Support for chunking, C++ among hidden features in 3.0

by Simson L. Garfinkel

Redwood City, CA Ð NeXTSTEP 3.0, scheduled to ship at the end of August, promises to be a boon to both users and developers. Here's a list of new features we've discovered in 3.0 over the past few weeks:

Workspace chunking

Can't fit a file onto a single floppy disk? Workspace Manager in 3.0 automatically "chunks" files that are too big by compressing the file and splitting the resultant archive into separate pieces. Workspace Manager then copies each piece onto a floppy, ejects the disk, and prompts the user to insert the next disk.

New mail features

With encryption missing, NeXTmail 3.0 is only marginally different from its 2.0 counterpart. Mail can now automatically play a sound when new mail arrives. Other features in the Mail 3.0 Preferences panel include the ability to set a "Reply-To" default and change the default length for non-NeXT mail.

Better compiler

The new compiler, based upon version 1.96 of the Free Software Foundation's GNU C Compiler, produces code that is consistently faster and smaller than the version 1.36 compiler that was included with the NeXTSTEP 2.1 Extended Edition. The new compiler also contains more compile-time checks and warnings, which should reduce development time and help developers produce programs that are more reliable.

C++ support

NeXTSTEP 3.0 includes complete support for the C++ object-oriented programming language. Under NeXTSTEP 2.1, developers had to obtain additional files in order to compile C++ programs.

Font and printer support

You can now tell NeXTSTEP to include your fonts in the PostScript files that it creates. NeXTSTEP 3.0 will automatically include nonstandard fonts in stand-alone PostScript printers.

In addition, NeXTSTEP 3.0 now directly supports the Epson 510 and IBM ProPrinter 24P dot-matrix printers. Many other printers will emulate either the Epson or the IBM, which means that you can now print from a NeXTstation for less than $200.

New fax features

NeXTSTEP 3.0 now stores its files with Group 4 compression by default, allowing faxes to occupy half the space that they did under NeXTSTEP 2.1.

You can also rotate faxes by 0, 90, 180, or 270 degrees. When sending faxes, you can specify at what time the faxes should be sent, to minimize long-distance bills.