Third beta of SecureCRT 5.2 published!

So I unbeliavably missed SecureCRT 5.2 so far.. shame on me. Still, here's the latest beta, fresh out of the oven today: 5.2 Beta 3.

Beta 3 fixes a couple of bugs (one of which caused the program to crash) and introduces a few changes, mainly minor GUI improvements, and a new feature to the scripting system.

Similarly, Beta 2, focused on fixing some flaws (one of which, again, caused a crash on Windows 2003 systems) targeting GUI issues and the SSH1 protocol implementation. The significant changes affect the default compression option for SSH2, which is now set to "none" for new installations of SecureCRT.

The real treats were introduced by Beta 1:
- Several new networking features (support for unauthenticated/basic HTTP proxies, support for telnet over SSL)
- Improvements to the scripting system (allows interaction with tabs)
- A few user interface related niceties (option to make CTRL-TAB switch to the most recently used tab, paste on right click, display session connected time in status bar)
- Various SSH1/SSH2 protocol implementation improvements

Beta 1 also enforced some changes, of which the most interesting is the removal of the command-line clients VSH, VCP, VSFTP, VPKA, and VKEYGEN from the standard installer. The changelog claims they will be later included in a separate package, but is this package goind to be free or included in the SecureCRT fee? I guess we'll have to wait and see...

Bugfixes in SecureCRT 5.2 Beta 1 range from critical ones ("If an HTTP proxy was being used and the session was disconnected before the hostname was resolved, CPU usage went up to 100%") to minor ("Upgrading to a newer version of SecureCRT did not remove the old entry in Add/Remove programs"). Aaand as always, there are the usual SSH protocol implementation fixes.

Read all about the changes in the detailed changelog posted below.


*** RELEVANT LINKS ***

Download SecureCRT 5.2 Beta 3 (.exe installer - 7.44MB, MD5=F3D88CA5C70E674D2DA9AC0436689DD2)
Check out the SecureCRT Beta page
Visit the VanDyke homepage


*** WHAT'S NEW IN SECURECRT 5.2 BETA 1 ***
September 21, 2006

Changes:
- Added the script property Tab.Caption, which allows getting and
setting a tab's caption.
- Increased the size of the authentication, key exchange, ciphers,
and MACs list boxes in order to eliminate the scrollbars.
- Added a maximize button to the Connect dialog.

Bug fixes:
- Toggling the ANSI Color option did not immediately take effect
like it did in previous versions.
- If SecureFX was integrated with SecureCRT, SecureCRT crashed if a
file type that did not have an associated extension was edited.


*** WHAT'S NEW IN SECURECRT 5.2 BETA 2 ***
September 7, 2006

Changes:
- The Session Options dialog was made larger so that there are
no scrollbars in the Category tree.
- SSH2: Changed the default compression to "None". This only
affects new installations.

Bug fixes:
- SecureCRT crashed on Window 2003 after connecting to a group
of sessions and then quickly closing the sessions.
- Newly created sessions launched in a new window had 16 rows
instead of 24 rows, which is the default.
- The SecureCRT 5.1 entry was not removed from the Start menu
after upgrading to 5.2.
- If the tab name was set from the tab context menu, it was not
possible to set the tab name from a script.
- Clicking the toolbar with both the left and right mouse buttons
simultaneously caused SecureCRT to stop responding to mouse
clicks.
- SSH1: SSH1 sessions were disconnected after issuing an "ls"
command and over 150 files were listed.


*** WHAT'S NEW IN SECURECRT 5.2 BETA 3 ***
August 22, 2006

New features:
- Added support for unauthenticated and basic HTTP proxies.
- Added script functions to support working with tabs. These
functions allow scripts to connect tabs, connect SFTP tabs,
clone tabs, activate tabs, and close tabs.
- Added a /T command-line option that supports launching sessions
in tabs. This flag can be used with /S and with sessions that
are not in the session database, such as URLs.
- Added a global option to have CTRL+TAB switch to the most
recently used tab.
- Tab control displays tooltips (or hover text) to show the full
tab label.
- Added support for Telnet over SSL.
- Added a global option to paste on right mouse click.
- Added a global option to display the elapsed time for connected
sessions in the status bar.
- Added a session option to translate incoming CRs to CRLF.
- Added a session option to map ANSI line drawing characters to
"+", "", etc. when they are copied to the clipboard.
- Added a global INI-file only option "ZModem Force All Caps
Filenames to Lower Case on Upload", which specifies whether or
not all caps filenames should be converted to lowercase during
a Zmodem upload.
- SSH2: Enhanced X.509 host-key support by validating X.509 host-
key certificates.
- SSH1/SSH2: Added /ACCEPTHOSTKEYS command-line parameter to
SecureCRT, which causes host keys to be automatically accepted.

Changes:
- Removed the command-line clients VSH, VCP, VSFTP, VPKA, and
VKEYGEN from the installer. These clients will be available as
a separate package.
- If the global setting "Show connection closed dialog" is off,
the reconnect dialog will not be displayed when the network is
disconnected.
- Added a global and session printing option to force black on
white printing.
- SecureCRT handles ] R in Linux terminal mode.

Bug fixes:
- If an HTTP proxy was being used and the session was disconnected
before the hostname was resolved, CPU usage went up to 100%.
- Changing a session's protocol from Telnet to SSH2 did not change
the port number like it did in SecureCRT 5.0 and prior versions.
- The "Color Schemes.ini" file could get corrupted when multiple
instances of SecureCRT were launched.
- If display changes were made, such as showing or hiding the tab
bar or chat window, the window size was incorrect when subsequent
session windows were launched.
- If SecureFX was integrated with SecureCRT and the SecureFX path
specified in the Global.ini file pointed to a 2.x version or an
invalid path, the error "Show Terminal Only session while running
SecureFX" was displayed.
- When editing the default session and a tab other than the first
tab was active, the "Apply change to all sessions?" prompt was
displayed even if no changes were made.
- When Midnight Commander was running and the session was using
Xterm emulation, clicking the mouse beyond the 80th column
generated garbage.
- SecureCRT was inaccessible if it was minimized from a script
when a dialog, such as the Connect dialog, was being displayed.
- Cancelling a script did not report the line number where the
script was cancelled like it did in versions prior to 5.0.
- Fixed the following tests in vttest that SecureCRT had been
failing.
- Line-drawing tests in "Test of double-sized characters" set.
- Request terminal parameters test in "Test of terminal
reports" set.
- Scrolling region and column mode escape sequence test in
"Test of known bugs" set.
- Upgrading to a newer version of SecureCRT did not remove the
old entry in Add/Remove programs.
- SSH2: SecureCRT could not validate the server's x.509 DSA host
key when the key was not encoded using ASN.1 (F-Secure and SSH
Communications servers).
- SSH2: SecureCRT could not validate the server's X.509 RSA host
key if the server used the SHA-1 hash (later versions of
F-Secure and SSH Communications servers).
- SSH2: If an incorrect username was entered in the username
prompt dialog and the "Save username" check box was unchecked,
this check box was incorrectly checked when re-prompting for
the username.
- SFTP: SecureCRT crashed when using tab to complete a filename
in an SFTP tab.