ARACHNE TODOLIST - PROPOSED SOFTWARE CHANGE DETAILS ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Item numbers refer to the 2DoList table. ITEM_64 PDF Output One feature I'd like to see in the indefinite future is, allowing Alt+P to generate PDFs as well as postscript output. The free DOS program GhostScript (GS) can perform many tasks and one of them is converting PS to PDF. As Alt+P is able to generate a PS output file it is possible to convert this to PDF. This might be achieved with an APM which calls GhostScript from a modified ps.ah Alt+P screen. ITEM_65 PDF Images If you would like to convert the page being viewed to PDF or PS and include the images as-well...... I'm sure I can come up with an HTM2PS.DGI and an HTM2PDF.DGI If Arachne could do it, then it would actually save me a lot of time. ITEM_66 Quick Option Toggle TAB does not work on e.g. on Google returned search data pages. Disabling stylesheets (CSS/1.0) overcomes this particular problem. There are a number of config settings (circa 8?) that need to be changed with different sites/circumstances and it would be convenient to have a quicker Toggle Facility available. Currently the following steps are needed: - Hit 'O' for Options - Link to 'Prefs & Perf' - Un-check the box for 'Enable stylesheets (CSS/1.0)' - Scroll to the bottom and save the changes, - Choose to use the new settings. Other candidates include: - Disable KeepAlive to avoid "bad request" from Windows servers. ITEM_67 GIF Crash Arachne seems to hang or crash with a divide error when trying to display certain GIF images. Clicking on the following link causes Arachne 1.85 to hang and then crash every time. However after restarting Arachne the GIF left in cache can be displayed OK. http://www.planetdw.com/maps/hauksness.gif ITEM_68 Large Email Download Arachne can refuses to download large emails from the POP server as Arachne will by-pass any email bigger than 50% of available diskspace. However which drive is tested? I am running Arachne from the C: HDD, with the %temp% subdirectory in a 4mb RAMdrive. Since Arachne saves the download blocks in the %temp% directory, as it assembles the file, the drive where this is located should be the one that is tested. But when it overflowed on a 10+mb email, Arachne locked up and needed a reboot to recover! Maybe Arachne was testing the wrong drive in my case....... ITEM_69 Arachne API To interfacw between Arachne and other .exe, .com or TSR programs The EXE invoked via a "roura" batch file (or invoked within 'core', or an independent TSR, eg. CD monitor) to be able to redirect Arachne to a new document or error screen, as appropriate. So it's a two-way process, instead of the one-way process we have now, implemented in such a way that an autonomous task (ie. TSR) can also get involved. Example of use is to communicate with a TSR for notification of a loss of a carrier. ITEM_70 Long File Name support I propose the support for LONG FILE NAMES in native dos (not in dos box of window$). This using LFN drivers like DOSLFN , actually not supported by arachne. ...similar LFN code for LTOOLS, which originally only supported LFN in a DOS box and crashed in DR-DOS 6.0. Now it works with DOSLFN and doesn't crash DR-DOS 6.0 (although the latter still won't support LFN). We should be able to re-use the same code in Arachne (just Google for 'ltools'). ITEM_71 Incompatibility with FREEDOS I presume a non-compatibility of ARACHNE(all versions) and FREEDOS (all releases). In fact ,if you run arachne under freedos, you can have these problems: 1) it's not possible view the arachne package installed (when you try to click the "List of installed packages" button on the Utilities page) 2) during surfing or smtp/pop3 activity the program it's halted and the pc displayed a message of error from freedos : abnormal program termination. If you run on the SOME pc the SOME version of arachne BUT with M$DOS or DR DOS nothing problem are recognized! ITEM_74 Slow DSL download Using DSL, Arachne ismuch slower in downloading large files than other download tools for DOS. Arachne (all versions back to and including v1.0), give an absolute max through-put of 60kb/sec (600kbit/sec) All of my other apps (DOS, Win98 and Linux), achieve full-speed of 150kb/sec (1.5mbit/sec), max through-put. I have a feeling that the problem lies in this 16bit version of the WATTCP library we are using to achieve our TPC/IP stack. The only DOS app I have which is also uses a 16bit TCP/IP stack is FTP.EXE with-which I also have very slow through-put rates. ITEM_75 Forgetting recent Cache entries Of course I would like to see the problem with reloading images on a page with not freeing up the old cache items fixed. I would also vote for increasing the default cache size to 512, which seems to make for a good compromise with loss off xSwap space, and also make it configurable. Also, as long as the xSwap problem persists, I would suggest to add another option to not cache things like images, which have the potential of flooding the cache. ITEM_76 Font Options for Email Enanchement for arachne mail client INSIGHT : During composition of mail message chose the size of character and type of font like in M$ outloock or Thunderbird mozilla. ITEM_77 Save USERNAME and PASSWORD Create a file called like "password.log". When you log in a site , you can click on "save password" button, and the password and username are saved in the file in conjuction with the url of site. When you return to the same site , arachne "remember" the url and automatically send password and username saved in password.log file. This for semplifu the access in controlled sites without remember a list of password on a piece of paper. ITEM_78 Cache Management When selectively deleting items from the Arachne cache with the DEL key, the number of HTTP cache items does not change. The number is unchanged until I hit 'R', and then it goes *up* one. This is because hitting the DEL keywhile viewing the item in-question or by simply deleteing the file from the cache dir does not update the cache index itself. (cache.idx) The number of cached items can be a limiting factor. Disk space can also be the limiting factor. Users may currently need to periodically clear the cache, else things go awry after a while. JPEG images are the worst, since they get cached both as JPG files _and_ as GIF/BMP. ITEM_79 Max 2.54Gb Arachne reports max 2.54Gb space disk. A pascal routine has been written which shows how this bcan be fixed. This is planned for the near future (it involves the 'wwwman' utility, not Core itself). ITEM_80 Flash recognized as Floppy If you connect a pendrice flash via usb drivers, arachne recognized it like a floppy However most flash drives I've studied seem to be formatted as "removable media", so they should look like a floppy. ITEM_81 Euro Sign Arachne doesn't support euro sign € even if cp858 codepage is loaded. It is because all fonts are stored in external files which obviously don't know euro char. It is necessary to modify font files. There is a Windoze 3.X utility available from 'arachne.cz' for generating font files for Arachne, as I recall. This runs on W98SE, although WNT (inc. W2K and WXP) is less likely. Anyone has some free time and would like to experiment ... ? There is also a DOS utility for editing or existing fonts. It is available as an APM http://browser.arachne.cz/apm/fedit.apm I've done a little experimenting with it the last few days. It is quite easy to use and you can customize your fonts to display anything you'd like. ITEM_82 Save HTML page in single file Save HTML page in a simple file like MTH (m$ outlook like)