What's New in C-Kermit for Windows Beta 4

This release is mostly a collection of minor improvements and bug fixes.

Things to be aware of when upgrading

• The third mouse button is now supported in k95g which may affect any scripts you have that map mouse buttons. On a three button mouse:
  • Previously: Left was button 1, Middle was unsupported, Right was button 2
  • Now: Left is button 1, Middle is button 2, Right is button 3
• Updates to the Dialer to support new SSH settings have resulted in the version number for the dialer data file being bumped. It is advised you take a backup of your existing data file before running the new version of the dialer for the first time.
  • On first start, your data file(s) will be upgraded to the new format
  • SSH connection scripts generated by the new dialer will not be compatible with Kermit 95 due to a difference in supported SSH options.

New Features:

• X/Y/Z MODEM support is back thanks to Jyrki Salmi of Online Solutions Oy (www.online.fi) providing his "P" X/Y/Z MODEM library under the same license as C-Kermit for Windows
• The dialer is now included by default with C-Kermit for Windows as changes to the SSH options render it incompatible with Kermit 95 (and the Kermit 95 version incompatible with CKW)
• The old registry tool (k95regtl.exe) is back and fixed up for C-Kermit as an interim solution until a proper installer is created. This tool lets you create desktop & start menu shortcuts and the .ksc file association if you want them.
• Terminal mouse reporting
  • X10 protocol (send button + coordinates on mouse down) supported for Linux and ANSI terminal types
  • X11/Normal, URXVT and SGR protocols (send button + modifiers + coordinates on mouse down and mouse up) supported for all terminal types
  • Mouse wheel supported for all but the X10 protocol: You can scroll the panels in midnight commander with the mouse wheel!
  • New command: set mouse reporting x where x is one of:
    • disabled - mouse events will not be reported
    • enabled - Applications can turn mouse reporting on. Mouse reports will be sent only if a mouse event is mapped to \Kignore (eg, if you map right-click to \Kpaste then right-click will never be sent)
    • override - Applications can turn mouse reporting on. All mouse
      events will be sent to the remote host and any configured action in CKW will be ignored when mouse reporting is on. For example, if you map right-click to \Kpaste this will only have an effect outside of applications that turn mouse reporting on.
  • The show mouse command shows the mouse reporting setting plus current state (if it's active or not, and the protocol in use)
• The default k95custom.ini now outputs a message on startup directing new users to have a look at and optionally customise the file
• DECnet support has been re-enabled. You must install a licensed copy of Pathworks32 in order to make LAT or CTERM connections.
• SuperLAT support is now available as a custom build option - it is not enabled by default due to the unclear license on the publicly available Meridian SuperLAT SDK.
• The Telnet Encryption Option (DES/CAST) is supported again, not that you should use it if you care about security.
• Upgraded from C-Kermit 10.0 beta.04 to beta.07 and added a bit of beta.08. Consult the C-Kermit change log to see what changes have arrived from these upgrades.
  • New in C-Kermit 10.0 Beta.05
  • New in C-Kermit 10.0 Beta.06
  • New in C-Kermit 10.0 Beta.07
  • New in C-Kermit 10.0 Beta.08 (Only up to and including 12 December 2022)

Fixed Bugs

• Fixed a bug introduced in beta 3 that can prevent the cursor and other elements on the screen with the blink attribute set from blinking reliably
• File transfers over SSH are now much faster
• Fixed the set mouse activate command (aka set terminal mouse) in K95G - previously this command only worked in the old console version.
• Fixed support for the third mouse button in K95G - previously this only worked in the old console version. This change may affect your mouse button mapping!
• Fixed a mark being set (and not cleared on mouse button release) on drag when the drag event is mapped to \Kignore
• Fixed decoding of mouse scroll wheel event coordinates
• The context (right-click) menu in the dialer now works again
• The manual command now works
• The show mouse command no longer tries to output non-printable characters bound to mouse events
• SSH will now prompt for a username if the default login userid has been cleared (this is how Kermit 95 behaved)
• Fixed SSH help error: hmac-md5 is not supported, but hmac-sha1 is
• The GUI window now resizes correctly on Windows NT 3.5x

Minor Enhancements and other changes:

• Upgraded to zlib 1.2.13 fixing CVE-2022-37434
• Upgraded to openssl 1.1.1s
• The libssh version number is now included in the output of the show ssh command
• The default k95custom.ini now sets the default browser to nothing which should result in Edge being used instead of Internet Explorer. This is just a temporary workaround for the default browser not being correctly picked up.
• Dialer: removed SSH v1 options as CKW now supports SSH 2.0 exclusively
• Dialer: Updated the lists of available ciphers, macs and host key algorithms to match what CKW actually supports

Source Changes:

• The Dialer now builds with OpenWatcom 1.9 and Visual C++ 2.0, though it doesn't currently run on NT 3.50
• dropped the /ALIGN linker flag which has produced a linker warning since Visual C++ 5.0 SP3 (November 1997)

Known Issues:

• The dialer may fail to start on some systems
• When launching the dialer you may get an error about ctl3d32.dll - if you do, run ctl3dins.exe to install it
• On the original retail release of Windows 95 (possibly all versions of Windows 95), the GUI version of C-Kermit constantly steals focus and performs poorly. The solution at this time is to run the console version, k95.exe
• The dialer is not currently available on Windows NT 3.50 - this may be corrected in a future release