Uday Reddy
2011-05-17 09:13:02 UTC
The VM release 8.2.0a is available for download from the Launchpad
web site.
https://launchpad.net/vm
This will become the public 8.2.0 release sometime in mid-summer.
So, I encourage all users to download it and test it. Here is a
quick summary of what has been done in this release.
1. The main focus of this release has been to fix the large number
of "bugs" that have accumulated over the last year or so. There
were over 100 bug reports targeted for this release.
There is no cause for alarm with the hug number of bug reports. We
use the term "bug" in a very liberal way on Launchpad; "issue" would
be a better description. Most of these "bugs" are previously
unimplemented details rather than something being faulty. In the
bugs database at Launchpad, https://bugs.launchpad.net/vm, I have
begun to tag the bug reports indicating the VM versions they come
from. The classification shows:
new code 24 prev 8.2.x releases 18 8.1.x releases 12 8.0.x
releases 6 7.19 13 maintenance 5
So, the majority of the "bugs" are either from the new code being
implemented or little problems from old code in 7.19 or 8.0.x which
were never fixed.
A very large amount of my time was taken up in fixing real bugs in
the code for message threads, which aren't reflected in the bugs
database. The original code from Kyle was intricate and apparently
had a lot of little problems which didn't bother any one. Now that
we have introduced "thread operations" (whereby an entire thread of
messages can be saved or deleted etc.), it became important to get
the threading to be accurate. In retrospect, it would have been
better for me to rewrite it instead of fixing problems with the old
code. But I didn't expect so many problems with it originally.
2. The installation scripts have been changed to install files in
correct locations on Unix systems, and to install the doc files
(NEWS etc), which had been missing earlier. I need you to run `make
install' and test whether it works correctly on your systems.
XEmacs users in particular need to tell me whether the installation
works. I will write more about the XEmacs installation issues
separately.
3. User interface: The "customize" interface has been cleaned up,
thanks to considerable work by Tim Cross. Summary faces have been
properly defined to work correctly under different environments (and
they are pretty). The [Emacs] and [Undo] buttons on the VM menubar
now work, at least in those windowing systems that permit such
buttons. The pop-up menu for sending URL's to web browsers cleaned
up. It allows the Emacs `browse-url' as a posibile option.
Highlighted new features ------------------------
4. Headers-only messages are now called "external messages", which
is I hope a better term for them. IMAP messages (in IMAP folders)
are loaded as external messages if their size exceeds
`vm-imap-max-message-size'. Otherwise, they are loaded as full
messages.
5. Inessential key bindings have been moved to
`vm-legacy-key-bindings', as discussed in a previous thread in the
vm.info newsgroup.
6. There is a new `vm-forward-message-plain' command (bound to `Z')
which forwards messages in plain text and copies any attachments
from the original message. One of users called "Outlook-like"
forwarding, though he could have also called it "Thunderbird-like"
forwarding.
7. There are new "point-to-point" and "drag-n-drop" operations for
attaching files to messages.
8. Improvements for virtual folders: When you visit a pre-defined
virtual folder, quitting the virtual folder also quits all the
component folders. (If any of these component folders were already
visited independently, they are left alone.)
Interactive virtual folders modified to help searching. Suppose you
want to find a particular message from "boss". You can do `V C
author boss', then browse through the virtual folder to find the
message you want and quit the virtual folder. The control will
return to the copy of the same message in the original folder.
9. Threads: There is a new option to sort messages in threads
according to the default order (e.g., by date) instead of as
subthreads. This could be useful when you view long threads in
mailing lists. There are also new operations to "promote" or
"demote" subthreads so that you can view their members more easily.
10. There is a new `vm-verbosity' variable through which you can
control how detailed you want VM's progress messages to be.
11. Thunderbird interoperation: There is a new command
`vm-visit-thunderbird-folder' which allows you to visit a folder
from the Thunderbird directory instead of the default VM folder
directory. Saving a message while you are in a Thunderbird folder
will save it to another Thunderbird folder again.
So, that is a quick summary. Please consult the NEWS file and the
info documentation for more details.
Cheers,
Uday
web site.
https://launchpad.net/vm
This will become the public 8.2.0 release sometime in mid-summer.
So, I encourage all users to download it and test it. Here is a
quick summary of what has been done in this release.
1. The main focus of this release has been to fix the large number
of "bugs" that have accumulated over the last year or so. There
were over 100 bug reports targeted for this release.
There is no cause for alarm with the hug number of bug reports. We
use the term "bug" in a very liberal way on Launchpad; "issue" would
be a better description. Most of these "bugs" are previously
unimplemented details rather than something being faulty. In the
bugs database at Launchpad, https://bugs.launchpad.net/vm, I have
begun to tag the bug reports indicating the VM versions they come
from. The classification shows:
new code 24 prev 8.2.x releases 18 8.1.x releases 12 8.0.x
releases 6 7.19 13 maintenance 5
So, the majority of the "bugs" are either from the new code being
implemented or little problems from old code in 7.19 or 8.0.x which
were never fixed.
A very large amount of my time was taken up in fixing real bugs in
the code for message threads, which aren't reflected in the bugs
database. The original code from Kyle was intricate and apparently
had a lot of little problems which didn't bother any one. Now that
we have introduced "thread operations" (whereby an entire thread of
messages can be saved or deleted etc.), it became important to get
the threading to be accurate. In retrospect, it would have been
better for me to rewrite it instead of fixing problems with the old
code. But I didn't expect so many problems with it originally.
2. The installation scripts have been changed to install files in
correct locations on Unix systems, and to install the doc files
(NEWS etc), which had been missing earlier. I need you to run `make
install' and test whether it works correctly on your systems.
XEmacs users in particular need to tell me whether the installation
works. I will write more about the XEmacs installation issues
separately.
3. User interface: The "customize" interface has been cleaned up,
thanks to considerable work by Tim Cross. Summary faces have been
properly defined to work correctly under different environments (and
they are pretty). The [Emacs] and [Undo] buttons on the VM menubar
now work, at least in those windowing systems that permit such
buttons. The pop-up menu for sending URL's to web browsers cleaned
up. It allows the Emacs `browse-url' as a posibile option.
Highlighted new features ------------------------
4. Headers-only messages are now called "external messages", which
is I hope a better term for them. IMAP messages (in IMAP folders)
are loaded as external messages if their size exceeds
`vm-imap-max-message-size'. Otherwise, they are loaded as full
messages.
5. Inessential key bindings have been moved to
`vm-legacy-key-bindings', as discussed in a previous thread in the
vm.info newsgroup.
6. There is a new `vm-forward-message-plain' command (bound to `Z')
which forwards messages in plain text and copies any attachments
from the original message. One of users called "Outlook-like"
forwarding, though he could have also called it "Thunderbird-like"
forwarding.
7. There are new "point-to-point" and "drag-n-drop" operations for
attaching files to messages.
8. Improvements for virtual folders: When you visit a pre-defined
virtual folder, quitting the virtual folder also quits all the
component folders. (If any of these component folders were already
visited independently, they are left alone.)
Interactive virtual folders modified to help searching. Suppose you
want to find a particular message from "boss". You can do `V C
author boss', then browse through the virtual folder to find the
message you want and quit the virtual folder. The control will
return to the copy of the same message in the original folder.
9. Threads: There is a new option to sort messages in threads
according to the default order (e.g., by date) instead of as
subthreads. This could be useful when you view long threads in
mailing lists. There are also new operations to "promote" or
"demote" subthreads so that you can view their members more easily.
10. There is a new `vm-verbosity' variable through which you can
control how detailed you want VM's progress messages to be.
11. Thunderbird interoperation: There is a new command
`vm-visit-thunderbird-folder' which allows you to visit a folder
from the Thunderbird directory instead of the default VM folder
directory. Saving a message while you are in a Thunderbird folder
will save it to another Thunderbird folder again.
So, that is a quick summary. Please consult the NEWS file and the
info documentation for more details.
Cheers,
Uday