some serious new feature implementation:

- cookie-based persistent logins
- expanded activity reporting
- "top" and "fixed" left menus are now dynamically generated from XML config,
  not hard coded
- error reporting enhanced and protection increased
- "About Venice" page first draft
- new means of "framing" static content within the Venice "frame"
- base page now includes the "footer" itself, "content" pages don't anymore
- general cleanup of some heavyweight old containers, replaced with faster
  Collections framework containers
- probably more, there's a LOT of stuff in here

web/format/newtopic.jsp

@@ -48,7 +48,7 @@
   <TABLE BORDER=0 CELLPADDING=0>
     <TR><TD ALIGN=LEFT COLSPAN=2>
       <%= rdat.getStdFontTag(null,2) %>New topic name:</FONT><BR>
-      <INPUT TYPE="TEXT" NAME="title" SIZE=37 MAXLENGTH=255 VALUE="<%= data.getTopicName() %>">
+      <INPUT TYPE="TEXT" NAME="title" SIZE=37 MAXLENGTH=128 VALUE="<%= data.getTopicName() %>">
     </TD></TR>
     <TR><TD ALIGN=LEFT COLSPAN=2>
       <%= rdat.getStdFontTag(null,2) %>Your name/header:</FONT><BR>
@@ -77,4 +77,3 @@
     </TD></TR>
   </TABLE>
 </FORM>
-<% rdat.writeFooter(out); %>