WRN... Windows Read-News
========================

Included in this archive are source code files for Windows-based Usenet
News reader. The program was written by me as a self-teach exercise in
learning about Visual Basic, and also to provide me with a better way to
read news which I downloaded to my PC using Waffle.

It worked very well for me, and I kept adapting it and improving it,
intending to eventually release it as shareware. That didn't eventuate
because of a number of reasons:

a) I discovered OS/2, and found it to be vastly superior to Windows.
   Regrettably, MicroSoft chose to write Visual Basic v1.0 (perhaps
   later versions too) in such a way as to prevent it running properly
   under OS/2. That made development kind of tricky.

b) The host site I got my newsfeed from died, never to rise again. All
   of a sudden, an all-singing, all-dancing news-reader wasn't that
   useful without any news to read. I could have got a feed from another
   host, but

c) At work, we got a proper Internet connection, with mail and news and
   FTP and archie and WAIS and all kinds of other groovy stuff,
   including an OS/2 based news-reader which was nearly as good as WRN,
   but wasn't taking me hours a night to get going.

Intending to release WRN, I did release two beta-test versions (0.93
fairly widely, and 0.94 to a selected few). Since then, I've been
pestered (well, I gotta admit, it's nice to be wanted) by people
complaining (well, not really complaining, really just reporting bugs)
about WRN. The bugs which appear most often ('Invalid Function Call' or
similar, and 'Bad Filename', both about startup) appear as far as I can
tell to be due to some sort of bug in Windows and/or Visual Basic v1.0
and/or VBRUN100.DLL. Let's hope that later versions are better (perhaps
some-one could try compiling it with VB3.0 and let me know?)

Given this continuing interest, I've decided to release the source code.
There are a couple of conditions:

1. That this code (and I guess ideas derived from it) not be *sold*
   without my permission. That includes building it into other programs
   or products. I've put in many hours to get it to this point
   and I don't mind other people using it, but I don't want to stay poor
   while some-one else gets rich based on my work.

2. That where my code (and I guess ideas) is used, some sort of
   acknowledgement be given... something along the lines of

   "This package includes code written by Frank van der Hulst
    (frankv@alf.pec.co.nz)"

   in the "About" box would be sufficient.

3. The code itself may be distributed as far and wide as you like, in
   whatever way you like, so long as these conditions continue to apply
   to it.

4. It would be nice if people who use this to generate something spiffy
   & neat drop me a line... a colourful postcard sent to me

   Frank van der Hulst
   7 Vincent St
   Matamata
   New Zealand

   would be great, otherwise email to me at frankv@alf.pec.co.nz would
   be OK too.

Since v0.94, I've made a few improvements. Naturally these have been
balanced by a few "random undocumented changes". I know of one which
causes the program to crash if it finds any mail waiting for you. What I
should be saying is "All care, no responsibility". Actually, what I mean
is... "No care, no responsibility". *I* know there's bugs; now *you*
know there's bugs. If it breaks your computer or drives you mad, don't
come after *me* with a meat cleaver, OK? And if it crashes the whole
Internet, it's going to be you who's going to be chased by a whole lot
of mad guys with meat cleavers, probably including me.

Having said all that, I'm still happy to try to answer questions about
it as best I can. Please bear in mind I haven't looked at the code since
February 1993 though.

Included here is some stuff which I feel a bit dubious about
distributing in this form (but what the hell):

1. Most of the icon files used for the toolbar came with VB. I guess
   they belong to MicroSoft. I've included them only because I've also
   seen them in various PD collections of icons.

2. MLISTBOX.VBX is an add-on Multi-list-box widget which I was
   experimenting with because the few objects that came with VB were so
   poor. It came from a shareware (I think) package which I didn't pay
   for 'cause I was only trying it out. Everything else about WRN fell
   apart at that stage, so I've left that in, so that things will still
   compile. To tell you the truth, I don't think it's what I wanted in
   WRN anyway. To make things worse, I've lost all the author's
   details... sorry, guys.

3. I experimented with QDHELP (Quick & Dirty Help, a help-file
   compiler), another shareware package I didn't pay for (I would have,
   honest!) So the stuff in the HELP directory used to create WRN.HLP
   relates to that. None of their stuff is there, but files created with
   their program is.

I think that's all I've got to say, except... Enjoy, and Share.

Frank.
07 February 1994.

