[Top][All Lists]
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
[Pan-users] many pan 0.12 questions, suggestions (LONG)
From: |
bergman |
Subject: |
[Pan-users] many pan 0.12 questions, suggestions (LONG) |
Date: |
Wed, 26 Jun 2002 10:35:31 +0200 |
I'm a new user to Pan, but I've used a succession of rn/rrn/trn and friends for
at least the last 10 years, so that's heavily influenced my view of how I read
news and what I'd like from a newsreader. I've got a long list of questions
and suggestions for Pan.
I've got some questions about performing different actions in Pan:
* Is there a way to display the number of articles in a thread? (If
not, please consider this a feature request.)
* Is there a way to sort the header pane by the number of
articles per thread? (If not, please consider this a feature
request.)
* Is there an option to hide previously read articles in the
header pane? (If not, please consider this a feature request.)
* Is there somewhere to specify the default sort order for each
newsgroup? I'd suggest that this could best be done in the "Display
- Header Panel" preference dialog.
Here are some feature requests. Please let me know if there's already some way
to do any of these functions within Pan v0.12:
* Allow the use of existing KILL files
I think that this is a natural extension to the use of
existing .newsrc files.
Ideally, the KILL files could be read dynamically for
each newsgroup from an existing directory hierarchy
(such as ~/News/news/software/readers/KILL). If that
is not feasible, than an import/export of KILL files
could be used.
I understand that KILL file formats tend to be very
specific to individual newsreaders, and I don't know if
an API for translating between them exists, so this may
be a very large job. However, this would be a huge win for
people transitioning to pan from other newsreaders, or for
people who use multiple newsreaders. It may be possible
to just implement a lowest-common-denominator parsing
of KILL files by recognizing the simplest case--lines
that define the pattern for killing an article.
* Allow the use of multiple .newsrc files, each associated with a
particular server.
When a server is chosen, the specified .newsrc file
is imported, when the user exits pan or changes servers, the
.newsrc file is exported.
It's not clear to me as a user whether this automatically takes
place right now.
* Add the ability to do set operations on newsgroups from multiple
servers.
If you've got multiple news servers, give the user the ability
to do a union or intersection on the combined set of
newsgroups.
* Show newsgroups from multiple servers together.
This is a feature that would be closely linked with the
previous feature. The combined set of newsgroups from all the
servers would be shown at once in the newsgroups panel.
I am envisioning a user process where:
Users set up multiple news servers to be accessed
automatically (simultaneously or serially, but within
a single Pan session news would be gathered from all
defined servers without manually switching servers).
Users define what newsgroups they want shown in the
combined newsgroups panel. The choice of which server
provides which group could be made manually, or by
doing a set intersection operation. A set union would
duplicate newsgroups from different servers.
There would need to be a way to differentiate which server is
providing which newsgroup. This could be accomplished by added
a column to the newsgroups panel, by color-coding each
newsgroup name based on server, or by adding icons for each
newsgroup based on server.
* Implement a "read-ahead" of articles
When the user reads an article in a thread, automatically
begin downloading the next N articles in that thread
(where N is user-defined, and in the current pan
implementation would equal 0) under the assumption that
the user will read the following articles in the thread.
If the natural action is to read articles in a thread in
succession, this will speed up the process for the user
without the overhead of downloading every article in a
newsgroup.
* Allow the specification of arbitrary commands before a connection is
made to a news server.
For example, I've got a shell wrapper to trn that sets up an
ssh tunnel to my ISP, so that my password (which is also my
shell login and POP password) is never sent in the clear. Once
the tunnel is established, trn on my machine connects to port
9119 on the localhost, which is transparently tunneled to my
ISP.
I could wrap pan in a similar script, but it would be nice for
the user to have the ability to specify an arbitrary
pre-connection command (on a per-server basis), with the model
that if the command exits with a non-zero status, the
connection is not made.
* Allow the user to choose whether the groups pane shows:
# of unread articles
# of total articles
# of new articles
I'm subscribed to many groups with a lot of unread articles,
where I may never catch up, but I'm much more interested in
knowing (via the groups pane) if there a lot of new articles,
rather than just the number of unread articles.
I'm not sure whether to properly classify this as a bug report or an
interface feature request, but there's a problem for me with how the
shortcut keys are shown in menus. The shortcut keys listed in the menus
appear to all be in upper-case. While the <SHIFT> key is explicitely
specified as a modifier when it is required, the presence of a upper-case
letter when the lower-case character is the actual command appears to
be a conflict. For example, under the "Articles" menu, the command to
mark an article as being read is listed as having the keyboard shortcut
of "M", yet on my machine, the correct command is "m" (lower case).
I don't know if this notation is part of the Gnome (or any other) human
interface guidelines, but I personally find it confusing.
----
Mark Bergman Biker, IATSE #1 Stagehand, Rock Climber, Unix mechanic
'94 Yamaha GTS1000A
address@hidden
http://pgpkeys.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&address@hidden
I want a newsgroup with a infinite S/N ratio! Now taking CFV on:
rec.motorcycles.stagehands.pet-bird-owners.pinballers.unix-supporters
15+ So Far--Want to join? Check out: http://www.panix.com/~bergman
- [Pan-users] many pan 0.12 questions, suggestions (LONG),
bergman <=