the #dest= with two escaped underscores.  Escaped underscores are "%5F".

For example (and this isn't a very good example!), to load message #176 in conference #18 in the topics frame, use this URL: 


http://wb.com/~board#dest=%5F%5F/read%3F176%2C18

This may also work without escaping the underscores (I haven't done a full "browser compatibiilty" test).

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9:  Installing FormMail.pl: a suggestion

I've worked with two different sysadmins install FormMail.pl, one on a Unix (Linux) system and the other on an NT server.

If you're cooperating with your sysadmin to get FormMail up and running, you may wish to use E_Fwd.htm for testing, and change these two lines during the testing:

Change:
S.redirect.value = G_RD;
to:
/* F.redirect.value = G_RD;*/

And:
<INPUT TYPE=hidden NAME="redirect" VALUE="">
to:
<! INPUT TYPE=hidden NAME="redirect" VALUE="">

As you can see, what I'm suggesting is that you comment out FormMail's "redirection" feature.

This will ensure that you get the "default" response page after an e-mail message has (ostensibly) been sent.

Some Perl or SMTP configuration issues may not be apparent unless you make these changes.

I.e.: everything will appear "normal," but no e-mail message will go out.

On both the installations that I witnessed, these simple alterations helped us get close to the heart of the problem in very little time.

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10:  Bug reports, comments, and change requests, etc.

You can e-mail me at rog@NOSPAM_rs-freeware.org if you encounter problems, or think that you've found a bug.

I can also be reached by telephone in the U.S. from about 9 AM U.S. central time to 5 PM U.S. central time at: 765-742-6705.  If you don't get an answer, you can use my numeric pager at: 765-417-0664 ... I'll try to call you back, if you're in the U.S, Canada, or Mexico.

Please supply me with as much information as you can about your server, your version of WebBoard, any browser or Operating System that was involved, including the WebBoard Server's Operating System  (9x, NT, 2K, XP?).  Also, please provide any configuration files, or customized WebBoard files that you were using.  Keep in mind that I might actually have to have the opportunity to try what you were doing, in order to diagnose the problem.

BTW, I don't gaurantee to answer all e-mail or fix all bugs, etc.  Please remember that this is freeware, and that my time and resources are limited.

That said, I've put a lot of work into designing, coding, testing, and documenting this product, and I'm probably going to be fairly interested in any comments anyone has, fixing any bugs, and/or extending the scope to applications that strike me as being potentially valuable to a large number of users.

Naturally, if you're willing to hire me to make changes for your special-purpose application, I'm certainly willing to consider your offer.  My standard rate is $75/hr., but I may charge less if the work is to be done for a small business (less than 25 employees), or a nonprofit organization (in the latter case, I might even do it on a gratis basis  :-)  I may also consider charging you nothing if you're suggesting an improvement that I feel is of value to a large number of other users.

You can find out more about me, including references, and a list of clients/projects at: http://www.rs-freeware.org/rog.

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11:  Other freeware products

WebBoard users will find lots of WebBoard freeware at: http://www.rs-freeware.org/freeware.htm.

Anyone who writes JavaScript  (regardless of whether this is written on the client or server side),  deals with SQL, or who happens to be interested in obtaining the full power available from DOS may wish to check out http://www.rs-freeware.org/free2.htm

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12:  Version history information

This is version 1.1, released on Nov. 1, 2002.

Update on August 22 '00: added versions of confadd.html and confedit.html that warn against using e-mail lists, news group access, and WebBoard's built in "hottening" of URLs and image links.  Added my own equivalent of this feature.  Cleaned up the message on the posting pages which implies that posters can post via e-mail or news reader.

Update on Sept 14 '00: added the discussion of how to use the "ushered URL" capability by itself, and how to "leverage" your WebBoard into a web site by using the /help subfolder.

Update on Oct 5, '00: added the first configuration section that has to do with existing boards, and refined the discussion concerning the use of e-mail lists, and news reader posting.  Also added note about newer versions of WebTV.

Update on Oct 5, '00: added the ability to prefix the destination (ushered) URL with 2 escaped underscores, in order to permit reloading of the topics frame.

Patch on Oct 8, '00: corrected a small bug in toolbar.html and coltag.js which affected subjects longer than 50 characters.  Look for VV=substring(0,50) and replace with VV=VV.substring(0,50).

Patch on Oct 17, '00: blocked the possibility of endless recursion in the topics frame when the 2-underscore syntax is used to send the user to URLs that reference that particular page.

Nov 14, 2000: added the model ("fast") install.

Feb 16, 2001: added the ability to disable message forwarding.

Apr 25, 2001: patched a bug in read.html and readfull.html that affected Netscape 6.  (More precisely: NS 6's buggy when it comes to the document.forms.length property.)

On Nov 1, 2002, I totally revised the system to create version 1.1: new features include the source code, as well as separate support for both WebBoard 4 and 6.

This documentation was generated by Rog's FAQHack: a DOS/Windows-based freeware program that handles simple macro preprocessing with special support for FAQs and other structured HTML documents.

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13:  Acknowledgements

I'd like to thank Sheryl McKenna, the Information Services Department manager at the Academy of General Dentistry in Chicago, IL (USA) for her cooperation in testing and developing this product.

I'd also like to thank a person who shall remain nameless (at their request) for turning me on to form2mail, the freeware NT version of formmail.pl.

Kate Thylander came up with the suggestion on how to leverage the /help folder in order to load fully-featured web pages.

Robert Lee alerted me to the compatibility issues that arise for installs on existing systems (those having to do with messages containing double quotes).

Finally, a post by Tom Geldner on the support board prompted me to write the section that explains how to use the "ushered URL" capability by itself.  Tom also cheerfully volunterred to be a beta tester for that subsystem and the corresponding doc.

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