Yapp Issues

Number one issue: what is the next versio going to look like? Number two: getting admin folks trained to using the admin interface? Does anyone have the manual yet in readable form?

Terry, Joan, Myretta, Kaff and I talked about a lot of nitty gritty issues like file permissions last night for over two hours. Myretta will be summarizing for you soon. I think we are finally on the road. Any recent word on what features the new version will include? I had another report of the dreaded "everything old is new again" syndrome as Myretta has termed it. I hope this at least can be fixed in the new version, as it is not just an enhancement but a pretty major bug.

Terry, could we link this topic to the Yapp conference so Dave can see the discussion? I don't think I can do it, since I don't have Yapp host permissions there, only here in the deeper, conference.

Myretta, I am beginning to better understand what you were saying about Yapp permissions overruling UNIX permissions. This morning, even as su I was not able to join this conference (the deeper conference), I presume because su is not on the ulist!

]This morning, even as su I was not able to join this conference (the deeper conference), I presume because su is not on the ulist! Yes, exactly so. I've left Terry a message about my proposal to act as Austin administrator on the Projects conference. I don't know exactly where I shoujld be leaving these messages. I'll start the Austen Admin topic this after noon and I guess this would be a good place to summarize our discussion.

Amy, Kaff, Joan and I discussed the following issues last night. I summarize the discussion. I have not had a chance today to look for solutions, but perhaps, you already know them. 1. When a topic is created from the web interface, the file ownership is cfadm and the permissions are rw-r--r--. This would indicate, of course, that only cfadm can write to the file. However, any conference member can write to this file. I conclude that the yapp web interface is recognized as cfadm. 2. We have had complaints that users who have written to topics using the web interface and then try to scribble or edit them though the yapp shell, cannot. My guess is that this is caused because they are recognized as themselves by the shell and, therefore, do not have write permissions on the topic files. Is this so? Is there a solution? 3. Users who have resorted to the UNIX editor to modify files, end of as owner of the file. This tends to prevent anyone else from writing to the topic. 4. Several of us have root access now and would like to be careful not to abuse it. I have proposed that I act as the administrator of the Austen conference, but do not think it a problem if the other members of this group, use their access to modify the austentest conference and ensure that file permissions are manually changed to allow conference member access. 5. Is yapp set up so that registered conference members constitute the user group for a given conference or is the group defined by all bbs users? I think this is it, for now. Please feel free to contact me in any way that seems efficient. I will, of course, continue to frequent this conference. Thanks for everything.

I hope this is the appropriate place for thisL Folks I would like to suggest that someone who can review this "help" text and do a little editing on it if that is possible. To start with, it looks as if whoever wrote it was speaking "Caucus", for if I am understanding it correctly, the word "item" is used each time "topic" is meant - which makes it very unclear exactly what is being killed, frozen, entered, scribbled, or whatever. Some of the descriptions could also be clearer - for example, does "enter a new item" mean "go into" or "create"? Also, the "_'s denote minimal abbreviations" coding does not appear to be completely accurate. I was asked (by its author) to remove a duplicate topic that had accidentally been begun, so I tried using just the "k" of "kill" - which did not work, although the full word did. (I inserted a few other questions into the list beneath the existing explanations.) Commands available only at this prompt (_'s denote minimal abbreviations): - display all responses in the specified range cen_sor - censor a response does this mean edit? or what? e_nter - enter a new item f_ind "text" - show all responses including a string of text forget - pretend item doen't exist freeze - stop any further responses to this item prevent any further responses to this topic h_eader - redisplay item header k_ill - delete this item from current conference n_ew - stop reading, and leave responses here as new p_ass - go on to next item po_stpone - go on to next item, leaving responses here as new ps_eudonym - respond to item using a pseudonym r_espond - add a response to this item rem_ember - remove the forgotten status of this item reply - send mail to the author of a response retire - make this item inaccessible to people scr_ibble - censor and scribble over a response this is very unclear - and in practice it ends up leaving the header there! st_op - stop reading thaw - let people respond to this item again tree - show diagram of response tree how can this tree be formed? unretire - make this item accessible to people again

Sorry the above wrapped wierdly! One more thing; Other help topics that might be useful are: intro_duction - describe the layout of the conferencing system commands - list the commands available at this prompt Ok: commands Invalid command: commands (It appears to tell the user that a list of commands can be obtained by typing in "command" but this does not work.)

You're right topic and item are one and the same. We have the option of calling these things whatever we want. Enter a new item (or topic) means to create it. I use 'e' a lot! Caucus was superior in handling minimal abbreviations. You can enter *several* variants of a word and it works. For example, all these might work: c ch che chec check etc. Response range refers to a group of responses, eg. 3-4 As for cen_sor I haven't tried it. Create a response that is expandable and try it and see what happends. I use the 'n' command continually. This is something I'd like to start using: reply - send mail to the author of a response I wonder if this refers to unix mail or some kind of internal mail system like caucus, I'd be surprised if it was internal. This is designed to spare readers the trouble of reading a long response. They can have the option of seeing it if they want. scr_ibble - censor and scribble over a response I would like to know the answer to this, ask Dave in the yapp conference. tree - show diagram of response tree Ok: commands Invalid command: commands You have to type help commands I believe.

Last night I was looking at this topic in bbs/text format - today I am looking in web format - and I see a rather nasty "problem" here - the appearance between one format and another changes radicaly and can make reading in the one not used to create the text very difficult. Response #7 is wraped wierdly in bbs format, but completely unformatted in web viewing. :-( (Sorry Terry!) Are most people reading here reading in web or bbs format? I would rather compose in the format that is going to be most legible for most people. (Somehow, the Caucus people have got this problem solved in such a way that when in "read" mode when using the text version, the html tags are invisible.)

Terry: You're right topic and item are one and the same. We have the option of calling these things whatever we want. However, from the user's point of view, the lable used should be consistent. In this context, someone who did not know Caucus would not know whether "item" meant "topic" or "response". Terry: Caucus was superior in handling minimal abbreviations. You can enter *several* variants of a word and it works. For example, all these might work: c ch che chec check etc. Right - but when I tried using "k" for "kill" it did not work! I had to use the whole word, thought the list showed it as k_ill, telling the user that "k" alone would work. Terry: I use the 'n' command continually. So do I, in Caucus - it really needs to be in the web version! That could at least help with the "no cache" problem in that one could use "n" if one went to follow a link and return to the new items still marked as new. This would be a little more clear for "freeze": existing: stop any further responses to this item proposedprevent any further responses to this topic scr_ibble [#] - censor and scribble over a response This is very unclear; what is the difference between censoring with and without scribbling? In practice scribble ends up leaving the header there! Is there a reason why the header, too, doesn't go away? Terry: This is something I'd like to start using: reply [#] - send mail to the author of a response I wonder if this refers to unix mail or some kind of internal mail system like caucus, I'd be surprised if it was internal. It probably sends mail to whatever address is in the link in the header, though I have not actually tried it. Terry: This is designed to spare readers the trouble of reading a long response. They can have the option of seeing it if they want. scr_ibble [#] - censor and scribble over a response I don't think so - I think it removes the response for everyone. I say this because my web identity is still different from my shell identity and I "scribbled" a duplicate posting of mine from bbs, and when I looked in web, it was also gone - except for the header. So I don't think people can just scribble on their "own" copy - if they do it, it looks as if it will affect everyone. Terry: I would like to know the answer to this: tree - show diagram of response tree It slmost seems as if this: reply [#] - send mail to the author of a response is defined incorrectly. Perhaps reply [#] is supposed to mean reply to a specific response number (not e-mail) and that would create the tree? To reply via e-mail (at least in web version) one can just click on the address link. Ok: commands Invalid command: commands You have to type help commands I believe. Could be, but that is not what it is telling the user to do!

I hope you pass some of these thoughts along to Dave in the yapp conference.

I do not know which are appropriate to pass along - I was assuming that most of the stuff such as editing descriptions of functions of commands was something that can and is done locally. Does yapp use the same "dictionary" type of system for defining online prompts as Caucus does? For a while there used to be a set of command "dictionaries" in 6 different foreign languages which could be selected by the users - as well as an extra terse and extra verbose English "dictionary. We were able to edit these locally. (Unfortunately, nobody updated the foreign language versions after the new release of Caucus, so those are no longer useable, but it was kind of a kick to try to read the menus and help files in German or Italian, etc.) If it is appropriate to do so (i.e. not something that Dave would consider locally modifiable) I could easily plop the whole text above into the yapp conf.

Joan which Caucus system were you (are you?) on?

Joan -- I think the reason "scribble" doesn't entirely remove a message is because this would foul up the whole numbering scheme in that topic, and all the external counts of numbers of messages read by different users, etc... When you "scribble" a message, just replace the text of the message to be deleted with "[Erroneous duplicate message deleted]", or something like that... Also, the message "tree" -- I think this would be implemented using the lines beginning ",R" in the _[0-9]* topic files; I notice these lines always read ",R0000" now, but I assume they could be set to indicate which message some other message was in reply to. I have no idea HOW to enable this feature, or even whether it can be enabled for a single conference...

Henry, can you help me set up golftravel.net on barton.spring.com and set up Realaudio on barton.spring.com. Perhaps Myretta knows something about this?

Sorry, Terry. I have no experience with this.

Sorry Joan -- from all the references people let drop, I had assumed that scribble let you EDIT old messages, but I tried it out myself, and it seems to simply nuke their contents... The reasons I mentioned why a message isn't completely removed (in the sense of renumbering the following messages with lower numbers) remain valid, but it seems that with the Yapp scribble function, you have no control over what replaces it. So it seems you have to go back to the text editor to edit an old message; if you use pico to edit a raw topic file, be sure to start it up with the "pico -w" command-line option, to disable line-wrap, or you could really garble the file... Also, I was wrong about the ,R0000 line being to indicate a message is a reply to a specific previous message; instead it seems to indicate message "status" (a "scribbled" message is marked with ,R0003). I have no idea how threading would be implemented on Yapp. Amy, while I was gleefully "scribbling" messages 4,5,6 in topic 34 of the Austen conference (I've wanted to junk those for a long time now), I accidentally got rid of your message 3 in that topic; I went into the editor, and recreated it from memory. It's probably close enough, but you can go back and restore it in it's precise original form, if you have it somewhere, and consider it worthwhile...

] I accidentally got rid of your message 3 in that topic; I went into the editor, and recreated it from memory. It's probably close enough, but you can go back and restore it in it's precise original form, if you have it somewhere, and consider it worthwhile... __ I don't know to what you refer. But my guess would be is not worthwhile.

] I don't know to what you refer. But my guess would be is not worthwhile. __ No. Not worth a thing. I must elevate myself.

HC, if you have seen topic 9 in Austen, (is it 9? Help?) You'll see that I discovered that Cencor and Scribble appear to do exactly the same thing, but when I tried to edit in pico, it would not let me - said the file could not be opened for writing. How come it lets you but not me?

Regarding leaving the header there - I know the numbering structure would need to be left in tact, but other software (Caucus for example) removes the header from view and just leaves a gap in the numbering. Terry, I have an account on tmn which is the home of The Meta Net (Metasystems Design Group) who are part owners of Caucus. I do not wish to appear to be "pushing" Caucus - in fact, I don't particularly like it - chiefly because it is unthreaded. But as an exemplar of unthreaded conferencing software, it is quite well implemented, and since I have been a conference moderator/organizer for several years on an education network using Caucus software, I am fairly well aware of what can and cannot be done a d what the user has control over and what we have to beg Charles Roth to implement.

Joan -- why can't you edit a raw topic file with "pico -w"? Because the non-existent user "winsor" was added to the "bbs" group, instead of "jwinsor" -- look at the file etc/group

Joan, I have fixed this. You are now jwinsor in the bbs group. Try it again.

So did you guys have an breakfast session on ownership? And I missed it? Did you at least save me a croissant?

No, but there's half a bagel left.

Oh man, you guys. You mean that sickly looking little smashed up article with a piece of somebody's lipsticked napkin lingering on it. Please!

HC: ] "with "pico -w"" What is with this "-w" ??? It's a new one on me. Maybe it is no wrapping? HC: ] Because the non-existent user "winsor" was added to the "bbs" group, instead of "jwinsor" -- look at the file etc/group So now I am a nonexistent user - oh the indignity of it all! Myretta: ] Joan, I have fixed this. You are now jwinsor in the bbs group. Try it again. Thank you! The only place I am just plain "winsor" is on our schools' network and I am trying to talk Tomas into changing me to jwinsor. (Especially since my sister goes by plain "winsor".)

Joan -- use "pico -w" to avoid line-wrapping which could garble a raw topics file as it is being edited....

The reason Yapp was down on www.spring.com for about 15 minutes aroun 7:00 AM was because of a problem caused when I was changing the configuration to allow custom link colors in the austentest conference (there was an incompatibility between my browser and the configuration update script, so that "\n\n" in the rc.yapp-bin file was incorrectly changed to "\n" -- I had to go into VI to fix this , so consider me appropriately punished ...)

Speaking of /n's We would use another one or two in the topic creation process. Or an [hr] or something, I think, anyway. Though my taste in page layout and colors and things have been known to be questioned.

I finally looked at the PostScript Yapp manual in Amy's austen_admin directory on www.spring.com. I noticed nothing about threading, no word beginning with "thread" appears in the index, and what seems like it would be the most relevant section, §4.3, is completely blank ("This section to be filled in later"). The image below is a screen dump of the section on Yapp variable syntax, and shows you the kind of thing one would probably have to deal with if one were to try to customize the buttons in one conference only...

Oh Lord.

HC: I had to go into VI to fix this , so consider me appropriately punished indeed! A fate worse than death! HC: I noticed nothing about threading, no word beginning with "thread" appears in the index,... It sounds more and more as if yapp is not even a "real" product yet - still half-baked, if that! Hope Terry is not paying for the privilege of doing all this beta testing for them!

Actually Terry is, it costs us a pretty penny. I owe Dave $1,000 still on yapp. But that's a subject for the budget/finances topic.

I hate to sound harsh, but I see little to love in yapp - the shell implementation requires people to read around all of the html tags, wraps text awkwardly, has inaccurate online documentation and unimplemented "features", yet the most useful features are not even available to the web browser users, who must also put up with the no cache business, error messages given inappropriately, old-is-new attacks, unwanted paragraph breaks inserted into text and God knows what-all else - neither group of users has a viable option.

If yapp isn't it, what do you recommend?

If yapp isn't it, what do you recommend? I'm not sure that the ideal exists - yet. Other conferencing software that I have used often enough to speak with any experience upon (other than Caucus) is all strictly text-based, and I would hate to give up the advantages of being able to use html. But yapp permits only very limited use of html with the already mentioned problems unsolved. Being able to follow links and return to the place where you left off is really essential! As I have said before, I really do not like Caucus/WebCaucus all that well, either, but at least it is well implemented, compared to yapp. At present, it is the only conferenceing software I have used that works in an integrated manner both in web and

Case in point! My text got chopped. And if I had typed my response in the text entry window instead of offline, it would now be completely gone and I would be exceedingly upset at having to re-create it all again! [and then I messed up a tag, and got the error message, and fixed it, and pressed the re-post button, and of course it did not re-post and the text was erased again - so I would not be typing it a 3rd time!] As I have said before, I really do not like Caucus/WebCaucus all that well, either, but at least it is well implemented, compared to yapp. At present, it is the only conferenceing software I have used that works in an integrated manner both in web and text formats. Does Dave actually claim that yapp is a finished product at this point? In practice, it seems much more like a work still in progress. And if so, he may actually wish us to give him a lot more feedback - but we get so little feedback from him that I have no idea what his views are on any of this. If he thinks it is finished, I would be looking for something else, because there are still so many things wrong with it, and I have not seen any evidence that he is serious about providing support. Think I shall e-mail a couple of people I know to see whether they have run across any other options.

Well, it should have been "would NOW have been typing". (And of corse, the unwanted paragraph break in the middle of my paragraph is yet another illustration of things that need attending to.) Sorry, I don't mean to be gripe, gripe, griping all the time, but there is much that is frustrating to be dealt with in this software!

I actually like yapp better than caucus. We ran on caucus at the spring for the first year or so. In fact, we still have it archived. Caucus is even more expensive. The good thing about yapp is that Dave is very responsive to suggestions and the things that we don't like can be fixed if we communicate well enough with Dave in the yapp conference. I don't think Dave considers it a finished work. There are too many problems and limitations. But I feel like Dave is capable of making it a finished work in the near term. Please try and elucidate your concerns to Dave in yapp. If I had time, I would do a thorough QA on yapp and get a lot of these things fixed, but I have a very demanding job right now. Perhaps collectively we can do a QA on yapp and work with Dave to mold it into the interface that will serve us well.

Terry, as long as this is a closed conference, I'll ask this. What is the deal with Yapp? Is Dave making any money from it? Does he wish to improve the web interface? Will he be responsive to our suggestions even though you have not paid him? Does he "get" our love for threading at all?

Terry: We ran on caucus at the spring for the first year or so. In fact, we still have it archived. Was this the new web version, or just the earlier text version? Terry: I actually like yapp better than caucus. In what ways? From the user viewpoint there seems to be very little difference other than that features that do not work in yapp do work in Caucus. Terry: Caucus is even more expensive. I'm sure this is true - I've heard this from others who have considered using it. Terry: I have a very demanding job right now. So do I! (And and am also doing some beta testing for a commercial developer of software for people with disabilities. Bugs are starting to get on my nerves!

Amy: Does he "get" our love for threading at all? I expect that even if he does, implementing true threading would mean going back to the drawing board. It is a totally different concept programmatically.

different program ____ Quite true, but if we are to stick with this, I would very much like to see the linking aspects implemented.

I owe Dave $1,000. I don't know how he feels about threading. This software is being used commercially at http://www.macworld.com and http://www.gamespot.com and is designed as a picospan/WELL Engaged clone so those other commercial sites with more traffic probably have more weight in influencing Dave. So far, Dave's Yapp 3.0 has been the best software I've seen for conferencing. WELL Engaged is more mature, but I would imagine the cost would be prohibitive, as would Caucus web edition. And Caucus doesn't support threaded conferencing either, at least it didn't the last time I looked. I feel like we could influence Dave more if this system became more popular and more successful financially. I'm working on several ways of generating revenues to help support the Spring, such as the Capitol City A&E project. Perhaps we could get some sponsorship at some point.

Terry: And Caucus doesn't support threaded conferencing either, at least it didn't the last time I looked. Right - which is why I don't particularly like it. The authors are philosophically opposed to threading. This philosophy does lend itself well to "business" type discussion - requiring participants to read everything before responding - but online conferencing is not a one-size-fits-all situation. If one were invited to a party where they required all guests to gather in a big circle and speak one at a time, everyone would go home early - and turn down future invitations!

Terry, I tried to go to: http://www.macworld.com to see how it works there - but could not find anywhere that it was being used - except posibly what they called "Message boards" - but when I clicked that link, I got a server error. Do you know of a specific place on their site that yapp is running?

That was it! Must be down right now. Try again later. It's kind of buried on their site. Wish a had a specific url for you.

I've been there Joan. The Mac people -- not surprisinbly -- find it "not intuitive" too.

I've been there Joan. Did the things that don't work here also not work there?

I looked at http://www.gamespot.com and they are way behind us in interface development. Not much going on there all. And MacWorld returned a server error. Jeeez.

In response to past complaining from Amy, I changed the rc.yapp-bin configuration file so that, from now on, messages will have [A NAME="something"] anchors inserted in their headers, which allows the possibility of linking to a specific message...

Wow!

Cross posted from the help topic in Austen Topic 171 of 195: HELP! Topic 171 of 195 [austen]: HELP! Response 32 of 33: Amy (Amy) * Wed, Feb 19, 1997 (16:12) * 57 lines From the Yapp conference. Does not look like any of our troubles have yet been fixed. Topic 49 of 49: Release Information Tue, Feb 18, 1997 (22:04) | Kaylene Thaler (kaylene@armidale.ann-arbor.mi.us) The following is an update on added abilities, and bug fixes in the most recient versions of Yapp. *************** VERSION 3.0.14 ********************* Yapp now creates the partdir (participation directory) immediately. Previously, particpation directories could get trashed if they were being updated when the system crashed. Now particpation files are written atomically. From the WWW there was a malformed header error as a result of forgetting an item. This error has been fixed. There was an I/O bug on Solaris which has been fixed. The acl file now contains the proper information when a conference is created a file. If you enter a security number under the old system, the appropriate acl information is derived. The following have been added to Yapp: The commands `change cfjoin' and `display cfjoin'. Default .cflist, .cfrc, and .cfonce files are now allowed. The variables cancacl, canracl, canwacl, and canaacl have been added to allow checking for read/write/enter permissions to allow the web interface to be less ambiguous. ******************** VERSION 3.0.15 ********************* The bug in the acl file which allowed users to enter a responce when the acl file restriced who could respond has been fixed. Yapp was changed such that when you change a conference config file for a maillist conference, the maillist file is automatically updated. Mailing list conferences can now be linked to more than one mailing list. Line 6 of the conference config file can now contain comma separated email addresses. ********************* Future Release Information ********* In up and comming releases, the numbering system for Yapp will change. Any new functionality will have a 3.1.X number, and only bug fixes for current functions will follow the 3.0.X numbering scheme. If you want to follow the most recent developments follow the 3.1.X scheme. If you want stable code follow the 3.0.X Your current Yapp license will still be valid for both the 3.0.X and the 3.1.X schemes. numbering. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Topic 171 of 195 [austen]: HELP! Response 33 of 33: Myretta (mrobens) * Thu, Feb 20, 1997 (06:51) * 11 lines VERSION 3.0.15 The bug in the acl file which allowed users to enter a responce when the acl file restriced who could respond has been fixed. --------------------------------------- This may fix the austenarchive problem that I had to force. Have we been upgraded to this version? Should we test it?

VERSION 3.0.15 The bug in the acl file which allowed users to enter a responce when the acl file restriced who could respond has been fixed. --------------------------------------- This may fix the austenarchive problem that I had to force. Have we been upgraded to this version? Should we test it? __ I don't know. I can't see how the ACL file works with the rc and config and have not bothered to see what does what. As to the new version... Terry? I put this over here because I wondered if payment for the software is an issue and did not want to talk about it to the whole Austen crowd.

It's an issue. I have to raise $1000 to get the upgrade. I'm working on ways to do this. Unless there's something better? How are y'all feeling about yapp?

"How are y'all feeling about yapp?' My opinion is that it still has some serious bugs/problems which it should not ever have been allowed out of beta with - and which do not appear to have been addressed in any of the announced fixes yet. However, I have not had time personally to investigate the alternatives. (Nor am I likely to in the immediate future.)

I'd feel kind of bad about dumping it after all we've done to try to work with it. And a little guilty about any time Dave may have spent trying to accomodate us -- though that concern is more than outweighed by a belief that we've put this thing through its paces for him.

But! If we switch. Let's think threading!

Before we dump yapp, we need to think about setting up a new system on access.spring.com. Most of the new conferencing systems are detailed on the site previously mentioned (the name escapes me at the moment, David Wooley I believe).

If you have binaries for Yapp version 3.0.13, 3.0.14 or 3.0.15 you will experiece problems with your license file if yapp is accessed from the web 100 or more times in a given day. You can determine which version you are running from the yapp debug pages, or by looking at the version listed when executing bbs from Unix. The bug changes your regular license into an evaluation license. You can check your license file and determine if it has changed to an evaluation license by looking for any information after line 4 (the checksum). If there is anything after line 4 and you shouldn't have an evaluation license, you will need to upgrade to Yapp 3.0.16. Yapp 3.0.16 has the license bug fixed, and no new features. Yapp 3.0.16 is available from ftp:\\armidale.ann-arbor.mi.us/pub/yapp for FreeBSD and Solaris. If you need to have it compiled for another operating system let us know. from kaylene thaler

We have 3.0.10

We may have to upgrade then.

3.0.10 looks like it's pre-bug