Mars

The Mail Notification plugin now operates properly with all RFC-compliant mail servers (previous versions had trouble with some servers). The tcp-connect and JDBC probes now work properly, and problems with XMPP notification recipient addressing have been fixed.

Plugins may now request a tab in the Mars main
window. This is intended for the development of
visualization plugins. Two new plugins are
included. The first is an XML Snapshot plugin,
which can be used with XSLT to display Mars status
via the Web. The second is a Client Debugger, for
tracking down problems with user-defined probes. A
few minor bugs have also been fixed.

Opening configuration files from the command line
(broken in 2.2.4) works again. The XMPP
notification plugin now handles client connections
properly. Minor fixes were made to the open/save
configuration file dialogs, and to configuration
file opening on Mac OS X. Also, Mars' user
interface has undergone a minor overhaul. Mars now
has a menu bar, and the host/service tree is
completely keyboard editable. All existing Mars
2.2.4 users are urged to upgrade to Mars 2.2.5.

This release adds an XMPP (Jabber) notification plugin and JDBC probe extension. It adds a Mac OS X integration plugin, and creates a new Mac OS X "native" distribution for easier install and limited Finder integration on Mac OS X. A 'j14' binary distribution has been added for use on Java 1.4, or Java 1.3 with an XML parser already installed, to cut down on download size.

This release adds regular expression searching in HTTP responses, HTTPS probing via an included probe extension, expand/collapse buttons to show and hide all monitored services quickly, and the ability to specify the window geometry from the command line. The date output has been tweaked to conform to ISO 8601. A bug wherein Mars would send an LF where a CRLF was required has been fixed.