Version history

• Ability to create links to other Mac files: within Boxer you can now create "references" to files created by other applications. Double-clicking on a reference starts the appropriate application, loaded with the document the link points to.
• Sending and receiving email, including enclosures.
• New programming primitives, including sprite and sound primitives.
• Adjustable fonts (font, size, color, and style) in text and graphics.
• Scores of bug fixes.
• Revised file system with smaller files.
• Updated demos and documentation, including new tools such as a Boxer mail application.
• Expanded "Boxer hub" with more Boxer materials and references.

Detailed list of changes made since the last official Boxer release (version 2.2)

It is now possible to embed references to other Macintosh documents inside of Boxer. Using the "Link to Mac File" item under the "File" menu will bring up a file selection dialog box. A boxer reference to the selected file is inserted at the current cursor location. The reference will appear as the Finder Icon for the selected file. Click on the icon to change the reference, move the file or open the document using the appropriate application. Double clicking is a shortcut for opening the document.

Sending and Receiving Mail

There are now primitives for sending and receiving mail. These primitives provide only the very basic level of functionality. A sample Boxer-implemented mail reader will be included with the new release demonstration programs.

MAIL <address> <message>

sends the contents of the <message> box to the <address>. Multiple addresses can appear in the <address> box, one per row. The text in the <message> box is sent as plain text. Any sub boxes are sent as mail enclosures. To include a subject in the outgoing mail, use a box named "subject" in the closet of the <message> box.

Enclosures can be sent by linking to Mac documents in the body of the message. Received enclosures appear as mac document links. The enclosures are saved in a "mail" folder in the main boxer folder. The "Move" option can be used to place the enclosures elsewhere.

GET-MAIL <mailbox> <delete?>

read mail using the POP3 protocol. This is a popular mail reading protocol used by applications such as Eudora, and Netscape Communicator. <mailbox> should be an mailbox address, e.g. boxer@soe.berkeley.edu. The <delete?> parameter should be either true or false and it specifies whether to remove the messages from the server after reading them in.

Get-Mail returns a box full of messages. Each message in turn is a box. A message box will display the text of the message. In addition, the closet of each message box can have named data boxes containing the contents of certain lines in the header, if those fields are present in the header of the message. This allows for the possibility of programmatic sorting of messages. Currently, these fields are: "Sender", "Reply-to", "From", "To", "Subject", "Date", and "cc".

The following preferences (available via the "Preferences..." item in the "Edit" menu) are relevant to sending and receiving mail.

USER-MAIL-ADDRESS

specifies the return address on outgoing mail. By convention, it is also used as the default password for anonymous login in internet file transfers.

MAIL-RELAY-HOST

specifies the machine that is to be used to send mail to the internet.

MAX-VIEWABLE-MESSAGE-SIZE

Plain text messages which are larger than this parameter will appear as a mac document reference. This parameter is initially set to 20,000 bytes.

The font menu now has separate items to specify the font family, style, size and color of text. If there is a selected region, then the text in that region is changed to the new attributes. If there is no selected region, then any subsequent text will appear with the newly selected attributes.

The SET-TYPE-FONT Primitive now takes a fontspec as its argument. A fontspec is a box in which the first item is the name of an available font, the second item is a number specifying the font size and, optionally, additional keywords specifying the face style such as bold, italic or underline.

Changes made since the most recent available 2.3 beta release

The default on resizing boxes is now "manual" in the case of graphics boxes, and automatic in the case of other boxes.

Scrolling information is now attached to boxes, so scroll state is retained.

Mail can now decode binhex, and outgoing binaries are sent in appledouble format.

New Key Bindings

Home, End -- move to beginning or end of current box
PageUp, PageDown -- scroll up or down one box length.
delX key (under the help key) -- behaves like a backwards delete key (deletes the char/word to the right instead of to the left).

New primitives

CLICK-SOUND

makes a short clicking sound. This differs from the BEEP primitive in both duration and the fact that it play synchronously. That is, programs will not continue running while the sound is playing.

MARK-FOR-SAVING

This primitive is used to explicitly mark a box as modified, and therefore, ready for saving to a file. It is used in conjunction will the ASK/TELL command to specify the box top me marked.

ALL-OF <clauses>, ANY-OF <clauses>

These are boolean primitives. The clauses argument should be a data box that has one or more boolean expressions. Each expression should be on a separate line. ALL-OF is like AND and ANY-OF behaves like OR. For example:

    ALL-OF [ 2 = 2 ]   | [FALSE]
           [ 3 > 4 ]
           [ 5 < 8 ]

    ANY-OF [ 2 = 2 ]   | [TRUE]
           [ 3 > 4 ]
           [ 5 < 8 ]

STAMP-WEDGE <radius> <sweep angle> and
STAMP-ARC <radius> <sweep angle>

Draw a section of a circle (a filled circle in the case of STAMP-WEDGE) with the specified radius in the current pen color. The section starts at the current heading of the sprite and extends in a clockwise direction for degrees.

To download Boxer 2.3, proceed to the download page. To find out more about Boxer and the Boxer Group's activities, please return to the Boxer home page.