Re: [Nmh-workers] MH-W intro/help request

[Erich Boleyn]

Ken Hornstein writes:

> >So, the result of all of this is that I'm forming a model which suggests
> >maybe I should ask if we could have ... I'm not sure what to call it ...
> >a "-nocheck" switch which would not need to check the folder nor
> >update any sequences, and would be allowed to simply fail if you tried
> >to use a relative or sequence-based message ID.
> 
> I was kind of hoping that my earlier message explained that this is not
> easy.  It would actually be a major change that would touch every nmh
> program, as it would require some fundamental changes to the current API.
> It's not impossible but it would require a lot of work.  It's not work
> I am personally interested in doing; like I said, if someone ELSE wants
> to tackle it, I say more power to them!  And we will likely make the
> improvements we discussed to pick.
> 
> But, I think Paul Fox has the right answer: simply use the -file
> argument to things like mhlist. "show" ends up calling mhl, which
> also just takes a filename (or it calls mhshow, but that also takes a
> filename).  You won't be able to get around a folder scan when using
> mark, unfortunately, but I would be willing to add an option to make an
> "exploded" list (one that wasn't condensed into ranges).


Heh, I feel a bit dim never realizing that "-file" would generally what I
needed...  the biggest issue being for the "message view"/show/mhstore
many invokations being optimized.

As to the "mark" issue, the compressed list is in fact faster to parse,
so the current form works fine for me if it won't do the intersection
to provide exactly the numbers I need and eliminate the need for parsing
altogether.

That generally takes care of the things I asked for in my original
mail (though it sounded like we agree that a more supported way to
get the "Content-ID" is a good goal).

I really appreciate the answers everyone has given, it is helping me
improve MH-W, and having the nice side-effect of motivating me to
move a bit faster on it.  (like many here I'm plenty busy with my
normal life, but having less "what do I do here?" always makes code
flow faster from the fingertips when you're tired late at night...)


I got a great recommendation from someone very familiar with web
development on the "text window/editor" issue, turns out there is
a surprisingly nice WYSIWYG HTML editor called "TinyMCE" which is
LGPL, so I'm trying that out plus a text option for those who really
don't want to compose HTML email.  MH *is* all about control, right?

So, I'm working on the mail composition flow now, and it turns
out there is one other issue:  "comp/repl/forw/dist" all have
the "-nowhatnowproc" option, which is great, but you don't really
know what the draft name is when it finishes.

The "-build" switch assumes the output file "draft" or "repl", which
means it also ignores the use of "-draftfolder".

I tried replacing the "whatnowproc" with a custom program, but it
does not appear to get any command-line options or such telling it
what the draft that has been created is.

Is any "whatnow" program supposed to just assume the draft is either the
appropriately named "draft" or "repl", or if a draft folder is involved,
assume it is the "cur" in that folder?

I can do the "just assume" for now, but it would certainly be nice
if there was a predictable way to tell what/where that draft it just
created was.


--
    Erich Stefan Boleyn     <address@hidden>     http://www.uruk.org/
"Reality is truly stranger than fiction; Probably why fiction is so popular"