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 17:32:43 +0100 To: twpierce@midway.uchicago.edu From: Christian Perrier Subject: GNKS/A evaluation of Netscape Navigator 2.0 Cc: rnewman@mit.edu, freenix-ldp@freenix.fr, freenix@keltia.frmug.fr.net, jwz@netscape.com Resent-To: twpierce@bio-3.bsd.uchicago.edu Resent-Date: Fri, 9 Feb 96 10:44:47 CST Resent-From: Tim Pierce Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 9057 Hi again all, Below is the "I hope to be the latest" version of my GNKS/A evaluation of Netscape Navigator 2.0. No important modifications compared to previous versions : I just checked the final version of Mozilla and added non required points at the beginning of the document. Tim, I think that you may publish this....and I still hope that Jamie will fix the small little point which makes Mozilla non GNKS/A compliant. --------CUT HERE---------------------- Subject: Results of my evaluation The software as reviewed fails the Good Net-Keeping Seal of Approval for only one reason : 1) The validity of email adresses if slightly imperfectly checked. The syntax validity is checked but lacks of '. immediately after @' check. The reality of email address belonging to the user seems impossible to achieve on a Dos platform. Compared to the previous releases (2.0b1 was reviewed by Bernhard Muenzer), this is quite a progress : -One may now cancel articles ; -It is also now impossible to post articles without subject. These are of course often refused by NNTP servers. Netscape user is warned when he omits the subject. The default subject then proposed is "(no subject)" ; -The user is now warned when posting articles with empty text or articles with only quoted text ; -the multiple article bug seems to be away now. This bug is not mentioned by GNKS/A (probably because Ron Newman never imagine such a flawed newsreader!) -the reply/followup buttons problem mentioned in 2.0b1 GNKS/A evaluation has disappeared. Though the usual "Followup" and "Reply" terms are not used ("Re: News" and "Re: Mail" are used instead), I think that the risk of confusion for newsbies is now strongly decreased. I would just suggest to Netscape people to try to mention the standard terms somewhere : bigger buttons? :-))) -the editor does _not_ break quoted text. I don't know if this happened in previous versions, but I checked this quite carefully. The confusion comes from the appearance of the quoted text in the composition window, when answering a message. As this window is defaulted to 72 caracters width, the quoted text may appear broken. But no hard return is inserted and, when posted, the article looks OK. Some points not required by GNKS/A could be improved : 1) The attribution line should allow user to include original article message-ID 2) The standard terminology is not exactly used for followup/reply 3) Mozilla should warn users when posting articles with lines longer than 80 chars. Unfortunately (according to private mail exchanges with Mr. Jamie Zawinski, it appears that Netscape Corp. did not decide to fix the only flaw which makes the software fail the compliance. ------------------------------------------------- Subject: The detailed evaluation checklist Req Itm Sub- Item rd? ## Description item OK? OK? Notes Y 1 Display all essential header info YES Y default is to display YES Y a) display author YES Y b) display subject YES Y c) display newsgroups list YES Y d) display Followup-To list YES Y e) display Reply-To if /= From: YES Y 2 Provide standard commands YES Y clear YES 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 1) Y 3 Implement cross-posting YES Y allow user specification YES Y cross-post (not multi-post) YES Y 4 Change essential headers YES 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 YES Y allow followup-to: poster YES Y change Reply-To YES 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 YES Y use to initialize Newsgroups: in flwup YES Y recognize and act on 'poster' YES 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 Y 8 Direct email reply to Reply-To YES Y 9 Quotation and attribution YES Y provide method YES Y set off by prepend YES Y attribution line YES Y identifies author YES 2) N gives message-id NO Y 10 Subject is mandatory YES Y do not post empty or provide YES Y allow change while editing body YES Y 11 Must provide valid From: header NO Y syntactically valid NO 3) N belongs to the user NO 4) Y 12 Must provide cancel YES Y of own articles YES 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 5) N external editor conforms N/A N 14 Prevent obvious errors YES N prevent posting empty article YES N prevent posting only quoted text YES ------------------------------------------------- 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 buttons for what is usually called "Followup" and "Reply" are labelled "Re:News" and "Re:Mail" Mozilla uses the following names instead of the standard terminology: Standard terminology Button text Menu item --------------------------------------------------- Post (new message) To: News New News Message Followup Re: News Post Reply Reply (by mail) Re: Mail Mail Reply 2) Only the name field, but not the email address of the quoted author is given. GNKS/A does not give details about the proper method for identifying the original author. I consider that it would be better to give both the real name and the email address (perhaps making this a configurable option?) 3) The user address can be freely changed in a configuration menu. But any attempt to post with a syntactically invalid address (no @, no '.' after @) gives an error message. Unfortunately this check incorrectly accepts adresses with a '.' immediately following the @. This could probably easily be fixed. 4) This may be considered impossible on a Dos platform. 5) Line breaks are enforced at the end of the (resizable) editor window (this window is sized for 72 characters-width lines : thus the defaults settings satisfy the requirements). Mozilla could warn the user if the window is resized to non-standard width. -- Christian Perrier, DI/CCI ONERA, BP72, 92322 Chatillon Cedex FRANCE Office: +33-1-4673.4438 Fax: +33-1-4673.4150