MacTelnet 3.0 beta 1

Thank you for downloading NCSA Telnet 3.0, now renamed to MacTelnet (since the PC version has not been updated).  As of version 3.0, MacTelnet is no longer a product of NCSA.  Please direct all inquiries regarding new versions of this product to me, Kevin Grant (kmg@mac.com).

Contents:

• Disclaimer
• System Requirements
• Packing List
• Installation
• What’s New
• Tuning MacTelnet For Optimal Performance
• For More Information
• The Open-Source Project

Disclaimer

IMPORTANT

If you require a telnet application for regular use, you should not necessarily use MacTelnet (yet), for all of the reasons above.  Please download the previous “final quality” release, NCSA Telnet 2.6, from http://www.mactelnet.com/.

System Requirements

Pre-release versions of MacTelnet are expected to run on Macs with Mac OS 8.x, but have not been tested extensively on most OS versions because I lack a lot of test machines.  Please report any problems immediately.

Packing List

The items include, among other things:

• Update Older MacTelnet Prefs - a Mac OS 9 script program that users upgrading from previous MacTelnet alpha releases should run, in order to preserve preferences and in order for this release of MacTelnet to run properly.  See the “Installation” section, below, for more information.
• MacTelnet - the application program file. Double-click this icon to run MacTelnet.
• About Box Movie - a movie that exists for the sole purpose of making the About box look a bit cooler.  It’s optional; if you rename or throw away this movie, MacTelnet will still work, and the About box will simply skip the movie and display a static picture.
• Help - when this file is present in the same folder as MacTelnet, the “MacTelnet Help” and “Help Center” items automatically appear in the Help menu, and help buttons in dialog boxes will work (otherwise, they do not).
• MacTelnet Help - contains MacTelnet’s HTML help system.  This folder should be put into the Help folder in the System Folder if you want it to be available in the Mac OS Help Center.  If you chose to retain the “Help” file, described previously, then you should retain MacTelnet Help, too.
• Scripts Menu Items - defines the contents of MacTelnet’s Scripts menu.  If you do not use AppleScript, you can safely remove this folder.  You can add any scripts you like to this folder.
• Extras - see the “Extras Read Me” file in this folder for more information.

Installation

Preferences Fixer

Note: If the fixer does not work, or if you experience unexpected problems upgrading from a previous release of MacTelnet, you can simply delete any existing MacTelnet Preferences in your Preferences folder (in the System Folder) to get MacTelnet to run.

The Fixer performs the following changes, if necessary:

• any ancient preferences file “Telnet 3.0 Preferences” is renamed (or thrown in the Trash if a superseding “MacTelnet Preferences” file also exists)
• the folder “MacTelnet Favorites” is moved from the Favorites folder into the Preferences folder (MacTelnet will no longer invade your Favorites space with an annoying folder, my apologies for this past practice)
• a folder “MacTelnet Preferences” is created in the Preferences folder
• all MacTelnet macro files, and the preferences file, are moved to the new folder

What’s New

This update folds in some capabilities you may have first seen if you downloaded the Mac OS X Previews of MacTelnet from MacTelnet.com.

Bug fixes:

• stability improvements, including fixing one cause of crash-on-close-connection
• some annoyances related to font list rebuilding at startup have been substantially improved

• macro sets can now have 12 macros each, but are still backwards-compatible with 10-macro sets; this means you can either use F1-F12 to invoke them, or now command-= or command-/ in addition to the command-digit keys on the keypad
• the keypad windows no longer have an Aqua appearance, as frankly this didn’t make sense for Classic users; the keypads now look like real keyboard keys, which I hope you agree look even better!
• the Terminal Favorite editor has been enhanced to match the Mac OS X version, which means it is bigger, less cramped, and lets you edit Bold Text color defaults
• the FTP Log command is finally available (missing in action since NCSA Telnet 2.6)

• like the Mac OS X version, you now have Bigger Text and Smaller Text commands
• several menu commands renamed to match their Mac OS X counterparts
• removed defunct menu commands

• a debugging log file is no longer generated
• the user interface has been scaled properly to fit Classic user interface guidelines

Tuning MacTelnet For Optimal Performance

MacTelnet has a huge preferred memory size because operations such as dynamic window resizing work best when there is plenty of memory available.  Increasing memory is not required, however — MacTelnet will operate safely even in low memory conditions, and within its minimum partition.

If your monitor is set to a depth of “thousands” or “millions” of colors, or if you have a very large monitor, you will definitely benefit by increasing MacTelnet’s memory partition.  An increase of 1000 K or more is highly recommended to improve graphics performance in MacTelnet.  On the other hand, if you don’t use the Dynamic Window Resizing preference and have a small monitor, you shouldn’t need to change MacTelnet’s memory partition (and you may wish to reduce it to the minimum size).

For More Information

The Open-Source Project