A1. dataComet & dataComet-Secure X Release Notes ________________________________________________________________ dataComet documentation. (Rev. 7/23/2012) Copyright 2010 databeast, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This document has information on (select and use "Find..." to go to the section): Known Bugs in the current version Release Notes: dataComet-X for OS X: 10.2.2 10.2.1r2 10.2.1r1 10.2.1 10.2.1b2 10.2.1b1 10.2.0 10.2.0b3 10.2.0b2 10.2.0b1 dataComet-Secure X for OS X: 10.2.2 10.2.1r2 10.2.1r1 10.2.1b2 10.2.1b1 10.2.0 10.2.0b3 10.2.0b2 10.2.0b1 A version of dataComet for OS X without encryption support built in is being made available as "dataComet X". dataComet, unlike dataComet-Secure, can be redistributed freely as shareware without complying with Federal Export controls which apply to dataComet-Secure. In other respects dataComet is identical to dataComet-Secure for Mac OS X. ___________________________________________________ Known Bugs in the current version ___________________________________________________ * dataComet fonts do not work with the OS X "Keyboard Viewer" Input menu option. (Under Snow Leopard they now work with the "Character Viewer" palette.) * NOT bugs: The Console application reports errors when dataComet is launched stating "com.apple.fontd[114] FODBCheck: foRec->annexNumber != kInvalidAnnexNumber (0)", and the Font Book application lists a "Problems" with "'FOND' font association usability" when the Comet bitmap fonts are validated, stating "2 serious errors were found. Do not use these fonts." For some reason OS X since Leopard has been reporting errors with bitmap fonts which are not embedded along with TrueType fonts; however, these are the only problems reported, and the fonts continue to work fine. ___________________________________________________ 10.2.2 -Secure 6/25/12 10.2.2 -X ___________________________________________________ Features: * Added Code Signing security feature for dataComet and dataComet-Secure releases so that Mountain Lion's new GateKeeper system will recognize them as applications by an identified developer. ___________________________________________________ 10.2.1r2 -Secure 1/17/12 10.2.1r2 -X ___________________________________________________ Bug Fixes: * Fixed a bug which caused dataComet to crash when "Scrollback Buffering" was turned on and the scrollback buffer was cleared, or the emulator window was resized. * dataComet should no longer crash if the dataComet "Preferences..." dialog panel is opened when no other windows are open. * The estimate of the current speed of file transfers in the File Transfer Progress dialog is now more accurate. ___________________________________________________ 10.2.1r1 -Secure 8/5/10 10.2.1r1 -X ___________________________________________________ Bug Fixes: * MAJOR BUG FIX: Creating a new terminal session will no longer cause dataComet to crash after the session connection is completed. This was occurring when the session had the Control menu Translation option set by default; the translation table resource file was being closed, resulting in the disappearance of the table from memory and failure when the emulator attempted to read from the translation table. * SSH2 connections will now open a session cleanly the first time through when the login name has not already been saved as the session's Username (which appears in the "Configure Terminal Session..." dialog). A preliminary dialog for entering the login user name before initiating SSH user authorization negotiations has been added to fix this problem. * The Command-R key combination once again executes the Window menu "Re-open Session" command, as in earlier versions of dataComet. * The font width setting in the "Control" menu "Width" menu is now ignored when printing. * Horizontal scrolling in edit windows using the mouse has been fixed so that no scrolling is performed when text in the edit window is displayed as wrapped text. This avoids a condition where the text could be scrolled to the right, but could not scrolled back to the left margin, requiring the window to be resized to display the text correctly. * The '„" mark in the Window menu window list indicating that a terminal session is open is now set correctly on a consistent basis. * The File menu "Page Eject" command will now force printing and reset VT100 print streaming mode if a VT100 print stream has not received a VT100 "End print stream" control sequence from the host. ___________________________________________________ 10.2.1 -Secure 7/20/10 10.2.1 -X ___________________________________________________ Bug Fixes: * Backspace now works with Undo, but does not set the Clipboard, so Paste will paste the text in the Clipboard from the previous Copy or Cut command. * The ".txt" suffix is now added automatically to text documents when they are first saved; performing a "Save as..." for an existing document with ".txt" added will delete the old edit document if the name is otherwise the same. * dataComet edit windows now have their window resources and dataComet 'usro' Finder -> dataComet link set promptly when they are first saved. * dataComet "session.edit" windows are now brought to the front when the document is opened from the Finder and the document is already open, rather than opening a new window. ___________________________________________________ 10.2.1b2 -Secure 7/6/10 10.2.1b2 -X ___________________________________________________ Features: * Emulator window drawing routines have been modified so display of text files transmitted from the host will be processed 2-3X faster, with screen updates of the current page of large files occurring every second rather than every two seconds. * Added support for Keyboard Interactive mode in SSH, along with a dialog to perform the Challenge/Response interaction. SSH sessions are configured by default to use the session password as the response, and skip the dialog when there is only one Challenge from the host; this feature can be disabled using the "Use session password automatically" checkbox in the "Configure SSH" dialog (which is reached from the Configure Terminal Session dialog). * Added a Cancel Macro dialog to display a string and query the user whether she wishes to cancel the current macro, along with a "!QM" macro command to post the dialog. The "!p?" RSLT_TESTMACROFAIL macro command can now also have an optional string appended to it (ending with "!\000"), in which case failure will bring up the Cancel Macro dialog with the string used as a prompt. * Added more macro failure conditions which can be tested using the "!p?" macro command; these are documented in the dataComet Help document "4.1. macrocodes.h" as "sets RSLT_TESTMACROFAIL" conditions. Bug Fixes: * Define Macro dialog: - Button, Menu, and Connection macros are now updated reliably when the "Set" button is pressed; previously this worked correctly only once without closing and reopening the dialog. - The correct button name and macro contents are displayed when sessions are switched using the popup menu. - The text field in the dialog now displays "\000" for NUL characters in the macro, since only Comet Fonts contain a corresponding glyph for the "^@" NUL character. * Macros: - The "!L\nnn" loop command has been fixed so the correct number of loops are performed; existing macros containing loop commands may need to be modified to accomodate this change. - Nested "!L\nnn" loops now work correctly. - The "!Z\nnnSTRING\000" wait for string command now works when embedded in loops. * The text cursor or selection range in the frontmost edit window should now be displayed (or hidden) correctly when the "Find..." dialog is being used when switching windows. ___________________________________________________ 10.2.1b1 -Secure 5/24/10 10.2.1b1 -X ___________________________________________________ Features: * dataComet now draws selected fonts with antialiasing disabled so bitmap fonts can be displayed. This feature is implemented using a list of fonts and sizes to be drawn with antialiasing disabled. This provides a huge improvement over earlier implementations of this feature in dataComet. (In the Beta implementation of this feature, this list is saved in a text document, "xFont List", which can be edited by the user by selecting the "View Font List" button in the Preferences Global Preferences panel.) * dataComet now checks the databeast.com website and presents an alert to inform you when a new version is available. You can disable this feature in the dataComet "Preferences" "Global" panel. (This feature can also be completely disabled for site distributions by placing a "GetVersionDisabled" file in the dataComet application bundle's "Resources" folder.) * Session and text document windows now have a popup menu at the top of the vertical scroll bar which contains a sorted list of open documents to make switching windows easier. * Cloned, multiply launched, new Shell, and untitled windows now have a number appended to the Window title to help differentiate between these windows. When the configuration of a numbered Session window is saved, the document name in the "Save Configuration" dialog defaults to the original Session document name, so saving a numbered Session window will, by default, update the source Session document. * The dataComet application, session document, and text document icons have been updated, along with the splash screen. Session Enhancements: * You can now set Telnet sessions so Telnet protocol interpretation is disabled, enabling dataComet to conduct raw TCP sessions. Telnet menu options selecting "7-bit characters"/"8-bit characters", "Send after return"/"Send characters promptly", "Local echo"/"Remote echo" are now saved in the session configuration and applied when a Telnet session is in raw mode. * dataComet-Secure now includes support for sending stored passwords over unencrypted Telnet and Serial sessions, so you can log in to sessions automatically by incorporating the "!tu" "Send username" and "!tp" "Send password" macros in a Connection Macro. This "Macro" password is transmitted once, and only once, per session. The "Configure Terminal Session" now allows you to enter a password for these types of connections in the "Password" field; this type of password, however, is saved in a location separate from the password for the more secure session types. * An option to "Prompt before closing if session open" has been added to the Preferences "Session" panel, so one can disable the alert requesting an OK before closing a session window when a session is still open. * The Serial menu now has a "Local Echo" item to allow you to enable local echo on serial sessions. * Mouse single-clicks in an IBM 3270 session window now move the cursor immediately. Menu enhancements: * The "Control" -> "Size" submenu now includes "Larger" and "Smaller" commands to change the font size; these commands have been assigned to the Command-'+' and Command-'=' keys. * Selecting a window from the "Window" menu for a Session document now brings up both the emulator and its .edit window in their prior order, and no longer alternates between the emulator and .edit windows; pressing the Control key while selecting a window brings only the emulator window forward; pressing the Option key while selecting a window brings only the .edit window forward. Menu key command changes: - Command-',' now brings up the dataComet "Preferences" dialog rather than executing the "Match Brackets" command. - Command-''' and Command-'"' execute the "Match Brackets" command. (The "Scrollback Buffering" command no longer has a command-key equivalent.) - Command-'E' now executes the Mac standard "Use Selection for Find" command. You can then use "Find Again..." (Command-'G') to find the string. - Command-';' now executes the "Toggle .edit Window" command. - Command-':' now executes the "Go to Line..." command. - Command-'+' and Command-'=' make the screen font size larger or smaller. - Command-'\' executes the Zoom command. - Command-'|' executes the Window menu "Close Session" command. - Command-Option-'/' is now used to execute the Cursor menu "Add Returns" command, since Apple now uses it for a default Shortcut. Dialog Enhancements: * The dataComet "Preferences" panels now contain a popup menu with a list of open documents, allowing you to view session configurations for different sessions easily. The dataComet "Preferences" dialog now saves its position so the next time you open it, it will appear in the same place on the screen. * The dataComet "Preferences" "Printing" panel now has popup menus allowing you to view and select the font and font size settings for both onscreen display and printing. The Control menu "Font" and "Size" submenus now set only the on-screen font and its size by default; you can set the Print font and size from these menus by holding down the Option key. * A Help dialog has been added to improve help for modal dialogs, such as the "Configure Terminal Session" dialog; Control-Clicking on an item in a modal configuration dialog will open the Help dialog and display the information for that item. * A number of improvements were made to the "Define Macros..." dialog: - A popup menu containing a list of open documents now allows you to view settings for other documents easily. - Pressing the "Set" button now leaves the selected macro displayed to make editing of macros in other documents easier. To select a new key for remapping, one must now Press the "Cancel" button. - A "+ Button" button has been added to the macro dialog to make it easy to add a new button to an emulator's session document. - The "Use Command Font" checkbox may now be toggled when a macro is displayed, so it's now easier to switch between the Command Font, with its graphic renditions of PF keys, and the font selected for displaying the document. - An "Alt-key" checkbox has been added to the dialog so Alt keys can be set without holding down the mouse button. Toggling the checkbox will refresh the key display so the macro can be viewed easily viewed in both the standard and Alt-key states. Macro Enhancements: * The area which displays macro buttons at the top of an emulator window now resizes dynamically depending on the number of buttons, and the maximum number of buttons per window has been increased to 256 from 24. * A new macro command, '!""string\000' has been added so that comments can be incorporated in macros. The string after this command is ignored when macros are executed. * Macros have been added to simplify opening files which are not in one of dataComet's default open folders: - "!Fv": "!Fvvolumname\000" sets the default folder to use for files subsequently opened with the "!FN" and "!F¢" macro commands. - "!FN": "!FNfilename\000" opens a file in the currect macro default folder. - "!Fu": Sets the default directory for opening user macro commands to the user's home directory. - "!FUfilepath": Opens "filepath" in the user's home directory. * Added macros for support of global variables: - "!$\nnn": Put global string numbered 'nnn' - "!G\nnn": "Get" variable numbered 'nnn' from following macro string terminated by '\000' - "!g\nnn": "Get" variable numbered 'nnn' from selection * Macros have been added to facilitate loading and transmitting files with data in a CSV format. These commands are: - "!F¢": "!F¢filename\000" loads data from a file with fields separated by a delimiter into an array of 255 strings. - "!¢\nnn" sends the string corresponding to the number to the host. - "!,\nnn" sets the field delimiter to a value other than the default value of ','. (Note that the Tab character is '\009'.) * Other macros have been added to support CSV data file processing: - "!p+": select next row of CSV values - "!p-": select previous row of CSV values - "!p1": select first row of CSV values - "!p$": select last row of CSV values - "!pe": test used after "!p+": if end of values, cancel enclosing loop - "!p.": test used after "!p+": if end of values, cancel all remaining macros - "!p?": tests for error condition in macro command execution and aborts macros for the session if an error occurred; automatically reset when tested. - "!p/": resets error condition code. Bug Fixes: * CRITICAL: Remedied a failure to catch SIGPIPE signals when a terminal session was not closed properly from the host end, which could cause dataComet to terminate abruptly. (Note that dataComet sessions do not process data from the host when you have scrolled back in the session's scrollback buffer, so connections may be terminated if the host sends data and requires an acknowledgment while you are scrolled back. This deficiency will be remedied in a future release.) * Fixed a problem where key macro keycodes were being translated improperly when interpreted on PowerPC vs. Intel machines, so that key macros created on one platform could not be used on the other platform. Keycodes will now be interpreted correctly regardless of the type of machine on which they were created; 10.2.0 users must download 10.2.1b1 for this fix to work properly. * The size of the button macro name field in the emulator structure has been increased from 63 to 255 so entering a button name longer than 63 characters in the "Rename button" dialog will no longer cause a crash. Connection fixes: * More informative error notices have been added to assist in the interpretation of SSL connection errors. * Connection Macros are now executed only once for Shell sessions; they had been executing twice. * Telnet linemode ("Send after Return" in the Telnet menu) now works correctly. * Session connections made through TCP (SSH, Telnet, Telnet/SSL) are now deemed to be open as soon as a receive call returns data; this was highly unlikely to cause a problem, but avoids a situation where an attempt to send data to the host might fail. * Cancelling a Page Setup print-format dialog triggered by host-driven print streaming (VT100) will now cancel printing the datastream rather than resulting in repeated Page Setup dialogs. Window handling fixes: * The emulator screen position is now saved correctly when the session document is closed; in 10.2.0, the position was only saved if the window had been zoomed. * A zoomed emulator window will now appear on the same monitor when more than one monitor is in use. * Command-Clicking on a document window title now brings up the standard MacOS file path popup menu, allowing you to view the file path and open folders in the Finder easily. * The Window menu "Next" command (option-tab) now proceeds to the next open window rather than stopping the cycle if a Session window has a closed connection. * The appearance of emulator windows has been improved. The packet counters and timer are now greyed out when the session is closed, and the Rows and Columns fields at the bottom of the emulator screen now have more area allocated to them. Dialog fixes: * Dialogs have been fixed so the text cursor appears when the curosr is over the active text field. * The appearance and functionality of the "Find" dialog has been improved. The "Backwards" checkbox has been replaced by a "Previous" button. The "Replace" command now works correctly when the "Replace" text is empty. * The "Define Macros..." dialog now always displays the ASCII character zero (NUL), which is used in dataComet macros to terminate strings, as '\000' rather than the Comet Fonts "^A" character to avoid confusion. * The "Configure Terminal Session" dialog has been improved so that tabbing to the next field works in a sensible fashion, and clicking on a text field which does not apply to the current connection type produces a brief popup message rather than an annoying alert -- and now it's not possible to enter text in that field. * The default session type for a "New" session is now Telnet (or SSH for dataComet-Secure) rather than a "Shell" session. * Entering an empty address in the "Configure Terminal Session" "Connect to:" field now works correctly to connect to the machine's own IP address. * The File Transfer Progress dialog now displays byte counts with commas. * Fixed the File Transfer Progress dialog so the transfer counts are only updated once a second; this yields a substantial improvement (~80%) in file transfer performance when using ZModem. * IND$FILE IBM file transfers now display an update on the transmitted file length in the emulator prompt area. Edit window fixes: * Several problems with edit windows have been fixed; extra lines should no longer appear in the window when text is pasted into the window. * dataComet's edit windows now interpret linefeed characters in files so they display correctly, and saves them back to the file as linefeeds. Edit windows will now reliably load up to the maximum 32,767 character limit, rather than failing to load the last 2,000 characters of a file which is over 30,000 characters in length. * Saving a new Session configuration now always creates a new .edit companion text document, so a "Save text" command will succeed when the session document is reopened, even when the .edit document was not saved the first time around. * Changing the font in edit windows now takes effect immediately, rather than after the font size is changed. * The '<<' and '>>' "Shift Text" buttons at the bottom left corner of edit windows now repeat when they're held down. Menu fixes: * Saving a new session document to the global sessions folder now updates the Sessions submenu. * Submenus have been fixed so they display more rapidly when you move the cursor over them to select an item from them. * The 3270/5250 menus no longer shift position when the 5250 menu is toggled on and off in the 3270 preferences panel. The Macros menu now always appears before the Window menu. * Window Minimize and Maximize events are now handled better; the window's menu item in the Window menu is marked to show the window has been Minimized, and you can expand the window by selecting the item. File transfer fixes: * SCP/RCP file transfers are now enabled in dataComet X, providing an alternative to using ZModem. SCP transfers in dataComet X are not encrypted (note that the "scp" file transfer protocol is the same as UNIX's "rcp" with a security layer wrapped around it.) Also, the SCP file transfer dialog no longer automatically brings up the Select File dialog when it's selected from the menu to perform an upload. Printing fixes: * Emulator screen printing: color banding which appeared when printing an emulator screen in color has been improved, so it should not appear unless a font is being drawn in double-wide/double-high modes (VT100). Also, the emulator cursor position may have appeared in screens printed in a very small size; this has also been fixed. ___________________________________________________ 10.2.0 -Secure 2/5/10 10.2.0 -X ___________________________________________________ Bug Fixes: * Modified mouse-click processing so Right-Click will be handled as a Control-Click. Control-Clicking in emulator windows no longer adds a Return (or Enter) after the selection is pasted; macros using the "!AM" command will need to be modified to add a Return after the "!AM" command. * Modified dataComet's handling of the IBM 3270 Read Modified All command when a Select AID is processed so a mouse Control-Click on a Pen-Detect field will work correctly. * Modified serial device name handling to use "cu" device names rather than "tty" device names so devices supported by the latest Keyspan drivers appear in the pop-up list of serial devices. ___________________________________________________ 10.2.0b3 -Secure 10/5/09 10.2.0b3 -X ___________________________________________________ Bug Fixes: * Fixed problem with text windows which caused spurious line returns to be added when pasting text. Features: * Zooming or resizing an emulator window now changes the font size so it fills the new screen area. * Interpretation of Brown TN3270 documents has been enhanced so that most parameters are handled correctly. ___________________________________________________ 10.2.0b2 -Secure 9/14/09 10.2.0b2 -X ___________________________________________________ Bug Fixes: * Modified handling of demo time calculations. ___________________________________________________ 10.2.0b1 -Secure 9/10/09 10.2.0b1 -X ___________________________________________________ Features: * The applications are now compiled as Universal Binaries for native support on both Intel and PowerPC architectures. Shell sessions are significantly faster on Intel machines. * The Comet fonts are now embedded in the application so graphics characters will display correctly even when the fonts have not been copied into the /Library/Fonts folder. * The "Configure Session" dialog now includes a separate field for entering the port to use when connecting to a host address. Bug Fixes: * Native Intel support avoids triggering a bug which apparently affects all PowerPC binaries running under the Rosetta translator, where a keystroke may intermittently cause the Window Server to crash, placing the user back at the Login screen. (The crash will appear in the Console logs as occurring when "UCKeyTranslate" is called.) * Opening a Kerberos Telnet connection no longer causes dataComet-Secure to crash under Snow Leopard. * SSH connections now prompt the user for a password after a login failure when a Master Password has been entered incorrectly or the password set in a "Session Configuration" dialog is incorrect. * SSH2 connections should now handle password change requests correctly. * The cursor no longer blanks out during SCP file transfers. * The Comet fonts have been modified so the bold "D" character renders correctly under Snow Leopard. ________________________________________________________________