From twpierce@midway.uchicago.edu Fri Feb 9 10:45 CST 1996 X-Sender: perrier@alix X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Pro Version 2.2 (32) Mime-Version: 1.0 Date: Fri, 09 Feb 1996 15:30:40 +0100 To: twpierce@midway.uchicago.edu From: Christian Perrier Subject: GNKS/A evaluation of Microsoft Internet Explorer version 4.40.516 (FR) Cc: rnewman@mit.edu, freenix-ldp@freenix.fr, freenix@keltia.frmug.fr.net Resent-To: twpierce@bio-3.bsd.uchicago.edu Resent-Date: Fri, 9 Feb 96 10:44:46 CST Resent-From: Tim Pierce Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 6593 Hi again Tim (and hi again others!), Below is the supposed-to-be-final version of my GNKS/A evaluation of Microsoft Internet Explorer for Windows 95 as a newsreader. -----------cut here------------------- Subject: Results of my evaluation of Microsoft Internet Explorer version 4.40.516 (FR) for Windows 95 The software as reviewed fails the Good Net-Keeping Seal of Approval for the following reasons : 1) No display of essential headers. 2) No clear difference between followup (called "answer to message") and reply 3) Several essential headers cannot be changed 4) No respect of Followup-To header (this makes the software non RFC-1036 compliant!) 5) Does not generate References: header 6) Does not respect reply-to header (this makes the software non RFC-1036 compliant!) 7) Allow to post with empty subject header 8) Does not make syntax check on From: header 9) Does not allow the cancel of own articles Due to this incredible number of flaws and mainly because of the non respect of RFC-1036, I conclude that this software may not be called a newsreader. ------------------------------------------------- Subject: The detailed evaluation checklist Req Itm Sub- Item rd? ## Description item OK? OK? Notes Y 1 Display all essential header info NO Y default is to display NO Y a) display author YES Y b) display subject YES Y c) display newsgroups list NO Y d) display Followup-To list NO Y e) display Reply-To if /= From: NO Y 2 Provide standard commands N0 Y clear NO 1) Y separate YES Y a) post a new article YES Y b) post a followup article YES Y c) reply by email YES N use standard terminology NO Y 3 Implement cross-posting YES Y allow user specification YES Y cross-post (not multi-post) YES Y 4 Change essential headers NO Y change headers while editing body YES Y change Subject YES Y allow at least 70 chars in subject YES Y change Newsgroups YES Y change Followup-To NO 2) Y allow followup-to: poster NO 2) Y change Reply-To NO 2) Y 5 Correct Subject headers in flwup/rply YES Y a) prepend "Re: " (exactly!) YES Y b) preserve entire Subject YES Y even subjects > 80 chars long YES Y 6 Respect Followup-To NO Y use to initialize Newsgroups: in flwup NO Y recognize and act on 'poster' NO Y 7 Followups contain References NO Y contains message-id of original NO Y never truncate individual message-id NO N contains three Refs from original NO N contains entire Refs of original NO Y 8 Direct email reply to Reply-To NO Y 9 Quotation and attribution YES Y provide method YES Y set off by prepend YES Y attribution line YES Y identifies author YES N gives message-id NO Y 10 Subject is mandatory NO Y do not post empty or provide NO 3) Y allow change while editing body YES Y 11 Must provide valid From: header NO Y syntactically valid NO 4) N belongs to the user NO 5) Y 12 Must provide cancel NO Y of own articles NO Y *not* of others YES N 13 Respect line length, and post WYSIWYG NO N line brks shown are present when posted YES N do *not* post paragraph w/o line brks NO N warn if body has lines > 80 chars NO N external editor conforms N/A N 14 Prevent obvious errors NO N prevent posting empty article NO N prevent posting only quoted text NO ------------------------------------------------- Subject: Notes to the checklist First a short description of what the columns in this checklist stand for: Reqrd?: A "Y" means that the item or subitem is a MUST for the software in order to get the Good Net-Keeping Seal Approval. ITM ##: This is the item number in the GNKS document Description: Follow the above link to the original document for a more detailed description and an explanation of the rationale behind it. Subitem OK ?: Item OK?: If the item is required, this is marked "YES" if all _required_ subitems are ok. If it is _not_ required, it is marked "YES" if if _all_ subitems are ok. Notes: These are given below: 1) Followup is possible by clicking "Envoyer une reponse" (in the US version this is certainly something like "Send an answer). Reply is possible by clicking the author's email address in the window. Posting a new article is possible by clicking "Envoyer un message" ("Send a message"?" in the article list window. I consider this confusing to new users. 2) This is not possible to setup these anyway! 3) This was refused by my news server but probably not by MSIE! 4) No check at all...:-( 5) This may be considered impossible on a Dos platform. -- Christian Perrier, DI/CCI ONERA, BP72, 92322 Chatillon Cedex FRANCE Office: +33-1-4673.4438 Fax: +33-1-4673.4150