28 September 1996

ENOTES 2.0 DEVELOPMENT RELEASE 1

WELCOME TO ENOTES 2.0d1

This is a preview development release of eNotes, and as such, is not yet complete or ready for serious testing. It is being made freely available to give a preview of what is to become the smallest memory footprint, simplest and most powerful email system for Newton OS2. We strongly discourage you from using it as your main email software. We recommend you continue to use eNotes 1.6. Further releases with additional features will be made available soon.

eNotes 2.0 is specifically designed for Newton devices running version 2.0 of the operating system and the Internet Enabler software. At this stage, we only recommend the MP130 for running NIE and therefore eNotes.

FEEDBACK

For this release we are not seeking extensive bug reports - we already know about most of them, and eNotes' current lack of error information doesn't give us much to go on if you do find a new one.

What we would like is feedback on the user interface, or any other general thoughts or ideas so that we can improve it to meet your needs before the final release.

WHAT DOES ENOTES 2.0 DEVELOPMENT RELEASE 1 DO?

eNotes allows you to connect to your server by PPP or SLIP (using Apple's Newton Internet Enabler) and both send and receive messages. enotes 2.0 can successfully receive messages up to the size of your available storage space at speeds up to 28.8 Kbps - we encourage you test with big messages.

INSTALLING AND SETTING UP ENOTES 2.0

enotes 2.0 comes as a single package, which you can install on your Newton using Apple's Newton Package Installer for Windows or Macintosh.

All configuration for enotes 2.0 is done using the "eNotes Services" app in the "Setup" folder of the extras drawer. You can then connect to your internet service provider from here, or connect from the in/out box.

A NOTE FOR USERS OF ENOTES 1.6

enotes 2.0 and eNotes 1.6 can be safely installed and used on the same Newton, so you don't need to remove eNotes 1.6 if you want to try enotes 2.0.

WHAT'S MISSING FROM THIS DEVELOPMENT RELEASE?

The following is a list of things that are not complete in this release, but will appear in the next few releases.

- Message filtering. Code to filter mail based on message size, sender, recipient, subject and a variety of other things is currently in the works.

- Interactive on line browsing In future releases, you will be able to connect to your server, download information on available messages and then select the messages you wish to download in full.

- Forwarding and copying to the Notes App

- Viewing of very large messages.At the moment, very large messages are received but eNotes will only display the first 4 Kb.

- Error and cancel handling. Very few errors are currently handled correctly, and the same goes for the Stop button. Most of the time the Newton will just stop what it's doing and sit there. After that you have to open the back panel and hit the reset button. This code will definitely be there in the next release!

- Status notification is limited. In particular, the bar showing progress when receiving messages is only updated at the end of each message

- Documentation. This readme file is only part of a comprehensive set of documentation.

- Connection via UNIX shell. This version works only with Apple's Newton Internet Enabler. Future versions will allow serial connection, as eNotes 1.6 did.

- MIME message handling

- Intelligent text wrapping. The code from eNotes 1.6 which intelligently rewrapped text to fit the Newton screen has not yet been incorporated 

- Addressing a message through a specific service. The addressing slip allows you so specify that a message be sent via a particular service, but at the moment any message will be sent by the first available service. 


Send any comments to: enotes@pobox.com http://www.pobox.com/~enotes