Folks:

Cello Winsock alpha r6 is hereby released.  You can get it from 
ftp.law.cornell.edu, directory /pub/LII/Cello/winsock_alpha.

Please note that we will soon be discontinuing the 
Distinct-based version, probably with the next release.

***************************************************************
Please take careful note of the change/enhancement information 
in this announcement, as fairly basic changes in configuration 
files and behavior have been put in this release.
***************************************************************

What it is:
-----------
Cello is a multipurpose Internet browser which permits you to 
access information from many sources in many formats.  
Technically, it's a WorldWideWeb client application.  This 
means that you can use Cello to access data from WorldWideWeb, 
Gopher, FTP, and CSO/ph/qi servers, as well as X.500 directory 
servers, WAIS servers, HYTELNET, TechInfo, and others through external 
gateways.  You can also use Cello and the WWW-HTML hypertext 
markup standard to build local hypertext systems on LANS, on 
single machines, and so on.  Cello also permits the 
postprocessing of any file for which you've set up an 
association in the Windows File Manager -- for example, if you 
download an uncompressed Microsoft Word file from an FTP site, 
and the appropriate association exists in File Manager, Cello 
will run MS-Word on it for you.  This same capability is used 
to view graphics and listen to sound files you get from the Net.

Fixed in this release:
----------------------

--Problem with parsing of some HTML files, a bug introduced in 
the last version with the introduction of proper %escape 
parsing in HTML anchors.  The most common symptom was a GPF 
when trying to load the NCSA demo page; the problem was 
inconsistent and would not always occur. (Thanks to Alert 
Cellist Alicia Powell and several others)

--Problems with Frontier Software FTP stack (Cello's fault, not 
theirs) Most common symptom was indefinite hanging during FTP 
sessions, when it would work at all. (Thanks to Alert Cellist 
Kalevi Rasilainen).

--Whitespace after <HR> adjusted to something reasonable.

--Problem in which news retrievals would fail when using 
Trumpet Winsock.  Basically a stack overflow; a more intelligent 
use of memory is being tried.

Known problems not yet fixed:
-----------------------------

-- Difficulties with Global Network Navigator basically stem 
from the fact that Cello only supports out-of-line graphics.  A 
variety of workarounds have been posted on the CELLO-L listserv 
list, archived on the gopher at fatty.law.cornell.edu.  These 
problems will go away with the introduction of inlined graphics 
in the next release.

-- Still some problems with the Lanera Winsock implementation; 
I am anxious to hear from those of you running Lanera, as I'm 
having trouble testing this.

-- Miscellaneous printing bugs (including printing of nested 
lists in HTML).  Please continue to report printing problems, 
however, as a Great Printing Bug Stomping is planned for the 
near future.

-- Problem with some extremely deviant FTP servers such as 
hobbes.nmsu.edu, which does not respond to ls -l in a rational 
way.

Enhancements:
-------------

r6 introduces two features which it is worthwhile that you take 
a moment to understand:  file caching and a separate 
CELLO.INI file. (In fact, if you're already using Cello and you 
don't take a few steps, you're in for some rude surprises).

File caching:
------------

How it works:

Cello now caches any displayable (by Cello) file which it 
retrieves from the Net as a local, temporary file.  This scheme 
will obviously benefit SLIP/PPP users the most, but also helps 
with some busy/slow servers on the Net even if you have direct 
connection.  This approach was deemed more desirable than an 
in-memory cache in part because it's simpler, in part because 
of restrictions imposed by Windows on memory handles, and in 
part because for a lot of Windows users memory caches magically 
turn into disk caches pretty quickly anyhow.  Files are cached 
in the directory from which Cello is started, using names 
derived from a standard tmpnam() call.  Since 65K or so such 
temporary names are available this should not pose an undue 
burden....  The downside of this approach is that cached files 
must still be parsed for display, but that's life.

Some things -- notably any local files and the results of 
searches -- are not cached, as it makes no sense to do so and 
complicates backtracking considerably.

Cello continues to cache files uniquely until it reaches a "low 
water mark", the minimum amount of free space you wish left on 
your disk for non-cachable files (or anything else, for that 
matter).  The default setting for the 
low water mark is 1/2 megabyte.  You can change it via the 
Configure/Cache low-water mark option in the menu system.  If 
you set it to O, caching is disabled.  Once the low-water mark 
is reached, Cello discards cached files on a 
least-recently-used basis.  All temporary files are zapped at 
the end of a session; people running Cello in a 
networked-executable situation will want to be wary of this.


Change in .INI file
-------------------

At the suggestion of several Alert Cellists who have been made 
network administrators (probably because of sins committed in 
some past life), CELLO.INI has been made a separate .INI file 
whose location can be specified via environment variable.  Set 
CELLO=c:\whatever in DOS to specify a location. If the 
environment variable isn't set, the file will end up in your 
Windows directory.

The format of the .INI file is currently:
[Cello]
...all the settings currently in WIN.INI...
[Extensions]
...all the extension/association information currently in 
WIN.INI and used to activate viewers...

As the foregoing suggests, you can "upgrade" your .ini files by 
copying the relevant portions from win.ini into your new 
cello.ini file.

Aside from making it much easier to run Cello for multiple 
users in a networked situation, this also permits you to use 
different associations with Cello than you do for (say) 
double-click-starting from File Manager.

Enjoy.

Tb.
