Sticker 3.1.0 beta 2

Release Notes

Supported Platforms

This release of Sticker is primarily targeted at Windows and is tested on Windows 2000 and XP (Sticker does not run on Windows 95). However Sticker is also supported on Mac OS X, Linux/GTK, and Solaris/Motif, and has enough users on those platforms to be considered stable.

Installation

Sticker comes either as a self-installing package or as a manual-install ZIP file. To install the ZIP, extract it and start Sticker by running either "sticker.bat" on Windows or "sticker.sh" on Unix. See the "README.txt" file that comes with Sticker for more information on installation options.

Changes

Changes between Sticker 3.1.0 beta 1 and Sticker 3.1.0 beta 2

Sticker 3.1 beta 2 is a bugfix release. In particular, it fixes a serious bug triggered by changing user nickname from the Preferences window. It also fixes an error in the implementation of secure messaging, which will affect any users that have made public keys available. All users of 3.1 beta 1 are strongly encouraged to upgrade.

NOTE: The security fixes in this release re-enable secure messaging between Sticker and other clients such as xtickertape, but mean 3.1 beta 2 will not accept secure messages from the previous beta 1 release.

Fixed serious bug that would cause Sticker to silently fail to start after changing the user's nickname. This was caused by a corruption of the preferences file: Sticker 3.1b2 will automatically fix this error and will no longer fail silently if a similar situation occurs in future.
Fixed error in group subscription logic that would cause it to miss pure ticker v3.0 messages (ie messages without backwards-compatible v1.0 fields).
Fixed bug in message handling where messages with no explicit version tag were assumed to be v3.1 (now assumes 3.0).
Upgraded to latest Elvin client library with fix to HTTP tunnelling support: previous release ignored port number.
Added X-NNTP-Host: "fake" and "Timeout" fields to newsgroup replies.
Changed icon for secure messages to a small padlock.
When running a second instance with the same home directory, the second instance will no longer attempt to save preferences, avoiding potential preferences file corruption.
Fixed broken "raw" key IO feature to support importing keys from clients such as xtickertape.
Fixed secure messaging error introduced by person-to-person secure messaging feature. Sticker 3.1b1 allowed holders of a public key to post securely to a group secured with the corresponding private key.
Fixed various errors in source code API documentation.

Changes between Sticker 3.0.0 and Sticker 3.1.0 beta 2

Sticker 3.1 is primarily a consolidation release and has a large number of improvements and bug fixes, but relatively few new major features. Release 3.1 maintains full forwards and backwards compatibility with Sticker 3.0 and other modern ticker clients and is a recommended upgrade for Sticker 3.0 users.

Change summary

Lots of usability improvements: reorganised order of items in preferences, improved checking of settings in dialogs, clearer hint text, improved error/warning messages.
Added new "Never Scroll" ticker scrolling mode plus fast expiry option.
Improved virtual presence: better buddy support, tabbed Online Users dialog, ticker notifications when users on/offline.
The message dialog is now much smarter and displays immediate warning and hint messages just above the Send/Cancel buttons, eg when sending to an offline user, unsubscribed group, etc.
Improved messages window: paperclip icon on messages with attachments, red star on unread messages, hide read messages option, optional "flat" chronological view.
Improved secure messaging: secure group setup can now be done entirely from the Security area on the group properties window, secure person-to-person messaging by exchanging public keys is now supported.
New administration options: can now specify template config files that provide local settings. Various user interface control options are provided: eg to lock-down ID changes and group subscriptions.

Change Details

Finally fixed that issue that was causing rare but critical message database corruption errors. This was caused by a subtle race condition in the database library.
The "Online Users" window now shows tabs, one for each presence group plus "All" and "Buddies" tabs. Changing tabs filters the view to show only the users in that presence group (initial implementation contributed by Mofeed Shahin).
The properties window for online users has been re-organised to show separate "Presence Groups" and "Buddies" tabs. Custom properties are now shown in the "Identity" tab and can now be copied to the clipboard. You can now add/remove other people's presence groups and buddies from this window by right clicking on them.
Now uses Java 1.4's support for system-level file locking to detect when a second instance of Sticker tries to access the message file rather than the problematic ".lock" file approach used previously. This stops the scary warning dialog when either the computer or Sticker were not shut down cleanly.
Added option to add a buddy from the Online Users window (right click, select "Is Buddy"). Also added option to generate ticker notification when selected users go on/off line (in Online Usets window, right click and select "Notify When Online").
You can now explicity request a refresh of a selected user's presence info by right-clicking and selecting "Refresh".
Pressing Enter in the middle of the next in the New Message window no longer inserts a bogus newline before sending the message (due to a SWT bug this is not fixed on Linux).
Sending a message when enter pressed in message text area is now the default.
Added ability to easily invite others to a ticker group (will not work with users of pre-3.1 releases though).
Added option to disable automatically subscribing to any message sent by someone with your nickname.
Improved stability of power suspend/resume and hibernate support on Windows. Now disconnects and reconnects to Elvin and correctly restores all presence info. Fixed bug in restoring presence status on power resume.
Child windows such as the Messages Window, Online Users, etc no longer pop to the front when Sticker pops up on receiving a new message.
Increased robustness of ticker message handling against bogus messages and attachments.
Automatic popup up of the ticker on a new message no longer pops up any other open but obscured windows.
Optimized Elvin traffic when adding/removing buddies or changing presence status.
Buddies are now included in presence info.
On Windows, the Sticker icon in the taskbar is now restored if Explorer restarts.
Clicking the middle button on an empty part of the ticker or the Sticker taskbar icon is now a shortcut to show the Messages Window.
Can now import/export keys from a the Group Properties Security area.
Can now send messages securely person-to-person by exchanging personal public keys.
Added support for ticker protocol version 3.1.
Messages Window now uses relative time format (eg "34 seconds ago") for recent messages.
Added "Hide Read" option to Messages Window.
Added option to view messages in unthreaded "flat" mode in Messages Window.
Message icons in messages window now have a paperclip when attachments are included. A red icon decoration is now used for unread messages rather than a "*" in the text.
Message composition window now displays warning/info messages, for example when sending to an offline user.
Added "Ocean" scroller colour theme.
Improved admin config support: disable group unsubscribe, disable nickname change. Added ability to specify default values for the "Distribution" field when "World" or "Local" messages are sent.
Now shows a welcome message with link to help file on first run.
Fixed "sticky" tray menu problem.
Moved "Compact" button from Messages Window to preferences area.
Fixed bug where subscribing to a ticker group sometimes wouldn't show it in the list while "Hide Others" flitering was on.
Improved display of key attachments in attachments editor.
Added copy/paste commands for fliters in message rules and advanced groups.
Fixed subscribers display in Messages Window when a new user comes online. Offline users are no longer displayed.
Added "never scroll" tickertape option plus fast expiry.
Now handles ticker font size changes better.
"World" and "Secure" controls in the New Message Window are now checkboxes.
The "Ticker Groups" section of the preferences window is now split into three tabs "Chat", "News" and "Advanced".
Improved handling of messages with no ID: an internal ID is now created from contents of message which improves swatting of duplicate messages.
Tweaked advanced groups and message rules so they are not in effect until their parameters are filled in.
Multi-line chat messages are now shown on the ticker up to a maximum length (400 characters) rather than until the first newline. This length can be changed by setting the sticker.scroller.maxMessageLength system property: see README.txt for more information.
On Windows, preferences are now stored in the system-specified roaming application data area rather than in a ".sticker3.1" directory.
Added a "Mute Ticker" option to the main menu. Custom statuses with ticker muting are now noted as such in the menu.
Improved docking behaviour on Windows systems with multiple monitors.
Fixed bug where Elvin URL was being ignored on Linux.
Repackaged for OS X: ditched installer, now uses ZIP'd application bundle. Egon Kuster provided a high-res icon.
Added (slightly bogus) application menu on Mac OS X.
Improved layout and usability of source distribution.

Known Problems In This Release

Launching crash on Windows 2000: problems with the Sticker EXE causing a GPF have been seen on some Windows 2000 systems. Please contact the author if you encounter this issue and would like to trial an alternative packaging.

OS X instability: The good news is that the CPU usage issue has been fixed, the bad news is that the display and event handling have become unstable. This will be addressed in the next beta.

OS X and Solaris attachments: URL attachments on OS X and Solaris do not open. A workaround is to copy them to the clipboard and paste them into a browser manually or to use a custom command specified in Preferences -> Other Settings.

Unix window placement: Windows can appear underneath the scroller.

Linux GTK issues: Sticker occasionally crashes inside the GTK library. GTK 2.2 or later is recommended.

Sticker won't use Firefox 0.9.x on Windows

Firefox 0.9.x has a bug in registering itself as the default browser on Windows 2000/XP. Using the default setting in Ticker Messages -> Open attachments using -> Associated application may still bring up IE or bring up no browser at all and display an error. Unfortunately invoking Firefox directly displays a warning dialog because Firefox returns error code 1 even though it opened the page OK.

To workaround, create a file called "firefox.bat" and put these lines in it.

    @echo off
    "C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" "%~1"
    exit 0

Then enter the path to the firefox.bat file in the Ticker Messages -> Open attachments using -> Command box.

Changes between Sticker 3 and Sticker 2

Native GUI: Sticker 3 is based on the Eclipse SWT toolkit rather than Swing as used in Sticker 2. SWT is based on the operating system�s native toolset, meaning Sticker 3 looks and acts like a native application and supports Windows XP and GTK themes plus display enhancements such as ClearType.

Reduced memory requirements: The switch to SWT plus streamlining and simplifications of the backend result in Sticker 3.0 requiring approximately half the memory of Sticker 2.3.

Windows native release: For Windows users, Sticker 3.0 is available as standalone EXE that does not require a Java runtime and has significantly lower memory requirements. The existing cross-platform distributions are still fully supported.

No scrolling messages: Well actually it does scroll, but much less so than before. Scrolling can be irritating, and Sticker 3 tries not to generate distracting movement unless something is actually changing. When a new message arrives on a blank ticker it now "drops" it in from the right and comes to a stop on the left where it sits until expired or deleted. Subsequent messages, up to the point where the ticker is full, do the same, forming a stationary stack of messages. When the ticker is full, it starts scrolling as usual, with the ticker tape display wrapping so that all the space available on the ticker is used for message display. The dropping action still gives a brief movement cue for each new message, but the display settles down immediately afterwards.

New scroller features: messages that are unread (i.e. haven't been replied to, or deleted, or otherwise "touched") are highlighted with a shadow. The message text no longer fades as it ages since this can make the text hard to read; instead the red "new message" star over the icon fades. Messages that are not visible are not subject to expiry, meaning short-expiry messages arriving on a long tape won't be deleted before display.

Auto hide: In the spirit of being less intrusive, Sticker 3 has an "auto hide" option that causes the scroller to slide out of the way when not in use. When a message arrives, or Sticker becomes the active application (eg is Alt-Tabbed to), it slides back into view. On Windows there is now a taskbar menu for when the Sticker is not visible.

Improved message archiving: Sticker 3 uses a micro object database for storing messages, which allows for large archives to which messages can be added, retrieved and removed from very quickly. As well as improving performance, messages can be indexed by their read/unread status and received time, allowing flagging of unread messages and global expiry of old messages. All messages are now stored in a single file rather than one file per group.

No popup toolbar: While the popup toolbar seemed like a good idea at the time, it's true to say that many people find it annoying, including the author. In its place, Sticker 3 uses a context menu on the scroller plus a control menu with application options.

Better self-customisation: Sticker 3 remembers much more of the way you�ve set up things, such as window sizes, column widths, etc.

Improved scroller and message display customisation: Sticker 3 has a number of pre-set scroller colour themes, each of which has its own optimised message colour schemes for normal, highlighted and "lowlighted" messages. This allows message actions that change message appearance to do so intelligently regardless of which scroller the message ends up on.

Compatibility With Sticker 2

Sticker 3 is fully compatible with Sticker 2's tickertape messaging and virtual presence protocols, however Sticker 3 will not read Sticker 2 preferences and saved messages. Sticker 3 has significant internal differences that would make it a complex process to convert settings from Sticker 2. However, if enough people complain, a conversion tool may be forthcoming.

Advanced groups based on Elvin subscription expressions can be moved to Sticker 3 by first copying the Elvin subscription expression and using Preferences -> Ticker Groups -> Wizard Group (Propeller Hat Icon) -> Add Filter -> Match Elvin Subscription and then clicking "Elvin subscription" and pasting the copied subscription expression in.

Sticker 2 security keys can be copied into Sticker 3 by exporting them in the "Elvin" key format and then importing them into Sticker 3 using the Preferences -> Security Keys -> Import Key command.

Sticker 2 message rules that you wish to keep will need to be manually re-coded into Sticker 3, however the built-in rules such as " Fast expire messages from me" and " Keep personal messages while I'm away" are already in Sticker 3 as defaults.

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Konstantin Knizhnik for the use of the Perst object database and to The Wilson Partnership for the use of their MinML2 XML parser. Thanks to Mofeed Shahin for developing the initial tabbed presence UI. Thanks to Egon Kuster for creating the high-resolution OS X Sticker icon.

Further Information

For technical information on Sticker, please see README.txt that accompanies this file. Please also visit the website at http://www.tickertape.org/projects/sticker or contact Matthew Phillips at matthew.phillips@dsto.defence.gov.au.