x3270 Version 3.1 -- New Features and Bug Fixes

x3270 3.1.0.5 is a consolidation of all of the patch releases of x3270 3.0.3, plus some additional bug fixes and a number of new features.

New Features

Added a Select by Rectangles menu option to do rectangular selections in ANSI mode. (requested by Benoit Leclerc)

Added a 20-point font, 3270-20. (requested by Dick Heijne, John McFarland and Hans-Eric Sandstrom)

Added selection character classes: a -cc option and the charClass resource, just like xterm. This allows precise control over the regions of text selected with a double mouse click. (requested by Benoit Leclerc)

Added an Oversize menu option to set the screen oversize. (requested by Bob Kingman)

Added a Save Changed Options in File menu option to save the values of options that have been changed by menus into a file, which will be read by x3270 the next time it starts up. (requested by David Wilcox and Hans-Eric Sandstrom)

Added support for Sun's itelnetd (a firewall pass-through service) via a p: prefix on the hostname.

[Incompatibility] The app-defaults file is now compiled directly into x3270. (The Imakefile can be edited to produce a version of x3270 that uses a separate app-defaults file.) There are now different resources for monochrome and color X displays.

The menus a little more Motif-like, with many pullrights (cascaded menus).

[Incompatibility] Fully implemented 3270 Graphic Escapes. This encompasses a number of changes:

[Incompatibility] Made -charset bracket the default. To get the old default character set, you must use an explicit -charset us-intl.

Added support for ANSI-mode line-drawing characters and character sets. (requested by Dick Heijne)

[Incompatibility] Implemented color schemes, resources that control the X colors used to display 3270 colors. These replace the multiple discrete resources used in the past. The color scheme can be changed from a menu option. (requested by Dick Heijne and Hans-Eric Sandstrom)

Added an Expect() action for scripts: Expect(string[,timeout]). Pauses a script, waiting for a sequence of characters or a timeout (default 30 seconds). Valid in ANSI mode only. (requested by Donald Parsons)

[Incompatibility] Eliminated the -color and -extended options (they're still there for backwards confusion). Made color (3279 mode) the default. Combined color and extended mode onto a new model syntax, with 3279-4-E or 3278-4-E the default, depending on the display depth.

Moved the html documents into their own directory.

[Incompatibility] Changed the default trace directory from /usr/tmp to /tmp. (questioned by Tjemsland Svein)

Added a keymap selection option. (requested by Dick Heijne)

Now install a sample ibm_hosts file. Made the default ibm_hosts path depend on the X11 configuration. (code submitted by Joe Ramey)

The character set can be changed from a menu option. (requested by Dick Heijne and Hans-Eric Sandstrom)

A new Script() action allows running a script as a child of x3270. Added an Examples directory with examples of an ibm_hosts file, plus peer and child scripts for sh, ksh, bash and expect.

The ibm_hosts file can now specify a list of actions to execute when connecting to a host (including running a script), rather than just a simple string.

[Incompatibility] Changed the names of the Sun keymaps from sun-xxx to sun_xxx, so one no longer needs to worry about cpp mistranslating resource definitions. (requested by Raymond A. Wiker)

Changed the method of cancelling a partial Compose() action: instead of pressing the Compose key again, it is now cancelled by pressing the Reset key. This makes it easier for keymap and macro definitions to include composite keys. (requested by Ulrich Bernhard)

Added Compose and Newline keys to the pop-up keypad. (requested by Ulrich Bernhard)

Bug Fixes Since v3.0.3.7

The compose key didn't work with the "^" key.

The playback utility couldn't be built on AIX. (reported by Jeffrey W. Parker)

The SysReq() action didn't produce trace messages.

Found a much better way to handle NumLock on Sun keyboards, using an xmodmap command rather than a kludged x3270 keymap. This is documented in the FAQ. Fixes bug #333. (reported by John McFarland)

Allow a connection to be broken with ECONNRESET without popping up an error message. Fixes bug #334. (reported by Craig Gruneberg)

Needed to propogate the make CC= directive into the mkversion.sh script. (reported by James Simpson)

The ow keymap modifier broke the Shift-Button1 MoveCursor action. Fixes bug #335. (reported by Kurt Marti)

Improved data stream tracing in ANSI mode.

Fixed keyboard input of certain APL characters. Fixes bug #337. (reported by Jonathan Andrew McEllroy)

Give back old GCs when finished with them.

Fixed a bug where x3270 gave an extra script prompt if a hostname was put on the command line.

host-specific macro definitions (x3270.macros.xxx) weren't being seen unless x3270.macros was defined as well. (reported by Xristos Albanis)

Removed some compiler and loader warnings.

Stopped translating pasted tabs to spaces. (reported by Shamus McBride)

Added a workaround for a bug in the Linux Mach32 X server. (reported by David Nessl, fix submitted by Frank Racis)

Fixed a problem with instering the last character of a field in Blank Fill mode. (reported by Lars-Peter Swaerd)

The response to the Read Modified command was missing the values of changed fields. (reported by Lars-Peter Sward)

When using cursorColor and useCursorColor, changing the font caused the cursor to be drawn incorrectly. (reported by Karlheinz Kandler)

Added a pop-up message when the window manager overrides the chosen screen size.


[What follows is a history of the Alpha and Beta Test releases of x3270 3.1.0. Some of the information is duplicated above, and much of it traces problems introduced and later fixed in the testing cycle.]

Fixes Since x3270 v3.1.0A (First Alpha Release)

X11/Xfuncproto.h is required to build under OpenWindows 3.0; it is now included with the code (reported by Paul Croome)

Makefile.openwin had the wrong all target

Imakefile.R4 still referred to x3270.c, rather than main.c (reported by Bob Kingman)

Save Changed Options in File didn't save the value of the screen oversize (reported by Bob Kingman)

Fixes Since x3270 v3.1.0A2 (Second Alpha Release)

Selecting more than one line of text caused a core dump. (reported by Ulrich Bernhard)

host-specific macro definitions (x3270.macros.xxx) weren't being seen unless x3270.macros was defined as well. (reported by Xristos Albanis)

Removed some compiler and loader warnings.

Changes Since x3270 v3.1.0A3 (Third Alpha Release)

The character set can be changed from a menu option.

A new Script() action allows running a script as a child of x3270. Added an Examples directory with examples of an ibm_hosts file, plus peer and child scripts for sh, ksh, bash and expect.

The ibm_hosts file can now specify a list of actions to execute when connecting to a host (including running a script), rather than just a simple string.

[Incompatibility] Changed the names of the Sun keymaps from sun-xxx to sun_xxx, so one no longer needs to worry about cpp mistranslating resource definitions. (requested by Raymond A. Wiker)

Stopped translating pasted tabs to spaces. (reported by Shamus McBride)

Changed the method of cancelling a partial Compose() action: instead of pressing the Compose key again, it is now cancelled by pressing the Reset key. This makes it easier for keymap and macro definitions to include composite keys. (requested by Ulrich Bernhard)

Added Compose and Newline keys to the pop-up keypad. (requested by Ulrich Bernhard)

Added a workaround for a bug in the Linux Mach32 X server. (reported by David Nessl, fix submitted by Frank Racis)

Fixed a problem with instering the last character of a field in Blank Fill mode. (reported by Lars-Peter Swaerd)

Bug Fixes Since x3270 v3.1.0B4 (Beta Release)

Fixed a typo in Makefile.openwin. (reported by Bill Oliver)

The Expect() often didn't work more than once per session.

The response to the Read Modified command was missing the values of changed fields. (reported by Lars-Peter Sward)

When using cursorColor and useCursorColor, changing the font caused the cursor to be drawn incorrectly. (reported by Karlheinz Kandler)

The active icon didn't track color scheme changes. (reported by Karlheinz Kandler)

Added a pop-up message when the window manager overrides the chosen screen size.