From: Brian Johnson (brj@u.washington.edu)
Subject: [Announce] ConferWeb 2.1 now available!
I am pleased and relieved to announce the availability of ConferWeb 2.1!
ConferWeb is a general-purpose applescript CGI for Guestbooks,
Bulletin boards, web-conferences, and so on. The new version includes
several enhancements that you may be interested in:
* configurable “html” vs. “plain text” posting (or make it a user choice)
In combination with a TEXTAREA WRAP=HARD text entry area, this
permits users to more reliably predict what they’ll see, post ASCII
art, etc.
* configurable list of “filter words” (text strings that shouldn’t be
posted)
If present in your conference folder, the “filter.words” file
provides a set of words which will be removed from all user posting
before they are added to the discussion. This may not only be used to
suppress the objectionable words found in most languages, but also to
minimize the possibility of someone posting a malicious javascript on
your bbs, etc.
* A prototype “web chat” configuration
A set of template files which use ConferWeb and Javascript to provide
a chat-room configuration. While it works ~pretty well~ in it’s
current form for Netscape Communicator clients, I still need to
refine the Javascript for the Internet Explorer clients.
* Use of the DIRE parameter (see below) for file manipulation, so that
ConferWeb can be used with Virtual Host sites.
Unfortunately, this feature has been temporarily removed from the
distribution, though I expect to re-enable it soon. See
http://www.caup.washington.edu/software/conferweb/support/index.html
for more.
The new release, along with sample sites and related information may
be found at http://www.caup.washington.edu/software/
ConferWeb remains “Postcardware.” If you use it for a non-commercial
site, it’s free–just let me know who’s using it, where, and who to
send upgrade/bug info to.
Brian Johnson
