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NCID 1.8 Released

Network Caller ID (NCID) Release 1.8

Overview

This Release

New XDMF gateway supports SDMF/MDMF devices such as the CTI Comet USB and properly configured modems.

New udev rules provide user-friendly and predictable device names.

New Dark and Light Themes for the ncid client GUI.

New options to Auto Start ncid client GUI.

Completed UTF-8(Unicode) support. Letters such as: Č, Ć, Đ, Š and Ž can be used not only for alias, blacklist and whitelist entries, but also for the Server Messages.

User Manual, Manual Pages and API in PDF, provide printer-friendly outputs.

Updated AppStream data for the ncid client, used in various Software Centers.

Updated documentation for the new features and general overall improvements.

Bug fixes and improvements in numerous programs and scripts.

Features and fixes for this NCID release

Udev rules

  • Added udev rules with accompanying auxiliary scripts, for Comet USB and USB Modems on modern Linux based distributions.

Server

  • New automatic handling of modems configured for SDMF and MDMF modes.

  • New Perl Regular Expressions option for alias, blacklist and whitelist entries.

  • Bug fixes.

  • Major code rewrite to better handle multiple client and gateway connections.

  • Common server/gateway functions have been moved into a library.

Server Extensions

  • hangup-message-skel:

  • Added option to match against name instead of number.

  • Changed the hangup reason to include the caller number.

Gateways

The CTI Comet's SDMF and MDMF binary formats for Caller ID are converted into the NCID Caller ID format.

The gateway also supports a modem configured for SDMF/MDMF Caller ID using hexadecimal characters as ASCII text.

Client

  • GUI switched to ttk: the Tk themed widget set.

  • New Themes menu for Night and Day.

  • New options in the File menu to Auto Start GUI during startup of the user's desktop environment after the user has logged in:

  • On

Auto start ncid.

  • On with desktop notifications

Auto start ncid with module ncid-alert.

  • On only desktop notifications

Auto start ncid (no-GUI) with ncid-alert module.

  • Off

Do not auto start ncid.

  • New copy-to-clipboard options in the Server menu.

  • YearDot as an optional addition to the period as date separator.

  • New command line --call-log (or -c) and ncid.conf CallLog option shows call history on the terminal for the NoGUI mode.

  • Ignores Emoji color fonts. They cause the ncid client to die.

  • Fixed broken modification of some aliases.

  • Fixed double clicking in text entry box for "Add/Modify/Remove Alias".

Client Modules

  • Added new line types: MWI (voicemail Message Waiting Indicator), PUT (outgoing smartphone call), and RID (Ringback Caller ID).

  • New ncid-alert, ncid-notify and ncid-speak configuration options to separately handle calls and messages.

Important Notes

Downloads

  • The large green Download button on the Sourceforge Project Page only downloads the latest source, if not using Windows, or the latest Windows client setup program, if using Windows. Select Files to view and download any of the available packages.

Client

  • Requires TCL/TK version 8.6 or newer for all operating systems.

  • The windows client is installed as ncid.tcl and requires the installation of ActiveTcl.

  • The windows client still does not support OUTPUT MODULES but Win10 can run Ubuntu Linux. Refer to the Windows Complete Install in the User Manual.

NOTE: NCID has not been installed or tested in Win10 Ubuntu. Any feedback would be appreciated if you try to install and test NCID.

  • On maintained Fedora releases, with Emoji fonts installed, the ncid client, in GUI mode, will cause an X-Windows error and then die on start-up or when doing a Re-scan in the Change Fixed Fonts window.

If ncid dies on startup, you must remove the $HOME/.ncid file if using Linux based distribution, FreeBSD or Mac OS X, or the <INSTALLDIR>/.ncid file if using Windows.

The ncid client, starting with release 1.8, ignores all Emoji fonts. For client releases prior to 1.8, the only fix is to remove all Emoji fonts.

  • Newer versions of Mac OS X no longer ship with X-Windows (X11). This results in the $DISPLAY environment variable not being set at all and causes the client to fail to launch in GUI mode.

The fix is to export DISPLAY=:0 prior to launching the client.

Fedora Upgrade

When doing an upgrade from NCID 1.2 on Fedora, the client post-script (installed with NCID 1.2) fails.

  • Everything is installed properly but if you had any clients with output modules running, you may need to restart them after the upgrade.

NCID project home page

Home page for all the NCID distributions.

NCID package description and requirements

Overview of the NCID package and requirements.

NCID package features

Lists all the features of the server and client.

NCID package release notes and downloads

Downloads and release notes for this release.

NCID User Manual

Explains how to get started with NCID and how to set up the various features. It is a good reference even for those experienced with NCID.

NCID Manual Pages

The manual pages describe all the software that comes with NCID.

NCID Modem List

An incomplete table of modems that are compatible and incompatible with NCID.

NCID WiKi

Home page for the NCID WiKi.

NCID API

Information needed to develop servers, clients, client output modules and gateways for NCID (Network Caller ID).

NCID SDK

A tar archive that contains the API and test scripts for building an NCID server, client, or gateway.

Posted by John L. Chmielewski 2018-06-03

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