                           TMail release notes
                             (version 1.15)

   TMail is a mail/news shell for use on 80x86-based personal computers 
   running DOS or something like it.  Sorry, no Mac or Unix versions 
   exist.  TMail also won't run on 8088 or 8086-based machines, and 
   frankly if you're still using one you have far worse problems.

   If you are already using UUPC's mail or PCElm, you can start TMail 
   right up.  All three mailers are interchangeable, although TMail
   will handle much larger mailboxes than the UUPC mail program.  Just 
   load the TMail.EXE and TMail.OVR files somewhere on your path and
   type TMAIL.  Alternatly, 'TMAIL filespec' will use 'filespec' as
   your configuration file (section 3, 'Quickstart', below).  TMAIL
   supports a default incoming mailbox, a default incoming news file,
   and separate default archives for news and mail.

1) Help:
   TMail supports an online help facility.  This first cut is a 
   long, long way from what it should be but I'll be working on it.  
   Your feedback will be greatly appreciated since I know the program
   too well to tell.  TMail.HLP should be loaded in the same
   directory as the TMail.EXE and TMail.OVR files.

2) Documentation:
   Nada.  Any volunteers?

3) Quickstart:
   Hey, folks!  This program is menu-driven using a mouse.  What you DO
   need is an AT clone (8088 need not apply) running DOS version 3.0
   or later.  Actually, 2.x will mostly work, but why bother?  TMail 
   needs about 256K of free RAM to run, which shouldn't be a big
   problem on real machines.  TMail gets along with Windows just fine,
   thanks.

   Although I use UUPC, TMail should work with just about any 
   connectivity software.  The only shared data dependency is in the
   UNIX-style mailbox format (ctl-A line message separators) for
   incoming news and mail.  Outgoing news and mail are passed to 
   external utilities such as RMAIL and PostNews.  (Since UUPC
   doesn't come with a PostNews utility, I wrote one.)

   TMail maintains all of its configuration data in a configuration
   file (not supplied).  If you don't specify a configuration file on 
   the command line, TMail defaults to a file in the same directory as
   TMail.EXE and TMail.OVR (or whatever you renamed them to), with the
   same name and an extension of '.CFG'.

   If this file does not exist, TMail defaults to a setup which is
   quite useless.  Instructive, maybe, but useless.  To change the
   setup select the 'Setup' menu and its submenus, then 'Save Setup'.
   WARNING: some of the available color combinations would gag a 
   vulture.

   TMail's online help file (TMail.HLP) must also be in the same 
   directory as the TMail executable file.  TMail will run without it, 
   but you'll get nasty messages instead of help if it's not found.

4) License, bugs, and feedback:
   TMail is shareware.  You are welcome (even encouraged) to try it, 
   abuse it, even COMPLAIN about it, for 29 days.  If you're still using 
   it after that you really should register it.  Aside from the karmic 
   benefits of registration, I'll be doing my best to make it worth the 
   entirely nominal registration charge.  (See file REGISTER.TXT)

   Since TMail is worthless without connectivity, I will NOT be 
   distributing, supporting, or updating it except via the Internet. 
   This makes the 'network address' field on your registration 
   absolutely crucial, so please make sure it specifies a well-known net 
   node.  Before cashing your check I'll send you the registered TMail 
   package (that's a promise).

   In a moment of moral ascendency over self-interest, I decided to 
   license TMail FREE to real-live charitable organizations.  If you
   represent one, drop me some e-mail and I'll fill in the details.

   TMail isn't industrial-strength software -- yet.  I'm sure that there 
   are bugs in it which have escaped my earnest efforts to track them 
   down.  Should you discover one, please do me the courtesy of 
   narrowing the circumstances enough that I have a chance of 
   reproducing it and then send me a report at <dcs@witsend.tnet.com>.

5) News support:
   TMail takes a giant step backwards and treats news as a special case
   of mail.  This package includes three executables and two batch files 
   to support news in a UUPC environment:
     getbatch.exe	- preprocesses incoming news batches for
			  decompression by the standard compress
     putnews.exe	- processes decompressed batches into mailbox
			  format
     extract.bat	- You may need to midify this one for your
			  setup; it pipes getbatch, putnews, and 
			  putnews, appends the output to a mailbox,and 
			  deletes the source batch.
     getnews.bat	- barring miracles, you WILL need to alter this
			  one for your setup.  It applies 'extract' to
			  all of the incoming batches in a directory and
			  sends the results to a (you name it) mailbox.
     postnews.exe	- sends a preformatted article file to UUCP
			  for transfer.  This program relies an 
			  environment variable (UUPCNEWS) which 
			  specifies the path to the news working files
			  POST.LOG and NSEQ.  I use
			  UUPCNEWS=D:\UUPC\NEWS
			  for instance.

   One user has observed that TMail gets pretty slow when loading more
   than a megabyte of newsfile.  He's right.  If you routinely read 
   through several megabytes of news in a day, use something else.  
   Unless, of course, you have a few minutes for the file to load.
   (You're reading MEGABYTES of news -- daily -- and are too BUSY?!?)

6) Extensions
   One user has requested a whole slew of enhancements to support 
   binaries distribution groups such as comp.binaries.PC.  IMHO, too few 
   users would need such extensions to justify the added complexity, 
   code size, and hassle of adding them to the TMail core.  On the other 
   hand, they can be implemented rather easily as add-on filters in the 
   'getnews' pipeline and even do better there.  I have suggested that
   he do so (probably in AWK).

   Anyone who comes up with this sort of useful addition is encouraged 
   to share it with the world.  If you need help with creating 
   extensions, I'll be glad to explain some of TMail's internals and in 
   some instances share parts of the code.
