[Spambayes] Spambayes 1.0a5 released

[Richie Hindle]

Spambayes 1.0a5 has been released.  Here's WHAT_IS_NEW.txt:

This file covers the major changes between each release.  For more details,
the reader is referred to the changelog (changelog.txt in the main directory
of the archive), or for extreme details, to the check-ins archive (please see
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes-checkins>)
                                                                   
Changes are broken into sections for each application, plus one that will
probably only interest developers, and one for everything else.

Any actions necessary to move to this release from the previous release are
noted in the "Transition" section.

New in Alpha Release 5
======================

--------------------------
** Incompatible changes **
--------------------------

The values taken by some options have changed, so if you're upgrading from a
previous version, you may need to update your configuration file (.spambayesrc
or bayescustomize.ini)

 o allow_remote_connections now takes a list of allowed IP addresses, or the
   word 'localhost', or an asterisk (meaning all connections are accepted).
 o notate_to and notate_subject now take a comma-separated list of one or
   more of 'spam', 'ham' and 'unsure', allowing you to control which classes
   of message are notated.

Outlook Plugin
--------------
 o Added a diagnostics dialog with functions to make it easier for users to
   help developers track down and fix bugs.
 o Added a 'timer' method of determining when to filter mail that should work
   better with Outlook's rule system.
 o Added a button on the Advanced tab of the dialog to display the SpamBayes
   data folder.
 o Moved "Filter Now" to an item on the drop down menu on the toolbar.
 o Items that can be filtered and trained include "IPM.Note" (normal messages)
   and "IPM.Anti-Virus*" (virus alerts by some software).
 o Changed the default filter action to "move" (instead of "untouched").
 o Added a Wizard to assist with initial configuration (this will present
   itself when necessary).
 o Changed to allow filtering to be enabled, even if no training has been done.
 o Added a "New Folder" button to the folder selector dialog.
 o Massive changes to the dialog system (which should fix some problems),
   including changing the configuration dialog to a tabbed interface.
 o "Show Clues" now shows the percentage, as well as the raw score.
 o Added a "Help" menu to the drop down menu, with various information.
 o Added the ability to check for the latest version via an item on the drop
   down menu.
 o Hopefully, the "unread flag" issue is now fixed.
 o Fixed many problems with working on systems where English is not the
   default language, or where profile names have non-English characters.

POP3 Proxy / SMTP Proxy / POP3 Proxy Service
--------------------------------------------
 o Fixed "assert hamcount <= nham" problem.
 o Starting and stopping the POP3 Proxy service (for Windows NT, Windows
   2000 and Windows XP users) has been improved.  Most noticeably, this
   means that the SMTP Proxy will start (if it is needed) as well.
 o Improve the "notate to" and "notate subject" options, so that ham and
   unsure messages can also be (optionally) notated in these fields.
 o Add the ability to skip caching messages that are over a (user
   configurable) size, so that you can keep the size of the cache
   directories smaller, once these messages are correctly classified.
 o Added the ability to skip caching messages that have a precedence of
   "bulk" (most mailing list messages), so that you can keep the size
   of the cache directories (and review list) smaller, once these messages
   are correctly classified.
 o Fixed the "ASCII decoding error" problem.
 o The SMTP proxy tries harder to pass on the command formatted exactly
   as it was given.  This should make it more reliable.
 o Add the ability to have the SMTP proxy train on the message sent to it,
   rather than looking up the id in the cache (which is still possible, and
   generally the better option).
 o Removed the ability to add the SpamBayes identification number to the
   body of messages (it can still be added as a header).
 o The review messages page now puts unsure messages at the top.
 o The POP3 proxy should now work with fetchmail.
 o You can once again specify local addresses as well as ports for the
   POP3 proxy to listen on (was broken in 1.0a3 and 1.0a4).
 o A bug with the SMTP proxy that would show up in some cases as an
   "unrecognised command" error the mail client (particularly Eudora)
   was fixed.

IMAP Filter
-----------
 o If you didn't use the -p switch to enter your password
   interactively, imapfilter would try and get it from the options,
   but if it wasn't there yet (because you hadn't done the setup yet),
   it would crash.  This is now fixed.

General
-------
 o Added the ability to store the SpamBayes database in a mySQL or
   postreSGL database table (currently supported by hammiefilter and
   the POP3 proxy).
 o Removed the ability to use the 'dumbdbm' as the storage method.
   (See the FAQ for reasons why).
 o We now allow the '@' and '=' characters in paths.
 o Added a simple n-way classifier using a cascade of binary SpamBayes
   classifiers.
 o Added version information to the web interface.
 o Fixed the yellow colour of the header boxes in the web interface.
 o Fixed restoring defaults from the web interface.
 o Added a missing line break in the status pane on the web interface
   when there are no proxies configured.
 o Prevent the "Show clues" links on the web interface's training page
   from word-wrapping and making all the table rows two lines high.
 o You can now put "*" at the end of a word in the "Word Query" box
   on the web interface, and have it show you the first ten words,
   and how many words there are in total, in the database that start with
   that word.
 o The web interface now supports HTTP-Auth.
 o Added a new script (code-named 'overkill.py') which enables
   'drag and drop' training for POP3 users.  This is currently still in
   the experimental stage, and anyone interested in trying it out should
   enquire on the SpamBayes mailing list
   (<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/spambayes>).

Developer
---------
 o Created a directory for test suites, including a storage.py test.
 o An empty 'allowed values' now allows an empty string.
 o Add a get_option method, so an option instance itself can be fetched.
 o Support fetching the "latest" set of version data from the spambayes
   web site.

Transition
==========
If you are transitioning from a version older than 1.0a4, please also
read the notes in the previous release notes (accessible from
<http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=61702>).

 o If you were previously using the 'dumbdbm' storage method (you will
   have files called "hammie.db.dat", "hamie.db.dir" and "hammie.db.bak",
   rather than one file called "hammie.db"), then you will need to
   change to using either a pickle (please see the FAQ:
   <http://spambayes.org/faq.html>), bsddb, gdbm, or one of the new SQL
   based storage methods.  The 'dumbdbm' storage method resulting in
   many databases being corrupted, and was never the best choice for
   storage, in any case.  Although you can use the dbExpImp.py script
   to convert your database to your new storage system, we recommend
   that you retrain from scratch, as it is most likely that your
   database has been corrupted.
 o If you were using the options to notate the "To" or "Subject" headers
   with the message's classification, you will need to update your
   configuration file, as the format for these options have changed.
 o The ability to add the SpamBayes id to the message body has been
   removed, which means that Outlook Express users can no longer use
   the SMTP proxy and have it retrieve messages from the cache.  These
   users can use the SMTP proxy by training on the forwarded message
   itself, but this is not recommended, as clues in the message will have
   changed (the "From" address will be yours, for example).  At this time,
   you will have to use the web interface for training, although there is
   the possibility of 'drag and drop' training being added in a release in
   the near future.


Reported Bugs Fixed
===================
The following bugs tracked via the Sourceforge system were fixed:
776808, 795749, 787251, 790051, 743131, 779319, 785389, 786952, 788495,
790406, 788008, 787296, 788002, 780612, 784323, 784296, 780819, 780801,
779049, 765912, 777026, 777165, 693387, 690418, 719586, 769346, 761499,
769346, 773452, 765042, 760062, 768162, 768221, 797776, 797316, 796996

A url containing the details of these bugs can be made by appending the
bug number to this url:
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&group_id=61702&atid=498103&aid=


Feature Requests Added
======================
The following feature requests tracked via the Sourceforge system were
added:
789916, 698036, 796832, 791319

A url containing the details of these feature requests can be made by
appending the request number to this url:
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&group_id=61702&atid=498106&aid=


Patches integrated
===================
The following patches tracked via the Sourceforge system were integrated:
791254, 790615, 788001, 769981, 791393

A url containing the details of these feature requests can be made by
appending the request number to this url:
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&group_id=61702&atid=498105&aid=

-- 
Richie Hindle
richie at entrian.com