"Release Notes" for Columbia MM Version 0.87-Beta

Below is an informal list of changes in MM since Version 0.86-Beta.
Some of the bug fixes have already been announced as patches number 
1-6 to our mailing list.  Some of the changes refer to additional
external features, and others will only concern people that are more
familiar with the code.

1) movemail program:  we have rewritten the movemail program from
scratch.  The one that comes with gnuemacs had too many security holes
in it.

2) Makefile:  We have made various changes to the Makefile to make it
more portable.  
	a) Some people complained about the awk script and the
	nonexistence of 'test' on some systems.  We now run awk 
	explicitly (I hope it's in everyone's path) when building 
	h files (mkdefines).

	b) don't declare MACHINE unless absolutely necessary.  use cpp
	predefines instead.

3) Aliases:
	a) don't hang on "foo@@bar" addresses

	b) add "deferred indirect files".   You can define an alias to
	have an indirect file, and have that file read when the alias 
	is used, rather than when it is defined.   The syntax is:
		define foo @@ind_file1, @@ind_file2

	c) allow ! in aliases

	d) fix some problems in break masks.   allow leading digits
	and dashes.

4) Keywords: 
	a) fix lots of keyword bugs

	b) handle keywords with whitespace/wierd characters in them


5) parse_sequence: parse_sequence takes more args now.

6) Help strings:  Help strings are no longer strings inside the MM
source.  They are kept in a separate database and read in by MM.

There is a file called help.src which contains a source file for all
the help strings.  This file is run through the c preprocessor (cpp)
and a help.cpp file is created.  This file is then read by buildhelp
which creates an mm.help file which you put somewhere accessible by
all mm users.  The mm.help file has an index at the top, followed by
all the help strings.  The first time you ask for help, MM will read
the index into core, and get the correct offset into this file for the
requested help string.  Subsequent help requests will use the in core
offset table.

in config.h define HELPFILE - path to help database.  (Yes, this will
be a settable variable in mm in the future.)

routines don't need to be called with helpflag anymore

7) chartype.h: fix isprint() definition

8) cmds.c: take out unused ancient #ifdef undef's

9) the sequence n#m requires typing n^V#m, since # is a comment character
   so, use + instead and leave # as an invisible synonym

10) celerity: added if accel for celerity systems

11) Backup files: remove gnuemacs and spell backups (~ and .bak
files)

12) shell(): shell returns correct return code now

13) mm_execute: added mm_execute function, like shell, but forks and 
exec's the specified program.

14) use mm_execute() instead of shell() when running editor or
speller.

15) SIGINT handler: much better ^C handler -- don't use CCMD, 
use read/write instead.

use quiet flag in update -- used when called from ^C handler so we don't
do printf's then...

16) MMHOSTNAME: need argument for isourhost even if MMHOSTNAME defined

17) add reply_initial_display variable and use it in reply when set.

18) write a rename function for SYSV

19) use getcwd in sysv instead of getwd

20) Celerity (accel) is like SUN for quotas

21) avoid printing banner twice, since people coming in over slow 
    connections hate it...

22) turn off backups on .mm* files (mmail.el)

23) make "mm take /dev/tty /dev/tty" work (i.e. exit when you finish
    with a "take").  Not perfect: if you take a file while inside the
    take, then no number of "take"s will make mm exit.

24) fix problem with null default-{send,read}-command

25) newmail: don't give "cannot read" error message all the time
    (we get this when sendmail is still writing our mail)

26) switch ordering of directory path for file creation
    (mail-directory .) -- so new files will be created in your
    "mail-directory" (if defined) rather than "."

27) LITERAL command defaults to LITERAL TYPE but now does not need to parse
    the "type"

28) print command parses optional /separate-pages switch

29) mm core dumped in cmd_type since it was using n instead of cf->current
    when setting flags.

30) fix erase all bug

31) setpgrp the child (sendmail) so it can continue even if we suspend
    mm.  (make sure all wait()'s do a sendmail_delete)

32) don't fflush or print to NULL

33) make "headers on <date>" work correctly

34) accept an fdb chain in parse_sequence, to be linked before
    sequence fdbs

35) try not to let mail-file be one of the incoming-mail files

36) make fastfile init's work with new deferred indirect files properly

37) parse movemail-path as a command, not a readable file