[fpc-other] [fpc-pascal] Missing messages

[Tomas Hajny]

Responding to fpc-other, because it's off-topic.

Same here...

I don't miss any messages, i.e. it isn't a general problem (which
obviously doesn't imply that there is no problem).

First Lazarus, now FPC. Can we not switch fpc-pascal to a NNTP newsgroup
- no issues, no spam and more control over your own messages. After all,
NNTP was designed from the ground up for group communications. My
company server already hosts a couple of groups for various open source
projects, for over 10 years. Adding one more will take all of 1 minute.

Do you get spam from FPC lists very often? I believe that the existing
controls block most if not all of it quite efficiently. On the other hand,
NNTP is not guaranteed to be free of spam, nor ensuring smooth
communication for everybody either (as an example, it may not be
accessible from corporate environments).

Tomas


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[Graeme Geldenhuys]

Post by Tomas Hajny
Responding to fpc-other, because it's off-topic.

I can't see why... but okay.

Post by Tomas Hajny
I don't miss any messages, i.e. it isn't a general problem (which
obviously doesn't imply that there is no problem).

Over the years I have seen so many issues with the mailing lists.
Missing messages, messages being delivered out of sequence, some domains
not accept etc etc.

Post by Tomas Hajny
Do you get spam from FPC lists very often? I believe that the existing
controls block most if not all of it quite efficiently.

On occasion I do get spam via the mailing list, but I must admit the FPC
mailing list admin has done a good job in that regard. The situation is
much better than other mailing lists.

Post by Tomas Hajny
On the other hand, NNTP is not guaranteed to be free of spam,

Yes, the Usenet Newsgroups are often pestered with spam. But if you
looked at any private NNTP servers, 99.99% of the time there is zero
spam messages. Plus the newsgroup admin can simply delete such a post,
and nobody else would see it - that can't be done with mailing lists.

Post by Tomas Hajny
nor ensuring smooth
communication for everybody either (as an example, it may not be
accessible from corporate environments).

Over the years I have heard many say that, but I am yet to see such a
case. That obviously doesn't mean it doesn't happen, it is just very
unlikely. And even if it does, that is exactly why I host a Web
Interface to my news server - for those very rare edge cases.

I can also argue that many corporate environments would frown upon using
a company email account to register to a non-company related mailing
list. In the past I have also had some issues with company email
accounts and mailing lists - very dependent on how the company emails
are set up and how messages are being distributed.

NNTP has many other benefits too:
* A clear separation of email and group discussions. Keep your
work and hobby communications separate.
* A choice of newsgroup clients. Most newsgroup clients have much
better group communication features that email clients.
* Space saving. With newsgroup client you have the choice to
store fully messages locally (handy for offline reading), or
simply store headers only, and the body gets retrieved on
demand.
* More control over your own messages. eg: You can delete your
own posts. Very handy if you got carried away in a heated
discussion (such a frequent occurrence in the FPC mailing lists),
and would actually prefer to rather remove such a post 5 or
10 minutes later when you cooled down a bit.
* No idiotic "spam filtering" applied by your email provider.
eg: Google and many others outright band ZIP attachments, even
though they my be perfectly legit. ZIP attachments are not the
only attachments they ban.
* You can easily keep your identify (eg: email address) hidden,
yet still post messages. Some people like their privacy and
don't have access to multiple email accounts.
* You can join a newsgroup at any time, yet easily tell your
news client to download the whole history of the group, or
just the last 1000 or 500 or whatever you want, messages.
No need to go to a separate 3rd party website to search through
historic conversations. It's all in one location.
* Many news clients support the "portable apps" concept, where
everything can be run from a USB stick, and all settings and
messages are stored on the USB stick. Perfect for those
corporate environments (and keeping your work computer only
work related). Also, with such a portable install, all
message filters, message actions, last read statuses etc
are all remembered and travels with you.
* No more receiving somebody else's "out of office" responses
while they are on holiday.

Hey, we even have an excellent news client written in Object Pascal -
just take a look an XanaNews! btw: XanaNews supports all the above
benefits and much much more.

Github repository
https://github.com/graemeg/xananews/

XanaNews releases
https://github.com/graemeg/xananews/releases



Regards,
Graeme

[Bo Berglund]

On Sun, 30 Oct 2016 22:36:59 +0000, Graeme Geldenhuys
Graeme, I really agree with all of the items in your list!
Good summary! :)

[w***@windstream.net]

On 10/30/2016 06:36 PM, Graeme Geldenhuys wrote:
[...]

Post by Graeme Geldenhuys
Hey, we even have an excellent news client written in Object Pascal -
just take a look an XanaNews! btw: XanaNews supports all the above
benefits and much much more.
Github repository
https://github.com/graemeg/xananews/
XanaNews releases
https://github.com/graemeg/xananews/releases

what?! no linux or BSD flavor? i'm shocked and kinda disappointed, graeme :(

[Graeme Geldenhuys]

Post by w***@windstream.net
what?! no linux or BSD flavor? i'm shocked and kinda disappointed

XanaNews is a Delphi only application at the moment, and has many
Windows specific API calls. I am very tempted at starting a
FPC/LCL/fpGUI port though. Good news is, the current version runs
perfectly under WINE using Linux or FreeBSD.

Regards,
Graeme

[Graeme Geldenhuys]

Post by Graeme Geldenhuys
XanaNews is a Delphi only application at the moment, and has many
Windows specific API calls.

Saying that, it uses Indy 10 for communications, and Indy 10 works
perfectly under FPC.

Regards,
Graeme

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[Travis Siegel]

Post by Graeme Geldenhuys
Hey, we even have an excellent news client written in Object Pascal -
just take a look an XanaNews! btw: XanaNews supports all the above
benefits and much much more.
Github repository
https://github.com/graemeg/xananews/
XanaNews releases
https://github.com/graemeg/xananews/releases
Regards,
Graeme

Does this nntp client compile with fpc? It's written in delphi, and I've
been unable to find a legitimate copy of delphi even though I've
searched for one for years. Either I'm not looking in the right places,
or nobody is selling one. I'm not interested in paying $1500 for the
delphi replacement, even if it does run on linux.
At one point (roughly 10 years ago) I did get delphi as a free download
from the french site for borland, but as I recall, it was only a trial,
though I don't remember it ever timing out, of course, that was on an xp
machine, that no longer behaves well enough to copy things to/from it.
I'll need to yank the hd and put it in an external case if I'm to find
that download again.


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[Graeme Geldenhuys]

Post by Travis Siegel
Does this nntp client compile with fpc?

No, at the moment it is a Delphi only project, but as I mentioned in
another reply, I am very tempted at starting a FPC and LCL/fpGUI port.
It does run perfectly under WINE though - that's how I'm using it under
FreeBSD.

Post by Travis Siegel
It's written in delphi, and I've
been unable to find a legitimate copy of delphi even though I've
searched for one for years.

Embarcadero has a Delphi 10.1 (Berlin) Starter Edition for free at the
moment. I downloaded a copy and can make it available for download if
Embarcadero doesn't offer it any more. I haven't installed it yet (I
don't really use Delphi at all any more), but in the Lazarus Forum's
they mention that it is working well, and Zeos components can be
installed without trouble.

Regards,
Graeme

[Jonas Maebe]

Post by Graeme Geldenhuys
Embarcadero has a Delphi 10.1 (Berlin) Starter Edition for free at the
moment. I downloaded a copy and can make it available for download if
Embarcadero doesn't offer it any more.

The fact that they offered the software as a free download for personal
use does not give you the right to redistribute that software yourself.
Use and (re)distribution are two separate things under copyright.

Please do not offer or encourage infringing on Embarcadero's copyrights
on our mailing lists.


Jonas
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[Travis Siegel]

They still offer it, but it's a 30-day trial, and it appears that once
you get the trial activation number, it's good for any of the products,
only I (using a screen reader) couldn't select which product I wanted,
so it downloaded and installed their c++ suite of tools instead of the
delphi ones, so I'm stuck with a delphi free computer (still). Millions
of folks may use the thing, but I can tell you none of those millions
use a screen reader, because I can't get the thing to do much, though it
does seem usable on the surface, as I dig into the various
functionality, I find it's not quite as accessible as it first appears
<sigh> I think I'll stick to my text editors, and command-line tools.

(and not use their c++ products at all. After the 30 day trial, it's
still almost 300 bucks for their intro version, which admittedly is way
better than 1400 they want for the pro version, and if I were actually
making money at this, it would be a worthwhile investment, but since
it's a personal thing, it's not really worth it, when there's other
alternatives that are more accessible for me.

Post by Jonas Maebe

Post by Graeme Geldenhuys
Embarcadero has a Delphi 10.1 (Berlin) Starter Edition for free at the
moment. I downloaded a copy and can make it available for download if
Embarcadero doesn't offer it any more.

The fact that they offered the software as a free download for personal
use does not give you the right to redistribute that software yourself.
Use and (re)distribution are two separate things under copyright.
Please do not offer or encourage infringing on Embarcadero's copyrights
on our mailing lists.
Jonas
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[Graeme Geldenhuys]

Post by Graeme Geldenhuys
Embarcadero has a Delphi 10.1 (Berlin) Starter Edition for free at the
moment.

The promotion is still on offer.

https://www.embarcadero.com/products/delphi/starter/promotional-download


They even allow "limited commercial use" with it. I don't know the
details though.

Even TMS Software jumped on to this band wagon, and is offering TMS
Aurelius for free, for the Delphi 10.1 (Berlin) Starter Edition. Offer
valid until 30 Nov 2016.

http://www.tmssoftware.com/site/aureliusfree.asp



Regards,
Graeme

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[Graeme Geldenhuys]

have been pulled
in that are either no longer available or aren't going to work with
FPC/Lazarus.

In the case of XanaNews, the two primary components is use are Indy and
VirtualTreeview. Both are supported by FPC. I don't see the point of
using VirtualTreeview though, so if I do go ahead with the port, I'll
probably remove that dependency. There are other minor components in
use, but they are custom written and included with XanaNews source code
- easy to port of simply replaced with standard components. The other
obstacle is multiple Win32 API calls and RichEdit.dll usage. I can't
remember exactly for what usage the Win32 API call was used, but it
shouldn't be hard to de-tangle - maybe just time consuming. The
RichEdit.dll usage is easy to remove too.

There as already been some discussion regarding what is needed to port
XanaNews. You are welcome to read about them on my news server, where I
host the official XanaNews support newsgroup too.

server: geldenhuys.co.uk
port: 119
newsgroup: xananews.talk

Frankly, I've always found the standard Mozilla family of clients adequate.

I would normally agree, and indeed it is the longest standing clients I
have been using for many years. Thunderbird does come with its bugs
though, and I unfortunately often stumble over the same ones for the
last 8 years. eg: unable to save an attachment (randomly occurs), or
moving a message from one account to another account, I loose any
attachments.

Saying that, XanaNews has some excellent newsgroup features, very fast,
and light on memory.

Regards,
Graeme

[Travis Siegel]

Can't find the right message to reply to, so same thread, here we go.

Thanks for the link to the free promo version of delphi. It works
nicely, and I now have a fully registered version of delphi on my
system, and although it works well enough, I have trouble with too much
junk onscreen, but that's normal for visual editors, so I'm used to
that, and will find work arounds eventually. I've not tried the whole
lazarus ide yet, because I'm sure it wasn't designed with accessibility
in mind, and it's generally more frustrating than anything else for me
trying new environments that have little or no accessibility. Most
often, this is a result of the designers not being aware such
needs/processes exist), so there's no blame there. I've been an fpc
user for years, though for the last 10+ years I've been windows free, so
didn't care that lazarus probably didn't work with screen readers. :) I
think it's only fair to give it a fair shake though before I begin
complaining about it.

Since it's opensource, I may load it up, and attempt to fix said issues
so it will work for others who might want to use it. Generally, it's
just a matter of labeling buttons properly, and identifying areas that
may not be recognized by the screen readers as things like scroll areas,
pull downs, opening tabs, and the like. Once those items are properly
identified to windows, they generally work well. Of course, sometimes,
design issues (such as screen layout) prevent screen readers from
working well, but those are rare). Anyway, I've hijacked this thread
long enough. I just wanted to say thanks for the pointers.

Post by Graeme Geldenhuys

have been pulled
in that are either no longer available or aren't going to work with
FPC/Lazarus.

In the case of XanaNews, the two primary components is use are Indy and
VirtualTreeview. Both are supported by FPC. I don't see the point of
using VirtualTreeview though, so if I do go ahead with the port, I'll
probably remove that dependency. There are other minor components in
use, but they are custom written and included with XanaNews source code
- easy to port of simply replaced with standard components. The other
obstacle is multiple Win32 API calls and RichEdit.dll usage. I can't
remember exactly for what usage the Win32 API call was used, but it
shouldn't be hard to de-tangle - maybe just time consuming. The
RichEdit.dll usage is easy to remove too.
There as already been some discussion regarding what is needed to port
XanaNews. You are welcome to read about them on my news server, where I
host the official XanaNews support newsgroup too.
server: geldenhuys.co.uk
port: 119
newsgroup: xananews.talk

Frankly, I've always found the standard Mozilla family of clients adequate.

I would normally agree, and indeed it is the longest standing clients I
have been using for many years. Thunderbird does come with its bugs
though, and I unfortunately often stumble over the same ones for the
last 8 years. eg: unable to save an attachment (randomly occurs), or
moving a message from one account to another account, I loose any
attachments.
Saying that, XanaNews has some excellent newsgroup features, very fast,
and light on memory.
Regards,
Graeme

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[Graeme Geldenhuys]

Post by Travis Siegel
It works
nicely, and I now have a fully registered version of delphi

I couldn't even get past the installation of Delphi 10.1 (Berlin). For
two hours it kept giving me an error "can't communicate to the license
server bla bla bla", yet my internet connection was working just fine.
The joys of modern commercial software (a single point of failure) - so
I deleted the installation file.

Regards,
Graeme

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[Allan]

On Sun, 30 Oct 2016 22:36:59 +0000

Post by Graeme Geldenhuys

Post by Tomas Hajny
Responding to fpc-other, because it's off-topic.

I can't see why... but okay.

Post by Tomas Hajny
I don't miss any messages, i.e. it isn't a general problem (which
obviously doesn't imply that there is no problem).

Neither do I, and I only get this 'maillist' as a newsgroup from
Gmane :-)

Post by Graeme Geldenhuys
Over the years I have seen so many issues with the mailing lists.
Missing messages, messages being delivered out of sequence, some
domains not accept etc etc.

Post by Tomas Hajny
On the other hand, NNTP is not guaranteed to be free of spam,

Yes, the Usenet Newsgroups are often pestered with spam. But if you
looked at any private NNTP servers, 99.99% of the time there is zero
spam messages. Plus the newsgroup admin can simply delete such a post,
and nobody else would see it - that can't be done with mailing lists.

Deleting spam manually from newsgroups means spam did get sent to other
newsservers, and the user that was quick got it. However, newsservers
usually have spamfilters too, that takes most from the start.

Post by Graeme Geldenhuys

Post by Tomas Hajny
nor ensuring smooth
communication for everybody either (as an example, it may not be
accessible from corporate environments).

Over the years I have heard many say that, but I am yet to see such a
case. That obviously doesn't mean it doesn't happen, it is just very
unlikely. And even if it does, that is exactly why I host a Web
Interface to my news server - for those very rare edge cases.

I work at such a company, where only Web is available though a proxy.
And yes, in that case a webforum on top of a newsserver works fine.
I run such a solution myself - mine does also include a mail <-> news
gateway - so it can still be used as maillist also -- and still running
on good old OS/2 ;-)

Post by Graeme Geldenhuys
I can also argue that many corporate environments would frown upon
using a company email account to register to a non-company related
mailing list. In the past I have also had some issues with company
email accounts and mailing lists - very dependent on how the company
emails are set up and how messages are being distributed.

The most notorious problems with people subscribing from office accounts
is IMHO the 'I'm not in the OFFICE now' - a pain for all maillists.
[..]
I obliously agree with all of it ;-)

Post by Graeme Geldenhuys
Hey, we even have an excellent news client written in Object Pascal -
just take a look an XanaNews! btw: XanaNews supports all the above
benefits and much much more.
Github repository
https://github.com/graemeg/xananews/
XanaNews releases
HTTP://github.com/graemeg/xananews/releases

Available for all the OS/platforms that FPC supports ?

Anyway, I agree, that newsservers are the best for this, so it
is nice, that all FPC maillists are on Gmane now.
Unfortunately, that have been some talks about stopping the Gmane
service, so it would be nice to see fpc lists on a more permanent
newsserver.


Allan.



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[Bo Berglund]

On Mon, 31 Oct 2016 02:12:44 +0100, Allan

Post by Allan
Anyway, I agree, that newsservers are the best for this, so it
is nice, that all FPC maillists are on Gmane now.
Unfortunately, that have been some talks about stopping the Gmane
service, so it would be nice to see fpc lists on a more permanent
newsserver.

By what I have seen is that Lars cannot continue the web interface to
Gmane NNTP, but that the NNTP server will continue.
It was a while since I read it so things may have changed.
(I use GMANE NNTP myself of course.)

[Graeme Geldenhuys]

Post by Bo Berglund
By what I have seen is that Lars cannot continue the web interface to
Gmane NNTP, but that the NNTP server will continue.

Ah, thanks for clarifying that. I was under the impression that Gmane
was going to close down completely. Nice to hear that part of it (the
most important part) is still going to continue.

Regards,
Graeme

[Graeme Geldenhuys]

Post by Allan
Deleting spam manually from newsgroups means spam did get sent to other
newsservers, and the user that was quick got it.

Hosting a private news server like I do, there are no upstream news
servers. What you describe is common in Usenet, but that is not what I'm
suggesting.

Post by Allan
However, newsservers usually have spamfilters too,

That's correct. Plus one could go a step further and require
registration and user/password authentication to connect to a news
server, but I prefer not to have the latter. It the ten years that I've
been running my news server, I have never had spam messages - just call
me lucky! ;-)

Post by Allan
I work at such a company, where only Web is available though a proxy.

Would a SSL+NNTP connection also be blocked by such a proxy? I would
imagine it wouldn't. So that might also be an option.

Such proxy's are totally ridiculously in any case. Everything gets piped
via HTTP these days, so such proxies or port 80 only firewalls are just
a "make believe" protection.

Post by Allan
I run such a solution myself - mine does also include a mail <-> news
gateway - so it can still be used as maillist also

Another option I would prefer not to implement. The other nice thing
about news clients I didn't mention - they tend to default to plain text
messages. Contrary to some beliefs, HTML mail doesn't contribute
anything towards a discussion, it only introduces possibilities of email
tracking, javascript viruses and bloats the messages sizes 10-fold.

Post by Allan

Post by Graeme Geldenhuys
XanaNews releases
HTTP://github.com/graemeg/xananews/releases

Available for all the OS/platforms that FPC supports ?

See my other replies.


Regards,
Graeme

[Marco van de Voort]

Post by Graeme Geldenhuys
They even allow "limited commercial use" with it. I don't know the
details though.

iirc up to Eur/$ 1000 turnover. I don't know if you can use it in a big
corporation inhouse to send 3 values to your PLC via serial though (since
how to calculate turnover in that case?)
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[Jonas Maebe]

Hi,

I accidentally rejected the message below by Allan
<***@warpspeed.dyndns.dk> because I thought I was looking at the
moderation queue of the fpc-pascal list. So here it is.


Jonas
FPC mailing lists admin


On Mon, 31 Oct 2016 09:38:43 +0000

Post by Graeme Geldenhuys

Post by Bo Berglund
By what I have seen is that Lars cannot continue the web interface
to Gmane NNTP, but that the NNTP server will continue.

Ah, thanks for clarifying that. I was under the impression that Gmane
was going to close down completely. Nice to hear that part of it (the
most important part) is still going to continue.

I really don't care, if his web interface goes away - never used it.
If he really would stop the gmane newsserver, I would just link
the mailinglist to my own newsserver, as I have done with lots of other
mailinglists, over the years :-)

I think the discussion about which model is the right one for FPC is
stupid, as no one will ever agree on anything.

OTOH, I have been running my own newsserver for 15 years - with a
gateway to a mailinglist server, and a very simple Webinterface on top
of the newsserver - and it has been running that way all the time on
OS/2 ! Please don't tell me - that there is not very simple solutions
for that ( and hopefully 15 years newer :-) ) for nix or win.

What I'm saying here is, that I would hope, that we could persuade the
FPC Team to set up such a solution - so that everybody would be happy.

It really do have a lot of advantages - especially if running
mailinglists and webforuns as separate things - because that would
split the community - the other solution joins forces.


Allan.



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[Bo Berglund]

On Wed, 2 Nov 2016 09:48:30 +0100, Allan

Post by Jonas Maebe
On Mon, 31 Oct 2016 09:38:43 +0000

Post by Graeme Geldenhuys

Post by Bo Berglund
By what I have seen is that Lars cannot continue the web interface
to Gmane NNTP, but that the NNTP server will continue.

Ah, thanks for clarifying that. I was under the impression that Gmane
was going to close down completely. Nice to hear that part of it (the
most important part) is still going to continue.

I really don't care, if his web interface goes away - never used it.
If he really would stop the gmane newsserver, I would just link
the mailinglist to my own newsserver, as I have done with lots of other
mailinglists, over the years :-)
I think the discussion about which model is the right one for FPC is
stupid, as no one will ever agree on anything.
OTOH, I have been running my own newsserver for 15 years - with a
gateway to a mailinglist server, and a very simple Webinterface on top
of the newsserver - and it has been running that way all the time on
OS/2 ! Please don't tell me - that there is not very simple solutions
for that ( and hopefully 15 years newer :-) ) for nix or win.

...

Post by Jonas Maebe
Allan.

Sounds like one could set up such a server on a Raspberry Pi (Linux
Debian type). I am running all kinds of stuff on RPi, for example
Lazarus/FPC, a VPN server and more.

Do you have any advice on how to install an NNTP server on Linux?
I have never looked at that before. It would need to subscribe to
lists using its own dedicated mail account, right?

[Graeme Geldenhuys]

Post by Bo Berglund
Do you have any advice on how to install an NNTP server on Linux?

I have been running the sn NNTP Server for the last 10 years. For the
first 6 it was on Linux, and for the last 4 on FreeBSD. I've been
running sn v0.3.8 all that time.

http://patrik.iki.fi/sn/

It is a very small and simple NNTP server for low to medium amount of
newsgroups, and is dead simple to maintain.

Regards,
Graeme

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