5-Apr-95 12:14:44-GMT,10422;000000000011 Received: from cony.gsf.de (cony.gsf.de [146.107.1.2]) by midway.uchicago.edu (8.6.10/8.6.4) with ESMTP id HAA09721 for ; Wed, 5 Apr 1995 07:14:17 -0500 Received: from by cony.gsf.de (8.6.4.2/Arcane-2.40) id OAA26101; Wed, 5 Apr 1995 14:07:52 +0200 Message-Id: <199504051207.OAA26101@cony.gsf.de> Date: Wed, 05 Apr 95 14:15:46 -0700 From: Bernhard Muenzer X-Mailer: Mozilla 1.1b2 (Windows; I; 16bit) MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.infosystems.www.misc,news.software.readers,news.admin.misc To: win_cbug@netscape.com, rnewman@mit.edu, twpierce@midway.uchicago.edu, mue@gsf.de Subject: Update: GNKS/A: Netscape Navigator(TM) 1.1b2 (16 bit MS Windows version) References: <3leh4n$f25@cony.gsf.de> <3lgu1q$3vm@cony.gsf.de> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Here is an updated and corrected version of my Good Net-Keeping Seal of Approval evaluation of Netscape Navigator(tm), version 1.1b2 for MS Windows (16 bit version). In my previous evaluation I had complained that the "Reply:" option had been deleted from the newsreader. The truth is that it was there, but I didn't find it. I am following up to my original post. I would have liked to cancel it because of this error, but Netscape won't let me do this... I have mailed copies of this to: win_cbug@netscape.com (the official address for Netscape bug reports), Ron Newman , the author of GNKS/A, and Tim Pierce , so he can overwrite the outdated version of my evaluation. ------------------------------------------------- Subject: The Good Net-Keeping Seal of Approval The Good Net-Keeping Seal of Approval attempts to establish a standard for newsreader behavior on Usenet. For more information on the aims and requirements of the Good Net-Keeping Seal of Approval, follow this link to the original text: Tim Pierce has compiled all GNKS/A evaluations he could find at ------------------------------------------------- Subject: Results of my evaluation The software as reviewed fails the Good Net-Keeping Seal of Approval for several reasons: 1) The Followup-To: and Reply-To: headers are neither displayed.. 2) ...nor can they be changed by the poster. 3) The quoting mechanism is broken by the built-in mail editor 4) "Followup-To: poster" is not treated properly 5) It is possible to post with a syntactically invalid From: addresse and an empty Subject: line 6) It is not possible for a poster to cancel his own atricles 7) The "Reply" option is activated by clicking on the address in the From: header - even if the reply is sent to another address. ------------------------------------------------- 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 1) Y a) display author YES Y b) display subject YES Y c) display newsgroups list YES Y d) display Followup-To list NO Y e) display Reply-To if /= From: NO Y 2 Provide standard commands NO Y clear NO 2) Y separate YES Y a) post a new article YES Y b) post a followup article YES Y c) reply by email YES 3) N use standard terminology NO 4) Y 3 Implement cross-posting YES Y allow user specification YES 5) 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 Y allow followup-to: poster NO Y change Reply-To NO 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 YES Y recognize and act on 'poster' NO 6) Y 7 Followups contain References YES Y contains message-id of original YES Y never truncate individual message-id YES N contains three Refs from original YES N contains entire Refs of original YES N contains any id mentioned in body YES Y 8 Direct email reply to Reply-To YES Y 9 Quotation and attribution NO Y provide method YES Y set off by prepend NO 7) 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 8) Y allow change while editing body YES Y 11 Must provide valid From: header NO Y syntactically valid NO 9) N belongs to the user NO 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 YES N warn if body has lines > 80 chars NO 10) N external editor conforms N/A N 14 Prevent obvious errors ??? 11) N prevent posting empty article ??? N prevent posting only quoted text ??? ------------------------------------------------- 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) The newsreader always displays Subject:, Date:, From:, Organization:, Newsgroups: and References: lines whenever these are not empty. No other headers are displayed. 2) "Followup" and "Followup and Reply" are featured as buttons both at the top and the bottom of the article body. What is usually called the "Reply" option can be accessed by clicking on the address in the "From:" header. If the "Reply-To:" header (which is not displayed on screen) contains another address than the displayed "From:" header, the reply is sent to that address instead. This is the required standard behaviour of the "Reply" option - but not what one would expect when clicking on the address in the From: field. 3) The Subject: line (possibly prepended by "Re: ") is not used for the Reply option. 4) See note number 2) 5) The newsgroups are entered in a field labelled "Post Newsgroups" in the mail/post tool. Unfortunately, the word "Newsgroups" is not visible because it gets overwritten by the label of the nest field ("Subject:"). This may cause some confusion about the ability to crosspost. 6) If Followup-To: is set to poster, the software tries to post to a newsgroup named "poster". 7) Quoted lines are set off by a prepended "> ". BUT a line break is forced if a line doesn't fit in the editor window (which has no horizontal scrolling), and this often breaks a line into a properly quoted line, followed by a line without prepended quotation marker. While this sort of weird behaviour is not explicitly mentioned in the GNKS/A guidelines, I agree with their author, Ron Newman , that this can not pass as a proper quotation method. Note that version 1.0 of Netscape does not have this problem. 8) If a blank Subject: line is given, "(no subject)" is silently assumed. 9) The user address can be freely changed in a configuration menu and is not checked for syntactical validity (i.e. it is possible to post with blanks in the address). 10)Line breaks are enforced at the end of the (resizable) editor window - and this even holds for quoted material. 11)I could not determine whether it was Netscape or the NNTP host that refused empty or mostly quoted articles. I strongly suspect the latter. -- int m,u,e=0;float l,_,I;main(){for(;e<1863;putchar((++e>923&&952> e?60-m:u)["\n)ed.fsg@eum(rezneuM drahnreB"]))for(u=_=l=0;(m=e%81) <80&&I*l+_*_<6&&20>++u;_=2*l*_+e/81*.09-1,l=I)I=l*l-_*_-2+m/27.;}