! Mystic now clears the temporary directory after each mass uploaded file, just in case a second .DIZ is in an archive.

+ The FS editor DRAW mode now has an Upload ANSI option added to the menu.

! Fixed a small bug when ANSI was posted into a NON-ANSI base that could cause the converted ASCII to get distorted.

+ When generating quote data, Mystic will no longer wrap the first line into the second line if the line is a KLUDGE line.

+ New MUTIL option for [ExportEchomail] entitled "skip_online". If this value is set to true, Mystic will not toss new messages posted by them if they are currently logged into the BBS. Combined with "create semaphores at logout", this should give users their entire time logged in to edit their messages before they'll be sent, even if other users create semaphores.

! I accidentally compiled Mystic with a 1000 line message limit. It has been changed to 10,000 lines per message now.

+ Mystic now fully supports unlimited reply tracking, using reply first, reply next, and reply to for each message. This carries over to the echomail linking and message base purging/packing as well.

! Fixed a bug which could cause NodeSpy's snooping sessions to abruptly end in Windows.

+ The CL mci code (clear screen) and any other function based clear screens done by Mystic will now send ESC[H to home the cursor before the 2J for better compatibility with non ANSI-BBS terminals.

+ Mystic now has internal Xmodem (1K/CRC), Ymodem, Ymodem-G to go along with the existing Zmodem protocol. Similarly to Zmodem, they are configured in the protocol editor with the following send/receive commands:

      @xmodem
      @ymodem
      @ymodemg

A new protocol.dat has been included with the default installation that has these new protocols added, so it can be copied over the old protocol.dat if you haven't made changes specific to your system.

+ Increased the speed of statistic calculation in Nodespy significantly.

+ Character input within the configuration editors now allows characters to be input by the ASCII number or the key itself.

+ Revamped the Login/Matrix settings in the configuration, moving some options that were in General that probably made more sense in Login options.

+ Mystic can now send client terminals either CP437 or UTF8 data output, converting relevant outbound data to UTF8 when selected. For compatibility reasons, data still has to be stored in CP437 encoding within Mystic itself

+ Mystic now has two new options in the Login configuration which go along with the UTF8 encoding:

Default CodePage
Ask CodePage

** READ THIS:
If you do not understand what these are, set Default to CP437 and Ask CodePage to "Detect". What this basically does is allows users to use things like Putty to connect to your BBS, and everything should look and work as expected.

When Mystic starts up, by default a user will have the configured "Default" code page. Then depending on the setting of "Ask CodePage", Mystic will do one of the following:

      Detect : Mystic only changes codepage from default if it is able
               to detect a terminal that is likely NOT the default, but the
               user is never prompted.
      Ask    : Mystic will ask the user which Codepage they would like
               to use after detecting ANSI.
      CP437  : Codepage will always be set to MS-DOS (CP437)
      UTF8   : Codepage will always be set to UTF8

In Linux, the Default code page will actually be what Mystic runs in when you run mystic from the command line, too. In Windows, the Sysop side will always execute in CP437, even when a user is logged in that has UTF8 enabled (the user of course will still get sent UTF8).

One other consideration, is that many terminals that use UTF8 are using VT102 instead of ANSI-BBS, which means a few things are different - most noticably are ANSI clear screen codes. In ANSI-BBS, the clear screen also moves the cursor to 1,1, while in VT102 it does not. This means its best to edit your ANSIs and add a |CL at the very top so Mystic clears the screen in a compatible way.

+ When a user selects UTF8 encoding, Mystic will now assume their terminal sends VT102 DELETE/BACKSPACE keys rather than the MS-DOS terminal behavior.

+ MUTIL now has a function called to pack and check integrity of file bases, and a new header in MUTIL called [PackFileBases] has been added. Please see the default MUTIL.INI in the new installation for more information.

The old broken filepack in MBBSUTIL is gone now.

+ Mystic now prompts for confirmation when using the (U)pdate DIZ command from the file directory listing, to lessen the change that a SysOp injects a new .DIZ into an archive without meaning to.

+ New options for the GD "Display a file" menu command. The old optional data where just the filename is supplied continues to work, but now if the first character is @ it will expect a few options in the following

format

      Format #1: filename
      Format #2: @baudrate@true/false/end@filename

The @baudrate field specifies the baud rate to display the file.

The second field defines how file pauses should work. If set to TRUE the file will pause. If set to false it will not pause. If set to END then it will only pause after displaying the file.

The final @filename is just the same as the format #1

For example:
@38400@end@bogacid1.ans

The above would display JEDs 250kb ANSImation at 38400 baud, with no pauses except for one at the end.

+ New option in Login/Matrix settings: "Login after Apply". If set to Yes Mystic will automatically send the user to the login after they apply for a new account through the Matrix.

+ PYTHON is here! New menu command 'GY' will execute a Python 2.7 syntax script. By default Mystic looks in the script directory for .MPY files, using the same logic as MPX. If you supply a file with no extention, Mystic will add .mpy onto it. If you do not supply a path, then Mystic will look in the current theme's script directory, and then the default script directory if fallback is enabled.

Example

         Command: GY
            Data: testpython
      The above executes testpython.mpy from the Scripts directory
      Example:
         Command: GY
            Data: c:\mystic\derp\herpderp
      The above executes herderp.mpy from the c:\mystic\derp directory, or
      if it is not found and fallback is enabled for the current theme, Mystic
      will look in the default scripts directory.

+ MUTIL now doesn't completely crap out if it does not have access to the files it needs on startup in Linux.

+ Mystic is now compiled with FPC 3.0.0 in Windows and Linux!

! The /TO: option when posting a new message in a public base was still presenting the TO field.

! Mystic will not crash when skip_online is set to false during echomail tossing.

! Added the forgotten prompt 315 to the default prompts

+ Moved the Python intialization code to only execute the first time a script is ran, so that if Python is incorrectly installed it will not prevent Mystic from loading with an error.

If you get a "Import error: no module named site" when you DO try to execute a Python script, its because you have Python on your system but it is not completely installed. You'll need to set your environment variables. For example if you have Python installed in C:\Python27:

     SET PYTHONHOME=C:\PYTHON27
     SET PYTHONPATH=C:\PYTHON27\LIB
     SET PATH=%PYTHONHOME%;%PATH%

Removed the -FCHECK command from MBBSUTIL since MUTIL's file pack function now covers the same stuff while it packs bases.
Squish message bases have now been removed. They were never used and supporting two aging standards was a waste of time, and annoying. Now that its gone, expect additional polish on the JAM side.

+ MUTIL now has a new function [LinkMessages]. This scours your echomail bases and creates reply links between messages. See MUTIL.INI for more details and options (I may be rewriting the msgbase packer too)

+ Message header prompts and display files now have a &A display code which returns the "Reply Next" field.

+ A2 will be compiled with increased compiler optimizations to see if there are any negative effects.

+ Prompts beginning with a # will now execute a Python script similar to MPL and display files:

      @myansi     <- Shows myansi from your theme's text dir
      !mympl      <- Execute mympl.mpx from theme's script dir
      #mypython   <- Execute mypython.mpy from theme's script dir

In the small case that you ever need to start a prompt with one of these characters, you can prefix it with the "dummy" MCI code <pipe>XX

+ DOCS section now has a fully updated mci_display_codes.txt with all current codes documented!

+ Mystic now shows a "there are no files in this base" message when a user lists files in a base which HAS files, but none that are accessible to them.

+ Mystic's menus now generate unique IDs for each menu item, rather than referencing by the record order. This makes using Grid menus MUCH more feasible. When they are loaded and saved for the first time in the menu editor they will automatically "upgrade" themselves, so there is no need for conversion.

+ Mystic's message reader and FS editor can now handle WWIV, Synchronet, PCBoard, Wildcat color codes in addition to the already supported pipe and full blown ANSI.

+ Increased max menu items to 99 per menu with 25 commands per item.

+ The Theme editor now has an option to edit menus within the theme. This is just an alternative place to find the menu editor.

+ Changed /F Flags inside the menu editor to less confusing /S Settings

+ File base configurations now have a Hatch ACS value to determine who has the ability to hatch files from that file base.

+ Message base editor now warns you if you set a QWK network for a message base, but then do not set the conference ID.

+ Significantly increased JAM lastread performance on systems with more than 100 users.

+ MUTIL msgpack now handles JAM's ReplyNext field when packing.

+ Last read pointers are now stored by the user's permanent index.

+ acs_comment field in MUTIL FILEBONE and FILETOSS have changed to acs_hatch so update your .INI files if you use these and want to set hatch ACS in those situations.

+ When receiving a node message you can now request to chat with the person who sent the message. Updated prompt 145. Note the first two characters are the characters used in the prompt followed by a space and then the

text

      ; Message from another node footer. First word contains input keys, followed by prompt
      145 RC |CR|09Node Message: |01[|10R|01]|09eply, |01[|10C|01]|09hat, or |01[|10ENTER|01/|10Continue|01]|09: |15

+ When editing message text, Mystic will now not resolve color codes so they are not lost when converting from ANSI to ASCII stripping colors. This should fix up losing the colors in your signautures if you edit messages

+ Reworked Protocol configuration. There no longer needs to be a Protocol entry for both a Batch and non-batch version of a protocol. Instead the Batch flag specifies if it is a batch protocol or not. New PROTOCOL.DAT

+ Uploading a message to the FS editor no longer annoyingly asks for a filename, unless a Protocol is selected that would require it, or you are uploading a file from the local disk.

+ Reworked the file upload function so that it never asks for filenames unless it absolutely has to. The transfer protocol is now the first question if a default is not set, followed by the filenames if needed. Gone is the display file BLINDUL. Gone is "Blind Upload?" prompt #375

+ Mystic now prompts for ENTER just before a transfer begins, and allows an option to abort here. This was done to give users an option to abort if they have a default protocol set. Replace the old prompt with the new one:

      ; Press ENTER to start file transfer  &1=selected protocol
      ; First word is input chars, followed by display text
      065 SQ |CR|09Press |01[|15ENTER|01/|15S|01]|09tart or |01[|15ESCAPE|01/|15Q|01]|09uit your |15|&1 |09transfer: |XX

+ The Upload Base settings in the File Base Settings now uses the File base permanent index instead of the record position. If you use this setting you should double check that yours is correct after upgrading.

+ Message and File groups now have unique identifiers associated to them.

+ Mystic's lightbar menus now automatically work with mouse input when using a compatible terminal

+ All configuration editors now list everything by unique ID instead of record position

+ Cleaned up the remote mouse support in the system configuration so it should work much better now in the main pulldown menu.

+ Added a new record-size aware and automatically buffered file I/O class to MPL with the following functions:

     FileOpen
     FileEOF
     FileRead
     FileSeek
     FilePos
     FileSize
     FileWrite
     FileWriteBlock
     FileRead
     FileReadBlock
     FileClose

+ Compiled MPL programs greater than 16KB should now run faster, while smaller MPL programs should use less memory.

+ When passing -X to execute MPL from command line, Mystic will now longer replace _ with spaces in the filenames. Instead it is expected that you use quotations around the arguement if it has spaces.

+ MPL now allows embedded records!!! For example:

     Type
       Record1 = Record
         A : Byte;
       End;
     Type
       Record2 = Record
         A : Record1;
       End;
     Var
       Test : Record2;
     Begin
       Test.A.A := 10;
     End.

! Fixed a small memory leak in the echomail tosser

+ MUTIL now logs the time each process takes to complete which is logged and displayed on the screen.

+ Rewrote the message reply linking now that Squish is gone, and it should be up to 50% faster now. Removed the "quick_link" option which at least for now (it is now always on).

! Fixed a bug with the message base packer that was preventing it from properly adjusting the reply linking when renumbering message bases

+ Mystic now uses JAM's third reply field (ReplyTo, ReplyFirst, ReplyNext) in all areas of the BBS and its utilities.

+ File base file listings now generate CRC64 signatures that are used for increased speed during file duplication scans. These are stored in .DFX files, one for each entry in the file listing.

+ MUTIL mass upload now supports @TEXTDIZ during mass uploads, which is a feature of Mystic that can extract embedded @BEGIN_FILE_ID_DIZ tags from text files and use them as the file description. Previously this only worked from user uploads to the BBS or the online mass upload.

+ Mystic's online .DIZ processor during uploads and mass upload can now parse PCBoard, Wildcat, and WWIV color codes in .DIZ files in addition to the already supported PIPE and ANSI.

+ MUTIL's mass upload can now handle .DIZ files with embedded ANSI, PIPE, PCBoard, WildCat, and WWIV color codes. Mystic will translate them into ASCII and then apply colors to it using pipe codes, then save it so that it shows as intended, but can easily be stripped of color when needed.

+ Rewrote MUTILS mass upload logic so that it is literally thousands of times faster than it used to be while doing even more than it was. Check out these differences in speed, its pretty crazy:

      BEFORE: Mass Upload Files    Uploaded 10000 file(s)    DONE 364.29s
       AFTER: Mass Upload Files    Uploaded 10729 file(s)    DONE 0.45s
       AFTER: Mass Upload Files    Uploaded 10729 file(s)    DONE 11.73s

The first "AFTER" was with .DIZ importing turned off the second was with full DIZ importing. 729 files most of which had .DIZ files and then 10,000 small text files that were scanned for @BEGIN_FILE_ID.DIZ tags and the total was 11.73 seconds, an improvement of 352.56 seconds! Adding one file into a database of 10s of thousands took 8/100th of a second!

+ Files uploaded by FTP will now import DIZ descriptions into the BBS using ANSI, Pipe, Wildcat, PCBoard, or WWIV colors, like other areas of the BBS

+ Significantly increased the speed of duplicate file searches in Mystic, MUTIL (mass upload, TIC processing), and the FTP server.

+ TIC importing can now handle .DIZ files with ANSI, pipe, etc and even embedded @BEGIN_FILE_ID.DIZ tags like everything else can now.

! Fixed a bug that could make the cursor go a little weird when pressing the HOME key at the end of the lightbar file lists.

! Fixed a small memory leak that could occur when an invalid echomail link sneaks into the datafiles.

+ More general performance increases centered around file I/O.

+ Pressing enter on the OTHER tab in CFG would cause a crash in A3.

+ MUTIL now properly merges and regenerates SEEN-BY and PATH kludges with proper sorting of SEEN-BY when Mystic is hubbing echomail to downlinks.

! Fixed a bug with MUTIL netmail routing when Mystic is hubbing a network

! Adding new groups was not correctly assigning an incremented group ID. If you have groups created in A3 you'll have to recreate them if it have the same ID as another group.

! Fixed missing From/To/Subj info in the message reader that I broke in A3

+ MUTIL now removes duplicate SEEN-BY information when tossing messages

+ The GD (display a file) command can now have a " /NEW" appended on the end of the command data, which if found, will only display the file if its file date is more recent than the user's last login.

! Fixed .DIZ importing during online upload and online mass upload that I broke when redoing the batch uploads.

! Deleting HISTORY.DAT will now also reset the system callers number when Mystic attempts to update the history for the first time.

+ You can now move between prompts using up/down keys while simulating prompts in the theme editor.

! Fixed a bug which could cause the node to lock up in Linux when using DI baud emulation codes.

! Fixed weirdness in ignore functions from MUTIL mass upload introduced in the last alpha.

+ Added a ton of debug logging to MUTIL mass upload since its a rewrite so turn loglevel 3 on if you have any problems and send me the results

+ Selecting the hotkey in the menu editor from the list (CTRL+L) now gives a brief description of some of the preset hotkey values

+ Minor visual clean ups in the System Configuration that no one will notice except for my OCD.

+ The System Configuration now has a General Settings > Config Theme option which switches between the Default configuration theme we're all used to or a Custom theme. For now the colors of the custom theme are not configurable but some reasonable defaults are in place in the meantime.

! Added a "never delete" flag into the User editor which prevents users from ever being deleted by a user packer/purger. This has always been a feature but it was mistakenly missing from the user editor.

+ New user flag option "Force password change" will force the user to change their password on their next login to the BBS.

+ Mystic's NNTP server now properly auto reformats free flowing lines when long messages are posted.

! When uploading a message that doesn't contain any content, Mystic was sometimes confusing the current line being edited in the FS editor

+ NNTP server no longer logs passwords even with the highest log setting

+ NNTP server now adds TZUTC kludges to echomail posted via newsgroup readers.

! Fixed lots of issues with FTP upload introduced recently. FTP uploads were not using the base ID to find the file base, and the .DIZ importing was broken. Everything should be back to normal now (hopefully) but I will be doing more testing in the future.

+ If the SIZE field is missing from a TIC file, Mystic will now calculate the file size by looking at the actual file received.

+ Enabled verbose FTP server logging, similar to NNTP server. These will both be loglevel 3 logs when I switch over to the log rollers soon.

! Users marked for deletion that were not yet physically removed were still showing up in the user listing.

+ The FTP server now allows files to be deleted via FTP from Mystic's file bases, if the logged in user meets the Sysop ACS requirements for that base.

! Fixed a small memory leak in MIS's server status window.

+ Mystic will now add a DUPE kludge to messages when moving to the bad message base using the following format:

@DUPE <Areatag> <PKT origin> <PKT dest>

+ Added a new Archive viewing system. This will create a virtual disk space of an archive, and allow you to nagivate the archived files, directories and even any number of archives within the archive itself.

You can download and view files from anywhere, even when in an archive inside of an archive inside of an archive, etc. The usual cursor movement functions are available, along with remote mouse support and on the fly text searching by simply typing.

Two new files go along with this using the new(er) template format:

     archive_view.ans - Contains the ANSI of the browser UI
     archive_view.ini - Contains all of the prompts and configuration options

For the moment ZIP, RAR, LZH, and LHA are supported but I am looking into additional formats. For now I think I've covered the most common/needed.

+ Message base global editor now allows you to specify the ANSI flag

+ Minor cosmetic things to MUTIL to expand the status field and add commas

+ Mystic's MUTIL will now refuse to save duplicate messages when tossing echomail if the configured dupe message base is not a local type base.

+ The Echomail Nodes editor now has functions to /Copy /Paste and /Move entries.

+ When using the /Exports editor in the Echomail node configuration, you can now add new exports in bulk, by tagging any number of message bases.

+ Mystic now strips leading and trailing spaces from PKT AREA tags just in case a poorly formatted message is received with AutoCreate enabled.

+ When simulating prompts in the Prompt editor, Mystic will now show the PromptInfo codes in their formatted place

+ Added some new permanent debug logging to Message Purging function

+ Mystic's message packer no longer recalculates the "date arrived" field when packing bases. Some 3rd party stat tools use this and not the date the message was written for stat generation, and this could throw off its reporting from date ranges.

! Fixed ANSI gallery crash in Linux 64-bit version

! Fixed broken ANSI display baud emulation in 64-bit Linux version

! Fixed quirkiness causing Pi version to sometimes crash on login.

! Fixed Pi crashing in A7 on login from MIS

+ Cleaned up the BINKP server authentication logging to be a little more clear when describing what its doing. It should be much easier to understand even with full debug logging on.

! (Hopefully) fixed issues with Shell, BBS events not honoring the day of the week during execution. Reduced the resources used by the event system

! User editor was not properly saving the "Never delete" flag

+ Added "getuser" and "onekey" functions into Python and updated the testpython.mpy in the default install. This will continue to be updated as new functions and features are added and I need to test them.

+ New menu command *T opens the theme editor

Removed all door menu commands except for DD and D3. The old ones will continue to work for now, but there are only 2 commands (DD and D3) to execute a DOS or Door32 door. Mystic creates all drop files now for any door execution.

+ %0 now gives the socket handle on door command lines in Linux (like it does already in Windows)

! Deleting file bases using the file base editor was not properly deleting the data files when selected to do so.

+ File Base editor now has a /Reset command similar to the Message Base editor that will reset the file listings in the base, while maintaining all of the other important details (user scan settings, echo exports).

! Fixed a problem with duplicate file searching in Linux, but everyone should make sure they run the MUTIL file base packer so Mystic can regenerate indexes for their file listings.

+ Lots of UTF8 cleanups. Mystic now has a Local CodePage option which is used as the default when the -L command is used (local login). This allows separate defaults local console vs an incoming caller.

+ UTF8 was not working in -CFG mode. It now uses the local codepage.

+ INSTALL program for OSX now defaults to using UTF8 and no longer bleeds screen data after viewing update/whatsnew.

+ ReWrote the group changing code. Calculation of the number of bases per group should be much faster now.

+ MUTIL will now honor the local codepage and run in UTF8 in Linux/OSX

+ MIS will now honor the local codepage and run in UTF8 in Linux/OSX

+ NODESPY will now honor the local codepage and run in UTF8 in Linux/OSX

! Fixed kludge lines bleeding into ANSI in some ANSI message posts

! Fixed a bug sometimes causing OSX to error with "Cannot find MYSTIC.DAT"

+ FILES.BBS importer now has a few new options to help speed things up as well as support more variations in formats. See Wiki or MUTIL.ini for more

! The uploader name would show the date in listings when a file had zero lines of description (a situation Mystic itself cannot create)

! After tossing nearly 3 million echomail messages, I think I finally found a bad memory reference which I hope could be the cause of some strangeness seen by one or two systems over the past year or so. Fixed either way.

+ Local Codepage now defaults to UTF8 in OSX (OSX defaults to UTF8)

+ INSTALL will now exit if the any of the directories already exist instead of letting you reinstall over. Sorry for those who like this option I will probably as a Yes/No at a later date.

+ Local Codepage now defaults to UTF8 for Pi (Jessie defaults to UTF8)

+ NodeSpy terminal now also supports CTRL+I and CTRL+D to delete after I realized that Apple keyboard have no INSERT key. Apple is so weird...

! Some fixes for screen artifacts in OSX and Pi, things look very pretty and although no one uses it, the OSX version is really coming along!

+ Rewrote the online Mass Upload which should have some minor speed improvements when adding a large amount of files but its still no where near as fast as MUTIL (at the cost of using WAY less memory).

! Fixed another bug in the MUTIL massupload in Linux which was causing it to generate file indexes for Windows system (case insensitive) and would result in creating duplicate file list entries.

! Fixed a bug with placing Netmail messages in the wrong Netmail base that was introduced in A8. This did not break netmail just made things weird.

+ Mystic Windows now disables the "X" close button in the Window so you can't force close Mystic and create ghost users. Should have done this years ago!

+ MUTIL now has a second type of log rolling. While the existing type rolls by file size, logs can now also roll by day. Daily logs will have a date stamp appended to them, for example "mutil.20160329.log" and after a certain number of days, the oldest file will be erased.

! Fixed a bug in the new ZIP viewer code which would cause crashes while viewing certain ZIP files or during uploads when importing FILE_ID.DIZ

+ An "id" option can be set in NodeSpy's general stanza which will append onto the Window title when running. For example, if:

     [General]
       id = My BBS

Then the Window titles will have the ID appended, such as:

"NodeSpy/Main (My BBS)"

! Fixed a NNTP lockup bug that I introduced in an earlier alpha

+ NNTP server now will trim blank lines off of the beginning of the message instead of just the end.

! (Hopefully) fixed file searching crashes in Windows XP.

+ Added three new menu commands for creating and evaluating semaphores from within the menu system. @NODE can be replaced with the node number if desired. See Wiki for more info:

      !C - Creates the semaphore filename in optional data
      !D - Delete the semaphore filename in optional data if it exists
      !E - Check if semaphore filename exists and set result in "OK" ACS.

+ When copying a message from one base to another, Mystic will rebrand the message using the real name if the destination has the real name flag. In order words, if a user posts to AGN_BBS on AgoraNet and then copies that message to BBS_CARNIVAL on FidoNet, Mystic will strip and regenerate all kludges and origins as it were posted to FidoNet. It already did that, but now it will also change the From name to the user's real name when it can.

! After uploading a message, Mystic's user action would still be set to "Transfering files". Fixed.

! Fixed a potential exploit added in the 1.12 alphas earlier. TO BE VERY CLEAR it is not an exploit that would compromise any data, just one that could be used to cause a corruption in data files. Please upgrade immediately if you're using a 1.12 Alpha prior to A10.

! Fixed a problem with uploads related to xfer.log

+ New command line option for Mystic -CP<mode> to override the default code page for that session. IE: ./mystic -CPutf8 will force UTF8 default output regardless of the default setting. Any -CP that does not contain UTF will cause Mystic to default to CP437

+ Mystic now has an option to add [ANSI] prefix to message subjects of ANSI messages, found in the Message Base Settings. This can be set to off, on, or echomail only.

+ Mystic will now strip all [ANSI] tags and RE: prefixes prior to replying to a message, and recalculate/re-add them as required when saving the reply message. That means if you reply to a message with an ANSI tag but the reply contains no ANSI, the [ANSI] tag will be removed from the subject

+ Mystic now has a new option in Message Base Settings: "Add Re: Prefix" when on will add "Re:" to the subjects of replies (as Mystic always has) or when off it will strip Re: and not add.

! Netmail and private message bases will no longer be listed and readable in the NNTP server even if the SysOp configures it show up via NNTP.

+ New command line option for the "mystic" binary: -PATHS. This will open Mystic's "System Directory" configuration so that the root paths can more easily be changed when copying Mystic between operating systems such as Windows to OSX, etc.

+ QWK Path is is now also listed in the System Directories configuration

+ New message scans should now be much more efficient when updating last read pointers.

! Fixed an issue that would cause file scans to fail if the data files for the first file base were missing.

! In Windows, SysOp macros are now executed by pressing CTRL+F1-F8 keys, because the F1-F8 keys are now used in the ANSI editor, etc.

! Some cleanups to the ANSI message uploaded, when uploading multiple ANSI files into the message editor.

! Fixed a bug with downloads when trying to download during a file scan or search.

+ Extended the amount of time Zmodem receive gives to start uploading from 30 seconds to 90 seconds.

+ Zmodem no longer retries to send the ZFIN header while waiting for the OO marker at the end of a transfer session, for quicker ending of transfers for implementations that appear to not send OO (SyncTerm).

+ Adjusted Zmodem timings in certain places to allow for more time for users to respond to things like Overwrite prompts before timing out.

! Fixed remaining known issues relating to new file listing indexing which should in turn fix any strangeness experienced with tagging and downloading files.

! Fixed problem in socket functions when output buffers were filled that could cause loss of data during Zmodem, FTP, and BINKP transfers.

+ Improved reliability of ANSI detection in Windows

+ Added a keypressed function to Python engine

+ Added a bit more error logging during echomail exporting in some cases

! Found some debug stuff in the display file function which was causing Mystic to do a lot more work than it should have been doing.

! Fixed an issue in lightbar/grid style menus when doing key jumps with the new menu command IDs.

+ Pressing backspace as the first key while editing a field in the configuration editors will now automatically erase the entire input data.

Let me know if you do not like this change.

+ Pressing ESCAPE during string input within the configuration editors will now restore the default string and exit the input.

! Fixed an obscure bug in the menu system that is hard to explain and that no one would ever likely find! :)

+ Added a little more debug logging to echomail processing, but this is probably temporary.

+ Mystic now prints a message if Python is executed when it is not detected on the system.

+ Mystic now prints a message if Python fails to initialize when executing Python.

+ Mystic's echomail export function will now check the configured echomail domain of the message base, and the domain of the destination address. If the domains do not match, Mystic will log and refuse to export the message

+ Mystic will now refuse to let you edit a user in MCFG's user editor if the user is currently logged into the BBS. This capability is on the TODO

+ Mystic now immediately updates the online username as soon as they log in as opposed to waiting until the first menu.

+ New menu command -B will break the current menu execution chain, when using commands stacked by hotkey. In other words, if you have 4 commands all with the same hotkey, and you call -B on the second one, only the first and second command will run, the 3rd and 4th will be skipped because the -B menu command breaks the chain of commands.

+ Mystic's PKT reader will now handle the 65535 auxNet format which appears to not be in the FSC, and I have no idea where it comes from but Mystic should now handle it correctly.

! Fixed a problem exiting the prompt editor introduced in last alpha

! Mystic now properly populates auxNet for point systems in PKTs.

! Fixed a pretty big bug when acting as an echomail hub with multiple downlinks that used raw PKT mail instead of compressed bundles.

! Fixed an issue with Python get_user that I broke in last alpha.

+ Duplicate file scans are now case insensitive even in Unix environments, due to many older DOS systems creating .TIC files that do not match the actual case of the filename. YOU MUST RUN MUTIL FILEBASE PACKER ONCE TO REGENERATE NEW FILE BASE INDEXES AFTER UPGRADING TO ALPHA 17 IN LINUX, OSX.

! MUTIL will now more graciously handle a configured invalid duplicate database size value.

+ Specifying a 0 or negative value for dupe database size in MUTIL will now disable dupe tracking entirely.

+ MUTIL will now refuse to run if the semaphore directory does not exist.

+ MUTIL now creates a mutil.bsy file in the semaphore directory. If this file exists, MUTIL will refuse to run - preventing multiple instances of MUTIL to be executed at the same time. If the BSY file has existed for more than a day, MUTIL will remove it and run as expected.

+ FIDOPOLL now creates a "fidopoll.bsy" in the Semaphore directory while its running. This works in the same way as MUTIL does to prevent multiple instances of itself from running.

+ MIS now creates a "mis.bsy" in the Semaphore directory while its running. This works the same way as MUTIL and FIDOPOLL to prevent multiple instances of itself from being executed.

+ FIDOPOLL and MIS BINKP now use a .BSY file system. These files are created alongside the .out files when queuing and sending mail for a node. If the .BSY file already exists for that node, Mystic will not queue mail for that node. If the .BSY file is more than a day old, Mystic will assume the .BSY file was accidentally left over from a stopped process and will exchange mail for that node as requested.

+ MUTIL echo export will now create and check for .BSY flags when exporting messages. It will wait for up to 3 minutes for all downlinks to NOT be busy prior to exporting, while flagging any echomail nodes as owned by MUTIL as they become freed up by other processes. This continues until MUTIL "owns rights" to every echomail node, so that it can toss mail without interfering with any other mail process (BINKP server, client, FTP, etc).

If the 3 minutes expire, MUTIL will exit because it cannot process mail when nodes are exchanging by BINKP/FTP. MUTIL will not remove semaphores in this case, so the cycle can continue until the export is processed successfully.

Like other areas, if a .BSY flag stays for more than a day, it will automatically be removed and assumed to be a result of a stuck process.

This system works hand in hand with BINKP server and FIDOPOLL (and even BINKD) so that no nodes will transfer mail when MUTIL is tossing mail to them, and MUTIL will not toss mail while a node is picking up mail.

+ MUTIL tossing to downlinks during importing now works the same as the export system described above.

+ MPL programs now load entirely into memory. As a result, the current maximum size of a compiled MPX file is now 128KB instead of being unlimited, but this can be easily increased if needed. This move increases execute parsing speed by about 20%, but MPL is still about 60-80% slower than Python (in 32-bit. 64-bit MPL is much closer to the same speed).

+ Rewrote the archive viewing functions for a massive speed up. A ZIP file that contained 15,554 files and 1,198 directories was imaged by the viewer in 47 MILLISECONDS in A18 but took 10.5 SECONDS in A17. HUGE DIFFERENCE!

+ FIDOPOLL now has a "killbusy" command which will delete any existing .bsy flags for all echomail nodes. Note that this does not remove the program specific bsy files for MUTIL, MIS, FIDOPOLL, etc, just the echomail nodes.

For now you can also run "killbusy all" and it will kill even the .BSY flags for the various tools such as MIS MUTIL and FIDOPOLL. But this is undocumented and HIGHLY NOT RECOMMENDED to use. In no circumstance should a .BSY file ever be removed when MUTIL MIS or FIDOPOLL is running. This is a convience feature because the BSY system is new and may have quirks.

+ MPLC now properly syntax errors when attempting to assign a default value to a record variable. This mistakenly compiled in 1.11 but did not work.

+ Added a "mis.log" in the logs directory which gives some very basic status during startup and shutdown of MIS when its running in DAEMON mode in Unix

! This is part bugfix and part new MPL feature. You can now do this with records and arrays and records within records. Another huge win for MPL:

Type

     TestRec = Record
       Key  : Integer;
       ATest: Array [1..25] of Integer
     End
   Var
     Test : TestRec
     B    : Integer;
   Begin
     Test.Key             := 10;
     Test.ATest[Test.Key] := 5;
     B := Test.ATest[Test.Key];
     WriteLn ('B=' + Int2Str(B));

End.

+ The prompt editor will no longer erase the entire prompt if the first key pressed is the backspace key. The other configuration editors will retain this functionality though.

+ Added a "Waiting for BUSY nodes" message to MUTIL import and export, so people do not kill MUTIL process thinking it locked up while its waiting.

+ MPLC now has many new compiling options. -ALL now compiles all files in the current directory AND ALL SUBDIRECTORIES. New options are:

     MPLC [path/file] Compile one script [path/file]
     MPLC -ALL        Compile all scripts in current directory and subdirs
     MPLC -C          Compile all scripts in current directory
     MPLC -P [path]   Compile all scripts in [path]
     MPLC -R [path]   Compile all scripts in [path] and its subdirectories

! Fixed a bug that could cause MIDE to lock up when including files.

+ MIDE and MPLC now only update the screen status every 10% when compiling a while, instead of every 1%. The scaled back update makes compilation more than twice as fast on my system. Big win!

+ MPLC will now track all encountered errors during compilation, and will print an error summary to the screen after all files have been processed.

+ If the first word in a MPL source file is "library", MIDE and MPLC will not compile the source file and instead will report an immediate "success". This can be used so that if you create an include library, it will only be compiled when its included by a program, and not as a stand-alone MPS file when encountered by MPLC.

+ New formatting MCI code |$Txx will cut off a value if it is longer than XX characters so that its length is XX. If the value is less than XX characters it does not do any formatting to the value.

+ Added a -VER option to mystic.exe that will print the version and exit.

! Fixed a bug I created in A18 that would cause QWK networking importing to incorrectly read the message contents.

+ MPLC will now try to search search for include files in the same directory as the source file, if no directory is found in the include file name.

! Fixed an issue with MPL parsing of files by reverting some of the parsing optimizations back to the old stuff. MPLC will still be faster but not quite as fast as A18.

! Fixed a potential issue where MIS could drop root before binding the ports of all of the servers in the Unix versions. This could cause a situation where one or more servers fail to bind, while others bind find during startup.

+ MIS now waits until all ports are bound and privileged access has been dropped before creating the .BSY file. This may or may not change again!

+ Themes now have 4 Box styles, up from just one. In addition, each box style now has some additional options available to it.

+ New MCI code performs a popup Yes/No box and the result will be used as the following YES/NO answer. Mostly to be used in the "prompt" of a yes/no question. The format is:

      Syntax:  |Y<style ><Y position><header><text>
      Example: |Y#2#10ConfirmDo you want to do this?#
      The above example will pop up a Y/N box using style 2 with a header
      of "Confirm" and a message box text of "Do you want to do this?".

After the YES/NO box, Mystic will restore the screen to the original state before the box was shown. This function only works with ANSI graphics.

+ New MCI performs a pop up vertical selection box, with the selected item hotkey being pushed into the input buffer, and the screen restored to its original state after selection. This only works with ANSI graphics. The format is:

Syntax: |V<style><X position><Y pos><header><commands>

     <Commands> is a comma separated list of commands in the format of
     <hotkey>-<text>.  If <text> is blank, the hotkey will be allowed by not
     shown in the list.  If the entire entry is blank a blank line will be
     inserted into the list.
     Example:
     |#V#2#30#10# Header A-Selection A,B-Selection B,C-Selection C
     Creates a pop up lightbar box in style 2, starting at X30 Y10 that has
     three options:
        .----- Header ----.
        |  A Selection A  |
        |  B Selection B  |
        |  C Selection C  |
        `-----------------'
     When an item is selected, Mystic sets the color to black on black and
     pushes the hotkey into the input buffer, so that the prompt it replaced
     gets the input key.

+ New MCI code draws a box using a specific theme style. It does not take input or erase itself at all.

     Format  : |X<style><header><x1><y1><x2><y2>
     Example : |#X#2# My Header #20#10#60#16#
     Result  : Opens a box at X20 Y10 to X60 Y16 using style 2 and
               header " My Header "

+ Python scripts can now be executed from the command line, just like MPL scripts. The format is the same except -Y is used, so for example:

mystic -uSysop -ppassword -ytestpython

+ Mystic's full screen message editor has been converted to a .ini file format instead of the old ANSI style template. The following files are now part of the message editor template:

      msg_editor.ini
      msg_editor.ans
      msg_editor_quote.ans
      msg_editor_help.ans

New defaults are included with a redesigned look that uses some of the new box MCI codes to pretty things up a bit and to give a functional example of them.

If you used a customized full screen editor, you will of course have to remodify the new defaults to your liking.

Also in this new message editor is the spell checking and word suggestion engine, which required a bunch of code changes to the screen updating and wrapping. Because of this, the spell checking itself is not going to be documented just yet until the new editor gets a little testing. Spell checking will be enabled very soon, assuming I do not have troubles porting it to 64-bit.

As a result of the new message editor template, prompts #354, 355, and 356 are no longer used as they are now in the .ini file. In addition, ANSI display files "ansiquot." "ansiedit." and "fshelp.*" are no longer used and can be deleted from your text directories if you'd like.

! Fixed a bug in my string list class that I created in A18 I believe. No telling what problems it caused but it could have been many. I know at a minimum it was breaking the FTP client (qwkpoll/fidonet FTP mailer).

+ Renamed UPDATE.EXE to UPGRADE.EXE because Windows 10 acts weird when a file named update.exe is executed.

+ I am sorry to do this, but I think few people use them. The format of the |B and |I MCI codes has changed to the following:

     OLD: |B<header><text>
     NEW: |B<style><Y position><header><text>#

This adds the new style system into the mix, and also now allows you to specify the Y line where the msgbox stands. If you use either of these MCI codes you'll have to update those places.

! No longer shows an error message when executing a MPL file that doesn't exist.

! Fixed a bug introduced in A17 when using CTRL+U in the user editor to upgrade security levels.

! Fixed the description editor in file base editor. For now its just going to load the message editor until I decide how I want to redo this part.

! Reverted my A17 changes in the string library, because while its a performance increase, its too risky to wait and find/fix all of the things that break because of the change. This will fix a lot of the new quirks that have shown up out of nowhere since A17.

+ Added some additional logging into the population and updating of FLO files when exporting echomail via MUTIL.

+ Mystic's networked QWK packets should now honor the actual date and time of the message.

! Mystic's menu editor was not regenerating a new UID when pasting a menu command. This really only causes a problem if someone is using a grid style menu.

+ Added new menu action "IT" which opens an outbound telnet session. The optional menu data must contain the address to connect to via the

following

/addr=<address>[:port]

If no port is specified it will default to 23 for Telnet. For example:

/addr=mybbs.strangled.net
/addr=mybbs.strangled.net:2323

The CTRL+] key is the escape hotkey which will allow the user to immediately disconnect from the remote system at any time.

+ Added new menu action "IR" which opens an outbound RLOGIN session. The optional data should contain a minimum of an address, username and password using the same format for the address as the telnet command, with these additional RLOGIN specific commands:

/user=<username>
/pass=<password>
/swap

Swap tells Mystic to send the username first then password as this is typically password then username in the BBS scene, but others require the username to be sent first.

If no port is specified, Mystic will default to port 513 which is the default RLOGIN port. The escape key is ^] just like in Telnet.

Example: /addr=twgs.mybbs.com:513 /user=g00r00 /pass=mypassword /swap

+ The following prompts have replaced some UNUSED prompts in the prompts file of each theme, these are used by the TELNET and RLOGIN functions:

     ; TELNET/RLOGIN: Connecting prompt &1 = address &2 = port
     354 |CR|08> |07Escape sequence is |08|15CTRL+|15]|08.|CR|08> |07Connecting to |15|&1 |07port |15|&2|08.|CR
     ; TELNET/RLOGIN: Connected successfully
     355 |08> |07Connected.
     ; TELNET/RLOGIN: Unable to connect
     356 |08> |12Unable to connect: Press a key|PN

! Possibly fixed a bug in the message base packer that could cause corrupted message bases in certain circumstances.

+ The RLOGIN menu action will now translate @USER@ to the user's handle when used in the "/user=" or "/pass=" part of the command data.

+ MUTIL now prints the version in the logging on startup.

! Fixed broken telnet/rlogin commands.

! The library "revert" from the last alpha didn't actually happen, so this time its really happened. Should fix up a bunch of little quirks introduced in A17.

! Fixed some bugs with the upload process, created by the upload rewrite a couple alphas ago.

+ Changed the processing of "trashcan.dat" user names to check for the user name before offering to create a new user account. If a name is entered from trashcan.dat at login prompt, Mystic will send them a new prompt:

     ; Login prompt: User enters a username found in trashcan.dat
     375 |CR|12That user name is unacceptible.

+ Added new default MPL script menucmd.mps

! Fixed a problem with MIDE executing MPL scripts from within the editor when passing program params.

+ Added some exception trapping into MIS in a few places which may or may not improve stability when running in UI mode. Just a band aid until the new MIS is ready.

! Fixed a bug which could cause a crash when exiting the message editor, rarely seen except when editing auto signatures.

+ Mystic has a new MSGID generation algorythm. This can generate ~ millions of MSGIDs per second across up to 1000 concurrent processes without creating a collision for 100 years, and it can fit it into a 32-bit integer. I say up to because my hardware is not powerful enough to push it to its limit.

! Messages posted by user uploaded REP packets were not adding MSGID to posts made in echomail bases. Should be fixed.

+ Messages posted by REP packets will now replace "--- " with "___ " which are assumed to be lines containing a QWK reader tear line. are assumed to be lines containing a QWK reader tear line.

+ When uploading a .REP packet in Unix based systems Mystic should no longer require proper filename casing. MYSTIC.rep mystic.REP MyStiC.REP should all be recognized.

+ QWK performance improvements when creating QWK packets for download.

+ Significant performance improvements to processing of user .REP packets

+ Mystic QWKE will now flag netmail bases as PRIVATE even if the base itself isn't configured as Private.

+ Mystic's QWK/QWKE will now set the private read/unread and public read/unread flags where applicable.

+ Netmail message bases will no longer be included in QWK packets due to limitations in the very outdated standard. Netmail bases WILL be included in QWKE packets.

+ Mystic's QWKE system now supports Netmail via QWKE, and will change the To and From field to contain the user name and the origin/destination address. Simply replying to the message and keeping the name and address in the To field will allow Mystic to route the netmail accordingly when it is importede from a .REP packet.

+ Mystic now properly applies a group-independant "Post ACS" check for each message within a .REP packet.

+ Mystic now creates an index of all personal messages in QWK packets, used by some readers to quickly give a reference to all personal messages.

+ Mystic now changes all "personal" message "TO:" fields to the user's alias when creating a QWK packet. Some readers apparently will not show messages marked as private/personal if the TO field does not match the name found in the QWK information file. (ie, Bluewave).

+ When using legacy QWK and a QWK base name isn't set, Mystic will use the first 13 characters of the configured message base name.

+ The "MysticQWK" control name for QWK control messages (adding dropping bases and other things from the reader) is now case insensitive.

! Fixed a QWK bug that could cause the wrong origin line to get added to a message.

! Uploading ANSI into the FSE or ANSI editor no longer strips ICE/blinking colors.

+ Added some additional exception handling to BINKP server which could possibly prevent MIS from stopping on a crash during BINKP.

+ The FTP server now has a "PASV hostname" option which if set to your hostname, will be resolved into an IP on server startup and used for PASV data connections.

! Fixed a bug created in A23 QWKPOLL that could cause it to crash.

+ Slight optimizations to the FTP client used in QWKPOLL when using PORT based transfers.

! Fixed a bug created in A23 that caused the wrong origin to be used on Netmail messages posted by QWK and uploaded while a logged in user to the BBS (This didn't happen when uploading via FTP).

+ On the fly Spell checking and word suggestions are finally enabled and working on all platforms of Mystic. The msg_editor.ini has been updated to include some new options, and those with custom templates will need to update theirs in order to use spell checking, if they desire. See the upgrade instructions for more information.

Mystic uses a well known dictionary format, and therefore has access to just about every language and dialect you can think of, and can support using multiple dictionaries simultaneously.

There is also a mystic_spellcheck_v1.zip floating around on the website and various places which contains documentation and all of the files you need to get spell checking going on all versions of Mystic.

+ Mystic OS X is now compiled using El Capitan and FPC 3.0, and comes in both 32-bit and 64-bit Intel flavors. In the past only 32-bit versions were available, so those who switch to 64-bit on their 64-bit OS should see upwards of a 30% performance increase in certain areas.

! Fixed a bug in the Message Index Reader when sorting groups

+ The post text file menu command now uses the new Message base IDs, so if you use this function make sure the number matches the message base ID.

+ Mystic now saves the last msg/file groups and bases between sessions by the ID. This should make it less likely to end up in a "None" group when logging in. Note the first login after updating may result in None.

+ Performance increases when resetting file new scan date.

+ Toggling file new scan settings now shares the [A]dd all and [R]emove all options that the message base new scan has. I never realized they were not equal in features. Updated default prompt #202 to include the new A/D options.

     ; Select scanned file bases prompt
     202 Toggle: |09[|11#-#,#|09], Select [|11A|09]dd All, [|11R|09]emove All, [|11?|09/|11List|09]: |XX

! Fixed a bug in the spell checker auto suggestion that would cause it to not properly detect the word under the cursor in longer messages.

+ FIDOPOLL now has a "search" option which will allow you to do a quick search of the nodelist. The search data can be an address or text, and wildcards are valid for addressing. IE:

     fidppoll search 21:*/
     fidopoll search 1:129/
     fidopoll search james

+ FIDOPOLL [address] will now search the nodelist and attempt to connect via unsecured BINKP if [address] is not defined in echomail nodes.

! Fixed a bug in the nodelist browser where the Internet address was not always properly parsed.

+ Added some more exception handling to the various MIS servers.

+ Mystic now has a File Index lister, which is the file area equal to the message reader index. This has taken the original message version and expanded on it. New menu command FI with an optional data of the template name, if you wish to use something else (otherwise file_index.ini is the default). Copy file_index* into your theme's text directories

+ MUTIL now properly detects and moves circular path echomail to the duplicate message base if one is defined.

+ Reverted MIS to use my own custom thread library. I don't know why I stopped using it, but there might have been a reason lol

! Hopefully fixed a bug introduced in MUTIL A25 causing it to write the wrong message header when tossing messages.

+ Mystic no longer regenerates a new MSGID when re-editing message text, instead it will continue to use the original.

! Mystic should now properly handle circular checks if the system sending the PKT is a point system.

! Fixed a bug in the new QWK system that on some occasions could cause some but not all QWK readers to have problems with the packet.

+ When selecting a message from the message list and then returning to the list afterward, Mystic will now start with the last message read at the top of the list.

+ Significantly increased the performance of the HOME key in the message listings in areas with a lot of messages. Should be mostly instant even with hundreds of thousands of messages.

+ Significantly increased the performance of the END key in the message listings. Should be nearly instant even with hundreds of thousands of msgs

! Fixed a bug with (I)mport DIZ in the File Listing Editor

+ Updated automessage.mps for new message editor.

! Fixed what should be the final bug in the new dupe system which affected point systems.

! Fixed the FA + menu action that I broke in the file_index alpha.

+ Mystic 1.12 now uses the socket engine from Mystic 2.0. This library supports IPV6 and SSH/various SSL protocols. More to come.

+ Windows versions of Mystic now comes with Info-Zip zip.exe and unzip.exe which will be found in the root installation directory.

+ Added FBaseIndex variable into MPL.

+ Added new MIS2 server binary, which is the eventual replacement for MIS. This version currently only supports the TELNET, RLOGIN, and SSH servers but also includes IPV6 support as well. The existing servers will be rebuilt one by one and added into MIS2.

To avoid conflicts, the event system remains only in MIS for now. If you want to use TELNET, RLOGIN, and SSH along with the existing servers, you will simply run both MIS and MIS2 for the time being while MIS2 is developed.

Servers are defined using the Server Editor found in the Configuration under Servers -> Edit MIS2 Servers. This will change a bit when the original MIS is removed.

You can create any number of servers, and all settings are completely independant of each other. You can even create multiple servers of the same type! You can have IPV4 on one adapter while IPV6 runs on another NIC, for example. One telnet server on port 2323 and one on port 23, etc.

Blacklist DNS and country blocking is not in the new server yet, but auto banning is. New ban files are whitelist.txt and blacklist.txt in the DATA directory, so they do not interfere with the existing MIS files.

Entries in these lists can contain a mixture of both IPV4 and IPV6 addresses and can contain a single wildcard, using an asterisk to mask an IP range. For example "127." would block any IPV4 address that begins with "127.". IPV6 works in the same way, expand the IPV6 address up to the point where you want to wildcard it, such as "014f:"

In order to use SSH and SSL variations of servers, you will need to install Cryptlib. This is pretty basic in Linux and even easier to do in Windows because it requires simply dropping a file into the library path or root Mystic directory.

! Mystic should no longer track inactivity while a user is connected to an outbound telnet or rlogin system using IR or IT commands.

! Fixed newletter, sysletter, hackwarn automated e-mails broken in A27/A28

+ New menu action: "IS" works just like the TELNET and RLOGIN commands but does outbound SSH.

+ Outbound TELNET, RLOGIN, and SSH are completely rewritten. No longer does codepage translations based on the users terminal type, and the ^[ key no longer will escape a terminal session. As a result, it should be feasible for transfers to work now but this may require a bit more work and testing with various terminals.

Removed the /SWAP option to IS, IR, IT menu actions. If you need to swap them, just swap them by assigning /user= to the password and vice versa.
Added new options to IS IR IT menu actions: /port=<port>. Due to IPV6 support being added soon to these functions, the ":" will no longer be used to separate address from port, for clarity. You must update any existing IS IR IT commands that do not use the standard port to use a /port= instead of a semicolon.

! Fixed a few stability problems with the new MIS2 server.

! Fixed an error in my compilation that caused errors because I forgot to compile in support for threads. This could be seen in Nodespy, and in outbound sessions and maybe a couple other places?

+ All passwords in the echomail node editor are now not forced to uppercase during input. This SHOULD be a cosmetic change because those passwords are all supposed to be case insensitive (except for session passwords).

! Fixed the broken next and previous file group change.

! Lots of changes/fixes to SSH server on the Linux side.

+ Mystic's logging now allows more for than 255 characters per log line. This required a bunch of library changes, so there may or may not be some other things affected by this in a bad way.

! BINKP should no longer choke when the address string is more than 255 characters.

+ Changed the /ALLGROUP option for the FF menu command to /GLOBAL

+ Added /NOASK option to AT menu command.

+ The stale .BSY file check has been decreased to 2 hours down from 1 day. This applies to echomail node locks, mutil, and fidopoll but not MIS of course because its very common for that to run for many hours.

+ MIS2 now has a BINKP server type.

! Fixed a problem with viewing archive contents of LHA Level 1 files with embedded directories.

+ Changed MIS2 to use Free Pascal thread library instead of my own to see if it is more stable.

+ The MX command should now default to the message base address when posting echomail, so if no address is specified it should not default to 0:0/0

+ MIS2 will never recreate ssl.cert now, it will only be created when it does not exist.

! Fixed datestamp in MIS2 logs

! Fixed a problem in QWK packets that could cause packet corruption when processing messages greater than 64kb. Great big thanks to William McBrine for the report and the suggested fix: Check out his awesome mail reader MultiMail if you haven't!

! When processing echomail PKT files, Mystic was not properly reading in the seconds from the message post date/time, if it was supplied by the sending mailer. Please note that in some cases, this could invalidate current duplicate message databases, but this will of course correct itself over time.

For clarification: QWK and QWKE do not have message seconds so there is no similar issue on the QWK side.

Turned off debug logging in MIS1 BINKP and FIDOPOLL. Rejoice (for now!)

! Posting multiple text files at once with MUTIL to the same FTN networked message base could create posts that all contained the same MSGID. Fixed.

+ MUTIL PostTextFile now includes the TZUTC kludge when posting to FTN-style message bases.

! MX menu command (post text file to message base) was not adding the MSGID or TZUTC kludges when posting to a FTN networked message base. Fixed.

+ Added some additional error logging to MUTIL's TIC processor when attempting to open and close TIC files.

! Replaced the old MSGID system with a new system. All parts of Mystic now use the same unified piece of code to generate MSGIDs. This should also fix the recent dupe MSGID bugs mentioned in previous alpha.

+ Mystic now shows the operating system "bit" in Tear lines in messages.

+ Changed references of "OSX" to "macOS".

! Fixed a bug which could cause a bad memory reference error in various places within Mystic.

! MUTIL PostTextFile wasn't taking into consideration the tear and origin lines when posting to a networked base while splitting large posts into multiple messages.

+ -VER commandline option in Mystic now prints the OS information too.

+ Increased buffer size when writing message text to JAM bases to 32k up from 8k

+ Mystic JAM will no longer strip spaces from the right side of MSGID tags in JAM to help work around a bug with GTPower.

! JAM Reply CRC and Msg To CRC were not always converted to lower cased before calculated. As per JAM specs all CRC calculated on string must be lower cased first. Packing message bases will regenerate these.

+ Reduced the time it takes to calculate Message Index Reader statistics by about 60%. Statistics may be calculated incorrectly unless all bases have been ran through the message base packer once to regenerate CRC values

! Fixed a bug which could cause some node processes to not detect when a user hangs up, possibly resulting in a ghosted user or even a stuck process.

+ Added a new internal protocol Xmodem/CRC. This protocol can be added by creating @XMODEMCRC in your Protocl Configuration and has not had much testing. **This is experimental; it may or may not stick around**

+ When shutting down MIS2, it no longer prompts to press a key when closing but instead displays a "shutdown complete" message and pauses 1.5 seconds

+ When editing a file entry in a file base there is now a (H)atch command which allows files to be hatched to all networked systems linked to that file base. Files to be hatched will have a "Hatch pending" text or a Hatched flag if the request was already processed.

+ Mystic now creates "filebone.out" semaphore file whenever a new file is requested to be hatched.

+ MUTIL TIC processor will now scan for requested hatches. Any files requested to be hatched will have an appropriate TIC file created in each linked node's filebox, and the file will be copied to each linked node's filebox.

+ In addition to existing /E to view networked message bases linked to a node, the echomail node editor now has a /F to view and edit networked file bases linked to a node.

+ Significant stability improvements to MIS2 along with some minor cosmetic changes.

! Changed PKT addressing on pass-through echomail so that BBBS systems with its security feature enabled will not reject packets.

+ In the echomail nodes editor, when enabling a FileBox with a blank filebox location, Mystic will now give the option to automatically generate and create a directory for that node. The format used by Mystic for the directory is as follows:

Root filebox directory = <mystic root path> + "/filebox/"

Each directory is created under the root location with the format of:

<domain>_z<zone>n<net>n<node> (p<point> appended only for points)

Example for 21:1/108@fsxnet when installed to c:\mystic would be:

c:\mystic\filebox\fsxnet_z21n1n108\

+ File bases now have a "File Echo Hub" flag which if set to Yes will prevent any pass-through files for this file echo. If a new file for the base is received via a TIC it will be added to the file base, but not sent to any downlinks (unless manually hatched by the SysOp).

! Fixed a bug where hatched files were creating the wrong CRC value in .TIC

! Files hatched by Mystic were not getting the Origin field added in .TIC

+ Reduced the time it takes for calculation of area index reader statistics by an enormous amount, at the expensive of some accuracy. In A33 my test took 6 seconds to complete a list of 300 areas with around 250,000 messages. In A34 I reduced it to 2.5 seconds. In A35 its now taking a shocking 1/20th of one second!

! Fixed a bug in startup.mps when using its automatic login feature that could cause a crash.

+ STARTUP.MPS now allows a "UserLoginNew" boolean variable to be set which will push to the new user application when TRUE. This allows MPL to completely replace the user login/new user processes if desired. All MPL programs will need to be recompiled in this alpha.

+ Mystic will now create an "errors.log" file in the logs directory which is intended to be a universal place where any errors that happen in any part of Mystic (MIS, Mystic, MUtil, etc) will be logged. This is a work in progress. The idea is to expand on this to allow notifications within the MIS2/NodeSpy UIs but also to optionally have SMS/e-mail notifications when your BBS has errors.

+ Mystic node logs now have a cleaner output in preparation for future log rolling and log levels for node specific logs.

+ Completely rewrote the startup and shutdown procedures for Mystic. This should be transparent to everyone but I mention it just in case. Handling of connection loss and inactivity timeout events have been reworked. This will allow me to do things such as implement a draft message system for resuming your posts (if you lose connection while posting) among other things.

+ Themes (regardless of when one is selected) will always fallback to the default theme if an error occurs while attempting to change themes. In addition, -CFG can now be loaded when there is no theme configuration at all.

+ New MCI code <pipe>AA turns aborting ON for the current display file. This goes along with the existing AO code which turns aborting OFF for the current display file.

+ More stability work on MIS2 particularly for Pi and (hopefully) macOS this time although I have had limited time to do testing.

+ Performance optimizations to input functions on all platforms

+ Added new CFG variables to MPL: "CfgLoginTries", "CfgPWTries" return those respective settings and CfgEchoChar returns the password character for the current theme.

+ NodeSpy terminal now supports sending of the INSERT and F1-F10 keys to remote servers.

+ When connecting using NodeSpy terminal, ESCAPE will now abort connection

+ NodeSpy now has a Port field separate from the address field. If the port is set to 0 then the default port will be used for that connection. Old entries that used ":<port>" in the address field will have to be edited manually to remove the :<port> and set the Port field.

+ NodeSpy now supports both SSH and RLOGIN connections. Entries will now have a configurable Protocol option where the connection type is set.

+ NodeSpy now sets connection type and name of the entry connected to in the window title. IE: NodeSpy/Terminal (SSH) mybbs.com

+ Removed the -PATH command line option as now -CFG should work always.

! Fixed a bug in the FS message editor and ANSI editor cut and paste functions which could cause the cursor to get completely lost.

+ Mystic's TIC processor will now always write "MS-DOS" format text files when writing or updating a .TIC file. If it receives a .TIC in a different format, it will still covert it to MS-DOS. This is to possibly provide better compatibility with DOS-based processors that may fail to properly read a Unix text file.

! Fixed a bug where MIS2 BINKP was always using an internal buffer size of 128 bytes, instead of the intended 32KB for each send/receive buffer.

+ Mystic's random display file system now also will include letters a-z, allowing up to 36 randomly selected display files per filename, up from 11. It works the same as before. If myansi.an1 exists, then Mystic will randomly select any file that exists in the myansi.an0-myansi.an9 range or myansi.ana-myansi.anz range. For OSes with case sensitive filenames, the extensions are always lowercased. They do not have to be in any order, just .an1 has to exist to "trigger" the random system:

      myansi.ans
      myansi.an1
      myansi.anz
      myansi.an5

+ When killing a "ghost node", NodeSpy will now attempt to send a kick user command to the actual node.

+ When a Windows node is shut down by right clicking and closing from the task bar or when closing the window from the "Window preview" on the task bar, Mystic will no longer create a ghost node. It will also log an "irregular shutdown event" to the errors.log file.

+ Mystic upload, mass upload and MUTIL upload will all now import FILE_ID.ANS if it exists as a priority over FILE_ID.DIZ. These .ANS files can be full ANSI descriptions of files, up to 50 columns of art per line.

If ANSI is found in a .DIZ file, Mystic will still continue to process it properly with the ANSI intact, just as it had before this release.

! Fixed a bug in MIS2 that could cause the configuration values to not be applied to BINKP server and for semaphore files to not be properly created

+ The MC (Check E-mail) command now has a /UNREAD option which will only list new unread e-mail messages, instead of all messages in your inbox when scanning for new messages.

+ MUTIL echomail export now logs to all log levels should it fail to release a BUSY flag for a node. It will also add an entry into the global errors.log file.

+ MUTIL echomail import now logs to all log levels should it fail to release a BUSY flag for a node. It will also add an entry into the global errors.log file.

! Mystic should now properly delete all the drop files from the node's temp directory when returning from a door.

! When routing pass-through netmail, Mystic was not setting the PKT password properly to the new routed node's configured PKT password.

! When calculating pass-through and exported netmail by route, Mystic was not skipping over echomail nodes that were flagged as Inactive.

+ Nodelist compiler will now process ?00 through ?99 compressed files instead of ?01 through ?99.

+ Mystic now logs an entry when returning from a door

+ Mystic now logs the command line for every program it runs, including doors and archives, etc.

+ Mystic now logs when it begins to shutdown a node normally

+ In Unix versions, Mystic will now "watchdog" any door process. If the connection is lost, Mystic will immediately send a SIGTERM signal to the process and shut itself down. This will fix the "DOSEMU 100% cpu" problem both on the DOSEMU side and the Mystic side.

! Fixed a BINKP bug where Mystic was not looking at the unsecure directory during unsecure transfers when it was comparing file sizes of files that already existed on the server.

+ Changed BINKP to not administer flood protection which seems to allow it to work better with IREX.

! When uploading REP packets online, the TZUTC kludge wasn't being added to messages.

+ Two new functions for Python: param_count() returns the number of parameters passed to the script. param_str(#) returns the parameter number where # is the number. Supplying (0) will give you the script location and name. Supplying nothing will give you the entire command line. Example:

import mystic_bbs as bbs;

     bbs.writeln ("Number of parameters..: " + str(bbs.param_count()))
     bbs.writeln ("Full command line.....: " + bbs.param_str())
     bbs.writeln ("Script name...........: " + bbs.param_str(0))
     bbs.writeln ("|CRParameters (param_str):|CR")
     count = 0
     while count <= bbs.param_count():
       bbs.writeln ("   Param #" + str(count) + ": " + bbs.param_str(count))
       count = count + 1
     bbs.writeln("|CR|PA")

+ Running Mystic with a -VER now shows the date and time that Mystic was compiled in addition to the version.

+ Mystic will now include the compile date in the tear line for networked messages. This will probably change in the future.

! BINKP was not always sending M_ERR frame when authentication is denied before connection was shutdown

+ MPLC now outputs to STDIO for better integration with compiling from 3rd party editors.

+ FIDOPOLL now uses the MIS2 BINKP engine, instead of the MIS engine

+ MIS2 now has an active event engine and the event engine in MIS has now been disabled.

+ Mystic now logs whenever a MPL script is executed

+ Mystic now logs whenever a Python script is executed

+ Mystic now logs user and password errors when supplied via command line

+ MIS2 now has local country blocking that works with IPV4 and IPV6. It no longer uses a service, instead a local database exists in the DATA directory. This database is named "iplocation.bin" and is a free LITE IPV4+IPV6 database located at:

lite.ip2location.com/database/ip-country

You should download the "IPV6 BIN" file, an example filename might be: IP2LOCATION-LITE-DB1.IPV6.BIN.ZIP and then rename the .BIN file inside of the ZIP as "iplocation.bin" in the DATA directory. You will then use iplocation.txt also in the DATA directory to configure which countries to block, similarly to the way the old MIS worked. For a temporary time you can also find a database at:

www.mysticbbs.com/downloads/prealpha/iplocation.zip

To enable this feature, configure it on a per-server basis in the servers configuration.

! Fixed a bug in the message linking, and also changed the way the linking creates its database. This should hopefully allow for better accuracy but it is advised to pack your message bases once to make sure your bases are in good health if you don't do it occasionally, and then run the message link.

+ When debug logging is on MUTIL msg linking will now log each message it links and what it calculates for each message.

! FIDOPOLL was not honoring the BINKP packet size configuration in the Echomail nodes. This could cause problems with older Mystic mailers that only supported up to 30KB packets because it defauled to 32KB

+ Node logs, FidoPoll and Mutil logs now all include the compile date along with the Mystic version. This may be removed later.

+ The "GR" menu command (Gosub return) now has a "/NOEXEC" optional data option. If this is supplied Mystic will not execute "FIRSTCMD" menu commands after returning to the menu.

! Fixed a BINKP bug where in a very rare circumstance the receive state could eat a frame that was intended for the send state. This could cause the session to "timeout" as BINKP waits for the missing frame.

+ Changed QWK Networking HUBs to use the "Packet ID" configured in the QWK Network configuration instead of the BBS QWK packet ID. The way it worked previously was confusing, but allowed for multiple hubs in a QWK network so it might be changed back before final release.

! FTP server was not showing the QWK packet in the root directory when using NLST instead of LIST

! Log rolling by day will now roll the log if the date rolls over at midnight while logging.

+ MIS2 logs are no longer buffered and should update immediately.

+ MIS2 now has an FTP server available in the MIS2 server configuration. If you went rogue and tried to create an FTP server in a pre-alpha test before it was in the WHATSNEW then you need to go delete the FTP server before continuing, or else your FTP server data will get corrupted.

+ FTP server now supports Anonymous FTP. File bases can be marked to "allow anonymous" and if so, those areas and the files within them will be available to Anonymous logins for free.

+ FTP server now supports IPV6 in both port and passive modes.

+ The FTP server will now resolve your configured BBS domain upon start up to get both the IPV4 and IPV6 address. It will also perform this procedure every 1 hour so if a dynamic IP changes it will be detected.

+ FTP server connections now each have their own static passive FTP port which is the port configured as the "passive port start" plus the slot number added onto it. This means you need to open up ports "FTP start port" + "max connections" - 1. So if you have max connections set to 10 and your start port set to 60000 then you need to open up ports 60000-60009.

+ FTP server now prints if it cannot resolve domain IP on startup or when refreshing the IP addresses, and will also print the data port range the FTP server uses (which must be allowed through your firewall).

+ FIDOPOLL can now connect via IPV6. There is a new option for each echomail node where IPV4 or IPV6 can be selected. Unsecured outbound connections still default to IPV4 but a nodelist lookup for what seems to be a barely used "IPV6" flag may be added in the future.

+ MIS2 now has the NNTP server active!

+ MIS2 now checks the whitelist, blacklist, auto-ban by connection attempts when a connection is made before performing the duplicate IP check. In the past, connections refused for connecting multiple times on the same IP were not being counted towards the auto-ban by connection attempts.

+ New event type has been added to MIS2 event manager: "IP Blocked". This event can be executed every time an IP has been blocked by any MIS2 server's auto IP ban configuration.

The purpose of this is to allow you to run a command to create a block rule at the firewall level so that the IP cannot even reach MIS in the future. In Linux "iptables" can be used, and in Windows "netsh" can be used to do this.

The @IP@ code in the shell command will be replaced with the IP of the banned account. Mystic will still continue to add the IP to its own blacklist.txt as well.

The default events in a fresh install now include example events for this. To create them in an existing environment, create a new event and set the type of "IP Blocked" and then the Shell command to:

     Linux   :
     Windows :

In Windows the firewall prior to Windows Vista did not allow creating rules from the command line, so this default will likely only work for Vista or later versions.

In most Linux installations iptables will be owned by root, and thus MIS will not have access to use the command. You will need to chown iptables so the BBS user can access it, or chmod it so all users can use it. Keep in mind setting it so all users can use it is not a secure approach. An example of this might be:

chown bbsuser:bbsuser /sbin/iptables

     If you are unsure where iptables is you could do a command from the root
     folder to locate iptables binary:
       sudo find . -name "iptables"

Managing IP blocking rules:

Show contents of block rules in Firewall:

       Linux   : iptables -L INPUT -v -n | less
       Windows : netsh advfirewall firewall show rule name="IP Block"
     Remove a blocked IP rule from Firewall:
       Linux   :
       Windows :

+ MIS2 servers now have a "Send Blocked" option to toggle on or off the sending of a message to the connected system when they are blocked.

! During startup MIS2 would create mis2.log and the tempmis directory with root access if they did not already exist.

+ MUTIL will now switch to the owner of its binary in a similar way that MIS and MYSTIC do, just in case someone tries to run it as root.

+ FIDOPOLL will now switch to the owner of its binary

+ MIS2 now has POP3 server. I am not planning to do any significant testing until the SMTP server is added.

+ MUTIL FILEBONE.NA importer now allows the echotag to be used for the description and FTP name. It also logs when an invalid line is discovered including the line number when debug logging is enabled. See default mutil.ini for example of values.

+ MIS2 now has the SMTP server from MIS. The old MIS has now been removed from the BBS and can no longer be used. MIS2 has been renamed to MIS.

+ New MPL command: "GetFBaseID" files a file base by its ID and populates the FBase variables. It also returns TRUE on success or FALSE on failure.

     If GetFBaseID(UserFBase) Then
       WriteLn ('You are in: ' + FBaseName)
     Else
       WriteLn ('You have not selected a file base yet');

+ New MPL command: GetMBaseID works the same as the GetFBaseID command above

+ New Python function "getuserid(ID)" returns a user dictionary of the user associated with ID. If no user is found it will return None:

import mystic_bbs as bbs;

user = bbs.getuserid(1)

     if not user is None:
       bbs.writeln(user["handle"]);

+ New Python function "getmbase(num)" returns a Message Base dictionary of the record physically located at (num). This example will print all of the message bases out:

import mystic_bbs as bbs;

count = 0;

     while not bbs.shutdown():
       mbase = bbs.getmbase(count);
       if mbase is None:
         break;
       bbs.writeln(mbase["name"]);
       count = count + 1;
     bbs.writeln("List complete. |PA");

+ New Python function "getmbaseid(ID)" returns a Message Base dictionary of the Message Base with ID of (ID).

+ New Python functions for reading Message Bases:

     msg_open, msg_seek, msg_found, msg_next, msg_prev, msg_gethdr,
     msg_gettxt, msg_close

Rather than try to document them all here I've included a "msgread.mpy" in the default installation as an example of how to use these functions. This example implments a very basic message reader using the user's current message base.

! Mystic will now show "proto.xxx" or "protob.xxx" for batch-only protocols if they exist instead of generating a list of protocols. PROTO should contain all protocols, regardless of batch or not. PROTOB should contain only batch-supported protocols.

! Fixed a bug where Mystic was allowing non-batch protocols to be selected for a batch file transfer.

! Fixed a bug where the -Y and -N MCI codes were not always working for the next Yes/No prompt.

+ Changed the format of the "scan" settings data for message and file bases, this should be total transparent to everyone, except that update.exe needs to be ran to update the data files.

+ MUTIL has a new "PurgeUserBase" function will which mark users who have not connected to the BBS in X days for deletion. UKILL function has been removed from MBBSUTIL. Default mutil.ini has been updated

+ MUTIL has a new "PackUserBase" function which will physically delete user records, private messages to and from them, their lastread pointers in message bases, their scan settings in message and file bases. This can only be executed when there are no users online. Default mutil.ini has been updated.

! Fixed a bug where MUTIL was not always removing the proper BSY files when it timed out waiting for a node to finish.

+ New Python function "charxy(x,y)" returns the character and attribute of the user's screen at the X/Y coordinate. Example:

ch, attr = charxy(1, 1);

     writeln("attr=" + str(attr));
     writeln("char=" + ch);

+ New Python function getcfg() returns basic configuration options in a Python dictionary. I am not going to list out dictionaries here as I am adding to it as people ask for it, but for with any dictionary you can always iterate through it to see the elements until it lands on the Wiki

import mystic_bbs as bbs;

bbs.writeln("|CLElements:")

cfg = bbs.getcfg()

for key, value in cfg.items():

bbs.write ("Key: " + key.ljust(20));

       if isinstance(value, bool):
         bbs.writeln(" Value: " + (value and "True" or "False"));
       elif isinstance(value, (int, long)):
         bbs.writeln(" Value: " + str(value))
       else:
         bbs.writeln(" Value: " + value)
     bbs.writeln("|PA")

+ New Python function "getyn(text, default)". This presents a Yes/No prompt and returns True if they answer yes, False if they answer no. The second parameter is the default selection (True is yes, False is no):

     if getyn("Is this an example? ", True):
       writeln("You answered Yes!")
     else:
       writeln("You answered No!")

+ New Python function "showfile(filename, baud, pause, abort, onlynew)"

This function shows a display file and provides all options specific to how it is displayed as parameters and returns True or False depending on if a display file was found and shown.

The filename logic uses the same as the GD menu command (see the Wiki documentation for GD for more info) which means it has implied paths and extensions and random display files if desired.

The baud parameter is 0 for full speed or whatever the baud rate at which Mystic should display the file.

The Pause parameter is a True/False value that when True will attempt to pause on a full screen.

The Abort parameter is a True/False value that when True will allow the file to be adorted while display using the space bar.

The OnlyNew parameter is a True/False value that when True will only show the file if it has been update since the user's last login to the BBS. Ex:

     showfile("gj-glue1", 9600, False, True, False)
     showfile("c:\mystic\textfiles\mytext.txt", 0, True, True, False)

+ New Python command "getprompt(number)" will return prompt (number) from user's currently selected theme. If the prompt has been replaced with a script or display file, Mystic will execute the script or show the file.

! Fixed an issue where setting scanned bases with the /qwknet option was not showing anything in the QWK networking menu.

+ New Python command "stuffkey(text)". This function adds text into the input buffer as if the user had typed it.

+ New Python command "sysoplog(level, text)" logs a line to the node's log using level as the loglevel. Only if the loglevel is set equal to or greater than <level> will it be shown in the log. Text is a string of text which will have a datestamp added to it automatically.

sysoplog(1, "Welcome to my Python script!")

+ New Python command "access(acsstring)" returns True or False if the user passes (has access) to the supplied <acsstring>:

     if access("s20"):
       writeln("User has a security level of 20 or higher!")
     else:
       writeln("User has less than 20 security.")

+ New Python command "rwrite(text)" writes text to the user with no line ending and no MCI or color code processing.

rwrite("You |12will actually see the color code here");

+ New Python command "rwriteln(text)" writes text to the user with no MCI or color code processing, and moves to the next line after sending:

     rwriteln("Line one")
     rwriteln("Line two")

+ New Python function "upuser(seclevel)". Updates the current user's security profile to <seclevel>, which includes access flags, time left, daily limits, etc. Ex: upuser(50)

+ New Python function "wherex" returns the current X location of the cursor

+ New Python function "wherey" returns the current X location of the cursor

+ New Python function "textattr" returns the current text color attribute

+ New Python function "textcolor(attribute)" sets the current text color to <attribute> where attribute is calculated as (FG + BG) * 16 so white on a blue background would be 15 + 1 * 16 (or 31).

+ New Python function "getmgroup(number)" returns a dictionary of the message group at record number <number>.

+ New Python function "getmgroupid(number)" returns a dictionary of the message group with the ID of <number>.

+ New Python function "getfgroup(number)" returns a dictionary of the file group at record number <number>.

+ New Python function "getfgroupid(number)" returns a dictionary of the file group with the ID of <number>.

+ New Python function "getfbase(number)" returns a dictionary of the file base located at record number <number>

+ New Python function "getfbaseid(number)" returns a dictionary of the file base with the ID of <number>

+ MUTIL's MergeNodeList should no longer care about the casing of the file archives or the nodelists within those archives. In otherwords, its now case insensitive even on case sensitive OSes.

+ Mystic BBS now has a built in text editor which will be expanded on as development continues. Like all of Mystic's functions this is designed to work over any terminal connection and will be a work in progress.

+ Small revamp of the System configuration to add a "Networking" category as the Configuration column is getting cluttered and will be moreso as I add in several new options that are planned.

+ Configuration now allows many of Mystic's text-based control files to be edited within the configuration using the new text editor.

! Message and File group editors were not assigning a new Unique ID to the group when pasting.

! Fixed a bug during graphics detection in Linux where Mystic would still show ANSI codes until after the graphics prompt was displayed.

+ New Python function "mci2str(code)". This function returns the value of an MCI code, where code is the two digit MCI code. For example:

writeln("User: " + mci2str("UH"));

+ New Python procedure "gotoxy(x,y)". This locates the cursor to the X and Y position if the user has ANSI graphics. If you supply a 0 for either value it will be replaced by the current cursor position.

+ When snap_new is enabled in the Index message reader, Mystic will now snap to a base with new messages after a CTRL+U.

+ Renamed the configuration themes to "3D ANSI" and "Shareware BBS" and updated the cfgroot1.ans file in DATA slightly. If you want to have the Shareware BBS theme look as its intended, replace your old cfgroot1.ans with the updated one from a fresh installation.

+ Pre-alpha versions of Mystic are now compiled with full debugging information. Binaries will create a <program name>.mem file in the directory where it exists which could help debugging if a crash occurs.

As a result of this change, the size of the binary files will be huge in comparison up to around 10 times the normal size. Alphas will still be compiled in "release" form.

+ MYSTIC.DAT and USERS.DAT are no longer linked together, so if they are separated the user number generator will not generate bogus numbers. The downside is it will take longer to save a new user account.

+ MUTIL now has a function to sort files in file bases [FileSort] replacing the similar function in MBBSUTIL. See the default mutil.ini for more sort options. The sort only works for bases that contain up to 250,000 files but this can be easily expanded if anyone ever hit that limit.

+ MBBSUTIL has been removed from Mystic BBS and should be deleted.

+ Mystic's text editor is now available in the System Configuration in the Other section and will allow loading and editing of any text file. Keep in mind that it has some limitations. Raw tabs will be converted to 8 spaces, character 12 will be escaped and represented as ^L while character 27 will be escaped as ^[. Any occurance of these will be converted back upon saving, with the exception of raw tabs which will remain as spaces.

+ New command line option for mystic: -text <filename> while open the text editor from the command line. If <filename> is supplied it will open that file otherwise it will create an empty buffer. IE:

mystic -text mytext.txt

+ All SysOp menu commands (that begin with a *) now have an optional data parameter "/nopw" which will tell Mystic not to ask for the SysOp password prior to executing the command.

+ EchoMail Node editor now uses a paged style form similar to the user editor instead of opening up various boxes.

+ New Menu command: *1 Edit text file. This command's optional data should include a filename in which to edit. If the file does not exist by default the editor will not execute. The user cannot open any other text files unless the "/open" parameter is supplied. If /open is passed then Mystic will start with an empty buffer if a filename is not given (or doesn't exist) and the user will be allowed to open any file on your drive as well

! Color editor and access flag editor were not using the configuration theme and instead were always using 3D ANSI. This has been fixed.

+ Use Passive mode is now defaulted to Yes when creating new QWK Network and FTN BY FTN client.

+ Added two new Configuration themes: Mono Pink and Mono Blue. You'll need to copy cfgroot2.and and cfgroot3.ans to your DATA directory from the DATA directory of a new installation.

+ New command line option for mystic: -ansi <filename> while open the ANSI editor from the command line. If <filename> is supplied it will open that file otherwise it will create an empty buffer. IE:

mystic -ansi text\gj-glue1.ans

The ANSI editor can load display files with color codes from PCBoard, Wildcat, Mystic's pipe codes, and ANSI. The editor can save in ASCII or Pipe Code or ANSI and includes variable line length saving for ANSI files as well as some display options that can be set specifically to Mystic BBS.

+ Mystic's System Configuration > Other tab now has an "Text Editor" option which will open up the Text editor.

+ Mystic's System Configuration > Other tab now has an "ANSI Editor" option which will open up the ANSI editor

+ Mystic's Theme Editor now has a function for "Templates" which will open up a listing of all .ini files in that theme's text directory. When one of those files is selected, Mystic will open its text editor.

+ Mystic's Theme Editor now has a function for "Display Files" which will open up a listing of all .a?? files in that theme's text directory. When one is selected, Mystic will open its ANSI editor.

+ New Menu command: *2 Edit ANSI file. This command's optional data should include a filename in which to edit. If the file does not exist by default the editor will not execute. The user cannot open any other ANSI files unless the "/open" parameter is supplied. If /open is passed then Mystic will start with an empty buffer if a filename is not given (or doesn't exist) and the user will be allowed to open any file on your drive as well

+ The beginning of Echomail node security is here! The easiest way to think about how this system works is to relate an Echomail node to the way security works for a user in your BBS. Each node will have a security level, access flags, and can be a member of many Echomail groups (up to 65000 echomail groups can be defined).

Different functions throughout the echomail system will eventually have "Echo ACS" strings which work just like the user ACS strings that we're familiar with. For example, you might have "Hatch File EACS" in a file base where you could say that you wanted only echomail nodes within a particular group to be able to hatch files, or a particular security level or access flag(s), or even by static echomail node ID. For example:

Hatch File EACS: g2|s255|fH|u10

The above would say that any echomail node that is a member of Echomail group 2, OR any node that has a security level of 255 OR any Echomail node that has flag H can hatch files to that file base. The Echomail node with the ID of #10 can also hatch.

This is a very powerful system for managing an Echomail network, and EACS strings will be added to various functions in the future as seen fit.

+ New Python command: msg_delete(handle). This deletes the current message as returned by msg_first or msg_next

+ Echomail Node editor will now check for any other active nodes with the same configured adddressed whenever it saves an echomail node. If it finds a conflict it will pop up a message warning you of the conflict.

+ New ACS value: "OS" will be true if the user is connected by a secure connection to the BBS (ie SSH).

! Fixed a JAM file handle leak in the NNTP server.

! Fixed an issue that caused MPL programs to crash

+ New Python command: backspace (number, destructive). This function sends (number) backspaces and if (destructive) is True, then it will also delete the character. If False it will only move the cursor backwards.

+ Record data changes for user database:

First on and last on dates are now stored in Unix timestamp format.
Expire, last password change, and last e-mail validation dates now use julian day number
IP field extended to support IPV6, host extended to 80 characters
Vote tracking extended from 20 to 99
Added space for variable iteration PBKDF2-HMAC-SHA512 encrypted user passwords.
Added User country field for historical storage
Local QWK Path is now split into Local QWK Path and Local REP Path

+ Record data changes for message base database:

Expanded name to 60 characters
Removed Sponsor field
Added Read EchoACS and Post EchoACS
Created date changed from packed DOS to Unix timestamp format

+ Record data changes for file base database:

Extended name to 60 characters
Extended echotag to 40 characters
Added Passthrough EchoACS
Created date changed from packed DOS to Unix timestamp format

+ Record data changes for events database:

Added a unique ID to each event
Added OSType attribute to each event
Added new statistical tracking attributes
Removed Node number from BBS type event
Added field to support enhanced semaphore event system

+ Record data changes for servers database: Added more space for more server types and options.

+ Installation program will now question the installer at the beginning to help determine the local console codepage on Linux platforms.

+ Mystic message searching now allows full logical boolean searches along with order of operations. The following tokens are used:

     & = AND
     | = OR
     ! = NOT

Parentheses can be used to group results. If you want to search for a single word or user you can still just type in the word, but otherwise you now have the options to do searching like:

(g00r00 & released) | pre-alpha

This would return any message that contained both g00r00" AND "released", OR it contained the word "pre-alpha"

Searches are case insensitive and will search the From, To, Subject, and message content (excluding kludge lines).

+ New door command line code %C. This is replaced by the user's current codepage as either "CP437" or "UTF8".

+ Mystic will now track the country detected during country blocking within each user's session. A new MCI code "UO" will return the user's country of origin as determined by the country blocker in MIS.

+ Mystic's installation file install.exe can now be ran to copy over your binary files for you by command line:

install replace <root Mystic path>

Windows seems to be blocking this from running on my Windows test system for some reason, so I am looking into a way around whatever it is doing. You may need to rename it to something like "temp.exe" in Windows to get this to work :\

+ ANSI editor now has a "CRLF at EOF" which always defaults to Yes. If this is Yes, Mystic will save a CRLF at the end of the ANSI file so that the cursor moves to the next line. If No, then Mystic will not.

+ ANSI editor now shows a "File saved" confirmation box after saving.

+ ANSI editor now retains the changed filename between save dialog boxes

+ CTRL+X will now exit the ANSI editor, asking to save if the file has been changed first.

+ When in the full text and ANSI editors, the delete key will now allow files to be deleted within the Open file dialog box.

! Mystic was not properly handling MSGID fields created by Synchronet when replying to Echomail via Netmail

! Mystic will no longer refuse Netmails that use the Synchronet-style MSGID

! Bugfixes to ANSI editor save functions, particularly when saving without clear screen enabled.

+ New ANSI editor buffers will now default to saving with "Clear Screen Yes"

! FTP server was showing QWK packet when logged in as Anonymous

+ Mystic now has a new feature which can be enabled in the File Base Settings called "Download FTP". When this is enabled to Yes, Mystic will ask the user if they'd like to download their queued files via an FTP link instead of using a file transfer protocol.

The FTP link will contain a virtual directory that contains all of the files in their batch queue, and will expire after 1 hour. The user can use their web browser or FTP client to connect to the FTP URL and list and download the files that they queued on the BBS. Access enforcement and statistical tracking will be applied via the virtual FTP directory just as it would if the user was downloading the file from the BBS.

This feature requires that Mystic's FTP server is enabled and properly configured, and that Anonymous FTP access is enabled in the Server settings. This means proper firewall configuration and valid BBS domain

Four new prompts will go along with this. If you are using the default prompts you can simply copy over the default.txt to your data directory, but if you have modified the prompts then you'll need to add these new prompts into your default.txt and any other themes you use. They are located in the upgrade.txt or the default.txt from a fresh installation.

An HTTP equivalent will be enabled in a future build.

+ MIS now has a basic HTTP server. The server can be created in the server editor within the configuration. A webroot path must be defined, which points to a directory where your website files and configuration will exist. For example, if you set webroot to c:\mystic\webroot\ then you will need to create two subdirectories under it (cfg and www):

      c:\mystic\webroot\cfg\
      c:\mystic\webroot\www\

In the www folder will be where you place your website files. The CFG folder will hold various configuration values for the web server in the future. Note this is a very barebones server at this point only really capable of serving basic websites, but I intend to work on it further as I find time.

+ ANSI editor now has block options. CTRL+B can be used to select a block of text to be centered on.

+ ANSI editor now has a block option for filling a block with a character, an attribute or both.

+ ANSI editor now has a block option to select a block and center text found within the selected block (using the center of the selected block as the center point)

+ Event system will now recalcuate the event state every 10 seconds, this has been increased from 5 seconds in order to reduce load of an updated semaphore system

+ The "Semaphore" event system has been enhanced to allow specifying boolean logic of semaphore files that must exist (or not) to trigger an event. A new field has been added to define which semaphore files should be removed when the event is ran. The usual boolean evaluation tokens that are used in ACS, message searching, etc, all apply here as well: () to define order, !=NOT, &=AND |=OR. An example usage might be:

      Event Type: Semaphore
       Semaphore: (echomail.in|netmail.in)!fidopoll.bsy
      Kill After: echomail.in|netmail.in

The above example says to trigger the event if echomail.in OR netmail.in exists but NOT if fidopoll.bsy exists. The result would be that the command line would run when there is incoming net/echomail but it'd also wait for fidopoll to finish running (if it is) before kicking off.

The Kill After field says that when it runs it should delete echomail.in and netmail.in. Each file specified here should be separated by a pipe character (|).

For existing systems, the upgrade program will automatically populate the "Kill after" field with the currently configured semaphores but for new events you'll now need to define which semaphores to delete when it runs.

+ Semaphore events will now delete the semaphore files when it executes instead of at the time the semaphores are detected.

+ Semaphore events now dynamically update their "run state" until the point in which they execute. This means that if a semaphore event triggers but another event is running which causes it to be flagged "Run next", it will continue to evaluate the semaphore files up until the moment it runs. If the state of those semaphores changes between being flagged as Run Next and actually executing, the event will detect it and adjust itself accordingly.

! Fixed a bug in the socket code that could sometimes cause a lost connection to not be detected if it happens while sending data to the client. This could be a major cause for those who've had some "ghost node" issues.

! Who's Online was not pausing when the BBS had enough nodes to fill up multiple pages.

+ NodeSpy now has an option to connect via IPV4, IPV6, or to default to either V4/V6 and then fallback to using the other if it cannot resolve the address.

+ Echomail nodes can now be configured to default to resolving via IPV4 or V6, with a fallback to the other one if the address cannot be resolved.

+ FidoPoll will now attempt to use IPV6 if it is available and then fallback to IPV4 when connecting to unsecure nodelist via a nodelist lookup.

+ MIS event status will now display the date and time when the event was last executed as well as the last result returned from execution. If you are a A39 pre-alpha tester, note that any events you've created in the Event editor with A39 may have to be recreated for this tracking to work because the "Event ID" was always getting set to 0 in earlier builds.

+ SENDMAIL now has an IPType similar to those added to Fidopoll, echomail nodes, Nodespy, etc.

! Mystic BINKP should no longer fail CRAM-MD5 negotiations when a BINKP option is listed after the CRAM-MD5 handshake in the options frame.

+ Mystic FIDOPOLL FTP send functions will now log FTP session data to the log file, similar to what it does with BINKP.

+ Mystic FIDOPOLL FTP will now automatically prepend a / to a directory if it is not configured in Mystic's echomail node configuration with a slash it is not configured in Mystic's echomail node configuration with a /

+ QWKPOLL will now log to "qwkpoll.log" in the log files directory.

+ QWKPOLL will now log all FTP client/server exchanges in qwkpoll.log

+ MIS will now attempt to detect any ghost nodes and will reset the node data under many different circumstances. If this happens, it will be logged in mis.log with an explaination as to why it was assumed to be a ghost node. This combined with other recent stability improvements should help quite a bit with long term uptime of the terminal nodes and servers.

+ Echomail node configuration: Echomail node address input now is a single input instead of splitting out zone, net, node and point into their own fields. This is done to make a little more room on the form for other options.

+ Echomail node configuration: Nodes now have a "SysOp Name" field.

+ Mystic Python has a new function: Delay (milliseconds) causes the problem to wait for a specific number of milliseconds.

+ All Mystic executables will now either display the compiled version date/time or have a -ver/-version option to do the same.

+ New menu command: MF (View draft message posts). This command allows users to view and resume any saved draft message posts. If the user has no drafts a simple message will be printed saying there are no saved drafts.

Drafts are automatically saved when a user runs out of time, gets disconnected for inactivity or loses/drops connection in the middle of posting or while replying to a message. If Mystic has any sort of error while saving the message, it will also creat a draft of the message for the user.

If the optional data of /SCAN is supplied, Mystic will check to see if there are any drafts, and prompt the user if they would like to review their saved drafts ONLY if they have drafts. If they do not do drafts, the command will simply do nothing. Ideally you could put this somewhere during your login process, as the new default install does in prelogin.mnu

Six new prompts (532-537) go along with this. If you are using the default prompts you can simply copy over the default.txt to your data directory, but if you have modified the prompts then you'll need to add these new prompts into your default.txt and any other themes you use. They are located in the upgrade.txt or the default.txt from a fresh installation.

+ New ACS command "OD" returns TRUE if the user has any draft message posts saved.

+ New MCI code "MF" shows the number of draft messages saved for the current user.

+ Posting a message now no longer enforces group requirements when evaluating the "PostACS"

+ The message editor now has a "Save as draft" option from the command menu. This means you will need to add that command to the menu if you use a custom template for your message editor, otherwise replace msg_editor.ini with the newer one from the installation.

See upgrade.txt for instructions on adding the command or use the default msg_editor.ini as a guideline.

+ Two new Python functions: pwrite and pwriteln. These work just like the write/writeln or rwrite/rwriteln except they only resolve pipe color codes and not all MCI codes.

+ Echomail ACS is active. Note: YOU MUST BE USING MUTIL TO PROCESS ECHOMAIL AND .TIC FOR THIS SYSTEM TO WORK. Mystic cannot apply security to third party tossers.

This system is just like User access system except that it applies to echomail nodes. Each echomail node has its own security level, group memberships (to echomail groups) and a set of acess flags. The following commands are available within EACS:

      s<level>  : Echomail node must have a Security Level greater than or
                  equal to <level>
      g<number> : Echomail node must be a member of Echomail group ID equal
                  to <number>
      f<flag>   : Echomail node must have flag <flag> which is a letter
                  between A to Z.
      u<number> : Echomail node must have a unique ID of <number>.  This
                  allows security to be applied to specific nodes (ID is
                  shown in echomail node editor).

Just like user ACS, Echomail ACS can also use parenthesis and boolean evaulation.

+ Echomail ACS has been activated for message base subscribing/reading. A new field in each Message base configuration called "List EACS" defines the ACS requires for an echommail node to be able to see, subscribe, or unsubscribe to the area via AreaFix

Hubs can still manually link a base to a node regardless of security, so for example if you wanted to force nodes to always carry a specific echo area, you would give them the base and then set the "List EACS" to an access they do not have (or even use % which is "never" in ACS terms). With this setup in place, the node cannot add or remove the area, they can only perform rescans.

! When hatching/tossing files, MUTIL will now properly randomly generate a random 8 letter .tic filename if one already exists of the same name as the archive.

+ The FU (File upload) menu command now has a new optional data command called "/current". If this option is specified, Mystic will attempt to upload to the current file base even if a specific file base has been configured for uploads.

+ The GH and GI (Goodbye and Hang up Immediately) menu commands have a new optional data option. If "/RECYCLE" supplied, Mystic will log the current user out and restart the session as if the user just connected to the BBS.

+ The XL (Matrix Login) command now as a new optional data option. If /FULL is supplied, the typical Matrix login will be immediately skipped and the user will be presented the standard login process. This is intended to allow people to use the Matrix login for things other than a Matrix-style log in.

+ MUTIL [ImportEchoMail] now has a new option: default_rescan. This option allows the SysOp to define the default parameters used when a downlink requests a %RESCAN on all message bases. In the past this defaulted to "R=250". MUTIL will continue to default to that value if it is not defined in the .ini file, otherwise it will adopt whatever is defined. Be sure to define a valid command otherwise RESCAN will not work. See the default MUTIL.INI for more information.

+ MUTIL now has a new option under the [General] section: "logcache". This can be a true or false value. If true, MUTIL will cache the log file meaning it will write the log file in chunks of "8KB" instead of every line being written. This is the default and HIGHLY recommended setting for MUTIL. If set to false, MUTIL will physically open the log file and write each individual log line to the file and then close it. Setting this to false will most likely significantly reduce performance.

+ Mystic AREA/FILEFIX wasn't properly reporting +1 to Netmail when processing a request.

! Fixed a bug in Areafix RESCAN when using the R= command, caused by changes to my JAM code back when I was optimizing the statistical calculation for the Index reader.

+ New MPL function DateUnix returns the current date/time in Unix format

+ New MPL function DateU2D (unixdate): Converts <unixdate> to a DOS date

+ New MPL function DateD2U (dosdate): Converts <dosdate> to a Unix date

+ AreaFix responses now list the message base name along with the echotag

+ AreaFix rescans now show the total messages exported

+ AreaFix %LIST command now has an option parameter to perform boolean capable searches on the echotag and message base name. These work just like msg searches with parenthesis (&)AND (|) OR (!) NOT functionality:

      %LIST BBS            - List areas that contains "BBS"
      %LIST BBS!Renegade   - List areas that contains "BBS" but not "Renegade"

+ AreaFix now has a "%ALL" command. Using "%ALL" or "%+ALL" will add all areas the node has access to. Using "%-ALL" will remove all nodes the area has access to. The command has an option second parameter which will perform a boolean capable search on the echotag and message base name:

      %ALL                 - Add all bases the node has access to (but not
                             subbed)
      %-ALL                - Remove all bases the node has subscribed to
      %ALL BBS!Renegade    - Add all that contain "BBS" but not "Renegade" in
                             the echotag or base name
      %-ALL BBS!Renegade   - Remove all bases that contain "BBS" but not
                             "Renegade" in the echotag or base name

+ File Bases now have an "List EACS". This Echomail ACS works identically to the Message Base version, allowing hubs to define which nodes have access to list, subscribe, and receive get files from an echoed file base

+ FileFix %LIST function now has an optional second parameter to perform boolean searches in the same was as Areafix.

+ FileFix now has an %ALL function that mimics the functionality of the Areafix equivalent.

+ Door command lines now have %R which will return the user name without underscores in the name.

! Fixed a bug where groups could be created with a duplicate ID. You may wish to double check you groups to make sure none of them have the same ID.

! Fixed a bug in Python GotoXY function that would cause a crash when using it.

+ The MUTIL ImportNA function now allows a "use_ansi" default value to be defined when creating message bases.

+ The MUTIL Echomail Import function now allows a "use_ansi" default value to be defined when automatically creating message bases.

+ The MUTIL ImportMessageBase function now allows a "use_ansi" default value to be defined when creating message bases.

+ MIS FTP now logs when a SysOp deletes a file from a filebase via FTP

+ MIS FTP/NNTP/SMTP/POP3 servers now have a better idle/timeout system which will cause the server to shutdown more gracefully when exiting MIS with active connections.

+ New menu command: M! This is a rewrite of the message area index reader rebuilt to work identically to the file base index lister. See the msg_index.ini file for more details. Command line option is the template name or default to msg_index.ini if none is specified. I am not removing the old one just yet so that people have time to adapt to the new version and to test it for issues, but please note the old one will likely be replaced by this new one eventually once the features are all done and tested.

+ New MPL variable: UserPosts contains the number of posts a user has made

+ New MPL variable: UserDLs contains the number of downloads user has made

+ New MPL variable: UserULs contains the number of uploads user has made

+ Mystic now has a new User Editor which doesn't look a whole lot different than the old one, except that it incorporates some newer ideas that were introduced into the Echomail Node editor that makes jumping around between pages of information easier. One major thing to note is that you can no longer view user passwords and can now only "reset" user passwords.

Like the other page-based editors you can scroll from the first or last item to change page, use the tab key, the pageup/down keys, the left and right arrows, or enter a page number directly to shift between pages.

+ Mystic now has a password policy in System Configuration where the minimum password length can be set along with number of required capital letters, numbers, and symbols. It is highly recommended that the minimum password length is set to at least 7 characters. Some default prompts have been updated to support this new feature: 18, 419, 420. If you have custom themes, you should take a look at the new defaults and consider updating your custom prompts as well.

+ Mystic now allows the option to store passwords in case insensitive cleartext and case insensitive hashing using industry standard methods for password storage.

+ Mystic now allows passwords to be stored using PBKDF2 with SHA512-bit hashing at variable configurable iterations. What does this mean? The biggest benefit is that when enabled, Mystic will never store a user's password anywhere in the BBS system. This system is the same system used for Password Managers such as LastPass, 1Password and operating systems such as MacOS. In fact, with its variable iterations Mystic could be considered to be more secure as those products in terms of cracking a user's password hash.

Two new options are added into the Password Policy options, the first is a password storage method which has three options:

      ClearText Case Insensitive       (This was the legacy storage method)
      ClearText Case Sensitive
      PBKDF2 SHA512 Hash               (This is also case sensitive)

It is highly recommended to use password hashing and stop using cleartext passwords. With password hashing enabled, a person could be given your users.dat and they still would not be able get a user's password.

The second option is VERY important when using PBKDF2 and that is the number of iterations the process will use when hasing a password. The default value is 1000 and may be considered a little low in terms of enterprise level password storage but it works at a reasonable speed for most systems. In general, the higher the number of iterations the more secure it is, but the longer it will take for Mystic to store or check a password. Setting this value to 10,000 on an original Raspberry Pi for example may cause Mystic to take 10+ seconds to store or check a password and for many that may be too slow.

It is recommended that it is kept at 3000 or lower for performance reasons unless you know what you are doing. Even at this level PBKDF2 with a 512 bit hashing system is more secure than any other BBS software today. If you find the delay for 1000 is too short you can adjust the value but just beware that if you change hardware someday, those values still remain...

The way the system works is that a user's password is stored in the format configured at the time their password is set, including the iterations. The password remains stored in this format even if you change the storage method until the user changes their password or you reset it using the user editor. It is important that you do not set the iteration level too high for the hardware you are using to run your BBS now or in the future.

+ Mystic user passwords have now been expanded to 25 characters maximum.

+ Mystic now allows passwords to be reset via Internet e-mail. This option can be enabled in System Configuration -> Password Policy and will require that the SMTP sendmail/relay options are configured in the Server General Options tab. The user must also have a valid e-mail address assigned to their user account.

If enabled, the user will be sent an e-mail with a randomly generated code and then prompted by the BBS to enter the code. Upon entering the code the user will be prompted to change their password and finally logged into the BBS as if they had typed their password in correctly.

8 new prompts have been added to the themes to support this new feature most having 4 promptinfo MCI codes active: &1=min length &2=min caps &3=min nums &4=min symbols. These new prompts (538-546) will need to be added to your custom themes if you have them. See the upgrade.txt for more information.

+ New Configuration theme: Turbo Vision. Not really a favorite of mine, but one of the goals of this theme option is for nostalgia preservation and the TurboVision look was widely used in the BBS scene.

+ Mystic's built in RAR archive functions should now work with newer RAR5 format RAR files. If you encounter any issues viewing a RAR file please e-mail me a link to download the same file or the file itself so I can take a look at it. Keep in mind Mystic does not allow you to view encrypted archives.

+ Changed the e(X)it command in the text editor to (Q)uit to match that of the ANSI editor.

+ New ACS function "OV" returns true if the user has validated their current e-mail address.

+ Email address fields have been expanded to 60 characters, input field length by default is 40 characters (up from 35).

+ Mystic will now validate that the user enters a valid e-mail address format when prompting for e-mail address during new user application and when editing user information. Two new prompts have been added that will be displayed when they enter an invalid e-mail address: #463, #486. You should update your prompts based on the new defaults.

+ New menu command: -V (Validate e-mail address). This function will send a code to the user's e-mail address and then prompt them to enter it on the BBS. Upon entering the code successfully, the "OV" ACS command will begin to report true. If the optional data field contains a security level Mystic will also update the user's security profile. The OV ACS can also be used in order to perform any number of actions if validation is successful.

New prompts have been added to support this: #547-#552. You will need to add these if you have custom themes.

+ Mystic now supports CNET Control-Y color codes. These work in file description .DIZ importing, in file descriptions, in message reading, in Mystic's file/ANSI viewer and ANSI gallery, and Mystic's ANSI editor can now load CNET color coded files. Thanks to NuSkooler for initial info about the color codes.

+ New Python function: "logerror(string)". This creates an entry into the global error log of the string passed to it, and also creates an entry in the current node log as well.

+ The group editors now have a Move function that allows repositioning the order of groups. Simply Copy a group and them move to where you want to place it and select Move.

+ The file base editor now also has a move function.

! When tagging a bunch of bases in the message base editor and selecting Sort, it was possible to press ESCAPE and wipe out your message base configuration entirely. Fixed. Sorry to anyone affected by this.

! Fixed a bug in the global message base editor where setting the Max Msgs value could cause the value to get garbled when updating the bases.

+ Two new options to the GD menu command (Display a file):

      /MCI   - If this option is supplied, Mystic will not filter out any MCI
               codes including pipe colors.
      /ABORT - If this option is supplied, Mystic will not allow the display
               file to be aborted.  By default they are allowed.

+ Mystic's SMTP sendmail function now supports opportunistic SSL via the TLS v1.2+ protocol. Combined with CRAM-MD5 authenication, this provides encryption of both the password handshake and the overall session.

+ Message Box MCI codes no longer automatically pad the header text with a space on each side. This makes it consistent with other box functions and allows a bit more flexibility.

+ MUTIL echo import now gives a more meaningful message when a PKT password is defined and there is no echomail node configured for the origin address

+ Mystic BINKP server and FIDOPOLL now support opportunistic SSL (TLS v1.2+) using a proprietary extension of the BINKP protocol. This means that it will only work with other Mystic BBS clients and servers, but I do plan to document the extension and send it to the authors of other mailers in hopes that it can be standardized.

BINKP server settings now have a "Use SSL" setting which can be set to one of three settings:

      No     : BINKP server will not offer SSL extension at all
      Yes    : BINKP server WILL offer SSL extension optionally
      Forced : BINKP server will refuse all connections not using SSL

EchoMail Nodes now have a similar setting which will be used when polling for new mail:

      No     : FIDOPOLL will not use SSL extension at all
      Yes    : FIDOPOLL WILL use SSL if the server supports it
      Forced : FIDOPOLL will refuse to exchange mail with a server
               unless it supports SSL

+ For those of you who downloaded the A40 pre-alpha before Dec 16th, you will have password issues. To fix this you can copy over the latest upgrade.exe and place your A39 users.dat into DATA and execute "upgrade password".

+ Message bases with an origin line set to a blank will now inherit the default value set in System Configuration > Message Settings. This is how it was supposed to work but it wasn't. The origin line will now also be blank when creating a new message base, instead of setting the value to the current default. This also includes MUTIL import/create functions.

+ The random origin line selection engine (@ORIGIN=) will now be processed if it is defined in the default origin line. In the past it was only processed when defined for an individual message base.

! Mystic will no longer make echomail bundles with a bracket in the filename extension which could happen in a certain circumstance.

! Fixed a bug where Mystic was adding a point to the INTL kludge origin/dest addresses when dealing with point systems.

+ Message Base editor now has a /A command to select all bases.

+ File Base editor now has a /A command to select all bases.

+ File Base editor now has a /G Global Editor similar to the Message Base editor

+ Echomail nodes now have an "Encryption Key" option. When this option is set to a non-blank value, Mystic will encrypt all of the contents of Netmail messages to this node with an AES-256 encryption. This completes a fully encrypted echomail solution as both transport and private messages are secured.

This is done in a way that is completely transparent to unsupporting systems, meaning that you can still route netmail through systems and they will not harm the encrypted netmails! The encryption also hides the message subject, so when combined with Area/Filefix passwords will no longer be readable. You must have Cryptlib installed for this to work.

The other echomail node must of course have the same key configured for your node in order to decrypt the netmail when it arrives. This works the same way as any other password setting in echomail nodes.

When routing Netmail, Mystic will intelligently re-encrypt the message between routing points when possible. In other words if you have a point system who sends from 555:1/2.1 to 555:1/1 but is routed through 555:1/2, Mystic at 555:1/2 will know that it has an encryption agreement between both 555:1/2.1 and 555:1/1 so it will decrypt the message from 555:1/2.1 and then reencrypt it for 555:1/1 before routing it.

+ Mystic Area/Filefix will now accept commands that start and end with a percentage sign (as opposed to just starting with) so: %LIST and %LIST% will work, for example.

! Mystic wasn't properly using UTC time when adding the @VIA kludge while routing Netmail (it was using local system time).

! Reviewed Netmail routing with point systems and corrected a couple little bugs with addressing. This will hopefully have no negative effect on any other behavior.

+ Mystic BINKP now sends the local time and time zone information whenever it connects to another BINKP server.

+ MUTIL MsgPack now no longer users the Mystic temp directories while packing message bases. Instead, it creates temp files in the same directory as the message base. This should allow MsgPack to continue to rename files when message bases are stored on different devices than the root Mystic directory.

+ New MPL function to go along with new password engine:

Function CheckPW (PW: String) : Boolean;

This function checks the supplied PW against the current loaded User and returns true if the password matches or false if it does not.

+ New MPL function to go along with new password engine:

Procedure SetPW (PW: String);

This procedure sets the password for the currently loaded users (ie the User storeed in the current User variables)

+ New MPL function to go along with new password engine:

Procedure ValidPW (PW: String) : Byte;

This procedure checks the password passed in PW against the configured password policy and returns a result depending on its status:

     1 = Password does not meet min length
     2 = Password does not meet min cap letters
     3 = Password does not meet min symbols
     4 = Password does not meet min numbers

! Fixed the broken SSH that creeped its way into A40.

+ Changed the date format in message quoting to "DD MMM YYYY"

! MUTIL echo export should no longer toss messages back to the origin node

! Reverted back to Free Pascal 3.0.2 and magically a lot of the problems have gone away with the Unix versions.

+ Increased the BINKP max file queue per session to 200 files, up from 100

+ Mystic BINKP now sends the build date, time and operating system with bit level as part of the welcome

+ Mystic BINKP now sends the queue size (# of files and total bytes) after authentication and before starting to transfer files

! Fixed some issues that were causing IPV6 servers and clients to act differently in Unix based systems.

+ Prompt #464 message quote text now has &4 MCI code which is replaced by the time that the original message was written.

+ Mystic will now log to the node log if a user attempts to post to a message base but does not have access to do so.

+ Mystic will now log Python errors to the BBS node log and the Mystic global errors.log

+ MUTIL now has a function to export a FILEBONE.NA file based on the file bases. A new [Export_FILEBONE.NA] stanza has been added to the INI file for more information see the default mutil.ini file.

+ MIS servers now show "Server busy" instead of "BUSY" when a connection is received when all client slots are in use. "BUSY" will still be shown by Mystic.

+ New option for each Echomail node: Crash Limiter. When FidoPoll sends files via BINKP it will skip queueing any files for sending larger than this value. The value is defined in kilobytes.

+ MUTIL now allows the loglevel to be defined in each specific stanza. If the loglevel is defined within a process' stanza, then that loglevel will override the value set in the general stanza just for that process.

+ Mystic now has two new door MCI codes:

     %A - Returns the user's realname with spaces replaced with underscores
     %B - Returns the user's realname

+ Expanded the BBS domain from 25 to 45 characters.

+ Mystic will now inform you if you try to edit a message that has already been sent. It already informs you if the message was sent while you were editing it (which tends to happen if you have messages set to send on save as opposed to logoff).

+ Mystic's private user to user chat system now has a split screen chat option. A new template userchat.ini and userchat.ans are required now to be accessible by your theme otherwise your user to user chat will not work. See the default installation for these new files.

+ Mystic now has Mystic-DOS, a built in command shell console that allows for various disk and BBS functions within a command shell interface that mimics both Bash and MS-DOS/Windows shell commands. Disk management, executing MPL and Python scripts, snooping and chatting with users on other nodes, editing ANSI and text files, etc.

A new menu command *D has been added but it cannot be executed unless the user has a security level of 255.

! Fixed a bug in Mystic Python that would cause a crash whenever the msg_open function failed to open or create a message base.

! Fixed a bug in Mystic wildcard match functions and increased speed by a good amount.

+ Mystic now logs the user's country in the node log along with their IP and hostname (when country blocking is enabled)

+ The install program now has an "extract" function to go along with the replace function. Type "install help" for more details.

+ MUTIL now has an AutoHatch function to automate periodic hatching of files from the file base. See default mutil.ini for more information.

+ New SysOp menu command: *3 This allows a SysOp to snoop (watch) a user on another node.

+ You can now press CTRL-E when editing menu settings on the Display File field to open up the ANSI editor.

! In various places whenever a file rename or move needs to occur, Mystic will first try a fast move and if it fails, it will attempt to copy the file to the new destination and then delete the original.

+ When reading forced message bases, Mystic will now allow the user to quit reading if they've already read all of the messages.

+ Mystic Message Base and File Base editors now have an /U Unsubscribe option This command will automatically generate an Areafix or Filefix Netmail request to unsubscribe from a base (and option to delete the base after)

+ The Echomail node editor now has three new options in the / menu:

     1 - Send Areafix request to the selected node
     2 - Send Filefix request to the selected node
     3 - Send Netmail message to Sysop of the selected node

All of these will allow you to quickly and easily contact an Echomail node to communicate with the SysOp or to add/remove message and file bases or anything else the Area/Filefix commands allow without having to fumble around with addresses and passwords!

+ System Configuration now has a log file viewer option in the Other menu next to the Text and ANSI editors.

+ New Menu command: *4 This opens the log file viewer

+ Text editor now has a (CTRL+J) Jump to Line number option

+ Text editor now has a (CTRL+W) Where function which allows full boolean line searching using paranthesis and &|! operators

+ Text editor now has a (CTRL+A) Again function which repeats the last Where function again

! MUTIL was not adding a NULL at the end of the last PKT when doing a rescan of message bases.

+ When importing and forward netmail, MUTIL will now allow an address to be defined, allowing Netmail to a certain name on the current setup to be forwarded to different name and/or network node. See default MUTIL.INI for more information.

+ New menu command "UF" Edit Twit Filter. This allows a user to edit their twit filter, which is a list of users whose messages will be automatically skipped when reading message bases. Each user can define up to 50 users they wish to ignore.

+ MUTIL now creates and removes BUSY data before and after processing TIC files and hatches.

! Fixed a bug when using the save file to message menu command where Netmail messages were not properly being flagged as private.

+ The SysOp name in the EchoMail node editor can now have an address appended to it, and Mystic will send the message to that address when using the "NetMail SysOp" option. So if the Echomail node address is 21:1/100 but when you use the Netmail to SysOp function you want to send it to 21:1/101 instead because 1:/100 is a hub only, then you can set the SysOp name to "Avon@21:1/101" to override the address.

+ New MPL variable: CfgDefTheme returns the configured default theme

+ New MPL variable: CfgTextFB returns the theme's text fallback theme

+ New MPL variable: CfgScriptFB returns the theme's script fallback theme

+ New MPL variable: CfgFallback returns true or false if default theme fallback is enabled for current theme

+ New Python CFG variable: deftheme returns the configured default theme

+ New Python CFG variable: textfb returns the theme's text fallback theme

+ New Python CFG variable: scriptfb returns the theme's script fallback

+ New Python CFG variable: fallback returns the themes' fallback setting

+ Updated default BULLETIN.MPS file to support scanning for bulletins in all theme fallback directories.

! MPLC was not properly scanning all directories recursively when -ALL was supplied. Additionally, MPLC will now not attempt to compile a .mps file that is 0 bytes in size.

+ New Theme system has been implemented. The default text, menu, and scripts directories in the System Configuration have been removed and replaced by a single Themes directory. This directory specifies the root directory where all Mystic BBS themes are found Ex: c:\mystic\themes\

THEME.DAT has been depreciated and is no longer used by Mystic BBS

Theme prompts are no longer restricted to being 255 characters or less, they now have an unlimited length.

UPGRADE utility will convert your existing BBS to the new themes structure for you so you do not have to do anything.

Each theme itself now has a root directory that can be up to 20 characters in length, and consists of three subdirectories. Each theme has a theme.ini in the root directory that contains various configuration options that can be configured by text editor or the Themes Editor.

Each them can also have a prompts.txt which contains one or more Mystic BBS prompts. Any prompts not in prompts.txt are loaded from the theme's fallback if one is specified, and ultimately the "default" prompt found in prompts.dat (new to Mystic BBS).

Themes can now contain only the prompts that are actually customized instead of requiring ALL prompts to be in a theme's prompt file, and then it can fallback and pull inherited prompts or defaults. This means that you will no longer have to update your prompts for every theme when new prompts are added or existing prompts that you haven't customized are changed

Scripts and menus work the same as prompts do with the capability to fall back to another theme and/or ultimately the configured default theme if that feature is enabled.

The directory structure looks like this:

      \mystic\themes                                - Root Theme directory
      \mystic\themes\default                        - Default theme directory
      \mystic\themes\default\theme.ini              - Theme settings
      \mystic\themes\default\prompts.txt            - Prompts (optional)
      \mystic\themes\default\text                   - Text/template files
      \mystic\themes\default\menus                  - Menus
      \mystic\themes\default\scripts                - Scripts

There is no installation process for a theme as Mystic will detect them dynamically. If you have a Theme and you wish to share it, all you have to do is ZIP up the theme directory (default as shown above) and give it to whoever you want to share it with. They just paste the directory into their root theme directory and it will instantly appear in Mystic BBS without any other work required. This makes it very easy to create, update, and share custom themes.

+ Themes now have an input barrier option, where a character can be defined to be displayed on the left and right side of string-based input prompts. LeftChar/LeftAttr RightChar/RightAttr can all be defined in theme.ini and one or both character can be enabled.

+ New MCI code |IB disables the input barrier for the next string input prompt.

+ New Python function "setpinfo(byte, string)" text the prompt info value for byte to the text in string. Ex: setpinfo(1, "Hello world!")

+ New Python has many new functions for accessing the file listings. A new demo filelist.mpy has been added to the default installation to demonstrate these functions. The following new functions have been created:

function "fl_open(basefn)" opens a filelist where basefn is the filename for the file base, returning a handle to the filelist If a filelist does not exist one will be created.

function "fl_close(handle)" closes an opened filelist

function "fl_seek(handle, filenumber, skip)" seeks to a file number. This should always be called before cycling through file listing. If Skip is set to true, then Deleted records will not be returned.

function "fl_next(handle)" return the next available file

function "fl_prev(handle)" return the previous available file

function "fl_found(handle)" returns true if a message from the last seek or next or prev function has been found

function "fileinfo = fl_getfile(handle)" returns a dictionary with information about the current file

function "filedesc = fl_getdesc(handle)" returns a list that contains the file description.

+ BUSYLOG debug logging has finally been disabled.

+ Two new Python functions:

     function dateu2d(date) : date - This converts a unix date to a DOS
     crunched date used in places in Mystic.  This date format is being
     replaced in Mystic but it still exists in some areas.
     function dated2u(date) : date - This converts a DOS crunched date to a
     Unix timestamp

+ New Python function: function acsnogroup(access string) : boolean Process an access string but returns "true" for all group checks regardless of the user's group membership. Returns true or false is user has access

+ New Python function: procedure setprompt(number, text) This sets a theme prompt to the value of text for the duration of the user's session or until they change or reload the theme. The change is not permanent.

+ New Python function: function msg_stats(msgbase) This function works by passing the handle of an already opened message base (msg_open). It calculates and returns 4 results: Total messages, new messages for the current user, number of messages addressed to the user, and the unix date of the last post in the message base. This function may cause problems if used within a message reading loop, so msg_seek may need to be called afterwards in that case. Example:

total, new, yours, lastpost = msg_stats(msg)

+ New Python function: function getnetaddr(number) This function returns a network address configuration passed as number to the function. The result is a dictionary with the following elements:

zone, net, node, point, desc, domain, primary, addr

Primary is a 0 or 1 value, 1 being true. Addr is a string representation of zone, net, node, point.

+ File Base Editor now shows Network address on the list window, and also allows sorting by Base Name, File Name, and Network.

+ Expanded node messages from 79 characters to 245 characters.

+ Template prompts no longer have a length limit of 255 characters, they now have no maximum length.

+ File Base Index lister (file_index.ini) now has a sort option which allows bases to appear in alphabetical order or by order of appearance in the group editor. See the default file_index.ini for example.

+ Some minor changes to the menu editor, mostly cosmetic and some text changes to help clarify what options are when editing a commmand. You can now also use Page Up/Down to move between menu commands without having to exit back out to the list of all menu commands. You can now use CTRL+V to simulate a menu while editing an actual menu command.

+ New MCI code for prompt #2: &1=User handle &2=Location

! Fixed year 2020 bug that caused some wrong day calculations in a couple of places. The next bug should be 2038, so we have a few more years to get that addressed before it becomes an issue.

+ MPLC now has a -T option which will attempt to read MYSTIC.DAT either in the current directory or using the mysticbbs environment variable to get the Theme path, and then it will recursively compile any scripts found in the Theme directory tree. You can optionally supply the path to Mystic BBS root directory if you have multiple installations. Example:

      mplc -t         - Attempts to read mystic.dat from current directory or
                        mysticbbs environment variable, and then uses Themes
                        path to compile.
      mplc -t /mybbs  - Attempts to read mystic.dat from the supplied root
                        directory, and then uses Themes path to compile

+ MPLC now has a -F option which will attempt to read the Theme path and then compile any files matching the supplied mask contained in any directories under the Theme directory. Example: mplc -f bulletin*

+ Improved detection of time expiration and connection loss during message and file scans.

! SEEN-BY lines should now include the net number at the start of new lines

! Mystic SMTP client now resends "EHLO" after upgrading connection to SSL. Some servers work without this step so it slipped through testing.

+ MIS and FIDOPOLL now save the last dates they interacted with an echomail node. This value is now displayed in the Echomail node editor when highlighting a node (Last Inbound=MIS, Last Outbound=FIDOPOLL). /R can be used inside the node editor to reset stats.

! Mystic was not using a 0-based month in PKT file headers. Fixed.

+ New prompt editor! There is now a Reset function which will reset a prompt back to the system default prompt. The Undo function has been enhanced to save the last 100 changes and will allow you to undo prompt changes starting from the newest change of a prompt to the oldest if you have made many changes. The source of a prompt in the editor is now shown with the following values:

     Current Theme  - Prompt is customized by the current theme
     System Default - Prompt is not part of any theme, using system default
     <Theme Name>   - Prompt was inherited from <Theme Name>

Only current theme prompts are saved in the theme's prompts.txt.

+ All theme prompts have had their maximum length in expanded from 250 characters to 8192 characters per prompt.

+ Themes now have an ACS string that can be used to hide themes from the listing. Keep in mind when configuring your BBS to allow theme selection on connect: There will not be a user known at that time so any security will cause the theme not to show.

The ACS is for the listing only. The purpose is mostly to hide themes while they are in development. Themes can still be selected regardless of ACS using using a menu command:

      Command: GE (Edit User Settings)
         Data: 14 mytheme

+ The GE suboption 14 menu command (select theme) now has a /RELOAD option which causes the current theme prompts to refresh:

      Command: GE (Edit User Settings)
         Data: 14 /reload

+ Themes now have an "Order" property which determines which themes are listed first. Values can be between 1-65000 with the lowest numbers being listed first. Themes will also be listed in the Themes editor using this value.

! Fixed a bug that could cause protocol downloads to get stuck on a connection drop

+ MUTIL's MsgPurge now validates that messages are from or addressed to valid users if the base type is Private or the base allows for Private replies within the base.

+ By request, Mystic no longer shows the OS and Node number when initially connecting to the BBS. If you wish to add this back you can use MCI codes or tell me why you think it needs to be reverted!

! Fixed a bug where MSGID could result in 0:0/0 when zone matching a Netmail base with no address assigned to it.

+ Mystic no longer logs the actual bad password text. This should have been removed a long time ago but I always liked seeing what the scripted bots tried to log in with when they found my BBS.

+ Rewrote all of the FLO add/remove functions with improved file locking to address potential race conditions.

! Fixed an issue with a file resume race condition in BinkP client/server

! Fixed an memory leak introduced in A43 that could cause a rescan to give corrupt message(s) in a packet.

+ Msg/File base global editors now ask you if you want to abort when pressing escape to exit.

+ Echonode editor now warns you if you edit a node and save it with a 0:0/0 address or a missing domain.

! Fixed bug in Python setprompt function.

! Rewrote some old DOS compatibility wrappers so that Mystic no longer localizes the file times in BinkP sessions.

! Similar to BinkP Mystic no longer localizes the system time in the Path portion of a TIC file.

! Fixed a bug with Lightbar/Grid style menus that was causing them to not handle extended key jumps properly.

! Fixed a bug in the nodelist browser that could cause some results to show the wrong Net number.

+ Menu Command: GE option 17 (Change file list type) can now have an option of 0 or 1 (0=standard 1=lightbar) to set the type without prompting

      Command: GE (Edit user settings)
         Data: 17 1

+ Menu command: GE option 20 (Change message reader type) can now have an option of 0 or 1 (0=standard 1=lightbar) to set type without prompting

      Command: GE (Edit user settings)
         Data: 20 1

+ Revamped the MUTIL startup code so that it provides better details in the errors.log should it fail to start up for any reason.

! Fixed broken outbound SSH (Menu command IS)

+ When entering Echomail addresses, Mystic will now automatically assign the Primary address if one isn't defined. Primary flag will also be removed if an address is set to 0:0/0 with primary flag.

+ Mystic BINKP server now sends an M_ERR frame and aborts the session if it receives what looks to be nonsense from the remote client. Previously it would wait until timeout.

+ When Mystic's Firewall has blocked a connection it will now detect if the connection was intended to be BINKP and send a "BUSY" flag with a note that says the connection is blocked. FIDOPOLL will now detect this as well.

! Fixed a bug where a user's scan settings for a base could get "stuck" in Forced mode if a base was forced and then changed.

+ Mystic now has an "Auto Whitelist IP" option in Login/Matrix settings. This option can have two values: "User Flag", or "All Users".

When set to "User Flag" Mystic will check a flag on the user's account called "Whitelist IP" and if its set, it will automatically whitelist the IP of the user who logged in if it is not already whitelisted.

When set to "All Users" Mystic will automatically whitelist the IP of all users who successfully log into the BBS.

+ Mystic Linux version no longer uses command line options for password during RLOGIN and SSH sessions. It now privately passes using a 512 bit hash.

The old MI Message Index Reader has been removed and replaced with the newer Index reader. This "new" index reader has been in Mystic to be tested under the M! menu command for more than a year so it is time to get rid of the old. The default template is msg_index so you should copy msg_index.ans and msg_index.ini during upgrade if you haven't yet.

+ Mystic's BINKP server now has an "SSL Port" option which when set to a non-zero value will also run the BINKP server in direct SSL mode.

Removed the Opportunistic BINKP SSL/TLS extension support as Mystic was the only known software to support it and it was unlikely other software would adopt it. Maybe I'll bring it back someday as I do prefer this method of BINKP server.

+ Mystic's BINKP server now allows the "Port" option to be set to 0 to disable non-SSL connections when used in combination with the SSL Port option, so that Mystic will only accept SSL BINKP connections.

+ FIDOPOLL and EchoMail node entries now have a "Use SSL" option which flags whether or not the node being configured for BINKP is an SSL BINKP node or not. Note: The default port for BINKP SSL is 24553.

! Fixed a bug where stale .BSY files were not getting deleted properly.

! Fixed a potential incompatiblity issue with some versions of Cryptlib.

! Fixed an issue where a file that contains "file_id.diz" in its filename but is not an exact match could get left in the temp directory when uploading files.

+ MIS now has a replacement for FIDOPOLL built into it and is accessible by the "POLL" command line. This still supports BINKP, BINKPSSL, FTP and Directory connections and has the "send "force" and poll by address lookup options contained in the original.

The benefits here besides having one less binary as part of the Mystic package is that it has a better user interface, better logging, and can have an unlimited number of concurrent outbound connections (defaulting to 5, configurable under Servers > General Options).

For example if you have 2 FTP uplinks and 5 BINKP nodes that all have mail you can run the "mis poll send" command line it will attempt to send to all 7 nodes at the simultaneously instead of one after the other.

Eventually FIDOPOLL will be replaced so it may be a good idea to switch over to using this sometime soon.

+ When attempting to connect to an outbound mail server, MIS will now wait only 6 seconds, down from 10 before assuming the connection is unavailable

+ MUTIL MsgLink no longer spams every single message base into the logging regardless of loglevel. Only the base name will be shown if there were messages actually linked within that base (level 2) and a list of the actual links (level 3)

+ MIS POLL now tracks send and receive file statistics (number of files and size) for FTP-based FTN transmission.

+ MIS POLL now tracks connection errors for outbound connections for both FTP and BINKP style connections.

+ New MUTIL function [EchoNodeTracker] can be used for various HUB-related utilities to automate downlink management. Features include:

Suspending echomail nodes based on days of inactivity
- Optionally unlinking message/file base subscriptions
- Optionally deleting their entire outbound mail queue
Changing mail and filebox crash nodes to hold-only after a set number of failed outbound connection attempts
Automated resetting of echomail tracking statistics after X days

See default MUTIL.INI [EchoNodeTracker] stanza for more information.

+ When changing a node from "Inactive" to "Active" in the Echomail node editor, Mystic will now ask if you'd like to reset the node's statistics.

+ EchoNode editor now shows a "Crash Errors" statistic which is the number of failed outbound connect attempts since last reset.

+ CHATx.DAT files now include the Process ID of the current process running the node and the updated field now uses a Unix timestamp.

+ Users now have a new flag that when set to Yes will always log them in as invisible, bypassing the login as invisisble prompt when set to Yes.

! Fixed a bug with BINKP where Mystic could send a 0 byte length data frame if a file size was exactly evenly divisible by the buffer size.

+ Mystic now allows the -Nx command line to be supplied to force a specific node number if you want to log into it. You should still not use this and let Mystic manage the number numbers itself, but I've added this for those that seem to be trying to do this for some reason.

! Fixed a bug with SSL and BINKP where the data frame size could be improperly calculated under severely throttled/poor latency connections.

+ Two new Python functions: msg_getlr and msg_setlr to get and set the lastread pointer for the currently opened message base.

     Syntax: msg_getlr (msgbase, userID) returns last read message
         Ex: lastread = msg_getlr(msgbase, user["id"])
     msgbase is the open message base pointer returned by msg_open
     userID is the user's unique ID found in the "id" field of a user
     lastread is a signed 32-bit integer of the last read message which can
     be passed to msg_seek, for example.
     Syntax: msg_setlr (msgbase, userID, userHandle, lastread)
         Ex: msg_setlr (msgbase, user["id"], user["handle"], lastread)
     The user handle should always be passed (not the real name) as this value
     will be hashed as required when a new last read record needs to be added
     for the user.

! When deleting an Echomail node, Mystic was not delinking the nodes from file bases causing an "Unknown node" message to appear in file bases.

+ Revamped group configuration. Group names have been expanded to 80 characters. Groups now have new ShortName field (40 characters). Groups now have a InfoFile field (40 characters), and each group's Hidden boolean has been changed to a flags field.

+ New MCI code: <pipe>FS returns the current file group short name

+ New MCI code: <pipe>MS returns the current message group short name

+ MPL groups now have "groupshort" and "groupinfo" and "groupflags" variables

+ Python groups now have "shortname" "infofile" and "flags" entries in the group dictionary.

+ MIS.LOG now has configurable log rolling in the System Configuration > Servers > Logging section.

+ POLL.LOG now has configurable log rolling in the System Configuration > Servers > Logging section.

+ When using GOSUB/RETURN with Lightbar menus, Mystic will now remember your last selected item and return the cursor position to it when returning. If you want to reset the cursor, use /CURSOR on the data field of your GR menu command.

! MIS was not refusing to run if the Mystic BBS data files did not match the version of MIS.

! When in the text editor in view only mode, the backspace key was still working in edit mode.

! Mystic was being way too aggressive with SSL read/write timeout values which may have caused some errors in SSL BINKP.

+ New option: "Ask Message Post" in message settings, when set to yes or no determines if Mystic will ask users if they'd like to post after reading a message base.

+ Mystic's message readers will now print all the maximum column width per line instead of columns - 1. This means that your message reading template will need to not use the bottom line of the user's terminal for message text or it will cause the user's terminal to scroll. This may be reverted back, but we'll see how it goes and how it effects people.

! When toggling show kludges (V) in the standard message reader, Mystic was not automatically displaying the message.

+ Max number of simultaneous poll connections is now configurable in the Servers > General Options section of System Configuration

+ When tossing TIC files, the dir_prefix can now be defined by source address as with other settings.

+ New command line option -AUTH <user> <password> checks the supplied user and password and prints TRUE if the user exists and password matches or FALSE otherwise and then immediately exits.

! Fixed a bug in Linux versions where Mystic would couldn't find files in the file base when hatching a file, despite it actually existing.

! Fixed a bug that could cause some long lines in echomail packets to get truncated at 255 characters when tossing messages.

! Fixed a bug in the FTP server that would confuse some FTP clients when closing a data connection (sending two 226 responses after successful transfer).

+ Mystic now allows a single message base to be assigned to a QWK network when operating as a hub, and a FidoNet style network. Gating will be automatic when configured for both.

! Fixed a bug when copying an event in the event editor that would cause it to have the same unique ID as the original event. This could cause some events to save incorrectly. When editing an event, all IDs should be unique (the ID is shown at the top of the edit window). Review your events and if you have any that have a duplicate ID you should either make a copy and then delete the original or just delete the original and remake it so all events have a unique ID.

+ MUTIL ImportEchomail now has a bad_packet setting which defines a directory where bad packets are moved to when an error occurs during import.

+ New Python function: flush(). This forces any data currently in Mystic's outbound buffer to be sent to the remote client. In almost all circumstances Mystic handles this for you so this will not be needed.

+ New Python function: purgeinput(). This clears out any input currently in Mystic's input buffer. In most cases when doing any IO with the user Mystic will handle this on its own.

! Mouse support was not working in Lightbar menus. Not sure when this was broken but it was probably when I changed how NetRunner mouse support worked in Beta 19.

+ Msg listing and file listing was not working properly with mouse support but I also changed it to allow clicking an already selected message or file to read the message or flag the file respectively.

+ New MCI codes for setting high intensity background colors ON or OFF for compatible terminals like NetRunner and SyncTerm:

      CY - Turns iCE colors ON
      CN - Turns iCE colors OFF

+ New Menu Command: XV. This option allows the user to validate their e-mail address from the Matrix login menu.

+ Users can now be created in the User Editor by using the CTRL+A hotkey

+ Updated the defaults for Matrix login so it no longer uses a Matrix password by default.

! Fixed a bug in the QWKPOLL FTP client and the FTN FTP client that was causing non-passive mode to fail.

! Fixed a display bug in the From field of routed Netmail messages.

! MIS was not resolving the "Country" of the connection when the IP address was whitelisted.

+ Area/Filefix both now accept %QUERY which works the same as %LINKED

! Fixed a bug with the MPL compiler and the DateValid fuction

+ New users can now be created from the command line using the -NEWUSER option followed by a series of attributes in any order:

     mystic -newuser handle=myhandle "name=real name" pass=mypass
     email=mysticbbs@gmail.com level=10

Mystic will print TRUE or FALSE to STDIO depending on if the user was successfully created or not. The command line MUST have a handle, name, and password attribute at a minimum for the create to succeed.

The level value will accept anything less than 250. Any new user created with a level of 250 or higher will be rejected.

+ The "hackwarn.txt", "newletter.txt" and "sysletter.txt" automatic messages will now be sent from/to the "Feedback To" setting instead of using the SysOp name setting.

+ When searching for a user name, typing "SYSOP" will now translate to the "Feedback To" user setting instead of the SysOp Name.

! MUTIL PostTextFile was not using the default Origin line when the base's origin line was blank.

+ When executing an archive, MIS and MUTIL will now automatically append 2>nul redirect to prevent leaking error messages.

! Did a review of the FTP server code which resulted in a bug fix and a fix of a memory leak when using passive and extended passive modes. Server stability has also been (hopefully) increased.

! Fixed a bug with QWK packet generation when message text lines are longer than 255 characters. This bug existed both in the BBS and the QWK Networking engines.

+ Mystic-DOS "EDIT" command now also accepts "nano" and "notepad" for those of you who have that stuck in your head.

+ Two new MCI codes to show message status of E-mail base:

      MW : Shows the number of messages in your e-mail box
      MU : Shows the number of unread messages in your mailbox

Note that these values are set to 0 until the MC (Check E-mail) menu command is executed. The values are calculated at that time.

+ New optional data option for menu command MC (Check E-mail): /SCAN If /SCAN is supplied the MC command will only calculate the current mailbox stats (total messages and unread messages) without having any display or interaction with the user. These values will be stored in the MU and MW MCI codes.

+ The MW menu (write email) command now uses the "Feedback To" configuration setting as the person to send e-mail to if the user enters "SYSOP".

+ Enabled the DX menu command to execute DOS FOSSIL doors in Windows 32-bit using DOSXTRN. This can be used as an alternative to NetFossil and will work over all connection types for DOS doors (ie, SSH). DOSXTRN+DLL must be in root Mystic directory and are not distributed with Mystic BBS.

+ Prompt #132 (More Yes No Continuous) has been changed. The first word of the prompt now defines the hotkeys used for the prompt. If you have a theme that customizes this prompt, the theme prompt will have to be updated to include this change.

     OLD: More: (Y)es, (N)o, (C)ontinuous?
     NEW: YNC More: (Y)es, (N)o, (C)ontinuous?

+ Prompt #522 (Yes/No text) has been changed. The first word now defines the hotkeys used for the prompt. If you have a theme that customizes this prompt, the theme's prompt will need to be updated or reset to default.

     OLD: No Yes
     NEW: NY No Yes

+ Mystic now displays the default Yes/No text when prompting non-lightbar questions. This is more inline with how Renegade Y/N prompts worked.

+ Updated default LHA/LHZ archive configuration for Linux systems.

+ When executing archives, MUTIL in Unix will now automatically append " /dev/null 2>&1" to the end of each archive execution command in order to hide standard output and error messages. It was already adding "2>nul" in Windows.

+ Mystic will now also automatically append " 2>nul" and " /dev/null 2>&1" when executing an archive in Windows and Unix respectively. If you already had these in your archive configuration consider removing them. If you believe this is a bad approach, please let me know why.

+ Increased the data timeout from 10 to 30 seconds when waiting for a data connection in QWKPOLL to give a little more time for hub systems to generate QWK packets (non-passive connections).

! Fixed a bug where the last line of quoted text could occasionally be missing from the quote selection.

! Fixed the broken escape sequence during outbound telnet, rlogin, and SSH connections. CTRL+] should now properly forcefully exit the outbound connection.

+ Because allowing a CTRL+] escape character may interfere with transfers during a bridged connection (ie, a file may have the escape character in it which could end the session when it attempts to send over the bridge), all outbound telnet, rlogin, and SSH connections will require the /ESC option in the command data for the escape sequence to be active.

+ Mystic will now execute connect.mps which will be ran before any terminal detection or codepage questions (startup.mps is executed after those things).

+ Added autocreate.mps to the default install scripts directory to give an example system for automatically creating users during RLOGIN.

+ When executing a door, Mystic now has a helper function to change directories from the command line. If you have CD<directory> in your command line, Mystic will remove it and change to that directory prior to executing the command line.

For example:

cd<c:\doors\stackem> stackem stackem.cfg %Pdoor.sys

! Fixed a bug where editing a long user note would corrupt itself and the theme field as well.

+ Added new MUTIL function [Export_AREAS.BBS] to create an export of all Echomail message bases in the AREAS.BBS file format. See the default MUTIL.INI for example.

! Mystic was not adding the FTN address to the Origin line of NetMail bases if no address was set in the base configuration.

+ The -newuser option now has the ability to update existing users if the optional "update" command is provided on the command line. In other words it will create a new user if they do not exist, or update them if they do provided the user to be updated is not currently logged into the BBS or being edited in the user editor. Examples:

mystic -newuser update handle=g00r00 pass=mypassword

This command would create the user g00r00 if they did not exist, or update the password of the existing g00r00 account if they account did exist.

mystic -newuser update handle=g00r00 email=new@email.com

This command would update the user g00r00 but if the user g00r00 did not exist it would fail to create them because no password was provided and by minimum a username and password must be provided to create a new user.

These commands would also fail if the update was requested when the user g00r00 was logged into the BBS.

+ The -newuser command line option now has the ability to specify the user's start menu by using the menu=menuname key/value pair.

+ Expanded the number of maximum screen lines by 10, and the columns by a bit too so now Mystic supports terminal sizes up to 160x60 (and 40x24 for the smallest size <untested>).

Note that if you have enabled creation of "node windows" when running the Windows version of Mystic, you will want to right click your command prompt window, select "Defaults", and set the window/buffer size to default to 160x60. Mystic creates node windows using the default settings so if you don't select the largest window a user can use then the screen will not look correct when a user is in a terminal mode larger than the node window.

+ User terminal size is no longer stored in the user record, and Mystic always uses the detected terminal size (or the default terminal size defined in System Configuration if no graphics detected on connection).

+ New MPL variables "TermSizeX" and "TermSizeY" tell you the size of the user's terminal.

+ New MPY function termsize() returns the x and y size of the user's terminal

For example:
x, y = termsize();

+ When logging in locally in Windows, Mystic will now fully draw the status line at the bottom of the screen.

! Fixed a bug in the FTP server that was causing directory listings to show an incorrect date.

+ MPL InputOptions now takes a extra parameter at the end which is a Char variable to signfify the echo character to use when doing password input. Testinput.mps example has been updated with an example.

+ MPL Input class now has a new mode, mode 4 which is a masked string input that can be used for password entry. Recompile MPL programs (mplc -t). The testinput.mps demo has been updated with a password example.

+ The GE menu command option 10 for changing terminal size now has prompts #553 and #554 for terminal columns. No need to do anything but copy over the new prompts.dat into your data folder as per upgrade instructions.

The old random display file system is gone so if you have the .ana, .anb type files you will need to update them to use the "new" system that is being brought over from the Mystic 2 build.

+ New display file random system. If for example the base filename of the display file is "test" then you can make any additional files with a .# after the base filename and one of them will be selected randomly. The old system had a limit of 36 random ANSIs per display file but this system has no limits. For example:

      test.ans
      test.1.ans
      test.2.ans
      test.10.ans

Mystic will randomly select and display one of the above files.

+ New display file system for custom terminal sizes that allow specific files to be displayed based on the user's terminal size. For example if the base display filename is "test" then you can add either the columns or both the columns and lines:

      test.ans              < Displays to users with less than 120 columns
      test.c120.ans         < Displays to users with 120-159 columns
      test.c160.ans         < Displays to users with 160+ columns

You can also include the number of lines as well:

      test.c132x37.ans      < Displays to users who have 132x37 or larger
                              terminal size.

+ New display file system can combine the random ANSIs along with the terminal sizes. When combined the random number comes first followed by the terminal size. So if you have three 160 column scrollers you want to randomly display and three 80 column, you could name them like this:

       scroller.1.ans
       scroller.2.ans
       scroller.3.ans
       scroller.1.c160.ans
       scroller.2.c160.ans
       scroller.3.c160.ans

Now if you executed a GD menu command with the data of "scroller" Mystic will randomly display scroller..ans if the user's terminal size is less than 160 columns. If the terminal size is 160 columns or higher Mystic will randomly display scroller..c160.ans.

All of Mystic's automated display files like logonX and so on all use this system as well, and so does the dispfile MPL and showfile MPY functions. The c#x# format is case sensitive.

It is important to note when doing 40 column themes that the column-defined files always take priority over the base file. This means test.c40.ans will always be selected over test.ans. If you are creating a theme that supports both 80 and 40 columns then you'll want to create c80 files along with your c40 files.

+ Template files now allow both random and terminal sized-based file naming similar to display files. For example:

     msg_editor.ini
     msg_editor.c132x36.ini
     msg_editor.c160x50.ini

+ Mystic's Text Editor will now use the full size of the terminal up to 160x60.

+ The [X## MCI code to move to an X position on the screen has been updated to allow a third character for X coordinates between 100-160. The way this works may have to change in the future.

+ MUTIL: Added the option to export Golded message base definitions into a nicely formatted text file. See the default mutil.ini for an example of the new [Export_Golded] stanza.

+ Added new default FS editor template for 132x36 screen resolution.

+ Rewrote the logic for reformatting text when using the delete key in the FS editor.

+ Rewrote the logic for reformating when using backspace in FS editor.

+ Fidopoll has been removed, you can delete it. MIS POLL completely replaces it now, all of the FidoPoll commands there type MIS POLL to get a list.

! A46 build was accidentally shipping with default group configuration in the old A45 format which would cause some problems unless they were deleted.

+ New MCI code |[0 sends a terminal sequence to hide the cursor (support for this will depend on the terminal).

+ New MCI code |[1 sends a terminal sequence to show the cursor (support for this will depend on the terminal).

+ Menus in Mystic now have a "Marquee" option in the Menu Settings. This allows each menu to have an optional scrolling field of text of up to 255 characters (but could in theory be expanded). The Marque settings have the following option per menu:

          Active | Yes
               X | 1
               Y | 1
      Field Size | 60
          Offset | 1
     Scroll Type | Scroll Left
           Speed | 200
            Text | |04Hey, |12|UH|04!  How are you?

The active field determines whether or not this will be active on the menu. This must be Yes and the user must have ANSI graphics for this to work.

The X/Y field define the location of the start of the scrolling field

The Field Size defines the number of characters the scrolling field will show at once. If the field size is larger than the text supplied then Mystic will wrap the text to fit the field.

The Offset allows the starting character to be defined when the scrolling beings. So the first character at the start X/Y position will be character at # "Offset" of the text.

The Scroll Type defines the method of scrolling, either scrolling to the left or the right.

The Speed option defines the number of milliseconds to delay between scrolling of the text. Valid options are 100 to 1000ms.

The Text field defines the actual text that will be scrolling. This text can have pipe color codes and MCI codes that returns information about the user such as UH for their user handle and so on.

+ The default "testlightbar" menu has been updated to show an example of a scrolling Menu Marquee.

+ New Menu Command: -M This command sets the current menu's Marquee text with the text contained in the data field. If the first 5 characters are "/ADD " in the command data, Mystic will append the text onto the existing scrolling field instead of replacing it. If the data field is /RESET it will reset the Marquee to the configured Marquee text value. Otherwise, it will replace the Marquee with the text in the data field.

+ The theme editor no longer allows the theme being edited to be selected as an inherited theme.

! Fixed a bug when forwarding a message from a local message base to an echo base that caused the network address to be missing from the origin line.

+ Renamed the "Echo/Qwk" message base type setting to "Networked"

! May have fixed a bug created in A46 with file base indexing. Everyone that may experience problems with duplicate file detection should probably run file base packer so it can regenerate the index files.

+ New MCI code |CHx. This MCI code just prints out the character after the CH. So for example |CH| would send out a pipe character |CHa would print the letter a.

+ New MCI code |PD. This MCI code instructs Mystic to space pad the next MCI code value result. So for example |PD|MB would return " General Messages " whereas |MB would return "General Messages".

+ Menu file names can now use the dynamic column and lines filenaming and the random file names, just the same as templates and display files. For

example: main.mnu main.1.c132.mnu main.2.c132.mnu main.c160.mnu

! Fixed a bug where if an extended key is defined in a standard menu, that key would be available for input.

+ MUTIL will now honor the "eacs_list" tag when configuring defaults for auto created message bases.

+ New ACS command X# where # is the number of columns of the user's terminal size. For example: x132 would be true if the user has 132 or higher columns

+ New menu command option: /THEME for the *M menu command. When supplying this option, Mystic will not ask to select the theme to edit and instead will load the current theme for editing.

+ New option when selecting a menu to edit in the menu editor: /T which can be used to change the theme.

+ Rewrote the setting of message pointers by date (Menu command MD) so that it should be significantly faster.

+ New users now have their default message pointers set based on one of several different options found in New User Settings 1:

Start Msg Pointers can be set to any of the following:

     First message         : Start at the first message in each base
     Last message          : Start at last/end of messages in each base
     Last (Value) messages : Start at the last X messages of each base
     (Value) days ago      : Start at messages that are X days old.

The second Value field sets the number of messages or the days old that the pointers will be set to depending on the Start Msg Pointers option.

For example, if Start Msg Pointers is set to "Last (value) messages" and value is set to 10, then the user will start at 10 messages back from the last message in the base.

If Start Msg Pointers is set to "(Value) days ago" and value is set to 7 then the user will start reading messages in each base that are 7 days old or newer from the date of their user creation.

! Fixed a bug where Areafix would not properly respond when it receives a message from software that ends PKT lines with the CR+LF combination.

! Fixed a bug in MUTIL echomail import where the Bad packet directory being left blank could cause bad packets to get moved to the root directory of your disk drive when instead it should have disabled the bad packet move.

+ New Python function isuser(name) returns true or false if the user name passed to the function is a valid user:

     if isuser("g00r00"):
       writeln("g00r00 is a user!")
     else:
       writeln("g00r00 is NOT a user!")

+ Theme configuration will now allow iCE/blinking color attributes to be selected when setting input fields and theme colors, etc.

+ Message base colors in the editor will now allow iCE/blink color attributes for message text.

+ In Windows local mode, the status line can now be configured to use iCE colors.

+ Mystic echomail tosser will now move whole echomail bundles to the bad packet directory if it cannot determine archive type or if it cannot find any packets in the bundle when trying to extract it. Unknown files will continue to be left in the incoming folder.

! Fixed a bug where the user could be logged out for inactivity immediately after a SysOp chat using NodeSpy.

! Text editor was not searching the very last line of the text file when doing searches or searching Again.

+ MUTIL: Changed the error message to be more descriptive when importing unsecure FTN packets with a password assigned to it.

+ Updated Mystic's BINKP protocol to work around a bug in BINKD where the way BINKD escapes filenames does not follow BINKP specifications.

! Fixed a bug where Mystic's online help system could end up looping endlessly if a connection was lost while browsing a help file.

! Fixed some bugs in the Message Index Reader when there are no subscribed message bases that could cause a crash.

+ Mystic is has now been ported to run on AArch (ARM 64-bit) architecture. Currently the only target is Linux ARM 64-bit but we'll see where the market takes us from here (Windows ARM, macOS, etc).

+ MIDE now properly defaults to UTF8 output in Linux and also includes a codepage setting mide.ini to force CP437 or UTF8.

+ MIDE: Removed the 80x50 column mode left over from DOS MIDE. MIDE now uses the current screen size.

+ New Python Engine has replaced the old one. This engine supports Python 2 and Python 3 although 3 should be considered experimental for now. Two need fields are now in System Configuration > General Configuration and those allow you to set the location/name of the Python library that Mystic will try to load.

If you are upgrading from an old version you should check to make sure that those values are blank and if they have old left over configuration data you should set them to blank values. If blank values do not work then you must set the value to your installed Python location/library.

For example in Linux you could search for the library like this: "sudo find /usr -name 'libpython2.7.so'

This should give you the location of your Python 2.7 library. If you do not have Python 2.7 installed then you can usually install it via a package manager. For Ubuntu 20.04 for example you can do:

sudo apt install libpython2.7

Repeat the same process for the Python 3 as well. In Windows the DLL files are usually python27.dll and python3x.dll where x is the version and the installation typically puts them in your C:\WINDOWS folder tree somewhere.

As always the installed bit version of Python must match the installed version of Mystic. For example 64-bit Windows needs 64-bit Python.

+ New Menu command "GZ" is added to execute a Python 3 script.

+ New command line option for Mystic -Z will execute a Python 3 script from the command line (similar to the -Y and -X for Python 2 and MPL respectively)

+ Mystic-DOS command PYTHON is now changed to PYTHON2

+ New Mystic-DOS command PYTHON3 executes a Python3 script.

+ Theme prompts with the first character of ~ will now attempt to execute a Python 3 script. For example:

001 ~mypy3script

+ Added a new horizontal menu MCI code similar to the pop up vertical menu, which can be used to quickly make a horizontal lightbar menu and optionally have a description line below it. The format is as follows:

The <color> represents the text color attribute for the standard text of the selection. The <high_color> represents the highlighted color when the item is selected. <desc_color> is used only when a description is assigned to a selection and represents the color of the description text.

As with other places where an attribute number is defined the value can be calcuated be the following formulate FG + (BG * 16) so FG color of white (16) or a blue (1) background would be 15 + (1 * 16) which is 31.

<options> consists of a comma-separated list of key/text pairs defined as key-text where key is the hotkey and text is what is lightbar selectable.

So for a horizontal lightbar menu with two light bar options it would look like this:

<pipe>#H#7#31#14#2A-Option A,B-Option B#

The above would create a horizontal lightbar menu with two options called "Option A" and "Option B" with the first having a hotkey of A and the second a hotkey of B. The text would be attribute 7 (grey) and the highlighted text would be white on blue background (attr 31). The third field would not be used because there is no description defined for any of the options and the fourth option is says to default to the second option (Option B) when opening the menu.

Descriptions can be applied to each option by putting those values in backets in the item name. The description will be displayed on the line under the lightbar menu in the same way Searchlight BBS would. For

example: <pipe>#H#7#31#14#2A-Option A[Option A description here],B-Option B#

Pipe color codes can be used in the option names and will be rendered as expected when the item is not highlighted.

+ Made some enhancements to the FS editor to how reformatting works when pressing enter in the middle of a sentence or backspace to a previous line

! Mystic's text editor was not detecting a "changed" text file if the only command done was to cut a line of text.

+ Mystic's ANSI editor now supports editing ANSI files based on your current screen size. If you are greater than 80 columns Mystic will ask when loading an ANSI how many columns the ANSI is with options up to 160 columns if your current screen size supports it.

! Fixed a bug with MIDE Run command and also added a screen pause after executing the script.

+ Added Menu Margins to the Menu Settings for each menu. This is used for standard type menus and allows a number of characters to be defined as margins on the left and right side of the screen before calculating the columns and drawing the menu commands. Setting these to 0 will disable the margins which will generate menus as they have always been generated.

There are two sets of margins, one defined for terminals 132 columns or higher and the other set used for those that are less than 132 columns.

+ When displaying internally generated menu commands, Mystic will now draw the commands in a non-destructive mode when ANSI is enabled. This means the location of menu commands will always be the same and if you display an ANSI menu (displayed using the header) you can leave a space for the commands and Mystic will automatically populate them without overwriting the ANSI.

+ Echomail nodes now have a "Direct Bypass" setting which when set to no will disable direct netmail routing to that node, forcing any mail for this address to be routed through the routing policies.

+ The E-mail autovalidation function (when using the security level upgrade option) will now only change your security level if its higher than your current security level.

! When viewing a text file from within an archive in ASCII mode, Mystic was not properly displaying the text file.

+ New MPL Function fWriteStr which will write a string to a text file without adding line ending characters. IE:

     S := 'Hello world';
     fWriteStr(F, S);