Re: Product Differentiation (was Re: ReComments on Cougar DTD:)

At 11:07a -0400 07/23/96, Scott Swanson wrote:
>> Walter Ian Kaye writes in <v03007802ae1977f4204e@[205.149.180.135]>:
>> >  * Nix the newsreader and email; NewsWatcher and Eudora are better
>> >    (and please reduce the software's ram+disk footprint accordingly)
>>
>> Instead of that, make the newsreader and emailer dynamically linkable
>> somehow.  In that way, people who already have better newsreaders and
>> emailers can use theirs in place of the built-ins, while there will
>>still be
>> support for news and email for people who do not have newsreaders or
>> mailers.  TimBL's original idea of unifying the handling of Internet
>> protocols via browser URL processing is still a good one -- it has just
>> suffered in the case of news and email from mediocre implementations in
>> browsers.
>Um, Internet Config, anyone?
>That seems ideal.  API, consolidated helper info, etc.  Already
>done, extensible, and doesn't seem to conflict with anything.

Heh, I recently finished parsing every single IC 1.3 preference key
(even the wonky ones) for my ProTERM 1.2 function library (to be
released netborne within the month), so I know Internet Config more
intimately than you'd want to... but what Mark describes actually
sounds more like a job for OpenDoc (plug in the parts you want).

-----Excerpt from Quinn on the IC mailing list:

Greetings

Well I've finally found some free time to work on Internet Config and
progress has been quick.  Features of the new release are:

o fixed two nasty crashing bugs
o improved URL parsing to handle badly formatted URLs
o added UI for editing a bunch of preferences
o added a few more preferences (UseGopherProxy, GopherProxyHost &
  UsePassiveFTP)
o improved the APIs, bringing them up-to-date with the latest interfaces

A detailed change list is included at the end of this message.

You can FTP the first beta release of IC 1.3 from:

<ftp://redback.cs.uwa.edu.au//Others/Quinn/Config/Beta/
  InternetConfig1.3b1.sit>

<ftp://redback.cs.uwa.edu.au//Others/Quinn/Config/Beta/
  ICProgKit1.3b1.sit>

<ftp://redback.cs.uwa.edu.au//Others/Quinn/Config/Beta/
  ICAppSourceKit1.3b1.sit>

It should appear at the US mirrors soon.  Until then, those of you in the
US should attempt to get it early in the day, before the Aussies wake up
and clog the Aus <-> link.

-----end excerpt-----

The change list is very long, so I'm not including it here. If you want me
to forward the complete message, email me <boo@best.com>.

__________________________________________________________________________
    Walter Ian Kaye <boo@best.com>     Programmer - Excel, AppleScript,
          Mountain View, CA                         ProTERM, FoxPro, HTML
 http://www.natural-innovations.com/     Musician - Guitarist, Songwriter

Received on Tuesday, 23 July 1996 12:55:16 UTC