From: MERC::"uunet!ARISIA.dnet.ge.com!AITGW::FSUPDATE@WKUVX1.BITNET" 6-OCT-1992 11:19:08.88 To: everhart CC: Subj: Supervisor Series v5.4 released! Received: by AITGW.DECnet (utk-mail11 v1.5) ; Tue, 6 Oct 92 10:08:07 EDT Received: from ukcc.uky.edu by aitgw.ge.com (5.65/GE Gateway 1.5) id AA03142; Tue, 6 Oct 92 10:07:56 -0400 Received: from ukcc.uky.edu by UKCC.uky.edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 7723; Tue, 06 Oct 92 10:05:20 EDT Received: from WKUVX1.BITNET by ukcc.uky.edu (Mailer R2.08) with BSMTP id 0722; Tue, 06 Oct 92 10:05:17 EDT Errors-To: goathunter@WKUVX1.BITNET X-Listname: FILESERV Announcement List Received: from HUNTER (HUNTER::MXMAILER) by WKUVX1 (MX V3.1C) with SMTP (DECnet); Tue, 06 Oct 1992 08:23:18 CDT Received: by WKUVX1.BITNET (MX V3.1C) id 21474; Tue, 06 Oct 1992 08:23:01 EDT Sender: goathunter@WKUVX1.BITNET Date: Tue, 06 Oct 1992 08:23:00 EDT From: Hunter Goatley Reply-To: FSUPDATE@WKUVX1.BITNET To: supser-l@WKUVX1.BITNET Cc: fsupdate@WKUVX1.BITNET Message-Id: <00961AD8.FF3ACC60.21474@WKUVX1.BITNET> Subject: Supervisor Series v5.4 released! The Supervisor Series v5.4 has just been released. The Supervisor Series consists of SUPERVISOR (watch another user's terminal and enter input on their behalf) and PHOTO (record terminal sessions to a log file). Access to the SUPERVISOR functions is controlled through the use of identifiers. This version of PHOTO includes fixes to prevent crashes and also makes PHOTO compatible with VMS POSIX (finally). There are a number of new features that I hadn't intended to add, but.... The update from the release notes is included below my signature. PLEASE READ THE RELEASE NOTES BEFORE INSTALLING THE SUPERVISOR SERIES!!! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Supervisor Series is available via anonymous ftp from ftp.spc.edu ([192.107.46.27]). You'll need the following files: [.MACRO32]UNZIP.EXE [.MACRO32.SAVESETS]SUPERVISOR.ZIP To get the Supervisor Series via e-mail, send the following commands in the body of a message to FILESERV@WKUVX1.BITNET: SEND SUPERVISOR SEND FILESERV_TOOLS UnZip v5.0 for VMS is needed to unzip the savesets. It's included in FILESERV_TOOLS. The Supervisor Series is installed with VMSINSTAL and includes documentation in ASCII text, Bookreader, and PostScript formats. There is a mailing list to discuss Supervisor Series problems and usage. To subscribe, send the following command in the body of a mail message to LISTSERV@WKUVX1.BITNET (note, that's LISTSERV): SUBSCRIBE SUPSER-L "Your real name" --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Your comments are welcomed. Hunter ------ Hunter Goatley, VMS Systems Programmer, Western Kentucky University goathunter@WKUVX1.BITNET, 502-745-5251 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- The following new features were added in the Supervisor Series V5.4: 1 A new qualifier, /BROADCAST, was added to SUPERVISOR. This qualifier causes SUPERVISOR to trap all broadcast messages received by the supervising terminal. All such messages are written to a file, whose name can be specified as a value to /BROADCAST. By default, /BROADCAST is enabled; /NOBROADCAST must be specified to prevent the trapping of broadcast messages. Note that the message file is only created if messages are actually received during the session. 2 SUPERVISOR was modified to check the page size of the target terminal and print a warning to the supervising user if the size differs from the page size of the supervising terminal. If the supervising terminal is smaller than the target terminal, many screen-oriented applications will not be displayed properly on the supervising terminal. 3 The modules that comprise SUPERVISOR and PHOTO must be linked in a particular order to produce the correct executable images. While both perform a check to ensure the image was linked properly, the SUPERVISOR check was made after some initialization had occurred, causing the system to crash if the image was improperly linked. SUPERVISOR and PHOTO now check for this occurrence before any initialization takes place. This problem only occurred if the Supervisor Series images were rebuilt without using the MMS file. 4 The HANDIN utility has been added to the Supervisor Series. HANDIN creates a log file in a protected directory and, upon HANDIN/OFF, automatically queues the log file to a designated printer (SYS$PRINT, by default). HANDIN was designed with the academic environment in mind: students can run HANDIN to produce printouts of terminal sessions. Because the file is created in a protected directory, the student is unable to edit the log file, ensuring that the printout is an unmodified record of the terminal session. HANDIN is described in more detail in Chapter 3. With this release, HANDIN is not yet an ``official'' Supervisor Series module, because it doesn't have enough features to be considered ``finished.'' 5 PHOTO is now compatible with VMS POSIX. Previous versions of PHOTO would report an ``internal consistency failure'' if POSIX was started on the system. 6 In previous versions of PHOTO, pressing during PHOTO and PHOTO/OFF could crash the system. This problem has been corrected. 7 PHOTO and HANDIN now check that all necessary privileges are enabled before executing any privileged routines. This eliminates potential problems with privilege-related errors occurring during initialization. 8 A new qualifier, /ABORT, was added to PHOTO. PHOTO/ABORT terminates the PHOTO session and automatically deletes the log file. 9 PHOTO now includes error and informational messages that reflect input-only recording where appropriate. Previously, the messages did not indicate the type of recording. This change affects the messages produced by PHOTO/INPUT, PHOTO/OFF, and PHOTO/STATISTICS. 10 PHOTO now provides a default filename of SYS$DISK:[]PHOTO.LOG. Previous versions of PHOTO did not supply any filename defaults. 11 PLAYBACK was modified so that /STRIP removes rubout sequences (character, backspace, space, backspace) in addition to null characters. 12 PLAYBACK was modified so that /STRIP and /TYPE=RECORD are the default settings, since PLAYBACK is most often used to convert binary log files to normal RMS text files. 13 Miscellaneous clean-up changes were made to all of the utilities to increase reliability and efficiency. [End of announcement]