From: alsaggaf@athena.mit.edu (M. Saggaf)
Subject: ANNOUNCE: Seyon 1.5 (X-based telecom program)
Summary: Seyon 1.5 is out - many new features
Originator: mdw@db.TC.Cornell.EDU
Keywords: Seyon X X11 telecom comm 1.5
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1992 19:45:28 GMT

Version 1.5 of Seyon is released. You can get it from sipb.mit.edu
(/pub/seyon) and export.lcs.mit.edu (as well as linux ftp sites:
nic.funet.fi and sunsite.unc.edu). Please read the change log, as this
release has many added features and ones that have changed from the
previous version. This release has a more complete manual page that I
have put a lot of effort into making as accurate and up-to-date as
possible, so please take a look at it. Until now, I have answered
every letter about Seyon that I got by e-mail (over 200 of them). I
regret that I can no longer do that, so if you send me a letter and
don't get a reply, I'm sorry (I do read every letter that I get
though). If you have an unanswered question, you may want to try
asking on the Seyon mailing list or over the net.

The following is an introduction to Seyon, then the change log.

Introduction:
=============

    Seyon is a complete full-featured telecommunications package for
    the X Window System.  Some of its features are:

    Dialing directory that supports an unlimited number of entries.
    The directory is fully mouse-driven and features call progress
    monitoring, dial timeout, automatic redial, multi-number dialing,
    and circular redial queue. Each item in the dialing directory can
    be configured with its own baud rate, bit mask, and script file.
    The dialing directory uses a plain-text phone book that can be
    edited from withen Seyon. Seyon also supports manual dialing.

    Terminal emulation window supporting DEC VT02, Tektronix 4014, and
    ANSI. Seyon delegates its terminal emulation to xterm, so all the
    familiar xterm functions such as the scroll-back buffer,
    cut-and-paste utility, and visual bell are availabe through
    Seyon's terminal emulation window. Using xterm also means that
    Seyon has a more complete emulation of VT102 than other any Unix
    or DOS telecommunications program. Other terminal emulation
    programs can also be used with Seyon to suit the user's need; for
    example, color xterm can be used to provide emulation for color
    ANSI (popular on many BBS systems), and xvt can be used if memory
    is a bit tight.

    Script language to automate tedious tasks such as logging into
    remote hosts. Seyon's script interpreter uses plain-text files and
    has a syntax similar to that of sh, with a few extra addtions. It
    supports many familiar statements such as conditional branching by
    if-else and looping by goto. Scripts may be assigned to items in
    the dialing directory for automatic execution after a connection
    is made.

    Unlimited number of slots for external file transfer protocols.
    Protocols are activated from a mouse-driven transfer console that
    uses a plain-text file, editable from withen Seyon, for protocol
    configuration. Seyon prompts the user for filenames only if the
    chosen protocol requires filenames or if the transfer operation is
    an upload, for which Seyon also accepts wildcards. Multiple
    download directories can be specified for the different transfer
    slots.

    Support for zmodem auto-download. Seyon detects incoming zmodem
    signature and automatically activates a user-specified zmodem
    protocol to receive incoming files. Zmodem transfers can thus be
    completely automatic and require no user intervention.

    Translation modes. Seyon can perfrom useful trasnlations on the
    user's input. From example, Seyon can translate backspace to
    delete (useful on may Unix systems), newline to carriage return
    (useful on many BBS hosts), and my favorite, meta key tranlation:
    to send keys pressed while the meta (ALT) key is held down as an
    escape (ESC) followed by the key press. The latter mode simulates
    the meta key on hosts that do not support 8-bit-clean connections
    and makes possible the use of the meta key in programs like Emacs
    on such hosts.

    Other features: interactive setting of program parameters, on-line
    help, software (XONN/XOFF) and hardware (RTS/CTS) flow control,
    session capture to a file, and temporary running of a local shell
    in the terminal emulation window.

    Seyon is intended to be both simple and extensively configurable.
    Almost every aspect of Seyon can be configured via the resources
    to suit the user's taste.

    If you use Seyon and like it, please let me know by email. This
    will give me the incentive to continue maintaining it. Also let me
    know how it works out whenever you upgrade to a new version.

Portability:
============

    Seyon is known to run on linux and SVR4. It is also known to
    compile cleanly on Ultrix and OSF/1. Seyon is POSIX-compliant so
    it should compile cleanly on any POSIX system. Seyon should also
    compile cleanly on most SYSV-type systems and BSD systems that
    have that support the termios or termio extensions. For BSD
    systems with only the sgtty interface, you have to replace the
    termios (or termio) code in Seyon with the sgtty equivalent. There
    is not much such code in Seyon though, so porting should generally
    be painless.

    Before compiling Seyon on any platform, take a look at the file
    config.h and modify it according to your system (linux users do
    not need to do that, it's already suited for their system).

    If you compile and run Seyon successfully on any platform other
    than linux, please let me know.

    The code right now is not very clean and not well-documented, but
    I'm working on that. If you encounter a problem while porting,
    send a letter to me or to the Seyon mailing list and I'll help as
    much as I can. especially with explanations on what the various of
    the code do. See the FAQ on how how to joing the list.

    Read the file PORTING for more information.

Changes:
========

Version 1.5
    * Zmodem auto-download can now be disabled and enabled
      interactively (from the 'Set' console) as well as in a script
      (use 'set autozm on/off'). Useful when you want to use a
      different zmodem protocol from the transfer popup.
    * Improved error handling. Seyon now gives the user more
      informative messages about what the rogram succeeded or failed
      to do in the form of error messages, warnings, and notices.
    * The new boolean resource sevenBitMask now supercedes the old
      defaultBitMask (no longer used). Seyon will use a 7 bit mask if
      the resource is true (otherwise an 8 bit mask) for entries in
      the dialing directory for which no bit mask is specified. The
      default for this resource is ''off', i.e. to use an 8 bit mask.
    * A new translation mode (my favorite): meta key (ALT)
      translation. Use it to send keys pressed while the meta (ALT)
      key is held down as an escape (ESC) followed by the key press.
      This mode simulates the meta key on hosts that do not support
      8-bit-clean connections and makes possible the use of the meta
      key in programs like Emacs on such hosts. It is enabled by
      default. You can control it in the resources by the resource
      metaKeyTranslation, in a script by 'set meta_tr ...', or
      interactivly from the 'Set' console.
    * All the parameters that can be set in startup script can now be
      specified in the resources. This can be done via the new
      resources sevenBitMask, newlineTranslation,
      backspaceTranslation, metaKeyTranslation, xonxoffFlowControl,
      and rtsctsFlowControl.
    * New (worse?) default window background color.
    * Seyon now gives a warning if the app-defaults file is missing,
      mis-installed, or out-dated. 
    * To facilitate the use of terminal emulators other than xterm,
      xterm is no longer hard-coded into Seyon. Seyon will try to use
      seyon-emu first, and if it cannot find it will fall back to
      xterm. seyon-emu should be a symbolic link to the terminal
      emulator of your choice, e.g. xterm.
    * You can now temporarily suspend Seyon and run a local shell in
      the terminal window. Just use the shell button and give it an
      empty string as the command to be run.
    * Substituted the less-general HAVE_TERMIOS for _POSIX_SOURCE
      while building Seyon. Apparently, 386BSD has termios but chokes
      when _POSIX_SOURCE is defined.
    * Fun messages are no longer hard-coded in seyon but can now be
      specified in the resources via the resource funMessages, which
      superceeds the old boolean resource under the same name. refer
      to Seyon's manula page for details.
    * Command-switches can now be passed to the terminal emulation
      program as well. The new seyon command line syntax is:
      seyon [-option ...] [-toolkit_option ...] [-- -emulator_option]
      Any switches after '--' will be passed to the terminal emulation
      program.
    * The default zmodem auto-download command is now '$rz' instead of
      'rz', to use stdin/stdout.
    * The manual page is expanded a lot. Now is has a full description
      of all the resources, as well as a detailed description of the
      script language. Please take the time to read it.
    * Various other small enhancements.

--
/M. Saggaf
 alsaggaf@athena.mit.edu



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