From: Bernhard Muenzer Subject: GNKS/A: Netscape Navigator(TM) 2.0b1 (16 bit MS Windows version) Date: Thu, 12 Oct 1995 20:35:41 +0100 To: win_cbug@netscape.com, rnewman@mit.edu, twpierce@midway.uchicago.edu Message-Id: <199510121935.UAA06676@cony.gsf.de> Content-Length: 8927 Here is my Good Net-Keeping Seal of Approval evaluation of Netscape Navigator(tm). The version used for this evaluation was Mozilla 2.0b1 (Windows; I; 16bit) according to the X-Mailer: header. 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 previous version of my evaluation. I have crossposted this to three different newsgroups. If you follow up, please take the time to adjust the Newsgroups: line appropriately. ------------------------------------------------- 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 two buttons for the "Followup" and the "Reply" function are both labelled "Reply" (but with different icons). This will cause some confusion with newbies. 2) The email address original author of a quoted article is not given in a followup. 3) It is possible to post with an empty Subject: line 4) It is not possible for a poster to cancel his or her own atricles 5) The editor breaks long lines of quoted articles, which makes it very hard to properly attribute quoted text, especially for several levels of quoted articles. Compared to the previous releases, this is quite a progress. Since this is an alpha version and at least the first three bugs seem trivial to fix, I hope that the final release will at least come close to being a proper newsreader. ------------------------------------------------- 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 NO 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 2) 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 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 3) Y attribution line YES Y identifies author NO 4) N gives message-id NO 5) Y 10 Subject is mandatory NO Y do not post empty or provide NO 6) Y allow change while editing body YES Y 11 Must provide valid From: header YES Y syntactically valid YES 7) N belongs to the user NO 8) 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 9) N external editor conforms N/A N 14 Prevent obvious errors NO 10) 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) The buttons for what is usually called "Followup" and "Reply" are _both_ just labelled "Reply" 2) Mozilla uses the following names instead of the standard terminology: Standard terminology Button text Menu item --------------------------------------------------- Post (new message) New Post News Followup Reply Post Reply Reply (by mail) Reply Mail Reply There is also 3) 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. The size of the editing window can be changed to change the allowed line length. 4) Only the name field, but not the email address of the quoted author is given. This is not sufficient to "identify" the author. 5) I think the message ID of the quoted article should be only in the References: header and not in the body of the message anyways. 6) If a blank Subject: line is given, "(no subject)" is silently assumed. 7) The user address can be freely changed in a configuration menu. When I entered an illegal address, 'mue @ @gsf.de' was changed to '"mue @ "@gsf.de' (note the double quotes). 8) On DOS/Windows platforms, this wouldn't be possible at all. 9) Line breaks are enforced at the end of the (resizable) editor window - and this even holds for quoted material. 10)I wasn't able to post either an empty article or an article containing only quoted text - but it was the NNTP server and not Netscape that prevented this. -- int m,u,e=0;float l,_,I;main(){for(;1863-e;putchar((++e>923&&952> e?60-m:u)["\n)ed.fsg@eum(rezneuM drahnreB"]))for(u=_=l=0;80-(m=e% 81)&&I*l+_*_<6&&20-++u;_=2*l*_+e/81*.09-1,l=I)I=l*l-_*_-2+m/27.;}