From: E.Allaert
                                                        Date: 14 Nov 1997

             VLT-SW-NOV97 - RELEASE NOTES FOR SEQUENCER SHELLS
             =================================================

seq
===

   Changes (with respect to MAY97):

     - options (starting with minus sign) should preferably come just
       after the command name (like in Tcl).  All commands which had
       in the past options at any other place can for compatibility 
       reasons still have them as before.  The new manpages only
       mention the new preferred position.

   New Features (with respect to MAY97):

     - added seq_dbList* and seq_dbMulti* commands, to deal with
       grouped read/write of db attributes.  This is substantially
       faster than individual db accesses.

     - a new graphical "console"(tkcon) is added; this is now the
       standard when seqWish is started up interactively. The previous 
       behaviour can still be enforced by using the -noTkCon runstring
       option.  Tkcon contains a lot of fancy stuff like command- and
       variable name completion, history scrolling via keyboard arrows
       etc.

     - added the option -noreply to seq_msgSendCommand, and
       corresponding to this, the EVENT command for seq_msgDispatch. 
       This is to deal with event-type commands that don't need a
       reply. Remark that normal commands should *always* get a
       reply.

     - added options -check and -nocheck to seq_msgSendCommand to 
       override the setting of the seq_ccsCmdCheck variable on a 
       per command basis.

     - added the global Tcl variable seq_errLogging to control the
       logging of errors.  It can take the values "auto" (default),
       "manual" or "off".

     - added -internal option to seq_err* commands, and also -reply
       option for a subset of these commands, to indicate on which
       error stack the command should operate.

     - the commands seq_errResetStack, seq_errAdd and
       seq_errCloseStack are now also available under NOCCS.

     - added -current option to the seq_msgSendReply commands,
       allowing this way to retrieve automatically the scriptId of the
       current SCRIPT command (i.e. there is no more the need to pass
       %S as part of the SCRIPT command in order to have access to the
       current scriptId).

     - added some convenience procedures: seq_waitTillInit and 
       seq_waitTillExit to wait till a process is active (has done a
       ccsInit) resp has exited (ccsExit); seq_relToAbs to convert a
       relative pathname to an absolute one.

     - added some time-string procedures: seq_isoTime, seq_fitsDate,
       seq_timeOfDay and seq_isoTimeToClock; these are procedures for
       generating/converting time-strings in formats compatible with
       the specifications given by ESO's Data Interface Control Board.

     - added debugging help.  There is now a global Tcl variable, 
       called seq_debug, which is an array with all debugable 
       commands as elements.  Asssigning any such element the value
       1 will log any call to this seq_* command to stderr, a 2
       will also ensure that the return value gets logged.  The
       default value of 0 means no debugging info gets printed.

     - the seq-module includes a pre-processing utility called
       tclCpp, which does a CPP-style preprocessing on a Tcl script.

   All changes and enhancements are documented in their respective
   manpages. 

                               ___oOo___