While I wasn’t able to get the posts transferred over, bbssh.org has been updated to start using the tried and true WordPress blog.

You can find it here – look for some exciting (to me) new updates about BBSSH this weekend:

http://bbssh.org/blog/

And of course if you’re a twitter fan, new blog posts and other info are posted to the project’s twitter feed:
http://twitter.com/bbssh

http://bbssh.org/roller/bbssh/entry/information_gathering

Here’s the other, a preview of upcoming features in 1.1.9:

http://bbssh.org/roller/bbssh/entry/big_changes_in_next_release

Just a reminder to update your bookmarks to point to the new blog at http://bbssh.org/roller/bbssh; and to grab the new feed from the same place if you’re interested.

Of course you’re welcome to continue to monitor this site too – I expect to start discussing more general development topics that may not directly relate to BBSSH.

http://bbssh.org/roller/bbssh/entry/bbssh_1_1_8_alpha

For those who just want to get to the good stuff, you can snag the OTA download here:

http://bbssh.org/ota/

The bad news is twofold. First, JIRA is a great tool but is also very heavyweight. I’m concerned – especially in light of BBSSH’s growing userbase – that the VPS host for bbssh (which will also hold a couple of other sites of mine) might get overwhelmed. In that case we might have to fall back to something like JTrac, which is much lighter weight (though also not as feature rich).

The second is that the conversion took much longer than it should have, which means the help docs didn’t get online as planned this weekend. Look for this to start appearing over the course of this week.

http://bbssh.org/ota/

As I mentioned earlier, this release contains many minor (and a couple of major) bug fixes. Originally I wanted to wait until after the key-binding customization as complete, but I didn’t want to delay the release any longer while I continued to fight that.

Unfortunately, this release will wipe your saved sessions and keys.  I am working on a fix for that for next release.

Content in this release:

• Corrected issue where if a server supports both SSH1 and SSH2, BBSSH mis-interprets as SSHv1 only and refuses to connect.
• Added new menu item to terminal emulator: Show Symbols
  • This shows the standard symbol menu, and is also bound to key Right-Shift+SYM on non-touchscreen BB.
• Added new menu item to terminal emulator: Show Special Keys
  • This shows the “special keys” menu, including F1-F12 and others. This is also bound to ALT+VolUp
• Added new menu item “Send Feedback.  Use this to send feedback email about BBSSH.  This is available from the main screen and the terminal; on the terminal it will also prompt you to include a screenshot, if you should want to.  This is included for bug-reporting purposes.  Your BES policy may prohibit attachments, in which case you won’t be able to send the email with a screenshot attachment.
• Added new default key-binding: Shift+VolDn .  This displays a list of all commands and their keybindings.  Currently has a bug which prevents you from scrolling the list.
• Added online help framework: you’ll notice several screens now have a Help menu.  Clicking this will take you context-sensitive help online. Currently the web service is in place, but help content is missing. This content will get added gradually over time.   Screen- and field-level help will be supported.
• On Session Properties screen: added “Save and Close” menu option to make it a bit more clear; and also the confusing message that displayed when you did not included a hostname.
• Added graceful error handling for failed update check on the Settings screen.
• Fixed the input overlay in several ways (remember, input overlay is bound to VolUp by default):
  • Correctly positioned at the bottom of the screen. Increased font for readability.
  • Proper Enter key handling has been added:
    • Enter – close the input window, send the text, and send the Enter key
    • Shift+Enter -> close the input window, send the text, and do NOT send the Enter key
    • Alt+Enter -> insert a newline into the input window, do NOT close the input window or send the text.
    • ESC now closes the input window, clears the text, and does NOT send the text

Some internal changes too:

• Subversion repository now moved to svn.bbssh.org
• Converted to Eclipse IDE instead of netbeans.  While I much prefer netbeans, the RIM development support simply isn’t there for any IDE except Eclipse.
• Created ant-based build scripts for standalone deployment
• Changed base package names to bbssh.org.
• Split into separate projects for easier resource management and testing
• Added new “SessionManager” and “ScreenManager” to offer more flexible options  in terms of session connections and bindable commands.
• Did some performance profiling and found that the custom crypto is hands-down taking the most CPU resources during a normal session.  This means that switching over to BB crypto is highest priority (alongside some low-hanging bug fixes

Please continue to use the sourceforge.net tracker/bug reporter for issues and requests until the move to bbssh.org is completed this weekend.

As mentioned in the 4/22 update, a FAQ will be online soon — once the new site comes fully online this weekend. There are several questions posted over the last few  weeks that will be addressed there.

Comments and feedback are appreciated as always.

I’m compiling that info and a bunch more into a FAQ and an actual project web site — something more than a blog . I’m also moving away from sourceforge due to various issues. I expect most of this to be online for the weekend — I’ll announce the new site at that time.

1.1.7 is also fairly close to ready as well — it’s got several key bug fixes, but I’m also pushing to get key binding customizations included (that’s the delay – designing a user-friendly mobile UI for that is proving more complex than I expected ). I may release with an interim version first, just to get it in your hands for early feedback.

OTA installation is available here:

http://marcparadise.com/files/1.1.60/BBSSH.jad

ALX and COD for Desktop Manager/USB installations can be found here:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/bbssh/files/

Before I forget — I wanted to thank everyone who’s taken the time to provide feedback, report issues, enter issues in the SF tracker, and went to the extra lengths needed in order to provide the details I request to resolve those issues.   You make my life much easier, and I appreciate it 

On to the good stuff — OTA installation is available here:

http://marcparadise.com/files/1.1.60/BBSSH.jad

ALX and COD for Desktop Manager/USB installations can be found here:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/bbssh/files/

Content

• Bug Fixes
• Features

A bit of detail worth emphasizing here:

• SSHv1 will no longer work as a connection option.  However the option is still present — this way if you have existing SSHv1 connection, you can change it to V2 without having to redefine your session.   I have to double-check, but I think if you don’t change to V2, it will *still* connect as V2 as of this release.
• Changed default font for new sessions to the largest 8×13 font.  I found many people were using the default font named “default”, which is downright painful to look at.
• A new auto-update feature has been added that checks for updates at launch of BBSSH.  No information is gathered at this time ( though in the future I would like to automatically gather BB model and OS versions ).  You can disable this in the Settings screen; if you disable it (which I strongly recommend against), you can manually check for updates on the Settings screen at any time.
• The crypto conversion battle continues – I have been able to replace several crypto components with native blackberry alternatives, but there’s still a good distance to go… I am going to take some time off of that though, so as to catch up with other more immediate needs.
• The “SYM” key is by default bound to toggle CTRL on and off.  SHift+SYM toggles ALT.  However, Storm users can’t use this because SYM is a softkey.  Effective with this release, Storm users should now see menu options in the terminal for toggling ALT/CTRL.   This will only be available for Storm users, and will be removed once key binding customization is fully functional (hopefully next release).

WAP2 special note

WAP2 support was added in this release and is now available in the connection properties screen as a connection type option.   Note that whether or not this works depends on your network provider: some providers will allow socket connections over WAP2, while others do not. Unfortunately, mine (AT&T) does not — so I could not fully test this.  I would appreciate hearing from anybody who is able to use WAP2 as a connection type.

That’s all for now…

Please continue to post feedback here.  You can also post bugs and feedback to the issue tracker and/or feature request tracker pages for the project — sourceforge allows you to post anonymously, so registration is not required in order to do this.   (However, if you want to receive replies and feedback, you’ll need to register..) I have seen quite a few duplicates, so please take a moment to search for your issue before reporting it.

Based on the questions posted here in comments, and some of the feature requests posted, I’m hoping to get a FAQ page online over the next week.  I’ll also be getting back to a weekly releases for the most part.

’til then, enjoy — and please feel free to spread the word, I think we’re stable enough now that most people will not encounter significant issues using BBSSH.

First, the important bit: files can be downloaded OTA here:

http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/bbssh/1.1.5/BBSSH.jad

Several people have reported  trouble with the sourceforge downloads — so if that doesn’t succeed, you can also grab the files here:

http://marcparadise.com/files/BBSSH.jad

Important: installing this version will require you to re-create your sessions.  Some internals for session have changed, and your sessions saved under 1.1.4 are no longer compatible.  You can expect this to have one or two more occurrences, at least until I can get versioning in place before BBSSH goes to Beta.

I’ve started using the sourceforge.net tracker for managing features and bug reports — conveniently, that also makes it easier to report on what’s changed…

• Bug Fixes
• New Features
• Several internal/cleanup changes have been made.

Here are a couple of known issues:

• A new issue has been introduced: the input window overlay now appears centered on the screen.  This is cosmetic only, and has no effect on functionality.
• Storm users will find that the default binding for the CTRL key (SYM) does not work for them, because the SYM softkey cannot be bound on the Storm.  Unfortunately, I have no workaround for this, but the key-binding customization functionality should be ready in 1.1.6.  This will allow you to re-map the CTRL key to a different hard key of your choice.

Here’s some additional info that didn’t make it into the tracker:

• Key binding configuration is still in progress.  However, you can (for the most part) now view how keys are bound.    From the main menu, chooise “Key bindings”.  Press the key or key combination that you want to view, and it will display whatever is mapped to that combination currently — along with a detailed description what the mapping means.

Here are some battery-saving hints, but first a quick comment:

• If you know that your SSH server has a SendClientKeepalive value, you can very likely set the new  “Client Keepalive Interval” in the BBSSH connection settings to 0, disabling it.
• If you have control over the server configuration, you can also change the SendClientKeepalive interval to a higher number, such as 300 seconds.   These two changes will mean that instead of 3 messages every minute of idle time, there will be one message exchanged every 5 minutes.
• Use the input window overlay as often as possible instead of typing directly — typing directly creates a lot more network traffic and causes much more frequent screen refreshes.  This does have a noticeable effect on your battery life.

A couple of notes based on feedback received:

• I do plan on making specialized builds for 4.5, 4.7 (Storm) and 5.0+ devices. However, all of the basic functionality needs to be completed first.  Based on current progress, I would expect that to be within the next few weeks. At the moment, any device running 4.6 or later should work without issues.  However, new platform features won’t be used yet.  Additionally, 4.7+ and Storm/Storm2 users will likely have some issues such as the “CTRL” key mapping problem outlined above.
• If you encounter a menu item that doesn’t work, chances are very good that it’s a placeholder for functionality that hasn’t been completed yet.  Before we get out of alpha, all such items will be fully functional.
• BBSSH can exist alongside MidpSSH without any troubles.

I think that’s all I have for tonight.  Thanks once again to those of you taking the time to test this out. Please continue to post feedback here. If you’ve got a sourceforge.net account you can also post bugs and feedback to the issue tracker and/or feature request tracker pages for the project.