Gravity

Important
Changes

End Users

Links

Yahoo
Mail List

Developers

Credits

SourceForge.net Logo

Tom's Gravity Pages
Site Index

MicroPlanet Gravity

Open Source Usenet News Reader for Windows 95/98/2K/XP

07/31/04

The latest Gravity 2.7 Open Source Build is 2067
Get it and read the notes at SourceForge

Gravity is a full featured Windows Usenet online/offline news client with an extensive feature list. Gravity has been a popular news reader since 1996. Numerous features were added over the years. Gravity originally started as shareware, and later as freeware. It is now open source under the BSD license.

If you are upgrading from Gravity 2.6 or earlier please read the important user information. The Gravity open source releases will be numbered Version 2.7.

A SourceForge (SF) project and CVS repository are set up.

  • A Yahoo mail list and group are set up. The list is intended for primarily for programmers or those with an interest in the code.

The code and compiled binaries can be downloaded from the SourceForge project site. If you are a user and want to try the compiled executable you should read the important information and notes for ends users. You will have to make one small registry change unless you do a clean install.

You can also download (checkout) the code by anonymous CVS. Read the CVS docs on the SourceForge site for CVS help. The CVS root is something like anonymous@cvs.sf.net:/cvsroot/mpgravity - Module gravity

IMPORTANT CHANGES

  • The Toolbar can not be customized by the end user, except for a small subset of the previous commands. The customizable toolbar was licensed and had to go.

  • No spell checker. No Gallery code. No backup program code. No help source files. (However, Gallery and Backup seem to work if you have them, Gallery and GravityBackup can be downloaded separately from one of the download sites listed on Tom's Gravity Pages)

    Update: Build 2067 adds a preliminary spell checker (MySpell)

  • PCREs. Gravity now uses Perl Compatible Regular Expressions. The original package was licensed and had to go. Please read the following issues regarding REs.

    - If Gravity is already installed the following registry change MUST be made to recognize binary parts (and for the "Complete_Binaries" Filter to work)

    HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\MicroPlanet\Gravity\System
    Change DecodeRE-Parts to ([0-9]+)/([0-9]+)

    - Rules/filters/scoring that use REs must be changed (if necessary)

  • Basic X-Face support is provided.

  • NEW - A Decode to .. function that over rides the configured directories.

  • NEW - There is a new "Complete_Binaries" checkbox on the "Add/Edit" filter dialog box. Filters should still work if the filter name begins with "Complete_Binaries" for backward compatibility.

  • You can drag the filters - rules - outbox bars.

IMPORTANT NOTES FOR GRAVITY USERS

Early versions using the open source code should be regarded as developers versions. Download and use at your own risk.

If you are a current Gravity user you should be aware that the open source version is stripped down from the earlier releases (Build 2057 and lower). This was necessary for releasing the code.

Be aware that you will not be able to customize the toolbar and there is no spell checker. Also, the obscure secret panic or "boss" mode functionality is removed.

Regular expressions are changed to Perl Compatible Regular Expressions (PCREs). You may have to change filters, rules or scoring that use regular expressions. You MUST perform the registry change mentioned in the Important Changes so that Gravity recognizes binary parts and for the complete binaries filters to work.

You can revert back to builds 2056 or 2057, the database has not changed. However, if you performed the registry change for complete binaries, you should change it back to the default setting [0-9]+$b/[0-9]+$c

LINKS

YAHOO MAIL LIST AND GROUP

The yahoo list is intended as a resource for developers working with the code. You can choose to subscribe only to the mail list or become a member and access the list and group area. The group URL is: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gravity -dev/

Subscribing

  • Option 1: Full group access and mail list. You must be a yahoo member or become one. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gravity -dev/

  • Option 2: Subscribe to e-mail list only. (You can post and receive, but not access the other group features)

    Send a blank e-mail to gravity-dev-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

    Yahoo will send you a validation e-mail (sometimes it takes a little while).

Important e-mail addresses

Post message: gravity-dev@yahoogroups.com
Subscribe: gravity-dev-su bscribe@yahoogroups.com (blank email)
Unsubscribe: gravity-dev-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

DEVELOPERS AND COMPILING

Developers must have MSVC++ to compile the code. It is distributed as a complete zipped MSVC++ workspace or by CVS. I compiled it with Service Pack 2 with no major problems. If you downloaded a zip file, unzip the zip file to a directory, preserving the directory structure. Open workspace news.dsw and build (set configuration to Win32 release). If you use CVS you know what to do. If not - good luck! SourceForge has tons of documents and links for using CVS.

CREDITS AND LICENSING

Credit and many thanks go to Al Choy for modifying and releasing the source code. Thanks to the gang at MicroPlanet; Albert Choy, Tony Edwards, and Marwan Shaban. The X-Face code is from Matthijs Laan and James Ashton. The PCRE library is by Philip Hazel.

Open Source Contributors

  • Albert Choy
  • John Skeet
  • Peter Wall

The code is released under the BSD license.

Tom Bates
nfn03862@naples.net