fTelnet

News

The first donation since March came in last week, so I figured I'd use it to open up a few more public proxies. Jacksonville, Florida and Los Angeles, California are the second and third for North America, and the sixth and seventh overall. Here's the updated list: United States (California): proxy-us-ca.ftelnet.ca port 1123 United States [...] Read more

I've added several new options to the My fTelnet embed wizard, so if you've set it up on your site have a look and see if there's anything new you'd like to customize. If so, just replace the old embed code with the new one and you'll be good to go.

My fTelnet has been updated with a cool new embed feature that will allow you to easily embed the client into any website of your choosing. It'll do this via an iframe that you generate and copy/paste into whatever page you want on your website. Why would you want to do this? Because it's about 1000x times easier than the traditional method of [...] Read more

Check out My fTelnet and let me know what you think! (Just ignore the TODO markers, it's still a work-in-progress -- and being a work in progress it'll be prone to breaking unexpectedly, although hopefully that won't happen too often!)

I forgot all about the fTelnet and HtmlTerm demos when I migrated my website to GetSimple CMS! Just now I noticed they were "coming soon...", so I've finally put the demos in place.

HtmlTerm has been modified slightly to allow it to work with websockify. So if you're running Linux and want to use HtmlTerm, this is now your best option. websockify can also act as a flash socket policy server, so can also be used with fTelnet!

So I never got around to releasing a new fTelnet like I said I would in the last post. The RIP support is in a non-working state, and I haven't felt inclined to work on it to get it compiling again. I have recently started working on HtmlTerm again though -- started with just implementing a few fixes to the Crt unit, but now both uploading and [...] Read more

Haven't released a new version of fTelnet in awhile. I still work on it occasionally, usually tinkering with the RIP support (even though I don't think anybody uses it!), but there hasn't been anything significant enough to warrant a release, so I haven't bothered.But today I added a method for detecting and notifying the user when the fTelnet app [...] Read more

Forgot to make a release after making the July 10 fix. Oops!

A new release for the TouchPad was submitted today, which brings some changes to the UI that makes fTelnet look a little better, especially when used in conjunction with a bluetooth keyboard (the virtual keyboards can be hidden, allowing fTelnet to use a larger font, allowing more of the screen to be used). Thanks to Chris for sending a bluetooth [...] Read more

Just uploaded a new release with an important HtmlTerm fix and a pretty cool new fTelnet feature. There were also updates to Client*.js, so make sure you incorporate those changes into your versions of the file (if you don't just want to overwrite your versions and start fresh). The cool new fTelnet feature is scrollback mode! This has been on the [...] Read more

Just uploaded a new release. I don't think there were any fTelnet related changes, just a few fixes for HtmlTerm that were reported recently. WBA was also updated to make it a little more sane in its operation (the close button now really closes the form, and the minimize button will minimize it to the tray).

Been so busy with mobile stuff lately that I've been ignoring the original web based version. Well today I finally got everything cleaned up and have made a new release of fTelnet! There isn't a whole lot of new stuff, since the mobile stuff has been getting all the special attention, but one major improvement is the addition of a virtual keyboard [...] Read more

Already a few people have pointed out that the webOS virtual keyboard doesn't have arrow keys (and the bluetooth keyboard's arrow keys don't seem to be supported outside the core webOS OS), so I have an updated release in the queue that adds an arrow icon overlay to the bottom-right corner of the flash control. It's been 'Ready for Review' for a [...] Read more

Another oops...I uploaded the wrong WBA.exe yesterday, so Chrome 16+ was STILL broken! So if you downloaded 11.11.02 yesterday or earlier today, then please download it again. Hopefully that's got it fixed now!

Oops, totally forgot to upload the new release with the updated WBA, which added support for the latest version of Chrome. I've now finally uploaded it, although since it was only WBA and not fTelnet that was changed, I didn't bother increasing the version number. So if you use WBA, please download 11.11.02 again, and if you don't use WBA, then [...] Read more

Happy New Year! Thought I'd share this screenshot of fTelnet running on my HP Touchpad! I picked one up during the fire sale awhile back, and haven't had much use for it until now! And the coolest part of all is that webOS allows me to embed a proxy server, so you can use it like a REAL telnet client, and not require the remote side to be running a [...] Read more

I've just fixed a bug in fTelnet that was causing the RIP parser to work incorrectly in some cases, resulting in a blank screen. This was known to affect NetFoss and Renegade, and there were possibly others. So if you tried to use fTelnet in RIP mode with your BBS and found it didn't work, then try again and hopefully it works now (and let me know [...] Read more

I've just released a new version with an update for WBA and a (hopefully) fix for the RIP icon problem. I don't have LORD installed to test right now, so please let me know if it does or does not load the RIP icons now.

Forgot to put the crossdomain.xml file in place, so RIP mode was unable to load a necessary file from www.ftelnet.ca, which was causing it to fail. It's now in place, so hopefully RIP will finally work!

I've just released a new version with a bugfix for WBA and a bunch of changes to fTelnet. Most of the changes to fTelnet are rather unimportant feature wise, but helped reduce the size of the .swf greatly! I'm a little concerned I may have broke something in the process, so if you notice anything not working right, please drop me a line.

OK, the updated HtmlTerm and WBA have just been uploaded. If you are using either of these products, then I would definitely recommend upgrading (or users of the latest versions of Firefox and Chrome won't be able to connect). If you only use fTelnet, then it's not such a big deal to upgrade since that wasn't updated at all.

Looks like there has been some progress on the HTML5 WebSocket front, and this has caused some problems with HtmlTerm. Basically some of the major browsers have upgraded to a newer version of the WebSocket protocol, and this means that the WebSocket servers (like WBA and Synchronet's websocketservice.js) need to be upgraded too.I now have the [...] Read more

Some users have been reporting that ANSI screens haven't been displaying correctly in the latest releases of fTelnet, and it looks like it's because I broke something when adding VT100 support! BBSs expect that the cursor will wrap to the beginning of the next line when something is written to the 80th column of the screen, but that wasn't [...] Read more

fTelnet was hanging when attempting to upload a file under certain circumstances, so I've updated the telnet option negotiation code (which seemed to be the culprit). A new javascript function ClientSetLocalEcho() has been added, allowing you to enable or disable local echo at the push of a button. Probably could have added a configuration option [...] Read more

The new WBA was complaining about a missing AutoUpdateURL parameter, so I've removed the auto-update code. It wasn't ever used anyway, since I don't have WBA available as a stand-alone release. So if you use WBA then this should fix the error, and if you don't run WBA, then I wouldn't bother upgrading because there were no changes to fTelnet since [...] Read more

Left a bit of debug code in the last release, which caused the close button to prompt you to open a local file rather than to disconnect you. Maybe this local file loading will interest somebody, so I've left that functionality in there, but it only works in the disconnected state (so when you're connected the button will act as a disconnect button [...] Read more

A new release with experimental RIP and VTxxx terminal emulation support has just been uploaded! As usual, the changelog will have a somewhat complete list of changes (I'm bad at keeping a list, so may have forgotten some changes). I developed a test suite that I'll now use for future versions, which will hopefully catch any obvious bugs in the [...] Read more

Just wanted to post an update about the next release...I was really close to uploading a new version but I had a request for VT100 support come in, and in looking into that I discovered some of the escape sequences were being handled incorrectly, so I'm now in the process of implementing a much more complete, yet simpler, parser. So I apologize to [...] Read more

Just uploaded a beta version of fTelnet that supports RIPScrip! Support is still in the early stages, so only a small portion of the protocol has been implemented, but it's somewhat usable so I thought I'd upload it for people to have a look at.

With the recent release of Firefox 4, I've had a few people email me letting me know that HtmlTerm isn't working. The issue here is that early beta versions of Firefox 4 did support WebSockets (which is why the message in HtmlTerm mentions Firefox 4 beta suports HtmlTerm), but then support was removed after it was shown to be vulnerable to attacks. [...] Read more

I've just uploaded fTelnet and HtmlTerm (and Web BBS Assistant, though it wasn't updated) v11.03.14! It's a fairly minor update from the last beta, so if you've been running that then there's not much new in this, but if you're still using the last non-beta version from last September, then there's been a lot of changes to digest. Probably the [...] Read more

This is kind of old news, but it slipped under my radar until just now...apparently Apple finally enabled WebSocket support in Safari on the iPhone/iPad as of the 4.2 update. So this means that HtmlTerm will now work on those devices! The screen is REALLY tiny on my iPod Touch, so I'm not sure how useful HtmlTerm will be on that device, but it [...] Read more

Just uploaded Beta 4 of fTelnet/HtmlTerm/WBA. Didn't expect to have time to make these changes so soon, or I wouldn't have released Beta3 yesterday! Anyway, this release includes several changes: ClientVars.js has a new ConnectAnsi parameter that you can use to specify a custom location for the connect.ans file. Both fTelnet and HtmlTerm will [...] Read more

Just uploaded Beta 3 of fTelnet/HtmlTerm/WBA. The only change in this release fixes a Firefox related fTelnet problem, where the client wouldn't display. Turns out this is due to a change I made to allow for the transparent portions of the border to actually be transparent (rather than white, like they originally were), so unfortunately the only [...] Read more

Just uploaded Beta 2 of fTelnet/HtmlTerm/WBA. This release doesn't change anything for fTelnet/HtmlTerm, but it fixes a bug in WBA that prevented it from acting as a socket policy server in many cases. So if you were having problems getting fTelnet connecting to your BBS while using WBA, please download the updated version.

Oops, forgot to include a DLL necessary for WBA to operate. I've updated the Beta1 archive, so if you previously downloaded it, please download it again.

I've just uploaded a beta version of fTelnet packaged with HtmlTerm and WBA (Web BBS Assistant). This archive includes examples for running either fTelnet or HtmlTerm in stand-alone mode, or for running them in fallback mode (so if the users browser doesn't support the preferred client, it'll try the other client too). It also includes WBA, which [...] Read more

I've uploaded a new release of fTelnet...nothing too major in this release (aside from open sourcing under the GPLv3), I've just disabled the min/max buttons (confusing to users), and added Amiga font support (as per a user request). I've also implemented a few more features to HtmlTerm (such as file uploads), but I've also transitioned from a [...] Read more

Fixed a bug which prevented Safari from working with HtmlTerm. All should be good with it now.

Made a few minor improvements to HtmlTerm, and also fixed a bug with the ESC[K ANSI escape sequence.

hTelnet has been renamed to HtmlTerm (which in turn has had many improvements made). The hTelnet name didn't really make sense, since the Telnet protocol wasn't being used at all. For those curious to try the client, I've also created a simple WebSocket to Telnet redirection server.

I've just added a new page to the navigation menu at the top: hTelnet. It's a proof of concept plugin-less BBS client using new HTML5 features. There's no servers supporting the connection yet, so it doesn't do anything, but I thought it was cool enough to upload anyway!

A minor update was released today. It corrects a problem where ProBoard wasn't detecting ANSI, so if you run ProBoard, I'd recommend updating.

A new release containing a few bugfixes was just uploaded: New variable: BitsPerSecond. Let's you get all nostalgic and slow your display down to what it would have been like with a 300bps modem! (Or any other bitrate you'd like to use) The TAB key no longer switches focus away from the flash client in IE Fixed YModem-G uploads where the receiver [...] Read more

A couple feature requests came in, so a new build of fTelnet is available. This release implements a custom ANSI escape sequence that will allow the BBS change the font codepage/size dynamically. Simply have it send ESC [ CP ; WIDTH ; HEIGHT Q, so for example to set CodePage 866 at 9x16, it would look like ESC[866;9;16Q (where ESC is byte 27 (or 1B [...] Read more

OK, I guess the last build wasn't the last for awhile, as I've just uploaded a new one already. This one adds one final font optimization to reduce the SWF size without sacrificing performance, but I can't think of what else to do, so this should really be the last for awhile now.

What may be the last build for awhile has been uploaded. This new build fixes an annoying problem I had with batch downloading (having to save each file individually) by saving the files in a single TAR file. Hopefully most users will have software to handle this file type. A Save File(s) button also now pops up with a download (batch or otherwise) [...] Read more

I've just uploaded a new build of fTelnet. The biggest change in this version is that it's compiled in release mode, shrinking the SWF and speeding it up some. The fonts were also optimized for size and speed, and re-embedded into the SWF (so you can remove them from the img subdirectory, if you have any in there). (Notice the download size dropped [...] Read more

I've just uploaded a new build of fTelnet. This version adds a 9x16 font for CodePage 866 (Russian characters), fixes a display problem with custom connect.ans files, removes the statusbar for a cleaner look (popup messages will be added later, if necessary), and updated the file transfer screens a little.

I've just uploaded a new build of fTelnet. I don't keep very good track of what I implement between releases, but I think this one implements a new file transfer dialog for uploads and downloads. It also adds new fonts from different codepages, which will hopefully help our international users (please let me know if it does help or not!) This build [...] Read more

I've just uploaded a new build of fTelnet. This one fixes a screen clearing bug, where systems sending FORMFEED instead of ESC[2J weren't having the screen cleared. It also implements a new connect button, along with the ability to change it on a per system basis. There's also an intro ANSI that can be changed on a per system basis. And lastly, I [...] Read more

I've just uploaded a new build of fTelnet. This one includes a couple fixes identified by users, and implements batch downloading. The method for starting a transfer has also changed, rather than the CTRL+ALT+U and CTRL+ALT+D that previous versions used, there's now options on the right-click context-menu. After files are downloaded, options to [...] Read more

I've just launched the new website for fTelnet. It's just a copy of my personal website, partly because I really like the design, partly because I'm too lazy to find another design I like better! I still need to replace some of the stock images, but as I just mentioned, I'm a little lazy and would rather spend my time coding, so who knows when I'll [...] Read more

Today, work has begun on fTelnet! There aren't a lot of choices out there for sysops who want to provide telnet access to their BBS from their website, so I've decided to try to give them a new option. My aim is to be as good as some of the existing clients out there, while also implementing some much desired features they lack. I don't know if [...] Read more

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